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The first time he meets Lev the tall boy’s arm is stuck in a vending machine past his elbow, and he’s a mess of long limbs blocking the hallway on the way to the gym. Morisuke is tempted to walk back the way he came—but then the boy looks up, and there’s something arresting about his catlike eyes that stops Morisuke in his tracks.
“Help?” the boy says.
Morisuke covers his mouth. He’s not going to laugh. The tall boy is in basketball shorts, and clearly gigantic, but the pleading in his voice—not to mention the position he’s in—makes him seem very young.
He’s a first year, probably—just a horribly distended one.
“Do I look like a janitor?” Morisuke asks, but he walks forward anyway, kneels down and puts his gym bag beside him. He prods at the boy’s arm—he’s not that muscular, for all that he’s tall—and feels inside the machine, careful not to get his own hands stuck.
“I’m Lev Haiba,” the boy says, and Morisuke wonders if he’s heard right. Lev?
“Yaku Morisuke. And yeah, you are stuck.” He reaches into his gym bag, looking for the hand lotion he brought for Fukunaga’s chapped hands. It’s cherry blossom scented—he borrowed it from his mother—but it should do the trick. Without asking, he squirts a dollop into his hand and starts to rub it all over Lev’s caught arm. The boy watches him do it.
“Hey, do you play basketball?”
“No,” Morisuke says. “Volleyball.”
Lev shifts. “Volleyball? Aren’t you a little—”
“I can leave, you know, if you want to finish that sentence.” He gets the lotion as close to the caught skin as he can, poking and prodding. It should be easy to—
“But there’s nothing wrong with being—” Lev starts.
Morisuke stands up, warning in the tight lines of his posture.
Lev ignores it. “Wow, you really are short, even from down here.”
He picks up his bag and begins to walk away.
“Wait, no! Come back! It doesn’t matter if you’re short! I just wondered!”
The boy’s pleas for help follow him down the hallway, increasingly plaintive; Morisuke hopes it takes a while for anyone else to find him.
“Yaku-san! Yaku-san!”
Morisuke’s shoulders rise up to his ears. Always Yaku-san, Yaku-san. Every day this week, ever since he found that giant elbow-deep in a vending machine. Lev’s taken to following him to the gym after class before running back to where basketball club practices, talking about volleyball videos he’s watched online and spiking and libero seems like a boring position, which earns him a kick to the back of the knee. He doesn’t seem dissuaded, though.
“I want to join the volleyball team,” Lev says today, catching up. It makes Morisuke glance up at him, considering. They could use someone with his height on the team, though his personality is a problem. He seems a lot more interested in individual glory than teamwork—and that’s not the type of volleyball they play at Nekoma.
“We wouldn’t make you a starter right away.”
“But eventually?”
“If you proved yourself.”
Lev nods vigorously. “I would! So can I join?”
Morisuke sighs. “I’m not the captain, you know. And why do you want to join? Why are you following me? Are you lonely or something?”
“Yes!” Lev says easily. “The guys on the basketball team call me Vodka. They’re really mean.”
Morisuke feels a little bad, at that—especially given the fact that he’d left Lev stuck in a vending machine himself and kicked him. “And I’m not?”
“No,” Lev says, shaking his head. “It’s funny when you’re mean.”
Great. It’s going to be torture to manage this guy, if he thinks that—but the thought of Lev being teased on the basketball team doesn’t sit well with him either. He’s obnoxious, but he seems well-intentioned—sort of like an oversize dog despite the feline eyes.
“I’m sure Kuroo will let you join,” Morisuke says, and isn’t quite prepared for Lev to throw an arm over him and attempt to pick him up in a bridal carry. He pushes affectionate-Sasquatch off him before his pride can get too damaged, unafraid to use his knees and elbows. This time, when he hurries into the club room to change, Lev trails after him, grinning widely.
The team seems happy to have him, even if Morisuke is still undecided.
As spring rolls into the hot humidity of summer, Lev improves to the point of being considered for a starting position; Morisuke tries not to be proud, but he is, a little, even if he feels bad for Inuoka.
“You’re glowing,” Kuroo informs him while they watch the younger players in a practice match against their counterparts at Shinzen. “Are you his dad?”
“I’m just happy he fits in here,” Morisuke says truthfully, though why he should feel responsible for that overenthusiastic beanstalk is beyond him.
