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Hoshiumi let himself in just before nine, having had a key ever since Tobio had moved in and reading the texts that Ushijima had sent him the night before along with a genuinely alarming amount of instruction. Medication times, a note about what Tobio had eaten this morning and what food was in the food for later and a reminder that the thermostat needed to stay at nineteen and not wherever Hoshiumi found comfortable.
The apartment was quiet when he came in, TV off this time and the nest was more built up than it had been four days ago, more blankets layered in, though from what Hoshiumi could see poking up over the edge. Tobio was awake, or awake enough, propped against the pillow wall with his eyes at blinking at him slowly like he was on the brink of falling back asleep and an expression that made him look like he'd personally been wronged by something in the last five minutes.
"Hey," Hoshiumi said, dropping his bag by the door. "Ushiwaka still here?"
"Getting ready." Tobio's voice came out thinner than usual with words slurring into each other. "He's freaking out about leaving."
"He's always freaking out about leaving. It's kind of his whole thing now." Hoshiumi came further in, and caught Tobio's scent that had gotten steadily stronger every time Hoshiumi had been over this week, melon gone syrupy-sweet with the green tea note behind it thickened with honey in a way it never carried on an ordinary day. He'd gotten used to picking it out over the years, the same way he'd gotten used to picking out everyone's scent on the team without really trying anymore. As a beta his sense of smell wasn't the best as alphas or omegas but he had found that as he became better friends with Tobio and hung out with him more he could pick out the day to day differences more and more.
Ushijima appeared from the direction of the bedroom a moment later, gym bag over one shoulder, already dressed for weights, and the look he gave Hoshiumi on the way past was the specific flavor of intense that Hoshiumi had started thinking of, privately, as Ushijima's do not screw this up face, deployed almost exclusively in situations involving Tobio's wellbeing.
"He had the ten a.m. dose twenty minutes ago," Ushijima said, angling himself slightly away from the nest as if Tobio couldn't hear him from two meters away with nothing but a half-wall made of pillows between them, but given how out of it he currently looked it there may have been some truth in that. "The next one isn't until two. If he says he wants more before then, he doesn't need more, he's confused about the timing. Water's on the counter, already filled. There's miso soup if he can manage it and please do not turn the temperature up for any reason, he's already hot enough."
"You've told me about the temperature thing four times this week."
"I am telling you a fifth time because it matters."
"Toshi." Tobio's voice came from the nest, thin and a little petulant. "Stop telling him things. Just go."
Ushijima's whole face did something complicated at that and after a beat he crossed back over, crouched at the edge of the nest and said something low that Hoshiumi didn't quite catch and didn’t really want to and the goodbye ended with Ushijima pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Then he was up and out the door with one last lingering look back at Tobio then he ducked out and closed the door behind him with a quiet click.
"He's so annoying," Tobio said, without any real venom in it and slumped back further into the pillows.
"He's worried about you."
"I know. That's the annoying part." A pause, and then, quieter, "I miss him already and he's only been gone like ten seconds."
Hoshiumi had absolutely no intention of telling him how sweet that sounded, mostly out of self-preservation, because Tobio in this state was unpredictable in ways that ordinary Tobio wasn't. There was a fifty-fifty chance that saying something like that out loud right now would get him something thrown at his head or a sleepy, unbothered look that made him look frankly adorable. As of now he was currently getting away with the look and he was not going to jinx it. He came over instead and dropped down at the edge of the nest, close enough that Tobio immediately migrated toward him a few inches, some magnetic instinct that Hoshiumi had noticed overtime that he didn't want to mention in case Tobio got upset with him.
"How you feeling," Hoshiumi asked.
"Cold." A beat. "Also hot. I don't know. Both."
"That's helpful."
"You didn't ask a helpful question." Tobio tugged at the nearest blanket, a soft grey one that Hoshiumi recognized as one that Hirugami gave to Tobio just before his first heat, dragging it further up to put it on his lap. Immediately he shoved it back down a few inches and shoved to the side so it wasn't touching him. "This one's scratchy."
