Chapter Text
It's a Match!
Karma stares at his phone screen for two long seconds, then pales at the realization.
This means two things:
One, that Asano swiped right on him.
Two, that Asano now knows Karma also swiped right on him.
--
Karma has not seen Gakushuu Asano ever since they graduated from high school.
These sort of things are funny - if Karma was being honest, he'd expect to have kept in contact with Asano the most, out of everyone else in their high school. They did get along pretty well, in Karma's humble opinion, and he would like to think that Asano thought the same too.
Despite that, Karma has had better luck accidentally stumbling across ex-schoolmates he didn't even say a word to back then while running errands, now (they're all adults, what a time to be alive), or even crossing paths in their respective professional fields.
Asano, on the other hand, had pretty much immediately upended his life in Japan and taken the next available flight to the States.
(Karma understood. He got an email with the title deed when he became of age, and then he'd immediately sold his parents' house to move downtown. He'd driven past the ex-Principal's house just for old times sake and saw the curtains drawn shut. No one’s heard from the ex-Principal since, and Karma can’t quite find it in his heart to be sympathetic.)
But it’s not as if they’ve cut ties altogether. It’d be hard to, considering that Karma somehow finds himself three degrees of separation from Asano no matter where he goes. Somehow everyone in Japan knows someone who knows Gakushuu Asano, and misses him terribly. Of course Karma knew the kid tried to be well connected, but this extent was absurd - how did he find the time to breathe? If Karma heard one more "what a shame he left Japan", he might just go to America to strangle him.
And then to make matters worse, Asano had the audacity to be successful. Karma knew, the moment he saw Asano's stupid face on the newsletter, that Karma would never escape hearing about it. How could he? Everyone's high school crush was now a multi-millionaire.
Sometimes he wondered if Asano thought the same about him, but there was no reason for him to. Not like there were constant reminders of Karma in America, and not like Karma is famous enough to be mentioned there. (He's good at his job, and he's considered so essential to board meetings that his supervisors schedule around his availability, but his colleagues rightly wouldn't let him touch a microphone.)
But did Asano ever think to search Karma up on a whim, to see what he was doing? They were at each others' toes for six whole years - that has got to mean something, right? There were tons of smart people in America, and the corporate shark-infested waters may give Asano the same challenge Karma did… but Karma was his first! Rival!
Asano never struck him as the sentimental type, but surely he googled Karma once or twice! It's unfair that Karma hears about him constantly, and Asano gets to pretend he never existed. They had something special(ly competitive)!
And then, of course-
The prodigal son returns to Japan.
Karma is, possibly, the last person in Japan to know.
Maybe. He wouldn't know. But it seemed like everyone was already in the loop when he heard about it, and "weren't you his ex-classmate, Akabane? Shouldn't you know?"
"It's not like we talk!" Karma had protested.
"Asano is opening a branch in Japan," Suzuki tells him, sounding like a disappointed mother whose son doesn't read the morning paper. "Really, Akabane, it's old news."
"If it's old news then why is everyone talking about it now?" Karma said.
"Because," Majima said, like Karma was an idiot. "He came back today."
--
The match sits in Karma's inbox for three days, burning a hole in his pocket. Neither of them have sent a message, but surely Asano has seen it, right? He had to be online at least recently to have encountered Karma's profile, which means his account hadn't been idle.
Was he waiting for Karma to text first?
The account was unmistakably Asano. It didn't have his first name, and was gracefully incognito, such that if Karma hadn't interacted with him for six years he may not have recognized him at all. It had three images - the first, a side profile, face partially in shade, showing a sharp jawline and the start of a smile, but his eyes looked almost brown. Karma sat right beside him through high school - he could trace Asano's side in his dreams. The second, a full body silhouette by a sunset (he'd grown into his shoulders. Was he taller than Karma now? He couldn't tell from the picture). The third, a candid, smiling, with his eyes closed - smart, because his violet eyes were pretty much his one defining feature.
It's been two weeks since Asano has come home. Sakakibara, who appears every so often in the rotating billboard displays by Shibuya Crossing, had posted a picture of the both of them with ice cream cones. Rio had tagged him in it for some goddamn reason and worse still Ren had replied, "hey @K_a_kabane! It's been forever!"
He'd gained far too many followers that day, so he'd promptly privated his account and blocked all of them (except for @Ren_sakakibara, who he's begrudgingly let into his followers list.) Karma doesn't even post often.
