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Hiyoshi Wakashi had a very specific relationship with alcohol.
He didn't drink casually. He didn't drink socially in the way some people did, a beer here, a glass of wine there, something to do with his hands at a party. He had his first sake with his father at seventeen, formal and deliberate, and had decided then that alcohol was a thing to be respected and approached with intention.
The intention at Atobe's twentieth birthday Christmas party was, in retrospect, unclear.
The King Game had seemed harmless enough. Choutarou had been king first and told numbers four and six to drink, and Hiyoshi had looked at his stick and sighed and drunk, and then the rounds had continued and he had continued to be told to drink with a frequency that suggested the universe had a specific agenda for him that evening.
By the time Gakuto suggested they keep going, Hiyoshi's skin was warm and the room had taken on a particular quality — not spinning exactly, but softened at the edges, like someone had turned down the sharpness of everything.
"You keep being told to drink." Gakuto said, patting his head with the energy of someone who found this extremely funny. "Real luck you've got."
"We should probably get him upstairs." Oshitari said, with the tone of someone who had decided something and was implementing it.
Hiyoshi opened his mouth to say he could get there himself. His legs had a different opinion. He accepted the assistance with what remained of his dignity.
They got him to his hotel room. Gakuto helped him out of his jacket with characteristic lack of ceremony while Oshitari disappeared and came back with water, and Hiyoshi sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Gakuto and the thought he'd been managing for years became, suddenly, very loud.
"It's so unfair." He said. "You're so pretty."
Gakuto blinked. "Huh? Me?"
Oshitari pressed the water into his hands. "Drink up. Then you can gaze upon Gakuto's beauty as much as you want."
Hiyoshi looked at Oshitari. At his face. His voice. The specific composed warmth of him. "You're so hot, too."
"Apparently alcohol loosens your tongue." Oshitari said pleasantly.
"Yuushi is hot." Gakuto agreed, with great confidence. "The hottest."
Hiyoshi grabbed Oshitari's wrist before he could step back. He wasn't sure what he was doing. The thought was very loud. "It's so unfair."
There was a pause. Then Gakuto, who had never in his life encountered a situation he didn't immediately have a suggestion for, said something characteristically unfiltered.
“You should let Yuushi fuck you then!”
Hiyoshi looked at Oshitari. His mouth was dry.
Oshitari reached over and stroked his hair, gentle and deliberate. "You should get some rest."
What happened next was Hiyoshi's fault. He would accept that. He pulled Oshitari down and kissed him, and Oshitari kissed back, and Gakuto made a sound of extremely interested approval from somewhere to Hiyoshi's left, and then things progressed in a direction that Hiyoshi would need several days to fully process.
It was his first time.
It was considerably better than he'd imagined, which was saying something.
The morning after was brutal.
Hiyoshi surfaced slowly, became aware of warmth beside him, became aware of whose warmth it was, and said: "Huh."
"Shut up." Gakuto said, from somewhere to his right. "It's too early."
Oshitari was already up. Of course he was.
Hiyoshi sat up carefully. His head ached. The previous night assembled itself in his memory in pieces; vivid, specific, nothing he was going to be able to un-know. "I'm sorry." He said. "I shouldn't have-"
"What are you apologizing for?" Gakuto said. "We're all adults and we had a good time."
"You're a couple."
"And we decided to sleep with you as a couple." Gakuto propped himself up. "No big deal. Grow up."
Hiyoshi looked at him. "That was my first time."
A pause. "Ah, really!?" Gakuto sat up fully. "Well. I hope Yuushi and I made it good for you."
"Gakuto." Oshitari said, from across the room where he was ordering room service with complete composure. "Give him some space."
Hiyoshi was internally panicking. It hadn't just been good. It had been everything. He'd had the specific misfortune of having his first time be exactly what he'd wanted, which meant everything after it was going to be measured against that.
"Next time," Gakuto said, with the energy of someone making a completely normal announcement, "I'll let you fuck me."
"N-next time!?"
"Yeah. No reason to cut you off at once."
Hiyoshi stared at him. "...Really."
"We all had a good time, right? And it was hot." Gakuto shrugged. "It's hard to find a good option for something like this anyway."
"You've been looking?"
"Not really looking." Gakuto glanced away briefly. "Just open to the idea. Threesomes are fun. I wanted to let Yuushi experience it."
