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Settling back into normalcy has been surprisingly easy. Six months go by, then a year, and it’s as if nothing major ever happened in Seasoning City. Pedestrians bustle along the streets that had once been cracked wide open like a gaping maw. Old businesses shut down, new businesses open, new hangout spots for Shigeo’s classmates pop up around town. There’s still lulls in the school day where Shigeo stares out the window and wishes for time to pass just a bit quicker.
Shigeo appreciates it. Change is terrifying. It took time to stop getting so nervous calling Tsubomi on the phone to ask her about her day, just as friends. It took even longer to stop feeling nauseous when he passed Spirits and Such on the way home from school and didn't go inside for his old part-time job.
There is one change he couldn’t help but notice. One that’s been consuming his every waking moment for some time now.
Teru.
It’s difficult to pinpoint when exactly the shift began. If Shigeo allows himself to consider the timeline, he thinks it may have been as far back as the first time he visited Hanazawa in the hospital right after…
(Everything. After Shigeo hurt so many people. After Shigeo opened his eyes and realized he could be so much more, that he had only been a fraction of what he really was.)
---
Seeing Hanazawa in a hospital bed, his hair shaved close to his head and his arms and legs mottled with ugly bruises and scrapes, had been hard. His friend was looking out the hospital window when he heard Shigeo’s footsteps and turned to him with a grin. Hanazawa raised one hand in a wave, and Shigeo stared stared stared at the bandages spanning from his forearm all the way down to the tips of his fingers. He looked more like a mummy than he did the boy Shigeo trusted most in the world. His friend noticed his wide-eyed look and lowered his arm sheepishly.
“Third degree burns,” Hanazawa explained, looking down at his hands as they plucked at the sheet covering his lower body. “You don’t need to worry, Kageyama-kun. They don’t really hurt anymore with the pain medications. There’s just some itching and-”
The flowers in his hands dropped to the ground, and Shigeo threw himself at his friend with a strangled sob. His arms looped around Hanazawa’s body, and he hid his face in his shoulder. Hanazawa’s hands came up to rub his back, but all Shigeo could think about was how weak he seemed, how the gown hanging off one shoulder smelled like cleaning products and paper instead of the usual floral smell he associated with Hanazawa. And he feels such an overwhelming sense of…
Shame. He was so ashamed. Hanazawa had been prepared to do anything to help him, and Shigeo had almost killed him. Well, sure, it hadn’t really been him, but… but it had been, hadn’t it? Some dormant part of himself lying in wait like a predator hiding in the brush stalking its prey.
“I hurt you,” Shigeo whispered. Tears fell from his eyes and stained the thin, billowy gown. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Hanazawa hugged him tighter for one long moment before gently pushing Shigeo’s shoulders. Shigeo sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. He couldn’t look Hanazawa in the eye. Shigeo expected to be ridiculed, called a maniac for what he did to Hanazawa, told to leave and never come back. And he would deserve every single word thrown his way.
But Hanazawa used a thumb to brush away tears gathering on his cheek. “We all make mistakes, Kageyama-kun,” he said. Shigeo risked a glance, and Hanazawa met his gaze with a sad smile. “The person who hurt me wasn’t you, was it? So don’t worry. I’ve already forgiven you.”
Shigeo managed a shaky smile back, and Hanazawa leaned forward so their foreheads touched.
He ended up spending the night in the hospital, Hanazawa convincing the nurses with a pout and puppy dog eyes that his visitor was essential to his healing process. Shigeo squeezed onto the hospital bed beside him so they could watch reruns of terrible sitcoms on the outdated little TV hanging in the corner of the room. To fit them both, Shigeo had his head on Hanazawa’s shoulder on their shared pillow, and their legs were a tangled mess. The blankets hardly covered both of them to shield them from the frigid chill of the hospital room, but the warmth of Hanazawa pressed against him was more than enough.
They were in the middle of a particularly awful episode of some show about friends who don’t really seem to like each other when Hanazawa elbowed him softly in the side. Shigeo blinked a few times as he came back to the present and looked at Hanazawa.
His friend looked… nervous? Eyebrows drawn together as he glanced away from Shigeo, teeth gnawing on the inside of his cheek. The heart monitor he was hooked up to picked up speed. Beep, beep, beep. “Kageyama-kun, I…” Hanazawa swallowed thickly. “I want you to know you’re the most important person in my life.” Shigeo watched as his gaze flickered across the room and settled on anything but Shigeo. “I really like you. I think you’re a wonderful person, and I-I care about you a lot. More than normal friends do, I think. And… I understand if you don’t feel the same way, but-”
“I feel the same,” Shigeo replied. They were best friends, weren’t they? Of course things were different between them than with Shigeo and his other friends.
