Archive of Our Own

The night Tanaka proposes to Kiyoko, Chikara finds himself in a bar.

However, he is not the kind of guy who would slump onto a bar stool and throw himself over the counter, emptying shot glass after shot glass into the back of throat. “Another one,” he’d demand, words slurred and vision hazy. 

He is, in actuality, the kind that just sits, practically hanging off the edge of his seat, nursing a barely touched margarita, and nails picking idly at the salted rim. He hates tequila actually and that hatred sits on his face, a faint grimace over the sting of his first and last sip, remaining still on his tongue.

Use discomfort to distract from discomfort, they say.

That is, Chikara won’t think about the one million panicky texts Tanaka must be sending him right now, while waiting for Kiyoko, if he preoccupies himself with suppressing his gag response. And if he muscles through his distaste, get himself drunk beyond sensibility, he’ll be too hazy to notice when those messages inevitably stop, when Tanaka will get down on one knee, somewhere far, far away, and offer everything Chikara has ever wanted to somebody else.

Suddenly, an approaching voice declares from behind him: “Bartender, cut this man off.” 

Chikara slowly turns to face the source, a shameful amount of hopeful that it'll be him. Instead, however, he finds light brown hair, annoyingly kind eyes glinting with mischief and lips upturned in a confident smile. 

The man steps into the space between Chikara and the next barstool over, hands coming down against the counter’s edge. 

Chikara, disappointed, turns away. “Ignore him,” he tells the bartender, then casts his best attempt at a glower onto the stranger. “What are you doing?”

The stranger combs his fingers through his hair. “You shouldn’t drink when you’re sad.”

“I’m not sad.” Chikara narrows his eyes. “Is this some elaborate way of telling me to smile more?”

Weird guy shrugs. “Could be, could not be. Either way, I wouldn’t be against you smiling.” 

It can’t be helped. Chikara finds himself tricked into being amused. He smiles and it only widens when he gets an encouraging “There it is!” from the man before him. 

And somehow, that’s when recognition dawns on him. High school. Volleyball. Tournament. Nationals.

“Oh my god, it’s you!” he exclaims, his astonishment unreturned. “The Immovable Hirugami.”

Hirugami snorts at the old epithet, replying: “I have not been immovable for quite some time. You and your old team know this.”

“So you remember me too.”

A nod. “That I do.”

For the first time since arriving at this bar, Chikara allows his posture to slack, sits himself fully on his seat, and leans comfortably against the counter’s edge. “So what are you doing in Sendai?” he asks. It’s needless small talk, inviting their drive-by exchange to become a proper conversation.

Hirugami relieves himself of his overcoat, drapes it over his arm, and settles in to speak. “A veterinary research conference.”

“That sounds made up.”

“Oh, you’ve caught me,” answers Hirugami with a sarcastic huff of laughter. “I’m actually here stalking you, a guy I saw one time during high school.”

“That is...” Chikara starts, a teasing quirk to his eyebrow, “...exactly how stalking works.”

“Well, since I’m conversing with you it seems my plan has worked.”

Again, Chikara finds that there is smile on his lips. He tries to subdue it with an eye roll, a quick change of topic. “So how was the vet conference?”

“Boring beyond belief if you can imagine.”

 “I can.”

“Well,” Hirugami challenges, “what do you do?”

“Physiotherapy,” Chikara proudly volunteers.

“Ah, so I guess that makes us brothers in arms with boring professions.”

Chikara makes a face. “Physiotherapy isn’t boring.”

“I think it is.” Hirugami’s expression turns almost impish. “I guess we're even.”

The Smile Returns: Part III. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re unhappy. I came over to ask why.”

Of course. It was silly for him to not even consider. Hirugami can read people as well as he can read blocks.

Chikara wipes the salt-covered tip of his finger against a napkin, gaze protectively averted. “Why should I tell you?” 

In his head, he pictures Hirugami shrugging as he answers, “You don’t have to, but I feel like you want to.”

“I don’t,” Chikara mutters. “I just want to tell someone. Doesn’t have to be you.”

“But it could be.”

“But it could be,” Chikara repeats.

Thre's silence for a beat. Chikara thinks he has a chance of escaping the matter. But then, Hirugami speaks and the bluster is almost palpable. “I know what you’re thinking."

And Chikara, of course, must destroy the assertion, keeping an eye on Hirugami through his peripheral vision. “What am I thinking?”

“That you hate how right I am.”

His nostrils flare around a scoff. “Anyone listening could have known that,” he gripes. Nevertheless, despite having backed him into a corner, Hirugami has Chikara smiling for the fourth time tonight. “Alright, I’ll tell you.”

And Chikara does, sharing with him an amount that he will wake up in the morning and be incontrovertibly embarrassed by. Even so, by the end of it, Hirugami places his calloused palm against the chapped back of Chikara’s hand and that act alone seems to lift every weight off of Chikara’s shoulders, if only for one fleeting moment.

“I’m sorry,” says Hirugami with the force of every apology Chikara has ever felt himself entitled to.

But. However. “It’s not your fault,” Chikara tells him, slipping his hand out.

“I know,” Hirugami replies. (But what he doesn’t say, what Chikara can hear in his pitying gaze is: “but you needed to hear it.”)

It’s an annoying comfort, to be so exposed before the eyes of a  stranger.

Chikara gets out of his seat, unfinished margarita, rim stripped of its salt, abandoned. “I’m going home,” he announces. It's an invitation.

And Hirugami knows. And Hirugami follows.

They stop outside, face to face in front of the opening to an alleyway. Their shadows stain the unkempt pavement. Chikara idly kicks at a crack from which frail blades of grass grow.

“Thanks for helping me forget. Sans alcohol.”

Hirugami nods and grins humbly, so genteel that Chikara is caught off guard when Hirugami then leans forward to steal a bruising kiss right off of his lips.

Hirugami’s breath fans against Chikara’s neck while he feels for Chikara’s phone in his coat pocket. “Should we exchange emails?” he asks, like this is some business meeting and their mouths just shook hands.

It’s infuriating how suave he is as he grabs the phone, holds it in front of Chikara’s face to unlock, then punches his information into Chikara’s contacts.

“I hope to hear from you,” he murmurs, words leaving his mouth as cloudy puffs in the chilled night air.

And then he walks off, leaving Chikara breathless, heart racing too fast to be broken. One discomfort substituted by another. It’s what he wanted all along.

Tanaka and Kiyoko officially announce their engagement two weeks later.

Unofficially, Chikara went home after Hirugami left him on the sidewalk, opened up his phone to a million notifications from Tanaka. There are too many for him toread, but the only one that mattered was the very last one.

She said yes. In all caps, of course, as Tanaka Ryuunosuke does.

And Chikara has procrastinated responding to the point where he was the first to know, but he certainly won't be the first to wish them well.

The thing is (and he hates himself for this being even remotely true,) it might be that he does not wish them well at all. And he knows that it’s awful and he sees the ugly truth of it etched onto his face when he looks in the mirror, but he has loved Tanaka since he was sixteen. He can attempt to wrest the feeling from his chest, but that doesn’t mean it will surrender without a fight.

And this is the fight. Finding the will to type something as undemanding as “Congratulations. I am happy for you both,” and actually meaning it.

In their group chat, Kinoshita is first to speak. His exaltations of the impending nuptials are loudly punctuated with exclamation points. Nishinoya and Narita then chime in, matching his excitement. Chikara still can’t even afford his old friends the courtesy of pretending.

Thanks everyone, Tanaka replies. 

Chikara wonders if it might be a jab, if it is at all possible that he took time out from his post-engagement elation to give a second thought or two to what Chikara thinks. It seems unlikelier than he hopes.

And then, there is the dreaded correspondence from Kiyoko herself. 

I hear you helped Ryuu pull this off, she says in her email. Thank you, she signs off. 

Chikara hasn’t so much as spared her a word since she and Tanaka started seeing each other three years ago. And yet, she still speaks to him like they’re best friends, like Chikara didn’t jealously shut her out, like he isn’t now staring at the way she writes Ryuu with a horrid taste in his mouth.

He doesn’t want to hate her. If anything, he hates himself and the person her mere existence has turned him into. It is through no fault of her own and that is probably what Chikara hates the most.

