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Tabito shouldn’t be thinking about going downstairs. Hell, he shouldn’t even be awake right now. He has to be up and prepared for the train to Saturday practice in no more than six hours, meaning he should wake up in five and a half, and that’s only if he goes to bed right this instant.
Yeah, that’s probably not happening; he’s in too deep to so much as consider going to sleep right now. With their upcoming match on Sunday, he’s spent all his free time reviewing match tapes and compiling player data, and the video he’s on right now has still got fifteen minutes left to watch.
But he’s only human. His stomach does require sustenance, despite his overconfident decision of sacrificing dinner for review time. So Tabito decides to take a risk when he creeps down the stairs to go raid the kitchen for a quick post-midnight snack—something to refresh him and ensure the quality of his notes won’t decline for these last few minutes.
He sidesteps every shallow dip and creaky panel on the stairs as he descends with practiced elegance. There’s a rhythm to it, a beat of sorts, and years of performing heists for energy drinks during research all-nighters have made this tune practically muscle memory. Two fingers balance on the light switch as he applies the slightest pressure, just enough to drench the living room in brightness without that annoying snap sound alerting his family. He routes his way to the fridge, taking the most efficient path with the least number of steps and—
Thud.
An unexpected sound interrupts the silence when his slipper crosses the kitchen’s threshold. Tabito freezes. His body locks up, fingers still curled around the cold pantry doorknob, his mind already beginning to form the excuse he’ll throw out to avoid any further scolding.
Then he hears it again, and it’s even fainter. It doesn’t sound like footsteps, nor does it sound like an angry, maternal voice. The strain in his muscles fades as he wanders back out to the living room, and he hears it one more time: a quick, weak rap against the front door. Not the most uncommon thing to ever happen at this time. For all he knows, his sister might’ve ordered yet another same-day delivery package that the driver just couldn’t quite get here in a timely manner. Nothing out of the ordinary.
With a sigh, he saunters over. He’d much rather deal with this himself than ignore it and risk someone waking up to chastise him.
“Hello,” he says as he swings open the door. “What’s— …Huh?”
Tabito doesn’t know what he was expecting from a knock on the door at one in the morning.
It definitely wasn’t Hiori Yō, the kid from Kyoto who he plays with in Bambi Osaka, crying into his arm and shaking like a goddamn leaf.
He feels paralysed as he scans the surrounding area past the half-open door. Is this some kind of prank? Some really well-planned trick to get back at him, get him terrified and worried? But Hiori’s not that kind of boy, and Tabito can’t imagine him planning something as elaborate as this without him catching on in the slightest. Then, did he fall asleep while studying, and he’s now dreaming some weird, psychopathic dream?
Yet the metal of the doorknob is freezing cold. He’s well aware of the sudden tightness in his chest, his shirt clinging to his skin, the warmth prickling at his eyes from staring at a screen for far too long. Hiori looks exactly how he always does—lovely, blue, with a closed-off stance and a lowered head. But Tabito’s never seen him like this. If it doesn’t feel like a dream… then this is really happening.
“Wha— Hiori?” Tabito’s voice comes out alarmingly high-pitched, but it’s hardly unjustified. His hands flail wildly as he sputters, trying to figure out where to even start with this. “I— What the hell are ya doin’ here?”
Hiori doesn’t offer a response. It doesn’t look like he could even if he wanted to.
“Ya shouldn’t be here,” Tabito wants to say, all the danger alarms going off in his head. Or maybe, “What d’ya think yer doin’ at my house at one in the mornin’?” Or maybe, “It’s dangerous. Go home!”
But Hiori crumbles to a crouch, and Tabito’s words are jammed. Everything he’s ever wanted to say has become just a lump in his throat, mouth opening and closing to no avail.
He drops to one knee, places a hand on Hiori’s arm, and Hiori only seems to sob harder at that. Everything’s stuck. Time isn’t moving, other than those soulful cries getting more wrecked by the second. It’s all so static—it hurts his ears, even if the cries aren’t that loud. It’s obvious that Hiori’s trying his best not to be disruptive, being the gentle and timid boy he is, but it’s the sound itself that strikes something painful in Tabito’s body.
