Chapter Text
VI – Couple
Kazuya caught him by the collar, threw him into his room and slammed the door with perhaps a little more force than was strictly necessary. He stayed like that; a hand on the doorknob, his back to Eijun. The cold metal against his palm was doing nothing to calm his heart, and he was probably breathing too fast.
“It’s funny,” he said past the knot in his throat,“for a second there, I could have sworn I heard you yelling in the middle of the corridor that you loved me.”
“Yeah. I did.”
God. How was he supposed to turn around and face him?
Don’t be a coward.
Eijun was the one who lent him strength when he needed it, so how weird was it that he wanted to borrow courage from the very person that he needed it to face?
Don’t be a coward.
“Look, if you’re disgusted or anything, I’m so—”
“Don’t!” He turned around, because he might not be ready to deal with this, but he would never let Eijun think that he was disgusted by anything about him.
Eijun was biting his lips, the soft bedside light emphasizing the worried glint in his eyes. But more than anything, the determined slant of his jaw and furrow of his eyebrows caught his breath. That wasn’t the look of someone who regretted what they’d said.
He must be confused, Kazuya thought above the thunder of his heartbeat. “You can’t possibly mean that,” he choked. Because it was impossible. Because Kazuya’s life wasn’t the kind of life where things turned out okay for him in the end. It was the kind of life where he had to fight and cry and accept, over and over again, that things aren’t handed out freely—be it a meal in front of you, or love from the closest person you were supposed to have.
Eijun just got angry, twisted mouth snarling and narrowed eyes glowering. “Do I look like the kind of guy who says things without meaning them?! Don’t decide for me what I mean or not! I honestly love you!”
Everything about Sawamura Eijun was impossible. Unbelievable, really. He was blushing a bit, wearing that red shirt—one of the ones they had bought together—and the hesitation had all but disappeared from his stance in the wake of determination to make Kazuya accept that he was telling the truth.
Once again, Kazuya wondered when his room had gotten so small. He wished he could get used to the distortion that came around Eijun.
“How— When—?”
“Huh.” For the first time since he’d barged in, he scratched his head with a sheepish look. “I kinda realized this ten minutes ago?”
“Wha— Moron! You can’t just go making confessions to people you decided to love ten minutes ago!” This day was a nightmare.
“Hey! I didn’t decide ten minutes ago, I just realized it!”
“Oh, so”—Kazuya’s voice was quivering—“you were just in your room like that, and thought ‘I love Kazuya’, then just straight-up ran here without thinking to yell it in my face?”
“Yeah... It pretty much happened like that...”
“Everybody on this floor heard you, stupid! You can’t just— What if I had rejected you then and there, on the step of my door? What about our friendship? What happens when you have a new revelation and realize you don’t love me after all? Will you have to make a public statement to explain that you were wrong? What—” Words spilled, escaping him with his breath; everything was getting out, and nothing in. This was crazy. Eijun was crazy—he was crazy for even listening to him. Because he couldn’t be—
“Stop!” Eijun shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking. “Kazuya stop it! I know I didn’t think this through, but you are thinking too much.” His voice went lower, his features softening in something so close to what Kazuya was used to feeling on his own face when he was watching Eijun being an idiot. He couldn’t focus on anything other than the eyes eating him alive. “There’s nothing— This is so simple. I just love you, that’s all there is to it. I’m not— I’m not asking you for anything, but this is important, and I wanted you to know.”
Silence fell, filling the white spaces, letting Kazuya accept the reality of a world where, maybe, Sawamura Eijun was in love with him. Where he was here, red cheeks and soft voice, in his room, hands on his shoulders and heart opened for him to see and probe. That idiot was never protecting himself.
“If you don’t like it, then I hope you’ll still be my friend. But I’m not too worried about that; I know I won’t let feelings come between us if it comes down to that, and I think you won’t either.”
And suddenly, everything was so clear. Of course he wouldn’t. He had already decided he wouldn’t let Eijun go—that this battery, this friendship, was worth fighting tooth and nail for. And Eijun was— he was a force a nature; he would destroy everything in his way, like he had destroyed reluctance and mistrust.
Eijun was right: it was simple in the end.
“You,” he began, taking a step forward and hiding his face in the neck in front of him, feeling Eijun’s pulse, too quick against his cheek, “are one of a kind.” Fingers slid from his shoulder to his waist, the weight of the hands heavy on his hips.
“What do you mean?” And his voice was so quiet that Kazuya wondered if it was really Eijun talking.
