Archive of Our Own ^beta

Agon loved to drop by Hiruma’s place unannounced, and it was really starting to piss Hiruma off. It was such an obvious power play, to make Hiruma drop whatever he was doing and attend to Agon’s whims. It didn’t matter what time of day it was: Agon would come over mornings or evenings, or even at night. Even right at dinner time. Right when Hiruma was sitting down with a cheap convenience store meal, thinking he would finally get a moment of peace—that was exactly when Agon would start knocking on his door.

And Agon knocked on doors like he was trying to blast them off their hinges. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could ignore while you finished your food. Knowing this, Hiruma grudgingly covered his meal and went to the door. He only opened it a crack and peered out suspiciously, as though he didn’t already know exactly who was on the other side.

“Oh Agon, what a surprise. I wasn’t expecting you,” he snapped. “Did you lose your phone or something?”

“Why would I need it?” Agon shoved his way in and then leaned his back against the door, closing it with a click. “You’re always here waiting for me.”

He said it with an infuriating little smile, and Hiruma knew he thought he was being so smooth. But it was a ridiculous thing to say. Outside of sleeping, Hiruma hardly spent any time at all in his room. Agon seemed to have an uncanny ability to catch him at home, but that was because Hiruma never knew about Agon’s failures. It was likely that Agon came over whenever he had time, and that he often pounded on a door that had no one behind it.

The idea of Agon awkwardly shuffling away from Hiruma’s empty apartment, shoulders hunched, was pretty funny. Hiruma idly wondered how much trouble it would be to install a door camera.

Agon was still leaning against the door, the same cocky expression on his face. He always was unduly proud of his cheesy lines. But two could play that game.

Hiruma slammed one hand on the door beside Agon’s head. He leaned in close, mirroring that insufferable expression. “So, did you come over for dinner? I have curry,” he dropped his voice a register. “But you look like you want something sweeter.”

The disgusted reaction on Agon’s face immediately made him double over laughing. Then, just as he was about to straighten up, Agon elbowed him in the stomach and set his off again.

“Come on, baby,” Hiruma kept up the same corny voice and grabbed Agon’s waist, steadying himself. “I know you’re hungry for me.”

“I’ll bite your fucking tongue off if you don’t shut up.”

Hiruma scoffed, but even then, he was leaning towards Agon’s face, getting closer, breathing the same air—

Something almost as loud as Agon’s knocking thumped on the other side of the door. The two of them instantly froze next to each other, compromisingly close and wide-eyed. They listened to the sound of someone shuffling around in the hall.

“You have neighbors?” Agon asked, his voice barely audible.

“It’s a hotel,” Hiruma half shrugged. “People come and go.”

The sound was already retreating. There were a few more seconds of faint rustling, then the click of a door opening and closing down the hall. It was probably just some businessman; maybe a drunk who’d forgotten his room number. Hiruma relaxed, leaning his loose body against Agon’s still-tense one like a constrictor wrapped on a branch.

Even after a couple attempts to prod him, Agon remained stiff, seemingly lost in thought. Finally, Hiruma sighed and asked, “What is it now?”

That made Agon’s eyes snap back into focus. He regarded Hiruma coldly. Then, his tightly-clenched jaw opened just a little to say, “If anyone finds out about this, I’ll kill you. You know that, right?”

“Keh. Not if I kill you first,” Hiruma answered playfully. He dug his fingers into Agon’s sides, knowing there was a spot there where even the dragon himself was ticklish.

But Agon grabbed his shoulders and forced him back in a fierce grip. “Don’t test me.”

His voice was gritty, but there was a little warble of desperation in it, too.

Immediately, Hiruma smacked one of the hands off his shoulder. Agon released the other one at the same time, letting them both fall back to his sides. Silently, Hiruma turned away and walked across the room to the couch.

The two of them had been together for a while—long enough that Hiruma had hoped they were past this kind of thing. But maybe it was never going to go away completely. Insecurity was a normal part of any relationship. Hiruma knew that, because it was printed in the little advice column of the newspaper, just below the sports results. When one member of a couple was struggling to express their feelings, it was best if their partner tried to meet them on a common level.

It would be nice of him to reassure Agon, to tell him that he related to his fears and that their relationship wasn’t a competition. It would be nice of him to be patient and understanding, and to help Agon work through his deep-seated issues.

“So how would you kill me?”

Agon shifted slightly. “What?”

“You heard what I said,” Hiruma folded his arms on his chest. “Don’t I have a right to know? It affects me.”

“I could kill you any time I wanted. I don’t need a plan.”

Agon was still looming in the doorway, his face in shadow. Was he trying to look intimidating? Well, Hiruma didn’t scare easily. He knew Agon too well for that. Sure, the guy was a real asshole, but there was nothing close to murder on his record. If you ran the numbers (and god knew Hiruma had), you’d see that Agon actually got into fewer fights than guys half as scary. His bad reputation kept him out of serious trouble. Nobody with half a brain wanted to fight him. All he had to do was show up and the battle was over.

