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It really wasn't meant to be a proposition, but when Kazuya eventually shows up at 1:32am in a loose t-shirt with a hole in it and cotton pajama bottoms, Mei puts two and two together.
He showed up after all. Oh, what the hell.
"You seriously left your house in those?" Mei questions for good measure, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
With a grin, Kazuya eyes him up and down right on back. Okay fine, Mei's not wearing much better (he's actually at home), but at least his pajamas are colour-coordinated.
"I figured I wouldn't be wearing them for long," Kazuya replies brightly, a bounce in his step—and that answers that.
"It wasn't earth-shattering, so you're baffled, aren't you?" Kazuya guesses, stretching out his back, not even bothering to hold back a yawn.
In response, Mei makes a miffed noise into his blanket, and Kazuya can’t help but laugh.
“What?” Another displeased groan from beside him. “Stop gloating.”
“But you haven’t even admitted I’m right yet,” Kazuya replies cheekily. He rolls onto his side to face Mei, because he has to see this. “We were supposed to be perrrrrfect, so where’s the mind-blowing sex I was promised?”
Mei slumps deeper into the blankets in a desperate attempt to cover up his face. Okay, so he can’t see much, but it’s kind of cute anyway.
“That bad, huh?”
When the news finally breaks, Kazuya expects the flood of texts making his phone go haywire. They can wait, because he knows what they’ll all say.
One person calls him up though, an hour after the rest. Kazuya lets it ring a few times before picking it up.
“You’re moving back to Tokyo?” a breathless voice asks as soon as the line connects.
Kazuya can’t help but smile into his phone. “Yeah, did you miss me?”
“All the time,” Mei quickly answers.
And just like that, the tables turn, even if Kazuya didn’t mean to sit down in the first place. It’s reminiscent of all the things Mei just says as throwaway, like they were simple truths of the world that shouldn’t obliterate Kazuya on the spot.
Maybe that’s why it took so long for Mei to call him. Maybe that’s why Mei didn’t expect him to call first.
“I’d miss you less if you were moving to my team,” he says after that, and even after all these years, he sounds hopeful.
“Then negotiate better than me next year,” Kazuya replies, trying his best to sound lighthearted. It was a long shot, but Mei deserved to know. “…would you leave for me?”
Mei doesn’t hesitate. “If you asked me to, I’d consider it. But for now, I'll settle for beating you.”
“Kazuya, you ass!” Mei shouts, grabbing the closest pillow to shove into that smug face of his behind him. By the sounds of Kazuya’s snickers though, he dodged. Drat.
“Wow, and you call yourself a pitcher? Not even looking where you’re throwing!” Kazuya taunts in return and makes a play to grab Mei by the shoulders.
Mei tumbles down back first into Kazuya’s hug. He makes some rather futile attempts to escape while Kazuya giggles endlessly into his hair.
“Oh, shut up, I don’t want to look at you right now, stop!”
“Then don’t look,” Kazuya replies smugly. “I can still make it up to you if you’re blindfolded, hm?”
It’s late but Kazuya doesn’t pull any punches.
“You look awful,” he states flatly. Somehow it still comes across as fond.
“Oh, shut up and kiss me already,” Mei retorts, inviting himself in like he lives here. Sometimes, Kazuya doesn’t hate the idea of that.
Mei’s jaw drops, balking.
"Don’t get mad at me that you didn’t realize we were already in a relationship. Don’t you know you've said no to me every time when it comes to baseball, but you've never said no to this?"
"Maybe you're irresistible,” says Kazuya, sounding exhausted.
Mei doesn’t know if he’s angrier that Kazuya’s picking a fight without the energy to continue it, or the fact that he thought it was something worth fighting over.
"And maybe you're awful, banking on the fact I'll never turn my back on you,” Mei rebukes hotly, the words leaving a trail burning in his throat.
A hollow laugh bubbles out of Kazuya, and Mei sees the metaphorical door slamming before he hears it. Classic.
"Yeah, why don't you? Just—"
"Don't make me say it," Mei cuts him off, hoping he sounds less desperate than he feels.
Pitchers are so selfish.
Kazuya’s known this his entire life. He’s had his share of fun with it too, turning their own egos against them, refocusing their drives.
However, there’s no refocusing Mei’s anything right now. Mei’s long-loved to monopolize his attention, and no number of snarky redirections could save Kazuya from this. Mei pressed deep inside him, mouth hot and heavy and hungry on his, possessive yet needy like Kazuya is air itself. Ironic.
