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Hump day is the worst day of the week. Less because it’s hump day and more because of the 8 am that Zaizen has. He skips breakfast to make his Zoology class and by the time he gets out of his four hour once a week lecture, he’s got to book it to the lab for the damn class.
It’s a good day when he gets to eat a late lunch at 2 pm, but them’s the breaks.
He’s minding his own business, standing in front of a vending machine caught between a sandwich and this new flavor of melon bread, when a hand lands on his shoulder.
Zaizen doesn’t scream or anything. But it’s a close thing.
“Didn’t know you were in the area,” Chris says. He sounds warm, a nice contrast to the autumn chill sneaking through the air. He sounds more familiar than Zaizen thought he would given how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other last.
Things always end up like this. Chris standing behind Zaizen, whether Zaizen is standing on the pitcher’s mound trying to throw to first or crouched in the batter’s box at practice. Always there. They’ve got so much damn history that it chafes, looking back at what they had and realizing that whatever it was wasn’t enough to hold them together through the years.
Of course, nothing is forever.
“Haven’t talked to me enough to know if I was or not,” Zaizen says. So what if he’s feeling a little hangry.
“Let’s go somewhere for lunch,” Chris says, still warm, a little nostalgic now. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
The embarrassing thing is that Zaizen barely registers what they’re eating and where. His stomach may have been ready for food ever since the two hour mark of his first class, but the feeling had been a steady kind of grumble, uncomplaining but constant.
Once Chris is steering them towards this new cafe at the edge of campus that he thinks is quite nice, Zaizen’s stomach decides it’s time to transform into a yawning pit, a black hole of nil space, dark matter in a particle accelerator--which is to say, hungry and ever ready to consume all things in sight.
Being hangry makes Zaizen dramatic sometimes.
“What have you been up to?”
“Not much. Did some animal dissections earlier. Touched a bird heart.”
Zaizen freezes with his second sandwich halfway to his mouth. Sometimes he forgets that in polite company you don’t talk about your zoology lab while eating, but Chris just smiles and nods like he understands that yeah, sometimes a man has got to touch a bird heart or two for the greater good.
Comforted that Chris hasn’t taken offense, Zaizen takes another bite before he remembers to ask, very politely mind you, “And you?” with his mouth full of sandwich.
“I’m working through a business degree.”
“Business?”
“I figure that it’s pretty apt.” For a student athlete goes unsaid.
Chris can be so smooth in ways that make Zaizen forget, for a second, the awkward kid in middle school with flyaway bangs and dreams too big for his body.
But he’s there. Zaizen catches glimpses of him. This isn’t to say that you don’t ever outgrow who you used to be. That’s plain untruth. You change every single day, but some things are things you don’t think to want to change, don’t have the time for, don’t decide to do, and sometimes those are the things that remain. At times, these can be the best parts of yourself, but at other times these are absentminded bad habits, awkward quirks that never leave you.
Chris takes a sip from his straw and fiddles with his napkin. He’s got new calluses Zaizen wants to feel with his own skin. “International laws and practices are pretty interesting.”
Zaizen peers at the rest of his sandwich, it’s colorful innards squished haphazardly between two slices of white bread.
This is a dissection.
“The MLB would be lucky to have you.”
And for anyone else, it’d be lip service. A service which Zaizen rarely pays, but for Chris, and only him, Zaizen thinks he can make the exception. Chris might have to get through the NPB or maybe even grind through the minors for a year or two if he decides to for the draft. But someday, someone is going to see what he has to offer, everything he can achieve, and they’re going to want him.
That’s just the way things are.
Zaizen eats the last few bites of his sandwich to the sound of Chris’ thoughtful silence, the rattle of his straw in his empty cup.
Chris stands and goes to the counter before Zaizen’s even done wiping his mouth with his stupidly plush napkin. “Lunch is on me,” Chris says.
Zaizen stalks outside with him, shoulder to shoulder. “Then dinner will have to be on me.”
“Okay.”
It’s so easy for Chris that Zaizen has to scowls at his shoes and shrug his backpack into a more comfortable place on his shoulders to get rid of the giddy feeling threatening to clog up his throat. The exhilaration of being near someone like Chris is almost enough to mimic the rush of a big win. “You headed back to campus?”
“Yeah. Got an essay I need some reference books for.”
“Then let’s go.”
The hum of the crowd around them doesn’t even dampen the feeling of how close Zaizen feels to Chris. Every brush of their hands feels electric and he can’t help but wonder how many hours Chris can stand of him before he decides enough is enough. It’s stupid. They used to spend so much time together, but that was years ago and today is autumn not spring, and fall is end of the season.
Everyone knows that.
The elevators in the library took take too long to get anywhere, so they opted to take the stairs.
Each breath is amplified a hundredfold in the breezy stairwell.
“You never said what you were getting,” Chris says from behind Zaizen. He doesn’t sound out of breath at all, but Zaizen is really fucking feeling the burn in his thighs. For a moment he’s worried about his knee, but he’s not running a marathon over here. He’s taking a few flight of stairs up at a steady pace. No torque. It’s going to be okay. He’s going to be fine.
“Want to find some avian reference books.”
They climb another flight in silence. The seventh floor is becoming an impossible mission.
“For what class?”
“Zoology.”
“Do you have a favorite kind of bird?”
Zaizen grins and looks back over his shoulder. “Raptors.”