He sends her back a heart emoji. Effortless. The word to describe how half-heartedly he has tended to their wilting relationship. 

It is moments like these where Chikara is thankful for espresso shots. Though, he is less thankful for the endless dinner rush line at the cafe. His fingers trace the outline of his phone through his pocket, the very same pocket Hirugami slipped his hand into, now almost a month ago.

He would lie if anyone asked and say he has not once thought about sending Hirugami an email. But, truthfully, Hirugami left an impression as deep as his kiss. Except, no one has asked, because Chikara has given nothing to ask about. That encounter is his second best-kept secret.

A secret that comes undone the moment Chikara receives his black americano and turns around to leave. 

Speak of the devil, think of the night he kissed you outside a hole-in-the-wall bar, and apparently he'll appear queued up at your favourite coffee shop. 

“What are you doing here?” Chikara storms up to an unsuspecting Hirugami to ask, startling himself and everyone else in the store.

And the long and short of it is that Hirugami has moved to town for veterinary school reasons; reasons that slip Chikara’s mind as quickly as Hirugami is able to take him up three storeys to his flat and kiss him against a half-assembled bookcase.

It’ll take around thirty minutes for his drink to cool to room temperature. That’s more than enough time for him to get onto his knees and find out for himself whether or not Hirugami’s name is as moanable as it sounded in that one dream he definitely never had.

When Tanaka asked, Chikara advised him to propose without a ring. 

Marriage is a partnership, he said, sentimental drivel that he does believe but has come back to bite him, in the form of a third wave reminder of the upcoming Tanaka and Shimizu merger.

Per Chikara’s suggestion, they must have gone out to choose the engagement ring together. Factor in scheduling conflicts and time to resize, it makes sense for Kiyoko to Instagram a photo of it at roughly the month and a half mark. And it sits right at the top of Chikara’s feed as if to taunt him. 

To make matters worse, that afternoon, an e-vite to their engagement party appears in his inbox. A casual affair, the words read. It seems Tanaka was able to convince the owner of the izakaya he used to work for to let him rent out the place for an evening.

Perhaps, Chikara reasons, beneath the pressure of in-person interaction, he can give Kiyoko and Tanaka the thing they’ve graciously never demanded of him: a proper congratulations. He responds “going.”

Flash forward two weeks, the night of the party: Chikara takes a cab straight from work. He spends the better half of the ride sniffing himself and checking his breath. Like a foul odour is the final push Tanaka needed to elope with Kiyoko tomorrow. The man has wanted this since he was fifteen, though. There’s nothing that Chikara could do or be that could hasten or slow that. 

The taxi pulls up in front of the venue. Chikara can see inside; and what he sees is a room flooded in yellow light, old high school friends standing around. He sees a picture that is complete without him, a gathering that can proceed in his absence. 

“This you?” asks the driver. 

“No,” Chikara replies. It’s not the same coat tonight, but he still feels for his phone in his pocket. And then he utters the address of his favourite coffee place. This time, he’s not looking for a caffeine fix.

Hirugami is kind enough to not be too smug when he answers the door. He just lets Chikara in and starts undoing the buttons of his top. It is only Chikara’s second time here, but if it takes twenty-one days to build a habit, this is on track to becoming routine. 

They start in the shower because Chikara insists he has Hirugami inside of him, and to do that he has to be clean. He lets Hirugami gloat over his correct predictions regarding Chikara's bossiness in the bedroom, all while warm water sprays their bodies. And speaking of the bedroom, they never make it there—at least, not until after they’re both sated and collapsed against the damp bathroom wall. 

“Another time then?” Hirugami says of Chikara’s initial request, whispering into Chikara’s nape, while he dries off their bodies. 

“What makes you think this isn’t the last time?” Chikara squirms out of Hirugami’s hold, taking the towel with him and using it on his face.

He can’t see Hirugami’s expression, but he can hear the assuredness in his singular huff of laughter. And while he himself is still out of view, he allows himself to inhale the lingering scent of fabric softener, drawing in his mind a line between this smell and stolen kisses in an alleyway and head in a half-unpacked apartment. 

When they’re both dressed, Hirugami suggests they order in and Chikara’s stomach growls at the suggestion of food. Meaning, he can’t lie his way out by saying he’s not hungry. Or rather, he could, but Hirugami would be such a gentleman about it and not point out the blatant falsehood and it would serve only to embarrass Chikara beyond belief.

They settle on Chinese. There is a place Hirugami frequents that he claims has fast delivery. However, Chikara doesn’t think it is fast enough and when it does arrive at their door, a reasonable yet agonizing thirty minutes later, he leaps up from where he had hangrily sprawled himself across Hirugami’s couch to collect it. 

He doesn’t have the energy to force any semblance of tact. Instead of patiently undoing the stubborn knot, he tears through the side of the bag with enough strength to split it in half. 

“Settle down, Bruce Banner,” chides Hirugami. Arms suddenly encircle Chikara from behind, hands grabbing the styrofoam containers and taking them out of Chikara’s reach. “No need to bite through the boxes. I have plates and cutlery, you know.”

If Hirugami had not so graciously forced his way into paying for the whole meal, Chikara’s hunger might have gotten the better of his attitude and he’d be tackling Hirugami to the ground right now. But as aggressively as Hirugami is a good host, Chikara is determined to be just as aggressively a good guest.

“Here you go, big guy.” Hirugami re-emerges from his kitchen moments later with their food, bringing the plates, all balanced on his arms, over to where Chikara is kneeling before the coffee table. 

He hands Chikara a disposable pair of chopsticks and Chikara, in his haste, splits them very unevenly. However, he is far too engrossed with eating to care. 

But of course, Hirugami has to go and pick the most inopportune moment to ask the most inconvenient question.

“So why aren’t you at the engagement party?”

Chikara gasps mid-sip of his wonton soup, his sputters splashing broth onto his face. 

“What?” he coughs. His palm stops a couple drops from dripping onto his shirt. “How do you know about that? You stalking me again?”

Hirugami smiles, eyes half lidded. It’s how he looks when he is amused and satisfied. Chikara remembers that expression from the shower and the way his breath catches is almost Pavlovian. 

“You’re not the only person I know who could have been invited,” Hirugami replies. “You know my best friend is on a team with Kageyama and he’s good friends with Hinata, right?”

“Whatever,” Chikara mumbles, then takes a bite of his egg roll, chewing with his lips set in a pout. 

“Well. I’m glad my dick’s magical enough that you turned down a fun event in favour of it.”

Chikara swallows his food, then shoots a scowl his way. He would say something to disparage Hirugami and his dick, but they just engaged in activities mere moments ago that Hirugami could use to refute any negative thing Chikara could think to say.

“It—” Chikara searches, and then he finds: “It wasn’t my vibe.”

“Right.” Hirugami nods, shoveling a spoonful of food into his mouth and proceeding to speak. “Guess it’s more like a heartbreak party for you.”

With his cheeks filled out by the food, Hirugami resembles a squirrel and Chikara is too occupied with being endeared by his appearance to be off-put by the talking with a full mouth. But once the image of Hirugami, bushy-tailed and collecting acorns for winter, fades, the words “heartbreak party” start to settle in. And that’s a thought that is much less fun.

“Here,” Hirugami says, seeming to notice the sudden silence. Their order came with an odd number of spring rolls and Hirugami places the last one remaining onto Chikara’s plate. “Compensation for the extra commuting you had to do tonight.”

Chikara exhales a laugh, then gives the bridge of his nose a pinch. “Sorry,” he says, with a resetting shake of his head. He picks up the spring roll and takes a conservative bite of it. “Thanks.”

After they finish eating, Chikara refuses to take no for an answer and helps Hirugami clean up. Hirugami washes dishes while Chikara dries—but not without snide remarks about his apartment being equipped with a dishwasher. In retaliation, Hirugami, hand still gloved and wet, pinches Chikara’s butt, a punishment he ends up agreeing was disproportionate to the crime.

Thus, to make up for it, he lets Chikara have all of the leftovers, in place of the previously agreed-upon arrangement of half-and-half.

“Call me, alright?” Hirugami says while opening the front door.

Chikara steps out into the hallway, then turns back to face him. “I’ll email you.”

