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When it comes to dating, Iwaizumi is kind of old school.
The first time they go out, Iwaizumi holds the door to the coffee shop open and says, “After you,” with an easy smile that reminds Keiji oddly of the caramel candies Kita-san puts in the center of his larva cakes. After the date, when Keiji is at home toweling the droplets of water out of his hair and trying desperately to not think about how the tip of his fingers had touched Iwaizumi’s warm ones when he reached for the sugar across the small table in the coffee shop at the same time as him, a butterfly touch that lingers in his mind long after it had happened, he gets a phone call that lasts four minutes, where Iwaizumi says, “I’d like to see you again, if that’s okay,” in a voice that drips warmth like melted chocolate off the rim of a bowl.
He likes phone calls over texts and calls to say good morning every other day when he has the chance. He links pinkies with Keiji instead of holding his hand when they’re waiting to cross the road and when Keiji looks at him, the tips of his ears warm and his heart in his throat, Iwaizumi smiles at him like he’s the only one in the crowded street. He says, “You’re beautiful,” against the curve of Keiji’s smile the first time they kiss, slow and easy, and the lips that speak the words, “Be mine, hm?” against his mouth almost immediately after taste like Yaku-san’s salted caramel buttercream.
He says Keiji’s name carefully, like it’s a cherry stem he’s twisting around his tongue. In the izakaya where he meets Keiji’s friends for the first time, he holds Keiji’s hand under the counter, their fingers slotted like the pieces on a jenga tower and palms pressed together. When he drives, he keeps one hand on the wheel and the other on Keiji’s thigh. He says, “You can choose the music, I don’t mind,” and Keiji falls a little more for him when he sees that Iwaizumi’s eyes are soft and warm like matcha dusted mochi as his lips curl into a half-moon smile.
When it comes to love, it’s easy to fall into him; because everytime he holds his hand out for Keiji to take and the sunlight curls into the dips where his fingers merge into his palm or when he laughs and it bubbles like caramel left on the stove for too long or when he says, “I can’t wait to see you, tomorrow, too,” over the phone and he sounds so painfully fond; it always feels like he’ll catch Keiji and hold him like he’s something gentle and something frail.
It’s spring when Iwaizumi tells Keiji that he loves him for the first time, by the counter of Keiji’s cramped kitchen counter at half past nine in the evening. They’re sitting close enough for their knees to touch, just like the rims of the plates Keiji plated the cheesecake in are touching. Iwaizumi holds his hand like he’s holding a fallen star, brilliant and warm and so, so soft, and he looks at Keiji like the rest of the world could dissolve into nothing overnight and he wouldn’t notice and says, “I love you, I’ve never been more sure of anything else,” into the spaces between them like he’s telling him a secret. It’s the same voice that said, you’re beautiful against his lips the first time they kissed, the same voice that said, be mine , in the same breath.
The same voice that says Keiji’s name like it’s something to be treasured, with all the careful focus of a sugar-saturated cherry stem being wrapped around a tongue.
It’s spring and Iwaizumi tells Keiji that he loves him for the first time over a slice of blueberry cheesecake. It’s a day old, refrigerator cold cake and there’s cream on the side of Iwaizumi’s lips that makes him look so beautiful that it aches, and despite the rainshower that hasn’t let up in the last hour or so, Keiji feels warm like the space in his rib cage where his heart should be is filled with light from the center of the sun.
Maybe that’s what love is. Iwaizumi in his kitchen, a confession suspended in the air between them like an unlit match. Keiji’s heart in layers of golden sunlight, the rain outside a steady melody to the rhythmic thump- he -thump- loves -thump- me -thump that it sings.
Keiji lets his fork clatter against the counter and thinks, you’re a dream, as he surges forward to close the gap between them. He kisses Iwaizumi with a set of rain cold fingers twisted into his hair and a palm cupping his jaw, thinking, you’re a dream, you’re a unreal, I can’t believe you want to be mine, and they touch slowly and quietly like they’re two spring flowers leaning into each other’s space on a quaint night.
Into the space between the half-moon curve of Iwaizumi’s lips and his own, Keiji places the words, “I love you, too. I’ve never been more sure of anything either, so stay,” and he thinks, you’re beautiful, be mine .
So, it’s spring. It’s love, and Iwaizumi stays.