Work Text:
Chifuyu had seen this before, in cheesy high school movies and in his shoujo manga. He wouldn't have expected this to happen to him, but now he stood hiding behind his locker trying to prevent people from seeing how red his face was. There were movies of the shy unpopular girl getting hit on by the popular jock or school's bad boy, with the same happy ending. All the romance he had seen was fiction, and he never expected for anything like that to happen to him.
In all of his sixteen years on Earth Chifuyu had never expected to receive one of the cheesy love letters he had read so much about. He knew his life wasn't a shoujo or a movie, so he never entertained the idea of romance too much. He wasn't the most popular guy and he had a small list of possible admirers, but they could have easily gone up to him and spoken to him, or gotten his number from Takemichi.
He looked around to make sure no one was around him before reexamining the letter. The handwriting was bad and sloppy, and he figured a freshman had written it to him because of all the grammar mistakes. It was short and sweet, with a small drawing in the corner that he couldn't figure out if it was a tiger or a cat and a small heart next to it.
He met with Takemichi, and his girlfriend Hinata at the school exit so they could walk to the bus stop together. The two were already speaking amongst themselves, and Chifuyu added small comments here and there but still remained anxious and dazed over his small love letter.
Both boys were standing in the crowded bus, Hina had been the only lucky one to find a seat, but after her stop the two remained standing. Chifuyu had let Takemichi continue rambling about his day but after Hina got off at her stop, Chifuyu couldn't hold it in and let everything out.
“I got a love letter today” he said nonchalantly, trying not to make a big deal of it, but that was never a choice when he was around Takemichi.
The other boy gasped loudly, causing people to turn around and look at them.
“What!!” he yelled, unaware of people's stares “from who?!”
“Keep it down, people are staring.”
“Sorry, sorry. So who was the letter from?” he asked again in a lower voice.
Chifuyu shrugged and looked out the window trying to seem unaffected.
“Doesn't matter, anyways it could’ve just been a prank, or maybe theres another Matsuno Chifuyu I dont know about.”
-
The next day, his locker was empty, as expected; however, that wasn't the case the following week. The following Wednesday after art club Chifuyu was surprised by another letter. He put it aside again as if he didn't care, but after it happened again for a third time he began to get more curious.
“They have to be part of some after school club too” said Takemichi “so it could be someone from the orchestra, art club, fashion club or environmental committee… maybe even someone from the soccer team”
Chifuyu made a gagging noise, “I doubt it would be anyone from the soccer team” but the list of possibilities only expanded.
“Why not? They're not that bad.”
“Whatever makes you feel better.”
Their school's soccer team was one the best in the city, and the players knew how good they were too. For a long time the Toman boys soccer team had a losing streak but after a wave of new players the team became one of the best and brought attention to their school. Takemichi had gotten accepted into the team after playing a horrible game, but they liked his enthusiasm and said he had potential.
The boys in the team thought they ruled the school, skipping class and doing whatever they wanted in and out of school. Chifuyu had short interactions with them throughout the years but nothing more than that. He wasn't the most friendly and neither were they and because of the separate social circles they were in, the possibility of one of them being the ones to write him the notes was unlikely.
“What if it's” Takemichi looked around before leaning in and whispering, “Baji Keisuke~”
Chifuyu pushed him away.
“Shut up, you sound like an idiot” he said through gritted teeth.
In a bad teen romance movie maybe that would be the case, but this was real life, and Chifuyu doubted that the boy he had been crushing on for the past few years would like him back.
-
Since middle school Chifuyu had a small crush on the other boy. After he was walking home alone, a group of guys tried to jump him. Normally Chifuyu didn't mind a fight, but it was a group of older boys with weapons versus him. Baji happened to have been walking by and stepped in, afterwards Baji invited him out for some peyoung yakisoba and the two had a good conversation together. Chifuyu had half expected that the two of them would become friends, but that never happened, especially because wherever Baji was, his friends followed, especially his friend Hanemiya.
-
Chifuyu had pushed the thought out of his mind, until the semester passed by and each Wednesday he would receive another small letter without fail. They usually consisted of them talking about how cute and admirable Chifuyu was and revealed a bit about the admirer.
It wasn't until today that Chifuyu thought back to his conversation with Takemichi. Today his admirer gave him obvious hints about himself, apparently the other was taller than him, with long hair, athletic, had a motorcycle and had signed the end with a small “K” and a heart.
“You look like you've seen a ghost,” said Takemichi, coming up behind, so they could go home together.
“Read this” he said, handing the note to the other.
Takemichi happily took it, since Chifuyu hadn't let him read any of the pervious letters no matter how much he complained about it. But his face twisted when he looked at the letter. “What language is this? How can you decipher this? The handwriting is hardly legible.”
“Fine dont read it” said Chifuyu reaching out to grab the letter back, but Takemich pulled it back, keeping it far from him.
“No, no just give me a minute.”
Takemichi examined the letter again, taking his time to examine each word, and Chifuyu cursed at himself for not just reading it for him, and for Chifuyu being such a slow reader. But he knew Takemichi was starting to understand Chifuyu's reaction once he got to the end. His eyes popped out and he screeched with excitement.
“Holy shit!”
“Will you shut up,” he hissed, taking the piece of paper back and putting it in his pocket.