Hirugami just smiles and blinks once, slow. Then, he steps forward, the press of his body pushing the bagged leftovers into Chikara’s stomach. Its force is strong enough to push forth a gasp, one that is quickly muffled by Hirugami’s lips capturing his.

The kiss is over as quickly as it began and Hirugami has long retreated into his home, door clicking behind him, when Chikara’s eyes flutter open. He doesn’t remember the moment that they had even closed.

Chikara is unsurprised to wake up the following morning with an email from Hirugami waiting for him.

But since the sender himself was the reason he was out and about so late the previous night, Chikara is presently more concerned with getting to the clinic on time

Working Saturdays. It’s what Chikara signed on for when he opted to pursue physiotherapy. That does not mean, however, that he doesn’t leave for his lunch break the second it is time for him to do so. Nor does it mean he doesn’t close the staff room door behind him with a relieved sigh, relishing in the chance for a moment alone.

He grabs his food, cringing at the trademark smell of a communal refrigerator. Still in the same containers, it’s the leftovers from last night. He heats them up in the microwave, finds a fork without mysterious gunk on it and sits to eat his meal and scroll his phone in peace.

But then, there is the matter of Hirugami’s email.

It’s such an innocuous thing, completely unloaded. He wants Chikara to come over again. Nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, Chikara doesn’t do “nothing more or less.” When it comes to matters of his heart and his dick, he has always been an all-or-nothing kind of guy. He is wholly unprepared for sex without the strings attached. He lives for the strings. He swims in the strings, tangles himself up in them. And right now, he’s trying to undo a stubborn knot he tied to Tanaka too long ago.

He knows not even the first thing about these types of arrangements. All he knows is that Hirugami is confusing. He buys Chikara food, he kisses him goodbye, his smile makes Chikara’s head spin and they lock eyes when they cum.

It feels childish that he even considered this, but his phone is in his hand and the suggestion is on his mind. The Internet was Chikara’s friend in his darkest academic moments. Surely, it can be of some use to him now.

There’s little he stands to lose. His thumbs tap out the words into the Google search bar. 

“Friends with benefits.”

Hirugami blinks from the doorway. “What?”

That is when Chikara lets himself into Hirugami’s home, brushing past and beelining for the living room, where he paces circularly. He holds his palm out in front of him, tapping it as he says, “Communication.” Tap. “Boundaries.” Tap.

Again, Hirugami blinks. “Full sentences, please.”

“You want to keep seeing me. Correct?”

Hirugami nods. “Correct.”

“In a purely sexual capacity.”

Another nod. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, I’m no good at that,” Chikara says, watching the slight fall in Hirugami’s expression, “but I want to try.” And it perks up again just like that. “And so, we need—”

“Communication and boundaries,” Hirugami, now getting it, finishes.

“Precisely.”

“Does ‘boundaries’ have to be its own thing?” asks Hirugami. “Can we not establish those while communicating?”

Technically, yes. And Chikara tells Hirugami as much. “But,” he adds, “I’ve separated it into its own thing, because I need to make sure I don’t get hurt.”

Hirugami nods once more. Third time, by Chikara’s count. He almost considers, if not for Hirugami asking questions, that Hirugami might not be listening and simply nodding to give off the impression.

“I just—I don’t wanna be confused. We gotta keep the lines clear between sex and love.”

Jaw set in thought, Hirugami asks, “How do you propose we do that?”

“What if we didn’t kiss?” suggests Chikara off the top of his head. "Kissing can be too romantic."

Hirugami doesn’t bother sugarcoating his thoughts. His sputtered laughter and the accompanying sentiment of incredulity fill the room.

With a frown, Chikara brings his hands to his hips. “What’s so funny?”

"Why don’t you try imagining sex without any kissing?”

Chikara plays through the steps in his head, bodies intertwining and hands roaming wherever they can reach. He takes kissing out of that equation and the embarrassing conclusion is that without it, sex is: “Awkward.”

“Yup.” And Hirugami pops the p for good measure. Then, he must catch a glimpse of whatever expression is on Chikara’s face—probably some medley of dejection and confusion—and tries to say something productive. “Communiation, right? Why don’t we try talking about what we want? I am looking for good sex and I think we could have great sex together. What do you want?”

“I want the guy I love to not get married to someone else.”

Hirugami smiles a kind of pitiful that Chikara cannot stand. “I can’t give you that,” he says.

And Chikara knows that. Nothing could stop Tanaka from marrying Kiyoko any more than it could stop anyone from needing air. But that felt good to say out loud. When he thinks about it,  what he truly wants is to detangle himself and untie the double, triple, quadruple knot that refuses to let up.

“I want to move on.”

But, of course, Hirugami is first to point out that it’s not that simple. “Can’t give you that either.”

And Chikara knows that as well. However: “Sleeping with you would help.”

To that, Hirugami grins. “Then, let’s just say we both want sex.”

“But that still doesn’t define any boundaries,” Chikara points out with a sigh.

Suddenly, it’s like Hirugami is in an entirely different conversation. “Given names,” he offers with no further explanation.

“What?”

“See?” he gloats with a curl of his lip. “Not so fun being on the receiving end of no-context one-word answers, is it?”

“Explain,” Chikara orders.

It’s pleasing how easily Hirugami’s bravado comes to a grinding halt. “In the movies, the books, the shows,” Hirugami says, “you know the couple are in love when it’s the height of the plot and they say each other’s given names.”

Chikara considers. 

He has to admit that despite the corniness, it’s a satisfactory illustration of where minimum required intimacy becomes something he’d like to avoid.

And only briefly does he think about the amount of reading and watching of romance genre media Hirugami must do. And only briefly is he endeared by that realization.

Sex, Chikara has come to find in his twenty some odd years, is a study. And from having sex with Hirugami, Chikara has learned a lot of things about him. 

For starters, every person has a spot where they are most ticklish. On Hirugami, it is his thighs. In casual conversation, it’s a cute fun fact. But when Chikara is trying to get off, grabbing the first limb he can reach to steady himself while he rides it out and Hirugami starts laughing, it’s a mood killer. As in, it ruins Chikara’s mood when it turns out that he finds Hirugami’s laughter to be a turn on and climaxes with it ringing in his ears. 

And then, there’s Hirugami’s hair. The first time Chikara had Hirugami inside of him, it ended with him shooting cum up his stomach and chest. When Hirugami climbs out of bed, Chikara thought for one short second that Hirugami was going to retrieve a cloth to clean him up. Instead, the fucker (disparagingly and, in this case, also literally) stations himself in front of his mirror and starts fixing his bangs. 

Chikara has to stop his jaw from hanging open in shock, fight the urge to pick up a pillow and throw it at the back of Hirugami’s head. 

Unpleasantries aside, Hirugami knows what the fuck he’s doing. He has a refractory period that would put a goldfish’s memory to shame. It is the source of all of Chikara’s suffering and simultaneously all of his pleasure. As intended, he thinks less about Tanaka now. In fact, he is coming close to not thinking about Tanaka at all. 

Until he checks his mail one day, finds an expensive looking envelope trimmed with gold foil and addressed to him. He doesn’t open it, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what it is. An invitation to a wedding.

And after all the effort it took for him to stop, he starts thinking about Tanaka again. 

Chikara tells Hirugami about the invitation and every inconvenience it comes with. Hirugami is kind enough not to bring it up in the weeks following. As a thank you (and perhaps also because his company is enjoyable,) Chikara takes Hirugami out for a fancy dinner—sponsored by a gift certificate from a patient of his. 

“I feel like an escort,” Hirugami says with an amused, lopsided grin while he slides into his seat.

Chikara looks around to see if anyone is listening or watching. Then, under the table, he nudges Hirugami’s foot with his own, shooting him a look.

“Yeah, yeah,” grunts Hirugami with a dismissive hand wave. “Fancy restaurant, how uncouth of me. Are we not engaging in an exchange of sex for free fine food?”

“No,” Chikara hisses, then proceeds to whisper-shout the rest: “I am treating you to dinner because we are friends, and it so happens that afterwards, we are going back to my place to have sex. That is just the order of events. There is no exchange.”

Hirugami smiles, gets that look in his eye that always precedes him letting Chikara win an argument. He thinks that Chikara doesn’t know. “You’re right.”