“I mean, you realized a few minutes ago that you were in love with me, and you had no idea how I felt, but still you went—all brave and rash—and just told me. And you should’ve looked vulnerable, because there’s no way you can show your heart without being vulnerable, but you just... You’re so strong. So brave that it took you an instant to decide to confess, when I couldn’t even after months.”
He knew when the weight of his words had sunk in, because Eijun’s body tensed under him, his fingers tightening and his pulse racing. “Kazuya...” he whispered, oddly reverent in the way he said his name. “Kazuya, look at me.”
There was no way Kazuya could ever look at him anymore, but Eijun didn’t care—had never cared about his stupid reservations—and he grabbed his head, dislodging him from the very comfortable place he had been hiding in. He was so close, a hand on each of his cheeks, sparkling eyes brighter than the low light and tiny freckles on skin that was becoming reacquainted with spring sun.
“Kazuya... Do you love me?”
Of course I do, moron. Everybody could see it.
“Oh my God, you do! You do love me!” He was laughing, probably too loud when everybody else was trying to sleep, and so, so happy. So happy it hurt to see—so happy he peppered Kazuya’s face with kisses as if it was a normal thing to do; as if it was okay for those lips to find his cheekbones, his temples, his forehead, his eyebrows, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth.
Kazuya felt lost and assaulted, found and healed, his own hands moving to anchor themselves on Eijun’s red shirt. “Hey, what are you getting so excited about? I never said anything about a relationship.”
“Shut up,” he breathed against his skin. “I’m not thinking about that right now, I just want to enjoy the feeling of you loving me.”
And that’s when Kazuya realized that he hadn’t even tried to enjoy it—enjoy knowing that Eijun loved him back—because it still felt a little bit like a dream; like a convenient fantasy. But his fantasy was kissing his skin while laughing, and something burst in his chest.
“What are you even saying?” He fought his way back to rationality, trying to think with an empty head and a too full heart; trying to fight down the rising of that feeling numbing everything that wasn’t happiness; trying to stop the corner of his lips from curving upward; trying to ignore how close their bodies were, how Eijun’s rough hands felt against his cheeks, how he was looking at him like he loved him. “You haven’t even loved me for a full half-hour.”
“No! No, no, no! You don’t understand, Kazuya.” Those glowing eyes were burning him from the inside out, consuming everything that wasn’t already charred by their focus. “I realized tonight. I realized I was being even more of an idiot than usual— I realized it had been for so long! And how could I not have seen it?! I mean, it took me forever, especially considering the first time I wanted to kiss you was in, like, September? When we went clothes shopping and you were making fun of me for thinking you were pretty!”
Oh. So Kazuya hadn’t been the only one that time. Or the times after that, when Eijun had stopped and stared at him, when he’d blushed at every praise, when he’d sat close and hugged even closer. When he’d claimed—all drama and no filter, so Eijun—that he wanted to be with him. And all this time, maybe… maybe each of their interactions had been Eijun saying ‘I love you’ without even knowing it.
It broke everything, the burst of feeling he had been trying to repress. It roared in his chest like a tiny Eijun after an amazing pitch, crushing everything that wasn’t unadulterated joy—obliterating it and drowning the smithereens, running through his body without interruption, without the source depleting—and he was going to burst, there was no way around it.
He realized that he was laughing too, fingers still clutching at the red shirt, and they were both stupid and ridiculous. He threw his arms around the pitcher, squeezing him and breathing in the smell of his hair: generic shampoo, and warmth, and Eijun. He squeezed harder, as if to take revenge for every time he’d been deprived of his breath by this person. Eijun’s arms were stuck under his grip, but he wasn’t complaining. He was giggling and grasping at the hem of Kazuya’s shirt, as if he had to hold on to him one way or another.
“You are so stupid,” Kazuya mumbled, his breath disturbing the dark strands.
“Shut up. You’re worse, keeping it for yourself for months.” Eijun leaned his head back to look at him, his hands skimming over his hips, still stuck in the embrace. “You should have told me, maybe it would have made me realize my own feelings sooner.”
It seemed a little too good to be true, having Eijun in his arms talking about his feelings, and Kazuya had never allowed himself to hope for anything close to this. “Maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe it would’ve just been bad for our friendship— maybe it would have made everything awkward between us.”
Eijun frowned and gently butted his forehead. It was weird, to think of ‘gently’ as way to describe Eijun. “Do we seem awkward right now?”
“You always seem awkward.”