That’s what had attracted Hiruma to him—to working with him, that was. Hiruma could’ve picked any one of a thousand dumb muscleheads to do his legwork. There were plenty of guys who would’ve been easier to control and nicer to work with, but without Agon, the operation wouldn’t have been as smooth. Intimidation worked better than violence. Hurting people made them angry, made them want revenge. But when you could scare a person into giving you what you wanted, that anger turned inward: into shame. The only person they had to hate was themselves.

“Come on,” said Hiruma. “You don’t even have a gun.”

Slowly, Agon’s dark outline moved away from the door. He came over to the couch and perched on its arm, looking down on Hiruma. The lamp beside him cast his face in harsh relief, sharpening the planes of his cheeks into points as he opened his mouth.

“I could take one of yours.”

“You still wouldn’t know how to use it,” Hiruma said. “And what about the noise? Gunshots are awfully loud. What are you going to do when a bunch of witnesses run in on your crime?”

“I’ll kill them, too.”

“A real bloodbath. Better watch out, they hang people for that kind of thing.”

“Not if you’re a teenager, dumbass,” Agon squinted at him. “You should know that.”

Hiruma rolled his eyes, but quickly corrected himself. “For you, I’m sure they’d make an exception.”

“You really think so?” Agon’s voice was almost wistful.

Oh, goddamn it. This whole thing had inadvertently turned into fodder for his gigantic ego. Only Agon would find a description of his own execution flattering.

“Oh, definitely,” Hiruma said, shifting gears a bit. “They’d rewrite the whole penal code just for you. And then you could really forget about keeping us a secret. We’d be international news. ‘History made in Japan, as the state executes its first minor for killing his homo boyfriend and several bystanders in a faggy little lovers’ quarrel.”

“They’re going to write ‘faggy’ in the newspaper?”

“That’s going to be the whole story, actually. It’ll just be the word ‘faggy,’ in English, with a picture of your face beneath it. And then people will have to turn to page fifty to read about how the hanging was botched and your neck didn’t break right away, so you had to dangle there suffocating for twenty minutes.”

Agon snorted at that, but he also slid down onto the actual couch, finally sitting beside Hiruma. He kicked his feet up on the coffee table and slung one arm over the seatback. His fingers barely grazed Hiruma’s shoulder—like he thought he was being subtle. Part of Hiruma wanted to tease him for that, but he decided not to. It was kind of nice. Hiruma flipped on the television and the two of them looked at it with unfocused eyes. The discussion seemed forgotten.

Then, after a few minutes, Agon casually asked, “You’re so sure they’d catch me?”

“Who the fuck else would it be?” Hiruma’s voice was mellow, almost dull, as he pretended to be watching a commercial. “If I tell everyone we’re together and then turn up dead the next day, it doesn’t exactly take Detective Conan to crack that dazzling mystery. Besides, the boyfriend is always the number one suspect. Even if you didn’t do it, they’d probably still hang your ass.”

Agon grunted noncommittally.

“Come on, Dreads. I know you’re not as stupid as everyone says you are,” Hiruma said slyly. He turned away from the screen, looking Agon in the face. “Surely you can understand a little cost-benefit analysis.”

“Fine, fine, you got me. I wouldn’t kill you,” Agon huffed. His tightened his grasp around Hiruma’s shoulders and brought his other hand down, trailing under Hiruma’s elbow to gently cup his fingers. “I’d break every bone in your arms instead.”

Hiruma slightly quirked his eyebrows. “Scary.”

Maybe his sarcasm had been subtle enough to soothe Agon’s ego, or maybe it was the rational legal discussion that had calmed his nerves; or maybe Agon secretly liked it when he acted like a brat—Hiruma didn’t know what had done it, but something had caused a shift in Agon’s face. Whatever he’d wanted out of this conversation, he must have gotten it. He leaned in close. Surprisingly, he even pressed his tongue against Hiruma’s lips—something he rarely did, because ‘your fucked up teeth always cut me.’

After that, neither of them said anything for a while.

From Hiruma’s perspective, the whole discussion had been pointless. Who, exactly, did Agon think he was going to run and tell about their relationship? Hiruma didn’t really have friends. And that was what it was; it didn’t bother him. He didn’t care about getting close to people, and everyone at his school was a moron, anyway. The only classmate he interacted with was that fucking fatass who kept following him around. And the two of them weren’t about to start braiding each other’s hair and giggling about boys. As if Hiruma would want anyone to know he’d been with Agon.

As a blackmailer, Hiruma knew that sexuality was the most valuable information in the world. In terms of destructive potential, it made state secrets look like small-town gossip. People’s odd fetishes and extramarital affairs were always getting them into trouble. For safety, all relationship information should be kept closely guarded. And that went double if you were part of the small percentage of the population that happened to be gay.

