it's tearin' up my heart (when i'm with you)

by heartglassed

Summary:

He doesn’t think there’s anything Miyagi could truly say right now to make it all okay, but he nods anyway. The way Miyagi holds onto him, clingy and eager to please as he kisses him over and over, cornering Kazunari against a wall is a reward enough. It’s all he needs. It’s supposed to be enough. At least that’s what he tells himself at first.

It’s only because he doesn’t know the other half of it.

Notes:

but when we are apart i feel it too? ):

shoutout to everyone who said they should ALL date, u were right! i just think they have to figure out some stuff first!!

Chapter 1

It shouldn’t have happened, that’s what he tells himself later.

 

But it did, and the memories of Miyagi’s sounds, the shape and the feel of him that night, all have turned into heavy shackles, dragging him down. 

 

In a way it was easier before, because he didn’t really have anything to go on, only his fantasies and a bleeding heart. But now he knows exactly what he’s missing. And after having the real thing once, now he can’t wait to get back. 

 

So it just keeps happening. 

 

Miyagi will call him, usually at night. He’ll just say something simple like “I hope I didn’t wake you,” And Kazunari will say ‘you didn’t’, even when he clearly does sometimes. And they’ll both play stupid for a few minutes. A little, ‘What have you been up to? How’s school?’ and some ‘Hey, do you have any games coming up?’ or ‘Could I go see them?’ and eventually Miyagi will relent – Usually then, especially then – He’ll sigh, and go, ‘Can I just come over? I just can’t sleep.’

 

And Kazunari will forever keep saying yes.

 

When their schedules align, Miyagi will be back in his room, they’ll kiss fervently as soon as the door closes, and wrestle with their clothing, littering all of it on the hallway back to his room. But they’ll never see much outside of the privacy of Kazunari’s apartment. Kazunari tries not to notice. He guesses Miyagi probably has a lot of things going on, there’s a lot of pressure riding on his shoulders, too much to waste it all away by dating a man in broad daylight, and he understands this, at some level. But he wishes Miyagi would trust him with any of this. His worries and his dreams, he wants to know them as well as he knows the contours of his body.

He doesn’t want to disturb the quiet balance they have achieved. After all, he learned to be content with so little, he already did. 

 

But eventually, it just slips out of him. 

 

“Do you think,” Kazunari begins, patiently picking olives off his pizza with chopsticks as he muses, Miyagi keeps laughing at it, Kazunari smiles good naturedly at this, he likes listening to the sound of it, filling the background so nicely. 

Once he warned himself to be cautious, to not let himself get carried away, because Miyagi Ryota is not his boyfriend. But here he is, wearing one of Kazunari’s old t-shirts, rummaging around his cupboards with familiarity as he snorts, doubled over and breathless because he thinks Kazunari is just that funny, and the sight is everything he ever wanted, so how can he stop wanting now?

 

It’s when he’s high on the clouds like this, that he makes a crucial mistake. 

 

“Do you think we could go grab lunch sometime?” He asks while Miyagi sits in front of him. “There’s a new place downtown I wanna see.”

 

He can feel his own heartbeat hammering away down his throat. It feels like the sound gets amplified for every second Miyagi doesn’t reply.

 

“Oh,” Miyagi says. His face is still flushed from his laughter just moments ago. A pretty shade, Kazunari thinks. It gradually fades away as Miyagi fidgets on his seat, sobering up. He begins by cleaning his hands with a napkin, anxiously preening away at the grease the food left behind. “Fukatsu, I should’ve told you this before, but there wasn’t really a good time, and- Well I guess this is as good as any'' Kazunari hates the sound of it already. His stomach drops, he wants to backtrack.

 

“That’s okay,” He says quickly, cutting him off, adrenaline pumping hot inside him. “We don’t have to go.”

 

“Fukatsu,” Miyagi tries again. He looks awkward here, under the cheap fluorescent lights in Kazunari’s apartment. His tone is weird, unfamiliarly warm.

 

“I’m sorry, I should’ve told you this sooner, it’s just-” 

 

A beat. Miyagi bounces his knee on the floor. He crosses his arms. It feels like he tries a hundred poses in under a few minutes. The truth is, he doesn’t have to say anything, because by the way his shoulders look, by the way he avoids his gaze, Kazunari already gets it . But Miyagi says it anyway, just to twist the knife, perhaps: “It’s just- Uhm- I’m back with Eiji, so” The words come out like a sigh out of Miyagi; like it’s a relief to tell them. His shoulders sag now that there’s no weight to hold them tense.

 

Kazunari blinks in reply.

 

He looks down at his olive-free pizza, maybe taking the olive slices away was a mistake. The food now looks so cold and unappetizing, sitting there in an oil little puddle, in one of the cheap IKEA plates that came with the room. It mismatches everything else. He should do something about it, probably.

 

“Uhm- Could you say something?” The other man mumbles.

What is there to say? A thousand thoughts pass through his head, none of them feel appropriate right now, that’s the thing. Nothing he could say would make this okay. He balls a paper napkin while Miyagi watches, his face tight. 

At what point was he okay with turning Kazunari into the sort of person who has an affair with his friend’s boyfriend? At first Miyagi said they had broken up. Was that a lie? Kazunari held onto this belief like a lifeline. He guessed it wasn’t supposed to be anything serious, much as it pained him, he had known this somehow, but then Miyagi kept on coming, over and over. What was he supposed to think about that? 

It was the fine line that differentiated him from an awful friend. Maybe the only thing.

 

“What do you want me to say?” He grips his chopsticks tightly, looks at them. It feels like he’s doing this for the first time. They’re simple lacquered wood chopsticks, cheap and bought at the KMart streets away, but Kazunari looks at the pattern on the wood with detail, hoping to find something that could make it all okay. 

 

He feels stupid, all of a sudden.

 

All of his memories have been ruined now. Whatever tender picture he can conjure up, him and Miyagi, just the two of them in this cramped apartment, now it all looks hollow and empty when looked in this new light. It makes him think of his mother teaching him how to check for porcelain under a bright light. It all looks so fragile and thin now. All of the weird looks Miyagi gave him, how skittish he was in his hold, like a cornered animal. Kazunari wanted them all to mean something else, maybe a bashfulness to hide the reciprocity of it all.

It never meant a single thing.

 

Kazunari looks at him. Miyagi says something else, he says a lot of things, actually, but Kazunari is not really listening. He listens to the sound of his voice droning in the background, and for the first time, wishes he would just shut the fuck up.

He gets up mid-speech, grabs his plate and tosses the pizza onto the garbage can with a deep sigh. “You need to leave, Miyagi,"

 

“But-” 

“You can see yourself out,” Kazunari cuts him off. He needs a shower, he feels disgusting right now.

 

“I’m sorry,” Miyagi’s voice sounds pitiful against the stark silence. 

 

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter,” Kazunari shrugs. It’s actually not okay. Not at all. There’s a crack on his chest and it keeps widening every second. Gaping and bleeding.

He doesn’t really feel like seeing Miyagi right now, maybe for a while, so he heads to his room, eager to be alone and done with this. Selfishly, Miyagi follows after him, still saying things in that annoying cadence of his, a buzzing little mosquito. He remembers feeling this same exact thing, back in the game once. An overwhelming need to squash him until he stopped running across the court, running their plays.

 

“I’m really sorry,” Miyagi repeats.

“I heard you the first time,” Some irritation gets into his voice. He can’t help it. He frowns. Can’t Miyagi take a hint and just leave? He sighs, and looks over at where Miyagi is standing, awkwardly glued to a spot. The sight alone annoys him now.

 

He frowns. “Actually, Miyagi, what are you apologizing for?”  

 

Miyagi pauses for a second, then huffs indignantly. He has the nerve to frown at Kazunari. “I- I told you- You knew ,” His voice is accusatory. “You knew I was dating him, okay? It’s not like-”

“You said you two broke up. You told me yourself.” His face flushes. Hadn’t all of this happened already? Kazunari is not even sure he knows when they started dating. Was it before or after they kissed? 

 

Does nothing they ever did matter to him at all?

 

“We did!” Miyagi jumps to his own defense. His voice a little higher. 

 

Kazunari looks at him, it feels like he’s looking at him for the very first time. He’s being so ridiculous right now. Throwing a childish fit because Kazunari is just repeating what has happened back at him. 

 

“Right. And now you’re back together. Were you ever gonna tell me?”

“I was! Obviously! It’s just-” His eyes squeeze shut together,  his hands go all over his hair. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything, and Kazunari just stands there, allowing the seconds to pass in silence, all to watch Miyagi squirm uncomfortably.

“I’m really sorry, it’s just- Look, it’s not coming out how I want it to. I just-” He speaks all over himself quickly. Almost desperate. His hands move all over the place with a crazed energy. “Can you- Can you give me a chance? It’s not like that, I promise.”

 

A few hours back, he knows he would have said yes to anything that would’ve come out of those lips.

 

Now he’s not so sure. “I think you should go back to your boyfriend , Miyagi” His mind races before him. They’ve been hanging in his room for a while. Just how long had Miyagi just wanted to keep it all under wraps? When did they get back together?

 

He watches as Miyagi’s frown melts into something much more uncertain. “Don’t be like this” 

 

Kazunari can’t help but laugh at that. “Like what ?” Miyagi is there, his eyes almost glassy. He thinks of kicking him out again, but then he doesn’t. It hardly matters, the brief second of doubt is all the opening Miyagi needs. He pushes, follows after him and presses himself closer to Kazunari. 

 

It’s really unfair. 

 

Kazunari looks away, he feels a blush creeping into his cheeks. His eyes move quickly, unsure where to look now that Miyagi has brought the heavy weapons. It’s his own place but it feels like nowhere is safe.

 

“Listen to me, please?” Miyagi asks, looking up at Kazunari, pressing against his chest. Kazunari’s heart beats horrendously fast, he swallows. 

 

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Miyagi whispers. He wraps his arms around his torso and Kazunari’s treacherous heart shortcuts, goes haywire. Miyagi is so unfair. His arms fly out of their own accord to hold his hips. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I can make it better, so just- Just let me, okay? Fukatsu please” 

 

Kazunari looks at him, at last. 

 

He knows it was a mistake as soon as he does. Miyagi looks so beautiful, even sadness manages to look solemn in his face. Almost cool. Kazunari hates himself, because some of his anger melts when he looks at his frown, his weird expression like he’s trying to not cry. His heart squeezes. 

 

“Why are you crying? I should be the one crying” He manages to mumble.

 

At this, Miyagi laughs, the soft sound still stirs something within him, despite it all. He’s royally fucked. “You’re right. Just- Just give me one chance. It’ll make it okay, I swear.” Miyagi presses a kiss to his torso, as if to seal his promise. The gesture now feels so cold it might as well burn, and still, he doesn’t move away. “I’ll talk to him. Please”

 

He swallows, his gaze locked on Miyagi’s lips as they stretch into a smile when Kazunari nods. 

He doesn’t think there’s anything Miyagi could truly say right now to make it all okay, but he nods anyway. The way Miyagi holds onto him, clingy and eager to please as he kisses him over and over, cornering Kazunari against a wall is a reward enough. It’s all he needs. It’s supposed to be enough. At least that’s what he tells himself at first.

 

It’s only because he doesn’t know the other half of it.

 

 

 

 

The days go by, and there’s no sight of Sawakita Eiji pounding on his door to beat him up. The truth is, he’s not sure what he was expecting, he pictured the crying swollen face of Sawakita so many times, a familiar picture, so much so that it followed him around during the day. 

But this wall of silence is even more unnerving. 

 

It all feels different now. 

 

If he had to put it into words: it’s Miyagi who is different. Before, it seemed to Kazunari whenever he hugged him, tried to hold his hands, even something as simple as caress him. Miyagi would steel himself, go painfully still in his hold. Sometimes he’d outright laugh, blush bright red and call Kazunari “too much,” Too much of what? Kazunari would want to ask. 

 

How could that be? He didn’t even ask for much. At first he was perfectly happy with it, with whatever scraps of attention he got. So what if he liked Miyagi more than Miyagi liked him? It all had to start somewhere.

