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The closer to nationals Karasuno comes, the more Daichi thinks about after.
He doesn't mean to, he tries to keep his focus on the game in front of him. He helps Kageyama and Hinata grow stronger, preps Ennoshita to take his place, forces Tanaka to get his anger in check. His crows will be stronger when he leaves them and that's all that matters.
But then he's walking with Suga and Asahi, and Asahi being Asahi, sappy, sweet Asahi and Suga and Daichi make fun of him for it but still. It makes Daichi think.
Where will he be in the future? Miyagi, he hopes. He loves Miyagi. He pictures the small family he's always wanted, the picket fence house, the job-whatever that ends up being.
And suddenly he's wondering where Suga fits in.
The rest of the crows he can see himself keeping in touch, exchanging emails and the occasional phone call. He'll keep going to their games if they keep playing, go to whatever weddings he's invited to (he hopes all of them) but will that be enough with Suga?
Shouldn't it be? If it's enough for Asahi or Noya or Tanaka, shouldn't he be content to stay in touch with Suga?
It plagues him for weeks. Not the unknown of his future after karasuno, but his unknown future with Suga.
He's pondering this one night while walking home, the moon shining down on them, Suga comfortably silent at his side. Daichi can't stop sneaking glances to his light-haired friend, picturing what the future might have in store for Suga. Will he stay in Miyagi? Will he have a nice job and a picket fence and a pretty wife?
"Sugawara?" Daichi suddenly asks, not really thinking it through.
"Sawamura?" Suga snarks, a pretty smirk on his face.
"Ha ha." Daichi tries not to grin but it's enviable. "I'm curious. What's next for you?"
Suga laughs, too loud for the quiet night but Daichi would never silence it. "Nationals, of course!"
"I mean after, Suga." Daichi chuckles.
"Hmm, after." Suga steps forward, spinning elegantly and continuing his pace with Daichi in tow. “After, I think… Will be whatever life brings me.”
Daichi gives him a look. “Seriously though, Suga. Will you stay? In Miyagi?”
Suga's eyes express his curiosity, but he answers “I think so. You are, aren’t you? I can’t exactly picture you whisking away to Tokyo or something.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Teases Daichi.
Suga laughs, like a singing bell. “You’re a Miyagi boy, Daichi! Through and through. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“Are you a Miyagi boy, Suga?”
Suga stops walking, rather suddenly and Daichi stops just short before slamming into the slender boy. “Why are you so interested in ‘after’ all of the sudden?” He asks, much closer than Daichi expects.
“Well, I guess,” Daichi scrambles for words for a moment, for a way to vocalize this feeling. “I wonder, sometimes, if we’ll still fit together. If life is gonna whisk you away.”
Something flickers across Suga’s eyes, widening them, shining in them, taking Daichi’s breath away for reasons he doesn’t understand.
“Would you stop it?” He asks, and Daichi thinks his voice has grown softer somehow.
“Never.” Daichi all but whispers. “I want you to be happy, Sugawara.”
“What would make you happy, Sawamura?”
What would?
The warm glow of the streetlights, the cool breeze brushing across the landscape, the glittering in Suga’s big eyes, the way the light dances through his hair.
The breath they seem to be sharing in this moment.
“You.” Responds Daichi, and he feels his stomach drop out of him. He hadn’t meant to say that, doesn’t know why he said that, what he means. He feels a little ridiculous, needing his… his best friend so utterly.
The look in Suga’s surprised eyes leaves Daichi feeling weightless.
“I-I mean, you and me, staying friends.” Daichi studders, and light dies from Suga’s endless eyes. “I don’t like the thought of us… growing apart.”
Suga sighs, and turns back to face the road. He throws a small smile Daichi’s way before beginning his trek once again. “Friends, of course. We’ll stay friends, Daichi.”
“Right, of course.” Daichi agrees, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t quench this feeling in his gut, like the answer is still missing what he’s looking for.
They continue walking, the silence plucking at Daichi’s strings. Suga stays quiet, a thoughtful look on his face as they travel. Eventually, Suga speaks again.
“What would you do?” He says, whirling to face Daichi. “If I got whisked away, what would you do about it?”
“I told you I want you to be happy, Suga. I wouldn’t stop you.” Daichi answers with surprise.
“No, no, I know that.” He huffs, another quiet moment settles between them as he seems to contemplate his words. “I mean… Would you let yourself get whisked away with me?”
Daichi blinks. “You mean, would I come with you?”
Suga nods, his piercing gaze waiting.
“Yes.” Daichi says without hesitation. “I mean, if you wanted. If that’s what you wanted me to do, I’d do it.”
“What would you want to do?”
“I’d want to be wherever you are.”
Suga groans, his palms pushing into his eyes in answer.
“Is that not what you want?” Daichi asks, his voice quiet against his will.
Suga peaks up at him, and Daichi can see in the low lights the reddening blush on his cheeks. “I want that.” He answers, then, more quietly: “I don’t think we want it in the same way.”
“What do you mean?”
Suga groans again, throwing his arms out. “I mean what I mean, Sawamura Daichi!” He stops walking then, his whole person turning to Daichi, seemingly exacerbated. “What would you want, Daichi? What would be enough for you? Would we get lunch on Fridays, take a trip to the pub every other weekend? Would we introduce our wives to each other and have poker nights and barbeques?”
Daichi suddenly felt sick to his stomach. “I-I don’t know, Suga-”
“What would you do, following me around Japan while I get whisked away? What would we be?!” His look was desperate, his voice cracking at the seams as Daichi watched, feeling powerless.