There was no tactical advantage to coming out. Hiruma had concluded that based on statistical analysis, which meant it was totally rational and completely untouched by any of his feelings on the subject. And Hiruma could justify his methodology for hours, but that didn’t change the fact that whenever someone asked him what kind of girl he liked, he didn’t feel like a representative of two-to-three percent of his demographic. He felt like the loneliest person on earth.

But whatever. Feelings were stupid.

What Hiruma liked most about playing football was the emotional clarity. He’d watched all kinds of sports as a child—boxing, chess, tennis; you name it—but nothing compared to the feeling of actually being on a team. Each player was part of a colonial organism. The individual didn’t matter; it was all about the common goal. Football was a little like shogi in that way. But more equal. No football player was the king, which meant no one was above sacrifice.

Work together, kill together, and destroy the other team. It didn’t matter how you felt about somebody off the field. Every complicated emotion was burned away under those blazing floodlights. It was all consuming; Hiruma liked letting it consume him.

He got really invested in the game, over the next few months. He memorized the stats of every team in the conference like he expected to be quizzed. His notes for actual classes disappeared in a slew of athletic diagrams. Whenever he was off the gridiron, he seemed to be thinking about getting back on it.

It got to the point where he was running plays every night in his sleep. Darting around his own mind, ready to make a pass. But something was wrong; the wall broke down, and the other team was spilling through. He tried to run but someone sacked him, and he hit the ground so hard it left a ringing in his ears. Ringing. Ringing.

Hiruma grunted awake and threw one hand onto his nightstand to fumble for his phone. When he’d forced his bleary eyes open enough to see who was calling, he groaned.

“Fucking hell, Agon, do you know what time it is?”

“It’s only one,” said the clear voice on the other end. “You used to stay up until three all the time.”

“I didn’t use to have practice at six AM.”

Hiruma grabbed a bottle of water from beside his bed and gargled into the receiver as he drank, just to be obnoxious.

Agon scoffed. “Fucking practice. Between that and school, you’re out of commission from six in the morning to six at night, on a good day. It’s all you do anymore.”

“Not all of us have effortless talent to fall back on, Mr. Blessed-By-The-Gods.”

“You, the lardass, and that ugly bastard are completely inseparable,” Agon continued, as though Hiruma hadn’t spoken. “You’re like Ghidorah’s three heads.”

Hiruma smiled slightly, muttering ‘nerd’ under his breath. Then, because he was in that almost-tipsy state of tiredness and couldn’t remember why he was never supposed to show Agon his heart, he said aloud, “They’re really not so bad. If you came to practice some time, you’d see. You might even like them.”

There was a long pause on the line.

“Are you seriously asking to introduce your boyfriend to your dumb little football club?”

“Of course not,” Hiruma said quickly. “We wouldn’t have to say anything stupid. They already know I know you, so you’d come as my friend. The four of us could hang out, throw the ball around,” he rubbed a hand over his eyes. “You were the one who said we weren’t spending enough time together.”

“I never said that.”

No, he hadn’t said it. But calling someone in the middle of the night did imply certain things.

“What’s your angle with those two, anyway?” Agon asked. “Do you think you’re going to get any good dirt from those morons?”

“I’m not trying to blackmail them,” Hiruma said, feeling unfairly defensive. “They’re my teammates.”

“‘Teammates,’ huh? I guess that means you couldn’t find anything as damning on them as what you’ve got on me.”

“I don’t want to blackmail you, either!” said Hiruma, although he had thought about it. He’d dismissed it because it hadn’t been necessary, and because he wasn’t certain it would work. Fear wasn’t the way to control someone like Agon. He had a short temper and couldn’t resist rising to every insult; that was part of what Hiruma liked about him, but it also meant he lacked the anxious foresight of an ideal extortion victim.

Hiruma continued, “Where did you even get the idea that I want to tell everyone you’re a queer? You do realize I couldn’t do that without outing myself too, right?”

“Why should that matter? Everyone already thinks it about you.”

Hiruma pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m hanging up.”

“Wait! Goddamn it, don’t be a little bitch,” Agon exhaled loudly into the receiver.

No one spoke for a moment. Hiruma could hear the whir of the room’s fan; the quiet hum of the minibar in the stuffy darkness.

“You can’t really be jealous of me hanging out with other people,” Hiruma said. “Can you? Not when you still go on dates with girls.”

“I don’t give a shit what you do. And you agreed about the girls,” Agon pointed out. “It would look weird if I suddenly stopped going after them, but it’s not like I do anything serious,” he paused. “But you, you’re serious.”

“Serious about the fatass or the old man? Please, tell me Agon, which one of my extremely handsome classmates do you think I’m cucking you with?”

“Not them. You’re serious about football.”

“Well yeah, of course I’m serious,” said Hiruma, stifling a yawn. “I’ve got a whole thirty-year plan. High school football leads to university football. Then I think I’ll move to the States and play for the NFL And then at forty, I’ll retire and go into politics. You know California, right? Well I’m going to be governor, 2034.”