Kazuya couldn’t hold back the smirk curving the corner of his lips, and being able to observe the outrage on Eijun’s face so, so closely was even better. His mouth parted and his nose scrunched up, disturbing the freckles living there, and his brows slanted over the top of his eyes where his joy and excitement couldn’t be bothered to make any space for the indignation he was supposed to muster. He could feel his own smile keep growing, and the thumbs on his hips drawing circles, making the skin there tingle. Then he saw a flush start up on the neck in front of him, rising over ears and spreading over cheeks, and there was Eijun: all red and brown and gold. He rose an eyebrow inquisitively, without letting the smile die.
“Hey. So,” Eijun started, a bit lower than usual, licking his lower lip. “About that ‘not saying anything about a relationship’ thing... is there anything I can do to change your mind? Because I would really like to kiss you. Right now. A lot.”
A full-body shiver racked Kazuya. “Oh.”
Everything was so hot, too warm between them, and his heartbeat—which had finally calmed down—skyrocketed again, like a wild bird trying to get out of its cage. Eijun was so close, golden eyes taking on a darker tinge of intent, and mouth parting, lips full. Still dry. Kazuya could smell his hair, his skin, the apple he’d had for dessert; could feel Eijun’s breath against his mouth: a little too heavy, a little too fast.
He released his grip around the pitcher’s shoulders to slide his hands over his upper arms, appreciating the bare muscles under his fingers, flexing when the grip on his hips tightened to bring them impossibly closer, until their chests met and their legs slotted together. They weren’t doing anything except standing up in the middle of the room, in the middle of the night, sharing space and heat, and yet Kazuya could feel every part of him react to the contact. Every part of him.
His nose brushed Eijun’s and there was a gasp somewhere.
“We”—the voice was deeper than he had ever heard it, a raspy whisper against his lips—“we might need to talk about this. I— I really want to be with you, Kazuya. I already wanted it as a friend, and if I can have you as a lover, I’ll take it. If we do this, you can’t get rid of me. I’ll give you everything I have, but I want the same. I want you to give it to me. Everything.”
“Yeah. I can’t think of anything I’m not ready to give you. I don’t have lot, and you pretty much stole everything you could already.” Oxygen wasn’t going to his brain quickly enough, and he wondered if he could live off of breathing in Eijun. He was drunk on his closeness, on their mingling breath and the pulse under his skin, on the lips so close to his promising him everything in low murmurs. It made him stop thinking.
“Don’t say that,” Eijun sighed. He slid a thumb under Kazuya’s shirt, partially giving in to the pull between them, letting his lips rest in a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “That’s not true, you have so much, and I want more, more, more.”
“Okay” he rasped, not recognizing his voice, feeling like he was in the body of a stranger. An honest and very-much-in-love stranger. “Okay. You can take whatever you find. It’s yours. I won’t hold back.”
And Eijun let out a shaky breath, a half-strangled laugh; a little disbelieving, very much happy, warm against his skin and scorching against his soul. Then he slid his lips from where they rested at the corner of Kazuya’s mouth to kiss him fully.
Finally.
He exhaled against Eijun’s mouth, because everything was so warm. The arms under his palms were burning his skin, the hands on his hips embracing him in a promise to never let go, every inch of his friend (boyfriend?) plastered against him, radiating. Kazuya’s eyes had closed at some point but the golden stare still glowed behind his eyelids, and he could feel every little move tenfold: the dryness of the lips against his; the finger teasing the edge of his sweatpants; the little intake of breath when Eijun’s nose touched his cheek, angling his face to kiss more, to kiss better; the eyelashes fawning against his cheekbones. It was soft and dry, warm and comforting. He let out a quiet sigh.
Then Eijun got tired of being patient, and suddenly it was rough and wet, hot and overwhelming. The arms closed against his back, pressing their hips together while Eijun’s tongue licked his lips, opening his mouth and trying to devour him. One hand roamed his back as the other played with the hem of his shirt; a too tight embrace. It felt like every wet dream Kazuya had ever had, and he was going to make the most out of this. His fingered skimmed his pitcher’s arm, climbed his shoulder and grabbed his neck, slanting their mouths more comfortably against each other and letting his own tongue taste Eijun’s mouth, fighting with him for dominance. Then he felt the other’s body tremble and his lips widen against his own, a short giggle drowning in the kiss.
“I— I have no idea what I’m doing,” Eijun mumbled, sounding drunk on happiness and high on Kazuya’s taste.
“Don’t care.” And Kazuya grabbed him tighter and went back to the kiss with a vengeance.
They thrust back and forth, invading each other’s mouths and grasping too hard at one another, clumsy and inexperienced. Too much saliva was involved, and teeth here and there, with quiet moans drowning in the wet noises of the kiss and the rustling of clothes being messed with.
