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More often than not, Kageyama’s birthday dinner resulted in a reunion of his various friends and colleagues, given that it usually fell during a break in everyone’s schedule. This year, Hinata and Yachi had rented out Onigiri Miya’s Tokyo branch and nearly everyone they knew from their high school days until now had been there for at least part of the evening: Karasuno alum, Adler’s teammates, family, friends, rivals and everything in between. Even Oikawa had shown up to long enough to drag his boyfriend Kyoutani around for greetings before heading out.
The Miyagi crowd left after dinner — taking the last bullet train back to Sendai — and while Hinata and the rest of MSBY (Sakusa excluded, naturally) had tried to make a dance floor using the restaurant's speaker system, most of the crowd hopped from table to table, enjoying the company, the ambiance and the refreshments.
It was getting late, though, and people were speaking of moving to other locations so that Miya — the reasonable one — could close up his shop.
“I think I’m gonna head out,” Kageyama said.
He, Yamaguchi, Akaashi and Kei were seated at the counter, each nursing a drink while watching their friends dance like idiots across the room from them. Kageyama had been perched there most of the night, welcoming a long procession of well-wishers and pushing the drinks they bought him on to the people beside him. Kei sniffed that deal out early and benefitted from a steady stream of White Russians.
Kei hummed in acknowledgement, turning to look at his long-time friend. Kageyama was looking back at him, blue eyes simultaneously bright and tired. There was something written in his features, something both young and old, hopeful and exhausted, a mix of contradictions that Kei could neither place nor remember seeing before.
Of course Kageyama would be leaving now. Hinata and Yachi, increasingly handsy over the course of the evening, were talking about the nearby karaoke bar — Kei had his reservations about the pair making it all the way there instead of stopping off at the love hotel he’d seen on his walk over — and Ushijima and Sakusa were nowhere to be seen. Truthfully, he’d lasted longer than Kei expected.
Kageyama stood, collecting his coat and wrapping his scarf around his neck before pausing for an awkward moment. Kei had known him long enough to know the look on his face meant he had a question that he was either reluctant or unsure of how to ask.
“Forgot how to say goodbye, King?” Kei teased.
Kageyama huffed a laugh, hiding his face behind a swath of fabric. “No. No, I…” he trailed off before shaking his head. “It was good to see you, Tsukishima.” He bit his lip. “Have a good night and…happy New Year, I guess, if I don’t see you.”
“When do you leave?” he asked, dragging the goodbye out.
Kageyama looked to the side, lips twisted in a pout, no doubt trying to recall the details of his flight.
“Sometime in the first week of January,” he answered, a little bashful.
This was a busy time of year for the museum, holiday crowds bigger as families took advantage of the days off from school. It would be hard to swing another day off between now and then.
“Ah,” Kei answered. “Probably not, then. Happy birthday, and Happy New Year.” He tipped his drink in Kageyama’s direction. Kageyama nodded back, moving on to give quick goodbyes to Yamaguchi and Akaashi, hesitating on the edge of the dance floor as Yachi and Hinata and the others were caught up in their own little words, before leaving.
Kei watched him until the door closed behind him.
“Are you gonna tell him or should I?” Akaashi said from behind him.
“It’s hopeless,” Yamaguchi said, “but go ahead.”
“You’re an idiot.”
At this, Kei turned around. “Excuse me?”
“You’re an idiot,” Akaashi repeated. “You know that he was coming on to you, right?”
Kei turned to look at Yamaguchi, looking for — he wasn’t sure what. Disagreement? A roll of the eyes? But Yamaguchi was sighing.
“What?” Kei asked.
“He was coming on to you. Has been all night.” Akaashi took a sip of his beer. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”
“He hasn’t noticed for the past three years,” Yamaguchi spoke up. “Why would tonight be any different?”
“Three years? Really?” Akaashi hummed, contemplative. “I thought he was supposed to be smart.”
“He usually is.” Yamaguchi answered.
“I am right here,” Kei complained. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh,” Akaashi said breezily, “just the fact that Kageyama has apparently been flirting with you for a long time and you, despite your own pining, haven’t picked up on it.”
“I am not pining —”
“That’s what you took away from that?” Yamaguchi had his brow raised.