And Chikara has half a mind to call him out, if not for the public setting and if not for the slight upward flick in Hirugami’s gaze that indicates someone approaching them from behind. 

“Ennoshita!”

Daichi’s voice is recognizable anywhere and Chikara turns towards, eyes landing on his old captain, Sugawara, and Michimiya. All three of them, artifacts from Chikara’s high school days, here of all places, where he can’t just get up, flip the table, and run. 

“Daichi-san, Sugawara-san, Michimiya-san.” 

There’s a thread connected to the base of his neck, pulling up on his spine, standing him at attention. He becomes acutely aware of his clothes, the positioning of his hands. This encounter is quickly becoming a scratchy sweater he wants to rip off of his body. 

Hirugami’s eyes, he can feel them on the back of his head. He’s watching this conversation, this interaction. Chikara knows he won’t escape tonight without talking about it. He doesn’t dread it. In fact, getting to talk to someone who has no connection to it all has alleviated the burden. But it’s messy and it’s humiliating and Hirugami has a front row seat. 

“Ennoshita, it’s so good to see you!” Sugawara says, animated and personable as ever. 

“How are you?” asks Daichi. It comes in such quick succession, following Sugawara’s greeting. Chikara is overwhelmed. 

“I’m good. Working in the city. It’s great to see you all.”

Michimiya, who Chikara recalls interacting with once, speaks up. “You’re a physiotherapist, right?” Ah, well, they must be LinkedIn connections then. 

She was the poster child of unrequited high school crushes. As in, she could have become what Chikara is now, though it appears she’s buddy-buddy with Daichi just fine. He envies this life he could have had if he had only given up sooner.

All Chikara can offer her is a nod and a smile. 

“Hey, we didn’t see you at the engagement party,” Daichi says. 

Chikara wonders if Daichi realizes how stressful that observation is. He searches Daichi’s eyes, and then Suga’s, for any hint of knowing. High school was an art of keeping shit to himself, but that does not mean Chikara couldn’t have slipped up; smiled a little too much, laughed at Tanaka’s jokes a little too hard, or let his eyes linger on Tanaka, revving up to spike, a little too long. 

There’s a small part of him that lives in the fear that everyone knows, that everyone talks about it, ridicules him for wanting something he knows is so unattainable and foolish. That they call him stupid and obsessed when he thought all this time that he was simply in love. 

“I’m sorry I missed it and you.” Chikara bites the inside of his cheek. “I was busy that night.”

“Aw, man! What could have been more important than an old friend getting engaged?”

Chikara’s jaw clenches so hard, it threatens to shatter his teeth. Suga’s joking. He’s joking. But Chikara has no reply. He just wants to scream. 

“He was helping me,” Hirugami cuts in. Chikara whips around to look at him. Eyes wide and stunned and hopeful and in awe. “I’m new to town. I needed help. Ennoshita was the only person I knew to call. I’m sorry for keeping him from you.”

And then he tips his head forward in an apologetic bow. Chikara could kiss him. Chikara will kiss him. Once they’re behind closed doors. And he is so grateful, he even overlooks the wicked glint that passes over Hirugami’s eyes as he says the last part. 

An apology, Chikara can see, threatens Sugawara’s lips but never breaches, as if Suga is unsure if it would make things better or simply weirder. Chikara feels the same, wanting nothing more than for them to go. It’s nothing personal. It’s just the sight of them, and what they serve as reminders for, it all hurts. 

There’s a barely audible sigh from Hirugami’s end of the table. Chikara looks up to see him close his menu, which Chikara knows he has not glanced at once. It’s written all over his face that he can see Chikara’s agitation. 

“Well, I’m ready to order,” Hirugami announces. 

Chikara realizes then that Hirugami has been studying him right back. 

“We’ll leave you to it then,” Michimiya finally speaks up. She gets the hint, and Chikara is grateful. 

They walk off, waving and smiling back at him. And the moment they’ve turned away and are no longer looking is the moment Chikara can finally relax. 

“Well, that was painful,” jokes Hirugami, lightly chuckling.

Chikara knows he won’t ask for an explanation—has never asked for an explanation. Yet, Chikara’s self-imposed obligation to give one grows with each instance of Hirugami demonstrating annoyingly saint-like compassion. 

“They remind me of that place,” Chikara says, voice low. “The school, the gymnasium, where I fell in love with him.”

“Ennoshita, you don’t have t—”

“And it hurts.” Hurts like there is shrapnel still left to be removed from his flesh. 

Later that night, they’re in bed, all damp and all sweaty, yet still craving proximity and clinging to each other. 

“You and I, we’re the same,” Hirugami whispers into Chikara’s shoulder. 

And Chikara, still sensitive, still languid, sighs at the sensation, fingers curling into the bedsheets and voice struggling to say, “What do you mean?”

Hirugami stretches his arm out in front of them both, knuckles bending and flexing. Chikara’s eyes wander passively over the creases in the back of his hand. 

“I know how hard it is to fall out of love.”

It’s instinctual how Chikara stiffens but he extinguishes the feeling so purposefully. “Who?” is the only thing he can think to ask. The only thing he wants to know.

“What,” Hirugami corrects him. “There was this moment some time before our teams played each other where I thought I stopped loving volleyball.” His arms tighten around Chikara’s torso, fingers splaying across his ribs. 

“You wanted to quit?” Chikara would have never known.

“I think so,” Hirugami replies. “That’s what you do, right? When you don’t love something anymore.”

“But you didn’t quit,” Chikara says. “You went to Nationals.”

“Because I learned to love volleyball differently. But before that, I was hurting,” Hirugami sighs, tucks his chin into the slope of Chikara’s neck. “For a time, nothing I did felt like it was enough. I felt like I wasn’t enough. I got tired of fighting.”

Chikara turns in Hirugami’s embrace, bringing them chest to chest, but keeping his gaze down and averted. He nods, feeling his nostril flare around a shaky inhale. “I get that," he whispers. "I’m tired too…”

“I know,” replies Hirugami, because that's all Chikara needs. To find someone who knows.

“It was so easy to love him,” Chikara whispers, tucking a sweat-dampened wisp of hair behind his ear. “Now, it’s so hard to continue, but it's just as hard to stop.”

“If this helps,” Hirugami begins with a note of hesitation. Chikara dispels it with an urging nod. “I used to take loving volleyball to mean devotion to it, but that wasn’t the right love for me. Realizing I could still love volleyball and quit whenever, that freed me.”

Chikara brings his gaze up to meet Hirugami’s, lips twitching as he confesses, “I don’t know how to. I have always loved him like that.” 

Chikara only knows himself as two persons. A person who never knew Tanaka Ryuunosuke existed. And a person who's in love with him. “I don’t know what I could be aside from that.”

After they finish talking, they lazily jerk each other off. Chikara supposes that it does help him open up to Hirugami knowing that an orgasm awaits him afterwards. 

It’s a sandwich. Sex, vulnerability, and more sex. 

Like clockwork, Hirugami shoots out of bed. Chikara, never having bothered to call him out on his hair fixation, has acclimated himself to this unavoidable component of their routine. Today, however, Hirugami seems to be greedy, and Chikara hears the sound of opening and closing cabinets. 

“I don’t have any hair products if that’s what you’re looking for!” Chikara yells from the bed. 

And then, Hirugami emerges from the bathroom. “What are you talking about?” In his hand, he holds a damp cloth. He’s walking towards the bed.

“Oh,” says Chikara. Oh.

Somewhere along the way, Hirugami and Chikara started incorporating sleepovers into their arrangement. Logistically, it only makes sense. Their activities often keep them up late, making it so that sleeping awkwardly in their designated halves of the bed is preferable to braving the late night commute home. 

What is new about this sleepover is that Chikara is making breakfast. For them both. Usually, they’re running out of each other’s apartments with a granola bar hanging out of their mouths or sleeping in until it is better to just go home and have lunch. 

But today, it’s freshly brewed coffee and eggs with rice. 

“How do you like your eggs?” Chikara asks when he hears Hirugami’s footsteps padding into the kitchen. “And don’t say fried because I haven’t washed my pans.”

The addendum is met with soft laughter. “Alright,” Hirugami says. “Soft boiled, please.”

