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first sight fallacy.
Usahara falls in love like he does everything else in life: halfassed and headfirst, without a passing thought for self-preservation. He's nineteen when his heart breaks for the first time, not yet old enough to drink his sorrows away at a bar, but Uramichi comes by the dorms with a duffel of convenience store booze once Usahara calls him (bawling, unintelligible), and Kumatani texts him with a proper explanation shortly afterward.
Usahara's girlfriend — ex-girlfriend — was a friendly enough girl, the times Kumatani met her. She was a dancer, lithe and lively in every laugh and curve. She wore her milky brown hair down in waves and her nails done up in rhinestoned pastels, and upon first impression Kumatani thought, of course this is Usahara's type. And then he thought — this won't last long.
She breaks up with Usahara on the night of their six-month anniversary. He'd forgotten the date, and really, considering she forgave him for forgetting all their anniversaries after the first, he only has himself to blame. Still, he seems baffled as he staggers back into the dorm, collapses on his bed, and delivers his every sob as a half-formed plea.
"Why would she...?"
The answer to is glaringly obvious, and with the way he'd trampled blissfully unaware over the feelings of his now-ex, it should be easy to tell him some hard, honest truths.
"Because you're an inconsiderate boyfriend."
“Because your heart wasn’t in it.”
"Because you’re in love with someone else.”
But Kumatani has never seen Usahara so distraught before, and in the end he says nothing, biting his tongue until Uramichi arrives. And because neither Kumatani nor Uramichi have much experience with breakups, let alone Usahara-levels of fallout, they find themselves speaking rather little and drinking quite a lot.
Uramichi sits by Usahara's side and rubs his back in tentative strokes, and Kumatani hands Usahara new tissues when the one in his hand crumples past use.
Uramichi ends up staying the night on the spare bed; somewhere along the line, Kumatani ends up flush along Uramichi's back, Usahara ends up tucked against Uramichi's chest, and they speak rather little in the morning after, too.
The next time Usahara’s heart breaks, Uramichi pays the dorms another visit.
running the curve.
Usahara's eyes linger too long on their new roommate. At first, Kumatani passes it off as idolization. Nekota acts the same way, after all. Whenever he visits, he gapes starry-eyed at Uramichi like he's a deity instead of a fellow student only a few years their senior. Because that's what Uramichi is, Kumatani has come to realize; not a superstar or an untouchable idol like most of their student body seems to think, but a well-meaning, awkward guy who dedicates his all to gymnastics because he doesn't have much else in his life.
The more time he spends with Usahara though, the more he realizes that this is something else. The blond tries and fails to hide his stare as Uramichi changes for gymnastics practice in the early morning. As soon as Uramichi leaves and he thinks Kumatani is still asleep, Usahara jerks himself off with a frantic hand and bitten-off swears. The moan he doesn't manage to smother when he cums is always shaped like a familiar name.
"He'a got a great body," Usahara marvels one evening as they watch Uramichi's backside slip through the closing door. "Think I would get more girls, if I had a body like that?"
Usahara always says double-edged shit like this, and Kumatani wonders if it's a product of conscious effort or pure subconscious denial. For every slightly admiring comment he makes about Uramichi’s physicality — and he makes a lot of them — he follows it up with a comment about getting girls.
Kumatani's tired of it. He's known what he likes since he was five years old and enamored with the ojisan who supplied fish to his family's restaurant. It's about time Usahara figured out what he likes for himself.
"Nothing's stopping you from trying," he bites out, glaring at the half-written research report on his laptop screen.
"I guess..." Usahara flops backward, hanging his head over the edge of his bed and peering upside-down at Kumatani. "Hey, do you think Uramichi-san would let me watch him work out?"
“You watch him enough already,” Kumatani types out and deletes, but does not say.
lips to a cigarette.
