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"We couldn't have even made it here without you," Takeda says, eyes sparkling and unfocused without his glasses on and that's it, that's the moment that Ukai falls so hard for Takeda Ittetsu that it drives all the air out of his lungs, like he fell off the ladder trying to repaint the sign to the store again.
It's not when Takeda kept phoning him so persistently or when he showed off his cute little students so proudly. It's not the first time they drank together, Takeda pink-cheeked and slurring all his words, or the first time they kissed ill-advisedly behind the club room, or any of the times since then, Takeda hissing that this is something students are supposed to do, or even the first time Ukai let Takeda push him down flat on the tatami of his apartment floor and strip his shirt off sober.
It's their first night in Tokyo at Nationals, in their unimpressive hotel, futons pushed close enough to talk and trying to wind down enough to sleep when both of them know there's no way they can. It's Takeda telling Ukai earnestly how much he's done for Karasuno when Ukai feels like he's faking every single step of looking like an adult. Especially when he's looking at Takeda, who has a real job being responsible all day with lesson plans and grading and kids' futures in his hands, that he can't fake his way through on two hours of sleep and energy jelly the way that Ukai can picking soybeans.
"Wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you," Ukai says, Takeda still waiting for an answer. Takeda opens his mouth to obviously argue, and Ukai cuts him off with a gentle, "Shut up, will you? I'm actually the worst adult in the entire world, that you actually dragged to coaching, like with my shirt in your fist dragged into the gym, and you're sitting here telling me that any of this is because of me? Are you crazy?"
"Well." Takeda blinks, and he's probably blushing because he always does when Ukai says anything about Takeda directly, even though it's too dark for Ukai to actually see the way the pink starts at Takeda's cheekbones before spreading all over. "I'm actually lying here, not sitting."
"Listen, you…"
"I think you're a pretty good adult," Takeda says, interrupting. Ukai wants to ask what on earth Takeda has been smoking, but Takeda keeps talking in that way he does where Ukai can't even get a word in. "You help me all the time, and you work at your family's farm and store, and you've taught me more about volleyball than any silly book, and you must be at least as tired as me and you're not even getting paid for it, but you show up any time the kids need you, every day. You're so…" Takeda gropes for a word. "Dependable. Sorry, that doesn't sound sexy. But I work with tons of 'adults' who I can't depend on at all, so I'd rather have you than any of them."
Ukai wants to argue, but it takes a couple tries unstick any words from his throat. "Right back at you, I guess. Although you're a teacher, so I don't see how you can compare us at all. When I show up I just make up everything as I go along. It's crazy we've been scraping along by the skin of our teeth."
"I feel asleep during a staff meeting last week and got scolded by the principal," Takeda says. "Two days ago I handed out a worksheet that I was so tired while I typed at two in the morning that three sentences in the middle were a stream of consciousness story about my toaster. So I have to say, in terms of being 'adult' we might be fairly well-matched."
Ukai snorts out his nose, then chuckles, and then has to roll onto his stomach so he muffle his laughter in his pillow because otherwise Sawamura is going to come over here and scold them for being awake after lights out. Takeda rolls into his side, warm and also laughing quietly; Ukai throws an arm over him to pull him in close and muffles the end of his noise into the curve of Takeda's neck instead.
"Oh man," he wheezes, trying to whisper. "Your toaster! Did it have a happy ending?"
"I think it married the blender," Takeda mutters, and then both of them break down all over again.