Hiori’s chest, its movement is all… all erratic, and his breaths sound like croaks—
“Yer hyperventilatin’,” Tabito mumbles, the sudden numbness in his limbs instantly dissipating as panic kicks in. He hooks an arm over Hiori’s shoulder, palm flat against his back as he pulls him up and inside the house.
“Shhh, hold on…” He chews on his bottom lip, glancing around the house to devise the simplest path to take. His objective has shifted entirely. Who cares if his parents wake up? Finding out what the hell is going on with Hiori and dealing with it swiftly is all that’s on his mind now. “…Gah. Hold on, let’s… let’s get ya some water. Breathe, for god’s sake, dumbass.”
Tabito winces as an attempt at a breath catches in Hiori’s throat. That brief moment of relief is immediately followed by three quick, futile inhales. Hiori lurches forward again to hack and sputter, and Tabito sprints to the kitchen. His fingers fumble around a mug, barely able to hold it and fill it with how much his hands are trembling.
Rounding the kitchen island again, he brings the cup up to Hiori’s lips. “Drink,” he orders.
God, Hiori is shaking way worse than he is. Hiori’s fingers curl around the cup, and he tilts his head back as Tabito lifts it enough to let a slow stream of water funnel in. His hands get steadier the more Hiori drinks, and he pulls it away the moment Hiori starts to cough around the rim.
“Breathe,” Tabito repeats, voice as soft and stable as he can manage. He slides the mug onto the nearest flat surface before running the pads of his fingers up and down Hiori’s back, soothing him in the way his sister used to do to him. “Ya needta breathe. Please.”
Hiori struggles for relief, wheezing and gasping as he tries to work air into his lungs. His face is flushed, one hand clutching the shirt over his chest as the other balances him just barely, and his coughs are scratchy and weighted when he hacks. Tabito does his best to help—he’s not nearly prepared enough for this situation, so the most he can do is continue to soothe him, whispering the occasional “It’s okay, you’re okay” to distract himself from the pained noises.
As soon as his breaths are getting in stably, Tabito stretches out his hand for Hiori to take. Hiori looks at it through a ragged inhale, then looks at him, confusion knitting his eyebrows.
“Come on,” Tabito says, shaking his wrist insistently. “Follow me. I’m not gonna make ya stay down here in my kitchen.”
“N-No…” Hiori manages, breathless. He glances around, taking a half-step back, like he’s slowly begun to realise he’s overstepping. “It’s okay, d-don’t—”
“Stop bein’ an idiot.”
Tabito takes Hiori’s hand himself, tugging him away from the kitchen island and leading him to the door to change into some house slippers. Hiori attempts to protest when he’s then led towards the stairs, trying to pull away and leave, but Tabito shushes him—he gestures to show he’s wary of his sleeping parents, and that Hiori should stay quiet lest they wake them. With pursed lips and an apologetic expression, Hiori nods, and Tabito routes their way back to his bedroom.
The moment the door closes behind them, he motions for Hiori to sit on his bed. Tabito looks at the tablet on his desk—the screen glows with the footage of the field, paused mid-kick to the goal, exactly where he left it earlier. He walks over and clicks the power button, watching the screen turn black before joining Hiori on the edge of the bed.
“Feelin’ better?” he asks after a long moment of silence.
Hiori looks up from the floor, wiping away some stray tears with the inside of his wrist. “Mhm.”
The next few minutes are spent in silence. Tabito would usually find this awkward—he’d crack a joke, make some comment about the weather, come up with a half-hearted jab—yet he doesn’t… feel that. It’s just silent. Hiori carefully kicks off his slippers and brings his legs up. He finds a comfortable position—sitting cross-legged with his foot tapping against the edge restlessly—as he continues to wipe the steady flow of tears. Tabito tries not to look, instead watching the swinging of his own legs against the bedframe as a distraction.
