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"my god, youichi. it's just a glove. buy one on your own," ryousuke laughed. every two of his words finding their way out in between his short breath.
there was something suffocating about the conversation, and it was not the way they did it as they were running before the sunrise.
just a glove, he said. temple glistening from 6 am sweat and the morning light; cotton candy and rose, color like the one on his hair. his eyes were always so shy. they were the conflicting beauty of everything that came out from his mouth—anything but hesitation.
and they were a few of the many reasons why for youichi, it wasn't just a glove.
"haruichi can also buy one on his own!"
youichi tried to keep up with ryousuke's unforgiving pace. he tried. he always did.
"you're telling me my mom should spend her money on another glove for her other child?" ryousuke's voice was more distant. he spoke to the morning air, not to the boy a few steps behind.
and no. actually, it wasn't anything like that.
you see: youichi tore his heart into two. between pumping the blood to get him moving at ryousuke's pace, and to reassemble what was left there for him to give to the other guy, he didn't know which half should be the one bigger.
because ryousuke worked twice harder than everyone else.
he woke up earlier, got to his bed later. he ran twice the amount of everyone on the team. he blamed himself twice harder than he did everyone, felt twice the anger for every game they lost. even with his whole heart, youichi would never be able to keep up with that.
but the other thing needed a part of his heart too. maybe its entirety if youichi was brave enough to be vulnerable.
because to tackle "it's just a glove" would require the adequate power of his whole heart, too.
'because, ryousuke, it's not really hard to love you.' youichi thought of that for a billion times if he counted them; repeated the sentence and craved it into him, until he was so numb. because a billion times were too much, aside from how there was no way in hell ryousuke didn't know there was something in the way youichi looked at him.
so he needed his whole heart for that too. to reopen every wound ryousuke made when he sent the carefully crafted subtle rejections, every time he looked away like it was just his nature to not care. to answer that, it was indeed not just a glove. fuck the glove. it wasn't about the glove.
it was that no amount of looking away would change the fact that for youichi, to fall for ryousuke was too easy.
youichi gave up and stopped his generous effort to keep up. and maybe it was the lack of footsteps that made ryousuke gave up the way youichi did too.
"any acceptable reason for why you are ruining my last run here as part of the team?"
he had no time. youichi stopped running because he had no time.
in between short breath, bent body, and six am sunrise. he gathered what remained. of his two years longing. his ridiculous high school crush, his teenage first love, his entire heart—
"i just want a little piece of you." —and he gave it away. to the wind. to the sunrise. to ryousuke.
it really wasn't about the glove.