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It starts, as most idiotic and embarrassing and regrettable events in Daichi's life, with Tanaka and Nishinoya.
The proposition to have a team sleepover for "brotherly bonding, ahead of Nationals" is in itself a pretty good idea. Harmless, even. Even though everything that comes out of both Tanaka and Nishinoyas mouths will always warrant a mild amount of suspicion, Daichi lets his good conscience lead and agrees to the plan. Suga valiantly offers up his own house, blessed with both the biggest living room and parents who often spend the weekends elsewhere, and the rest of them assemble a small army's worth of snacks and drinks. It's a nice event, Daichi thinks. Wholesome, even.
This is his first mistake.
The second is failing to stop Karasuno's stroke-inducing duo from hell when they, during said movie night, manage to coerce the rest of the team to play a game of Never Have I Ever.
“What’s that?” is the first thing Daichi asks when the second-years start yelling after the credits start rolling for their second movie of the night. Which in itself equates to signing his own death sentence, because if there’s one thing one should know in the Karasuno Volleyball Team it’s “Never engage Tanaka and Nishinoya with anything outside volleyball, ever”.
“It’s the best bonding exercise ever!” howls Nishinoya, elbowing a whimpering Asahi in the process.
“It’s the revealer of secrets, the exposure of indecency!” proclaims Tanaka, accompanied by Hinata’s awestruck cheers.
In the end, the second-years’ and Hinata’s enthusiasm win over Daichi’s logical thinking.
In an attempt to steer things up, at least a little, Daichi forces them all to “keep it PG”, because he’ll be damned before he’ll let Tanaka, or anyone else, permanently destroy the whole team’s mental imagery. They settle down in a wonky circle in the living room, nestled atop carpets and couches, snacks strewn across the table top as Nishinoya hands out drinks (non-alcoholic, to Tanaka’s dismay because “ in the movies, they always drink beer!”) to the team. Then the chaos starts.
“Alright,” Tanaka yells, standing up with the aura of a stage actor, “Never have I ever knocked over the Vice principal’s wig!”
From there it flows pretty easily. To Tanaka and Nishinoya’s credit, it’s a very straight-forward game: someone says a statement they haven’t done, and everyone it applies to take a sip from their drink. Daichi even finds himself thinking, “This isn’t too bad” , which in hindsight he shouldn’t have. Because as it turns out, as the night prolongs and the questions grow scarcer, it becomes harder to keep to the PG rule.
It’s Ennoshita, of all people, who drops the question. He clears his throat, looking out on the team with a smug look in his eyes (that fucker , future Daichi will think), before saying;
“Never have I ever wanted to kiss someone on the team.”
The room goes completely silent, and then, like a true simulation of a dropped bomb, it explodes into chaos.
“Kiyoko!” cries Tanaka and Nishinoya, both downing their cans of Dr Pepper in one go before violently ripping their shirts off and waving them around like war trophies. Tsukishima has both his hands on the ground, ready to leave at any moment, and Yamaguchi’s eyes seem like they’re about to pop out of his head. Asahi looks one step away from death, drink trembling in his hands, and on the other side of the room Hinata and Kageyama have started fighting - about what, Daichi thinks distractedly, before the true nucleus of the situation dawns on him.
Suga, sitting just next to him on the couch, takes a tentative sip of his drink. He’s not looking at anyone in particular, eyes spacing out above the spilled bag of onion rings on the table top, but he’s drinking. It catches the eyes of Tanaka and Nishinoya as well, who suddenly throw themselves onto the couch, screaming things such as “ No, Suga-san, not you too!” and “We don’t need more competition! Leave Kiyoko-san to us!” and “Just because you’re a third year doesn’t mean you get first dibs, Suga-san!”
Daichi doesn’t notice the knee in his crotch, nor the multiple elbows digging into his side as Tanaka and Nishinoya wrestle with a laughing Suga. His head has suddenly teleported to a separate universe, lightyears away, spinning in some unknown orbit. Briefly, he wonders if this is what they call an out-of-body experience. Then he has no more coherent thoughts. The only thing echoing dumbly through his empty mind, bouncing off the walls like an old game of flipper is;
Suga wants to kiss someone.
Suga wants to kiss - Kiyoko?
Somehow, he manages to get through the rest of the game. It’s like he’s on autopilot, ushering everyone to get out their futons and bedrolls once the night is late enough, robotic in his motions as he brushes his teeth and puts on his pyjamas and moves to take his assigned place in Suga’s bed, because they’re best friends and have shared beds since they were first years. Suga, his best friend, who wants to kiss someone, someone who is probably Kiyoko, and Daichi had no idea.