Relief washed over Hanazawa’s features like floodwaters. “You do?” Shigeo nodded once. “Oh, then…” Hanazawa laughed once. “That’s a relief. I was scared you were going to reject me.”
Huh? Why would Shigeo ever do that? “Of course not. I’d never even consider doing that.”
Hanazawa settled back down. The EKG died down to something calmer that could be tuned out as background noise. “Thank you, Kageyama-kun. That means a lot to me.”
He was all smiles the rest of the night, even when the nurses had to draw his blood and Shigeo almost threw up in the trash can at the sight of a needle. Shigeo eventually mentioned sleep, and Hanazawa cuddled close to him in the hospital bed. His friend’s head rested on his chest. The top of his shaved head tickled Shigeo’s face, but Shigeo set his cheek down on it regardless. His arms wrapped around Hanazawa as his friend drifted off to sleep.
“I like you,” Hanazawa murmured, words slurred together. Shigeo thought the nurse must have turned up his IV drip, because he’d been especially touchy for the past few minutes as he grew more and more loopy.
“I like you too,” Shigeo replied.
He wondered if Ritsu was ever this open about his feelings with his friends. Or Tome. Perhaps he’d have to ask them later.
---
Yes, that must have been the start.
Afterwards, Hanazawa- Teru, his friend had insisted Shigeo start calling him- constantly invited Shigeo out for different outings: going to the movies, grabbing a bite to eat at one of the restaurants between their schools, hanging out at Shigeo’s. It was a bit of a leap considering they only occasionally met up before, but Shigeo welcomed the additional meetings. After all, it was nice to be around Teru. He was always very optimistic and said kind things to Shigeo that no one else ever did.
The hand holding came a bit later, for the first time when they were looking at a Christmas display in a store window. Teru’s gloved hand wrapped around Shigeo’s and squeezed, and Shigeo turned to look at Teru curiously. But his friend seemed captivated by the twinkling lights and the moving parts. His cheeks were pink, but it was pretty cold outside. Shigeo told him to wrap his scarf tighter around his face, and Teru only smiled in response.
The kissing came next. Teru liked to grab Shigeo by the arm and kiss his cheek, his forehead, his temple. It was nice. His lips were soft, and it always left a pleasant warmth against his skin.
“So are you guys… together?” Tome asked when Teru pecked Shigeo on the cheek before helping Reigen file away some paperwork. Her eyebrows were raised, the straw in her soda can dangling out of her mouth.
Shigeo looked over at Teru as he held a file Reigen was looking for high over his head with his powers. “Stupid fucking… Tsuya said it would be right here…” Teru’s stoic expression was cracking as Reigen checked the trash bin, checked under his desk, even looked in the potted plant. He noticed Shigeo watching and grinned, putting a finger up to his lips.
“What do you mean?” Shigeo went back to doing his homework. “Hey, did you have Saito-sensei last year? Do you remember this concept?”
Tome didn’t answer for a long time. Shigeo thought maybe she was trying to remember her previous teachers, but did it really take that long? Eventually Shigeo looked up at her curiously. Tome’s mouth hung open, eyes huge.
“Huh?” She looked at Teru, then at Shigeo, then back at Teru again. “What do I mean-?”
“Stop interrogating him, Tome-chan,” Serizawa piped up as he walked through the door. “He has to figure things out on his own.” He looked up at the file floating in midair and sighed, a fond expression taking over his face. “Teru-”
“Hmm?” The blond flicked off his powers, and the file hit Reigen square in the back as he was knelt down peering under the chairs. Reigen let out a startled oof.
Shigeo frowned as Reigen grabbed his file and started arguing with Teru, gesturing wildly and calling him a menace, and he wants Reigen to go insane at the ripe old age of 30, doesn’t he? Teru snickered and danced away from Reigen’s hands, ending up behind Shigeo’s chair.
What did that mean? Figure things out on his own? Teru leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and Shigeo leaned into his lips as he thought to himself. Hasn’t he always been figuring things out on his own? Figure out what exactly?
---
Shigeo might not have known how exactly the escalation began, but he did know the crescendo. The climax. The pivotal moment where the line between friendship and something more blurred.
