Work Text:
As soon as Ennoshita walks through the apartment door, he knows something is wrong.
Nothing is out of place – everything is clean and neat, Sakusa’s duffle bag neatly stowed in the closet and the sound of the washing machine humming in the background as it always is when Sakusa has afternoon practice. The dishes have been washed and put away. The trash has been taken out.
And yet, Ennoshita can’t help but feel a certain heaviness, one that has nothing to do with the humid Osaka summer.
Placing his keys on their little designated hook, Ennoshita pads with careful steps further into the apartment. A quick glance tells him that his partner isn’t in the living room, and so he heads towards the bedroom –
– to find that the door is closed.
That doesn’t seem right.
“Kiyoomi?” When there’s no answer, Ennoshita knocks gently, then places a cheek against the door. “Are you in there? Can I come in?”
A beat of silence, and then a low, short grunt. Not quite sure what to expect and nervous for what he’ll find, Ennoshita calls out a soft “Pardon the intrusion” before pushing open the bedroom door.
Sakusa is lying in bed, on his back and on top of the bedcovers. His eyes are open, but they are pinched as they stare up at the ceiling. He and Ennoshita have been together long enough for Ennoshita to know that his partner is not in pain – at least, not the physical kind.
On the rare occasions that Sakusa gets genuinely upset, it doesn’t take much time for him to shake it off and broodily move on. This is the first time Ennoshita has seen Sakusa making such an expression. Was his contract terminated? Did someone die?
He approaches the bed with caution and reaches out to touch those soft, beloved dark curls. “Hey,” he says. Sakusa blinks and gives another reluctant grunt. “I’m here now, if you want to talk about it.”
Sakusa doesn’t. So Ennoshita slips into bed next to him, an arm draped loosely around his waist, fingers ghosting a secret language on his forearm. Ennoshita has barely closed his eyes, soothed to almost-sleep by the rhythmic rise and fall of Sakusa’s chest, when he hears Sakusa speak.
“Someone called me a ‘pretty boy’ today.”
Ennoshita hesitates before answering. “Uh huh.” It’s not uncommon for his partner to be called that. People even call him that to Ennoshita’s face, usually as a compliment, sometimes not. “Was he trying to insult you?”
“Probably. I didn’t care about the ‘pretty’ part.” He pauses; Ennoshita counts five breaths in the silence. “I didn’t like that he called me a boy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Sakusa sounds so frustrated, so lonely, that Ennoshita clings more tightly, slowly rubbing a hand up and down Sakusa’s arm. “I don’t know why it makes me upset. And I don’t know what it means to be a ‘boy.’ Sometimes I don’t feel like one. A boy or a man.”
“That’s OK,” Ennoshita says softly. “And that’s normal too.”
“...Maybe.”
“It is,” Ennoshita insists. “I use different pronouns at work all the time. Lots of my patients are trans or non-binary.”
“I’m not like that,” Sakusa mumbles.
“Like what?”
“Like… Just forget it,” he suddenly huffs. “You don’t have to change the way you talk for me. Just use the same pronouns. I’m a man, so call me a man.”
“Sakusa.” Now, Ennoshita pushes himself onto his elbows, looks down at his partner, straight into his eyes. “I am going to call you whatever makes you feel like yourself. Right now, as a man, do you feel like yourself?”
Sakusa closes his eyes. “...No.”
“OK.” Ennoshita gives him a soft kiss of encouragement. “As a woman, do you feel like yourself?”
“No.”
“If we didn’t use either man or woman, how would you feel?”
Sakusa breathes for another five counts. Ennoshita waits patiently, watching his long eyelashes flutter as he thinks. “Better.”
“OK.” Another kiss. Sakusa doesn’t move, but his eyebrows unknit, the frown in his mouth relaxing a little. “Then let’s start with that. I’ll use ‘they’ when I refer to you with other people, is that alright?”
“Yes. I’d like that,” says Sakusa. And after a bit of consideration: “I love you, Chikara.”
“I love you too. Always.”