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“Shou, c’ mon , you’re missing it!” Shirakumo exclaimed, jostling Shouta’s shoulder for attention. Shouta shot out a hand to grab his Arithmancy book before it slid off his knee and glanced up to see what the fuss was about. He had mostly mastered the art of doing homework in the stands during Quidditch matches but sometimes even six years of practice was no match for his friend’s exuberance.
It was a semi-finals match between Slytherin and Hufflepuff and both teams were playing for blood. So many fouls had been called on both sides that the game was an hour in and had only just gotten into the second quarter. Shouta wasn’t entirely immune to the house pride of seeing Hufflepuff up by twenty points, but the feeling was somewhat tempered by seeing two thirds of the team’s Chasers and half of the two-man Beater line streaking off to start a midair fistfight with Slytherin’s Beaters. The only two players that seemed immune to the cutthroat drama were the teams’ respective Seekers, keeping their distance at opposite ends of the pitch in careful pursuit of the Snitch.
“You should throw him your handkerchief,” Shirakumo teased, nodding to where the Slytherin Seeker Hizashi Yamada was hovering near their seats. Shouta shot him a withering look that just made Shirakumo grin all the wider at him. His crush was an open secret between the two of them and Shirakumo mostly showed his support by trying to convince Shouta that all he had to do was make the first move and the rest would fall into place after that. Shouta couldn’t help thinking Yamada looked uncharacteristically stately now with the sun lighting his blond hair like a candle flame and his face sharp and attentive. Normally Yamada was as boisterous and carefree as Shirakumo, but Quidditch brought out a more calculating, straightforward side of him that made it obvious why he’d been sorted into Slytherin. Shouta felt his face heating and tried to go back to his schoolwork despite Yamada making it infinitely harder to concentrate on the numerology in his lap.
A darting movement across the pitch behind Yamada’s head caught Shouta’s eye. With three of the four Beaters wrapped up in the fight the Bludgers were barrelling around the pitch without restraint. One of them seemed dedicated to hassling the Hufflepuff Keeper but the other had taken a sharp boomerang turn around the goal hoops and was pelting full speed directly for Yamada’s head. Everything seemed to slow as the breath caught in Shouta’s chest and a panicked buzz rose in his ears. Even if the Slytherin captain Kayama managed to break up the fight in time, there would be no way for anyone to beat the Bludger to Yamada. Yamada could avoid it by dropping down out of its path, but he was so focused on scanning the sky for any hint of the Snitch that anything else happening seemed to be boxed off outside of his attention.
“Oh shit.” Shirakumo sucked in a hard breath as his mental math synced with Shouta’s. “Oi! Yama--wait, what-?” He cut himself off as Shouta shoved his schoolwork and wand into Shirakumo’s lap. Some absurd impulse grabbed Shouta by the gut and dragged him out of his seat before he had time to think better of following it. He vaulted the two rows of seats between him and the edge of the stands and threw himself headlong at the handle of Yamada’s broom.
A lot of things went very right and very wrong all at once. Shouta managed to grab ahold of the broom with both hands. His sudden added weight caused the broom to jolt straight down two feet; the Bludger whiffed past just above Yamada’s head, clipping the corner of a nearby staff tower before changing direction to go menace someone else. Shouta had a split second to take in Yamada’s expression of dazed realization before the combination of his own momentum and a numbing snap deep in his left shoulder ripped his hands off the broom. He made a grasping flail at catching himself but his fingertips grazed uselessly off the polished wood.
Shouta tried not to think about how fast he would be going when he hit the ground but the words “smash” and “crunch” and “splatter” kept jostling around in his brain without permission. It would be his luck to end up dead in a crater the moment he finally worked up the guts to get close to Yamada, Shouta thought bleakly. He still wasn’t too far away from Yamada now, a fact that only clicked into his scrambled mind after a few bewildered misfires. Yamada’s face had gone from wide-eyed horror to razor focus as he dove straight down towards Shouta. Yamada leaned out as far as he could over the handle of his broom and caught Shouta by the forearm, pulling them both out of the dive barely above the ground. The two of them overbalanced together and toppled the last two feet onto the grass. They bounced with a hard smack and rolled apart as the inopportune landing finally ended.
