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Takao cries harder than all of them.
Shintarou doesn’t blame him, can’t blame him, because for all that Akashi runs deep in Shintarou’s veins, for all he’d been the one the Emperor had fixed His gaze upon, forced into subjugation, Takao wears so much of himself pinned to his sleeve.
Takao keeps walking when they hit the locker room. Shintarou almost calls after him, but the sharp edges of Takao’s name ends up lodged in his throat, and he almost chokes. He feels helpless, watching Takao leave the rest of them behind, fingers scratching against his palms.
“You’re excused,” Ootsubo tells him, clapping a hand that manages to be soft on Shintarou’s shoulder. Shintarou just barely manages to keep himself from showing on his face, from leaping out of his own skin.
It’s phrased like a favour - Shintarou doesn’t know if it is. Tears still trickle from the corners of his eyes, and he can still feel the burn of Akashi’s mismatched supernova gaze on him, scorching his skin. More than that, though, Shintarou knows he has no words for Takao - no words for any of them.
Still, he nods, blinking fresh tears from his eyes, because this is a duty he’s been given, because it’s Takao, and he follows, stiff, like he’s being pulled by his shirt by some unseen hand.
Shintarou is not a kind person. His hands are strong and clever and naked, clenched at his sides, and when he finds Takao in the bathroom, for the first time in his life, all Shintarou can think is how useless they are. He stands in the doorway for a moment, watching Takao cry, though part of him, all of him, really, can’t bear it. The fluorescent lights beam off the tiles, and Shintarou tells himself the burn in his eyes is just the glare glancing off porcelain.
“Takao.”
Takao doesn’t look at him - won’t look at him. Shintarou supposes there isn’t much difference, when all is said and done.
He wets his lips, as though his face weren’t already wet enough, and tries again.
“Takao.”
“I’m okay.” Shintarou can tell it takes him a long moment to dredge that lie from the tear-thickened well of his throat. “I’m okay.”
He glances up, then, as if to prove it – as if revealing his grief-wracked, flushed face hadn’t already made a liar of him. He looks at Shintarou for a long moment.
“…You’re crying,” he finally rasps out, and it sounds like it pains him to speak.
Shintarou could laugh. It’s a facile observation, one that feels spectacularly redundant in face of the flushed sobbing mess of a human being before him.
“As are you,” is all he can find to say.
Seconds pass, and it feels like they bleed out into overcast hours, like the fluorescent lights of the bathroom almost dim. They don’t, though – Shintarou is taken aback at how scorching everything feels beneath them, how Takao’s teartracks glisten in two mirror streaks on his face, how red and swollen his eyes are. Shintarou wonders what Takao sees when he looks at him with his steel-sharp eyes, what tears might do to his abilities, if everything is blurred and smeared in wretchedness for Takao, too.
Shintarou is not a kind person – not to himself, not to anyone. He thinks that if he were, if he knew the maps of compassion and comfort as he does esoteric star charts, he might know what to say. Instead all he knows is a tight jaw and a tongue that feels too heavy for his mouth, lungs aching around smothered sobs and useless hands twitching at his sides.
He thinks of the things he could say, and every thought is answered in a feedback loop of defeat. He could tell him they tried their best (they tried in vain). He could tell him none of it matters because they worked together (he could tell a lie). He could speak of neon gods, of promises, hymns of victory and the hymns of war that came after (but savaged, torn to pieces as he is, he knows that the names of gods don’t belong in a failure’s mouth).
Anxiety swells in his chest, so razor-edged it almost cuts through the grief.
Shintarou is not a kind person, but in this moment, he wishes he were.
In the end, he squanders so much time in his head that Takao is the first to speak.
“I already told you,” he says, sobs, more like, “I can’t-”
In the end, it’s the suffocating feeling of uselessness that does Shintarou in – or at least, this is what he’ll tell himself. If the reality is that he can’t bear the weight of silversun eyes and their tears, well, Shintarou doesn’t dwell on it, because to dwell would leave him stranded in the doorway, and he thinks they might be trapped here forever, then.
Shintarou is not a kind person. Embracing another human being is not something that is first nature to him – it is not even second nature, third, fourth. When he crosses the room and takes Takao into stiff, hesitant arms, and he feels Takao stop breathing, he frets that he’s done something wrong.
Frightened, now, cursing himself in his muddled head, he tries to pull away, and is greeted with tense hands, sharp nails, almost clawing through the back of his jersey, like it terrifies Takao to think of letting Shintarou go.
“Don’t,” he sobs, burying his face against Shintarou’s sternum, “don’t,” so Shintarou doesn’t. He stays, heart thrumming in his chest, and he at once marvels at and dreads the feeling of Takao’s tears slipping down his collarbone, staining his jersey, like Takao is bleeding into him. Tears stream down Shintarou’s face, too, scattering in the darkness of Takao’s hair, and Shintarou thinks, shaky, distant, that it’s like they’re bleeding into each other.
Takao warm in his arms, Shintarou closes his eyes, seeking respite, and gets only etchings of five neon gods, scored into the backs of his eyelids.
He shivers, and doesn’t even realise he’s holding Takao tighter, until the arms around him tighten, too.
“God,” Takao says, a million years later, voice shredded in a thousand places, a hand skimming the tight vice of Shintarou’s jawbone, “Look at you.” It isn’t pity, Shintarou thinks – he isn’t sure what he’s hearing in Takao’s voice, but it isn’t pity.
Shintarou opens his eyes and smiles, thin and wan and brittle. Dishonest. Takao stares up at him with swollen, weary eyes and a serious expression that doesn’t belong anywhere near his face. Am I resplendent in defeat?, he wants to ask. What would the Takao of a year ago say to look at me now?
He knows it’s the bitter part of himself, the petulant child, that wants to spit spite like it’s acid bile, and so he swallows it down instead, keeps it trapped within himself, because that part isn’t Takao’s pain to bear. He’d never been bitter until Teikou – until the world had collapsed under the weight of five neon gods, kicking up enough dust to obscure the sun, bleaching coloured lights away into indistinct nothingness.
“Look at us.” He says it without thinking, and wonders if it’s a good thing.
Takao’s eyes widen, wet and bloodshot – Shintarou feels naked and exposed beneath them, and can’t find it in himself to care.
When Takao leads Shintarou down with soft hands on his jaw, Shintarou lets him, and when he moves in to press their lips together, Shintarou lets him, and only then does a sob tears itself free from Shintarou’s throat, and he lets himself be dragged to the cold tiled floor, lets Takao crawl into his lap without breaking the seal of their lips. He thinks, dizzy, that perhaps it was because Takao was no longer capable of standing, and then he thinks nothing at all, mind snapping and sparking like a blown power socket when Takao opens his mouth, breathes him in, lets his tongue skim his lips.
Shintarou lets himself be pulled open, lets Takao in, lets Takao reach inside him with work-rough hands and snap every one of his wire-thick strings. Takao clutches at him, nails raking sharp against the skin of his shoulders, sliding down to scrabble and white-knuckle his jersey. Shintarou finds himself grabbing back at him, glasses coming askew as Takao surges forward, the press of their mouths turning so deep that Shintarou thinks he might just suffocate. Shintarou is inelegant and halting, a shuddering mess as he sobs into Takao, clinging. The glare of neon washes away in the dark, warm place that is Shintarou’s mind, where only three things are real to him: the tremor of his heartbeat, the taste of salt, and-
Takao ekes out a shivering gasp, and then there are hands on Shintarou’s back, creeping up the underside of his jersey, clawing against his spine. Shintarou shudders and edges forward, mindless, slick between tears and saliva, needing. He clutches Takao tighter to him, and his fingers aren’t clever now – desperate and scrabbling, one hand skims through Takao’s hair while the other bites into his waist, and still Takao pushes, as though Shintarou has anywhere left for him to sink bone-deep into. Shintarou tastes salt scales when he licks at Takao, too dizzied and high to care that he’s clumsy, and Takao’s whimpering, then, drawing a hiss from Shintarou as he claws frantic fingers into his back.
And then it stops, and Shintarou’s gut lurches like he’s in free-fall. Takao rests his damp bangs against Shintarou’s forehead, and Shintarou can feel all of him – the quake of his shoulders, hiccupping shivering breaths, the salt stains of grief and something else, something brighter that he doesn’t have a name for.
He is mute, when Takao pulls away – he cannot speak for the rush of air in his lungs. They pant, together, Takao’s sickle-sharp eyes bright on him, washing away the colours of the world.
Takao hangs his head, but even still, Shintarou can see how flushed he is.
“…Sorry.” It bubbles up with a flat, empty laugh.
Shintarou is not a kind person. If he were, he might have more to say to Takao.
Instead he just nods.
Shintarou is glad for the night off. He has designs on sleeping, on turning his phone to silent, shutting his bedroom door and going to a dark, restorative place where he is permitted to think of nothing.
Takao had said nothing to him, on the way back to the locker room. They’d all parted ways in the end, a gruff see you all at the third place match from Ootsubo bidding a noncommittal goodbye to the evening. Normal – except Shintarou truly can’t recall the last time he and Takao had gone home separately, the rickshaw left to stand alone in the school yard.
Shintarou tells himself he isn’t bothered – that he needs a quiet place, now, and Takao doesn’t belong there.
It takes him a very long time to fall asleep. Shintarou is not one to toss and turn, but that’s what he finds himself doing, limbs tangling in the blankets as the slow drift is even slower to overcome him, eyes finally slipping shut.
When Shintarou opens his eyes again he is slick with sweat, blood roaring in his ears as his shoes squeak against polished wood. He skids to a halt mid-run, heart pounding in his chest so hard it almost pains him, eyes scanning the stadium. He knows this time, this place, but it wasn’t like this, with its faceless crowd and harsh red lights, the roaring slurry of a million voices swirling together. Try as he might, Shintarou can’t hope to understand them.
The red god is small as it has always been and always will be, and still Shintarou freezes just to lay eyes upon it. Then it turns to stare at him, its gaze half what Shintarou’s always known and half something golden and awful that never belonged in his head, and Shintarou is on his hands and knees before he knows what’s happened.
The voices drop to a whisper as the red god begins its approach, and Shintarou doesn’t even bother – he knows movement is a freedom that has been taken from him. The red god affords him one single concession – the privilege of looking at its wicked, angular face. Shintarou knows that if he could look at anything else, anyone else, he’d find them all on hands and knees with their heads bowed.
It is intended as a gift, Shintarou realises, to lay eyes upon the red god’s might.
When it draws close, the air feels thick and heavy, almost viscous in Shintarou’s lungs as he breathes it in.
Didn’t you used to be someone? the red god asks, voice soft in Shintarou’s ears.
Shintarou opens his mouth to speak.
The lights crack and fizzle as they blink out, one by one. The voices dull, and then flicker out, and then there’s nobody there but them.
Didn’t you used to be someone who meant something?
Gold drains away, and two burning pinpricks of red stare at him through the darkness. Only then can Shintarou move, reaching through the dark for something unseen, his right hand, because he doesn’t know what he might find. A hand grips his, frigid and hard, almost, in Shintarou’s grasp, and still Shintarou squeezes, clutching with everything he has. He can feel the thing’s pulse, feel its fear, feel its pain, and Shintarou knows it is no longer the red god before him.
Fingers, in his hair, pushing it back from his face, and-
Shintarou blinks, and then they’re back on the court, lights blinding. He can hear the crowd murmuring again.
The red god clutches his hand with bruising fingers.
Didn’t you used to be someone who meant something to me? Shintarou whispers, barely audible over the incoherent buzz of the crowd, feeble under mismatched red and gold.
The red god smiles.
Then it stomps on Shintarou’s left hand, breaking straight through glossy wood in a mess of cracks and splinters, and a scream rips clean through his throat as he feels every bone shatter under it. When he looks down, chest heaving and eyes blurred with tears, he sees jagged shards of fractured bone stabbing through the skin. He clutches the mangled thing to his chest, blood seeping into his jersey, but the red god pays his agony no regard, hauling Shintarou up on his knees so that they are almost eye to mismatched eye.
Sleep, veteran king, says the red god, and Shintarou trembles.
When it presses its cold lips to his forehead, Shintarou reaches out with soft, mangled fingers, and closes them about its throat.
Shintarou wakes with a pounding heart and tangled sheets, and the convenience of the ambiguity of tears and sweat.
He doesn’t drag himself out of bed until Takao comes for him the next afternoon, ahead of the third place match. He’s collected the rickshaw at some point, sitting astride his bicycle when Shintarou emerges from his front door into the brisk winter afternoon. Takao glances up, and Shintarou’s breath stops dead for a moment, uncertainty heavy in the pit of his stomach. He hopes Takao makes the first play – he needs Takao to make the first play, because this situation is akin to drowning at sea, for him.
When Takao does make the first move, Shintarou almost wishes he hadn’t.
“Hey, Shin-chan!”
Shintarou can hear the cracks in his voice, the way it’s almost like gauche, bright and thick, has been smeared over them – the way Takao’s voice rings so false it may as well be someone else’s. He doesn’t like that voice, the high hollowness of it, the way it makes his name sound awful and sickening. He catches himself, then, because when had this started to creep up on him – this part of him that doesn’t think of himself as Shintarou, but Shin-chan, like he’s someone who’s worth that kind of affection. When had he gotten used to that nickname, enough to miss the way Takao says it?
“Takao,” is the only concession he makes, before he climbs into the cart, lucky item (a mint plushie alpaca backpack – Oha Asa had apparently spared none of its whims for attractive colour coordination today) set down neatly beside his bag.
“Ready for the match today?” His voice is still peculiar – high in places it doesn’t need to be, words coming rapid and almost panicked. It’s subtle, Shintarou thinks – if Takao didn’t make a habit of talking at him all day every day, he might not have even realised anything was amiss. “Super exciting, right? We’ve never played Kaijou before so it’ll be really good to get a feel for them, even if Kise is out, and…”
Shintarou blinks as Takao really gets going, and it’s almost like he’s talking just to chase away the silence, like he can’t even spare a breath for Shintarou to get in a full sentence. Shintarou can’t tell if Takao has always said so little even as he says so much, but he doesn’t think so. Takao always talks, incessantly, but not like this. Shintarou is wound tight by the rapidfire pace of his words by the time they get to the venue – when Kimura asks him about it, he just blames it on pre-match nerves.
