Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Didn’t we agree we were going to bring lawn chairs to the next fire call?” Bokuto whines rather loudly as he leans against the rig, tracing his fingers against the red and white paint stripes that looked more orange in the light of the dimming fire.

Daichi tuts back, “Looks unprofessional. Take a break in the rig if you need it.”

“But our poor, poor new recruit! She looks so sweaty and tired and bored!” Bokuto gestures widely to Yachi. “Aren’t you? Um...what’s your name again?”

The Captain slaps his arm. “Yachi Hitoka. Christ,” he swears quietly and turns to Yachi, apologetic. “I am so sorry for him. I would say he’s not like this all the time, but he definitely is like this all the time.” 

“Oh! Um! It’s okay!” Yachi waves her arms in wild dismissal and nearly gags as she feels the sweat underneath her arms slide. 

“Are you feeling a little hot, though? There’s water inside the rig if you’d like any,” he offers, smiling. He and Bokuto are sweating just as much as she is, though it looked more natural on them as it was accompanied by confidence.

Yachi didn’t have that confidence down yet. Well, it was only her second week in Sendai EMS and only a month since she finished her ride-alongs, but still.

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.” 

“You’re welcome.” He turns to Bokuto. “She’s so polite and respectful to her Captain. You could learn a thing or two from her.” 

They go back to their heat-induced-half-hearted bickering and Yachi goes back to standing stiff straight to perform her assigned task: watch the members of the Sendai Fire Brigade weave in and out, trying to contain the first-alarm fire on the stout but wide building. And they were succeeding, too, with no major hitches. They recovered the only occupant as soon as they got there—the smarmy, middle-aged owner of the old building, trying to jury-rig the fifty-year-old wiring for selling the building as some sort of “industrial studio,” but instead starting an electrical fire that forced him to abandon his hopes of flipping the place. He was completely fine, though he spent a long time hanging around the rig asking for more water and far too much time asking about Yachi’s personal life. Thankfully, Daichi and Bokuto came to her rescue. 

In a strange and morbid way that only a rookie healthcare provider or medical drama watcher could understand, she was hoping for a little more action tonight. Not that she wants anyone to get hurt, but, well, she wants someone to get hurt.

Specifically, she wanted this one firefighter to get hurt. Not badly! Just a little leg laceration or something, something she could see her undo her baggy firefighter pants for and show her the long, lithe legs she knew were hidden underneath. Or, at least, Yachi assumes she’s a woman. It’s just the way she moves, the way she picks up the hose and drags it over and gets all up in with the other guys. 

She’s a badass. She is the pinnacle of a woman thriving in a male-dominated field, while Yachi’s already had patients flirting with her and feels uneasy every time Iwaizumi even lays eyes on her. Or Chief Ukai. Or Kuroo. Or, literally anyone, so maybe it’s not gender-related.

But the way this woman is charging into battle, quite literally fighting fire? She could never be fearful or anxious about anything at all, Yachi can tell. She’s got the qualities of a goddess. 

“Nishinoya! We need to switch it up!” She yells—okay, yeah, a woman, and even her voice is beautiful. “We have to increase the angle by at least fifteen degrees!”

The short man yells back something in return and, like busy little rooks on her command, the men move and change the angle that the fire hose is spraying in. Yachi had made sure to memorize their names as Daichi had pointed them out, despite not really being able to see their faces at all under their gear. The shortest one was Nishinoya. The one who always stood by Nishinoya was Ryuunosuke. The one with the big calves and the scratched-up yellow helmet was Atsumu. The one with the immaculate uniform, on the other hand, was Sakusa. The lanky one with gloves that were a little too short on his wrists and a uniform that hung off his body was Tendou, the lieutenant, who slid up and down the fire ladder like a spider, or maybe like a lizard. And the one with the red helmet who talked in the booming voice with Daichi most frequently was Ushijima, Daichi’s fire counterpart as Captain. 

Daichi didn’t say anything about the woman. He got off-track when Bokuto started blasting music from the radio in the driver’s compartment of the ambulance and decided to lecture him instead of finishing his short biographies of the brigade members. So, that left Yachi to make her own assumptions about her. 

She wonders. She wonders quietly, to herself, as the woman heaves up hoses and yells and commands the whole brigade, even though she isn’t Captain. Her presence seems enough to quell the fire and control the men. 

She’s hypnotizing . 

So hypnotizing, in fact, that Yachi doesn’t even question her motivations when the woman suddenly drops from her spot at the hose and runs into the burning building, ax chucked over her shoulder. 

“Wait, no! Kiyoko!” The one by Nishinoya—Ryuunosuke—yells. “Fuck!” 

( Her name is Kiyoko. That’s her name.)

