Work Text:
The last time Minato talked to Koyuki, she said nothing in return. She gave him a bothered glance, then turned back to Yota. Like he didn’t even exist.
With a sigh, he settled deeper into the cold bleacher. Compression sleeves on each limb, two shirts, and a blood-throttling pair of cleats, but still Minato felt cold.
There’s a gross implication made whenever he spoke to women; one he’s well aware of.
Even last month, he found it advantageous. Another tool that helped him help them. The collective “other” who needed a handsome guy in their corner—and who had never been seen in that way before.
Of course, he would never have sex with them, but the implication had helped some of them enough to make up for this fact. Sometimes, the same was even true for the men he’d help. (He himself was painfully straight, but he liked to make a vague reference every so-often. Everyone loves a vague reference.)
But the first time he made a slightly flirty comment to Koyuki—even though it happened after almost three months of relationship building—she shut him down.
He was studying with Koyuki, Yota and Miki when they all settled on takeout. Koyuki was taking orders and, unbeknownst to the others, added a couple of drinks to the order. Things she knew the others loved, milk teas and sodas, that sort of thing. As she sent out her Venmo requests, she didn’t even account for them in her price requests. So, when the orders arrived at her door, and she came back in with a pallet of drinks and a massive bag of Chinese food, the collective was uproarious in their cheers.
With a Cheshire grin and a hand under his chin, Minato gave her a dreamy look and said: “Koyuki, I could kiss you right now.”
With her head buried in the bag as she retrieved her chow mein, she quietly said: “Stop that.”
Immediately, he seized up. Their friends around him gave him a deadly look, which only accelerated his embarrassment. He bowed his head to avoid their stares and quickly apologized.
Pulling her head out of the bag, she quickly added an apology of her own.
“No, I’m sorry too. That was like—I just don’t really like jokes like that,” she said.
Slowly, things returned to normalcy at the table. Miki immediately pivoted to a story about her day, and Koyuki started serving the table. Lan and fan went on plates and drinks were taken from their plastic-y carrier and put by each person’s dishes.
As she placed Minato’s drink in front of him, she softly leaned into him and said: “Jokes like that…I dunno.” She shrugged. “They make me feel gross. Like, that stuff be saved for people who are actually into each other.”
It’s been two weeks since that day, and she hasn’t given him a second look since. At first, he tried to convince himself that it didn’t really matter. I mean, it’s just a bad joke. People make bad jokes all the time. But then she stopped sitting next to him in their trig class, and then she stopped showing up to their little friend group’s Tuesday night drinks at his place.
They still study together—it seems his friendship with Yota and Miki bought him that much—but it’s like he’s walled off from all else. He doesn’t even let himself look her in the eyes anymore. Until she speaks to him, his mouth is sealed for good.
One of the strikers on the field begins jogging to the side of the pitch, and Minato immediately stands to his feet. Doesn’t really matter now, does it? Not like there’s anything he could’ve done. That’s who he is. He’s flirty. The only way to learn from your mistakes is to make them, right?
So why does it feel like this? As his cleats tear into the turf, he attempts to unpack his feelings in an exceedingly clumsy manner. Why does he feel hot around her? Embarrassment. Where does that embarrassment come from?
He charges forward and intercepts a pass from the visiting team. That Igarashi guy hated seeing him with her, didn’t he? That got him hot. Got Minato hot too. Red in the face, like he’d been caught doing something bad. Or like someone had caught on to something he’d been hiding. Minato spins around a defender, and positions himself for a shot.
“Here it comes,” he thinks. “Evidence that I’m a good guy. The perfect metaphor.”
Before he can reach his epiphany, Igarashi tackles him to the ground.
…
In the changing room before work, he slid a deodorant wipe up and down his armpits and in the crook of his knees. Two spritzes of his cologne dress his neck and wrists, his tote hangs on a hook, and his disgusting gym bag is shoved under his locker. The coffee smell consumes all the perfume after four hours, but he liked to be clean after practice. It gave him a little bit of control. Especially when there’s a severe case of turf burn tucked beneath his shirt.
He tied the green drawstrings of his apron behind his back and starts his shift, thoughts of Koyuki still running rampant in his mind. Yota and Minato call her Koyun. His smile as he took his customers orders was practically painted on. She’s just another charity case, right? A fun project for him to take on in his never-ending quest for additional responsibilities.
Hours pass like this. “Why do I care?” haunting him at every minute.
“Well, maybe if I had just paid more attention to her, she’d look at me more often.” He thought, spraying cold foam all over his apron.
Pre-closing with his forgettable coworker, he heard the bell ring behind him. There she is. For a second, their eyes make contact. He felt nothing but fear. What if she somehow knows?