Kaijou, of course, don’t stand a chance – not with Kise sitting out. It’s hard to feel triumphant at the prospect– Kaijou look proud when they line up, but Shintarou knows what they all know, that calling this match a formality is too kind, and that it’s more akin to a hawk swooping in on a newborn rabbit.
Shuutoku races to a fifteen point lead early, but it’s misleading – Shintarou can tell that something is wrong the minute the match starts. The rhythm is off between all of them – Shintarou is used to the certainty of his team, used to being able to feel them out on some subconscious level he can’t quite explain, and he’s off-balance without it.
Shintarou doesn’t pin it down until the end of second quarter, when he jumps to enter the stance for his and Takao’s co-op shot while Kasamatsu is marking him, and Takao is a fraction of a second late. It’s enough – it means the ball is a fraction too slow slipping into Shintarou’s fingers, that his three-pointer is just a fraction off balance, and that, without any interference, the ball fumbles as it hits the hoop, rolls around the lip once, and misses.
For a moment, Shintarou can’t even bring himself to believe it.
“What was that?” Miyaji’s yelling at Shintarou, as he keeps staring at the hoop, “He didn’t even touch it!”
Shintarou, mute with shock, catches Takao’s gaze – wide, shocked. Horrified, perhaps.
It all crystallises. Shintarou knows what he needs to do. He stops passing, levelling the team’s burden onto his own shoulders – he is prepared for this, as he always is, had more than enough practice with it back at Teikou. He lands three after three, settling into the old rhythm, finding comfort in his own clarity, his own certainty – Shintarou is more than capable of executing it on his own.
He and Takao do not play their shot again. They don’t need to - it comes down to 96-54 in the end. They win, just as Shintarou knew they would. It’s hard to feel triumph when Takao won’t look at him, when Kimura actually asks him if he’s alright, when Miyaji demands to know what the fuck that was all about.
“So,” Ootsubo says, later in the locker room, and Shintarou feels strangely like he’s being stared down by his father, “Anything anyone needs to say?”
Silence. Shintarou gets the not entirely unexpected sense that Ootsubo is addressing two of them specifically. Takao just continues getting changed beside him, tearing his jersey off over his head.
Ootsubo sighs. “So that could’ve gone better,” he says, and Shintarou could wince. Ootsubo turns his gaze to him, eyes intense enough that Shintarou wants to look away. “You don’t fumble.”
“No one is more perturbed than me, Captain,” Shintarou tells him. Or sickened, he thinks, but he doubts that his captain has any interest in hearing Shintarou pity himself.
“No offense, Captain,” Takao speaks up, “But does it really matter?”
There’s a beat of silence.
“Your passes were off, too,” Ootsubo says, giving Takao a long look, “The whole match. Which means everyone else was off. Does it matter that one of the backbones of our team spent the entire match being off?” He arches an eyebrow. “You tell me, Takao.”
Takao shrugs. “We crushed them,” he says, “What’s the big deal?”
“The team dynamic, for one,” Ootsubo says. His tone us terse, unamused, but Takao doesn’t seem deterred by it.
“Well,” Takao says, the smile scrawled over his face just a touch too manic, “Good thing we don’t have to worry about that when Shin-chan can just make all his three-pointers by himself anyway.”
Shintarou flinches, heat rushing into his face.
“Get,” Ootsubo says, his tone turning stern and iron, “Your head out of your ass, Takao.”
“Nah, fuck this,” Takao says, his voice almost bright, that manic smile deepening, “I’m done with this conversation. Good game.”
Shintarou isn’t actually expecting him to turn and storm out, but that’s exactly what Takao does, snatching his bag up and stalking from the room. The stunned silence that remains in his wake indicates that everyone else is just as taken aback as he is.
Ootsubo turns to him, eyebrows drawn together. “What’s going on with him?” he asks, “With both of you? You were both all over the place today. I’ve never seen you like that.”
Shintarou thinks of Takao’s hands on him. Thinks of the taste of salt.
“I don’t know,” he says.
There’s something strange in Ootsubo’s eyes. “Really,” he says, slowly, “You don’t know why Takao’s acting like a little shit all of a sudden?”
“Takao is not my responsibility,” are the words that spring to Shintarou’s lips, defensive and rapid.
Ootsubo looks at him for a long moment.
“Yeah,” he says, looking thoughtful, “Right.”
“Am I free to shower, Captain?” Shintarou asks, pointed, eager to put this conversation to bed and have an excuse to be alone for a few moments. Maybe if he has the heat up high enough the burn will distract him from the churning in his gut.
“Go ahead,” Ootsubo says, eyes still distracted.
As Shintarou’s turning to his bag, Ootsubo says, “Good work today,” and Shintarou pauses, glances up.
“Thank you,” he says, even if he knows his captain is just being kind.
“Tell Takao the same if you see him,” Ootsubo says.
Shintarou blinks, a touch startled. “…Of course.”
He’s calmed a little by the time Takao returns, sinking into the seat beside him before the final match gets underway, bottle of water in hand.
“Hey,” he says, nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just said what he’d said about Shintarou, snapped at their captain and stormed off. Like nothing’s wrong.
“Where have you been?” Shintarou asks him.
Takao shrugs. “Letting off steam,” he says.
“Ah,” Shintarou says.
Takao sips his water. “Captain pissed at me?” he asks.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Shintarou replies.
“Heh,” is all Takao has to say to that.
The unfamiliar silence blankets them again.
“So,” Takao says, after a long moment, “You ready for this?”
Shintarou scoffs. “Of course.”
Akashi loses.
It turns out that perhaps Shintarou wasn’t ready for that.
Not that he hadn’t wanted it, of course – not that he hadn’t devoted hours out of the last few days praying for it. There had just been a part of him, somewhere, that scoffed at the idea that it would ever happen. The shadow breaks him down, though, like it had broken all of them down, and at the end of it all, Shintarou finds himself sitting in the stands, watching a shadow clasp hands with a god, watching the god smile all the way up to his red eyes, resplendent in defeat.
It takes Shintarou a moment to realise why he can’t place what he’s feeling, to realise that’s emptiness, sinking low in the pit of his stomach.
“Let’s go,” he says, his voice quiet.
Takao hears him anyway. “Yeah,” he says, “Let’s.”
The first fifteen minutes of the ride home passes in tense silence, the polar opposite of the ride there. Shintarou can tell Takao is pushing himself – the cart is moving quicker than he remembers it ever being, and harsh panting cuts through the air.
He peppers the fur of his alpaca backpack with idle strokes, and tries not to think of Akashi and Kuroko clasping hands.
“You shouldn’t have snapped at Captain,” he eventually manages, cutting through the silence.
“Then maybe he shouldn’t have been an ass,” is Takao’s instant response, like he’d been waiting for Shintarou to bring it up.
“He was concerned-”
“Concerned?” Takao almost snaps, “About what? We fucking won. Don’t tell me you’re on this bullshit too?”
“Perhaps his concerns were not entirely unfounded,” Shintarou says, and then, “He told me to tell you good work today, incidentally.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Takao says, voice tight and angry, “Be really good if you’d just drop it, yeah?”
So Shintarou does. He sits in silence, fingers clutching rhythmically at the fur of his alpaca hard enough to leave indents, all the way home. Takao does not speak again, and neither does Shintarou, and Shintarou doesn’t understand why his mouth feels so dry, why there’s a persistent urge to swallow and wet his lips there.
Takao pulls up in front of Shintarou’s house. There is not enough light from the single porch lamp to illuminate his expression. Shintarou feels a faint sense of relief.
This would usually be the point where Takao would smirk and wheedle his way into coming inside for a cold drink (‘chauffeuring you around like that is thirsty work, Shin-chan!’), and Shintarou would sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose and let him, because his mother thinks Takao is ‘charming’ and his sister laughs at his admittedly often age-appropriate sense of humour, and Takao would complain if Shintarou refused him.
“See you tomorrow,” is all Takao gives him.
“Yes,” Shintarou says.
There’s a flicker of hesitation from Takao, like he’s waiting for Shintarou to protest. Then he pedals off without another word, and Shintarou wonders if he’d just imagined it.
He doesn’t dream this time, but his sleep manages to be more fitful, eyes cracking open time and time again only to find that the glowing blue numbers of his digital clock have only moved forward another twenty minutes. The sleep his alarm rouses him from at six-thirty is paper thin, and his eyes are weary the moment he opens them, mind suspended in a thick fog.
The green notification light on his phone pulses in the near darkness. Shintarou reaches for it.
KAZU⭐
think i’m coming down with something – not really up to cycling today. sorry. see you in class.
5:52am
There is a lot Shintarou could say to that.
Midorima Shintarou
Of course.
6:32am
Shintarou isn’t bothered – he is perfectly capable of getting himself to school, after all.
For the first time in Shintarou cannot even recall how long, he isn’t forced to suffer Takao’s incessant note-passing during class, and the inevitable fall-out that occurs when their teachers notice and assume he is a willing party to this nonsense rather than an innocent victim of Takao’s chronic inability to shut up for even five minutes at a time. He tells himself he is grateful for the lack of distraction.
Lunch time rolls around, and Takao jumps up. “Forgot lunch today,” he says, and Shintarou notices that his voice is bright in that false-toned way again, “Gonna go buy some bread.”
“Ah,” Shintarou says, as Takao scarpers off.
It has been a while since he’s gotten a chance to eat lunch alone. He even gets some reading in, which is a novelty. It is fortunate, too, because Takao makes it back five minutes before the end of lunch period, and spends those five minutes cramming his yaki soba bread down his throat, and so Shintarou gets to spend those last few moments with his book.
Takao seems as uninterested in note-passing for the latter half of the day as he was the first. Shintarou is thankful for the chance to actually spend an entire school day taking coherent notes for once. He just doesn’t understand how he can possibly feel so unfocused after it all.
Takao is on his feet again once the final bell chimes, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
“Where are you going?” Shintarou asks, before he can stop himself.
Takao pauses with a blink. “Oh,” he says, looking self-conscious, “Forgot something in the rickshaw, haha. Just gonna go grab it.”
It occurs to Shintarou that Takao is lying to him.
“Ah,” Shintarou says, “See you at practice, then.”
“Yep!” Takao chirps, and then he’s gone.
The image of Shintarou entering the gym alone is apparently quite a spectacle, judging from the long line of stares and double-takes he gets when he enters the room. He ignores them all, trudging off to the locker room to change into his practice clothes.
“Where’s Takao?” is the immediate question Miyaji fires at him when he returns.
“I don’t know,” Shintarou tells him.
“Bullshit,” Miyaji says.
“Takao is not my responsibility,” Shintarou retorts.
Miyaji smiles and it is every bit as terrifying as usual. “Are you,” he says, “Fucking joking?
“Miyaji,” Ootsubo cuts in, “Enough. Go practice lay-ups with Kimura.”
Miyaji looks incredibly displeased by the order as he stalks off, shooting Shintarou a suspicious look over his shoulder.
“Captain?” Shintarou says, readying himself for another round of questions about Takao’s state of mind, as if that’s really his business or responsibility.
Ootsubo sighs. He looks harried. “Is there-” He raises his eyebrows when his pocket begins to emit the loud, exuberant (and obnoxious, Shintarou personally thinks) tones of a song that Shintarou (unfortunately) knows Mamirin sings lead on, thanks to Ootsubo’s occasional moments of waxing lyrical about his favourite idol. “Sorry, one second-”
“Of course,” Shintarou says, as Oostubo unlocks his phone and reads whatever message has just interrupted their conversation.
His eyes widen. “…Takao’s skipping practice.”
“Takao’s skipping practice,” Shintarou repeats, his voice flat as he processes it. His blinks. “Takao’s-”
“Skipping practice,” Oostubo confirms with a nod, “Says he isn’t feeling well.”
Shintarou can’t help but stare. Takao never skips practice. Takao has dragged himself to practice with all manner of ailments - headcolds, exhaustion, muscle strains, that one time he’d turned up coughing, sneezing, and running a fever, and it had taken Shintarou, Ootsubo and Miyaji to very politely talk him into going home. He’d gone to the doctor, been delivered the altogether unsurprising news that he had the flu and had subsequently been out for an entire week before he’d dragged himself right back into the gym. Shintarou has witnessed Takao doubled over, vomiting from shoving his body right through the ceiling of its own limits – has personally administered cold compresses the few times Takao has used his Hawk Eye to the point of abuse and ended up straining himself right into a migraine, and still Shintarou needs far fewer than his ten fingers to count off all the times Takao has been absent. Takao’s insistence on attending practice is obsessive at best and self-destructive at worst. Shintarou knows that he would never even think of skipping because of something as vague as ‘not feeling well’.
“…You didn’t know he was skipping,” Oostubo says, jerking Shintarou out of his stupor.
Shintarou takes a breath. “No,” he says, “I didn’t.”
“Hmmm.” Shintarou knows he’s being analysed from the way Oostubo is staring at him. “He’s acting strange, don’t you think?”
Shintarou can feel his nerves frazzle. “I suppose,” he says, fighting hard not to snap, “It’s none of my business.”
Ootsubo just looks at him.
“Right,” he says.
Shintarou decides he hates that look – as though he were a problem to be solved.
He misses two threes, later that night. He is glad no one is there to witness it.
The week (four days, but it’s not as though Shintarou is counting) trails by. Takao has seemingly finally taken heed of Shintarou’s frequent requests that he shut up and leave him alone. Class passes him by without event (any event at all), and Takao seems to be quite forgetful this week, neglecting to bring lunch with him every day. Perhaps it’s because he’s still feeling under the weather, as he claimed.
At least Takao has resumed attending practice, and, for his part, he is shutting up and doing what’s expected of him. The problem is that Takao never shuts up, and always goes above and beyond. The problem is it means Takao has taken to leaving at the scheduled conclusion of practice, flicking a wave at the rest of them like it’s completely normal.
