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When Kazuya wakes up to the gentle light of the morning sun through the shuttered open blinds and the comforting smell of fresh eggs from the kitchen, he thinks to himself, yes, this is the life.
On his bedside table rests a photograph from the day he’d gotten married to the love of his life, their faces in the small ink blots beaming in radiant joy. He remembers the day he proposed like it was yesterday, the way Eijun had gotten down on one knee right before Kazuya could, and the two had clutched each other and laughed at their miraculous timing as the sunset orange bloomed between the curtains of their kitchen and lit up the sides of their faces.
Their rings weren’t matching whatsoever, and they were perfect.
He remembers the wedding where Eijun had tripped on the way down the aisle and landed right into Kazuya’s arms, pulling loud whoops and whistles from the crowd as Eijun tossed the bouquet behind him and let himself be kissed by Kazuya, their faces bright red and joyous. Eijun’s hair, which had been neatly done courtesy of Haruichi (the boy had unsurprisingly stubborn locks, and Haruichi was a champ for being able to tame those down as well as he did), had already been ruffled up and ruined, and yet Kazuya found that he’s never looked more beautiful, draped in a glowing white veil and standing beside him with a wide grin at the altar as they exchanged rings.
Kazuya rolls out of bed and fumbles around for his glasses, rubbing his eyes and shoving his glasses onto his face as he pulls on a robe and heads to the kitchen, where the sound of two young voices and the even louder sound of his husband’s voice grows closer.
There are warm greetings from bright, shiny twin voices when he sits down at the table, groggily staring down at the wood and blinking to wake his eyes up. There’s a tender touch and brush of lips from behind him as Eijun sets down the plate of breakfast in front of him, resting his chin against Kazuya’s shoulder and humming in content.
And there’s a pleasant thrum in his chest as Kazuya gazes at his family against the backdrop of their kitchen, lively and vibrant and bursting with laughter.
Yes, this truly is the life.
“Good morning,” Eijun says, standing up from the table to clean up the counter, and Kazuya grasps his hand to pull him down for another kiss, much to the chagrin of their two children.
“Eww!” Kazuya hears Eita cry in mock disgust. Despite how vehemently Eita seems to coo and mock at their disgustingly sweet acts of affection, behind closed doors, Kazuya knows they put the young boy at ease.
He’d even visited them one evening when Kazuya had been too tired to kiss his husband goodnight, almost in tears, to ask if he no longer loved his mommy. They were still young parents at the time, inexperienced and crashing from the lack of sleep from taking care of Eita around the clock. Kazuya had panicked when he saw the door slowly creak open to a distressed Eita, and he’d been about ready to call an ambulance when Eijun groggily sat up and motioned Eita over, who obediently sat in his lap and sobbed to him about his fear of Kazuya no longer loving his mommy.
It was then that Kazuya understood the weight of a forgotten action to a child.
The rest of the night had been spent consoling the boy with forehead kisses and reassurances that yes your papa still loves your mommy, yes your papa is sorry for being mean to your mommy, and by the time it was nearly three in the morning, they had all been wiped out in a slumbering pile on the bed, Eita with dried tear streaks down his cheeks and a content smile on his face.
“That’s gross, Papa!” The other protests, her hands covering her eyes comically. “You’re going to make Mommy dirty with your yucky face!”
Kazuko, on the other hand, appears to be holding a personal vendetta against Kazuya that’s already lasted for over a month; though Eijun had laughed so hard he cried when Kazuya had consulted him about this “issue,” he had promised him that she would eventually get over her childish grudge.
A month has already passed, and she has not.
“It was high school, Kazuko! You can forgive Papa for being mean to Mommy in high school, right?”
“No!” Kazuko crosses her arms and harrumphs, turning away from Kazuya and stomping off towards the living room, where she plops down onto the couch and continues to ignore him.
Kazuya can hear Eijun howling in laughter from the other room.
“This is karma, Kazuya!” Eijun exclaims, cooing at Kazuko’s grumpy face and giggling as she wraps her arms around his head and pulls him closer. She sticks her tongue out at Kazuya and pets Eijun gently on the head as if she were protecting a puppy from the clutches of a feral tiger.
Kazuya sighs helplessly and exchanges a look with Eijun, who only smiles back with a shit-eating grin as he pets Kazuko on the head with an affectionate hand.
Oh, it’s on, Eijun.
Kazuya lifts Eita from his chair and props him onto his shoulders as he chases a screaming Kazuko and howling Eijun around their apartment, Eita clinging onto his hair to use as steering wheels as he “maneuvers” Kazuya around the kitchen. Eijun is led around chairs, almost trips over a shoe (how did that get there?), shuffles around tables to deter him, and eventually gets caught when Kazuya corners him by the TV, pulling him and their children down with him onto the couch where they’re an exhausted, sweaty, giggling mess.
Kazuya kisses both of them on the forehead and laughs when Kazuko wipes his kiss off of her face with the back of her hand.
