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The air’s a bit chilly as Yoichi wakes up.
His nose is cold, so he shifts around and buries his face in Michael’s chest.
The blonde man grumbles in his sleep, but only pulls his boyfriend closer as they remain in bed. Yoichi feels his heart ache, hugging Michael close and trying to fall back asleep.
Yoichi doesn’t manage to drift off again. He raises his head a bit, sighing as he sees it’s four in the morning.
His heart sinks a bit as he realizes what day it is.
Yoichi, with some difficulty, wiggles out of Michael’s grasp. He substitutes himself for his shrimp plushie, finding himself unable to snicker at the sight of Michael hugging Yoichi’s childhood plushie for dear life. His heart is much too heavy to feel anything that’s not sadness.
The Japanese striker gets to work in the kitchen to take his mind off of the date.
It’s the unspoken rule in their shared apartment that whoever wakes up first must make the other breakfast, and the duty’s fallen to Yoichi today. He’s not really in the mood for doing anything above and beyond, wanting to return to his boyfriend as soon as possible rather than spend time in the kitchen trying to impress him with average cooking skills.
Yoichi pulls out a box from the pantry near the stove, mixing a variety of common ingredients to make a simple waffle batter. He throws in some chocolate chips for good measure, plugging in the waffle maker on the kitchen counter.
The rest of the minutes blur by. Yoichi realizes that he’s made way too many waffles, but can’t really bring himself to care about the quantity over knowing that he wasted time that he could have been spending with Michael instead.
Yoichi places the waffles on their biggest plate, putting an unnecessarily big bowl over the plate to keep the waffles warm as he brought the food to the shared room.
Yoichi places it on Michael’s designated nightstand before sliding back under the covers, wrapping both arms and legs around his German from behind. He gently kisses the rose tattoo on Michael’s neck, holding his boyfriend tight.
It takes a few more minutes for Michael to start waking up.
He does so by rolling on his back, squishing Yoichi who had been big spoon. Michael jolts awake, eyes wide as he realizes that the squishiness beneath him was not the plush comfort of his bed.
Yoichi smacks his lover on the head, squirming until Michael laughs and sits up, hair all poofy and unkempt. He traps Yoichi under his arm and pulls him close, discarding the shrimp plushie to the other side of the bed.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, simply laying beside each other and looking into each other’s eyes, blue hues like sky and sea.
The two don’t utter so much as a word as Michael discovers the waffles on the side, crisp in the way he likes them. Yoichi had the foresight of bringing syrup and utensils, so they get to work on the food a bit quicker than usual.
Yoichi smiles as Michael steals a bite from his plate, allowing the blonde a moment of victory. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful.
“I’ll come with you to the airport,” Michael murmurs, tilting Yoichi’s head up by the chin. “And… breakfast was alright.”
“Prideful bastard,” Yoichi sighs, kissing Michael tenderly.
He tastes like maple syrup and chocolate chips, and he smells like faded rose cologne. Yoichi feels his boyfriend brush dark locks from his face, Michael’s warm hand cupping his cheek as they let their lips linger on one another’s.
Michael pulls away reluctantly, dipping forward once more but diverting his lips at the last second, pressing a firm kiss to his beloved’s now-exposed forehead instead.
“You’re lucky I’ll clean this up for you,” Michael grinned, swiping Yoichi’s plate from his hands. “Make sure to order a ride while I wash the dishes.”
“I wasn’t finished with that!” Yoichi shouts after his boyfriend, sighing as he sees Michael walk out, cheeks stuffed with the remaining bits of waffle that were on Yoichi’s plate. “Hungry bastard.”
Yoichi takes the time to pack his shrimp plushie in his bag, about to zip it in the front pocket. He looks at its squished form in pity, before yanking the poor little baby plushie from his suitcase. He tucks it into the messy bed to keep his lover company, beaming at the resulting image.
He wrestles his suitcase out of the room, the heavy thing making his arms hurt a bit. He shrugs on a jacket, kicks on some shoes, and waits by the door.
Yoichi really doesn’t want to leave, but at the moment, he’s playing for Japan, and Michael’s back in Germany. The Japanese striker hums as he waits for his lover to finish washing the dishes.
It’s a bit selfish, a bit mean, but Yoichi shrugs off his own jacket and hangs it back up. He opts to steal one of Michael’s instead, shrugging on the warm brown leather jacket for not-very-innocent intentions.
Yoichi’s an egoist. He wants Michael to look at his coat rack and think of only Yoichi, his rival, his lover.
Michael raises a brow as he sees what jacket Yoichi’s wearing, but is unable to comment on it as his lover pulls him down for another kiss. Michael smells his own cologne on Yoichi, no doubt from the jacket his little clown stole.
They hold hands as they lock up the apartment and head down to where the Uber driver is waiting. The poor man seemed to be a soccer superfan from all the merch in his car, stunned for a hot minute as the Michael Kaiser and the Yoichi Isagi slid into his car after putting a suitcase in the trunk.
They don’t talk for the whole ride to the airport. For incessantly chatty individuals, both of them are at a loss for words. As soon as one of them speaks, it would turn into playful banter. Both of them knew this, so they chose to spend their remaining minutes together in comfortable silence.
One of them leaving to go home is not a foreign concept to them. It happens every year, sometimes more. But it’s still painful every single time, an empty longing that only disappears once they are reunited.
Michael helps Yoichi out of the car, grabbing his bag from him and walking him to the checked luggage area. He goes as far as he possibly can, considering buying a ticket just to walk his boyfriend to his gate, but Yoichi stops him from following through.
“I love you,” Yoichi murmurs, hand slipping from Michael’s tight grip. “It’s not a goodbye, okay? It’s—”
“An ‘I’ll see you later’,” Michael interrupts, squeezing his boyfriend’s hand once more before finally letting go. “I know.”
Yoichi smiles.
He stands there for a minute, then two.
“Say you love me too,” Yoichi mumbled, cheeks a bit red.
Michael paused, then snorted. “You love me too.”
“Asshole!” The Japanese striker shouted, turning and walking away. He throws the bird up, not looking back at his boyfriend. He knows Michael’s laughing his ass off, can hear it even as he storms off to security.
“I love you too!” Michael finally shouts.
“I’ll kill you, bastard!” Yoichi replies without looking. “100 percent!”
Yoichi’s words earn him some weird looks from the people around him, but he can’t bring himself to care, too busy smiling at Michael’s last words to him.
He can’t wait until they reunite once more.