Turning back was something of a mistake, because now Zaizen is caught in the full effect of Chris’ clear gaze, the way his lips curl up at the edges like he finds Zaizen amusing instead of grating, content to be climbing up these stairs with him.
Then Chris blinks. He hums thoughtfully. His eyelashes fan across his cheeks and Zaizen can’t stop staring at the way the paper thin skin of his eyelids look, the way he looks vulnerable just standing there. There’s nothing hiding him from Zaizen. Not the distraction of food or conversation. He’s here where Zaizen is. And then he blinks up at Zaizen and says, “I think crows are my favorite.”
Zaizen watches Chris’ lashes flutter one more time, the way he bites his lip as he drops his gaze. Nothing could make Zaizen turn around now. If he reaches out he could feel the heat of Chris’ skin against his.
“Is your knee okay?” Chris asks. “We can take a break from the stairs if you want.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Zaizen mutters. “Let’s go look at some books.”
When Zaizen finally gets his arm full of books, he’s too tired to drag his haul all the way to a table. It’s a golden hour, sunlight pouring in through the high windows of the seventh floor, sinking its warm fingers into the tense muscles of Zaizen’s back, bringing out the highlights in Chris’ hair.
Zaizen sinks down to the ground, the stacks of the library rising around him. When he stretches out his legs, he fills the whole aisle. Chris huffs and drops his backpack next to Zaizen’s. It makes a soft thud. A counterpoint to the fluttering sounds of Zaizen turning the pages of his book.
“See anything you like?”
“Sure.” Chris stretches up to the second tallest shelf to grab something.
It’s then that Zaizen makes his second great mistake of the day. He looks away from his book and right at the smooth expanse of skin of Chris’ torso as he reaches across Zaizen. The jut of his hip is beautiful. The shift of muscle and the pull of skin is as smooth as the light moving across the cool linoleum beneath Zaizen. A trail of fine fuzz follows a path from the bottom of Chris’ hitched up shirt to just below his belly button, the rest hidden away by the line of his belt.
Solid is the word that comes to mind when Zaizen looks at Chris. Solid and real, but he’s still so afraid that if he put his hand out this would all disappear somehow.
Zaizen looks up further, to catch the light and shadow following the path of Chris’ jaw, the line of his neck. The feelings welling up in his chest disintegrate the layers of time and space separating Zaizen from who he was from who he is. Suddenly, he’s thirteen and hopelessly infatuated with the best catcher in the the West Tokyo youth league all over again.
Some things never change.
“Chris,” Zaizen says carefully as he brings up a hand to cradle Chris’ hip.
“Yes?”
Zaizen tugs on a belt loop. “Get down here,” he whispers. They’re still in the library, but everything also feels so far away. So many things of changed, countless thousands and millions of states of being are possible, but here Zaizen is, feeling like he hasn’t grown up at all.
Chris sits down on the ground next to Zaizen, a bird watching guide clutched in his hand, he looks tense. Painfully human. Zaizen’s fingers are still tucked in the same belt loops.
He reaches out to take the guide out of Chris’ hand and places it with care on top of the stack of other books they’ve amassed. “Can I kiss you?,” Zaizen asks, as soft as he knows how.
“Yes. Please do,” Chris replies. “Yeah.”
What follows is a lot of careful maneuvering. Zaizen moves to straddle Chris’ thigh, ginger with the placement of his knee, but sure with his hands, sliding his palms up under Chris’ shirt to bring skin to skin. Chris shivers under him and Zaizen grins, a little feral, as he leans down to press his teeth to Chris’ lower lip. He nips once, sharp, and then runs his tongue over the skin slow as can be. It’s easy to want this with Chris, but when Chris reaches up to frame Zaizen’s face with his hands, it becomes easy to want Chris.
Chris in all his glory. His stoic demeanor. His thoughtful ways of reaching out, considerate and heartfelt. He’s so tightly wound that Zaizen wants to press him into sheets and tell him to sleep off his worries, his countless responsibilities.
The library is hushed around them. It’s the golden hour. Zaizen leans back to catch his breath and then he licks at Chris’ lips, chases the wet heat of his mouth, slides his hands into the grooves the muscles of Chris’ ribs, and hopes that Chris can feel how their heartbeats are beating rabbit-fast together.
I want you, Zaizen breathes into Chris, and I want you to want me too. Want me as I am, as I will be.
There’s fingers curling into the soft hairs at the nape of Zaizen’s neck, and then Chris is pushing Zaizen a little to the left so their noses don’t bump as often now, and the way his tongue moves in Zaizen’s mouth is absolutely filthy. Chris curls his tongue against the hard ridges of his palate. A promise of things to come. The gasp Zaizen breathes is too loud in the echoing silence.
Zaizen breaks the kiss but pushes his hands up higher, brushing his thumbs against Chris’ nipples, one palm pressed over his heart, one palm spread over the span his shoulder blade. “Let me take you home.”
Chris smiles up at him and he looks. He looks adoring. Lit up and kind of blurred at the edges like kissing Zaizen has unraveled him a bit. He looks deliciously rumpled. Zaizen wants him in his kitchen in the morning looking the same kind of relaxed, on his couch in the afternoons trying to write an essay, in his bed at night in the same way. He looks good like this, happy to be here. Here, next to Zaizen, one hand framing Zaizen’s jaw, the other tangled in his hair.
“Lead the way.”