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1. scars
The one thing Mizuno never talks about to either of them is how his parents got divorced - he talks about his father sometimes and his mother more often, but he never talks about the time when the three of them were a family; he remembers it in bits and pieces and some pieces fit together better than others, because it seems to Mizuno that he's never liked his father much, and yet not all the memories he has of the man whose last name he's no longer using are bad ones.
2. vacation
The weather's almost unbearably hot and they drag backpacks full of water-bottles with them each day when they go to the stadium (or rather: a stadium, as there are several, and to figure out which one they need to go to is almost as hard as figuring out how to get there) - still, even if it's not quite a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (there will be more World Cups) Shigeki knows that things will never again be quite like this year, and he does his best to just sit back, enjoy the games and pretend the heat doesn't bother him as much as it does.
Shou, he knows, is thinking of how he wants to be in the game, instead of merely watching it - the excitement on his face is genuine, but there's an edge to it, something that sets Shou apart from almost everyone else in the stadium, all those screaming and noisy people. Shigeki sees it in Tatsuya, too, even if Tatsuya's less obvious about it, as he is about most things.
He wonders how long it will be until it's just him watching.
3. jealousy
Mizuno's used to being - not so much the best, although yes, he knows that there are very few people with his talents, and most of them play different positions from his own, but rather to being better.
Watching Shou improve week after week, day after day, he feels a little strange. He should be happy, he knows, both for Shou and himself, because he enjoys playing soccer with Shou and Mizuno doesn't like the idea of leaving him behind and yet instead he feels almost annoyed.
He wishes Shigeki was here to talk to.
4. life or death
For Shigeki, it's a good game if he's had fun and if whomever has won is someone (or a team of someones) he can respect and like; it's no biggie losing in a friendly game against Tatsuya or Shou (although Tatsuya's a lot of fun to tease about losing some unimportant, friendly game played for fun - he should really learn to relax a little, Shigeki thinks).
To Shou, it's more or less the same, although he loves soccer so much that it's hard to imagine him not enjoying a game, really; like a puppy, Shou runs after the ball, giving his everything no matter who he's playing against. Loss might make Shou sad, but if there's anything that can defeat Shou, Shigeki has yet to see it; if Shou goes down, he simply gets up again.
Tatsuya, he-who-is-cool-headed, is the one Shigeki worries about sometimes - he shows the least emotion, yet feels it the deepest, bottling it all up inside. To Tatsuya, winning or losing might as well be a matter of life and death, and while Shigeki knows part of the blame for that rests on the shoulders of Tatsuya's father, he knows that part of it belongs to Tatsuya.
So, really, when he beats Tatsuya at a game of poker or go or whatever game he can think of in the spur of the moment (depending on whether or not Shou's there as well), it's only for Tatsuya's own good - Shigeki wouldn't tease him about so much if Tatsuya wouldn't always react so adorably.
5. music
" ' Oh, darling, why do you keep leaving me? Don't you know it's cold at night?' " Shigeki sings in a high voice that has even Shou wincing, although the look he gives Shigeki immediately after is embarrassed and a little sheepish rather than exasperated and annoyed.
"Whose bright idea was it to go to a karaoke-bar again?" Tatsuya asks.
"I thought it would be fun, Mizuno-kun," Shou says, and the distant part of Shigeki's mind that's not occupied with thinking of ways to make his rendition of 'Cold at Night Now That You're Gone' as nerve-grating as possible takes some pride in hearing that Shou isn't actually apologizing.
" 'Because of the cold I can't sleep.' "
"Well, someone's having fun," Mizuno says, looking like the sourpuss he can be sometimes.
" 'Because I can't sleep, I can't dream of you.' "
"I'm having fun, too," Shou protests a little weakly. (Poor boy still can't lie.)
" 'Oooooh, darling, it's cold at night now that you're gone,' " Shigeki wails, grinning at Tatsuya when the instrumental interval comes on and he starts swinging his hips in sync with the music.
6. kiss
"And what, eactly, is it the two of you have been doing with Shou?"
Kou Kazamatsuri, Shigeki decided, could be a little scary when he was being protective and when his little brother had been sent off to the store with some vague errand.
