Chapter Text
“Miyuki. Let's go on a roadtrip.”
The correct answer is no, clear and definitive. That's the only reasonable option, one Kazuya doesn't even have to think about. And yet—maybe it's because Sawamura sounds oddly quiet, maybe it's because it's half past two in the morning, maybe it's the desperation clinging to the back of Sawamura's voice and the corner of his eyes, maybe it's just that Kazuya has long given up on trying to pick the rational option when he is involved. Maybe the reason doesn't matter all that much.
“Okay,” he says, and watches the relief that washes over Sawamura's face before opening the door wider. “Come in. Couch's all yours. You know where the blankets are.”
“Thanks.”
"We'll talk tomorrow.”
Sawamura stops just past the door. “But we're going?”
“Yeah,” Kazuya says and nudges him further inside. “We're going. Don't wake Mochi up, he's got a test in the morning.”
It's far from a rare thing, Sawamura crashing over. Kazuya thinks that at this point, he's not far from spending as much time here as at his own place. Not that he minds, really, Sawamura's always been the type to show up unannounced. He’s used to it. And, how could he mind? It's Sawamura. And Kazuya remembers what it's like, getting used to a new university and a new team, and it's still early in the year.
“Wake me up if you need something,” he adds, hand on the door to his room, looking back at Sawamura padding softly to the living room, like he says every time he stays over.
“Yeah. G'night, Miyuki.”
“Goodnight.”
As he gets back into bed, determined to ignore the way his bones feel rough from the fatigue, he can't help but wonder. Of course, Sawamura's always been the impulsive type, jumping to action first and thinking about the consequences later—if at all—but this is sudden, even for him. And he's not sure he's liking what it says about himself, that he was so ready to accept without even thinking about it. Ah, well. The new first years in the team have been a little trouble. Maybe he could also use a break.
The next morning, Kazuya walks in the living room to find Kuramochi already awake, perched on the armrest of the couch while Sawamura's sitting cross-legged on it. He plops himself down next to Sawamura.
“Morning.”
“I heard something about a roadtrip,” Kuramochi says instead of a greeting, hands wrapped around his cup of tea.
Kazuya thinks he should just mind his own business.
“Don't you have a test to go and fail?”
Kuramochi makes a face. “Why are you talking to me before having your coffee? You're too much of an asshole in the morning.”
Kazuya’s weighing the pros and cons of flipping him off, the cons being mainly that he’s still tired and doesn’t want to spend more energy than strictly necessary, when Sawamura jumps to his feet.
“I’ll make you one! You showed me how the machine worked last week,” he adds when he’s already out of the room.
Well. Kazuya isn't going to complain. Kuramochi gives him an annoying look, like he knows exactly what's going on. Nothing is going on. He’s never had as much insight in his personal life as he thinks he does, or at least that’s what Kazuya tells himself to stay sane.
“So. That roadtrip.”
“What about it?” he just shrugs, and leans back against the couch. “I don't have classes for the week, so. Not like I have anything better to do. Coach might be pissed about it but, it’ll be fine if I still show results when I get back. He said he’d be focusing mainly on the first-years this week, anyways.”
“Yeah, right. Like you'd have even thought about going if anyone else had asked.”
Kazuya decides flinging a pillow at his head is energy well-spent.
“You really are cranky in the morning,” Sawamura notes, walking in again just as Kuramochi ducks to avoid the attack.
Kazuya ignores the jab in favor of grabbing the cup of coffee from his hands, the warmth settling in up to his shoulders. Sawamura sits back in the exact same place as before.
“We're tomorrow,” he says, looking determined as ever. Kazuya thinks back, for a second, to the look he gives him when they’re facing a batter together. It’s been a while since they got to form a battery in a real game. “So let's talk.”
“Yeah,” Kazuya sighs, and blows cool air on his cup. “Sure.”
“Can we leave today?”
