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There was something different about Haruichi today, Eijun thought as they stepped off the train and onto the platform below. Maybe it was because he was wearing something other than baseball clothes and Seidou attire, he reasoned, but it wasn’t as if Eijun hadn’t seen him in casual clothes before. T-shirts with simple designs and comfy-looking pants were the second baseman’s go-to attire around the dorms, so there was no reason for Eijun’s eyes to keep wandering back towards his fellow second-year as they descended the stairs together.
Maybe it was the navy button-up that made Haruichi seem so unfamiliar, he mused. The dark blue of his shirt, rich and deep against his fair skin, had a strange magnetism to it; an odd sort of charisma that kept drawing Eijun’s attention time and time again. Add in rolled back sleeves, folded just above the elbows, and Haruichi carried himself like he had just stepped out of a magazine, radiating enough confidence to make him look every inch of a model.
Well, Eijun amended with a wince, minus the actual height, that was.
Haruichi’s eyes flickered towards him curiously. Eijun didn’t really know how to describe their color—they were pink, but it was more of a burnished color, he thought—a dusky camellia of sorts. He probably should’ve paid more attention in art class, when it had still been something he was required to take in school.
“Something wrong?” Haruichi asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. Eijun watched the batter feed his ticket through the gate and stared as the turnstile pulled the slip of paper from his hand. “Eijun-kun?”
Eijun’s head snapped up in surprise. “Eh?” he asked blankly before his mind caught up with him. Oh, Eijun thought with a flush, he’d been staring. He was about to apologize when he heard a few grumbles behind him, and a quick glance over his shoulder confirmed his worst fears: a crowd of disgruntled people had gathered behind him and were impatiently waiting for their turn to pass. “Aah, sorry—” Eijun spluttered, shoving his ticket into the gate and pushing his way through as soon as the machine beeped. He looked guiltily at his fellow second year as he stumbled away from the turnstile. “I, uh—”
A soft, bemused smile flitted across Haruichi’s lips. “Getting cold feet?” he teased, leading the way forward.
“Wha—no,” Eijun protested, his pitch raising into a whine. He stomped after the second baseman with frustration behind his every step. “I just—well, maybe? It’s not a super scary movie, is it?” he asked Haruichi as they made their way out of the train station.
The batter frowned thoughtfully. “It’s psychological horror, so there shouldn’t be too many jump scares? The reviews say it has a pretty good story, if you want to focus on that instead,” Haruichi suggested. He raised his head to read the signs above them, shading his eyes from the midday sun. “I didn’t choose anything that could make you too scared to go to the bathroom tonight.”
Ah, that, Eijun thought with a scowl. Furuya must’ve snitched about the last time he had been woken to be Eijun’s bathroom buddy. “We’ll see about that. You better not complain when I come knocking on your door,” Ejiun grumbled.
Haruichi’s eyes danced with laughter as he glanced at him. “‘When’, not ‘if’?” the second baseman asked.
“I’m not taking any chances, Harucchi! Promise me!” Eijun barked.
“Yes, yes, I promise,” the batter sighed, rolling his eyes. He chuckled when Eijun shoved his hands into his pants pockets and scowled. “Don’t pout like that, Eijun-kun. It’s just a movie.”
“Don’t make fun of me when you’re the one who invited me,” Eijun grumbled. “Why didn’t you just ask someone else to come with you—someone who actually likes scary movies?”
“I suppose I could have,” Haruichi sighed before giving him a lopsided smile. “But you always have the best reactions, so I wanted to see this one with you.”
“Eh?” Was…he supposed to feel flattered by that? Eijun felt his heart skip a beat, but he couldn’t tell if it was because of how fondly Haruichi had spoken or if it was because he couldn’t fight off his growing dread that this movie was going to be significantly scarier than he was initially led to believe. One could never tell with Haruichi, he reasoned, what with him being able to lie while wearing the sweetest smile on his face. “That’s—uh—”
“Oh, we should hurry,” the baseman said suddenly, glancing down at his phone. “There’s only twenty minutes before the movie starts. We’ll have to pick up the pace if we don’t want to be late.”