"Would you believe us if we told you we've just played soccer with him?"
The glowers he got from Tatsuya and Big Brother Kou were near-identical, and yes, Shigeki supposed he might have said something else, but what was the fun in always playing it safe and by the rules? Last time Shigeki checked, the rules said boys only dated girls - and if that was how Shou's brother thought about the matter, Shigeki figured he might as well get on his nerves now as later. Not that he felt a male escort had any right to disapprove of anyone else's relationships, mind.
"You - " and things might have gone downhill rather rapidly from there, except that the door swung open, revealing an out-of-breath Shou clutching a shopping bag.
"We've only ever kissed, big brother!" Shou panted. "I love both of them!"
"Oh. Well, welcome to the family, I suppose," Kou said - and his eyes added: If you two ever hurt him, I will hunt you down and the police will never find your bodies, am I making myself clear here?
7. sated
Sometimes, Shou feels he's being greedy, clinging to two people, where most people seem to be perfectly content settling for just one - most of the women his brother accompanies for an evening or a night or an afternoon spent shopping, he knows, don't even have that much, and some (if not all) of them don't mind being all alone one bit.
He knows he could never choose between the two of them though, even if they'd let him - perhaps, he reasons, it's just another thing people are different in, like the way Seiji doesn't eat carrots and Katsuro never drinks milk for breakfast; everyone's different in the way and the number of people he loves, and that's simply the way it is.
8. hunger
"Has anybody ever told you that you're a good cook?" Tatsuya asked, staring down at his plate.
"Why, Tatsu-bon." Shigeki's messed up the cooking-time, he knows - it should have been five minutes, not fifteen, and he rather expected Tatsuya to give him a hard time about it, after all his bragging about being able to cook. "Thank you."
"If they haven't, it's probably because you aren't."
Shigeki froze halfway to giving Tatsuya a hug - his apron said 'Kiss the Cook' in four languages, but neither Tatsuya nor Shou had taken him up on the invitation so far, sadly.
"It doesn't look so bad, Shige-san," Shou offered hesitantly. "Um. What's this green bit?"
"Something that will make you grow taller," Shigeki said quickly, before Tatsuya could ruin things and leave Shigeki with nothing to show for his trouble except two hungry guests and a pan full of edible vegetable-and-rice mass. "And it tastes great, too, even if it might not look like it," he added.
"I'm not hungry," Tatsuya said.
Shou had already started eating. Shigeki smiled broadly. "Then I guess the two of us can just watch Shou eat, eh?"
9. drunk
"Your idea."
"Admit he's cute."
"He's cute when he's not drunk, too."
"True."
"And not putting his hands all over me."
"You don't like it?"
"He's drunk."
"And cute."
"His big brother's going to kill us if we bring him home like this."
"So let's not bring him home."
"... !"
"Pervert."
10. Moment of Clarity
Mizuno's father took the news that his son was not only a homosexual but also in a relationship with two significant others instead of one rather well, all things considered. He didn't foam at the mouth, he didn't shout, or whisper, or sneer, or look down his nose at Mizuno in any other way, and he didn't start coughing up blood before collapsing on the floor.
"Things will be ... hard for you," he said finally.
"I don't care," Mizuno said. "This is what I want."
His father almost seemed to smile as he nodded once. "Your mother already knows, I suppose?" he asked, his tone a little wistful.
11. weather
Shou is like the sun, spreading light and warmth wherever he goes - Shigeki watches Tatsuya watch him, and knows he'll be thinking more or less the same thing. It rarely rains in the world of Shou Kazamatsuri, and when it rains, it pours, albeit for a short time.
One thing that's different though: getting too close to the sun, you'll get sunburn. Getting too close to Shou, on the other hand ... Shigeki grins. Impossible.
12. pain
There's a crowd of people already surrounding Shou where he's fallen, and Shigeki feels far less compunction than Tatsuya about elbowing them out of the way - it's not like they are Shou's boyfriends, after all.
"S-Shige-san. Mizuno-kun." One of these days, Shigeki hopes he'll get the kid to drop the honorifics because honestly, they're getting a bit embarrassing. "I'm sorry."