"It's the same blanket that was there yesterday."
"It feels different today."
Hoshiumi had learned over the years that there was no arguing when Tobio was like this, a particular type of stubborn that came out in any sort of arguments about anything from rotation drills to blanket opinions. When he was in preheat or post-heat it just made him somehow more stubborn and unwilling to budge even if he may have been wrong, something that he tried to avoid because fighting with Tobio when he was like this just made him feel bad about himself.
He reached instead for an older one that was a horrific shade of orange that Bokuto got for him when they were in Brazil and scented it thoroughly whenever he visited; something that happened more and more often now that Bokuto was living in the area.
Tobio took it, considered it with the deep suspicion of a man checking for a trick while letting Bokuto's scent of honey and tobacco brush over him and then apparently satisfied, tugged it over himself and made a small little hum as the blanket settled on him.
"Better."
"Cool. Glad we solved that."
"There's still not enough blankets."
Hoshiumi looked over quite pointedly at the nest which currently contained what he estimated to be nine separate blankets in various states of deployment plus a minimum six pillows forming the wall, plus at least two more blankets folded neatly to one side apparently as reserves. "Tobio. There's so many blankets. I've never seen this many blankets in one place that wasn't, like, a blanket store."
"They're not the right ones."
"Which ones are the right ones."
"I don't know yet. I'll know when I have them." Said with total, refusal to budge on that or expand at all. Just completely convinced that he'd know when it felt right.
The apartment smelled like him, thick and sweet, layered over the top of everything else in it. Ushijima's own outdoorsy scent that was deeper than Tobio's settled around the entire apartment and Hoshiumi's own scent of almond and sea salt that had worked its way into at least one blanket that Tobio had draped over him.
He'd never say it out loud, but there was something almost strange about how much stronger Tobio's sweet scent got each visit. Not anything unpleasant, just something unmistakably more, in a way that made the whole apartment feel smaller and warmer and cozier than it actually was.
"You want anything," Hoshiumi asked. "Ushiwaka said soup, if you're up for it."
Tobio considered that with visible effort, brow furrowing. "Maybe later."
"Cool. I'll make something anyway, in case later happens fast." He pushed up out of the nest, careful not to disturb the careful architecture and made his way to the kitchen, which was literally six steps away from the nest. Tobio had signed his lease for a rookie apartment, the same one that everyone did when they were rookies although they had all moved out after their first year. A small, cramped apartment that had only one bedroom and the living room doubled as the dining room in an open floor plan more because it was too small to put any kind of barrier. The front door was able to be seen from everywhere and the kitchen as well, something good for Tobio who would watch him or Ushijima make him food or get him drinks when he was shaky and tired like he was right now.
He put the kettle on, more out of habit than any actual plan and rifled through the overstocked shelves until he found the crackers that Ushijima kept stocked in the back of the pantry just in case. They were plain, unseasoned, the kind that wouldn't offend a stomach this unsettled and set them on a small plate along with one of the electrolyte drinks that coach despised them drinking during the competition season and brought it back over to the nest.
"Crackers," he said, presenting the plate with a flair. "To try."
Tobio eyed them with the deep suspicion he'd apparently decided to apply to everything today and then, slowly, reached for one and took a small nibble, chewing with the caution of someone checking whether his own stomach was going to keep it down. It did in fact appear to like the cracker because a moment later he took a second bite and Hoshiumi counted that as a small win but a win nonetheless.
"Good?"
"'S fine." A pause, chewing. "You put too much thought into snacks."
"I put a normal amount of thought into snacks."
"You brought that almond chocolate stuff last time. The pocky's. And Toshi doesn't even like chocolate almonds that much, he just eats them because you keep bringing them."
Hoshiumi felt oddly caught off guard by that, mostly because it was true; he did have a habit of bringing snacks that leaned toward his own scent profile, almonds more than the salt, without really meaning anything by it beyond simply liking them himself. "I didn't bring anything with almonds today."
