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For the past hour, Takahiro had been fiddling with the hem of his black shirt, spacing out whilst the television screen flashed murky colours of yellow and brown.
“Don’t open that door!” Oikawa screamed bloody murder for the fourth time that night, jerking back so violently his shoulder crashed into Iwaizumi, who let out a surprised hiss of pain.
At this point, Takahiro wouldn’t have been surprised if Matsukawa’s next-door neighbours were one click away from dialing the police.
The man on-screen, clueless to Oikawa’s pleas of horror, reached for the door handle and yanked it wide open anyway.
Takahiro blinked blearily at yet another loud music cue followed by a cheap jumpscare that made Oikawa recoil at the speed of light, nearly knocking Iwaizumi over in the process.
“Won’t you watch it?!” Iwaizumi ground through his teeth, but made no real efforts to peel Oikawa’s body from himself. Takahiro squinted at the two of them from the other side of the sofa. If he looked hard enough, he could’ve almost made out the faint pleased expression Iwaizumi was sporting because of this whole ordeal.
Takahiro frowned. Not taking his eyes off of them, he leaned towards Matsukawa, who seemed to have been the only person actually watching the movie. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Have they always been like this?”
“Like what?” Matsukawa asked, eyes still firmly trained on the screen at the man fighting off some in-law.
“You know,” Takahiro finally looked away, ignoring the unpleasant feeling brewing in his stomach. The film score crescendoed again and Oikawa practically flung himself onto Iwaizumi, hiding his face with his hand. “So… all over each other.”
Matsukawa cracked a small smile, furrowing his bushy eyebrows. “You say it like it’s recent,” he whispered, resting his hand on the sofa’s headrest. “They’ve always been all over each other, Makki.”
“Yeah, but…” his voice trailed off at the end, pressing his lips together in lieu of finishing the sentence. Loud music continued to blare through the television speakers, drowning out anything that might have come out of his mouth.
Sure, he was well aware of how close Iwaizumi and Oikawa had been, childhood friends and all, but they’ve never… At least, Takahiro doesn’t think that they were…
“You haven’t noticed?” Matsukawa hid a poorly concealed snort, nodding towards Oikawa, whose legs were now resting atop of Iwaizumi’s thighs. “Oikawa and Iwaizumi are crazy about each other. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people so in love, if I’m being completely honest. And, like, they’ve denied it time and time again, but I can see through their lies.”
Takahiro’s frown doubled. Ah, yes. Love. The word tasted foreign on his tongue.
See, Takahiro was no stranger to love. For one, he loved his mother. He loved his two sisters, Yasuko and Mayumi, and their late family dog, Miso-chan.
He loved his friends. He adored his pet ball python. He admired his old elementary school Japanese teacher.
But that’s where the already short list came to an underwhelming and slow halt. Takahiro prided himself in having a big heart - he could do platonic love with his eyes closed! But when it came to anything romantic, well, that’s when Takahiro’s interest began to wane.
He remembered the long conversations with his old friends back in middle school, with each of the boys taking turns describing the types of porn they watched the night before, to rebel against the system or stick it to the Man, or whatever.
And when it was Takahiro’s turn to share with the rest of the group, he’d always end up rattling off some pre-prepared answer he’d thought of the minute prior.
At first, Takahiro came to the natural conclusion that he must have been gay. Girls in his year never caught his eye, nor did they make his stomach fill up with butterflies and all sorts of other insects when he looked at female models photographed in rather suggestive positions.
(He had come across a certain suggestive magazine when looking for an eraser in his older sister’s bedroom. When he confronted Yasuko about it, her face could’ve easily rivaled that of a tomato, snatching the magazine away from his grasp.
“You wouldn’t understand it, it’s grown-up stuff,” Yasuko had huffed out, rolling up the magazine and whacking him over his head with it. “Don’t go snooping around my room again, you hear me, Hiro!”
Takahiro only snickered at her. Perhaps he would understand it once he grew up. Plus, he supposed it wasn’t as surprising when she came out as a lesbian two years later.)
Despite everything, Takahiro dated around. Girls at first, then he slowly began branching off to boys as well.
He was in the fourth grade when he was first asked to be somebody’s boyfriend by some girl in his maths class. She had shoulder length hair tied neatly into two twin ponytails, large red glasses, and a slight overbite.
She wasn’t unattractive, by any means. But was that all one looked for in a significant other?
