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The cigarette smoke swirls through the air, mingling with the dark hours and, the almost organic, polluted air from the city. To contribute to the already suffocating dry air of a big city, the end of summer didn’t help to ease the breath, with a still warm and stuffy atmosphere.
Keiji takes his cigarette to his lips again, inhaling. A habit he gained since the beginning of university, thanks to the constant instilling of stress caused by short deadlines, excessive requirements of productiveness and the big load of writing, reading, and debates. The group discussion would go on and on even after the daily lectures, round tables or in lines in the cafeteria, it would be dragged to bar tables or around sofas in cramped, messy and smoky flats. It didn’t matter the background or the companion, it would be just another excuse to drown in whatever substance they thought would help to forget any distress and worries.
Caffeine, tobacco, sugar, alcohol and whatever other substances the body could consume to keep up with a level of peace, calmness and focus, were welcomed during those years; some could decrease the necessary amount of its consumption, others would have the potential to last for a little longer. Entering a work field that demanded as much attention as the university, didn’t help Keiji to reduce any of his vices.
Another inhale. He watches through the half-closed door of the fancy flat localized in the town centre, belonging to one of the many national players he had the chance to meet since his high school time. Conventions from studying days apparently being hard to get rid of at any moment of his life.
The commemoration party happening in Kageyama’s flat has been lasting for almost two hours now. The one Keiji had been warned, requested or obliged to attend, more than being invited by Bokuto. Two days before, right after the finals of the Asian Volleyball Championship, that conceded the silver to Japan and the second place to the next World Championship.
Keiji liked parties, never caring to follow the excessiveness and overboard of Bokuto’s energy or any of his university friends. But at that moment in his adulthood, perhaps too soon, he felt like his body couldn’t handle parties for more than a couple of hours.
Beating off the ashes of his cigarette over the railing, he watches through his glasses, across the living room packed with athletes, while on the other far side he can discern his best friend and the source of his current problem yelling something in Kuroo's ears. With an arm over the JVA’s employee shoulders, drawing him closer and lower. By Kuroo’s reaction and the way he hugged Bokuto by his waist even closer, it must have been a hell of a joke, or most likely, his alcohol levels hitting the peak of the night.
Keiji sigh leaves his lungs before he can contain it, wondering for how much longer those two would continue to dance around each other. And by Kenma’s face watching the same scene from his place on the sofa, after kicking Suna’s butt in another round of whatever race game they were playing, his fellow second-year seems to be questioning the same. A knowing look is exchanged.
He turns away again, facing and looking at the buildings surrounding the one he is in, it’s a brief movement, just enough for him to extinguish the rest of his cigarette. Just the necessary seconds for someone else to sneak into the balcony and share the space with him.
With the realization of someone else together with him in the small space, Keiji feels his body tense and relax in seconds with the shock and the following knowledge of another person’s presence.
“You scared me, Miya-san.”
Osamu gives an apologetic smile. Keiji waits a few seconds more for any answer that doesn't come. Then he makes mention to move and pass by Osamu to leave the balcony, but he is interrupted in his tracks once more.
“I can see you’re not enjoying it much here.”
Keiji looks at Osamu, trying to figure out what exactly his words mean and what exactly he is referring to. His eyebrows twitch a little to Osamu’s assumption, even before he could think of a proper answer.
“It could be better,” he answers finally.
“Wow, kinda blunt.”
“Sorry, don’t take it wrong.”
With a soft smile, Osamu shakes his head and, crossing his arms, he leans against the frame of the balcony’s glass door. Making Keiji question himself if that was an attempt to block the way.
Keiji’s brows twitch again. The sensation that the owner of the Onigiri Miya was acting in a… particular way than what Keiji was used from the past encounters, mostly during the domestic season and the Jackals matches. Ignoring that for the moment, he blames the beers of the last hour.
“Wanna, I don’t know…” Osamu starts saying, his voice mismatching his current confident attitude. “Go somewhere quieter?”
Keiji’s fingers reach in between his brows, preventing them from twitching again.
“There’s still some forgotten onigiris in the kitchen…” Osamu keeps going.
This time Keiji’s brows furrow completely… Absurd. Osamu huffs out a laugh in response to the indignant face Keiji is making.
But as soon Keiji puts his eyes directly in Osamu’s face, to nod and accept the offer, he sees a serious face and is taken more unprepared than before by Osamu’s words:
“I love your eyes.”