"What for, you idiot?" Shigeki says, tone light, eyes averted and worried for a moment as they take in Shou's leg. It doesn't look too bad, truth be told, so long as you don't look at the angle it's lying in, which is all wrong.
"A doctor's on his way," someone (it might be the coach) says. "Hang in there."
There's a few tears running down Shou's cheeks now and if they were in private, Shigeki'd kiss-lick them away - as it is, he leaves crowd-control to Mizuno and whatever responsible adults are around and reaches out to squeeze Shou's hand.
"Don't think you can use this as an excuse not to play next time," he says. "You'll see. One month, or maybe even less, and that leg'll be good as new. Remember my arm?"
"I remember you bitching about it all the time," Tatsuya comments from somewhere behind him, and as Shou smiles through his tears, Shigeki finds himself certain that things will be all right.
13. comfort
"A big bed," Shigeki said.
"A dinner-table with four chairs," said Shou.
Mizuno'd been thinking of a couch himself - something to sit on and relax - but he opted not to mention it, instead considering the two suggestions already put forth. Furniture was expensive, even if they might manage to get some of it used.
"Why four chairs?" Shigeki asked. "There's only three of us."
"If we get guests, it would be rude when we weren't able to offer them a chair," Shou replied, shrugging as if it was self-evident - and to Shou, Mizuno reflected, it probably was. "Oh, and I'm fine with a normal bed. I don't need a big one."
Mizuno winced. As evident as it was to Shou why they'd need at least one extra chair, so evident it was to Mizuno why Shigeki'd want to get a bed (one, not three) sized extra-large.
"Well, much as I enjoy being sandwiched between you and Tatsuya ... " Shigeki drawled.
Shou coughed and flushed.
"... it also happens sometimes that I just want to get a good night's sleep," Shigeki finished.
"Oh, really? I've never noticed that thus far," Mizuno said.
"Mizuno-kun!" Shou squeaked, his entire face a bright red now.
14. tattoo
Tatsuya has always been good-looking, Shou supposes, but before, at Josei Junior High, he kept girls at a distance by being, well, distant. Mostly, he politely ignored them, and they seemed more or less content to admire him from a distance.
At present, they surrounded him like a flock of birds, and rather than shooing them away or being the least bit uncomfortable, Tatsuya almost seemed like he was enjoying himself - Shou couldn't hear what he was saying, but he was smiling. Shou knew Tatsuya wouldn't just go and decide he liked some girl better than him and Shigeki, but it still made him feel strange to see Tatsuya like that.
"Jealous, puppy?"
Shigeki was a little too wild to be popular with most of the girls. Shou himself, of course, was too ordinary; he knew he wasn't nearly as good-looking as Tatsuya or Shigeki and, worse, he was still short, even if Kou swore he grew a few inches every month.
"No, just a bit puzzled. I didn't think Mizuno-kun really liked girls." Shigeki smirked, and Shou added: "As friends. Unless they play soccer."
"I think it's because he knows that that he's more comfortable around them," Shigeki said, looking pensive. "Before, he might have thought he'd meet a girl and like her that way. Now, he knows better."
Shou frowned, struggling with that particular piece of reasoning.
"They probably know it, too, you know," Shigeki continued. "It might as well be tattooed on his forehead. Still, it can't hurt to make it extra clear that he's taken. You coming?"
15. making up
Like all people, they have arguments sometimes - like most people, they work things out eventually.
Shou knows that no matter how right he was and how wrong anyone else, in the end, being right isn't the most important thing in the world, so depending on how wrong he feels the other person was, he either apologizes or keeps coming up with arguments.
Shigeki has a temper, but also a very short memory when it suits him - he has no problem yelling at someone in the morning and slamming the door as he leaves, only to come back in the evening smiling and affectionate enough to forestall all further arguments (or smother them, at the very least).
Mizuno remembers his parents, even if he never talks about them, and even as he's slowly begun to forgive them both (not just his father, but his mother, too; the blame for any argument, he's realized, should be shared) and so he tries to be patient, understanding and forgiving, until Shigeki bops him over the head for being insufferable and they end up making love on the couch that ended up being the first piece of furniture they bought for the apartment they share.