Oshitari came back with food for all three of them and served it in bed with the same quiet attentiveness he brought to everything. He fed Gakuto bites between his own. Wiped a smear of egg off his face. Smiled at something Gakuto said that Hiyoshi didn't quite catch.
Hiyoshi ate quietly and watched and felt the ache settle into him like something finding its place.
Here he was. On the outside, looking in at the intimate geography of their lives. Watching Oshitari look at Gakuto the way he looked at Gakuto.
"I should probably go." He said.
"This is your hotel room." Gakuto pointed out.
"We can head out first." Oshitari offered. He had the specific look of someone giving space deliberately.
"Oh. No, you can..." Hiyoshi started eating again. "Stay."
They did. Gakuto left first for a rehearsal, extracting a promise of something Hiyoshi was still slightly stunned by. Oshitari offered to stay longer. Hiyoshi said he was fine.
He watched Oshitari kiss Gakuto goodbye at the door and thought: you really adore him.
"I'll meet you after practice." Oshitari said to Gakuto, and then to Hiyoshi: "Take care."
"You too."
He watched them leave.
The room was quiet.
He sat with the ache and the warmth and the particular chaos of not knowing what he'd just gotten himself into, and thought: a lot. The answer was probably a lot.
He was right about that.
The arrangement that none of them had put a name to continued from there.
It was Hiyoshi's fault for not asking what it was. He knew that. He had kissed Oshitari first, had accepted when Gakuto said next time, had kept coming back because he couldn't stop himself. He had told himself it was casual in the morning-after haze of the Christmas party and then had continued telling himself that even as it became the thing he thought about most.
He told himself the ache was manageable.
He told himself he was fine.
He was not, particularly, fine.
The Japan Open after-party was the kind of event that happened to you, loud and warm and full of people finding their way to things that mattered.
Atobe had chosen this particular evening to go public with Irie, which had produced the immediate and predictable eruption of Gakuto at a volume that could only be described as a public service announcement.
"THEY'RE GOING PUBLIC!? AND ATOBE DIDN'T FUCKING WARN US!?"
Hiyoshi rolled his eyes. "People barely noticed you, Mukahi-san. Stop making it all about you."
"Oh shut up. I'm allowed to be pissed about Atobe making the damn party all about himself."
"Thought you would be used to it by now."
"Last year was pretty normal!" Gakuto said.
"If you ignored the tennis players making out and causing a scandal." Hiyoshi said.
Oshitari sighed. "Their love story was quite romantic. And that proposal on live television..."
Gakuto looked at Hiyoshi with wide eyes. "Shit. We got Yuushi started."
"It's not my problem." Hiyoshi said.
Gakuto poked his cheek sharply. "It's your problem if I leave him with you."
"I'm not the one he lives with."
The words landed with more weight than Hiyoshi intended. He felt it immediately.
"Yeah." Gakuto said, with the specific carefulness of someone who hadn't noticed. "You're just the one who shows up for a good dicking every few days."
Oshitari said, quietly: "Gakuto."
Something in Hiyoshi went very still.
"Then maybe I just won't come over anymore."
"Try it and see if I care."
"Gakuto. Wakashi." Oshitari said. "Calm down."
Hiyoshi looked at them- Gakuto, furious and flushed, Oshitari, steady and pained- and felt the ache sharpen into something else entirely.
He walked away.
He found a corner. He breathed.
Kabaji found him, looking down with the specific concern of someone who had known him a long time and asked questions slowly and meant them.
"Are you okay, Hiyoshi-kun?"
"Yeah." He said. "Just thinking about my life choices."
"Is it anything you want to talk about?"
Hiyoshi looked at him. Nobody knew about the arrangement. He'd been careful about that. "There's not much to talk about. I'm chasing something that's not there and I'm getting sick of it."
Kabaji nodded. "Maybe you should take a break and re-evaluate."
"Yeah." Hiyoshi said. "I think that's a good idea."
He looked across the room to where Gakuto and Oshitari were standing. Gakuto was still animated. Oshitari had his hand on his shoulder.
He'd been looking at them a lot lately. He was aware of that.
"I'm gonna head out." He said.
Kabaji looked toward where he'd been looking. "You've been looking at them a lot lately."
"They're annoying." Hiyoshi said.
"I hope you find your answer." Kabaji said, with the simple sincerity that was entirely Kabaji.
Hiyoshi smiled despite himself. "Thanks."
He went home.
His brother was surprised to see him.
"I thought you were staying with your friends."
"Changed my mind."
"Are you fighting with your friends?"
