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"You know, I'm allergic to shrimp," Kise comments to Kasamatsu. Nothing provoked the comment, but the words hang in the air as the two wipe off their sweat after a one-on-one practice section. Kise smiles, as though he expects a reply to his random confession.
Kasamatsu rolls his eyes. "I'm allergic to stupidity, now shut up. Drink a bit more water and we can go another round." Kasamatsu tries to stick to business, tries to focus on the sole task of basketball. They agreed to just basketball, and Kasamatsu had no reason to let it become some bonding chat.
"That's funny, Senpai," Kise notes without humor, "Allergic to stupidity? You never seem to sneeze and sniffle around me. Did you tell just a joke?" A cocky grin spreads over Kise's face when he stands up from the bench to hover over the already-standing Kasamatsu. "You seem perfectly healthy right now." Kise leans a bit closer, eyes half-lidden and darker.
Kasamatsu turns away on his heals. "I sweat the stupidity-germs out before they settle in. C'mon, let's keep going."
Kasamatsu grabs the basketball from the ground, and they begin their second round. Kise proves that he is better at the sport than his ex-captain time and time again, but Kise works up a sweat, too. Kise feels alive and cornered a few times. Kasamatsu has Kise's full and total respect on the court every moment they play. Kasamatsu has Kise's full and total attention every moment they spend together.
They part after a second match. Two-of-two for Kise, and Kasamatsu gives him a congratulations and tips. No unnecessary time together.
---
Graduation passed two months ago. Kise kept up his work for all his usual activities, and Kasamatsu felt more stressed than anticipated from the extra college course load. Kasamatsu also began working as a waiter to help pay a few expenses, so his hours of free time stay sparse. Kasamatsu makes free time, demands it, on the days Kaijo has a match.
Kasamatsu does not have to be at the game in person to know the score; he could text anyone on the team for the score. Kise's number appears at the top of his recent messages. Kasamatsu could easily skimp on a match and ask about the details of the team's (obvious expected) victory, but then he would miss Kise waving at him during a time-out or break. Kasamatsu falters when he thinks of losing those small attention-seeking waves; he really should have stopped caring about high school basketball already. Kasamatsu stops waving back at Kise the second time he watches a game, thinking it would be trivial.
Kise waves at his fans, though, more often and with more peppiness. Kasamatsu gets angry at Kise, demanding he pay attention to the game, which seems to be all he ever tells the blond nowadays. Kise claims he cannot stop himself during breaks -- "they're breaks!" -- and Kise especially keeps waving at Kasamatsu. Kasamatsu realizes he does not mind Kise pleading for attention during those breaks because, frankly, he looks sincere. Kasamatsu knows Kise genuinely notices him, and Kise appreciates the sideline support. Kasamatsu waves back only because he knows Kise will preform poorly if he gets mopey.
The games get harder faster than expected. Kaijo wins by three points in the last few minutes of the recent match. Kasamatsu still clenches his hands in anxiety minutes after the game finishes, and people have mostly left the stadium. Easy shots missed. Sloppy passes. Slow dribbling. Kasamatsu almost wants to admit Kaijo would have deserved that loss.
Kasamatsu scurries to the team after people leave when he can navigate to the court better. Kise drinks water at a bottle per minute after the game, same as everyone, and Kasamatsu refrains from punching the drinking blond when he approaches the team.
"Hey," the team greets, wary, knowing that fearsome look too well. They genuinely appreciate their old captain, and they know their pathetic win deserves a scolding, but they scatter to leave before scary alumnus tears them apart.
Kasamatsu allows the team to collect their stuff and leave in relative peace, pointing out areas to improve to a few. Kise stays with Kasamatsu, though, and they both know why.
"The air outside is cool and nice tonight. Want to take this outside?" Kise asks, suggests, pleads.
Kasamatsu does not ask Kise what "this" means; he just nods and walks beside the taller man to outside.
"Is your body okay?" Kasamatsu questions, an edge in his voice.
Kise shrugs. "I'm sure anyone who sees my pictures in magazines would say yes, but . . ."
"But." Kasamatsu already knows.
"Take practice off for three days. Use the time for modeling or whatever you do. Your legs shook the entire match."
"I love the color blue." Kasamatsu shoots Kise a look threatening him that he better make that comment important to the conversation. Kise knows why he's giving that look, and plays along. "I don't get to model in it enough, you know. Modeling isn't fun when I don't wear it. The company should just let me have a shoot in my uniform."
"Hn," Kasamatsu hums. "That seems like a waste of the uniform's purpose. If you did that and went as a representative of Kaijo's basketball team, then you'd have to have the others in there, too. Be a team."
"Then I'd rather not shoot at all. I'd rather . . . I have a pet turtle named Ball."