"I know. I'm just saying." Tobio took another bite of cracker, chewing slower now, some of the earlier sharpness in his voice fading back into the thin, tired quality from before. "You smell like almonds anyway. And salt. Like the beach."
"I've been told that before, yeah."
"It's a good smell." Said simply, without any particular weight behind it, Tobio's usual filters becoming nonexistent this deep into preheat, saying things out loud that he'd never volunteer on an ordinary day. "Toshi smells like dirt. Good dirt though. Like after it rains."
"I've heard that description before too."
"Romero smells weird."
That one caught Hoshiumi genuinely off guard and he snickered before he could stop himself. "Weird how?"
"Like oranges. And cigarettes, kind of, but not really cigarettes. Musky." Tobio's brow furrowed again, his brain working through the description with more focus than the topic probably deserved, though Hoshiumi suspected that was just where his brain had decided to spend its remaining energy today. "It's not bad. Just weird. Like he smokes a cigarette and then eats an orange right after."
"That's," He weighed his words carefully, "oddly specific."
"He came by last night. Brought me a sweatshirt." Said matter-of-factly and he started to pat around the nest with a growing frown on his face as he searched for it. Hoshiumi moved to go closer and help look just as Tobio let out a quiet triumphant huff and tugged the sweatshirt from somewhere under the blankets and tossed it towards Hoshiumi.
"Smell it," Tobio said while wriggling back under his blankets. "You'll see."
So he did. And as weird as the explanation was it was undeniably accurate. Romero, now thirty-two and officially ancient, had a particularly easy relationship with all omega teammates or at least from what Hoshiumi had seen. A decade of international leagues meant that Tobio being an omega was nothing more than a footnote to him and instead he had always fussed and doted a bit more on him because Tobio had been eighteen years old when he first met Romero. He had treated him like a teenage prodigy that happened to be on his team, because that is what Tobio was. Later on when Tobio had to take time away for his heats he never made him feel bad and instead had always treated it casually like nothing big was happening. According to Tobio he also typically dropped by with some sort of meal for him in the recovery portion of his heat, according to Ushijima that something that Romero had never forgotten to do.
"What's Heiwajima smell like?"
"Spices. Like cardamom, and cinnamon, that kind of thing. Autumn stuff." A small pause, considering. "Vanilla and maybe rum underneath it? It's nice. Comforting."
"And Hirugami?"
"Clean laundry. And that green plant smell, the calming one." A vague gesture, groping for the word. "Rosmary maybe? Or oregano? He always smells like he just did the wash and let some of it airdry in front of a herb garden."
"Huh," he said letting the description roll around in his head for a moment. "Fitting, for the captain."
"Sokolov smells like a Christmas tree." Delivered with total seriousness, and Hoshiumi had to bite down on another laugh, because it was such a specifically Tobio way to describe someone. "And that smell right before it snows."
"You've got everyone's smell mapped out, huh."
"I don't try to. It just happens." A small, tired shrug, the cracker in his hand mostly finished now, a few crumbs scattered across the blanket that he made no move to brush away.
"Smells are stronger this week. Everything's stronger this week."
Hoshiumi didn't say anything to that, just reached over and brushed the crumbs away himself and Tobio let him do it without complaint, eyes drifting half-shut again to a sleepy haze.
"'M cold again," Tobio mumbled, after a moment, tugging the fleece blanket up higher.
"You just said this one was good."
"It was. Now I'm cold again."
"You want the heavy one on top too?"
A pause, considering, then a small nod and Hoshiumi reached for the thick quilted blanket folded to one side and laid it carefully over the top of the fleece. He tucked the edges in the way he'd watched Ushijima do it on his last visit, making sure that the fuzzier blankets were all covered underneath so that the scratchier fabric didn't touch Tobio's more sensitive skin.
Tobio made a small, satisfied sound and burrowed down even further and for a few minutes the apartment went quiet except for the low hum of the kettle, which Hoshiumi had entirely forgotten about until it started whistling faintly from the kitchen.