“Kageyama has not flirted —”
“He said he was gonna head out and then looked at you for a full thirty seconds. He wanted you to go with him.”
Kei scoffed. “As if that proves —”
“He invited you to visit him in Italy next summer,” Yamaguchi interrupted.
“You’ve stayed with him too —”
“Ah” — Yamaguchi smirked — “but he never asked me to go out there.”
“He asked him?” Akaashi interjected.
“Mmhmm! ‘I think you’d really like Italy, Tsukishima, there's tons of museums, let me know if you want to come —’”
“That wasn’t what he said!”
It was close enough to what Kageyama had said. Yamaguchi knew it too, sending him a look while taking another sip of his beer. Smacking his lips, he pointed at Kei.
“He was getting you drinks all night!”
“He got you drinks too.” Kei gestured at the glasses in their hands.
“But always after checking if you had enough,” Akaashi noted.
That — he couldn’t deny that.
He felt his eyes go wide in surprise as three years of actions dismissed as Kageyama being his normal socially awkward self.
“…Three years?”
“Yep.” Yamaguchi popped the ‘p’. “It started with him offering to drive you home after Kuroo and Daichi’s engagement party.”
“We were headed the same direction!”
“He didn’t have a car.”
“Well that was dumb of him.” Kei’s excuse for turning him down, if he could remember it, was not likely any better — all he knew that spending twenty minutes alone in a car with Kageyama after the amount that he had drank that night was not a good idea.
“He asked you to watch Jurassic Park with him.”
“He said his nephew was interested in dinosaurs and he wanted to learn more.”
“His nephew was 7 months old at the time.”
“Never too early to start —”
“He comments on all your instagram posts.” And recently liked one of the two of them from a few years back, but Yamaguchi didn’t need to know that. “He doesn’t do that for any of the rest of us!”
“Maybe you guys are boring.”
“You rate strawberry shortcake from different bakeries.”
That wasn’t all Kei posted — volleyball, museum stuff, outings with friends, his cat — but it was, admittedly, strange that Kageyama interacted with those posts too.
“Oh my god.” Akaashi was looking both delighted and exasperated. “How have you not put all of this together?” Kei floundered for an answer that wasn’t some variant of ‘denial’ or ‘disbelief’. “The real question, though, is now that you know, what are you gonna do about it?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Kei said. The revelation was enough of a shock for the time being — action could come later.
Action could come later, if Yamaguchi hadn’t plucked his phone from where it lay on the counter. He unlocked it with the passcode he was definitely not supposed to know and tapped on the screen while dodging Kei’s attempts to get the device back.
“There,” he said, handing it back. “You’re welcome.”
Kei scrambled to look at what he’d done. The phone was open to his LINE chat history with Kageyama.
>> where are you staying? you forgot something at the restaurant.
“Yamaguchi,” he hissed. But Kageyama had already read it, three dots appearing next to his name.
really? <<
The message was followed by the address of a hotel — a proper one — a few blocks away. When he looked up, both Yamaguchi and Akaashi were looking at him expectantly.
“Fine, give me whatever he left, I’ll bring it to him.” Kei held out his hand, expecting a card or a glove or some other small item that would have escaped Kageyama’s notice.
Yamaguchi groaned. “Fucking hell, how are you the smart one? He left his birthday kiss here, you idiot, now go give it to him. He’s waiting for you.” Kei froze. It took Yamaguchi kicking him in the shin to get him to move again. “Don’t think we haven’t seen you pining too. I’m done watching you two dance around each other. Now or never, Tsukki.”
Now or never.
Kei wanted to choose never. It was safer, smarter. Kageyama lived half a world away, lead a different sort of life with a different sort of dream. Kei was content with his job at the museum, his D2 team, his flat in Sendai with his succulents and his cat. He couldn’t see how the two meshed together.
But fuck, he wanted to try.
He grabbed his coat from the hook under the counter, swinging it on and patting his pocket for his wallet. Yamaguchi punched him in the shoulder, smile a mile wide, and Akaashi shook his hand, passing him something in the process. Kei curled his fist around it and rushed outside.
