“You never tell me ‘I love you’. I wonder why,” Tooru says.
“Hold still,” Iwaizumi mumbles, slipping warm fingers over Tooru’s knee, feeling for tension in the muscles. “Does it hurt? Are you sure you can play? I hope you had breakfast, idiot. Did you sleep okay? I don’t want you on the court if you’re feeling bad – wait. What’d you say?”
“Nothing.” Tooru smiles. “Nothing, Iwa-chan.”
“You’re so protective, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says as Hajime’s hands wrap his knee in sports bandages. “It’s amazing how careful you are with me.”
Hajime tugs the bandages until they sit right and drops his head against Tooru shoulder. “You’d do the same if you had something that’s irreplacable.”
The silence is white and golden. Tooru closes his eyes and breathes into Hajime’s hair. “I do,” he says. His fingers are pale agains the bronze of Hajime’s skin when he laces them up.
They breathe together until their heart beats align.
“You should be proud, Jeanbo. There are only a few men who stay a soprano even after voice break.” His mother smiles, warm fingers running through Jean’s hair as she hugs him tightly. Jean hates that he’s still comforted by this even at sixteen, that his tears and dark sobs stop coming after an hour or so, that he almost forgets about the teasing of his classmates about him singing the solo in the town’s small choir. They’ve always looked down on him. Now, it’s bullying.
A soprano. He had hoped for tenor, at least, but his voice break came and went without any change to the melodies echoing in his throat. Speaking, yes, that works, but he’s got no friends to talk to anyways, and as soon as the ‘gay’ rumours start, all is lost. It’s true, yet he wishes it wasn’t. He loves singing and he loves boys. None of it is right to the people that share a classroom with him.
“It’ll be alright,” his mother hums, a melody of Jean’s favourite song on her lips. “Everything will be fine. You’ll find your place, somewhere, believe me.
Jean finishes school without knowing what a camping trip with friends feels like, but knowing very well what the words ‘fag’ and ‘disgusting’ feel inside his chest.
His mother cries and kisses him goodbye when he leaves for a town that’s bigger in mind and smaller in space than the cold village he grew up in. It will take time to figure out a major, but he’s got a flat and food and a warm bed, and – his university has a choir.
On his first day of university, Jean enters the rehearsal room. There aren’t a lot of people to audition, and he’s up quicker than he’s hoped. The choir’s leader is a short man with dark hair and even blacker eyes that frown at every applicant equally. He points out that Jean’s choice of song is “a bit unconventional, isn’t that a duet?” And before Jean can say anything else, the choir leader waves another singer closer, and asks whether he’s familiar with the score.
The answer is a yes. The other singer has a nightsky of freckles on his nose, and a smile that drags the floor away from underneath Jean’s feet. He quickly looks down when the man stands by his side.
“I’m Marco,” he says, but the choir leader orders them to start already, and Jean’s world blurs into a caleidoscope of music and melodies as soon as the first word leaves Marco’s lips.
No more talk of darkness
Forget these wide-eyed fears
I’m here, nothing can harm you
My words will warm and calm you
The warm shivers running through Jean’s blood shouldn’t feel so good. He closes his eyes and listens, floods away with the heavy drawl in Marco’s voice, some accent he doesn’t know and cannot care about. It’s like they’re singing together, for each other, voices and words melting together. His part comes up – and Jean breathes, natural, opens his mouth.
Say you’ll love me every waking moment
Turn my head with talk of summer time
Say you need me with you now and always
Promise me that all you say is true
That’s all I ask of you
The room is quiet around them. Jean doesn’t notice the taste of salt on his lips until a hand comes down on his shoulder. Somewhere, in the back of his vision, he can see the rest of the choir staring as he opens his eyes. But right in front of him is Marco, fingers curling around Jean’s shaking shoulders, and the words
Love me, that’s all I ask of you
on his lips. Marco smiles. He brings a hand to Jean’s face to wipe his tears, and says something that sounds like “welcome” through the daze of emotions inside Jean’s head. Jean blinks and smiles back, weak, overwhelmed.
“I like your voice,” Marco says, suddenly.
Jean’s first day at university is new and strange and nerve-wrecking. And still, he couldn’t have asked for more.
Kenma is similar to a cat in many ways. When expressing curiosity and gentle interest, a cat would curl the tip of its tail in a questioning way, maybe brushing along the legs of a person it intends to befriend, accompanied by a soft nudge of its head against its new friend’s calf.
Kenma however curls the tips of his fingers around Kuroo’s wrist instead, burying his head into the curve of his warm chest, and wiggles softly until the desired arm of his friend wraps around his waist.
And only as Kuroo rests his chin on top of Kenma’s head and pets his hair with infinite reverence, Kenma slowly closes his eyes and blinks at his friend – wordless, but saying more than any language could tell in a thousand books.
