Work Text:
“I never would have expected this, Wakatoshi-kun,” he mused, his eyes on the dark sky far above Paris.
“Mm?” came the response, almost a hum from the much larger man slumped over his shoulder.
“That you’re the kind of guy who can’t hold his liquor.”
“I can hold liquor perfectly well,” Ushijima replied, disgruntled.
“No no, it just means you get drunk easily.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Yes, I suppose.”
Silence stretched on for a while, interrupted only by the sounds of nightlife around them. Conversations faded in and out from the eateries open to the sidewalk, traffic filtered by on the street. Tendou was content with the silence - he had learned to be since making friends with Ushijima, who had never been one for idle chatter. There had been times when he had jabbered to fill the void or just because it suited him, but there were plenty of times as well when the two of them had simply… existed in each other’s presence. It was what had allowed their bond to continue, he wagered, that give and take that accommodated both their personalities.
“Tendou.” In a surprise turn of events, it was Wakatoshi who interrupted the peace. “What if I’m not attracted to women?”
The sentiment settled like rain water over rocks, both seeping in and rolling off. A part of Satori wanted to hold onto the words, to soak them up like parched desert sand as though he could save up for the drought to come; the rest of him knew that nothing said under the veil of hard liquor should be held too tightly, lest the one saying it come to regret their choices with sobriety. His eyebrows relaxed from where they had shot up in surprise, gaze settling on a street lamp in the distance.
“Then you wouldn’t be attracted to women,” he said after a moment, airy and nonchalant. “And that would be fine.”
“Mm.”
They walked a little ways in quiet once more before Tendou’s curiosity got the better of him.
“Did something happen, Wakatoshi-kun?” Silence followed for a few beats; when he stole a glance down at Ushijima, he found the other man looking contemplative - not that he ever looked anything but. He wore his usual even expression, a mask of neutrality, but there was an almost imperceptible furrow between his brows, a tension that he did not typically carry.
“Sometimes, when I’m out,” he started and Satori’s stomach lurched. “After games or at fan events, or when the team wants to go for a celebration, women… want things from me. I didn’t understand, at first…” There was a tightness in his voice that almost hurt to listen to. “...but I’ve been told they’re flirting with me, and it seems to disappoint them when I don’t… reciprocate.”
Tendou took a deep breath and turned his gaze skyward again. A knot in his stomach eased and he was privately ashamed of it. Memories of boyhood and adolescence came back to him, both from before and during his time at Shiratorizawa, and he sifted through them to locate the important ones: found family, dear friends, those who had understood implicitly and those who had come to understand over time.
“We can’t choose who we love,” he said definitively and then amended, “Or lust after, those aren’t the same thing.”
“They’re not?”
“Nope.”
“Mm.”
They kept walking for a while and the quiet was companionable. Ushijima was heavy, but Tendou found he didn’t really mind; he had lost a lot of muscle mass since he had quit volleyball, but he still found time to go to the gym. He could handle dragging one grown man home while he was drunk, even if that grown man was an Olympic athlete who probably weighed twice as much as he did and--
Okay yeah, he was pretty heavy.
He could still manage, though.
...Probably.
“Tendou.” The silence was broken again. “What if I’m not attracted to anyone?”
His heart sank. The guilt followed immediately after; it wasn’t his business if Wakatoshi was into anyone or no one. They were friends and always would be, no matter what. Ushijima had never begrudged him any of his interests or lack thereof and he would offer his best mate the same comfort: unconditional acceptance. Even so, it took him an extra second to quell the churning in his stomach. Satori inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, bidding farewell to a bygone dream on the exhale.
“Then you wouldn’t be attracted to anyone,” he said after a moment, airy and privately heartbroken. “And that would be fine.”
Because it would be, genuinely. Some people weren’t wired to be with other people, to grow attached or intimate in the ways a lover did, and that was perfectly alright. Conceptually, Satori had no problem with it - nor practically. He had had friends over the years who had been asexual and had never had a single qualm. The problem was that it was him and that it was Wakatoshi and that something small and sacred inside himself was going to be left to wither up and die.
But that was his problem to deal with.
“Mm.” Ushijima said after a while.
