Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3852154.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Katekyou_Hitman_Reborn!
  Relationship:
      Gokudera_Hayato/Yamamoto_Takeshi
  Character:
      Gokudera_Hayato, Yamamoto_Takeshi, Yamamoto_Tsuyoshi
  Additional Tags:
      Childhood_Friends, Alternate_Universe, Developing_Relationship, Friends
      to_Lovers, Best_Friends, Baseball, Broken_Bones, First_Kiss, First_Time,
      Living_Together, Holding_Hands, Light_Angst, Hospitalization
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-05-29 Completed: 2015-07-19 Chapters: 18/18 Words: 27285
****** Boyhood and Baseball ******
by tastewithouttalent
Summary
     "'Aww,' Yamamoto says, and even now his smile is clinging to the
     corners of his mouth, lighting his eyes up until the hazel turns
     almost gold in the sunlight. 'But we’re friends, I can’t use your
     last name.'" Gokudera isn't expecting his best friend to drop out of
     a tree his first week in Japan, but sometimes life just works out
     that way.
***** Familiarity *****
The first thing Gokudera thinks is that the sound is a bird.
It’s a weird sound for a bird to make. Really there’s nothing for it but a
human voice calling out a greeting. But when he hears the noise it’s high up,
nearly directly overhead, and in the first startled surprise it’s a bird he
thinks of first.
Then he looks up, his reflexes drawing his sight up and his feet still, and
it’s a person after all, and the sound becomes “Hello!” in his mind.
Gokudera doesn’t answer right away. He’s too busy staring at the boy perched on
the branch of the tree overhead, his smile wide and bright and nicer than any
of those Gokudera has seen since his arrival in Japan a week ago. For all that
he looks friendly he is in a tree, though, his position confusing enough that
Gokudera is starting to frown as the boy lifts a hand to wave at him.
“Hi,” he calls down again, swinging his legs like he’s not afraid of falling in
spite of how high up he is, higher even than the edge of the wall around the
outside of Gokudera’s new house. “Are you new?”
“Are you in a tree?” Gokudera asks, the words coming too fast with curious
confusion for him to hear them before they’re spoken.
There’s a laugh from above, the sound falling like rain from the cloudless sky,
and the boy moves, leans sideways to press his hands to the branch he’s sitting
on. Gokudera just stares from his position on the ground, startled into a shout
when the figure above drops to catch himself with his hold on the branch,
swinging from his arms a moment before he lets go to fall the last few feet to
the ground.
He seems smaller when he stands on the sidewalk, only a little taller than
Gokudera and skinny with it, his dark hair ruffled all over his head like he’s
never bothered to comb it and his clothes dusty from his climb in the tree. He
seems a little older than he first looked, too, close enough to be in third
grade with Gokudera at the school he’s going to start at in a few days.
“You live right there, right?” the boy says, pointing in the general direction
of Gokudera’s house. Gokudera glances back -- it’s still in sight, he’s stayed
close like Bianchi told him too -- and he nods as he looks back at the other
boy’s extended arm, the tan of his skin from sunshine that has only ever burned
Gokudera.
“I’m around the corner.” Another extended arm, the other direction this time,
dropped as quickly as it came up. “At the sushi place. Did you just move here?”
“Yeah,” Gokudera says without moving towards or away this talkative boy. He
looks friendly, his smile spreading all across his face like he doesn’t know
how to hold it back, but Gokudera’s still a little confused by the sudden
appearance of the other, still a little lost in this conversation. “From
Italy.”
“Ohh,” the boy says, sounding starstruck and thrilled. “Is that why your hair
is that color?”
Gokudera lifts a hand to the weight of silver hair against the back of his
neck, starts to flush in expectation of something worse to follow, maybe a more
direct version of the half-frightened stares he’s gotten since he arrived here.
“It just is this color,” he snaps, taking a step back and thinking about
running, retreating to the safety of the house that isn’t a home yet but at
least has the security of loneliness.
“It’s super cool,” the other says, and Gokudera goes still, uncertain about
this unexpected reaction. There’s no movement from the strange boy, just that
smile on his mouth and bright eyes fixed on Gokudera’s face, not even the
reaching fingers to invade Gokudera’s personal space like everyone else who has
been intrigued by the pale color of his hair. Gokudera’s still staring when the
other boy blinks his attention back to Gokudera’s eyes, laughs so bright and
warm Gokudera nearly jumps.
“Nice to meet you,” he says. His hand is moving but it’s just to offer towards
the other, his fingers relaxed into the shape of a handshake. “I’m Yamamoto
Takeshi.”
Gokudera frowns at the gesture, looks back up at the ease of the smile before
he can get himself to move. It’s weird to shake hands with a kid, when he’s
only ever endured the too-firm grip of adults after one of his piano recitals
when he was too ill to offer any kind of a hold in return. Yamamoto’s hand is
smaller than the adults’, fits better against Gokudera’s, and when he tightens
his fingers it’s lighter, like he’s holding a bird against his palm before
gently moving his hand up and down, an imitation of a motion instead of true
familiarity.
“Gokudera Hayato,” Gokudera says, polite response drilled so deep into him that
he doesn’t think twice about offering his name in spite of the frown of
uncertainty still at his lips.
“That’s a nice name!” Yamamoto chirps. His hand is still against Gokudera’s,
fingers still curled in against the other boy’s wrist. “Can I call you Hayato?”
“What?” Gokudera snatches his hand back, dragging himself free of the other
hold with more force than it needs. “We’ve barely met.”
“Aww,” Yamamoto says, and even now his smile is clinging to the corners of his
mouth, lighting his eyes up until the hazel turns almost gold in the sunlight.
“But we’re friends, I can’t use your last name.”
“What?” Gokudera’s frown deepens, his forehead going tight with confusion. “Wh-
-we’re not friends!”
“Why not?” Yamamoto asks.
Gokudera can’t tell if he’s being teased or not. He’s suspicious that he’s
being made fun of, that there’s an edge under the other boy’s smile, but he
can’t see one, can’t see the flicker in the other’s eyes that should be a
giveaway for the cruelty he hasn’t yet shown a trace of.
“Fine,” he snaps, folding his arms over his chest. “We’re friends, Mo-chan.”
He’s trying to be insulting. It’s the best he can manage, under the
circumstances, reaching for everything he knows about his second language and
forming the most sugar-sweet nickname he can come up with. But Yamamoto’s smile
blossoms out all over his face, turning his eyes up into dark-lashed crescents,
and Gokudera realizes he may have just accidentally made a new best friend
without at all meaning to.
***** Competitive *****
Gokudera is looking deeply confused.
“But you have to tag the base you just left before you go on,” he says, like
he’s struggling to recall the information.
“Only if the ball is caught before it touches the ground,” Yamamoto says.
“Otherwise you can just keep running on to the next one.”
It’s almost funny, the way Gokudera’s expression falls into frustration. “Who
came up with these rules?” he grumbles as they pause in front of the fence to
the practice field so Yamamoto can drag the gate open. “This game is way too
complicated for anyone to play.”
“It makes more sense when you’re playing,” Yamamoto reassures him, stepping out
of the way so Gokudera can step through first and he can tug it shut behind
them. “Someone smart like you can learn it really fast!”
“Tch,” Gokudera huffs, but he’s ducking his head to cover his smile, coloring
pink like he’s burning in the sun. “Well, if an idiot like you can learn this
stupid game I’m sure anyone can.”
“That’s right!” Yamamoto takes the lead again, half-jogging while Gokudera
follows in his wake. By the time the other boy has caught up to him at the
bench Yamamoto has the equipment he brought with them laid out for
consideration, is ready and waiting with a smile when Gokudera stops to look at
his options.
“We can’t play a real game with just two of us,” Yamamoto says, watching the
shine of the sunlight off Gokudera’s white-silver hair. “But you could throw to
me, or I could pitch to you and you could try the bat if you want.”
“Mm,” Gokudera hums. When he reaches out his hold on the bat is tentative, his
fingers curling carefully around the grip worn soft by the press of Yamamoto’s
palms. “Woah, this is kind of heavy.”
“Yeah.” Yamamoto feels bubbly, like the way the sun makes him feel on the first
bright day after winter or the excitement of waking up on the morning of his
birthday. “It’s so you can hit the ball really hard. I bet you could get a home
run, Hayato!”
Gokudera rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid, Mo-chan, I don’t even know the rules
yet.” But his grip on the bat is firmer, more confident, and after a moment he
lifts the bat to his shoulder and looks out over the field, looking like a real
player for a minute.
“You’re gonna be so great,” Yamamoto says, awed by the way Gokudera’s hair
catches at his shoulders and the way his green eyes make him look intense and
focused. “I bet we can join the baseball club in junior high together!”
“Shut up,” Gokudera insists. “I haven’t even tried yet,” but he’s smiling
again, ducking under his hair like he does, and Yamamoto grins wide at him
before he picks up a glove and a ball and takes the lead out to the diamond
itself.
There’s nothing all that special about this field in particular; it’s just the
main practice field for the junior high they’ll be attending next year, only
unused because the club is out at a training camp right now. But Yamamoto loves
coming out here whenever he can, loves the way the dust kicks up rich and dark
under his feet, loves how wide the diamond looks from the middle of the field
instead of from up in the stands. He gets distracted by it for a moment,
breathing in the smell of the dirt and the grass in the outfield, tipping his
head back to gaze up at the clear blue sky over them, and it’s not until a
sharply familiar “Mo-chan” makes it to his ears that he blinks back into the
present and looks back at Gokudera standing awkwardly shy of home plate.
“If you wanted to just stare at the sky we could have stayed at home,” Gokudera
growls.
Yamamoto laughs an apology, shakes his head as a no. “You want to try batting a
little?”
Gokudera goes red, his mouth dropping into a frown. “Well,” he hesitates, his
gaze sliding off Yamamoto’s and the line of his shoulders slumping a little.
“You wanted to play, didn’t you?”
“Yeah!” Yamamoto agrees, stepping forward in the first rush of excitement.
“It’ll be fun!”
Gokudera rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” is what he says, but his shoulders
straighten a little, and when he takes a step forward it’s more confident. “You
just throw the ball and I hit it, right?”
“Yep.” Yamamoto backs up again, most of the distance back to the pitcher’s
mound. The ball is heavy against his hand, fits in against the calluses at his
fingers like it was shaped to sit there. “You ready?”
Gokudera tosses his hair back, leans forward into a crouch as his hands tighten
on the handle of the bat. “Bring it on, Mo-chan.”
Yamamoto laughs again. It’s hard not to, when he feels so warm and thrilled
just from the situation. “Okay, you asked for it!”
He hasn’t warmed up his arm at all yet, so he’s careful with the first throw,
keeps it gentle for the sake of his shoulder as much as on Gokudera’s behalf.
Yamamoto can see the arc of the ball through the air, can almost see the turn
of the seams in the leather as it spins towards the other boy. Gokudera’s
forehead creases, he swings hard -- and the ball hits the ground behind him,
not even clipped by the wild motion that brought Gokudera stumbling forward and
off-balance.
“Shit!” Gokudera curses, swinging the bat back as he regains his footing. His
shoulders are slumping again, his frown going deeper and darker like he’s
thinking about stopping entirely.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry!” Yamamoto calls, quick, to offset the irritation
carving itself into Gokudera’s expression. He jogs forward to pick the ball
back up himself, tosses it into his mitt while Gokudera glares at him with the
bat still hanging uncertainly at his side. “It was a bad throw, I’m not warmed
up yet.”
“Huh,” Gokudera huffs, but he’s starting to smile again, tips his head back to
shake his hair away as he lifts the bat again. “Don’t take it easy on me cause
you think you’re better than I am.”
“Haha, okay,” Yamamoto agrees, scuffs his way back out to his original
location. When he turns back around Gokudera has the bat back over his
shoulder, is glaring at the ball in Yamamoto’s hand like it’s personally
offended him. Yamamoto holds it up for a moment, grinning when Gokudera scoffs,
then winds up slow and careful to toss it for the other boy again.