Takahiro got dumped two weeks later for some boy in the baseball club, but he didn’t find himself upset at it at all.
His first kiss was with a boy named Anthony, half-Japanese half-Canadian, when they were both thirteen. Warm, clumsy and dry, Takahiro pressed his lips against his, jamming his eyes shut.
He counted off the seconds in his head, lips immovable against his to the point where he was scared they were going to numb. When they finally pulled apart, Anthony stared back at him, wide-eyed and blushing, and Takahiro wondered whether he was supposed to have felt something revolutionary, too.
Strictly aesthetically speaking, boys and girls were both good looking to Takahiro. But after having gone out with both sexes, kissed and hugged and held hands with them, dutifully played the role of the good, loving boyfriend, he deduced that romance was something he just wasn’t interested in.
So he stopped dating entirely.
He stopped chasing after boys and girls in his class in hopes of feeling a spark, a connection, something, anything, he politely turned down coffee dates or Valentine’s day chocolates, an awkward apologetic smile frozen on his face when he rejected yet another classmate.
And when all his close friends came over and complained about their futile attempts at getting a girlfriend, Takahiro would only shrug at the rest of them, eyes squinting at the sides. “I guess I just haven’t found the one yet.”
The one. What did that even mean?
Takahiro had guessed it was someone who completed you, someone intricately hand-crafted by the universe just for you. Someone loving, caring, simply “perfect”. But Takahiro had never been an idealist, anyway.
Actually, the more he thought about it, the more he realised just how, well, perfect, Oikawa and Iwaizumi were for each other.
Sure, you wouldn’t think of that immediately given their polar personalities (and the frequent physical torture Oikawa would have to endure after riling Iwaizumi up), but it was soon extremely evident from the way they played off each other, knowing one another like the backs of their hand.
Takahiro pressed up his head against the headrest, blinking rapidly when the loud music peaked yet again, bringing the movie into its fifteen minute finale.
“It’s not even that scary,” Iwaizumi snarked as the woman ran through the woods, howling with fear. Oikawa pinched the side of his thigh in retaliation, jumping when the killer appeared on-screen.
“Don’t make fun of me, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa sniffed haughtily, wrapping his arms around him. “I’m at my lowest and you’re making fun of me.”
Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “When am I not, Shittykawa?” he asked but still lifted his left arm and sneakily pulled Oikawa closer, hoping that the others were too preoccupied with the movie (Takahiro wasn’t) and the darkness was enough to shield them (the frequent flashes of white made it impossible to do so).
“You’re right,” Takahiro murmured after a moment. When Matsukawa looked at him expectantly, he tacked on, “about Iwaizumi and Oikawa, I mean.”
Matsukawa studied his face for a moment, his lips twitching. “Do you think they’re telling us anytime soon?”
“Oh, definitely not,” Takahiro snorted, leaning over to rest his head against Matsukawa’s shoulder. “This is Oikawa and Iwaizumi we’re talking about. They’d never admit it.”
“Maybe once we get the wedding invites.”
Takahiro bit back a smile. “Maybe.”
The final girl screamed yet again and Oikawa Tooru followed shortly after. Takahiro had been so out of it this movie night that he barely pieced together the second half of the plot - something including the devil, a really attractive heroine, and a whole lot of blood.
“I’m never letting you pick a movie ever again, Mattsun!” Oikawa wailed once the final note of the score ended and the credits began rolling, dragging across the screen as slow as molasses. “You said it wasn’t that bad!”
“Yeah, compared to the sequel,” Matsukawa snickered with a glint in his eye. “More blood, more murder — the whole electric boogaloo.”
“It’s my pick next time and I’m choosing something actually watchable, thank you very much.”
Takahiro knew that that was code for rewatching The Proposal for the fifth time and he groaned, earning a ripple of laughter from everyone else.
“Hanamaki despises Western romcoms,” Iwaizumi pointed out with a raised eyebrow. “Why you’d subject him to that again I do not know.”
“I don’t despise them,” Takahiro sighed, despite the clear recollection of him watching The Proposal for the first time, utterly baffled at how quickly Sandra Bullock fell in love with Ryan Reynolds.
(“They hated each other just this Tuesday!” Takahiro screamed at the screen, throwing popcorn at Sandra Bullock’s character. “This is not realistic at all!”
“You’re telling me you wouldn’t fall in love with Ryan Reynolds?” Oikawa teased with a raised eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe, Makki!”