“Absolutely not,” he looks up in time to see his dejected expression and, what the hell. Did he really think they could leave right now? Kuramochi looks like he’s having too much fun. “You've got to pack your things, I have to pack mine, we have to figure out the itinerary, and find where to rent a car. There’s no way we could leave today.”
“So,” Sawamura smiles. “Tomorrow?”
Kazuya thinks he wants out, right now. No roadtrip, no unwanted stupid warmth in his chest when he thinks about Sawamura's smile, no Kuramochi sneering at him from the other side of the couch. He closes his eyes and accepts his fate.
“Fine,” he says. “Tomorrow.”
“You're both stupid,” Kuramochi comments as he stands up. “I'm out of here.”
“Good luck on your test!” Sawamura's voice tangles with Kazuya's “I hope you fail”, and Kuramochi flips him off. Maybe that's only fair.
Sawamura turns back towards him, all bright eyes and bedhead and the faint red mark of the pillow on his cheek, and Kazuya's starting to think this whole thing will finally be the end of him.
“Let's get planning!”
“Shhh,” Kazuya places a finger over his mouth to get him to quiet down, and shifts until he is sitting more comfortably. “Coffee first, planning later. Let me wake up.”
“You said we’d talk,” Sawamura’s hand curls around Kazuya’s wrist, pulling his hand away and revealing the pout he’s wearing.
“Let me wake up,” he repeats, something like fondness echoing in his chest as he thinks about too many mornings like this one back in highschool. “Why don’t you take a shower? There are towels in the cabinet. Talk after that.”
“Fine,” Sawamura relents, and stretches his arms over his head when he stands up. “Can I borrow some clothes?”
“Like you’ve ever bothered to ask before,” he grumbles, and drinks some more of his coffee. “You know where everything is. Hey, you’ve still got my sweater from the other day!” he adds as an afterthought, when Sawamura’s already out of the room. “Give that back, sometime!”
The demand is lost in Sawamura’s laugh flowing in from the hallway, and Kazuya lets his head fall against the back of the couch. He can’t really remember when Sawamura started stealing his clothes, or when he gave up on trying to stop him. Maybe last year, when he’d make the trip from Seidou on some excuse that probably would have fallen apart if Kazuya had looked into it for a second, and then said it was too cold outside to go home as he was, and claimed one of Kazuya’s sweaters or jackets for the trip back.
Really, he needs to stage an intervention to get at least some of them back. His closet’s growing emptier by the day.
He finishes his coffee with the shower running as a background noise, and sets the cup in the sink on the way back to his room to retrieve his phone and get dressed.
“You’ll catch a cold,” he says when he finds Sawamura sitting on the couch again, wet hair dripping on his shoulders, all over his—Kazuya’s—shirt.
Sawamura doesn’t offer a response other than a vague hum, focused on an old-looking map he got from god-knows-where, so Kazuya just sighs and climbs up to sit on the back of the couch behind him, reaching out for the towel that seems to have slipped off from his shoulder, and starts carefully drying his hair.
“What’re you doing with that?” he asks.
“Thinking of an itinerary.”
“No, yeah, I guessed that much, thanks. I mean, what are you doing with that old thing?”
“You still don’t like your new phone,” Sawamura says, tilting his head to the side enough that he can glance at Kazuya for a second before turning back. “So I thought you’d like a map better.”
This isn't cute. Kazuya definitely doesn’t find it the least bit endearing.
“That thing is barely legible,” he says instead of anything else he might want to.
“Nothing’s ever good enough for you anyways,” Sawamura groans, but there’s no real animosity in his voice, so Kazuya just smiles a little.
“Did you think of something?” he asks instead.
“Yeah! We can start by going to the beach,” his voice carries all the enthusiasm of a kid finding out about a surprise holiday, and Kazuya definitely isn’t weak to that tone. “There’s a nice one in Shirahama apparently, and it’s been a really long time since I went!”
“Mmh, why not. It’s a good start,” Kazuya keeps on working the towel through Sawamura’s damp hair with careful movements. He knows Sawamura’s surprisingly sensitive to the tugging. He distantly notes this might be a weird thing to know about someone he’s not dating. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, wait,” he reaches into his pocket for his phone, and Kazuya steals a glance at a list of locations.
