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When he opens the door that leads to the clubroom, there’s a grinning blond man draped over one of the old blue armchairs.
“Who is this?” he asks Moriyama, squinting at the intruder.
Moriyama scratches behind his ear, puts his notebook away and sighs. “Kise Ryouta. Wants to join,” he says, disappointed. “I was hoping for a chick this year,”
Kobori laughs and punches his shoulder. “Keep waiting, dude,”
The first thing that comes to Yukio’s mind is that there’s no need for a girl since Kise is quite beautiful anyway. The thought shocks him and he looks again at the blue chair. The second thought is that he knows that name from somewhere. He looks at Kise. Blond hair reflects the sunlight and Kasamatsu swallows. Whatever. It’s probably nothing.
“We’ve got more than enough reporters,” he cocks his head to the side and studies this, this yellow intruder. “You’ve got anything besides that?”
Kise rises up from the chair. His whole body rolls upwards, elegant and controlled and Kasamatsu’s hand flies to his chin to check if he isn’t gaping. He strolls towards a leather messenger bag and rummages through it. A camera appears.
“A photog[r]aphe[r]!” Hayakawa exclaims.
Kise’s eyes shoot in his direction and for a second Yukio thinks he’s going to be an asshole. A smile breaks through on his face instead and he nods. Kasamatsu feels a little bit weak in his chest. “Yeah, in my first year. A professor mentioned that it was a reliable career, but I want to try it first, you know. Before considering it,”
Kasamatsu knows they need him. Hayakawa may be a really good editor but is a terrible reporter. If he can get Kise to take their photos, he can focus on the articles and let Kobori do the layouts again. But then, something about Kise really pisses him off.
Moriyama is looking at him, eyebrows raised.
Kasamatsu rolls his eyes. “Show me something,” he says. “I need to know what you can do.”
Kise grabs a portfolio folder from his backpack and when they see the content, Kobori whistles. “Damn,” he says, impressed. “This is the good shit.”
Hayakawa thumbs through the stack. “They’[r]e [r]ea[ll]y beautifu[l]!” he shouts.
They’re right. Yukio is no expert, but even he can say that Kise is really skilled. Fuck. He’s not getting away with refusing him, now.
“Fine,” he sighs. Rakes a hand through his hair. “Six week trial period.”
****
Three days later, Kasamatsu is, as usual, the first to walk into their club room. He grabs his laptop and goes over Kobori’s new layout plans. Half an hour later, the door slams. Kise is standing there, three cameras around his neck. His portfolio folder is crammed under his arm and he’s holding two cups of coffee. One of them ends up next to Kasamatsu’s elbow. Kise is so close that his chin almost touches Yukio’s shoulder.
“Can I look with you? Kobori said he needed some photo’s for the new layout.”
He breathes in, deep. Lets his hands curl into fists for a second before he relaxes his entire body. “Yeah, whatever.”
Moriyama and Hayakawa have morning classes, so it’s just him and Kise for a while before a frazzled Kobori storms in. He’s carrying a laptop, a drawing tablet and about eight styluses. A messenger bag hangs off his shoulder, bulging with papers and books.
“Dude, sorry,” he pants. “I should’ve been here an hour ago.”
Kasamatsu shrugs. “Don’t sweat it. Listen I thought if we move the article on increased housing fee to page three we can bring the professor ratings to the second page, that always interests people more and-”
“Did you bring the pictures?” Kobori asks Kise, absolutely ignoring everything Kasamatsu just said. He and Kise start talking about colour and saturation and Yukio is so ready to punch something.
He goes back to typing up Hayakawa’s interview, sullen silence surrounding him. When he’s done, the conversation next to him isn’t showing any signs of stopping and he takes the opportunity to study Kise.
He really is beautiful, with sleek blond hair and warm light brown eyes. They flicker, showing deep hues and honey lights, almost seem golden in the morning sun. He has a good built, probably played sports all through high school. There’s a dark smudge on the shoulder of his expensive-looking shirt.
His stomach churns with apprehension and appreciation. That’s what it is. He can look at gorgeous men if he wants to, no one needs to know. There are probably a million people looking at Kise throughout the day. One more or less won’t matter.
“Text me if you need me,” he says, shutting his laptop. He sweeps all his stuff in his bag and gets the hell out of the clubroom. The twelve minutes to his apartment go by in a haze. He stands on the doorstep and wonders what he’s supposed to do know.