It’s another complete miss. Yamamoto winces at Gokudera’s growl, comes jogging
in quick so he can catch the bat before Gokudera has a chance to throw it in
frustration.
“It’s hard to do,” he soothes. “It’ll get easier, I promise.”
“Stupid,” Gokudera huffs, folds his arms over his chest. “I can’t even see the
dumb ball when I start swinging.”
“Aww.” Yamamoto reaches out to push Gokudera’s hair back from his face. “It’s
cause your hair’s getting in the way. Bet it’d be easier if you tied it back.”
Gokudera rolls his eyes but doesn’t smack Yamamoto’s hand away. “That’s the
stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he sighs.
“Just try it,” Yamamoto pleads. “Just one swing, it’ll only take a minute.”
Gokudera sighs heavily. “Fine.” He unfolds his arms, twists one of the hairties
perpetually looped around his wrist free, and begins to collect the silver
strands back into a messy ponytail. “But it’s not going to help.”
“You never know till you try!” Yamamoto points out.
With his hair tied back Gokudera’s glare is a lot more obvious. It makes
Yamamoto grin, keeps him smiling as he offers the bat for Gokudera to seize
from his hand before he picks up the ball and returns once more to the middle
of the field.
“You got this,” he calls to Gokudera. “Just keep your eye on the ball as it
comes in.”
“Just throw it, baseball idiot,” Gokudera shouts back, his shoulders drawing
tense with anticipation, and Yamamoto laughs and does as he’s told.
The swing looks the same as the first two at first, a desperate arc of the bat
through the air that looks too reckless to be successful. But Gokudera’s head
is turned this time, his glare fixed on the ball instead of on Yamamoto, and
when Yamamoto hears the crack of the bat connecting it’s only reflex that gets
him to duck in time for the ball to arc over his head instead of flying
straight into his shoulder.
“Oh wow,” he says, turning to watch it fly into the unoccupied outfield. “Wow,
Hayato, you’re really good!”
“Oh,” Gokudera says. When Yamamoto turns back he’s staring after the arc of the
ball, eyes wide and shocked and his expression blank with the surprise Yamamoto
almost never sees.
Yamamoto grins, adrenaline and delight rushing through him in equal amounts,
and then he shouts, “Run, you have to run!”
“Huh?” Gokudera blinks, his attention coming back to Yamamoto’s face. “What?”
“Run around the bases!” Yamamoto is jogging backwards as he speaks, turning to
head towards the outfield. “Quick, before I tag you!”
“Oh,” Gokudera says again, and then he throws the bat aside and Yamamoto can’t
watch him anymore because he’s sprinting towards the fallen ball as fast as he
can run. There’s the patter of footsteps behind him, Gokudera rounding the
bases with a speed born more of enthusiasm than experience, until as Yamamoto
turns back he has time to see the other skid and fall in an effort to pivot too
sharply around second. Yamamoto has the advantage of his longer legs on his way
back in but Gokudera is back on his feet, all-out sprinting, now, his
competitiveness winning out over the effort of exertion, until he’s coming up
on home as fast as Yamamoto clears the pitcher’s mound and sprints in towards
the white shape. Gokudera’s running too fast, Yamamoto can see his feet kicking
up clouds of dust in slow-motion, and there’s just time to see his sneaker kick
against the home plate before Yamamoto tries to stop, and fails, and runs
straight into the other boy.
Gokudera shouts wordless protest as they fall, Yamamoto twisting so he lands as
much on the ground as on Gokudera. There’s a burst of dirt from their collision
and the subsequent fall, until Gokudera is coughing and Yamamoto is blinking
dust from his eyes as they sit back up.
“Woah,” Yamamoto says, breathless with the exhilaration of competition. “You’re
really fast.”
Gokudera scoffs, waves a hand in front of his face to clear away some of the
dust. “You’re just a slowpoke, Mo-chan.”
Yamamoto grins at the gentle insult. “You got a point for Team Hayato,” he
says. “But Team Baseball is gonna win in the end.”
“Team Hayato?” Gokudera protests. “That’s a stupid name, why do you get the
cool team?”
“You’re captain,” Yamamoto points out. “You can rename it whatever you want.”
“Fine.” Gokudera tosses his head. “Then I’ll be Team Dynamite. I’m gonna blow
your stupid team away.”
“Ha, you can try,” Yamamoto teases. Gokudera gets to his feet and Yamamoto
tosses the ball up to him. “Maybe you’ll be a great pitcher too!”
It’s hours before they’re ready to head back, when Gokudera is finally so
exhausted he can’t walk in a straight line and promising revenge on Team
Baseball, who did in fact win by three points at the end of the day. Yamamoto’s
shoulder aches, and his arms feel like jelly from swinging the bat far more
than he ever has before, but he can’t stop grinning, and on the way back
Gokudera makes him explain the rules of a real game all over again, in great
detail, with the crease in his forehead of concentration instead of frustration
this time.
Yamamoto is pretty sure this was the best idea he’s ever had.
***** Coordinated *****
They don’t discuss the baseball club at all. Not on the walk to their new
school, stiff and awkward with all the excitement of being middle schoolers at
last, not when they find out their class assignments -- the same, a surprise
given that Gokudera has seen what passes for studying for Yamamoto -- not
during the lunch break that comes sooner than Gokudera is expecting. Even when
they’re handed their club enrollment forms, Gokudera doesn’t look back to catch
Yamamoto’s eye, though he can feel the other boy’s gaze catch warm at the back
of his neck. He doesn’t need to share a pointed look to know what they’ll do as
soon as class is over.
He’s not wrong either. Yamamoto waits for him, collects his things and lurks by
the edge of Gokudera’s desk while the other shoves his books haphazardly into
his bag, and when they leave it’s to head straight for Yamamoto’s house while
talking about their new teacher, and the lunch offerings in the cafeteria, and
any number of other topics besides the forms weighting down both their bags.
Going back to Yamamoto’s home isn’t unusual in and of itself. It’s a habit
years in the making, Bianchi’s late work hours and terrible cooking combining
to make Yamamoto’s room the far preferred location for after-school studying or
video games. But usually they’ll linger in the kitchen, Yamamoto chatting with
his dad while Gokudera eats everything offered to him, and this time they both
retreat straight to Yamamoto’s room with only a brief pause by the kitchen to
collect a snack in the form of a plate of sushi Yamamoto’s father left out.
Yamamoto sets the plate down on the table in the middle of his room, and
Gokudera sits on his usual side, taking the first bite of sushi while Yamamoto
sheds his jacket and rummages through the jumble in his school bag for his
form.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Gokudera insists, even as he retrieves his own
from the inside of the textbook where he slid it to keep it safe from the mess
of the rest of his bag. “It’s just an enrollment form for the club, after all.”
“It’s so exciting though,” Yamamoto insists. He pushes the sushi to the corner
of the table to make space for their paired forms on the other edge, lying his
so the corner overlaps with Gokudera’s. They’re identical, except for the
careless wrinkles Yamamoto’s has collected compared to Gokudera’s, and Gokudera
has a brief rush of adrenaline at the grown-up feeling of joining a club, the
way Yamamoto has always talked about them doing.
“Do you need a pen?” he asks instead, reaching out for his own.
Yamamoto laughs instead of answering, and Gokudera grumbles wordlessly and
holds out one of a pair he has fished out of his bag. Then they’re both leaning
in over their forms to fill in the blank spaces, so close over the corner of
the table their hair catches together when Yamamoto leans in to brace himself
on the table like he always does when he’s writing.
It’s not a hard form to complete. The only part that Gokudera hesitates over at
all is the “Preferred Position” line, and even then it’s only for a breath
before he sighs and fills in his answer he knew he’d give. Yamamoto is done
first, sitting back over his heels and all but bouncing in anticipation as
Gokudera sets his pen down.
“What did you put down?” he asks, leaning in without waiting for permission.
“Hey,” Gokudera protests, but the sound lacks any real fire. “Get out of my
face, idiot.” He shoves his form at Yamamoto, slides the other towards himself
in exchange. “See for yourself, if you’re so desperate to know.”
He knew what Yamamoto would fill in. It’s no surprise to see “Pitcher” written
in Yamamoto’s rushed handwriting, and that  means it’s no surprise either when
Yamamoto makes a sound of delight that is in truth more a chirp than anything
else.
“Catcher, really?” When Gokudera looks up Yamamoto is blinking at him, smiling
all over his face and eyes wide and shining. “Maybe we can play together as a
battery!”
Gokudera huffs, rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, snatching his form
back as if the idea had never occurred to him, as if that weren’t precisely why
he chose this position in the first place. “If one of us makes first string and
the other doesn’t we won’t play together at all. And maybe you won’t even get
to be a pitcher, maybe they’ll have someone who’s actually any good instead of
having to rely on you, Mo-chan.”
“Aww, don’t be mean,” Yamamoto smiles. “I think we’d make a great team.”
“Of course,” Gokudera declares, tossing his head and looking at Yamamoto
sideways. “Because I’m good enough to make up for all your shortcomings.”
The insult just makes Yamamoto laugh, the way Gokudera knew it would, and the
other’s amusement catches contagious at his mouth, pulls an unwilling smile to
his lips. It also ends the line of conversation; they focus on the sushi
instead, only Gokudera’s foresight in claiming both forms and putting them back
in his bag saving them from a mishap with the soy sauce.
After they’re finished Gokudera doesn’t protest when Yamamoto wants to turn on
a game for one of the ongoing professional tournaments, even though they have
homework they probably should be working on; he just helps the other boy push
the table out of the way so they can both lean against the edge of Yamamoto’s
bed and watch together.
He’s never really thought about being a professional baseball player before.
But with the completed enrollment forms in his bag and Yamamoto humming with
happiness next to him, Gokudera lets himself imagine a future of base-marked
diamonds and cheers from the stands, the smooth of a mitt over his hand and the
weight of Yamamoto’s pitch smacking into his palm.
The thought makes him smile.
They don’t discuss the baseball club at all. Not on the walk to their new
school, stiff and awkward with all the excitement of being middle schoolers at
last, not when they find out their class assignments -- the same, a surprise
given that Gokudera has seen what passes for studying for Yamamoto -- not
during the lunch break that comes sooner than Gokudera is expecting. Even when
they’re handed their club enrollment forms, Gokudera doesn’t look back to catch
Yamamoto’s eye, though he can feel the other boy’s gaze catch warm at the back
of his neck. He doesn’t need to share a pointed look to know what they’ll do as
soon as class is over.
He’s not wrong either. Yamamoto waits for him, collects his things and lurks by
the edge of Gokudera’s desk while the other shoves his books haphazardly into
his bag, and when they leave it’s to head straight for Yamamoto’s house while
talking about their new teacher, and the lunch offerings in the cafeteria, and
any number of other topics besides the forms weighting down both their bags.
Going back to Yamamoto’s home isn’t unusual in and of itself. It’s a habit
years in the making, Bianchi’s late work hours and terrible cooking combining
to make Yamamoto’s room the far preferred location for after-school studying or
video games. But usually they’ll linger in the kitchen, Yamamoto chatting with
his dad while Gokudera eats everything offered to him, and this time they both
retreat straight to Yamamoto’s room with only a brief pause by the kitchen to
collect a snack in the form of a plate of sushi Yamamoto’s father left out.
Yamamoto sets the plate down on the table in the middle of his room, and
Gokudera sits on his usual side, taking the first bite of sushi while Yamamoto
sheds his jacket and rummages through the jumble in his school bag for his
form.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Gokudera insists, even as he retrieves his own
from the inside of the textbook where he slid it to keep it safe from the mess
of the rest of his bag. “It’s just an enrollment form for the club, after all.”