It’s not like it’s a weird thing. Kiyoko is pretty, and nice - Daichi may be dense sometimes, but this much he at least knows. He knows most guys wouldn’t mind kissing her. Would want to, even. But this is Suga , and in all the years they’ve known each other, Daichi can’t recall him ever saying he wants to kiss anyone.
His temporary migration to the universe light years away is interrupted by the man himself settling down on the bed next to him, a tentative “Daichi?” falling off his lips.
“You okay?” Suga asks, prodding a finger into Daichi’s shoulder. His hair is wet from the shower. “You seem a little off.”
If he’d been alone, Daichi could’ve slapped his cheeks and probably knock himself out of this broken radio state of mind. It seems a little bit overboard now, however, and definitely not a good reply to “you okay? ”
He settles for, “Yeah, just tired. Long night.”
Suga chuckles at that, flopping down into the bed next to him.
“Yeah,” he huffs, “we’ll have to limit team sleepovers to like, once every year. Or two every year, at the most. I am not looking forward to waking everyone up for morning practice tomorrow.”
Daichi lets out a quiet laugh of his own, says, “Goodnight, Suga,” and watches his best friend twist around on his side, say a “Goodnight, Daichi,” of his own, before he has to turn around to not stare at Suga’s lips. Lips who want to kiss someone. Somewhere, deep down, he thinks that this is not normal, that he should not be thinking this much about his best friend wanting to kiss someone. Maybe Daichi is, in fact, just tired. Maybe sleep will repair this droning echo-chamber his head has suddenly turned into. He hopes so.
***
Sleep does not, in fact, make it better. It doesn’t the next night, either, or the next.
Daichi finds himself thinking about the same thing on repeat for the next couple of days. It’s annoying, it’s confusing, but most of all, it’s a tumble of “Suga wants to kiss someone” and “Why didn’t I know that Suga wants to kiss someone?” It’s actually driving him insane - Daichi thinks he might’ve drunk something bad that night, because this can’t possibly be the same brain he’d been using before Ennoshita posed that goddamn question. Finally, feeling like he’s had enough, he asks Suga during one of their lunches.
“So. Kissing, huh?”
Suga looks up from his bento, one eyebrow arched over a confused set of eyes.
“Huh?” he says, and Daichi does his best to elaborate over the idiotic loop in his head.
“Kissing. You, uh- think about it often?”
Suga stares at him for a moment, before bursting out into laughter. Not a mean laughter, though - it never is. It’s infectious, and Daichi feels his own lips being pulled into a smile. Not really sure why, though.
“No, not really. Why, Daichi?” Suga says, a smirk climbing his face. “Have you been watching those romance series your mom likes, or something?”
“N-no,” Daichi splutters, heat climbing his cheeks, “I was just wondering.”
“Why? You never ask about things like that.” Suga prods his bento, looking at him curiously, and aha, Daichi might’ve just had an eureka moment. “Didn’t really think there was much else than volleyball and school in that head of yours.”
“Ha-ha,” Daichi deadpans, before schooling his face into something more serious. “But,” he then hesitates, for some reason, “would you want me to? Ask you about those things, more often?”
Suga blinks at him. Then he smiles, small and crooked.
“Nah,” he says, reaching over to punch Daichi’s shoulder lightly. “You’re fine the way you are, you big volleyball-school nerd.”
There’s something off with his tone, but Daichi can’t really place what. Besides, he’s known Suga long enough by now to know that if there’s something he really doesn’t want to say, nothing will be able to get it out of him. So he lets it be; not a lot wiser, but a little.
Practice is just like usual. After that first chaotic morning practice, where Nishinoya and Tanaka basically hovered in the background like guard dogs every time Suga and Kiyoko stood in the general vicinity of one another, practice had gone back to being perfectly normal. Suga isn’t talking to Kiyoko any more than he used to. He plays just as he always does, laughs with the team as he’s always done. No one seems to be hung up on that one game of Never Have I Ever, except for the occasional reference to both Hinata and Asahi being exposed for having peed themselves after the age of ten. Especially no one seems to think about kissing other members of the team, aside from Tanaka and Nishinoya, which is old news. No one except Daichi.
He wonders for how long Suga has wanted to kiss Kiyoko. If he thinks about it often. If he’s kissed someone before, how it felt, if he’s any good at it. Daichi realises that maybe he thinks way too little about kissing for someone who is 18 years old. Briefly, as he stands on the sidelines of the court, drinking his water and watching the rest of the team mingle around, he lets his eyes rest on Kiyoko and ponders kissing her. It’s a very short-lived fantasy; for one, it would feel like kissing his sister, which is very weird despite what some animes say, and two, Kiyoko really doesn’t need another guy chasing her feet. Which, apparently now, amount to three. He lets his gaze drift to Suga, who is talking to coach Ukai. Lets his eyes follow the motions of his lips. Briefly, briefly, he wonders if they are soft. If they are good kiss-lips. What it would feel like to kiss them.