Chikara pauses what he’s doing and slowly turns around. “What the hell is that?”

Hirugami looks taken aback. “You don’t know what a soft boiled egg is?”

And Chikara deadpans, “I have never soft boiled an egg in my life.”

“All you have to do is boil it for less time,” Hirugami explains, stepping forward. “Here, I’ll do it.” He reaches for the pot, his palm settling against Chikara’s hand, wrapped around the handle. 

Dumbly, Chikara’s gaze goes back and forth between the spot where he and Hirugami are connected, then up to Hirugami’s face. “What are you doing?” he whispers.

Hirugami, visibly unfazed, replies, “Well, I’m trying to boil the water.” He tips his head towards their hands. 

“Oh!” Chikara startles, releasing his grip and pulling back as though he has been burnt. The motion’s abruptness jostles the pot and it falls with a clatter from the stove. It’s empty, thank goodness, but nothing really could make Chikara’s face burn any more than it already is. 

Luckily for him, the poses for expressing surprise and for hiding blushes both call for hands over cheeks. 

“Not even caffeinated yet and you’re jittery?” Hirugami teases, bending over to pick up the pot. 

Chikara rubs at his face, like enough force could evenly spread around the redness currently concentrated at his cheeks. 

And speaking of caffeine: “I’m making coffee,” Chikara announces. That should distract Hirugami from thinking too hard about what happened and, most importantly, it should also distract himself from doing the same. 

“Put milk in mine,” Hirugami says, standing at the sink, filling the pot with water. 

Chikara mutters, “Put milk in your own coffee,” and finds his way back to normal.

They make it through with no additional extreme reactions from Chikara to casual touching. Hirugami shows him how he mashes the eggs into the rice, coating it in the yolk and mixing in the seasoning. 

Their coffees sit side-by-side in their respective mugs. Though, Hirugami’s looks more like milk than it does coffee. 

“It’s a latte!” he insisted when Chikara first pointed it out. 

Appalled on principle, Chikara said, “It absolutely is not.”

Talking fully clothed and over food is a different animal from last night’s introspective pillow talk. Chikara feels a different kind of vulnerable as he tells Hirugami with vague detail about a recreational athlete he’s been treating that wants to quit his sport and the dreaded Saturday morning shift that awaits him next weekend. Then, he listens to Hirugami talk about the pickled cat organs that line his bosses bookcase and the way his friend, Hoshiumi Kourai, thinks a veterinary student is capable of giving medical advice.

It’s simplicities like these that Chikara wants to get used to, this feeling of safety that reminds him of a time where loving didn’t hurt. 

Except it does hurt.

Tanaka Ryuunosuke is a bomb fragment buried in Chikara’s skin. RSVP day arrives and Chikara’s hand trembles as it releases the invitation into the wastebasket. The violent red envelope flutters on the way down and Chikara feels his blood drain with it. 

A series of events leads him to Hirugami’s front door. 

First, he cries over the kitchen sink, tears falling against the metal basin. Then, he tries to down a glass of water, holding his breath until he polishes the entire thing off. He slams the empty glass against the granite as he gasps for air, surprised it doesn’t shatter in his grasp.

There’s a strip of mirror against the backsplash. The choice of the unit’s owner, not Chikara’s. It’s a hassle to clean with no practical value. He has no need to see himself while he rinses vegetables or scrubs pots. 

But he stares into it now at his reflection, eyes wet and red-rimmed. He looks into them to relay a hard-to-swallow truth.

Kiyoko and Tanaka will marry. If Chikara were a better man, he could be their friend and attend. But he is not significant enough to even be a worse man. He has no idea who he is beyond a scribble in the margin of their page, entangling himself in a love that was never his. 

Now that he has torn his way out, he find himself standing, stranded in the cold, naked and ashamed. 

And that is how Chikara comes to fall into Hirugami’s arms. 

Hirugami doesn’t ask questions, because he never does. Just holds Chikara against him, steadying hands around Chikara’s waist. 

“They’re getting married,” Chikara whispers against Hirugami’s shirt. 

Fingers dig into the small of his back. “I know,” Hirugami replies. 

Chikara tilts his face up and finds Hirugami’s gaze awaiting him. He shakes his head, despairing over his next words, “I can’t go.”

Their mingling breaths sit suspended in the disappearing space between their mouths. Hirugami smells and tastes of coffee. “I know.”

And now, they’re in the bedroom, entangled on the mattress, sharing the same air, the same breaths and, Chikara could swear, the same pain. Everything tastes salty—tears, sweat—it's a conductor of electricity.

Chikara's hands follow their regular path. They smooth over Hirugami’s chest, traveling down his sternum and dancing over his stomach. Typically, they pave the way for his fingers to slip beneath the waistband of Hirugami’s pants. Tonight, however, Chikara breaks routine, pausing at the expanse of skin below the hem of Hirugami’s t-shirt. 

“Did you…” His own voice betrays his hesitance. He wonders, stupidly, if Hirugami can tell. “Did you want to have sex?”

Hirugami doesn’t answer, simply pressing their foreheads together. Chikara’s lips draw themselves up to meet his, only for Hirugami to pull back. 

He caresses Chikara’s face like he would tear the pain off of it if he could. “I want you to feel better,” Hirugami says, then lets their lips find each other again.

Chikara clamps his eyes shut, opening his mouth and letting Hirugami in. He throws his arms around Hirugami’s shoulders, fingers losing themselves in his head of hair. Lips find Chikara’s tongue and Chikara’s body arches with their pull. 

And he wants to say it. It threatens to rip a hole right through his chest and spill savagely from his lips like a geyser. 

Sachirou.

Some hours later, Chikara rouses to the sound of birds. He remembers their song from when he was a student, up so late studying that he tows the line between night and morning. 

His lips are raw and stinging. He and Hirugami must have kissed until they fell asleep. He can’t even begin to properly place the moments when making out turned into just breathing each other’s air, which must have turned into them falling asleep in each other’s arms.

But he’s beneath the covers now, so Hirugami must have woken up at some point. They’re both on Chikara’s designated half of the bed. His back is against Hirugami’s chest and Hirugami is snoozing away, face tucked into Chikara’s nape and arm thrown over Chikara’s body.

It’s another break in their routine, but Chikara doesn’t mind if Hirugami doesn’t either, lacing his fingers with his. 

Objectively, Hirugami’s weight and proximity are warm. Sentimentally, they are far warmer than any blanket could ever be. Even if it hurts his lips to smile, he does so anyway, hidden by the shadow of pre-dawn where neither Hirugami nor the rest of the world can see. 

But then, he stops. The morning twilight punctures holes in the nighttime’s veil, letting the sun’s rays breach and illuminate. 

Chikara sees now that he is being consumed once more. 

He’s tying himself to Hirugami, letting himself get wrapped up in him, endangering himself and risking getting left out in the cold again. 

Maybe this is where Chikara feels safest. But he is turning Hirugami into a trap, one that he’ll have to claw his way out of, detangle himself like he did with Tanaka. 

And just like that, Chikara is no longer warm. He is cold and he is suffocating. 

Behind him, Hirugami continues to sleep peacefully. Chikara, on the other hand, is so, so fucked. He touches his face and finds that it is wet again with tears. He needs to get out. Now. 

He tears himself out from beneath Hirugami’s embrace. It could have woken him, it could have not. Chikara does not check. He does not want the last he ever sees of Hirugami to be the look on his face as he watches Chikara leave.

Hirugami tries contacting him of course. But now, Chikara’s got a new routine.

Decline call. Ignore emails. Erase voice messages. Repeat

And when he’s not dodging every single one of Hirugami’s attempts at contact, he is staring at his phone, browser opened to Google.

It sits fully typed in his google search bar. I love you. It doesn’t end with a question mark, but the statement doesn’t need the right punctuation to implicitly ask: Do you love me too? It’s still a foolish query that he wouldn’t dare hit enter on. 

Never ask questions when you’re afraid to know the answer. And Chikara is afraid.

Unfortunately, he still has to work, because there are only so many sick days he can take before people start thinking he’s dying and demanding physical proof of such an ailment. 

Nope, no dying here, just a heart that kinda hurts. 