“It’s so exciting though,” Yamamoto insists. He pushes the sushi to the corner
of the table to make space for their paired forms on the other edge, lying his
so the corner overlaps with Gokudera’s. They’re identical, except for the
careless wrinkles Yamamoto’s has collected compared to Gokudera’s, and Gokudera
has a brief rush of adrenaline at the grown-up feeling of joining a club, the
way Yamamoto has always talked about them doing.
“Do you need a pen?” he asks instead, reaching out for his own.
Yamamoto laughs instead of answering, and Gokudera grumbles wordlessly and
holds out one of a pair he has fished out of his bag. Then they’re both leaning
in over their forms to fill in the blank spaces, so close over the corner of
the table their hair catches together when Yamamoto leans in to brace himself
on the table like he always does when he’s writing.
It’s not a hard form to complete. The only part that Gokudera hesitates over at
all is the “Preferred Position” line, and even then it’s only for a breath
before he sighs and fills in his answer he knew he’d give. Yamamoto is done
first, sitting back over his heels and all but bouncing in anticipation as
Gokudera sets his pen down.
“What did you put down?” he asks, leaning in without waiting for permission.
“Hey,” Gokudera protests, but the sound lacks any real fire. “Get out of my
face, idiot.” He shoves his form at Yamamoto, slides the other towards himself
in exchange. “See for yourself, if you’re so desperate to know.”
He knew what Yamamoto would fill in. It’s no surprise to see “Pitcher” written
in Yamamoto’s rushed handwriting, and that  means it’s no surprise either when
Yamamoto makes a sound of delight that is in truth more a chirp than anything
else.
“Catcher, really?” When Gokudera looks up Yamamoto is blinking at him, smiling
all over his face and eyes wide and shining. “Maybe we can play together as a
battery!”
Gokudera huffs, rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, snatching his form
back as if the idea had never occurred to him, as if that weren’t precisely why
he chose this position in the first place. “If one of us makes first string and
the other doesn’t we won’t play together at all. And maybe you won’t even get
to be a pitcher, maybe they’ll have someone who’s actually any good instead of
having to rely on you, Mo-chan.”
“Aww, don’t be mean,” Yamamoto smiles. “I think we’d make a great team.”
“Of course,” Gokudera declares, tossing his head and looking at Yamamoto
sideways. “Because I’m good enough to make up for all your shortcomings.”
The insult just makes Yamamoto laugh, the way Gokudera knew it would, and the
other’s amusement catches contagious at his mouth, pulls an unwilling smile to
his lips. It also ends the line of conversation; they focus on the sushi
instead, only Gokudera’s foresight in claiming both forms and putting them back
in his bag saving them from a mishap with the soy sauce.
After they’re finished Gokudera doesn’t protest when Yamamoto wants to turn on
a game for one of the ongoing professional tournaments, even though they have
homework they probably should be working on; he just helps the other boy push
the table out of the way so they can both lean against the edge of Yamamoto’s
bed and watch together.
He’s never really thought about being a professional baseball player before.
But with the completed enrollment forms in his bag and Yamamoto humming with
happiness next to him, Gokudera lets himself imagine a future of base-marked
diamonds and cheers from the stands, the smooth of a mitt over his hand and the
weight of Yamamoto’s pitch smacking into his palm.
The thought makes him smile.
***** Dreams *****
Yamamoto loves the way his uniform feels.
It’s less inherently comfortable than his school clothes, the soft sweater and
the white shirt so well-used it’s free of any initial crispness it may have
had. The baseball uniforms are clean white, so new they hold the shape of the
folds even days after getting them, and the weight of the stitched-in lettering
across the front pulls them oddly, makes the line at the shoulders not quite
stay where it should for the new members.
Yamamoto likes everything about them. He likes the crackle of the fabric when
he moves quickly, likes the way even fingerprints show up dusty on the snowy
fabric, likes the way the red of the school name flickers bright as a bird wing
in his periphery when he swings his arm. And he likes the way the whole team
matches, the way he and Gokudera blend in with the rest of the club members,
the way their uniforms mark them as teammates as well as classmates and best
friends.
“Mo-chan.” Sharp, that, snapping across the distance to where Gokudera is
glaring from behind his catcher’s mask. “If you’re just planning to daydream I
could be taking a nap or something.”
“Ah, sorry!” Yamamoto shakes his head to clear the last lingering thoughts,
steps back and sets his hand in against the inside seam of his glove so he can
steady his grip on the ball. It’s a straightforward throw, just to practice
speed and control, but he’s still careful to line his fingers up with the
seams, to bring his arm back smoothly as he winds up. Gokudera is still
watching him but without the glare, this time, just the clear focus of utter
attention, so when Yamamoto swings his arm forward and lets the ball fly free
he doesn’t need to hear the thud of the ball smacking into Gokudera’s mitt to
know it’s right where the other wanted it.
“Ow,” Gokudera hisses, picking up the ball with his other hand and shaking his
wrist out. “That hurt.” He tosses it back, an easy underhand toss Yamamoto can
catch bare-handed. “Try going for the top corner this time.”
Yamamoto grins, offers a thumbs-up in response; he doesn’t need to see
Gokudera’s expression clearly to know the other is rolling his eyes. The
thought holds his smile while he winds up again, the expression lingering as he
follows through on the swing, until by the time the coach calls them back at
the end of practice he’s been smiling for over an hour without thinking about
it at all.
Gokudera groans gratitude as he gets to his feet, stripping off his helmet
before they’ve made it all the way back to the dugout. “I think it’ll take an
hour of showering to get the sweat off,” he announces as he holds the gear out
for Yamamoto’s willing hands, drops the mask for the other to carry while he
wipes at his face with the back of his sleeve. “My nose has been itching since
your fourth pitch and I couldn’t reach it.”
Yamamoto hums sympathy. Gokudera is flushed with the heat of practice, his hair
falling down out of its ponytail only to cling to the damp sweat at the back of
his neck and along his hairline. Even when he pulls the tie loose the shape of
it lingers until he drags a hand through his hair to shake the strands free.
“This is a lot of work,” he complains as Yamamoto falls into step beside him on
their way back to the dugout to drop off their gear. “You definitely owe me for
dragging me into this stupid club with you.”
“Okay,” Yamamoto agrees without any hesitation. He’s still smiling, still
running high on the hum of joy in his veins, the rush of adrenaline from the
satisfaction of pitching straight to Gokudera’s waiting glove. “Anything you
want, Hayato, I promise.”
Gokudera glances back at him, raises an eyebrow as the corner of his mouth
turns up into a smirk. “You don’t even know what I want yet and you’re making
crazy promises? You’re like a little kid still.”
“Well, you joined the baseball team with me,” Yamamoto points out. “That’s the
most I’ve ever wanted.”
“That’s it?” Gokudera stops walking, turns on his heel so fast Yamamoto almost
runs into him before he can stop. “Middle school baseball? What about going
pro?” He’s glaring up from under his hair, eyes narrowed until Yamamoto can’t
tell if he’s serious or not. “I thought you had dreams.”
“Oh,” Yamamoto says, smiles bright. “Well, yeah, of course being a professional
player with you would be awesome.”
Gokudera rolls his eyes, heaves a sigh. “You have to commit, Mo-chan.” He tugs
the glove off his right hand, offers it in mid-air. “Promise me.”
Yamamoto doesn’t hesitate. He lifts his hand too, fits his palm in against
Gokudera’s so they can curl their fingers over the other’s knuckles, tighten
their grip to each pull the other closer by an inch.
“We’ll be professionals together,” Gokudera growls, his tone allowing no space
for logic or luck in the face of overwhelming resolve. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” Yamamoto says, and the words are easy in spite of their weight.
“Together, Hayato. I promise.”
***** Code *****
Yamamoto is about to get distracted.
Gokudera doesn’t know how he knows this. It’s probably just that it’s been
about the right amount of time for the other boy’s attention to have worn thin,
some counter in Gokudera’s head giving him warning. Maybe it’s just experience,
knowledge of the other learned accidentally over years of proximity, that says
that their homework is about to take a backseat to something else, regardless
of how complete their worksheets are.
“Hayato,” Yamamoto says, right on cue. When Gokudera glances up through his
hair the other is leaning in over the table, grinning bright and innocent like
he’s not about to suggest procrastinating their work. “I have an idea.”
“No,” Gokudera says without waiting to hear the other out. “Do your homework.”
“But I’m stuck,” Yamamoto declares. “We should take a break anyway.”
“Then take a break by yourself and be quiet,” Gokudera snaps, looking back down
at his own half-done worksheet. “At least let me be responsible.”
Yamamoto leans over the edge of the table, peers at Gokudera’s sheet sideways.
“You’re almost done anyway.”
Gokudera reaches out without looking, presses his palm to Yamamoto’s face to
push him away. “Do you listen to me at all?”
He can feel Yamamoto’s laugh gust warm against his palm, the motion of the
other’s mouth as he starts to speak before grabbing at Gokudera’s wrist and
pulling his hand away. “But I need your help.”
“I’m not going to do your homework for you,” Gokudera says before Yamamoto can
suggest it.
“It’s not about homework,” Yamamoto insists. “We need to make up signals for
the baseball team.”
Gokudera wishes he had the fortitude to resist longer. He shouldn’t look up,
he knows he shouldn’t, he should stick to what he’s doing and--
He looks up. Yamamoto is watching him, his eyes wide and smile bright with the
not-even-a-little-bit-repressed delight at the prospect of talking about his
favorite subject, and Gokudera knows better than to try to push that smile off
the other’s face. He groans instead, dragging his hand free of Yamamoto’s hold
so he can make a grand show of sweeping his pencil and paper aside to leave the
table free.
“Fine.” He uncrosses his legs -- kicking Yamamoto none-too-gently in the
process -- and folds his arms to glare at the other. “Let’s get this over
with.”
Yamamoto’s smile is blinding bright, always warmer than Gokudera expects it to
be. All the attention he failed to bring to his homework is here now, clear in
the conspiratorial curve of his shoulders and the full focus of his gaze on
Gokudera’s face.
“Okay,” he says, sounding so ecstatic with excitement Gokudera catches himself
smiling, too, pleased with secondhand happiness from the joy pouring off
Yamamoto. “So. You’ll need to tell me what kind of pitch to throw, and where to
throw it.”
“Like you have any control at all,” Gokudera teases, unfairly, because
Yamamoto has been really good at throwing where Gokudera tells him to in
practice. “And what kind of pitch? You don’t even have more than one pitch.”
“I will eventually, though,” Yamamoto dimples at him. “And I’ve been working on
my curveball.”
Gokudera wrinkles his nose. “You can’t even throw that straight right now, much
less with any sort of aim.”
“But we should make up the signals right now,” Yamamoto urges. “To motivate me
to learn it faster.”
“If you get any more motivated you’re gonna outpace me, Mo-chan,” Gokudera
protests, but he submits to the other’s plea anyway. “Here.” He curls two
fingers in against his palm, forming his hand into a shape Yamamoto should be
able to see even from the distance of the pitcher’s mound. “This’ll be for the
curve, ‘kay?”
It’s easy to forget about the demands of homework when it’s so easy to draw
laughing pleasure from Yamamoto just by offering a few simple hand gestures for
him to memorize. Gokudera is certain the other will have them all learned to
the point of reflex by the time they get to practice tomorrow, and it’s kind of
fun, like they’re making up a secret language no one but them will understand.
He lets the homework go. It’s not like they need to worry about it, if they’re
going to be the best battery in Japan.
***** Winning *****
There’s dust hanging in the air, dirt from dozens of feet skidding across the
baseball diamond kicked up so fine it refuses to settle to the ground again.
The sun is hotter than it has been yet this year, beating down until Yamamoto
can all but feel the back of his neck going raw in the heat, until every point
of contact with his uniform is sticky from the sweat beading on his skin. His
ears are ringing, his shoulders ache, his legs are heavy from exertion and his
pulse hasn’t slowed since the game started.
He doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy.
They’re leading by a safe two runs at the top of the ninth inning, with just
one runner on first and a batter Yamamoto knows he doesn’t have to be
particularly afraid of, but he’s not thinking about victory. It’s too far off,
even within the few seconds it will take to throw the last ball of the inning,
to strike this particular batter out and guarantee their team a spot in the
semifinals of the middle school tournament; victory is a strange, elusive
concept, too psychological to hold Yamamoto’s attention right now. He feels a
little like he’s floating, existing solely in this moment, the pleasure of
competition and exertion far more satisfying than any win could be.
There’s motion, sharp and quick enough to draw Yamamoto’s eyes. Gokudera’s
waving at him, jerking his fingers in a way that says he’s been trying to get
the other’s attention for a few seconds. Yamamoto flashes a smile of apology,
doesn’t need to be close enough to see to know that Gokudera is rolling his
eyes. What he can see, what he needs to see, is the flicker of the other’s
fingers, marking out the signal for the curveball Yamamoto still can’t always
throw where Gokudera wants it. It’s a surprise -- this batter hasn’t connected
with any of the usual fastballs at this point, it would be easy to strike him
out with one of those -- but Yamamoto just nods, his smile lingering
irrepressible at his lips as he takes a deep breath and draws back into his
wind-up.
They are lucky. This time the ball goes where he wants it, sweeping in towards
the batter to draw a desperate swing from him before veering away and smacking
so hard against Gokudera’s mitt Yamamoto can hear it even from the distance of
the pitcher’s mound. It’s over, then, Yamamoto knows without hearing the
umpire’s shout of “Strike three!” or turning to see the scoreboard flash into
proof of their victory. Even then, it’s not the victory that keeps his smile at
his lips or that brings him jogging forward to meet Gokudera as the other gets
to his feet and pulls his helmet free.
“Why’d you ask for the curve?” he asks as they turn towards the dugout while
the rest of their team is still coming in from the rest of the field. “We
coulda just gotten him out with a fastball, right?”
Gokudera huffs, tosses his head. His hands are shaking a little, enough that
his helmet is shifting in his grip. Yamamoto reaches out to curl his fingers
around the wire guard and tug it free to take the weight himself.
“It’s the principle of the thing,” Gokudera insists. “We were ahead already,
right?”
Yamamoto blinks at the top of the other’s head, the way the lines of sweat are
shading it into alternate shadows and silver in the light. “Ha, you were
showing off.”
“Shut up,” Gokudera snaps, reaches out to snatch his helmet back. “What are you
doing, idiot, you’re supposed to be taking care of yourself and not hovering
over me.” His words lack any real aggression under them, and when he looks up
his eyes are bright, his mouth pulling on the shape of a smile in spite of the
sheen of exhausted sweat across his forehead and dipping along the line of his
throat into his uniform.
“We won,” Yamamoto says unnecessarily. He can’t stop smiling, now, the fantasy
of their victory forming into reality as the rest of their team comes shouting
in to clap hands to shoulders, swing around Yamamoto to laugh exhausted delight
at him. And Gokudera’s smiling too, competitive satisfaction winning out over
his usual frown.
“Yeah,” he grins, leans in to bump an elbow against Yamamoto’s waist. “Yeah, we
won.”
There’s more to do after that, shedding their gear so they can go back out,
line up in the beating sun and the fine-grained dust to bow to the other team,
collecting mitts and bats and water bottles before they all pile back onto the
bus to arrive back in Namimori just shy of dinnertime. Yamamoto gets a little
hazy on the details, loses his attention after they’re back on the bus and
Gokudera has fallen asleep with his head resting on Yamamoto’s shoulder and the
strands of his hair tickling the other’s neck. He’s still wandering through the
afternoon, reliving the recent memories as the motion of the bus lulls him into
an almost-doze to match Gokudera’s, replaying the shape of Gokudera’s smile and
the exhausted delight in his eyes.
Yamamoto decides he likes winning, if it makes Gokudera smile like that.
***** Breathe *****
Gokudera is in relatively good shape. Baseball, playing and training both, has
only served to hone the athleticism he carried from a childhood spent chasing
Yamamoto over half the city, until now he thinks he could probably at least
pace anyone else in the club on a training run. But that’s under ideal
circumstances, when he’s focusing on maintaining a steady rhythm and sticking
to a set rate for his breathing, and these are not ideal circumstances. He
takes off too fast, bolting out the front door almost before he’s gotten off
the phone, and by the time he’s run most of the way to the hospital he has to
slow down, walk the last few blocks so he can catch his breath and clear his
lightheaded dizziness before he makes it in the front doors.
It only half-helps. He’s still breathing hard when he comes up to the front
desk, his thoughts still hazy enough that he blurts, “Where’s Mo-chan?” to the
woman on the other side before he realizes what he’s saying. He closes his
mouth on any other inopportune questions, ducks his head under the flush of
self-consciousness, and only when he’s sure he’s got his desperate adrenaline
under control does he ask for “Yamamoto Takeshi” past gritted teeth.
The woman is kind enough to avoid commenting on what Gokudera suspects is all
too obvious panic. There’s a pause, the sound of papers ruffling, and then
she’s directing him up two floors, giving directions he only barely listens to
before making for the stairs. He can’t run these either, has to take them at a
jog more than a sprint, and even then he’s breathing audibly hard again by the
top, feeling exhausted and overheated and anxious as he makes his way down the
eerie quiet of the hallway in pursuit of the room he wants.
In the end he doesn’t need the room number at all. He’s peering at the labels
as he goes by, looking for some pattern he can’t see yet to the assigned
numbers, when a door a few steps down the hall opens and the sound of Yamamoto
Tsuyoshi’s voice echoes down the hallway. Gokudera’s head comes up instantly,
his heart skipping frantic with nerves like he’s never seen father or son
before, and then Tsuyoshi is looking up and sees him before Gokudera can decide
if he wants to stay or go.
“Gokudera!” he calls, waving as easily as if it’s his own sushi shop and not an
unfamiliar hospital room he’s standing in front of. “I’m so glad you could
come!”
Gokudera moves down the hall, drawn by the gesture of the other’s hand and too
much reflex to resist. The hall feels all too short, now, he’s in the doorway
before he can even decide what to say, and then there’s a friendly hand at his
shoulders, Tsuyoshi smiling down at him with an expression uncannily like his
son’s.
“He’ll be glad to see you,” he says, his touch urging Gokudera into the room
without waiting for any further sign of agreement. “I’m just going to head home
to get something to bring back for him to eat. Do you want some dinner too?”
“Uh,” Gokudera says, and Tsuyoshi beams at him as if he’s delivered an entire
speech extolling the virtues of sushi.
“I’ll bring enough for you both,” he says, and then he’s gone, waving towards
the inside of the room and moving down the hall before Gokudera has yet got his
bearings.
Then there’s a voice, “Hayato?” familiar and warm in spite of a weird softness
to the syllables, and Gokudera is stepping inside entirely, moving forward
without any thought at all.
Yamamoto looks better than he expected. The word ‘hospital’ over the phone had
been terrifying, even when Tsuyoshi assured him everything was fine, but in
person he looks almost completely normal but for the white cast making his
right arm bulky and unwieldy. Then Gokudera comes in closer, enough that he can
reach out to take the hand reaching out for him, and he can see the weird
unfocus in Yamamoto’s eyes, the alarming pale under the usual tan of his
cheeks.
“Mo-chan,” he says, tightens his fingers on Yamamoto’s because the other isn’t
squeezing as hard as he should be. “What did you do?”
Yamamoto’s smile is fragile, a little shaky but familiar under the strain laid
over it, like he’s trying to muster up his usual warmth for Gokudera’s sake. It
makes Gokudera’s throat go tight, burns in his chest and against his eyes when
he blinks.
“I fell out of a tree,” Yamamoto says, his voice softer than usual but normal
otherwise. “I -- Dad says the branch I was climbing to broke.” Another smile,
more apologetic this time. “I just remember climbing onto the lower branch.
They said it’s the concussion, that made me forget.”
“God,” Gokudera says, and he’s got to be squeezing too tight now, there’s no
way he’s not hurting Yamamoto, but he can’t let his hold go. “You idiot, you
made us all worry something really bad had happened.”
“Ah.” Yamamoto takes a breath, flexes his fingers a little against Gokudera’s
hold. “Sorry.”
Gokudera looks back up at his face, forces his hand to relax with a massive
force of will. Yamamoto’s touch lingers for a moment, his hold slow to respond
in kind; then his hand drops back to the blankets, he blinks weirdly slowly,
and Gokudera can feel his face fall into a frown.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asks, flinching at the way his voice tries
to jump high in the middle of the question.
Yamamoto blinks again, smiles weakly. “I’m kind of dizzy. And my arm hurts.”
It’s a simple statement. Coming from someone else Gokudera wouldn’t think
anything of it. But Yamamoto is white-pale under the color of his tan, his eyes
not-quite-focused and his smile strained at the corners, and that means he must
be really hurting, if it’s written clearly enough on his face for Gokudera to
see.
“Shit,” he snaps, his frown tightening into a scowl. “What the hell kind of a
place is this, that they’re not giving you something for the pain?”
“Ha, they did already,” Yamamoto says, laughing faint in the back of his
throat. “It just takes a little bit to start working.”
“They should have given you something that works faster,” Gokudera growls.
There’s a chair pushed against the wall alongside Yamamoto’s bed; he drags it
over, venting the worst of his impotent frustration in the movement so he can
drop to sit next to the bed, turned so he can keep an eye on the other’s
expression.
“Hayato,” Yamamoto is saying as Gokudera sits down, and he’s looking out the
window, his gaze fixed on the sky outside and not on Gokudera’s face. “I--”
“Look at me, if you’ve got something to say,” Gokudera snaps. “You’re talking
so quietly I can barely hear you when you’re not facing me.”
Yamamoto smiles, turns his head back. “Sorry,” he offers; then he blinks, and
his smile falls away, leaves him looking so uncharacteristically serious
Gokudera’s skin prickles with alarm. “I really am sorry.”
“What?” Gokudera can feel his forehead crease into confusion, concern turning
into frustration and making his voice unnecessarily sharp. “Christ, what the
fuck are you apologizing for?”
He’s expecting a laugh, some half-formed explanation that he can roll his eyes
at and tease Yamamoto about. He’s not expecting the way Yamamoto cringes, like
he’s flinching away from some unpleasant admission, and he’s definitely not
expecting the other to say “I’m not going to be able to keep our promise.”
Gokudera stares at him for a moment, his thoughts entirely blank of any
comprehension at all. “Are you delirious or something? What are you talking
about?”
“Baseball,” Yamamoto says, and understanding clicks over into Gokudera’s head
all at once.
“Don’t be stupid,” he growls. “You can just come back and play again once
you’re better.”
“I won’t be able to be professional.” Yamamoto is still looking at the other,
like Gokudera told him to, and Gokudera can’t get himself to look away from the
resigned loss in the gold of the other’s eyes. “Not if I’m out for months in
the very beginning of the tournament season.”
Gokudera wants to offer some kind of comfort. He wants to tell Yamamoto that
everything is fine, that he’s being stupid, that he’s overreacting and that
he’s good enough to succeed anyway. But he’s never been the optimist, of the
two of them, the only one who has ever been able to muster unreasonable hope is
Yamamoto, and there’s no panacea he can hold out to brush aside the shadow in
Yamamoto’s eyes.
“Fine,” he says instead, straightens his shoulders and tosses his hair back
like he’s bracing himself for a fight. “Fine, then we’ll just have to have a
different goal.”