“I don’t even know him!” Takahiro threw another popcorn kernel at the screen, finding more amusement in watching it bounce off the side of the television than in the actual plot of the movie. “I can’t even tell what he’s saying and his Japanese dub is so bad.”
Oikawa huffed a strand of hair out of his face. “It’s an enemies to lovers,” he said, nodding over to Ryan Reynolds’ character. “Isn’t it romantic?”
If Takahiro was being entirely honest, no. Not at all. It sounded like the complete opposite, actually.
“Who’d want to fall in love with someone they hate?” Takahiro mumbled to himself miserably, but bit his tongue for the remainder of the film.)
“I’ll see if I’m still feeling like torturing you.” Oikawa’s tongue peeked out in between his teeth, flashing a peace sign his way. “I have been wanting to check out that new Japanese romcom that came out last month…”
The sun had long set when Iwaizumi and Hanamaki began standing up, at least attempting to clean up Matsukawa’s bedroom before they left.
Slowly, they all said their goodbyes and thanked Matsukawa’s mother for the delectable dinner they feasted on just hours before, and it wasn’t long before Takahiro was the only person left.
“Where’s your coat?” Matsukawa asked noncommittally, shooting a glance at the flimsy black shirt with the faded Nirvana logo half-peeled off attempting to hug Takahiro’s figure.
Takahiro pulled a face. “I forgot it in the locker room,” he slung his school bag over his shoulder. “I’ll go pick it up tomorrow in the morning.”
For a moment, Matsukawa just stared at him. His eyebrows knitted together.
“You really are stupid,” he sighed, looking him up and down. “You know it dropped like twenty degrees since you’ve last been outside, right?”
“It’s fine, mother,” Takahiro rolled his eyes with fake disdain before giving him a lopsided smile. “I’ll just catch the next bus.”
“At this rate, the only thing you’re catching is a cold.”
Matsukawa spared him one last look before pushing past him. It took Takahiro’s brain a few seconds before he processed where he was going.
“Matsukawa, come on. Matsukawa!” When he didn’t get a response, Takahiro’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment as he dragged a hand across the side of his face. “Issei!”
The Matsukawa Issei in question finally poked his head out of the doorway, throwing a grey hoodie straight at him.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he announced, striding across the room. “I expect a proper thank you for me being a good friend and not letting you succumb to hypothermia.”
“My hero,” Takahiro drawled, then thrusted the hoodie against Matsukawa’s chest. “It’s fine, man. Like, I appreciate it, but really, just take it—”
Apparently, giving it to Matsukawa was the wrong move because the moment the fabric reached his hands, he draped the hoodie over Takahiro’s head, forcing him into it.
The smell hit him immediately, that stupid cologne Matsukawa always insisted on wearing, and for a moment, a split-second, Takahiro wondered whether he’d worn this hoodie earlier this week.
His face blanched at the sheer thought, throwing up his hands in a panic.
“Fuck you, you piece of shit!” Takahiro howled, trying his best to fight off Matsukawa's insistent attempts at dragging the collar over his head. “Stop, you stupid son of a bitch! Let me go!”
“It’d be so much easier if you stopped moving so much,” Matsukawa huffed out, grabbing hold of both of his wrists through the fabric and sighing. “If anything, you’re the stupid son of a bitch. Going out looking like that in this weather.”
Finally, Matsukawa managed to pull the collar over his head, dragging the hoodie down before he could protest.
Takahiro stared back at him, pink tinged cheeks and hair sticking up in all directions.
“There,” Matsukawa said, smoothing out the fabric. He toyed with the strings of the hoodie, pulling on them experimentally. “It actually kind of fits you. I was a bit worried that the sizing would be a bit weird.”
“We practically wear the same size, asshole,” Takahiro mumbled, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets. He looked down at the floor. “I should probably get going.”
Matsukawa tore his gaze away from him. “Yeah, you probably should.”
When none of them showed any indications of moving, a wry smile spread across Matsukawa’s face. “Shoo. Scram. Vanish.”
“Is that any way to treat a guest?” Takahiro lamented but did begin moving towards the front door. He dragged his school bag behind him, stopping by the door frame. “First you manhandle me like an animal, then you exile me out of your abode—”
“You know that you could stay the night if you really wanted,” Matsukawa cut in with a smile, leaning against the wall. “You just need to go home and finish that chemistry paper of yours due tomorrow.”