Shouta lay dazed in the grass as the sky spun above him. His left shoulder felt loose in his skin, full of throbbing cold-hot fire. Yamada, pale and sweaty and grass-stained, knelt next to him. Shouta thought he might be asking if Shouta was okay but his voice was drowned out in the uproar of the crowd and the dissonant, disoriented ringing in Shouta’s head. He struggled to sit up and assure Yamada that he was fine, just winded. As soon as he was upright, though, the world pitched violently upside down and Shouta had to turn away to avoid being sick all over Yamada. Yamada patted his back awkwardly as Shouta crumpled onto elbows and knees and heaved into the grass. Somewhere far away Shouta could hear a whistle being blown and Yamada shouting for a time out and for someone to get a medic to help him.
Shouta had dislocated his shoulder in the jump and the semi-crash landing had gifted him the added bonus of a “monster concussion”, in the words of Miss Chiyo. She clicked her tongue at the state of him and gave him a cheerfully disapproving lecture about avoidable danger as she patched him up and helped him into a stabilizing sling. Shouta couldn’t help thinking she had more of an inkling of his actual motivations than she let on when she finished by handing him a chocolate frog and ruffling his hair as he got up to leave.
Yamada and Kayama were having a quiet bickering debate a short way down the corridor as Shouta came out of the hospital wing. He felt his cheeks going red again as Yamada’s face lit up at the sight of him. Shirakumo came to his rescue by hustling up from the other end of the corridor, already giving him an earful to rival Miss Chiyo’s. Shouta gratefully overlooked the irony of being lectured on recklessness by a Gryffindor, pulling his hood up over his head and letting Shirakumo lay into him all the way back to the Hufflepuff common room.
Shouta mostly managed to avoid interacting with Yamada for the next few days despite Yamada doing everything he could to put himself in Shouta’s path. Under any other circumstances it would have been unexpected but encouraging to suddenly have Yamada’s attention to completely. Every time their eyes met, however, all Shouta could think about was how Yamada had seen him dramatically throw himself out of the stadium stands, dramatically almost plummet to his death, and then dramatically hurl all over a sports field. The self-inflicted humiliation of the whole mess made him want to bury himself in the cabbage patch behind the greenhouses and never be seen again. It didn’t help that everyone else seemed equally interested in his business now. One moment of impulsiveness had turned him into a minor celebrity around the student body and he couldn’t so much as walk down a corridor without a flood of whispers following his every step. Shirakumo had stepped up to help as much as he could. He met Shouta after every class and help him carry his books while his dominant arm was out of commission, doing his best to talk over the rumor mill and run interference when anyone got too chatty. Shouta appreciated his mostly judgement-free support beyond words.
No plan was ever perfect, however, and Shirakumo was a no-show to meet him after a very trying Transfiguration class. After ten minutes of hovering in the doorway Shouta’s back was aching from the overload to his right side and he decided to cut his losses and make his way back to the common room on his own. He sighed and started to shuffle down the hallway, figuring he’d probably meet Shirakumo halfway.
“Here, need some help?” A pair of hands reached out and took his stack of books before he could answer. Shouta turned to tell whoever it was that he was managing just fine and came face-to-face with Yamada. Yamada gave him an awkward crooked grin and tucked Shouta’s books under his arm along with his own. Shouta felt a hot blush streak up his cheeks and all the way to the tops of his ears and looked away before Yamada could see it.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“That’s my line, dude,” Yamada said with a laugh. “That was a crazy move you pulled. I mean, that Bludger was gonna take my head straight off and you were just like, ‘not today, asshole! Nyoom! ’” He mimed diving forward, unburdened arm stretched out in front of him. “I get pretty bad tunnel vision when I’m out on the pitch, I never even saw it coming,” Yamada admitted with a slightly guilty laugh. “You did, though, that was amazing! ”
The heat in Shouta’s face cranked up another ten degrees. He was saved the need to think of a lucid reply as Shirakumo came running up to meet them looking frazzled. “Sorry, Shou, Tensei wanted to talk about our match next weekend and I couldn’t get him to stop,” Shirakumo panted. He brightened slightly as he realized Shouta wasn’t alone. “Oh, hey! Yamada, right?” he said, doing a reasonably good impression of someone who didn’t deal with his best friend’s unruly crush on Yamada on a daily basis. “Killer save last weekend, man, that match was nuts!”