Keiji’s brows are softer now.
🍙
The dark green of the seaweed still looks as fresh as if Osamu has just shaped the rice balls. The yellow lights of the outside hallway remembered slightly the vision from the balcony of the lights coming from the streets several floors below. The same faint light that allows someone to see but not quite discern.
The onigiris are put in a white plastic plate between Keiji and Osamu. Being seated on the polished tile floor isn’t exactly the most comfortable, and even if there’s a significant distance between the door of Kageyama’s flat and the opposite flat’s door, the small hall hadn’t been made to accommodate two grown men sitting, with their legs stretched out in front of them, each leaning against one of the walls, opposite to each other.
Keiji wishes dearly that the neighbour has no visits that want to leave by the main lift. He also wishes none of the remaining people inside the flat he was minutes ago decides to leave earlier too.
Osamu’s socked foot hits the side of Keiji’s hips while he moves his arms forward to get one of his onigiris.
The rice ball is back home.
“Sorry,” Osamu mutters.
Keiji observes the uncared way Osamu holds the onigiri in his right hand, giving it a bite, while the left hand skilfully opens a can of beer put by his side on the floor. Just food, just a late time snack, just the two of them sharing a moment.
“So, this might sound stupid, but…” a gulp in his beer. “What exactly do you work with?”
“I never told you that?”
“Huh… I think I only knew you worked with mangas. But I never asked directly, right?”
Osamu was right. If Keiji could remember all the times they met during the MSBY games or even in after-parties —that he was enticed to participate—, he and Osamu would normally talk a lot more about onigiri’s business, even if Keiji had no idea of the details of the field, he was only being curious and a little selfish, so he could eat more of the onigiri made by Osamu’s hands. Sometimes Keiji would say to the other man that definitely there was some kind of illicit substance in the recipe that made that rice so good, Osamu always denied everything. Or they would talk about whatever Atsumu and Bokuto were playing or had the intention to play to animate the night.
The subjects never surrounding too personal or daily stuff, even if the moment was favourable to that. Perhaps there was a certain comfort zone in never getting too close.
But now Keiji wondered for a few seconds if Osamu felt like he had lost an opportunity until that moment too.
“I work for a manga publisher” Keiji answers, getting what was probably the nth onigiri that night. “I’m editing Udai Tenma-san’s work now.”
“Oh wow, that's nice! You read for a living. This is… Kind of… Everything . It's almost like saying: ‘yeah I wake up, I breathe, I eat, I go to sleep’. Perfect life.”
Seeing the excitement in Osamu’s gestures and tone, Keiji scoffs.
“Yeah. OK.”
“I mean it!” Osamu points a finger. “It’s like having the menu of the best restaurants in the world, and you can pick anything for free .”
Keiji can’t buy the thrilling feeling Osamu is exuding with that, but he also can’t hold a laugh from escaping him.
“Yes, OK!” he says more effusively this time. “I guess it's nice. Though, it wasn't what I wanted…”
Osamu’s relaxed expression changes once again that night, for a more concentrated, serious one. Keiji felt like he was truly being seen and listened to for the first time in a long while.
“What did you want?”
“Literature. Critic magazine or a literature publisher, maybe.”
Osamu wags his head while chewing another bite of his now second rice ball. He looks at the ceiling as if weighing the options.
“Yeah, but like… You still can say what other people should do.” he offers, raising his brows and twitching his mouth, in an unbothered way. Keiji questions himself if things are always that clear for and with Osamu. “Saying like: ‘it doesn't work, change it’. Or, ‘It's better this way’. You rule them.”
“You make it even sound fun. But it's really stressful sometimes.”
“Well, then, share your stress.”
Again, the serious tone, the serious look. Osamu takes another gulp of his beer, before pointing and signalling with his finger, the can still well secured with his other fingers. He is giving the stage, the moment, to any of Keiji's complaints. I'm all ears, he practically says. All it takes is a look and a gesture to Keiji to feel the bubbling of the want for talking and opens his heart right there.
But he refrains to it.
“Enough about me…” he says at last. His beer can is on his lap, right positioned in the middle of his thighs. He fiddles with the seal with his index finger, “You, on the other hand, are a cook. Very sexy of you…”
Keiji can’t believe what he is saying. He opts for blaming the beer once again that night. “The apron, the rice shaping, chopping the vegetables, all that.”