“And you just let her do it?” Teru asked, a smile already starting to form on his face. He liked all of Shigeo’s stories, no matter how boring they might be. Teru would always give his full attention, his eyes on Shigeo even though he knew Shigeo didn’t really like eye contact (but Teru insisted he didn’t mind, and that Shigeo could do whatever was most comfortable).
He nodded. “Yeah, there was no stopping Tome-chan. She spent 2500 yen just for a bowlful of wasabi that Reigen-san would take one bite of, but she insisted it was worth it.”
Teru snorted. “Was it?”
“I would think so.” Shigeo tapped his chin in thought. “She put in chocolate chips and everything so it would look like ice cream, and he didn’t even give it a second thought. I’ve never seen him make that sort of expression.” He hadn’t been there, but Tome had made sure to record it with her phone and send the video to Shigeo. He’s still not sure how Serizawa convinced Reigen not to fire her on the spot. Although, in reality, it probably didn’t take a whole lot of convincing. Reigen is kind-hearted in his own way.
“Do you still have the video?”
“Oh, sure.”
They paused in the middle of the sidewalk and moved to the side, close to where the path splits off into a park. The flowers were starting to peek open their petals to the warm spring air, and the cherry blossoms overhead only had a few weeks left before they started to bloom. Soon, the park would be a hotspot during the afternoons.
Teru huddled close to Shigeo to watch the clip on his phone. It was blurry from Tome’s giggling fit shaking her whole body, but it’s hard to miss Reigen’s expression as he took a bite of what he assumed to be mint chip ice cream but was really a heaping spoonful of wasabi. Reigen’s face twists up, and there’s shouting in the background from Serizawa.
“Pfft-” Teru covered his mouth, and Shigeo turned to smile at his reaction to the video.
But…
Teru’s hand dropped from his face and threw his head back as laughter overtook him. His nose scrunched up with the width of his grin, his shoulders trembled, one hand reached out to grab Shigeo’s arm to hold himself up. The sound is wonderful in a way Shigeo had never really noticed before. Like a song you’ve heard a hundred times, but only just start to pick out the instruments when you listen a hundred and one times. Shigeo…
Shigeo loved it. He loved Teru’s laughter, and he loved that Teru leaned on him for support as he giggled and snorted, and he loved that Teru’s hand was still holding his tightly, and he loved…
He loved Teru.
The cherry blossoms overhead explode into bloom. Green buds turn pink, turn white, and open into big, beautiful flowers in the span of a second. Behind them, the little blooms that were still trying to learn how to be flowers grow a few inches and blossom into perfect splashes of color that paint the ground in reds and pinks and oranges.
“Oh, Shige,” Teru looked up in surprise. “Was that you?” He was still smiling. “That’s amazing! I didn’t know you could do that!”
Shigeo could only stare at him in horror. He loved him. He loved his best friend. Teru, who had done nothing but support him from the moment they started to see eye to eye. Who was there through all the good days and the bad, who would help Shigeo in the blink of an eye if Shigeo were to just say the word. He loved him so much.
It almost hurt. It was different from the gentle, quiet fondness that would wash over him with Tsubomi. No, this was… it was all encompassing. It was terrifying in ways Shigeo couldn’t even begin to understand.
Teru was saying his name and shaking his arm insistently. “Shige.” How long had he been trying to get Shigeo’s attention? “Shigeo. Is everything okay?” Concern was written on his face. The smile was long gone, replaced by furrowed brows and wide eyes.
“Uh… huh?” Shigeo managed. Were Teru’s eyes always so blue? Like the sky after storm clouds have cleared away and everything seemed so much more colorful than it used to be-
“You dropped your phone.” Teru held out Shigeo’s phone in his hand.
Talking to Teru was suddenly the most difficult thing Shigeo had ever had to do. Has he always been so handsome? Was it always so hard to meet his eyes? “Th-Thank you.” Shigeo’s hand was shaking as he took his phone back and stuffed it into his pocket, not even bothering to check for any scratches.
“You’re… you’re sure you’re fine?” Teru still looked worried. He was going to find out. He was going to know. Shigeo had to keep acting normal. Like he hadn’t just had a life-altering epiphany in the middle of their walk to his house from a cheap ramen place.
“Mmhm.” Shigeo wanted to throw up. But there weren’t any trash cans around, so he swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “I- um, T-Teru, perhaps we should… keep going?” He tugged Teru’s hand in the right direction. Oh, no, his palm is probably so clammy in Teru’s. Shigeo wanted to pull away and wipe his hands off on his pants, but would that just make it more obvious? Would Teru think he was disgusting? What if-
“Oh, okay, Shige.” Teru pressed a kiss to the side of Shigeo’s head, and it takes a very concentrated effort to keep his aura from flaring up around him and blowing the leaves and flowers off the cherry blossom trees. “Come on. It isn’t too far now.”
