Work Text:
Nagano is beautiful in autumn, Gao thinks.
Leaves with warm, cascading palettes, with backdrops of snow-capped mountains rising up along hiking paths—all of it had become the norm for all of his days spent here, since his childhood. He’d thrashed and threw a tantrum then about moving here, so far, far away from the comforts of his hometown.
But now, this is home. He can’t do without familiar paths with slightly worn-down storefronts and rows of bicycles, and he cannot cope without the quiet chaos of the neighbourhood.
And he definitely cannot go without someone to share it all with, by his side.
Kourai is holding his hand. Rubbing his thumb over the bumps and ridges of his knuckles, soothing old calluses and new bruises, and even the cool air permeating his coat does little to ease the heat of his cheeks.
It’s 2024, and both of them are thirty years old. Paris hangs like a ghost over them, the tang of the silver medal dancing on their lips, and they have been sated by thunderous cheers from countrymen and sports enthusiasts alike. For now. For now, they trudge through streets with banners and flyers proclaiming their names, and Kourai splutters a laugh.
“Think I saw ten of my face on the same pole back there.”
“Ew. No one wants to see your mugshot,” Gao bites back, barely holding back laughter himself. He deftly dodges the punch Kourai sends his way, and continues walking with him.
“Says you. What’s with the goofy ass smile?”
“I’m just happy to be there. To kick their asses, of course.”
“Of course,” Kourai repeats. Then, “I got more points than you, by the way.”
Now it’s Gao’s turn to launch an attack on him. He’s got the height advantage, as it has been for thirteen years, and he presses a hand into Kourai’s scalp and ruffles hard. What was already a bird’s nest had now turned into a mess of cotton-like locks, sticking out every which way. Take that, Kourai—
“You know, if I show up looking like this again, Mom’s gonna think we made out or something.”
—Nevermind. A squeak catches in Gao’s throat, and he ruffles Kourai’s head back to its original state.
“...Shut up.”
How the hell did he still have the ability to fluster him after all this time? It’s unfair, Gao protests childishly in his own head, instead of out loud.
Wow, he sure grew mature over the span of a few years.
Kourai doesn’t answer him with juvenile taunts either. To be expected of their grand old age, he supposes, but the background rustling of trees and its accompanying birdsong overtakes the two of them for a moment. His partner and rival—in volleyball, boyish antics, and romance—pauses to look up at him, olive yellow gaze softening and beholding him.
“What is it? Got something on my face?”
Momentary silence. Then—
“Gao,” Kourai calls for him, like the wind lifting his wings and calling him to flight. “Marry me.”
Huh?
It was as if torrential currents of air had swept past them—his ears were ringing and his mouth had shrivelled up, but all of it was simply his reaction to those two words: as heavy as the weight of their country on their shoulders, as they stood on the lacquered courts of the national stage and left their tears and sweat behind. Symbols of remembrance, much like now.
Unfortunately, Gao can’t feel his heart anymore. Dropped to an impossible depth, unretrievable—no longer his, all Kourai’s.
Always has been, and always will be.
By the time he comes to his senses, the offending party is already down on one knee, an open velvet box in his palm and the most brilliant of nerves streaked across his face, smiling. Not smug, nor wry; he is incredibly hopeful, which seizes up Gao’s throat immediately.
Kourai would never kneel for anyone. But for him—
“...Oh,” He utters uselessly, hand flying up to grip the strap of his bag hard. “Kourai, you…”
A million questions to ask him fill his mind then, but Gao can’t verbalize any of them. Impossible. His face burns; he trembles like a leaf hanging on the edge of a branch, and he is but a speck in the grand scheme of things. A miniscule mass of atoms floating in the great beyond. Comprised of stardust and chemicals.
Kourai wants to marry him.
“I beat you to it,” He laughs, his sharp face softening at its edges. “I win this time.”