Kazuya gasps when Mei shifts angles, breaking their kiss to speak. His gaze nails Kazuya to the spot, fervent and full, and Kazuya thinks in that moment that he would’ve done anything Mei asked him to.
“Again, Kazuya,” Mei demands, panting, hips stuttering. “Come again for me—"
“Friends with benefits, huh. So, what other benefits do I get?” Kazuya flashes a wide grin at him, like Mei had unveiled some bright shiny secret instead of just speaking out loud what they both already knew.
But there’s no harm in playing along. Mei had spent years and years trying to rope Kazuya into his own plans to no avail. Now, he’s figured out that Kazuya's always had his own plans in mind, and Mei just wanted to be around when he eventually figured out what that was.
“Do you want to negotiate terms or something?” Mei teases back.
He’s known Mei for a long time. In that time, Mei did indeed mellow out, but he's also remained quintessentially Mei.
And Kazuya's not an idiot. He's always known the way Mei looks at him, never wavering since childhood, now quieter but no less determined and sure.
So, when Kazuya finally decides to look back rather than sneaking glances, everything kind of falls into place. It's a different kind of challenge, knowing that Mei also knows that he wants to stick around this time. Next time. Maybe forever.
Okay, perhaps Kazuya did enjoy the chase a little too much, but he has to admit it never feels quite as good as when Mei smiles at him, more soft than triumphant in the morning light.
Mei just doesn't get him sometimes. To his surprise, it's become less infuriating and more endearing over the years. Kazuya chooses to defy his expectations, and Mei learns to have less of them.
But he can't expect less whenever Kazuya lets him in. It ruins him from the inside out every time, because Kazuya chose him, had stayed close and circled him until they finally touched. Sometimes fleeting, sometimes for the night, and sometimes he looks at Mei with his heart half-open and Mei thinks, dreams, knows he won't ever shut the door again.
“Just—” The door slams behind them and Kazuya’s eyes are searing hot, hands already making quick work of Mei’s belt. "Let me."
"O-okay," Mei stutters, a little dazed and confused but more turned on than anything else, and braces himself.
“You called,” Kazuya says softly. “So, I came.”
Mei sniffs loudly, wiping his nose uselessly. The little shrug of defeat pains him to see, because Mei has always been one of the brightest things in Kazuya’s world. It was always too dark whenever that light got stomped out, even for a little while.
“I’m in no mood, I just.” He pauses and kicks his feet into the coffee table, cementing the dent there. “It was a reflex, okay?”
Kazuya just nods and holds one arm out, and Mei slots himself perfectly into the space by Kazuya's side as they both pretend he's not crying.
It’s a season-ending injury.
“I told you so,” Mei grumbles, hands fisted atop his stomach.
He's staring at the ceiling, or trying to. Anywhere that isn’t Kazuya.
“Yeah, but it was worth it,” Kazuya says into the night. He sounds oddly at peace with himself, but Mei isn’t. How could he be?
“How could they have let you—” he hears his voice rising furiously, knuckles probably turning white. He wants to punch something, even the injured idiot next to him.
A hand bumps into his hip, not much of a caress but it’s close.
“They don’t see me like you do, Mei, and that's okay.” Kazuya whispers, a sigh into the darkness.
Mei's heartbeat stutters. “You say that like it’s a bad thing, being observant.”
“...thanks, for watching out for me,” Kazuya says instead, like Mei doesn’t have to, like he can help it.
“Kazuya,” Mei always says, all too naturally.
Over the years, Kazuya realized he shouldn’t take that for granted. He’s never been good at letting people in, but Mei had bulldozed his way through years and years ago, and it never felt right to kick him out. Now, his name is pretty much synonymous with Mei. No one else quite says it right.
He says ‘Mei’ in an interview without thinking, because it's natural for him too. It's only later that he realizes Mei's never done the same professionally, like Kazuya is a secret worth keeping from the press, from the entire universe.
"I don't worship the ground you walk on. I'm going to hurt you, but you can hurt me too. You don't have to even feel badly about it. I know who you are,” Mei says in a rush, unblinkingly unapologetic.
Kazuya stares at him blankly for a moment, pushes up his glasses, and then lets out a long breath.
“Yeah?”
Mei nods, resolute.
“Yeah, Kazuya. Maybe feel a little bad when it’s deserved, but—” Kazuya’s laugh cuts him off, and he laughs too.
“Hey Kazuya, you called?” Mei asks, smiling.