 

But Miyagi is different lately. He wraps around Kazunari so lovely, keeps pressing kisses on his lips with abandon as if he’s trying to avoid something.

 

They both are. 

 

Kazunari won't mention him again. Neither does Miyagi. If they both pretend, then maybe- He wants to hope Miyagi can sort it out on his own. Childishly he thinks, shouldn’t he, anyways? He’s the one who made this mess.

But deep inside, he knows the other shoe has to drop.

 

 

 

 

Miyagi texts him an address, that and very little explanation.

“Be there at 8pm?” The characters on his flip phone read. Kazunari texts back a lame ‘ok’ before popping in the shower. He cleans up his apartment and after dinner finally heads up to the meeting place. 

 

The place is okay. Some student bar, halfway empty and close to Miyagi’s campus. Kazunari scans for the brown set of gelled curls that make Miyagi, but finds nothing. He takes out his phone again, confirming the date, the place. 

He’s not mistaken, Miyagi was supposed to be here. There’s not any new texts though, so Kazunari orders a beer, sits by the counter and waits in contemplative silence. What exactly is he doing here?

 

Is he going to break up with Kazunari next? Kazunari had thought- Hoped for, honestly- foolish and incredibly selfishly, that Sawakita being out of the picture meant something. An opportunity, maybe.

 

Of course it didn’t, he had never even left. The thought makes the drink taste a little more bitter. 

 

As if conjured by the thought. Sawakita pops next to him, he pulls his chair closer, and smiles at Kazunari, all casual, all pleasant. 

Kazunari straightens up. 

 

“Hey, senpai.” Sawakita says, his voice flat. It reminds Kazunari of when they first met. Sawakita was a freshman at high school back then, was he? Just a prideful boy. He’d taken so many beatings, and never once complained despite the fat tears rolling down his face, despite his swollen face and dots of blood adorning his face. Kazunari had admired that about him. 

 

“I thought-”

 

Sawakita waves a hand. “Ryota’s not coming.”

 

“Oh,” Kazunari says. He tries not to feel disappointed. 

 

His former teammate asks for a beer. They sit in silence in the creaky barstools, Kazunari racks his brain for something to say, but deep down he knows it’s a moot task.

Across the bar, a group of students plays a loud round of beer pong. 

 

“I really wanna punch you right now, you know?” Sawakita says at last. Looking intently at the bar. 

 

“He said you two had broken up.” Kazunari replies briskly, like a line he rehearsed.

 

“That asshole,” Sawakita says, the words barely making it out of his gritted teeth. “Ryota kept saying the same thing. But you know? I don’t really care. You’re basically my best friend. And Ryota-” He sighs. “Well, you know him .”

 

Kazunari thought about it coming all the way here. He nods, slowly. Swallows his fears and asks: “Do you- Do you hate me now?” 

 

Sawakita laughs, he shakes his head. “Maybe. Not really, I don’t know what I feel, honestly.” He rubs his hands through his head. Kazunari has never seen him like this. Off his game, nervous.

 

“I love him. I’m sorry.” He feels awkward in the bar, the seats squeak. He should leave.

 

He didn’t get Miyagi, and now Sawakita hates him too. What else is there for him to ruin? 

 

The seconds go by. An old song plays in the background, Kazunari can’t recognize it for the life of him. His fingers tap the counter anxiously

.

“I know.” Sawakita says softly, nursing his drink. “You wouldn’t shut up about him after that match” His shoulders feel heavy. Kazunari watches them tense for a second, and then rolls them back as he relaxes. His voice is soft when he asks “Are you really sorry though?”

 

Kazunari thinks about this. He knows the correct way to answer would be something like saying yes, of course , and promising to keep away from both of them. Leaving the two of them to have their happy ending, their happy life away from his greedy self.

 

But he’s already this far, he’s kissed Miyagi more times than he can count. And he’s never been one to soften words. “Not really,” He says bluntly. But that’s not the complete truth either. “I just didn’t mean to hurt you. That’s all”

 

Sawakita blinks at that. The honesty might catch him off guard, and then he laughs. It’s not really the boisterous happy sound Kazunari is so used to, and it mellows quietly into a sigh. “You’re an asshole too, aren’t you?.” He says, shaking his head. “The truth is I don’t hate you, I just wish- I wish” He sighs, the words seemingly leaving him. After a second, defeatedly he adds: “I kinda want you both to get the fuck away from me.” 

 

He doesn’t know how to react to that. Sawakita had always been rather sensitive. Pretending this wouldn’t harm their relationship was mostly wishful thinking. All those years building something only to watch it all collapse tonight. He might not be the most talkative person, but he always counted with Sawakita in the back of his mind. The way he’d get into silly fights with Kawata, how supportive he was of Mikio. The moodmaker of the serious Sannoh team. Did he throw all that away for nothing? 

 

“But that’s not gonna happen. I mean, I don’t want it to happen, I’m just- I’m just hurt” He sighs. “But-“

 

But? Kazunari hangs onto the words, they promise something, he wants them to. An olive branch. He leans in closer. 

 

“There’s something you could do, to make it all okay. Actually, well, two things” Sawakita holds up two fingers. A peace sign , he thinks lamely.

 

Kazunari nods. Anything , he thinks, by the edge of his seat.

 

Sawakita straightens his back, clears his throat and with comical seriousness lowers a finger as he announces, “Number one, I want your Hangyodon stuffed plushie”

 

“No” 

 

“Yes,” Sawakita insists.

 

He feels his eyes go wide. “You don’t even like Hangyodon. My mom gave me that one for a birthday, you know?”

 

Sawakita nods, arms crossed now. “I know. She said you were too old for it, and that you needed r eal men's interests . I was there. The cake that year gave me-“

 

“Food poisoning, yeah.” Kazunari finishes for him, thinking about Sawakita running towards the bathroom for dear life while the rest of the team laughed. “But how does Hangyodon make it all better?-”

 

Sawakita squints at him. Then raises an eyebrow. “It clearly doesn’t? You fucked my boyfriend, but-” It’s misplaced given the situation, but Kazunari smiles fondly at it. The gesture is so familiar. It must’ve rubbed off him.

The former Sannoh ace pursues his lips. “I know you love that plushie, so I think I’ll scribble onto it with some sharpie, or give it to a dog to piss on. I don’t really know.” He sighs. “The truth is, I’m just trying to hurt you, honestly“ 

 

“Oh?”

“Yeah” 

 

Kazunari thinks of all the moments he and the Hangyodon plush have shared together. They form a little montage on his head. Or they would if there were any. The truth is that Kazunari insisted on keeping the plush in pristine conditions. His little felt sewn-in accessories are so untouched, so clean, you could hardly tell it’s not new. He prided himself on that. But now there’ll be no more Hangyodon to keep safe from dust and harm. He sighs, accepting himself to his fate.

“Okay, fair. Deal.“

 

“And the second thing-“ 

 

Kazunari braces himself. He fears for the fate of his Sanrio collection and grimaces. Has he told Sawakita about the limited edition figurines? He’d hate to part with them. 

 

“I want…I want you to do it again” Sawakita mumbles. His face goes red, up to the tip of his ears, his brows furrowed. He’s trying to edge away, as if he’s the one that should be ashamed. 

 

There’s a beat. 

 

Kazunari blinks. Unsure he heard it right. He looks around, unsure if they are being filmed or something . Maybe that American sitcom celebrity will pop up at any moment and announce it was all part of an elaborate prank for television. Surely. 

 

Because there’s no way he’s saying that seriously when it’s what got them in this mess in the first place. Right?

 

But Sawakita looks so serious right now, despite his beet-red face. Earnest, and sober. His brows furrowed in concentration now.

 

“What?” He croaks, at last.

 

“I’m serious.” Sawakita gulps down the remaining of his beer. “And I want to watch it this time.”

 

There it is. 

 

“What the actual fuck,” Is what Kazunari mumbles.

 

The students behind them cheer. Someone has finally won the beer pong game it seems.

 

Sawakita laughs. The flush in his face has reached the tip of his ears. “I know,” He says.

The odd request still rings in his head as they walk outside the bar a little later; pushing through droves of people around them. The streets are lively and filled with the sound of people getting ready to party. The sky is a deep blue and dotted with lights as far as his eyes can see. “About the plushie,” Kazunari says. He holds onto Sawakita’s forearm, trying to stop all of it.

“Hm?”

 

“How about- How about you punch me instead? I think I’d rather that.”

 

Sawakita chuckles and shakes his head. Without any further ado his fist crashes against him in a messy punch, his knuckles kissing Kazunari’s jaw. He retreats immediately, shaking his hand and whining. The pain surges through Kazunari like thunder, quickly spreading around in vine-like lines. “What the fuck!” Sawakita screeches. He jumps in place, all the while making faces. “Dude that fucking hurt! What the fuck!?”

 

Kazunari just blinks. His whole face burns, and his jaw is tilted to the side with the impact. Already, he feels the promise of a bruise starting to bloom across his face, but Sawakita’s face is just too funny. His eyes start tearing up as he whines. “I'm serious! Why did it hurt me more than it did you?”

 

“It hurt me too,” Kazunari reassures him.

 

“Well then act like it!” Sawakita whines, furiously rubbing his fist. For good measure, he kicks Kazunari again, without any heat at all. 

They go back to Sawakita’s place, to ice their bruises. Kazunari listens to the sound of a dog barking in the distance as Sawakita sits beside him on the beat up sofa he shares with the many roommates of his.

 

He offers a bag of frozen greens to Kazunari, which he promptly places against his cheek and then holds one against his knuckles. “I’m still taking it, by the way.” He says.

 

“What?”

 

“The plush” 

 

“Oh,” Kazunari blinks. All in all, it is a low price to pay, he knows he should be happy about it. 

 

“Ryota told me you kissed at that party.” Sawakita interjects.

 

“What party?”

 

“The one where I passed out. In that frat house of one of my teammates. He said you made out next to me,” Sawakita says, deeply serious, even though Kazunari keeps hoping this all is some sort of elaborate joke, and the rug will get pulled from him at any point. The pink tips on his ears are all the proof he needs to know Sawakita is not playing around. 

 

Kazunari nods. The moment is still crystal clear for him. The taste of Miyagi’s lips is so vivid. “What about it?”

 

“That’s what I want.” Sawakita says. “I want you to continue that night. Like how you would have, if I hadn’t been there.” Kazunari conjures the memory again, allowing himself to be there once again. The thumping of the bass reverberated through the walls only to be drowned by the sound of his heartbeat, Miyagi’s face in his hands while his boyfriend slept next to them. The thought fills him with desire now. If he had more time, he would have taken his time, pressed Miyagi against the mattress and fed him his cock until that woke Sawakita up. A challenge on its own. Dared him to do something about it. 

He can see it now too, the clear picture Sawakita wants. He swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. “I’ll do it.” He says. 

 

Sawakita nods, his eyes bright. His smile is slow as it spreads across his lips. “There you go,”

Chapter 2

Notes:

long ass chapter cw! hi omg im sorry it took me so long to update. so if you're still reading this, thank u! i woke up early today to poste the update so hopefully by the timezone diff the chapter will come to u at night hehe!

You’d think a hole in the universe would open up after your friend-and-former-teammate asks you to fuck his boyfriend right in front of him, but Kazunari finds life moves on with noteworthy ease. There are no tears in the blue sky above them the day after, nor aliens to pour through them. And there haven’t been ever since. Only fluffy white clouds floating above, high up in the sky to greet him.

What’s really new is this: The phone ringing needlessly in the background.
All through the week, ringing and ringing. It becomes as natural a sound as the birds chirping in the distance, or the chaos of traffic on boiling-hot asphalt highways. 
All the same, Kazunari lets it play in the background, busing his hands to hold himself back from picking up. Doing dishes while he replays the message or cleaning around the apartment while Miyagi’s voice drones on without waiting for a reply. 

By the end of two weeks the place is sparkling.

What’s really new is this: The mere sight of Miyagi sours Kazunari’s mood now. So he’s just taken to ignoring him. 
 
