Work Text:
The temperature was peaking on a hot summer evening.
Even though the swelter of the sun is vicious on days like these, where frustration gives wake to hostility within people at the brutal scorch of heat, Satoru wanted a taste of some proper “summer break activities”. He described this rather vaguely.
“Just finish working on that later!”
And of course, he had to drag Suguru away from his high school commitments. Insisting to a purposely annoying degree that Suguru tags along with him.
This is evident in how the rowdy teen presently tugs adamantly at his friend’s wrist, leading him via an inconvenient path through a forest that barely winds into something comprehensible enough to follow. Suguru is admittedly a little impressed at Satoru’s navigation. Despite this, the boy is useless with a map.
(He learned as such when Satoru was the appointed navigator on a road trip to the Hokusai Museum, persisting so adamantly that he should sit at the passenger side with the directions. He made a dramatic display of how truly dependable he could be, confidently stating as such even while Suguru twisted and turned through the rural roads of Tokyo. Clearly not headed the right way, that reality was evident even with the falsity of Satoru’s reassurances. It was truly a test of their friendship, an endurance of their bond. Shoko, hunched up in the backseat, eventually grew tired and swiped the map away from them both. The paper beforehand had begun to tear at the back-and-forth tug of printed directions.)
Suguru could feel the stick of Satoru’s sweaty palm wrapped snug around his wrist. He could feel the humid heat creating a thick glaze of sweat along his skin. He felt each time they trudged past bushes, stepped over stray tree roots, and waded through long bouts of grass. The greenery no doubt progressively stains the fabric of his pants.
Getting to this point was a horrid thought to recount. With Satoru coercing Suguru into hopping over a few chain-linked fences, whether it be pleading with him like a lunatic, (the both of them catching the eyes of witnesses passing along the cracked sidewalk and pausing their mundanities of life to scrutinize the two) or calling him a coward. Satoru got the job done.
“Satoru-“ Suguru begins but is soon halted by the mocking soothe of Satoru’s voice.
“Shhh, hush. We’re almost there.“ It’s a quick reassurance as if already sensing the complaint. Suguru presses on anyway, glaring holes into the back of Satoru’s head.
“This place better have air conditioning and a nice, fancy cooler full of refreshments.” Suguru grits out, as if he didn’t agree to this escapade knowing full well he would end up in a situation adjacent to this. The bang of hair along his forehead sticks to his skin, strands beginning to messily fray out of his bun. It was a sorry sight and maybe even borderline pitiful.
Satoru chokes back a laugh at Suguru’s assertion, tilting his head around to look towards him. Satoru was in a no better state, the buttons of his uniform undone and giving way to his white undershirt, now stained with dirt, the occasional blade of grass latching onto the thin cloth. The collar of it was disheveled and sticking out in awkward directions, and it took everything in Suguru to not reach out and tug it back down like some doting mother. Except it wasn’t out of adoration, just for the sole reason that the sight made his eye twitch.
The messy spikes of Satoru’s hair looked rather mussed from the elements. White strands sticking to the nape of his neck. The heat was affecting him similarly.
“There might be some stagnant body of water you can drink out of.” Satoru teased, yet mustered a genuine edge to his voice that made the jest that much more potent.
“Sounds like a fantastic way to acquire a brain-eating amoeba.” Suguru deadpans, a small smile curving at his lips. “I’d rather drink my piss.”
“I can supply some for you.” Satoru chimes in rather crudely.
“No thanks,” Suguru responds immediately after, face twisting up in exaggerated disgust.
“Think about it, I’ll be your personal water jug.”
“I’m not thinking about that. That’s gross.”
Satoru turns back to face where they’re going, the shit-eating grin pulling up at his lips manifesting through his next few words.
“What do you think it’d taste like?”
With his free hand, Suguru smacks him upside the head. Not sparing the boy any mercy.
“Shut up.” he states in a note of finality, this conclusion characteristic to many of their spats in the past.
“Fine.” Satoru bites back with that playful undertone still ever prevalent in his voice. Tugging even more incessantly at Suguru’s sore wrist now.