Kasamatsu stays silent.
"I have a magazine with me modeling with Ball when he was smaller. I wore green, which I don't think looked good on me, and it was fun. Ball was my best friend at the time. I love Ball, but you're my best friend now, I'd say."
Kasamatsu stays silent, tensing.
"I burn myself when I bake most of the time. I stopped baking awhile ago because the marks it left for awhile. Besides, I never had a lot of people to share my food with."
Kasamatsu casts his gaze down, staying silent as ever.
"I've been studying more, lately. I'm getting to be in the top half of my year if I keep my rate going. I knew you wouldn't want me slacking off."
"That's . . . good. Just don't . . . ruin yourself with work. Stop being an idiot and promise you'll take a few days easy." Kasamatsu looks at Kise's exposed legs, how they calmed from in the game, but still trembled from the chilly air. Kasamatsu should say goodbye now, for Kise's sake. So Kise can go home and rest and get warm. Kasamatsu looks up at Kise, intent to leave after a obligatory "farewell."
Kise kept changing expressions with each confession. At first he kept up his wide smile. Then it became a broken smile. Later a desperate, longing gaze. Now Kise looks with watering honey eyes at the man who clearly does not want to look at him back.
Kise feels his throat go dry when steel blue eyes look right through him, and he feels so humiliated just by that look alone. Kise can't let Kasamatsu open his mouth again, he knows what will come out, and he can't take those parting words just yet. "Senpai, stay. Let me keep talking to you. Let me talk about the weather with you. About basketball, or new movies, or organic chemistry, or about us."
"I've already talked to you," Kasamatsu keeps his voice level, keeps it like the familiar voice he uses to scold Kise. "I just wanted to tell you to be careful. We don't have anything important left to say, Kise."
"Then let's not say anything important!" Kise grabs Kasamatsu's hands. A person, people, maybe no one seems to care about the scene, but a thousand eyes feel on them. "Let's be trivial. Fun. Random. We can just be together, even if it's a comfortable silence." Kise knows the silence between them are seldom comfortable anymore, loaded with too many unsaid thoughts and feelings.
Kasamatsu looks down again, to the side. "We just need to say goodbye."
"I think there's more to me than the brat who joined the basketball team at the start of last year, senpai. Stop treating basketball as the only thing between, Yukio!"
Kasamatsu seems to snap out of his gaze, returning to a more genuine expression. His brows furrow down and his eyes keep sharp while his lips pull back to show clenched white teeth. "Basketball is all that should be between us! No, all that was between us. In the past. It's-it's done. I'm a graduate and you're on your way to stardom. Just let it be. I'm just so damn busy, anyway. It's stupid of me to come to these matches. I'm done. I'll let the team be from now on. We can just let it be, too."
"Let what be? We have so much more to be. You know we do." Kise kept his voice low, soft, and his hands reached out to Kasamatsu's.
"Let us be only former teammates. You're right that you aren't the same as when we first met, you're better. You're amazing. I've seen you grow, and that's all I need to see. This past time after I graduated had been -- it's just a way to make sure you and the team would be okay. It's like a parental feeling of needing to know my underclassmen would mature well. You've all done fine, so that's it. I-I don't need to see you grow anymore. I don't need to see you anymore."
Kasamatsu felt Kise tighten his hold on his wrists as he spoke, but he kept talking, kept denying. Kasamatsu still wants to add "goodbye" to his statement, but Kise's death grip makes him sure he is not allowed to leave yet.
"Parental? That's how you saw us -- saw me? As a kid needing to prove he could do well without daddy around to order him around?" Kise almost scares Kasamatsu with a genuinely enraged expression, but then he snaps again and looks forlorn.
Kise bows his head down, lets his bangs hide his eyes. A tear rolls too far down Kise's face and reveals to Kasamatsu why Kise looks away now. "Are you saying that . . . if I asked you if you love me, the best you'd say is that you do like a father does a son?"
Kasamatsu clenches his fists. "I wouldn't say that."
They both fume in silence for a moment and level their emotions. The reply has one of two meanings. They think, consider leaving the statement alone and not clarifying it, but Kise cannot live contently with that. Kasamatsu knows neither one can.
"Do you love me at all?" Kise loosens his grip, letting go of Kasamatsu completely and stepping back.
"I do," Kasamatsu lets the words out because he knows they are noncommittal. Kasamatsu answered the question, he should not need to expand what type of love. Kise demands to know, though, and Kise deserves to know.
"Do you understand what I mean when I say I love you? I love you. I love you even if you hate that I do."
"I understand your feelings." Kasamatsu wonders if he should reach his hands out for Kise's. He does not. His fingers twitch and his lips tremble.