The pain in the way Ryuunosuke said her name, though, snaps Yachi out of her spell, letting her process what just happened. 

“Uh, Captain,” Yachi asks quietly. “What is she doing?” 

“Freelancing,” Daichi grumbles. “Bokuto, at attention.” 

Bokuto straightens up and they both move to stand by the stretcher, waiting in the road for someone to need it. Yachi follows them and thumbs at her uniform belt loops, feeling the sweat running down the small of her back grow cold. 

Daichi must sense her sudden fear. “It’s alright. Kiyoko’s very sensible, she wouldn’t have done that if she thought there was too much risk. She maybe saw something move inside.” 

“I thought all the occupants of the building were out? That they were cleared to just hose it?” Yachi’s eyes drift to the owner, sitting on the tailgate of one of the support engines. He wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on. Ushijima had taken his helmet off to talk to him, asking questions urgently and pointedly, trying to determine why Kiyoko would have run in like that. 

“Shock makes people narrow-minded. It’s possible he forgot about something inside, like a pet, or she might be going in there to prevent further structural damage, but I don’t know.” Daichi’s stare remains directly ahead as he scans the building, waiting for her return. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. We’re here for that reason only.” 

Yachi can’t argue with that at all. She, like Bokuto, did not particularly enjoy fire calls while she was on ride-alongs. An EMS unit is required to be on-site for any fire of first alarm or higher, so she had been to a few already as a trainee. They end up being either incredibly stressful or incredibly boring. 

This one, however, was in that strange purgatory, the moments before disaster where the medics can only wait until they’re needed. Bokuto is practically humming with energy and Daichi’s gaze keeps getting sharper and sharper, focusing in like a laser on the chaos that had sprung up. 

And then, like a goddess, she emerges from the flames standing tall. In her arms is a blue propane tank, hugged tightly to her chest like a baby, shielded from the burning building. Her face shield is cracked and she’s covered in soot, but she otherwise looks unharmed. 

“Oh, thank God!” Ryuunosuke shouts out. 

Tendou shoots out from where he was stationed at the ladder to take the tank from her, stashing it on the other side of the fire engine where it couldn’t combust. 

“Jesus,” Daichi mumbles, resting his elbows on the stretcher and rubbing his eyes as their hearts reverberate in their chests. “That could have been very bad.” 

“How could he have forgotten he had an actual bomb sitting in a burning building!?” Bokuto cries in reference to the owner. “It could—it could have…” 

“She could have died,” Yachi murmurs. Her heart rate could not come down at all. She charged into the fire to prevent the tank from exploding and collapsing the building or injuring her comrades. She easily could have been right there next to it if it had exploded inside. 

She risked it all. Now she’s even more of a goddess in Yachi’s eyes. A goddess with a gambling streak.

The short one, Nishinoya, has stepped away from the hose to fret over her. The men shuffle to reorganize and, notably, Ryuunosuke isn’t even paying attention to the fire. The show has to go on, though, and the fire has to be put out. 

“Captain D! She’s bleeding!” Nishinoya shouts out.

The three medics all jolt up at attention. Their time has come. How big of a bleed? Where on her body? Is it accompanied by burns? What supplies should they start preparing—

Yachi’s being left behind with her thoughts. She starts running with the rest of them to keep up, feeling the sweat start running down her back again as she pumps her short legs to match the strides of the tall paramedics with her. 

Daichi gets to her first, naturally, taking off her helmet carefully and examining the source of the blood with soft fingers on her face. The crack on her face shield is ragged and has torn the delicate skin around her orbital bone. Bright red capillary blood runs down her face, carving a river through the soot clouding her skin. 

“I’m fine, seriously, it’s only a scratch,” she says, brushing off Nishinoya and holding her hand out to stop Ushijima from fretting over her, too. “It was dark and I ran into a strut on the north wall that broke the shield. That was all that happened.” 

“Are you sure you did not hit your head?” Ushijima asks. Yachi nearly jumps at the depth of his voice, despite having heard it before. 

She stands up a little straighter to face her commanding officer. “Yes, sir.” 

“Good, then. I am taking you off-duty regardless, the situation is controlled.” Ushijima faces Daichi. “I turn her over to you, Captain.” 

Yachi watches in mild fascination as the two captains stare each other down, challenging each other’s authority with their puffed-out chests and strong-jutting jaws. The firemen called Daichi Captain as well, which she thought was interesting, considering the fire department owned the EMS department on paper. But, Daichi had that air of confident authority about him. So did Ushijima, sure, but that might have been rooted in his tall stature and generally intimidating presence. Daichi had the psychological characteristics of a leader in addition to his musculature, though, and that shone through. 

