#diamond no ace
“Ah yes… Me. My boyfriend. And his 4-foot tall plushie of himself.”
Itsuki/Mei WIP…I had to do it with them as soon as I thought of Mei just cuddling a Mei plushie instead of itsuki
Miyusawa, mermaid eijun!
“Ahh yes. Me. My boyfriend. And his 4-foot tall Chris-senpai plush.”
Mei and Sawamura by anonymous request. As a friend of mine put it - the prince of Tokyo does not share his ice cream with anyone!
sick!fic, cliches.
***
home is where you are
Character(s): Furuya Satoru, Sawamura Eijun
Word Count: 740
Ratings/Warnings: G, bad writing, please don’t look too closely for medical inaccuracies because you will find them
Notes: written for @furusawaweek - day 3: belong/contagious, and is the single most original fill for this prompt ever (by which i mean there is nothing original about it). loosely inspired by this fanartby@alteredskyscape/@justciel (hello, your art is amazing)
***
It is fitting that, while Satoru is sick less often than Eijun, he is proportionately sicker when he does fall ill. Eijun calls it karma. Satoru calls it unfair.
Unfair that – while Eijun gets off with just a runny nose and sometimes a cough – which hardly impact his daily activities – two or three times a year, Satoru ends up confined to bed with a high grade fever, chills, and an ache in his arms and legs that feels as though it penetrates all the way down to his bones.
“You look like shit,” Eijun says, cheerfully, as he comes into the room, teapot and fresh compresses in hand. In response to Satoru’s querulous frown, he amends, “a beautiful kind of shitty, ‘Toru, always, even with your lips cracking like fault lines.”
He’s changed out of his scrubs into shorts and one of Satoru’s polar-bear emblazoned t-shirts, but he still looks every bit the nurse he is as he bustles about the room, puts the teapot down, places his hand on Satoru’s forehead, sticks the electronic thermometer into Satoru’s ear. It beeps, momentarily, and he takes it out, frowns at the reading.
“Your fever hasn’t come down,” he says, and gives Satoru a critical look, “did you take the tablets I set out for you?”
Satoru wilts, under his gaze. Eijun sighs, theatrically, looks from Satoru to Satoru’s laptop, sitting innocently by his side.
“What were you caught up doing? You’re supposed to be off from work.”
“Client emergency,” Satoru says, without bothering to go into details, because Eijun will bristle and threaten murder. Satoru does not need to lose his job because of his overprotective boyfriend’s tendency to pick fights with Satoru’s boss.
True to form, Eijun scowls, dangerously. “When will you learn to say no,” he says, setting a compress on Satoru’s forehead and shaking an Ibuprofen out of the bottle on Satoru’s bedside. “Do you feel like you’ve gotta compensate for intimidating people when you first meet them?”
“Don’t do it on purpose,” Satoru mutters, “people think I’m scary.”
The look Eijun gives him is equal parts fondness and exasperation. It melts what little of Satoru’s brain has thus far been unaffected by his ‘flu, warms his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“No, they think you’re too beautiful to be real,” he says, and Satoru wonders, for the hundredth time, how he can say such overly-sentimental things with a straight face, “I’m lucky you’re mine and not anybody else’s. Hey – don’t swallow the pill dry, dummy, drink the tea I – so lovingly – made for you.” He sits on the bed, pulls a leg up onto the mattress, knee bumping into Satoru’s thigh, and holds the cup while Satoru places the tablet, carefully, at the back of his mouth.
Satoru says, “I don’t deserve you,” when he has gulped down a large sip of tea and successfully swallowed the pill.
Evidently, Eijun is in an incredibly sappy mood, because he replies, “I tell myself that about you everyday,” and he sounds as though he means it.
In an attempt to put off imminent auto-combustion, Satoru says, petulantly, “why do I get sick like this and you don’t?”
Eijun laughs, takes the abrupt change in subject in stride. Satoru reflects that, after nearly three years together, Eijun has had plenty of time to get used to him.
“Better immune system, love,” Eijun says, and leans in to brush his lips against Satoru’s cheek. His mouth is cool, damp, against Satoru’s feverish skin. “Being around sick people all the time, you build up tolerance.” He rests his cheek against Satoru’s chest, nose pressed into the side of Satoru’s neck.
Shivering in a way that has nothing to do with his fever, Satoru murmurs, “You shouldn’t sit here. You’ll catch what I have,” and turns his head away from Eijun, so he is not breathing onto Eijun’s face.
Eijun reaches up, touches his fingers to Satoru’s jaw. “If I was going to, I’d have caught it already. Besides, I don’t want to go sit in the living room. It’s lonely out there without you.”
The last words are hard to hear, mumbled as they are into Satoru’s chest. There is a moment of silence, then Eijun exhales, heavily, and his breathing evens out. Looking down, Satoru sees that his eyes are closed, and his mouth has gone slack. There is a stain where his hair – still damp from the shower – has darkened his shirt.
Satoru curls his fingers into Eijun’s hair, presses his cheek to the top of his head.
[He presses his thumb into Masamune’s cheek, “I was counting on you to have the experience.”]
***
we are a supernova that won’t burn out
Character(s):Furuya Satoru, Hongou Masamune
Word Count:600
Ratings/Warnings: T(?); warnings for terrible writing, awkward teenagers
Dedication:@b-okutos (please don’t be disappointed, Aiko!!)