Kumatani quits smoking at age sixteen, the spring after he enters high school and joins the archery club. He's one of the luckier ones who finds kicking the habit as easy as throwing away his last pack of cigarettes and clenching his jaw through a week of mild headaches. Maybe it's easy because he never liked smoking, anyway; he hated the way it tasted, the way smoke clung to the fibers of his clothes, the way his little brother would try and fail not to wrinkle his nose. Kumatani had picked up the habit as another way to rebel, another way of stepping outside the lines so clearly defined for the first son. Then he grew older, and he realized that all he ever achieved with rebellion was a change of track from one destination to another. He spent high school asking himself if it was even possible to live outside the lines, to make a life living for himself and no other. Then he met Usahara.
Usahara seems like the type of guy who would pick up smoking, if only as an ill-informed attempt to attract girls. But when Kumatani asks him why he doesn't smoke, Usahara grimaces a bit; he says he hates it, and if there's a story there, he doesn't feel inclined to share. Usahara's riddled with contradictions like that. He would be a carefree idiot, but his rare moments of seriousness leave Kumatani feeling off-kilter. He would be a promising athlete, but he'd rather go to mixers than meets. He would be a classic straight boy, except he's lusting after their very male roommate. He lives his life in a perpetual state of half-assery, and it confuses Kumatani, throws his whole world view into disarray. More than anything, Usahara pisses Kumatani off.
"You like him."
They're in the stands at the region's inter-college gymnastics championship, about to watch their roommate compete. Uramichi's coach is hoisting him up to the apparatus, and Usahara tears his eyes away to quirk a confused eyebrow at Kumatani. "Yeah? He's a decent guy."
Then all the spectators draw a collective breath of awe, and Usahara's eyes snap back to the rings. Kumatani looks, too. Uramichi's doing something like a plank, except in midair, and his only points of support are the two free-hanging rings in his hands.
"That hold’s called the swallow," Usahara murmurs from beside him, and Kumatani shoots him a curious look.
Usahara shrugs and says, "I did some research," which is rich, Kumatani thinks, coming from the guy who's never done his Sports Research homework once. Then their attention is back on Uramichi, as he lifts his legs up and over his head with deceptive ease, performs a series of flips that seem like they should have dislocated his shoulders several times over, holds himself in various positions that Usahara knows every name of.
And it is stunning — there's a grace and ease to Uramichi's routine that none before him quite managed to master. They would grimace, or tremble, or flush red with exertion, but Uramichi is stoic, almost statuesque as he manipulates himself so measuredly in the air. He flips twice more, releasing the rings before pulling his arms in and twisting fast as he falls, and his feet hit the mat with a resounding thud. For a heartbeat, the gymnasium is silent as Uramichi's momentum pulls him forward, lifts him onto the balls of his feet, and then —
He straightens, in what a layman like Kumatani would assume is a perfect dismount, and raises his arms.
Usahara screams.
Uramichi glances up, finds them in the stands and flashes a small, almost shy smile before he walks off the platform and out of view. Usahara is suddenly cheering a lot less and blushing a lot more, and Kumatani's chest feels inexplicably hot and full, like he's just drawn in a lungful of smoke.
with the feet of ghosts.
They're in their last year of college when Usahara realizes he's getting worse instead of better. Weeks run into months as he fails to clear the same bar, and the final meet of his college career fizzles to an unsatisfying end: starting height, three attempts, three failures.
"I didn't realize how frustrating it would be. I wasn't even that invested, y'know? But now that it's over..."
He's lying supine and spread-eagled on the spare bed, the one that remained miraculously empty for all of three years, and Kumatani understands that he's talking about more than the high jump.
"Whether you felt invested or not, you spent a lot of time with it. When you put that much feeling into anything…" Kumatani turns to meet Usahara’s eyes, because he’s not talking about just high jump, either. “You can fall in love without realizing it.”
"I can't..." Usahara starts, stops. Takes a slow, shuddering breath and tries again. "I can't begin to imagine how Uramichi felt." He rolls to lie on his stomach, buries his face in his arms. "Gymnastics was his everything."
Kumatani's silence is agreement enough. He, too, can't begin to imagine. He's never lived for anything the way Uramichi has; he's never lost anything so quickly and catastrophically.
"Knowing your limits really fucking sucks, man," Usahara exhales in a shaky rush, muffled into the pillow, and Kumatani doesn't comment on the crack in his voice. Instead, he stands up from his chair, moves to sit by Usahara's hip, and runs a hand down his back the way Uramichi used to.