He was Captain to everyone—even the goddess firefighter. His strong, reassuring hand on her shoulder leads the group over to the ambulance without any fight. Bokuto pops open the cabin doors, flicking on the fluorescent lights as Daichi slides on gloves and palpates the three-centimeter wound on her face a bit more carefully. 

“Good news, you don’t need stitches.” He turns to Yachi, grinning encouragingly. “Why don’t you dress the wound, Yachi?” 

Yachi flinches. “Uh? Me?” She asks, slightly dumbly, like Daichi wanted her to treat the Queen of England. 

Daichi cocks his head at her. “Um. Yeah. It’s just a facial lac. You know where everything is, right? Go for it.” 

“Y-Yes, sir.” Great, she’s made herself look stupid in front of her new commanding officer, Bokuto, and the Goddess. This is her first fire assignment, she can’t screw it up or she’ll be fired or never get her paramedic certs or have to go enlist in the military since she decided not to go to college and her mother warned her about this and she should have listened but instead here she is—

“Are you alright?” The Goddess asks softly, breaking her out of her spiraling thoughts. “The heat’s not too strong, is it?” 

“No, no!” Yachi eeps out. “Here! Um, go ahead and sit!” She pats the bench along the edge of the ambulance wall and starts busying herself with finding the materials she needs to dress the wound. 

She turns around abruptly when she hears the thud of heavy clothing hitting the steel floor of the cab. The Goddess has peeled off her soot-covered turnout gear, leaving her in only a tank top and jeans. Although she’s a far cry from naked, something about it makes Yachi’s heart rate speed up—the way sweat dots her pristine skin, beading at her hairline and shoulders and staining a small vertical line down the top of her chest. The way her sports bra sticks out a bit. The way she looks slightly more human now, without all the gear, but even more beautiful than before. 

She did have nice legs. Yachi was right. 

“Sorry. It was hot and I didn’t want to get soot inside your ambulance.” She folds her uniform inside-out and plops it on the grass outside the ambulance. 

“Uh, yeah, no problem, sure, of course,” Yachi stutters out four affirmative phrases in rapid succession. What is happening to her? “Here, take some water.” 

“Thank you,” she says, accepting the bottle Yachi extends to her and sitting down on the bench. She tilts her head up, drinking, and Yachi can see the soft curve where her jawline meets her neck. “I’m Kiyoko, by the way. Captain D mentioned you were new?” 

“Um, yes, I started two weeks ago with a couple of other recruits,” Yachi confirms, setting her armful of supplies down on the bench. “My name’s Yachi Hitoka.” 

“Yachi,” she says as if tasting the way her name feels on her tongue. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

“L-Likewise!” That’s it, it’s official, she’s losing her mind. Where did Daichi and Bokuto go? She could not do this, she’s impaired and cannot be on duty right now. “Um! So! I’ll clean it first.” 

Yachi gets to work, cleaning her face of soot quietly. Her skin is milky white under the collection of ash, though there are splotches of red flush from the heat across her cheeks. Or maybe it’s a blush, but Yachi won’t flatter herself for thinking it’s because of her. Kiyoko has to realize that Yachi’s fingers are shaking—it’s super obvious and much worse than normal—but she either chooses to ignore it or doesn’t care. 

Yachi puts gentle pressure on the wound over her left orbital, feeling blood seep through the gauze she had on it through her gloves. “This was really close to your eye. You’re, uh. You’re lucky the strut didn’t hit a few millimeters over.” 

“I know,” she hums, then winces when Yachi unconsciously puts more pressure on. 

“Ah, sorry,” Yachi covers. She loosens the pressure, satisfied when she peeks at the gauze and the bleeding has stopped. “Good, this looks fine.” 

“Captain Ushijima can be rather protective. It was only a scratch, I could have kept working,” Kiyoko grumbles, though not in an ugly manner. Her eyes dart out to look at the rapidly darkening fire. 

Her eyebrows knit as she gets frustrated and it affects Yachi’s work with the laceration—she reaches up with her fingers and smooths the skin under her brow. “Sorry. Just, um, relax. If you can. It looks like they have everything under control, and the whole reason we’re here is to help during moments like these. Could you hold that there for a moment?” 

Yachi gets Kiyoko to hold the old gauze to her face as she moves to cut new gauze and tape to secure it. She gets a nice rectangle of folded-over gauze, small enough to not impair her vision but large enough to cover the arc of the laceration. 

“You’re very adept,” Kiyoko observes quietly. “How long have you been in healthcare?” 

“Oh! Thanks!” Yachi glows under the compliment. “Not that long, really! I candy-striped while I was in high school and volunteered at the local station. Just did basic stuff, really. Prepared supplies and all that. So I guess that’s why this part feels easy,” she dismisses. “You can let go now.” 