Osamu seems unbothered by the sudden comment that could sound like a chat-up line. A small smirk appears on his lips.
“Nah, not as sexy as sitting in a chair all day, your back a little hunched while reading and drowning yourself in coffee,” he answers, in a playful tone and the smirk transforming into a complete smile.
Later, when Keiji revises that conversation or the whole night, he knows he will think about those lips more than necessary. But at that moment, under the yellow lights, with Osamu still in front of him, their legs slightly touching; sharing the heat of the bodies; in a sultry hallway; during the hottest season; with a cold meal and drink; Keiji lets the bubbling feeling pops, and he laughs genuinely.
Under Osamu’s gaze, it’s easy.
“Your idea of sexiness is a bit odd,” he says after calming down.
The small smile is still dancing on Osamu’s lips when he shrugs.
“It’s the concept that makes everything more interesting.”
“What do you mean?”
Osamu shrugs again, a twitch on his lips taking the smile away.
“Like the need for a massage after or a good relaxing bath.”
The gesture that could look just like consideration, with Osamu looking at some point on the other side of the hallway, for the first time in the night, in Keiji’s vision, finally looked like Osamu was shy with the situation. And when he speaks again, he’s still looking at the point above the lift doors.
“This is a way of sharing the stress and the daily burden, too.”
Then with a deep sigh, Osamu puts his grey eyes directly back on Keiji, causing his breath to be held somewhere between his lungs and the passage through his throat.
“There’s another thing about you that it’s sexier…”
Keiji was the one who started with that kind of conversation, he could as well continue with it. He sees Osamu’s questioning expression, but before he can transform that into another smirk, Keiji finishes saying:
“The way you think.”
That didn’t help at all to erase the smug expression in formation on Osamu’s face. Apparently, Keiji’s words only helped Osamu to forget whatever trace of shyness he might have expressed before.
“Does it mean it’s the first step for you to like me more than only my onigiris?”
“Limits, Miya-san.”
And now Osamu is laughing openly. Keiji realizes later, he would remember the way Osamu’s teeth were hit by the dim lights.
🍙
23:38
It’s relatively early when Keiji looks at his watch. Usually —and he has the feeling that on that night it won’t be different—, the party would go until the buses start rolling, and the train station opens again. But his butt’s bones aren’t hurting anymore on the hard floor, and his back isn’t uncomfortable against the cold wall.
He looks at the white door, weighing his options. Keiji doesn’t want to come back inside the party. The mood has changed. But looking at Osamu drawing patterns with his fingertip in the coloured tile, does Keiji not want to leave either.
Keiji sighs.
“I think I better go…”
Osamu widens his eyes to Keiji, making him smile. His deception is too obvious.
“Already?” is the way the sentiment is voiced.
“Yeah, I kinda lost the mood.”
He starts raising from his place on the floor. Osamu keeps looking at him, following his movements, a pout on his lips, the brows furrowing in concern.
“Don’t worry, it's not your fault.” Keiji tries to soothe him.
It’s a lie, he knows he is lying. It’s Osamu’s fault for making that moment too nice to be ruined with anything else. But Keiji’s words seem to have some effect at least, with a nod from Osamu and his own choice to start to raise too. His expression, less worried, when he starts collecting the empty plate and the cans, and then makes his second offer of the night:
“At least let me walk you to the station.”
It’s not a question, or a request. Keiji feels like he’s being informed and there’s no opening to deny anything. He couldn’t if he tried, either.
“Oh… It’s…” Keiji nods then. “Yeah, sure, thank you.”
Inside the flat again, Keiji doesn’t leave the entrance hall. He’s there just to grab his backpack, waiting close to the door, the farthest from the vision of anyone else, only waiting for Osamu to finish discarding the rubbish.
Then the ride down and out of the building happens quietly. Keiji observes how Osamu stands still by his side in the lift, tapping his fingers on his thighs.
The walk through the pavements is yet quiet. And besides Osamu’s fidgeting from before, he now looks to accompany not only Keiji’s steps but his calmness with the silence too, even after almost one hour of uninterrupted talk.
Keiji looks at his watch again. It'll be enough time for him to get the last bus. But he doesn't want the night to end just yet. He wants to hold the bubbling feeling inside his chest for a long while. To feel the heat on him, mingling with the heat of the night and a still murmurous city.
