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Koushi, actually, senses it even as he's in the air.
There are times when he's doing a lift or a jump, when he knows before he lands that he is going to land wrong. Sometimes it's the angle, sometimes it's the timing. Most of the time, though, like this one— it's the simple fact that his foot is going to give way, folding easily at the ankle and absolutely unable to bear his weight. He has always come out of it more or less unharmed, but the fall is definitely not pleasant. Much more unpleasant is that moment of horrifying certainty; the knowledge that he's going to fall and that there is nothing he can do about it. It lasts only for a fraction of a second, but it is the kind of spike of fear that makes him apprehensive about jumping for the next two or three days at the very least.
And then there is Daichi, who takes it to heart, every single, time as if he could have done something to stop Koushi from folding over, every single time.
Koushi senses it in the air, as he does sometimes. He's doing a relatively simple jump, back arched, arms spread with his fingers pressed tightly against each other, head turned towards the ceiling with its giant lights. It's a simple jump for a simple practice, the ones that Daichi likes to sit for while he does his required reading for the week. (Kise always has a lot of opinions about it, all of which Koushi ignores serenely.)
It's a simple jump. His eyes are on the ceiling with its giant light fixtures, and then he feels it. The lurch, so similar to the ones he feels in dreams sometimes— the difference being that he usually wakes up a moment before he takes the fall, and here, he has no choice. When he feels the lurch, his gaze shifts from the fixtures to the slightly dusty floor of the stage, and on the way, catches Daichi's wide, terrified eyes.
Koushi has never enjoyed the fall or knowing that he's going to fall, but Daichi— Daichi is always something else. Sometimes even better at knowing when Koushi is going to land wrong than Koushi himself; and almost faster to react than Koushi's own body. It seems, sometimes, that Daichi's body is more attuned to Koushi's protection than his own; he always moves before Koushi can think of putting his own hands out to break his fall. Always hands him the milk before Koushi can think of asking; completes the train of his thought before it turns into sentences out of his mouth.
'Suga!' And even as Koushi's right foot twists sickeningly under him, leading the way for his knee to buckle and hip to strain, he can see Daichi shooting out of his seat from the corners of his vision.
His upper arm supports his head so that he doesn't knock it against the floor. The impact still hurts, especially where his knee has taken a hit against the edge of the stage (and he's lucky not to have fallen off it; that would have been a whole new set of scrapes and curses from both Daichi and Michimiya). So Koushi lays there for a moment, eyes closed, breaths coming quick. He gathers himself enough to raise a hand, signal that he's fine, just winded; he can't have anyone thinking he's passed out.
He hears Shimizu sigh in relief and then the clicking of her heels as she retreats backstage to get water and ice, but of course his pose does nothing to placate Daichi, who has taken a surprisingly long time to bound to the front of the stage, all things considered.
'Suga,' Daichi breathes, hand gentle in the roughest way it could possibly be against the side of his face, brushing away his curls from where they've fallen over his eyes, tucking them behind his ear. 'Hey. Dumbass.'
'Be nice,' Koushi says, keeping his eyes closed to better feel Daichi's fingertips on his temple. 'I'm fine.'
'That looked nasty.'
'It was. But I'm still fine.'
Daichi's concern has never wavered, in all these years of seeing Koushi take a fall when dancing, or take a fall when climbing the stairs, or take a fall. Koushi almost thinks that had he been in Daichi's place, he would've gotten used to it by now. But then again, given that Koushi has to purse his lips when Daichi winces at so much as a paper cut before laughing it off, he hardly thinks that he's one to talk.
Maybe the idea that growing up with someone should bring the kind of rhythm and habit that nothing is new anymore, from showering habits to injury hotspots (Daichi takes more hits to the forehead than the rest of the campus population combined; Koushi's sure of it) is something that varies from person to person. He has seen Kenma and Kuroo for a while now, and laughs often at the absolute stone-faced patience with which Kenma deals with all of Kuroo's antics— but he doesn't identify, not completely. Nor does he feel exactly the way Bokuto must when Kuroo goes one extra night without sleeping; the half-fond, half-exasperated, fully pained brand of laughing it off.
Instead, Koushi finds himself in the middle of those two. It's hilarious when Daichi is startled by the toaster. It's hilarious when Daichi ties his laces too tight and can't seem to untie them and thinks, every single time, that he'll have to cut them open until Koushi saves the day with a toothpick. These are things Koushi has been seeing every day for years.
