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When he finds him, Akashi is sitting on the floor. He isn’t sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest or with his face buried in his hands or anything—in fact, Akashi maintains the same sort of pristine posture on the cold tile floor as he does standing up—but it is the most vulnerable Midorima has ever seen him.
Midorima’s footsteps reverberate in the empty hallway as he approaches him, which makes him flinch a bit at his volume because he doesn’t want to sound imposing. He doesn’t want to cause a confrontation, even though he probably has reason to do so. Akashi doesn’t raise his head from his fixated stare of the wall in front of him but Midorima knows that he knows he’s there.
Midorima slides down next to Akashi when he reaches him, leaning his head against the brick and crossing his ankles out in front of him. Before Teikou—before he became the best at something, before he was a champion, and before basketball meant more to him than a game—Midorima would sit by Akashi like this occasionally.
The Akashis and Midorimas had a very close bond, as most blue-bloods do. The many black-tie parties thrown at either of their houses found the two of them sitting side by side on the floor in a dark corner somewhere, after one or both of them have been scoffed at by adults with upturned noses and shining jewels. Out of sight from their parents, they would loosen the suffocating ties around their necks and free from the expectation to be seen and not heard, they would talk for hours. It was mostly about basketball, but also other things. Midorima wonders if Akashi remembers.
“Did you know you would find me here, Shintarou?” Akashi asks finally.
“I think so.”
Midorima lets the silence fall back and turns his head to see Akashi’s slight smile. It’s almost imperceptible and to anyone else, it wouldn’t even be seen.
“I guess it is poetic justice then, that I would revert back to my old habits after I’ve been defeated.”
Midorima isn’t really sure what to say, or whether or not that was a reference to their childhood, so he doesn’t respond. The two of them sit there in silence that should feel more strained than it actually does, staring at the same spot on this wall across from them. It’s not companionable by any means, but neither of them feel the need to say anything.
Midorima waits for the silence to be filled by Akashi. It seems like the most comfortable thing to do, wait for Akashi to take control of the situation and make it whatever he wants. Maybe Midorima is just too scared to take that control, or maybe he’s just used to having none in regards to Akashi, but either way he’s not saying anything.
“I think I used to be envious of those who knew defeat,” Akashi says quietly, causing Midorima to let out a sigh of relief to not having been the one to break the silence. “I think I wanted to experience that feeling of having someone above me.”
“And now?”
“Well, I don’t think I particularly like it. I would have been okay to never have felt this.”
“Felt what?”
Akashi looks at him from the side of his eyes with a half-hearted glare, “You know what.”
It’s true; Midorima does know what Akashi is feeling, but he wants to hear it in his own words. He wants to know how Akashi is taking to being somewhere other than the very top. Maybe it’s sadistic but Midorima needs to know if Akashi feels the same sort of frustration and helplessness as he did when he lost to Rakuzan.
“Just humor me, then,” Midorima persists.
Two days ago, Midorima would have never attempted to speak to Akashi like this, but two days ago he and Akashi have never been able to share a feeling such as loss to Kuroko.
It takes a while for Akashi to respond but when he does he speaks slowly, as if he were still putting the thought together in his own mind.
“I have never known what it is like to be looking up at someone; I’ve always been looking down. Although it feels strange because I don’t feel like Tetsuya is looking down on me. I think I would have been looking down on him if the result had been different. I suppose he is just a better person than I am.”
Akashi pauses before continuing, “I’ve never been put into a position where I needed to put my full effort into anything. I came close with you, but I still didn’t need to let go of everything but basketball. It’s a humbling feeling, but I’m not sure I like it.”
Midorima can’t help but chuckle at the aversion in Akashi’s voice when he says humble. He didn’t think he would ever hear the word pass Akashi’s lips.
“I think Kuroko knows better than all of us what humility feels like,” Midorima says after he sees Akashi’s confused look thrown his way.
Akashi hums in agreement, “Yes, I suppose so.”
“But you’re right, I do know how that feels,” Midorima says. He lets a beat pass before continuing, “Although I do have to say that losing to Kuroko feels a lot more dignified than losing to you.”
Maybe it was a mistake to say that, because Akashi flinches slightly and Midorima doesn’t really expect him to have a response. So he’s shocked when he hears Akashi sigh before responding.
“I said so many horrible things to you, Shintarou.”