He gets to the office and the receptionist informs him that has only one appointment today: recreational athlete and construction worker, repeat right ankle injuries resulting in loss of strength. It’s penciled in for early afternoon. Great—that gives Chikara all the time in the world to review the file, consult with his colleagues and feebly attempt to not think about Hirugami.

But time flies when you’re woefully unprepared. Chikara has still not moved from his desk when he is notified of his 1pm’s arrival. 

He takes a deep breath—smile, Chikara—before crossing the threshold, into view of their waiting room. 

“Aone-san,” he calls, eyes settling on its only occupant. 

The former Iron Wall of Dateko rises from his seat and strides (favouring his left side) over to where Chikara awaits him.

They exchange small talk and pleasantries—a chore for Chikara in his current state—while they review last week’s exercises. 

He thinks it’s funny that just one week ago, when Aone was new to the clinic, things between himself and Hirugami were normal. And it aches. He wishes there was physiotherapy to make that go away.

But there isn’t. There’s just the useless, plain old physiotherapy that he does.

“Does this hurt?” Chikara asks. Now, he has Aone seated on the examination table, legs hanging off the side. He gently urges his right foot into a flexed position. 

In response, Aone shakes his head. “It’s just a little uncomfortable.”

“Okay, then it looks like your ankle is healing nicely. Mobility is good.” Chikara rises from where he was previously kneeling on the ground. “I think we can move on to strength in about three weeks. Let’s head back to the exercise room. I’ll show you newer exercises.”

The ghost of a smile passes over Aone’s usually expressionless face. He slides out of his seat and into a standing position, following Chikara out of the examination room.

“Ennoshita-san,” Aone says when they’ve finished switching rooms. Chikara is standing in front of the clinic’s equipment shelf, grabbing what he needs.

“Hmm?” Chikara’s fingers travel down the row until they settle on the appropriate tension band.

“I don’t…” A brief pause, suspenseful enough that Chikara bristles and freezes with it. “I don’t think I’ll be quitting volleyball after all. In case you were wondering.”

It really is only right then that Chikara realizes he had been seeing himself in Aone, who’s been knocked down so many times by something he has only ever treated with delicacy.

Chikara could hold his tongue, but he is too beaten down to find the strength. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” Because I want to quit, he thinks but doesn’t say.

“I know,” comes Aone’s response. Chikara turns and finds him smiling fondly. “But volleyball is fun, makes me happy. We all need something that makes us happy. So even if I keep getting hurt, I’ll make it out alive.” 

Chikara’s breath hitches and feels himself tear up—half because Aone’s words have pulled on his frayed heartstrings and half because it upsets him to a degree how emotional he is getting over something so cheesy.

“Ennoshita-san?”

He blinks, resettling himself into reality. “Yeah?”

Aone is looking at him, concerned. “You’re crying,” he says.

And Chikara reaches his hand up, touches his face and he finds that, sure enough, it’s wet. “Oh, sorry,” he mutters, the back of his wrist wiping away his tears. “I suppose your speech was very touching.”

“I apologize.” Expression solemn, Aone bows.

And Chikara can’t help but chuckle. “No need,” he replies with a sniffle. “It might… be exactly what I needed.”

At that, Aone straightens himself up and for the third time in one appointment, (Chikara thinks it must be a record) he smiles. “I’m glad.”

Chikara smiles too. “Let’s learn some new stretches, shall we?”

The rest of the session goes on without any additional hitches. As in, Chikara is able to make it through without crying again.

When he escorts Aone back to the waiting area, Aone faces him and bows again. “Thank you, Ennoshita-san, for helping me continue to do what makes me happy.”

After he walks out, Chikara has to go hide in his office to cry some more.

Perhaps it’s time he starts helping himself do what makes him happy. 

Midday. Cafe. Rooftop seating. 

It would be enjoyable if Chikara were not so nervous. Torn up pieces of napkin sit in a pile in front of him. 

He wasn’t expecting a yes when he issued this invitation. He would have understood if he didn’t receive an answer at all.

But the yes came and Chikara’s here, feeling a sunburn creep up the back of his neck. He’ll consider it his penance, self-flagellation via UV rays. 

There’s no amount of apologies that can really make up for a sudden arrest of communication, but Chikara wants to be happy and this is the start. 

For the sake of the rooftop attendant, he chose to sit with his back to the entrance. Otherwise, we would be staring intently at them for the entire time he waits. Besides, a gentle tap of two fingers against his shoulder turns out to be enough to notify him. 

Kiyoko smiles at him when he turns around. After all this time, she smiles. Chikara grows only more certain that he might be no good. 

“Hi,” she says, tucking her hair, swept up in the wind, behind her ear. It’s shorter now. Chikara was always saying she’d absolutely stun with a bob. 

He gets out of his chair and onto his feet. While everyone else goes about their average weekend brunches, Chikara tries to mend a neglected friendship. He starts with a hug. 

And like nothing between them has ever changed, Kiyoko’s arms wrap securely around him.

“What’s good here?” she asks once they’re seated with their menus open. 

“Dunno,” answers Chikara, shrugging. “It’s my first time at one of these Western style brunch places.”

“Oh, that's funny, Ryuu and I go—“ And then, she stops herself. 

But Chikara picks up where she left off. “…All the time?”

Kiyoko nods. She looks so sorry and Chikara doesn’t want her to be. 

“It’s okay,” he tells her. “It was always okay. I’m sorry for making you ever think otherwise.”

“No,” she says. “No, I’m sorry.”

Chikara smiles, not bitter, but not exactly sweet. “For what, Kiyoko? For loving him? For him loving you back? Neither of those things are your fault. They aren’t even bad things to begin with.”

Still, guilt remains on her face. “I didn’t mean to…”

That, Chikara can't help but be amused by. “He sure is funny that way.”

Kiyoko laughs, agrees, her expression finally unclouded. She takes a sip of her water and says, “It surprised me at first, but then—well—it didn’t anymore.”

“Right,” Chikara replies with a nod. That's how he wants to make things. Right. “Tell me about you two. I want to know everything.”

The invitation to talk about Tanaka leaves Kiyoko’s face aglow. Chikara is glad to know that Tanaka’s effect is, in fact, universal. 

Their story from start to end leaves Chikara wondering how he could ever want to come between them. Kiyoko learned that Tanaka was someone she could love when he rejected her application to work at the izakaya he was managing. 

“He was completely beside himself,” she recalls, grinning as fond as the day is long. “‘I’m sorry Kiyoko! I had to hire someone else! You don’t have enough food service experience!’”

Tanaka was always a bit of a brute in his honesty. Unfiltered, real and refreshing. 

“So I kissed him.” She giggles, cheeks pink. “And then, he pulled away to say that he still can’t give me the job.”

Chikara’s jaw faintly aches from all his smiling. “Idiot,” he chuckles. “I bet you had to do all the asking out, then.”

Her grin widens and her eyes disappear behind it. “Yep!” She nods emphatically. “And now, here we are.”

“Here you are…” Chikara repeats.

It goes quiet between them again. Chikara can’t tear his eyes away. Kiyoko’s happier now than he has ever seen her. Maybe that was what he was trying to avoid. It is easier to resent when he doesn’t know exactly what it is that he’s resenting. 

“He misses you, you know,” Kiyoko tells him. 

Chikara affixes his gaze to his glass of water. “I miss him, too." A pause. He gulps. "I’ve missed you both”

He hears Kiyoko exhale the faintest breath. To him, it sounds like a door starting to open. “I was hoping to ask you today…” he begins. “I mean, if you’ll have me…" Another pause. Another gulp. "Is it too late for me to RSVP yes?”

He looks back up at her and her expression is unwaveringly joyful. She answers, so confidently, “It’s never too late.”

From there, it seems the breaths they were both holding are released. Food gets ordered and then it arrives and they’re able to eat like the last three years never happened, like this is what they have been doing every week for that entire time. 

“That was good,” Chikara says once they have left the restaurant and are out on the sidewalk. 

“I’ll have to take you to the place Ryuu and I go to.” She is searching through her bag for something. “Wedding’s coming up fast so it’ll be awhile, but they make a mean eggs benedict.” 

It’s her phone. She pulls it out with comical amounts of difficulty, leaving Chikara wondering what else it is she has in there. 

