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Hiori sits outside of the ryokan like something of a ghost. Karasu imagines it for a moment: the legend of the blue ghost in the field behind the ryokan, with his big, sad eyes that he tugs you into if you look at him for too long, if you start to feel bad for him.
Luckily for Karasu, he doesn’t feel bad about anything. Honest!
“Hiori!” he yells. Hiori’s shape flinches. “Come back inside, will ya?”
Hiori turns to look at him over his shoulder. Something twitches in Karasu’s chest. He’s going to be sucked in, after all, it seems.
.
Karasu looks quite serious from the side like this; a far cry from the bully he usually shows. But that’s what it is, isn’t it? A show.
Hiori knows some things about that, but maybe he’s just projecting. He breathes in the breeze, tries to see if he can pick out Karasu’s scent, but instead, it blows his bangs into his face.
“Y’gotta do it like this,” says Karasu.
Hiori bats his hair out of his eyes, and there’s Karasu, crawfish pinched between his fingers, held at arm’s length. He grins when he notices Hiori’s gaze. Hiori can’t breathe right.
.
Hiori’s too close, his stare too wide. It’s pathetic, perhaps, but Karasu’s gaze inevitably flickers off the side and gets lost in the steam. And anyhow, they’re both naked, so if Hiori could stop staring like that…!
That’s the thing, though, ain’t it?
Maybe part of him thought that in Blue Lock, whatever… interest, or whatever, Hiori harbored for him would evaporate. There’s so many extraordinary guys here, after all.
Still. So, big game tomorrow, eh? he wants to say, but nothing comes out. It’s hard to be all tense about Blue Lock’s—his own—fate like this.
Hiori stares.
.
Karasu’s seething. It itches under Hiori’s skin, the vague impulse to prod further, to see what happens if he boils over.
What takes priority, however, is the warmth swelling in Hiori’s chest. He truly didn’t mind Isagi’s words—this electricity of Isagi’s is what pulled him back to football, after all—but it’s nice that Karasu defended him. Feels nice. Now, how much of that was for Hiori and how much stemmed from his dislike of Isagi…
He reaches out, nudges at Karasu’s sweat-slick jaw. “Thank you, Karasu-kun.”
Karasu’s eyes go a wide, his lips parting. Hiori skips past him.