“‘M sorry,” Hiori murmurs after a while, managing coherence through his sobs. Tabito almost flinches at the gravel in it. His throat sounds… bruised. Not quite sore, no, not in that weak and feeble way people sound when they’re sick—Hiori sounds ripped open. It stings somewhere Tabito can’t quite place.
Tabito looks up at him, and Hiori’s lip wobbles for a second before more tears stream down his face. He really wants to be snarky, say something to get him to stop crying even if it’s purely by annoying him, but Hiori might take him seriously and suppress it more.
“It’s fine,” Tabito says with a shrug. He inches closer, until their thighs are touching, and bumps Hiori’s shoulder playfully. “Yer lucky I’m still awake.”
“I am,” Hiori agrees through a shaky breath. “I really am.”
“What’re ya even doin’ here anyway?” Tabito tries to segue into something that’ll give him a bit more information on whatever’s happening right now. “Did somethin’ happen? The train ride here is so far, plus it’s, like, one in the mornin’.”
Hiori bows his head, finding a sudden interest in the carpet as he leans his weight against Tabito’s frame. “Mm… Yeah, somethin’ did happen. It got really loud, there was stuff bein’ thrown, and… I dunno. My instincts told me to get outta there, but I didn’t think far enough ahead ‘cuz there’s nowhere near I coulda gone. I guess I was just thinkin’… ‘What’s the safest place I can go right now?’ Which, well. It led me here.”
Tabito blinks.
Then he blinks again, slower, trying to process Hiori’s words.
There’s a thousand things he wants to ask. Why was it loud? Who was throwing things? Why was there no one in the entire district of Kyoto that Hiori could’ve gone to?
Most importantly, was it really Tabito’s house that Hiori thought of as ‘the safest place’?
“I’m really, really sorry,” Hiori continues, brushing his thumbs over each other self-soothingly. “I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“No, it’s— Seriously, Hiori, it’s fine.” Tabito watches as Hiori finally lifts his head to look at him again, shining eyes threatening to spill more tears. “I’m glad ya came here if things were feelin’ unsafe, and that ya… um, trust me. With feelin’ safe, or whatever it was.”
If Hiori looked any more shy than Tabito, he wouldn’t know. His gaze immediately tracked his floor again as he struggled to retrieve some working words to offer.
“Did ya tell anyone ya were comin’ here?” he asks.
Hiori shakes his head.
“Wha…! That’s—” Tabito sputters, eyes going wide. “No one back home knows yer whereabouts?!”
Hiori shakes his head again.
“I— Dude. Ya can’t stay here!”
The second the words are spoken, Hiori’s face drops; his expression is some mixture of fear, shame, and a billion other things Tabito doesn’t want to think about.
He winces guiltily, shaking his head as he backtracks. “No, no— I mean, if yer not safe goin’ back, then— Okay, I guess ya can stay here, it’s no problem to me… but ya hafta tell someone where ya went! What if people go lookin’ for ya? Like… Like yer parents—”
“My parents?” Hiori interrupts.
“I mean— Yeah, yer parents.” He gulps, not quite sure where to place his hands in this position. He settles for keeping one behind him, propping himself up to support Hiori’s weight against him as he feigns calmness. “Don’t ya, y’know… live with them? I mean, I’m guessin’ ya have no relatives in Kyoto since ya came here…” Tabito trails off unsurely. “They’re probably gonna look for ya soon, especially if ya don’t go home. We’ve got practice in the mornin’.”
He sounds meeker aloud than he does in his head. Like he’s nervous. But he’s not, or so he’d like to think, because it’s Hiori, and he doesn’t want Hiori to know he’s nervous. So he’s decidedly not nervous, even with Hiori’s arm pressed flush to his side. He’s not nervous with Hiori’s shuddering from held-back sobs making both his body and his resolve shake. He’s not nervous when Hiori’s all weirdly fragile like this and stuck to leaning against him like Tabito’s the only thing keeping him from falling through the floor.