‘I couldn’t love him any more than this,’ Hajime thinks and watches Tooru’s smile bring an iridescent glow to his face, head falling back as he laughs into the sunset over the ocean, where Iwa could touch his hand but doesn’t because they’re only on vacation and not lovers. I couldn’t love him any more than this.
But he does, when Tooru’s lips kiss another girl.
But he does, when his fingers hold Tooru’s hair back while he throws up the alcohol, a red imprint of lipstick on his neck, bruises from teeth, hickeys.
But he does, when one guy takes it too far and tries to do things to Tooru that have Hajime’s eyes go red, red, red, blood on the man’s mouth and him and Tooru at a police station, a pale hand of his best friend clutching his shirt.
But he does, in secret and with swallowed sobs, when he’s awake at night and Tooru sleeps, curled up in his bed, because he sleeps better like this and Hajime lets him.
But he does, when a girl asks Hajime out and Tooru goes quiet, darkness in his voice when he tries to smile and Hajime finally, finally sees the lies that they’ve been telling each other to hide black jealousy and golden, burning affection.
Hajime loves him more than this, every day, when Tooru’s bruises are long gone and he still sleeps in Hajime’s bed, but with a hand on his softly beating heart and a smiling mouth against his neck.
Finding out that he’s gay isn’t what makes Kageyama uncomfortable about his current situation. He has arranged himself with this new fact quickly, especially after he’d remembered how Daichi and Suga had explained their relationship to the team, and the gentle way in which their fingers laced up. So luckily, Kageyama had more or less easily accepted that he likes men.
The problem isn’t that he likes men. He likes only one. Singular, not plural. Just a single man – well, not even a man. It’s a boy.
Hinata is infuriating and annoying and wild and beautiful, and all that Kageyama never knew he wanted until those amber-bright eyes shine at him like he’s the sun, and not a lonely and corrupted supernova anymore.
It’s horrible. Hinata’s casual touches light fire on his skin, the way he laughs at others has Kageyama’s lips go thin in jealousy, and one day he can’t take it any longer. He doesn’t like men, he likes Hinata, and that’s why he – confesses.
“I think I am homosexual for you.”
They’re the last ones in the locker room. Hinata stares at him through the hole of the shirt he’s been trying to pull over his head, frozen into place. Kageyama’s fists are tight against his thighs, he sits on the bench by Hinata’s side. Stares down, waits, is afraid and sorry and opens his mouth to apologize for how he is –
“Jeez, you’re terrible at confessing.” Hinata finally pulls his shirt down. Kageyama’s head flicks up to him, crimson on his cheeks and “fucking dumbass” on his lips, but then Hinata is close, leaning over him, and Kageyama’s mouth goes dry and empty.
“Glad you finally did it, though.” Hinata’s face is just as warm as Kageyama’s own feels. His fingers trace along Kageyama’s jaw, shaking, and he blinks when he feels that Hinata is actually… nervous. “So,” his mouth manages, “are you – ?”
Hinata’s answer is a press of soft lips against Kageyama’s. “God, stop talking, you are so much cuter when you shut up – mhm.”
Kageyama is so goddamn happy to obey, for once, and finds that Hinata can light fire not only on his skin, but all the way down his chest and into his heart.
“Iwaizumi-san?” Kindaichi taps his shoulder just as Hajime’s leaving the locker room. “Hm?” Hajime turns around to look at his kouhai. “Yeah? What’s up?”
Kindaichi looks a bit embarrassed, his voice going quiet. “You see, uhm, everyone knows that you and Oikawa-san are going out. But why is he still flirting with all those girls? Aren’t you bothered by that?”
Hajime takes a moment to consider. He looks over to Oikawa, who’s smiling at a group of girls and accepting small gifts. Kindaichi tilts his head in confusion when Hajime starts to laugh.
“Did you know that I’m half-German, Kindaichi? My mother’s from Northern Germany and moved to Japan later in her life. She taught me the language quite well.” – “Uh. No?” Kindaichi blinks.
“Well,” Hajime says, a grin on his lips. “We have a certain saying: Appetit holt man sich draußen, aber gegessen wird zuhause. It roughly translates to something very interesting.” And just as Oikawa comes dancing back to them, his fangirls gone, Hajime pulls him close to press a rough, passionate kiss onto his lips.
Kindaichi stands there, awkwardly blushing and weirdly nervous, just as Hajime pulls back from a very wide-eyed Tooru and says, smiling: “The translation is You get an appetite outside, but you always eat at home.”
Kindaichi has never desired a spontaneous loss of short-time memory as much as he does now.
His father had only taught Kuroo three things before he vanished into the night to get cigarettes and never returned.
“Don’t trust women who are too beautiful. Don’t go out during thunderstorms. And whatever you do, never – never – fall in love with a witch.”
Kuroo’s mother had laughed when he’d told her that. She had kissed Kuroo’s hair and traced his neck until sparks flew and dark letters appeared on his skin, and Kuroo smiled because even though they always vanished after a few days, he loved the tingling they left on his skin, and how they protected him from the sadness.