His head was fuzzy and his brain never recovered from his oxygen shortage, leaving him a mess of ‘yes’ and ‘more’ and ‘Eijun’. He was too hot, and arousal built slowly with every slip of the tongue, every finger closing in his hair, every twitching muscle he could feel under his hands and every raspy breath. Before long, they were slowly rocking into one another, too close and too lost to be embarrassed by being this worked up over a first kiss. Eijun bit his lower lip. Hard. He let out a moan and they parted, heavy breathing as loud as their pounding hearts.
“Sorry.” Eijun’s voice was throaty as he blinked his eyes open; the black was almost swallowing the gold. “I wasn’t— I wanted to take it slow. But you— Ugh.”
“Eloquent.”
“Shut up, you’re no better.”
Kazuya was no better.
He wanted to grab Eijun and put his stupid mouth back against his own; he wanted to taste him and drink in his moans and his every noise; he wanted to feel that skin under his fingertips; he wanted to feel those fingertips over his skin. He wanted a bit too much, and his pants were tight. It was all Eijun’s fault, really.
Something must have shown on his face because his pitcher chuckled, the hot exhale bouncing against Kazuya’s lips. “I always wanted my first kiss to be all sweet and romantic, since I was a kid. Like in all those shōjo,” he started saying, with red cheeks and a smile. “But then you made that— that satisfied noise, and I kind of forgot about everything except that I wanted more of you. Good thing you didn’t seem to mind.”
“And what would you know about that, huh? Maybe it was a crappy kiss and I hated it,” he baited with a smirk.
“Yeah, clearly. You hated it so much…” Eijun answered with too much sarcasm, hands skimming from his back to his front with intent. Kazuya slapped them away before they reached his erection, biting his lips.
“What happened to ‘take it slow’? Moron.”
“I know, I know, I just wanted to prove a point.”
“Sure, by feeling me up.”
“Well, I have been feeling you up for a solid—” He stopped and frowned. “I actually have no idea how long we kissed for.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive that gap in your array of useless knowledge.”
“How can you still be such an ass?!”
“Your hands seem quiet attracted to asses, so…”
“Shut up,” Eijun growled, the sound reverberating against Kazuya’s rib cage. Then he kissed him again, quick and chaste—just a peck, more of an indulgence than to really shut him up.
Kazuya’s head was still dizzy; this whole thing felt like an out of body experience. He had trouble believing that Eijun could just kiss him so casually—just another way to end arguments. It was too good. If every bad moment in his life had led to this, he was infinitely grateful for each and every one of them.
He blamed that cheesy thought on his deoxygenated brain and Eijun’s sunny smile.
They shuffled into bed together, like so many times before, except everything was different. Now, when he wanted to kiss the soft smile on Eijun’s lips, he could. Now, when he wanted to wrap his arms around him and nuzzle his hair, he could. Now, when the strange feeling pushed too hard against his skin, he knew Eijun was feeling it every bit as potently. He remembered how tired he had felt before the pitcher had yelled his love in the middle of the corridor—
God.He had yelled his love in the middle of the corridor. Tomorrow was going to be a nightmare—
But right now, in bed with Eijun, he couldn’t sleep. His eyes were incapable of closing, stuck on dark hairs against his pillow and irises glowing into the night. His whole being was so attuned to the other that his skin prickled over every inch they were touching. His mouth felt cold whenever the other’s lips escaped him, his hands lonely each time they stopped touching skin. His heart ached just thinking about not seeing Eijun in anything but his dreams for a whole night. So they kissed in between banter, they touched softy in between laughter, and they forgot about time and place.
I can’t stop, Kazuya thought after a while, with probably less panic than he should have. How do I stop kissing him?
He lay half on top of his pitcher, feeling his chest expand and retract against his, playing with strands of his hair and insulting him just because he liked kissing the resulting pout away. Sometimes it would get heated again, when Eijun’s hands roamed and squeezed, gasps and quiet moans filling the room, and they’d part lips with strings of saliva between them. Then they would stare at each other awhile, and when Kazuya inevitably complained about Eijun’s lack of skills (so that they could go back to banter and he could calm himself down), his pitcher would offer practice, and they’d get lost in each other again.
His ignored arousal abated at some point, but he still couldn’t stop kissing: slow and lazy, brain half asleep and body lax, lips moving without any input, attracted to the other by instinct more than anything else. He was high on sleep and endorphins, and Eijun floated at the edge of his consciousness—behind his eyelids; pressed against his skin, his lips and every cell of him; in every twinge of his feelings. Heavy fingers were on his hips, were plucking chords in his chest, and he had no idea if it was their reverberating echo or Eijun’s hum that was making his lips quiver.