Takahiro groaned. “Oh, don’t even remind me, Issei. A perfect way to start my Friday.”
“I’ll be waiting at your doorstep with the ice cream and tissues, and bottles of alcohol—”
Takahiro lurched forward and pressed his hand against Matsukawa’s lips, smirking at the muffled noises coming out of his mouth.
“God, you are so annoying,” he commented, then lowered his hand and gently jabbed at his cheek. “Be a good host and pack me some of those cookies your mother baked earlier, won’t you?”
Matsukawa raised both eyebrows. “And you are such a spoiled brat,” he said but moved towards the kitchen anyway. “You’re lucky my mother loves you so much, Takahiro.”
Takahiro’s heart squeezed inexplicably at the words. He watched Matsukawa get behind the kitchen counter and reach down into one of the cabinets in search of a small container.
Diligently, he placed the cookies into the box before looking around for the lid. He paused for a moment, fingers hovering over the box, then bent over again, seemingly having misplaced it.
Takahiro stood and watched him flail around, an exasperated fondness blooming in his chest, and oh.
Suddenly, all of the late night text conversations, Discord video calls, memes sent back and forth, time spent in each other’s houses—
The fleeting glances, Matsukawa’s lazy smile whenever he was around, the playful kicks and bickering and play fighting that devolved into serious MMA wrestling on the family couch, and waiting for each other after volleyball practice, going home together and buying each other drinks from the vending machine when the other was a few coins short—
The frequent movie nights that featured only the two of them, the fact that Matsukawa sat through the entire Saw filmography (twice) because it was Takahiro’s guilty pleasure—
It all fell into place.
Oh.
Matsukawa was still searching for the lid when Takahiro blurted out, “you’re in love with me.”
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t formulated like a question. Hell, he didn’t even try to inflect his voice at the end, because Takahiro wasn’t asking.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Matsukawa raised his head. He stared back at him, blinking once. “What?”
“You’re,” Takahiro swallowed thickly, “you’re in love with me… aren’t you?”
“Uh,” Matsukawa said, and if Takahiro stared hard enough, he could see the faintest red colour spread across the high of his cheekbones. “Yeah.”
Takahiro fidgeted with Matsukawa’s hoodie, then let out a low whistle. “Cool. Real cool.” An awkward silence stretched out in between them, hanging over them like a thick cloud. “You… planning on doing anything about it?”
Matsukawa blinked once, opened his mouth for a second before closing it. “Excuse me?” he asked eventually, a voice crack creeping up behind him.
If he was being entirely honest, Takahiro couldn’t quite place his finger on what he was currently feeling. It felt dangerous, it felt new, it twisted and churned in his stomach, threatening to come spilling out his mouth.
Takahiro hated it. And yet, he couldn’t seem to get enough of it.
“Well, nothing, I guess,” Matsukawa spoke up again after the lack of a response. He reached down after finally finding the lid, closing the container shut. He set it down gently, sighing. “I know that you’re not… comfortable with this kind of… stuff.”
Something lodged in his throat. “You knew?”
Matsukawa’s face heated up again. “I mean, I assumed. Sorry.”
“So what, you were just going to wallow away pining?”
“Yeah, basically,” he laughed but it came out harsher than usual. He brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck. “I didn’t really want to tell you because, I don’t know, I didn’t want to make you feel pressured to give me an answer or anything, especially after seeing you reject every girl who cornered you on Valentine’s.”
“Yeah, well, I’m aroace,” Takahiro finally ripped off the bandaid, his heart rate picking up tenfold. He ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, at least I thought I was.
“People are hot, I know that much. But I just- well- I never felt,” he put up his hands and air-quoted, “sparks or something. I tried everything but I just never felt anything concrete for anyone, but- well—”
“You don’t have to justify the reason you’re rejecting me,” Matsukawa forced out another laugh, and it sounded so wrong, wrong, wrong.
“You seem to be the only exception,” Takahiro cut in before Matsukawa could begin spiralling.
Fortunately, Matsukawa did shut up. But he also got extremely red, eyes widening as he processed the words uttered into the space between them.
“You… I don’t know what it is about you, but… you make me feel…”
Slowly, Takahiro padded through the hallway, replaying every memory, every fleeting moment, every flash of unprecedented giddiness he felt whenever he was around Matsukawa. Everytime his stomach flipped to its side at something he said or whenever he felt the animalistic urge to wrap all four of his limbs around Matsukawa and never let go.