What.
He smacks his hands to his cheeks. Bellows to the team that it’s time to start playing again. Anything to get his mind out of the hole it was about to enter.
As they walk home later that evening, side by side, Suga jostles his side.
“You’ve been kinda weird today,” he says easily, and Daichi blanches but schools his face quickly.
“What do you mean?” he replies, watching the way Suga’s scarf falls from his shoulder as he shrugs.
“You kept spacing out during practice. Then you cut break a little short - I get gearing up for Nationals, but aren’t you usually all about that “ equal rest, equal training” stuff?” Suga’s voice drops as he quotes him, and Daichi huffs out a laugh.
“I don’t sound like that.”
“You do, Daichi. It’s your stern captain's voice.”
He frowns, but Suga only cackles and nudges his side again.
“Hey. Nobody’s complaining, are they? You whipped us into Nationals shape with that voice. Be proud.”
“I guess,” Daichi grins, and Suga grins back before his face settles into something more sincere.
“Seriously though. If something’s up, you know you can always talk to me about it.”
Daichi falls silent. He could probably ask Suga everything he’s been thinking about. If it’s weird that he hasn’t been thinking much about kissing before now. If Suga has. If he’s kissed anyone before. But it feels strange to do it now, for some reason, his stomach knotting itself and throat stocking up. Maybe later.
“I know,” he says after a while, mustering up a smile and meeting Suga’s eyes. “It’s really nothing.”
He knows Suga doesn’t believe him. He also knows Suga will give him time, and space, because that’s just the sort of best friend he is. The knots release and the tension in his shoulders trickle off as Suga flashes a smile back, throwing an arm across his shoulders.
“Alright,” he says simply, and Daichi warms from his toes and does not think about kisses or about Suga thinking about kissing other people.
***
He does, however, in the morning. And, wanting to pull off the bandaid before it gets permanently stuck, he basically blurts it out the first thing he does when he and Suga meet at their usual spot to go to morning practice.
“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” he balks, and Suga almost trips over himself beside him on the sidewalk, looking up at him as if he’s been possessed. Well, Daichi supposes he has. By some kind of brain-demon, plastering his mind with thoughts of kissing. He soldiers on, however, resolutely not looking at Suga as they fall into step again.
“Uh,” Suga starts, “that’s a really random question to be asking at six in the morning, Daichi.”
“I guess,” Daichi says, eyes trained on the houses in front of them. Soldier on, soldier. “So have you?”
Suga is silent for a beat. Then he says, “No,” and strangely enough, Daichi feels something loosen in his chest. Envy, perhaps? Relief that he’s not as behind on this whole kissing thing as he initially thought? Suga isn’t finished, however, because then he says, “Why, did you think I had?”
Daichi dares a glance at him, finding Suga looking at him with a confused, yet sincere look on his face. Yet another thing he likes about his best friend - no matter the question, he’ll never make you feel dumb about asking. It gives him enough courage to reply.
“Yes - no. I don’t know. I was just curious.”
Suga laughs. It makes his face look really radiant, Daichi thinks distantly, or perhaps it's the sunrise. Probably the sunrise.
“Don’t you think I would’ve told you if I had?” Suga says, ducking in front of him to direct his grin straight into Daichi’s line of sight. “It would’ve been my biggest one-up on you. Finally something to humble the great captain of the Karasuno Volleyball Team with.”
Daichi quirks his lips. “How do you know I haven’t kissed anyone?”
Obviously Daichi hasn’t kissed anyone - hell, he hadn’t even considered the word since barely a week ago - so he doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe he can blame it on being blinded by Suga’s grin, or the sunrise. Suga blinks, surprised, straightening his walk.
“Have you?” he asks, and Daichi tears his eyes away.
“...No,” he admits, which makes Suga burst into laughter again. “But still, hypothetically!”
“Alright, hypothetically, ” Suga says through his cackling, “who would you kiss? Pick anyone.”
Now this is something Daichi hasn’t considered throughout this whole kissing predicament. Which is weird because that should be the obvious question, shouldn’t it? Instead Daichi’s brain latched onto thoughts like “ Who would Suga want to kiss?” which is weird , and now Daichi is feeling even weirder because he realises he doesn’t have an answer.