They fell asleep probably a few hours before dawn, still intertwined and breath mingling.
*
Later when he tried to remember that night, it was all a little fuzzy in his brain—melting fragments of heat and wet lips; of burning hands, and skin and clothes under his own; of whispers without meaning, and touches with a little too much.
*
“So. I heard Sawamura confessed to you.”
Kazuya groaned and hid his face behind his catcher’s mask. He was too tired to deal with this. “Like every other person in this university, it would seem,” he grumbled, ignoring Machida’s snickers and the team’s giggles in favor of reliving kisses and heat in the privacy of his mind.
“What?! Sawamura confessed?!” Takahashi’s head popped inside the dugout, wide eyes and open mouth.
He let out a long-suffering sigh and rubbed his tired eyes behind his glasses. “Why don’t you all go bother Eijun, he’s the one making unexpected declarat—”
“So that means you guys weren’t together before?! Damn, I was so sure!”
“Wait, Sawamura and Miyuki weren’t dating?” the right infielder asked with a slack jaw.
“But it’s official now, yeah?”
“If they’re dating now, I still win the bet.”
“No you don’t! You said they were sleeping together!”
“Maybe they’ve done it already. Hey Miyu— Huh. Where’s Miyuki?”
Kazuya exhaled from where he was crouching, hidden in the shadows. He’d known today was going to be a nightmare.
*
“Oh my God! Finally!!” Kuramochi just bellowed, looking very much done with both of them.
*
Catching for Eijun during morning practice was a whole other experience. They must have slept a couple of hours at a grand maximum, and had woken early, roused by each other’s presence. They’d ended up running late anyway, which might have been due to Kazuya’s reluctance to stop kissing the boy in his bed, but nobody had been around to prove that.
Being so many meters away from Eijun now felt weird; lips cold and hands empty. But then there was a ball coming his way, moving erratically yet going exactly where he wanted it to, and the warmth and sting it elicited in his palm was the same feeling with which his lips still throbbed. Eijun pitched like he kissed, and being able to draw this comparison made Kazuya giddy and high. He blamed the breathless laughter that escaped him on exhaustion.
Kazuya remembered thinking that it was too much, sometimes; the way Eijun looked at him. But now—now that they both knew, about themselves and the other, now that that look was purposeful and the hunger behind it fully displayed—it was ten time worse. Those eyes and the ball that came to him made him almost delirious with want. Kazuya wondered what the penalty for jumping a pitcher on the mound would be.
“Hey! Stop molesting each other with your eyes and go back to practice!” Machida yelled.
“We are practicing!” Eijun spluttered, all red face and flailing arms.
*
His lips were still tender from so much kissing the night before, hurting in the best of ways and reminding him with each throb that Eijun loved him, and kissing must be the second-best thing to exist after baseball.
“What’s up with you, man? That’s like, the tenth time you’ve touched your mouth. Did you get a ball to the face?” Kuramochi growled. Kazuya blushed so hard he could feel it going from his neck to his ears. The shortstop stared for a minute, then realization dawned on his face and he hit his shoulder with a disgusted frown. “Yuck! I really, really did not need to know that!”
“I didn’t say anything!” he defended, refraining from touching his lips again and fighting down the blush. The embarrassment was almost worth the horror-struck expression on Kuramochi’s face.
“I never want to see, hear, or even guess anything about you and Sawamura sucking faces! This is just too much!”
Kazuya just slowly licked his lips while maintaining eye contact, leftover lunch and the taste of Eijun lingering on his tongue. Kuramochi gagged.
*
“Well, I suppose we should have talked about whether we tell people or not, but thanks to your very public declaration, everybody knows anyway.”
Eijun scratched his cheek, looking at the sky as they walked from the fields to the dorms. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking about anybody else but you, at the time.”
“You never think things through,” Kazuya replied, ignoring the way his heart jumped at hearing Eijun say that so casually. Their arms brushed from how close to each other they were walking.
Maybe he would get used to it at some point; maybe only the blissful feeling would stay, warm and comforting, and the tiny heart attacks would stop.
Maybe.
“Yeah, well, if I had I probably would’ve chickened out, and you wouldn’t be my boyfriend right now, so...” Happy golden eyes and a bright smile—nothing new, but still so pretty—glowed at the corner of Kazuya’s vision, and he had to turn to look at him fully.