When he gets to the gym, Kiyoshi is already waiting for him.
“I’m getting a new client tomorrow,” he says. His voice is casual and light, but his eyes are sharp on Kasamatsu’s face. Yukio makes a sound to show that he’s listening, too focused with winding the bandages around his hand to reply.
“He’s gonna be a real pain if I have to believe the stories. Anger problems, depression.” The sharpness of Kiyoshi’s stare increases, as if he’s saying sounds familiar?
Kasamatsu lets all the anger he’s put away all week bubble up inside him and puts his gloves on, movements shaky and barely controlled. “You’ll do a splendid job with him,” he says and walks to the punching bags. He sets his left hand on the bag and the first right hook lands on the leather.
Kasamatsu lets go.
He doesn’t know when he started crying, but his fists land on the sack in a flurry of water crammed between his eyelids. He’s reduced to instinctive movements and when he steps back to get a high kick in Kiyoshi’s face appears from behind the bag.
“Need a buddy?”
Yukio just nods, too caught up in his feelings to say anything. His heart hammers beneath his ribs and he takes a deep breath before he kicks. His shin makes a satisfying thump and he aims for another one, finally working off all the stress of the past days. Kise’s face flashes through his mind and he stops, feet squeaking on the linoleum. His right fist hovers in the air and he’s desperately trying to find a trigger in the situation, to find what pisses him off so much.
“You okay?” Kiyoshi asks. “Want to talk through the situation with me?”
They used to do that a lot, back when they were in high school and Kasamatsu would come to Aida’s Sports Centre in the hope of getting rid of all these feelings swirling around in his chest. Moriyama pushed him into those weekly therapy sessions, but Yukio came to Kiyoshi all by himself. Identify the problem. Structure the problem. Look for possible solutions.
“A new guy joined the newspaper,” he grunts and realizes it’s the first word he’s said in two hours. Kiyoshi hums in that annoying air-headed way that he does.
“I take it he’s an asshole.”
“That’s the problem. Kise is charming. Talented as fuck. Nice.” So beautiful it hurts the space between his ribs. “He fits in. And we need a photographer.”
Kiyoshi’s warm brown eyes are fixed on his face again. “How did he handle Hayakawa?”
Yukio walks towards the bench. “He treats him like a normal person.”
Breathing in, he curls up and lets his head rest on his knees. “Why does he piss me off? Am I jealous?”
Kise is everything Kasamatsu will never be, elegant and refined and so loved by the universe it probably bends around him. But Yukio’s never been a jealous person.
Kiyoshi cocks his head to the side. “I think you like him.”
He lifts his head. “He has the potential to be so fucking annoying, you don’t even want to know.”
Kiyoshi smiles at that and comes to sit next to him. “I mean like in another way.”
And Kasamatsu knows this, but hearing it out loud still shocks him. “I, what, I’ve never-”
He looks at people. He can appreciate beautiful people and beautiful bodies and dazzling smiles and shiny hair. He doesn’t like, doesn’t crush. He observes and files away pretty things. There are no emotions involved.
Kise, however. His sneakers squeak on the floor and his heart thuds. The only sound he hears. Kise is beautiful, yes, and talented and he seems to already have earned the approval of Moriyama, Kobori and Hayakawa. He works hard and from what Yukio has seen, he’s dedicated. Future-oriented and makes a great effort to decipher whatever Hayakama says.
He doesn’t- he’s never thought about another person like this. His friends often come to complain about their love interests or whatever on his couch, but he never- he doesn’t...
He sprints to the locker room and calls the only person he can think of.
“Kasa-chin, what’s up?”
“I think I like Kise,” Kasamatsu breathes into the receiver. He curls up on the floor, one arm around his knees.
“Tell me, why is that a bad thing?” Moriyama says, casual like Kasamatsu entire life has not turned around after this revelation. “Tons of people have crushes.”
“I don’t!” Kasamatsu snaps and clutches the phone tighter.
Moriyama makes a thoughtful sound on the other end of the line. “No, I guess you don’t. Well. For everything is a first time, apparently.”
Yukio breathes into the receiver, a lost sound that resonates through the air and floats between them. “What am I gonna do?” he asks, a little bit lost.
“Sometimes it just happens, Kasa-chin,” Moriyama says. “It’s not one of those things you can just turn off and back out from.”