“I don’t know,” he says, and it doesn’t feel all that good. Who does he want to kiss? Not Kiyoko, that’s for sure. But Suga wants to kiss Kiyoko, and that’s…
“You don’t?” Suga says, surprise coloring his voice. “Well, I guess that’s fair. I told you, you’re too fixated on volleyball and school, even though you could probably kiss loads of people if you wanted to.”
That last part shoots through Daichi’s brain fog like a dart, and he twists around, fixing Suga with a confused look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Suga waves a hand nonchalantly. “Oh, you know. You could probably kiss Michimiya, everyone knows she likes you. And Daichi, you’re the volleyball captain! Girls would be lining up to get a shot at that pretty face.” He scrunches his face into an elaborate kissy face, and Daichi bats it away playfully with a laugh.
“Michimiya is just a friend, though,” he says, not betraying the way his head is reeling at the statement “ everyone knows she likes you”. Daichi is starting to come to terms with the fact that he is, in fact, very dense. “And I don’t want to kiss her.”
“Huh,” Suga says. His hand comes up to rest on his chin, a finger tapping against his cheek - he does that sometimes, when he’s thinking. Daichi finds it a very nice gesture, for reasons he can’t place. “She’s really pretty, though.”
Is Michimiya pretty? Objectively, sure, Daichi can see that much. But objective beauty can’t possibly be enough to want to kiss someone, right? Suddenly, it feels like he’s very much out of his depths. Daichi swallows.
“Do you want to kiss Michimiya?” he asks Suga, not really knowing what to expect anymore. What if Suga actually wants to kiss many people? There’s a sinking feeling in Daichi’s chest, and he’s almost given up on finding out what it means.
But Suga only makes a face and chuckles. “God no,” he says, and Daichi blinks in surprise. “She’s pretty, but Daichi, it’d feel like I’d be kissing my sister or something. Or your sister, which is even worse.”
Daichi laughs, and now he knows the feeling to be relief. “Yeah,” he says, nudging Suga’s shoulder with his own. “Yeah, kinda like that. It’s the same with Kiyoko for me.”
Suga lets out a noncommittal hum, which abruptly shortcuts Daichi into the whole reason they’re even having this conversation at all. So before his courage runs out, he asks;
“But you- you want to kiss Kiyoko, right?”
“Huh?” Suga twists around, a confused smile on his lips before the smile abruptly falls. In Daichi’s head alarms go off, because he didn’t say anything wrong, did he?
Suga says, “Oh, is this about that game?” and Daichi can only shrug and nod, because it is, but it also isn’t. It’s about Suga, and who he wants to kiss, and what he thinks about kissing, and why Daichi can’t seem to get it out of his head.
Suga falls silent for a beat, but then he whips up his head. Daichi perks up, expecting a reply, before he stops short and realizes they’ve already arrived at the gym, and Asahi is waving at them from the stairs to the clubroom, and Suga has already taken a couple steps towards the stairs and is shouting greetings towards their friend. He stands there, frozen for a couple seconds, before Suga turns around and waves at him.
“Come on, Daichi!” his best friend laughs, one arm around a timidly smiling Asahi. “The captain can’t be late, it’s bad for morale!”
Well, Daichi supposes, he got as much as an answer as he could. Suga never said no, and really, he already knew the answer. What he doesn’t understand, however, is the way his own chest feels tight over his ribs, constricting and convulsing like something alive is stuck in the confines of his heart.
***
So maybe Daichi is spending an unreasonable amount of time thinking about who his best friend wants to kiss.
So maybe he’s sneaking far too many glances at Suga’s lips for it to be socially acceptable. He’s just curious - if someone wants to kiss someone, do they have to like, take care of their lips? Does Suga? Daichi trails his fingers across his own lips - they’re pretty chapped, dry in the middle. Maybe he should invest in chapstick, in case the day comes when he finds someone he wants to kiss.
That’s the question that currently holds his mind hostage; who would I kiss, out of everyone? The team is out of the question, and so is Michimiya and his other female acquaintances. He entertained the idea of a couple of celebrities for a second, but it felt too far-fetched, too desperate and pre-pubescent. Daichi is a grown man, fully able to find a kissable subject without reverting to a baseless fantasy. So far, however, that quest has proved fruitless, because there is nobody Daichi can think of that he could possibly want to kiss.
In those moments, his mind often wanders to who Suga would want to kiss. He thinks of it as gathering inspiration - a learning process, so to say. Daichi has tried to talk to Suga about kissing on multiple occasions since that one morning, but it’s as if he gets less and less out of asking every time. Which isn’t strange, really - Suga hasn’t kissed anyone, either. The key difference is that he wants to.
Daichi thinks he wants to, as well. The problem lies in finding someone he wants to do it with.