-
Squinting, a tangible structure finally begins to come into view. Past tall, lush trees stood a concrete ruin of a building. It was surrounded by cracked cement and prickly bushes. Vegetation seeped through the holes of metal patterns along chain-linked fences as if trying to escape the confines of abandoned civilization. There was always something particularly moving about seeing man-made eyesores progressively get taken over by the gradual seedlings of mother nature. Green and brown spurring out windows wildly, drooping vines cascading down the exterior of cracked walls.
“Watch your feet,” Satoru mutters before sliding his hand down Suguru’s wrist to lace with his fingers, entangling them together messily and squeezing in warning. Satoru led them over prickly vines and swerved past miscellaneous pieces of metal sticking up in the dirt. The touch felt so incredibly natural that Suguru failed to consciously question it, settling on the fact that it was for convenience’s sake. He squeezes back gently.
“Be more concerned for yourself.” Suguru huffs out, eyes drawn to the ground as they step around. “I don’t want to be the one holding your hand while you get a tetanus shot.”
It’s a light tease that coaxes a faint scoff out from Satoru, shaking his head. He tugs suddenly at Suguru’s hand in short, petty retaliation, making the boy stumble slightly behind him. A complete contradiction to his mention earlier about being careful.
“You’re such an asshole.” Suguru barks out, yet his voice contains that underlying fondness that he has never been able to shake. It was a consistent theme with each and every one of his insults aimed at the arrogant boy who still persistently tugs him along. Normally, he would be in a horrible mood. Sweaty cowlicks of hair sticking up in odd directions, the sun beating down on him, his uniform now thoroughly ruined, this should piss him off to no end.
“Aw man, do I need to write you another apology?”
A distant memory flickers through his mind, the visual of it inside his head causing him to chuckle faintly.
(Suguru recalls it distinctly, eyes squinting in recognition. It had been in their first year. They were always at each other's throats and bickering. Satoru insulted Suguru, saying something which had really grated at his nerves. Suguru opted for the silent treatment to get his point of offense across and to spare himself of his fraying patience. Satoru was so insistent that he had done nothing wrong and that his words were unequivocally fact, gawking at him like he was the ridiculous one. The spat concluded with Satoru shyly passing him a note of apology in class the next day, Shoko giving the boy an unenthusiastic thumbs up of encouragement at the action. It was all so incredibly juvenile yet just as sickeningly endearing.)
A soft smile comes to his face naturally, “Hope you’ve got a pen and paper.”
Satoru immediately fusses, groaning in complaint.
They both round the ruined building, sticky palms pressed against one another. Arms slack at the conjoining of their fingers.
Both their chests heaved, faces flushed with heat.
“We gonna break in?” Suguru mumbles rather dryly, a bead of sweat rolling down hot skin. It skims along the curvature of his forehead, the furrow of brows catching the trail of slickness.
“Duh.” comes Satoru’s blunt response, the clammy press of their palms separating with the untangling of priorly woven digits. There is a brief pause at the loss of warmth between their hands, Suguru’s eyes flicker downward to the subtle twitch of Satoru’s finger. He does not have enough time to mull over the insinuation of it because his friend is already squatting down to shimmy at loose panelings, something that seemed to be pried off sometime in the past in preparation. The squint of Suguru’s eyes narrow, soft brown peering through the blurry outlines of lashes. As the strip of plywood is shoved aside, his face scrunches vaguely in confusion. A pointed look pierces through the expression, aimed towards Satoru when the implications of a now visibly person-sized tunnel made recognition flitter along his features.
“Are you fucking serious?” are the words that break past parted lips, the ridicule in his head slipping out verbally. The heat fogged his brain and hindered his filter.
Satoru doesn't seem to mind, not with the way his eyes crinkle at the ends with amusement when he cranes his neck back to peer up toward the boy scowling down at him.
“What? Claustrophobic?”
Suguru scoffs at that.
“What are we? Moles?”
Satoru’s legs part from where he's crouched, the backs of his heels pressing together to stabilize himself. Elbows rest lazily on thighs, knees pointed out in opposite directions. The stance was comparable to a delinquent frog.