The problem is that Shintarou knows this is not normal. The problem is Shintarou doesn’t even understand why it’s really a problem. He doesn’t need Takao. He never has.
He hears Miyaji grumbling in snappish tones at Ootsubo, something about how ‘if I have to put up with much more of this shit I’m gonna snap someone’s fucking neck’, and favours sipping from his water bottle and pretending he hasn’t heard.
“Oi, Midorima,” Kimura asks him, when Takao has left for the night and he and Ootsubo are about to leave, “Everything alright?”
Later Shintarou will try not to think about how deafening the hollow thud of a basketball is, when the gym is empty from chatter.
“Of course,” he says, almost scoffing around the words.
That night in bed, Shintarou lies with his phone screen lit up for a full five minutes, teeth worrying at his lower lip.
MONDAY
KAZU⭐
think i’m coming down with something – not really up to cycling today. sorry. see you in class.
5:52am
Midorima Shintarou
Of course.
6:32am
Nothing since then. There is an entire conversation chain from the past year – memes and links and pictures and inane statements and late night messages. Takao dominates the history, because Takao has seldom gone an hour without messaging Shintarou in the last few months, let alone days. Let alone five of them.
He scrolls back to the last message Takao had sent him the night before the Rakuzan match – one of the selfies he’s so fond of forcing Shintarou to take, Takao beaming a cheesy grin at the camera as Shintarou raises his eyes to the heavens with a frown. The thing has been filtered into oblivion in some camera app that Takao seems enchanted by, sparkles dusted across the border. Takao had also apparently deemed it appropriate to include stickers of crowns on both their heads, topped off with two pairs of shutter sunglasses and, for reasons Shintarou is yet to discern, some clip art of ghosts in each of the four corners of the image.
KAZU⭐
LET’S KILL IT TOMORROW!!
9:16pm
Midorima Shintarou
This is horrific.
9:41pm
Midorima Shintarou
Delete it immediately.
9:41pm
KAZU⭐
( ˘ ³˘)♥
9:41pm
KAZU⭐
also shin-chan should stop frowning so much
9:41pm
KAZU⭐
you’re gonna wrinkle that pretty face
9:41pm
Midorima Shintarou
Stop being disgusting, Takao.
9:47pm
Shintarou tabs out of the conversation, emptiness pitching low in his stomach again. A name on his contact list catches his eye, and he freezes, eyes growing wide.
Shintarou could. Shintarou probably should.
His thumb hovers over Akashi Seijuurou for a long moment.
In the end, he sets his phone to charge and rolls over.
Shintarou isn’t sure what to do, if he’s not coming when called.
He can see something, buried in the weeds, and so he reaches down for it. He hisses against the sting – there are thorns, he knows now, gnarled and unforgiving amongst the thick grey tangle of weeds. His hand closes over the object hidden below, and he wrenches it out, hissing through his teeth again as the thorns tear at his skin.
You forgot again, didn’t you? says a voice, making Shintarou’s heart waver in his chest.
Takao kneels down beside him. Nothing there but thorns and weeds, now.
As though to prove his point, he lets his fingers wander through the barren flower box. Shintarou watches his hand for a moment, then glances up at him, startled to find that his eyes are a milky pale blue.
You’re blind, Shintarou tries to say, and it feels like his chest is heavy with iron, but his tongue burns around the words, and he brings his free hand to his throat, clutching at it with desperate fingers.
Takao doesn’t seem to notice, only reacting when his fingers brush against Shintarou’s. They fan out, stroking across the bare knuckles of his closed fist, swiping through the trickles of blood, leaving behind messy streaks.
Oh, he says, You’re bleeding. Let’s get that fixed up, yeah?
He lets Takao pry his palm open with gentle fingers, and Shintarou stares down at what he’d been hiding in his left hand.
Takao’s fingers trace over the crest of the lone eyeball, its red iris dead and unseeing. Shintarou stares down at it, like he’s waiting for something – like he’s waiting for it to stare back. It is sticky in his hand, and when Takao sighs and takes it from him, Shintarou flinches, wants to tell him to stop.
Takao just sighs again, and says nothing more as he returns the eyeball to the garden. Then he tears a thorn free from Shintarou’s hand, and Shintarou flinches again.
You know, Shin-chan, Takao tells him, and Shintarou squeezes his eyes shut and hisses through the sting as he yanks out another splinter, Sometimes I think you hold onto the wrong things.
Shintarou lets out a shivering exhale that might’ve been a sob, had he still had a voice. As it is, Takao pauses, lashes blinking over his sightless eyes for a moment, before he reaches out, hands mapping over Shintarou’s face.
Ah, Takao says, pale blank eyes widening as his fingers brush through Shintarou’s teartracks, Are you…?
A small tin watering can is pressed into Shintarou’s clean hand. Shintarou remembers this one, a lucky item from months ago, or maybe it was centuries ago – he can’t quite remember, now.
Remember to catch them, Takao says, If we feed the garden, something might grow again, one day.
Shintarou doesn’t know why that might be important – or why tears keep leaking down his face at the thought of it. He watches Takao work through blurry eyes, the other boy’s fingers nimble even without sight to guide him. When he’s done dislodging the thorns he turns to bandaging Shintarou’s mangled hand, his movements measured and precise, like he’s practiced this a thousand times over.
Shintarou wonders how many times they’ve done this.
Takao kisses the bloodied bandage pulled taut over Shintarou’s knuckles. You know, he says, almost conversational, I miss when you used to say things. I’m beginning to forget what you sounded like.
It hurts Shintarou to draw breath – like his lungs are full of viscous fluid. His hands tighten, clutching at the small tin watering can.
Don’t, Shintarou wants to say, tries to say, but when he opens his mouth and tries to speak, all he can taste is the razor blade wedged into the back of his throat, the iron blood that bubbles up, Don’t forget-
When Shintarou awakens it’s to the taste of salt on his lips and thin white tape coiled around his fingers, and that, really, is not so different from the dream at all.
Shintarou lies awake and waits for the winter sun to creep through his blinds, because he knows he won’t be able to return to sleep, and is quite convinced no part of him wants to, anyway. When the light breaks through his blinds, he extracts himself from his well-tangled sheets, slipping downstairs for his morning rites.
He curls up on the couch with a blanket draped over his lap and a cup of green tea between his hands, because the sun has just barely risen, his hands are unsteady and he has a desperate need to hold onto something warm. Oha Asa kindly informs him that Cancer is ranked first today, and that he will be in need of a purple cable-knit scarf if he wants such delights as ‘the unexpected’ and ‘a brand new direction’ to befall him.
(Scorpio is fourth – not that it’s any of Shintarou’s concern).
It is difficult to feel his usual triumph at being ranked first, and the barren feeling is so foreign to him that all he can handle in the aftermath is switching the television off and sitting in silence, blinking tired eyes as he thinks of nothing and lets his tea grow cold.
He wakes to Setsuko climbing into his lap, her huge green eyes curious as she blinks up at him.
“Big brother fell asleep on the couch,” she observes.
“So I did.” Outstanding. He cranes his head to glance at the clock on the wall – only nine. Could have been much worse. He slips his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose, smothering a yawn as he does.
“Big brother never falls asleep on the couch,” she says, wrinkling her nose.
Shintarou could groan at his own folly. Setsuko is extraordinarily perceptive, which is only to be expected of his younger sister, but she is still only six years old, and Shintarou is aghast at the thought that he might be being obvious about all of this.
“Big brother has been working hard lately,” is the excuse he gives her.
“With Kazu-nii?” she asks. Takao’s unfortunate proclivity for cutesy nicknames had been quick to infect Shintarou’s younger sister, whose exemplary manners would ordinarily never allow her to refer to someone so casually.
“With everyone on the basketball team,” Shintarou says with a nod, after a pause.
Her eyes light up from beneath her dark green bangs. “Will Kazu-nii be visiting again today?” she asks, “It’s Saturday.”
Shintarou hesitates. Takao frequently comes over for what he insists are Saturday morning sessions prior to them spending the afternoon at the nearby street court, only they have a habit of devolving into Takao taking the first opportunity to derail the alleged study when Setsuko inevitably pokes her head into the room. Shintarou remembers how she had been suspicious of Takao, initially, supposing that it wasn’t really too much of a surprise, as it had been years since Shintarou had last had a friend over.
The second time Takao had seen her lurking, he’d let out a melodramatic gasp as he’d clutched at Shintarou’s arm, destroying his concentration in the process. “Shin-chan,” he’d whispered, “Is this the little empress I’ve heard so much about? Right here? In this very room? With us common folk?”
“Common folk?” had been Shintarou’s dry response.
Takao had apparently been sitting on a well of charm and good manners he’d never seen fit to show Shintarou – Setsuko had been utterly enchanted by the empress and my lady and deep bowing business. Before Shintarou realised what was happening, Setsuko was allowing Takao to address her as Empress Sestu-chan, and his Saturday mornings were increasingly beginning to feel like an excuse for Setsuko and Takao to wheedle him into such business as tea ceremonies and nail painting and magical girl cartoons.
Shintarou suspects that Setsuko fancies Takao. It is an utterly horrific prospect.
“She’s just like you, Shin-chan,” Takao had once chirped, “Only way cooler. And more refined.” Shintarou had punched him in the arm.
“I’m afraid he isn’t feeling well today,” Shintarou tells her, comforting himself with the knowledge that it isn’t a total lie. It doesn’t, of course, keep Setsuko’s expression from turning grave.
“You let him fall ill?” she says, accusingly. Shintarou wonders exactly when Takao’s health and wellbeing had become his responsibility.
He cocks his head. “Setsuko,” he says, “Shall we go get you a new scarf today?”
Setsuko’s eyes light up at the mere suggestion, and Shintarou thinks that it is good to feel human.
There’s a warmth to the distraction he finds, his hand curled around Setsuko’s, under the sunlight streaming through the accessory shop’s wide windows as they comb through offerings from local designers. When she absolutely insists on getting the same scarf as Shintarou, he attempts to impress upon her the lack of cosmic utility, as Oha Asa had clearly stipulated Leos should be seeking out pink teacups today. Setsuko refuses to hear another word on the matter, and so Shintarou ends up crouched down in front of her, helping her wind the almost comically too long scarf around her neck to keep it from dragging on the ground.
(He does manage to convince her to let him purchase those tiny pink china teacup earrings for her – for non-pierced ears, naturally. Her only caveat is that Shintarou must purchase matching pair of his own. Shintarou manages to bargain her into being satisfied with him only wearing them at home, where no one can see. Setsuko’s latest phase appears to be copying everything Shintarou does, which he doesn’t especially mind – not when there are worse, considerably noisier influences in her life she could be copying.)
“What shall we do for lunch?” he asks her when her earrings are snugly in place. He feels more relieved already.
Her expression grows serious. “Pancakes,” is her very thoughtful response.
“As you wish,” he says.
He spots something that makes him stop on their way out, tucked away in the corner of a small shelf. He bites down on his tongue as he considers.
“One moment, Setsuko,” he says, plucking the thin cardboard backing off the shelf and returning to the register.
Over Setsuko’s pancakes and cocoa (complete with kitten-shaped marshmallow – Takao has somehow managed to infect her with his misguided endearment for the slinky little hell beasts) and Shintarou’s shiruko and sandwich, she tells him that she would like to try playing basketball.
“Basketball?” Shintarou almost chokes on his drink.
She nods, eyes steely and serious. “I’m very tall,” she says, seriously, “And big brother is the best.”
Shintarou looks at her. All four feet of her.
“Alright,” he says, eventually, “I can coach you a little in the spring. When it’s warmer. Does that sound good to you?”
“With Kazu-nii?” she asks, looking thrilled at the mere idea.
Shintarou pauses. “I am sure he would love to teach you,” he says.
He lets her beam. What harm can it really do, he figures.
That evening after dinner, she sits at the piano and shows him how the minor pentatonic scales he’d taught her are coming along (fluently, as expected – she is his little sister, after all). He kneels behind her as she plays, and she lets out a delighted noise when he begins sectioning her hair out to braid it.
“Shall I proceed?” he asks.
“By all means,” she says, tilting her head back a little. Shintarou smiles to himself – she is his sister.
(“That is so cool,” Takao murmurs, eyes alight as he watches Shintarou’s fingers weave dark green locks together in a French braid.
“What is?”
“That you even know how to do that.”
Shintarou tilts his head. “I’ve been doing it for years.”
“No kidding.” Wide eyes.
Shintarou shoots him a look. Takao shrugs and smiles.
“Just didn’t expect that from you, y’know.”)
“That was excellent,” he says, when he’s done twisting her hair together and she’s done regaling him with her scales. Setsuko is more wont to preen than Shintarou is, and that’s exactly what she does, tossing her hair and lifting her chin with pride. “Let me teach you something new?”
“Wait!” she cries, jumping up from the bench and dashing off. She returns with the teacup earrings and a resolute expression, handing them to him.
Oh no. “Setsuko-” he almost pleads.
“You promised,” she says. It becomes apparent there is no room for discussion on the matter.
Shintarou could roll his eyes – Takao spoils her too much, and now see where it gets Shintarou. He ends up with the earrings clipped on regardless.
He takes her through the major pentatonic scales, and she curls against his side on the small bench as he plays them, idly humming each note in the spaces between them. It’s one area where they really differ – Shintarou has never been able to carry a tune, but Sestuko’s small voice is clear as a bell, and he can already tell she has a keen ear for pitch.
“Would you like me to show you again?” he asks.
No answer. Shintarou glances down at her, finds her asleep against his side. He lets out a sigh, though it’s a pleased one – he feels more unwound, more clear-headed, than he has since the match against Rakuzan. He puts Setsuko to bed, his whispered good night met with an incoherent murmur, before he retires to his room to cap off his peaceful day with the study he’d neglected to do earlier.
And then, his phone buzzes.
SUZUME✨
good evening, shin-chan!
11:02pm
SUZUME✨
hope this doesn’t wake you!
11:02pm
Shintarou stares down at his phone for a long moment. This, admittedly, was not the Takao he’d been expecting a message from.