Kai folds his arms on Morisuke’s other side. “He’s a handful, but I think it’s been worth it. Next year…”
“Yeah,” Kuroo says, anticipating. “They’ll be strong. How are things going with Yuuki?”
“Good,” Morisuke says. “He’s stopped protecting himself so much. Doesn’t wait to dive.”
“I thought he looked better.”
They fall silent, eyes on the match. The underclassmen from Shinzen high school are good, but Nekoma is winning, with Kenma as their tactical center. Even Lev recognizes the need to defer to him, and his tendency to steal tosses has dropped drastically since he started. It’s still a risk to put him in, but he makes up for his clumsy play with his whiplike spikes. When they win, he doesn’t waste a moment; instead he runs up to Morisuke like a dog waiting to be praised.
“I was good, wasn’t I? Did you see that last spike?”
He bends over into a half-bow over him, which confuses Morisuke to no end. Does he want him to bow back? What? Morisuke glances at Kuroo, who makes a petting motion.
Really? He wants to be petted? Morisuke reaches up to ruffle Lev’s hair—it’s silky, even with sweat dampening it—and Lev jerks a little but then stills. “You did well,” Morisuke says, ignoring the way Kuroo’s sniggering.
“Thank you, Yaku-san!” Lev straightens up, his face bright. “I’ll do even better next time, you’ll see! I’ll be the ace in no time.”
Morisuke sighs, used to the ace spiel. “Why are you telling me? He’s the captain.”
Lev doesn’t answer that in any satisfying way and—even though he’s watching them—neither does Kuroo.
By November, Morisuke is used to Lev. He’s used to his constant tactlessness, and his frankly annoying height—made worse by his tendency to always stand too close—and the way he always seems hungry for approval, running up to him grinning after matches or training exercises. On his birthday he says I’m sixteen now over and over until Morisuke buys him a cake, which shuts him up for a little while. Kuroo laughs at Morisuke’s exasperation, and never tries to help him.
It doesn’t make sense for Lev to cling so tight to him; he’s not the ace or the captain or even the setter, and Lev has no interest in being libero. And he didn’t even save the tall boy from the vending machine, though he found out later that the lotion enabled Lev to get out by himself—so maybe that’s good enough. It still doesn’t make sense, though. Morisuke knows he’s no fun for someone energetic like Lev to hang out with; all he tells him is to calm down and do his homework, and yet he keeps coming back. Sometimes Lev even tries to show him his homework.
“I’m not your teacher,” Morisuke says.
“But didn’t you want—”
“I want you to do well in your classes. I don’t need to check your homework.”
“Oh,” Lev says, curiously downcast, and Morisuke grabs the notebook from him, wondering how he always ends up being ambushed like this; they’re in different years. How does Lev catch him in the hallway every other lunchtime?
The homework is some sort of project where Lev answers questions about himself. His career goal is to be a professional volleyball player (the ace of the Japanese national volleyball team), his favorite food is inarizushi, and his family goal is to—
Morisuke blinks at the paper. “What?”
“Well?” Lev asks, smiling a little more self-consciously than Morisuke is used to seeing. “What do you think?”
“This says your family goal is to marry me and adopt five children.”
Lev nods, as if that answer isn’t some big joke or absurd spelling error. There’s color high on his cheeks, and Morisuke gazes up at him in disbelief for a long moment before the disbelief ends and he realizes Lev is serious.
“Are you crazy? You can’t hand this in! It has my name on it! You even wrote it right!”
“Of course I wrote it right, it’s your name—”
“Why would you write something like this?”
Lev blinks at him. “It asked me for my goal, so—”
“Why is that your goal?”
Lev continues to look blank, as if the answer ought to be obvious—which it isn’t. Doesn’t he know what marriage is? Not to mention the fact that marriage between two guys isn’t legal in Japan—is it? Morisuke glares as he processes the information, trying to figure out how long this has been going on and why and—worst of all—who knows about this silly goal of Lev’s.
He doesn’t have to think long, and when he realizes he presses the notebook back into Lev’s hands—telling him to cross out that bit—and races around the school looking for Kuroo. He’s in Kenma’s classroom, seated on the wide windowsill while Kenma plays a game at his desk.