“Even better, we’re weasels.” He hums back like it was some incredibly witty thing to say, that trademark, waggish smirk easing up the corners of his lips. Suguru can tell he is already smiling back when Satoru’s eyes gleam up at him. The uncanny abysms of azure softened with merriment. The sight of it has always been rather unorthodox, yet the ominous sharpness that sparkled and eased with warmth in stark contrast like some pleading animal was always something so familiarly Satoru .
Satoru burrowed himself into the tunnel first, long, lanky legs awkwardly sticking out the entrance as he clamored inside, scuffing the toes of his shoes. Suguru, resigned to his fate, follows in after.
“Hey-“ he hacks out, subject to the cloud of dirt that Satoru’s foot garners with each scuff against the ground. Suguru squints his eyes, huffing out the particles of earth like a horse, blowing air out his nostrils so they can’t descend his airways.
“What?” replies Satoru dumbly, whipping his head around to peer back at the source of complaint. Subsequently, he hits the side of his head against the dilapidated metal of a support beam, one of the many, rusted structures caging them in the narrow, cramped hole. There is a shrill clang that reverberates throughout the space, and Suguru can practically see the cartoonish, red bump sprouting out of his hair at the display. Satoru winces and Suguru sucks air in through clenched teeth. He can nearly feel it secondhand.
Long limbs fold over into a ball, head in his hands, knees curled up to his chest.
“Fuck!“ He groans out, beginning to kick his legs in frustration like some petulant child. It was a display Suguru got to witness whenever his friend would stub his toe or hit his forehead atop a doorway, always stamping at the ground like a toddler throwing a tantrum over the loss of a toy, something marveled at and handpicked that later is put back on its respective shelf. In any other circumstance, Suguru would laugh at the sight, maybe even placate his friend with a couple of comforting rubs along the back. But right now, the excess of ground and sand getting kicked into his face at the act was intolerable.
“Will you-“ Suguru begins but is quickly cut off by eight, beady eyes meeting his from atop the low ceiling of bruising wood. Long, fuzzy limbs jutting out a small abdomen anchored onto the crooked plane. Fangs bare sharply through brown fur.
A cold sweat courses through trembling bones. He has had enough.
Suguru is shoving at the backs of Satoru’s legs, urging him forward with the force of a crazed man trying to escape the narrow grasp of death. The boy in front of him squawks at the purposeful shove, soon tumbling out of the tunnel while Suguru follows suit behind him, falling to the floor beneath them in a tangled heap of limbs.
They lay there for a few moments, chests heaving with reddened faces, attempting to recuperate from whatever mess had just happened seconds previously. Meanwhile, Suguru cannot help but find an odd respite in the cool of chipped wood that touches the exposed skin of his pink arms, the old floorboards sheltered from the sun. He stares blankly up at the ceiling which allows the occasional streaks of light to stream through missing panels.
“That hurt.”
Suguru tilts his head towards the sound, the strip of hair that bangs his face lazily strewn along the damp skin of his forehead.
Satoru is looking back at him, black shades askew along the bridge of his nose. His lips are pursed into a small pout.
“Mm.” It is merely a small hum of acknowledgment, Suguru knows better than to pity that look. He reaches out to push Satoru’s glasses back up, blue eyes familiarly staring deep daggers into his own when he does. The default intensity of them was a norm Suguru admittedly had to adjust to.
Eventually, they end up unsticking sweaty limbs from one another, hoisting themselves off the corroded floor. They dust each other off, vainly wiping at the dirt that had already stained their uniforms.
“Don’t,” Suguru warns when he notices Satoru’s hovering a little too long while helping him brush grime off his back. Satoru pulls his hands away and snickers when he is preemptively caught, a familiar routine.
Despite this, moments after he then moves to grab at Suguru’s rear anyway. It is a quick, purposeful tease. He's off running before Suguru can bend his fingers back in unnatural ways.
-
“There’s no way you can dribble that.” Suguru’s words slur with the cool press of a soda can against his cheek. His side huddled against a small cooler situated on the ground in front of a run-down court, the chill of condensed moisture offers him a mild relief.