He’d said it to get a rise out of Agon, and he knew he’d succeeded when he heard derisive laughter crackling through the phone. “How the fuck is playing football supposed to make you a governor?”

“See, it’s questions like that which prove you know nothing about the United States.”

“Unlike you? How many times have you been there, again?”

“My point is, the US political system is practically built around celebrity. Like half their government is made of actors and athletes. Did you know one of their old presidents got his start doing cowboy movies?”

Agon let out another mean-spirited laugh. “Well, I think you’d make a great politician, Yoichi. You’re a real bloodsucker. You should stick to that and forget about this football shit. Since you’re the expert on foreign cultures, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how competitive it is to go pro across the Pacific. If hard work was all it took, every little foreign kid would be star. But most of them grow out of their stupid dreams before they make the last year of middle school.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I was just joking,” Hiruma snapped. Agon was always rude, but this time, he seemed a little too invested in humiliating Hiruma. “I forgot that no one’s allowed to have fun in your presence.”

“What’s so fun about being a loser on a team of losers?”

Hiruma latched on to that, still smarting a little and wanting to defend himself. “We won’t be a loser team forever. You know that Buddhist school Unsui is always yammering about?”

“Shinryuji?”

“Yeah. We’re going to go there, all three of us. Well, as long as that fucking fatass doesn’t screw up his scholarship—say, about your brother, doesn’t he want to play quarterback, too?” Agon confirmed it, and Hiruma started to laugh. “It’s going to suck for him when I make the Naga line up and he’s stuck riding the bench all season.”

“It’ll break his heart,” said Agon, laughing too.

Hiruma thought of himself as a logical person. He didn’t do unreasonable things. It wasn’t like he’d gotten into football hoping to win big with his three man team. He’d given it his all because Shinryuji—or someplace like Shinryuji—seemed like a reasonable option.

He’d had a perfectly reasonable excuse for getting involved with Agon, too. At the time, he’d been drifting. He didn’t think he had anything to lose. And he’d known all along that Agon played rough, but that had never mattered; Hiruma had thick skin.

Kurita didn’t, though.

Big, soft Kurita, who had never gotten in a fight; who had never even addressed someone rudely for as long as Hiruma had known him. It was bizarre that Kurita and Agon even existed in the same world, let along that Agon could touch Kurita, could destroy his dreams. Kurita, who Agon hardly knew. Kurita, who Agon should never have known—and wouldn’t have, if not for Hiruma.

Agon had been petty and cruel and taken his anger out on Hiruma’s teammates, and Hiruma couldn’t help feeling responsible. Which was ridiculous. After all, Agon was the one who had stolen Kurita’s spot. And it was already over, so what was the point in Hiruma beating himself up over it?

Hiruma knew it was stupid. But there was a difference between knowing something intellectually and feeling it was true, as much as Hiruma liked to pretend there wasn’t. He didn’t know what else to do. He’d already agreed to go to the same shit school as Kurita and Musashi. No football team there, and even the chances of getting into a university with a decent team seemed lessened now. Even good grades from such a low-tier school would look bad on his CV. And it’s not like he could get in on athletic merit if no one ever got to see him play.

No Shinryuji, no prospects. And no Agon either, of course. The two of them had broken up. Hiruma had never expected to have a conversation with Agon that wasn’t full of red-hot insults, words to scorch each other’s eyebrows off—but their last exchange had been deathly cold. Neither of them had much to say, and all of it stone-faced, uncaring. And afterwards, Hiruma had walked home, leaned his back against his own door, and immediately started to cry.

He stumbled into his room and spent a few minutes digging through his CDs, looking for something slow and sad. With tears in his eyes, he pawed through his collection—throwing aside Eastern Youth albums and crunching the jewel case on the Jock Jams disc he’d ‘borrowed’ off a GI. When he finally found something suitable, he put it on, laid in bed, and let it all out. There was no point in fighting it, so he might as well get it out of his system. One night, he would allow himself. Anything more than that would be ridiculous, because he’d never even liked Agon.

Nobody really met their true love as a teenager. That was all cartoon shit. Statistically, most school relationships were lucky to make it a year. And it’s not like Hiruma had gotten with Agon expecting that the two of them would die in their sleep together at ninety-nine. He knew from the jump that it would end, and it would end badly.

But still, Agon was his first boyfriend.

Now that it was over, it was difficult to even say how it had started. There had been no melodramatic confession, no earnest heart-to-heart. Everything had been an implication. Hiruma didn’t think he had ever so much as said the word ‘gay’ to Agon, but that didn’t matter. They had understood each other; they were the same type of person. When that sort of thing went well, it was better than being liked.

From the first time they met, they’d had a connection. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it was recognition. And it was as alluring as it was unsettling. It meant that, for the first time in Hiruma’s life, there was no use hiding. All the two of them could do was wait around, looking for an excuse to bring up what they both already, instinctively knew.