“You still could,” Yamamoto starts to say, his voice bright like sunshine
through broken glass, and Gokudera is on his feet before he can think, reaching
out to close his fist on Yamamoto’s shirt before he remembers the other is hurt
and stalls the motion short of pulling him forward. He leans in instead,
throwing a hand out to brace himself against the bed and tipping in so close
Yamamoto’s eyes go wide as he blinks up at Gokudera’s sudden proximity.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot, Mo-chan,” Gokudera snaps, twisting his fingers into
a tighter fist in lieu of physically shaking the other boy. “Whatever I do
you’re doing too, got it? If that means something other than baseball then
that’s what we’ll do.” Yamamoto blinks, his eyelashes dark and feathery from
this close-up, and Gokudera finishes, “It’s not like I’m good enough to play
without you, anyway.”
Yamamoto’s eyelashes flicker again, his gaze sliding off-focus and away from
Gokudera’s eyes, drifting down to skim over the other’s features; then he nods,
slow like he’s still working through what the other has said, and Gokudera lets
his hold slide free, pushes back and away to drop into the chair. His heart is
racing with adrenaline, his hands trembling faintly and his throat still tight
on the aggression in his tone, but then there’s a laugh, bright and warm and
familiar, and when he looks up Yamamoto is smiling at him, the curve of his
lips settling into the corners of his eyes until he looks like himself again.
“Guess I’m gonna have to start doing my homework, huh?”
It’s not all that funny, as far as jokes go. But Gokudera is humming with
adrenaline and aching with relief at having Yamamoto smiling like usual again,
and when he starts laughing it sets Yamamoto off too, until they’re still
giggling in something approaching hysteria when Tsuyoshi returns with the
promised sushi.
The setting is all wrong, still, the bed too white and the room awkwardly laid
out for three people to eat in the same space. But with a little color back in
Yamamoto’s cheeks and his permanent smile reinstated, Gokudera can breathe
normally again.
***** Contentment *****
It’s a lot better once the pain meds take effect. Yamamoto doesn’t even notice
the dull throb of agony up his arm and along his shoulder fade away; it just
stops being a concern, somehow, takes far less of his attention than the glow
of the sunlight through the window or the soft of the blanket under his free
hand. His dad is smiling, Gokudera is laughing, and even the thoughts of the
baseball games he’ll be missing, the months of healing and the physical therapy
in front of him, don’t carry any more weight than a cloud skudding across a
cloudless sky.
Yamamoto had thought, somewhere in the haze of pain clouding his recent
memories, that Gokudera would leave after an hour, maybe two, stay to eat and
then go home. But he hasn’t moved by the time they’re done, shows no signs at
all of getting up even when Yamamoto’s dad is packing up the few empty dishes
they have left. He’s talking about cooking, now, recounting some horror story
of the pasta Bianchi tried to make on her last day off, and Yamamoto is
listening without really following the thread of the story. He feels a little
bit detached, warm and fuzzy like he’s drifting to sleep without even lying
down, until he’s surprised to look around and realize his dad has left the
room, that the dishes are gone and there’s just Gokudera in the light streaming
in through the window.
Gokudera’s hands are moving, the expansive gestures he makes when he’s too
caught up in what he’s saying to be self-conscious about his movements. In the
illumination his fingers look elegant, slender and graceful even in their
incidental motion, unstudied beauty as much as the tilt of his head to shake
his hair back from his face. That motion pulls Yamamoto’s attention too, drags
his gaze to slide like water along the silver sheen of the other’s hair, and
he’s reaching out before he has thought, while Gokudera is still in the middle
of a sentence and gesturing so wide his wrist hits Yamamoto’s arm as he moves.
“Hey,” Gokudera snaps, “Are you even listening to me?”
His words are at a distance; Yamamoto hears them, forms a response, but what
comes out of his mouth first is, “Your hair is really pretty.”
There’s a pause, the weight of Gokudera’s hands landing against the bed. “You
sound weird. You’re all dopey from that medicine, aren’t you?”
“I was listening,” Yamamoto says, backtracking for the last unanswered
question. His fingers trail through Gokudera’s hair, catch the silver warm and
glowing across his skin. “I like the way your voice sounds too.”
“Oh god,” Gokudera sighs. It sounds warm, heavy with resignation and tight on
amusement; when Yamamoto blinks into focus on his face his lips are curved, the
corner of his mouth curling up into a fought-back smile. “You’re fucking gone,
Mo-chan.”
Yamamoto’s smile feels endless, warm and wide and delighted. “I’m right here.”
“Whatever,” Gokudera says, waving a hand like he’s brushing away the reply.
“It’s fine, you’re checked out. If you wanna play with my hair, go ahead.”
“I always want to touch your hair.”
“Yeah, okay,” Gokudera says, sounding skeptical, but he shuts his eyes anyway,
ducks his head so Yamamoto can get a better angle on his scalp. Yamamoto can’t
see his expression as well but it’s okay; he can see Gokudera’s shoulders
relaxing, the slump of his back as he leans in farther over the bed in response
to the push of Yamamoto’s fingers against his hair. Yamamoto flexes his fingers
to dig in harder, ruffles up the smooth fall of Gokudera’s hair, and Gokudera
groans far back in his throat, tips in farther until his forehead is pressed to
the bed an inch from Yamamoto’s knee.
“Okay.” Yamamoto can only barely hear the words, muffled as they are against
the sheets against Gokudera’s mouth. “If this is what you want to do when
you’re all fucked up on pain meds, please, be my guest.”
Yamamoto’s laugh isn’t conscious; it bubbles up his throat all unintended,
splashing over his tongue until the sound nearly startles him. “Does it feel
good?”
“Fuck yes it feels good,” Gokudera says, shifting his arm so he’s sprawled out
along the entire edge of the bed. “You can do this all night if you feel like
it.”
Yamamoto smiles, blinks hazy sunlight off his eyelashes so he can focus on the
tracery of the light across Gokudera’s hair. “Okay.”
They are both quiet for a while. Yamamoto isn’t paying attention to time; it’s
pleasant enough to have the pain gone, to have the warmth of sunlight against
his face and the soft of Gokudera’s hair under his fingertips. The sun settles
under the horizon, the light dimming from yellow to gold to orange, filtering
the room into the red of oncoming night before Gokudera speaks, softly against
the edge of the bed and without lifting his head.
“I’m sorry.” It’s faint, muffled by the blankets and quiet to begin with, but
the room is so still Yamamoto can hear the words as clearly as if Gokudera is
whispering in his ear. “About your arm. And baseball.”
Yamamoto smiles, drifting in the present moment of complete contentment until
it’s only the true sincerity in Gokudera’s voice that keeps him tethered to the
conversation.
“‘Sokay,” he says, the words slurring together on his tongue. There’s more than
just the response, some vague feeling of optimism borne on the other boy’s
presence, the reality of the moment and the promise of a future so far off it’s
unfathomable, but it’s too hard to find the words in the end, and Gokudera’s
shoulders are relaxing against the bed, so Yamamoto stays quiet, listens
instead to the sound of the other boy’s breathing going slow and heavy with
sleep.
His dad comes back in a little while later, after the room is dark with night
and Yamamoto is just thinking about reaching to try to grab at the pullcord for
the blinds. He glances at Gokudera, at Yamamoto’s fingers long since stilled to
only incidental motion through the other boy’s hair, and when he comes in it’s
softly in consideration of Gokudera’s sleep. He pulls the blinds without
speaking, comes in to lean over the edge of Yamamoto’s bed and reach out to
ruffle his hair.
“Doing okay?” he asks, pitching his voice so low Gokudera doesn’t even stir at
the sound.
Yamamoto looks up, smiles drowsily. In the dark the temptation of sleep is
irresistible, dragging him under so he yawns even as he’s trying to nod silent
agreement.
His dad laughs softly, presses gentle comfort against Yamamoto’s shoulder, and
retreats to tug the convertible chair in the corner into the futon intended for
overnight visitors. Yamamoto watches his movements, blinking more and more
slowly with every passing second, until finally he shuts his eyes and sleep
tugs him gently into unconsciousness.
***** Enthusiasm *****
It’s weird to have afternoons free. After months of practice every day after
school Gokudera had become used to it, the physical exertion of baseball
practice to follow a long day of sitting still in class, until going straight
back to Yamamoto’s house after class is over leaves him jittery and on-edge
from too much energy and not enough effort.
He takes it out on Yamamoto in the form of extended studying sessions. The
other boy can’t write much at all; his handwriting, always bordering on
illegible, is entirely unreadable now, whether he attempts to write with his
constrained right hand or fumbles through it with his left. So it’s all aloud,
Gokudera reciting back the lectures from class Yamamoto never seems to manage
to listen to while the other watches him with every appearance of attention.
It’s a bit uncanny, truthfully, to have him looking so focused for such a long
period of time; Gokudera can only really take it for about an hour before he
cuts himself off mid-sentence with “You’re not even listening to me, are you?”
“Huh?” Yamamoto blinks, his usual unconscious smile slipping into blank
confusion. “I was listening, why did you stop?”
“No way,” Gokudera huffs. “You can’t pay attention to anything except baseball
for more than five minutes. Do you even know what subject we’re studying?”
“Yeah,” Yamamoto says, still looking faintly confused. “History. I was
listening, Hayato, I promise I was.”
Gokudera crosses his arms, tips his chin down to give Yamamoto a skeptical
once-over. “Sure you were. Tell me what I was just saying.”
“Okay,” Yamamoto says, and then he starts to talk.
And talk. And talk. It’s nearly fifteen minutes before Gokudera can collect
himself enough to cut off the flow of words, Yamamoto reciting back all the
information Gokudera has been saying for the last hour, if somewhat jumbled in
order and casual in delivery.
“Fine,” and he waves his hand, fluttering his fingers at Yamamoto until the
other’s voice trails to a stop. “What the hell, Mo-chan, have you just been
holding out on me all this time?” He feels faintly betrayed, mostly impressed,
like some failing he always took for granted in his best friend turned out to
be not a weakness at all. “You know all this stuff already.”
Yamamoto shakes his head quick, laughs as he brings his free hand up to ruffle
at the back of his hair. “No, no, I’m only learning it just now! I didn’t know
any of this when we sat down.”
Gokudera’s the one confused, now. He can feel his forehead creasing, a line
settling in between his eyebrows as he stares at the simple delight across the
other boy’s features. If he’s lying, he’s a much better actor than years of
friendship have yet indicated he could possibly be. “If you can learn this that
quickly, why do you always fail all your tests?” Gokudera leans sideways,
reaches for Yamamoto’s bag to fish out one of the other’s notebooks and riffle
through the pages. The first paper he finds bears him out, the “19” written at
the top in bright red letter like the condemnation to stupidity he has always
thought it was. He pulls it free, smacks it flat on the table like some kind of
decisive proof. “You’re always terrible at school.”
“Oh.” Yamamoto ducks his head, still grinning with no trace of shame at this
evidence of his past academic failings. “I’ve been focused on baseball. And
it’s always so boring in class.”
Gokudera scoffs. “Better to learn it in class than have to study for it later
at home.”
Yamamoto looks back up to catch Gokudera’s gaze. When he smiles the expression
spreads across his whole face, crinkles his eyes up and draws Gokudera’s
attention to the soft of his mouth, the easy curve of his lips into the
happiness that has always seemed so effortless for him.
“It’s more fun to study with you,” he says. “You’re nice to listen to and you
make things way more interesting than sensei does.”
Gokudera doesn’t know why he starts to flush. It’s true that it’s a compliment,
but Yamamoto is always saying ridiculous things; he thought he had become used
to them, had learned how to brush them off without hesitation. But he’s going
red, heat spreading out across his cheeks and sweeping out across his whole
face, and when he ducks to let his hair fall in front of his features it just
gets worse, until he’s sure he’s glowing the same color as the ink on
Yamamoto’s test sheet.
“Idiot,” he says to the table, and Yamamoto laughs, the familiar purr of his
amusement making Gokudera smile even past the heat of embarrassment all across
his cheeks. “Fine. Let’s take a break, we were about due for one anyway.”