Shigeo stared down at his feet as he followed along beside Teru, lagging a little bit behind. What was he supposed to do? How would Teru react? His mouth was drawn in a straight line, but it wavered as he thought about the possibility of Teru rejecting him. No, that couldn’t happen. Shigeo wouldn’t know what to do with himself if it did.
He didn’t notice the bushes bursting with flowers behind him, nor did he see the wildflowers sprouting up from the cracks in the sidewalk wherever he stepped.
And Shigeo didn’t realize Teru was noticing them. It was hard not to when every single cherry blossom tree they passed under suddenly sprung to life and blew pink and white petals onto the ground below.
---
Shigeo knows he has to tell Teru, though. They’re best friends. He’s confided in him with all his secrets, his concerns, his aspirations since… everything, and this was the biggest secret and concern and aspiration of them all.
He waits until Teru is over at his house on a rainy day. His friend brought a few movies to watch and a box of stovetop popcorn for them to pop. Shigeo’s parents are out for the day, and Ritsu is over at Takenaka’s house. They have the whole space to themselves, which is… terrifying. Shigeo is grateful that he doesn’t need to worry about interruptions, but he’s even more worried he has no one to fall back on if he messes everything up. He could always call Ritsu, but…
Shigeo really needs to do this himself. For his sake. For Teru’s sake.
Rain patters lightly against the window. The living room is dark from the gathering storm clouds outside combined with all of the lights being turned off. For ambience, Teru had insisted. Shigeo agreed because he likes to please Teru more than he cares about the lights being on or off.
Teru is curled up beside him on the couch, legs spread to the side and his head on Shigeo’s shoulder. The bowl of popcorn sits between them, half gone from Teru’s constant snacking. Shigeo has been too nervous to even think about eating. The last thing he needs to do is barf in the middle of confessing to Teru.
Speaking of which…
“T-Teru?” Shigeo manages weakly, voice an octave higher than it should be. Teru tips his head back and looks up at Shigeo. “Do you think we, um, we could maybe pause the movie for a second?”
His friend sits up quickly, reaching for the remote to stop in the middle of an intimate scene between the main characters. “Do you not like this one?” Teru asks, turning to Shigeo with a frown. “We can switch it out for a different one, I don’t mind-”
“It’s not that!” Shigeo blurts a little too quickly. Teru’s mouth snaps shut, and Shigeo feels horrible for raising his voice and interrupting him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, um, I didn’t-”
“Then what’s wrong, Shige?” Teru interrupts. He gently takes Shigeo’s hands in his own. “You’ve been acting off for a while now. Is… Is there something bothering you?” Teru rubs his thumb along Shigeo’s knuckles. “You can tell me anything, you know.”
Anything? Shigeo swallows the lump in his throat and looks off to the side. He focuses on anything but Teru’s face. “I…” His eyes land on the bag of candy they haven’t opened yet. Shigeo pointedly stares at the happy cartoon character advertising the chocolates instead.
He just needs to get it over with. Rip the bandaid off, right? Shigeo can’t go years without saying something- not again. He might go insane.
“Teru, I have… very strong feelings for you,” Shigeo starts off, voice wavering.
“Oh, Shigeo, I-”
“Wait, please let me finish.” Teru stops, and Shigeo nods once in thanks. “I… I think very highly of you. You’ve been a- um, a wonderful friend to me, and I can never thank you enough for your support. But I…”
He risks a glance up and immediately regrets it. Teru’s face is screwed up in confusion, a wrinkle between his brow and his eyes wide. But it was a little too late to go back now.
“I like you more than just a friend. I think I have for…” Shigeo looks away. “For a while now. I know it-it’s sudden and things don’t need to change between us-”
“Shige.”
“Please, one moment. Things don’t need to change, but I understand if you don’t feel the same way. I just hope we can still remain friends-”
“Shige, listen-”
“I’m almost done.” Shigeo squirms uncomfortably. “But I-I think you’re very, um… very pretty- err, handsome, and you always make me really happy, but regardless I’m okay with whatever you decide-”
“Shigeo. Stop talking.” Oh, okay. Shigeo is too stunned to keep going. Teru is never so demanding. He gulps once more and hesitantly looks up, glancing at Teru from behind his bangs-
And Teru doesn’t look… mad. More than anything, he looks utterly lost.