He can’t be nervous. Especially not when Hiori needs him not to be.
“My parents, Karasu-kun?” Hiori chokes out after a long moment, and he tilts his head up with the question. Those striking cerulean eyes lock onto Tabito’s when his bangs fall away, but they’re glossy and red-rimmed and not nearly as bright as they usually are around Tabito. It reminds him of how he’d looked from across the field when they’d met: sort of distant, not quite present, as though his real mind was hiding away from the world. “Ha. They won’t notice… at least not ‘til tomorrow. And even then, as long as I attend morning practice with you? They won’t care.”
“They… What?”
Tabito’s eyes widen. The words don’t quite make sense—or maybe they do, actually, and he just can’t quite register the absurdity of them. Hiori lives in Kyoto. Tabito lives in Osaka. If he were to prance off to Kyoto in the middle of the night without permission or advance notice and stay there? Soccer practice be damned, he’d be in for a hell of an interrogation the minute he got home. How could Hiori be so confident in saying they wouldn’t care? What kind of situation could possibly permit that?
“Don’t joke around like that, dumbass,” Tabito mutters. His fingers twitch against each other, nerves alight as he fidgets. “It’s so late, it’s not—”
“Karasu-kun,” Hiori repeats. His voice carries a sudden firmness, and Tabito’s muscles tense. “They won’t care.”
Hiori’s looking at him with those round, puffy eyes again. Blood is rushing to Tabito’s face. He wants to look away.
He doesn’t.
“…Sorry.” Hiori brings one hand up to palm at the back of his own neck, then puts his hands over each other politely within his crossed legs. There’s something resembling a smile on his face, and that expression is just too forlorn to try and masquerade as genuine; it doesn’t take Tabito’s sharp eye to realise that much. “It’s just that as long as I get to practice on time tomorrow and do well, they won’t care. They won’t call. They won’t ask. They…”
Hiori trails off, teeth sinking into his lower lip. His tearful gaze falls away just for a moment, as if he’s between stopping there or finishing his sentence. Tabito hesitates, and then he lets one hand wander to rest upon where Hiori’s hand is lax in his lap—just on top of it, just casually, just to show he’s listening. He doesn’t miss the way Hiori’s eyelids flutter for a brief moment, nor does he let the slight breath that escapes remain unnoticed.
The air seems to still around them. There isn’t anything really here at all but him and Hiori.
“…They don’t care,” Hiori whispers.
Tabito lets the words hang there.
And Hiori watches his expression, searching for any sign of absolution—a sign that’ll tell him that coming here was not the wrong choice, or that coming to Tabito was the right choice, or simply just that he hasn’t fucked up as much as he thinks he has by showing up like this in the middle of the night.
The words sink, and they sink, and they sink until it’s “they don’t care, they don’t care, they don’t care” buzzing at the back of Tabito’s head and in Tabito’s ears and right in front of Tabito’s face. To think, Hiori’s parents—they wouldn’t question their son going missing for an entire day? Having travelled all the way to Osaka, totally unsupervised, in the middle of the damn night? And what’s with Hiori, acting like this is more shameful than horrifying, like this isn’t a surprise, like Tabito’s the weird one for not immediately going ‘Oh, okay, that makes sense, I dunno why I was concerned that yer parents were gonna come lookin’ for ya’?
“They don’t care?” Tabito echoes.
It’s sort of by reflex, like how babies repeat statements without really understanding what they mean, just to see if he can prove it all wrong by speaking it aloud. What kind of dumbasses wouldn’t care about someone as extraordinary as Hiori?
Well, parents are parents. It’s hard to trade off something like family no matter how bad it might be, because it’s impossible to tell what a family is like just from the outside. Tabito understands that.
So the better question—the one that Tabito’s really getting at—is why?
‘Why don’t they care?’ or maybe, ‘Why are ya making it sound simpler than it could ever possibly be?’ or maybe, ‘Why didn’t ya tell me sooner?’ or maybe a couple dozen other things that would be so terribly inappropriate to ask right now. If it were anyone else, maybe he’d have pried a little more.