If someone were to tell Kazuya that by his thirties, he’d be married to Eijun and become the father of two children, he’d probably laugh in their face and call them delusional. He wasn’t a huge family type of person, and he never thought he would be. He’d strongly believed that he was destined to spend the rest of his life alone, fixated only on baseball and living his days fending off for himself. And yet, something about the way Eijun had grinned at him that day, with his outstretched hand amidst the backdrop of their old high school as he asked Kazuya to go out with him had melted his heart far beyond anything he had imagined.
Looking back on himself now, Kazuya wonders how he ever survived without the warmth of coming home to a full household.
“Alright, you two! It’s time for school!” Eijun calls when the clock chimes in a new hour, and the pile disassembles, the children peeling off of them and watching their parents struggle to get up. Ah, the woes of old age.
Kazuko takes Eita’s hand to lead him to the front door and tie his shoes, Kazuya and Eijun close behind them with fond smiles on their faces. Kazuya feels a soft hand brush against his, and he laces his fingers with Eijun’s as they watch their children prepare for school.
Kazuya thumbs the ring that sits snugly on Eijun’s finger, and he can’t help smile in content at the warmth of the metal.
“What’s so funny?” Eijun asks as he leans against Kazuya.
“Nothing, nothing,” Kazuya says, laughing when Eijun pinches his nose and frowns in mock anger.
Eijun lets go of Kazuya’s hand to open the door for Kazuko and Eita, and Kazuya can’t help but miss the warmth of his touch. They’ve been married for nearly ten years, and Kazuya still yearns for Eijun with the same magnetic pull he did the first time they saw each other. Eijun had still been a middle schooler then, but something about the sharp look in his eye and the shocked yet excited grin when Kazuya caught his pitch had him hook, line, and sinker.
And some days Kazuya still can’t believe he managed to snatch up Sawamura Eijun, who was perfect in every single way.
Kazuko grabs Eita’s hand and leads him out the door, waving a small hand at Eijun. “Bye bye, Mommy!” She drags Eita out of the house with one hand, the other still waving at Eijun.
“Bye bye, Pa-!“ Kazuko then lets go of Eita only to shut the door before Eita can finish his words, and Eijun doubles over laughing once the two are gone. Teary-eyed, he takes Kazuya’s hand to lead him to the kitchen, where the two of them start to clean up breakfast.
“Is it really that funny?” Kazuya scratches the back of his head sheepishly as he helps Eijun clear the table.
“It absolutely is!!! Kazuko hates you and it’s hilarious.”
“All because you told her I pulled that prank on you during your first day at Seidou!”
“And all these years later, you finally got what was coming to you all those years ago.”
Eijun dumps a stack of plates into the sink and sighs with a fond grin. “She’ll get over it, Kazuya. She’s just overprotective because she knows her papa is a mean person.”
Kazuya just laughs as he buries his nose into Eijun’s hair, breathing in his comforting scent and smiling. The two of them stand in the kitchen wordlessly as Kazuya holds him, and Eijun turns around to face him in his arms.
“Good morning again,” Eijun coos, and Kazuya pulls him closer. He presses their lips together, relishing in Eijun’s sweet taste as the sway in the kitchen together, Eijun separating from him only to clasp their hands together as they move back and forth along the wooden floor.
Their socks slide as they dance, Eijun laughing at Kazuya’s haphazard attempts at ballroom dancing and Kazuya’s eyes fixated on him like he’s the only thing in the entire world. He spins Eijun and leans him into a dip, pressing his face into the crook of his neck and smiling as Eijun giggles at the sensation. Eijun combs his hand through Kazuya’s hair and caresses the brown locks that fall across his nape.
Pulling away from him only for a moment, Kazuya makes his way over to the old, dusty radio that sits at the corner of the living room. He slips in an old CD and listens to the radio whirr to life, Eijun audibly gasping when the soft notes of a piano begin to plunk their way into the kitchen. Kazuya recognizes the song as one his father used to play on warm nights like these, when the only sound that could be heard in their empty house was the clatter of dishes and the thrum of the TV as Kazuya worked to prepare dinner.
The song is a waltz from some time period Kazuya’s never bothered to learn, and he listens to the quiet notes fill the now-silent apartment.
Kazuya puts one hand behind his back and outstretches the other, bowing to Eijun with a suave smile. “Care for a dance?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Eijun beams, taking Kazuya’s hand and letting him lead. The two lace their fingers together once again, pressing their chests against each other and twirling on the smooth wooden floors. Neither of them have any dancing experience and their movements are clumsy as they waltz, but when Eijun throws his head back and laughs in glee, Kazuya knows he wouldn’t trade this for all of the suave ballroom moves in the world.
He dips Eijun again, laughing as Eijun’s hair almost touches the floor with how low he’s held him, only to pull him right back up against him, groaning when he accidentally knocks their foreheads together. Smooth, Kazuya is not.