Eijun squeaked when his teammate upped their pace to a brisk walk. “W-what would be wrong with being late?” he stammered, lengthening his stride to keep up. “Maybe the movie’s really boring at the beginning.”
“And if it isn’t,” Haruichi said, “I’m making you pay for the next screening and we’ll watch it all over again.”
“Never mind, I think we should hurry!”
“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Haruichi asked as they exited the auditorium. “There were hardly any jump scares in there at all.”
“You say that, but that doesn’t mean it was any less scary!” Eijun whined, twisting the hem of his shirt in his hands. “The lady—the black-haired one—she kept—you know—”
“Eijun-kun,” the batter sighed, “which black-haired one? The CEO’s daughter? The university student? Or the woman at the receptionist’s desk?”
“The…university student?” To be honest, Eijun didn’t really remember much about the person he was trying to describe; the eerie mood established in the first ten minutes of the movie had been more than enough to make him bury his face in Haruichi’s shoulder for the rest of the film. He’d heard more or less everything the characters had been saying though, and even that had been enough to terrify him half to death. “The one who would keep randomly singing out of nowhere.”
“That was the CEO’s daughter,” Haruichi corrected him.
“Whatever. She was super creepy, with her big black eyes and all—”
“The CEO’s daughter had brown eyes, Eijun-kun. You’re talking about the university student now. And you do realize the entire movie was about the CEO, right?” the second baseman asked. “His downward spiral into paranoia; the fact that he couldn’t figure out if the people around him were sincere or not. The question of who was the monster and who was the man.” Haruichi pressed a finger to his lips thoughtfully. “It was a pretty well-paced movie,” he said, “but the writing got a little sloppy in the last third, when the receptionist started—”
“We’re not talking about the movie anymore,” Eijun hissed. Even if he got the first two girls mixed up, he sure as hell wouldn’t forget that receptionist anytime soon. He would be lucky if he didn’t wake up to the sound of her dragging her nails down the side of his bedframe and staring at him with her empty eyes for the next few nights. “We should go to an arcade! You, know, so we can forget we even watched the movie in the first place,” he babbled. “Good plan? Great plan! Let’s get moving.”
Haruichi let out a puff of laughter as Eijun dragged him out of the movie theater. “Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad—”
“It was, so stop arguing with me and let’s go. If you keep talking about the movie, I’m going to wake you up in the middle of the night if I get scared,” Eijun threatened him. “In fact, I’ll even sleep in your bed! I’ll steal all your blankets and make your pillow all uneven and take up all the space so you won’t be able to sleep if I can’t!”
“Tempting,” the second baseman drawled. When Eijun turned his incredulous gaze onto him, he added, “I can just imagine how furious Coach Kataoka is going to be once he realizes that you’re the reason the two of us are lagging behind during morning practice.”
Eijun blanched at his words. “Harucchi!” he shrieked.
“Looks like Furuya’s going to be starting in all of our biggest games this season, even though you’re the one wearing the ace number on your back—”
“Harucchi.” This was bad, Eijun thought worriedly. He’d been exaggerating about stealing Haruichi’s blankets and messing up his pillow (well, he was honest about sleeping in his bed if he got spooked enough), but he didn’t want any more reminders of the movie he’d just spent the last hour and a half listening to. “Harucchi, I—”
His distress must’ve been showing on his face, because in the next second, Haruichi’s expression softened and he squeezed Eijun’s upper arm. “I was just teasing, Eijun-kun. I’ll let you sleep in my bed if you get too scared, but don’t be too unreasonable when you stay over, okay? We have to be mindful of Zono-senpai and the other third-years, especially since this’ll be their last season…”
“I know that much,” Eijun grumbled, pouting. “I wouldn’t make trouble for them.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. You’re the type to put all the blame on your shoulders even when it isn’t your fault.” The second baseman lifted his hand and tousled Eijun’s hair. “You said you wanted to go to an arcade, right?” he asked when he pulled away. “Any particular games you wanted to play?”
