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Kuroda Yukinari only worried about a few things: which winter sport to compete in while cycling was off-season, whether the roots of his silver hair showed, and how he looked in front of Arakita-san--but he never expected his new ace to top that list.
Especially not after one summer afternoon, after all the seniors had picked up their uniforms and bikes and water bottles, leaving behind an empty clubroom and the opportunity for Kuroda Yukinari to walk in an Ashikiba Takuto, sprawled out, face-up, flat on the floor.
“Yukinari Kuroda-san…?” He mumbled, as if he were speaking to the bike hooked to the ceiling right above him. “I walked into that bike.”
“Were you just gonna lie there until someone came in!?”
“Is that your bike?”
Kuroda stomped, one foot in front of the other, planting each down firmly so the floor beneath might shake, might move the giant on the floor in some way until he stood above the other, blocking the hanging bike from view.
“Did you scratch it!?”
Ashikiba shook his head side to side.
Kuroda swallowed. He looked up at the white Kuota frame, scanning it quickly for marks.
“Wait. How’d you know it’s mi--”
“You’re the only one not riding today.”
Kuroda, hands on his hips, looked down at the boy on the floor.
Ashikiba’s orange hair splayed out beneath his head, surrounding his face like a lion’s mane. Under his left eye was a purple-blue bruise, probably from his collision with the hanging bike, but his expression reflected no physical pain, unchanging and somber, with thick eyebrows pressed together and lacking the same pride that Fukutomi’s thick eyebrows gave his face. Kuroda didn’t like looking at his face.
“You’re not riding today,” Ashikiba repeated.
Kuroda frowned. “Heard you the first time.” He crossed his arms.
“Don’t you usually?” Ashikiba paused. “Ride, I mean.”
“You’re aren’t either, idiot.”
“I’m just the laundry clerk, not an athlete.”
Kuroda knew many things about Ashikiba Takuto, tall, reserved, air-headed. Arakita-san never spoke well of “Hakogaku’s giant laundry boy.” Izumida mentioned him a couple times off-handedly as someone who rode like they were bouncing.
But Ashikiba looked through Kuroda as if he were a part of the ceiling, as if he were something worse than Arakita not speaking well of him or being a conversation piece on Izumida’s mind, and something about looking into that face long enough...Maybe it was so he didn’t have to look at it any longer, combined with those thoughts, that compelled Kuroda to sit down beside the tall boy.
Ashikiba sat up and murmured, “Aren’t you a regular?” like Kuroda couldn’t hear it.
His height at a seated level stunned Kuroda, but the white-haired boy sat stiff, trying not to show that he’d noticed.
“They’re on the rollers right now. It’s important to train right before the Summer Interhigh,” Ashikiba continued, turning to look at Kuroda. “Fukutomi-san said.”
Kuroda looked up, the purple-blue bruise forming on Ashikiba’s cheekbone catching his eye. He stared a few seconds too long.
Ashikiba blinked. “It’s a birthmark.”
“That bruise!?” Kuroda jumped back, leaning back on one arm.
“Huh?” Ashikiba’s hands cupped his own cheeks. “Huh!? Wher--”
“That!” Kuroda pressed two fingers to the bruise.
“Ow!” Ashikiba pulled away. “Ow! Oh… No, that’s no--”
“What the hell!” Kuroda stood. Within a second, he was out the door and down the hallway, huffing and angry.
#
“So you met Ashikiba.” Arakita popped a couple yen into the vending machine.
“One minute this guy speaks plainly, the next he’s obviously the idiot that walked right into my Kuota.”
“Don’t know what Fuku-chan sees in him.” Arakita crouched down, grabbing two dispensed Bepsi bottles. “Guess he’s good at doing laundry.”
“Oh, that’s right. That’s him, huh?”
“Don’t mind guys like him.” Arakita stood, passing one Bepsi to his junior. “He’s not on track like you.”
A few seconds passed before Arakita added, “Next year’s your last chance. Got it?”
Kuroda accepted the bottle without looking up. He felt the weight of the can in his hand, the coldness of the bottle seeping into his palm.
“Got it.”
#
“Uh, Kuroda Yukinari-san.”
“You don’t have to say my full name.”
“Kuroda-san...I’m...sorry about your bike the other day.” Ashikiba trailed behind the other, carrying a basket of fresh towels.
“You didn’t scratch it, and that was almost a week ago.”
“O-Oh. Well, I noticed you weren’t cycling…so I thought maybe your bike--”
Kuroda whipped around, his arms gripped at his side, and his foot planted in place of Ashikiba’s next step.
“I said, you didn’t break my bike or anything.” His brows came together as he clenched his teeth.
Ashikiba took a step back, marveling at the the smaller boy’s grinding teeth. “Oh, uh…that’s good…”
Kuroda’s glare didn’t waver.
