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“Glam birthday to you, glam birthday to you, glam birthday dear Barou-chaaaan, glam birthday to youuuu—”
“Points for creativity but Barou isn’t here,” Niko said before Aryu had quite wrapped up his youuuuu.
“W-what?” Aryu stuttered, heart sinking. He looked around the room and while fortunately no one else had heard him embarrass himself, that also meant that no, Barou was not in the room.
Which honestly put quite a damper on Aryu’s glam birthday plans for his boyfriend. And okay, Barou didn’t exactly know that he was Aryu’s boyfriend yet, but that was the whole point of today, wasn’t it? They had a very rare day off, a gift from the soccer gods that couldn’t have been timed better to celebrate Barou’s birthday, take him on a glam, romantic birthday date and do all the things Barou loved to do so by the end of the day Barou would fall utterly, totally, stylishly in love with him and they’d finally be dating.
The plan was foolproof, really.
Except for the whole Barou-was-not-here thing.
“Where is he?” Aryu asked, panicked. Barou was his own man, of course, and maybe he didn’t know they were kind of going to be dating but Aryu still thought they were friends if nothing else and why would Barou just go…just go without telling him?
Niko just shrugged. “Out with a girl.”
“No,” Aryu said immediately. Impossible. Not even within the realm of possibility. What did Niko know anyway—not like he had some super observation power with crazy focus eyes or anythi…
Fuck.
“How do you know?” Aryu asked, a bit strained.
Niko just sighed like this was the most boring, time-wasting conversation in the world. “He’s been texting her like daily ever since getting his phone back.”
“You…you must be mistaken…” Aryu insisted weakly. Barou never even had his phone when they were around each other, he wasn’t sure Barou even owned a phone, probably thought they had too many germs or something.
“He texts her every day. It’s part of his routine,” Niko said, delivering the critical blow.
A small oh escaped Aryu, distant to his own ears as he swayed on his feet, barely catching himself (dramatically) against the door jamb and striking a glam but very forlorn pose.
“Aside from your morning serenade, did you need him for something?” Niko asked.
“No, I…” Aryu trailed off, throat tight.
No, I only needed him for the best birthday date ever with pudding and bowling and this Swiffer duster—with upgraded extending handle!—and a meditation cd I picked out just for him and a confession and a kiss if I was lucky!
NOT LIKE I NEEDED HIM FOR ANYTHING IMPORTANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY!
“No—” Aryu tried again.
“Holy shit, you guys!” Aiku interrupted, bursting into the room and nearly vibrating with excitement. “Guess who I just saw walking around outside? Barou! With a girl!”
“Oh really?” Niko said, perfectly dry, as if he didn’t already know and also as if Aryu’s heart hadn’t just crashed to the floor and shattered into a million—no, a billion pieces.
“Yeah!” Aiku continued, too amped up on the gossip to notice. “And she was super hot!”
Unknowingly, Aiku had stepped on the billion pieces of Aryu’s shattered heart and crushed them under his stupid foot, grinding them into glam, but very sad, diamond dust.
Aryu told himself he was just going to go on a little walk. Go outside, get some fresh air, get away from Blue Lock and the people in it and the scene of his heartbreak and stupid Aiku talking about stupid hot girls and Niko with his stupid bangs over his stupid face—
It’s not like he was actually going to track Barou down or try to see this girl for himself or anything.
Not like he held out some desperate, pathetic hope that they were wrong or just fucking with him or something and that he’d find Barou totally, one hundred percent by himself, excited to see Aryu at just the right time to spend the rest of his birthday together.
No, Aryu had no such delusions at all.
Which was a good thing because he actually did find Barou and Barou was not alone and oh shit she was really gorgeous and—
Was Barou smiling?
Aryu slapped his hand over his mouth before he wailed like a banshee. He was going to burst into tears right there.
Barou was an asshole! Aryu loved him, sure, but he was an asshole! This was common knowledge, objective fact! He did not smile and he didn’t smile at girls. Not that there were really girls in Blue Lock to validate this, but it had to be true.
Back during the Prince of the Baths Incident, Aryu had decided the only logical explanation was that there were, in fact, two Barous. And just because he was kind of wrong then didn’t mean he was actually wrong now because, once again, that was really the only explanation. And they’d be twins, of course, so it made sense the nice-twin-that-smiled-Barou was out on a birthday date with his absolutely gorgeous girlfriend—
Aryu stopped in his tracks.