“You…” Gao chokes out, feeling tears well up. So reminiscent of when he had been standing on the edge of the court just a few days ago, and emotion which he is terrible at concealing bursts out of him loudly and violently. “...You know we’re in the middle of the street, right?”
“So? It felt right. Now let me put the ring on your finger already.”
“Wh—I haven’t even said yes! And where’s your big romantic speech?”
Kourai grins with the warmth of a supernova that he is. “Oh, so you do want to marry me?”
“I never—” He huffs, grabbing Kourai's wrists and putting a halt on his impulsivity. Really, without him around to rein him in, who knows what the conniving bastard would’ve gotten up to already?
(Maybe replacing all of his sleeveless shirts with regular shirts? He shudders at the thought.)
There’s not much to be said for comebacks on his part unfortunately. Gao’s tears flow freely, as they always do, and at the very least, Kourai has the capacity to give him a moment. What a strange pair they make—standing and kneeling together on the side of the road, an eccentric marriage proposal surrounded by countryside mountain peaks and low-rise buildings, on the way home like they used to walk back from school every single day.
Gao feels like his teenage self again, hopeless and floundering in his affections for the only worthy trailblazing star in his life.
His home.
“...I wanted to propose when we won gold.” Kourai stands up, squeezing their hands together and speaking only for them to hear. “But we didn’t, so I had to suck it up and try again later. And I know Paris is the city of love or whatever, but it didn’t feel right to do it there.”
Gao sniffs in amusement. “Too clichéd.”
“Yeah, you’d hate it.”
He beams at Gao helplessly, and the latter reciprocates, swiping at his eyes to get a better look at him past all the emotional fanfare.
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic. Making promises like that to yourself…”
Kourai shakes his head, interlacing their fingers together and bringing their foreheads as close as he can. “Look who’s talking. You’re still such a crybaby even after so long.”
He protests, choked. “Kourai.”
“It’s true.” Kourai’s hands shake, and he looks ready to jump out of his own skin. But he has never been one to back down from a challenge, especially not with Gao around—watching his every move with childlike wonder and challenge in his eyes, despite what he might say otherwise.
He had wanted to be a star for his own sake. Now, he won’t complain if there’s someone looking at him too.
“...You haven’t changed, even after all these years,” Kourai breathes, caressing Gao’s hands and bringing them to his lips. “Still stubborn. Still dense. Still insecure.”
Gao swallows hard, feeling all too seen. There was really nothing he could hide from Kourai, but really, what greater happiness could there be apart from being known so intimately?
(He stays silent, waiting.)
“You think you’re not worthy of me sometimes. You still think I deserve someone better.” Kourai’s lips are drawn in an indignant, taut line. “But no one else would stay with me for that long, or be with me from the beginning. Every day, I wonder what I did to deserve you.”
A sob nearly escapes Gao, but all efforts to console himself are futile; he sinks to his haunches.
“You did what you said you would. You didn’t give up volleyball, even when it got tough.”
Never in his wildest dreams. Kourai would defeat him otherwise.
“But you haven’t defeated me. Guess that means you still gotta stay until then, huh?” A hint of a crooked smile on Kourai’s face, and Gao finds it all too familiar: his own smile, shown to him tens upon thousands of times so much that now, a mirror was shining back at him instead.
As if imitating the rippling, leaf-punctured surfaces of their prefecture’s lakes and rivers in autumn, Kourai had leapt from safety and allowed himself to be mixed in with him. Gao was but a bird, free yet unable to reach the greater expanses of space, and so Kourai had come down to meet him willingly.
There could be no greater honour than this. To receive the fondness and admiration of a celestial body he’s chased after for so long; to be loved and understood as completely as this.
It makes every struggle worthwhile.
“...I won’t force you to stay. I just—” Such uncharacteristic nervousness from his star, and Gao cradles Kourai’s face in his hands in a hurry. “—You stayed with me, for so long. I just want to stay with you for the rest of our lives.”