But it’s Hiori.
He shouldn’t. He can’t. For the first time in his life, his heart’s not in it. He doesn’t want to push or poke or pry Hiori’s mind open. Maybe it’s because Hiori is in a more vulnerable state than he’s ever seen any of his friends in before. Maybe it’s because he’s scared of what he’ll find all too quickly.
Maybe it’s because Hiori would let him.
Because Hiori’s always happy to be a sucker; interest with ulterior motives is still interest nonetheless. Tabito’s seen what it does to him. He’s so curious to understand why Hiori seems to receive his interest, his attention, as though it were something exotic and scarce that he desperately wanted more of after the first taste.
And Hiori’s hands are warming now, the outside chill seeping away like frost melting off a window. His feet shift in place, restless, and he looks at Tabito pleadingly—like he wants something, wants Tabito to understand, wants Tabito to feel it, or maybe just wants Tabito. If he’s even allowed to believe that much.
“Oh,” he finally manages. “I’m… sorry.”
“It’s alright. If it’s anythin’ other than soccer, they don’t give a damn.” Hiori’s eyes start watering again, and he wipes them away before they can even shed down his face. “Fuck. Sorry, I feel kinda— kinda stupid for talkin’ about this. I’m used to it. I should be used to it. But there’s things they’ve been saying these days, when it’s late at night ‘n they think I’m sleepin’, that just… Ah. It all, like, crawls around my head and… it’s hard. And it’s worse ‘cause I was fine with it before, I really was, it was just the way I needed to live and it was okay, and then ya—”
Hiori pauses to cough out the lump that’s been working its way up his throat. The knot that has slowly been tightening in Tabito’s chest is making it harder and harder to breathe, and his knuckles are white as he practically strangles the cloth of his shorts. He dares to whisper, “I…?”
“Y’know… I met ya. And now, I’ve started seeing myself as… I dunno. A person,” Hiori mutters. His hair falls over his eyes as he bows his head, staring at the duvet beneath his crossed legs. “‘Cause now I have this feelin’ that I’m— that I’ve been wronged. That my life isn’t meant to be directed by other people, and that I should have my own thoughts and expectations and all that. But even still, if it’s not soccer, I dunno what I want to do. And now I’m— Ah, damn it, I’m— It’s just so confusin’—”
“Hiori,” Tabito interrupts, voice soft and mild.
Hiori instantly quiets. His head snaps up, eyes wide and glassy, lips pursed as he chokes back tears.
“Breathe.”
Tabito places one hand on Hiori’s back, and Hiori shatters. It’s just sobs, wracked sobs, and Tabito feels tears well up in his own eyes just from hearing it. He shakes down the feeling, swallowing it the second his throat begins to itch, and uses one arm to yank Hiori a little closer to him. He’d been starting to lean away, ever since he started talking about all this, and Tabito wasn’t the type to let that fly under the radar. The last thing he needed was Hiori thinking any of this blame belonged to himself.
Seconds or minutes—Tabito can’t quite tell anymore—later, Hiori finally pulls away from Tabito’s grip, gasping for air as he sits straight again. The back of his hand darts up to clean the remaining dampness out of his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Hiori whispers again, voice still jagged and weak, but a decent amount more stable than it’d been when he arrived. “Ya probably think this is really pathetic.”
“What— Oh my god, that’s what ya got out of all this?” Tabito squints, face scrunching up. “Come on, Hiori. What kinda person d’ya take me for, seriously?”
His fingers lift off Hiori’s back, and Tabito hesitates for a second longer. Then his hand comes up to Hiori’s head, gently brushing away the wet strands of hair of his bangs that covered his eyes. On the way down, he wipes a tear off Hiori’s face, unable to stop himself from grinning at the way his thumb brushes over a cheek that’s a bit rosier than earlier.
“Are these the expectations ya had?” Tabito chuckles, tilting his head to the side. “Did ya think that ya’d come here and tell me about all this, and I’d call ya pathetic?”