It's not funny, though, when Daichi squints at everything for three hours straight because he forgot to turn his reading lamp on well past sunset. It's still not funny, in a different way, when Daichi pulls Koushi away from the dishes and twirls him around the kitchen, foam and all.
So maybe he can understand that it's not funny for Daichi, either, to see him curled on his side like this on the stage. It brings him to move a little faster; he pushes himself up and runs a hand through his hair, presses the other one against his knee, and smiles through the wincing.
'Ice,' Shimizu says, and they both turn to her, a little startled. 'Take five and then go home, Sugawara.'
●●●
It's already dark when they're walking home. (Daichi offered, thrice, to steal Kuroo's car, he won't notice but Koushi assured him that yes, his knee was fine, and no, he had no problem walking, and yes, he wasn't doing that thing where he lies just so that things move faster.) Koushi has on his coat and scarf, only just lamenting the lack of something to cover his hair; the chill is strong enough to seep right through tonight.
'It's the last weekend for that poetry festival Ushijima wants to go to,' Koushi says, smiles when he sees his exhales curling half-grey in the night air. 'We should go tomorrow, you know he'd love that.'
Daichi hums, eyes trained on the pavement.
'I've been meaning to get a couple of new plants, too. Just for the dining table, maybe one for the coffee table.'
Daichi hums again. Koushi looks at him carefully, looks at the absent regard in his eyes as they continue tracing the lines between the blocks of the pavement; it's easy to do this not only because he knows he won't be noticed, but because he knows it's not a problem if he is. They always look at each other, long and careful, to gauge everything from lies to tears to what exactly is running through their minds. Daichi, right now, is replaying the moment Koushi's ankle twisted over and over in his head with no accompanying thought.
So Koushi leaves him be; looks around at the dew-tipped trees around them, how the streetlight catches on the edges of their leaves. The streetlights themselves, near-white but only just, substituting for the cloud-covered moon. Koushi looks at the campus lighting up at the creases, getting ready for the night; for whoever wants to dance and whoever wants to read, and whoever wants to call it a day and sleep.
Daichi is handsome; neither night nor day is made especially for him because he is solid through them both, taking in the light and standing so in tune with the ground. Koushi, who has seen him at every time of the day and year the way he tracks on his calendar that he's never spent July in this city yet, thinks that blessed is too fragile of a word for the easy confidence of their friendship.
'Did you remember to—?' he begins, and Daichi stops short.
It isn't as if Koushi doesn't get a warning, or that he even needed one. Daichi moves slowly; just his arm around Koushi's shoulder first, squeezing lightly, squeezing hard. Koushi has enough time to see the change on Daichi's face, the way his eyebrows pull together, the way he presses his lips into a tight line before he steps forward and pulls Koushi in completely. His arms around Koushi are warm and tight, and not surprising at all.
What is surprising is how Daichi locks them around his shoulders in a way that he never does; head pressed against Koushi's shoulder, lips on his collar. What is surprising is how it feels intense but not electrically so; just so much, so much in the gravity of it, Daichi's deep, deep breath when Koushi slides a hand against the back of his shirt, under his jacket.
Koushi lets Daichi hold him in the middle of the pavement; smiles against the padded shoulder of Daichi's jacket, the thin covering fabric cold on his nose. His knee hurts more than he'll admit, especially in the cold, but it's not something that will be severe in the long run. Koushi knows the ins and outs of his body and bones, almost as well as Daichi knows them.
'Did you remember to send Matsukawa your notes?' he asks.
Daichi stiffens, then groans.
'Fuck,' he says. 'Oh my God, man's gonna kill me.'
●●●
In a way, Koushi senses it even as he closes his eyes.
He's on the couch. Their near-sheer curtains are drawn over the door to the balcony, their white lace looking pale yellow in the lights Daichi turned on after pushing Koushi down onto the cushions with a sit there. There's the large floor lamp with its hanging papery dome, the cluster of fairy lights that Bokuto's classmate left with them as thanks for having Koushi work with him on a shoot. The standard frosted-glass cylinders of the rest of the lights. It's the little things; the warmth of the lights, his hands still numb from the cold outside.
Life comes in these flashes of happiness stronger than what he feels every day; flashes of beauty when the visuals of the world click into place— the leaves of a tree over the lamp of a streetlight against the rain, locking into perfect view at the same time that a song starts off in his ears. The visuals of the room click into place— the twinkling pinpricks on the wires strung up against one wall, the little squares of Polaroids just under them. The kind of put-together, serene beauty that shouldn't normally be affordable to people his age but is, anyway, because he made it happen. Because they made it happen.