Kiyoko releases her finger from the gauze, letting Yachi replace it quickly with the nicely-shaped one and tape it down using thin strips of adhesive. “Or, maybe you’re just talented.” 

Yachi has to stare at her for a minute. Nothing in her expression seemed dishonest—in fact, she seemed to be one of the most honest people Yachi’s ever met. 

“Well, thank you,” Yachi murmurs. She releases her fingers from the dressing and removes her gloves with care, feeling the tremor in her hands grow quiet. “That...actually, that means a lot.” 

“It was only the truth.” Kiyoko stands up and hops out of the ambulance with grace. “Thank you, Yachi.” 

“You’re very welcome.” Yachi tries not to sound too enthusiastic, trying to keep it casual, play it cool. 

Kiyoko studies her, narrowing her eyes and cocking her head. “I need to be able to thank you properly.” 

Play it cool. “Oh, really, it’s no problem—” 

“Can I buy you a drink at Terushima’s?” 

“Um!” Great, back to not playing it cool at all. “Terushima’s?” 

“It’s a dive not far from the station. Have you been? I know the EMS guys like it, too, not just the brigade.” 

“N-No, I haven’t been,” Yachi answers quickly. She had heard some of the guys talk about some bar they went to, but Yachi didn’t enquire further on it. She’s not a huge drinker and she only just turned twenty. 

But maybe, tonight, she should be. Kiyoko is offering. The Goddess is buying her a drink. 

Maybe she...maybe she’s asking her out. In a romantic way. Maybe. Just maybe. Yachi won’t get her hopes up, but maybe. 

“I would enjoy that,” Yachi says, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. 

Kiyoko smiles—it’s small but radiant enough to reassure Yachi that she was playing it cool. Cool enough. “Great, then. You can come in your uniform, everybody else does.” 

Kiyoko gathers the turnout gear she had discarded onto the ground previously, smiles once more, then walks off to her fire engine with purpose. 

Yachi has to just stand there for a moment, recovering and trying not to stare too hard at her graceful legs and skinny back and the...the graceful curve of her neck. Even her freakin’ neck is hot. She just got asked out by said hot neck owner. On a date? Questionable. But definitely out . 

Kiyoko is a firefighter and the only female one in the brigade. Yachi hates thinking this way, but her immediate response to this information is that she may be more than straight . That also might just be wishful thinking. Yachi tends to get ahead of herself like that. 

But there isn’t any evidence to the contrary right now. Especially as Yachi watches Kiyoko nudge off the men surrounding her, including the clingest, most vocal one—Ryuunosuke. He’s taken off his helmet now, showing off his buzzed head, and somehow that fits Yachi’s inner caricature of him. 

She doesn’t like him, she’s decided. Not one bit.

Coming out to her mother was probably not the best choice, in retrospect.

Telling anything to her mother was not the best choice, actually. But Yachi is not a secretive person and never has been, especially not to her mother. 

It had to happen to relieve the rocks in Yachi’s gut, weighing her down with the knowledge of her being not-quite-straight, and it went over about like this: 

“Um! Mom!” 

“Yes?” 

She didn’t look up from her computer. Yachi had made her a cup of coffee and it sat, untouched and ignored, on the table. The curls of steam from the mug were the only things Yachi could focus on to keep herself from bursting into tears. 

“I have something to tell you.” 

A sigh. “Then tell.” 

She needed to say what she had practiced in front of her bathroom mirror for the last five months. What plagued her mind every time she even glanced at a woman. The secret she held within herself, that weighted her gut and hung on her shoulders so heavily until she felt like she was being buried alive. The fact that she couldn’t decide, that she was “confused,” that she wasn’t sure what was happening because she liked boys and girls , thought about them both , and that was confusing . She was confused. She needed to tell. 

Yachi decided to look at the steam curling instead of getting caught up in her own thoughts and backing out. It was like a little tiny dragon, full of courage for the brief moment that it lived. 

“I, um. I like girls!” Yachi said with full conviction. “I like girls and boys.” 

That makes her mother look up from her computer. She studies her daughter with piercing, searching eyes, narrowing until they suddenly release and she goes back to looking at her computer. 

“Fine, honey.” 

Yachi lets out a long, long sigh, finally allowing the tears to run down her face. Her mother is okay with her being this way. She’s fine . Her mother thinks she is fine and she’ll be fine and—

“Just don’t tell anyone else that. Don’t be foolish.” 

“What’ll you have, ladies?” The blonde bartender leans over the oak, grinning as he looks straight at Kiyoko’s boobs. His tongue piercing glints in the low light of the smoky bar as he licks his lips. 

Another guy on Yachi’s hit list now. Perfect, great, this isn’t jealousy, it’s just her being upset about the abject objectification of a fellow woman. 