“Whatever you wanted, Suga!” Daichi answers earnestly, feeling exhausted by this energy. “However you wanted me.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m saying it.”
Suga Looks at Daichi, through him, waiting for something. Daichi wishes he knew what. “Daichi, please. What do you want?”
Daichi blinks, he feels on the pinnacle of something, but he doesn’t know what. He doesn’t know the right answer. So he says. “I want you in my life, Suga.”
Suga’s eyes break, and he knows he must have answered wrong.
“I want you in my life too, Daichi.” He says, though his expression betrays him. Instead of furthering the conversation, Suga begins to walk again. This time, slower, more solemn. Daichi can do nothing but follow.
The walk has many more minutes to it. Usually, Daichi loves the walk home. It’s quiet, long, relaxing. Suga’s always right there, basking in the silence with him.
Tonight it feels suffocating.
“I’d want for us to be roommates I think.” Daichi says finally, as the stretching quiet gets to be too much. “At least for as long as we could. And I’d want to see you. Every day, I mean. Maybe we could be… neighbors.” Daichi flinches at his own words, at how pathetic he sounds, at how it doesn’t even match how pathetic he feels. “No, I wouldn’t want to be neighbors. That wouldn’t be enough.”
Suga takes a breath, so subtle Daichi almost doesn’t hear it. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, if I’m being honest.” Daichi laughs humorlessly to himself. “I don’t think anything would be enough when it comes to you.” And he can’t look, can’t bring himself to see Suga’s reaction to his words. He can feel the blush on his cheeks, can feel the stuttering of his heart, can feel that precipice approach, but he doesn’t know what to do with it all.
“You can’t-” Suga sounds choked, and suddenly there’s a hand on Daichi’s arm, halting him in place. He can’t risk turning, doesn’t even know what he’d be risking. “Daichi, please. You can’t say those things. It… It’s too much.”
Daichi has to look, then. Knows he’s messed up and knows he has to fix it. But he’s not prepared to see what he does. He’s not prepared to find Suga with tears in his eyes, looking broken.
“Suga,” Daichi calls in nothing but a whisper, and before he can think about it Suga’s face is in Daichi’s hands and his thumbs are brushing the soft, wet skin under his eyes. Suga’s breath comes at a stutter, his eyes alive with so much emotion. “I’m sorry. I never meant to upset you.”
“I know you didn’t, Daichi.” Suga whispers back, his hand coming to clasp Daichi’s wrist, though not pulling. Just holding. Subtly, softly, Suga leans into the touch.
Daichi’s heart aches.
“I don’t-” Daichi breathes, holds it for a moment, wishes… for what, he doesn’t know. “What do you want, Suga? What can I say that would make it better?”
Suga shakes his head, but holds Daichi’s hands in their place. “I don’t know. I mean…” Suga breathes, and lets go, jaggedly, wetly. “Nothing would be enough for me either, Daichi. Can’t you see that?”
Daichi’s grasp tightens, just a bit, and he whispers into the night “What does it mean, Suga?”
Suga closes his eyes but doesn’t answer.
“What does it mean?” Daichi asks again. “For us?”
Suga’s eyes snap open, and there’s a fierceness in them Daichi has never seen before.
And suddenly.
Suddenly Suga’s lips are on his, his hands are grasped onto Daichi’s collar, pulling him in, further and further and further. Daichi finds his touch as endless as his eyes.
He drowns.
And suddenly, he’s gone as soon as he came.
“Wh-Suga?” Daichi calls, dazed, and sees his friend walking away. “Suga!”
Suga’s pace is fast but Daichi catches up easily. The light-haired boy’s head is hanging low, his shoulders at his ears and Daichi can see a vivid red blush blessing the boy’s cheeks.
“Suga, stop.” Daichi says, and he feels a laugh bubbling up from his chest from nowhere. He reaches out and pulls Suga back, in and in and in.
And suddenly they’re colliding together again.
“Suga,” Daichi whispers into him, their lips pressed and brushing tenderly.
A laugh escapes Suga, their lips move together into a dual smile, and Daichi feels weightless once again.
“What does this mean?” Suga asks, pulling back just a bit, so their breaths mingle between them. “For us?”
Daichi can’t stop smiling. He feels like something’s just clicked into place, like the precipice has come and gone, leaving him falling.
He says, without hesitation, “I think I’m in love with you.”
And suddenly Suga is crashing into him again, their lips meeting, laughs slipping through their seams in ecstatic bursts.
“I love you, Daichi.” Suga whispers, and Daichi can feel the tears in his eyes again. “You were always my after.”
Daichi pulls him in and in and in, this time pushing his head into Suga’s neck, the skin sweet under his lips. “You’re mine, Koushi. You’re mine.”
Suga holds him, for just a moment, then, in a chuckle: “Noya and Tanaka are going to be unbearable.”
Daichi draws back, a frown on his brow. “Why’s that?”
Suga gives him a solid ‘are you kidding me’ look. “They’ve been trying to convince me you liked me back for, like, over a year.”
“What?!” Daichi laughs, shaking his head. “How could they know before me?”
“Hmmmm,” Suga hums, his fingers coming to rest at the nape of Daichi’s neck. “Noya says you’re obvious.”
“But you didn’t know.” Daichi responds. Then: “Did you?”
A blooming smile on Suga’s pretty lips are answer enough.
“Suga!”