Thorny roots spew out the cracks of walls, draping bunches of plant over a large window that shoots sunlight into the room with scarce rays. The jagged shapes silhouette the ground in shadows. It was getting dimmer outside.
“Whaddya’ mean?” Satoru calls out from under a rusted hoop in response, making a show of bouncing the deflated basketball. He is clearly putting an excess of strength into each slam against the ground, yet the ball fails to rebound back up towards his hand. It gains maybe three inches of height before slumping back to the floor.
Suguru doesn’t bother commenting on it. The refreshments which had been set up here in advance of their little escapade undeniably pacified him. It was rare that Suguru would ever commend his friend for having any foresight, but perhaps today was just one of those irregular instances. (Even if Satoru didn’t follow through on the air-conditioning part, humidity still stuck uncomfortably to his skin.)
“C’mon, get up and 1v1 me.”
The soda can pressed to Suguru’s cheek falls to his lap when his arm slackens.
“With that shitty ball?”
“Sure, why not? No dribbling challenge!” Satoru announces, arms splaying out dramatically with the ball subsequently falling and slumping to the floor. The rough leather sinks in a little on itself.
“We’re just going to be chasing each other around if that’s the case.”
“Bingo!”
And so ensued the most fucked up game of basketball Geto Suguru has ever played.
-
You could barely call it basketball at this point, the only aspect of the original game that still translated into Satoru’s unorthodox version was the goal of shooting the opposing hoop. They would dart towards each other to swipe the ball away from tight hands, the strategy being to play as intrusively as you possibly can. It was a game of stamina and aggressive offense which progressively dissolved into a tired, sluggish horseplay. The humidity worked to zap them of their energy and by the fourth hoop that tied them both in points they were dragging their feet along the court. Sneakers scuffed against the cracked wood, the floor shrouded with dirt that eluded them to where the markings of the court were even supposed to be.
"Gimme..." Satoru attempted to seize the ball away from Suguru. Stepping forward, he grapples at the basketball Suguru hugs weakly to his chest. Satoru's chin is practically resting against his shoulder when fingers pry at the leather.
Suguru subsequently slumps against his friend. Satoru buries his flushed face into his shoulder at this.
"Then take it." Suguru huffs out, eyes narrowing down at the tuffs of hair now brushing against his cheek. It resembled a lion's mane with how the humidity roused the thatch of white.
"Stop clutching the ball like it's your newborn then." The heat of his breath that is now fanning against Suguru's neck makes the skin prickle with warmth. It only makes him hug the ball tighter.
"Maybe you just aren't trying hard enough." The words are a soft murmur against Satoru's ear. The boy's shoulders hike up at this.
"I'm trying plenty." The indignant assertion comes out in a half-scoff-half-sigh. Satoru's hands drop from the ball, instead, they slither up Suguru's sides. He freezes at the way fingers skim purposely along his waist.
"But I'll try harder if you really want me to..."
Suguru was unsure if it was the summer heat dizzying his mind and deluding him into believing something rather unlikely, or if Satoru's teases were actually far more charged than they had ever been in the past. Either way, it grew increasingly difficult for Suguru to focus on anything other than Satoru's words breathed shakily against his throat. He keeps a stubborn hold on to the ball anyway.
"Finally giving it your all, hm?" Suguru's head dips down to say this in a gentle whisper against the skin of his cheek, the tease deceivingly soft in its delivery.
Suguru was relatively used to the way they teetered along a fine line between platonic and suggestive, he liked it even. It was like a game of cat and mouse that he actively tried to not mull over the implications of, Suguru was never great at not thinking though. A sense of longing couldn't help but spur through him at the press of hips whenever they would walk side by side, Satoru's arm hooked along the back of his shoulders. Or even when their knees knocked together when sat next to each other on the subway, enough room for both of them to splay out along the seats yet Satoru always ended up occupying his space somehow, showing the boy something on his phone just so he could squeeze real close (talking lowly into Suguru's ear) and point at the screen. Suguru never implicated the feeling as something real with any substance. Even when his mind did force him to think, thoughts whirring and reeling from a previous interaction, it was as simple as chalking it up to a platonic affection on his part and Satoru just being Satoru. It was easy to conclude, so why now does he actively find himself battling with it?