Are you avoiding me? Disembodied Miyagi asks out loud in a cold-futuristic voice, hitting a perfect bullseye. He’s always been perceptive, hasn’t he? Kazunari pictures him in a black box, like the answering machine is an actual place he could inhabit. His robot voice bounces around the walls of the answering box, an inhospitable place where he waits for Kazunari to call back. Almost lost. Not here and not really anywhere.
He wants to trap him there forever. It’d serve him just right, that way he’d be his and his alone. His to ignore, and his to reward with attention whenever it particularly suits him: Always in irregular intervals, to make him crave it like an addict. Just like Miyagi did to him. 

There’s static in the background of his call, the sound of a faraway social gathering — one he’s missing to call, that’s not lost on him either. —  Fukatsu, please. I just want to talk. He pleads, his voice soft against the lively ruckus that surrounds him. Despite it all, the sound sends a familiar warm flutter down his stomach

And still, Kazunari does not reply.

I miss you, he says at last. 

It’s a low blow and they both know it. Would it be so hard to simply pick up? He wonders now. The need of Miyagi is nothing original to him, but the desperation is. It’s a cruel and unusual punishment he’s imposing on himself by not calling back. The blood flowing underneath his skin stings and boils just to show him so. Because now he knows Miyagi’s only a phone call away. Apparently eager and waiting, anxious because of him, even. 
Would he twist on the floor, belly up, just for Kazunari’s sake?

He swallows.

It’s easy to be angry at Miyagi from a distance. Easy to be mad at it all. Right now, he’d rather jerk off to the far-away sound of his voice leaving a message than chance a meeting again, where face to face his chances are slim to none. 
And anyways he likes the sound of his apologetic voice, likes how it conjures the image of a sun-kissed pouty face to go with it. So, so pretty for him. Those stubborn brown eyes fixed on him as he begrudgingly asks for his attention. A nice picture.

He wants to finish in thick ropes, lewd and pretty across his face. Wonders if perhaps Miyagi would simply let him, if he’d blink it away even as it obviously bothered him. Knees reddening against the floor in a misguided attempt to even out his transgressions. 
Before he can hesitate for a moment longer, he rushes to press the button. 

“Hey”
“Oh- Fuck.” There’s a loud noise, then someone else mumbles something, too far for Kazunari to make it out. “Fukatsu, hey. What’s up?” Miyagi sounds surprised, but he recovers quickly, smoothing over rocky edges with his usual charm. 

Kazunari checks his window before replying. “A bunny, I’d say.” 

“Huh?” 

After a moment, the other end of the line erupts with a bubbling laughter. “What the?-” There’s a weird sound – then Miyagi sighs, seemingly relieved. “You sound okay to me. I’m glad. You disappeared, and I just- I wanted to check”

Kazunari frowns, he doesn’t appreciate the implication. Like he’s some delicate flower that could wilt and burn without the nurturing light of Miyagi’s attention, shining ultraviolet on him. 
The worst part is, he knows it isn’t even a far-fetched accusation.
He clicks his tongue, settles for honesty. “Well you should– Be worried, I mean. I’m not okay.”

“That’s why I wanna talk in person.” Miyagi says, reasonably. He always plays this little game, always acting like he’s the only rational person here. It only spurs Kazunari more.

“I might do something crazy, maybe you should come and see for yourself.” 

“Don’t scare me.” Miyagi warns. And after a beat: “What are you going to do, anyways?”

“I don’t know.” He says, particularly pouty “I haven’t settled on anything yet. So, why don’t you come check out?”

“Shit. Right now?” 

Kazunari licks his lips. In quick succession he looks at the clock and takes mental stock of the condoms near the bed. “Yeah.”

Miyagi’s voice sounds different, affected. “Okay. Yeah, sure. Give me like–an hour okay?”

“Do it on twenty.” Kazunari instructs, then hangs up.

 

 

Miyagi greets him at his door forty four minutes later. He arrives with cheeks flushed and his usual hairdo disarmed. A mixture of tobacco, stale air and alcohol clings to him, mixing with the lingering trace of his cologne. 

“You’re late.” He says as soon as he opens the door. 

“I ran.” 

“Here?”

“No,” Miyagi steps inside, “out of that party.” He cleans off his shoes against the doormat, then bends down to properly take them off as he smiles, still by the door and out of breath. “I didn’t even like- say goodbye to anyone, now that I think about it ” He rests his head against the wall, raising his gaze to meet Kazunari’s own. 

“Good,” He likes the image of it, Miyagi running back to his arms. If only everyone else understood the significance of that as well. If only he did. He swallows thickly.

“Good?” Miyagi repeats from his place, teetering on the improvised carpet-genkan. “How come?”

Kazunari steps closer. His shadow engulfs Miyagi. “It means I have you all to myself.” 
He leans against the door, blocking Miyagi’s only exit. He wants to trap him in place, the way entomologists do with beautiful iridescent-winged specimens to display. One pin in each millimeter-long limb so that he’d never be able to fly away out of his grasp. He thought seeing Miyagi would make him mad. He was mad before, but seeing him here now, in flesh and bones just makes him realize the truth: He’s not strong enough, not in this way. One look at him, and he feels particularly weak at the knees.

The shorter man cocks his head to the side. “Yeah?” He says, exposing the beautiful lines running down connecting his neck and collarbones, riling Kazunari up provocatively. A thin layer of sheen clings to his taut, golden skin. Kazunari feels tempted to taste it.

“Yeah” He echoes, coming closer. Slowly, he lowers himself to be the same height as Miyagi, still sitting by the floor. His voice drifts in the air, the implication brews on its silence. 

Kazunari crawls towards him, closing the distance between them. Miyagi’s heady scent wraps around him: a finger beckoning him forward.

Warm blood rushes through his body. “Fuck.” He curses, meeting Miyagi in the middle. Eager lips moving against his own. He’s cold, Kazunari thinks and leans back to hold his hands, rubbing the tanned skin with his thumbs just to warm it up. “You’re so cold.” 

“It’s cool outside.” Miyagi replies, words settling in the millimeters between them. His eyes are half-lidded, they roam Kazunari up and down freely. “Warm me up?” He suggests before licking his lips.

There’s just a split second before Kazunari is on him. The distance was new, but this is not, Kazunari follows this chaotic dance they’re in, the steps are engraved onto his heart. He’s so eager to be reacquainted with the taste of Miyagi, scared he’s forgotten it entirely. But it’s all right there again: dripping from his lips, on the inside of his mouth and on the gritty surface of his teeth, all mixing with the taste of cheap booze, and even then Kazunari greedily swallows down the flavor, ready for seconds. They make out as they stumble backwards towards the door. Kazunari kisses him until his lips are numb, until Miyagi’s own are warm again and swollen against him. He looks so pretty like this, all expectant up at him. Beautiful, and just for him.

So why–

Miyagi leans back, his lips relaxed into an easy smile. “I missed you.” He says.

Kazunari tilts his head. “Did you really?”

“Is it that hard to believe?” He asks, one of his hands pets the back of Kazunari’s hair, he’s been growing it out ever since he left Japan and graduated from Sannoh’s monk-like approach to hair. Miyagi seems particularly fond of it. He plays with the short locks of inky black hair on his head as Kazunari mulls over his choice of words. 

Despite the new warmth in his hands, despite how quickly his heart picks up speed, it all feels off somehow. Kazunari rests the weight of his head against his open palm and traps him there.
“It is”
“But I’m here, and I called you, didn’t I?” Miyagi continues, as if this is all the proof anyone would ever need, as if he doesn’t have a fucking boyfriend they both keep willfully ignoring. Miyagi removes his hand to place it against Kazunari’s stomach, a tease of what’s to come, blinking sluggishly. “And you didn’t pick up. Why didn’t you pick up?”

“I didn’t wanna see you.” Kazunari admits. He watches the jolt in Miyagi’s pupils as he processes his words, his deep-set eyes glaze over with hurt. But he simply takes it, tenses again in his arms as he avoids his gaze, removing his arm to cross both of them lazily. 

“Huh,” 

“I was mad.” Kazunari confesses, he grabs a hand to deposit a kiss on the back. “Look at me,” Miyagi follows easily. The sight of his brown eyes greets him back, the soft yellow-ish glow of the room reflected back on them, lighting them up just so. The shape of Kazunari, in shadow at the center, almost like it’s been hollowed out. 
He leans in for another kiss, trying to find any hint of sincerity still stuck on the surface of his teeth, or leftover against the flat of his tongue, but all he gets back is the strong taste of liquor. Kazunari presses against him, throws his weight around to cage the basketball player under him. His own exhibition butterfly.

Miyagi’s strong arms wrap around him too willingly, hot and eager as they pull him by the neck.

So why doesn't it feel good? 

He nudges a knee between his legs, pries them apart effortlessly as he slides a hand down. And Miyagi bucks against it instantly, a low hushed groan escaping his lips. Has he been pent up all this time Kazunari has ignored him? It’d be a nice thought, but he has a boyfriend to take care of it anyways, doesn’t he? 
The reminder of it makes him feel some type of way. His hand stills. It makes Miyagi open his eyes, he blinks, eyes adjusting again slowly as he licks his lips. “You wanna move this to your bed instead?” He offers, voice tilting suggestively. Kazunari looks at him. He used to think Miyagi’s low-pitched suggestions were so hot, so sexy. It doesn’t make him feel anything now.

“Why are you here?” Kazunari asks instead. He leans back. Despite asking the question before once, it feels like he hasn’t gotten a straight answer yet. 

“You picked up,” Miyagi reminds him. He raises a brow at Kazunari, and then, when nothing happens, sighs. He sways back to rest his head against the wall. His movements slow, eyelids drooping. “Did you make me come for nothing?”

“You have a boyfriend, Miyagi”

Miyagi shoots him a nasty look after he rolls his eyes. “You knew that already. Why does it matter now?”

Kazunari shakes his head. “You said you’d make it alright, but I don’t think–” He sighs, scratches the back of his head, not quite sure what it is he’s trying to put into words. ”It’s not–”

It’ll never be the same again.

A sudden noise interrupts his voice. Miyagi slams his hand on the wall, he staggers back a little, and then suddenly bolts towards the bathroom, leaving a confused Kazunari behind. 
He trails, finds Miyagi kneeling over the toilet. Stylish cargo pants rubbing against the floor as he retches. Kazunari just stares, quietly relieved he deep-cleaned the entire apartment.

Kazunari sighs. “I’ll get you some water.” 

Miyagi quickly downs the offered glass of water, but in turn this makes him puke even more. Kazunari babysits him, puts him to sleep on the sofa later on and makes sure to leave another full glass of water next to him. 

Come next morning, he finds his place empty. For some reason, he’s not surprised.

 

 

 

They go back to square one. Except this time Miyagi is deadly silent. There are no calls playing in the background for Kazunari to dance around. No sounds at all to hide from. 
Kazunari could learn to be content with this, perhaps, to make peace with this as an ending. It’d be anticlimactic, sure, but in a way, a part of him knows he needs to move on.

But that’s not the end of it, of course. Eventually his phone rings again, except this time, when Kazunari’s index hovers above the button for deletion, it’s actually Sawakita’s voice who greets him from the other side.

 

 

The sun beats down on them, it bounces on the concrete and strikes again as it comes up. Sawakita is staring down at Kazunari intently. Beads of sweat slide down his chin, glistening and then dangling on the tip of his sharp v-chin before finally dropping onto hot asphalt. They might evaporate on contact.
They’re silent for a second, both of them. Pretty much crouching as Sawakita keeps the ball dribbling, a protective shoulder angled to keep it away from Kazunari’s greedy, opportunistic hands. He keeps his back to the hoop, eyes focused on Sawakita. He never stops looking, and still, Sawakita manages to tip him off in a faint in a split of a second as he makes his way and slams the ball behind him, leaving the oxidized rim clattering in his wake and Kazunari’s usually-calm face slack with surprise.