Notes: this is an outtake from my earlier (just as terrible) furuhon fic!! i, ah, didn’t intend to post it because a) i am really bad at writing intimacy and b) i am really bad at writing intimacy - however!! i decided to take the plunge because 1) this is a tiny ship and 2) no-one will probably ever see this anyway a h a h a
please understand there is a reason this is an outtake
***
Masamune fixes dark, penetrating eyes on Satoru’s face. Satoru finds he can’t look away, caught like a fly in a spider’s web. Not for the first time, he remembers how cold can burn. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
Satoru is not entirely sure when he’d moved, but he is close enough now that Satoru can feel his breath – hot, damp – against his face, see himself reflected in his eyes, which shutter as his gaze flickers down to Satoru’s mouth. Satoru freezes.
The thought I think he wants to kiss me pops into his mind, strangely amplified, like it was spoken into a microphone. It is followed by what if he wants me to kiss him, which segues into but what if I’m reading him wrong, and it turns out like the time he ignored my hand, and I’ve never kissed anyone before; will he be able to tell–
“Oh, fuck,” Masamune says, derailing Satoru’s train of thought, “I knew waiting for you to make a move was a stupid idea,” and before Satoru can protest he has surged forward the rest of the way – the chains holding up the swings jingle – and crushed his mouth against Satoru’s, hand curving firmly around the back of Satoru’s neck to hold him in place –
Satoru thinks ow, because it hurts. There is no finesse in the gesture – Masamune’s teeth collide with his, and rather than any real sense of pleasure there is a lot of wet – Satoru can’t quite hold back the little hiss of pain that slips out of his mouth – Masamune pulls back, looking rather panicked –
“Fuck, I’m sorry, I hurt you – sorry, not good at this – ” He chews his lip, endearingly red across the cheekbones, so at odds with his customary tough-guy demeanor, and perhaps that is what makes Satoru bring his hands up to cup either side of his face.
Masamune’s cheeks are hot to the touch. “Neither am I,” Satoru says, the warmth in his chest spilling into his voice. He presses his thumb into Masamune’s cheek, “I was counting on you to have the experience.”
“Oh my God,” Masamune says, incredulous, “do I look like the kind of guy who’s been kissed, ever?”
Satoru says, gravely, “anything is possible.”
There is a short, pregnant pause.
“Fuck you,” Masamune says, sullen.
Satoru can’t help it – he laughs. Masamune looks stunned, for several moments, but then he relaxes, and is even able to conjure up a smile, which Satoru considers a great success.
“How have you escaped unscathed, though,” he continues, mock-irritably, “you probably have tons of admirers, you’re so pretty – oh, wait, it must be your fucking personality – ”
“I guess you don’t want to try again, then,” Satoru says, smiling.
“I didn’t say that,” Masamune mutters. He stands, leaving his abandoned seat swinging desolately back and forth, and moves to sit on the ground. He looks up at Satoru from underneath raised eyebrows, leans back on his hands. “Well, come on, Sa-to-ru, are you going to come kiss me or not?”
The kiss is slow, exploratory – punctuated with an occasional accidental knock of teeth or a muffled sound – Satoru’s heart pounding an irregular sort of rhythm against his ribs. The tarmac bites into Satoru’s skin through the fabric of his trousers, but it is easier, sitting on the ground, to fit his mouth over Masamune’s, set his arms over Masamune’s shoulders, splay his fingers over the expanse of Masamune’s back. He sits cross-legged, knees pressing into Masamune’s thighs. Masamune shudders, exhales, breath playing across Satoru’s face
Satoru tentatively slides his tongue along the seam of Masamune’s lips. Masamune groans in response, curls his hands into Satoru’s hair, the sound sending a spark of electricity down Satoru’s spine. His fingernails scrape against Satoru’s scalp.
Masamune’s eyes, when Satoru sneaks a peek, are squeezed shut, eyebrows tightly furrowed. Satoru smiles against his mouth.
the night after their last game of their last year playing high school baseball.
***
it all starts here
Character(s): Furuya Satoru, Hongou Masamune
Word Count:1400
Ratings/Warnings: T (bad writing, brief strong language)
Dedication: all furuya/hongou fans (honfuru? furuhon? !!)
Notes: i’m sorry, this is terrible
***
Warm, muggy nighttime air hits Satoru in the face when he steps out of the hotel doors and onto the sidewalk. He breathes in, and holds, the smell of gasoline and humidity a familiar burn in his nose and throat and lungs. Overhead, the sky is a deep black against the vivid fluorescent lights atop the buildings on either side of the street, billboards blazing with color.
There are no stars. The light from the billboards drowns them out. Satoru ought to be used to this by now, after two-and-a-half-years and nearly nine terms of school in a city like Tokyo. He still misses it though: looking up into a sky curved round the edges, hugging the world: a tapestry set with innumerable white snowflakes, suspended, midflight.
Satoru can feel the moisture in the air, sticky on his face, prickly at the nape of his neck. Nishinomiya: Sultry Summers. It sounds like the title of a cheap romance novel, the kind his roommates have taken to reading, lately.
A car speeds by, the sound of its engine receding from a roar to a faint afterthought, taillights blurring red.
Satoru pauses on the curb, looks both ways before he crosses the road.
***
The park, when Satoru arrives, is deserted, silvery-black in the glare from the streetlights, grass a ghostly green. Not unexpected, considering the lateness of the hour; the onscreen clock on Satoru’s cellphone reads two-thirty, next to the message delivered notification, in the corner of the screen. Satoru still sinks gratefully into an empty swing seat, sneakers scuffing the ground.