He stared at him: his Ace, his friend, his boyfriend. He would have called him his everything if he wasn’t so young and the thought was maybe too big for him. But then again, his feelings had always been too big for him. Something jumped inside of him, something bright and exultant that made him want to giggle and smile like a fool. He leaned in and kissed him, just because he could. He felt like exploding, happy bubbles bursting from him, and when Eijun laughed into the kiss, high and pretty, he knew he wasn’t the only one.
He had no idea how it was possible, but that made everything even better.
*
Eijun seemed to forget that he had his own room and begun spreading books and clothes all over Kazuya’s place. He had half a mind to complain, as he picked up a discarded shirt and put it in the laundry basket, but when said boy jumped into his room, bright and happy, to crush him into a hug, he decided it wasn’t worth it. He would rather have messy reminders that Eijun was in his life than no Eijun at all.
“Why are you so happy? You know you can’t just barge into people’s rooms like that.” He was ignored and thoroughly kissed. Too much enthusiasm and impulsion drove them to fall into the bed behind them, bouncing twice before Eijun took his lips again with a smile he could feel. Now, he definitely wasn’t complaining, but he wondered what could have warranted this sudden affection from his boyfriend.
Heavy body on top of his, warm skin and supple lips, the comforter soft under him.
It took several minutes before his brain started working again and he could detach himself from Eijun long enough to ask, with a breathless laugh, what was going on.
“Kuramochi just told me that Coach asked you to be captain again! You really are amazing!”
“Hey, now, I already was in Seidō; it is kind of natural I would be here too.”
“You are too full of yourself.”
“Say the guy always claiming he’ll be the ace.”
“Hm. Well I guess we’re just lost causes, the both of us.”
“Yeah, we make the perfect couple of baseball idiots full of themselves.”
Eijun nose scrunched. It was unfortunately adorable. “That sounds really bad.”
“But it feels really good.” His hands roamed over his Ace’s back, appreciating the curves and strength.
“Mmh. It does,” Eijun purred, and this guy did not have the right to sound so sexy when he had the dating experience of a three-year-old. Not that he was one to judge.
There was a peck on his lips and a smile against his mouth. “So. We’re 1 and 2 again, Cap!”
“Yes, we are, Ace.” His hands skimmed over Eijun’s ass, eliciting a shudder, and he rolled them over. “Since I’m your captain again, does that mean you have to obey me?”
Kazuya knew his smirk and sultry tone must have carried his intentions when Eijun shivered under him. His fingers climbed over the body laid out on his bed until they pinned wrists to the mattress, golden skin again white sheets.
“We’re not on the field,” Eijun murmured, voice a bit low, the muscles of his arms twitching, testing Kazuya’s grip. Kazuya leaned in and brushed their lips together.
“I thought guys like us were always a little bit on the field.”
The thrill running down his veins pumped harder and harder down his muscles, awakening the dormant lava, raising the hairs on his arms. And Eijun was there, on his sheets. They could be an ace and his captain on the diamond as well as two boys on a bed; competitive and together at the same time.
“Yeah? And what kind of orders would a guy like you give a guy like me on this field, Captain?”
Kazuya’s eyebrows raised at the same time that a throb in his pants informed him that he would be very interested in exploring that. His Ace’s voice was still low, and breath was escaping his nose a bit quicker; he could feel it against his skin, from how close they were. “Sawamura Eijun, are you flirting with me?”
“You started it!”
“I guess I did…” He kissed him again, letting his body weight rest on Eijun, legs intertwined. The wrists caught in his fingers fought against him, and Kazuya increased the pressure, smirking into the kiss when Eijun made a frustrated noise. “Don’t fight against your captain, Sawamura.”
“Are you sure this isn’t considered abuse of power, Captain Miyuki?”
Kazuya licked the full lips in place of an answer. “And what are you going to do if it is?” Eijun let himself be kissed, opening his mouth for the probing tongue, warm and wet, arms sneaking around his shoulders to press closer. But then there was a bite on his lower lip, and Kazuya moaned into the kiss. “You really do have a thing for biting,” he mumbled.
“Shut up, you like it.”
On that note, Eijun’s lips went from brushing against his to peppering his skin with kisses and nuzzling his neck, mouthing at the skin there and closing his teeth around it. And God, yes Kazuya liked it. His hips jerked and their groins met with a drag. Tiny whimpers escaped their lips and Eijun sucked harder on his neck.
“See?”
“You are— way too cocky—” He ground his lower body with more intent, breathing hard against Eijun’s ear, the mouth still attached to his skin and the friction against his cock delightful and bothersome at the same time. “Don’t try and pretend you aren’t affected— I can literally feel your interest,” he whispered with a slight quiver.
“You’re on top of me, grinding and talking with that broken voice— How could I not— Of course my dick is interested!”
