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(and the first time it comes to your attention isn't even on purpose, really, more an accident than a purposeful decision; like in the way he turns his full attention onto you every single time you speak, the way you blossom under the weight of his eyes on you, and the way he doesn't even really notice—not in a bad way, but aching all the same.)
here’s how it starts: serizawa's in love.
(and it comes in waves, at first, little tiny waves that make it easy to digest until all of a sudden its a tsunami under your feet, the world shaking and tumbling and turning all around you until you're sick to your stomach with it, with the movement, with yourself.)
it shouldn't really surprise him by now. he loves so easily; affirmation, a gentle touch, any kind of positive attention and he's sitting awake at night with it, with that feeling blooming in the pits of his stomach all the way up to the knots that live in his throat. like choking, but kinder, somehow, except not really.
(and God isn't listening, you think, or maybe he just isn't even there, cause you stand every time he walks into a room and and you turn toward him every time he speaks and you laugh every time he makes a joke, even when they aren't all that funny, just for the way his eyes do that crinkling shine the way they always do when he feels he's made someone happy; and you notice that about him because you notice everything about him now, the way he smells and eats and laughs and breathes. it'd be overwhelming if you weren't so desperate for any part of him you can get your hands on.)
love has never been kind to serizawa. he loves too freely for it to be good, for it to end in anything but heartbreak and sinking stomachs and hands, blood stained hands, fisted in his own shirt at night when the world is so loud and he is so, so small. it hurts, but in a good way, sometimes, which might be worse for all the ways it makes him crave it even more.
(and you think he probably doesn't know, except he's one of the most brilliant people you've ever met, and there's no way he could possibly not know—but you also think that if he did know, he wouldn't touch you as easily as he does, wouldn't lean in as close as he does to whisper things not meant for the younger ones ears, wouldn't be around you nearly as much as he already is—but not for any reason that you might assume of anyone lesser. no, you think to yourself. no. he wouldn’t avoid you on purpose. he would be so, so nice about it. he'd be surprised and baffled and confused, but he would smile and pat your shoulder and tell you he's flattered, really, so, so flattered, but he's so sorry, he doesn't feel the same, and you can do a better than him, anyways, you’re a catch, serizawa, such a catch, a catch in a world with millions of fish in the sea, so there's no reason to cry or be upset, and really, honestly, serizawa, this doesn't change anything. we're still friends, he would say. we're still friends.)
he feels so angry, sometimes. angry with himself, the world, the people in it. sometimes he gets angry with reigen; not for anything that he's done, but just for the catharsis that comes with having somebody to blame that isn't himself.
(and that's the worst part, because of course it is, because just the thought of it, the thought of the distance that would form that he'd try to hide nevertheless out of respect for you and your fucking feelings—it's all a little sickening, and it's what keeps the words bottled in the deepest recesses of your mind. you wish reigen would be mean about it, if you said something, because that would be so much easier, but that isn't who he is, because if that was who he was--well. you'd probably still fall in love with him, but it'd taste a little less sweet and more just bitter on the back of your tongue.)
it's moments like those that make serizawa hate himself, really and truly hate himself. how can he possibly try and find comfort in this? it's his own fault, he thinks. he did this to himself. he's the one who fell in love, he thinks; not reigen's fault he didn't.
(and there’s millions of fish in the sea but he’s the only fish you want anymore; nothing else will satisfy you, you realize with the cold kind of acceptance that used to be reserved for the dead bodies that once lined up at your feet. everything lights up inside of you for him in ways that you don’t think you’re ever gonna get with anybody else. this is it, for you, this is it, but for him—)
(for him—)
-
once upon a time, toward the end of the day, when the kids have already left and it's just the two of them sitting in a comfortable silence, reigen looks out the window toward the setting sun with something very, very far away in his eyes, and says, “i don’t think i’m ever gonna get married.”
serizawa goes very still. “no?”
there’s something pooling in his gut; a sickness in his chest that’s rising like bile in his throat.
reigen smiles. his hand comes up to rest on his own shoulder, and serizawa watches it desperately. he can’t tear his eyes away from it; can’t stop fucking looking at the curve of his fingers, his knuckles, his shoulder twitching beneath his own touch, his entire body outlined in the warm orange of the sun, disappearing beneath the distant rooftops. the room smells like cheap lavender and the faded scent of cigarette smoke—just like reigen. he finds his breath hitching on the scent of it.
reigen doesn’t say anything and turns back to his desk, his hand dropping in the meanwhile, and serizawa feels a little bit like he’s going to throw up.
-
(and so you keep it tucked away, hidden poorly by the way the kids look at you with a little pity in their eyes every time he touches you, but hidden nonetheless. if reigen doesn't want to see it, that's fine by you, you think. in whatever way you get to have him, at least you have him. that's better than nothing. and you wonder, a little bit, if this is hell. if you've been sucked into a nightmare of your own creation, repenting for your sins, for everything you did, did for claw, did for him— where the world gets a little brighter and a little harder to look at every single day, and you can do nothing but sit and let your retinas be burned by the sight of it.)
he goes to work and he gets paid pennies and he falls in love more and more every single day; and he doesn't say anything. lifting, breathing, day in and day out. he gains a little weight, and reigen beams when he finds out, and if it knocks the breath out of his chest, lavender and cigarette smoke, that's for him and him alone to know.
(but if this is hell, you think, then the moments where he laughs and calls your name—not a sigh, really, but something close to it; serizawa, serizawa, serizawa—they aren't real. if this is hell, they aren't real. and it's then that you think, God, let this be real.
if it's real, you don't care if it hurts.)