Eijun felt his mood brighten at the gentle note in Haruichi’s voice. “I was thinking we could take a look around! I haven’t been to an arcade in Tokyo before!” he said excitedly as his friend pulled out his phone to find the location of the nearest arcade store.
“I can’t say I have either,” Haruichi said. “There was a pretty small one back in Kanagawa that Aniki and I would visit together, but I haven’t really gotten a chance to go back ever since he went off to university. It should be more or less the same, though? More machines, maybe, since there’d probably be more people…” He let out a thoughtful hum as he scrolled through his search results. “Looks like there’s a place right next to the movie theater. In fact, we might just be…” The second baseman looked up from his phone and smiled wryly. “Yup. Right in front of it.”
Eijun blinked owlishly at his teammate before following his gaze. To his surprise, they were standing right in front of an arcade, big neon signs and all. He whipped his head around to stare at Haruichi in awe. “It must be fate, Harucchi! I said I wanted to go to an arcade and we’re standing right in front of one!” he gasped.
“‘Established since 1975’…more like we’re just lucky you happened to drag us in the right direction,” Haruichi mused, turning off his phone screen and tucking it back into his pocket. He shot Eijun an encouraging smile. “Well? Shall we take a look around?”
Eijun felt excitement bubble through his veins as he mirrored Haruichi’s smile. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Two inches to the right. Or was it a forty-degree angle to the left? Eijun had been staring at the gap in the plexiglass panel for what felt like twenty minutes at this point, desperately trying to figure out what kind of magic maneuvering he needed to do to nudge the cat plushie down the chute and into his possession. A number of staff members had wandered by during his quest to win his prize, offering to place the stuffed animal in a more optimal position, but Eijun had turned all of them down with a determined huff. Sure, he had wasted more money trying to get the plushie than what it was probably worth, but now his pride was at stake.
He needed to get this cat plushie even if it meant he would just barely have enough cash for the train fare home.
Another miss. Eijun let out a frustrated growl and scowled at the unhelpful pair of grabbers as they returned to their corner of the crane game. He remembered being pretty good at crane games when he was younger, but it seemed like these Tokyo-machines were a lot trickier than the ones back in Nagano.
“Eijun-kun.” He turned at the sound of his name, looking curiously over his shoulder at an exasperated Haruichi. “You’ve been at this for over fifteen minutes. Are you sure you don’t want to try any of the other machines?” the second baseman asked him. He tilted his head to the side with a frown. “Or, maybe we should go to a diner and eat instead?”
“But Harucchi, this plushie has been calling to me,” Eijun whimpered, gazing at the stuffed animal teetering oh-so-precariously over the edge. The sincerity of the moment was slightly ruined when he was blinded by the bright lights inside of the crane game, but he squinted at his prize nonetheless. “I can’t just leave it here.”
“I know you want it, but it’s not really a good idea to waste all of your pocket money on a single game,” Haruichi said. He nudged Eijun with his shoulder. “Tell you what, why don’t we call it a day and I’ll buy you a parfait for dessert? The fanciest one we can find…”
Eijun bit his lip. He knew the batter was trying to console him, but he really didn’t want to accept the fact that he’d wasted a ton of money on a plushie that he ultimately wasn’t able to get. But if he couldn’t get it, then maybe… “Harucchi,” he started, turning his hopeful eyes towards his teammate. “Maybe you—”
The second baseman looked startled for a brief second before he scratched his cheek sheepishly. “Eijun-kun, I play RPGs and FPS games,” he said, “and whenever Aniki and I went to arcades, we mostly just played fighting games. I don’t really have any kind of experience with luck-base games, sorry.”
“Oh.” Eijun looked back at the calico stuffed animal and felt himself deflate a little. “It’s okay; you don’t need to apologize.”
He felt a warm hand press against his side and he looked up to see Haruichi give him a small smile. “Come on, Eijun-kun. Let’s go get some food,” the batter soothed. “We can’t let something like this ruin our rare day off from practice, right?”
Eijun ducked his head. “Yeah,” he mumbled.