****
Seeing Kise after that is- weird.
The week after that is weird. It’s like every little thing Kise does, smiling and talking and shuffling pictures around in his hands, seems a bit more beautiful. He knows Kise hasn’t changed at all, keeps doing the thing with his shoulder where he shrugs when he shows his photographs. Keeps letting the corner of his mouth curl up in a small smile and the boisterous laughter when he helps Kobori with the layouts. It steals his breath away regardless, sucks away the oxygen from his lungs like the world decides that Kise deserves it more, that someone as heart-stopping beautiful as him is more of a priority than Kasamatsu will ever be. He can’t help but agree.
Kise is a small hurricane of exclamations and dazzling smiles, of bright blond hair and pale skin and Yukio can feel himself being swept away more by the fucking day.
He’s just staring at the way Kise’s jacket fits him with a faint buzzing in his mind, when Professor Genta beckons him.
“Kasamatsu-kun,” he says. “We need you and Kise to do a report on the university basketball match.”
Kasamatsu’s mind screeches to a halt. “Me and...Kise? Together?”
Genta nods. “Yes. You’re the best reporter and Kise’s our only photographer.” He stares at Yukio with raised eyebrows.
Kasamatsu fiddles with his notebook. “When?”
“Tomorrow, Kasamatsu-senpai!” Kise shouts next to his ear. Yukio drops his notebooks and possibly his heart on the floor.
Tomorrow. Moriyama catches his eye. Shakes his head. Kasamatsu understands, without a doubt. You’re fucked.
That night, he doesn’t sleep. Just rolls over his mattress, restless and itching and nervous. He’s supposed to work together with Kise, to talk to him and to act like there are not a thousand feelings swirling around in his chest. He doesn’t even know what it is exactly, like or love or just affection. Sometimes you feel something so strongly you forget what it’s called and he wants it to stop, wants to return to his normal relatively calm state.
The blaring of his alarm shocks him out of his thoughts and he rolls out of bed, groaning.
Choosing an outfit takes way too long. He grits his teeth and grabs a blue shirt that hangs over a chair because it’s Kise and he will not dress up for that blond idiot.
Breakfast is a hurried affair of cups of coffee and some cereal. Too much caffeine is not good when you’re nervous, but it makes him feel in control anyway. He figures control is what he needs when he chugs mug number three.
Kise is waiting for him in front of the faculty building and Kasamatsu’s heart stutters to a halt so fast he gasps a little bit. It hurts.
“Hey,” he says in a voice that might be casual, might be trembling. “Let’s go.”
Kise smiles at him and hooks a thumb behind the strap of his camera. “Yes,” he says, melodic and bright and everything Kasamatsu wants.
They take the bus and both listen to music on their phones. Yukio is relieved Kise doesn’t talk until they’ve reached the gymnasium. Once he sets foot inside the sports centre, he feels at home immediately. The thumping sound of running sneakers, the smell of sweat and rubber and people clad in colourful uniforms. It feels like he’s transported back to high school.
Kise, next to him, is taking pictures nonstop. “Jesus,” he sighs. “I’ve missed this.” He smiles with his eyes closed. Somehow the air around him sparkles, glitters just to make sure everyone will notice this. Kasamatsu stops breathing.
“Uh, yes. Me too,” he mumbles. “I haven’t really played since, what, senior year?”
“You played basketball?” Kise exclaims. “For which high school?”
Kasamatsu, surprised by the sudden enthusiasm, frowns at him. “Kaijo. You?”
Kise’s mouth falls open. “Kaijo! Wow. I played for Teiko.” His face loses a little bit of its excitement.
Kasamatsu drops his messenger bag. “You played for Teiko High School? The monster?”
Kise turns his head. “Yeah. Just high school, though.” Kasamatsu raises an eyebrow.
The Teiko group of last year was -is- legendary. They crushed so many schools in the meagre four years they graced the high school basketball world with their presence that everybody was surprised to hear all of them turned down all their scouting offers.
Yukio is now in his second year of college. High school was only two years ago, but sometimes it feels like two decades. No wonder he remembered Kise’s name. Even though he hadn’t thought about basketball in all that time, the Generation of Miracles is not to be forgotten.
“Wow,” he breathes.