Still, it feels as if something is missing.
parse apart a troubled heart.
"It's like someone sucked out his soul and replaced it with this fake-ass oniisan! It's so fucking awkward, Kumatani, I hate it." Usahara slams down his third beer of the evening, and tears threaten to spring from the corners of his eyes. He’s genuinely distraught, and for once, a breakup isn’t the reason.
Together with Maman. It’s some kind of educational variety show on MHK — Kumatani doesn’t know much about it, nor does he care to learn more — but what he does know is it features their old roommate Uramichi, and Usahara’s just joined as the newest cast member. He shakes his head. "You're the one who chased him to a children's television program. If you hate it so much, why'd you do it?"
"Because — I don't know — it's Uramichi! He changed his number, moved to a new place, doesn't use social media; how else was I supposed to find him?” Usahara buries his face in his hands, punctuating his question with a suspiciously watery hiccup.
Kumatani raises his eyebrows and surreptitiously swaps Usahara’s beer for barley tea. "Most people wouldn't land themselves in a dead-end job to reconnect with a friend."
"But... this is Uramichi," Usahara whines as if that explains everything, and Kumatani wonders how he can be satisfied with such a simple reason without realizing the implications.
He supposes it's enough for someone in love, even if they haven't realized it yet.
internal derangement.
Relearning who they were around Uramichi is a difficult process. They thought they knew Omota Uramichi, before. Now; after — it's no longer such a sure thing. He smiles more than he ever did, and they both hate those bright, cheery things that twist his eyes into frowns. But increasingly often, when Usahara wheedles and cajoles and outright begs Kumatani and Uramichi into going out for drinks and they're sat down in some smoke-choked izakaya, Uramichi lets his new mask slip. His eyes turn startling bleak, his words fall cold and flat. He shows glimpses of a defeated man, and they realize in time that this is who Omota Uramichi really is now. Kumatani can understand; these days, he's feeling pretty burnt out himself.
Usahara is a little bit devastated.
There's one thing they fall back to easily enough. Usahara's been seeing this girl for a few months and some change; in his words, she might really be "the one". Kumatani knows she isn't. He’s known who Usahara's heart is truly set on ever since the man first walked into their college dorm room. By now, he's more resigned than surprised that Usahara still hasn't realized it for himself, and when he gets the inevitable phone call on a weekday evening, Kumatani knows better than to hold the phone right next to his ear.
"Kuumaataanii!" Usahara's sniveling voice blares out from the speaker, "You won't believe... Chiyo-chan, she... why would she..."
"Where are you?"
"Huh? Uramichi's place. Hey, tell me, what did I..."
Usahara squawks; his cries fade into indecipherable noise, and the voice that takes his place is unmistakable.
"Come over," Uramichi says, clipped and brusque, and then he's telling Kumatani the address. And, well, it's a great excuse to ditch his boss and the hostess club he's been dragged to, so Kumatani does.
He's barely rung the intercom when the door is flung open and Usahara is kissing him full on the mouth. His lips sting of salt and his eyes are red-rimmed, his long lashes coalesced with wet, and Kumatani closes his eyes and kisses him back. He barely has the chance to kick off his loafers before Usahara is pulling him into the apartment. Uramichi is slipping behind them and closing the door, sliding Kumatani's suit jacket from his shoulders and pressing warm lips to his nape, and at least these familiar rhythms haven't changed.
fistful of exuviae.
"What are your plans for the future?"
Winter was melting into spring, and Kumatani, Usahara, and Uramichi were sitting around their kotatsu and picking at late-season satsumas. The weather was getting too warm to keep a kotatsu around, but Usahara was determined to use it one more time before Uramichi graduated.
"I dunno. Fuck around, have fun?" Usahara slumped over the tabletop, disinterested. "My folks'll probably force me back into the family business when they retire, anyway."
He sighed, shifted his long legs, and inadvertently kicked Kumatani in the shin. Kumatani kicked him back. "I was asking Uramichi-san."
"Ah, right!" Usahara perked up, turning curious eyes on the oldest person in the room. "Yeah, how about you, Uramichi-san? I bet you're gonna go pro, huh?"