He could feel Haruichi’s eyes linger on him for a few seconds before the hand on his waist tightened gently. “I need to use the restroom; why don’t you go wait for me outside? I’ll be out in a minute,” the second year murmured.
“Okay.” Eijun nodded absentmindedly and picked his way towards the front of the arcade center, his gaze glued to his feet. He had really wanted that plushie, he thought defeatedly as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. It had been the first thing to catch his eye when he did his run around the building, its pleasant roundness and coloration reminiscent of the stray that used to roam Akagi Junior High and curl up on his lap after practice. It looked just as soft as the cat he used to cuddle in his arms, all warm and purring as it rubbed its face against his nose.
It’d been a long time since he’d thought of that cat. He supposed he just hadn’t had time for it—he barely had any semblance of free time at Seidou, and the few times he’d been able to go home to Nagano, he’d spent hanging out at friends’ houses or bickering with his grandpa. The last time he’d seen that cat had been the last time he’d stood on Akagi Junior High’s baseball field as its last ace and baseball captain, and the realization made him horribly homesick.
But even if he missed that calico cat to pieces, it didn’t mean he should’ve spent all of his pocket money on getting a plushie replica of it. He was lucky Haruichi was able to coax him away from the machine so he wouldn’t be tempted to pull his wallet out again. It would sting knowing that he would be going back to Seidou without something that reminded him of home, but he was certain he’d forget it after a few days. After all, with the summer tournament already upon them, he didn’t really have the luxury to ruminate over inconsequential things like that. Besides, continuing to sulk over the stuffed animal would have been rude to Haruichi, who had not only invited Eijun out today, but had also offered to buy him a parfait to cheer him up.
Speaking of Haruichi though…he was taking a lot longer in the restroom than he said he would. Was he having stomach problems? Or maybe he was stuck in a toilet stall without any toilet paper, the same way Umemiya had been when they had met him for the first time? In that case, Eijun mused, he should probably go back into the game center and grab him an extra roll of toilet paper. After all, what kind of friend would he be if he abandoned Haruichi in an arcade bathroom?
But just as Eijun turned to reenter the arcade shop, he collided with someone and something soft and pink was pushed into his arms. “W-wha—” he yelped, staggering back.
“Oh shoot.” A hand closed around Eijun’s wrist and held him steady. Haruichi looked up at him with wide eyes—a powdery shade of carnation, Eijun wondered—his grip only loosening when Eijun regained his balance. “Sorry about that, Eijun-kun. I wasn’t expecting you to turn around like that,” he said.
“No, it was my fault for not looking…” Eijun’s fingers dug into something soft and he dropped his eyes to whatever was in his arms. To his surprise, it was a pink version of the cat plushie he’d nearly went broke over, with little sakura flowers embroidered on its ears. He raised his head to give Haruichi a startled look. “Harucchi, this…”
“Ah.” The second baseman lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his neck. “I saw another machine on my way out of the bathroom, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I didn’t really expect to get it on my first try, and I thought about asking a staff member if I could exchange it for the calico you wanted earlier, but…” He glanced up at Eijun, his expression uncertain. “I didn’t know if it was okay.”
Eijun blinked at him. “The exchange?” he asked.
“Well—no—if it was pink,” Haruichi said. His cheeks flushed a light shade of red as he looked away. “I didn’t know if it was a color you liked. But I can go ask to exchange it, if you want the calico instead—”
“No!” Eijun blurted out. The outburst seemed to startle Haruichi a bit and Eijun felt his face heat up with embarrassment. “No, it’s alright. I like it,” he insisted, tightening his arms around the plushie. His heart hammered in his chest as he mentally berated himself for reacting so explosively to his friend’s offer. “I like it a lot.”
The second baseman stared at him for a few seconds before his shoulders relaxed. “Alright, I’m glad,” he murmured.
Oh, Eijun thought, gazing down at his feet. His view was a bit obscured by the pink cat he was holding to his chest, but somehow the thought of looking at Haruichi made his stomach flutter. “Should we go find a diner to eat at?” he asked. “If there’s one nearby?”