"Mind your own business."
His brother read him well enough not to push. He provided sake instead and sat with him without asking questions, which was exactly what Hiyoshi needed.
"Let me teach a few more classes." Hiyoshi said, staring at his cup. "My schedule has freed up."
"Sure." His brother said carefully.
Hiyoshi drank his sake and thought about the ache and the arrangement and months of telling himself it was enough. Then he went to bed.
He looked at his phone. Zero notifications.
He wasn't surprised. He was always an afterthought anyway. This was probably for the best.
He set his phone face down and stared at the ceiling.
Then his phone vibrated. The group chat.
[Hiyoshi left early.] Zaizen. [Are you okay?]
[yeah where are you?] Kirihara.
Hiyoshi picked it up. [just decided to come home.]
[Uh huh.] Zaizen replied. [sure.]
[What. A guy can't be tired?]
[Kenya talks to his cousin a lot.] A warning.
Hiyoshi groaned. [So what.]
[Do you want me to say it in front of Kirihara?]
[sey what?] Kirihara asked immediately.
[Nothing.] Hiyoshi typed. [It's nothing Zaizen. Drop it.]
[Uh huh. That's why you left early.]
Hiyoshi's fingers tightened on his phone. [You all were busy anyway so what does it matter? What time was I supposed to stay? Wasn't aware there was a minimum amount of time I had to be there.]
Kaidoh cut in. [Lay off, Zaizen.]
[Fine.] Zaizen complained. [How terrible of me to care about my friend.]
[I said I was just tired.] It was the truth. He was tired of being jerked around. Tired of being a third wheel. Tired of the ache.
[Well, if you want to talk, I can head back to my hotel room.] Zaizen sent. [Kenya found his cousin so I have nobody left to pay attention to.]
Hiyoshi stared at his phone for a moment. [Fine, since you want to hear about it so bad.]
[I'm going to make you feel better.] Zaizen replied. [That's why I'm calling.]
[Fine. Go ahead and call.]
There was a brief delay, presumably Zaizen extracting himself from the party, and then his phone vibrated with the call.
He picked up.
"So." Zaizen said, without preamble. "What happened."
Hiyoshi looked at the ceiling. "Nothing you need to worry about."
"Kenya's cousin talks a lot." Zaizen said. "I know more than you think I do."
"Then you don't need me to explain it."
"I want to hear your version." A pause. "And you clearly need to talk to someone who isn't your brother and also isn't them."
Hiyoshi was quiet for a moment.
"I'm tired of it." He said finally. "The whole thing. I'm getting sick of being on the outside looking in and I said so tonight and it went badly and now I'm home."
"Okay." Zaizen said. Not pushing. Just there.
"I thought about ending it." Hiyoshi said. "The arrangement. Just walking away and being done with it."
"But?"
"But." Hiyoshi exhaled. "I can't. Which is the problem."
"Because you actually like them."
"Obviously."
"Both of them." Zaizen said. It wasn't a question.
"Obviously." Hiyoshi said again.
A pause.
"You should tell them that." Zaizen said. "Like. Directly. In words."
"I have been." Hiyoshi said. "They're not receiving the message."
"Then be more direct." Zaizen said. "You're terrible at being direct about things that matter to you personally. You're direct about everything else. It's very annoying."
Hiyoshi almost laughed despite himself. "Thank you for that assessment."
"I'm serious. They probably think you're fine with how things are because you never actually said you weren't."
"I said things."
"You said adjacent things." Zaizen said. "That's different."
Hiyoshi stared at the ceiling.
"Next time." Zaizen said. "Just say the actual thing."
"Next time might be too late."
"It might not be." A pause. "Do you want me to fake your death in the meantime?"
Hiyoshi snorted. "...Sure. Next time I'll ask for that."
"I'll keep it on offer." Zaizen said. "Get some sleep. Message me tomorrow."
"Yeah." Hiyoshi said. "Thanks."
He hung up.
He looked at his phone. Still zero notifications from them. He set it face down again.
Ten minutes later, a message from Gakuto. [You're faking your own death to avoid me!?]
Hiyoshi stared at it.
[The person you are trying to reach is not available.] He typed.
His phone rang immediately.
He picked up. "What. I'm trying to sleep."
"What's wrong with expecting you to respond when I send you a message!?"
"I think I dropped enough hints."
"God, why are you being such a bitch today!?"
"I thought I would give you a break from the job." Hiyoshi said flatly.