Whatever forces, be it genes or something more cosmic, that conspired to create Takao had, apparently, been strong ones. Within minutes of meeting Takao Suzume, all dark hair, slate blue eyes and wolfish grin, Shintarou had been left with two thoughts: how can there possibly be two of them? and how did this middle schooler wile me into giving her my LINE account? Takao had stood off to the side with his own matching mischievous grin, keen eyes alight as he’d watched the encounter. When Suzume had grasped his hand and exclaimed, “Thanks, Shin-chan!”, he’d thrown his head back and cackled, likely in no small part due to Shintarou’s baffled expression. The incident had further confirmed Shintarou’s suspicions that Takao was in fact a secret sadist.
Shintarou has long since decided that Takao’s family is a complete mystery to him, in addition to being disturbingly, possibly supernaturally persuasive. He is not in the habit of replying to messages late at night, and yet…
Midorima Shintarou
No trouble.
11:03pm
He hesitates for a moment, wondering if that’s too blunt.
Midorima Shintarou
I was still awake. Is there something I can help you with?
11:03pm
SUZUME✨
um
11:03pm
SUZUME✨
maybe
11:04pm
SUZUME✨
i hope
11:04pm
SUZUME✨
you wouldn’t happen to be with my brother right now, would you?
11:04pm
Shintarou stares down at his phone, something like concern flickering in the pit of his stomach, because that is nothing if not a strange question.
Midorima Shintarou
No. Is Takao not at home?
11:05pm
SUZUME✨
he took the rickshaw out a little while ago, so i kind of thought he might be coming out to get you.
11:06pm
SUZUME✨
he’s been acting
11:06pm
SUZUME✨
weird
11:06pm
SUZUME✨
lately
11:06pm
Shintarou stares at his phone for probably close a full minute.
He sighs, not quite defeated.
Midorima Shintarou
I will find him.
11:08pm
Not even a true pause passes him by before his phone buzzes again.
SUZUME✨
THANK YOU SHIN-CHAN!!!!! <33333
11:08pm
Shintarou rolls his eyes as he fetches his coat from his wardrobe. So much for a peaceful day, he thinks.
At least Oha Asa has provided for him practically, he reflects as he tightens his scarf about his neck.
Shintarou almost considers heading towards campus – Takao seems to be in an erratic enough state of mind to break into the school gym in search of some self-indulgent catharsis. That train of thought leads him to a better, more likely alternative, however, and he lets the moonlight guide him to the nearby practice court, wrapped deep in his coat against the frigid winter air.
The rickshaw is large and conspicuous enough to be obvious from far away, even parked out of the glare of the lights as it is. Shintarou finds that he’s quite unsurprised, wondering what he thinks he’s doing even as he draws nearer.
He has no plan. He is unprepared. It unnerves him.
Takao is facing away from him when he approaches, seemingly staring up at the moonlight. He sits with his shoulders curled over, knees against his chest. He doesn’t notice Shintarou – that, or he is ignoring his presence.
“Takao,” Shintarou calls out, breathing fog against the cold.
Takao jumps, and Shintarou almost feels guilty, knowing he must’ve startled Takao out of some deep place within his mind. He wears an expression of genuine shock when he turns around.
“Shin-chan?” he croaks out, “What are you…?”
“Well,” Shintarou says, unable to fight the irritation scratching beneath his skin, “I certainly hope you’re not under the impression that I’m out here at this insane hour to practice shooting.”
Then he catches sight of Takao’s bare arms, and feels a sudden urge to hit something.
“You’re going to freeze,” Shintarou complains. Before he even knows what he’s doing, he’s reaching out with his hands to cup Takao’s face. The chill of his skin makes Shintarou’s tongue click against his soft palette. “Idiot,” he says, “How long have you been out here?” He raises his fingers to his throat, begins wedging his scarf loose.
Takao shrugs. “Dunno.” He flinches when Shintarou throws the scarf around his neck, silvery eyes wide in the low light. “What are you-?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.” Shintarou is beyond impatience at this point, fingers tense as he moves to unbutton his overcoat.
“Shin-chan.” Exasperation and amusement, reluctant, he thinks, swirl together in his voice, soft and rough, though Shintarou doesn’t quite know how he manages it. “It’s fine, seriously-”
“No arguments,” Shintarou tells him.
“Shin-chan.” Takao grabs him by the wrists, aborting his attempt to force his coat over his shoulders. “Quit it.”
“You are being frustratingly stubborn,” Shintarou snaps.
“Right back at you.”
When he glances up, Shintarou can tell by Takao’s wide, shocked eyes that he’d said that without thinking. Then he decides that means Takao had meant it, and he presses on with a narrow of his eyes.
“You will freeze,” he repeats, jaw clenching, “You are outside in those clothes at this antisocial hour in the middle of winter, and you are being frankly ridiculous-”
“It’s not about the fucking cold,” Takao interrupts him, voice hawkish.
“Then what is it about?” Shintarou demands.
“Forget it,” Takao says, “Go home, Shin-chan. It’s an antisocial hour.”
“Your sister wrote to me,” Shintarou says, and that makes Takao glance up, eyes wide.
“…Suzu-chan?” he asks, “What did she say?”
“She is concerned for you. Perhaps it had something to do with you fleeing with no explanation in the middle of the night,” Shintarou suggests, as dry as he can manage.
“…Is that why you’re here?” Takao asks him. He sounds almost angry.
“Again,” Shintarou says, “I’m not here to shoot practice baskets. Take the coat.”
“Fine,” Takao snaps, rendering Shintarou silent for a moment when he snatches the coat out of his hands. “Happy now?” he asks, as he slings it about his shoulders – he doesn’t bother to slip it over his arms. He reaches into his pocket, comes up with his cell phone – a glance confirms that he’s messaging his sister.
“I expect I won’t be happy until you tell me what I’ve done to make you so angry with me,” Shintarou says.
“I’m not angry.” The tight set of his jaw betrays him. “Just.” He puffs out a sigh, tearing his bangs back from his face with a clawed hand.
“You have been peculiar since…” Shintarou thinks about it, all the things he could say, the ways he could refer to the Incident. “Since the match.”
“Shin-chan,” coos Takao, and Shintarou can’t quite read the expression on his face, “It almost sounds like you’re worried about me.”
“Of course I worry,” snaps Shintarou.
Takao goes silent, teeth tugging at his lower lip.
“Holy shit,” is what he finally croaks out.
Shintarou is not amused. “What?”
Takao glances down, ink dark hair falling to obscure his eyes. Shintarou thinks maybe he did that on purpose. “Nothing,” he says, after a flicker of hesitation. He thumps the wood of the rickshaw below him. “You’d better sit down, then.”
Shintarou obliges him. He doesn’t speak for a moment. Neither of them do.
“What are you doing out here?” It’s the most logical thing to ask, in the face of Takao’s lack of logic.
“Thinking,” is Takao’s supremely unhelpful response.
“About?”
Takao shifts, drawing his knees up to his chest to rest on them. “Why don’t you take a guess, Shin-chan?”
“Me?”
Takao’s eyes widen. Shintarou sets his shoulders.
“Are you surprised I acknowledged it?”
“Kinda,” Takao says. He lets out a sigh. “It’s more that you said anything at all.”
“What?”
“You’re kind of shit with feelings,” Takao says, and Shintarou is actually stunned into silence for a moment, because he isn’t used to Takao being so blunt with him, so flat. It must show on his face, because when Takao turns to him, he’s silent, too, for a moment. Shintarou watches him stab his tongue against the inside of his cheek, brow furrowing, like he’s tortured.
Then he gives a hollow smile and says, “Sorry, but it’s true.”
“What do you mean by that?” Shintarou won’t deny it, but he will demand an explanation.
Takao shifts again for what feels like the hundredth time, letting out a sigh as he stretches his hands out behind him, leaning his weight on them. Shintarou knows he gets fidgety when he’s tense, but the knowledge doesn’t help the way the tension spills off Takao in waves, crashing into himself.
He’s silent for so long that Shintarou begins to wonder if he’d even heard him.
“Remember that time you didn’t have your lucky item,” he says, just as Shintarou opens his lips to speak, “The thing with the red balloon.”
Shintarou snorts. “As though I could forget.”
“So remember when I said I was worried about you,” Takao says, and there’s that hollow humour again, like Takao wants what he’s saying to be funny, wants Shintarou to feel that way, “And you damn near had a panic attack?”
“I didn’t-”
It’s a child’s protest, jerked out of him by reflex and pitching his voice higher, because Shintarou does remember it, and he never did anything so undignified.
“…You said you just wanted to laugh at my misfortune some more,” he protests. He doesn’t understand why his heart his pounding, isn’t sure he wants to.
“Shin-chan,” Takao says, blue-tinted gentle, “You can be really dumb sometimes, you know?”
Shintarou says nothing.
“I was so ready to hate you,” Takao says, voice quiet, almost like he’s trying to keep Shintarou from hearing. He’s looking down at his hands, clutched together. Shintarou can’t even fathom looking at his face, not with how tight his chest is, how his heart sits, beating swift, at the back of his throat, so he looks at them too, watching them squeeze, relax, squeeze. Shintarou thinks he must be carving deep white crescent moons into the backs of his hands, thinks it must hurt. Wonders how it might feel to be so reckless.
He smirks, despite himself. “Quite an easy thing to do, apparently,” he says.
“Yeah?” Takao says, voice soft, “Then maybe I’m as big of an idiot as you tell me I am.”
Shintarou opens his mouth, but all he gets is a mouthful of winter, silence heavy at the back of his throat.
“Takao,” he says, helpless.
“Midorima.” It’s almost mocking.
Shintarou flinches. Takao covers his face.
“Fuck,” he moans, “Fuck-” He rakes one hand through his hair, then the other, lets out a sigh so deep his shoulders droop low. It shudders, breath white against the cold, and Shintarou watches the mist, still reeling.
“I don’t like it when you call me that,” he says, realising it’s true even as he says it.
“Yeah,” Takao says, hands still clenched in his hair, and he sounds harried, sounds lost, “Yeah. I’m not super into it, either, to tell you the truth. I just wanted to see…”
“To see?”
“To see,” Takao says, his voice flat and final.
Shintarou blinks. “And… what did you learn?”
The smile that winds across Takao’s face is crooked, but there’s a flicker of honesty in it, Shintarou thinks, there in the dark. He thinks of how much he’d missed it.
“Nothing new,” Takao almost whispers.
“Ah,” Shintarou says, as though he understands. Only, this time, he thinks he might.
“Will you.” He wets his lips, feeling them dry down in the cold almost immediately. “Allow me to see something?”
“…Yeah,” Takao says, eyes back on his hands again, “Sure. Hit me with it.”
Shintarou flexes useless hands in his lap. He swallows, and refuses to give himself even a second to think: about how he doesn’t know how to be gentle, not with his hands, not with anything; that he isn’t a kind person; that he thought it might be easier this way, with a more rational mind and without the taste of salt on his lips. He knows if he stops and thinks he’ll give his better nature a chance to intervene, and he needs this, this moment to be selfish and irrational.
His fingers, wrapped and unwrapped, skim the sharp line of Takao’s jaw. His silvery eyes flicker, then, skating up to meet Shintarou’s as he leans closer.
“Shin-chan?”
His voice wavers like Shintarou can’t afford to, and Shintarou swallows the questioning little uptick when he closes the gap between them, closing his eyes against wide sharp silver. Takao goes very still against him, and for a moment, mind slow and heavy like it’s full of water, Shintarou wonders if he’s going to respond. Shintarou bites down on a shiver when he does, slipping his mouth open and slicking his lips all nervous and hesitant over Shintarou’s lower one. Shintarou goes stiff, the wave of over-stimulation washing over him, just like the last time, and when Takao moves, tilting his head and pressing closer, he finds he’s frozen in place.
Takao pauses against him, for a moment – Shintarou is struck by the visceral, primal awareness of his own heartbeat thudding in his chest like a drum, and then Takao pulls away from him, the line of his teeth gnawing at his lower lip.
They stare at each other for a long, tense moment – Shintarou twists his fingers into the hem of his sweater as the ghost of a frown flickers on Takao’s face.
“For your information,” Shintarou says, thinking maybe if he softens his voice enough it will wrangle out the tremors, “I also learned nothing new.”
Takao’s lips remain parted for a good, long moment. His eyes waver as he looks at Shintarou, like he’s struggling to process what just occurred.
Then he slaps him. Right in the bicep.
Shintarou flinches back, eyes blinking wide more out of shock than anything – the blow is mostly dampened against his thick sweater. “What-?!”
“You,” Takao’s in the middle of snapping, punctuating it with another strike, harder this time, “Are a fucking asshole.”
Shintarou hadn’t been expecting outright elation, but he honestly didn’t expect this level of disgust. Perhaps Takao is more grievously offended than he’d anticipated.
“Is this funny to you or something?” Takao demands, slapping a palm against the wood beneath them, “This is a really shit time to go and start developing a sense of humour-!”
“Did I truly offend you so much?” Shintarou asks him, honestly perplexed. He thinks his eyes must be comically wide, his pulse still leaping from the kiss.
“Uh, yeah, Shin-chan,” Takao lifts an eyebrow at him, all dark, edgy humour, “That was a real dick of a way to make a point.”
“Ah,” Shintarou says, “Understood. I won’t kiss you again, then.”
“I never thought you were that kind of-”
Takao freezes then, voice cutting off before his mouth, so it keeps working, soundless and awkward, for a moment. His mouth never quite closes as he stares at Shintarou like he’s suddenly forgotten who he’s speaking to, where he is, and trying very hard to puzzle out what he’s doing, sat in a rickshaw by a practice court at eleven at night on a weekend.
“Wait,” he says final, voice strangled, “Wait a sec. Back up.”
“Back what up?” Shintarou says, impatient.
“You’re not mad at me? For… for the thing I did?”
“Well,” Shintarou says, pensive, “No. Are you angry with me for what I just did?”
“Haha.” It’s flat and bleak. Shintarou takes that as confirmation. “I mean,” Takao continues, after a moment, “You obviously weren’t into it. So.” His jaw tightens, like he’s grinding his teeth.
Shintarou tilts his head. “When did I say that?”