“Quite a gentleman, you are!” Eijun pokes in jest. He leans his head against Kazuya as they sway with the music, the soft sounds of the piano filling their ears. The radio’s audio is dingy at best and cuts out often at worst, but somehow even with the cut music their rhythm doesn’t waver.
Kazuya presses a kiss to Eijun’s forehead, then to his lips, then further down to his neck as Eijun giggles at the sensation. He wraps his arms around Kazuya’s head in the same way Kazuko did for him, and yet this gesture coming from Eijun feel all the more sweet.
“Is that my sweater?” Kazuya asks, looking up at Eijun with a smirk.
“Did it take you that long to notice?” Eijun combs a hand through Kazuya’s hair, and Kazuya suppresses a delightful shiver.
He twirls the brown locks between his fingers again as Kazuya wraps his hand around his waist and leads him through the dance, laughing when he lifts him up above the ground. Pressing a kiss to the side of Kazuya’s face, Eijun twirls around the room, separating only until their fingertips are touching, then moving back until their chests are pressed close together and their breathing is in sync as they knock their foreheads together.
The beating of their chests is the same as Kazuya stretches one arm outward, still tightly clasped with Eijun’s, and pulls him around the room. Eijun steps on his toes a couple of times in the fast-paced movement, and Kazuya falls in love with him even more.
He remembers the day they had finally reunited after years apart going to different universities; it had been nearly five years since Kazuya had graduated and four since Eijun did, and Kazuya had suddenly been overtaken by a whim to visit Seidou and spend the evening in the practice field he’d dedicated three years of his life to. Kazuya was sure the school was empty by the time he arrived, but seeing the old, beat up car sitting inconspicuously by the road, Kazuya figured someone else had the same idea.
Maybe Seidou had sent its calling card to players other than Kazuya, and for an odd reason, this had left a bitter taste in his mouth.
And yet, as the sun began to drop below the horizon and light up the sky with brilliant oranges and purples, he saw someone at the field he didn’t expect to see in a long, long time.
Kazuya had seen Eijun’s silhouette lit up in the Seidou baseball field, where he stood on the mound and stared at the batting box where Kazuya usually crouched.
He could see a forlorn look on Eijun’s face as he stood on the mound, the dust kicking up in the wind and floating off to settle nearby. Despite how much older he looked, Eijun still looked right where he belonged on that mound, and Kazuya had wanted nothing more but to walk up to him and take his rightful place beside him.
His hair had gotten longer, he remembers thinking, when the breeze had flown through his brown locks and highlighted the dark chestnut of his hair. He was taller too, with slightly broader shoulders but still with the same recognizable build as he stood alone on the field, meters of dirt and grass separating him and Kazuya.
On a sudden whim, Kazuya had called out to him then too, and Eijun had turned to him with glittering golden eyes that screamed “There you are.”
Kazuya had gotten older too, but standing beside Eijun, who still beamed at him with the same familiar look in his eye and warmth in his gaze, Kazuya felt as if he were his high school self again. He touched Eijun’s hand then, almost as if to check if he were real and not a fragment of his wistful imagination.
He couldn’t even remember why he was at Seidou in the first place anymore, so overcome with nostalgia and affection that all of his senses had flown away in the sunset wind as the warmth from Eijun’s touch bloomed from his fingertips all the way up to Kazuya’s face, which was such a bright red that Eijun couldn’t help but laugh.
It was also then that Kazuya found out he was a huge blusher. And seeing Eijun felt like coming home, even from the moment they had reunited.
An invitation to his house in Nagano later and a spring spent living with Kazuya in Tokyo and Kazuya knew he was far too gone beyond imagination, his heart constantly thrumming incessantly and his nerves on fire as if he were a grade-schooler. Eijun was the only one that occupied his sights by then, in almost the same way he did in high school.
Except, rather than dressed in the white uniform of the Seidou Baseball Team, Kazuya imagined him in the white tuxedo of a wedding ceremony.
Eijun presses a kiss to Kazuya’s forehead and leans forward to touch their heads together again, staring at Kazuya with eyes that make him warm from his head to his toes. He caresses his cheek with a gentle hand, and Kazuya leans into the touch as they sway. Closing his eyes, he listens to the quiet shuffle of their feet as they move, sighing in content whenever he feels the gentle pulse of Eijun’s heart.
“What are you thinking about?” He asks, and Kazuya finds that he doesn’t know the right words to say.
He’s always been quick with his words, and yet something about Eijun manages to whisk them away from him in an instant.
There’s only the tinny sound of the radio and their combined breath as they lean against each other now, their hair mixed in a blend of chestnut and chocolate. Kazuya wraps his arms around Eijun, and they hold each other as the last notes of the piano die down and the radio whirrs to a pause, waiting for the next CD to be played.
“I’m glad we got married,” Eijun says, and Kazuya hugs him tighter.
“Me too, Eijun,” he whispers.
“Me too.”