“Speaking of the wedding…” She struggles briefly with her finger ID. “Will you be bringing a plus one?”

A simple, logistical question, and yet Chikara finds difficulty with providing his answer. 

Nonetheless, Kiyoko awaits one and Chikara’s every fibre, cell and molecule wants to say yes, but that would just result in another space for which she’ll have to account that he doesn’t have the bravery to fill. 

So, he has to reply, “No.”

Around the corner from his apartment building, there is a park where teenagers like to hang out. He will cut through it sometimes and hear them blast All American Rejects while they practice skateboard tricks after school.

If Chikara were the type to hear song lyrics and belay them to his life, then truth be told, he misses Hirugami. There is no other truth beyond that, because the pathetic reality about Chikara is, he has never been a strong enough man to try and pretend otherwise.

There is something so needlessly ceremonious about fastening a tie in front of the mirror. It does not help that his curtains are half-drawn and the little sliver of afternoon light that gets in casts a dramatic shadow over his face. 

Chikara spoke in the groupchat, finally. They’re busy enough guys that they didn’t appear to notice that that was the first time he had said anything in close to a year. And when he asked if he could hitch a ride with one of them, Tanaka left a heart reaction on his message.

The conversation ended with the entire bunch of them—except for the groom and his best man, of course—agreeing to carpool to the chapel and, subsequently, the reception hall.

Kinoshita will be driving and, when that was decided, no one made a joke about the threat that might pose to their lives. And so, Chikara took the opportunity. It was the first normal interaction he’s had with his old teammates in a really long time.

And now, the day is here. Kinoshita texted some moments ago that he was on the way to Chikara’s place and this damn tie just won’t do up. 

That’s what he gets for choosing a profession where his work uniform is scrubs. He has the fleeting thought that if Hirugami were here, he’d know what to do—as if his profession doesn’t require a near-identical get-up. It’s the moral support, perhaps, that he craves. Hirugami’s proximity. Their foreheads bumping while he proves to be just as bad at this as Chikara is—that’s what he wants. 

Obnoxious honking comes from the street below, tears through his witless little daydream. He realizes that he’ll have to resign himself to watching a how-to video in the car.

When they get to the venue, it appears close to full capacity. Kiyoko and Tanaka took the typical route and planned their wedding for the height of cherry blossom season. The chapel is situated among a forest of those trees. Pink petals rain down and Chikara holds out his hands, tries to catch them. He ends up being the last one outside while everyone shuffles inside to take their seats. 

Thankfully, Kinoshita saved a spot between himself and Narita.

At the front of the room, Tanaka stands with his groomsmen. Chikara makes eye contact with Noya, the best man, who waves excitedly at him. Chikara waves back and their exchange catches Tanaka’s attention. He flashes Chikara a smile, and it's a kindness, finally, that Chikara can return. 

From there, the ceremony gets underway quickly. Kiyoko walks in, a head-turning sight as she has always been. She follows, escorted by her mother, behind her bridesmaids towards the altar, where Noya is now basically holding Tanaka up. 

The bride and the groom exchange their vows. Both of them wrote long speeches, but only Tanaka properly tears up. Kiyoko is still going through hers while Chikara looks around at the rest of the congregation. 

He didn’t get a chance to talk to them when he was outside, but two pews over, he can make out Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Hinata and Kageyama sitting together. In front of them are Suga, Daichi and Asahi, a couple rows behind Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei. And then, at the back there’s Yachi, camera flashes going off while she photographs the event. 

Everybody from Karasuno is here and nostalgia, for once, sweeps over him like a hug instead of its usual gut punch. 

The officiant says, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

But Chikara can’t. He can’t hold his peace.

He wants to rise up, tell them to stop the ceremony, then leave through the chapel doors. He’ll run to where his favourite coffee shop is, burst through the entrance of the attached condominium and run all the way up the three flights of stairs, break down the door to Hirugami’s unit. He’s probably watching a random daytime talk show right now, something to keep his brain busy while he folds his laundry. It’s good that his clean clothes are out. He can change into something wedding friendly right there and they’ll run back together. 

Kiyoko wouldn’t mind the delay. She did ask, after all, if Chikara had a plus one. And he does.

It’s Hirugami. It’s been Hirugami for quite some time now. 

But Chikara stayed put. He watched Tanaka and Kiyoko get married, surrounded by old friends but still feeling so alone.

He’s at the reception now. The band is packing up and Tanaka Saeko has taken control of the aux cord. Kiyoko is dancing in the middle of the floor, barefoot and with her shoes in her hands. She is surrounded by children, all wanting to play with the skirt of her dress. 

Chikara is in the back of the room, resting against the bar. His tie is undone and hanging around his neck. He is hanging over his plate, working his way through his third cake slice of the night.

Something jabs him in the shoulder. A finger. It pokes again when he doesn't immediately respond, and that's when he turns, finds Tanaka standing next to him, trying to get his attention.

Chikara flashes him a smile. “Hey there, Mr. Shimizu.”

Tanaka laughs at that and Chikara realizes he has missed the sound. “Shimizu Ryuunosuke sure has a ring to it.”

“Well, if you hurry you can get your marriage annulled, get married again with her last name and still catch your honeymoon flight.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Tanaka snorts. “Now that I’m married to Kiyoko, nothing could convince me to un-marry her.”

Chikara fake gags. “You lovebirds make me sick!”

“Wow, lovebirds…” Tanaka sighs. “Still can’t believe that’s what we are after all this time.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” says Chikara, expression tender as he squeezes Tanaka’s arm. “You’re a great guy. You two will have a wonderful life together.”

And then, Tanaka, ever the emotional guy, grabs Chikara and pulls him into a hug, declaring nearly tearful, “I’ve missed you, man!” 

Chikara squeezes his eyes shut, palms smoothing over Tanaka’s back. When the two of them pull apart, letting Tanaka go doesn’t feel like a gut-wrenching loss. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant,” he says. 

And Tanaka wouldn’t have been the man Chikara once loved if his response wasn’t an understanding, “It’s water under the bridge.” Then, he playfully nudges Chikara’s shoulder. “Just don’t go off the grid again.”

Chikara chuckles and takes a bite of his cake, letting his gaze wander. He sees Tsukishima asleep on Yamaguchi’s shoulder and Suga and Asahi slow dancing to fast music. It’s not that he feels out of place on account of coming alone. Take Saeko and Noya, here without dates and about as far from marriage as he is. They’re able to have the time of their lives. 

It’s the happiness these people have cultivated for themselves. Chikara, unlike them, is still toiling away, trying to achieve it. He knows that he should rejoice for them, but he finally allows himself this moment to be mournful for himself. 

But then, once he’s had his fill of self-lamentation, he realizes it’s time for him to do something about it. 

“I’m sorry, Ryuu,” he says, handing Tanaka his plate. His eyes are on the exit. He intends to actually leave through it this time. “I have to disappear on you one last time.”

He goes home and rummages through his drawers, desperately. He has to find it—it being something that realistically has no material value to neither Hirugami nor himself. It is merely an excuse. He needs to find it to get here. To Hirugami’s front door. 

It’s tucked under his arm and he hangs onto it like a life raft while he stands and he waits. It’s stupid, it’s stupid, how reliant he is on this tiny thing to give him the courage to knock. But how Chikara finds his resolve be damned. The net outcome is his knuckles against the door, tapping out an urgent rhythm. 

And from that outcome, the result is Hirugami’s face, no longer shown to Chikara as an engraving on the inside of his skull, but rather in the flesh. 

“What are you doing here, Ennoshita?” Hirugami asks. Chikara tries to get a read on him. He’s not mad, he’s not sad. Worse than both of those things combined, he looks simply apathetic—like Chikara’s impromptu appearance has no impact on his night. 

It makes this next part hard, but no less necessary. “Can I… Can I come inside?”

To answer, Hirugami steps out of the way, absolutely uncaring and making space for Chikara to step into his home. Then, shutting the door behind him, Hirugami turns to face him, closed off with his arms over his chest. “So? What is it?”

Chikara's throat feels dry and it hurts when he swallows. “I came to return this.” He takes it out from under his arm, offering it up to Hirugami with both of his hands. 