“You really did your homework, huh?”
“Shut up,” Sawamura mumbles and shifts on the couch. “I thought you’d be easier to convince if I had like, materials and stuff to back me, y’know? You’re so annoying sometimes! So I looked up some stuff to tell you about.”
“Oh yeah? So you can use your head, after all,” Kazuya sneers, ignoring the loud and wordless protestations. “So?”
“There’s a pretty road in Fukushima, I think,” he says, looking at the map again. “People say it’s worth seeing! It goes along a big lake, right around here,” he points to a spot on the map.
Kazuya leans in a little to see better, hands on Sawamura’s shoulder as leverage, a rebel strand of wet hair tickling his cheek.
“That’s a long drive from Shirahama, though,” he comments. “Why don’t we go up to Nagano before that? That’d make a good stop for the first night. And it’s been a while since I saw your family, I wouldn’t want them to forget about me.”
Sawamura groans, mumbling something about Kazuya being too annoying for people to forget about him, but he still reaches out to mark the spot.
“So,” Kazuya looks at the map. “Shirahama, your family, the Fukushima road—you’ll have to show me exactly where that is, later. What next, then? My bio lab partner is from Miyagi, she told me the other day that there are nice places to hike over there, since you always say you miss it. I can ask her for more details if you want.”
“Yeah! That’d be great! I didn’t think you’d want to go with me,” Sawamura comments, bringing the map closer to circle the Miyagi area and note a question mark next to it.
“Thought maybe you’d stop pestering me about it if I gave in once,” Kazuya snickers, moving away when Sawamura turns to glare at him, before getting closer again to set his chin over the top of his head, still damp hair tickling at his throat. “That’s pretty good already, right? We can split that over four days, probably, that’d make for a good rhythm.”
“Yeah, okay! We should go for five days, though, just in case we find something else we want to do,” he tilts his head up slightly to look at Kazuya. “Roadtrips are no fun if they’re all planned out perfectly.”
Kazuya tries very hard not to think about how easy it would be to place a kiss on his nose. He fails. It would be very easy.
“Didn’t realize you were such an expert,” he points out, and Sawamura sticking his tongue out is maybe a little more endearing than he’d intended it to be.
“I told you I looked into it! You always have to be so difficult,” he whines, crossing his arms and leaning back against the backrest and against Kazuya.
“Mhm,” Kazuya links his hands together and sets them on the top of Sawamura’s head, distantly noting how soft his hair is. Maybe he should stop noting these kinds of things. It doesn’t exactly work in his favor. “Stop complaining and focus. We’ve got more things to figure out if you want to go tomorrow.”
“When are you leaving?” is the first thing Kuramochi asks when he slams the door behind him.
“Mochi-senpai!” Sawamura jumps up from where he was sitting in front of the couch, elbowing Kazuya’s ribs in the process. “How did the test go?”
“Hope you failed,” Kazuya mumbles. Sawamura sends a kick towards his shin. He wonders what he did for Kuramochi to be the favorite and not him.
“It went just fine, thanks. Oi, Miyuki,” there’s a paper ball hitting the floor next to Kazuya, with some worryingly good accuracy considering Kuramochi probably can’t see him from where he is, “answer me. When are you leaving?”
Maybe his contradicting instincts kick in here. Kuramochi calls it a compulsive need to be a pain in the ass. “I’m the one who lives here, y’know.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow morning!” Sawamura’s cheerful tone cuts through. “We’re going to pick up the car at 9.”
Obviously.
“I’m going to get the car,” he corrects. “You just wait for me to pick you up.”
“You’re driving the whole time?” Kuramochi comes out from behind the couch. “Good luck.”
“He promised to behave in the passenger seat,” Kazuya lets his head fall back to look up at the both of them. “Otherwise I’ll have to revoke his music privileges.”