Tinder messages don't expire, which means Asano's name stares unblinkingly every single time Karma opens the app… which means Karma stops opening the app at all. He needs to find a new hobby now, because he can no longer idly swipe through hot people in boring work meetings.
What would he even say to Asano? Nobody goes to Tinder for genuine emotional connection. Karma’s profile makes it quite obvious what he’s there for.
Asano’s profile is… ambiguous, it’s not innocent or flirty enough to look like he’s there to get a girlfriend (or boyfriend, since the both of them obviously have their preferences set to include guys), but it’s not openly risque enough for Karma to assume otherwise.
But he swiped on Karma, right? Does that mean he’s down to fuck?
Was it weird to want to bang your high school rival? Karma’s read enough on the internet to see the appeal of tension in a good rivalry. Besides, this was Asano they were talking about. Everyone had a crush on him at one point. It probably wasn’t weird to think about him. Probably.
What if Asano just happened to see his profile and wanted to catch up (and just swiped because that’s how you start a conversation), and Karma was taking this the wrong way? What if he sent an overly flirty pickup line and Asano never talked to him again?
Well, that wouldn’t be too big of a loss, would it? Especially since they weren’t even talking to each other. Karma could live the rest of his life never interacting with Asano and he would not suffer any losses from it.
...but this was Asano Gakushuu. His seventeen year old self would never forgive him if he didn’t at least try .
Hm. Karma goes to his personal computer and opens his photo albums, and finds a picture of seventeen year olds him and Asano, standing next to each other in a photograph they were forced to take, with one of the school competition awards between them. Yeah, they were still kids back then, and they haven’t fully grown into themselves yet. He forgot about how awkward their school uniforms made them look.
Although he supposes he can see where his high school self was coming from. He supposed Asano would have looked cute to him back then.
Karma goes back to the tinder profile. All he had to go off from was Asano’s silhouette, and he bets those arms can lift him.
...Did he still have those freckles on his nose? You couldn’t grow out of freckles, could you? America was sunny. Maybe he would have more freckles?
Oh, god.
--
“Are you still having that crisis?”
“I’m not having a crisis,” says Karma.
Saturday movie nights are more boring when Kayano’s out of town and Nagisa’s in the middle of his exam crunch. His audience of one is uncaring. Rio reaches over him to grab the bottle of Sprite, and empties the last drops of it in her thermos. “Both of you are just playing chicken now. You’re waiting for him to text first, he’s probably waiting for you to text first, and the both of you are equally stubborn. This isn’t going to go anywhere unless one of you makes a move.”
“Then if our communication tendencies don’t align, maybe it means that we’re not meant to be,” Karma says.
Rio kicks him. “Text him.”
“Noooo!”
“Look, you’ve always liked Asano!”
Karma buries his head in his hands. “I had a crush on him like, ten years ago. We were kids.”
“And both of you have grown exponentially hotter since then,” Rio says. “Look up.”
Karma looks up.
She’s holding his phone up to his face. It unlocks with face recognition before Karma realizes what’s happening, and she vaults over to the other side of the couch before he manages to swipe it back from her.
“Don’t you dare!”
“I can’t believe it’s been six days since both of you matched,” Rio says, her foot pressed firmly to Karma’s face. Karma yanks it, she shrieks, he makes a wild grab for the phone, she tries to kick him again, and-
“Oh my god,” Karma says in dismay.
The incomprehensible string of letters and numbers they’ve managed to send, stares back at him.
“I can’t believe you sent him a keysmash.”
“That’s your fault,” Rio sniffs. “I was just going to text him Hi.”
“No you weren’t.”
“Fine, it was going to be, Hi Sexy.”
Now it was an eloquent “Hi Se8usgaaye7844938gwvgm3273”, sent to one Asano Gakushuu, Karma’s ex-highschool rival, someone he hasn’t spoken to in 10 years.
“Rio,” Karma says pleasantly. “I’m going to kill you.”
--
“Wait, wait!” Rio shrieks. “Time out!”
“I’m going to gut you like a fish, Nakamura!”
“Waaaiiiit! I heard your- ow, my arm! I heard your phone notification!”
“You can’t distract me with-”
“I’m seriooooouuuuus! Owwww!”
“Lying won’t save your-”
Ding!
Karma freezes.
Rio blinks. “You heard that, right?”
Karma lets go of her and dives over the couch to retrieve his phone.
Rio scrambles to her feet. “Oh my god, is it from Asano?”