"What?" Uramichi startled. "Oh," he picked absently at a hangnail, "Maybe."
"I bet you could make it to the MHK Cup, easy! I'll see you on television one day, and then I can say to my girlfriend, 'Hey, that guy doing all those flips? He used to be my roommate.'"
"You'd need to get a girlfriend, first," Kumatani pointed out, at the same time Uramichi glanced to the floor and shrugged, "Maybe."
That particular conversation comes to mind as Kumatani stares down at his boss, crumpled on the grimy street and nursing a bloodied nose, and he wonders why. A couple of his coworkers rush forward to help the man up; Kumatani faintly appreciates that no one has rushed up to restrain him.
What were his plans for the future again? Try as he might, Kumatani can't recall.
mind without remainder.
"Your hair's too long," Uramichi pants, clutching fistfuls of sloppily-dyed blond in his hands as Usahara sucks him off. Usahara hums low in his throat in response, and Kumatani takes a moment just to appreciate the way Uramichi's head lolls back, the way a groan rolls slow through his chest. "Fuck, Usahara..."
Then Usahara is shoving his ass back, squirming impatiently against Kumatani's cock. He's about as demanding as he can be without words, and Kumatani obliges. He tosses the lube to the side, angles himself and slides between tensed, lean thighs. It's so warm, the friction of their skin just right, and Kumatani pushes his cock across Usahara's balls before dragging back just as slowly, smearing precome in his wake. It makes Usahara gasp around the shaft in his mouth; Uramichi's hips quiver, and Kumatani realizes he's resisting the urge to fuck Usahara's face.
A shame, really, he thinks as he starts up a steady pace, fucking in between Usahara's legs and rocking him forward onto Uramichi's cock with each thrust. He likes it when Usahara shuts up, when he’s too preoccupied with gagging on cock to say something stupid. He trails half-lubed fingers along the furrow of Usahara’s spine, relishing in the goosebumps that rise in their wake, the flexing of those quivering thighs.
“Damn, you feel good.” A itchy heat is curling in Kumatani’s belly, licking up his spine and searing every nerve, and half of him wants to savor this.
The other half feels... conflicted. Because in the dark of the bedroom, Uramichi’s hair is inky-dark and his long lashes are stark against his skin, and when he throws his head back in a groan, Kumatani can almost pretend — almost wants to pretend — he is someone else.
But then Uramichi is cumming hard, and Usahara is using a free hand to jerk himself off, and the last of Kumatani’s rationality dissolves in a static hum.
"She says my heart wasn't in it," Usahara warbles into Uramichi's chest afterwards, and Kumatani can feel each word. Another girl, another breakup. This time it was an assistant producer from the MHK morning drama, painfully out of Usahara’s league. "But I loved her. I really did."
It’s possible, Kumatani is learning, to love more than one person. Still, he knows this isn’t the case for Usahara.
"So what are we, a consolation prize?" Uramichi sneers, shoving Usahara faceup on the mattress and bearing down on his throat, just shy of a choke. He does this — strangling Usahara — all the time. This is no different from the casual violence Uramichi inflicts upon Usahara at work, but none of them miss the twitch of Usahara's cock.
Uramichi is different now. Mean. And Usahara likes it. Kumatani's always had him figured as a bit of a masochist — why else would he incur Uramichi's wrath time and time again like his life depended on it?
"I'll take the couch," Kumatani volunteers, untangling himself and picking his clothes off the floor, because even if they weren't crammed on a full bed in the throes of a sweltering hot summer, he prefers sleeping alone.
"Are you sure?" Uramichi lifts his head, and Kumatani catches some of that old, open concern in his eyes. Kumatani admired that, once. Wishes he could have protected it, before everything that happened.
He turns away. "Yeah. You're both too tall to fit."
the feeling of knowing.
Usahara and Iketeru walk by while Uramichi's having a smoke between taping sessions, and Kumatani's indulging a rare craving and bumming a cig. Usahara's saying something with that overwide smirk on his face, the one that means he's shit-talking someone again. They can't hear him too well through the smoking room walls, but Kumatani can imagine what he's saying: probably a jibe about the jorts Uramichi had to wear today, like Usahara doesn't drool over Uramichi's thighs alongside all the stay-at-home mothers every time a Yakumi Shinobi segment airs.