“No way!” Sawamura’s protestation is immediate, head snapping towards him. “I don’t trust your music taste, you’re better off letting me handle it. I can help with the map, too,” he adds before Kazuya has a chance to defend his wounded honor.
“You know I can follow a GPS, right?”
“But you’re so bad with technology!”
“C’mon now, I’m not that bad. It’s not much different from following a map.”
“Nah, Sawamura’s right,” Kuramochi steps in. “I wouldn’t trust you to follow a GPS down the street.”
“See! Mochi-senpai agrees! I’m on both map and music duty, it’s decided,” Sawamura beams at him, and if Kazuya is grateful he gets to see that expression on him, he still throws the paper ball back at Kuramochi for siding against him.
“Fine,” he sighs. “I’ll just abandon you on the side of the road if you’re annoying.”
“Miyuki Kazuya!!”
“Yes, yes,” Kazuya pushes himself up. “I should be nicer and all that, I know.” He sets a hand on the top of Sawamura’s head, ruffling his hair in a gesture that feels all too familiar. “You should go and pack your things now, I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
Sawamura shakes his hand off, chest puffed up like that’s going to fill the few centimeters that Kazuya still has over him. “You can’t just kick me out!”
“I can, and I’m doing it. What were you planning on doing here, anyways?” he asks, not really expecting a response, as he turns back around to gather up the papers and pens left on the table.
“I thought we could have a movie night, all three of us,” Sawamura mumbles, and Kazuya doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s pouting.
“I’ll see enough of you from tomorrow,” Kazuya counters. “And you do need to pack and get ready, you’re not going to change that by pouting.”
Sawamura’s protestations are interrupted by Kuramochi slinging an arm around his neck and maneuvering him towards the hallway.
“C’mon, you’ll be stuck with the guy for days, take the chance to have a break while you still can,” Kazuya hears him say. Fucker. If it gets Sawamura to go back and get ready, maybe he won’t complain too much.
“You’d better be awake tomorrow, or I’m leaving without you,” he calls out.
“Shut up!” the answer comes without missing a second. “Of course I will be! You’d better not be late!”
“Okay, enough of that, you’re both giving me a headache,” Kuramochi interrupts again.
There are a few more words that Kazuya can’t quite make out before the clear sound of the door shutting closed, and Kuramochi walks back into the living room.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” he says, looking at Kazuya leaning against the couch.
He shrugs. “It’ll be fine. It’s just a couple days, it’s not like it’s going to change anything.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Kazuya leans further against the backrest. “Sure I do. Don’t worry about me.”
Kuramochi holds his gaze for a moment. “You should talk to him, instead of keeping going like this.”
“I told you, it’s fine,” he says, and pushes himself away from the couch, walking past him and heading to his room.
“Miyuki,” Kuramochi calls out from behind him. “I’m serious. Just talk to him.”
He waves the comment off. “I have to pack.”
Sawamura is, in fact, awake and ready to go when Kazuya shows up to his door the next morning. The building he’s living in isn’t far from Kazuya’s, maybe partly explaining how Sawamura ends up spending the night more often than not.
“Need any help getting your things in the car?”
“Nah, thanks!” Sawamura gives him a smile before turning to lock his door, big backpack hanging off his shoulder. “I didn’t have all that much to pack, if we’re only leaving for a couple days. Cleared it with Coach too! So you won’t get in trouble.”
“Oh? That’s nice. Did you call your family to let them know we’re coming?”
He freezes. “I forgot.”
“Sawamura!”
“It’s fine!” He takes to pushing Kazuya towards the stairs. “I’ll call them in the car, they won’t mind. They always say I can come by whenever, so it’s fine. C’mon we’re not going to get any time at the beach if you don’t hurry up!”
Kazuya lets himself be pushed then pulled forward, when Sawamura decides that tugging him by the wrist is a faster way to get him moving. He’s right.
They’re just about to leave town when Sawamura calls his family, after double and triple checking that they have everything they need, and Kazuya makes an effort to tune out the conversation.
“They said they’re glad to have you,” he says after he hangs up. “But that we’d better warn them a little more in advance next time.”