“Gin and tonic, heavy on the lime,” Kiyoko says simply, standing up a little taller and turning to Yachi. “And you?” 

She got a cocktail. That means Yachi can get a cocktail as well. She would have been fine with just a beer if Kiyoko had gotten that. What should she get, then? What’s the right drink for the atmosphere?

She never knows the names of cocktails and she can’t remember what she usually gets, so she blanks and says the first thing off the top of her head. “Um. Rum and coke.” 

“Gotcha.” He spins on his heel, grabbing glasses and busying himself with the drinks. “Corner table’s still open, I’ll bring it over.” 

Kiyoko nods and leads Yachi over to said table, nestled between a lone pachinko machine and the exposed brick wall. “So, this is where I usually sit.” 

As they take their spots, Yachi can see why she might like this viewpoint: the entirety of the dive is in their field of vision here. A mix of Western and traditional elements clash around the space. Two pool tables take up the majority of free space in the room, which definitely wasn’t intended to be a bar. It maybe used to be an office space, but the way it was tucked into the side street in a seedy part of town makes Yachi question what it really was. In the back left corner sits card tables, seated by older men and women playing mahjong and some sort of poker, and with what looks like that Sakusa guy. Hundred-yen coins clink as they’re exchanged between players. Over towards the right had the bar, a single slot machine, a single claw machine, some TVs playing sports, and a younger-looking crowd, including some of the fire brigade. They were crowded around a lone arcade game setup, betting on the little one, Nishinoya, playing Pac-Man. How anyone could bet on Pac-Man, Yachi didn’t know.

“How do you bet on Pac-Man?” Yachi decides to ask when Kiyoko notices she’s watching them. 

“Not very productively,” Kiyoko says, laughing something soft. Yachi laughs with her. “If you couldn’t tell, this is kind of a gambling institution. I hope you’re okay with that. Terushima gives us a first-responder discount since we’re really his only customers.” 

Yachi laughs again at her quip but quiets when she sees the man approach again, balancing the drinks in his hands.

“Gin and tonic—heavy on lime, I didn’t forget—and rum and coke,” he says, voice thick with flirtation. His hungry gaze moves to Yachi. “Haven’t seen you around here, miss.” 

Yachi panics momentarily, but Kiyoko glares at him. “Lay off on her, she’s new.” 

“Well, welcome to my humble establishment, then,” Terushima says, squinting to see her nameplate under her uniform badge. “Yacchan. For you, hourly pool rate of five hundred yen, half-price.” 

Kiyoko glares at him again when he uses the casual nickname off the bat, but Yachi doesn’t mind too much. He’s...being hospitable, at least. “Thank you, sir.” 

“Just Terushima.” He winks at the both of them and heads back to the bar. 

There are a few beats of silence while they sip their drinks, watching the cramped dive hum. Nishinoya must not have won—bills are exchanged and he slinks off towards the bar, deflated. 

The front door jingles; in walks Captain Daichi and a man Yachi had never seen before, hair silvery in the low lights. They hold hands unabashedly and whisper in each other’s ears when they sit at the bar. Terushima doesn’t even take their order—he brings them a single cigar and a glass of dark liquor without any prompt. They take turns puffing and sipping, their ankles intertwined under their barstools.

Together. Sharing. Two men.

Five things run through Yachi’s mind at this point in quick succession. 

Number one: her commanding officer is gay. In this bar. Unabashedly. He and his date are now shotgun kissing with the cigar, mouths open, exchanging smoke in a way that looks so intimate that Yachi almost feels bad for watching. She can smell it from over here—rich and sweet but also biting, with a depth that Yachi cannot understand. She doesn’t have enough experience. 

...With cigars or being openly gay. Either one.

Number two: this means it’s probably okay for her to be gay, too. This fact is only lingering at the surface of her brain currently and she doesn’t engage with it any longer than acknowledging the sharp burst of electricity it sends through her. 

Number three: this may be a gay bar. Tohoku is not known for its LGBTQ community, to say the least, which means that it’s not just a coincidence that people in this bar are gay. 

Number four: there is a non-zero probability that Kiyoko took her out to a gay bar . 

Number five: ...she couldn’t quite verbalize that thought. 

While she compartmentalizes this, she looks away from her Captain, hoping to any God out there that he didn’t know she was watching. She looks anywhere but at Kiyoko, finding her eyes settling back over to the card table. Atsumu had moved from the arcade to stand over the cardshark firefighter, Sakusa. He tugs at Sakusa’s sleeve, curling his fingers around his jaw while Sakusa glowers, turning away but pointedly not forcibly removing Atsumu’s hand. 

The fire department has gay guys, too? What workplace dynamic did Yachi just stumble into?