“There should be,” Haruichi said. Eijun looked up at the sound of shuffling and saw the batter type something into his phone. “There’s one that’s five minutes away, if you want to go to that one,” he said after a moment of silence. “Or there’s another a little further with slightly better reviews?”
Eijun curled and uncurled his toes, but he couldn’t see them move under his sneakers. “Whatever sounds good to you.”
“Let’s go to the further one then, okay?”
Do you want to walk some of this off before we go back? All it took was a simple, innocent question to convince them to take the long way back to the train station, along a road that followed one of Tokyo’s many canals. The sky was still light outside—the days were longer in the summer, Eijun supposed—but he could already see the red and orange streaks leading the sun to rest.
The two of them had been walking in a fairly comfortable silence, which was strange, since Eijun had gotten used to the noise that came with living in a dorm packed with rowdy teammates. Haruichi probably thought of the quiet as a blessing though—the second baseman always looked like the type to enjoy a moment of respite, especially since they were few and far between at Seidou.
But as much as Eijun wanted Haruichi to drink in the tranquility of the moment, he couldn’t shake the desire to hear him talk about something—anything, really. But for some reason, Eijun was struggling to be the sparkling conversationalist he usually was, and every topic idea that came to mind was quickly deemed too short-lived or shallow to really give him the opportunity to commit the sound of Haruichi’s voice to memory.
“Tell me—” the words were out of his mouth before he knew what he wanted to say, and now the second baseman was looking at him with curious eyes. Eijun felt his cheeks fill with heat, but he couldn’t let his lips sew themselves shut when he had finally gotten Haruichi’s attention. “—what did you want to be growing up?”
Haruichi blinked at him. “Growing up?” he echoed.
“Yeah!” Eijun frantically tore through his mind for his snippets of childhood, rummaging through silly declarations and embarrassing memories that he’d much rather die than remember—before he came to a handful of answers that seemed acceptable. “I really wanted to be a superhero when I grew up! Like the Kamen riders on TV!”
Haruichi stared at him for a few seconds before ducking his head with a chuckle. It was a nice sound, Eijun thought distractedly. Nice enough that Eijun couldn’t find it in him to be offended that his childhood dreams were being laughed at. “I think most boys wanted to be superheroes when they were younger, Eijun-kun,” the batter said. “That’s all we’d see on action shows, right? Then we’d beg our parents to buy us figurines and plastic belts and masks…”
Somehow, Haruichi’s musings made the younger Eijun’s aspirations seem rather immature and it made the current Eijun flush. “W-well, I also wanted to be a sumo wrestler when I grew up! I’d always liked watching them wrestle when I was younger, but…” he trailed off, suddenly remembering the other memory that came attached to that particular daydream.
Haruichi tilted his head. “But?” he prompted.
Ah, this was one of those memories he didn’t want to face again. He’d refused to watch wrestling (even though he’d loved seeing matches with his dad and grandpa) for months after this particular incident. “…Wakana told me that sumo wrestlers were gross for wrestling in a mawashi,” he mumbled, squeezing the cat plushie in his arms. “That it was embarrassing to show that much skin and have that much of your butt stick out…”
Young Eijun probably had the tiniest beginnings of a puppy-crush on Wakana at the time, he thought, but her dismissal of sumo wrestling had quickly ground that fledgling interest into a fine dust.
“Ah, well…that’s just part and parcel of the sport,” Haruichi reasoned. “But I suppose sumo isn’t exactly something that appeals to everyone. I’m glad you can find some enjoyment in it, though.”
“Y-yeah. It’s really fun to watch!” This was bad, Eijun thought. He’d been so preoccupied with giving examples of childhood aspirations that he’d forgotten to ask Haruichi about his own. “What about you, Harucchi?” he blurted out. “What did you want to be?”
