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The fight had been mean, and loud, and ugly.
It’s nothing. It should be nothing. They fought all the time. It was practically a love language.
Shirabu is the first to text good morning. Semi is the last to say good night. On and on, the cycle moves forward, as steadfast as the moon; the rising sun. For a week, Eita can convince himself that everything is okay.
Shirabu is avoiding him.
At first, Eita can hardly see it. Their respective schedules don’t allow them to meet too consistently, even in their shared apartment. Shirabu can’t text Eita back, in the long hours he keeps at the lab.
But…they see each other when they sleep. Shirabu will stay up, waiting. Or Eita does the same. Yet every night, Shirabu is already asleep. Semi will creep beneath the bedcovers, pressing a kiss to Shirabu’s cheek. When he wakes, the younger boy is gone.
Kenjirou, he texts him on the third day—when he knows Shirabu doesn’t have class. When he knows Shirabu always sends him a photo of the flowers, in the gardens that line the pathways as he walks across campus. There is no photo. The last message he sees in their history is his own; a curt good night.
Read.
Semi clutches his phone, eyeing the blue check mark with a rising sense of dread. Maybe he’s overthinking it.
I miss you, he tries again the next day—when he wakes to a glass of water at his bedside, a peeled mandarin orange set beside it.
Eita, Shirabu had rumbled, when Semi had slipped into bed the night before—when he had tugged Shirabu close to his chest, slotting together so perfectly that it ached.
He wakes alone. And—and he’s not nervous, he’s not waiting by his phone like some high schooler with a crush—
But his message…Shirabu doesn’t read it, at all.
Delivered blinks up at him in mocking hues, and Semi can only sit at the end of the bed, orange held in both hands. It’s easy, then; to split it in half. To turn, the larger wedge held out in an unspoken gift—
But Shirabu wasn’t there. Had peeled it for him, meticulous and deft, set on a napkin.
The habit dies on his tongue. He downs the glass of water like a shot.
Sunlight slants through the windows, this slow rise into morning. It washes over Semi with a faint taste of regret.
He’d apologized, hadn’t he? He was hotheaded. He was stubborn. But even now, all the way in university—he still was the older one, of the two of them. He still wanted to cradle Shirabu, cherishing him in the best way he knew how. The trouble was just being able to say that.
Oh, he thinks, stomach dropping like the executioner’s bell. Was that why—?
(...When they have calmed down; when it is quiet. When Shirabu swallows, his throat no longer so hoarse from shouting, and begins to speak. I am imperfect, weighty, awkward. But I’m here for you. Don’t- don’t let things fester, Eita. We can manage it together.
Semi had snorted, scoff ringing hard and small in his throat. He doesn’t look up; doesn’t look Shirabu in the eye.
Save it, doctor, a sneer almost cruel.
He doesn’t see the hurt that flashes over Shirabu’s face.
His head is swimming. His essay word count seems to be shrinking, if that was even possible—
It takes him too long to register the silence. It was easy to bicker, wherever they were. Whatever they were doing. When Eita looks up, it’s to Shirabu’s pinched face, complexion pale and drawn in the low lamp light of the living room.
Kenjirou, he had sighed, ready to reach out, to brush a thumb over the high arch of Shirabu’s cheek—
Shirabu rises in a burst of sound, turning on his heel. He hangs his head, eyes in shadow. Good night Semi-san, he says, abrupt. Eita is left to watch his retreating back with questioning eyes and a hole in his stomach.)
That was Sunday evening. It was Thursday afternoon now, and Eita misses his boyfriend so vividly that it hurts.
Kenjirou, he texts again, throat dry with how stupid he had been. I’m sorry.
Friday night, he gets a call.
“Ah, Kawanishi?” His phone is tucked between his cheek and shoulder, hands occupied with the easy set of a guitar.
“Semi-san,” comes the low answer, and the clipped solemnity of his tone, beyond the younger boy’s usual apathy, has Eita straightening in his seat.
“What is it?”
—
What is it, it turns out, is that Shirabu was very, very drunk. “I didn’t bring my car,” Kawanishi had shrugged, something stony in his gaze. “He was asking for you.”
Semi glances down, copper hair tickling his nose. Shirabu is in his arms, some sticky booth in some shitty bar, face buried in Eita’s throat. He snuffles softly, and Eita feels his heart fly to pieces.
“Thank you for calling me,” he says, careful and sincere. Kawanishi snorts, looking to the side before facing Eita again.
“He’d still be whining if I didn’t. Listen.” Eita’s head jerks up. “You’re gross. You understand each other. But…” Kawanishi’s voice peters off, half-lidded gaze fixed scrutinizing and almost intimidating in the low bar light. “He loves you so much that you can hurt him. And I think you already did.”
Oh. Semi fights a swallow, forcing himself to meet his former underclassman's eyes. “I- I know. I’m sorr-“
But Kawanishi cuts him off. Slides out of the booth, making to stand. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” he says shortly, looking over Eita in the shitty dark. He softens. “I’ll help you take him to your car.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
—
Even if Shirabu looked slight, he was still decently heavy. One didn’t play volleyball without developing muscles, after all. Much as it embarrasses him, Eita is grateful for Kawanishi’s assistance. His strength, this unsuspecting Friday evening, seems to escape him, in trails and bursts. Eita watches as Kawanishi deposits Shirabu in the passenger seat, rough and tumble but for the way he tilts Shirabu’s head back onto the headrest, something almost tender. For a moment, all Eita can do is watch.