“You didn’t have to.” Takao’s eyes flicker. “You’re awkward enough about it. Have been, ever since the… thing in the bathroom.”
“As have you,” Shintarou says.
“Well. Yeah,” Takao says, “But.”
Shintarou waits, but it seems Takao has nothing more to offer, other than a troubled crease of his brow.
“I assumed that you found the situation awkward, and that you did not wish to speak of it any further,” Shintarou says, “I thought it might be kind to allow you that, rather than test the limits of our friendship by forcing you to relive something you quite clearly regretted.”
“Didn’t wish to- regretted?” Takao breaks off with a strangled, gurgling noise of despair and frustration. “I- you- I’m.” He flails his hands in a gesture that would be aggressive if his eyes weren’t so full moon-wide.
Shintarou gives up the next time Takao tries to hit him, throwing a nimble dodge in favour of scrambling deeper back into the body of the rickshaw. “Really, Takao-!” He is flabbergasted - Takao has clearly taken leave of his senses.
“The only part I regretted was the fact that I obviously scared the shit out of you!”
Shintarou blinks. “Well, yes,” he says, “Sudden epiphanies of that magnitude are confronting by nature.”
“…Epiphanies?” Takao repeats.
“Yes.” Shintarou is reluctant to speak further on the matter. Part of him knows Takao won’t let him get away with it.
“What kind of epiphany?”
Shintarou hesitates. “That perhaps I was. Not.” He swallows around the sudden dryness of his mouth. “Entirely repulsed.”
Takao stares at him. Openly. Shintarou struggles with it, gaze skittering away from Takao’s because the burden of eye contact is too overwhelming.
“So, like,” Takao asks, eventually, “At any point in the last week, did it occur to you to, you know, maybe bring that up? Or do you just have a secret fetish for giving our upperclassmen shit?”
“I assumed you viewed it as a mistake that needed correcting,” Shintarou tells him, “Or that you were making fun of me.”
“Making fun of you?” Takao repeats, looking taken aback.
Shintarou folds his arms across his chest. “Do not deny that you tease me frequently.” Do not deny that I am an easy target for such things, he almost says, but that almost feels like an accusation, and that doesn’t sit right with Shintarou – that isn’t what he means to do.
“Yeah, but-” Takao purses his lips together, looking troubled. “I would never…”
“I thought. Well.” Why is this so difficult? “You were… emotionally compromised,” Shintarou says.
“Hah!” Takao croaks out, and when Shintarou turns to look at him, he gives a weak grin and says, “You can say that again.”
Shintarou nods in approval – they’ve clearly reached the crux of the issue. “I’m sure the manner in which I conducted myself did little to help.”
Takao’s eyes turn wide, confused. “…Huh?”
Shintarou can feel the flush beginning to creep across his cheeks. “My embarrassing display. It was… very unbecoming.”
“Uh,” Takao says, “Shin-chan, you probably noticed when I was, like, dripping snot and gross all over you, but I was a mess, too, and I know they’ll all swear up and down that it never happened, but the other guys definitely cried it out while you- while we- uh. You know.”
“That’s not what I’m referring to,” Shintarou says, “I leaned on you too heavily.”
“Pffft,” Takao snorts, “Seriously? Nah.” His eyes widen after a moment. “Wait, are you… talking about the hug?”
“It was unbecoming.”
“It sounds like,” Takao says, slowly, “Like you’re saying you, I dunno – manipulated me, or something?”
Shintarou hesitates. “It was unbecoming,” he says again.
“…Okay, I don’t even know what you’re trying to say with that,” Takao says, quirking an eyebrow, “But being upset after losing a match and leaning on your team isn’t a bad thing.” His next words are muttered, hostile to Shintarou’s ears, “Especially after that headfuck.”
“I don’t wish to be an obligation,” Shintarou says.
Takao goes quiet. His eyebrows knit together, like he’s confused. “…You’re not an obligation, Shin-chan. Why would you say that?”
“You are quite well-liked,” Shintarou says with a shrug, “Within the basketball club and otherwise.”
“Uh,” Takao says, confusion washing across his features, “Dunno what that has to do with anything, but Miyaji threatens me with the crazy pineapple thing just as much as you.”
“Regardless of Miyaji’s apparently uncontainable fury,” Shintarou says, “You can’t pretend everyone doesn’t see you voluntarily spending time with me as an anomaly.”
“I mean,” Takao says, looking faintly annoyed, “They don’t know you, Shin-chan.”
“Because no one has ever been quite so persistent as you,” Shintarou says.
“Yeah, well,” Takao gestures at his own eyes, “I’m more perceptive than most people.”
Shintarou is impatient. “That’s not how Hawk Eye works.”
Takao clicks his tongue. “Who said anything about Hawk Eye?”
Shintarou doesn’t quite know how to answer that.
“Anyway,” Takao says, fidgeting with one of the buttons on Shintarou’s coat, “You’ve probably figured this out already, but I don’t really give a shit what other people think, about me, or about how much time I spend with you.” He pauses – Shintarou watches him bite the inside of his cheek, watches him swallow.
“It makes me happy.” He sounds hesitant, like the admission makes him vulnerable. “So. Yeah.”
Shintarou nods, not even a little surprised at this point to realise he’s in agreement. What does surprise him is the implication that might be hovering there at the edges of Takao’s words. He knows he is efficient, and reliable, and useful. Shintarou is intimately acquainted with his better qualities, but for all his best efforts and painstaking preparation for any given situation, he has never quite imagined a world in which he makes someone happy.
“It has been… strange,” he admits, “Having you around less.”
“…Oh?” Takao’s eyes are wide with surprise, but Shintarou could almost kid himself into thinking he’s smiling, too – just a little. “Really?”
“You are extremely noisy,” Shintarou sniffs, “As you well know, of course. The silence is quite immense without you to incessantly fill it.”
Takao’s jaw drops. “Wow,” he breathes, eyes saucer-wide.
“What?” Shintarou demands.
“Nothing,” Takao says, and then, “Hey, Shin-chan. Question.”
“Yes?”
Takao stares at him, eyes piercing. “Are you into guys?”
Shintarou, admittedly, doesn’t make a habit of devoting much thought to that particular question – not the conscious kind of thought, anyway. He had, once, before, when Kise had crowded him against his locker and kissed him all sudden and soft and sweet until it hadn’t been anymore, and Shintarou had been too beset with shock to even think about opening his mouth or kissing back (he still remembers the slickness of Kise’s saliva, smeared across his lips). Twice, when he’d sat on a locker room bench poring over a training menu and Akashi’s immaculate handwriting, when he’d scrawled a note in a margin – he’s long since forgotten the words he’d written, but not the way Akashi had leaned in, setting his chin against Shintarou’s shoulder to read (he still remembers the way Akashi’s even, steady breathing had tickled the side of his neck). A third time, when Akashi had reached out to him after a particularly tense shogi match, fingers slipping under the wool of his vest to fix his tie (Akashi had been so close, then, and Shintarou has since wondered whether his tie had actually been in need of adjusting, or if it had just been an excuse to touch him. Shintarou might’ve told him that he didn’t need an excuse, if only Akashi had ever asked).
Later, of course, it had all been meaningless, when their fragile egos had all shattered like inkwells, bleeding together until Shintarou could barely remember what it was like to be bright, muddiness clouding his vision and seeping in to sit heavy in the bottom of his lungs. Later, he’d heard Kise sullenly informing Aomine that he’d been right, that Midorimacchi was totally frigid; later, Akashi had stopped touching him altogether, and Shintarou thought nothing of it, just as he’d thought nothing of the way Akashi stopped looking at him like he’d meant something to him.
Shintarou thinks of the last time his heart had felt full and trembling like this – thinks of a red-haired woman he’d never known, an existence stripped back to photographs and memories; thinks of names and dates and anniversaries; thinks of kneeling shoulder to shoulder with Akashi in front of his family shrine, the scent of incense thick and heavy in his nose; thinks of a cold, clammy hand, fingers intertwined, tearstains, the taste of salt when Shintarou had turned with his heart thudding loud in his ears and pressed his lips against a damp cheek; the look in widened red eyes afterwards, like Shintarou meant something, mattered.
“Oh,” Takao’s voice drifts, soft with recognition. Shintarou glances up at him, hadn’t even realised he’d been sitting with his eyes closed until he’d opened them again. Takao leans close to him, head ducked so he can peer up at him, and Shintarou blinks as red is chased away by silver.
“That’s… uncomfortable for you, isn’t it?” Takao says, teeth worrying at his lower lip for a moment.
Shintarou thinks about it. He finds the more he thinks about it, the more he tries to analyse it, pick his way through the snarls of it all, it ends up tangling itself more than it had been to begin with, a ball of wire with loose ends that scrape his palms.
He shrugs, after a moment. “It is what it is.” He pauses. “Or what it was.”
“What was?”
Shintarou only realises that he’s clutching at the back of his own wrist when it starts to hurt. He forces his hand lax. “Teikou.”
“…Oh,” Takao says again, barely audible. They stare at each other for a moment, but Shintarou has always been poor at that game, and his nerves are quick to frazzle, eyes cast to the side. “You never talk about it.”
“No,” Shintarou says, “Quite… quite a lot happened. Much of it… complicated. Much of it not exactly pleasant to remember.”
“Oh.” The pause feels tense. “Did…”
Shintarou keeps his eyes trained on the silhouette of the hoop closest to them.
“Did you and Akashi, um. Happen?” The way Takao asks the question sounds almost like he’d rather not hear the answer.
Shintarou can’t help the deep, sudden breath he takes – almost like a gasp. Takao flinches in response, like it’d burned him.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Takao says, words just a little too rapid, stumbling, “Sorry. That was probably crossing a line. It’s… it’s none of my business.”
“No,” Shintarou says. He wonders why his throat hurts.
“No?”
“No, we never ‘happened’, as you put it,” Shintarou says, “We might have, if… if things had been different.”
“Oh,” Takao says, his voice faint.
“He used to mean something to me, I suppose,” Shintarou says.
“Oh,” Takao says again. Shintarou could never dream of understanding what that tone means.
“Other than that, my experience is…” Part of him wants to laugh. “Quite limited.” Nonexistent.
“You don’t say.”
Takao says nothing more, for a moment. Shintarou almost looks, but something warns him off, tells him that whatever expression he’s wearing will be too much for him.
“That thing you said,” Takao says. His voice is quiet, like he’s forcing himself to speak even though he’s unwilling, and Shintarou has to strain to hear. “About. About him meaning something to you.”
Shintarou bristles. “I don’t especially want to-”
“You mean something to me.”
Shintarou’s eyes widen, and only then does he turn to look at Takao, more reflexive, surprised than curious. It’s a good thing Takao isn’t looking at him, gaze dropping to where his hands are clutched together in his lap.
“I…” Shintarou says, knowing full well it’s a sentence without an ending.
“Like I said,” Takao stares out into the distance, and Shintarou looks between his downcast eyes, his biting nails, “I was ready to hate you. I did hate you. And I don’t even know when I stopped, but I couldn’t even look at you after the match, because all I could think was I let you down.” The smile that breaks across his face is sharp with frustration. “It fucking sucks, knowing you’re not enough.” His voice cracks on the last word, and Shintarou watches him take a deep, hard, painful swallow. He mirrors it – he knows the feeling Takao is speaking of all too well.
I know, he almost blurts out.
“The worst thing is,” Takao says, “I worked so hard for it. And I don’t even know how you did it, but I went from killing myself so I could beat you to killing myself to make you respect me and then it was just…” He licks his lips, clenches his fists, “Me wanting to be my best for you. For the team. For us.”
Us, Shintarou thinks, feeling his breath catch.
“And then I wasn’t enough, anyway.” Takao laughs, then, all dark and bitter and helpless.
You’ve always been enough, are the words that spring to Shintarou’s lips, knowing he’d never even consider saying something like that back at Teikou. He just wishes his mouth didn’t suddenly feel so dry, his tongue so heavy.
“I nearly freaked when I’d realised you’d followed me,” Takao says, and his words come quick now, slurring together at the edges, almost like he doesn’t want Shintarou to understand them, “I didn’t expect you to, and I… well, y’know. Didn’t have my shit together. And then I looked at you, and I just… didn’t even know I could feel worse than I did, and then you were there and you were crying and I’d never seen you like that before and you just looked...” Shintarou watches him clench his fists. “So sad. So hurt. And all I could do was stand there and think that that fucker got in your head and that there was nothing I could do to make it better, and…”
He pulls Shintarou’s coat tighter about himself and swallows. “And then you,” he breathes out a laugh, eyes widening like he can’t even believe he’s reliving it, “You hugged me. And it was like everything just fucking shut up, for one second, and then I just… lost it, because I needed that so bad and I don’t think you even fucking realised how bad I needed it, but you did it. And I just…” He blinks, just a touch too rapid, his eyes just a touch too wet, “I caved, Shin-chan, and I probably fucked everything up and…”
“And then when we played Kaijou, it was wrong,” Takao keeps going, and Shintarou can almost feel the sadness in his words, right down in his marrow, “Our passes, the way you looked at me, the way you just… I dunno, retreated into yourself again, stopped trusting us. Stopped trusting me. You went right back to how you used to be, and all I could think was I fucked it up. I thought, maybe,” his voice turns hesitant, “You, you know, if you weren’t into guys, or… or if it was me that was the problem, and I did what I did, at that exact moment… that I’d scared you off. I did something selfish and dumb and fucking emotional and I thought I fucked everything up. And then it was weird, and it didn’t go away, and…” He bites his lip – Shintarou watches the scrape of his teeth. “I acted like a dick to everyone because of it. Because I was scared.”
Shintarou’s heart beats so swift and hard that he wouldn’t be surprised to find that Takao can hear it. “Scared?” he repeats, dumb, inarticulate – Shintarou doesn’t think anyone’s ever made him speechless like Takao does.
Takao is quiet for a moment.
“You’re too important to lose, Shin-chan,” he says, eventually, “You’re… you’re too important to just, I dunno, be Midorima again.”
“That was never a possibility,” Shintarou tells him, realising it’s true even as he says it. I need you, he realises, taking a deep swallow as he does, I need you.