“Thanks, but I think that honor belongs to Aizawa over here, if I’m being honest,” Yamada replied. Shouta was embarrassed by the pleasant frisson that went up his spine at the sound of Yamada saying his name.
“It was no big deal,” Shouta muttered, shaking his head. Yamada gaped at him, jaw hanging open mid-disbelieving scoff.
“Are you kidding me?” he exclaimed loudly enough to make several people stare as they passed. “It was totally badass!”
Shirakumo badly hid a snicker behind clearing his throat. Shouta shot him a capital-L Look that he took in stride. “It looks like Yamada’s got you handled this time, so I’ll catch you later, Shou,” he said, patting Shouta’s uninjured shoulder. He peeled off with a meaningful grin before Shouta could protest, presumably jogging off to resume his conversation with Tensei Iida. Shouta tried not to look annoyed with the circumstances as he and Yamada set off again. A tense silence started to form between them, but Yamada broke it before it got too thick.
“So, uh. Are you going on the Hogsmeade trip this weekend?” Yamada asked.
“No, probably not,” Shouta replied. “It’s easier to get a good table in the library when everyone else is gone.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in Yamada’s tone made Shouta immediately regret being so quick to answer.
“Are you?” Shouta asked awkwardly.
“Yeah, most likely,” Yamada said. “I usually go, it’s nice to get out and stretch my legs somewhere that isn’t class or practice or anything here, y’know?” He paused, then went on, “I thought maybe if we both were going I could maybe buy you lunch at the Three Broomsticks or something as a thank you for saving my skin.” He finished with another, slightly more tense chuckle.
“Oh. Okay, sure,” Shouta said, hoping his immediate change of heart didn’t come across as too eager. If Yamada noticed he didn’t mind, as he instantly brightened at Shouta’s agreement.
“Yeah?”
Shouta nodded. “I think Shirakumo’s free too unless Iida pulls him in for extra practice. We can all go,” he said.
“Oh. I mean, sure, I guess, but. I was actually meaning just us. Like, the two of us? I-If you wanted to, I mean. I don’t want to mess up your schedule or anything if you need to study, it’s fine,” Yamada rambled. He’d gone nearly as red as Shouta now, reflexively raking his free hand through his hair.
“No!” Shouta blurted, louder than he’d intended. “I mean. No, yeah, that--that sounds great,” he said, the breathless, giddy hitch in his chest making him chatter in spite of himself.
“Yeah?” Yamada’s face split into a huge, brilliant grin that Shouta couldn’t help but return as he nodded.
“Yeah. I-I’d like that,” he said.
“Cool! Cool, that’s, that’s great, cool,” Yamada said. A shrill beeping rang out, making both of them jump. Yamada swore and pulled up his sleeve to turn off the alarm on his watch. “Crap! I totally forgot, I’ve gotta go make up a Charms exam. Torino’s going to murder me if I’m late again,” he groaned with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, I gotta run.”
“Don’t worry about it, I was just going to the library anyway,” Shouta fibbed, nodding towards the open double doors a few yards away. He held out his arm to awkwardly reclaim his books from Yamada. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime,” Yamada nodded. “So...meet you in the courtyard on Saturday?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Shouta agreed, just barely holding back from saying “it’s a date”.
“Okay, cool,” Yamada said. “Catch you then.” He winked and flashed Shouta double finger-guns before turning and racing back up the corridor the way they had come. Shouta took a moment to take a deep breath and slow his fluttering heartbeat before heading his own way, unable to banish the grin still firmly on his face.