That living, crawling thing in his chest is still stuck there. It appears sometimes, when he thinks about Suga kissing Kiyoko or Michimiya or anyone else. Maybe it’s jealousy, of Suga being so much further along this process of kissing and finding someone he wants to kiss. Somewhere, Daichi realizes that’s not the whole truth of it, but he can’t spare enough brainpower to fully divulge into it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Daichi asks one afternoon, when they’re studying in Suga’s room. Suga looks up from where he’s slouched at the other side of the table, his sweater having left imprints in his cheek where he’d rested it. It’s cute, Daichi thinks, not even bothering thinking further about the implications. Michimiya can be objectively pretty. Suga can be objectively cute.
“About what?” Suga asks, a frown between his eyebrows. “If this is about question three, I don’t know it either.”
“No, about,” Daichi waves his pencil, finding the words, “about Kiyoko. About you wanting to-”
“Jeeze, Daichi, are you ever gonna let that go?” Suga smiles, but it doesn’t really reach his eyes. “It’s not a big deal, really.”
Daichi frowns. “But,” he says, “are you sure? Because, as you said, we don’t really talk about stuff like that. I want you to feel comfortable telling me things like that too, even though I… don’t know much about it.”
Suga’s smile softens, and it glows in the afternoon sun. He reaches over and taps the butt of his pencil on Daichi’s nose, making him scrunch up his face to which Suga lets out a puff of laughter.
“I’m sure, Daichi. Really, don’t think too much about it. I don’t.” He smiles again, and Daichi thinks that he really likes it when Suga smiles. “It’s very sweet of you to say that, though. Next time I’ll be sure to share all my dirty, nasty, pubescent thoughts with you.”
Daichi chokes on his spit, and Suga cackles, and then they go back to their English homework. And maybe Daichi spends a little too much time thinking about the next time, about Suga’s dirty, nasty, pubescent thoughts, before he slaps his cheeks with the biggest force he can muster and pointedly ignores the crawling, itching feeling in his chest.
If there’s one upside to this whole situation, it’s that Daichi learns a lot about his best friend from simply observing him. Which he’s doing a lot these days. He learns that Suga chews on his pencils in class, and that he likes to kick the table legs while working. He learns that he doesn’t drink enough water during their practice breaks - something he reprimands him for later, as they walk home - and that his bangs will curl around his temples when they get sweaty. Small things, such as that there are smaller freckles dusting Suga’s nose and his knuckles. Daichi realizes that there are a lot of things he simply hadn’t noticed with Suga, and now that he does, are ultimately things visceral to him.
Daichi realizes that his best friend is pretty. In the objective way, he tells himself, but there’s still something different about the way Suga is pretty and the way Michimiya is pretty. He can’t pinpoint the reason for it, though - but maybe in the way Michimiya is pretty like a picture of the sunrise, and Suga is the sunrise itself. The thought feels way too hot, too something, and Daichi tries to shake it out of his head by sending the ball flying with the force of a bulldozer. He ends up sending it into the opposite wall of the court, Suga slapping him on the back with a laugh, saying something along the lines of “Daichi, what’d that poor ball even do to you?”
Daichi’s observing-learning process doesn’t go unnoticed, however, evident of how Asahi pulls him aside after class, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else at the moment. Which, to be fair, is a pretty Asahi state-of-mind.
“Hey, Daichi.” Asahi says, eyes fixated on some invisible spot on the wall behind them. “Everything good?”
Daichi nods, a little confused at being ushered away just to be asked a mundane question. “Yeah, I’m good. Are you alright, Asahi? What’s up?”
“Nothing, nothing!” Asahi still isn’t meeting his gaze, eyes flickering in his general vicinity. “And uh, Suga? You guys are… good, right?”
“We’re… good.” Daichi replies slowly. “What’s going on?”
“Just- ah, well,” Asahi tapers off, before finding resolution somewhere and straightening, looking Daichi in the eye, although his face screams uncomfortableness. “You’ve just been very… aware of him, lately. Staring? Sorry, just… I wondered if something happened. Forgive me if I’m wrong, though!”
Daichi lets out a huff of laughter, then leans back against the wall. It reminds him that he hasn’t told anyone else about this whole kissing dilemma, and Asahi is still his close friend. Maybe it’s a good thing to get it off his chest.
“Nothing’s really happened,” he reassures Asahi, before continuing, “it’s just me, kind of. Can’t stop thinking about Suga and the thing he… well, him wanting to kiss someone on the team. Guess it surprised me.”
“Oh,” Asahi says, nodding and not looking in the least surprised. Daichi, however, is even more confused now than he was at the beginning. “So did you talk to him about it?”
