Work Text:
"Huh," Kouichi says. "Okay."
Keiichi has no idea what he's getting at, but he's not dumb enough to assume it's nothing, not after basically 16 years of this shit, so he yells "what?" as Kouchi walks off to the bus (third years on first, just like always). Kouichi doesn't so much as wave a hand at him over his shoulder, so he lets it go for now. On the bus no one says anything; he puts his headphones in and pulls his hood up and thinks the whole way home about the gaping net he'd missed late in the third, the smug look on the goalie's face even though Keiichi'd had him beat, all the way, if he hadn't lost the handle. They'd won anyway, so at least probably no one else is thinking about it.
"That's cute," Kai says, smiling, when they get back.
"Hey, good for you," says Tsunemaru, with a blank look that says he means something significantly less flattering.
Keiichi is beginning to feel that something is deeply wrong.
It's not until after dinner that he figures it out: he's in his room doing his homework when his phone starts vibrating, and he stares at it for a second before he realizes someone is actually calling him. It's weird: generally dad is the only person who actually calls, and he's downstairs drinking Sapporo and yelling at the tv.
He picks up, eventually. It takes him a beat to remember he's supposed to say something, but it doesn't matter, because Shirakawa—unquestionably, definitively Shirakawa, accent and volume and everything—says "Do you have my jacket?"
"What?" Keiichi says.
"I have your jacket," Shirakawa says. "Do you have mine?"
With a sense of foreboding, Keiichi gets up and goes to check where it's hanging on the back of his door. Sure enough: number 66 on the sleeve; SHIRAKAWA (not Rou; they probably wouldn't let him) across the shoulders in block roman letters. Now that he's aware of it he can smell the faint tint of cologne—not floral, something woody and green. He's not sure how he could have missed it. He feels a little sick.
"Why did you take my jacket," he asks, dully.
"You took my jacket!" Shirakawa says. "I just picked up the one that was left when I finished fixing my hair!"
"Whatever," Keiichi says. The afternoon's weirdness looms miserably in his memory. Huh, okay. That's cute. Good for you. Fucking crushing, and he didn't even know he was getting chirped. "We have to switch back."
"Obviously?" Shirakawa says. "I should have known, honestly. My stuff doesn't smell like body spray." There's a tone of disgust there that Keiichi should take issue with, but he's too devastated to think about it. A worse thought than getting chirped all afternoon has occurred to him: what if they—well, not Tsunemaru obviously, that guy's an asshole—were serious? What if they actually think he and Shirakawa are like...whatever? The thought does some kind of gross rollercoaster thing in his guts.
At least Shirakawa's not there to see him blushing.
"Look, we'll just switch back before practice tomorrow," says Shirakawa. "Don't bother washing it, I'll do it when I get home."
"I don't have mange," says Keiichi. That jacket got washed like a week ago, it's fine.
"Sure," Shirakawa says, generously, like he's not really sure at all. "Just bring it tomorrow. And don't use my chapstick!" And then he hangs up with a snap that suggests he's flicked his phone closed like a lawyer on tv.
Keiichi finds the chapstick in the pocket. He considers using it just because Shirakawa said not to, but it's too weird, and he ends up putting it back again without taking off the cap.
Then he waits like five minutes for his cheeks to stop feeling so warm.
-
"You knew," Keiichi says, kicking in the door to his brother's room. "You knew and you didn't fucking say anything!"
"What?" Kouichi says, without looking up. NHL 2K10 on the shitty old tv and he's currently doing a really bad job of centering a miniature Jeff Carter, who promptly coughs up the puck under pressure. It does nothing to make Keiichi feel any better, even if it is really satisfying to watch.
"The jacket," Keiichi says. "Shirakawa's jacket. You didn't say anything."
"Yeah I did," Kouichi says. "I said 'okay.' Figured you worked your shit out at last." He flukes into a nice pass and scores—ugly goal, Keiichi thinks. Barely counts.
"What's that supposed to mean," Keiichi says.
Kouichi pays zero attention to him.
-
(All night long, he can smell Shirakawa's cologne.)