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Fukutomi has his wings spread at the vending machine where they always stop during practice when Arakita rides up. He flexes them, stretching them after having them folded tight to his back for riding. The reddish browns turn more red and gold than brown and the white turns molten where the setting sun hits them.
Arakita’s breath catches in his throat. He finds his hands itching to touch, to run his fingers through the feathers, to see if they are as soft and smooth as they look. His own shift uncomfortably at the thought, aware of how rude that would be, even for him. He shouldn’t.
He dismounts his bike and heads for the vending machine, wings prickling as his feathers fluff out. “What’re you starin’ at?” he snarls, lifting his lip in a sneer at the raised eyebrow he gets. He flares his wings a bit, grey and dull and not silky and shiny like Fukutomi’s reds and browns and whites, not unfolding them completely. One of Fukutomi’s folds in to let him by and then stretches out again. Arakita turns, words dying on his tongue and hands stilling on the way for the few coins stuffed in his jersey pocket. He could just, he could just reach out and touch …
He runs fingers down, over contour feathers, just a little, just one stroke of his hand, with the growth of them so he doesn’t ruffle. Fukutomi’s feathers are just as soft--if not softer--than Arakita imagined they’d be.
Fukutomi’s wing snaps in. “Arakita,” he says, warningly. His ears are turning red. Or maybe it’s just the slowly growing lack of sunlight.
The ride back to campus is spent with Arakita’s heart squeezing with fear in time with his legs pumping, wings unfolding to slow him down every time he gets too close to Fukutomi, anxiety filling his mind with static and sending his stomach turning upside down: He’s done the wrong thing--touching anyone’s wings, especially without permission is bad, bad, bad --and now his favorite person is going to hate him forever.
In the locker room, he avoids Fukutomi’s gaze, pulls his cycling jersey off, unclips his sports bra (the only one he ever wears, the only one he owns, the same one he’s had for three years, the one Fukutomi handed him the first day of practice his first year, the same one Fukutomi ended up having to force on him himself when he refused to wear it, and Arakita burns hot with shame and frustration at the memory of Fukutomi’s chest pressing between his wings, hands firm but not painful on his arms, pushing them through the straps of the bra slung around his wings already as Arakita struggled and swore and shouted at him) at the front and pulls it over his wings, snags his towel out of his locker as he stuffs the bra in and heads for the showers.
The shower he steps into is just pushing too hot. Arakita grooms, grooms, over grooms his wings. He combs his fingers through his feathers, grabs a covert that sits close to his arm and rips it out--hoping that the steam from the hot shower will soothe the sting before it happens and hissing sharply when it doesn’t, hoping that the single dull grey feather he plans on presenting to the racing team captain (read: shoving it in his face and avoiding him the rest of the week) will explain the wing groping. It probably won’t. Fukutomi might never forgive him for just up and touching his wing out of nowhere.
Even if it’s because Arakita gets lightheaded and dizzy and heart poundingly stupid when Fukutomi is close to him, can’t think of anything but kissing him, but touching him, but wondering how it would feel to curl into his side to sleep next to him at night.
He pulls on sweatpants and shoves the feather in one of the pockets, then yanks a t-shirt over his head and over his wings.
Fukutomi is sitting on a bench in the main area of the locker room, staring at his phone, when Arakita works up the nerve to come out of the showers. He looks up when Arakita, barefooted, stops in front of him. Arakita’s feet stick to the tile. He wiggles his toes.
He pulls the feather out of his pocket and offers it by the calamus, rounded off tip waving in front of Fukutomi’s nose. “Sorry ‘bout touching your wings earlier,” he grumbles. Water from his shower soaks into his t-shirt and drips off of his flight feathers.
“Y… you know what giving me your feather means?” Fukutomi flips his phone shut and puts it on the bench next to him, to give Arakita his full attention. Usually the sharp leather ( real leather, not that plasticky shit) smell of Fukutomi’s voice is comforting. Now it is nerve wracking and almost burns in his nose.
“I fuckin’ know what it means,” Arakita snaps, toes curling on the cold tile. “Do you want it or should I throw it away? I pulled it out for you and it fuckin’ hurt.” He points more aggressively with the feather.
Fukutomi blinks at him, eyes going slightly wider but face otherwise unchanged, then reaches up and gingerly takes the feather. Their fingers brush--it’s a short feather, it has a short shaft. “Thank you,” he says. “Ask next time you want to touch,” he says next. “I might let you.”