Kazuya snorts. “I told you! I told you to ask them yesterday, you just never listen to me.”
“I tune out half of the things you say,” Sawamura grins, and Kazuya decides against taking a hand off the steering wheel to send an elbow in his side. But he considers it. Strongly. “But it’s fine! They really don’t mind. Oh, I said we’d be there for dinner.”
Kazuya checks the time quickly. “Yeah, that should be fine. We can get a nice couple hours at the beach in the early afternoon, so it shouldn’t be too crowded.”
“Nice! I don’t mind when there’s people, though, it’s part of the fun.”
Kazuya hums. “You can figure out how the music works,” he says, and Sawamura doesn’t need to be told twice before he jumps forward and starts fiddling with the car’s dashboard until a song comes on.
“You’ve got to take the next right,” he warns.
“I know,” Kazuya groans, as he changes lanes. “I have eyes.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Sawamura chirps, and Kazuya rolls his eyes before reaching out to turn the music up.
This is going to be a long few days.
The drive to Shirahama only takes about three hours, but that proves entirely sufficient for Kazuya to realize most of Sawamura’s playlist seems to be almost exclusively bubbly pop songs. Not that he’s complaining, really. It makes for a fun atmosphere.
“Ohh, here we are!” Sawamura bolts out of the car as soon as it’s parked. “C’mon, we won’t get a nice spot if we don’t hurry.”
Kazuya sighs, stretching his arms over his head. Maybe agreeing to drive several hours for multiple days when he barely ever gets any practice was a bit of a mistake. The tension in his shoulders is killing him.
“Give me a minute. We’re not even going swimming, you’ll live even if we don’t get a great spot.”
“I know,” Sawamura reaches out to grab his wrist, and tugs him forward a little. “But I’m hungry! And there’s a little shop just over that looks perfect right now.”
“Ah, yeah,” Kazuya lets himself be dragged away after he locks up the car. This seems to keep happening lately. “Should’ve known that’s what it was.”
“What! It’s lunchtime, don’t pretend you’re not hungry too,” Sawamura says, cheeks puffed up in indignation.
Kazuya hums. “Didn’t say I wasn’t. You’re the one making assumptions.”
Sawamura turns to stick his tongue out at him, before starting to walk a little faster. Kazuya doesn’t try to free himself. Both he and Sawamura have always been the type to seek out physical contact with others and take it as natural—Sawamura more so than him, maybe, with his circle extending way past Kazuya’s close friends one to include even acquaintances—to the point where it should barely be worth thinking about by now.
Kazuya thinks about a lot of things, all the time.
They get their fried food and walk a little further, until they reach a tree casting some shade over the sand where they can sit. Kazuya would be surprised that it’s even still available, but there really aren’t that many people on the beach at all, and most of them are settled closer to the water.
Kazuya doesn’t mind staying a little further in if that’s the prize to avoid heatstroke—it’s warm enough in the car already.
“This is nice,” Sawamura sighs, eyes closed and chin raised a little when Kazuya looks over. “Thanks for coming with me.”
As if I could say no, Kazuya thinks. As if I could ever refuse you anything. He wonders if Sawamura knows, that all he ever has to do is ask.
“Sure,” he says. “It’s been a while since I left the city anyways, I’d been thinking about leaving for a couple days, just didn’t know where I’d go.”
Sawamura grins, and it catches the light in a way that makes Kazuya think he might just die here.
“Good!” He looks back at Kazuya. “If you wanna take a nap, I’ll wake you up in a couple hours.”
Kazuya snorts. “I’m fine. We play baseball for hours every day y’know, a couple hours of driving aren’t going to kill me.”
“I know that! I’m being nice, Cap, you should try it sometime.”
Kazuya laughs, leaning back on the sand until he’s resting on his elbows. “You know I’m not your captain anymore. Don’t let the team hear you call me that or we’ll both get in trouble.”