It is good to get away from people. It is quiet here: there is no loud, rumbling snoring, no teammates murmuring in their sleep, no (heavy) arms or legs thrown across Satoru’s chest or middle –
– but not so quiet that Satoru can hear his heart beating loud against his skull, and the roar of a crowd getting to its feet, applause pulsing, thunderous, in his bloodstream –
“Want an Ambien?” Haruichi had asked, mouth in a sympathetic line, several hours earlier. The irony of being offered a sleeping pill hadn’t escaped Satoru, whose lack of self-awareness did not extend so far as to be ignorant of his penchant for sleep in all circumstances: anytime, anywhere.
“Good game today,” Haruichi said when Satoru refused, and had turned over and fallen asleep almost immediately, while Satoru lay awake, trying to even out his rapid, irregular breathing.
The metal chain holding up the swing bites into Satoru’s palm. He adjusts his hold, runs the white-tipped toe of his shoe along imaginary line on the tarmac – in a rhythmic back, forth, back, forth, in time to the murmur of the cicadas hidden somewhere in the grass.
It helps, a little.
***
Some time later, long enough that the rush in Satoru’s bloodstream has settled and he does not startle at the sound:
“Hey,” a voice says, and Satoru’s eyes travel past black-laced sneakers, up well-worn blujeans, snug, short-sleeved t-shirt, turned-down mouth, and upturned nose, to narrowed eyes set deep under straight, heavy eyebrows. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
Satoru shakes his head. Masamune nods once, the gesture slow, deliberate. He is backlit in white, skin a washed-out gray.
“Figured,” he says, and claims the empty swing by Satoru’s side, without waiting for an invitation. The seat dips under his weight, metal jingling as he loops his arms around the chain. There are several inches of space between Masamune and Satoru’s shoulder, but Satoru can feel the heat radiating off him, rolling like waves off a marine mammal’s glossy skin.
When he is seated, Masamune does not turn toward Satoru, so Satoru feels no compulsion to look at him, either. He goes back to studying his shoes.
The silence that stretches between them is, in Satoru’s opinion, at least, a comfortable one. He has no way of knowing for sure, but much like Satoru, Masamune has always been a person of few words, and that suits Satoru just fine. Not many people appreciate the value of good silence. A shame, really.
Masamune does not seem to be appreciating the silence, however, because he blurts out, after several moments, with an uncharacteristic sort of abandon, “it’s been good, hasn’t it.” He glances at Satoru out of the corner of his eye as he says this – before averting his gaze, abruptly, as if he hadn’t been looking at all, a bead of sweat glistening at his temple. As Satoru watches, it quivers, slides down his cheekbone, to his jaw.
There is something like hopefulness in the wrinkle between his eyebrows as he glowers, pointedly, at the tarmac at their feet. It is so unlike his usual closed-off crustiness that Satoru – wisely, perhaps – refrains from analyzing the expression farther. Instead, he replies, with a brief smile, voice purposefully blank, “pity you didn’t win more often.”
“Oh yeah, magnanimity from a three-time nationals champion,” Masamune says, belligerently, though the sentiment is somewhat ruined by the twitch of his mouth, a mark of how far they’ve come since that first snubbed handshake a year-and-a-half ago, “maybe we would have, if you hadn’t run the fuck away from Hokkaido.”
He turns his head in Satoru’s direction when he says this, as if to gauge Satoru’s reaction. Satoru catches the expression – searching, irises a thin ring of blue around blown-out pupils – and Masamune looks on, steadily, as if forgetting he’d been pretending to stare at the ground.
The weight of his scrutiny is heavy, palpable, almost, and unlike on the field, where there are eighteen meters between the mound and the batter’s box, here, there is barely any space at all, to lessen its effect. Satoru swallows, against the sudden constriction in his throat.
“And played second fiddle to your ace?” Satoru says, trying for lightheartedness, “no, thank you.”
“Yeah, you would’ve faded into obscurity,” Masamune snorts, which Satoru takes to mean he hadn’t failed entirely at being lighthearted. Then Masamune says, sounding rather careful, all of a sudden, “know what you’re going to do after graduation?”
Satoru pauses, briefly. It isn’t that he hasn’t given his post-graduation plans thought – he just isn’t sure if he is comfortable giving voice to the idea nestled somewhere in his chest, wrapped in layers of gauze, for safekeeping. He settles for, “that’s a ways off, isn’t it?”
Masamune makes an impatient gesture. “Humor me.”
It is Satoru’s turn to stare at his feet. The silence draws out, like a spool of thread being let out. Satoru, balanced at a (precarious) edge, can feel Masamune’s eyes on him, like burning.
“I think,” Satoru begins slowly, “I might play for a college team.”
A beat, and then Masamune lets out a bark of laughter, a short hah that seems thunderously loud, after the quiet. “Following that catcher, huh. College ball would be such a fucking waste of your arm.”
Satoru isn’t, really (following anyone), but he’s still unsure why his ears are warm in the wake of this declaration. He shouldn’t have said anything, after all. “It doesn’t matter where you play,” he murmurs.
“Apparently just who with, right?” Masamune’s voice is still dripping with mirth, but he’s crossed his arms over his chest, shoulders held stiff, gaze directed over at the fence cordoning off the park. “Well, I’m gonna go pro.”
The feeling of there being something caught in Satoru’s throat is back. He sucks a breath in through his nose. “Thank you for pushing me to be better,” he hesitates, then adds, cautiously, “you’ve been a great rival.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the highlighted swell of Masamune’s throat bob. He is quiet so long Satoru thinks he isn’t going to reply at all. Then Masamune says, thickly, “rival. That’s it?”