There was a moan, and Eijun caught his face between his hands, rough fingertips against his cheeks, angling his head to kiss him, wet and messy, raising his hips from the mattress to meet Kazuya.
“Hey, Miyuki, how—” Kuramochi stopped dead in his tracks, hand on the doorknob and jaw hanging. “Oh MY GOD!! Why me?! My eyes!!”
*
“C’mon Kuramochi, it wasn’t that terrible.”
“It was! I lost everything that day! I should have gouged my eyes out!”
“Had you come a bit later—”
“God. Shut up!”
“You were the one to bring it up even though we just came out of a match. A winning one at that. Does that mean you associate the thrill of winning with Eijun and me—” He was shoved inside the bus, and he laughed, taking a seat behind the one Kuramochi had chosen.
“You weren’t the one who saw yourself on top of Sawamura, the two of you rutting like horny teenagers,” the shortstop snarled, getting on his knees on the seat to glare down at Kazuya from above the headrests.
“No, but I have read about it.”
“You— What?!”
“Mihara showed me some stuff, do you want me to share~?”
“You are a disgusting piece of shit, Miyuki.”
“Is that any way of talking to your captain?”
“I still can’t believe I have to bear with that a second time.”
Eijun plopped on the seat next to Kazuya, oblivious and pretty. “Cheetah-senpai, you were amazing today! Wakana even told me she cheered harder for you than for me!” He pouted, red lips Kazuya wanted to bite. He must have staring a bit too intently, because Eijun caught his gaze and smirked (the little shit), then licked them, very slowly, getting that tongue all over his lower lip, wet and—
Kuramochi’s hideous laugh kept him from jumping his pitcher on the bus, but he was going to pay for that.
“Well, I did manage to get to home base the most. But, huh—” he stopped and blushed, and Kazuya would never get tired of the contrast between brash Kuramochi and demure Kuramochi. “Did she said anything else? About me?”
“Not really. Why didn’t you try to talk to her if you wanted to know? You guys text daily, and then the one time she comes to Tokyo, you escape directly to the bus!”
“Not everybody is a moron yelling ‘I love you’ in the middle of the corridor like you.”
Eijun had the decency to blush. “Will everybody just leave me alone about that? It’s been months already! Beside, I’m not asking you to confess, just to talk.”
“Wh— Why would I even want to confess, you’re being ridiculous, Sawamoron!”
“This is ridiculous! You’ve been talking to her since… since…” He stopped and turned to look at Kazuya. “Since when?”
“Your first year of high school,” he replied, content to watch Kuramochi get embarrassed by his very naive underclassman—he would have gone with ‘innocent’ a few months ago, but he was learning with each wild kiss that that was far from the truth.
“Oh, I had no idea. When did you even get her number? I don’t remember you asking her.”
Kazuya raised his eyebrow at that and began to smirk at Kuramochi while sneaking an arm around Eijun, putting his lips right next to his ear. “He stole the number from your cellphone without any respect for your privacy.”
“Mochi-senpai! You didn’t!! That’s punishable by law!”
The shortstop glowered at Kazuya. “Hey, Sawamura, did you know,” he started, seething, “that Miyuki actually listens to you when you ramble and just pretends not to?”
“Kazuya?!” Those big eyes turned to him, swallowing him whole, and he gulped.
‘You broke the deal’ Kuramochi mouthed at him before sitting back.
*
Kuramochi sat beside him in the dugout, breathing heavily after managing to run home. Neither of them said anything as they watched their southpaw in the batting cage, yelling something loudly. It was only when his friend snorted at him that Kazuya realized he had a stupidly fond smile on his face.
“Look, you know how I think of Sawamoron as my little brother. I would give you the whole ‘you hurt him you die’ speech, but man, you are in so deep. I don’t know which one of you would hurt more if anything happened, but you would. Both of you. So much.” He scratched his hair, the green streaks moving against the light. “Just. Don’t screw this up. For both of your sakes.”
Something strangely similar to despair closed itself around Kazuya’s lungs at the thought of driving Eijun away from him. He couldn’t afford that. Kuramochi was right, this was running too deep; Eijun was rooted in his soul, and he had no idea how to get him out without losing himself in the process.
“I know,” he rasped.
The conversation stopped there.
*
It was the 15th of May, and Kazuya stared at his phone.
It was the 15th of May, and everything had to be perfect.
It was the 15th of May, and twenty years ago someone very precious had come into this word.
He had been stressed out the entire day, double checking everything, glancing at his phone every minute. Nervous energy thrummed in his veins, making him insufferable, and God he hated planning surprise birthday parties.