"Jokes on you, I out bitch anyone! Anyway, where are you?"
"Home."
"We'll be there soon."
"Do not come here. It's late."
"You should have considered that when you decided to fight with us."
Hiyoshi closed his eyes. "You're just mad you're not getting two dicks tonight. Go find someone else."
"Is that what this is about!? You suddenly being an insecure baby!?"
"Yes. Sure. If we say that, will you leave me alone?"
A silence.
"You ASSHOLE." Gakuto said. The bluster had changed quality. "Do you think I'd just let anyone-"
"Oshitari-san would have to like them too." Hiyoshi said, tired.
"And we decided we liked you, dumbass."
"To have sex with."
"Have you met Yuushi before!? He doesn't do not-serious."
"Seems to me he was doing it just fine."
"Stop being a brat and listen to me!"
Hiyoshi was quiet.
"You're not some kind of sex toy." Gakuto said. The performance was entirely gone now. "We're serious about you. Jerk."
Hiyoshi wished he could believe that. He really did. "Right. Totally explains why I feel like I only ever get called over for sex. Totally explains the number of times I've been brushed off when I try to ask you places. Absolutely explains the way you guys rush me out when we're done."
A silence.
"I didn't-" Gakuto started. "I didn't want you to feel trapped. So I kept it casual. When that was what you seemed to want."
"Have I ever done anything casually, Mukahi-san."
"You're the one that said it was casual! When you came on to us in the first place!"
"I was drunk!"
"So!?"
"So when I kept coming back I thought it would be obvious I was actually interested." Hiyoshi's voice was doing something he didn't want it to do. "But when I asked you two out on a date you brushed me off." He stopped. "I don't think badly of you. It's just... why keep hurting myself like this? You two have something really special."
Gakuto was quiet.
"After I received my yondan rank." Hiyoshi said. "I invited you both to the ceremony and for dinner afterward. But you said you were busy."
"Oh." Gakuto said. "That was supposed to be a date?"
"Yes."
"I didn't realize. I thought you were just being polite."
"You were the only ones I invited."
Another silence. Longer.
"Oh." Gakuto said again, smaller.
"Look." Hiyoshi said. "It's fine. I've got things in perspective now. I'm sorry for everything. I'll leave you both alone."
"But we like having you around." Gakuto's voice was strange. Stripped of everything.
Hiyoshi thought about Kirihara saying into a journalist's recorder that love was people who showed up and treated you well. He'd sent them that article. He'd read it three times himself first.
"Do you remember what Kirihara said? In that article."
"...About people who show up?"
"Yeah."
A pause.
"I'm not good at showing up." Gakuto said, quietly. "Even for Yuushi."
"That's a lie and you know it." Hiyoshi said. "You're always bragging about him. You have this look when you talk about him. And he's always there the moment you call. Sometimes even when you don't. You two really have something special."
"Yuushi's just good at taking care of people."
"At taking care of you." Hiyoshi said. "He loves you."
"That doesn't mean there isn't a place for you."
"Why are you so desperate for me to stay?" Hiyoshi's voice cracked, finally. He couldn't stop it. "It's obvious I don't fit. It's lonely."
"Because I like you, idiot!" Gakuto snapped.
Hiyoshi pressed his hand over his eyes. "Let me sleep this off. I'm drunk."
A pause. Then, quietly: "Yeah. We'll reach out tomorrow."
"Okay."
He hung up.
He slept, eventually.
In the morning his brother appeared in the doorway. "Uh. Your friend is here."
Hiyoshi stared at him. "Can you tell him I'm dead?"
"I've tried." His brother laughed awkwardly. "He insists."
Hiyoshi sighed. "Fine. Send him in."
He was expecting Gakuto.
It was Oshitari.
"Wakashi."
"Oshitari-san."
Oshitari offered a small smile and sat when Hiyoshi gestured. Hiyoshi busied himself making tea, needing something to do with his hands.
"Gakuto told me about your conversation last night." Oshitari said. "I thought it would be better to speak with you without him for now."
"What did he tell you?"
"That you want more than we've given you."
Hiyoshi froze. "He misunderstood."
"Did he? He was particularly distraught. Apparently you asked us out and he misunderstood and turned you down, and he's fairly certain that's why you want to end things."
"That isn't the only reason." Hiyoshi set a cup in front of Oshitari. "I'm just tired of it."
"I see." Oshitari looked at his tea. "If you're tired there probably isn't much I can do to change your mind."