He pants. Half in awe and half frustrated. It hasn’t been that long since he stopped playing basketball with the same laser-focus coach Domoto instilled in his players, but already, his former teammate feels kilometers – or miles – ahead of him. Unreachable. This afternoon alone he scored 18 points ahead of him.
He feels a familiar spark lit up in him, competitive and hungry. The same old feeling that he used to get, late at night. All of the Sannoh players huddled together watching future-opponents tape-recorded games and thinking of ways to counteract them. Even of little-known Shohoku. 

Belatedly, he thinks about Miyagi’s small distorted face in that tape. His presence, back then made-up of only a handful of blue-ish dots as it was, felt belatedly romantic looking back. Destined, perhaps. He looked lovely and determined even as intermission lines ran across his figure
The memory leaves a sour taste on his mouth now.

“Water break,” He decides, unilaterally stopping their game to find his plastic bottle. Sawakita follows, some time has passed but just going with whatever Kazunari said might be what comes natural for him. A belief set in the heaviest of stones. 

The birds chirp loudly around them. There are voices far away, kids playing in the park in one of the nearby courts. Kazunari screws the top of his bottle off.

“We have a game soon.” Sawakita says, a drop of water runs down the corner of his mouth with speed before he cleans it with the back of his hand. “And a party afterwards, probably. Come to both” He demands, topping it with a casual shrug like the gesture makes it less of an imposition and more of an offer.

Kazunari isn't really a party person, but he feels indebted to his crybaby junior all the same, compelled to go for being the one to pierce his tender bleeding heart. “Who are you playing?” 

“Thorne” 

He nods. He hasn’t seen Miyagi since that night. And it’s new. This resentment suddenly found dwelling within his insides like a parasite. Crawling all up in him and enveloping around his organs. A thick unpleasant tapeworm.

He grips the bottle tighter. “Why invite me?” Kazunari asks finally, downing big gulps of water to placate the blistering Californian sun. He tilts his head, runs a hand across his hair. “Do you want me to fuck your boyfriend at your own party in front of your friends now? Is that it?” He douses himself liberally with water.
Sawakita coughs, a flush blooms across his face leaving it all pink in its wake. Bullseye, Kazunari thinks. 

“Who said we’d win? Thorne puts up a fight, just so you know” 

He doesn’t reply. So Sawakita clicks his tongue, leaves a second pass just to be tasteful before he adds: “But I’m sooo gonna beat his ass, though. Just watch me”

“Showoff” 

He flashes a toothy, boyish grin his way. “Kidding!” He shrugs, shamelessly putting his hands up. “But- Why do I need an ulterior motive to invite you, huh? Maybe I just like spending time with you” With a sly smile, he knocks into Kazunari’s shoulder. 

Kazunari sets his eyes on him, unsure what to make of the last sentence. Sawakita picks up the ball from where it is, forgotten on the ground, and wordlessly shoots from where they stand. The broken, barely-there net in the hoop is still rippling from the aftershock when he adds, voice pouty around the syllables. “You know, I feel like you only hang with me now ‘cause you’re hoping Ryota comes along, but I was your friend first, isn’t that fucked up or what?”

Kazunari doesn’t add anything to it, so when Sawakita looks back at him, he simply nods. Perfectly caught.

For good measure, Sawakita aims the ball at his face, “Asshole!” When Kazunari ducks, he dissolves into laughter, his perky face looks like it’s fighting to stop smiling. He shakes his head as Kazunari starts jogging where the ball has wandered. 
Someone near, a neighbour turns on a loud lawn-mower, it sounds like. Sawakita suggested this court because it’s close to the house where he lives with the rest of his cult-like fraternity brothers. He said it was ‘chill’ but failed to mention the way the sun came down on your skin like a laser. Now beads of sweat drip onto the floor.

“It’s not going to happen though,” Sawakita says, a beat later. He jogs closer. And in quick succession, steals the ball right from Kazunari’s frozen hands to shoot again without missing a single beat. He doesn’t even need to look back to know the shot settles perfectly. Neither of them do.
“You and Ryota. It’s just not going to.” The three pointer lands with precision. Kazunari looks at him, there’s not a smug grin on his face, perhaps that’s the most infuriating part. His smile looks sincere. “He might like you, but he won’t just leave me for you. That’s just how it is.”

Kazunari won’t add anything to it, nor will his old friend. Truth is not supposed to be personal, it is supposed to be this neutral, third party thing. At least, it had seemed so before. So he wills himself to not think about anything at all. Not the pain on his chest or the way Sawakita doesn’t even sound like he’s trying to be particularly hurtful, just blunt. Despite it not being a particularly new declaration, his words settle around the tears on his heart, widening them further. He thinks of the emptiness of his sofa that morning.

The bounce of the ball echoes amongst them. 

“I don’t mind, you know. You two together- I mean sure, at first it kinda hurt. But then I just kept thinking — about how hot it’d be, you and him” He stops, looking at Kazunari dead in the eye. 
“As long as you know I’ll always go first, you could do whatever you want, is what I’m saying”

Somewhere between a minute and an eternity later Kazunari blurts. “I didn’t do it for you. When I fucked him” He says plainly, crassly. He didn’t secretly hope for Sawakita to find it hot, and he didn’t particularly care if it broke him either back then. Soon enough, Kazunari learnt the abstract idea of Sawakita’s pain was a price he was too willing to pay if it meant having Miyagi. It’s this fact that he’s trying to convey, if perhaps pettily.

There’s a smile on Sawakita’s picture-ready face, but it lacks any of its familiar warmth. It slowly morphs into something else entirely as he steps closer to Kazunari again, something unsightly and drenched with pity.  “I know.” He says. “I’m just trying to save you some pain, man” Sawakita places his big hands on Kazunari’s shoulders, gently squeezing. 
If it’s meant to be comforting, it fails. 

Sawakita leans closer. “And I was your friend first,” He continues, whiny voice accompanied by a pout. “Shouldn’t I get like, dibs on you, or something?” 
Incredulous, Kazunari just blinks. “Are you... Jealous?”

“Who says I’m not?” Sawakita says with a smirk.

“That’s enough.” He says, already confused. “Let’s go back,” He doesn’t feel like playing anymore. Sawakita leans close enough to whisper by his ear, the hands he still has pressed on his shoulder have now started to feel like they’re bounding him in place. “This friday,” He says. “Me and Ryota will swing by your place, okay?” 

Kazunari finally shakes his hand off, but the heat of his touch still lingers even later. Full of implications, of finalty.

 

 

That day the sky's still blue. The sun burns bright high up above but it seldom warms anything under it. He gets in the shower, cleans up the place a bit and makes himself some instant miso soup, swallowing it down despite the fact that he’s not particularly hungry. It sits on the bottom of his stomach all the same.
The clock on the wall ticks away and Kazunari is dead silent. He wonders if he should be happy, if he should be excited.

The doorbell rings and Miyagi’s golden face greets him as soon as the door swings open. His hair all gelled up, a crisp baggy white shirt hanging by his shoulders, accentuated by the thick silver chain wrapped around his neck. 

“Hey” Miyagi greets casually, the tip of his chin tilting upwards, frost licking his words. The words they haven’t been saying hang amongst them, it feels.

Kazunari nods back. 

“How have you been?” 

“Good.”

“Cool. Cool, cool.” Miyagi repeats, nodding along.

Kazunari nods again too, unsure what to say now. They haven’t seen each other since that last aborted discussion, and the air between them has gotten quite dense, hasn’t it? He looks behind his guest, trying to find the other head in this equation. But there’s nothing there to greet him, only silence.

“Where’s Sawakita?” 

“Getting the beer.” His words are brisk. Miyagi moves past Kazunari and drops his cross bag on the counter. “Listen.”

Kazunari gets that feeling rise up on him again, it kicks him suddenly. Same old as that day where Miyagi broke his heart, same old scar. This time, he won’t hear it. 
He clears his throat. “I better go help him.” 

Miyagi’s voice just steamrolls over his own. “I just- I wanted to say.” He looks like he’s just gearing to speak his mind, or mentally rehearsing his words to make sure they come out right. But at last, his shoulders give out. He sighs, loud enough for Sawakita to whip his face back to him when he enters, a box of beer swung over his broad shoulders.

“You guys fighting again?” He sounds as cheerful as ever despite his concentrated frown. With surprising care, he pats the box almost lovingly. “Dude, these were all the way in the back.”

“Not yet” Kazunari says, grateful for the intermission. 

Sawakita whistles. “How about you save that for later? I brought beer.”

They all get comfortable inside his apartment. Kazunari finally closes the door behind them as Sawakita places the box on the island counter. He wastes no time in ripping the cardboard right through the logo and getting one out for himself. His delighted groan when he takes a gulp echoes in the silent space of the room. 
Beady bright eyes turn to look at him, a beer can offering in hand. Kazunari takes it, it just seems like the right thing to do. He opens the can and sips from it regardless of the fact that he doesn’t even like beer that much. It looks and tastes like piss, he doesn’t get the appeal.
But what he wants or likes doesn’t even matter today.

Miyagi gets another can for himself. They all drink in silence. 

It’s awkward.

Sawakita clears his throat. The tension permeating the air passes him right by oil and water. Maybe his uncanny ability to shake off the opposite defense on court translates everywhere as well. He sips loudly from his can, and drops his ass unceremoniously on Kazunari’s couch, as if it’s his rightful place to begin with, white legs spread apart with confidence. “So,” He begins. “How about we play some music?”

Miyagi brightens up. “I’ve never gotten around to seeing what kinda music Fukatsu keeps, actually”

“Oooh, let’s take a look.” Sawakita downs what seems like half of his beer with speed and then slams the can against the mug-stained excuse of a coffee table Kazunari has gotten off Goodwill. He points to his CD’s rack in front of the sofa, all the cases stacked neatly on top of each other. Miyagi and Sawakita share a look to themselves then begin digging around in earnest. What exactly are they looking for, Kazunari does not know. But Miyagi in particular seems to get amusement from this anyhow. He keeps pulling case after plastic case and then raising questioning brows at most of his choices, like they all offend him personally. 

One in particular makes him smile in conspiratorial glee, he snickers on his own, choking on the words like he’s thought of the punchline first before telling the whole joke. “Backstreet Boys, really?” He asks, holding the case in question by his fingertips like it’s accusatory evidence of something.

“I like them.” Kazunari replies with a sip of his beer, it’s still bitter but now less cold.

Miyagi laughs and shakes his head. “I don’t know why, but I can see it.” He puts the case back in it’s correct order, Kazunari could kiss him just for that. “It suits you.” He adds, softly. 

“N’SYNC is way cooler, man,” Sawakita informs them both. His voice is a little louder, a foot in a closing door.

“No, they’re not.” Kazunari defends. 

“They so are”

“He just likes the frozen tips” Miyagi points out. 

At this, Sawakita pouts. “What’s wrong with frozen tips?”

Miyagi shrugs and ignores him in favor of passing judgement on the rest of Kazunari’s musical taste. He pulls out another case, laughs on its own at it. 
“Dude, SMAP?” He cries in disbelief. “What the fuck?”

Sawakita snickers. “Put it on, put it on!”

“Nah,” Miyagi says, still laughing. He shakes his head as he returns the CD back on the rack. “We’re not fucking to some SMAP on the background.”

Sawakita snorts, but the effect is immediate. The tension all but returns in full stride to Kazunari’s modest flat, now tinged with something else. Something thick like want.
“Can I get another beer?” He says, cheeks red when he extends a waiting hand Kazunari’s way. 

Wordlessly, Kazunari hands him another. 

A beat, then Miyagi pipes up. “Can you down it all in one go?” 

Sawakita puffs his chest like a pigeon. “Of course!” 

Miyagi laughs, shaking his head. “Dude, can you shake it first and then drink it? I’ve seen people do it”

Sawakita grins. All his pretty teeth are on display until the smile on his face looks almost predatory. With a lick of his lips, he says “You’re on."

 

 

The sun slowly begins to descend outside the window while they chat the hours away, almost as if it’s a process of nature somehow connected to the number of beers littered on his coffee table. They keep increasing like the shadows they cast around the room grow in length as well. Their own DIY sun clock. 