“Holy shit” he whispered, “it's him! Now that we know it's him you have to ask him out. Like right now!”
“What? No” he said throwing his bag over his shoulder and making his way towards the schools exit “he's probably home by now anyways.”
“No, some of the guys are still practicing,” said Takemichi, grabbing his wrist.
Chifuyu now found himself being dragged to the back exit of the school, he pulled his wrist back and put his hand in his pockets, “don't drag me around like that, I’ll look dumb.”
Takemichi just laughed, and they continued their walk to the soccer field in silence.
The walk seemed like an eternity, he could already see Keisuke up ahead on the field kicking the ball around, with Mikey. There were other boys doing their own thing, most were heading out, while others continued running around kicking soccer balls to each other. Baji and Mikey were mindlessly passing the ball to each other, too busy having their own conversation to actually practice. Both were still in the black and white uniform, and Chifuyu thought Keisuke looked handsome with his hair tied up, something he only seemed to do when he was playing soccer.
“What am I doing” he said to himself, and stopped his and Takemichi tracks.
“You're gonna ask Baji Keisuke on a date, unless you wanna chicken out” teased Takemichi “we’re already out here and you could have just gone to the bus stop by yourself by now if you really wanted.”
Chifuyu looked over again and saw the two other boys laughing together, “he seems busy right now.”
“Don't worry, I’ll talk to Mikey so you can speak to Baji by yourself, but if you really want to back out then who am-”
“Shit”
Takemichi and Chifuyu were both caught off guard by a ball flying towards them and almost hitting them.
“Are you guys okay?” asked Mikey
“God dammit, Nahoya watch where you're aiming, '' yelled Baji to another boy across the field, but the other just laughed, as Baji picked up the ball and kicked it back, before turning to them.
“We’re okay” said Takemichi, “but I wanted to talk to Mikey about the next game, I think I have a plan to help us win”
“Say less, let me hear it” said Mikey walking past Chifuyu, Takemichich gave him one final push before going to the sideline to talk with mikey to talk about a made up plan.
Chifuyus feet found themselves rooted to the ground, in front of Baji. His heart was beating at two times speed, and the pounding made it feel like his heart would go through his chest at any moment. His hands began to sweat and tremble, he tried to discreetly whip them on his jeans.
Bajis eyes moved from Takemichi and Mikey before settling on Chifuyu, he looked at the other with a soft smile which made Chifuyu unsure if he would be able to get any words out.
“Hey Chifuyu. Are you good?”
Chifuyu didn't trust his voice in the moment and finally made eye contact with the other, deciding that nodding “yes” would be safer.
“These guys suck at aiming, that's why Nahoya has never scored a goal” he scoffed “What are you doing out here anyways, you finally want to join the soccer team?”
Chifuyu took a deep breath trying to control his voice so he wouldn't blurt out anything, and he could keep it still.
“No” all that anxiety just for a two letter word, he mentally punched himself trying to stop himself from being so awkward.
“Why not? I remember during track season you were always in the top three, we could use a good runner like you.”
Chifuyu hoped his hair was covering how red his ears were getting. He never thought that Baji kept his eyes on him, but if he was the same person who was writing him those letters then it was to be expected. Chifuyu had nothing to worry about, the others already seemed to like him back, he just had to make his move now.
“I just did track for fun, right now I'm trying to focus on my art, but I'm not here to talk to you about soccer or any of that. I have to ask you something.”
Baji seemed a bit surprised, but just smiled and crossed his arms, letting out a small laugh.
“Okay so we’re getting straight to business. What is it?”
It was now or never. Chifuyu took a deep breathe and let it all out in one, “Would you like to go out sometime?” he blurted out, waiting for rejection to punch him in the gut.
“Why not now?”
That wasn’t the answer he was expecting.
“What?”
“Yeah you're done with your art club right?” Chifuyu dumbly nodded, still too shocked to speak. “Great! And I'm done with soccer, just give me a few minutes to get out of this uniform and we can take my bike. You still like peyoung yakisoba?”
“Yeah”
“Wait for me here,” he said as he moved back to grab his bag on the ground “I’ll try not to take too long , but take this.” he said grabbing a jacket from his back and letting it hang off Chifuyus shoulders “It's pretty cold, so hold onto this for me until I come back.”
All Chifuyu could do was nod again and stood there as Baji ran off back inside the school. He hadn't had many expectations for how his confrontation with his admirer would have gone, but he could have never pictured this.
He allowed himself to let his defense down, instead enjoying the feeling of Bajis jacket around him and the scent of his strong cologne.
-
Mikey and Takemichi had been watching the whole thing from the sideline, Mikey had an amused smirk while Takemichi was internally cheering for his friend.
“Tomorows gonna be a shitshow,” said Mikey.
“What do you mean?”
“Kazutora, has been writing Chifuyu love letters for the past few months. He didn't want to tell Keisuke about it because he knew that he also liked Chifuyu, but I guess his letters weren’t that good. Im not surprised, his handwriting is shit so Chifuyu probably couldn’t read it… Keisuke isn’t any better though, he can hardly spell his name.”
Takemichi gasped at the new information, and froze in his spot as he watched Baji run back outside and walk towards Chifuyu, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, and guiding him to the parking lot.
They had found the wrong admirer, but as long as his friend was happy that's all he cared about, he just hoped the turn of events would affect the team.