It wasn’t the response Midorima was expecting and it confuses him; no one else other than Midorima would be able to pick out the apology in that statement, but it was surely there. They wouldn’t be able to hear the remorse in those words spoken as a fact of life, but the I’m sorry is singing in Midorima’s ears. An apology was the last thing he was expecting from Akashi.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Except it does, because sometimes Midorima can still feel the sting of the words from so long ago. One time in their last year at Teikou when Midorima was overwhelmed by his feelings, he reached out to touch Akashi’s face and he might have kissed him, but Akashi just turned his head in a heavy dismissal. Shintarou, he said in a voice so much older than their fifteen years, you only want me because you feel the need to be put in your place. You’re too arrogant for this to work, and I’m not looking to indulging you in your inferiority complex.
It wasn’t the only time Akashi had something like that but the first rejection always sticks out the clearest.
Akashi turns his head finally and looks at Midorima’s face.
“You know I can tell you’re lying. . . . I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Akashi says lightly, only an echo of his authoritative superiority from their Teikou days.
“Wouldn’t do what?”
“Pretend like you’re not hurt.”
“Maybe I’m not pretending. Maybe your words don’t hold the same weight anymore.”
A dark chuckle, “Yes, I suppose that could be the case. I can see how that would be so. We no longer have any ties to each other,” Akashi says with a deliberate blankness, purposefully trying for a reaction.
Midorima recognizes the test for what it is but he flinches anyway, silently berating himself for playing into Akashi’s schemes again. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the barely-there smirk on Akashi’s face and he knows that Akashi noticed as well that his words still have an effect.
“Okay, so you had your little test. I still care,” Midorima says with an obstinate pout that makes Akashi chuckle at him. He feels like he should be feeling more defensive, like he should be protecting himself from Akashi’s ridicule like he used to, but the atmosphere feels more like when they were younger. It feels more comfortable than controlling. It still feels strange, however; Midorima isn’t even sure he remembers how to joke with Akashi.
“Well what about you?” Midorima asks after Akashi light grin fades into something more neutral.
“What about me?” Akashi returns lightly.
Feeling oddly vulnerable, Midorima stares at the wall in front of him with a stubborn resolve as he asks his next question. “Do my words have any effect on you? Did they ever?”
The obvious question hovers in the air, Do you care about me?
“Yes,” Akashi says quietly, gently, like he’s trying to preserve something beautiful and fragile, and somehow Midorima knows that he was answering both the voiced and unvoiced questions posed, “They do. I think they always did, and I’m just now able to realize that. I’m sorry, Shintarou.”
Midorima turns his head slightly and sees Akashi already looking at him. His eyes are bright there’s a small smile that almost looks foreign on his face because it’s been so long since it’s been there. Something about this moment feels important to Midorima. It might be because Akashi is truly looking at him for the first time in what feels like years or because Akashi is finally able to share the feeling of frustration of losing with him, but either way Midorima somehow feels heavy and light at the same time.
Maybe he truly is arrogant and selfish like Akashi said all those months ago and he craves for someone to be above him, or maybe there’s a light in Akashi’s eyes that reminds him of what it felt like to keep winning and winning and getting closer and closer to the top, but something causes Midorima to break the barrier between the two of them and press his lips to Akashi’s. He knows that his lips are probably a bit dry, but he doesn’t really care when he starts to feel Akashi kiss him back.
Midorima leaves his hands on the floor in front of him, balancing him precariously on the edge of something unknown but Akashi puts his hands in his hair and pulls him in closer. He angles his head in a way that makes their accidental clacks of their teeth seem more purposeful, brushing his tongue over Midorima’s lips, which makes him gasp and pull back slightly.
Akashi doesn’t seem angry, or even all that surprised, and he leaves his hands in Midorima’s hair as he looks thoughtfully into his eyes.
“Are you familiar with Greek mythology, Shintarou?”
“Are you about to compare yourself to a god?”
“No,” Akashi chuckled with a whisper of a glint in his eyes. “There is a story of a boy who had metal wings molded together with wax. He flew too close to the sun, and the wax melted. He fell to his death.”
Midorima is familiar with the story and he knew the allusion Akashi was trying to make in an instant, but it somehow didn’t fit. The story of Icarus and humility; a tragic tale caused by a young boy’s eagerness to be closer to God, wings given to him by his father and a foolish desire to get too high. No, that didn’t suit Akashi at all.
“You actually made it to the sun. You didn’t lose your wings, Akashi, not permanently at least.”
“What if you were my wings?”
Objectively, Midorima knows that Akashi could be talking about the Generation of Miracles as a whole—it would make sense, comparing them to the wings that enabled Akashi to achieve the heights that he did. But something in the way that Akashi is still gripping his hair as if he has no intention of letting go and looking intently into his eyes like he means to dig himself a hole in Midorima’s heart to give himself more space to occupy lets him know that he’s talking about Midorima specifically.
“Then you definitely haven’t lost them,” Midorima replies as he leans in once more for a kiss that feels more like a promise than a signed contract.