Kumatani doesn't pay much attention to that — Usahara always pulls crap like this, and Uramichi always gets payback, like choking Usahara through the gap in his costume until he has to suffer through an entire session with a hard-on. No, Kumatani's more worried about Iketeru getting unduly influenced by Usahara's crudeness, and his eyes drift to the waves of purple hair that bob gently as Iketeru laughs.
"When are you going to tell him?" Uramichi follows Kumatani's stare, and Kumatani knows he's fucked because he instantly knows what and who Uramichi is referring to.
"I don't know if I should."
The answer spills from his lips like a plume of smoke before he can hold it back, and it's startling in its honesty. Uramichi hums; not judging, not agreeing or dissenting — just a note of acknowledgement, and that's one thing Kumatani really appreciates about Uramichi these days. He doesn't push, he doesn't fight.
"I'm satisfied with what we have now," Kumatani continues, and that rings honest, too. He's content with his platonic connection with Iketeru. He's content with his arrangement as Uramichi and Usahara's third. What people strive for in one relationship, Kumatani satisfies with two, and that's not so bad.
"But he's the one you really want, isn't he?" Uramichi crushes out his cigarette and idly flexes his hands as he watches Usahara turn the corner, and Kumatani —
Kumatani, with his eyes still on Iketeru, doesn't have an honest answer to that.
sleepy golden storm.
Usahara looks like an idiot when he sleeps, and this is doubly true as he dozes through the morning by Uramichi's side. In lieu of a pillow, he's sleeping on Uramichi's Kotori-san plush, its little baguette supporting the curve of his neck; its flowered bloomers puffing up around his cheek. His lips are parted in a soft pout, his hair is fanned out in a halo of black and gold, and it would also be idiotic, really, to think he looks good like that.
That's what Uramichi says when he joins Kumatani by the kitchenette. Kumatani isn't fooled for a moment.
Because he's seen the way Uramichi smiles in the late nights: tender and wistful, bitter at many things but none of them Usahara. It's not a smile he may ever share in Usahara's waking hours, nor a sentiment he will ever lend to words, but it exists — the feelings are there, and that bodes more for his best friends than Kumatani would have ever dared hope.
"G'morning," Usahara yawns from the doorway, hitching his fingers on the top jamb, arching his back, luxuriating in the stretch until his stomach is taut and he's balanced on his toes. Uramichi doesn't hide his stare — his eyes trace the lines of Usahara's collarbones where Uramichi laid his marks and Kumatani made sure they kept, down the trim planes of his hipbones to where they converge beneath the band of his boxer briefs, before they rake back up to a sleep-softened face.
"Huh? Whatcha staring at?" Usahara blinks a few times, yawns again and rubs his cheek. "Did I drool?"
Uramichi sighs. "What did I tell you?" he says to Kumatani, "An idiot."
Usahara squawks in affront ("What did I do!?"), Uramichi pulls him down to meet his mouth ("Exist."), and Kumatani smiles into the breakfast he's preparing for three.
life lessons.
Usahara falls in love like he does everything in life: halfassed and headfirst, without a passing thought for self-preservation. His heart's been broken and mended more times than Kumatani can count, and Kumatani prays to any available god that Usahara's heart will stay intact a little longer this time. Because he doesn't think Uramichi is in love with Usahara — not really, not yet, but he does think Uramichi is in something precariously close to it.
Kumatani knows the way Uramichi lives and the way Usahara loves, and the thing is — they're good for each other. They're not a perfect fit, nothing so convenient as lock and key. More like puzzle pieces not cut out for each other, but they fit together to make something approaching beautiful anyway.
Usahara and Uramichi come to work, and though the air between them is different now, nothing of much outward importance changes. Usahara stops wearing tank tops, Uramichi doesn't stop choking him through the gap in his costume, and sometimes they walk into work side-by-side.
Kumatani is always there to greet them, and on Saturday nights, they all go back to Uramichi's place.