“Shigeo,” Teru starts slowly, “what do you think we’ve been this whole time?”
Shigeo blinks a few times. What… What they’ve been? What was that supposed to mean? “Friends?” He frowns. Now Shigeo was confused. “Are-Are we not friends?”
Teru opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then looks off to the side for a long moment.
“What I told you in the hospital,” Teru begins once more, “you remember that, don’t you?”
“Um, yes.” What did that have to do with anything?
“When I told you I really liked you.”
“Uh huh.”
“And that I care about you more than a friend.”
Shigeo doesn’t see where this is going. “Okay?”
Teru shakes his head. He’s starting to get frustrated, and Shigeo feels terrible for it. He wants to understand. He doesn’t like being in the dark. “What did you think I meant by that?”
“I thought that…” Shigeo honestly doesn’t know. He assumed Teru was being kind, like the times he would call Shigeo amazing or say he’s handsome. They’d gone through a lot, and Shigeo had thought Teru was trying to make sure they were still friends. “I thought you were being friendly.”
“Friendly-” Teru’s hands leave Shigeo’s, and he puts his head in his hands. “Oh, oh my God-”
“Are we not friends?” Shigeo asks again, growing more and more nervous. Is he missing something? He thought that they were okay. Teru always wants to hang out, and they do everything together now. Was that not-?
“Shigeo, I meant I like you as in- like, like like.”
“Like like,” Shigeo echoes.
“I had a crush on you Shigeo,” Teru finally says. “I have a crush. I thought you did too! I-I thought we were dating.”
Oh.
Oh.
The hand holding, the kissing, the sleeping over all the time, the good morning and good night texts. Those were…
“Oh,” Shigeo mumbles.
“Yeah.” Teru laughs once, sadly. “Oh.”
They sit in silence for a long moment before Shigeo can think of what to say. “You have a crush on me?”
“Yes!” Teru’s hands drop from his face. His cheeks are bright red, a stark contrast from the blue of his eyes. “That’s- We hold hands! I kiss you! What did you think I was doing?”
Shigeo chews the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. Well, now he isn’t really sure what he had been thinking. That Teru was just affectionate? It hadn’t been the biggest stretch, but… maybe it had been? Ritsu never held hands or kissed his friends. Tome certainly never held Shigeo’s hand or kissed him.
He has to figure things out on his own.
Wait. Did everyone else know, too? Is that why Ritsu grimaces when Teru comes over? Or why Reigen and Serizawa exchange knowing looks when Shigeo and Teru visit their office?
Teru leans against the back of the couch and groans, tipping his head back so it hands over the cushions. “God, I…” He wrinkles his nose. “I thought you just wanted to take things slow. Did you hate it all this time?”
“No,” Shigeo says. Teru exhales, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.
He thought he had prepared for everything, but… not this. How was Shigeo supposed to know he was confessing to his boyfriend?
“Are you angry?” Shigeo asks quietly. He… he doesn’t want Teru to be angry. They haven’t had any fights since the first time they met, since Teru tried to stop Shigeo from himself. The thought is terrifying.
Teru tilts his head to the side so he can meet Shigeo’s gaze. He manages a smile. “Yes, but not at you. At myself.” Teru adjusts how he’s sitting so his whole body is turned towards Shigeo. “I should have been more clear. I just feel silly.”
“You aren’t silly.” Shigeo matches how he’s sitting. Their knees brush together, and Teru glances down at them. Hesitantly, Shigeo reaches out and takes Teru’s hand in his own. They’ve held hands hundreds of times, but this feels so… different, all of a sudden. Teru squeezes Shigeo’s hand tightly.
Well, Shigeo did still have one more question.
“So, are we boyfriends?” Shigeo asks.
Teru bites his bottom lip. “Do you want to be boyfriends?”
Shigeo feels his face flush at the thought. Teru’s boyfriend… It has a nice ring to it. The idea of belonging to someone makes his heart flutter in his chest. He’s not sure what exactly will change with the title, but he’s happy to find out if it means he’s with Teru.
(It’s a good change, he thinks.)
“Yes,” Shigeo answers. “Do you?”
Teru starts to smile again. “Yes.”
Shigeo can’t help but smile back. Boyfriends. “Is it alright if we kiss?”
“Yes, of course it is, Shige.”
Teru cups the side of Shigeo’s face and leans in, and Shigeo decides that yes, he likes change.