He's on the couch, with his eyes closed, when he senses it.
Daichi is sitting cross-legged at his feet, on the carpet, the edge of the coffee table probably digging into his back. This, too, is one of those not-as-funny things that they've carried with them over the years; no matter what Koushi hurt, whether it's a shoulder or a toe or the tip of his nose, Daichi always does this. It's no secret to Koushi that the unnecessary fussing and huffing and ice packs are more for Daichi's own reassurance than any intellectual remedy, and that's the only reason he puts up with it silently.
Koushi looks down at him. The way his hair is growing out, dark spikes ruffled into a hundred different directions and some of them curling over his forehead. The strong line of his jaw, the straight slope of his nose, the set of his lips as he concentrates on rolling the leg of Koushi's sweatpants up. His eternal checkered shirt (put him and Kuroo side by side on an average day; they look more like brothers than they already are) and belted jeans, his shoes. Koushi looks at all of him the way he always does, and it doesn't feel any different. Daichi takes his leg into his lap, runs a thumb over the light purple on his skin.
Then Daichi places the ice pack to his knee, and Koushi shudders at how very, very cold it is. And then Daichi stills, and puts the pack away.
Koushi goes still, too, and senses it even as he closes his eyes. The press of Daichi's lips just where the ice was a moment ago; so slow and gentle and soft and careful, and so natural that Koushi senses it like an overdue fall as he curls his hands into fists and closes his eyes tighter. He senses it, but this is still the least composed he has been in a long, long time.
With his eyes closed and all the warm lights of the room playing even through that darkness, he feels Daichi guide his leg gently back to the floor; the carpet soft under his sole, the fabric of his sweatpants falling back down over it. He feels the movement of Daichi straightening up to sit beside him on the couch, but if the lights are playing even through the darkness and it has been years since he thought of this on a summer evening, then he doesn't need to open his eyes to know how Daichi is looking as he takes one of Koushi's hands.
Daichi takes one of his hands. Gently uncurls the fist Koushi had it in— because he's only human, after all— and kisses the back of it. And Koushi smiles at that. Maybe he shouldn't be smiling, maybe it's arrogant and presumptuous to smile, maybe he's getting this wrong after years of getting it right; but despite the fact that his leg didn't take his weight today, Koushi has always found that the weather and the music and all his friends are always on his side. So when he smiles, he does so without fear, and without opening his eyes.
And then Daichi leans forward and kisses his shoulder, through the soft, thin material of Koushi's undershirt. It's long and chaste just like the others, but the way Daichi brings up a hand to stroke Koushi's neck with the back of his fingers is a surprise, and it makes Koushi inhale sharply. It's still not electric— nothing ever will be, with Daichi, and Koushi can't imagine having it any other way— but it's oh so intimate, and he doesn't want to look at Daichi's face because when he's lived a lifetime knowing everything about him, waiting is a virtue he's never had to exercise outside of how he's been exercising it for years now, waiting and waiting for Daichi to stop running and come back.
Next is his cheek. Koushi hears Daichi inhale when his lips touch Koushi's cheekbone, imagines Daichi's eyes falling shut because he knows they've been open so far. He's so much closer now, in Koushi's space the way he's always been, but with his breath held this time, as if he's trying to concentrate and learn or trying to remember something that has never happened before. When he stays there with his forehead pressed to Koushi's curls and his hand still on Koushi's shoulder, Koushi feels...feels this low sound fill him, the kind you hear not as a sharp note or even a wide crescendo, but rather the kind that is a soothing buzz, the disproportionate absolution you feel when a song about you starts in your ears the exact moment that a tree and a streetlight and the rain come into view.
And so Koushi turns, and he puts a hand on Daichi's face and opens his eyes. Looks right into Daichi's rich, warm, brown ones, the pull of the love in them. And Koushi kisses the bridge of his nose, and then the tip of it, and then finally his lips.
They are surprised, but also not. In a way, in many ways, this was long coming. It could've happened yesterday while waiting for the toaster to scare Daichi; it might've happened tomorrow after dinner if it hadn't happened today. With Daichi, everything is as old as the first colours of childhood; everything new is blanketed, cushioned, by those colours. The Daichi who is kissing him now is the same Daichi who held his hand while crossing the road at twelve, who said the water's perfect, Suga, come on when they were sixteen and Koushi first learned the meaning of being in love.