And then, Kuroo’s world shatters in a night years later, where the sky is white from lightning and his bones echo from the roar of thunder. The lithe figure that pulls him off the street just before the car hits him is soaked in rain, their hand tiny and pale inside Kuroo’s. He stares at the now-empty street for a moment, heart storming behind his ribs. When he turns around, the thin shadow that tore him out of death’s grip is gone.
The shadow finds him again one week later. He keeps appearing on the balcony of Kuroo’s flat over and over again, every night, dark clothes wet from the rain and lightning reflecting in his eyes. When Kuroo comes closer, he vanishes, but only after Kuroo’s been near enough to stare into his eyes.
The irises are golden, light-spun and sunshine-bright. Kuroo finds stars around the darkness of that young man’s pupils, and maybe it’s not only beautiful women who are dangerous. The man has soft-golden hair, fading into black halfway, and his lips are always thin, pale, tinted with blue on the edges. Kuroo starts to wait for him, begins to sit on his bed and soak up the darkness with his glare until the soft thud tells him that the young man is back.
“Can I come inside?” The golden shadow says one night. It’s the first time he speaks. Kuroo doesn’t know why he nods, why he opens the door or why he offers him a blanket, some tea, warm clothes. He has so many questions, but none are answered. As soon as he puts the blanket around the man’s shoulders, as soon as a gentle finger traces his jaw and pale lips whisper “Tetsurou”, his mind fades to black.
The next morning, the figure is gone and the flowers on Kuroo’s windowsill bloom purple and crimson red, and a coin of pure gold hides under each of their petals.
Kuroo reaches out to touch one of the flowers, and stops. The back of his left hand is decorated with black ink, elegant swirls forming a name – “Kenma”. Kuroo traces his fingers along the outlines, and jolts as it vanishes.
Don’t fall in love with a witch, his father had told him.
“Thank you for letting me in,” the golden shadow says when Kuroo opens the door for him the next night. “Hello, Tetsurou.”
“Achoo!”
This is the fifty-sixth sneeze today, and Yaku is really fucking annoyed. Of course he had to catch the flu. Of course he’d wake up with a burning, raw throat and a swollen nose a few days before Christmas. He could be practicing right now, helping his kouhai and improving his own skills. But instead, he’s stuck in a nest of three blankets, with fuzzy socks on his feet and a soft scarf around his neck.
It gets a bit better, though, once afternoon comes around – and them, his mother peeks into his room. “Honey? One of your teammates is here, he wants to see you!”
Yaku’s heart skips a beat. Oh no. What uf it’s – “Who…” his voice cracks miserably. “Don’t – ”
“Yaku-san, it’s me! Wow, you look really bad!”
A giant, bean-stalky figure tiptoes through his door and slumps onto his bed. Lev smiles at Yaku’s mother as she’s leaving, and then he immediately cups Yaku’s crimson face with his large hands.
“I’m so sorry that you’re sick! I know you need a lot of rest, and Kenma-san said that I’d just exhaust you if I came over, but I just had to!”
Yaku stares. He’s curled into a small circle but Lev still manages to give him a warm hug, and Yaku’s heart beats like thunder, a thousand butterflies in his stomach. Stupid, stupid crush, why does he like Lev so much, why is he speechless right now when Lev is so close – his lips –
“I brought you soup!” Lev abruptly pulls back and rummages through his backpack, gently placing a plastic pot on Yaku’s nightstand. “It’s really good, I helped my mum with making it. I…” He goes quiet, and pulls Yaku into another hug. “I hope you get well soon, Yaku-san. I miss you.”
Yaku can’t speak. He watches helplessly as Lev nervously tucks the blankets back around him, and his fingers come to rest on Yaku’s shoulders. And then, Lev leans in and kisses his forehead. It’s soft and quick, a warm touch of Lev’s mouth on his skin.
“Please go out with me when you’re not sick anymore! G-get some rest!” Lev’s face has turned a wonderful shade of red, and he rushes out of the room without looking back.
Yaku sits on his bed, touching his forehead, and fails not to smile. Maybe it’s good that he couldn’t speak. He has to get well even sooner now.
“I think they’re cute,” Daichi says when he’s first kissing Suga’s naked stomach under soft moonlight, tracing the black moles on his skin one by one. “They belong to you,” he says when Suga lies in his arms, lips warm like fire and home on his throat. Daichi spends months kissing them, a year, two years.
“Please, please stay with me,” Daichi says when Suga returns from a check-up with the word malignant echoing in his tears.
“I’ll try.” And God, does Suga try. Daichi doesn’t allow himself to cry when the starlight of Suga’s eyes melts back into the night sky of the universe. He only cries when Suga’s last warm touch against his cheek goes cold, and fades out.
Moami 