Then he straightens himself. They have a job to do here. No time for sentimental ramblings. It’s all in the past anyways. “Let’s go write Genta his fucking article.”
If Yukio’s notes throughout the game had displayed what he really thought, they’d been littered with Kise.
Next to him, the photographer is a huge distraction; his hair keeps reflecting the light and the way he looks when he’s concentrated makes Kasamatsu want to touch his face and rub away the focused frown. It’s one hell of an unsettling feeling.
Eventually, they go home. Kasamatsu with a reporter’s notebook full of notes on the game and a head full of fluttering confusion, Kise with enough photos to cover the entire fucking school. The journey back is once again, quiet. Kise’s dozing in the seat next to him, eyes closing from time to time, and Kasamatsu reads their last paper.
When they’re back in Tokyo, a hand on his shoulder stops Yukio from heading in the direction of the subway.
“Do you wanna watch a game together sometimes?” Kise asks and in the low afternoon light, his hair has an angelic glow, eyes illuminating. In the distance, a car honks.
Kasamatsu can’t help but feel like this might be an important moment.
“Sure. There’s one on this Sunday, don’t know if that’s okay?” He doesn’t like the way his hands tremble.
Kise smiles again, a softer version than the one from this morning. “Cool. It’s a date, then.”
****
He and Kise start hanging out.
Yukio’s not sure how this happened, but one moment Kise is watching a basketball game at his place, and the next Kise waves at him, yelling something about “see you Wednesday, senpai!”. He probably did that closed-eye smile of his again, because lately, that smile seems to throw Kasamatsu off a lot, whether it’s the memory of it during class or the real thing when they’re working on the paper.
He ends up with a couch full of energy every Tuesday, after their club meeting. Discovers Kise is a big Celtics fan, that he used to be a small forward and thus has an opinion about every play that’s made, and doesn’t talk about Teiko. Kise talks about modelling and his sisters, rambles about cameras and lenses and exposure times, dark rooms and compositions. Not about Teiko.
Not that Yukio minds. He has a few things himself that he doesn’t want to talk about.
The inevitable “Kasamatsu-sempai, I’m hungry!” makes him snort and Kasamatsu orders sushi for them. Talks about his time as a point guard, talks about high school and expectations and finding the path to college. He tells Kise about dusty professors and his boxing sessions with Kiyoshi at the gym, though Yukio never mentions his anger problems or his dark periods. He wants to keep it light. Just wants to enjoy the way Kise’s hair seems to reflect the light in the room even when it’s almost dark, the way his eyes look when they’re focused on the tv. Wants to feel the body heat next to him, when they sit so close to each other and he can almost taste something like longing behind his teeth.
Things change at the paper, too. One morning Kise is late and Kasamatsu runs into him at the Starbucks at the end of the street. It somehow transits into them getting coffee together.
Seeing Kise’s smile first thing in the morning becomes the highlight of his day, how fucking pathetic that might be.
They go through Yukio’s morning paper together, dissect the Globe for inspiration and interesting articles over his black americano with an extra espresso shot and Kise’s sugar monstrosity. Even in the morning, Kise seems to glow. Not blinding, but a faint warm light that is comfortable rather than intimidating.
Coffee with Kise becomes his safe place, the forty-five-minute-meditation he needs to face the world for yet another day. The melodic voice seems to drown out all the harsh sounds, cover the sharp edges that Kasamatsu usually stumbles over.
He’ll get up in the morning, dragging his feet through the darkness of the dawn and his grey morning routine. When he arrives at the Starbucks around the corner, Kise is there and it will always look like his personal sunrise takes place right before his eyes, in the way he turns around and starts to smile at him. The “Good morning, Kasamatsu-senpai!” never fails to lighten up his heart.
Moriyama notices, of course, because they’ve been friends since kindergarten and nothing escapes the eyes of that perceptive fucker. Three weeks into this wonderful, weird affair, he elbows Kasamatsu during an Economics lecture.
“Kasa-chin, what the hell are you doing?”
He looks down. He’s been rolling the styrofoam cup over his desk. His notebook is covered in a faint splattering of leftover coffee.
Oh fuck. Yukio just stares helplessly at Moriyama, whose eyes are fixed on his face, eyebrows raised. “You okay?” he asks, voice sceptic.
He rubs one of the stains, watches how the coffee sets into the paper. “Yes. I think. Probably.”