He gasps. “But that’s not—”
“What’s not fair is how I should have done this ages ago.” Kourai gnashes his teeth together, not tearing his eyes away from Gao. “I’m useless at everything that isn’t volleyball. I know that much. All I can do is make you a promise that I’ll do my best to keep.”
Promises, huh? It made complete sense for Kourai to say so, considering the fact that it had all started with one of his own in the first place.
I promise I’ll defeat you one day.
Then—
I promise I’ll achieve my dream, and you will too.
I promise I’m only looking at you, and no one else.
I promise I’ll stay with you, until death do us part.
Kourai makes what is hopefully the last significant promise of their lives, and waits with anticipation under the grandeur of the slowly slumbering trees. The only spectators to all of this drama, and Gao cannot possibly ask for more.
“Do your best? Don’t be an idiot,” He huffs, grabbing his bag and unzipping it. He nearly spills all of its contents trying to dig around in it, his Vabo-chan keychain swaying frantically in the process, until he finally— finally, produces a single ringbox similar to Kourai’s. “I know you’d rather die than break your promises.”
“Gao…?”
“Yes, Kourai,” Gao exhales, perfectly content. “I’ll marry you. But you’ll have to marry me too.”
He lets his tears fall to the pavement below, the first sign of autumn rain—warm, boundless, and joyful, and it is all so sweet. The taste of roasted sweet potatoes, or even the richness of ripe apples dancing on his tongue; he is in want of nothing sweeter, and he can only immerse himself in it as Kourai gives a triumphant shout and lifts him from the ground, the happiest he’s seen him.
His strength astonishes Gao to this day, but he allows the insult to his pride anyway. After all, Kourai was kissing him deep, and what better way to appease him?
(All the passing of seasons, and yet time still stood still when his partner—fiancé —embraced him like this. Kourai would surely make fun of him for feeling that way, but he has a sneaking suspicion he feels the same way too.)
Gao doesn’t wrap his arms around his neck, being mindful of his height and weight. Instead, he matches Kourai for strength and takes in all of him, superficial irony forgotten. Their usual banter put far out of their minds, and in its wake: utter, consummating devotion.
Perhaps from another perspective, Kourai would be too much. Assertive and loud with his ambitions and desires, and unafraid to grow—terrifying to most. On the other hand, Gao wouldn’t be enough, constantly running uphill and chasing after fever dreams he’d concocted at seventeen.
But despite it all, Kourai was fitting a ring onto his finger, and so was he in return: a precarious and perfect balance.
Kourai cries. Gao pulls him into his orbit and they stand together, useless pieces of metal on their fingers and their entire world in their arms.
“...Hah, I feel honoured. You’re crying because of me.”
“Shut up,” Kourai mumbles, burying himself further into Gao’s arms. “We’ll see who cries the most at the wedding.”
“You’re on.”
✶✶✶
“Kourai….”
“Mmh,” Kourai mumbles, his lips leaving a line of fire in its wake. Tucked under the crook of Gao’s chin, his hair tickling his neck—he kisses deep into him, wet and inviting, and Gao can feel the thick, firm surface of the exercise mat under his palms all too strongly.
Maybe Kourai intends to leave a mark. Maybe he doesn’t. What he does know is that just a while ago, he had successfully blocked one of his ace’s signature spikes, and Kourai had looked at him like he wanted to swallow him whole.
They’re inside the storage room of the gym, and everything is hot, sweaty, and stale.
Gao is so overwhelmed, sensations prickling under his skin, but he lets Kourai slot a hand into his braids and tug anyway. He lets him kiss him like a man sorely deprived of sustenance, his tongue salty and aching to spill words all conveyed by body language. Kourai presses ever closer to him, perched upon his thighs and demanding all of his attention.
Block me again, I dare you.
Gao wouldn’t dare. His bravado can only get to a point with Kourai, because for all of his talk, he still bows in the face of the latter’s complete, sure confidence in what he does. Always discerning, always seeking.
To call himself glorious would be falsehood, and lying is a stubborn, heavy weight in his mouth.