A rueful smile crosses his face. “Then why has it been so fucking weird?” he asks, “Why does it feel like I’ve hurt you?”
“As I’ve already told you,” Shintarou says, “I was not repulsed.”
Takao’s smile thins even more. “Yeah, that? Not exactly an encouraging thing to hear, Shin-chan.”
“I repeated the experience just now,” Shintarou points out, “Of my own volition.”
“I guess you did.” It’s strangely noncommittal. Shintarou isn’t sure how to read it.
“…I didn’t know,” he says instead, against the scrape in his throat.
Takao blinks. “Know what?”
“All of that,” Shintarou says, “What you just said. Any of it.” He isn’t making sense - he knows he isn’t. All he can do is pray Takao understands him.
“I didn’t want you to know,” Takao says, eyes downcast.
“Clarity would have only helped,” Shintarou points out.
Takao snorts. “Because clarity is really helping us out right now, huh?”
“Takao…”
“Ugh,” Takao grinds out, “Sorry.”
“…I suppose I might,” Shintarou takes a deep breath. Steadies himself. Tries very hard not to think of how it would make his mother cry and his father glare. Tries very hard not to think of gentle hands adjusting his tie. Tries very hard to swallow the shame that bubbles up. “Prefer men. In the respect you asked after. Should the opportunity ever present itself.”
There’s a pause. Takao blinks at him.
Shintarou isn’t ready for the smile that winds across Takao’s face (a real one this time), but suddenly, there it is, and just as suddenly, the night air feels a touch less cold around them, and Shintarou even thinks it might be easier to breathe.
“Jeez,” he murmurs, “You’re so stiff, Shin-chan. I’m not exactly gonna be calling you a freak for admitting that, y’know?”
“I’ve… never vocalised it before,” Shintarou tells him.
Takao’s eyes flicker. “Well, boys do it for me too,” he says, and there’s a curious sense of relief – another thing Shintarou hadn’t been quite prepared for, “So, y’know – no need to be scared or anything. Not that I would’ve judged you, anyway.”
“…I had occasionally wondered why you didn’t seem obsessively preoccupied with obtaining a girlfriend like every other male in our student cohort,” Shintarou admits.
“Shin-chan,” Takao says, having the temerity to look amused, “Did it really never occur to you that I didn’t ever have time for girls because there’s a boy I spend like eighty per cent of my waking hours with?”
Shintarou blinks. “…If you want to date girls-”
“Oh,” Takao says, “My god, Shin-chan. I don’t want to date girls. I made out with you in a bathroom-” He cuts himself off, raking a hand through his hair. He takes a deep breath – Shintarou can hear it, scraped from the bottom of his lungs.
“Fuck it. Yeah, I want to date guys. One guy in particular. For like, forever now.”
Shintarou doesn’t quite know what to say to that.
Takao’s eyes turn imploring as they widen. “You get me, right? Or do I need to spell that out, too?”
Shintarou, at a complete loss for words, at a complete loss for everything, being in this situation, just stares at him.
Takao breathes out a sigh through his nose. “He’s tall and fussy and dresses like someone’s uncle, and every time he makes a three it makes me straight up swoon-”
“Yes,” Shintarou interrupts, his voice quiet, “Yes, I believe I… ‘get’ you.” Someone’s uncle?
Swoon?
“Good. ’Cuz like,” Takao says, blithe and matter-of-fact, his cheeks a touch flushed, “I gotta be pretty thirsty to cart someone around in this baby,” he thumps the rickshaw beneath them with affection, “As much as I love her.”
“Thirsty?” Shintarou definitely does not squawk.
Takao lets his head tip to the side with a rueful little smile, bangs scattering across his forehead. “You know how I said you can be really dumb sometimes?” he says, but then he rolls his eyes and says, “But then I guess so can I, right?”
“I-” Shintarou begins to protest.
“I like you, Shin-chan,” Takao tells him, warm, soft, adoring, perhaps, “I really like you. A lot.”
“Oh,” Shintarou says, like it’s nothing, when it’s not.
He pauses. Weighs that one up.
“…You mean romantically,” he says.
Takao’s eyes shift. He gives a soft cough. “…Yeahhhh.”
Shintarou narrows his eyes. “What’s that tone for?”
Takao flutters his eyelashes. “Oh, nothing,” he trills, “Just that there are many facets to the way I like Shin-chan.”
Oh.
Oh.
Shintarou is definitely not blushing. “You’re being suggestive,” he points out. He thinks it might be the first time anyone’s done so, to his face, about him, Kise not withstanding, because Kise is like that with everyone.
“A little, yeah,” Takao trills, “You’re not mad?”
Shintarou considers it.
“No,” he says, surprised to find that he means it.
Takao’s answering grin is sharp, almost wolfish. “Nice.”
“Do not,” Shintarou almost growls, “Get carried away, Takao.”
“But Shin-chan,” Takao says, eyes earnest, “I’m so good at getting carried away. Sometimes other people even think we’re already dating.”
“…Excuse me?” Shintarou says.
“So after I apologised for being such a little shit, Captain asked if we’d broken up after the Rakuzan thing,” Takao says, “And that’s why we were acting weird. Should’ve seen his face when I told him there was nothing to break up.”
“What?” Shintarou cannot help the sudden shift in pitch of his voice.
“Yeah, he was all,” Takao’s voice pitches lower, eyebrows furrowing in what he apparently feels is a reasonable approximation of their captain, “’You two have been acting strange recently and it’s giving Miyaji haemorrhoids’.’”
“He absolutely did not say that,” says Shintarou, still trying to recover from the fact that their captain might be wise to this situation (before he himself had been, at that).
“Yeah, no, you’re right, but Miyaji really needs to watch it, that guy’s gonna rage himself into a stroke one day. Anyway, apparently I’ve been ‘sitting in your lap’ for the past year,” Takao says, eyebrow quirking, “Which is, y’know, news to me, because I would’ve been all about sitting in your lap-”
“Takao,” Shintarou interrupts, despairing at the fact that he has now been cruelly forced into contemplating the concept of Takao in his lap.
“And, you know, all the other stuff!” That’s hurried, Shintarou thinks. “All the nice stuff.” He squints. “…Are you blushing?”
“Absolutely not.”
Takao’s eyes glitter, and Shintarou’s stomach twists. “…Does Shin-chan want me to sit in his lap?”
“Do not be absurd,” Shintarou snaps.
Takao plasters a pout on his face, and Shintarou tells himself it is not endearing, not even in the slightest. “But I’ve wanted it for so long!” he complains.
“…How long?” Shintarou asks him, daring to be self-indulgent.
“Probably pretty much immediately after you told me all about your scotch tape the first time I met you,” Takao says, “Just took me a little while to realise it.”
Shintarou scowls. “Now you are making fun of me.”
“I promise,” Takao says, holding his gaze, steady, “I’m not. The lucky item thing is actually super cute. Even when you’re getting me up at asshole o’clock to go on the hunt for some UFO catcher exclusive stuffed otter, or trying to make me cart a freaking grand piano around.”
“…So what prevented you from communicating that at any point?” Shintarou demands, a little petulantly.
Takao is silent for a moment, face slack like Shintarou’s just slapped him. Then he grins, wide and crooked, and Shintarou’s stomach nearly bottoms out with something that feels like relief and exhilaration, and he realises how much he’s needed that, to see Takao grinning like that.
“Yep, fair call,” he says, and then he’s sidling up to Shintarou, sitting knee-to-thigh with him. His eyes gleam against the moonlight, and he’s trembling with what could be cold or could be excitement. “You gonna pay me back now?”
“For?”
Takao widens his eyes, his expectation clear in them. “Confession for confession?”
Shintarou arches an eyebrow. “I should think I’ve made my opinion of you abundantly clear already.”
“Yeah, but,” Takao protests, looking wounded, “C’mon, Shin-chan, I’ve put myself on the line for you here! Think of my poor pride!”
Words catch in his throat – his thoughts sputter to a halt.
Takao’s are bright, expectant.
“I suppose,” Shintarou says, haltingly, and his heart beats so fast that the words fizz on his tongue, “That I have grown. Rather. Fond of you. During our time as.” He hesitates. “Partners.”
Takao almost moans, pressing his hands against his mouth. Shintarou’s just wondering what he’s done wrong when he breathes out a rapturous, “Cute! So cute!”
His eyes are shining when he peeks up over his fingers again, and Shintarou is overwhelmed by sudden breathlessness. “You know,” he says, “The partners thing? Really does it for me.”
“I’m merely stating a fact,” Shintarou says, lifting his eyebrows.
Takao looks pleased – smug, even. “Yeah,” he says, “I guess you are.”
“Additionally,” Shintarou says, “What you said earlier, about me meaning something to you. I… return that sentiment.”
Takao, as a rule, does not fluster easily. When he blushes, redness blooming across his whole face, Shintarou’s breath catches in his throat, because it’s his first time seeing Takao like that, and it does foreign, inexplicable things to his chest.
“Ah, jeez,” he grumbles, slapping a hand over his eyes, “Shin-chan’s gonna kill me. Next thing you know I’ll be going full tsun.”
Shintarou feels vaguely pleased with himself, like he’s accomplished something. Then Takao raises his head.
“You know this is the second time you’ve chased after me in as many weeks.” Takao’s glee is far too sly for Shintarou’s liking. “And here I was thinking you were the delicate maiden.”
“Takao,” Shintarou says, almost on reflex, “Shut up.”
“I’m serious!” He’s smirking. Shintarou could cuff him about the ears. He might, in fact, just as soon as he’s finished being struck dumb by it. “…Or does Shin-chan want to be the one getting wooed still? Because I can totally do that.”
“Is that what you’ve been trying to do this whole time?” Shintarou asks, “With the constant, hysterical cackling and general tiresome racket?”
“Hey,” Takao says, easily, “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Please die,” Shintarou tells him.
“Oh, you said ‘please’ that time!” Takao exclaims, looking delighted, “Definitely nailing it.”
Shintarou just glares at him. Takao beams, strobing brighter than the moon.
“Anyway,” he says, words brisk as he peels Shintarou’s scarf off, “You can have this back now.”
“You aren’t cold?” Shintarou asks, blinking a little as Takao reaches out to wind the scarf about his neck. “You’ll be cold,” he insists.
“Nah,” Takao says, easily, “I’m good. Besides, it’s your lucky item, right?”
“…You…” Shintarou is taken aback as he puzzles through how Takao could’ve possibly known that. “How did you…?”
“Oh, come on,” Takao says, arching an eyebrow.
Shintarou just mirrors him.
“So maybe I listen to Oha Asa every morning,” Takao tells him, “You know – just quietly.”
Shintarou is honestly taken aback by the admission – he sits in silence for a moment, staring at Takao like he doesn’t quite comprehend the words he’s just spoken.
“You… you listen to Oha Asa?” he repeats, finally, voice cracking a little, “You do? Every… every morning?” This is a joke. Takao is kidding him. Takao is about to burst into laughter at how gullible Shintarou is, with his little cosmic infatuations and fancies.
Takao does not do this. Takao just nods. “It’s good for me to know what kind of headspace you’re going to be in, right?”
Shintarou just keeps staring. No one has ever taken his preoccupation with fate and horoscopes seriously – certainly not enough to take time to listen to Oha Asa. Certainly not on a daily basis. Certainly not to the point of knowing his lucky item for the day.
Recalling what lies tucked away in his bag, Shintarou suddenly feels vindicated.
“Well,” he says, voice suddenly gruff, “I…”
Overwhelmed again, he busies himself reaching for his bag to rummage through it. He can feel Takao’s curious eyes on him as he digs. “Several times over this past fortnight… I had… intended to speak to you…”
“Uh-huh…” Takao sounds intrigued. Shintarou can still feel him staring.
“And so I thought it might be prudent to be prepared to the very highest extent.” His fingers feel out what he’s looking for, scraping against the side of the thin card. “Today was one of those days.”
He holds his palm out for Takao, glancing off to the side as he does.
A moment of silence passes.
“Shin-chan,” Takao says, eventually, his voice quiet.
Shintarou chances a glance upwards. There’s something a little too intimately real about the way Takao’s eyes are glittering.
“Those are for me.” It isn’t a question. His eyes are still wide. “Scorpio, fourth place, star hair pins, silver. Right?”
Shintarou had gotten used to assuming that this kind of affection, the urgent, warm swell in the centre of his chest, was the kind of thing only his little sister was capable of inducing. “I leave nothing to chance,” he says, “As you know.”
Takao grins when he accepts the cardboard backing, surprising Shintarou further. He is quick to set about slipping the pins, twin shining silver stars, into his dark hair, peeling some of the layers back from his face. “Should’ve given them to me right away,” he says, tilting his head to the side as he slides the second pin into his hair, “I definitely would’ve been less of a whiny dick.” He bats his eyelashes when he’s done, touching the fingers of either hand together underneath his chin with a coy smile. “Do I look pretty?”
“…They suit you,” Shintarou admits, because that isn’t a lie – he’s seen Takao with all manner of accessories jammed into his hair, and while they frequently look ridiculous, it doesn’t mean they look wrong.
The admission clearly surprises Takao, who gives a rapid blink in response. Shintarou goes very still when he leans in, feels the warmth of Takao’s body curling into him. His eyes widen as Takao’s lips press against his cheek – his heart stops dead in his chest, mouth running dry with a rapid blink. Takao is loud and boisterous, and seldom soft – the tenderness of the gesture is enough to dizzy Shintarou, but it’s nothing compared to what the softness of his eyes does to him when he pulls back.
“Thank you, Shin-chan,” he says. He smiles, then. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure the universe is on our side right now, so.”
Our side, Shintarou thinks, pulse fluttering. Our side. “It seems proximity is a sufficient conduit for good fortune,” he says, bold enough to reach out and touch Takao’s stars – they’re cold beneath his fingertips.
“Fate, huh?”
“Of course.”
Takao grins, tilting his head into Shintarou’s touch. “You don’t do this for anyone else, right?”
“Idiot,” Shintarou grouses, “Of course I don’t.” His hands end up resting on Takao’s shoulders.