It never stops being funny, that way Sawamura has to bristle when Kazuya succeeds in riling him up, immediate straightening of the shoulders that’s so comical Kazuya always half-expects his hair to start puffing up like an animal’s fur.
“That wasn’t the point of what I said!” He protests loudly. “You do it on purpose.”
He punches Kazuya’s shoulder when he grins back, and crosses his arms over his chest, staring at the sea. Kazuya lets himself fall back, hands linked behind his head and acting as a pillow. It won’t stop sand from getting in his hair, he’s sure, but it’s hard to really care when the sound of the waves seems to fill his mind, a gentle breeze running over his skin.
They stay here a while, chatting and enjoying the nice weather for an hour or two, until Kazuya finally pushes himself up again, shaking his shirt to get rid of sand.
“We should get going,” he says. “If we want to be with your family for dinner.”
“Sure!” Sawamura jumps up to his feet. “If we get there too late I won’t be able to help out, and then I’ll feel bad.”
“Well we can’t have that, can we,” he mumbles, rolling his shoulders a few times as they get back to the car, and pauses between unlocking it and opening the door. “Should we be bringing something? I feel like we should be bringing something. Does your mother want anything?”
He’s stopped by the door lightly hitting his leg as Sawamura opens it from the inside of the car, having apparently crawled across the driver’s seat from his side without Kazuya noticing.
“No,” he says, moving back to his own seat when Kazuya takes the handle and finishes opening the door. “I asked if she wanted something earlier and she said if we bought anything she’d kick me out,” he says with a grin. “Really, it’s fine. I told you, they’re just glad to have you. And, well, they’ll just have to deal with me.”
Kazuya smiles as he slides into his seat. “I’m sure they’re glad to have you too, somehow.”
Sawamura laughs. “I know! But that’s the point, you don’t have to worry about it. Oh wait, let me put the address in so we don’t get lost—that you have to worry about.”
“We’re not going to get lost,” he gives in to the urge to roll his eyes. “Stop acting like I’ve never driven in my life.”
“You can’t be too careful!”
“Okay, okay,” Kazuya bats his hand away. “Stop with the map duty and get on the music job now.”
Again, Sawamura doesn’t need to be told twice.
Kazuya had honestly forgotten how much he enjoys driving. He rarely gets to, when he doesn’t have a car himself and really doesn’t need one when all the places he needs to go are close by or accessible easily enough with public transport, but he feels like the times he does are that much nicer because of it.
There is just something; about the quiet roar of the engine, about the vibrations the road sends under his feet, about the seamlessness with which his movements allow him to control a machine so much faster and stronger than him, something about driving that is exhilarating to him. It’s an oddly similar feeling to running around the baseball field at night, both clearing his mind quicker than anything else.
Sawamura isn’t as loud and talkative as he’d been expecting, maybe, mostly focused on a game he’s playing on his phone and occasionally perking up to say something about the music or the landscapes they’re going past.
“Wait here for a sec,” Kazuya says, pulling over to the side of the road, ignoring Sawamura’s complaints—he doesn’t get out of the car after him anyways, so Kazuya figures he’ll be fine.
The road seems like a quiet one, with few cars going past them, but he still doesn’t want to linger too long, so it’s only a couple minutes before he gets back to his seat.
“Here,” he pushes the small bouquet in Sawamura’s hands. “They’re for your mother, hold onto them for me.” Sawamura stares at him. “What? I didn’t pay money for them, so it’s fine.”
“Miyuki Kazuya,” Sawamura says very seriously. “Stop becoming my mom’s favorite.”
Kazuya laughs as he starts the car again. “I’ll let you take half the credit for that one, because I’m nice like that.”
Sawamura groans. “Just shut up and drive,” he says, and Kazuya’s smile only grows bigger as he complies.
They’ve travelled most of the way already, the setting sun painting the road and fields around them a million shades of orange and gold that blur together as they keep driving; and there’s only a sliver of red still visible on the horizon when they finally stop the car in front of Sawamura’s childhood home.