Under the fluorescent glow of the streetlights and neon signs of surrounding businesses, Kei checked what was in his hand. He blushed brightly and shoved his hand quickly into his pocket.
A benefit of being tall was long legs, and Kei’s ate up the sidewalk between Onigiri Miya and Kageyama’s hotel. The walk passed in a sort of haze — preoccupied with reanalyzing their every interaction now that Yamaguchi had pointed out a few of them, preoccupied with convincing himself to continue forward.
In what seemed like moments, he was entering the lobby, calling the elevator, exiting on Kageyama’s floor, stopping in front of his room, knocking on his door.
It opened, revealing Kageyama in soft lounge clothes, towel draped around his neck, hair still damp from a shower. He looked lovely, face relaxed, eyes bright, cheeks pink from — presumably — the heat of the water. Kei traced the line of his jaw down his neck, over the slope of his shoulder and down further still.
“Tsukishima?” Kageyama asked, breaking the spell. “You said I left something there?”
“Yeah.” Kei squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. “Close your eyes.” Kageyama quirked a brow, eyes darting around. “Just — just do it.” Kei swallowed. “Please.” It was weak, his plea, weak and whispered but Kageyama heard it nonetheless.
Blue eyes widened, shocked, before fluttering closed as he heaved a sigh and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Fine,” he said, swaying slightly side to side, “but I swear, Tsukishima, if this is some kind of —”
Some kind of what, Kei might never find out because he cut Kageyama off with a kiss.
He cradled Kageyama’s head between his hands, thumbs idly massaging his jaw as he pressed their lips together. Kageyama didn’t move for the longest three seconds of Kei’s life and Kei pulled back.
Oh fuck Yamaguchi had gotten this all wrong, Akaashi had no context from which to derive any meaningful conclusions and now he’d quite probably ruined his relationship with one of his oldest friends who was —
Who was looking at him with a single eye, barely cracked open. Blue flooded that small space; the rest of his face was inscrutable. He came to some kind of conclusion because he closed it again, lid dropping down as Kei was pulled closer by hands now wrapped in the lapels of his coat.
Lips pushed against his again, warm, chapped and reactive. They slotted between Kei’s own, pried his mouth open and pressed the advantage. Fireworks were cliché, the domain of shoujo’s and hopeless romanticism. No, this kiss didn’t have fireworks. But there were sparks — ignition for a fire meant to burn. Fireworks lasted only a moment. Kei hoped this lasted much longer than that.
Those lips gave sparks but they took, too — caught Kei’s bottom lip between them, pulling and nipping with gentle teeth, pulled his breath from his lungs as Kageyama licked at the seam of his mouth, dragged him along as Kageyama stepped backwards into the privacy of his room.
They kissed until the door slamming closed behind them snapped them from their trance. They parted, breathing deeply.
Kageyama made a lovely sight, face framed by Kei’s own hands, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, lips glistening. He leaned in once more, pressing a chaste kiss against his mouth.
Kageyama smiled — really, fully smiled — and it was dazzling.
“I didn’t leave anything at the restaurant, did I?”
Kei huffed a laugh. “Yamaguchi told me to say you left your birthday kiss.”
Kageyama laughed at that — a deep, chesty sound that reverberated in the space between them. Kei wasn’t sure when the last time he’d heard him laugh. He liked it. Kageyama should laugh more, he decided.
He kissed that laughing mouth, stealing the noise for himself, burying it in his lung, burning it into his bones. He kissed him and moved them further into the room, further, further, until their legs met the edge of the bed.
“You didn’t leave anything,” Kei said, breaking away, “but I did still bring something.”
Reaching in to the pocket of his coat, he brought out Akaashi’s parting gift, tossing the condom and packets of lube down on to the bed.
“If you want,” he said, watching Kageyama stare at the gleaming foil. “However you want...if you want.”
Kageyama looked back up at him. He lunged forward, kiss bruising as he pressed not just their lips together but their whole bodies. Kageyama was solid, muscular, a heavy, welcome weight against him even as he pushed off his heels and lifted his face to accomodate their height difference.
Blue eyes were nearly black when they broke apart.
“I want,” Kageyama breathed. “I want. Do you want?”
Kei ducked down for another kiss.
“Yeah,” he said. “I want too.”