He remembered every time he laughed so hard his ribs ached and he couldn’t breathe, every time he couldn’t wait for a text back after sending him a particularly funny video, every time he heard Matsukawa call his name in the hallways, and after all of this, his brain kept returning back to one specific question—
Is this what love felt like?
“Can you…” Takahiro came to a halt just a few feet away from Matsukawa, face heating up pathetically. “Can you please kiss me?”
He saw Matsukawa’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat, hesitating. Faltering. Frozen in place.
It took him a few seconds before he nodded back shakily. Gently, he reached out to cup the side of Takahiro’s jaw, thumbing over his cheek.
“Tell me if you stop wanting this,” he whispered before closing the gap between them. It’s tentative, it’s awkward, but how the hell did he expect Takahiro not to cry when he’s holding him as if he were made of glass?
He let his eyelashes flutter shut, angling his head to the side. A little, pathetic noise escaped his lips when Matsukawa deepened the kiss, and, and—
Tears stung the corners of his eyes, staining his cheeks and dribbling off his chin. Matsukawa pulled away almost instantly, a look of abject horror spreading across his face.
“Fuck, are you okay?” he asked, clumsy hands wiping away the tears that just wouldn’t stop flowing. His expression grew pained, eyes searching, scouring for any sign, any indication of a hint, a clue, an answer. “I’m so sorry, Takahiro, I didn’t think that you’d—”
A particularly loud sob rippled through Takahiro’s throat. “Sparks,” he hiccoughed, the sudden realisation making him cry even harder. His voice garbled pitifully, raising his head higher and blinking away tears as his eyes finally found Matsukawa’s. “I felt sparks.”
Sparks. Fireworks. Explosions. The cliché feeling described in the cheesiest romcoms that Takahiro always complained about, but couldn’t stop watching.
It all came cascading down on him, a waterfall of nothing and everything at all. At that moment, Takahiro couldn’t help but feel so loved.
“Sparks?” Matsukawa parroted stupidly, brushing his short, strawberry blond hair to the side. “You mean- Takahiro- I mean—”
"Yeah," Takahiro nodded, a warbled chuckle mixing unpleasantly with his crying. He choked for a second, hands reaching up to hold Matsukawa. “I think that you should kiss me again,” he murmured, tears hanging off his eyelashes. “Just to be sure. For scientific purposes.”
“Scientific purposes,” Matsukawa echoed, a small smile tugging at his lips. He dipped his head lower. “I think that’s something I can get behind.”
Growing impatient, Takahiro crashed their lips together, smiling involuntarily when warmth stirred in his stomach, spreading all the way to the tips of his ears, all the way to his fingertips.
He wrapped his hands around Matsukawa’s waist, dragging him closer to him. This wasn’t enough, he needed more, his mind screamed back at him.Takahiro decided right then and there that he needed to press his body flush against his, he needed to crawl inside of his ribcage and live there for the rest of eternity.
A small whine escaped his mouth when Matsukawa was the first to pull away yet again, instead opting to press his lips against every square inch of Takahiro’s face.
“So what’s the verdict, Hanamaki-sensei?” Matsukawa asked in between kisses, angling his head to gain access to his pale neck. “Any sparks this time, too?’
“Ex-fucking-splosions,” Takahiro replied dryly amidst a sniffle, laughter skyrocketing out of his throat when Matsukawa licked a particularly long stripe along his neck. “Dude, you’re so fucking gross.”
“You love me, though,” he said absentmindedly, admiring his handiwork. If he was going to keep this up, Takahiro would have to end up explaining why he was wearing a scarf to school in the middle of spring.
Matsukawa hadn’t noticed it, but Takahiro smiled inwardly, like it was some inside joke only he was in on.
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
Makki: mattsun and i are officially dating btw
Makki: beat you & iwa to the reveal LMFAO
Makki: back me up here babe
Mattsun: L+ratio+don’t care+you fell off+never liked you anyway+cope+ur allergic to gluten
Iwa-chan: Damn really? Congrats you two :)
Toto: omg…
Toto: YOURE DATING?!??!???!??!
Toto: Wait…
Toto: WHAT DO YOU MEAN BEAT YOU TO IT
Toto: WHAAAAAAAAAT
Toto: HOW DID YOU KNOW