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“No,” Keigo says with finality, snapping his scroll shut to prevent Touya from looking over his shoulder. “It’s not my fault you put off writing your Charms essay. You don’t get to look at mine.”
“I didn’t put it off,” Touya argues. “Nedzu put me in fucking detention all weekend. Which you know because you had to cover for me at practice.”
Keigo makes a face. “Exactly. You know how much I hate playing Keeper. I had to hover around goals for three hours while Yuu and Shinji flirted over the quaffle rather than trying to score. If anything, you owe me.”
Touya wrinkles his nose in annoyance and tries a nonverbal summoning spell on the paper. It tugs feebly in Keigo’s hand before a nonverbal shield charm springs up between them, completely bowling Touya off the couch with how overpowered it is.
He yelps as he falls, hitting the wooden floor ass-first before toppling onto his back, breathless. Keigo looks unimpressed.
“Really? Using my best spell on me?” he says flatly. “Now I’m insulted on top of everything. What kind of Toppuu are you? We’re supposed to be clever.”
Touya breaks his gaze to stare out of the giant porthole in the ceiling, sighing as he does. Keigo’s his best friend, and kind of an ass at times, but he’s right: Touya can do better than silly tricks to get his way.
Which means he needs to resort to underhanded tricks.
“What if I made it worth your while?” he asks, aiming for casualness as he sorts through his repertoire of ‘Keigo interests’.
Let’s see, we’ve got napping, flying, being the fastest on the field, chicken, being a teacher’s pet, and drama.
Touya blinks slowly at the ceiling, a horrible idea manifesting in the back of his head.
“I’m listening,” Keigo says, leaning forward curiously to peer down at Touya. His golden eyes dance in the candlelight, bright with intrigue, and Touya knows Keigo’s not going to cave for anything small.
Big drama then, he thinks with a sigh.
Normally, he wouldn’t mind failing one paper. But it’s Charms. And his mother is the Charms professor. Her disappointed face has been known to humble hippogriphs.
“You let me borrow your paper so I know what the fuck I’m supposed to be writing about,” he bargains with Keigo. “And I’ll do that thing you’ve wanted me to do since third year.”
Keigo’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and then his delight begins to show, forcing Touya to raise his hand to block the shit-eating grin from his eyes.
“Shut up,” he grumbles. “And I’m not doing it until after Saturday’s game. I’m not risking my life if she takes offense.”
“She won’t!” Keigo says quickly and with far too much surety. Touya can hear his excitement, even if he can’t see it. “But I want you to shake on it.”
Touya lowers his arm with a scowl. “You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone in our house,” Keigo says cheerfully, sticking out his hand. “So, oath time: if I lend you my paper, you ask Usagiyama Rumi out after Saturday’s game. No take backsies.”
“Ugh,” Touya groans, reaching up from the floor to shake Keigo’s hand. “Fine.”
—---
If Touya chose to look on the bright side of their arrangement, he would only see the fact that he got an E on his Charms paper.
He is a dramatic soul, though, so he remains fixated on the fact that he now has two things to be nervous about while he suits up for the Quidditch game on Saturday morning. Both of those things revolve around Usagiyama Rumi trying to murder him, either with a quaffle during the game or with her inevitable rejection after.
Unfortunately, both prospects are equally distracting, so his head is certainly not in the game when he, Keigo, and the rest of their team walk out onto the pitch to the sound of uproarious applause.
Striding out to meet them from the far end of the pitch is the Seiran team, all decked out in their maroon uniforms. While not the tallest on the team, Usagiyama Rumi certainly stands out with her brilliant white hair and boisterous laugh. She has her broom pitched casually over her shoulder, but Touya knows it’s one of the best ones on the market. A Luna Rush 1000 with silver trimmings and an image of a rabbit racing the moon carved along its sleek sycamore handle. Touya’s only so familiar because he’s seen it, as well as his life, flash before his eyes more than once when she played chicken with him at the goalposts.
Keigo’s broom is the only one faster than hers at the school, but since he’s a Seeker, it makes sense. For a Chaser like Rumi, having a fast broom can be a curse if her fellow Chasers can’t keep up.
Not that her broom choice seems to hinder Seiran’s gameplay much. Their strategy seems to be “get Rumi the quaffle and get the fuck out of the way.”