Barou was on a birthday date with his girlfriend.
The pain in Aryu’s chest was excruciating, possibly life-threatening; it was too tight and impossible to breathe. Just how delusional had he been to think that Barou liked him, even a smidge? Barou didn’t think of him as anything more than a teammate, not even a friend, let alone a potential love interest!
The King already had a Queen.
Aryu was just the jester.
He sniffled wetly and told himself it was just allergies.
Unfortunately his “allergies” didn’t stop him from continuing to follow, keeping a respectful stalking distance behind. For observation purposes.
He was such a fool. It wasn’t even Barou’s fault; Barou was just Barou. Aryu was the one who had gotten the wrong idea. He thought they were getting closer, that he knew Barou better than anyone else on the team. What a woefully un-glam dumbass! Hell, Niko knew him better—at least he’d known about Barou’s girlfriend when Aryu was still obliviously putting together his little gift bag complete with an econo pack of Barou’s favorite brand of disinfecting wipes.
Aryu squinched his glam eyes shut; they burned from the sudden-onset heartbreak and the shame of thinking he might actually get to kiss Barou today—
The second he opened his eyes, Aryu blinked rapidly to clear the tears. They had to be giving him double-vision somehow because now…Barou had a girl on each arm, beaming up at him, adoration in their eyes.
“What’s this?” Niko asked a bit later when Aryu tossed the gift bag on Barou’s perfectly-made bed.
He’d probably get yelled at later for putting a wrinkle in the sheet or getting bag-germs on the bed or something stupid but right now Aryu was too devastated and self-loathing to care.
“Aryu? Did you find him?” Niko pressed when Aryu didn’t answer.
“Yeah.”
“And..?” Niko prompted, unable to feign nonchalance in the face of such juicy gossip. “Was Aiku serious? Is she hot?”
Aryu nodded even as his throat prickled. “They’re hot.” He didn’t bother looking at Niko before adding in tragic monotone, “He has two of them.”
“What?” Niko screeched.
“He’s a king,” Aryu said numbly, wondering why someone as allegedly smart as Niko couldn’t understand something so simple. “So he has one for each arm. As he should.”
“No, I don’t think that’s how that works—”
But Aryu didn’t care to stay to argue.
“Oi.”
Aryu’s heart soared at the familiar voice before he remembered that he was heartbroken and foolish and only glam in a very tragic, melancholy sort of way.
So he didn’t poke his head out from under the covers where he’d maybe cried himself into an afternoon nap.
“Oi,” Barou said again, only slightly more irritated.
And again Aryu didn’t answer, just pulled the blanket more securely to cover his head.
“Hey, dickhead,” Barou growled. “You’re 194 centimeters, you big bastard, you really think you can hide under the covers? You barely fit on the damn bed!”
“I’m 195 centimeters,” Aryu replied sulkily, sounding extra pathetic through a stuffy nose.
Barou’s reply was simply to punch at the blanket-covered lump, getting in a pretty solid whack to Aryu’s shoulder.
“Ouch!” Aryu said, actually a little angry. He yanked down the blanket just past his eyes in order to glare. “Why do you have to be so unstylishly violent all the time?”
“What the fuck happened to you?” Barou blurted, genuinely incredulous. “You’re all puffy and swollen and red—did you take another ball to the face?”
“It’s allergies!” Aryu insisted, emphatically pulling the blanket back over his head. “Sorry my face is ugly and not glam or pretty or cute or effeminate or a girl! You don’t have to look anymore! Why are you even here? Why aren’t you out with pretty girls with actual pretty faces and no allergies or stuffy nose or splotchy ugly not-glam cheeks and eyes swollen shut—”
“What are you even talking about?” Barou asked. He yanked at the blanket but Aryu held firm. “Quit hiding and talk to me!”
“No!”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to!”
Fed up, Barou climbed on the bed and kept pulling at the edge of the blanket, trying to wrest it from Aryu’s grip. A small wrestling match ensued, neither one of them able to use their full strength and risk falling off the bed.
“Hey, asshole! I’m trying to thank you for your present and you’re being a weirdo!”
“I’m always a weirdo!” Aryu insisted petulantly.
“Well, yeah,” Barou grunted, giving the blanket a sharp tug to no avail. “And I was just thinking maybe I kinda liked that about you but then you go and pull this shit—”
“Don’t get my hopes up!” Aryu nearly-screeched. “I’ve already embarrassed myself enough, thinking I had a chance!”