They’re all more loose now, both Miyagi and him sitting on the couch while Sawakita has taken to the floor, his back sandwiched between Miyagi’s spread legs, his fresh crew haircut resting on his boyfriend’s tanned knee. “Dude, I swear to God, it’s Reagan,” Miyagi says. One of his calloused hands pets Sawakita’s hair, who simply laughs and shakes his head. In turn that ends up shaking Miyagi's hand off. Kazunari watches it pointedly.

“Wait– I’m serious,” Sawakita stresses. He sits up straighter to count with his fingers, as if this is infallible evidence on its own. “It’s Carter, Reagan, and THEN Clinton” Forgotten in the background of their chatter, the Backstreet Boys plead longingly to someone in a slow tempo ballad that only Kazunari seems to be listening. He feels like he’s only blinked twice and somehow missed the crucial swerve of the conversation towards naming American presidential terms in chronological orders. 
Maybe it happened between the third or fourth beer. Not that it really matters, the apartment booms with the sound of Sawakita’s boisterous laughter, Miyagi’s own following closely behind, a close, private race. 

“Dude who the fuck is Carter?” 

“A president, obviously!”

“Nah, you’re just making guys up now.” Miyagi says, rubbing his chin and smiling in a cocky way Kazunari finds particularly handsome.

They’re both at a stalemate now, so Kazunari clears his throat. Two heads turn towards him. “Who was the first president of the US?” 

Sawakita makes a delighted sound then raises his hand like they’re in class. “Ohh I know this one! It’s Lincoln, isn't it?” He beams proudly at Kazunari, and in turns Miyagi snorts.

“No, you dumbass, it’s George Washington,” 

“No it wasn’t!” Sawakita insists.

“Yes it was.” Miyagi scratches the back of his head, then gestures vaguely. “Like, how come you know whoever the fuck Carter is supposed to be, but you don’t know George Washington, huh? What’s up with that?”

“It was Lincoln!” 

Miyagi does not repeat his point, but merely pushes Sawakita with one of his feet. It doesn’t seem like a forceful movement, but Sawakita staggers backwards on the carpet in a fit of breathless laughter. “Dude, wait, don't kick me” He whines, which of course prompts Miyagi to press on him further. “I’m serious! I gotta piss, hang on.” He gets up, shimmers his sports shorts back into place and then cuts through his bedroom towards the only bathroom in the place.

The music stops abruptly with Sawakita’s absence, making the silence all the more poignant. It presses on Kazunari, a stifling force.
Like clockwork he turns towards Miyagi. They’re alone now, and his body has learnt what this means in a pavlovian response: blood veins running hot under warm skin, the slap of their skin against each other, their bodies stuck together with sweat. Miyagi sighs heavily. He leans back on the couch and crosses his arms. 

“I could play something else” Kazunari offers, anything to keep him happy, but Miyagi shrugs. 

“You could,” He says, cryptically. 

Kazunari takes this as a no. He leans closer, his hand hovering near Miyagi’s honey-colored knee, eager to land. Desperate to keep him in place.
Wordlessly, the other man gets up. He walks to the corner of the room as well, as if also conjured by the need to pee. Kazunari’s gaze follows him quizzically but luckily Miyagi turns around. “Or– You could come here too?” He offers, as if there was any chance Kazunari would go anywhere else.

Bewitched, he follows Miyagi to the bedroom. Finds him sitting by the edge of his bed, leaning on his shoulders with his legs slightly spread apart, shorts riding up from the motion and revealing a new expanse of his smooth skin for him, unwrapping just for him like a present. Kazunari swallows heavily, rubs a hand across his mouth. 
Suddenly he’s standing right in front of Miyagi and he doesn't even remember the steps leading up to it, it’s almost as if he’s floated to the bed to come sit next to him. A cartoon character in an old show for children, granted powers by the enticing smell of a warm piece of pie. 
He turns again, just to face him properly. All the tension he felt before has melted in favor of this easy truce. He takes in Miyagi properly now: Sitting here, relaxed on his furniture with a grin adorning his face. Is hard to even remember what he was even mad about in the first place, when Miyagi looks like this.

“What are you looking at?” He asks, pushing his leg with the tip of his socked feet, pressing on the skin till it leaves a shallow mark.
“You. Always you,” Kazunari thinks, or says. It makes Miyagi laugh, look away for a second with a smile on his face. And Kazunari is glued to his place by that smile alone, by how soft it looks against Miyagi’s sharp features. His heart trembles with want. 

He shuffles closer, hand looming nearby, and Miyagi turns back to him with an inquisitive face, leaning closer too. “Are you nervous?” He whispers, warm breath grazing his skin. Kazunari breathes it in and wishes he could inhale him all at once instead.

“No,” He says. He follows the trail of his breathing, sees it play out in a straight line in his head, a treasure map. He licks his lips, and then meets Miyagi in the middle with a kiss. 
They’ve kissed before, countless times, but it still knocks the breath out of him a little. They’ll make love in a moment, surely. But kissing is so nice too, Miyagi tastes like the last sip of water on a hot day. Equal parts relief and desperation. And Kazunari is just parched.
He groans against his mouth, all his weight is braced on his hands, resting each on one side of Miyagi, caging him in. He won’t make the same mistake twice, won’t let him fly away this time. In a swift movement, Kazunari pins him underneath him, and Miyagi gasps. 

“Fuck.” 

The sound doesn’t come out from either of them, it’s Sawakita. Under the doorframe to his bathroom with his pretty round eyes wide open boring onto the two of them.
Realization dawns on Kazunari, some kind of cold sobriety brought on by the quickness with which Miyagi freezes, rigid on his arms. They both hold still, all limbs bracing for some kind of impact. 
No, Kazunari thinks. Primitively he grips Miyagi tighter. He’s not ceding any ground.

Sawakita walks in, carelessly kicks the chair by Kazunari’s desk to sit on it. He slams a can of beer on top of the furniture to be further forgotten about, and clears his throat. “No, go on, Ryota” He instructs, voice heavy, steady and imperative. “Kiss him,”

Unsure deep brown eyes dart between him and then back to Sawakita. Time is a mess right now, running fast and then slow and so thick like goo. Sawakita cranes to look at them. His black eyes are glazed over but slowly focusing.

Kazunari has spent all these days since meeting Sawakita at the student bar wondering whether this would be a line too heavy to cross. But perhaps that was the wrong question altogether. If there were lines, they were drawn with long-gone sand. At the point of no return, Kazunari dives in willingly. He guides his lips back to Miyagi’s, hands traveling to his nape, tangling with little finesse on Miyagi’s hair. Brown dark locks curl caress his fingers. 
He groans again and Miyagi kisses him deeper for it. Greedily, he advances, eager to take more of his personal space, to hog everything he can. 

He presses himself against Miyagi, uses his weight to restrict him further. The feverish heat of his skin will drive him crazy. He’s so sure. And he’ll walk of own volition to the fire too, until there’s nothing but a single pool containing the two of them swirling together. He leans back, removes his shirt and throws it away carelessly, Miyagi scrambles on the bed, his legs are spread apart with Kazunari’s own between them.
He comes back for another kiss. And Miyagi’s right there for him, arms wrapping around him. His breath is so heavy, he pants and pants, and all it does is spur Kazunari on. The pressure of his body against Miyagi’s feels heavenly. He can feel the way his cock hardens against him, can feel its heat even between the layers of fabric. It all makes him delirious. So hot. Open palm, he reaches for Miyagi’s crotch, cupping it roughly and coaxing these wispy little gasps out of Miyagi.

The oversized fit of his shirt makes it pool in the middle, covering Kazunari’s view. It won’t do. “Take it off,” He instructs. 

Miyagi shakes his head. “You take it off” He challenges back. He’ll be the death of Kazunari, he knows. So he doesn’t hesitate, he’s immediately wrestling with the offending item, and the bed springs and squeaks under them. It elicits this breathy laughter from Miyagi. 
He’s so beautiful, under him, fumbling with his shirt and with his piercing eyes posed only on Kazunari. “Watch it though,” He warns. “It’s Nike.” 

“I don’t care, I’ll stuff it in your mouth when I fuck you then.” He’ll look so hot swaying underneath him moments later anyways, t-shirt balled up on his mouth. It makes Kazunari’s mouth water already. He can’t deal with it, he kisses or licks his face, he’s not even sure now. “I need you.” He breathes against him, voice ragged. They’re just starting and he already feels gone. So he leaves kisses, one after the other in a desperate trail. “I need to be inside of you.”

“Then get in here,” Miyagi suggests. Braces his weight awkwardly so his hips lift off the bed and cant towards him. An invitation or a taunt, who’s really counting now? “You can just go in, Eiji helped me loosen up before” He whispers.

Kazunari licks his lips. “Fuck,”

Between the two of them, tugging and pulling, they make quick avid work of discarding the rest of their clothing. Kazunari peels himself away to procure lube and condoms while Miyagi props a pillow under his hips.
Kazunari’s thumb is digging on the small hollow space that connects his muscular thighs to his ass, the surface is soft to the touch and Kazunari marvels. He’s shaved. Their gazes meet again, Miyagi’s mouth is partially open, his face flushed. He’s so hot like this. Lewd.

A small whimper leaves Sawakita’s mouth. Kazunari doesn’t need to look his way to know it was him, but it startles him anyways. Right. “Your boyfriend’s right here,” He says, throwing a bone. “Won’t he mind?”

“I don’t care,” Miyagi says, his whole face beet red. Despite his confident swagger and unwavering looks he’s a terrible actor, Kazunari thinks fondly. He smiles, savors the little face he makes for a moment, because although this is all for Sawakita’s sake and his throbbing fantasies, he can’t see it now. It’s just them, somehow.

So Kazunari smiles. 

“You’re so beautiful, Miyagi.” Kazunari coats his wrapped dick with copious amounts of lube, then lines the tip of his cock with Miyagi’s puckering hole with delicate care. Miyagi looks back at him, all the lines his limbs draw are pulled tight in anticipation. 
“Shhh,” Kazunari says,  gripping onto his thighs. “Relax for me” 

He shudders. 

“I love you.” Kazunari promises. He doesn’t care that Sawakita is mere feet apart, looming behind them. Probably overlooking the whole thing with the kind of apprehension only a person who already knows what kind of opportunist Kazunari is, could muster. He cups Miyagi’s face and peppers his whole face with kisses. “I really love you,” He says. A despertarte plea as he thrusts all in one go, making Miyagi quiver, his legs twitch in protest against his hold but Kazunari holds them steady. The breathy noise coming from him, Kazunari would kill just to hear it forever, to drown in these sounds. He’d invent a whole new world for Miyagi to have, another one just to hold him close forever like this.

“Shit, Fukatsu–”

“Shh,” He starts to move while Miyagi sobs, digging his nails on his back. Kazunari thinks of it as his own reply and smiles maddeningly at it. The heat enveloping him it’s crazy, it calls him right back in for more. 
The bed squeaks under them, and the shiny brown curls on Miyagi’s hair drag against the sheets while he sways, hanging onto Kazunari for dear life.
“I love you,” He repeats, this time louder for their audience. He glances up to watch Sawakita. His gaze is fixed on Miyagi, but he looks alone in a world of his own. Kazunari can see the outline of his dick so clearly as it shyly protrudes from his loose basketball shorts. 

Miyagi chuckles, his face is warm and so sweaty it glows. “I know,” He says, smiling gently at Kazunari. A while ago, Kazunari made the mistake of interpreting this as a mutual declaration. 

Out of spite, he angles his hips. He wants to flex his knowledge of the pathways to Miyagi’s pleasure like a trophy to be shown off. His skin slaps against Miyagi’s buttocks, over and over. And Miyagi contracts, the pants leaving his mouth get higher in pitch. The legs wrapping around Kazunari twitch with pleasure. “Kazunari, Kazunari–” He calls out nonsensically, never finishing his sentences anymore.
Miyagi rolls his head around. His usually sharp eyes are half-lidded, the pupils blown out. “Do you like it?” Kazunari asks, keeps pumping in and out of him to a filthy, wet sound.