The shock that goes down Satoru’s spine is, if he is honest, not wholly unexpected. “Was there more?”
Masamune fixes dark, penetrating eyes on Satoru’s face. Satoru finds he can’t look away, caught like a fly in a spider’s web. Not for the first time, he remembers how cold can burn. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
***
It is a while afterward – when Satoru has caught his breath, lying on the ground, heat from the tarmac seeping through his shirt, Masamune’s shoulder wedged up against his – that it occurs to him to say, “You know I still want to play professionally, at some point, right?”
And Masamune says, eyes still closed, looking more peaceful than Satoru has ever seen him, “well thank fuck for that,” he cracks open an eye, gives Satoru a lazy smile that sends a jolt through Satoru’s chest, “then I’ll wait for you.”
***
end.
study session distractions.
***
like chocolate
Character(s):Furuya Satoru, Sawamura Eijun
Word Count:500
Ratings/Warnings: General Audiences, bad writing
Notes: written for furusawaweek - day 6: frost/tomorrow.
***
Satoru finds Eijun sitting by the window in the living room, drawing patterns on the frosted-over glass.
He has his textbook – statistics – open on his lap, turned to the same page he’d been reading an hour ago. The window, meanwhile, is covered in approximations of Santa Claus and his reindeer, as well as several sorry-looking pine trees. Satoru stifles a smile, sets the cup of cocoa he is carrying on the windowsill.
“Chocolate?” he murmurs, sinking into the armchair opposite, lifting his feet onto the seat.
Eijun turns his head, bright gold eyes settling on Satoru’s face. “Is that a question?” He says, as he is wrapping his hands around the mug, “you’re the best, Sacchan, thanks.”
“Sure,” Satoru tells him, and lets his smile add, “any time,” and, “for you, anything.”
Eijun dimples at him over his chocolate, so Satoru surmises the message has been received.
Snow lies in drifts on the sidewalk three floors down, glistening white. It is pretty, for now – until it is trampled under feet, and turns into gray sludge. Satoru supposes he ought to be grateful it has snowed at all.
“You’re so lucky you’re finished giving exams,” Eijun groans, interrupting Satoru’s musings. He stretches his arms over his head, casts a mournful look at his textbook, and sighs, theatrically, his shoulders slumping.
“Isn’t tomorrow your last paper?” Satoru asks, not quite able to keep amusement from coloring his voice.
“You’re laughing at me,” Eijun observes, despondently, but Satoru can tell he isn’t really upset, “you ought to be more supportive.”
Satoru tilts his chin at the cup of cocoa, his smile crinkling his eyes. Eijun, looking up from his textbook in time to catch the gesture, stills.
“And stop,” he says, suddenly, the quality of his voice changing from lighthearted to serious, “looking so pretty, I don’t have the time to be distracted by you.” He looks as though he regrets having to say so.
Satoru thinks it’s rather important – to both of them – that Eijun does not fail, and so he nods and says, “I won’t distract you, then,” and reaches out to pick up the empty cocoa mug.
As he is getting up to leave, Satoru feels Eijun’s fingers grasp his sweater sleeve.
“Wait,” Eijun mumbles, and Satoru, looking down into his face, raises a questioning eyebrow. Eijun tugs at his sleeve. “Come down here for a moment,” and he moves his textbook, pats his knee.
Satoru folds himself – a little awkwardly; his legs are so long – into Eijun’s lap, lets Eijun drape his arms over his shoulders. Eijun’s hands press into the back of Satoru’s neck, calloused fingertips catching on the smooth skin of his nape. Eijun’s eyes are a vivid amber, impossibly fond. Satoru can smell his shampoo, and the heady scent of his cologne.
“Consider this a preview for after my exam tomorrow,” Eijun says against Satoru’s lips, his own curled upward, breath warm against Satoru’s face.
He tastes like chocolate.
hey, say that again?
***
music to my ears
Character(s): Sawamura Eijun, Furuya Satoru
Word Count:700
Ratings/Warnings: General Audiences, bad writing, terrible jokes!!!!!
Notes: written for furusawaweek - day 2: music/disaster; incidentally, this is another disastrous! attempt at combining prompts; lets’ see just how badly i can write, a h a h a
***
Icepack held firmly against his swollen left foot, Eijun says, “your fault,” as imperatively as he can manage while also stifling a groan in the back of his throat. His toes, having taken the brunt of the damage, are a shiny bright red.
Satoru, leaning against the nurse’s office wall with his arms crossed over his chest, does not reply. The look on his face, however, clearly states where he stands on the matter: it is most definitely not his fault.
“Completely and entirely your fault,” Eijun repeats, and gestures with his free hand, for emphasis.
“I didn’t drop a heavy brass instrument on your foot,” Satoru says, blandly.
He’s right; he hadn’t, directly, but, “it fell, because you laughed,” Eijun says, reproachfully, which, in his opinion, is a perfectly valid accusation. He’d been in the middle of band practice – very much engrossed in it – and to have his concentration broken by something so bewildering and unanticipated – well.
The situation was worsened by the fact that the instrument in question had not been his trumpet but Haruichi’s gigantic tuba, which Eijun had been blowing into in the interest of discovering “why is bass so awesome anyway”. The result had not been dissimilar to the aftermath of a gun going off in the middle of a classroom.
“I didn’t even know you could smile and you laughed! In the middle of practice! Do you know how many music stands are broken because of you? Mine, Harucchi’s, Tojo’s – ”
“Sorry to disturb,” Satoru says, sounding very un-sorry. He trains his eyes on his sneakers, and Eijun notices his arms tighten around himself.