“Okay.” Yamamoto leans in closer; when Gokudera glances up he’s smiling like he
has a secret, his eyes glowing with excitement. “I have an idea. You know the
signals we made up for baseball?”
“Yeah,” Gokudera says, his agreement tentative with uncertainty about where
Yamamoto is going with this.
Yamamoto’s smile dimples at the corners of his mouth, delight written so clear
on his features it’s overriding Gokudera’s self-consciousness, pulling the
other boy into the thrumming adrenaline of excitement before he has even heard
the probably-absurd idea. “Since we can’t use them until my arm heals, we
should do something else with them.”
It is an absurd idea, as it turns out. But Gokudera can’t get his mouth to stop
smiling as Yamamoto lays out the details with as much enthusiasm as he brings
to everything Gokudera is involved in, and in the end he is caught in the
planning process before he even realized he had agreed.
It’s easy to be enthusiastic when Yamamoto is showing him how.
***** Implied *****
Yamamoto isn’t paying any attention to class at all.
He knows he should be -- it’ll be easier to study later if he pays more
attention to what he’s supposed to be learning when he’s supposed to be
learning it -- but his arm is aching with a faint dull throb just enough to be
distracting from serious pursuits, and lunch in is fifteen minutes, and he’s
been trying to get Gokudera’s attention from across the classroom for five, and
that’s absorbing all his focus at the moment. He gave up on patience minutes
ago, devoted himself instead to staring at the back of the other’s head in an
attempt to psychically persuade him to turn around, and from the hunch of
Gokudera’s shoulders it’s working, at least enough that Yamamoto can see the
effort it is costing him to not turn around from here.
The movement of Gokudera’s fingers catches Yamamoto’s focus, draws his gaze
away from the light catching bright off the ends of the other’s hair to zero in
on the shift of his hand instead. The other isn’t looking at Yamamoto, still,
doesn’t see the position of the other boy’s hand, but his own still falls into
the angle of his fingers that means pay attention, the snap of almost-
irritation as clear from across the room as it would be on the baseball field.
Yamamoto grins, lets his own hand -- crossed fingers for I’m hungry -- go slack
as he turns back to the front of the room obediently. But the teacher is just
wrapping up anyway, expectation of lunch is making the other students shuffle
in their seats, and in the end it’s barely three minutes between Gokudera’s
silent signal and Yamamoto maneuvering across the class to lean over his desk
instead of staring from the other side of the room.
“Idiot,” Gokudera offers without looking up from where he’s condensing his
pencils into a case and closing the notebook he hasn’t written in for the last
hour. “I’m not going to help you study if you don’t even try to pay attention
in class.”
“How did you know I wasn’t?” Yamamoto asks, still grinning with the simple joy
of lunchtime and the sound of Gokudera’s voice.
Gokudera looks up through his hair, one eyebrow arced high in disbelief. “Mo-
chan. I know you. You think I don’t know when you’re not paying attention in
class?”
That makes Yamamoto laugh, any attempt at rebuttal dying to the truth of
Gokudera’s statement. The other boy pushes his notebook aside, moves to stand
up from his desk, and Yamamoto holds out one of the two lunches he collected
off the counter of the sushi shop this morning. Gokudera accepts his without
protest, fiddling with the knot at the top so he can slide the lid half-off as
they make their way out of the classroom and up to the stairs leading to the
sun-warmth of the rooftop.
“This isn’t another one of your experiments, is it?” he asks, narrowing his
eyes at the neat lines of food inside the box.
Yamamoto shakes his head, slows his pace a little as they hit the stairs; it’s
harder to keep his balance with one arm wrapped into immobility, safer if
slower to adopt an easy pace up the stairs. Gokudera isn’t even looking at him
-- he still appears wholly engrossed in the box in his hands -- but he slows as
if on a cue Yamamoto didn’t give as they hit the first step of the staircase.
“Not this time. I’m saving the cooking until I have two good hands again.”
“Oh thank god,” Gokudera deadpans, fishing out a bite from the box and eating
it as they get to the first landing, round the corner for the second flight of
steps. “Sis is enough poisoning for my whole life, thanks very much.”
“Aww, I’m not that bad,” Yamamoto protests, the complaint weak around the
amusement on his tongue.
Gokudera shoots him a look, skeptical and sharp but undermined by the smile
clinging to the corner of his mouth. “Yes, you are exactly that bad,” he
insists, taking the last steps fast so he can push the door open, kick it wide
and hold it there while Yamamoto steps out of the stairwell and into the bright
glow of the sun.
They make for their usual spot without discussion, stepping around the corner
from the door to the roof and into the section of wall secluded and full in the
warmth of the sun. It’s only once they’re both settled -- Yamamoto with his
back to the sunlight, Gokudera sitting against the wall to face him -- that
Yamamoto starts tugging at the tie around his own lunch, the movement a little
clumsy one-handed.
“Here.” Gokudera tips in, his fingers making quick work of the knot in the
cloth. Yamamoto glances up to flash him a smile but Gokudera is already leaning
back, turning his attention back to his own lunch like there is nothing
remarkable at all about him offering assistance. “Don’t you get that off soon?”
“Mm,” Yamamoto hums affirmation, tugging off his lid to reveal a lunch
significantly more colorful and varied than that for Gokudera’s far-pickier
tastes. “This Saturday. Then I’ll have to do some special exercises to get the
strength back, but then--”
“Baseball,” Gokudera finishes for him. When Yamamoto looks up the other is
grinning, the expression catching his eyes bright and tugging his mouth
lopsided with pleasure. “Good.” He looks back down, takes another huge bite of
his food. “It’s a pain trying to keep you entertained every afternoon.”
“You’ll come back to the club with me, right?” Yamamoto asks. “Even if we’re
not going to become professionals?”
Gokudera rolls his eyes, kicks his leg out to bump against Yamamoto’s hip. “Of
course I’m coming back,” he declares, as if there was never any question on the
matter at all. “It’s not like I need the study time. And you’re not going to
have anyone to pitch to if I’m not there, baseball idiot.”
Yamamoto’s smile is light, freed of concern and glowing with optimism for the
future. “I’m glad,” he says, still looking at Gokudera as the other turns to
his lunch for another mouthful. The sunlight is turning Gokudera’s hair white-
silver, outlining the shape of his eyelashes in feather-faint shadows against
his cheekbones, and for a minute Yamamoto is caught, his thoughts trailing into
silence as warmth sweeps through him and drowns out any coherency he might have
had.
He doesn’t realize he’s staring, might not realize it at all except that
Gokudera glances up and catches him at it. The other boy’s cheeks go pink, his
foot moves to knock Yamamoto’s hip again, and when he snaps “What the fuck are
you staring at?” Yamamoto knows better than to try to explain himself. When he
turns his attention to his own lunch Gokudera starts talking a little too
loudly, outlining the training regimen they will need to undertake once
Yamamoto is cleared for practice again. By the time they are done eating
Gokudera’s flush is gone, Yamamoto’s attention is firmly caught by baseball,
and everything is nearly ordinary again.
If Yamamoto thinks about it again as he’s falling asleep that night, closes his
eyes to the shimmer of sunlight on silver and the strain of self-consciousness
in a familiar voice, the implications aren’t enough to keep him awake.
***** Granted *****
By the time they’re heading back in from the practice field, Gokudera is all
but seething.
“It’s not fair.” He sounds petulant, he knows, the words whining like he’s a
child denied a treat, but the awareness doesn’t help soothe his irritation. It
just aches frustration under his skin, pushes him to drag his helmet off with
more aggression than care so the edge of the metal catches at his hair, twists
his ponytail half-loose while he and Yamamoto are still making their way back
to the now-abandoned dugout. “How can they not give you your spot back?”
“Aww, it’s okay,” Yamamoto soothes. He sounds calm, sincere in his unconcern,
and that just serves to make Gokudera angrier, protective irritation hot in his
veins since Yamamoto isn’t going to do anything about this injustice himself.
“I haven’t played in months, they can’t just put me back in the starting lineup
just like that.”
“They should,” Gokudera snaps. He tosses the helmet into the corner with more
violence than it deserves, gaining some mild satisfaction from the sound of the
impact. “You practice longer than anyone else and you’re better.” He flings
himself onto the bench with the same careless aggression he showed for the
helmet, nearly slamming his knee against the corner of the wood as he drops to
yank at the pads strapped over his legs.
“You practice as much as I do,” Yamamoto says, sitting with significantly more
care alongside Gokudera. He’s close enough that Gokudera’s elbow bumps the
other’s arm as he strips off the layers of protective gear but Gokudera doesn’t
look up; he knows Yamamoto’s just going to be watching him with that
appreciative warmth in his eyes, gratitude for the frustration on his behalf
even if he’s not sharing in it. “I just wish you could be the main catcher
while I’m getting back up to speed.”
“Do you ever bother to use your ears, Mo-chan?” Gokudera asks, tossing the last
of his gear into the pile by the wall. “I keep telling you, idiot,
I’m your partner. I asked to stay with you instead of being in the first
string.” He does look up then, shooting Yamamoto a glare through the tangled
strands of his hair. “Unless you don’t want me to stay late with you.”
Yamamoto blinks, surprise printed as clearly across his face as if this is the
first time he’s heard this and not going on the dozenth; then he smiles, like
he always does, like Gokudera has handed him a direct pass to the nationals,
and Gokudera has to look away before his cheeks start to burn with a telltale
blush.
“This really is ridiculous, though,” he points out, leaning over so he can tug
at the dusty laces of his shoes. There’s a touch at the back of his neck,
Yamamoto’s fingers reaching out to pull his hairtie free, and Gokudera ducks
his head to the contact for a moment, his focus stuttering under the flickering
warmth of the sensation against his skin. “Mm. Don’t you need to worry about
overtraining or something?” He starts to looks back up towards Yamamoto,
turning his head before he straightens, but Yamamoto’s close, much closer than
Gokudera expects and leaning in even as the other turns. Gokudera blinks,
shocked into stillness by the close-up shadow of Yamamoto’s eyelashes against
his cheek and the warmth of an exhale against his mouth, and in that moment of
breathless hesitation Yamamoto’s mouth catches at his skin, presses warm
against mostly his cheek and the very corner of Gokudera’s lips.
All Gokudera’s breath leaves his body in a single startled exhale. His eyes are
open, he’s staring at the familiar features made strange by such close
proximity, and for a moment every reaction in his head hesitates. There are
still fingers at the back of his neck, Yamamoto’s hand caught in his half-
undone hair, and Yamamoto’s not pulling away, his lips are lingering while
Gokudera’s skin starts to burn hot under the contact. Gokudera can’t think, he
can’t move, and then Yamamoto is drawing back, leaning away so the other boy
can see the whole of his face at once instead of just the close-up details.
Neither of them speaks for a minute. Gokudera is still angled in over his
knees, any thought of sitting up forgotten along with his knowledge of how to
breathe and think, and Yamamoto is blinking slowly, like he can’t quite
remember how. His lips are barely parted; Gokudera can see him sigh, slow and
shaky, before he licks against his mouth like he’s tasting the damp against his
skin.
“What…?” Gokudera finally manages, when it becomes clear Yamamoto isn’t going
to be coming back to coherency on his own anytime soon. The other boy’s hand is
still at the back of his neck; Gokudera’s skin is starting to burn, now, his
shoulders drawing tight with awareness of the contact that has never seemed so
warm before.
Yamamoto blinks again, like he’s fighting for focus, his gaze sliding over
Gokudera’s face to catch at his lips before he looks back up at the other’s
eyes. “Sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t sound apologetic in the least. He
sounds warm, dreamy, like chocolate melting in the sun. “I wanted to kiss your
neck and you turned.”
“What?” Gokudera asks again, helpless in the face of this confusion. He can’t
get his bearings, he can’t even force traction on what’s happening; he feels
drunk, dizzy, suddenly lost in a world that he thought he knew.