Miyagi doesn’t reply. But the moans coming out of his mouth are reply enough.

Sawakita chokes around nothing. A hot shiver runs through him. His hands are glued to his side, as if he’d die if he were to move right now. 
In a way, Kazunari feels for him. It must be a torture to just sit there and do nothing. 

He presses the knife a little bit deeper as he thrusts into Miyagi in one long movement. His breath stutters, back leaping from the bed as if he’s being possessed. The curvature of it is a sight to behold. Kazunari’s gaze moves back, searching Sawakita, he gets it, he wants to say. But what can he really do? He’d rather show. Eyes glued to Sawakita, he takes it slower, drags his cock against the walls of Miyagi’s insides. And Miyagi is so receptive. A little bit of alcohol always loosens him up like this, putty around Kazunari’s arms. It’s like he forgets about him somehow all together, off to his own little world. Kazunari loves him like this too, so far away. 

Sawakita is not supposed to be here, but Kazunari babbles on anyway. A thrust to accentuate his words; the sound reverberates on Kazunari’s decrepit flat. “He’s so hot.” 

Miyagi gasps at it. His eyelids flutter. 

“So fucking hot around me.”

Sawakita looks up with a whine. He’s a dog eager to be called on. His eyelids flutter as well, but now they zero into Kazunari’s. His face is so red, his jaw tight. 
He’s rock hard but holding firm in place. It must be hell. 

Good.

Kazunari leans close enough to lick a stripe of skin across Miyagi’s shoulders, desperate now. Something about the whole deal struck him at first as too good to be true, a bargain with a cunning genie with a loophole he’s overlooked. Now on Miyagi’s salty sweat he recognizes the faint taste of finality, souring it all for Kazunari. He wonders if Miyagi must know it too, if he’s tasted it on him in return.
He feels like he’ll be waking soon from a dream. No, no. He grips harder on Miyagi’s skin, trying to ground himself. 

He kisses Miyagi again, moves his lips with fervor and takes it as it goes. Miyagi’s own swollen lips just pressed against him, and Kazunari’s ragged breathing misting the golden skin of Miyagi’s cheeks. “Fukatsu,” Miyagi breathes, glassy shining brown eyes blinking as they focus on him. “It’s so good,” He babbles. 

His heart soars. “You like it?”

This time, Miyagi nods.”Yeah,” He pants. The top of his head presses against the pillow under his head as he cranes to look at Sawakita. Their gazes meet, away from Kazunari. Miyagi doesn’t speak, all he has are these wanton moans pouring out of his reddened lips. Slowly, he stretches a hand towards his boyfriend.  

No, Kazunari panics. He starts thrusting faster, he knows exactly where to aim and does exactly that relentlessly. Soon, Miyagi forgets about his little side quest, he hugs onto Kazunari, legs twitching, inner voice long gone. Only me, Kazunari begs, just for a little longer. 

He pushes his damp hair back with a hand and looks at Sawakita, asking conversationally.  “You ever fuck him like this?”
Sawakita blinks up at him. In his hunched figure, Kazunari thinks he sees exactly what he needs. A firm hand, someone to tell him what to do, what to want. He’s always been like this anyways. “Come here,” He orders. 
Sawakita staggers clumsily towards the edge of the bed, eyes never leaving Miyagi’s sprawled figure. There’s a wet patch on his tented-up shorts, his hard dick proudly standing. 

“Kneel on the floor.” He says and Sawakita follows without pausing to think about it. “Jerk off right here then,” Kazunari spits. He thinks about his flushed face in the park the other day. “Jerk off while I fuck your boyfriend, why don’t you?”
Sawakita groans at the words, and then eagerly pulls down his loose shorts to wrap his big hand around his red throbbing erection. He groans desperately and bobs his hand up and down furiously. 

Miyagi looks between the two of them, understanding slowly reaching him. Once again, he stretches a hand to reach his boyfriend. This time Sawakita is quicker, he grabs onto Miyagi’s hand quickly. “Ryota, you look so–”
Jealousy burns low on his stomach, Kazunari grabs Miyagi’s other hand, interlocking fingers as he pistols in and out of him. Soon Miyagi’s gone, he’s whining and panting and whimpering on his cock.
“Tell him,” Kazunari asks, soft voice towards Miyagi unlike his harsh commands, the power’s going right to his head. “Tell him how good it feels,” Miyagi doesn’t hesitate either, he looks at Sawakita dead in the eye when he parts his mouth open. 

“It’s so good, Eiji– He’s- Ah, so good inside me.” Obscene moans interrupt his own words, and Sawakita’s pink face scrunches up when he groans at the words. Without any warning, Sawakita cums. A thick hot liquid lands on Miyagi’s stomach, some on the duvet covering his bed. This makes Miyagi tight up around him. 
Kazunari lets go of his hand to wrap a hand around Miyagi’s precum-leaking dick, moving it in tandem with his hips until Miyagi cums with a harsh grunt.

The pressure enveloping his dick is too much to bear, and Kazunari cums like this as well, following close behind the other two. Impossibly intertwined with Miyagi’s limbs, his right hand slick with cum.

 

 

Clarity takes a second to return, but eventually it trickles down just enough. He leans back, belatedly aware his weight on top is crushing Miyagi. Their skin peels off each other with a slow motion Kazunari finds particularly pleasing, a proof of the closeness they just shared. He breathes in deeply, trying to fill his lungs again. The air burns and Miyagi groans under him. 

Kazunari watches his hand with curiosity. There’s just a second of contemplation and then brings a hand to his mouth to taste the milky liquid clean from his palm. Miyagi groans, then laughs breathlessly. “That’s nasty.” His voice is afflicted but his words are dissonant. Kazunari cuts right through it.
“I think you like it,” He concludes.

A beat, then Miyagi confesses. “I- Yeah”

Now Kazunari guffaws. He sits up, resting on his knees before pulling out of Miyagi proper. He remembers Sawakita right then. He’s sitting on the floor, chest rising and falling rhythmically as he recovers. His milky white thighs parted open and dotted with drops of semen, head still not back on Earth. Kazunari runs his clean hand through his sticky-with-sweat hair and clears his throat.

“So?”

Sawakita takes a second to compose himself. One of his hands rubs against his mouth. Kazunari ties up the condom, now balloneed with his still-warm cum inside, and tosses it away.

“Was it what you hoped for?” He asks.

 “Yes, it was.” Sawakita is upfront. He doesn’t look away this time, the marvelled look in Sawakita’s face tells him everything he needs to know. “Ryota you looked so– Beautiful.”

Miyagi just smiles tiredly in the direction of his boyfriend. He’s laying on top of the gray duvet of the bed, hands resting on his middle. He looks sated, relaxed. “Come here,” He asks, a hand reaching out towards him.This time Kazunari does nothing about it.

Miyagi moves a little to make room for him on the bed that’s starting to feel cramped with the three of them here. It might be a sign for him to leave.

“It’s okay,” Miyagi says. He stretches his arms to welcome Sawakita, tanned muscular arms wrapping around him. “I’ve got you,” 
“You were perfect” Sawakita whines, peppering kisses all over Miyagi, eager to re-stake his claim. They kiss, mouths moving languidly against each other while Kazunari watches. It feels like a metaphor for the whole time he’s spent with them in the States.
His mission here it’s complete, it feels. 

Kazunari crawls towards the end of the bed, eager to be done with this when he feels two heads whipping in his direction. A hand wraps around one of his wrists, holding him in place.
“Where are you going?” Miyagi asks. Signature eyebrow quirked up.

“Away,” Saying it aloud, Kazunari realizes how stupid it all sounds, allowing himself to feel backed into a corner in his own home.
Sawakita shakes his head and the hand around Kazunari’s wrist relaxes. “Stay, senpai. Please.” He asks. 
Miyagi follows, murmuring with pouty, spit-shiny lips. “Just- Get in here,”

The sound of his heartbeat reverberates loudly inside his body. Without looking, he knows his face is bright red. Not even a second passes before he nods. So he sits up straighter, the weight making him sink onto the plush bed as he crawls on all fours towards the two of them. One of Miyagi’s arms settles on his forearms, and Sawakita’s warm palm rubs his back. Kazunari is not sure why exactly it feels like they’re comforting him, but he allows it to happen all the same, plunging willingly into the intoxicating heat of their bodies. A mess of tangled limbs, impossible to pry away. He cranes his neck, ignoring the strain on his muscles to kiss Miyagi as well. A delayed thought occurs to him, it’s Sawakita who he must be tasting now. 
Kazunari stares at the ceiling, feeling like somehow he got more than he bargained for.

 

 

The shower is still running when Kazunari leaves to sit on the small, narrow balcony just right by the bed. Maybe calling it a balcony would be a stretch, just a tactic employed by his greedy real estate agent to charge more for what it’s essentially a meter strip connecting his bedroom with the living room. Beyond the stucco half-wall everything outside is tinted a turquoise Hangyodon-blue, the skyline dotted with palm trees. The night is quiet, only interrupted by the occasional sound of traffic.
Inside, Miyagi is passed out on his bed. Sawakita cleaned him up thoroughly before hopping on the shower himself. And Kazunari watched from afar, the whole ordeal looked so domestic, he felt an intruder just by looking. 
The thought doesn’t sting as it once did.
If he were a smoking person, now it would be a good time to do that, he suddenly thinks.

The glass door slides slowly behind him, as if the transgressor was scared to wake someone. Sawakita’s firm and gentle steps, Kazunari would know anywhere. He looks back to find an apologetic smile drawn across his face. 

“Why are you sitting on the floor, for?” He asks, settling on the corner next to him, next to the leftover small ceramic pots still filled with dead plants Kazunari hasn’t gotten around to getting rid of. A gift from the last tenant. “It’s really dusty out here.” He whines.

“I have a roommate,” Kazunari replies, raising far more questions than he’s answering. His fingers pinch an invisible cylinder.

“Really? How come I’ve never met him?”

Kazunari nods. “The neighbour cat likes to come lay here out in the sunny tiles.”

“I bet he doesn’t even help with rent” Sawakita jokes, propping his elbows on his knees. He looks funny, trying to make himself small to fit on Kazunari’s meager balcony. And still, he’s so big in the cramped space, it looks like he’d fall over if he were to make any sudden movement.

Kazunari shakes his head. “He brings a lot of dead animals, actually. Leaves them all lined up for me to find. I think that’s his way of helping.” He brings his index and middle finger to his lips and inhales deeply. The gesture makes Sawakita snort, pearly teeth greet Kazunari again when his lips stretch into a fond smile. There’s years of familiarity trapped in that gesture. 

“You’re fucking weird, man” Sawakita says, voice oddly fond.

Kazunari shrugs. “Probably.” 

Sawakita doesn’t reply to that. He readjusts his position, hugging his muscular legs and resting his chin on his arms. An ambulance blares in the distance as sleep slowly creeps his way to Kazunari, his eyelids starting to drop.

“Senpai, I love him.” Sawakita whispers at last. His voice sounds so much softer and honest in their native Japanese, free of the showmanship and bravado he deploys on court. Kazunari hadn’t picked up on this difference before, but now it feels like a sound made for only the two of them. His skin is flushed from the shower, the tips of his hair still damp. “But he’s still- He’s kind of an asshole actually, isn’t he?”

Kazunari finds himself smiling back. He remembers the bratty attitude. The easy confidence he seemed to wear was nothing but a little smoke trick, maybe the court lights reflected back on him. Incandescently bright until it was burned to his retinas. Until he is all they both can see. The answer comes out on his own. “Yes” 

Sawakita pats his back. “Right?” He laughs, far more gleeful than Kazunari is feeling now, like he’s happy to finally be able to discuss this, to have someone who can understand. Kazunari looks at him, the glee on his face is such a familiar view. Is this why- 

“And he’s such a fucking liar.” Sawakita says suddenly. He rubs his chin, seemingly thinking about something. Suddenly he’s transported somewhere else. After a minute, when his piercing gaze comes back to Earth to meet Kazunari’s own, he feels the full force of it hit him.. “You know, we had this huge fight a while back, I can’t even remember how it started. I think– I think he got mad at some dumb shit. He kept accusing me of sleeping with someone else, and like, of course I didn’t! And then–” A breathless laugh comes out of him, devoid of humor. “Of course he did it. He’s so full of shit.” His eyes go glassy. “I think- I think he broke my heart then” he says simply. 