Oh, dear, Eijun realizes, belatedly, I think hurt his feelings. It’s easy to forget that Satoru has feelings, sometimes; he’s so often like a robot, with only one program installed.
The office descends into silence, while Eijun contemplates the best way to remedy the inadvertent injury caused. The irony of his dilemma, however, escapes him. His foot throbs.
“You have a nice laugh,” Eijun decides on saying, finally, blurting the words out before he can think better of them. He feels his ears and neck flush red, and considers elaborating, but opts to save himself further embarrassment.
Satoru gives him a look out of narrowed, long-lashed gray eyes.
“Nice enough to break half-a-dozen music stands and break our star trumpeter’s foot?”
There is a faint wry note in his voice. Eijun tries, and fails, to stifle a grin. He hadn’t known Satoru could tease.
“It does sound bad when you put it that way,” he says, “what made you laugh, anyway?”
There is a brief pause. Satoru’s face tinges an appealing shade of pink.
“Miyuki-senpai told a joke,” he murmurs, finally, almost perceptibly retreating into his shell.
Eijun’s stomach clenches, painfully, in a way that has nothing to do with his foot. He ignores it, plastering another bright grin on his face.
“Yeah? What joke was that?”
When Satoru does not – expectedly – answer, Eijun repeats the inquiry, louder, and prods Satoru in the ribs, figuring the tactile stimulus will be harder to ignore. It takes several tries, but he turns out to be right.
“Why did the chicken go to the séance?” Satoru mumbles, finally, shooting Eijun a quick look.
Eijun frowns. “Why would a chicken – ?”
Satoru pauses, briefly. “To get to the other side.”
It takes a moment for the joke to register, and when it does, Eijun snorts. “Oh my God,” he says, furrowing his eyebrows, “are you serious? My foot is broken for this?”
In his indignation, he almost misses the faint smile playing at the edges of Satoru’s thin-lipped mouth, and the faint sparkle in his blue-gray eyes. Almost – and when he does notice, he forgets to be indignant at all. For someone so blank and impassive, Satoru’s rare, elusive expressions are strangely breathtaking.
“Your foot isn’t broken,” Satoru points out.
“You know what?” Eijun says before he’s thought about it, “getting to hear you laugh would be worth breaking a foot for,” and he trails off, mouth slack with the realization of what he’s said.
Satoru is wide-eyed, disbelieving. Eijun opens his mouth to explain –
– and is saved the trouble by the door to the office swinging wide open and the school nurse’s sudden (and convenient, for all parties involved) reappearance.
silence is golden.
****
a thousand words
Character(s):Sawamura Eijun, Furuya Satoru
Word Count:600
Ratings/Warnings: General Audiences, bad writing
Notes: written for furusawaweek - day 1: waiting/domesticity.
****
1.
The apartment, when Eijun gets in, is empty.
The lights are all off, and Satoru’s house slippers are in the foyer, set neatly side by side. He has obviously been gone a while; there are melted-down candles on the dining table, already out, save one, taking its dying breaths, flickering bravely all the while.
In its faint, wavering light, Eijun can see a plateful of tuna sandwiches, crusts removed, a bottle of lemonade, glass sweating, and – the centerpiece of the table – a welcome home cake. The words have been piped on with chocolate frosting that has run because of how long the cake has been out of the fridge. He stands looking at it for several moments, messenger bag still slung over his shoulder, a strange wistful happiness in the pit of his stomach.
He leaves the bag in the bedroom before going back out.
2.
Eijun finds Satoru in the park three blocks down from their apartment, playing a pick-up game of baseball. The players are a motley assortment of teenagers, and there aren’t enough of them – Eijun counts seven people on one side and eight on the other. Satoru’s team is batting, and as Eijun approaches, Satoru walks up to the plate, backlit in the white streaming from the streetlamps around the field.
The pitcher winds up. Satoru lets the first pitch – a curve that breaks outside the zone – pass. He swings for the next one, bat connecting with a solid crack. Eijun watches the ball clear the fence, listens to Satoru’s team cheer. Satoru dips his head and begins running his bases.
He sees Eijun on his way home from third – happens to lift his head and make eye-contact, lamplight picking highlights in the dark of his hair.
Eijun lifts an arm and waves.
3.
Satoru makes his goodbyes to a chorus of good game, sensei and picks his jacket and water-bottle off the bench before coming to join Eijun on the sidewalk. He greets Eijun with a quiet “had a good flight?” and a faint smile, gray eyes creasing, which Eijun translates to mean, I’m happy to see you andglad you’re safe.
“Students of yours?” Eijun says while Satoru is pulling his jacket on, indicating the teenagers, who have gone back to playing.
“Not directly,” Satoru says, “their kid brothers are the ones I coach.”
Eijun nods, and they lapse into silence, which has, over time, grown to be almost comfortable (or, as comfortable as it can, with a person as attuned to noise as Eijun), because he’s come to understand what Satoru means when he isn’t saying anything with words. Like with the sandwiches, and the cake, and the melted-down candles, or how he hasn’t reprimanded Eijun for not letting him know he would be late.
A night breeze ruffles their hair, sends a little shiver down Eijun’s spine. He sneaks a glance at Satoru from out of the corner of his eye. Satoru is walking with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the tarmac at their feet, a little furrow between his eyebrows.
Eijun steps closer, wraps an arm around Satoru’s shoulders, squeezes Satoru’s arm.