After graduation they stood at opposite ends of a canyon. They made a bridge to the other side when they noticed a rift forming, but Kasamatsu's bridge is made of rotting wood and if he steps on it for more than a moment to get to Kise, he will surely fall into the abyss. Kise throws new pieces of wood to Kasamatsu, but they slip through the nooks in Kasamatsu's bridge, and Kasamatsu refuses to rebuild it. Kise realizes if the bridge is just going to be worthless and dangerous to cross anyway, Kise decides he might as well kidnap Kasamatsu to his bridge and let the old one burn.
Kise sucks in a sharp breath before leaning over Kasamatsu for a brief kiss on the lips. Kise takes Kasamatsu to his side, and if it turns out neither bridge could support them together, he will throw himself off.
Kasamatsu wants to jump off Kise's bridge; he stands unsteady on the new ground, but he does not want to retreat to the bridge he knows would fall on him. Kasamatsu spent to much time alone on his rickety one that he panics, and curses Kise for tearing him away from his comfort and private area, yet he loves feel Kise's support near him again. Suddenly Kise is holding his hands again, and he realizes how much safer he feels. Kasamatsu wishes he crossed to Kise's side before, and now he is heading over sprinting.
"I'm allergic to peanut butter," Kasamatsu comments. Kise looks baffled, and Kasamatsu scoffs. "When you kiss me again, make sure it's not after you eat anything with peanuts."
Kise's face lights up, and Kasamatsu seems another small tear fall down his cheeks. "Yukio, I love you. You're not . . . You're still missing th-"
Kasamatsu has more trouble kissing Kise spontaneously than vice versa because of the height difference. Kasamatsu has to yank down Kise's shirt, and that makes their mouths to slam together. The motion could have been gentler, but neither minds.
"My favorite color is blue, too." Kasamatsu smiles when he speaks, and even though it's genuine he still looks fearsome. "I have a pet dog named Geronimo. I don't bake, but I love pastries. I've been studying too, burying myself in political theory and physics to distract myself from my overwhelming love for some tacky blond who acts like a lost puppy when he's in love."
Kise blushed as Kasamatsu spoke, and he curved his body in to look smaller. "I don't act like a lost puppy!"
Kasamatsu smirks, revealing the cocky attitude of someone with two years more experience than Kise. Kise missed that determined, serious face that made his senpai look so handsome.
"At least you didn't deny that you're tacky. Really? A kiss. I should have punched you for invading my personal space like that." Kasamatsu rolls his eyes, but he still looks so happy, in a Kasamatsu way. "I guess words weren't getting through to me anyway, so I don't reject it."
"Is it worse that I'm tacky or that you didn't reject a kiss from such a tacky man? Hmm?" Kise teases. Kise can tell Kasamatsu is avoiding saying the most important words, but he knows Kasamatsu will not respond to more force. Kise got lucky the kiss stirred something in Kasamatsu to confess even as much as he has.
"Your tackiness is definitely worse. You have no excuse for it. At least I have an excuse for letting you kiss me because I love you."
There. Kasamatsu finally put the words out in the open. Kise knows he stopped dancing around the meaning, that the meaning is not platonic or parental. Love. The deepest and most awful type of love.
Again, tears fall, and laughter escapes Kise's lips. How can he respond to such an awful confession? Of all the ways to say it, Kasamatsu chose the most Kasamatsu way to do it, and Kise loves it. Kise loves Kasamatsu so much, and he finally knows he has the love back. Before Kasamatsu can correct or fix the words, Kise sweeps in for another, longer kiss.
---
Kasamatsu takes less hours at work and drops a sixth class he took as an elective. Kise aspires to stay in the top half of the school for his grades, but he does not aim higher while he continues basketball and modeling. Modeling only lasts a few hours a week, enough to pay for presents and dates with Kasamatsu since his boyfriend would not be able to afford it all unless he took more shifts (and more shifts meant less time for dates anyway). The Kaijo team lets Kise skip basketball practice because they know he will just make up the time with Kasamatsu, which they all think is a lame date, but never tell that to Kise's excited face. Kasamatsu is Kise's closest basketball rival without playing against the Generation of Miracles or such people anyway.
Kise falls in love with Geronimo, and asks if he can take the dog with him to modeling shoots. Kasamatsu agrees only if Kise makes more pastries for him. Kasamatsu buys the magazine that has both of them in it without telling Kise, but Geronimo sniffs it out and finds it, bringing it to Kise when he comes over.
Kise laughs and offers Kasamatsu other magazines he appears in. Kasamatsu's face reddens an hits Kise as he proclaims, "If I want to see that damn face of yours it better not be through some impersonal page in a magazine!"
Over their time together they never notice how seldom they eat shrimp or peanuts anymore.