"It's really lonely." Hiyoshi said. "Being with you two. You're everything to each other."
"Not everything." Oshitari said. "There's something missing."
Hiyoshi blinked. "Thinking about kids?"
Oshitari looked at him. "What? No. I was talking about you, Wakashi. Read the room a little."
Hiyoshi gritted his teeth. "Why are you insisting on this now? I was already there with you, and it felt like there was no room for me."
Oshitari looked sad in the quiet way he did things. "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to make you feel like that. Maybe you fit in so naturally that we didn't realize we had to change how we expressed ourselves." He brushed the hair from his face. "You're important to us both."
"I don't want you to change for me." Hiyoshi hung his head. "If it wasn't obvious I was lonely, doesn't that just mean you didn't have time to look?"
"Wakashi." Oshitari reached over and put a hand on Hiyoshi's cheek, gently. "I'm sorry. Let us make it up to you."
Hiyoshi's eyes burned. "I thought you two knew me well enough to know I was serious. Being brushed off really hurt."
"It was my fault." Oshitari said. "I didn't want to overwhelm you and scare you away, so I told Gakuto we should keep things casual to begin with." He leaned in and kissed Hiyoshi, soft and deliberate. "I kept it far too casual. I'm sorry."
Hiyoshi sniffled. He hated being an easy crier. "What's done is done."
"Everything I have with Gakuto-" Oshitari said, "-you're the only one I'd share it with."
Hiyoshi leaned slightly closer. "What if I get stuck on the outside again."
"Just call for us. We'll let you back in without complaint." A small pause. "Gakuto might complain just to get a rise out of you."
"I'm still not sure this is what he wants." Hiyoshi said. "He likes all your attention."
"He was very upset about you potentially leaving." Oshitari wrapped his arms around Hiyoshi. "He cares for you a great deal."
Hiyoshi let himself be held. "I care about him too. About both of you." He exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry for making everything complicated."
"You're special enough that we want to let you in." Oshitari said. "Gakuto's upset you don't want to live with us, you know."
Hiyoshi pulled back. "When did I ever say that?"
"He's been hinting you should for over a month."
"He basically kicks me out after we have sex!" Hiyoshi stared at him. "What hints? Where were they?"
Oshitari's mouth curved. "I'll let him explain that one."
He came back with them.
Gakuto was waiting with the specific energy of someone who had prepared several things to say and was uncertain which order to say them in. He opened his mouth.
Hiyoshi hugged him.
Gakuto made a sound like air leaving a balloon. Then his arms came up.
"You're an idiot." He said, into Hiyoshi's shoulder.
"I know." Hiyoshi said.
"I'm also an idiot."
"I know that too."
Gakuto leaned back and narrowed his eyes. "Did you just agree that I'm an idiot."
"You said it yourself."
"I'll bite you."
"Try it."
Gakuto did not bite him. He leaned against his chest instead, and Hiyoshi rubbed his back, and Oshitari settled beside them both with the quiet satisfaction of a man watching something click into place.
They stayed like that for a while. The particular comfortable quiet of people who had been in each other's orbit for years and had finally stopped pretending about it.
"How could I not like being with you?" Hiyoshi said eventually. "I liked you first."
Gakuto puffed out his chest. "I know."
Hiyoshi looked at him. "You know?"
"You always watched me." Gakuto said, with the specific ease of someone stating a long-established fact. "I could figure out you had a crush when we were back in school." A pause. "I had a lot going on then, though."
"I didn't really realize it then." Hiyoshi said. "That it was a crush."
Gakuto nodded. "Honestly, I was a mess until Yuushi managed to get through to me." He said it lightly, the way he said most things. But there was something underneath it, the particular lightness of someone who had learned to carry something heavy by holding it casually.
Hiyoshi kissed his neck. "I'm sorry you went through that."
Gakuto shrugged. "It wasn't so bad. I always had my friends." He was quiet for a moment. "My old man just started getting worse and worse the older I got."
Hiyoshi went still. "He never..." He stopped. "Did he hurt you?"
The mood shifted. Something in Gakuto's posture changed- not closing off exactly, but adjusting. "I mean. There's a reason I got my own place with Yuushi senior year."
Hiyoshi's jaw tightened. "I'll kill him."
Gakuto shook his head. "He's not worth it."
"I'll kill anyone who dares lay a hand on you." Hiyoshi said. Completely sincere. Completely calm about it, which was somehow more convincing than anger would have been.