Beaters have tried to stop her. Chasers have tried to steal the quaffle back from her. But it always comes down to the same thing: Rumi, the unstoppable force, and Touya, the immovable object.
It’s more than half of the reason why Keigo’s been obsessed with their ‘relationship’ for so long. In the past three years, he’s pointed out their ‘do or die’ mentalities. Has called them ‘the ultimate enemies to lovers trope’. Has even pointed out their matching white hair, as if it’s some kind of sign.
In reality, Touya’s hyper-aware of all of these things, and has been for longer than Keigo has ‘shipped’ them.
Touya’s fascination began the first day of school, when he’d been wide-eyed and staring at the beautiful white castle, with its green tiled roofs and elegant cherry blossom trees sprinkling petals like snow all over the grounds. Before he’d known house rivalries, wizarding politics, and ancient feuds that would make his school years far more interesting than he ever imagined. Even before he and Keigo had been sorted.
He’d seen her.
And he’d been enchanted.
Not by her long hair, which many whispered came from Veela ancestry much like his own mother’s. Not by her cute nose, nor her confident stride. Not even by her spellwork, which was as powerful as she was.
No, the first time Todoroki Touya had laid eyes on Usagiyama Rumi, she had just decked a boy in the nose before he even got out the “blood” in “mudblood.”
With Keigo, a muggleborn, as his best friend, and his own fiery temper that flared whenever his friend received sneers for his heritage, Touya had watched blood spurt from that prat’s nose and had fallen in love with the girl wiping off her knuckles in disgust.
Not that Touya ever told Keigo this, of course. Best friend or no best friend, Keigo would tell Fuyumi, and Touya couldn’t allow the teasing and the prodding that would surely ensue once his sister knew he had a crush on the girl a year ahead of them. It was a point of pride and pain, both stemming from the fact that he couldn’t face chasing someone he cared for only to be rejected.
Not again.
So, Touya kept his distance, dancing at the edges of Rumi’s circles with ease in their first year, then with more difficulty in their second, when he and Keigo both made the Toppuu Quidditch team. Touya, though not very large or intimidating, was quick, and far more determined to stop the quaffle from making it through the hoops than anyone else. He’d taken knees to the face, had been full-body tackled, had been bludgered a hundred times, but he never took his eye off the ball.
And Rumi saw him as a challenge.
She would swoop, dive, and corkscrew through the air, trying to throw him off. She pulled off moves that Chasers years her senior couldn’t begin to attempt, all in an effort to overcome Touya’s guard.
In the first year of their matches, she scored more often than anyone else he faced. And he could feel that she was losing interest in the challenge of besting him. By the time he was in his third year, and she in her fourth, he’d made a habit of studying her tactics, to the point where even Keigo took notice.
That’s when his best friend began his campaign for Touya to pursue Rumi outside the pitch.
Keigo’s teasing only worsened when he learned that Touya was taking to the pitch even outside of practice, aiming to give Rumi the challenge she deserved. To Keigo, it reeked of the kind of rivalry that he delighted in. To Touya… well, he only wanted her to look at him with those flashing red eyes and see an equal instead of an opponent.
Which is how, in the second game of his third year, he felt his body moving before he could even think, anticipating her maneuver and feeling the impact all the way up his shoulder as the quaffle smacked into his hand, a mere foot away from the hoop.
Rumi’s surprised expression was worth it, and the feral grin that followed nearly made him melt off his broom.
“Nice save, Todoroki!” she called, even as Touya tossed the quaffle to his own Chasers. Rumi took off after them before he could reply, which was something of a blessing in disguise.
What would he even say, after all? “Nice throw? Please throw me next?”
The rivalry continued through third year, and intensified in fourth and fifth year as Touya’s growth spurt hit and he could block goals that he’d never been able to reach before. Rumi’s congratulatory remarks never ceased, but her ferocity increased a hundredfold. She moved faster, spun harder, and threw like a lightning bolt was charging her arm. It was exhilarating and terrifying and then…
Then sixth year came for Touya, which meant it was Rumi’s seventh, and last, year at Mahoutokorou. And with the new school year came a new tactic that Touya had never anticipated from Rumi.
Which leads him to today, and Rumi’s attempts at murdering him, one way or another.
“If it isn’t my favorite rival,” Rumi greets as the two teams line up for Madam Midnight’s speech on fair gameplay and pitch rules. “How’s the weather up there, Touya?”