A wet heat presses against the cool of Suguru's neck, Satoru's tongue licking a slow line up along the skin. The feeling thankfully made it harder to think. His face flushes hot at the sensation as spikes of fervor shoot through his body.
"Yep." Satoru breathes the simple word against his throat, planting slow yet messy, open-mouthed kisses along the blushing skin. His teeth grazed lightly along the lobe of Suguru's ear, clinking at the gauge. Suguru sucks in a sharp breath and nearly kicks at his friend like a mule. Satoru chuckles breathily against his jaw.
"...Sorry, always' wanted to do that." To an unsurprised Suguru, the comment housed no shame and was hardly apologetic.
Suguru was half-expecting Satoru to yank the ball from him and run off at this point. Instead, he nips softly at the skin beneath Suguru's jaw, lips trailing heady kisses up along it. Suguru swallows hard.
Maybe this was getting to be a bit too much. They probably shouldn't be doing this as friends.
"Satoru-"
Suguru's head tilts down, meeting half-lidded blue from behind shades slanting down the slope of a nose. He chuckles at the sight, reaching a hand out to push Satoru's sunglasses up and into his hair. Suguru's careful not to disturb the fringe sticking to Satoru's forehead. It's not an action Suguru thinks about prior, it comes so naturally that it scares him.
The typical joke or tease does not erupt out of Satoru, instead, it's a deafening silence of small breaths, intense eyes not even trying to hide the way they flicker down. It's like he's in a daze, completely enamored with how Suguru's tongue subconsciously darts out to moisten his lips at the attention.
Long eyelashes bat back up. It's rare, to be able to stare past deep blue to see something far more glassy, something transparent and vulnerable. He knew Satoru needed something from him, and Suguru needed it too.
His hand comes to cup along the side of Satoru's face, thumb skimming a soothing circle along the flush of his cheekbone. Their lips connect in an instant.
It starts as soft yet tentative, pursed lips gently pressing back against his friend's. Flurries of buried want bloom in Suguru's chest, fluster hiking up the nape of his neck as his long, calloused fingers comb up and through messy strands of white. That's when Satoru's lips begin to move against his in a near haste, clumsy and open-mouthed. Suguru responds with an equal amount of fervor with his lips parting and his tongue brushing along the pout of Satoru's bottom lip. Half-lidded eyes draw shut at the pushback of heat against his.
Shaky hands clamor to squeeze at Satoru's waist, Satoru's trembling touch sliding down to press fingers into Suguru's hips. The basketball had slipped out of Suguru's hold at this point, surely having rolled off to the side to sink in on itself some distance away from them along the dingy court.
Fuck, that's right. They were playing basketball, or some messed up version of it. What the hell were they doing right now? Have they both really grown that desperate for someone else's touch?
They part with a click of lips and Satoru seems to take the hint to use his brain. Both sink away from each other's hold, chests heaving and faces even redder than when they had been trudging through long bouts of grass underneath the blistering sun. The two of them exchange blank stares.
Satoru runs after the ball like his life depends on it, Suguru lets him. Neither seems to want to acknowledge it.
-
By the time they're scurrying out of the deserted building, the crawl through the exit far more measured and cautious (Suguru made it clear he was going in first this time and left no room for debate), the sun has set and the dusk of night begins to settle along the horizon.
Satoru had crammed a flashlight into (the rather unenthused) Suguru's hands. Suguru squints into the dark, the beam of light illuminating the occasional mosquito or fly whisking past the space.
"I think you might have killed us both." His voice is flat, not looking forward to the trek back to civilization in the liability that is slogging back through an area of general wilderness at night.
"When they find our bodies I'll make sure we're entangled and embracing each other." Satoru's voice is bubbly and bright.
Suguru aims his flashlight towards Satoru's face, sensitive eyes squint shut and he starts clawing at the rays of light like it's something tangible that he can bat away.
"Get that shit out of my face!"
Suguru smiles softly to himself. What a dumbass.