“About what?” Barou yelled back, exasperated.
“About you!”
There was a short pause in the wrestling for blanket supremacy, though Barou didn’t release his grip.
“Are you stupid or something?” Barou asked.
Aryu fucking lost it.
“Am I—? Am I—? You! You are the stupid one! You don’t even know what you did, do you! You ruined my entire plan for your birthday—”
“What? Why would you have plans for my birthday?”
“Oh, I dunno! Maybe because I like you because I’m an idiot and I wanted to give you the best, most glam birthday of your life and make you realize you like me too and kiss stylishly under the moonlight like in a beautiful movie but nooo, you had to go out with your girlfriend—girlFRIENDS instead—”
With Barou straddling him and pinning him down, Aryu belatedly realized their bodies were actually quite awkwardly smashed together. And being separated by only a thin blanket, he could feel as Barou just froze, every beautiful muscle perfectly tense.
“What?” Barou finally asked, very quiet and very still which was very not-Barou-like at all.
“Quit asking me ‘what’!” Aryu snapped sulkily. “Girlfriends! Beautiful girls! Two of them! One on each arm, all smiley and cute and sweet—”
“My little sisters wanted to see me on my birthday and since we had the day off, they came down from Akita,” Barou explained, still very restrained.
Aryu’s entire world shifted on its axis and if he hadn’t been effectively bodily pressed to his own bed he might’ve actually fallen out of it. Nausea at being so wrong and euphoria that now everything would be right crashed over him—
“You were gonna kiss me?” Barou asked, and Aryu didn’t need to peek out from the covers to look at his face; the blatant confusion in Barou’s voice was painfully clear. “Is that really what you said?"
“W-well, I was kinda hoping you’d kiss me, actually, but um…I guess…I guess maybe I was getting ahead of myself a little..? Oh right—probably too many germs, huh? How gross…ha ha…ha…”
“You like me?” Barou asked, too loud and too incredulous.
A rough, barked laugh escaped Aryu, very hideous and un-glam. “Do you think I’d be hiding in my bedroom heartbroken and bawling my eyes out if I didn’t?”
“I thought it was allergies,” Barou said distantly.
When he pulled down the blanket, this time Aryu let him.
Barou immediately brayed a surprised laugh. “What happened to your face?!”
Aryu scowled and tried to yank the blanket up and go back into hiding but Barou either had the smarts or the reflexes to stop him.
“Don’t look at me,” Aryu said, closing his eyes so at least he didn’t have to look at Barou. “I can’t stand you seeing me so…so—”
“Ugly?” Barou offered. “You’ve got tears and snot everywhere, you look absolutely disgusting.”
“Birthday allowance or not, how many times today must you wound me to my very core?” Aryu lamented dramatically.
Barou just snorted. “I’m not taking the blame for all the shit that was self-inflicted. You’re the one that let your imagination run away with you.”
Aryu humphed indignantly.
“Still,” Barou said, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and efficiently cleaning Aryu’s face, only one quick twitch of a disgusted sneer as he wiped at some snot.
Aryu wondered if Barou ever gently cleaned anyone else’s face, or if he was special because this was now the second time such an unfathomable thing had happened. “I guess I must be losing my mind to think something this disgusting is actually kind of cute.”
“You think I’m cute..?” Aryu asked with a hopeful sniffle as Barou carefully folded his handkerchief (snot side in) and stuck it back in his pocket.
“Kind of,” Baryu corrected with a little smirk that did deadly awful things to Aryu’s fragile heart.
Then Aryu kinda noticed that as a perfectly innocent consequence of their war over the blanket Barou was kind of caging him in on all fours, and—and maybe his face was actually getting a little closer and he did look kind of serious and oh shit did he just do that thing where he glanced super quick but also super obvious at Aryu’s mouth and oh fuck it was happening!!! So Aryu tried to close his eyes prettily and resisted the urge to lick his bottom lip even as he could feel the heat from Barou's lips a hair's breadth away—
“Dude, Aryu!” Aiku burst into the room without knocking, a bad habit of his apparently. “Have you seen Bar—seriously? Why am I the one who always finds you guys doing weird shit?”
“Because you are hell bent on ruining my life,” Aryu offered.
“We aren’t doing weird shit!” Barou argued at the same time.