“Uh...I heard you do other sports, off-season…? Is that why you’re not cycling? Fukutomi-san and Shinkai-san mention--”
“And why are you so damn interested!?”
Ashikiba raised the laundry basket a little higher and close to his body, to create some blockade between. “I-I wanted to see...what a regular-in-the-making was like.” But Kuroda’s expression didn’t soften. “We’re the same year, so I thought--”
“Are you really some fucking idiot or something!?”
“Huh?”
Kuroda’s right hand snapped forward, grabbing for Ashikiba but then slamming the basket of towels from the other’s hands instead. Ashikiba let go immediately, and the towels flew, scattering across the hallway, clumping in random piles.
“I didn’t make the team!” Kuroda seized Ashikiba by the shirt, fisting his clenched palms tight and reeling the taller boy down and right in front of his eyes. “I’m not a regular! I didn’t make #6!” The grip drained the blood from Kuroda’s hands and his wrists tightened until they were shaking.
Ashikiba stood hunched, swaying one way or the other from the pull, below him a sea of white towels, a toppled-over white basket, a white haired-boy with his fists full of Ashikiba’s white shirt, wrinkling it. He watched the smaller boy stiffen, all of the erratic movements slowing together into soft shudders of the boy’s shoulders. And then he watched the next movements with more care: the way the shoulders came together, squeezed tight for a second--and then Kuroda unclenched Ashikiba’s shirt, clenched it, and buried his face into it and sobbed.
Perhaps that was all it took.
#
It started when a few days after the summer Inter High, in Hakone’s locker room. Both he and the other climber had finished a couple hours on the rollers. The taller of the two identified Kuroda’s white hair, lumbered over, limbs heavy, and collapsed beside the equally exhausted Kuroda.
“Kuroda-san!”
“Just Kuroda is fine.”
“Kuroda… Good work!”
Kuroda shifted, moving his thigh away from Ashikiba’s, but the other climber noticed, and closed the gap between them. “You were on the rollers longer than me.”
Kuroda leaned down, grabbing his water bottle from under the bench and shaking it. “Empty.”
Ashikiba leaned his elbows on his knees to reach Kuroda’s new eye-level. “So...what do you do off season?”
“Basketball and baseball.”
Ashikiba waited a moment, collecting his thoughts before replying, “Ah, cool.”
A moment of silence passed. Kuroda stood, stretching out his limbs.
“It’s hard to choose sometimes. Both teams need me every season.”
“Th-That’s really cool.”
Kuroda nodded. Some more silence passed as the white-haired climber finished his stretches.
“That’s it?”
“Hm?”
“That’s all!? You came over just to ask about the sports I played?”
The taller boy thought for a moment. “Um...yes.”
#
The summer days passed by like that.
“Kuroda, Do you bleach your hair white a lot?”
“Not usually.”
“Ah, cool.”
A day on the rollers, a question in the locker room.
“What do you like about Arakita-san?”
“He’s tough.”
“Ah, I see.”
“If you could be any animal, what would you be?”
“A cat.”
“Oh!”
Without fail. And increasingly ridiculous.
“Did you dye your hair white because of the kanji for ‘snow’ in your name, Kuroda?”
“No.”
“Ah, cool!”
Silence.
“Are you going to dye your roots soon?”
“What?”
“Since I’m taller, I can see the top of your head…” Ashikiba began, but he trailed off, hoping Kuroda might forget.
“What the fuck did you say!?”
That was the last straw, Kuroda decided, in between bleaching and toning and burning the roots of his hair with chemicals in the evening.
Far too many and far too mixed in between their practices on the mountain routes surrounding Kanagawa, for Kuroda to actually recollect the small shreds of himself he parsed to the curious climber each day.
#
“Touichirou, it’s too much, he’s too much.”
His best friend laughed, tossing Kuroda a towel. “I think he just wants to get close to you.”
“What?”
“Well…it’s a little embarrassing.” Izumida paused in front of the locker room mirror, wiping his naked waist, Andy, Frank, and arms down with his own towel. “I kind of did the same thing to Shinkai-san.”
“But that’s because you look up to Shinkai. That idiot couldn’t possibly…” Lost in thought, Kuroda leaned back, laying the towel over his face. “Maybe… Maybe he’s one of those guys trying to get close to get a shot at the ace numbers.”
Izumida hung his towel and shut his locker. He shook his head. “I wouldn’tbe surprised, Yuki. You’re going to be our #2 for sure.”
“Yeah.”
“But, you quickly underestimate him.” Izumida lifted the towel from Kuroda’s face and smiled. “According to Shinkai-san, he’s got talent. He’s Fukutomi-san’s favorite.”