“You knew!” Morisuke hisses when he’s close enough not to cause a scene. “You knew about Lev, and you…” he trails off, remembering Kuroo’s petting gesture that time Lev came up to him looking for approval. But he hadn’t been looking for approval, had he? He’d been about to kiss him, and Morisuke had petted his head. His cheeks warm, and he feels ridiculous.
Kuroo is stifling laughter. “Come on, it was cute, and you would have just shut him down. He liked it, didn’t he?”
The warmth in his cheeks strengthens to a blaze. Lev had liked it—always falling into his lap to have his head petted, or bending over for him to do it. Morisuke didn’t mind the contact, even if it was weird; it was a little cute, too, and he hadn’t had a pet since he was seven.
He should have stuck to dogs and cats; they don’t make marriage plans.
“So what are you going to do?” Kuroo asks, and Morisuke notices that Kenma is looking at him too, curious. He keeps his eyes on Kuroo, knowing from long practice that involving Kenma in conversations is the fastest way to make him draw back.
“What is there to do? Tell him it’s silly.”
“Is it silly?” Kenma asks, blinking up at him in that disconcerting way of his.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Kenma goes back to his game, and Kuroo picks up the slack. “If you liked him too, it wouldn’t be silly.”
“He’s a giant child,” Morisuke says.
Kuroo nods.
“He’s like an annoying dog. Or one of those cats that thinks it’s a dog.”
“Matter of opinion, but I can see that.”
Morisuke rakes a hand through his hair, not sure what to think or feel. His heart is still beating much faster than it should, and the bell will go soon. “Thanks, I guess,” he says distractedly, turning to leave.
“For what?” Kuroo yells after him, and he remembers the petting gesture.
“Absolutely nothing,” he yells back—and draws stares from Kenma’s classmates.
For once, he can’t bring himself to care.
“Yaku-san.”
The Lev that comes up to him after practice is different from the usual Lev: dejected, careful, not at all obnoxious. It makes Morisuke’s stomach feel tight.
“Lev,” he says, equally careful. It hurts to see him not be exuberant, as annoying as he can be when he’s excited, and Morisuke wonders what the others thought. They’re alone in the gym now, both dressed in tracksuits after training; he came back in here after changing, pretending there was something he needed to check on. He was giving Lev this opportunity to speak to him alone.
He’s not sure what he was hoping for: that Lev would follow him, or that he wouldn’t.
Morisuke rubs the spot between his eyes, where it feels good when he presses. He isn’t quite prepared for Lev to swat his hands away and start massaging his forehead himself. He presses firm fingertips to Morisuke’s eyebrows, pressing and releasing, going along the arches of his brows. For a moment Morisuke freezes, but then he relaxes into the touch, amazed at the blissful way his head empties out.
“Where did you learn that?” he mumbles.
“My mother,” Lev says. “She gets headaches.”
Morisuke realizes his eyes have closed, and he makes a noise of comprehension. It’s a surprisingly thoughtful side to Lev, even if it’s never going to be enough to convince him to marry him and adopt five children.
“You know that’s crazy, right?” he says, his voice sounding far away. “Wanting to marry someone when you’re in high school?”
“Well, we wouldn’t get married while we were in high school,” Lev says sensibly. “Maybe once I graduated, though.”
“No, I mean, you can’t know that yet. You still have a lot of growing up to do.”
“I grew a milli—”
“You know I don’t mean that. And stop getting taller.”
“Sorry, Yaku-san. I’ll still like you even when you’re a speck on the ground from my height.”
If his head wasn’t being massaged with gentle but firm fingers, producing heavenly sensations, he’d definitely kick Lev—but he’s not quite ready for Lev’s long fingers to stop pressing into his scalp.
“Well, can I still spend time with you?” Lev asks.
You can do anything as long as you keep massaging me, Morisuke thinks, his commonsense miles away. Thankfully, it doesn’t pass his lips. “Of course. How else would we play on the same team?”
“And I could do this now and then?”
Morisuke hums.
The fingers stop massaging him, and he fights the urge to grab Lev’s hands and make him do it again. He feels better—less stressed already. Much better than when he prods at his own head to relieve the pressure that builds there throughout the day.
“Let’s go home,” he says, and Lev jumps to follow.
The tall boy is almost back to his normal level of annoying enthusiasm by the time their paths diverge.
“Girls give guys chocolate on Valentine’s Day,” Morisuke says, looking up at the giant in front of him with thinly veiled exasperation. “You are not a girl.”