“Mm.” Tendou replied and the two of them walked on in silence, the former shuffling in his drunken stupor and the latter holding himself together behind a mask of feigned amusement as he had done many times throughout his life.
----
Satori hadn’t remembered to find out what hotel his visitor was staying at and it would have felt very strange given the events of the night to go through his pockets, so instead he brought him back to his apartment. It was a ritzy place, especially given rent prices in Paris, and he had the room to spare. The guest bedroom had been made up with fresh linens and he managed to haul his very dear (and by that time, softly snoring) friend to the bed, standing staring at it for a few moments with no idea of how to make the transition less awkward.
The solution was a bit of a twisting motion before somewhat unceremoniously shirking Wakatoshi back onto the mattress. His snoring stopped and Tendou felt a reluctant little smirk push at the corners of his mouth as he went about situating the behemoth of a man in a more comfortable position. Feet were brought up off the floor and shoes removed, watch set on the bedside table, and then he paused for a moment to look over the peaceful, sleeping face of one of the world’s great aces like it was the last chance he would ever have to do so - as though he wouldn’t be feeling this personal agony every time he watched one of the games he knew he would watch, because he loved Ushijima Wakatoshi and he would never miss even one.
Finally, he grabbed the opposite corner of the blanket and flung the whole thing over Ushijima, satisfied that he had done a vaguely presentable job of getting the man to bed. A glass of water was set on the nightstand and Satori reached to turn off the light, but he was stopped when - for the third time that evening - Wakatoshi broke the silence.
“Tendou?” he asked and this time the man in question was scared half shitless, turning to stare wide-eyed from his hunched-forward position beside the bed. He was met with a peaceful, sleepy face that was gently flushed with drink, eyelids just barely cracked open.
“Y… Yeah, Wakatoshi-kun, what’s up?” Internally, he was sputtering. Should he have tried harder to get him back to his hotel? Gotten more food in him? Tried to cut him off? Not that it was his fault, the man had the kind of poker face professional card players could only dream of, how was he supposed to have--
“What if I love you?”
Desert sand became an ocean beach and Tendou Satori had to take a deep, shaky breath in through his nose to cope with the sensation of it, with the sunshine and the sea breeze and the cawing of gulls overhead. He had to swallow a lump that had appeared in his throat and blink and remind himself - really, forcefully remind himself - that someone couldn’t be held to what they said when they were inebriated. A slow, sad smile crossed his face and he reached out a hand to lay it on the swell of that firm chest, comforting and gentle.
“That would be alright too, Wakatoshi-kun.” he said, airy and sincere, and then added, “But you’re drunk. Get some sleep, we can have breakfast when you wake up.”
Ushijima’s eyes opened just a little bit wider and he seemed to study Tendou for a long time, gaze locked and unwavering.
“Mm.” he said after a while and turned his face into his pillow.
Tendou Satori turned off the light, wandered into his room, sat down on his bed and after a while of trying to piece it together, decided he really just didn’t know how to feel.
----
Morning came early and Satori was not ready. He had struggled to sleep, which wasn’t entirely unusual but it had felt like unending torment that night in particular and the waking was worse. He hauled himself out of bed and pulled on a pair of soft, purple pajama pants to go with his loose-fitting white sleep shirt, smoothed his hand back through his close-cropped hair, and went to brush his teeth. When he had coffee brewing in a French press, he finally checked his phone, swiping through social media and putting up a few pictures he had taken of his creations the day before.
He was mid-post and nearly flung his phone across the kitchen in surprise when the door to the apartment opened and Ushijima Wakatoshi walked in, dressed in athletic shorts and a tracksuit jacket, holding a to-go cup of coffee and a little bag from a pastry shop up the street. Satori gaped and received a little wave in response.
“I borrowed your keys, I did not want to wake you.” Ushijima said and reached out to set the keyring, along with the vittles, in front of his very dear, very confused friend.
“W… Wakatoshi-kun, how-- where did you even get those clothes?”
“I went to my hotel to change, then ran back.”
“How many kilometers is that even?”
“Only eight, I will have to go for another run later.”