“I guess?” Daichi scratches his neck. “Asked him a lot of questions about it, and basically got it confirmed. I just want him to feel comfortable sharing that sort of stuff with me. Honestly, I didn’t think he even thought about kissing. I hadn’t, before this.”
Asahi twists in his spot, and now he too is looking confused. “Okay, so… how do you feel about it? Why the staring?”
Daichi blinks. How does he feel about Suga and Kiyoko?
“Uh…” he racks his brain for words, “I don’t know? I guess I wanna know how he does it, you know? Like, why does he want to kiss Kiyoko? How does he find someone he wants to kiss?”
He feels it, as the words leave his tongue, that they’re not wholly true anymore. He’s looking at Suga because he likes to - likes finding new little secrets in his best friend. And the thought of Suga kissing Kiyoko still catalyzes that compressing feeling in his chest. An unpleasant feeling. Daichi may be dense, but even he knows that the thought of Suga wanting to kiss Kiyoko is not something he likes.
Asahi is staring at him with an expression that would best be described as queasy. His hands fidget by his side, and when he opens his mouth, the words come out almost painfully.
“Daichi, are you… are you one hundred percent sure that Suga wants to kiss Kiyoko?”
Daichi laughs. “Who else would it be, on the team? Yachi? ”
“A guy, Daichi,” Asahi squeaks, before looking absolutely mortified and turning around to flee, throwing a “See ya” over his shoulder before all but sprinting away through the hallway, leaving Daichi frozen in the dust.
Because Daichi is frozen. Paralyzed, perhaps. Dead, even. It’s like a repeat of that goddamn team sleepover, a sick sense of deja vu as his brain ejects itself out of his head and catapults itself into outer space. His body feels floaty, nailed to the floorboards below him by the soles of his shoes and were he to step out of his shoes, he’d levitate to the ceiling like a helium balloon. Like he’d just taken a sledge hammer to the solar plexus, Daichi’s entire world just tilted on its axis and it’s all Asahi’s fault.
A guy.
Suga wants to kiss… a guy?
Daichi didn’t even know that was an option .
***
Daichi is slowly coming to the realization that he is, in fact, really fucking dense.
It’s not like he doesn’t know gay people exist. He’s fairly sure that his aunt is gay, and he’s seen the occasional rainbow flag pins stuck on bags of people he pass in the hallway. He just hadn’t considered it being so… close to him. The more Daichi thinks about it, the more he realizes that Suga is right about the whole “volleyball-school-nothing else” thing. Because Daichi has never even considered the fact that his friends might be attracted to other people. And that those people might be other guys. Shit.
Daichi is pretty sure he’s not homophobic. He wouldn’t mind Hinata and Kageyama making out as long as it didn’t interfere with practice (and as long as he didn’t have to catch them at it in the storage room, or god forbid, the club room) or anyone else, for that matter. But it doesn’t explain the feeling in his chest. The bubbling, soaring, crawling feeling when he thinks that Suga might want to kiss another guy.
It does, however, aid his process, because now he starts looking in a whole new dimension of options. Does he want to kiss a guy, rather than a girl?
During the remainder of the day, Daichi’s search history quickly floods with things such as “ two boys kissing”, “gay manga”, “gay kissing” and “how to kiss a guy as a guy” and “how to know if you want to kiss a guy in a gay way”. The images make him feel flustered, the many quizes and tick-the-box gay tests make him feel confused. Maybe he is gay. Or bisexual, as one quiz suggests. Or, after searching “why don't I want to kiss anyone”, maybe he’s asexual. That last one doesn’t feel right, though, because he wants to, he’s pretty sure. And Suga wants to. Kiss Kiyoko, or another guy. The bubbling, soaring feeling floats up into his throat and he almost chokes on his rice, earning him a strange stare from both Suga and Asahi as they share their lunch break.
“You good, Daichi?” Suga asks, concern painted across his face, and Daichi nods through his mouthful of rice. Suga smiles playfully, before his eyes narrow and he leans across the table.
“Oh. You got rice all over your chin, hold up. Stay still.”
Two fingers come up to gently flick away the rice that had plastered itself around Daichi’s mouth, and Daichi finds himself just watching Suga’s face as he concentrates, eyebrows gently furrowed and mouth hanging slightly open. That light dusting of freckles on his nose, the mole underneath his eye. His heartbeat picks up, distantly, strangely, and for some reason he starts to think about kissing. Maybe this is just his life now. Sawamura Daichi, died from brain malfunction due to an overload of thoughts about kissing.
Suga leans back with a, “There, all done,” and Asahi is looking at the two of them like he’s unsure if he wants to say something, or run away, and Daichi can only nod his head and try to keep his eyes away from Suga’s lips.