He could remember the time he’d found that excuse. But calling that the beginning wasn’t accurate, because he and Agon were already close at the time. Weirdly close. Not that they were joined at the hip, but for how unpleasant they acted around everyone else, they were practically affectionate with each other. Even their insults had a bit of sweetness to them. Looking back, he realized that might have been the time when they were the best together: back when they were almost-but-not-quite a couple, full of potential. Agon had even liked Hiruma well enough to invite him over to his house.

That was where they were, when it happened. They had the place mostly to themselves. Agon’s parents were out for the evening, off at some formal event. Unsui was home, but Agon had banished him from the living room by braining him in the face with a slipper. Hiruma had laughed when it connected with a loud smack, all the force of Agon’s throwing arm slamming the rubber heel into Unsui’s face. He’d laughed even harder a few minutes later, when Unsui, sporting a wad of tissue paper in each nostril, had tried to sneak back in to clean his own blood off the floor.

Unsui finally retreated for good after Agon yelled at him again, telling him to go to his room or else. Agon slammed the sliding door shut after him. Hiruma had stayed seated all the while, because family drama was sort of awkward, even for him. He’d picked up some magazine off the floor and was flipping through it without looking, trying to seem casual.

Agon turned away from the door, grumbling. “Finally, some privacy.”

“You sure he won’t be back?”

“Of course. He does whatever I say.”

“Sure,” scoffed Hiruma. “Just like you do whatever I say, right?”

Agon slugged him on the arm for that—though thankfully with less force than he’d used on his brother. “Liking that mag?”

“Hm,” said Hiruma noncommittally. He glanced down at the paper in his hands for the first time and saw a full-page motorcycle advertisement.

“Didn’t think that was really your thing,” said Agon, just as Hiruma flipped the page.

The Kawasaki bike disappeared. In its place stood maybe a dozen young women, all heaving their assets out of overly-small bikinis. Everyone was posed at strange angles, their spines contorted. And there was something sinister about the shot, Hiruma thought, because all the girls were crammed into a claustrophobic apartment, instead of being out on the beach or something. But the picture was definitely intended to be seductive.

“No, I,” Hiruma started, trying to improvise. “I think these things can be very useful.”

“I know I’ve used it before.”

“Gross. And not even what I meant,” said Hiruma. “It’s insightful.”

“How is a catalog of tits ‘insightful’?”

“See, that’s your problem. You think this,” he shook the magazine for emphasis. “Is about women. They market this shit to men. That’s who you’re really learning about when you read this.”

“If you start trying to convince me it’s gay to like women, I’m kicking you out of my house.”

Hiruma rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking about either. Nothing reveals more about a guy’s personality than his taste in women. Come here, I’ll show you. Pick out the girl you find most attractive.”

Agon moved around behind Hiruma and leaned over him, dropping his chin on to Hiruma’s left shoulder. His hair tickled against Hiruma’s ear. As Agon lifted one arm to point at the magazine, it grazed across Hiruma’s bare skin. Agon tapped a finger on the far side of the picture. “That one.”

Hiruma had thought up a couple things to say if Agon had chosen the girl with the biggest breasts, or with dyed hair, or the one in cutesy fashion glasses. But Agon hadn’t picked any of those. His finger was pressed to a part of the image that Hiruma hadn’t even noticed.

There was a mirror off to one side of whatever closet they’d shoved all the girls in, presumably to reflect more of their bodies than the camera could naturally see. But whoever had set it up hadn’t thought about the rest of the shot composition. When Hiruma looked closely, he could see half the camera rig reflected back. More importantly, he could also see the woman Agon was pointing to. Standing behind the cameraman was some salarywoman, dressed in a suit jacket and business skirt. Her face was pretty, but severe and deeply-lined. Hiruma guessed she was the manager for one of the idols.

“What? Gross. She’s like forty.”

Agon lifted his head off Hiruma’s shoulder and sat down beside him with a shrug. “I like a bitch with a few miles on her. That’s why let your mom suck me off last night.”

“My mother’s a lesbian,” said Hiruma, completely straight-faced. “I was conceived with a turkey baster.”

“You fucking pathological liar.”

“It’s all true,” Hiruma lied.

“Whatever,” said Agon, running a hand over his hair. “So, what does you dumb personality test say about me?”

Oh yeah. Hiruma had almost forgotten about that. “Oedipus complex.”

“Fuck off. You can do better than that.”

“Fine,” Hiruma said, because Agon knew just the way to appeal to his sense of pride and make him follow through on his dumb schemes. “Older women. So, not school girls. That shows that you don’t like clingy bullshit. You’re drawn to people who know what they want and take it. Someone confident and aggressive. But you also want to be taken care of. You don’t fit in with people your own age, but you’re still desperate for validation. And you want a partner who knows the ropes, but who won’t judge you for being inexperienced.”

“Inexperienced?” Agon said incredulously. “As if. That old bitch would be learning things from me.”

“You’re that good?”

“Good enough to cure your fake gay mom in ten seconds flat,” said Agon. “I’m the best kisser in Kanto.”