Yachi swivels her head around when she hears Kiyoko giggles quietly into her gin and tonic. “I suppose you didn’t know.” 

“No,” she murmurs. “I don’t think I know anything anymore.” 

The giggle turns into a laugh. “Ask away, then.” 

“...Is this a gay bar?” Yachi whispers, feeling a blush rise up her neck.

“Not officially, no,” Kiyoko answers. She swirls her drink and rolls her eyes, gesturing to Terushima behind the bar with her glass. “I’ve learned the story of this place over the years. Apparently, he inherited this place after his parents got divorced and he graduated from college. He wanted to find a way to modernize it, so he added some Western gambling opportunities, and he decided since the stations were so near here that he’d offer a discount to the fire and EMS people. And...well, the fact that many of them are gay meant that Terushima needed to, uh, let that behavior continue to keep customers, I suppose. He doesn’t want to put a label on it to drive anyone away.” 

“Does it not...what about…” Yachi looks towards the old ladies and men, not phased at all by what’s happening. 

Kiyoko’s eyes meet where she was pointing and then raises her brows in recognition. “Oh, them? They’re all regulars. They, uh. This is a house of vices, if you like, and the fact that some of the patrons are gay doesn’t take away from their game at all. They’re just...participating in other vices.” 

“Oh,” Yachi says blandly, still comprehending that there is a place in public where these people—her coworkers —can be gay without any immediate repercussions. Which, y’know, she’s still trying to fathom that her Captain is gay. “Do you know the guy Captain is with?” 

“Oh, yeah. That’s Sugawara,” she hums. Her cheeks have turned a gentle pink from her drink. “Sweet guy. He’s the first-grade teacher at the elementary school down the road and he’s been dating Daichi for...God, I don’t even know at this point, I guess maybe four years? They started while Suga was in college. I didn’t know Daichi was gay while we were in high school, so that was a surprise.” 

Yachi sits back. So Kiyoko was closer to him than Yachi thought. “You went to high school with the Captain?” 

She nods, smiling fondly. Evidently, she liked high school. “Mmhm. Karasuno High. It’s a ways out from Sendai, but most everyone in the brigade and on your rescue squad is from Miyagi.” She pauses and turns away from looking at Daichi to look at Yachi. “Where are you from?” 

“Here, in Sendai. I went to EMT training in Tokyo, though.”

“Ah, nice.” 

The short conversation dies, slightly awkwardly on Yachi’s behalf, but there wasn’t much else they could say. Yachi sure wasn’t going to say anything. She lets her eyes drift around, settling them at the pool table; she watches while a couple—a straight couple, actually, which helps Yachi’s blood pressure—twists chalk over their cues.

“Do you play?” Kiyoko asks.

“Hm?” 

“Billiards.” 

“Oh. Well, not all that well,” Yachi admits. Her dad had a pool table in his basement, something old and dusty he had bought from overseas, and the two of them would play when they had weekends together. Pool halls aren’t even that common in Japan; it was honestly surprising to see one here. But can she even be surprised by anything anymore? 

“Would you like to play eightball?” Kiyoko has a grin on her face as she takes a long drag from her drink, challenging her. 

Yachi takes a deep breath and meets her gaze, hopefully matching her level of determination. “Why not?” 

Kiyoko grins even wider and stands up from their corner table. “I’ll go pay for the hour. Would you like another drink?” 

Yachi glances down—she had emptied it like nothing. She probably shouldn’t have another; she needs her wits about her if Kiyoko were to make a move. “Maybe just a water?” 

“Sure.” She turns and walks back over to the bar, handing Terushima a few bills. Yachi sees her lean over towards Daichi and the date, Sugawara, exchanging a few words with a small, shy smile. She had loosened up significantly with Yachi after her drink, but if Yachi weren’t mistaken, it looks like she’s more reserved with men. 

That’s a good sign , some unchained, horny part of Yachi thinks. 

Sugawara, spurred by whatever Kiyoko said, suddenly beams and waves to Yachi from across the room. His features glow in the bar lights—Yachi has to admit, he’s rather beautiful. She waves back a little smaller, mostly in her fingertips, while Daichi looks on with an intense blush and a purely professional head-nod. 

Yachi takes the liberty of grabbing two cues, chalking them both with careful flicks of her wrist. How much chalk does Kiyoko like on her cue? Yachi doesn’t want to seem like a total amateur, just spinning the chalk because she has no idea what else to do, but that’s just what’s happening. She gets red chalk on her fingertips and reflexively rubs it off on her work slacks, then regrets it when a red streak covers her pant leg. Already screwed it up. Great. 

“Oh, thank you,” Kiyoko says as she comes back, placing Yachi’s water and her second drink on the edge of the pool table. “But I actually play with my own cue.” 