Hiori glances at him with a newfound hint of playfulness. “D… D’ya really want me to answer that…?”
“What? No! Yer not meant to have an answer at all! The hell!?”
That draws out a clear, lovely laugh. Hiori giggles into his hand, not hiding his amusement at the dramatised reaction, and Tabito eases back into a smile now that Hiori’s a step further away from crumbling into pieces. They bask there for a bit longer, sitting next to each other in the fond silence as moonlight streaks through the gaps in the curtains.
“…Yer a real big idiot, y’know,” Tabito says after a while. He scratches at the back of his neck as he glares at the other boy. “The fact that ya can talk about this so honestly to me is a sign that ya trust me a lot. That’s dangerous.”
Hiori stares at him. “It was already dangerous for me to go to my senior’s house at this hour.”
“I—…! Well, that’s fair, but… Still! Aren’t ya worried about it at all?”
“Mm. Now that ya mention it, I guess I should be,” Hiori says, like he’s just realised something so glaringly obvious. Tabito laughs at the dumbfounded look on his face, but Hiori just keeps staring at him. “I’m not scared though. But ya brought it up, so… Sorry if that bothers ya.”
A sudden uneasiness settles in Tabito’s gut. He hadn’t wanted Hiori to have been genuinely scared of trusting him, not at all—in fact, he usually prefers when people admit they trust him. He learns a lot about people this way. But… it was weird for Hiori to admit it so openly, even just earlier when he said this was the ‘safest place he could go’, because Tabito’s never considered himself as that type of person. That being, a person who represents ‘safety’.
It feels… good. Kind of scary, but good.
Some of this excitement must be owed to the fact that someone as extraordinary as Hiori believes it.
“Doesn’t bother me,” he responds through a lazy stretch of the neck. His heart is beating at an unusual, fast pace. “If anyone’d be bothered by it, it’d be ya.”
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“…Suit yourself.”
Tabito doesn’t have much to say, he realises. He’s never had much to say—well, more clearly, he’s never wanted to say much. But after Hiori gave him all that, he presumes he should have something a bit more meaningful. More honest. All he can come up with is a weak, “But it’s unfortunate. That yer situation is so… complicated, and…”
“Please stop trying to be sympathetic, Karasu-kun,” Hiori says with a pained sigh.
“Wh… Huh?” Tabito sputters.
“I’m still dealin’ with the ‘emotions’ thing, and that’s hard enough to adjust to. I’m grateful enough that yer willin’ to listen to me. If ya start gettin’ all emotional and… not-Karasu-kun-like, that’s only gonna make me more stressed.” Hiori’s manner of speech has always been blunt, yet Tabito still winces at the embarrassing truth of it.
“Well, makes my job easier.” He exhales, a little thankful that he doesn’t need to come up with something cool or deep to say about it. It’s a touchy topic, and he doesn’t want to make things any more stressful than they are now. “If there’s anything I was gonna say, it mostly boils down to things I’ve already told ya and things that I’m sure yer gonna figure out on yer own. After all, life’s about playin’ til ya die, remember?”
“I remember.” Hiori lets out a deep exhale, a faint smile ghosting his face. “I’ve remembered since ya told me.”
“Good.” Tabito smirks, satisfied. He lets his eyes drift to the clock, focus shifting. “Speaking of play! We’re playin’ a lot this weekend—in order to play more and avoid early deaths, we’re gonna need enough rest to function at a high level. We’re runnin’ outta time to get good sleep for practice.”
“A-Ah!” Hiori flushes when he follows Tabito’s gaze to the clock. “I got carried away. Practice is really soon…”
“Eh, it’s fine.” Tabito laughs, waving it off. “It’s not uncommon that I sleep around this time, anyway… Compiling data alone takes a lot of effort, y’know? Eats into my night. Oh, yeah—I’m actually not done with the footage I was about to finish, so why don’t ya go ahead ‘n get some rest while I finish the rest of it?”