“Knows what?” He thought to himself.
In her eyes, he’s only able to read disgust. Quickly, Minato bowed his head away from her, accepting what must be done.
It’s gotta be a clean break. Looking at her is torture. There are only so many Drake songs to be heard, only so many soccer games to be distracted from, only so many feelings he can feel. He walked at a conspicuously fast pace to the break room and gently shut the door behind him.
An hour later he left the break room. He was scolded by his coworker, called a useless piece of shit by his manager, then left alone to count the till and sweep and mop the store’s sticky floors. To his own chagrin, as soon as he put his headphones in his ears he played his sappy loverboy playlist. Drake and The Weeknd becoming a mainstay for him was beyond embarrassing. Koyuki liked mysterious guys. Guys who listened to cool artists with lowercase names and blurry guitars.
It was a little past midnight when he finally finished closing the chain coffeeshop. And it was a little past midnight when she sent him a message.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No.” He typed out.
He sent the message, then quietly slid his phone into his pocket. He smelled strongly of sugary coffee and cleaning solution. He was going to take a long, long shower when he got home, but first he had to walk across this 500 foot parking lot, carrying his sweat smelling gym back and his performative tote, just to get into his 2013 Chevy Cruze and drive the fifteen minutes.
“Can we talk?”
“Sure.”
“In-person?”
“OK.”
“Are you still at work?”
Only then did Minato realize she was there to see him.
He tried to play it cool: “Yeah, but I’m about to head out.”
Then quickly backslid: “Sorry I didn’t talk to you when you were here I had to do something in the backroom and it was really important but like not as important as you obviously I just had to get paid y’know”
The message was left on read for some time before she finally responded.
“OMW, I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Minato opened his gym bag and grabbed a deodorant wipe. He knew he couldn’t get all the sugary coffee off his skin, but he could at least get his arms. Then, he got out of his car with a renewed purpose. It’s gotta be a clean fix. She needs to forgive him and things need to go back to normal.
He settles on a bench in front of his closed store location and repeatedly scans the parking lot, as if anyone could arrive without his knowledge. There’s nothing in town outside of their campus. It’s just this. Strip-mall parking lots and star-studded skies. Minato looked for an attractive job, he really did, but there is no such thing as a local coffee shop here. At least his soccer team is D2.
Koyuki arrived two minutes later, swirling into the lot on her moped at a smooth 20MPH. She lived only a ten minute walk away, and that’s including the crosswalks.
As she came to a stop in front of him, she gently kicked out her bike’s stop and set it perfectly still. She unbuckled her helmet and hung it off a handlebar. And just as it looked like she was going to walk up to him and begin their conversation, she turned around one last time to check if the white hubcaps on her tires had been scuffed or stained in someway. She loved her scooter, its sparkly blue coloration and pearlescent white racing stripe perfectly complimented her personality. She loved it more than she loved Minato, that was for sure.
Slowly, she rose from the pavement and finally made her way to Minato’s table. Delicately, she swiped her skirt under her as she sat opposite him. Timidly, Minato refused to make eye contact with her. This disappointed her greatly.
“Minato,” she asked. “Are you sure you don’t hate me?”
“Why would I hate you?” He replied with faux ease.
“I don’t know!”
Koyun had been tormented by this boy for two weeks now. Every time she tried to look at him, he turned away. She doesn’t even know what happened to make them like this. She thought they were finally getting along, then one day, he just kicked her to the curb. Then he got weird around Yota, when he should already know that Yota likes Miki, and finally he turned on Miki too.
Koyun saw him talking to those two in the hall last week, and he acted normally around them. Seeing this, she elected to remove himself from that night’s visit to his apartment.
“You keep being weird around me and I don’t get it!”
Minato looked down at her and her reddening face. He felt a murmur in his heart. He gets it now. She rejected him and he didn’t even get it.
“I know you were being weird around me for a while there, but now you’re being weird around me in a different way, and I just want things to go back to normal.”
Minato takes a deep breath. “Koyuki…” He murmured, preparing himself. “I was just really busy. I’m sorry.”
He bites his tongue, wallowing in his own cowardice.
“Busy enough to stop looking at me for a week?” She sighed. “You aren’t even looking at me now!”
Under his breath, he said: “That’s not true.” And slowly raised his eyes to meet hers.
In her eyes, he could see stars. Ambergris fires that smelled of the open sea and a burning fireplace. He liked her a lot. More than a lot, he liked her enough to start thinking of metaphors and poems.
“I can look at you just fine.”
Koyuki’s breath grew heavier. “Good.” She said with a smile. “I’m happy you can look at me.”
For two weeks now, that’s all she’s wanted. Him to see her.