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The first time Daichi ever noticed something different about Suga was halfway through their first year.
It wasn’t a big realisation. It didn’t stop him in his tracks, didn’t confuse him, didn’t make the world stop. Looking back, maybe it should have. It would have made the next few years make a lot more sense. But that was never how things were, between him and Suga. They were always calm with each other, no matter how reckless they could be with others. It made Asahi complain, considering he was the one who usually sucked up their bad moods instead.
They were in the gym, practicing after hours. The seniors had gone home hours ago, some of the second years staying around for a while, but eventually it had emptied out until it was only the three of them. Like always. They were three of a kind, as Kiyoko would say. She had agreed to being their manager only a few weeks ago, and the air felt fresh, ripe with hope.
Maybe it was that hope that made Asahi spike harder than normal on one of Suga’s sets. He looked panicked after hitting it, opening his mouth to apologise, but Daichi was quicker.
With a shout, he threw himself under the ball. He wasn’t wearing knee pads, and could feel where the skin of his legs tore open, but it was worth it to see how the ball sprung up from his arms. They hurt after the receive, glowing a soft red, but none of that mattered when he sprung up, staring in shock at his classmates as they watched the ball drop to the floor.
Then, they all exploded in cheers.
“Nice receive, Daichi!” Suga cried, ducking under the next to run up to him and shake him by the shoulder. Asahi stayed on the other side, cheering and rambling about how he hoped he didn’t hurt Daichi’s arms, when Daichi noticed it.
Suga had long lashes.
Not the kind of long that stood out in a crowd, maybe, but longer than his, and definitely longer than most guys he knew. They reached up to his eyebrows as he stared at Daichi, wide-eyed and excited, and Daichi raised a hand, half tempted to touch them.
Instead, he put his hand on Suga’s shoulder and cried out in excitement, jumping up and down with his classmates.
It didn’t happen again for a while, and after a few months he brushed the observation off as something he saw in a moment of excitement. Plenty of guys had oddities about them, and he just didn’t notice them, but that meant nothing about his friendship with Suga. They ended up losing in the tournament, returning to school with a fire like no other, and the three freshmen crowded together, promising to make a better team next year.
-
The next year came, and Daichi had forgotten all about the incident. Really, he did. Then, they were walking back from a practice with Ukai-sensei, exhausted from the drills when Suga offered to wait for the bus with Daichi. Asahi lived close enough to walk, and Suga swapped between the bus and walking, so Daichi was touched by the gesture.
When they settled down on the bench to wait for the bus’s arrival, Suga let his head fall to Daichi’s shoulder.
“Geez, I’m exhausted,” he sighed, exhaling loudly. Daichi barely heard him, focused instead on the way Suga’s hair brushed his chin.
It was soft. Abnormally soft, like a cloud. He let out a sigh as it tickled his chin, letting his own head flop on top of Suga’s, feeling the setter relax a little more beneath him. It was nice, resting his head against Suga’s hair. Like having a particularly soft pillow.
“Me too,” he said, resting his hands on his thighs.
They stayed like that. He didn’t remember how long it was, how much time passed, or what they talked about. It would fade into one of his hundreds of other memories of Suga that blurred together in his mind, but he couldn’t forget that soft brush of hair against his chin, his neck, his collarbone.
By their third year, Daichi admitted to himself that what he felt for Suga was more than platonic affection. It was more than the steady affection he felt for Asahi, more than the doting care he felt for his juniors, more than the soft connection he felt with Michimiya. He heard his father describe the way he felt towards Daichi’s mother once. He said it was a steady sort of love, the kind that you didn’t notice. Like looking out the window at Mount Fuji one day and realising that it was actually there. You don’t notice at first, because it’s woven in so well that it seems like it could never leave.
The idea of love terrified Daichi. He ran away from it, although he knew his peers didn’t think he did. Love had always meant grand romantic gestures and blushing confessions and attention from his classmates. Questions about what he said to a girl after she confessed, noses poked into business that wasn’t there.
So realising he was in love with Suga scared him at first. He had seen the effects of his classmates getting into relationships, saw the drama that came with it. Saw the exasperation, and most of all saw how much everyone else wanted to know everything. He didn’t want that. His feelings for Suga were private, delicate, something to be harboured and protected. So instead he thought about his dad’s definition of love. The steadfast view of a mountain. He liked that.
-
They were stretching one day when Daichi came to his third realisation. Practice had ended, the first years were begging Asahi to stay in the gym a bit longer, and the second years were running around to clean up. After all, their training camp with the Tokyo group would start in a few days.
Daichi and Suga were in their own little corner, where they went to warm down. It was Daichi’s turn to help Suga stretch, and he was pressing on Suga’s waist when he felt his hand slip.
Wow. Suga had a small waist for a man.
His head darted up when he heard laughter.
“What is it?” he asked Suga, wondering if Kageyama and Hinata had managed to get into a fight during the second he let his attention slip.
“Most guys would get offended if you told them they had a small waist, you know,” Suga said, still laughing as he turned to observe Daichi, who could only stare blankly.
“I said that out loud?”
“Afraid so.” Suga poked his forehead to snap him out of it, and Daichi had to blink a few times. “It’s alright, you know I’m not the easily offended type.”