Practice is somehow worse, and god, Daichi is going to kill Asashi for putting these images in his head. Throughout all their drills, their receiving practice and inspikes, Daichi lets his eyes roam the gym, observing his teammates and thinking about who Suga would want to kiss. Probably not one of the first years. Maybe Ennoshita. Or, and Daichi’s stomach actually folds in on itself, the receive bouncing off his arms in an off-angle, maybe Asahi. They’re all close friends, after all.
It’s very well on the brink of driving him to insanity. Daichi isn’t homophobic. He couldn’t care less who smooches who, who’s interested in who, even if it’s in the team, even if it’s two guys. But somehow, all those things factor into nothing when he tries to tamper the nausea that erupts inside him at the thought of Suga doing those things. He wants to smash his head into the lockers. Or dunk it into a running sink and leave it there, because he shouldn’t think like this about his best friend. His best friend, who helps him with math, is an amazing setter, eats too many meatbuns and gets queasy afterwards, ties his shoes with double knots, who’s hair curls at his temples and likes kicking the table legs as he works.
His best friend, who is currently ducked low in front of him, smiling that radiant cheshire grin as he thumps his fist into Daichi’s chest.
“Dude,” Suga says, still smiling, still radiant, “you’re gonna get permanent frown lines if you keep sulking like that.”
Daichi looks at the crescent set of his mouth, and thinks, “ I want you to want to kiss me.”
Then, as his thoughts catch up to his conscious mind, promptly smashes his head into the locker doors to the shock of the entire team.
As he sits on the bench later, a water bottle pressed against his forehead, Suga having run out in search of ice packs, Asahi crouches near him and murmurs;
“You have to talk to him, you know.”
Daichi glowers at the ground, pressing the water bottle harder against the throbbing soon-to-be bruise on his forehead. The rest of the team mingle around the opposite side of the clubroom, probably scared he might try smashing his head against one of them. His tongue tastes like bile.
I want him to kiss me.
I want to kiss Suga.
The answer to this all-encompassing, obsessive kissing question that had been tormenting his mind for weeks is simpler than expected. It hits him like a lightning strike, nonetheless. Daichi wants to kiss his best friend. He probably wants to do more than that, too. Things like hold his hand, or ask him out on a coffee date, or take cute pictures in the sunrise like in one of those gay mangas.
To Asahi, he manages to reply with, “Yeah,” and Asahi gently pats his knee, a sympathetic look on his face.
“It’ll be alright,” Asahi croaks out, and Daichi feels a little bit like dying.
The walk home is silent, Suga walking an arm’s length away from Daichi. Reasonably, Daichi knows he should probably be worried about that, upset even, but currently he can’t find it in himself to feel anything other than relief - unsure about how he’d act now that he knows what he knows. That he wants to kiss Suga. And hold his hand.
Suga says, “What the hell was that all about, Daichi?” and Daichi almost jumps at the break of silence.
“What?” He says, like an idiot, a sentiment obviously shared by Suga as he levels him with a flat look, a finger coming up to tap his own forehead purposefully.
“ This, Daichi.” Suga says. “I mean, what were you thinking? That’s not like you at all.”
Daichi doesn’t know what to answer, and can only swallow heavily around the pulse in his throat. Suga sighs, looking tired and confused and everything in between and Daichi hates it.
“Look, did I,” Suga pauses, swallows, “did I do something? Because if you’re upset with me, I’d rather you said that instead of smashing your head against steel lockers. God, Daichi.”
“I’m not,” Daichi says quickly, loudly, because that’s definitely not what he wants to make Suga think, “upset with you. Not at all. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then what is it?” Suga asks, and he’s stopping now, turning fully to face Daichi. The streetlight reflects off his hair, shards of silver and moonlight, and he’s beautiful, Daichi thinks, just like a sunrise. “Because I know when something’s up with you, and you haven’t been acting yourself for weeks , and I have no idea what’s going on so please, just talk to me . ”
Daichi can’t explain what happens next. It’s probably because of his kissing brain-demon, temporarily possessing him into doing what he does. One moment he’s there, standing under the streetlight, looking at the glow in Suga’s hair and listening to the beat of his own wildly galloping heart; and in the next he’s taking a step forward, leaning down to clumsily mash his lips against Suga’s.
The first thought that strikes him is that Suga’s lips are soft. He definitely uses chapstick. They’re warm beneath his own, silky, but most of all it feels right. Like the final piece of the puzzle just slotted itself into his chest, rendering him hot and complete and perfect. “So this is kissing,” Daichi thinks distantly, and suddenly understands why people want to do it so much.