“What did I want to be? That’s actually a pretty good question,” the second baseman sighed. He tilted his head back to stare up at the sky, and Eijun found he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the way Haruichi’s hair stirred in the passing breeze. “I think at one point I wanted to be an astronaut. Or maybe even a policeman?” he wondered. A bittersweet smile stretched across his lips as he turned to look at Eijun. “But to be honest, I probably just wanted to be my brother. I really looked up to him, you know. He was my goal in everything.” Haruichi’s gaze flickered off to the side. “I wonder how much pressure I put on him by idolizing him like that. He probably didn’t feel like he had many chances to mess up, what with me watching him as closely as I did.”
The wistful edge to Haruichi’s voice made Eijun’s heart ache. As an only child, he really had no parameters off of which to understand sibling relationships (sure, he’d seen his friends fight with their older brothers before, but he had still been an outsider there), so he wasn’t sure what condolences to offer Haruichi—if there were even any he could offer in the first place.
But as they usually did, his words ended up leaving him before he even had the chance to think them through. “But I like you being you?” he asked. It was strange to state such a thing in the form of a question, but it had almost felt like he was walking on eggshells by saying something obvious like that.
An odd sort of anxiety gripped his heart as he awaited Haruichi’s answer. Maybe it was insensitive to brush past the baseman’s quiet admission of wanting to be his brother, but Eijun couldn’t really see the merit of Haruichi being exactly like Ryousuke. Sure, the older Kominato was sly and daring and deeply admirable in his own right, but there was something softer, almost sweeter in Haruichi that made him who he was.
Eijun didn’t really know why the thought of Haruichi being Ryousuke’s clone upset him so much, but just the thought of losing the Haruichi who had pointed at him and promised to bring him home filled him with enough repulsion to make him sick.
Thankfully, instead of taking offense like Eijun had feared, Haruichi just turned and gave him a bright smile, brighter than any star Eijun had ever seen. “Thanks,” the batter said, his eyes twinkling like the ripples on the tops of waves. “I think I like me being me too.”
Eijun’s chest tightened at the sight. Surely, he was just happy that Haruichi was content to be himself, right? So why was he feeling so anxious about letting their conversation die between them? “Harucchi—” he said, panic gripping his throat when the batter tilted his head curiously, “—uh, there’re a lot of girls in my class who think you’re cute.”
“Eh?” The second baseman looked a bit taken aback by Eijun’s sudden words, if not just the tiniest bit uncomfortable. “Ah…well, as flattering as that is, most guys would prefer to be called cool, don’t you think?” Haruichi drawled, a weary smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “It’s not exactly exciting for a guy to be called cute.”
“Nonsense!” Eijun objected. “There’s nothing wrong with a guy being called cute! And besides, there’s a ton of girls who like cute guys!”
A strange expression crossed Haruichi’s face at his words. The baseman tipped his head back with another pensive sigh. “Girls, huh…?” he murmured.
“Yeah, girls!” Haruichi would probably be a fantastic boyfriend to one, Eijun thought. After all, he’d always been considered the reliable one out of their trio when they were still first years, and he was often praised for being one of the most observant people on Seidou’s team. There was no way he could make his girlfriend upset, not when he could be super attentive to her needs, Eijun reasoned.
Besides, given the performance he had with Eijun today, the batter was just proving his chops to be a fantastic boyfriend. Inviting him out to see a (terrifying, but frankly) interesting movie, winning him the plushie he wanted from an arcade, laughing gently at him when he got whipped cream all over his cheeks—if Eijun had been a girl, he would’ve felt spoiled rotten for being treated so sweetly. Haruichi would no doubt make his girlfriend a super happy girl, Eijun decided, a super happy…
The silhouette of a girl appeared in Eijun’s head just then: slender and delicate, dainty by Haruichi’s side. Would Haruichi have smiled at her the same way he’d smiled at Eijun today, shaken his head fondly or teased her when she got spooked? Would she be someone he could bundle up in his arms, someone who’d cheer for him whenever he stepped up to bat, the person their teammates would poke and prod him over whenever his phone blew up with notifications? She’d get to see how warm Haruichi’s eyes could be when they softened, hear the sweet lilt of his voice when he was happy, watch the effortless way he pushed his bangs back or tucked them behind his ear.