First name basis, paired with the playful whisper into his ear and the bright red eyes full of mischief. Touya can actually feel his knees going weak.
“Not bad, Usagiyama,” he whispers back. “Let me know if I should beware of fog, yeah?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll see for yourself when I unseat your unfairly attractive ass,” Rumi laughs, fluttering her ridiculously long lashes at him. It would be adorable if Touya didn’t know for a fact it was a threat.
Also, did she just compliment his ass?
Holy shit, I think she did??
“Is that understood, teams?” Madam Midnight calls, breaking through Touya’s inner meltdown. From the corner of his eye, he sees Rumi throw a lazy salute to the referee before she saunters over to the beginning circle, where she and Shinji would face off over the opening quaffle toss.
Touya’s still rattled as Madam Midnight instructs them to mount their brooms, but the moment the whistle sounds, muscle memory takes over and he kicks off the ground, shooting for the hoops he’ll be protecting while mentally cursing Rumi’s heartless new technique of throwing him off his game.
He’s positive it’s just a play to mess with his head. Their rivalry is legendary, after all, and with it being Rumi’s final year, she’s been pulling out all the stops on the pitch. Psychological warfare included.
Which is why Touya’s dreading holding up his end of the bargain after the game. Because what Keigo sees as Rumi finally taking a legitimate interest in him, Touya knows to be just a ruse. A ruse that he’s going to fall for, thereby losing any respect Rumi might’ve had for him.
Fuck it, he thinks as he spies a white streak hurtling at him like a comet. If she kills me on the field, then I won’t have to ask at all.
Taking a deep breath, Touya recenters himself, watches for the tell where Rumi throws her body left while her aim—
There!
He rockets to the right hoop, anticipating Rumi’s feint flawlessly, but still barely making it in time to knock the quaffle off course. It misses the hoop, and one of the Chasers below snags it before hauling ass across the pitch, Beaters on her heels. Rumi lingers behind, her white eyebrows raised.
“You saw that coming, huh?” she asks, tilting her head. A long strand of white hair slips loose and caresses her cheek in the breeze, and Touya’s throat feels tight.
“Gotta stop being so predictable, Usagiyama,” he gets out, giving her his best nonchalant smile. The grin he gets in return promises blood.
“Okay, pretty boy. I’ll show you predictable .”
Cold sweat breaks out over Touya’s neck, but she zooms off and he tries his best not to let the pretty boy comment get to him.
As it is, he’s got other things to worry about.
Like the two Chasers coming at him at full speed, tossing the quaffle back and forth between them, evading bludgers and Beaters, until one of them misses their catch and the quaffle drops and—
Touya’s eyes track the quaffle, and the flash of white is all the warning he gets before a maroon-clad body races past him with a loud cackle, aiming straight for the uppermost hoop.
Everything blurs as Touya races after her, blood thrumming beneath his skin.
“Oh, that’s an incredible save by Todoroki!” the announcer’s voice booms out across the pitch, though Touya barely hears it through the ringing in his ears. He’s halfway through the hoop, with one smarting hand holding the quaffle, and the other desperately holding onto the slippery metal under his aching ribs. He can feel his broom balancing precariously on his boot but doesn’t have a free hand to grab it with.
“Shit,” he mutters, wondering what possessed him to fling himself off his broom just to block a goal. Apparently, he’s not the only one, either.
“Damn, Touya, you got a real pair on ya,” Rumi laughs, circling back down to see his predicament. Touya grips the hoop tighter, wondering if he should prepare for a tussle over the quaffle.
Surprisingly, though, Rumi just lowers herself until she’s parallel with his boot, lifting his broom off the toe and holding it out by the tip of the handle.
“Drop down,” she calls up to him. “The cushioning charm on this model is nice - shouldn’t even bother your brass balls.”
“Merlin,” Touya grits out, shimmying back through the hoop, ears flaming hot.
It’s only as his arm comes through the hoop, still holding the quaffle, and he’s dropping down onto his broom, that his mistake registers in the form of a loud “BONG!” indicating a goal has been scored. A goal… through his own hoop. Scored by him, on the other team’s behalf. He stares at Rumi in disbelief, and she shrugs unrepentantly.
“I said you were pretty, not smart,” she goads, grinning wide. “Anyway, you good?”