Hiruma set down the magazine. “Oh yeah? Prove it.”

There was a little flash of surprise in Agon’s eyes. But it quickly disappeared as he leaned in. Their lips fit together, and Hiruma didn’t know about all of Kanto, but Agon was good. He was definitely better than Hiruma, who had never kissed anyone before. When Agon’s tongue slid into his mouth, he responded a little too eagerly, forgetting to be careful with his teeth.

Agon grunted and yanked away from him. He turned his head, spitting out a mouthful of blood. “Ow! Asshole!” he gingerly touched the side of his tongue, then glanced down at the carpet, where a red stain was setting in. “And look what you did to my rug.”

“Blame it on Unsui,” Hiruma murmured, already grabbing the back of Agon’s neck to pull him in again.

And that was roughly the same position they were in later, when Agon’s parents returned early from their night out. The sound of scratching at the door had sent Agon and Hiruma scurrying away from each other like frightened rats. Hiruma was so startled that he’d run up to the older Kongos, complimented them on their lovely home, and then darted out the door, leaving Agon’s parents with the horribly mistaken impression that he was a very shy and polite young man. It was undeniably awkward, but walking home in the dark, Hiruma had been surprised to realize that he didn’t even care. Getting to kiss Agon was worth a little scrambling.

The moon had been out that night, and everything in the dark had seemed so bright.

But where had it all gotten him?

In the blackness of his room, Hiruma pressed his tear-streaked face into his pillow, rubbing his eyes raw. It was over. He was alone again. And just now, he felt like he would probably be alone for the rest of his life. Nobody else was going to understand him. He didn’t know how to talk to gay people, and he was gawky and pointy and scrawny, still so thin no matter how hard he worked out. And he had a terrible personality.

He’d spent a lot of time trying to convince everyone, including maybe himself, that he was just little Agon. That was the image he’d wanted. He didn’t want friends; he wanted people to see him as some junior yakuza and to treat him accordingly. And it was good, it was good when people saw Hiruma like that. Maybe there was even some truth in it—but not real truth. He wasn’t Agon. He still had a heart.

But what did he know? Maybe Agon was out there in the night, crying into his pillow, too.

As unlikely as it seemed, the thought did make Hiruma feel a bit better. He wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve and rolled over onto his back.

There was also a part of him, mostly crushed under the unbearable weight of his first heartbreak, that realized how funny Agon going to Shinryuji was. The fact that Hiruma had gotten Agon to spend his last three years of high school in some dumb monastery, entirely of his own free will, was really something. If it had been an intentional setup, it couldn’t possibly have gone better. Three years of chanting sutras and meditating, without even a single female coed to leer at. Shit, maybe the school would even make Agon shave off that hair he was always peacocking about.

Hiruma kind of hoped not, though. He would never, ever admit it out loud, but he liked Agon’s dreads. They made Agon look like a real NFL player, Hiruma thought. It was the same hairstyle as a lot of the guys in his sports posters.

He glanced up at the poster hanging over his bed and felt a sudden catch in his stomach. It was too dark to make out anything more than the sleekness of the paper, but he still knew what was there. It was normal to have pictures of athletes, wasn’t it? They didn’t look like pin-ups, did they?

Hiruma squeezed his eyes shut. No, of course his posters weren’t weird. He knew that. Why was he doubting himself? Other guys didn’t see them like that, even though the players all had chiseled faces and powerful thighs. After all, Kurita had been in his room, and he hadn’t said anything.

Kurita… After bawling his eyes out, Hiruma was exhausted, and he could feel himself starting to nod off. But even then, he could still feel the guilt, hanging like a weight on his chest.

Hiruma didn’t get more than a couple hours of sleep that night—waking up in the middle of every REM cycle like some tortured lab rat—but he still got up, as always, at five o’clock sharp. As soon as his eyes opened, his head was off the pillow. His feet hit the floor a second later. After getting up, the first thing he did was grab the hair dye to bleach his roots. Because looking good was the best revenge.

While the dye set in, he stood in front of his mirror, staring. He looked tired, of course, and his eyes were still sore, but otherwise, everything seemed normal. He looked fine.

“I’m fine,” he told his water-spotted reflection. His voice creaked a little, so he coughed and tried again. “I’m fine. I’m cool. I’m so sexy it’s unreal. I’m the best quarterback on earth, and one day, I’m going to drink sake out of Tom Brady’s skull. This is nothing.”

So, Agon had dumped him. Whatever. Considering Agon’s taste, that might even be a mark in Hiruma’s favor. He was not, he decided forcefully, ashamed. Not of any of it. And he wasn’t lonely, either. He could admit now that he might have felt that way when he first got together with Agon, but things had changed. Now, he had a team—friends, even. That was what had started this whole problem.