Arakita’s face flushes hot, he feels his expression twist from surprise to a snarl as quickly as it had become surprise in the first place. His shoulders pull in and up towards his ears, his wings prickle and flare. “Don’t be weird,” he says, and turns tail and. He doesn’t run , but he feels like he comes close as he’s gathering up his bag and slipping on shoes without bothering for socks.
When he glances back over his shoulder at the door, Fukutomi is stone still--what a surprise--and staring at the feather, tiny between his thumb and forefinger where it had been graceful almost between Arakita’s, with an expression Arakita can’t read, but it makes his stomach twist itself into knots, churning with the dread that maybe he’s made the wrong decision by giving Fukutomi a feather. A fucking feather. He'd all but shouted in Fukutomi's face that he was in love with him.
Arakita can’t sleep that night. He gets more acquainted with the ceiling of his dorm room than ever.
Time for morning practice rolls around. Arakita feels like maybe he’s gotten three hours of sleep--four if he’s being generous. He’d been unable to stop worrying, stop turning the event over and over and over in his mind, stop over-fucking-analyzing every twitch of Fukutomi’s mouth or eyebrow or wings.
The fizz of the Bepsi in his hand is soothing, and Arakita can almost feel the satisfying first taste of caffeine hitting him as he pushes open the club building door.
“Yasutomo.” Leather smell fills his nose again. The use of his first name warms him from the inside out in a way that makes his fingers curl on the doorframe.
“Whaddayou want, Fuku-chan?” He half turns and looks at Fukutomi over his shoulder, around the edge of a fluffed grey wing tucked in tight.
Fukutomi has his bag in one hand, a soft expression, and the fingers on his free hand curled around something tipped in a dark, dark brown that fades to red and then to white. He holds it up, out, offering it to Arakita with a relaxed bent arm, the very corner of his mouth twitching up, up into the smallest of smiles.
Arakita thinks he’s going blind. That can’t be one of Fukutomi’s own feathers in his hand, and definitely not one of his primary coverts, from near the outside end of his wing. Arakita’s seen Fukutomi’s wing spread--in victory, during training, flexing them, flapping them--enough to know what those look like.
The half-growl that turns into a confused whine of “Huh?” at the end must come from Arakita. “Are you an idiot?” he asks, out of reflex. His voice is winter mint, cold and high and sharp, instead of peppermint in his throat. Fukutomi’s smile forms just a bit more, widens just a fraction. He offers the feather again.
“Take it,” Fukutomi insists. Arakita turns all the way around, stops straining his neck. His hand is reaching out before he realizes what he’s doing, and his fingers are closing around the feather, clumsily crushing the afterfeathers at the bottom by the quill. Fukutomi lets it go. His expression is soft, and the look in his eyes makes Arakita want to burn up where he stands.
He looks at the feather clutched in his fingers. Where his feather might have been graceful in his own fingers the day before, Fukutomi’s is immaculate, long, glossy. Soft.
Arakita’s ears are ringing.
When he looks up from the feather, it’s to movement. Fukutomi steps close. Arakita tilts his head up and to the side, tries to come up with a snippy remark because he knows his face is red, he can feel it all the way in his ears and on his neck. What he says comes out a jumble of hard-edged consonants and choked vowels.
Fukutomi chuckles quiety, two sharp exhales from his nose, and steps in closer. He reaches around Arakita and sets his bag down just inside the building, then brings both hands up to cup Arakita’s face. His thumb rubs tiny circles over Arakita’s cheek, tilts Arakita’s head back just a bit, studies his face.
And then Fukutomi kisses him. It is gentle, it is quick, and Fukutomi is letting Arakita go and dropping his hands by the time Shinkai strolls up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
Arakita wants more. He huffs through his nose and pushes the rest of the way into the building, nearly tripping over Fukutomi’s bag on the way.
He is distracted enough that by the time the afternoon practice rolls around, he realizes he doesn’t remember most of the rest of the day whatsoever.
So he finds Fukutomi already in the locker room, stripped down to a t-shirt and his uniform pants. Arakita crowds in and spreads his wings up and out to their full span, herding Fukutomi into the corner by the locker he uses. He slides an arm around his back, pushing it under flight feathers and definitely for sure ruffling them, and pulls him in by a fist curled into the front of his t-shirt.
Fukutomi meets him halfway, smiling against his mouth.