“It wasn’t meant as an insult!” Daichi blurted out, then felt his face heat up as Suga continued to stare at him, waiting for an explanation. Yes, an explanation. How to explain his behaviour. Well, Daichi would have liked one of those himself. “It’s a… nice thing.”
“To have a small waist?” One of Suga’s eyebrows travelled up, up, until it settled into that expression that Daichi knew meant Suga was about to goad him into saying something embarrassing. “I thought that was more popular among girls these days?”
“Not like that!” Daichi said quickly, and drew his hands away from Suga, feeling his blush deepen as he realised that his hands had paused at Suga’s waist. Then again, Suga hadn’t said anything about it either.
Slowly, in case he got punched for being so bold, Daichi let his hands go back down until they wrapped around Suga’s waist. He saw Suga look down too, and marvelled at the barely visible blush that had begun spreading across the setter’s cheeks and down his neck. He wondered briefly how far down it travelled, and coughed to shake himself out of it.
“It fits well, you know,” he muttered, squeezing Suga’s waist gently and making the setter’s eyes flutter. It was addicting, and he was hit with the urge to lean in and kiss him. It was far from the first time the urge had hit him, but when Suga looked up, it might have been the first time he thought Suga might actually kiss him back.
Of course, that was the moment his teammates had to go and ruin it.
“Oi, get off me you idiot!” Kageyama screamed. The tension broke as Daichi and Suga rolled their eyes in unison, with Daichi helping Suga up to go deal with their kouhai.
But Suga’s hand stayed in his for a second longer than necessary, and he couldn’t help smiling as he approached the troublesome first years.
-
The fourth time he noticed it was a week before their graduation. They were sitting on a hill together, watching the sunset after abandoning Asahi. He kept crying unprompted, and the two decided to let Noya deal with the emotions for once. After all, they had plenty of their own.
“I can’t believe we’re actually gonna be adults,” Daichi sighed.
“Come on, you’re about to start sounding like Asahi,” Suga joked, making the two smile, although it was more subdued than usual. Suga’s smile dropped, and he shifted a bit closer so his shoulder brushed Daichi’s. “We’re… we’re still gonna be friends after, right?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Daichi asked, a little incredulous as he looked at the boy-no, man, who had been his vice captain all year.
Suga blushed, looking away. “Oh, shut it.”
“Of course we’ll still be friends,” Daichi said, smiling as he leaned against Suga’s shoulder. He felt the setter sigh, relaxing under him like he always did. Taking a risk, Daichi extended his hand, and watched as Suga hesitated for only a moment before clasping it tightly. “You have small hands.”
Suga snorted. “Here we go again. You know that being shorter than you means I’ll be a bit smaller, too, right?”
“I like that,” Daichi blurted out, and felt Suga tense under him. He sat up quickly, their hands still linked together, and watched in amazement as Suga blushed. Not a dusting of pink, not a hint of red at the corner of his eyes, but true red that extended out to his ears as his eyes shone, even if they weren’t looking at Daichi. “I like being bigger than you. I like that you’re stronger than me even if I am a bit sturdier. I like that I can hold you waist and my thumbs will touch even when my hands are wrapped all the way around you.”
Suga was practically a tomato. “Daichi-”
“I like the way you say my name, and how you’re always up ten minutes earlier than I am. I like you, Suga.”
Suga’s eyes went wide as he turned towards Daichi, who just kept staring at him until the setter began to laugh.
“Wha-hey!” Daichi yelled, feeling his face get hot.
“Sorry,” Suga giggled, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “This is just such a typical way for you to confess. We’ve got the sunset, on the brink of graduation, gosh it’s too perfect. Just your type, huh?”
“Ah, forget I said anything,” Daichi groaned, flopping back on the grass. He stilled when Suga leaned over him, his eyes still shining.
“I like you too, by the way.”
-
Maybe it shouldn’t have taken them so long to finally get together, but they had never felt the need to rush with those sorts of things. It just happened one day. They made their way through undergraduate degrees, Suga became a teacher, Daichi became a police officer, and they waved off questions from their friends about the state of their relationship. It was what it was.
It didn’t even end up being climactic, in the end. They were sitting on the couch one night, with Suga’s legs slung over Daichi’s, like they always were. The two were happy with the way things were. They would say I love you each night before heading to their separate bedrooms, hold hands in public, kiss each other on the cheek. It was their own little bubble of normal.
Noya and Asahi thought they were insane, but the two of them got married a year after confessing, so Daichi and Suga didn’t really think their advice applied as much to them.
Daichi was stroking through Suga’s hair when a commercial break came on and Suga turned to him, and he felt that old stirring in his chest, telling him to lean down and kiss his best friend. Suga was giving him that same look he always did in their quiet moments, that look that focused a bit too much on Daichi’s lips, so Daichi did it.
That was when he noticed it. Their lips pressed together, fitting perfectly against each other, and Daichi felt Suga let out a small sigh against his lips.
“Your lips are really soft,” he said when he pulled away. It made Suga laugh, and bury his face in Daichi’s shoulder.
“You’re so weird,” Suga snickered in reply, but he wrapped his arms around Daichi’s neck, and that was all that really mattered.
Yeah, there were plenty of things about Suga that were different from other people. But Daichi didn’t mind, if it meant he could spend the rest of his life noticing. And, judging by the way Suga went in for another kiss, Suga didn’t mind either.