Gritting his teeth hard, Hiruma grabbed his phone and typed out a message to Kurita, asking him to meet up. As soon as he pressed send, he chucked the phone across the room like a live grenade. But he thought maybe he could work with this. If he was stressing about his thing with Agon and his debt to Kurita, maybe he could kill two birds with one stone.

Without checking if Kurita had messaged back, Hiruma went out to the school field to wait for him. It was silent, deserted. Hiruma bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet. He was used to wearing cleats on the grass, and without them, the light dew made everything feel slick and slippery. Like he had no traction.

Off to one side, the sun was coming up all orange. Hiruma turned his face away.

Even when he heard the heavy crunch of Kurita’s footsteps, he didn’t immediately turn back. But he said, “Hey.”

“Morning!” Kurita answered. And of course, Kurita didn’t have anything more to say, because he wasn’t the one who had called the meeting. But Hiruma wasn’t sure what to say, either—so the moment dragged on.

Finally, Kurita was kind enough to continue, “Did you decide to have practice after all? Is Musashi coming?”

“No. No practice and no old man.”

After another beat of silence, Kurita gently pressed, “So then, was there something you wanted to talk about?”

“Tch,” Hiruma spat on the ground, then immediately regretted it. His mouth had already been too dry. “I guess you’re probably expecting me to apologize to you, about the thing with Agon. Since it’s my fault.”

“What? No. I don’t expect that at all,” Kurita said. His voice was still level, but his face had immediately crumpled at the mention of Agon. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, but especially not yours. It was only because of you that I ever had a chance. I don’t blame Kongo either, though. He has every right to go to Shinryuji—after all, he’s the better athlete, and he’s smart, too. The only thing I have is my size, and it’s not like it’s so hard to get fat, so—”

“Shut up, dumbass. If I wanted to hear someone complain about you, I would've called your parents out here. Don’t ever waste my time with that kind of whining again,” Hiruma said, with as much affection as he was physically capable of showing. “And don’t make excuses for that dreadlocked asshole. He fucked you over on purpose.”

Kurita nodded. “I know that. But he also helped get the team started. At the beginning of this year, I had nothing. I was never going to get a team together on my own. And now, in the end, I still don’t have a real team, but I do have you and Musashi,” his eyes welled up with tears. “My two best friends. And whatever happens, that makes it all worth it.”

“Agh! God, stop that!” said Hiruma, because Kurita looked a second away from grabbing him in a hug and bawling into his freshly-dyed hair.

Kurita sniffed loudly and wiped his eyes. “Sorry.”

“No crying,” Hiruma said, as much to himself as anything. “And none of this zen crap about how nothing matters, either. If we’re not going to Shinryuji, we aren’t going to act like monks.”

“Uh, okay,” said Kurita. “You do know I’m still a Buddhist though, right? You can’t order me to stop being a Buddhist.”

“No gods on my football field,” Hiruma said firmly. “We’re going to claw our own way out of hell. I won’t let any divine bastard take credit when we tear this whole tournament down.”

“It’s going to be tough next year, though. We won’t have Kongo to help us round up other players,” Kurita paused. “Unless you know some way to force him to help, I guess. I’m sure that guy has plenty of dark secrets.”

“Yeah, I… I guess there is something I know about Agon.” Dealing with this shit was like anaerobic exercise, and Hiruma was starting to sweat. He still wasn’t sure he should go through with this, even though he put the odds of Kurita reacting negatively at under five percent. Kurita was an understanding guy. And Hiruma had never heard him make a homophobic joke, or even laugh at one of the ones Hiruma made himself (and he’d made those a lot; they worked as a mixture of camouflage and entrapment). “But it’s something about me, too.”

“Huh?”

“What I know is about Agon and me,” said Hiruma, with some difficulty. “It involves both of us.”

“Oh my god. Please don’t tell me you two killed someone.”

“What? No! We were just—I’m fucking gay, all right?”

Which was not exactly the way Hiruma had wanted to come out.

“Oh! Hiruma, that’s great. Thank you for telling me,” said Kurita. And it had been awkward, but maybe it was all right now. Just hearing those words made Hiruma feel better, warmer, and for half a second, he was horrified that he might tear up—but then Kurita ruined it by fucking bowing to him.

Hiruma kicked him in the shins. “What are you doing that for? Fucking weirdo.”

He should be the one bowing, he thought. He should fucking grovel for forgiveness, but he was too damn proud. It pissed him off that he couldn’t make himself give a real apology, and it pissed him off more that Kurita was still being so kind and accepting anyway.

“I don’t know,” said Kurita, looking a little embarrassed now, as he sat down to rub his bruised legs. “It just felt like a big honor. Because it’s an important part of you, right? And you never talk about yourself, not with anyone.” Suddenly, his soft eyes took on a devilishly smug glint. “Underneath it all, you must really trust me, huh?”

“Yeah, well, I have a pretty shit track record for trusting people.”

Hiruma had meant that to come off as a joke, but it sounded shockingly bitter and self-pitying to his own ears. He cringed slightly, wondering if he should try to soften what he’d said. Then he decided to give in to the drama. He threw himself flat on the ground beside Kurita, arms spread out in the grass, looking up at the peachy sky.