It’s the container from the first night they ordered take-out. The entire time that they were shuttling back and forth between each other’s places, Chikara always forgot to give it back and Hirugami always forgot to ask for it. But here it is now and Hirugami beholds it, apathy melting away, replaced with a scowl.

“Let me get this straight.” He rubs his face. Now he looks tired. “After a month without speaking to me, you come all this way at eleven p.m. to return a one hundred-yen container?” 

Chikara deflates. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

“I mean. It’s fine? I was just watching TV.” He takes the container. Without it to hold, Chikara's fingers shake. “And now I guess I have more food storage.”

“I meant… I meant sorry for…” He wrings his hands, looks down at them. It’s objectively true, what he did. But guilt makes it hard to deal in the objective. “...Ignoring you.”

The deadliest silence passes between them. Chikara holds his breath, eyes glued to the carpet. He's certain whatever look Hirugami has on his face, Chikara will break the moment he sees it.

But then, and he swears his ears deceive him, he hears a laugh. And, forgetting the danger, he looks up at Hirugami, promptly bewildered to find him smiling. 

“Well, it’d be nice if you were also sorry for coming by so late,” Hirugami replies with a teasing cadence to his voice. “I was watching a riveting re-run of Karaoke Battle, after all.”

Chikara is too stunned to do more than blink.

“Come on, you caught me during an ad break.” Hirugami throws his arm around Chikara’s shoulders. “Watch with me.”

But, regaining himself, Chikara ducks out from under Hirugami’s hold. He came for a reason. He'll see it to the end.

“Wait!” he shouts at a volume inappropriate for the middle of the night. “I have more to say…” This time, speaking gentlier.

Hirugami looks back at him, simpering. “So you didn’t just come to give me this.” He holds up the container, he shakes Chikara’s little excuse. 

“Just…” Chikara steadies himself and his heart, ready to beat itself right out of his chest. “Just listen, ‘kay? I don’t need anything else.” But Hirugami’s eyes are on him and the force of their gaze is suffocating. “Turn around too. It’ll be easier for me that way.”

Hirugami doesn’t speak, because he has always known when to keep quiet. He silently does as Chikara asks and Chikara heaves a sigh of relief when the pressure of being seen is lifted. 

“I left that night because I was scared of getting hurt.”

But then, no matter how wrong it’d be, he supposes there are situations where Hirugami can't help but speak. “I would never hurt you,” he says. 

“I know,’ Chikara replies, and he hopes he sounds kind when he adds, “Just let me finish.”

Hirugami nods. Chikara gets the view from behind. Inhale, one. Exhale, two. Then, he continues. 

“I saw the future the way I feared it would be. Me, getting hurt again, the way it hurt with Tanaka.” In other words that he won’t yet say, he saw a future without Hirugami.  “And it made me so scared.”

Beneath his own laboured breathing, he hears Hirugami’s breath hitch. He sees Hirugami’s shoulders shift and Hirugami’s face begins to edge back into view. 

“Don’t turn around,” he says. 

Three words and Hirugami stops, reclaims his previous stance, restoring Chikara’s eye contact with the back of his head.

“But I don’t wanna be afraid anymore,” Chikara says, fists clenched so hard that he might crush his own hands. “I want to love you.” He swallows. “I think I could, if you let me. Maybe I already do.”

His nostrils flare and he takes a deep breath. Hirugami doesn't speak, because his response is not words. Instead, he starts to turn again. 

And Chikara is afraid, because the question has been asked and if Hirugami's face houses the answer he doesn't want, then he can't bear to see it. “Don’t tur—”

“How can you expect me not to?” Hirugami rasps, his question followed by the clatter of plastic against the floor.

And the next thing Chikara feels is the weight and the warmth from that night in Hirugami’s bed. Except this time, they’re standing in the genkan and it is not suffocating. Hirugami’s arms surround him, fingers digging into him like he is something worth this added measure of security. 

This is Hirugami's answer, whispered soft against Chikara's temple: “Maybe I love you, too—fuck that, I have loved you. ”

Something like a laugh bubbles in Chikara’s lungs, tumbles from his lips as a sob, spills from his eyes as tears. Chikara wants to bring his hands up to wipe them away, but he dares not touch. These tears, this feeling—it’s sacred. He wants to keep it untouched.

When Hirugami kisses him, it’s like every other kiss they’ve ever shared has never happened. As if, finally, they are tasting each other, unrestrained and unrefined. It’s their own little movie, with the mild commotion of nighttime television programming as their soundtrack, with I love you whispered between little gasps for air. It’s the kind of moment into which one might murmur, perhaps—

“Chikara,” Hirugami says, syllables tumbling into an open mouth.

And there, the rule’s been broken. And because it’s now safe enough to do so, Chikara might break it too. 

[ two years later ]

“Sachirou!” 

Chikara pokes his head into the bathroom, freshly painted walls still damp from the shower running. He has finally been able to enact stage one of his plan to completely change Hirugami’s apartment. It’s a little slow going, since he moved in three months ago, but it’ll be completely unrecognizable when he’s done. Next step: installing a dishwasher. 

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Hirugami says, materializing from their bedroom (yes, Chikara has plans for that room, too). He struggles to do up his tie. “Help me with this?”

Chikara grabs the end of the garment and yanks it off. “Jeez, it’s just a baby shower. Why so fancy?” he teases, fingers latching onto Hirugami’s collar. “Plus, I like it when you wear it like this.” He undoes the top three buttons, then smooths out the fabric. 

“How improper of you, Ennoshita Chikara,” mumbles Hirugami, voice low as his arms encircle Chikara’s waist and tugs him inward. “Am I just arm candy to you?”

“Yes,” Chikara giggles, palms warm and settled against Hirugami’s chest. He leans in and steals a kiss for himself, then maneuvers himself out of the hold. “Come on, or we’ll be late!”

But, of course, they are late, despite their (Chikara’s) best efforts to be on time. It’s no big deal, just Hirugami’s first time at a party with basically Chikara’s entire high school volleyball team. It’s actually a huge deal. But if Chikara loses his cool, Hirugami will too. So it’s fine. It’s fine. He grabs Hirugami’s hand and they walk up to the front door. 

He can hear the inside, the dull hum of chatter, and he catches a glimpse of someone’s elbow through a small gap in the curtain. 

Tanaka answers the door and has Hirugami immediately wrapped in a hug. He and Kiyoko are two of his few high school friends who have met him. They’ve been for brunch on several occasions and Chikara is starting to wonder if Tanaka might like Hirugami more than him.

“Good to see you, Tanaka,” Hirugami says while Tanaka pats away at his back. 

“Oh, call me Ryuu, won’t you?” Tanaka practically begs. 

To that, Hirugami just laughs, because he doesn’t seem to realize that Tanaka is not kidding. 

“The father of your unborn child seems to have a man crush,” Chikara jokes, striding up to Kiyoko who’s settled on the living room couch. 

“Your Hirugami is a very likable guy,” she answers with a smile. 

Chikara flops down next to her, then squints. “That hug’s lasting a little long, don’t you think?” he jokes. 

“You should have seen him earlier. Kept asking when Hirugami would get here.”

“Well, Hirugami has your present, so blame Ryuu if it’s broken.”

Together, they laugh like it’s the first joke they’ve ever shared. Like the past two years were not comprised of them laughing at the men they love. Chikara will never take for granted her presence in his life again. 

When he looks over at her, her expression is suddenly soft. She turns to meet his gaze. She smiles, warm and bright. “So,” she says, a quick tilt of her head in Hirugami’s direction. “He’s your plus one?”

Chikara looks around the room. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi stand hand-in-hand, in a group of people marveling at Noya and Japan’s Ace Kanoka, who show them photos from their latest trip. It’s the first time, among these people, where he feels like he fits. And in the space right next to his, is room for Hirugami.  

Chikara’s wrist is suddenly heavy. His fingers find the red string tied around it, a placeholder for something more permanent, something more finger sized. He just has to wait for when Hirugami completes the probationary period at his new job. It is a partnership, after all, he remembers instructing Tanaka all those years ago.

“Yeah,” he tells Kiyoko, eyes settling on the matching string poking out from beneath Hirugami’s sleeve. “He is my plus one.”