He moved to deal with it, making a cup of the hojicha tea Ushijima had specifically pointed out in the cabinet the day before for Tobio and a cup of genmaicha for himself.
Tobio's mug collection had grown substantially since the last time he was here to use it. Just like any athlete that ended up travelling for competitions Tobio had been urged to pick up something like shot glasses or magnets to keep memories. The thing was that Tobio had been eighteen years old, aka a baby, when he had started out and was also living on his own for the first time. It had not been much of a surprise that he didn't have much in his kitchen, but after a few months when Hoshiumi had gone into his kitchen and found one single spoon an intervention had been staged.
So now instead of magnets or keychains Tobio collected things like mugs or bowls or little dishes that now made up most of his kitchen supplies. It made for a nice collection of usable things that were from all over the world.
"Thanks," Tobio said, quietly, into the tea Hoshiumi handed him next, both hands wrapped around the mug, this one was from Sweden that he had gotten a few months ago, like he needed the warmth of it just as much as the contents.
"No problem."
"You're not as annoying as usual."
"Wow. High praise."
"I mean it." Tobio took a slow sip, eyes still half-lidded, voice thinning further toward sleep. "You're good at this. The taking care of stuff." A pause. "Toshi worries too much. You're calmer."
"I worry plenty, I just don't show it as much."
"I know. But it's nice. Right now." He said it simply, without any real weight behind it, just an observation offered the way he'd offered the scent descriptions earlier, unfiltered and honest in the specific way this week always made him, and Hoshiumi felt something warm and a little startled settle in his own chest at it, some quiet satisfaction he didn't examine too closely.
"C'mere." Tobio said with a sleepy tone, stretching an arm out to tug on Hoshiumi's shirt.
"Okay, okay." Hoshiumi said with a laugh, sitting down in Tobio's nest and letting himself be maneuvered around to wherever Tobio needed him to be.
"You need to put this on," Tobio mumbled a few minutes later, evidently annoyed by the fact that Hoshiumi was still wearing his own perfectly comfortable clothes.
"I have a sweatshirt on already, Tobio."
"Wrong one." One hand emerged from the blankets and shoved a soft grey sweatshirt against Hoshiumi's chest. By the smell of it and the size Hoshiumi would bet that it was Hirugami's or at least used to be.
"This one. It's softer."
"As much as I like you, I'm not stripping in your living room."
"Bathroom, then." He said with complete unbothered certainty, as though the objection had only ever been about logistics and not about the fact that Tobio wanted him to strip in front of him. Laughing despite the oddity of the situation, he took the sweatshirt and did exactly what Tobio asked, changing in the bathroom. Not even a minute later he wandered back, tossing his shirt and sweatshirt over to Tobio when he made his way back over.
"Better?" he asked, climbing back into the nest after carefully taking the half drunk tea from Tobio's fingers and putting it on the floor far enough away from them so it won't get knocked over accidentally.
"Better," Tobio agreed, not wasting a moment he started pulling him back down into the same position as before and Hoshiumi let him. It cost him nothing and seemed to matter a lot to Tobio and he let Tobio tug him around and put him into place which made the omega sigh in contentment after the two of them ended up tangled together.
"Glad to help," he said and meaning every bit of it.
Tobio didn't answer that mostly because his eyes had fluttered shut and his breathing had gone slow and soft in the way that meant that he was genuinely going to fall asleep in the next few minutes. Hoshiumi took that as a sign to curl in a bit closer to hopefully ease off some of Tobio's need for touch that would strike him sooner rather than later gauging on the smell of honey that was deepening and the melon that had sweetened so much it as if one had been split open right in front of his nose.
Ushijima would be back whenever he could manage to wriggle out of coaches grasp and make it back in as soon as he could and Hoshiumi decided that he wanted to be firmly asleep by the time that arrived. He watched as Tobio gave a blanket a half-ass kick towards him and rolled his eyes as he shoved it on top of his legs. From there he stayed where he was, hearing Tobio's breaths soften even more and let his own eyes flutter close and let himself fall asleep.