“Don’t,” Satoru says, when Eijun does not let go, and he bites his lip but does not otherwise elaborate, so Eijun, relying on experience, fills the ensuing blanks with I’m gross and sweaty–
– because really – if a boy waits up for him, and bakes him cakes, and puts welcome home on them with his favorite frosting, and replies to his messages (on time), and Skypes with him on weekends unprompted (even if he never talks much) – if he has a special smile for him (slow, crooked, eyes crinkled), and says more with (touch, gesture, expression) than (voice, words, speeches) – then who is Eijun to ascribe (ill-will, annoyance, malice) to his silences?
Eijun laughs, and hugs Satoru tighter.
morning runs, and things unsaid.
***
Alternative Reading Link: [AO3]
***
‘cause blue skies are calling
Character(s): Furuya Satoru, Sawamura Eijun, Kominato Haruichi (briefly)
Words:2,700
Ratings/Pairings: G+
Notes: i am furusawa trash. spoilers for the ending of season 1. mostly shippy gen, in all honesty.
still fighting writer’s block; pls forgive silly mistakes.
***
Waking up to his alarm at five thirty the day after the Yakushi game, Satoru finds he isn’t as eager to run as he usually is. Determined to improve he may be, but – his body is sore and heavy in a way very different from how he usually feels post-game – a dull, weighty heaviness in his calves and knees and back and neck that drags at him, anchors him to the depression in his mattress.
The alarm continues beeping mutedly, muffled by his pillow. He can feel the hard round edge of its plastic casing against the side of his head. His roommate continues to snore, sprawled out on the top bunk. Satoru can see the long ungainly shadow of his wrist and hand, dangling across the side of the bedframe.
Five more minutes, Satoru’s body groans, as he slides his arm under his pillow, fingers reaching for the alarm clock, and, for a moment, Satoru is tempted to give in. To set the alarm to go off in another hour, and skip the run. He hasn’t taken a day off, yet, anyway, and besides, he’ll go to practice, later. Considering how the previous day’s practice had gone – after the game – he’ll be running enough, then, won’t he?
As soon as the thought crosses his mind, a wave of self-loathing washes over him. The picture – as vivid as it had been immediately after the finals match – of Kawakami-senpai collapsed on the mound flashes in front of his eyes
– the look of disbelief on Miyuki-senpai’s face, the barely concealed misery on Tetsu-san’s – the naked anguish on Jun-san’s – and worst of all – the sinking, sinking hopelessness-despair-futility curling in his throat, the clenching tightness around his chest, the leaden hollow ache in his stomach, mirrored in the look on Sawamura’s face:
Tight lines around
A mouth dropped open in shock
A pair of eyes impossibly wide, impossibly blank
(And across the field, the sound of Inajitsu’s cheering echoing in the open ballpark.)
Satoru sits up, swallows back the bile that rises in his throat, tears the bedsheets from his legs, shoves them against the wall, swings his feet over the side of the bed.
Barely keeps his head from colliding with the bed frame as he stands.
***
Satoru is not sure when knocking on Sawamura’s door on his way out of the dorms had become a habit. He isn’t even sure when he’d begun – knocking on Sawamura’s door, that is. All Satoru knows for sure is that sometime between the beginning of the school year and now – twenty-nine days after losing their bid for the Koshien Stadium – he’d gotten used to running with Sawamura – to keeping pace with Sawamura’s footsteps along the slopes and inclines between Seidou’s ballfields, to listening to the sound Sawamura’s breathing – in, out, in, out – in time with the thud-thud of their footfalls and the thrumming of their hearts under sweatsticky skin –
(Sometimes Haruichi joins them, sometimes not. More times it is just Satoru and Sawamura, gasps coalescing in cold morning air, too out-of-breath for words. Sawamura is quiet in the morning, no matter how loud and energetic he might be later on in the day.)
– watching the sun rise slowly over cut grass brightening to a yellow green, the smell of dew and damp earth, the spread of blue across dark skies like light along the high ceiling of a cathedral –
Satoru loves watching the sky lighten – loves watching cornflower blue emerge from navy, loves how it seems to open, like doors thrown open wide to let the outside in –
Lately, it’s been hard to be alone with Sawamura, because – and maybe, this is just Satoru’s imagination – he’s felt as though there is a sort of animosity emanating from – him – Sawamura, that is – not quite hatredbut more bitterness, as if he has a bone to pick with Satoru but he is not sure how. The feeling – that Sawamura somehow hated him – sparked sometime during the previous month’s practice matches, but –
It had reached a peak, yesterday, Satoru thinks, bracing himself against the wall outside his room and pulling his shoes on. It had reached a peak at the bottom of the fifth inning when the Coach had sent Satoru to relieve Sawamura during their game against Yakushi –
Sawamura had cried, walking off the mound, Satoru knows. Satoru had tried – he’d said, “it must be frustrating,” because he knows that it was – knewthat it was – but Sawamura hadn’t listened, hadn’t given Satoru a chance to apologize –
The idea that Sawamura hates him lodges like a fist under the curve of Satoru’s ribcage, steady crushing pressure heavy in his chest.
Satoru is awkward and stilted and doesn’t know how to apologize – would I’m sorry have sounded too condescending? Would better luck next time have been any better?
Satoru knows better than anyone – except perhaps Miyuki-senpai or Chris-san – how good a pitcher Sawamura is. Sawamura is unique. Sawamura is loud and exuberant, a moodmaker, a gamechanger, an acepersonality in a way Satoru will never be.