“…Am I your first boyfriend?” Takao looks close to buzzing with excitement, his own hands drifting up to cover Shintarou’s.
Shintarou averts his eyes – his face shouldn’t be feeling this hot in the frigid temperature, it’s just not natural. “As though you didn’t know.” Boyfriend. He turns the word over in his head, like he’s checking it for dings and cracks.
“Cute!” Takao groans. Then that sharp, crooked grin is winding its way across his face, and he says, “I mean, not that I couldn’t tell-”
“Shut up, Takao.” Honestly, Shintarou is not blushing. He is far too old and distinguished for such things.
Takao doesn’t stop grinning, even as he reaches out tug at Shintarou’s scarf with two fingers, using it to pull him close. “Don’t worry,” he assures Shintarou, far too sunny for how dark it is in the moonlight, “It’s reaaally cute, I promise. Totally a charm point.”
“Shut up, Takao,” Shintarou says, louder this time, a hint of a threat in it, “If you’re going to insult me, then-”
He freezes when Takao leans in, tilting his head and half-lidding his eyes, and-
Stops. Does nothing.
Shintarou blinks long lashes after a moment, opening his eyes to come into close contact with Takao’s own.
“Hee,” Takao giggles, actually giggles, fingers twining up in Shintarou’s scarf.
“Hysterical,” Shintarou manages to grind out, which earns him an utterly inelegant snort from Takao.
“Sorry, Shin-chan,” he says, having the grace to sound at least halfway sincere about it, “You’re way too fun to tease.”
“At least one of us is amused,” Shintarou huffs, but Takao just keeps grinning.
“You know what else is a charm point?” he whispers, a hand pressing over Shintarou’s chest as Shintarou takes a rough swallow to wet his throat, “Your heart totally beats like a little rabbit when you’re nervous.”
Shintarou has the lurching suspicion that his face may be at this precise moment aflame.
Takao lets out this pesky little snicker. “Oh, man,” he says, “This is so-”
Shintarou figures that Takao, judging from his prior behaviour in the entire time they’ve known each other, will never shut up on his own, and so deigns to take responsibility into his own hands. Quite literally, with the way he takes Takao’s face in his hands and closes the slim gap between them, brushing dry lips against Takao’s.
Takao’s own heartbeat is doing some rather interesting, rapid tattoo type of business, if Shintarou is being perfectly honest with himself, but he has the grace not to mention it, just presses deeper against him. Takao lets out a sigh, firm hands clutching and tugging against Shintarou’s scarf to square them closer, and when he parts his lips for Shintarou, Shintarou flinches back, alarm surging through his veins.
“Oh, shit,” Takao’s breathing out, eyes wide, “Sorry-”
“No-” Shintarou can taste his pulse-
“If I’m moving too fast,” Takao says, licking at his lips like he’s nervous, “I know you have issues, with being touched and stuff-”
“No,” Shintarou says, firmer, setting his shoulders, “I want to, I-”
He’s reaching for Takao before he really comprehends what he’s doing, hands cupping his face, finding it still cold to the touch. “As I said,” he says, voice just a touch shaky, “I’ve… limited experience. In this. Particular. Area.”
Takao blinks. Then, his eyes brighten. “Oh,” he says, “Yeah. Right. Sure. Okay.” He turns his head into Shintarou’s hesitant touch, and Shintarou is transfixed by the way his eyelashes flutter with visible contentment. He lets his thumb rub against Takao’s cheekbone, basking in the pleased little hum it draws from him.
Takao glances up after a moment. “So,” he drawls, mischief tinting his grin, “Want help with that?”
Shintarou, suddenly unable to speak, just nods.
Takao’s grin softens. “Can I sit in your lap now?”
Shintarou is hardly surprised to realise he is ‘about that’, too. He raises his chin. “If you must.”
Takao snickers as he moves, climbing into Shintarou’s lap with a fluidity that makes his pulse skip. Shintarou is at a complete loss for what to do with his hands, and so they end up haphazardly curled about Takao’s waist as the other boy perches neatly atop him.
“Don’t be nervous,” Takao whispers, soft in the dark. Gentle hands cup his jaw. “It’s just me, yeah?”
“Yes,” Shintarou says, fully aware that that isn’t really a response to what Takao just said.
Takao is gentler with him, this time – Shintarou can tell he’s being careful, just a brush of dry lips against his own. Shintarou meets him there, splaying his fingers about Takao’s waist as the other boy tilts his head and kisses him again, still soft, calm, almost, except Shintarou can feel his heartbeat, and it’s quick enough to be dizzying. Shintarou loses track of the number of times Takao kisses him with soft little presses before he realises that Takao expects him to set the pace, and he has to pull back to breathe as the realisation washes over him.
“You okay?” Takao murmurs, butting his forehead into Shintarou’s.
“Yes,” Shintarou says, ignoring how rough his voice sounds to his own ears. The next time he leans forward, it’s with his eyes closed and his lips parted, earning the tiniest noise from Takao. Shintarou will never admit it, but he is utterly lost when it comes to this – everything is warm and wet and singularly overwhelming, even more so when Takao opens his mouth and lets Shintarou in, melting into his hesitant, exploratory touches. He swipes a shallow lick against Takao’s tongue, feels Takao shiver, feels fingers slipping into his hair.
“Um,” Takao breathes as he pulls back to breathe, and Shintarou watches in utter fascination at the way his throat bobs when he swallows, hard and deep, “Here, just let me-”
“You are uncertain,” Shintarou observes, blinking at him, “Why?” He feels as though he ought to be the uncertain one.
“Um,” Takao says again, sounding strangled, “Honestly? I’ve wanted this for a really long time.” He tilts his head. “Also Shin-chan is super beautiful.”
Shintarou proceeds to almost choke on his own saliva.
Takao grins, eyes sharp and glittering. “Pink is a really good colour on you, Shin-chan,” he trills, and then he’s pulling the coat from where it hangs about his shoulders, leaning around Shintarou to spread it out over the floor of the rickshaw.
“What are you doing?” demands Shintarou.
“Well, if we’re gonna make out,” Takao says, quirking an eyebrow, “We should do it properly.”
“You will freeze to death,” Shintarou tells him, fingers circling Takao’s biceps.
“It’s okay,” Takao says, leaning in, right up close, so that when he speaks his breath ghosts against Shintarou’s lips, “You can keep me warm.”
Shintarou is so taken aback he finds himself tipped over to lie down on his own coat before he’s even realised what’s happening.
“Can I, like,” Takao whispers, “Eat you now?”
That phrasing certainly shouldn’t be so appealing. Shintarou could curse Takao. Instead his fingers curl in the front of the other boy’s shirt, guiding him back into him, back into a slick slide of lips and the feel of Takao’s fluttering pulse where his knuckles rest against his throat. He shudders when Takao’s teeth nip at his lower lip, and then there’s a gentle hand on his jaw, coaxing his mouth further open, and then it’s all so deep Shintarou almost forgets to breathe.
“I am, like,” Takao murmurs, “So smug right now.” He presses his lips to Shintarou’s jawline. “Seriously. Just let me die here.”
“That would be truly regrettable,” Shintarou says, unable to quite shake the rasp from his voice.
“Hee.” Shintarou’s heart skips when Takao nuzzles him. “Say that again, I wanna record it.”
“Say what again?” is Shintarou’s instantaneous response.
“There’s my Shin-chan,” Takao purrs, and that makes Shintarou pause. He’s been someone’s Shintarou, someone’s Midorima, someone’s big brother - never someone’s Shin-chan, with his name spoken so soft and gentle and honest like that.
Shintarou tenses when Takao keeps moving downward, trailing kisses down his jawline.
“Can I just-” Takao whispers, tugging at Shintarou’s scarf.
“Do it,” Shintarou’s saying without even realising, fingers joining Takao’s to scrabble the thing open. Takao dives back down when Shintarou’s throat is bared enough, pressing his open mouth against Shintarou’s throat.
“Takao,” Shintarou gasps out when he feels a scrape of teeth, fingers curling into dark hair, “Don’t-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Takao murmurs, “I know, Shin-chan.”
He chooses this moment to tug Shintarou’s sweater down and scrape his teeth against his collarbone. Shintarou claws in a breath, then holds it still, as Takao sucks, soft then hard, teeth pinching against the ridge. Shintarou gasps, hips jerking up against Takao’s, heart pounding when a moan escapes Takao’s throat, fragile and breathy. Takao grinds back against him, hips pressing tight against Shintarou’s as he keeps sucking, slipping off with a wet sound to lurch back up, sealing his open mouth, warm and slick, against Shintarou’s. Takao guides the press of their lips into something filthy and slow, noises spilling from his throat every time he rubs up against Shintarou, until Shintarou moans back against him, deep in this throat.
It never even occurs to Shintarou to tell him to stop.
“Mmmm, Shin-chan?” Takao breathes, almost pants, right against his lips, “So, uh. That thing I said earlier. About facets. And stuff.”
“You’re aroused,” Shintarou surmises, because it’s not as if he can’t feel the very palpable evidence of that.
“Uhhhhh!” Takao squeaks, the sound tugging at something in Shintarou’s chest. “I mean!”
“Was that supposed to be a deflection?” Shintarou rolls his eyes at the stars.
“Ughhhh. I’m not usually like this,” Takao moans, “I swear. Shin-chan is special.”
Shintarou thinks on it. For a good ten seconds.
Then he shifts, getting his arm in between them and slipping a hand down, curling around-
“UM OKAY!” Takao’s squeaking again, and it’s so peculiar and new, so endearing, that Shintarou can’t help but breathe out around a smirk, despite the way his pulse is fluttering, “LET’S JUST CHILL ON THAT FOR ONE SECOND AND TALK ABOUT IT YEAH?”
He almost laughs, and that proves it, Takao has clearly made him lose his mind. “If you insist.”
When Shintarou takes his hand away, Takao is up like he’s been shocked, sitting up with his thighs on either side of Shintarou’s waist. Even in the low light of the moon, Shintarou can see how dark Takao’s eyes have gone.
“Um,” Takao begins, the very picture of eloquence, “You’ve never done anything like that before, right?”
Shintarou pauses, lips pursed, before he shakes his head. “Have you?”
Takao’s eyes flicker. “Um,” he says, “Yeah.”
That makes Shintarou’s gut twist with something that is absolutely not jealousy. “Ah.”
“Never in a rickshaw, though!” Takao chirps.
“What about in a public location?” Shintarou asks, dryly.
“Eh,” Takao dismisses, “Does it really count as public when it’s like one AM and no one’s gonna come by, probably?”
“I feel as though the law might have an opinion on that.”
“I’m not hearing the word ‘no’, Shin-chan.”
“No,” Shintarou says, “I suppose you aren’t.”
“…Oh,” Takao says, sounding faint, “Well.”
“What?”
Takao shifts above him. “I just expected you to kick me off,” he says. He pauses. “…Do you want to kick me off? Because it’s fine, if you do. Totally fine.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then that’s also totally fine.” He sounds breathless – over-eager, even. “But either way, it’s totally up to you, yeah? I’m just as happy to make out some more.”
“I shall defer to your alleged expertise,” is Shintarou’s mild response, eyebrows raising expectantly.
Takao snickers. “That’s probably the weirdest way anyone’s ever asked to touch my dick,” he says. He taps Shintarou’s nose, drawing a startled blink from him. “But that’s what I love about you.”
Shintarou’s brain almost grinds to a very abrupt halt at that word, but Takao just keeps talking, for which he is incredibly thankful.
“So,” he husks out, guilt and amusement playing across his face, “I mean. It’s kinda, you know… slutty, doing stuff in the rickshaw. But I feel like it’s pretty, well, us.” He gives Shintarou an expectant look. “Don’t you think?”
“…Is the implication that I am, as you said, ‘slutty’?” Shintarou queries, raising his eyebrows so as to suggest he’s infinitely more relaxed than he actually feels.
“Naw,” Takao says, briskly, “I’m the slutty one. You’re just the hottie who makes me remember how easy I am.”
He bursts out laughing the second Shintarou’s eyes widen. “Cute,” he trills again, and Shintarou fidgets beneath him.
“…My parents would be horrifically disappointed,” Shintarou ventures.
“Kinda hot, though, right?” He quirks an eyebrow.
“…Disappointing one’s parents?” Shintarou is baffled by this suggestion.
Takao beams. “You’re so cute,” he says, darting down to peck him on the lips, “Why didn’t we do this sooner again?”
“If you had said something-”
“’Hey, Shin-chan, wanna get filthy in the rickshaw?’ doesn’t exactly strike me as the kind of offer you’d have vibed on,” Takao says, “No offense.”
“And yet,” Shintarou says, archly, “Here I am.”
Takao pauses. “Yep.” He kisses Shintarou again, lingering a touch longer this time, so Shintarou’s lips are just a bit damp when he pulls back. “Here you are.”
Shintarou follows him, a little steadier this time when their lips find each other. He grinds his palm against the front of Takao’s jeans, biting his lip when the other boy rolls his hips forward, clearly appreciating the friction.
“Well,” Takao rasps out around a nervous giggle, “This is happening, I guess. Just tell me if you want to-”
Shintarou grabs at Takao’s zipper.
“Ah, fuck it,” Takao says, brightly, and then he scrapes his teeth against Shintarou’s lower lip, making him startle even as he’s dragging Takao’s zipper down. He makes to tug Takao’s underwear down, and-
Stops dead. “You…”
“Ehehehee,” is the high-pitched Takao giggle gives in response.
“…Do you,” Shintarou flattens his palm against warm skin and wiry hair, his own pants suddenly feeling a touch too tight, “Make a habit of this?”
“Ummm,” Takao says, “Sometimes I get lazy?”
“Of course you do,” Shintarou says, voice faint as he wonders how many times Takao has stood beside him not wearing underwear like it’s completely normal.
He stops breathing when he wraps experimental fingers around Takao’s cock, lips parted at the slick drag against his palm.
“Wet,” he murmurs, without really thinking.
He feels the shiver ripple through Takao. “What can I say,” he breathes out, “Shin-chan gets me real wet.”
