Work Text:
Over the course of his life, Oikawa Tōru has kissed many people.
He has kissed celebrities, in dark corners of parties, in swimming pools and hot tubs and hotel rooms.
He has kissed athletes, in dorms and locker rooms and even once, on the court.
He has kissed journalists, and delivery people, and tailors.
He has kissed doctors, and nurses, and physical therapists.
Tōru has kissed many people. It’s what he enjoys; it’s sometimes the only way that he can get through a day.
He needs that connection with another person, however superficial, however fleeting, it may be.
Because Tōru’s life is a lesson lived on the road, going from one tournament to another. He’s always transient, always in motion: the life of a pro volleyball player is that of a nomad, always wandering, never quite finding a place where one feels entirely comfortable.
He’s wept for the emptiness he has at times felt in his heart, but when it comes down to volleyball or not volleyball, he would always choose volleyball, every hour of every day.
He’s lived that way for years: no regrets, no looking back. Always moving forward and anticipating what comes next, for both himself and his career.
And every kiss along the way…
While they’ve all been nice, he supposes…
None of them have ever really mattered.
But that was before Tōru kissed Sugawara Kōshi for the first time.
It’s an accident, sort of. A reunion with old friends (or, old frenemies, if you will) at a bar. Teasing Matsukawa and Hanamaki. Trying to get Asahi to let Tōru model some of his latest designs. Exclaiming over Tōru and Shōyō’s time together in Brazil.
But those hazel eyes are on him, always.
They’re deep, penetrating, knowing.
They cut through to Tōru’s soul.
And Tōru finds that he cannot look away…nor does he want to.
It’s both intriguing and annoying, and Tōru must get to the bottom of this.
He follows Suga outside for a “breath of air,” as Suga puts it, but Tōru knows better. The man is a damn siren, beckoning him with sultry bedroom eyes and that mole below his left eye that Tōru cannot help but want to lick. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s downing his martini, taking a deep breath, and following Suga out the door.
The air outside the bar is crisp, cool, electric. Tōru takes a moment to inhale: it smells of smoke, and liquor, mixed with the musky dampness of the spring rain that rolled through while they were inside. He watches Suga closely; he’s leaning against the building, hands in his pockets, watching the remnants of the storm clouds move across the night sky.
“Think it’s stopped for tonight?” Tōru finds himself asking, as he takes a step closer to Suga.
Suga lets out a small huff of laughter. “Not quite,” he says, turning to face Tōru, whose heart freezes at the sight of Suga, lit up by the street lights and the bar lights and the night sky. He’s radiant, beauty captured in human flesh, and Tōru feels a quickening in his body as Suga smiles at him.
“Are you gonna just stand there all night,” he says, “or do you wanna do something about the way you’ve been watching me?”
Tōru scowls. “I think you’re the one who’s been watching me, Mr. Refreshing?” he retorts, pulling out that old nickname out as a way to tamp down the stirrings of his soul.
Suga’s smile gets even wider and more sensual at the name, damn him. “I think,” he murmurs, still not moving, but watching as Tōru steps closer, “that we’ve been watching each other.”
“So what if we have?” Tōru asks. Another step.
Suga’s eyes darken. “All these years,” he says, but it’s not fond—no, it’s…there’s something deeper in his voice, something Tōru can’t quite place, but…
“All these years,” he repeats, his voice now low and husky, “and you still can’t look away from me.”
Tōru’s kissed many people over the course of his life: celebrities, athletes, doctors, delivery people.
But not one of them can compare to kissing Sugawara Kōshi.
Suga’s lips are the sun: they’re fire, and brightness, and the air and the sky. They threaten to send Tōru skyward, rocketing towards the heavens, clinging precariously to the last vestiges of his sanity as he tries not to let himself fall.
Suga’s hands are the earth: they wrap around Tōru’s waist, drawing him close, grounding him, even as Suga’s lips are so dangerous and distracting.
Suga’s breath is life: imbuing Tōru with a joy that he never knew could exist from being close to another person.
Suga’s tongue presses at the seam of Tōru’s lips, and Tōru opens up eagerly, desperately, wanting Sugawara Kōshi in that moment more than anything he’s ever wanted in his life, and that maybe includes playing professionally. But as Tōru’s lips part, Suga steps away, lets go, and Tōru’s left alone, distant, cold.
He blinks, mind fuzzy and blank. He starts to speak, to say What the hell, Suga? What are you…
And then, Suga, the menace, giggles.
“So, Tōru,” he says, those same damn perfect lips ticking upwards in a grin, “did you like that?”
Tōru’s stomach swoops: a hot roll of anger, of want, courses through him.
“What do you…” he begins, but then, Suga’s the one crossing the distance between them; Suga’s the one locking him into a heated embrace; Suga’s the one whose mouth is moving against his.
Suga, Suga, Suga.
It’s a spark of light, that name, against the years of emptiness, of yearning. It’s a joy, a heat, one that Tōru has both experienced and never quite experienced in this way.
It’s a feeling that he never wants to let go.
And, from the way Suga is smiling at him…
From the way that Suga is taking his hand and leading him away from the bar…
He suspects that it’s a feeling Suga never wants to let go, either.