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They meet in their second year.
The first thing Yuusuke thinks when he first meets Toudou Jinpachi is this guy’s absolutely insufferable.
At the time, he has no idea Toudou thinks of him the same way.
A handful of confused complexes.
That’s what Toudou acts like.
Talks like.
Walks like.
Yuusuke isn’t very good at reading people, usually.
But Yuusuke knows what an affected voice sounds like, knows the finer workings of an intonation so heady and nasal and cavalier, like he couldn’t possibly have a care in the world other than proving his worth to the world.
Toudou has no idea, but – in Yuusuke – he’s found someone who will finally understand.
The first time they race, its Toudou’s win.
Fair and square, he loses.
So there’s no bitterness to his loss and Yuusuke’s resolve.
He does not crumble or crack, not because of this.
A loss will not break him or trouble him to wits’ end.
If anything, he’ll find a way around it.
If anything, he’ll wind his way around it.
If anything, he’ll use it as motivation.
For the next time Toudou insists upon, he’ll work his way over that bridge when he gets there.
Yuusuke doesn’t remember how Toudou got his number.
Maybe it’s better he doesn’t ask.
Then again, he shouldn’t be that surprised, not when most things Toudou does are a mystery anyway.
The mass texting – he can handle that.
Messages about how the last twenty-four hours to the last twenty minutes transpired.
Little reminders to eat well and stay on top of his training.
Videos links that have gotten to unpredictable that Yuusuke never knows what he’ll encounter when he opens it – funny cat videos, hair care tutorials, or PVs for gravure models.
maki-chan, Toudou suddenly sends him while Yuusuke’s up late one night, thanks for always answering my texts!
No shorthand version, no emoticons attached.
No lightning-quick ‘haha jk’ to follow.
Yuusuke’s almost impressed.
youre welcome. Automatic, his answer’s easy enough to type with one hand. like youd want it any other way?
The displaced question mark aside, Yuusuke realizes his mistake the instant his phone vibrates with a reply.
!!!!!!!
MAKI-CHAN
DID K Y OU RE AL LY M EBNA IT OMG YOURE THE BEST i’m rly glad we’re friends~ ✿♬( ｡ ◡‿◡) ✿ ♪
After ten beats of confused silence, Yuusuke gets three more messages.
In succession:
* rivals i totally MENAT HTAT autocorrect tho
** MEANT THAT
oopsie (*ﾉ▽ﾉ)
Eleven o’clock on a Wednesday night, Yuusuke lets out such a loud bark of laughter that the youngest and oldest caretakers in the Makishima household come running to check on him.
He tells each one that knocks on his door that he’s fine – because he is.
What’s more, he gets the rest of his English composition done before the clock hits midnight and decides right before bed he’ll keep that message saved in his phone.
Not for blackmail purposes but. You know. Like a good luck charm.
When Toudou becomes Jinpachi, Yuusuke hasn’t the slightest idea.
Well, he has a pretty good idea. Or two.
The rest are pretty bad ideas to begin with that only got worse as they went.
Probably, Yuusuke remembers, it started from a slip of the tongue.
Sometime after their tenth or twelfth race, on their way back around to the rest area awnings, Toudou comments on how long his hair’s gotten.
Well, his exact words were Maki-chan’s hair’s gotten so long and pretty.
“Pretty,” Yuusuke sputters around a mouthful of water.
“Ah, yeah…I guess I could’ve worded that better.” Toudou has the nerve to smile, chortling away. “Maki-chan’s face is pretty, but your hair’s beautiful.”
This time around, Yuusuke doesn’t just sputter.
He chokes.
“Jinpachi.” It slips out, so exasperated, and Yuusuke’s too busy nursing his reeling head and burning throat to catch himself. “I’ve said it a million times before, but I’ll say it again: you’re really something else.”
When Yuusuke looks over his shoulder, Toudou’s fallen at least a meter behind.
“H-Hey.” Yuusuke backpedals far enough to ride alongside Toudou, an easy distance traversed. “You okay, Jin—”
That’s when Yuusuke notices everything he never noticed before.
The faint speckling of freckles under Jinpachi’s lower lashes.
The faint gleam of perspiration visible on Jinpachi’s upper lip.
The way that – for all his usual theatrics – Jinpachi’s features are nothing less than mortified and his voice hitches when he murmurs a protesting, “Maki-chan” while he pouts.
And oh no, oh no, Yuusuke thinks to himself, this can’t be happening right now, not to him, not with him—
“You’re,” Jinpachi retorts, so reminiscent of how Yuusuke said it earlier that his face heats up even faster than the other climber’s does, “really something else.”
Naturally, Yuusuke’s so overwhelmed by his sudden revelation (unexpected? They’ve been chasing after each other from the start; he shouldn’t be that surprised) that he hasn’t the slightest idea what to do.
So he does what most rational people would do in a situation like this.
He rides right over, leans in, and kisses Jinpachi square on the mouth.
Then, he leaves the rest up to faith – that the rest, like everything else about them, will fall in its rightful place.
(He’s not disappointed at all, either, by what a little bit of faith brings him.
Jinpachi manages to keep his balance somehow, pulls him even closer by the collar of his jersey and sighs something that feels and sounds a lot like Yuusuke against the swell of his mouth swiftly changing from a grimace to a grin.
As for Yuusuke, he’s pretty sure that’s one of the few bad ideas turned good that he can get behind.)