From there, it’s a whirlwind—Sawamura jumping out and rushing to the front door, but still failing to be the first one on the porch when his father beats him to it and locks an arm around his shoulders to mess with his hair, and Sawamura’s laughs fills the air of the night that has just fallen as Kazuya watches, a step behind. He walks up when Sawamura finally frees himself and goes up to his mother, smile on his lips as he thanks Sawamura’s father for welcoming him on such short notice.
He hears Sawamura selling him out regarding the flowers ( It was Miyuki’s idea, not mine!”), and turns around just in time for his mother to bring him into a hug, the way she has since the first time he’s visited. He’s still not really used to it, but there’s a familiarity in how easy the gesture is for her that always warms his heart more than he expects.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she says quietly. “But you know you don’t need to bring a gift to be welcome here.”
Kazuya smiles as she lets go of his shoulders. She’s also always a little too good at reading his intentions. “Take it as an apology for the late notice, then. This was all a very last minute decision.”
She laughs. “Ah well, you’re both young! If you’re not a little impulsive now, then when? I’m glad you’re having fun,” she pats his arm before turning back to Sawamura. “Come on, I was making dinner.”
“I’ll help!” He runs in after her, and Kazuya’s about to follow when Sawamura’s father stops him.
“Let’s get your bags out of the car,” he says. “You’ve driven the whole way, let Eijun make himself useful for a bit now.”
He’s always a little amazed by how quickly Sawamura’s family seems to have taken him in, not questioning twice the reactions born from old habits he can’t hide. He loves his own father, without a doubt, grateful for all the efforts and hardships he’s gone through to raise Kazuya on his own and grant him the future he wants, but there’s such a gap between what he remembers from his own childhood and the traces of Sawamura’s that lie everywhere in this house, that it always gets him thinking a little.
He should call his dad later, he thinks, walking through the hallways to put his bag next to Sawamura’s bedroom door, helping Sawamura’s father with getting the spare futon out of the closet they keep it in. He should text him, at least. Neither of them is too good at keeping in touch, both less comfortable with words—spoken or written—than they are with unassuming gestures that carry their meaning just as well, and they’re both always busy, but Kazuya’s been making an effort to reach out more often after leaving high school. He figures after years of pretending to be an adult when he was just a kid, he should at least act his age now.
He thinks his dad would get along with Sawamura’s parents, too, sharing his father’s sense of humor—he’s discovered it recently, he can’t remember his father joking around much when he was young—and his mother’s love for cooking.
A look in the kitchen tells him dinner won’t be ready for a little while longer, and Sawamura’s mother is adamant in her refusal to let him help, so he steps in the backyard and calls his dad.
It’s not a long conversation, lasting only a few minutes, but the background noises he hears as he talks about the roadtrip makes him feel twelve again. It’s good you’re having fun, his dad tells him. Kazuya’s chest fills with something like pride.
“I was thinking, I should come home for a weekend soon,” he says, looking up at the dark shapes carved in the starry sky by the shadows of a tree. “If you’re not too busy.”
“Of course,” there’s a certain emotion in his voice. “Whenever you want.”
Kazuya smiles. “Thanks, dad.”
He hangs up soon after that, turning back towards the house just when Sawamura opens the sliding door with a little more force than necessary.
“Ah, there you are! Food’ll be ready soon, mom kicked me out and asked me to go find you.”
There’s an impossible fondness in Kazuya’s chest when he looks at him, standing in the doorway and backlit by the ceiling light of the hallway, hair a mess and a dark stain on his sleeve.
“Well, you found me,” he says, and Sawamura grins. “Let’s go then.”
Sawamura disappears back inside without waiting to see if Kazuya is following—because of course he is, just behind him.
Dinner is nice, animated by conversations everyone is a part of, the room basked in laughter and fragrances that make Kazuya ask Sawamura’s mother for a recipe, to which she says he’ll have to come back a couple more times before being allowed to learn it. That’s fine. She doesn’t protest when he insists on at least doing the washing up, though, enlisting Sawamura to help out. It’s not an evening he ever wants to forget.