For some reason, the very thought of such a girl existing made Eijun’s chest grow cold.
“—kun?” Eijun snapped out of his stupor and lifted his head to see Haruichi staring at him with wide eyes. They looked like those strawberry hard candies Kanemaru liked to eat during class whenever he felt a headache coming, Eijun thought distractedly. “Eijun-kun, are you alright?” the baseman asked, stepping closer.
“Huh?” But before Eijun could ask why Haruichi was so concerned, he felt something hot and wet spill down his cheek before dripping along the edge of his jaw. He blinked, startled by the sudden blurriness in his eyes. “E-eh? What? I…”
He reached up to touch his face and flinched when his fingers came in contact with something wet. A clear bead of liquid sat on the tip of his fingers, wobbling slightly as he pulled his hand back to look at it.
From his periphery, he saw Haruichi take another step towards him. “Eijun-kun…?”
Oh. Eijun knew that voice. That was the voice Haruichi had used when he coaxed a terrified tabby cat out from underneath the stack of batting tees in the storage shed. It was the same voice Haruichi had used when Eijun had first discovered he had the yips, when he coaxed Eijun to sit down at the dining table and eat.
Would Haruichi eventually use that voice with his girlfriend, when he got around to getting one? Would she get flustered if she ever saw him changing, or realize how cute he looked with his hair wet? Maybe she would also think it was adorable how he always smeared toothpaste on the corner of his mouth when he brushed his teeth in the morning, Eijun thought, too sleepy to notice his mistake until he felt the telltale tingle of mint on his cheek.
Ah, Eijun thought distantly. It seemed like he had been watching Haruichi much closer than he’d initially thought. But if someone as thick-headed as him could notice all of these little things about Haruichi, of all the little quirks and habits that made Haruichi as breathtaking as he was, then surely anyone else could notice too.
Suddenly, the thought of Haruichi someday dating a faceless silhouette of a girl became almost impossible to bear.
But Eijun was his friend. He had to be happy for him, if that special girl ever happened to appear.
What kind of friend would he be otherwise?
“Haha—this is nothing!” Eijun laughed, but it sounded hollow, even to his own ears. He wiped hastily at his tears, desperately trying to ignore the damp, sticky trails they left on the backs of his hands. “Just thought you’d be a super great boyfriend, you know? I got so happy for your future girlfriend that I think I got overexcited—the whole cry because you’re so happy thing, you know?”
Haruichi’s expression softened as he gazed at him. “Eijun-kun,” he whispered.
Eijun’s throat tightened. “You’re super smart and nice, you know? I know I call you a black-hearted angel, but you’re honestly one of the best people I know,” he continued, even as the tears continued to spill from his eyes. Why was—why was he still talking? He must look like such a mess, crying inconsolably in front of one of his best friends. “Whoever she is—she’s going to be a super lucky girl, you know? And she’s going to have to be the best, just so that she can match up to someone like you—”
“Eijun-kun.” Eijun flinched when Haruichi’s fingers cupped his jaw, his words dying in his throat. “Eijun.”
He saw the flutter of Haruichi’s eyelashes in slow motion. The way they fanned across his cheeks as he closed his eyes, the way they curled at the ends in beautiful, delicate arcs. They were so close that they were almost out of focus, but Eijun didn’t know why he was still staring.
Rose gold, he thought absentmindedly. That was the color of Haruichi’s eyes, he decided. He’d heard his classmates talk about how much they loved jewelry in that shade of pink before, but he’d never realized just how pretty it was until now.
But before his brain could loop around putting “pretty” and “Haruichi” together in the same sentence again, something soft pressed up against his lips and Eijun’s already compromised capacity for higher thought disappeared. It was not unlike those movies where hackers would wipe out entire servers of information or where an army of evildoers could be taken out in a single sweep (through the vehicle of a very powerful avalanche, but Eijun was probably just grasping at the straws at this point), and while it was a very dramatic comparison, it was the perfect way to describe just how dumbstruck Eijun had become with the simple feeling of Haruichi’s mouth against his.