She walks past Yachi, opening up a closet door along the wall and pulling out a cue case. Inside lies a mahogany work of art, inlaid with mother of pearl and engraved with her name gracefully at the collar of the cue. Tanaka Kiyoko . She must come here often, considering she keeps her cue here. And that means she’s probably very good. 

What did Yachi sign herself up for?

“Oh!” Yachi fumbles, trying to get her fingers to work as she puts the extra house cue back on the rack. “Wow, that’s beautiful.” 

“Thank you.” Kiyoko’s hair flips as she looks up at her, holding the cue with skill and intention. “It was a gift.” 

Yachi struggles to continue the line of the conversation, determined not to let it die like last time. “So, um, do you play often?” 

“I play when I’m here,” she says ambiguously. “It depends on my work schedule and...what the boys are doing.” 

She tips her head over towards the guys in the fire brigade, who have now moved on to bet on a volleyball game on TV noisily. Again, Yachi finds herself wondering how betting on that even works. 

“Would you like to break?” Kiyoko asks. She had lined up the triangle, pulling the rack away to reveal a perfectly aligned grouping of the colorful balls on the green felted table. 

Yachi holds her hands up. “Ah, no, no, you can!” 

“Alright,” she says and positions herself opposite the triangle of balls. 

She leans down, holding the tip of the cue in the divot of her thumb and forefinger, her gaze intensifying and narrowing towards the cue ball. Her eyes are deep, deep blue, like the two-ball.

Yachi moves on from that jurisdiction of her beauty and tries not to look at her perky, curving butt, poking upwards as she prepares to break. She fails. 

Kiyoko pulls her cue back, takes a breath, and shoots it forward. A loud crack resounds in the bar as the triangle shatters upon intersection with the cue ball and the billiard balls go zooming in several directions. The two-ball lands in the left corner pocket. 

The men turn away from their volleyball game to cheer and whistle. 

“Thunderpool!” The little one, Nishinoya, claps and exclaims, “That’s my girl!” 

“She is not your girl,” Ushijima’s voice booms. 

Kiyoko stands up from the break position, ignoring the men. “Sorry about that. Would you like me to re-break?” 

Yachi shakes her head—Kiyoko had landed a solid ball in the pocket during the break, which technically gave her an unfair advantage. But it wasn’t like Yachi ever stood a chance. “No, no. I’ll take stripes.” 

“Alright then,” she says, continuing with the game. She sinks the six-ball in a clear shot. “So. Are you having trouble with the boys at your station?” Another shot is taken, but she misses. 

“Uh!” Yachi steps up and aligns her shot (please God don’t let me slip and rip the felt with my cue that would be so embarrassing please God) , sinking the brown fifteen-ball (thanks, God) . “Not really, no! Everyone is really nice. Well, the two other new guys fight sometimes—they fought while we were in training, too—but they never really bother me.” Hinata and Kageyama were actually rather respectful towards her; she had helped them study for the national cert exam, which somehow made her an untouchable genius in their eyes. 

“I’m glad to hear that.” Kiyoko leans on her cue, raising her brow when Yachi makes a ricochet shot off the cushions. Thirteen-ball in. “Nice shot.” 

“Thank you.” 

Yachi tries not to let her hands shake as she pulls back from a scratch—foul. Kiyoko picks the cue ball up and places it for another clear shot; the three-ball sinks. 

“But, um, what about you? The fire guys seem, ah…” 

“A little more promiscuous, hm?” Kiyoko shrugs and rolls her eyes. “They’re only men. Not too hard to handle in the end.” 

They’re only men. 

Sink, sink, sink. Kiyoko’s only got the four-ball left, while Yachi’s still got six striped balls left on the table. She’s being thrashed. 

Yachi stammers as she misses another shot. “But all those hours at the station with only guys...how do you…are you...” 

Are you queer? she wants to blurt. But the front door jingles loudly and they both turn; in comes that one guy with the shaved head, panting like he ran all the way down the street. 

“Ryuu! Finally!” Nishinoya calls from the bar. 

He ignores him and sprints straight to the pool table. “Kiyoko! Chief Washijo made me clean the fucking rig because Ushiwaka snitched on me for being distracted during the call, that’s why I’m late, I...damn, baby, you had me so worried!” 

He touches the dressing on her face carefully, then pulls her in for perhaps the tightest hug Yachi has ever seen. 

Does she need to intervene? Who the hell even is this guy?

But she returns it, squeezing around his waist tightly. “I’m fine, Ryuu. Promise.” 

Okay, maybe they’re good friends. He did seem to care about her during the fiasco at the fire. 