“I--” Satori balked, his face pale and confused and maybe the littlest bit irritated because it was eight in the morning and Ushijima, who had passed out drunk the night before, looked leaps and bounds better than he did - well-rested, groomed, and with that healthy flush of exercise that was so--
Okay, no, focus.
“I guess after all this time, you’re still a monster, huh Wakatoshi-kun?”
Ushijima tilted his head slightly in question but didn’t press; certain things, he had learned, were not meant as insults when they came from Tendou.
“I didn’t know you drank coffee, that’s kind of a surprise.” Satori continued and went to depress the filter in his French press.
“I don’t. It’s for you.” Wakatoshi replied, drawing his attention. “Two sugars, no cream, I believe.”
Tendou stared. It wasn’t the first time Ushijima’s memory had surprised him, but it might have been the most it had surprised him.
“Thank you.” he managed and sat back into the chair he had started to rise from to get a mug that he apparently didn’t need. For the first time that he could remember, the silence that filled the space between them was something resembling uncomfortable. Expectant was maybe the better word, though he didn’t know which one of them was expecting what and from whom. For the fourth time in half as many days, Ushijima was the one to speak.
“I believe we need to talk about last night.” he announced, stiff as ever.
“No, it’s alright Wakatoshi-kun, you were-- it’s alright, we don’t have to--”
“I meant it.”
Satori’s eyes lifted from where they had fallen to the table, his hands stalling where he had moved them to gesture in front of himself dismissively. The chiseled face he found staring at him was still characteristically neutral, almost stern, but that tiny furrow was back.
“All of it.”
“Oh.” Tendou replied, still shocked, then internally cursed.
“I do apologize if this is awkward, I realize we’ve never spoken about these things before.”
“No, it’s-- I mean yeah, it’s hecka awkward, but that’s okay.”
“I see.” More silence, more unspoken expectations, a pause that was a little too long to be anything but uncomfortable before Ushijima spoke again. “I don’t understand what it means to be attracted to someone.” The admission was not really a surprise given their conversation the night before, though it seemed to make him uneasy; he dropped his eyes to the ground, momentarily appearing… smaller . “But I have read poems about love.”
Tendou couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face or the thought that ran through his head: of course you have.
“And they describe very closely the way I have felt about you for some time.”
This time, all the expectations in the silence were directed at Tendou, who was staring in wide-eyed surprise at his very best friend in the entire world - which he could say for certain, having traveled all the way across it by that point. His brain was having a hard time keeping up and he briefly wished he had had the foresight to take at least a sip of coffee before the conversation had started. When Wakatoshi’s eyes fell again, it startled him to his feet.
“Well don’t do that!” he sputtered, nearly knocking both scalding beverages over in the process of skirting around the edge of the kitchen island. “I just-- I thought it was obvious that I love you!”
More silence, no longer uncomfortable. Ushijima’s gaze was wide and shocked for the few seconds it took for the flush to creep up over Satori’s face, dying him nearly the same color as his hair.
“Nothing is ever obvious to me, Tendou.”
Any tension left in the smaller man evaporated instantly, gone behind a rush of laughter. Tendou had to cover his face with one hand, his other reaching out to rest on his companion’s shoulder for the support he could undoubtedly give. When he was able to suck in a full and proper breath, Satori finally looked up through laugh-wet eyes and found his dearest friend with a gentle smile on his face and affection in his gaze.
“Your coffee is going to get cold,” Wakatoshi pointed out, just the littlest bit less stiff than usual, and a grin pressed into Satori’s cheeks. Both of them took a seat at the table - beside each other, not across - and Ushijima opened the bakery bag to carefully unpack a single chocolate croissant.
“How did you even manage to order coffee in a French bakery, Wakatoshi?”
“It was quite difficult for everyone involved, I am sure.”
“Uh-huh…” Tendou tilted his head playfully and glanced sideways at Ushijima, who continued to focus intently on the pastry even as he set his smartphone down on the table.
“I have a translator on my phone.”
Tendou snorted with laughter and almost choked on his coffee in the process; Wakatoshi smiled quietly to himself and lifted his hazel eyes to watch the amusement he had never once tired of play out across features that reminded him of home.