“What!?” Kuroda sat up, his eyebrows pinching in and pressing down on his heavy lids. “You’re kidding. You can’t mean that…”
Izumida tossed the dirty towel into the laundry basket. He laughed. “He’s not an ordinary laundry clerk anymore, he’s the only climber Fukutomi-san is sending to the Mt. Minegayama race.”
#
The day after Ashikiba returned from the Mt. Minegayama Race, ribbon in hand, and brimming with unexplainable pride, Kuroda followed the taller boy into the locker room after practice.
“Oi, Takuto.” Kuroda walked in, a smile cracking his face. “So. Second place?”
“T-Takuto!?” Ashikiba, who was seated, turned around with wild eyes and a smile to return Kuroda’s. “Yes! You should enter a race too, Yuki-chan.” He patted the empty space beside him, which Kuroda took. “It was a lot of fun!”
“Fukutomi-san didn’t enter me like he did you.” Kuroda smoothed a palm against Ashikiba’s back. “You know what that means?” His smile widened.
“You don’t like climbs?”
A perfect, idiotic question. The smile faded from the white-haired boy’s face and he let a full, silent minute pass. He watched Ashikiba’s left leg steadily begin to thrum, up and down, in some form and rhythm that had purpose.
“Fukutomi-san… thinks you don’t like climbs?”
Kuroda dropped his hand. Ashikiba looked at it. Leg up, down, pause for two seconds, up.
“Well, I guess you’re more of an all-rounder,” Ashikiba continued.
It wasn’t mere leg-shaking-syndrome, but Kuroda noted its melody in its up-down-stop-up-down.
And then Ashikiba added, “Am I right, Yuki-chan?”
Melody. Rythmn. An climber-ace for the next Interhigh.
Perhaps it was this small moment of distraction that gave Ashikiba bravery.
Ashikiba scooted forward, pressing their thighs together and bringing their faces closer. Kuroda remained still, until Ashikiba closed the gap between them and pressed lips to Kuroda Yukinari’s for fifteen seconds that felt like sixty, then pulled away.
That combined with the warmth of Ashikiba’s sweaty thigh pressed against his own made Kuroda wince.He felt the heat of their touching thighs sink into his skin and rise into his face. His resting hands clenched into fists, and he considered whether Ashikiba’s neck could fit between them, but instead, he couldn’t bring himself to move.
He leaned away, his eyes stuck following Ashikiba’s leg because he wasn’t sure what else to do. He remained like that and counted the seconds. Another full minute.
So Ashikiba grew braver.
“What did you think about the Interhigh, Yuki-chan?” Ashikiba said.
That was it. “Oi!” Kuroda stood. “Don’t just do that, and then call me Yuki-chan, and then expect--”
“But you called me Takuto.”
Kuroda’s sat down, covering his red face with his palms. “The Interhigh… That’s what you really wanted to talk about, huh?”
“Huh!?”
“You’re asking me stuff every day. And then today, asking and doing whatever the hell you feel like! And then doing that!”
Ashikiba’s foot stopped. Kuroda’s eyes darted to it, then he looked into the shocked face of the other climber.
The striking lavender shade of Ashikiba’s eyes locked onto Kuroda’s. Kuroda didn’t like looking at his face even more now.
“What!?”
“Really, what do you think?”
Kuroda sighed. He drew himself up. “I’m shocked.”
Ashikiba nodded.
“It’s embarrassing.” He wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the Interhigh anymore.
“Uh-huh.”
Kuroda bit his lip, and turned away. “What about you?”
“Hmm.” Ashikiba tilted his head. “Well, I lost at Mt. Minegayama.”
Kuroda nodded, composed now.
“And Hakogaku lost the Interhigh,” Ashikiba leaned forward, catching Kuroda’s eyes with his, the even tone of his voice drawing Kuroda’s attention.
“But, I think, losing once to an opponent is even more reason to ensure that we will never lose again.”
And then Kuroda’s eyes couldn’t leave Ashikiba’s and the redness was back in his face.
“That’s the duty of Hakogaku’s new ace.”
He felt himself staring for too long again.
“In a race, an ace doesn’t pass the finish line without the help of his assist.” Ashikiba continued with a smile. “So I wanted to get to know you better, Yuki-chan!”
“Th-That’s--”
“And I’m glad I did.”
The past few months spread out into a thousand thoughts in Kuroda’s head. What would Arakita think? What would he think if he found out that Kuroda Yukinari was biting his lip, flushed, embarrassed, and impressed? In front of him was a boy who questioned the sports Kuroda played off-season or monitored the growth of his roots, who asked too many questions, but also let Kuroda cry into his shirt. In front of him was Hakogaku’s new ace.
All at once he snatched Ashikiba by the collar, and, hands around the taller boy’s neck, kissed him back. Kuroda let go.
“Don’t fuck it up.”