He had talked about himself a little, with Agon. Mostly just stuff standard teenage ‘I hate my dad’ stuff, but the two of them had better claims to that than most. And it had still been something. Some moment of connection. There was a brief window, between when the two of them finished messing around and when the macho overcompensation kicked in, where Agon was actually kind of pleasant to be around. But that never lasted long. It always dissolved into some contest about which one of them was the real sissy, and Hiruma always lost, because unlike Agon, he was willing to accept that he wasn't some temporarily embarrassed straight guy. He was never going to grow out of it.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“I wouldn’t say weird,” Kurita tilted his head. “It’s unusual. But in some historical eras, it was perfectly normal for men to—”

“Don’t try to lecture me on history, moron. You barely passed that class,” Hiruma said. “And I meant, isn’t it weird that it was with Agon?”

Kurita pulled up a handful of grass and addressed his response to it instead of Hiruma. “Well, I’m sure once you get to know him—”

“He’s the same,” Hiruma interrupted. Then his face fell a bit. “Or if he really does have hidden depths, he never liked me enough to show them.”

The grass fell between Kurita's fingers as he looked on, pensively. “How long ago did you two break up?”

“What time is it?”

“Uh, a little after six, I think.”

“Then it’s been about nine hours.”

Kurita’s hands twisted in his jacket, like he was seriously considering going back on his previous agreement not to hug Hiruma. “Are you okay?”

“No. That bastard owed me 5000 yen and I’m never going to get it back now. My day is ruined,” said Hiruma, because it was as close to the truth as he was willing to admit. And because he really was annoyed about the 5000 yen thing.

Softly, Kurita said, “I’m sure you’ll find someone nicer next time.”

Hiruma scoffed. “It’s practically impossible to find someone less nice than Agon.”

“Then there’s nowhere to go but up!”

They sat in silence for a moment. The green field was all golden in the early light, and the breeze was pleasant on Hiruma’s sweaty face. On the ground, the smell of cut grass was almost overwhelmingly sweet. And in the distance, he could hear warblers starting in on their spring songs. The whole world was ready for a new season to begin. Hiruma tilted his head to look at Kurita, a smile on his face. But Kurita’s brow was furrowed. Their eyes met.

“Hey, uh, didn’t you blackmail our gym teacher for being gay?”

Hiruma immediately went tense. Slowly, he sat up, keeping his gaze averted from Kurita, and brushed the dew off the back of his jacket.

“I blackmailed him for cheating on his wife,” he finally said. His voice was carefully even. “The fact that it was with a man was irrelevant.”

Kurita was right, though: ‘gay’ was a frequent word beside the names in his black book. But that was nothing intentional on his part. It wasn’t his fault that idiots got into marriages they knew wouldn’t make them happy, and then later on, failed to keep their self-imposed vows. He didn’t think cheaters deserved any sympathy. It was pathetic that they’d given in to social pressure and gotten married in the first place. Hiruma didn’t feel responsible for other people’s shame.

But goddamn it, that heavy brow was still overhanging Kurita’s face. Why the fuck did the big oaf decide that this, of all moments, was a good time to start thinking for himself? “It just doesn’t seem right. That you’d do that to your own kind.”

“The fuck do you mean, ‘my own kind’? What has he ever done for me?” asked Hiruma, scowling at the ground, sharp teeth jabbing holes in his cheek. “This is why I didn’t tell you before. You don’t get it.”

Kurita held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, but I just think—shouldn’t people who are struggling stick together?”

“You were fine with me blackmailing a gay guy when I was straight!”

“I wasn’t fine with it.”

“You didn’t get on my case about it!”

“All right, sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up,” said Kurita. Of course this mess would end with Kurita apologizing multiple times while Hiruma couldn’t even do it once.

“Whatever. Forget about it.”

“This wasn’t the time. It’s a big day for you, and I shouldn’t have done something to spoil it. We’ll talk about it more later,” said Kurita, breezily but with a tone of voice that made it clear Hiruma’s complaints would have no effect.

That was a conversation Hiruma could weasel out of when he came to it. Although maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing, Hiruma admitted to himself, as he took in the way the soft light shined on Kurita’s eyes, to spend a little more time talking to Kurita.

“You know, there’s still plenty of time before class,” Kurita said. “We should go out and celebrate. I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“Dumbass, what’s there to celebrate? This is what messed everything up,” muttered Hiruma, but it was more reflexive than anything. His heart wasn’t it in, even as he said, “And you better keep your fat trap shut about all this. You’re the only one who knows, so if anyone else finds out, I’ll know it was from you and I’ll kill you.”

“Sure, Hiruma,” said Kurita with a smile. He pushed himself off the ground and stood, his outline glowing with the sun at his back. Then he offered Hiruma a hand up, and even though Hiruma didn’t need help, he took it anyway.