But then he caught Eijun’s hand when they came into the park, and he couldn’t look at anything but his boyfriend’s face. He didn’t need his eyes for anything else anyway: Not for the cherry blossoms dancing with the blue sky as a background. Not for all of Seidō’s alumni and their Waseda teammates making the park into an improvised baseball field. Not for the Sawamura family and Eijun’s childhood friends gathered around the picnic blanket overflowing with food he had spent the last two days cooking. Just for the way Eijun’s stupid face lit up, the gold of his irises sparkling. For the way his mouth parted in shock, and then split into a smile he wanted to kiss. For the way he turned to Kazuya, threw his arms around him in a bone crushing hug and laughed in his ear.
It all made it worth it.
(And if, between two games, Eijun whispered filthy promises against his lips for later that night, that was just an added bonus.)
*
As the sun set, Eijun bid a tearful goodbye to Chris-senpai, hugging him and thanking him over and over for coming back from America just for his birthday. Then people slowly started leaving the park after cleaning up behind themselves, Nori and the younger Kominato catching Eijun’s attention to discuss a meet-up in a few months. Kazuya was dragged into it without his consent by his boyfriend’s pleading eyes, and it was ridiculous how, even when Eijun was taller than him, he could still look puppy-like.
It took forever for the Sawamuras and the Nagano gang to leave; they lingered and chatted until Eijun had to bodily drag them back to their car because he didn’t want his father driving too late into the night.
Finally, it was just the two of them, Sawamura Eijun and Miyuki Kazuya, with the light trickling away and the petals dancing. Purple and pink and green. An empty park with a quiet life. Another strange evening, with Kazuya speaking about things he never wanted to speak about.
Eijun grabbed him by his waist and kissed him. The cherry blossoms falling on the ground had more speed and force than the lips caressing his, so sweet it almost hurt. There was a ‘thank you’, silent and true against his mouth.
“I haven’t given you your gift yet. You can thank me later,” he answered, with a smirk to hide how nervous he suddenly felt.
“Oh! I forgot about that, you already did so much today.” He began looking around him, searching for a bump in Kazuya’s pockets or a hidden bag. “Where did you hide it?”
Kazuya had to wipe his hands against his jeans, wishing that his heartbeat would slow down at least a little bit. This was ridiculous—how did Eijun manage to do this?
“Do you remember my birthday?” he started, with his heart in his mouth, and when Eijun nodded he kept going. “You promised something to me. And—even if I never said so—it meant a lot. The reasonable part of me is telling me I’m a fool for being about to say what I want to say to you, and I think I am, but—” God. This was too much. But Eijun was staring at him with expectation and adoration, and he couldn’t disappoint him. “I’m happy. I really am. You make me the happiest I’ve ever been and— Oh, man. This is so cheesy…”
Eijun tightened his grip around Kazuya and smiled with eyes maybe a bit too bright. “No, no! Keep going, I love cheesy!”
“Of course you do, you big sap…” He kissed the corner of his smile and breathed in. “I want to keep you.” There, he’d said it. “I want you to be there with me, and I can—I mean, I will—fight for it too. I want to return your promise. Whatever comes our way, I’ll find my way back to you. I won’t be a coward, not with this, not with you. This— I hope you won’t freak out, but I don’t want you to throw to me till the end of your baseball career. I want— I want that for as long as you’ll have me, and if I have my way, that’ll be a very long time.”
He knew his face was red, and Eijun could probably feel his too-quick pulse, but saying this had cost him everything he had, and he had no bravery left to look his boyfriend in the eyes. It didn’t matter, though, because Eijun was brave for him once again.
“You love me,” he whispered. “You really do.”
Fingers tightened in the hair at the base of his neck and he was kissed. Very, very thoroughly. Tongue and teeth, wet and too much, like everything between them. He melted in it, his own hands roaming over Eijun’s body and face and hair. It might have been public indecency, the way he could feel their intimacy leaking out of them, soaking the air, the grass and the cherry blossoms.
“Of course,” Eijun mumbled against his lips. “Of course I want you, of course I’ll have you. I know you’re afraid to say ‘forever’, but I’m not. So I’ll have you forever, Kazuya.”
It was still so reverent, the way he could say his name sometimes. Kazuya’s heart squeezed and expanded at the same time, and it hurt, and Eijun was probably killing him, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
It was spring, Miyuki Kazuya and Sawamura Eijun were in a park for another one of their strange evenings where the world blurred at the edges, exactly twenty years after a very important birth, and maybe he could start believing in ‘forever’.
“You love me too,” Kazuya murmured.