That is why Gao is bewildered still—why come to him? Why seek him out when all he can offer Kourai is a half-baked version of the player he aspires to be?
Kourai must have noticed by now. He notices most things, after all.
“Why are you so quiet? You want me to stop?”
Like now.
“No,” Gao pipes up much too quickly, and he hates that he can hear the tremors in his voice. “Forget it. It’s stupid, don’t worry about it.”
Kourai fixes him with a look so disgusted and judgmental that it frankly intimidates him, and he answers the only way he knows how: by doubling down. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re the stupid one. Obviously there’s something bothering you, so spit it out already.”
“...You really have no tact,” Gao grumbles, chewing the inside of his cheek. “What if I don’t want to tell you?”
Kourai leaves him with one last chaste kiss, going to sit beside him on the stack of mats. “That’s not gonna happen.”
He snorts, but falls into introspective silence once again. He’s not being rushed to speak, Gao knows this, but sitting in the dark twiddling his thumbs is not a solution either. It will only bring him back to when he had no other option but to look up at Kourai’s soaring form, yearning for flight of his own.
He wants to fly too.
“...Why did you choose me in the first place?”
Kourai regards this question with nothing more than his usual wide-eyed scrutiny. “What, like choose you to be in first-string?”
“No, it’s—” Gao sighs. All that staring still didn’t help Kourai’s chronic dumbassery. “Not for the team. I mean—you know how many people look up to you or want to be with you. Most of them are good volleyball players too, and you’d most likely get the chance to work with them in the future. So…why me? I still have a long way to go.”
“Oh. You wanna know why I chose to be with you?” Kourai’s fingers brush against his own, and Gao tries not to lose his composure. Tries. He feels his cheeks flush anyway.
“...Yeah.”
“But I didn’t choose you,” He says without missing a beat, and Gao can hear him grinning to himself in the low light of the room. “Who in their right mind would choose a giant, clumsy crybaby?”
“Okay, wow, rude—”
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
Gao quietens down, returning Kourai’s constant thorough surveillance of him with the same intensity, stock still in his position even though he’d like nothing more than to run out of there into the inviting embrace of sun, wind, and fresh air.
Whatever Kourai has to say next leaves him on the brink of breathlessness, waiting.
“At first, I thought you were just some arrogant guy stuck in your own head. Like all the other guys I’ve beaten before, with too much confidence in their height. Who would expect you to admit to your mistakes so easily and work like hell to correct them?” Kourai heaves a laugh, nostalgia already seeping into his voice despite their youth. “You looked ready to collapse at the end of every practice in first year.”
“Well, I’m in the lead for wins right now, so it was worth it.”
“Sure you are. And you’re annoying and troublesome, and you make weird noises way too much.”
“Okay, now you’re just insulting me.”
“...But you’re always serious about what you want,” Kourai follows up quickly, looking apprehensive for once throughout their entire interaction. “Back in first year, or second year. You were good at playing the cello, but you gave that up because you wanted to play volleyball. And you didn’t care about what other people thought about you, no matter what you wore or what you did.”
Shifting closer to Gao, there sits Kourai so near—he’s sure he can hear his nervous breathing, feel his sweaty limbs—he doesn’t move away. He isn’t scared away by their differences, nor their identities, and sees him in all his entirety. It scares him: the sheer burden of his affection and adoration for Kourai, making a home for itself in the caverns of his heart and threatening to overflow.
“You didn’t give me a choice,” Kourai emphasizes, exhaling hard. “Your stupid determination, your stupid hair—stupid pretty eyes and face—I didn’t get to choose. You went ahead with whatever you wanted, and somehow, that made me want you too.”
He clambers on top of Gao again, paying his scandalized squawking no mind and instead going to grab his face by both cheeks and forcing him to share eye contact with him.
“And now, you have to take responsibility.”
Take responsibility? Huh, alright. Right after he stops being a puddle on the floor, that is. A puddle that has lost all conceivable human language, reduced to nonsensical babbling and bright crimson colours, lost to the world.