“...Is this the aforementioned, ah, sluttiness?” Shintarou asks him, even as his heart skips a beat in favour of leaping headfirst at his ribcage.
“God,” Takao grits out, “Okay. That’s. Definitely a thing.”
Shintarou decides to respond to that by trailing his fingers through the slickness he can feel pooling at the head of Takao’s cock. He feels Takao string taut above him, a slow exhale ghosting across his lips. Shintarou blinks to himself when he feels everything get a touch slipperier down there – something is very wrong, and very frustrating with this picture.
“Let me see you,” Shintarou whispers.
Takao lets out a soft moan. “I’m gonna die in this fucking rickshaw,” he says, sounding dizzy, and then he’s hauling himself up.
They’re probably going to get caught – they probably deserve to get caught, given how reckless they’re being, but Shintarou thinks that recklessness has quite worked in his favour this evening. Besides, Shintarou reasons, Cancer is first in the rankings, Scorpio is a solid fourth, they both have their lucky items on them, and Takao looks-
Incomprehensibly enticing, if Shintarou is being perfectly honest with himself, perched above him with dark eyes and teeth tugging at his lower lip as he sits straddling Shintarou’s hips. He rakes his gaze, down from Takao’s bright eyes, the lean muscles of his arms, slim hips and sharp bones and dark hair and his cock, hard and flushed, jutting up from the curl of Shintarou’s fingers.
Shintarou feels helpless. Never mind how his hands feel. He wonders if Takao can feel the way his fingers are trembling against his cock.
“Uhhhh, Shin-chan,” Takao says, the brightness in his voice undercut by the slight rasp lurking at the edges, “Not to rush you or anything, because you perving on me is super nice, but um… blue balls are definitely a thing.”
Shintarou steels himself, taking in a breath through his nose, dragging his fingers up, tight as they pass over the head of Takao’s cock. He manages to tear his eyes away long enough, lighting on Takao’s face to watch his eyes go half-lidded as he drags his hand back down.
“You’re…” Shintarou has to pause to swallow, wondering when exactly he started salivating to excess like this.
“I’m?” Takao prompts, voice dark, a little rough. Shintarou thinks he might like the way it sounds.
“…Very thick,” he finishes, feeling dizziness wash over him again. He is – a warm, oddly pleasing weight, heavy against Shintarou’s palm.
“Hee,” Shintarou doesn’t understand how he’s still giggling. “Does Shin-chan like it?”
“Takao is also very vain,” Shintarou chides, even as he tries to find an acceptable rhythm, eyes glued to Takao’s face for any clue he might drop.
“Shin-chan,” Takao groans, shivering a little, “Don’t lecture people while you’re jacking them off, it’s rude.” He reaches down, adjusting Shintarou’s grip with a gentle hand, making it tighter, a touch more angled upwards. “Try that,” he says. He cheats a little, hips twitching forward – Shintarou watches his teeth sinks into his lower lip, watches his eyelashes flutter.
“Like this?” Shintarou whispers, flicking his wrist down and up, and then again, for good measure, just to be sure.
Takao lets out a little hum, clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. “Perfect,” he moans, voice trembling a little.
Shintarou learns that Takao is very enthusiastic in these situations, apparently, watching with wide, rapt eyes as Takao almost lunges back against his fist, eyes closed, lips parted as he pants, meeting Shintarou’s rhythm with fluid, sinuous movements of his hips. The thought occurs to Shintarou that this is probably what Takao looks like when he fucks, and he has to bite down on a moan, has to keep himself from following that train of thought. He settles for speeding his hand up, a shiver trailing down his spine when Takao lets out this broken, needy little sound, hips snapping forward into Shintarou’s grip, and he’s so entranced can’t even remember the last time he took a proper breath.
“Hey,” Takao rasps out after a long, heady moment, eyes slitting open, “Shin-chan.”
Shintarou stares up at him. “…Yes?”
He quirks an eyebrow. “Can I play too?”
“Mmm,” is all Shintarou can manage, the sound half-surprised, half-needy. He’d been so absorbed in touching Takao, drinking him in, that he’d almost forgotten about himself. “Yes. I… I would like that.”
There’s something sharp about Takao’s grin as he shifts, slinking down to trail his hand in between them. Shintarou bites his lip, hand still around Takao’s cock, as the other boy gets his pants undone. Takao’s hands are shaking. Shintarou doesn’t quite know what to make of that.
“You sure?” Takao asks him, a finger hooked in the waistband of Shintarou’s underwear.
Shintarou almost chokes on the way his heart is pounding. “Yes.”
“Really sure?” Takao coos, making Shintarou’s hips jump when Takao snaps his elastic and smirks.
“You,” Shintarou grinds out, “Are being a tease.”
“Yeah,” Takao trills, grinning, “Sorry. Let me get at you.”
Shintarou has to hold his breath still when Takao finally peels his underwear down, watching those keen eyes as they widen.
“Oh,” Takao breathes, even as he wraps his fingers around Shintarou’s cock, “Yes.”
“Yes?” Shintarou almost gasps through a shudder at the feel of someone else touching him.
“Knew you were big,” Takao murmurs, and then’s squeezing tight and dragging his hand down, steady and deliberate, Shintarou hears himself letting out a gasp. “Ugh, fuck, give me your hand-”
“…Right or left?” Shintarou breathes out.
“Whichever you’ll be less of a princess about me sucking on,” is Takao’s breathy response.
Ah. Shintarou’s jaw drops even as he feels his cock twitch against Takao’s palm.
“Oh,” Takao whispers around a smug little laugh, “You like that, Shin-chan?”
“…Apparently,” Shintarou grinds out, tapping the fingertips of his right hand against Takao’s lips with impatience.
Takao just lets out a good-natured snicker, wriggling back so he can set his free hand about Shintarou’s wrist, tongue flicking out to lap at the pad of his index finger. Shintarou’s breath catches in his throat as Takao sucks it into his mouth, sinking down until it’s all the way inside, tongue swirling around it as if in a flourish. Takao sets his teeth to the edge of it as he draws back, not a scrape as much as it’s just the faintest, gentlest hint of pressure. A noise escapes Shintarou’s throat at the delicate, gloss-like strand of saliva that remains, sticky and vulgar, between Takao’s lips and Shintarou’s finger. Takao breaks it with a swipe of his tongue and a smug, knowing look. He gives the same level of attention and care to the rest of Shintarou’s fingers, until Shintarou can feel the saliva beginning to cool against the cold air. Takao dips his head lower, licking his tongue up Shintarou’s palm until it’s wet, and Shintarou can see Takao’s handiwork catching the low light, all slippery and glossy.
“Fuck,” Takao rasps out, dragging a fingertip through the clear slickness pooling at the head of Shintarou’s cock, “You’re really hard.”
“I suppose so,” Shintarou manages, too far gone for anything but the barest neutrality.
“Liked that, huh?” Takao says, voice soft, almost sing-song, “My mouth?”
“Yes,” Shintarou breathes out, distantly aware of just how gone he must be to own up to that.
Takao smirks, dark and sinuous and self-indulgent. “Well,” he says, “Maybe if Shin-chan’s good enough I’ll show him what else I can do with my mouth.” His voice sounds like a purr, and it goes right to Shintarou’s cock.
“Takao,” he says, knowing he sounds desperate and not finding it in himself to care at this point, “Please-”
“Oh god,” Takao moans, eyes flickering shut for a second. They’re dark, blown-out, when he opens them again. “Okay. Okay. Just-”
He swipes a messy lick against his own palm before he wriggles forward, straddling Shintarou’s hips. Shintarou takes a breath and holds onto it when Takao grips them, the friction of their cocks meeting warm and heavy, dripping all the way down Shintarou’s spine. Takao’s hand doesn’t make it all the way around the two of them. He slides a gentle hand down to circle Shintarou’s wrist. “Here,” Takao’s saying, curling Shintarou’s now-slick fingers around them, “Just like this.”
Takao rolls his hips forward, making Shintarou suck in a breath when their slick cocks drag against each other, against the tight circle their hands make together, a shudder tearing right down every notch of his spine.
“And then you just,” he breathes out a slow, shaky exhale, “Move.”
Shintarou isn’t familiar with this kind of rhythm, so he gives in to Takao, lets him guide him, drag him down into something warm and slick and hard and so heavy in the air Shintarou thinks he can almost smell it. Takao sinks down against him eventually, chests pressed flush together, mouthing at Shintarou’s throat with the line of his teeth as he moans, Shintarou clutching the other boy’s waist with his free hand, feeling the rhythmic snap of his hips. Shintarou just barely has the presence of mind to register that Takao is noisy, his breathy, needy little sounds meeting Shintarou’s harsh panting, warping together like white noise. Before Shintarou really comprehends what’s happening (he sincerely doubts he’ll ever comprehend anything again), Takao is shivering against him, the movement of his hips turning erratic as he misses a beat.
“Shin-chan,” Takao’s voice is just barely more substantial than a whimper, “Shin-chan, k-keep going, I’m almost th-ere-”
He smothers an utterly broken sound against Shintarou’s throat, hips slamming forward once more before they still, twitching in place as Shintarou feels him spill between them, splashing down their hands, his wrist, across his abdomen. Shintarou, breath already ragged, expects Takao to collapse then, but he doesn’t, free hand clawing at the front of Shintarou’s shirt to pull him into a wet, dirty kiss that’s really nothing more than an incoherent, messy press of tongues and spit. A clever hand curls around Shintarou’s cock, and he’s so hard and needs it so badly at this point that it honestly aches. It’s wetter and quicker, now, thanks to Takao’s release, and Shintarou jerks up into the touch, gasps when Takao bites his lower lip, and comes undone all over Takao’s fist, like Takao had planned it that way, had him all figured out like sheet music. He clutches at Takao with his free hand, breathes a low, guttural moan against the other boy’s lips. Takao jerks Shintarou through it until he’s shuddering, starts laughing, inexplicably, and only then does he collapse face first against Shintarou’s chest, trembling with the force of his own laughter.
Shintarou does not have the presence of mind to question it. Shintarou does not have the presence of mind for anything, other than lying there with his eyes closed, feeling Takao gradually grow still against him.
“Oh, fuck,” Takao says, suddenly, rather loudly, and decidedly not in the throes of ecstasy.
Shintarou’s eyes slip open. “What?”
“Please tell me you have tissues,” Takao groans, as though he’s pleading with the gods rather than just Shintarou, “Because this winner just remembered he has to pedal the both of us home.”
“Just my hand towel,” Shintarou says, still dazed.
“Oh,” Takao says, voice faint. A beat of silence. “I’ll take it home and wash it. Promise.”
“Of course you will,” Shintarou says.
Quiet settles over them. Neither of them reach for the hand towel. Neither of them even make the slightest move to do so.
“I cannot believe we just rubbed off in the rickshaw,” is the first thing Takao says after a protracted, quite comfortable silence, “I mean, I’ve had wet dreams about it, but-”
“Takao,” Shintarou groans, slapping a hand over his eyes. Takao just giggles, a little manic, in response, and then Shintarou’s blinking his eyes wide as Takao wriggles over and presses a kiss to his cheek.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done without you, Shin-chan,” Takao says, lips against Shintarou’s cheek.
“Well,” Shintarou says, fully aware that he is turning bright red and that there is no actual end to that sentence. He hopes Takao will notice neither of these things.
“Shin-chan?” Takao’s voice is suddenly small, almost timid.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I’ve been acting like a dick,” Takao says. He pauses. “And I’m not just saying that because orgasms.”
Shintarou might’ve laughed, if it were a wise idea to encourage such crassness.
“It’s fine,” he says instead, “Think nothing of it.” He pauses. “I… I, too, am sorry I have been acting like a dick.”
“Nnnnnnn,” is the closest approximation to the high-pitched, borderline inhuman noise Takao lets out, before he proceeds further insinuate himself against Shintarou’s side and collapse into giggles.
Shintarou does not comprehend, but he slings a tentative arm around Takao anyway.
“Let’s never fight again,” Takao says, once his giggles have abated, “Like. I know you’re constantly pissy at me, but, y’know. That’s like, foreplay.”
“It’s like what?” is Shintarou’s dry as a bone response.
“Let’s never fight for real again,” Takao says, insistent as he butts his head against Shintarou’s arm.
“Agreed,” Shintarou says.
He lets Takao wipe them down with his poor doomed hand towel. Then he holds Takao, curled up against his side, for what feels like a very long time, until he feels his skin start to cool.
“Here,” he says, pressing a gentle nudge against his ribs, “Sit up. You should put the coat back on.”
“’M like half-asleep,” Takao grumbles, sounding petulant.
Shintarou nudges him again, utterly unamused. “You’re likely half-hypothermic,” he says, “Get up.”
Takao continues to grumble as he hauls himself up, snatching the coat up from the floor of the cart and slipping it on. It is far, far too big for him, sleeves dragging well past his hands. Shintarou doesn’t know what it says about him that he finds the sight intriguing.
“Happy?” he says.
“Placated,” Shintarou says.
“Nice sex hair,” Takao tells Shintarou, before he dissolves into giggles for what must be the hundredth time this evening.
“Likewise,” Shintarou sniffs.
“Nah, but for real,” Takao says, leaning forward to get his hands in Shintarou’s hair, presumably to destroy it even further, “You should wear it like this all the time. It’s cute.”
“Imagine the gossip,” Shintarou says, thoughts drifting to Kise with a shudder, “No thank you.”
“I like gossip,” Takao says around a yawn, “Keeps things interesting. What do you think Miyaji’s been keeping himself entertained with this whole year?”
“I do hope you’re not implying that it’s thoughts of us,” Shintarou says.
“Eh, who knows?” Takao says, “I have my suspicions about that guy.”
“Enough,” Shintarou cuts in, because he refuses to even contemplate that train of thought. “We should go home,” he says, “It’s late.”
“Yeah.” Takao’s voice is soft. “We should, shouldn’t we?”
But in the end, neither of them make a move in that direction. Takao rests his head against his shoulder. Shintarou lets his hand creep out, sets it just beyond Takao’s opposite hip. His arm brushes against Takao’s back. Silence drifts.
The moon is soft tonight – brighter than any neon god.