It is the same Daichi, then; Koushi knows it because the way Daichi pulls him completely across his lap is new but the laugh he lets out when he does it is the same. Koushi breathes in that laugh and breathes out one of his own, and then Daichi's hands are climbing up and going in his hair and Koushi is laughing more, and more, and kissing him more and more; not to make up for anything but to take in what completes the spaces, and to take it in slow and thorough.
'Took you—' Koushi says, stops himself to kiss the cupid's bow of Daichi's lips, stops himself to run a hand through the hair on the back of Daichi's head and pull him ever closer. 'Took you—'
'Don't,' Daichi says. 'Just don't even say it.'
●●●
Daichi carries him to bed. It isn't as if he hasn't done that before; many, many times at that. Carrying him from the kitchen to the living room; carrying him from stage to the dressing rooms. Carrying him to bed, too, when Koushi is too tired and sleepy to even have a drink of water before sleep takes him. It's not new, and if Koushi is brave enough to admit it, nor is the blatant protectiveness on Daichi's face as he does it. It's really all of those things that ensured that Koushi's patience never saw as much as a flicker; he had never really understood what to expect from romance with Daichi, when they were already everything that they could be. What more could change, anyway?
That, he decides, as Daichi lays him down and looks at him, was a little naïve. He had absolutely forgotten to account for all the kissing. The kissing is definitely a change, and a very, very, very welcome one. He could get used to it. He could definitely get used to it.
Daichi is looking at him with his heart in his throat; Koushi can see it in his eyes, the way he's frowning, almost; distressed, almost. The way his gaze flutters uncertainly like the rainfall of his breath over all of Koushi before coming again to settle on his face, looking right into Koushi's eyes with his heart in his throat.
'Okay,' Daichi says, laughs shakily. 'We should've done this before.'
Koushi lets his eyes drift closed, then, because he knows. And he hums in reply, not because he doesn't trust his voice, but because he has nothing to say. He doesn't know if he agrees with Daichi; doesn't even know if he disagrees. What he does know is that he wants Daichi closer, and so he raises his arms so that Daichi can lower himself into them. And he does, in the span of one exhale like he can't stand to be away anymore, and Koushi doesn't know if he agrees or disagrees but he knows what he wants to say.
'We're doing it now,' he murmurs, and closes his arms around Daichi's back. 'That's what matters. We're doing it now.'
It's...he can't say that it's overwhelming, because home and Daichi are too gentle to be that. But rather, it's something similar, but not quite; the sound filling him from head to toe, like the feeling of tears welling up and spilling over, tumbling down, or a wave of the ocean washing slowly but surely over your body. The water's perfect.
The way you can feel how easy it is to cut through the water, and yet how potent its tug. In that way, the gentle current of Daichi's breathing draws him further up, further in, until their lips are fitting together again, so familiar already as if the time they spent in the air knowing that they would fall was enough for them to know exactly how. Their lips are fitting together again, and this time, their fingers too; Daichi bringing Koushi's arms higher over his head, pressing his wrists into the pillows, squeezing Koushi's fingers with his sturdy, warm ones.
Then Daichi pulls away slowly, slowly; kisses Koushi's cheekbones and his jaw and his neck (and that pulls a sound out of Koushi that he's never made before) and tightening his arms around Koushi. Elbows pressed to the mattress on either side of his ribs, shoulders lined with Koushi's arms as Daichi kisses over his sternum, legs twined together over the mess that the blanket is in. Daichi rests his head on Koushi's chest for a minute, a little on this side of breathless although Koushi isn't, and closes his eyes.
'Is it too early to...' Daichi begins, and trails off. Koushi knows that he's counting on him to understand and interrupt him before he has to say anything particularly embarrassing; Koushi knows his every breath. But what Koushi also knows is how to annoy Daichi, put him on the spot, convince the others that he bought the figurine. So he doesn't say anything, and smiles as Daichi fumbles, and blushes, and laughs. 'To say.'
Koushi considers.
'I think you left the ice pack on the carpet,' he says. I think you've been saying it for years now.
Daichi doesn't laugh anymore, at that. He closes his eyes again, and swallows.
'I love you,' he whispers. 'I love you. Shit. I love you.'
'I know,' Koushi laughs. 'I know you do. I know you do.'
And it takes a minute, two, even, of him stroking a hand through Daichi's hair in silence, but then it happens. Daichi laughs again, lighter than before, and frees his hands to tickle Koushi as if nothing had happened at all. As if nothing had changed at all.