“Your neck,” Yamamoto says again, as if that’s the piece Gokudera is hung up
on. His eyes drift sideways again, his thumb shifts against the other’s skin.
“Here” and he’s leaning in again, so smoothly Gokudera can’t muster any
aggression to push him away. He’s frozen in place, his whole body going taut
with adrenaline he doesn’t know what to do with, and then Yamamoto’s lips are
pressing against his neck, the heat of the other boy’s breathing brushing
against the loose strands of his hair.
“Just that,” Yamamoto is saying, pulling back and away. He’s licking his lips
again, the motion as distracting as it must be unconscious; Gokudera can’t look
away, can feel his cheeks burning as hot as the skin under Yamamoto’s fingers
and even then can’t drag his gaze aside.
“You.” Gokudera can’t find words. “You can’t just…” His thoughts stall on the
word kiss, his gaze sticking to Yamamoto’s mouth, and now he’s licking his
lips, anxiety and confusion trembling through his whole body. “Mo-chan.”
Yamamoto’s head tilts, his eyes going dreamy again. “Hayato.” There’s probably
some law against the way he says Gokudera’s name, the way the syllables slide
liquid across his tongue. Or maybe he’s always sounded that way? Gokudera can’t
remember, now. “Can I kiss you?”
Gokudera whimpers. It’s not deliberate; the sound just attaches itself to his
breathing, strains hard in his throat as he tries to exhale. He can’t speak,
there’s no way he can achieve coherency for the panic and confusion and heat in
his blood. But he’s still staring at Yamamoto’s mouth, the impulse too great to
overcome, and when Yamamoto starts to lean in again Gokudera sits up, moving to
meet him without thinking at all.
His heart is pounding in his throat, nerves trembling through his fingers and
rushing his breathing into overdrive. But Yamamoto’s hand is still steady
against his skin, Yamamoto’s exhale is warm against his lips, and then they’re
kissing, their lips fitting together as Gokudera’s pulse speeds frantic.
Yamamoto’s lips are damp, warm from that unthought motion of his tongue; when
Gokudera tips his head their mouths slide against each other, the friction
bursting out into his blood like fireworks. His sense of balance reels,
dizziness overtaking his body as well as his thoughts, and when he reaches out
it’s Yamamoto’s shirt his fingers meet, his hand forming into a fist to hold
himself upright. Yamamoto makes a noise, some low murmur that Gokudera can feel
against the inside of his mouth, and he can feel the shudder of reaction run
down his spine like Yamamoto’s lips are electric.
It’s only a moment that they stay together, with Yamamoto’s mouth hot against
Gokudera’s; then they break apart as if on some cue, Gokudera panting for air
like he’s been sprinting and Yamamoto’s eyes still closed as if he can’t recall
how to open them. His entire expression is soft, relaxed and unfocused, and
Gokudera can feel his stomach drop as if he’s falling, like gravity has
vanished along with everything else he took for granted.
“Fuck,” he says, his voice shaking in his throat along with his breathing. “Mo-
chan, I--”
Yamamoto opens his eyes. He looks shell-shocked, knocked right out of himself
and into something warm and pliant and irresistible, and whatever Gokudera was
going to say crumbles into the shape of a whimper in his throat.
He’s the one who leans in, this time, catches Yamamoto’s mouth with his while
the other boy is still blinking in incoherent warmth. That gets him another
vibration of noise, some unheard response at his lips, and they’re pressed in
together, then, Gokudera’s arm pinned between them and Yamamoto’s other hand
coming out to land gently against his hip. The world falls away, their
surroundings and Gokudera’s attention both, until all his focus is trapped by
the soft friction of Yamamoto’s lips on his.
Gokudera doesn’t have the words to ask for an explanation, but with the warmth
of Yamamoto’s mouth against his, he’s not sure he needs one anyway.
***** Attention *****
Yamamoto has been watching the storm clouds blow in all afternoon. The
advantage of having a window seat in the classroom is that he can look out at
the sky, if Gokudera is snapping silent gestures at him to stop staring. The
view means he’s seen the blue giving way to grey, has been tracking the shift
in the weather ever since the lunchtime sun flickered into shadow. By the time
class is over, there are a few raindrops collecting against the glass of the
pane, the heavy weight of the clouds overhead promising a downpour of a few
hours, at least, more than enough to cancel practice for the day.
Yamamoto doesn’t mind. It’s not what he was expecting to do this afternoon, but
he’s sure Gokudera won’t mind the unexpected study session, and recently he’s
found spending afterschool hours alone with Gokudera at least as rewarding as
the easy satisfaction to be had in practice.
Gokudera’s collecting his things into his bag when Yamamoto comes up to the
edge of his desk and pauses to wait for the other boy. He only glances up for a
moment but it’s enough for Yamamoto to catch the color from his eyes, enough to
leave him smiling in the simple joy of closeness while Gokudera finishes
collecting his things into his bag.
“You didn’t bring an umbrella today, did you,” Gokudera says without looking
up.
Yamamoto laughs, amusement only barely tinged with apology. “Nope.”
“You’re hopeless.” Gokudera flips the top of his bag down, pushes up from his
chair and swings the strap up over his shoulder. “I should make you walk back
in the rain just to teach you a lesson.”
“Ha, I wouldn’t mind,” Yamamoto says. Gokudera glances at him again, his lips
tightening into the shape of the smile that’s never very far from his
expression, now, before he ducks his head to the shadow of his hair and takes
the lead out of the classroom.
“I know you wouldn’t,” he says as Yamamoto follows. He’s watching the swing of
Gokudera’s hand, the easy curl of his fingers as he moves, barely listening the
the purr of affectionate teasing under the other’s words. “You’d end up soaked
to the skin and still smiling that stupid smile.” Gokudera pauses by the front
doors, fishes his own umbrella out of the array of options from the more
forward-thinking students. “And then you’d have to change, and probably take a
shower, and we’d never get any studying done after all.” When he turns he’s not
looking at Yamamoto’s face but at his shoulder, doesn’t look up even when he
holds the umbrella out. “At least carry it for us both.”
“Okay,” Yamamoto agrees. This is a familiar burden, more pleasant than
troublesome, and fitting together under one cover suggests far more physical
contact on the way back than Gokudera usually lets Yamamoto get away with in
public.
The excuse is a good one. They’re barely past the front gate when Gokudera
heaves a sigh, snaps something about “If you hold it all over me you’ll end up
just as wet as without it” and moves in closer, grumbling about the umbrella
being plenty big enough for the both of them. The proximity pushes his shoulder
in against Yamamoto’s arm, brings his fingertips catching at the bottom edge of
Yamamoto’s jacket. He’s so close Yamamoto could turn sideways and kiss his
hair, can smell the faint smoky sweetness clinging to the strands gone damp
with the humidity.
“Mo-chan.” The sound is low, weighted like a warning, like maybe this isn’t the
first time Gokudera has spoken. Yamamoto blinks himself back into attention,
looks down from Gokudera’s hair at the green eyes fixed on him. “Have you been
listening to me at all?”
“No,” he answers, truthful and instantaneous. Gokudera groans and rolls his
eyes, but there’s a twist at his mouth, the oncoming shape of amusement before
he looks away to hide it.
“I was saying it’s a good thing we have today off, anyway.” The hand at
Yamamoto’s hip is tense, the whole of Gokudera’s arm angled like he’s trying
for casual and coming up stiff with self-consciousness. “We need to start
thinking about entrance exams for high school.”
“Sure,” Yamamoto says, agreement easy as it always is with Gokudera. “Anything
you want.”
“You have to take this seriously, Mo-chan,” Gokudera sighs. “We both have to
pass the exam to go to the same school.”
“I know,” Yamamoto says, because he does, he knows how this works even if it
still feels far-off and impossibly distant. “It’s fine, I can do it.”
“Not without studying you can’t,” Gokudera insists, tipping his head up to fix
Yamamoto with a glare. His eyes are shadowed under the cover of the umbrella,
his mouth turned down around the shape of a frown. And Yamamoto knows he’s
right, knows that it will take a concerted effort to pass the tests that will
come far sooner than feels possible, right now. But at this moment Gokudera is
very close, his mouth soft on his expression, and Yamamoto can’t help the way
his gaze dips down, the way his lips part on a helpless sigh of want.
He can hear Gokudera’s breath catch, can pick out the shake under the other’s
huff of amused disbelief, but Gokudera’s looking away, scattering the potential
for public affection and ducking his head as if to protect himself from the
possibility.
“You can’t look at me like that,” he says. His fingers shift, one hooking just
inside the edge of Yamamoto’s pocket before he pulls away. “It’s not fair to
leave all the restraint to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Yamamoto offers. His voice sounds weird, a little shaky and lower
than usual. He can feel all his skin flushing hot with anticipation for the
denied contact, his attention wholly caught by the silver of Gokudera’s hair
and the thought of the mouth he can’t see right now. “I just want to kiss you
all the time.”
“You do not,” Gokudera insists. “You can’t possibly be thinking about that
every moment of the day.”
“I am,” Yamamoto says. “I can’t help it.”
“Fine,” Gokudera snaps. Yamamoto thinks he’s trying to sound resigned; he
sounds more amused, though, a little like his throat is shaking the same way
Yamamoto can feel the other’s arm trembling against him. “Here.” His hand comes
up, forms into a deliberate variation of one of their baseball signals. “If you
want to…” He breaks himself off, clears his throat hard and lets his hand drop.
“Just show me that.”
Yamamoto curls his fingers into the signal, holds his hand up. “Like this?”
“Yeah,” Gokudera says, almost before he glances over at the other’s fingers.
“You got it.”
“Okay.” Yamamoto lets his hand fall back to his side, looks away from the top
of Gokudera’s head and out at the rain-dark sidewalk in front of them.
There’s a pause; then Gokudera clears his throat to start speaking again. “So
like I was saying. We can at least start some of the review, since you never
remember anything in class anyway.”
“Mm,” Yamamoto hums. Gokudera’s arm is warm against his, the weight of the
other’s shoulder leaning into him sending his attention scattering to coalesce
around his new favorite daydream.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Gokudera blurts, stops so suddenly Yamamoto nearly walks
past him before he can catch his footing. There are fingers closing at his
wrist, dragging the shape of his hand up from the half-cover at his side. “It’s
been like thirty seconds.”
“Always,” Yamamoto repeats, helpless in the face of Gokudera’s frown and the
press of Gokudera’s fingers against his skin. “All day, I swear.”
“We’re never going to get any work done,” Gokudera sighs, more to himself than
with any direction to the words, and he’s reaching up, bracing his fingers
against the back of Yamamoto’s neck and urging the other down and closer as he
tips up. Yamamoto lets himself be pulled, is shutting his eyes as Gokudera’s
mouth presses to his, the other boy turning his head to fit their lips closer
together. His skin is damp from the moisture in the air, his breathing hot at
Yamamoto’s cheek, and Yamamoto is whimpering satisfaction, pleasure warm and
rushing through his veins as it does whenever Gokudera kisses him.
He doesn’t notice his hold on the umbrella slipping. It’s Gokudera who makes a
muffled noise of protest, pulls away to reach out and grab at the falling
handle to straighten the cover back over their somewhat-damper heads.
“Pay attention to what you’re doing, Mo-chan,” he growls.
“I was,” Yamamoto blurts without thinking, still caught incoherent by the
afterimage of Gokudera’s lips against his.
Gokudera blinks at him; then he laughs, sudden and surprised, and Yamamoto
grins without any real apology, turns his wrist free of Gokudera’s hold so he
can catch their fingers together for a moment as he leans back in.
“I thought I wasn’t allowed, in public?”
Gokudera coughs. “Well. There’s no one around anyway.” The touch at Yamamoto’s
neck tightens. “Are you complaining?”