The best Satoru can hope for is to never let the team down.
Sawamura lifts the team up.
If – Satoru thinks, pausing outside Sawamura’s dorm room – there was some way I could tell him.
He’d looked so broken afterwards, in the dugout. Sat with his head hung down, tail between his legs. Didn’t bother to cool down. Didn’t even bother to ice his shoulder. He’d looked – wrong, like the world had dealt him a wicked hand, like whatever course of events had brought him to this point should never have happened.
Satoru’s knock on the dorm door goes unanswered. He waits several moments more, then tries the door-handle, which is, as expected, unlocked. Neither Sawamura nor Kuramochi-senpai have any self-preservation instinct. Masuko-san was the one used to lock up, but Masuko-san has moved into another room. Not that anyone would know by the nameplate on the wall – his name is still on it, at number one.
At a quarter to six, the room is still dark, curtains pulled over shadowed windows. Satoru steps over crumpled clothing and Kuramochi-senpai’s dumbbells, crosses over to where Sawamura is curled up on his mattress unlike the way he usually sleeps, sprawled out, uninhibited. Too many things about Sawamura have been inhibited lately – his voice and smile and the sparkle in his eye.
He looks like Chris-san used to.
Sawamura shifts when Satoru approaches, curls a little tighter, and that is how Satoru knows he is awake – awake and ignoring Satoru as best as he can. Satoru is the expert on ignoring people he doesn’t want to listen to, though, and Sawamura doesn’t have it in him to withhold reactions, so when Satoru grips Sawamura’s shoulder through the blanket Sawamura has cocooned himself in and shakes him, Sawamura twitches and two verysullen, verybrown eyes appear over the edge of the cocoon.
“What,” he snaps, and the lump in Satoru’s ribcage grows a little heavier.
“Going to run,” Satoru says, the words oddly thick in his throat. “You – coming?”
Sawamura goes slack, neck extending limply, head flopping into his pillow. “No,” he says. He doesn’t sound angry anymore, just tired. Mouth curled down, verybrown eyes blank. Defeated.
Persuasion, like apologies, has never come easy to Satoru. He lacks the conversational finesse to change minds, sway wills, lead armies – or highschool baseball teams. Things like that are better left to Tetsu-san, and Miyuki-senpai, who is doing a much better job than he thinks he is doing.
Satoru can see how the team looks to Miyuki-senpai for guidance the way he and Sawamura look to him for plays, even if Miyuki-senpai can’t see it. Miyuki-senpai has presence. He has charisma.
“It’s good for you,” Satoru says, slowly, and winces at how stiff the words sound. He takes a deep breath. “You’ll – lose a day. Get left behind.”
Sawamura’s eyes spark, narrow. Satoru sees his sunbrowned pitchcalloused fingertips close around his blanket.
“The hell I will,” he growls –
– and even though he is angry, at least he sounds –
–alive–
– “I’m going to leave you in the dust.”
***
(It is a good run. A hard run. An exhilarating run. The knot in Satoru’s chest feels looser, afterwards, when Sawamura manages a smile.)
***
Nearly a month later, in their match against Seishou, Kataoka-kantoku pulls Satoru off the mound in the first inning – right after Satoru gives up three runs and dashes his dream of beating his own record into smithereens.
Panic is an ugly feeling, Satoru thinks, when his alarm goes off at five thirty the morning after. Panic is ugly and overwhelming. It makes brains go blank and eyes go blind and muscles freeze in place.
The alarm goes off, but Satoru doesn’t wake up, because Satoru was already awake. He’d lain awake all night, with the image of Kataoka-kantoku’s furious face – angrier than Satoru had ever seen him – interspersed with Coach Ochiai’s enigmatic
I never switch the Ace off the mound
As if his mind could not decide which had been worse –
I don’t want to run today, Satoru thinks. He turns onto his side, pulls his knees up to his chest, squeezes his eyes shut. If he doesn’t run now, he will run later. No baseballs, Kataoka-kantoku had said – so there’ll be nothing but running to do, come practice.
There is a knock on the door. Satoru ignores it. Smushes the side of his face into his pillow, facing the wall.
The door swings open, hinges creaking, and Satoru hears a set of very familiar footsteps cross the floor.
“Furuya!” Sawamura’s voice is too loud, in the enclosed space of the tiny room. It rings in Satoru’s ears, raises the hair at the nape of his neck. “Morning run – up, up, up!”
Satoru says nothing. He doesn’t move, either, just pretends Sawamura isn’t there. It isn’t hard to do. Satoru’s had lots of practice.
“Don’t ignore me, dammit,” Sawamura growls, clamping a hand - broadpalm, longfingers - on Satoru’s shoulder, and shaking him, hard, “I know you’re not asleep.”
Satoru concentrates on regulating his breathing. For a moment, there is silence, during which Satoru tries to fall asleep and Sawamura – probably – considers what to say next. Then Satoru feels the mattress dip and a weight settles against his back. Blatantly disregarding Satoru’s personal space, Sawamura leans back against Satoru’s scapulae, places an arm along his waist, as if Satoru is the back of a couch, or something.
More silence. Satoru contemplates his hands, brought close to his face: long slendercalloused fingers sunbrowned from being outside all summer.
I want to pitch more, he thinks. I want to be better. I want to do better. I want –
“Everyone to rely on me,” Sawamura finishes, and Satoru realizes, with a start, that he’d been speaking aloud.
Heat spreads across his cheekbones.