His face screws up as he pulls away. “If you say so. But don’t do that again! Ki-chan, what if you—” 

“I didn’t.” Kiyoko places a finger on his lips. 

Ki-chan . They’re only friends, they’re only friends, they’re only friends—

They kiss right in front of Yachi’s eyes, subdued and careful and familiar. 

It is now that Yachi notices the thin gold bands on their ring fingers, like she had somehow selectively blocked that out. 

It is now that Yachi drops her cue. 

They pull away at the sound of the cue dropping, clattering on the tile of the bar floor. 

“Oh, here.” The man reaches down and picks it up for her with a smile. “You fixed my wife up, right? Thanks a bunch. I’m Tanaka Ryuunosuke.” 

Tanaka. The same as the engraving on Kiyoko’s cue. He extends his hand to Yachi and she shakes it reflexively. 

Foolish.

Suga laughs, high and melodic, sloshing the scotch in his glass as he slaps his hand on the bar. “You—wait, lemme get this straight—” 

“ Straight? ” 

“Stop! You...last year, when you joined up, you fell in love with Kiyoko, assuming she had taken you to a gay bar, and her husband shows up to crush your entire fantasy?” Suga wheezes. “That’s horrible!” 

“It wasn’t her fault,” Yachi concedes, her laughter dying slowly. “It was all me. Infatuation always comes with a fall.”

“Oh, you can’t really control crushes, that’s not your fault,” Suga dismisses her. “Has she ever found out?” 

Yachi nearly spits out her beer. “No, oh my God.” 

“What happened after?” 

“I was a complete wreck.” Even though she’s feeling a pleasant high from the alcohol and by simply being in Suga’s presence—they had gotten to be good friends and confidantes in the last year—she recoils at the thought, feeling that embarrassment full-frontal. “She sunk the eight-ball thirty seconds later and then beat me two more times.” 

“Ouch,” Suga winces. “Well, bright side, you guys look like good friends now.” 

“We are,” Yachi breathes. For that, she’s always thankful. “Y’know, it can be weird working with only guys, even if a bunch of them at the station are gay, so I’m always really happy to have her as a friend.” 

“I know that has to suck, though.” 

Yachi shrugs. “I’m—I would be lying if I said I was over it, but it’s gotten better. Ryuunosuke is a good person and I am not a homewrecker. Friends is better than nothing and I really would be a fool to ruin that by mentioning...anything.” 

“Probably wise,” Suga hums. He adjusts the glasses on his face and massages the bridge of his nose. “These stupid fucking headaches. I’ve turned into a lightweight since the accident.” 

“Maybe you should stop,” Yachi murmurs, pulling the scotch away from him with a bit of hesitation and looks up towards the bartender, swiping on his phone on something that looks suspiciously like Tinder and suspiciously had pictures of both guys and girls. “Terushima, could we get a water?” 

He nods and slides them a glass, then goes right back to Tinder. 

“You’re always taking care of people,” Suga says without a hint of flattery as he sips at the water. “I’m trying to think of some sort of, I don’t know, inspiring and poignant words about straight crushes, but I don’t think anything I say will help at this point.” 

“I’m not even really actively looking for a relationship right now, too busy studying for my EMT-A exam. So, no worries.” Yachi shrugs. “But thanks anyway. How are things with Daichi? A successful gay relationship story will help me.” 

He smiles, but there’s a hint of something darker along the edges of his eyes. “Things are great, for the most part. I tried to convince him to come tonight, but he’s been working himself to the bone.” 

“He has been putting a lot of hours in recently.” Yachi cocks her head and considers whether she wants to continue that line of thinking. “Everything’s okay at home?” 

“Oh, yeah. He’s just worried about bills and all that.” Suga grins cheekily. “I keep telling him I’m gonna win the lottery one of these days and that’ll fix it all.” 

Yachi snorts. “Well, good luck with the lottery.” 

He sighs and sits back with his water, looking a bit more relaxed. “I also think he’s going to propose soon. He’s antsy and he’s circled a date in his calendar without putting a memo next to it.” 

This wasn’t really surprising, but Yachi expresses it anyway. “Wha—Really? That’s amazing! Congratulations in advance!” 

Suga waves his hands. “Well, we joke about it a lot, and it wouldn’t really mean anything in this country, but...yeah. Things are good. Love is not dead, Yacchan, especially not gay love.” 

She takes another drag of her beer, trying not to focus too hard on how much it twists at her heart to hear it. “Hope you’re right.” 

“You don’t have to hope. You only have to know.” Suga smiles at her, and then the smile morphs into a grin as he gets to thinking about something. “Look, I’ve gone and upset you. I know what’ll cheer you up.” 

She narrows her eyes. “Do not ask me to play—” 

He’s dragging her off towards the pool table before she can finish the sentence.