Feelings are the worst. He doesn’t know how other people handle it all the time.
****
Things start to go to shit when one day, their Starbucks is closed.
“Where do we go now?” Kise whines and no matter how pretty he is, Kasamatsu still needs to suppress to urge to kick him.
“Somewhere new,” he says. “There are more coffee places in this city. C’mon.”
They find a charming thing, small and indie. A small silver bell rings when they open the door. Walking straight into a gigantic display of pastries, Yukio can hear Kise’s delighted laugh next to him. He turns his head and stares at the collection of mismatched chairs and tables. There’s a huge yellow armchair next to a fragile-looking bistro table that seems to almost have Kise’s name embezzled on there.
The Paper Kites break up the morning silence in fragments that shatter one-by-one the moment Kise sets his eyes on a small boy behind the cash register. He has blue hair and bright, equally as blue eyes that are wide in surprise and fixed on them.
Kise does the one thing Kasamatsu doesn’t expect him to do. He runs.
Yukio himself freezes. He’s never seen Kise like this, the split-second he was able to catch his face. The hurt there, something broken and bleeding behind gold and Kasamatsu already aches for him, aches for this beautiful person.
The blue boy steps away from the register and storms after Kise. Yukio turns on his heels and follows him, stopping only a few meters short of where the blond is staring at an H&M, hands buried deep in the pockets of his jeans.
“Kise-kun,” the blue boy says, and there’s so much emotion packed in those two words Yukio backs away some more.
Something in his chest beats with a fervour, seems to collapse in itself when Kise turns around and hugs the barista. His knuckles are white. Kasamatsu is not sure whether he should go back to the cafe or not. His instincts are screaming at him to get the fuck out.
“I missed you,” Kise says, voice slightly muffled from where he has his face buried in the smaller boy’s hair. “I missed you, Kurokocchi.”
Somewhere in the distance, Yukio’s feverish heart splinters in a thousand pieces.
“I missed you too, Kise-kun,” the boy mutters. Curls his hand around Kise’s elegant wrist and everything in Kasamatsu wants to slap those pale hands away from that light. From his light.
He tears his eyes away, looks at his hands. They’re trembling. Everything inside him is trembling. His skin, his bones, his ribs and the feelings swirling behind them.
It’s not fair. He needs Kise. He needs Kise because Kise makes the world a better place, softens its sharp edges, the edges he’s cut himself on so many times. It’s not fair that someone else is the focus of that warmth, that glow that surrounds those delicate limbs. Of that love.
It’s clear that Kise loves the blue barista from where he’s sobbing into his hair. Yukio clenches his teeth and forces all the water burning behind his eyes to remain there.
He needs to get out of there, needs to remove himself from the situation before he does something he regrets.
He can feel it, a red rush rising from his toes, and sprints into the next street. Panting, he rests his face against the cool brick and unlocks his phone.
“You need to come and get me.”
“Kasa-chin? What’s wrong?” Moriyama’s voice is a small balm on the screaming, leaking wounds in his chest. Yukio muffles a sob against his fist and sniffs.
“Just, please come get me.” He gives the address of the street and walks all the way to the front. Around him, people flow and ebb like an enormous, anonymous ocean. In the middle of it all, Moriyama appears. He takes one look at Kasamatsu’s face and wraps an arm around his waist.
“Let’s go home,” he mumbles. Yukio buries his face in a clean, red shirt. They make it to the car before he breaks down.
“It’s not fair,” he wails in Moriyama’s armpit. “It’s not- I should’ve been the one-”
Moriyama pets his hair, stays quiet while he cries there against the old green Renault. “Do we need to go to the gym?” he asks when Kasamatsu’s sobs have quieted down to small hiccups.
He removes his face from the cotton and nods. Kiyoshi takes one look at his face and puts them in the secluded area.
Yukio doesn’t remember wrapping his hands, doesn’t remember taking off his shoes, doesn’t remember anything but the steady pounding of his fists on sweaty leather. Someone is screaming. It never occurs to him that he might be the one wailing, screaming, shouting until his voice gives up and the noise stops. His throat is aching, his head pounding and his eyes are burning.
He gave his heart, presented it on a silver platter. Made himself vulnerable in a way that was foreign to him, just to bask in that light. He throws his gloves through the room and falls to his knees, sobbing once more.
The worst part is, he would do it all over again.