The bed creaks as Sawamura rearranges himself to look into Satoru’s face, half-draped over Satoru’s upper body, arms folded against Satoru’s arm-and-shoulder.
“Hey,” Sawamura says, “knew you weren’t asleep.”
Satoru twists, attempts to hide his burning face better. He isn’t sure why he is embarrassed – just that there is an uncomfortable flush creeping up to his hairline, and that he’d rather Sawamura didn’t see it, because Sawamura would laugh, and Satoru really, really hates being laughed at.
Several moments of futile struggle later – during which Satoru attempts to keep Sawamura from prying his hands off his face – it’s a miracle Satoru’s roommate remains asleep – Sawamura gives up and goes back to half-sitting, half-lying over Satoru’s side.
“You’ll miss a day and fall behind, remember?” Sawamura says, while Satoru is reveling in his victory. “You told me that after the Yakushi match. Everybody has bad days. Well. In my case it’s been a bad couple months.”
Satoru wonders why Sawamura is going out of his way to be so supportive. He’s been in the bullpen only – plus running, of course – for almost a month, now. Meanwhile Satoru has started all of Seidou’s matches and wears the ace number, never mind Kataoka-kantoku hasn’t really given it to him. This is a very different situation from the Yakushi match. Satoru had been at the top of his game, then, unlike Sawamura, who’s had the yips since August. There’s no need for Sawamura to be magnanimous.
Sawamura doesn’t even have to be nice. There are days Satoru thinks Sawamura still hates him, after all.
“It’s hard holding a conversation with you,” Sawamura complains, “can’t you reply, for once?”
He looks at Satoru expectantly, eyebrows furrowed.
A beat, then, “why are you doing this,” Satoru says.
Sawamura crosses his arms. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” he says, as if the answer is obvious and Satoru is a simpleton.
“But,” Satoru begins. We’re rivals, he wants to say. We’re rivals for the starting pitcher position and right now I have that position. You hate me –
“But what,” Sawamura says, “can’t people be rivals and friends?” The line of his back is pressed up against Satoru, heat pooling between them. Satoru can feel sweat gathering underneath the fabric of his shirt. It is not an unpleasant feeling – it’s rather comfortable, in fact, if Satoru is honest.
Sawamura looks into Satoru’s face again. “What,” he sighs, “what are you thinking?”
“I’m,” Satoru says. “I – don’t you hate me?”
Sawamura looks puzzled. “Hate you,” he repeats, “no, of course not. We aren’t enemies, you know. We’re on the same team. Hating you would be really stupid.” He raises his eyebrows. “Now, are you going to come run or not? I don’t mind leaving you behind, though, you know.” He adds this last statement with a flourish, as if he is egging Satoru on.
Laughter bubbles in Satoru’s chest. He stifles it with his fist, but the mattress – and Sawamura – shake with him, bedsprings groaning.
“C’mon,” Sawamura says, voice still full of laughter. He holds out a hand – his left hand – for Satoru to take, “let’s go, or we won’t have time for a proper run.”
Weak early morning sunlight filters into the room through the window pane, the sky bleeding blue along the horizon.
Ah, Satoru thinks, the sky is clear today.
He takes Sawamura’s hand, his fingers sliding into Sawamura’s, callouses catching.
Sawamura’s palm is warm.
His arm, when he pulls Satoru up, is strong.
***
(Afterwards, they walk back down towards the dorm buildings, breath coming in short, painful heaves. Satoru’s calves burn. His chest feels light.)
***
“You know,” Sawamura says, tossing a ball for Satoru to hit into the net. The indoor practice field is dimly lit, this late at night. He is sitting on an upturned crate by the frame, a full crate of baseballs at his feet. “Being a reliever isn’t such a bad job. You get to save the ace when he messes up.”
Satoru swings, hits. “I’m not going to mess up,” he mutters, under his breath.
“Who said anything about that,” Sawamura says, strangely innocent, “I was talking about me. Though I tell you, I’d pitch all nine innings without needing to be relieved at all.”
Satoru makes a little strangled noise in his throat.
“Don’t worry, Furuya-kun,” Sawamura says, grinning, alight with the success of pitching well against the upperclassmen. “You’ll make a great relief pitcher.”
The words don’t sting as much as they might have, otherwise, Satoru thinks. It feels – good – to see Sawamura grin, unabashed, hear him laugh, unrestrained. He can’t believe it – but he’d missed it. Missed Sawamura.
“Hope we get a good bracket in the drawing tomorrow,” Sawamura says, changing the subject, when Satoru doesn’t reply. He tosses another ball. Satoru swings, makes contact.
“Does it matter?” Satoru says, wipes his face with the corner of his sleeve, “we’re going to win, either way.”
***
(In the morning, Sawamura is waiting outside Satoru’s dorm room when Satoru walks out. He is sitting on the steps with Haruichi, half-turned towards the dormitory door. He grins when he sees Satoru, waves him over.
“Haruichi’s gonna run with us today!” he calls, even though Satoru is within normal-speaking-level distance.
Satoru nods. “Okay.”
Haruichi lifts a hand, gives Satoru an earnest little smile. “Sky’s really blue, isn’t it,” he says while Satoru is lacing up his running shoes.
There is an identical smile on Sawamura’s face when Satoru looks up. He feels a sudden rush of fondness for them both. His chest expands, feels almost uncomfortably tight –
In the way his legs hurt after a run.
In the way his shoulder aches after pitching six innings without giving up a hit.
In the way Sawamura’s arm feels slung about his waist.
In the way their hands fit together, fingers interlaced.
Satoru smiles back.)
end.