“I knew you’d be too embarrassed to give me any,” Lev says. “So I made you some.”
He grits his teeth. “You’re suggesting I want to get you chocolate?”
“Yes! But it’s okay. I’ll take a white day gift.”
Morisuke takes the heart shaped box quickly, because people are starting to stare. If he’s totally honest with himself—and he doesn’t always like to be—he had considered getting Lev chocolate, or making some himself. His sister is amazing at making truffles, and he knows Lev would have been ecstatic to receive them. She would have been happy to teach, too. In the end, though, the weirdness of the situation—even the fact that he sort of wanted to give a guy chocolate—was too much. He’d come to school empty handed, but apparently he isn’t going to leave that way. His hands are sweaty around the box.
“Well, thank you,” he says gruffly, not sure what else he’s supposed to say. He stuffs the box in his bag—or starts to, before he sees the downtrodden look on Lev’s face. “What? You want me to eat them here?”
“Yes,” Lev says, nodding frantically, and Morisuke looks at him with narrowed eyes.
“You didn’t poison them or anything, right?”
Lev shakes his head. With a sigh, Morisuke leads them out of the crowded hallway and into the stairwell on the far side of the school, where it’s relatively private. He opens the box and finds a display of cat-shaped chocolates, with different colors of white and brown and dark-brown chocolate. The little flaws in them from bubbles formed during the cooking process somehow make them cuter.
“Eat one,” Lev says, brimming with excitement, and Morisuke does. Chocolate is chocolate, but the way Lev can barely hold still makes him melt a little, and he’s not lying when he tells him they’re good and tries to get him to eat some.
Lev shakes his head, bending forward. His hands are in his pockets, and he waits expectantly.
Oddly, it makes Morisuke nervous. He knows he could pet Lev’s head like usual, but he feels—something. The same something that almost led to him making chocolate for Valentine’s day even though he’s a guy. And so he doesn’t reach forward for once; instead, he leans in just a bit, steadies himself on Lev’s shoulder, and softly kisses his cheek. “Thank you,” he mumbles.
When he draws back his cheeks are warm, and he’s already beginning to regret his actions. Lev’s eyes are bright, though.
“Another?” Lev says, grinning. He’s still stooped over, and the way he’s bending makes Morisuke feel small.
“Kneel,” he says—and he’s surprised when Lev does, immediately. Morisuke sets the chocolate down, then—tentatively—leans in to place a kiss on Lev’s other cheek. It’s so silly, doing this, but he wants to; he likes Lev. Lev is obnoxious and rude and a giant but he’s caring in other ways—his head massages are to die for—and when he spikes Morisuke always feels his heart stutter in his chest. He still doesn’t understand why the younger boy is so fixated on him, and he’s too embarrassed to ask—he doesn’t want to seem like he’s asking for praise—but he doesn’t mind it.
In fact, he’d feel a void if they played a match and Lev wasn’t there jumping up and down yelling Yaku-san and asking if he’d seen that last spike.
He leans in for another kiss, and Lev moves his head so it lands on his mouth instead of his cheek. Instead of smooth skin he encounters lips pressing back against his, and a part of him wants to stumble back, shocked—but it’s not a large part, especially not when Lev’s arms wrap around his back snugly.
He feels a flush of heat.
Then Lev’s mouth opens against his, way too wide and way too wet, his tongue probing at Morisuke’s lips, and Morisuke pulls back spluttering, wiping his mouth. “Too much!” he says, a little glad for Lev’s bad technique. He forgot where he was—a place where anyone could just walk in. A teacher could have walked in.
“Really? Let me try again—”
Morisuke puts a hand over Lev’s mouth, since Lev still has him wrapped up. “No. And not here.”
Lev’s eyes turn considering, and he nips at Morisuke’s palm to get him to move it. “Which one?” he asks when his mouth is free. “No or not here?”
Morisuke looks away. He isn’t sure. No means no; not here means maybe later. His cheeks burn at the thought of not here.
“You can get up,” he mumbles, aware of the fact that Lev isn’t wearing knee pads. Lev doesn’t move, though; he’s looking up at Morisuke hopefully.
“You’re a first year,” Morisuke says. “You still have two years of high school left.”
Lev nods.
“You can’t possibly know what you want yet.”
“I always know what I want,” Lev says. “That’s why I got stuck that time.”