If some distant god decided to strike him down at this moment, Eijun thought, he probably wouldn’t have even cared.
But Haruichi was drawing back before Eijun could process what had just happened between them, leaving Eijun chilled in the humid summer air.
“Eh?” Eijun found himself asking, too bewildered to even process what words were tumbling from his mouth. “Wh—eh? Haru—you—eh?”
Rose gold eyes softened at him, falling to trace the shape of his lips. “You shouldn’t talk about me dating a girl if it makes you this upset,” Haruichi whispered, stroking his thumb gently along the side of Eijun’s chin. He looked up at Eijun with a tentative smile. “Besides, you were getting a little ahead of yourself, don’t you think? Already deciding that I would be happy with a person I haven’t met. You didn’t even think to ask me what I thought.”
But that was how it always went in shoujo manga, Eijun protested. Boy meets girl and his friends—her friends—they became background characters who stepped in to help the main couple through their misunderstandings or to urge them on even if the road was rocky ahead. If those friends were lucky, they’d get a brief filler arc where they also found love, but they were never meant to mean that much to the main characters…
Eijun had never heard a love story where a boy could fall in love with the friend who had always been by his side.
Tears, fat and heavy, rolled down his cheeks as his brain tried to put itself back together. It was as effective as trying to shove a cube through a triangle-shaped hole, but Eijun didn’t know how else to pick up the pieces he’d been shattered into. “But I—” he stammered. “But you—”
Haruichi’s smile was fond and warm, reminiscent of marshmallows melting into a frothy, saccharine film atop a steaming cup of hot chocolate. “To be honest,” the batter said, “I’m kind of a little too preoccupied with you to even think about girls. And I’d like to keep it that way, if that’s alright.”
Was it alright? Would it be alright? To be honest, Eijun was still stuck on the kiss they had just shared, but Haruichi seemed to be lightyears ahead. “Harucchi,” he whimpered helplessly, staring at his friend through blurry eyes.
The second baseman’s smile slipped and he pursed his lips as he looked away. “I really like you, Eijun,” he murmured after a few quiet seconds had ticked by. He raised his head to meet Eijun’s eyes, unease darkening his gaze. “I wasn’t planning on telling you today. Well, to be honest, I don’t know if I was ever going to tell you before we graduated, but watching you cry while you talked about a girl who would be ‘lucky’ to have me…” He swallowed nervously. “I got my hopes up. I couldn’t help wondering if you liked me too.
“What do you want us to be, Eijun?” Haruichi asked. “We could stay friends if this is too much, but I’d really like it if we were something more.” Rose gold eyes, bright with anxiety, searched his face for answers. “What do you say?” he breathed.
“Will you go out with me?”
Kind smiles, the way Haruichi let him cling to him during the movie, gently chiding him for covering his eyes when the story was just starting to pick up. Steady hands, warm against his waist and shoulder, consoling him for being unable to take home the cat plushie he wanted. Delighted laughter, crinkles at the corners of his eyes, voice rich with fondness as Eijun messily dove into his parfait and smeared whipped cream all over his cheeks.
The sweet softness of his lips pressed against Eijun’s, turning the world around them into little more than white noise.
Eijun felt his eyes water as he dropped his head to Haruichi’s shoulder. The baseman tensed at his actions, but relaxed when Eijun burrowed his face in the dark blue cotton of his shirt. “Harucchi,” he whined, his words warbling with the weight of his tears. “I like you—I really like you too. ‘m sorry I didn’t realize it earlier,” he babbled. “So—so—”
Haruichi’s arms, solid and comforting, wrapped around his waist. There was no way for them to be pulled flush together, not when Eijun was still clutching the cat plushie Haruichi had won him to his chest, but it was comforting all the same. Eijun could feel the batter’s breath in his ear, warm and gentle, when he spoke again. “Go out with me?” he whispered, swaying them gently from side to side.
Eijun buried his face deeper into Haruichi’s shoulder, overwhelmed by the wave of relief and elation that crashed onto him in that moment.
“Yes.”