The second thought comes once he realizes that Suga’s lips are frozen in place, unmoving, as is his entire body. Then he realizes that he’s kissing Suga, his best friend. Suga, who’s unmoving, frozen in the glow of the streetlight and Daichi is kissing him, and he's pretty sure he's just made the biggest mistake of his entire 18 years of existence. Fuck.
He scrambles back, panic roaring in his ears, heat climbing to his neck and face and feels a lot like vomiting. He just kissed Suga. Without asking, without Suga kissing back, and he’s actually royally screwed. His mom’s going to kill him. Suga is going to kill him.
“Shit, shit, I’m so sorry,” Daichi blabbers, his best friend still frozen in front of him, fingers idly tracing his lips (don’t look at his lips, Daichi, you moron), “I’m sorry, I shouldn't have done that, god, Suga, I’m so sorry-”
“What.” Suga says, and Daichi is actually terrified. Maybe he’ll join Asahi and Hinata in the “having peed themselves after the age of ten” club. “What, why-”
“I’m so sorry.” Daichi says again, and it takes everything in him to not run away like a coward. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you first, just- I really want to kiss you. Like, really. And do other things, too, but… shit, just, sorry. And I know you want to kiss Kiyoko, and-”
Suga blinks at him, mouth agape, and Daichi trails off, hands fidgeting by his sides. He steels himself for a punch to the gut. It’s honestly what he deserves at this point. God, Daichi, you stupid, stupid moron.
Then Suga starts laughing, belly-deep and loud, arms coming around to clutch his stomach and it's Daichi’s turn to stand flabbergasted, watching as Suga laughs and laughs, almost toppling over in the process. He manages to break his frozen state enough to grab Suga by the shoulder in order to keep his butt off the pavement, and Suga collapses in giggles against his chest, and Daichi has no idea what’s going on anymore. His hands hover unsurely over Suga’s back, not sure what to expect. Then Suga lifts his head, and he’s smiling through the teartracks on his cheeks.
“You’re such an idiot, do you know that?” his best friend says. Daichi only nods, tongue in his throat, not knowing whether to look at Suga’s wet eyes or his freckles or his crescent smile. “I don’t want to kiss Kiyoko.”
What.
“You don’t?” Daichi croaks, and Suga punches him lightly in the chest with both fists. “Then who, Asahi? ”
“I was talking about you, ” Suga says, eyes crinkling and he’s still laughing and he’s so gorgeous it actually physically hurts to look at. “Daichi, I’ve wanted to kiss you for like, a good year and a half. So please, for the love of God, shut up about Kiyoko. And really, Asahi? ”
“Oh,” Daichi says, lips splitting into a smile, and Suga bursts into cackles again, and his hands are fisting the fabric of Daichi’s jacket and Daichi feels like his chest is about to burst. “Oh, okay.”
“ Okay,” Suga mimics, before pushing his face into Daichi’s chest again and Daichi dares to rest his hands on his back, pulling him in closer. Suga smells like sweat and something like fresh pine, probably his deodorant, and Daichi finds himself thinking that this is really nice. Far too nice for what a sweaty hug under a streetlight at night should reasonably be. Then his brain starts functioning again, and he straightens, confused.
“But-,” he starts, and Suga looks up, “why didn’t you say anything? About wanting to kiss me?”
Suga snorts. “Isn’t it obvious?” It’s not, at least not to Daichi. “You’re my best friend. I didn’t want to drop that bomb on you like it was nothing. And anyway, when did you realize you wanted to kiss me?”
Oh. Daichi squirms. “Today,” he mutters, and Suga cackles.
“Yeah. You see, you can be pretty dense sometimes, Daichi.”
“I know,” Daichi says, smiling, because Suga doesn’t say it in a malicious way. Instead, he’s holding him closer, chest against chest until their heartbeats are only separated by the fabric of their clothes. “Got there in the end, though.”
“You sure did,” Suga says. Daichi clears his throat.
“I don’t just want to kiss you, though.” Suga arches a brow, and he feels himself flush. “Like, I want to do other things too. Like, uh, hold your hands. Dates, and stuff. If you want.”
Suga smiles, and says, “Yeah, that sounds good,” and Daichi is so happy he could probably die. Not from kissing-induced brain malfunction, but from pure joy. Sawamura Daichi, died from happiness and the death-ray that is Suga’s smile. “But maybe we could start with the kissing part? Like, properly this time.”
His cheeks heat up, embarrassment boiling his blood because really, he kind of messed up that pathetic attempt at a first kiss. Maybe they can scratch that one as a test round. A warm-up kiss. So he nods, bends forward, and asks;
“Can I?”
“Please,” Suga says, hair curling by his temples and freckles dusting his cheekbones.
And so when Daichi leans in for the second time, Suga meets him halfway.