“You know what,” Aiku said, unfortunately not leaving. “Fine. It’s fine. It’s great, actually—because I was looking for the King to ask if that smokeshow he was with earlier happens to have a sister he could introduce me to, but if Barou is…doing whatever this is, then maybe he can just give me that girl’s number…? What? Why are you shaking your head at me?”
“That girl does have a sister. But she also has an older brother. So you may want to run,” Aryu advised.
“A brother?” Aiku repeated. “Why am I interested in that? Unless he’s even hotter..?”
“He is,” Aryu assured him. “And he’s probably going to punch you in three…two…”
Realization dawned on Aiku’s face just a moment before Barou launched himself off Aryu’s bed. Moving faster than he ever had in any soccer game, Aiku bolted out the door and down the hall.
Barou’s booming roar of “Stay away from my sisters!” could be heard throughout the entire stratum.
Totally Unnecessary Epilogue
At first Aryu was surprised that his roommates didn’t ask where he was going but then he realized they probably knew. Hell, the entire Ubers probably knew after Aiku spent the afternoon running from Barou—Aiku loudly wailing and Barou just loudly…Barou-ing the entire time.
Hesitantly, Aryu opened the door to the Meditation Room. Barou certainly had no reason to lie to him—and never had before—but it still seemed hard to believe, too good to be true that Barou had actually asked to meet him—
But there he was, hands in his pockets, looking at—
A starry night sky.
Aryu didn’t frequent the Meditation Room all that often—conditioning his hair and painting his nails were his meditation—though he’d been giving it a try since Barou seemed so dedicated to it. And while Aryu had seen serene bamboo forests and mountain waterfalls, he had never seen the stars and the radiant full moon.
It was almost hard to believe it was just virtual reality.
“Maybe because I like you because I’m an idiot and I wanted to give you the best, most glam birthday of your life and make you realize you like me too and kiss stylishly under the moonlight like in a beautiful movie but nooo…”
Barou couldn’t have actually remembered that, could he? That wasn’t the type of thing that Barou remembered—
“Closest I could get to the real thing and not break curfew,” Barou said with a little shrug. He glanced at Aryu then looked away, cheeks almost pink in the virtual moonlight but that couldn’t possibly be true. “You wanted under the moonlight, right? Dunno if it’s like a movie but…”
“What?” Aryu blurted before he could think better of it. Well, he knew what; he just couldn’t quite believe what—
Barou shrugged again and Aryu was close enough to feel the nervousness strung across those shoulders.
“Normally I wouldn’t violate the sanctity of my meditation space with something like this but I had to find somewhere Aiku wouldn’t barge in. And, uh, I’m not sure how many of these you have done but if moonlight makes it special, then—”
“How many what have I done?”
Barou glared; now that Aryu had gotten to know him, he always found the glare more petulant and adorable than anything resembling scary. “Kisses,” Barou hissed angrily.
Aryu blinked back in surprise. “Moonlight does make it special and glam but…well, for the record, I haven’t done any.”
Eyes narrowed in disbelief, Barou asked, “None?”
“Well, I blow kisses to my reflection in the mirror and stuff like that but I can’t say I’ve kissed another person in a romantic, stylish fashion, no…”
Barou snorted.
“Wait—how many have you done?”
Barou stiffened. “Who has time for that stupid shit anyway.”
“So…you haven’t kissed anyone,” Aryu said quietly, biting his bottom lip to keep from smiling and also to keep his heart from flying out of his mouth on wings of pure elation.
“Who cares?” Barou blustered. “I’m good at everything so I figure I’ll be good at that too.” Now it was Aryu’s turn to snort. “So…are we going to do this or what? This is what you wanted, right?”
Aryu frowned. “Well, yes. But it’s not something I just want to get over with or have you do it only because I want to. It was supposed to be the perfect final note to a glam birthday concerto—and that didn’t really happen…or happen at all, as it turns out, so there’s hardly a romantic mood going…”
“I don’t do romantic. So there’s never gonna be a romantic mood going.”
“Ah,” Aryu said, deflating with an awkward attempt at a laugh. “R-right…”
“Don’t make that ugly face—”
“Ugly?!” Aryu gasped.
“I said I’m not romantic,” Barou muttered, stepping closer and closing the space between them. “Not that I didn’t want to kiss you.”
Aryu was too shocked to respond before Barou tilted his head up, intention obvious. Then Barou scowled again and reached to curl his hand over the back of Aryu’s neck.
“Quit being so tall,” Barou grumbled, yanking Aryu down to kiss him.