Sawakita turns to Kazunari, his smile is subdued, pained. “And then he broke yours, too. Didn’t he?”

“Yeah.” The scene appears crystal clear in his mind. Miyagi rushing to Kazunari’s door in the middle of the night. His warm disposition, his welcoming arms and delicious moans, the elaborate performance of it all for Sawakita’s sake. He gets it now. 
The other day on the park court his words stung and dripped poison into open wounds, but even then Kazunari knew them to be truthful. Ever since they messed around, he has been a part of the equation one way or another, whether he knew about the affair or not. Whatever residence Kazunari takes up on Miyagi’s heart seems to simply be a limited circumference around Sawakita’s absence.

When Kazunari faces his friend again, the sight that greets him is unknown. Something is brewing inside his friend. His voice gets softer. More uncertain. Vulnerable and open. “I thought we had something special, is all”

Kazunari doesn’t say anything. He knows exactly what Sawakita means, he felt the same once too. Only for Miyagi to shatter his illusions in the most casual way of all, over some fucking pizza. 
“So, did you?”

“I don't know,” Sawakita replies, his voice miniscule on the vast open air. “Maybe it wasn't like that for him.” He offers a crumpled shrug like a resigned man and wonders aloud. “Sometimes I wonder why he’s with me at all.”

Kazunari doesn’t reply. There’s nothing he can offer to fix this. He looks away, at the cityscape before them. In a place as full of stars as Los Angeles supposedly is, when Kazunari looks at the newly jet black sky now, there’s none to offer any sort of guiding light. 

Miyagi’s not particularly honest. He’ll say one thing and mean something else entirely. He’ll kiss Kazunari back, swallow his mangled declarations of love and offer nothing in return. He’ll wrap himself so lovely around him, the heel of his foot will dig onto his back as Kazunari fucks him, and still, despite it all, he will not let his guard down. Will not let him in. He’s quick-tempered and foul-mouthed with an attitude to boot, but he enjoys pretending he’s the only level-headed one of the three of them.

And he’s broken both of their hearts.

“In a way though, I’m glad it was you,” Sawakita says, with a sad laugh at the strangeness of his own words. “I don’t think I could’ve done this with anyone else, that’s all.” A big exhale comes out of him like a shudder, it sounds like a sob.
“Senpai,” Sawakita hiccups like a little kid. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick the other day– Well, maybe a little bit.” He shrugs. “but Ryota doesn’t like you like that,”

The words are jarring, and they jolt him awake again. But unlike all the times he’s come to this conclusion on his own, there’s no pain this time. He places a hand on it just to be sure but finds only his heartbeat.

“I know,” He says quietly.

“Yeah.” Sawakita says. His smile is easy but the joy doesn’t quite reach the rest of his face. His eyes get impossibly glossy  “And I don’t know what to do either, I love him. And sometimes I don’t even wanna see him. Sometimes I really hate him” Over the course of the sentence, Sawakita seems to go through a transformation of his own. His shoulders start shaking, and his face is squeezed together, as if trying to hold itself. The sight stirs something in Kazunari’s weird alien heart. He shuffles closer, nevermind his pajamas getting dirtier, and wraps his arms around the bulky shoulders of his teary friend. Sawakita catches up quickly, hugging Kazunari back even tighter. 
Like a baby, he furrows his face in the crook of Kazunari’s neck, safely tucked away. His back contracts and collapses with the force of his sobs, and Kazunari’s hands are frozen unhelpfully on the sides. He pats him once or twice but it all feels lacking. Maybe it will never be enough to fix what he and Miyagi have broken.

“You suck at comforting people,” Sawakita sniffs. Kazunari can feel the wet patch forming on his shoulder. 

“You’re not feeling very comforted right now?”

Sawakita shakes his head no, but he keeps himself firmly on Kazunari’s chest, some minutes until his sobs fizzle away, fading into the rest of the city noise like they were never there. When he steps back, his eyes are rimmed red and there’s snot running down his face. Kazunari has not seen him like this since that freshman year of high school, back when his big mouth and attitude used to land him in fights he wasn’t ready for. Some that perhaps he still isn’t. “What am I gonna do?” He wonders.

Kazunari wonders the same thing. As nice as this was, it’s not really a permanent solution. They’ll only end up complicating everything even more, arms and legs so tightly wound they'll melt together. And all it’ll do is hurt Sawakita. Or him. And he’s not even sure he can take any more of Miyagi’s particular brand of nonchalance. It’s starting to feel like a self-inflicted torture.

He holds Sawakita’s small angular face in his hands. Two black beads peek back at him curiously. 

“Break up with him.” Kazunari says, firmly. He can feel Sawakita tensing on his hold, just like his own boyfriend used to do. 

“Yeah right”

“I’m not trying to trick you.” Kazunari amends quickly. “I won’t. You said it yourself, he won’t just want me now because you two are done.” It hurts to admit it, but he knows it’s the truth. It already happened once or twice. “So just break up with him.”

Sawakita holds his gaze. His pupils move quickly, as if trying to decipher something on Kazunari’s face. A shred of honesty left amidst the rubble of their friendship, one large enough to bet on this. 

“Break up with him, Sawakita.” Kazunari repeats. His voice is a firm guiding hand.

“Yeah,” Sawakita says. His voice is a whisper at first, but slowly, it thickens, coated with the confidence Kazunari always associated with him. This is the Sawakita Kazunari remembers: his shoulders held uptight, his eyes brightly lit. Nothing seemed impossible for him. 
“Yes,” He says now, voice still shaky from the aftermath of it all. But still sure, still firm and solid. “I’ll do it.”

“Good,”

“Yeah,” 

Kazunari takes a good look at his friend, Sawakita’s face is calmer now. He looks up to meet his gaze, and Kazunari feels it on his skin, the weight of his gaze travelling down to his lips, the pull that it has. Silence envelops them both again. Comfortably wrapping amongst them. Sawakita hasn’t moved, and as a consequence, Kazunari’s arms are still enveloping his large frame. Tightly pressed, knees knocking together.
Sawakita shuffles a little closer, and Kazunari gulps. 

There’s no Miyagi now. Just the two of them.

“Senpai,” Sawakita says again, but it sounds so much like “Can I?” instead, that Kazunari fills in the blanks and huddles closer. They kiss to the busy sounds of the Los Angeles night around them, Sawakita’s lips soft and plush against him, his mouth sweet. Kazunari holds him, hugs his crybaby friend and kisses him over and over, as if his saliva could glue back in place his broken pieces.

Notes:

rip fukatsu kazunari u would've loved poison by nct dream

i still dont feel v comfy in my smut writing skills so like omg tell me if it was hot or not? actually im kinda a hoe for validation online, so tell me anything in the comments. i'll make sure to treasure it

i hope it was worth the wait!! again sorry for the delay!! but like over the course of posting the first chapter in this fic and updating now, i DID found a new job, got my heart broken and even buried a friend,,,, life comes at u man. i hope u guys are doing good tho!

Chapter 3

It doesn’t happen if it won’t happen twice, he comes to learn..

 

On a cloudy warm afternoon, a banging on his door saves him from a sure death from falling asleep face-first onto his textbooks. He knows it before he can even think about it, just instinctually, that it’s Sawakita out there before he even says: “Yo, senpai, open up!” Quickly he leaves the corner store receipt that’s doubling as his bookmark and gets up. 

Small and funny, on the peephole of his front door, Sawakita’s happy face is there to greet him, his enlarged eye trying to peek back in as Kazunari rubs the dried drool off his chin.

 

“Open up!!” His knuckles hit the door once more for good measure, so he obliges. Sawakita pauses mid-entry to give him a judgmental once-over. He goes tsk, puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head. “Hey! What would Coach say if he saw you like this? You should be up and training already!”

 

“I’m retired,” It’s his excuse of choice, scratching his calf absently with his other foot. “What do you want?”

 

“That again?” Sawakita knocks onto his shoulder when he steps in, and looks at Kazunari with those black, perpetually shiny eyes of his, lip jutting out. “Didn’t we agree on the fact that we don’t need special motives to see each other?” 

“No, you said that, I was studying”

 

Sawakita kicks off his shoes with no finesse and raises an arm to show off a plastic bag “I do have one, though” There’s a happy face and big, bold ‘Thank You’ written on the white plastic.

 

“Thank you,” Kazunari repeats. It’s enough to make Sawakita’s chest puff out like a pigeon with pride. 

 

“Have you eaten anything yet?” 

 

“Instant noodles.” 

 

Sawakita looks shaken at the thought. “Dude, that’s no meal!”

 

“It is when you have a budget.” 

 

“Nah, ‘cause you need some protein on it. Keeps you full and shit, duh” 

 

“Did you come to make sure I eat properly then?”

 

Sawakita shrugs back, pokes the floor a little with his socked foot. “And to drag you for beers, obviously”

 

“I have some left, do you want one?” Without waiting for an answer Kazunari moves Sawakita’s box of beers, still inside, half drunk but fully abandoned. He takes the top off one and offers the cold can to his guest.

 

“Thanks” He knocks a quarter of the liquid back in one go.

 

“Do you drink a lot?”
“No, but the guys on the team throw these huge parties every game, and skipping is kind of a no-go, cause–  Wait, hang on, you still coming next game or what?” 

His feelings are all mixed up now, he wants and resents Miyagi in equal measure, or they switch depending on whether he’s in his presence or not, to tell the truth.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” being near him is turning him into someone he despises. 

 

After a brief second, Sawakita puts down his can, a wistful look on his otherwise childish face. “You don’t wanna run into him, do you?”

 

“No”

 

“Then don’t. Come see me,” There it is again lurking on his gaze, the same intensity Kazunari saw the other day when they played in the park, bristling on his skin.
At once he feels Sawakita’s gaze roam up his body, and he returns the gesture in kind. Walks a little closer. 

 

“Is that why you came?”

With his weight slightly slumped to his table, all feline-like, Sawakita whispers. “I came to claim my prize. I remember you owe me a plushie”

 

Kazunari blinks. “I was hoping you’d forget”

 

“Nope!” Before Kazunari can protest or say anything else he bends a little to press a chaste kiss to his lips. He feels his eyes balloon like plates, so Sawakita laughs the tension away. He feels a weird sense of deja-vu, only last time it was the other part of the equation that he was working with, Miyagi’s advances born from scorn and his half-truths. Knows he can’t do it a second time. “What is it you really want, Sawakita?”
He smiles, his teeth make a predatory appearance, Kazunari feels caught somehow. “Isn’t it obvious?”

 

“Not to me, no”

 

He comes closer and places his big hands on Kazunari’s shoulders to shake him a little. “I guess I’ll spell it for you, then” Sawakita breathes in deeply, so Kazunari does too. “I had a thing for you in second year. Third year too, honestly. Actually, it went on more or less until me and Ryota got a bit serious.”

 

Kazunari doesn’t reply, but Sawakita pays it no mind, he has a lot to say on his own. “Okay, this is a little awful, but I think I only noticed him first because you had a crush on him since high school and I was soooo jealous that you didn’t like me back, that I kept wondering what was so good about him” He has a sheepish sort of smile, a little caught. “And I went and found out myself”

 

“That’s why you guys started fooling around?” To his incredulous tone, Sawakita just shrugs.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Okay, that is awful,”

 

Kazunari tries to imagine it from his side. Tries to remember Sawakita’s voice over the phone, when he talked about Miyagi for the first time through the spotty international connection. I’ve been seeing this guy, he whispered confidentially one time after Kawada teased him about being lonely back there. Can I trust you with that? He slurred later, once the speaker was off and it was just them again. t’s nothing serious really, but actually, you do know him…

 

Something clicks for him,

 

“Were you trying to hurt me back then? When you told me about Miyagi?” 