Tabito takes a seat in his chair, powering his tablet and clicking on his desk lamp, before swiveling it slightly to look back at him. “Ya can sleep in my bed for tonight.”
“Huh?” Hiori’s eyes widen, glancing at the pillows to his side and then back at Tabito. “N-No way!”
“Don’t be weird about it, idiot. It’s not like yer sleepin’ here every day! It’s just one time.”
“It’s not that it’s weird! It’s… Isn’t it impolite of me since this bed is yours—?”
“It’s impolite of ya to refuse what I say, ‘cause yer in my house.” Tabito shuts him down swiftly, tutting. “Just go to sleep already. Every minute spent awake is a minute that could be spent rechargin’ for tomorrow.”
He doesn’t get a verbal response of agreement or disagreement, and Tabito can hear the conflicted shifting in the way his bed is creaking back and forth. He stifles a laugh as the groaning noises of decision eventually end in a defeated sigh. When Tabito glances behind him to make sure he listened, Hiori’s facing him, a pout on his face.
“Are ya sure about this?” Hiori clarifies one last time.
“Pfft— What’s with that face, dumbass? Don’t look so guilty! I suggested it. I’m sure,” Tabito emphasises, smirking as he turns back to his desk. “Don’t ask me about it anymore. Yer gonna distract me.”
“O-Okay… Thank ya.”
“It’s fine.”
While Tabito gets back to setting up the rest of his materials, Hiori murmurs a soft, “G’night, Karasu.”
Tabito instantly snaps his head around. “Wh— Hey, since when did ya start droppin’ the honorific?”
“I’m sleepin’ in yer bed after ya let me into yer house at one in the mornin’,” Hiori answers around a yawn. “Don’t ya think we’re close enough?”
“I— Ya—…” Tabito’s entire face feels hot. Definitely not from anger—he’s not angry at all—but it’s just that he’s never heard his name called out in such a gentle tone, let alone from someone younger than him. He also didn’t expect Hiori, of all people, to have the nerve. “Who— Ya can’t just decide that on yer own! I’m still yer senior!”
“Mm, that’s true…” Hiori takes a few moments to mull it over. Turning on his back with a smile, he says, “Well, goodnight, Karasu.”
“I—!” Tabito opens his mouth to complain, a million things coming to mind yet none of them turning into actual words, before he closes it and pinches his nose bridge. “…Idiot. Goodnight, Hiori.”
A pleased hum emanates from under his duvet. Tabito grumbles some curses about insolence under his breath, and he hears a giggle rumble from beneath the blanket. He rolls his eyes, utterly fond, taking deeper breaths to try and slow his quickened heartbeats and hopefully let all the blood that rushed to his face start to, well, go back to being normal.
Hooking his earbuds in, Tabito’s eyes stay trained on the players and the ball the moment the video continues. He pauses every now and then to jot down lines, rewinding to make sure he’s scanned everyone of interest before allowing it to progress to the next play. Before he knows it, the video comes to an end, his sheet of details fully filled out and prepped for tomorrow’s studying pre-match.
Hiori is fully asleep. Tabito looks at him, his gaze softening. There’s a simmering pride that he finally lets himself feel—Hiori chose to come here, to him, because it’s safe. And this is proof he meant it: the fact that he’s sleeping so peacefully in Tabito’s bed, and that he’s smiling despite it all. Tabito doesn’t know what happened to lead to this. He doesn’t know why Hiori ran, why Hiori told him such a heavy thing out of nowhere, why Hiori decided that Tabito is the correct person to bring all this to.
Yet, somewhere deep inside, he’s thankful. Whether he’s thankful for his instincts telling him to approach Hiori that fateful day, or his mind for allowing someone to get a little too close for comfort just this once, or just for Hiori himself, it doesn’t matter.
If there’s anything their unexpected meeting today could point towards in the future, Tabito hopes it’s that he can continue his newfound—and not unwelcome—role of being someone’s ‘safety’.
Preferably, Hiori’s safety.