Touya is not good, as a matter of fact. His team is gonna fucking kill him for being so stupid as to actually score the goal he’d just successfully blocked.
A slight wiggle in his broom reminds him of where he is, and he stares down at the nut-brown hand holding his broom steady before realizing Rumi hadn’t let him go until she was sure he could fly.
“Yeah,” he says, voice remarkably steady for all of the emotions he’s feeling. “I’m good.”
“Excellent,” she beams, releasing him. “Don’t think this save will keep you safe, snowflake! I’m still coming for ya!”
And come for him, Rumi does.
In feints, in twists, in sneak attacks, in a whirlwind that leaves Touya breathless, Rumi comes for him. He blocks more than he lets by, but between the incessant flirting and the relentless onslaught, Touya finds himself overwhelmed.
The immovable object begins to budge, and his team rallies around him, trying to push back the unstoppable force that is Usagiyama Rumi.
In particular, Keigo redoubles his search for the snitch, zooming high and low over the field, dodging bludgers and players like they’re moving in slow motion. Touya’s almost grateful to him, but at the same time… he almost doesn’t want the match to end.
Flashing red eyes, close calls that leave his heart pounding in his chest, exchanges that both mortify and motivate him to push harder, faster, higher, until a clash is practically inevitable.
So inevitable, in fact, that Touya feels like he’s been waiting for it when her body slams into his in a collision that has the crowd gasping in fear. Her broom goes spinning off to the ground, and only Touya’s death grip on his handle keeps them from free-falling a hundred feet.
Not that the spiraling nightmare of their descent is much better. With one hand on his broom and the other buried into Rumi’s robes, Touya has to close his eyes against the spinning sky and ground that flash in front of him as their momentum rockets them toward the earth. Rumi clutches his shoulders, cursing into his ear, and Touya takes what might be his last moment to feel her body pressed tightly against his own before they slam into the pitch in a colossal spray of sand.
There’s screaming all around, though Touya’s ears are ringing so hard he barely registers it. Instead, he focuses on trying to suck air back into his lungs, which had been knocked out by the soft sand beneath him and the less-soft body on top of him.
“—ki? Todoroki— Touya— are you with me?”
The voice is accompanied by an urgent hand, patting his cheek, and Touya blinks his eyes open to see Usagiyama Rumi gazing down at him, her eyebrows furrowed with concern. Above, the sound of the crowd comes filtering back in, and Touya can hear the announcer yelling:
“That’s the game, folks! Takami Keigo has caught the snitch! Meanwhile, medics are on their way to see Todoroki and Usagiyama, though both appear to be chatting, which is an excellent sign!”
“I dunno about chatting,” Rumi grouches, flicking an annoyed look at the announcer box before glaring at Touya. “You still haven’t said a word.”
Touya blinks at her again, thinking about how she hadn’t let go of his broom until she was sure he was okay, and how she’s doing the same now. Thinking about how the game is over, and he’s got a promise to fulfill. Banking on the fact that her concern might make her let him down easy. Who knows, maybe he’ll even be able to blame it on head trauma or something.
“Hey Rumi,” he asks, saying her given name aloud for the first time ever. “Will you go out with me?”
She stares at him for a solid five-count before tossing her head back with a delighted laugh. Touya winces at the sound of it, thinking perhaps he’s misjudged her level of sympathy if she’s willing to mock him now.
“Finally got the hint, huh, Touya?” she snickers, leaning closer until her hair falls in curtains around them. “I’ve only been flirting with you for the past three years, though Keigo did say you were kinda dense. Guess it really took the direct approach, like he said.”
Wait, what?
“You’ve been…?” Touya trails off, wondering if he really did get concussed in his fall. Rumi snorts, her cute nose wrinkling with amusement.
“Who’s predictable now, hot shot?” she asks, red eyes sparkling, and so close as she dips down and—
Oh.
Soft, somewhat salty with sweat, and curling up into a smile - Rumi’s lips are everything he ever imagined and more. It’s like being knocked off his broom with nothing to catch him this time.
And this time, when he hears the roar of the crowd again, Touya grins even as his ears burn.
After all, the crowd’s got nothing on the cheering going on inside his heart.
—---
(And then Keigo gets to tell him “I told you so” for the rest of eternity, and all is well with the world.)