Morisuke snorts at the image. Sometimes he remembers that day, with Lev sprawled out in the hallway, unable to go anywhere or break anything with his arm in the machine. It’s a calming memory—but he doesn’t think it does anything to prove Lev’s seriousness. Still, he’s tempted to let Lev steamroll him on the issue of their possible relationship, and that’s what makes him wriggle out of his embrace and step back.
“We’ll see,” he says
Lev waits as if for more.
Morisuke glares, which never quite seems to frighten Lev the way it frightens others. The glare turns to confusion when Lev continues to kneel. “Why aren’t you getting up?”
“You’re nicer to me when I’m below your line of sight,” Lev says, like it’s an established fact. It makes Morisuke want to kick him—but then, he does like the whole Lev-looking-up-at-him thing, and it quells the kicking urge, so maybe Lev’s right.
“Can I tell the team you kissed me?” Lev asks.
“No.”
“Can I tell Kuroo?”
“No.”
“Can I tell strangers online, if I don’t use our names?”
Morisuke sighs. “Knock yourself out.”
He kind of hopes Lev takes it literally.
“Yaku-san.”
“No.”
“Yaku-san!”
He sighs. “Wait till I’m done changing.”
Lev leaves the clubroom to wait outside, still bursting with energy. Kuroo and a few others are still changing, too, and he feels Kuroo’s eyes on him as he pulls his tracksuit bottoms up.
“Please tell me you got him something. It’s White Da—”
“I know what day it is!” Morisuke says, voice sharp. Lev has reminded him several times today already—but he didn’t need the reminder.
“Oh?”
Kuroo is waiting for him to spill, and he won’t. Mostly because he’s embarrassed; last night it had seemed totally normal for him to bake Lev a cake for White Day. This morning, he woke anxious and embarrassed.
The cake is in a box in his locker.
He takes his time changing, and by the time he’s done everyone has left, save Kuroo.
“You like him, don’t you?” Kuroo asks, in that rare gentle voice he uses when people need it.
Morisuke shrugs. Even if he likes Lev, he’s a third year. Lev is a first year. He can count the days until graduation; the only reason he and Kuroo are still at practice is to help the underclassmen.
“You should do what you want,” Kuroo says. “I always do.”
“But I can’t take care of him if we’re not on the same team. That’s already over.”
Kuroo snorts. “With Lev? He’ll always need taking care of.”
Morisuke folds his arms. That’s—sort of true. But he’s going to university soon.
Kuroo smacks his back. “Good luck!” he says, before exiting the changing room and leaving Morisuke alone to stew. He’s not alone for long, though; a moment later the door opens again and Lev storms in, his scarf askew.
“I’ve been waiting! Are you done yet?”
Morisuke reaches into his locker and pulls out the cake box, holding it out with both hands. “Happy White Day,” he says.
Lev’s face lights up. He takes the box and drops onto the floor in one fluid motion, opening the box to ooh and ahh over the cake inside.
“It’s not that great,” Morisuke mumbles, but Lev continues to shine with enthusiasm.
“Will you come to my house? So we can share it?”
Morisuke imagines a house full of half-Russian giants; the thought sends chills up his spine.
“Are your family members all tall like you?” he asks.
“Yeah! Even my younger brother and older sister. Oh, but my dad’s not.”
Morisuke cringes.
“They might not be home, though.”
“I guess I could come,” he says, ignoring the nervous flutters in his stomach. Lev puts the cake aside and stands up.
“You will?” he asks, grinning.
Morisuke nods, and he’s not quite prepared for it when Lev leans down to kiss him, his giant hands cupping his face. Warmth washes through him, and pleasure at Lev’s proximity. He smells like sweat, Morisuke reminds himself, but it doesn’t seem to matter—in fact, the familiar smell makes him want to curl into Lev and forget all about university and all the reasons for holding back.
It seems like Lev’s come by a few pointers on kissing, too; this time, his mouth is gentle, which must take a lot out of the overenthusiastic boy.
“Thank you,” Lev says, drawing back just a little. “For accepting my feelings.”
“I didn’t—” Morisuke starts, but the statement dies on his lips. He lets his forehead rest against Lev’s, aware of the warmth in his cheeks. “You’re welcome,” he says instead.
He smiles when Lev peppers his face with kisses, and doesn’t stop him until he’s in danger of being knocked over—and even then, he doesn’t mind it.
He wonders if he ever did.