“Will you get on time for the train?” Osamu voices his worries.
“Yes, it is not far from here.”
Keiji keeps walking in silence, turning the streets, being followed, having Osamu's company on his track being guided across the streets. He wonders how much longer they will walk in silence before Osamu realizes.
And after ten minutes it appears not to be enough to ring any sort of alarms for Osamu. Perhaps it takes the rest of the fifteen minutes’ walk before he starts to suspect. Keiji questions himself if he isn’t taking advantage of Osamu’s lack of knowledge of the city.
They keep walking. Ten more minutes until he notices Osamu finally beginning to look around him, studying the streets, memorizing the path, paying more attention to the street signs and their information.
Keiji holds a laugh, and by the moment Osamu turns to look at him, he turns his head too, trying to pretend he was only looking at a closed shop’s window.
A few more steps and Keiji can see the street of their final destination. Following into it, they stop in front of an automatic door, almost hidden by the shops on both sides. Osamu looks up, and Keiji observes him observing the windows in the flats built above the shops.
“Akaashi-kun… That’s no train station.” he squints at Keiji, in fake concern, his head tilting a little.
And that’s the way he pulls another chuckle from Keiji.
“Well, now you know where I live.” Keiji bites the inside of his lips, before going on. “And that, actually, only a bus was enough to bring me here.”
Osamu puts his hands on his hips, wearing a serious face, but not like the one before, he looks much more like he was about to give a scolding in a kitchen full of people.
“Now I have no idea how to go back,” he frowns.
Keiji walks closer. One step away. Osamu’s frown starts to clear slowly, into a more surprised look. Keiji slides his fingers on one of Osamu’s wrists, taking his hand from its support on his hips. Keiji keeps sliding his hand in Osamu’s hand, tangling their fingers. He looks over his glasses frames at the confused and lost face Osamu is making, looking at their hands together. And Keiji wishes his eyes have some effect at that specific moment.
“Miya-san…” he keeps his voice low. “Won’t you come inside?”
He feels he’s getting flushed and wonders what is making him keep saying that many straightforward things to Osamu. Perhaps it’s his way of testing the waters to see at which point he can fluster Osamu back.
If any of them are embarrassed under the watchful street light, Keiji does his best to hold their gaze together. No time to shy away.
Keiji sees Osamu swallowing, his Adam's apple moving. He feels his hand being squeezed, it’s soothing. Then Osamu leans forward, but not down. Keiji also feels Osamu nuzzling his temple, brushing Keiji’s fringe away with his nose.
“No, I really need to go…” his voice is soft on Keiji’s ear.
But still, Keiji wants to take his hands out of Osamu’s, lean back. Abort the action like it didn’t happen. Osamu’s hand keeps him in place instead, squeezing tighter than before, pulling him closer keeping the same position as before, with his nose among Keiji’s hair.
Keiji thinks the word he wants to say won’t leave his vocal cords, but he manages it anyway.
“Why?”
“Because if I stay, I won’t wanna leave.”
This time, with a soft smile on his lips, Keiji leans back, but only enough to bat his eyelashes to Osamu.
“You don’t need to…”
Osamu pinches Keiji’s waist with his free hand.
“Limits, Akaashi-kun.”
Osamu squints again. Keiji chuckles again. Osamu closes their small distance again. The feeling of Osamu’s nose nuzzling his hair once more, the caress, but the touch of the lips on Keiji’s cheek is new. The knots in Keiji's stomach are an old sensation, but the reason is new.
With his lips closer to Keiji’s ear, Osamu slowly requests the instructions of how to come back to the flat they left. And Keiji doesn’t want to let the sensation go away, he doesn’t want to let Osamu go, so he considers insisting on Osamu to stay once more. But he also knows better than that.
It’s with the right instructions and trajectory back, and the promise of a text of safe arrival, that Osamu nuzzles Keiji’s temple again. Keiji apologizes for taking Osamu so far.
Osamu smiles before starting to lean slowly back.
“Another thing that makes you sexier…” he pauses, playing with their fingers before letting go. “You're mischievous.”
Keiji wonders if Osamu had a hard time having to finish that night too. As he watches Osamu leaves, under another set of faint lights, he observes his bubbling feelings mingle with the midnight sky and the oppressive air of the end of summer is filled with the rest of the breath in Keiji’s lungs, taken almost forcefully away from him.