He- he knows they’re both in the wrong. Maybe. Talk to me, Shirabu had asked of him, almost pleading. And they’d had this conversation before–Eita was getting better. Getting better at not hiding his feelings. But, then, didn’t it go both ways? Shirabu was trying, too.
…Save it, Eita had told him–so he did. Fuck. The memory makes something drop in his stomach. He didn’t mean it, and they told each other to shut up all the time–
But there was more stock in it, now. There was something tired, and fragile, and almost vulnerable, in the way that Shirabu had been reaching for him. And Eita…Eita had pushed him away.
Shirabu rarely gets drunk. Shirabu rarely gets so drunk that all he can do is fall asleep, and for a sudden, burning moment, Eita is so so grateful that he had not gone alone. He watches over Kawanishi’s shoulder; watches him buckle Shirabu in. Kawanishi steps back, shutting the door.
“Good night, Semi-san,” and the unassuming parallel almost makes him flinch.
“Ah, good night, Kawanishi. I could drive you back-”
“It’s okay. Be safe.” He turns before Eita is finished speaking, one hand raised in a lazy wave.
Aish, these brats…
Eita rounds the front of the vehicle, shutting the door behind him as quietly as he can. Shirabu’s head lolls, eyes opening faintly. His hand reaches across the center console to grasp Semi’s own. “Eita,” he says sweetly, voice soft and open in the way only intoxication could so rarely produce. “Missed you.”
He’s–he’s still drunk. Eita’s heart catches in his throat, Shirabu’s amber eyes liquid and hazy in the dim light. He’s honest. Eita looks over at him, face impossibly soft. He squeezes Shirabu’s hand. “Missed you too,” he says simply, and inhales sharply in alarm at how his boyfriend suddenly tears up. They well up in his eyes, large, beading along his waterline–
“Oh, oh, darling,” he murmurs, other hand coming up to brush at his cheeks. “What’s wrong?”
And Shirabu, normally so averse to receiving affection–to allow it, and return it in kind–he presses his face into Eita’s hands, as if a cat seeking warmth. Seeking shelter. A hiccup catches in his throat, whisper soft.
“-want you to rely on me,” Eita hears, muffled. He hums, leaning over the center console. His lips press over the soft fall of Shirabu’s hair. “Want to be there for you–but you don’t let me–”
Shirabu cuts himself off with a breath, syllables catching awkward and half-spoken. “I do,” Eita says, soothing, emotion welling up in his chest. Stoic, sarcastic Shirabu, crying in Eita’s car because he had taken that prickly front for granted; because he had seen Shirabu’s care, his scolding affection–and cast it to the wind.
“I do,” Eita says, and knows, guilt crawling up his throat, that he didn’t. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. I’ll talk to you, okay? Don’t cry. I’ll tell you everything.”
He has to force his voice steady, praying that Shirabu can’t hear how it wavers; so focused that he almost misses when Shirabu speaks next.
“The first time you fell asleep on my shoulder,” he murmurs, lips moving against the warm cradle of Eita’s hand. “It made me really happy.” His eyes slip shut, as if reliving the memory, lashes drawing inky shadows along his cheeks. Continues, so soft Eita almost can’t hear it.
“I know you don’t need me at all.”
Eita– Eita isn’t dumb. He’s not top of the class, not really; but he knows people –and the simple admission clicks, a puzzle piece in an interlocking map; in the great mosaic that made up Shirabu Kenjirou, and Semi Eita. The two of them, intertwined. Lean on me, Shirabu had shouted, face flushed a deep, angry red. That’s what I’m here for! That’s the whole point!
He untangles their fingers, his other hand still cupping Shirabu’s cheek, to bring to the back of Shirabu’s nape. Holds him close; folds him into the hollow of his throat; the junction of skin where his neck met shoulder. Shirabu goes easily, and Eita’s throat constricts all over again as his boyfriend melts against him; as his hand draws nonsense patterns over his back. He had been so tense.
“I thought you would slap me. Maybe you’d push me off the seat.” Eita laughs, a soft huff into Shirabu’s hair. He remembers, now. A practice match run long, the sound of muffled snores all around them. Shirabu had sat, face impassive, looking out the bus window. Had said nothing when Eita laced their fingers together; had squeezed Eita’s hand, light and indistinct, as Eita inched closer, and closer, and closer still. His eyes slip shut, head falling down against the thin breadth of Shirabu’s shoulder.
It had made him really happy, too.
“I always need you,” he says thinly. His voice unsticks from the back of his throat like skin to leather seats. “Even when I don’t, I want to need you. It’s just–hard for me, sometimes. Does that make sense?”
His waist is beginning to ache, twisted over to embrace Shirabu like this. He knows they should talk about it all in the morning. Shirabu’s memory had always been good, even after drinking–would return in hazy bursts, when he clutches his head. When he downs the water EIta hands to him, always.
But…Shirabu is crying. Eita made him cry. And his temper flares up, ego rising along with it–he doesn’t owe his boyfriend anything. Not his emotional vulnerability. Not the secrets of his darkest soul, or whatever.
…That was just the thing, though. Shirabu wouldn’t owe him anything, either. But he pushes his face into Eita’s hands, open. But he peels him an orange, left for him to wake up to, even when he’s so angry with Eita that it hurts.
To love was to give. Eita swallows, fingers combing through Shirabu’s hair, and maneuvers his boyfriend back into his seat. Huffs a laugh under his breath at the ensuing whine. “We’re going home, Kenjirou,” and can only surrender his right hand as Shirabu clings, and clings, and clings. When Eita looks at him again, Kenjirou is smiling.
“Okay.”