“Shut up,” Karma hissed.
She pops over his shoulder. “Oh!”
Karma: Hi Se8usgaaye7844938gwvgm3273
Asano: What?
Asano: Well, it sounds like you’ve not changed a bit.
“Ahhh!” Rio slaps him. “That’s flirting!”
“How is that flirting?” Karma protests, but his ears are burning. “What should I say?”
“Tell him he hasn’t changed at all either,” Rio says. “Oh, wait, or is it better to tell him he’s changed a lot?”
Karma: Neither have you, it seems
Karma: Second Place
“You’re definitely flirting,” Rio whispers.
“Shut up,” Karma whispers back.
The both of them stare at his phone with bated breaths, waiting anxiously.
Asano: Haha.
Asano: It’s nice to hear from you too, even if it’s through an unorthodox channel such as this.
“That’s a hundred percent flirting,” Rio says. “Your heart is beating so fucking fast.”
“Don’t lean on me, then,” Karma says.
Karma: You don’t seem like one for the dating app scene
Asano: I could say the same for you.
Karma sucks in a breath.
Karma: It gets the job done
Asano: That, I can’t deny.
Rio says, “ask if he wants to fuck.”
Karma says, “I’m not doing that.”
Karma: Wanna fuck?
Rio screams into his ear.
Karma smacks her.
Asano: Forward.
Asano: That’s always what I liked about you, I suppose.
Asano: When and where?
“Rio,” Karma says. “You have to leave right now.”
--
Karma’s never driven halfway across town at midnight to get laid. Usually they come to him, because he’s not a fan of spending a night in a place he’s unfamiliar with.
But, well, it’s Gakushuu Asano.
Karma usually doesn’t care about the state of his apartment (the people he brings home only cares about his bedroom) but… well, again, it’s Gakushuu Asano.
And it’s not like Karma is… overly messy, either. Just a little controlled mess, is what he’d like to call it.
He was halfway hauling his vacuum out of its charging unit before he realized what he was doing, and decided to text that he’d come over instead. Turns out Asano had leased a little flat near his new office building.
Asano: I’m still in the process of moving in, if you don’t mind the mess.
Karma had looked at his half-vacuumed carpet.
Karma: I won’t judge
And now he’s here.
The security guard scrutinizes him for a very long, suspicious beat, and then practically tails Karma to the elevator, as if his leather jacket and half-price sneakers aren’t worth the condominium top floors.
The ride up is slow enough to be nerve wrecking, and for a brief second Karma almost considers bolting.
But then the doors open into the corridor of Asano’s floor, and Karma thinks to himself, “you’re a coward. It’s just Gakushuu Asano.”
Asano’s apartment is a long long walk away, two doors down. Karma thinks he would die out there in the corridor if he needs to battle his inner anxieties over to knock or not to knock... but the door is already open.
Asano says in greeting, “my security guard doesn’t believe that there’s a homeless man waiting out here for me.”
Huh. He has more freckles.
Karma’s mouth is dry. His mouth kicks into autopilot with, “these jeans are artfully ripped.”
Asano laughs. It’s warm, and deep. “He is like that with all strangers.”
He’s in sweatpants and a plain tee.
Of course he’s in sweatpants, this is his own house. That doesn’t mean it’s not somehow unbelievably hot.
“Would you like something to drink?” Asano says. “Your throat sounds dry.”
Oh, that motherfucker.
“If you don’t mind,” Karma says.
Asano’s house isn’t messy at all. What a liar.
He steps around into an open kitchen, and fills Karma a glass from a dispenser. Their fingers brush when he hands it over - Karma swallows. Asano’s eyes twinkle.
Asano says, “it’s nice to see you, after so long.”
“It is,” Karma says. “10 years, right?”
They stare at each other for a beat.
Karma says, “I thought about a million possible starters for small talk and catching up on the way here, but I’ve decided that it’s all boring. What do you say we just skip right to the main event?”
“ Oh , it really is nice to see you,” Asano says, and yanks him closer by the collar.
--
Karma finds out that Asano’s arms can, in fact, lift him.
“Seventeen year old me is dying of happiness.”
“Hm?” Asano cracks an eye open to look at him. “Did you like me when we were in high school, Akabane?”
“I never had a crush on you,” Karma lies. “I never wanted to kiss your stupid face.”
“Mhm, I'm sure,” Asano says, closing his eyes. “Go to sleep, idiot.”