Sawakita blushes a bright apologetic red, “Not really. I just get really competitive about it.” 

 

Kazunari’s world stills, but Sawakita moves at lightning speed, he comes closer, nuzzles against his chest. “Now you know. Now you finally know.” He moves his arms, links his hands together behind Kazunari’s stiff nape and directs his shiny black eyes at him, a coy gesture. “The truth is, senpai, I still really like you” His voice is almost a purr, he leans and presses their noses together.

Sawakita smiles, then pulls him close for a chaste peck. A pink shade blooms across his face as he keeps kissing him over and over with fervor. Kittenish at first and then quickly gaining confidence. “Open your mouth, senpai,” He murmurs, voice low. 

They kissed last time, made out to the night cityscape of LA while Miyagi slept next room. But this means something else, Kazunari knows that much. 

 

He gulps and settles his hands around his waist. "Sawakita, I-" Only he beats him to the punch.
“I know you’re crazy about him. I love him too.” Another kiss to his lips before he adds, “But I’m not giving up either. I never do” He waggles his eyebrows at Kazunari, and he cups his face to examine his face up close.

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

 

“I told you, I get competitive.” There’s something quite endearing about his former teammate. The way his eyes sparkle with determination for one, and how he corners Kazunari like this, and it makes him feel… Wanted, that is the thing. It’s sort of a new feeling.

Maybe Kazunari’s been going about this all the wrong way. 

 

He caresses the skin on his cheek with his thumb before he places it on his parted lips, easily pulling along the lower lip. Sawakita holds still, looks at him with his pretty doe eyes full of brimming adoration before he pecks Kazunari’s thumb at first, and then wraps his lips around the thumb, looking at him the whole time.

 

He gasps. Jumps him the next second and presses him towards his body by the waist. And he can feel him smiling into his mouth. Kazunari just slips his tongue inside, but Sawakita moans as he parts his lips, he’s so sweet like this. So receptive.

They stumble clumsily towards the bedroom and there, Sawakita pins both of his hands up against the bed, so he can keep kissing Kazunari at his own tempo, a desperate mix of sighs and groans. Like he pushes and pulls at the same time. He grinds his hips against Kazunari’s and shuts his eyes.

“You look so cute like this.” Sawakita coos, his eyes half-lidded. “I love you too, I’ll always do” He pants. Kazunari nods quickly, then pulls his pants down to free his pulsing dick, and they cum like that a little later: Kazunari’s hands around both of their erections, their noses so close that they keep recycling the same air back and forth.

 

 

Lately he’s been going through his memories with Sawakita, turning the same instances over and over, hoping to catch something new in them. Something he might have missed in between those infinite nights after practice, the sky outside almost perpetually black. He has a sense he missed Sawakita’s right then, the catchlights shining on his eyes the only visible thing in the dark.

He seemed to shine the most then. Seen it reflected on the faces of his many admirers. The giggles he’d elicit from the girls and his sheepish face later. Flattered, and embarrassed in equal parts. Soaking up the attention like a sponge, much to Kawada’s annoyance.

 

Sometimes he wondered how that might have felt, being so firmly situated at the center of that blinding spotlight. It isn’t just his seemingly endless array of fangirls, or the pressure his father put him under, or the reputation to uphold as Japan’s Best, but none of that ever seemed to weigh him down. 

Kazunari found that an impressive feat of strength for a boy who always cried. 

He’s always visiting Kazunari these days. Comes over and convinces him to play in a nearby court. It’s less well kept than the one nearby Sawakita’s house, but they make do. And after they’re both sparkling in sweat Sawakita aims Kazunari’s way his puppy eyes until Kazunari fucks him into the mattress. His strong muscular legs wrapped around Kazunari, he’ll profess his love then in whispers, or cry nonsense about Kazunari’s dick like a whore. And he tastes the sweetest then. Thick and clogging on his mouth.

 

They seem to find their spots easily in each other's life again, like they never left at all. It could be okay just like this, but it isn’t. Not yet.

 

 

 

He finds Miyagi by the front line the next day, waving him over. He smiles when he sees Kazunari, and then a frown promptly replaces its place as if he suddenly remembers he’s supposed to be mad. “Hey,” Miyagi says. “You want something?”

 

Kazunari looks at the chalkboard menu above them and comes up empty.  “Not really, no” 

 

“Let me treat you. Payback for your time, I suppose.” Miyagi shrugs. “I know you didn’t wanna come”

 

It’s Kazunari’s turn to shrug.

 

His gaze jumps back to the menu again. Nothing particularly calls for him, but he feels inclined to ask simply because he’s not paying. “Hot chocolate.” He tells the cashier at last. “And fries.”

 

“You eat like a child,” Miyagi chides, raising a brow at him.

 

He walks away to find a table for both of them to sit. Takes a look at the time while he waits. 

 

Miyagi trudges his way back after a couple minutes, holding a plastic tray. He’s perfumed, Kazunari notes when he sits in front of him, his hair immaculately done and clothes crisp. But there’s something off today about him, something he seems unable to have primed back into place. He looks tired, eyes rimmed in red and worse for wear. And Kazunari aches to soothe him, but he’s been getting better at controlling these impulses lately.
He looks down at his plastic cup instead. Steam coming out in white clouds, and says “You wanted to talk, “I‘m listening.”

Miyagi hides his hands on the big pockets of his oversize brown hoodie and sighs, “Eiji broke up with me” 
“Again”  He adds conversitionally. Miyagi frowns.

“I figured you might have something to do with that. So I just had to ask” He crosses his arms, throws a judgmental look at Kazunari's way as he leans in closer. “Are you happy now?”
He blinks incredulously towards the man in front but he does not catch it. Doesn’t understand anything. Instead he starts stealing fries from Kazunari’s tray with propriety, and he does nothing to stop it.

 

“You got what you wanted, didn’t you?” Miyagi insists, egging and egging him on while he eats his food. 

Kazunari scoffs. “You think that’s what I wanted?” 

“No,” He looks at him, his brown eyes flash with warning signs, the way a snake would shake its tail before stinging venom, Kazunari feels like laughing. Miyagi leans back and takes his time cleaning the grease on his fingers with a napkin, like he’s gearing up. Finally, he drawls.
“Wanna know what I think?” Voice ready to sting. 

In the end, that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? He has no fucking idea what Miyagi even wants. He rubs his hands across his face and sighs, “Enlighten me”

There’s no way out other than through, and what Miyagi wants Miyagi gets, that much has been made clear: whether it’s to sting his heart or to trample it entirely, bringing other people into their mess and leading him on and then running back to his boyfriend without ever disclosing it. It's all the same.

 

“I think you’re a coward.” Miyagi spits. “You wanted me. But you’ll settle for ruining my relationship with Eiji so that I’m not happy either. Did I get that right?”

 

Kazunari looks at him. He takes it all in, it feels like he’s seeing something that’s always been there.

 

“Is it some kind of ‘If I can’t have him no one will’?” He ventures, pretty face stretched into an ugly sneer. “You think just because you got him to break up with me somehow, I will be all over you now, huh? You have to be shitting me”

 

The casual cruelty of this is not new to Kazunari, but it stirs something inside of him, something that bleeds to life. 

“I hope someone hurts you.” He blurts out.

 

That startles Miyagi into silence. He blinks, then slowly his face settles for a frown. Fuck this, this whole thing. Kazunari’s had enough.

 

“I hope someone pulls this same exact shit with you. I hope you pour your heart out for someone and they pay you shit for it. Maybe then you'll finally see how it feels.

Yes, I told him he’d better off breaking up with you. You’re a shitty boyfriend.. But I didn’t force him, I couldn’t. I’d probably have tried that earlier if I knew it’d work. But this is just him doing the math on his own. That’s all.” 

“Fuck you.” Miyagi drags the words through his clenched jaw and balled up fists. It doesn’t sound convincing, not with his crystalline eyes and his warbled voice, still, true to himself he injects as much venom on the syllables as he can manage. 
He rubs his forehead, shrinking away. “You don’t get it. He won’t even– Talk to me anymore. Won’t pick up my calls. I don’t know what to do, Fukatsu. I feel like I'm going crazy”

 

Kazunari sighs. He ignores Miyagi in favor of drinking his chocolate. It’s hot, almost a little too much but he ignores the burn on his tongue just like he ignores Miyagi in front of him. This seems to unsettle him further. He collapses his weight on the table, then runs his hands through his hair, messing it up a little.

“I don’t know what to do. I tried coming over, and his friends said not to come anymore because he he didn’t want to see me. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? I don’t even know where he is." Almost as if to prove a point, he laughs a little, seemingly at himself. Kazunari takes him in proper now: his crumpled up shape, the desperation on his voice. Compares the image against the picture Sawakita painted the other day.
He had thought it would give him some sort of pleasure to mess with Miyagi the way he did with him, he was aiming for messy, wanted to dig his fingers on the bleeding wound of Miyagi’s chest and prevent it from ever healing. 

But he doesn't look like a cartoon villain, in front of him there's just a sad and small man, scared to lose the man he loves, and on a deeper level Kazunari understands what he's going through. He was losing his mind too when all he did was live attuned to Miyagi's every move.
So he sighs. “I do,”

Miyagi looks at him like he holds all the answers in the universe, wet eyes sparkling. “You do?” His voice is quiet. “You’ll help me right?” He pins Kazunari in place with his red eyes, boring right into him and body tense, like it all depends on him. He nods and sees relief wash all over Miyagi’s face. 

“Thank you,” He whispers, voice shaking as he disappears behind his hands. Kazunari pretends not to hear his sniffles, quiet as they are, he’s doing some processing on his own. 

 

He leaves the fries for Miyagi and grabs his chocolate, he should go. 

 

Miyagi grabs him by the sleeves on his hoodie. “I really hurt you, didn’t I?” He muses out loud, Kazunari moves his arm away in response, but sits again. Then Miyagi looks up at Kazunari with this sad smile, it looks wrong on his face. “I’m sorry, Fukatsu. I really mean it this time. I shouldn’t have— I messed it all up” His voice sounds nervous, his face is a patchy sort of red. "I'm really sorry."

He looks him up and down, but ultimately gives up, not sure what it is he's looking for. “Yeah, you did."

"I’ve been a dick to you for a while" Miyagi looks around the cafeteria. Is almost empty somehow, so he sneaks his hand and finds Kazunari’s, caresses the top part on his fingers. “But if you let me, I could try again? We could go to that place you wanted to see," He offers softly. 

"I'd like that." He admits, and holds Miyagi's hand on his, his heat beating loud. Is all he ever wanted. But it isn’t right still, not just yet. "But I should be honest too. I'm seeing Sawakita."

"Oh" Miyagi frowns. He looks ready for a second round of arguments and name calling again for a moment, but he swallows it down, rubs his hands all over his face and ends up laughing instead. "Okay, I'm still jealous, but that makes sense, actually. He really likes you" 

"I know."

"And you said you loved me," Miyagi reminds him, voice coy.

"I still do."

He laughs, a beautiful breathy sound. "What are we really doing, Fukatsu?" He wonders out loud, but Kazunari doesn't know it either. Perhaps Miyagi is not the only one running backwards. There are no books to consult nor scholarly guides to help them navigate this sort of thing so no one gets hurt.

"Perhaps...Have you ever wondered– That you might be overthinking a good thing?" Miyagi looks at their hands, where Kazunari tangles their fingers together. "He loves you. And I love him, and you love me too."

"That's the gist of it, yes." He nods.

Miyagi laughs. "Then maybe that's not a problem at all."

Kazunari squeezes his fingers back. He takes advantage of the fact that they're mostly alone, and comes up to steal a quick peck from a red-face Miyagi.
He wants to believe it too.

Notes:

im sorry its kinda short
but we're in the final stretch guys, thank u for being patient w me if ur still here. sometimes i overthink whether im using their names too much omg

if ur friend of this fic, ao3 user meowmeow09, please do turn on the setting that allows me to list things as gifts cause like i tried but i couldnt ):

Notes:

sorry for the cliffhanger, i need a new job that pays better, hbu?

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of my love is an old mixtape