Gakuto looked at him for a moment. Then he leaned against Hiyoshi's chest.
"Yuushi said the same thing." He said. "I believe you more, though."
Hiyoshi rubbed his back. "I am a weapons expert."
"Yeah. You don't have noodly limbs like Yuushi either." Gakuto felt up his bicep with great interest.
"He's got a nice voice though." Hiyoshi said.
"Yuushi's voice is hot." Gakuto agreed, completely seriously.
Hiyoshi looked at Oshitari over Gakuto's head. Oshitari was watching Gakuto with the pointed expression of someone who had fought very hard for something and was glad every day that they had. Hiyoshi understood that now in a way he hadn't before.
"You work me up the most though." Hiyoshi said, to Gakuto.
Gakuto looked extremely pleased with himself. "What can I say? I have you and Yuushi under my thumb."
Hiyoshi laid his hands on Gakuto's hips. "You're an evil mastermind."
"You should punish me." Gakuto said. "Maybe get Yuushi in on it too."
Hiyoshi snorted. "Maybe we should."
What followed was, in Hiyoshi's assessment, a significant improvement on the arrangement they'd had before. Everything the same and everything different, in the very specific way that naming something changed it.
Later, when Gakuto had fallen asleep between them, Hiyoshi said quietly: "I love you both."
Oshitari smiled. "I love you too."
"Saps." Gakuto said, not asleep at all.
Hiyoshi looked at the ceiling. "Maybe I'll earn getting to hear it from you someday."
"Gakuto prefers to show his feelings with actions." Oshitari said.
"I know."
"Still." Oshitari looked at Gakuto. "Hearing it would be nice."
Gakuto huffed. "Fine. I love you both."
Hiyoshi settled into the warmth of them.
"I have to go home tomorrow." He said.
"Not for good, right?" Gakuto said immediately, squinting at him.
"To tell my family I'm moving out." Hiyoshi said. "And to tell my brother I can't take those extra classes after all."
Gakuto looked extremely pleased. "Good. I approve."
"Thanks for the approval." Hiyoshi said dryly. "You two owe me for missing my ranking ceremony though."
"We'll come to the next one." Gakuto said.
"When I'm thirty?"
"Duh."
Hiyoshi looked at them. At Gakuto, completely certain, and Oshitari, watching him with the patient warmth that was entirely Oshitari.
"Wait." He said. "You... you mean..."
"Of course we plan to be around for that." Oshitari said simply.
Hiyoshi covered his face.
His eyes were burning again. He was a martial artist. He had a yondan rank. He was absolutely not going to...
"Awe." Gakuto snuggled into him. "Is little Hiyoshi being shy all of a sudden?" He pressed close to his blushing boyfriend. "You're the one who wanted more. You ought to be ready for it."
Hiyoshi wiped his eyes. "I'm just really happy."
"Well good." Gakuto said.
Oshitari smiled. "I'm glad we could work things out."
Hiyoshi was sure there would be times he and Gakuto butted heads. There always would be. But maybe he would start just hugging him when it happened. See how that went.
A bit later he sent a message to the group chat.
[I'm fine now.]
Zaizen replied immediately. [Did you talk to the source of your problem?]
Hiyoshi thought about it for a moment. These three were his best friends. He could tell them anything.
[Yeah. I'm moving in with Yuushi-san and Gakuto-san.]
[why are you moving in with your senpai?] Kirihara asked, missing the point entirely.
[They're fucking, Kirihara. You do the math.] Zaizen replied.
[We are in a relationship.] Hiyoshi typed. [Like you with Tanegashima-san and Shiraishi-san. It's not just fucking.]
[So you guys worked it out. Cool.] Zaizen replied.
Then Kirihara lost his mind. [OH MY GOD SINCE WHEN!?] And immediately: [WE CAN GO ON TRIPLE DATES!]
Hiyoshi snickered at his phone. [We just made it official today.]
[NICE! SO HAPPY FOR YOU!]
[So I guess I can look forward to your idiot boyfriend calling up my idiot boyfriend to tell him the news soon.] Zaizen sent. [Thanks for the warning.]
[Because he can't stop himself from gossiping.] Hiyoshi sent.
[Yeah, he has absolutely no filter.] Zaizen agreed.
He set his phone down and looked at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, which he was going to be leaving very soon.
The ache was gone.
Something warmer was there instead.
It had been there all along, probably. He'd just been too busy managing the other thing to notice.