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1.
“We’re just friends,” Koushi tells them when they ask, when the way he looks at his captain catches others’ eyes too. “That’s it, that’s all there is.”
Daichi’s own glance meets his across the lunchroom though, and he holds up an extra pot of fruit with a questioning look on his face. Worse timing. Suga can’t help the smile and the nod that overtake him at the gesture, knowing that Daichi will have picked the pot with the most grapes in it for him, just the way he likes it.
Somehow they always taste sweeter when Daichi buys them for him, the dryness offset by the thought behind the gesture. Everything tastes sweeter when Daichi is there.
But they’re just friends. That’s all there is.
***
2.
“We’ve been friends since we were fifteen,” Koushi explains when they ask, when the easy way they banter and always know what the other is thinking becomes too apparent in the group. Sometimes they raise an eyebrow, sometimes they nod and say nothing.
Sometimes Koushi gets the distinct sense they pity him, before he shakes it off. He doesn’t think of Daichi that way, definitely doesn’t dream of him sometimes, and he most certainly doesn’t wake up smiling. He will never admit that sometimes he wishes he could have just stayed asleep.
***
3.
“That’s my best friend!” Koushi says, slightly too loudly, when Daichi is on the stage receiving his award. Eyes flick towards him, but in the moment he’s far too proud to dampen his emotion. Koushi knows how hard Daichi has worked for this.
He was there for all the late night study sessions and the anxieties. He was there for the quiet moments of doubt. And he’s glad, because it means he can be here to see Daichi’s triumph, too.
They’re finally graduating, and the feeling of the knife twisting in his gut has only gotten sharper by the day -- but it’s soothed a little when Daichi looks out into the crowd and catches his eye, a proud and embarrassed smile on his reddened face. Koushi returns it, watery-eyed, and doesn’t think of all the new people Daichi will meet when they leave high school.
***
4.
“You know you’ll always be my best friend,” Koushi tells Daichi, after a round of teasing he’s apparently taken too far. Daichi doesn’t usually pout, but Koushi had been joking that they’re going to drift apart for the last ten minutes, and the anxieties of University have clearly gotten to Daichi or he wouldn’t look so sullen, suddenly.
The grainy quality of the picture through his laptop screen makes his heart hurt a little, the dull ache of absence still ever present in the forefront of Koushi’s mind. He hopes his own camera won’t show the way he relaxes when Daichi speaks, won’t betray him when his voice wobbles over their goodbyes.
He wonders when he’ll get used to the feeling of being without Daichi. He wonders if he ever will.
***
5.
“Just a friend,” Koushi tells them when they ask who’s coming to visit him this weekend, but the excitement running up and down his spine means he can’t seem to sit still, and he knows they notice.
They exchange glances between themselves, a mix of knowing smiles and worry, but Koushi plays his shiver off as the biting winter wind finally taking a hold of him, and the warmth in his heart as homesickness, nostalgia. It’s been two months.
He checks his phone quickly between classes, another three texts from Daichi lying in wait for him to grin over. Daichi is taking the earliest train he can. Koushi tells him he can’t wait. He doesn’t tell him he’ll struggle to sleep until then.
***
+1.
“Daichi,” Koushi calls, the familiar shape of his friend finally visible as he turns a corner. He looks bigger, somehow, he thinks.
Daichi turns, then, and Koushi can finally see his face, and it’s not blurry or grainy; it’s right in front of him and it’s covered in the widest grin he thinks he’s ever seen.
Daichi opens his arms and as if on instinct Koushi wraps himself inside them, hands finding his back and clinging on tightly. Daichi must have run there, Koushi thinks, as Daichi’s chest heaves against his own and he can feel the pounding on his heart even through their winter layers.
Koushi can’t help chasing Daichi’s heat and he buries his face as far into his neck as he can, taking a deep breath before pulling away, before their touch becomes too lingering. Before he’s overstayed his welcome.
But Daichi’s hands don’t leave his back, and Koushi is struck suddenly by the feeling of nerves coursing underneath Daichi’s skin and across his face. Something has changed, he thinks, and he’s sure it’s the distance, his eyes searching his friend’s for confirmation that they’ve lost something.
Koushi finds only warmth there, though, and an intensity he’s never seen. This definitely isn’t familiar.
Daichi swallows and opens his mouth once, twice. He takes a deep breath and tries again.
“Koushi…” he trails off, seeming not to know how to put his thoughts into words. And then, suddenly, he does. “We’re not just friends. Are we?”
“No,” Koushi says a breath later, the truth hitting him too fast for his barrier to come up. Too fast to lie.
“Good,” Daichi replies before he presses their lips together.