How suave of him. He thought he was the one chasing after Kourai, but he’d stopped along the way and made sure to watch Gao too.
Gao could explode from happiness at this moment.
He smiles so big, stretched as far as it can go, and blushes deep. He holds onto the edge of Kourai’s hands gently—loving, scathing remarks reserved for him at the forefront of his mind.
For no one else.
“Alright. But you have to take responsibility for me too.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I like you so much, idiot. You better marry me by the time we’re on the national team or I’m leaving.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wanna bet?”
✶✶✶
“You’re late,” Gao whispers, weary but content.
He’s sure he looks as if a bird of prey had just mauled him. Or rather, Kourai—going to town on him as soon as their wedding ceremony had concluded and everyone had finally retired for the night. Barely a word had passed between them when Kourai had slammed him against the wall and ‘taken what was rightfully his’, but not without some struggle.
At the very least, the planes of Kourai’s skin have been kissed thoroughly: a series of dark shades trailing down his neck and chest.
Way to mark the joyous occasion.
“But you didn’t leave.”
“That’s besides the point.” Gao curls further into the bed, groaning. “Who knows how many sponsorship deals we could’ve gotten as husbands?”
A snort. “As if anyone’d want to sponsor your ass.”
“You definitely did. I’m sore all over. I’m not young anymore, you know.”
Kourai extends a leg to kick him in the rear, and he yelps in pain. Fuming, he leaps up from his sprawled out spot and jumps on him, wrestling him for what felt like the tenth time that day, fighting for victory with gnashed teeth and glowing complexions. Beyond blissful—Gao laughs as he smushes a pillow into Kourai’s face, and the latter flips him onto his back again, already panting from overexertion. He had an absolute stamina monster to thank for that, beaming at him with his perfect teeth and snow-white hair, nary a care in the world.
For now, he is the same.
(Kourai shelves his doubts away, kept safely for unpacking later.)
“Fuck—Give! I give!” Gao raises both arms in defeat, and Kourai bares him a toothy sneer.
“That’s my third win for today.”
“Third win where? Pretty sure eating more cake than me doesn’t count.”
“I was talking about getting married to you, dumbass.” Kourai looks straight ahead at the television mounted on the wall, his ears tinted red. “Who asked you to wear such a—ugh…”
He buries his face in his hands, but all Gao can focus on is the gold band on his finger, illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the window. He’s talking about Gao’s clothes—all white, save for a splash of blue in its floral finishings. A suit with a dress train, adorned with lace and flowers, and it chokes him up seeing it draped delicately over the back of a tall chair.
Such attentive care. Kourai wasted absolutely no time taking it off him.
“Were you seriously thinking about that all night?”
“What do you think?” Kourai complains petulantly. “...You damn tease.”
Gao wrinkles up his nose in mock disapproval, throwing himself back against the bed. God, he was exhausted—from morning to night, spent in the company of other people, entertaining stuffy traditions, when all he wanted to do was hurry the hell up and call Kourai his husband already.
Such a realization doesn’t fluster him as much as it used to. Rather, it feels like something meant to be, something worth waiting for. Finally. Reciting romantic soliloquies had its fair share of tears on his part, but really, they were always inevitable with Kourai.
His heart feels whole. He doesn’t care for the specifics now; he tugs Kourai towards him, unable to stop himself from giving into the boundless joy he feels again. Their noses rub together, and he can hardly resist stealing another kiss.
“You’re more needy today.”
“Have you considered the fact that it’s our wedding night? Pretty important detail, if you ask me.”
“Smartass,” Kourai scoffs, his accusation an insult in normal circumstances and downright romantic to them only. His husband has long learned not to take offence at baseless taunts, perhaps a side effect of being around him for so long, or even something the heavens saw fit to imbue him with in preparation for Gao’s arrival in his life.
Whatever. Destined or not, Kourai wants him, and he is determined to make the most of it as much as he can.
“...I love you, Kourai,” Gao admits, a rare admission of vulnerable honesty. Best brought out by the man himself, until Gao could only find himself getting dragged along with his rhythm. “I’m happy. That you want me, that is.”
Kourai snickers. “At least you’re taking responsibility. I love you too.”
He doesn’t dignify that with a response right away, and settles for looking at the one person privy to all of his deepest, darkest fears. Expectant, soft with him despite his words—Kourai rises above him in his periphery, his scruff of hair rough-looking yet smooth to the touch, ethereal against the backdrop of the shadows shifting in their room. A body, having been touched and loved, melts under the same hands, sinking into the centre of his palms. Kourai can’t help himself. His lips and eyes linger on Gao’s ring, and he allows him to look for as long as he wants.
Kourai had been the one to put it on for him. He deserves everything, and more.
Gao feels incredibly lucky to be the one sharing such greatness, witnessing all of his trials and tribulations. Hopefully, Kourai would allow him to do so for a lifetime.
He can’t be any more happier than he is, being by his side.
“...Kourai.”
“Hm?”
“If you did have a choice…” Gao wonders, sentimentality seeping into his every word. “Would you have chosen me?”
It isn’t a question to be answered easily, he knows this. That’s why it’s forgivable when Kourai takes more than a second to respond, countless possibilities and choices along the way that have shaped his husband into the person he is now. Yet, curiosity piques him; to be one of those choices is a feeling he has yet to experience, even in the throes of their budding marriage. For long has he thought of him as ethereal, far out in the greater universe, and it persists, even now.
Gao has always thought of himself as a second choice. Towering above everyone else was merely a physicality, hardly compensating for anything. In the same breath, Kourai is the only one who could care less about all of that, only taking it as a part of him and making light of it all at his own behest.
The only real true giant in his life.
Now, it’s Kourai’s turn to admire every part of him. Fingers carving through his styled hair, committing his features to memory not for the last time but for current times’ sake. He takes all of it in with parted lips, worshipping his bright eyes and skin and insolent mouth—a heart vulnerable beyond comparison.
“I lied,” Kourai admits, having the dignity to look guilty. “I already chose you from the start. I could’ve run away, back in second year. But I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“How can I—possibly run away from you?” Indignance rises out of every single part of his being, holding Gao’s face in both hands and almost looking ready to weep once again. Reminiscent of the altar, back under the arch. “I would be beyond stupid to give you up. Fuck, do you know how much you mean to me?”
“...Oh.”
Kourai’s crying. Is he too?
“I have never met—anyone as stubborn as you. Anyone as ridiculous as you. Who in their right mind would become an Olympian athlete just because they got inspired by some arrogant kid in high school?” He chokes out a laugh. “Who would follow that kid for so long without any complaints?”
“You’re not a kid anymore.”
“Of course not. But you’re still here. And news flash, asshole, that means I get to follow you too.”
He can hardly stop the force of nature that comes barreling his way. Kourai, kissing him deep and light, all over his face and jaw, a silent admittance of gratitude and praise that envelops them both in their own private warmth, and sets a truth in stone that Gao really should have realized ages ago.
The two of them are but planetary bodies encircling each other, never to pull apart, never to falter.
“You’re not going anywhere, got it?”
Kourai swipes at his face dismissively, but Gao begs to differ. His tears are something so unbelievably precious to Gao.
“I wouldn’t dare.”
And Kourai smiles, laughs, against Gao’s lips, his relief and genuine happiness thoroughly infectious and permeating every single smile, tear, and scream they’ve shared over the span of their lives so far. He rejoices—Kourai chose him, right from the start, even with his loudmouth and clumsiness and love disguised as bluster.
He loves all of it. He loves all of him.
They will always be each other’s first choices.
“You better follow me to the grave or I’m kicking your ass.”
“As if you could. Your long limbs would get in the way.”
“We’ll see about that.”