Yamamoto shakes his head, quick with certainty, and when Gokudera laughs he can
feel the sound at his lips before the sensation is replaced with the warm
friction of the other’s mouth.
By the time Gokudera manages to retrieve the umbrella this time, Yamamoto’s
hair is dripping against his forehead and Gokudera’s is stained dark by the
rain. But Gokudera is smiling, too bright for him to hide just by ducking his
head, and if he reclaims his hand from Yamamoto’s hold for the rest of the
walk, the lingering heat from the impromptu contact is enough to keep Yamamoto
warm over the distance.
***** Daydreams *****
Gokudera’s hair is still damp from the shower when Yamamoto comes back into the
room, a towel thrown around his shoulders in lieu of actually taking the time
to dry his hair. It makes Gokudera frown, foreseeing more water coming his way,
and it’s only that expectation that gets his hand up to tangle into Yamamoto’s
hair and hold him clear of Gokudera’s still-dry shirt when the other tries to
tip forward to hug him.
“You’ll get me wet,” he complains. “You’re lucky my shirt is dry enough to
wear, otherwise I’d have to go home to change and our whole afternoon would be
lost after all.”
“You could just borrow one of mine,” Yamamoto points out, but he is retreating,
disappearing under the white of the towel while he ruffles the cloth up over
his head. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“Your shirts are all too big on me,” Gokudera points out as he watches the
motion of Yamamoto’s fingers against the towel. “And if you leave your hair wet
you’ll get sick anyway.”
Yamamoto reemerges, smiling at Gokudera like he’s expecting approval. His hair
is indeed drier than it was, but now it’s all on-end, rumpled out of any hope
of tidiness. Gokudera heaves a sigh.
“You’re hopeless, Mo-chan,” but he’s reaching out as he speaks, curling his
fingers in against the unbuttoned top of Yamamoto’s shirt and tugging to urge
the other in closer. Yamamoto doesn’t hesitate to obey, sliding in until his
knee is bumping alongside Gokudera’s hip and he can and does stretch out to
ghost his fingers against the curve of the other’s waist.
Gokudera’s hands are shaking, trembling faintly even though the way he’s
leaning against the edge of the bed disguises the worst of his electric
adrenaline. He can hear the patter of the rain blowing against the window,
nearly as loud as the soft rhythm of Yamamoto’s breathing and the huff of his
laugh when Gokudera grabs at the end of the towel to twist it off and toss it
aside.
“Hayato,” Yamamoto says, less like he’s trying to secure Gokudera’s attention
and more like he’s tasting the name, shaping it on his tongue and lips like
some kind of unconscious seduction. It works, in that it drags Gokudera’s gaze
down to the part of the other boy’s lips and curls warm and rich in his
stomach, and when he reaches out the ruffled strands of Yamamoto’s hair fit
perfectly between his fingers. Yamamoto is smiling, his expression so soft
Gokudera is pretty sure it’s unconscious, until the first brush of his lips to
the other boy’s mouth is made awkward and glancing from the shape of the
other’s happiness.
It’s only for the first moment of contact. Gokudera makes a face, starts to
lean back, and then Yamamoto is leaning in to follow him, his smile giving way
to the soft part of his lips. His hair is feathery against Gokudera’s fingers,
his shirt crisp enough that it’s wrinkling under the other’s hold, and his
other hand is moving as it always does, Yamamoto’s fingers drawn in against
Gokudera’s hair like the strands have some sort of strange magnetism for him.
They pull apart for a moment, Gokudera unconsciously licking at the heat of
friction against his lips while Yamamoto’s eyes trail the movement of his
fingers. The contact against Gokudera’s scalp is gentle, careful against the
unusual catch of the moisture at Yamamoto’s fingers, and Yamamoto is laughing
at Gokudera’s mouth, leaning in closer until their foreheads bump together.
“Your hair’s still wet too,” he says, his eyelashes shifting so Gokudera can
watch his gaze slide down to land on his lips again. “What if you get sick?”
“Shut up,” Gokudera suggests, tips his chin up to press his mouth flush to
Yamamoto’s for a moment. “It’s dry enough.” Another kiss, longer this time;
when he pulls back Yamamoto’s eyes are closed, the other boy’s breathing coming
hard enough to overwhelm the ambient sound of the rain. “You were supposed to
keep us dry in the first place.”
“Mm,” Yamamoto says without opening his eyes. “Sorry.” His fingers shift in
Gokudera’s hair, fitting in against the strands and sending heat flickering
down Gokudera’s spine. When he opens his eyes he’s so close Gokudera can see
the radiating lines of color in the irises, the brown so dark it’s almost black
together with the pale gold more familiar from a distance. They stare at each
other for a minute, Yamamoto’s gaze hazy while Gokudera’s breathing stalls in
his chest, and then Yamamoto leans in again, kisses slow sucking pressure to
Gokudera’s lower lip. Gokudera’s the one who shuts his eyes this time, the ache
of pleasure so strong it’s nearly painful in his chest, until when Yamamoto
pulls away he doesn’t remember the topic until the other speaks.
“You were just so...” Fingers tightening in his hair, the gust of a laugh
across his mouth. Gokudera blinks his vision back, lets his hold at Yamamoto’s
shirt go in favor of grabbing for the other boy’s hip. When he pulls Yamamoto
tips sideways, lets his weight drop over Gokudera’s legs until he’s half on the
other boy’s lap. He’s smiling again, ducking in like he’s ready for another
kiss before he remembers himself. “I’m so distracted by you.”
“You’re useless,” Gokudera says, the words turning warm and affectionate over
his tongue before he intends them to. “You’re with me all day, how are you ever
going to get anything done if you get like this?”
Yamamoto hums, the sound soothing in spite of the complete lack of explanation
he is offering. Gokudera can’t help smiling, sliding his hand to ruffle
Yamamoto’s hair even more out-of-order than it is already, and Yamamoto tips
his head to lean into the contact. He’s blinking meltingly slowly, his eyes so
far out-of-focus Gokudera isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to come back to
attention. When his fingers slip farther into Gokudera’s hair Gokudera turns
his face away, unspoken offer of the line of his neck to the other boy. He’s
learned quickly that this is apparently irresistible to Yamamoto, and today is
no exception; Yamamoto’s eyelashes flutter, his mouth curves into a smile, and
when he leans in Gokudera shuts his eyes to the feather-soft brush of
Yamamoto’s lips on his skin.
Yamamoto lingers there for a while, marking the heat of his mouth all along
Gokudera’s throat and up under his ear, fitting kisses under the weight of the
other boy’s hair. Gokudera doesn’t move, doesn’t protest or pull away or do
anything except hold onto Yamamoto’s hair as the tingling satisfaction of the
friction shivers down against his spine. Yamamoto is kissing out over his
cheek, trailing in closer to Gokudera’s lips again, and Gokudera turns in to
meet him just as Yamamoto takes a breath and says, “Let’s stay together
forever.”
Gokudera opens his eyes, frowns in brief disappointment at the delay of the
kiss he was expecting. “Were you planning on going somewhere?”
Yamamoto laughs in spite of the snap to Gokudera’s words, leans in to sigh
against the other boy’s neck. Gokudera wants to be mad about this interruption,
would stay irritated if he could, but he’s melting as fast as he always does,
no better at resisting Yamamoto now than he ever has been in all the time
they’ve known each other.
“No,” Yamamoto says, slides his fingers farther into Gokudera’s hair and leans
in closer against the other boy’s shoulders. “I mean when we’re older. Like we
were going to, with baseball.”
“This is totally different than with baseball,” Gokudera protests weakly. “You
wanted me to play baseball with you professionally, now you’re not even
bothering with an excuse to stay together.”
“It’s not different,” Yamamoto says. His hand at Gokudera’s waist slides
sideways, his arm loops around the other boy to pull them in closer together.
“It was always the same thing, I think.”
Gokudera huffs the most frustrated sigh he can manage under the circumstances,
rolls his eyes where Yamamoto can’t see him. “You’re absurd, Mo-chan,” he
declares. “At least that hasn’t changed.”
Yamamoto laughs, lifts his head to gaze dreamily at Gokudera. He looks happier
than Gokudera has ever seen him, like his usual optimism has permeated down
into his very soul and turned him into pure affectionate delight. “We should
live together,” he says, slow and hazy with heat, and that’s when he finally
leans in to kiss Gokudera’s mouth again. Gokudera shuts his eyes to the
friction, whines faint protest, and pulls back before they can get too
completely off-subject.
“We should get into high school first,” he says, mustering all the restraint he
can with Yamamoto draped over his lap and still smiling contagious contentment.
“Which means you should study instead of daydreaming about living with me.”
“We could wake up together,” Yamamoto goes on, completely ignoring Gokudera’s
statement. Gokudera would be mad if his skin didn’t flush hot at Yamamoto’s
words, if his thoughts didn’t skid sideways into fantasy so clear he can almost
see it in front of him, a filter turning the familiarity of Yamamoto’s room
into a shared apartment for the both of them.
“Idiot,” he says, but the word is weak and trembling on his lips. “You’d be
useless all the time.”
“I could cook for you,” Yamamoto goes on, and he’s turning his head to rest the
weight at Gokudera’s shoulder. It’s a little easier, without his eyes fixed on
Gokudera’s face, easier to fight back the flush of self-consciousness that is
rushing out over Gokudera at the sound of the other’s words. “You hate cooking,
I could do it for you. I could make you anything you wanted.”
“No you couldn’t,” Gokudera protests. It sounds weak even to his own ears. “You
can’t cook at all.”
“I’ll learn,” Yamamoto declares. “I’ll learn for you, Hayato, it’ll be fun.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gokudera says. His cheeks feel permanently flushed, now.
“What would be fun about living in some tiny apartment with you underfoot all
the time?”
“It would be so nice to come home to you,” Yamamoto says, and Gokudera has to
shut his eyes to the clarity of the image, has to pause for a moment until he
can speak past the knot in his throat.
“Idiot,” he says, careful on the familiar shape of the word. “I come home with
you basically every day anyway.”
Yamamoto hums, the placating noise that means he avoiding an argument but isn’t
convinced. For once Gokudera lets it go. It’s easier to turn in towards the
gold of his eyes, to duck his head to kiss the pleasure off Yamamoto’s mouth
until the other boy sighs happiness and opens his mouth for Gokudera’s tongue.
The heat helps, soothes some of the weirdly painful ache in Gokudera’s chest,
like he’s homesick for something he’s never had, something he didn’t even know
to want until Yamamoto said it.
Yamamoto’s always been good at anticipating what he wants.
***** Present *****
“You’re still moving your wrist too much,” Gokudera shouts as he stands to toss
the baseball back to Yamamoto. “It’s just one clean movement, none of the extra
stuff you’re adding on.”
“Got it!” Yamamoto steps back, takes a breath to steady himself, lets it out
slowly. Gokudera is dropping back into a crouch, holding his mitt out for a
simple fastball without bothering with a signal. They only have a few minutes
before they need to go back out anyway; the whole point is to warm up, not to
truly practice.
Gokudera doesn’t say anything after the second pitch, or the third, just throws
the ball back and waits for Yamamoto’s next throw. Neither of them speak;
there’s an easy rhythm to the motions, the comfort of familiarity in the
actions until they feel like a dance, until Yamamoto can let his thoughts
wander while he swings his arm through the smooth motions of pitching.
They are going to lose. There’s no real question of it, at this point, not when
their opponent has a five-run lead and they only have a pair of innings left.
The team never had much hope at winning this, the last stop on their attempt at
the nationals, and Yamamoto has a flash of guilt at his gratitude that the
pinch they’re in has resulted in the backup battery being called out just for
the sake of trying something new. It doesn’t matter how well he pitches,
really; it’s just the last opportunity to stand on the field before high
school, future possibilities still so incomprehensible they feel infinitely
distant and impossible to consider. It’s easier for Yamamoto to lose himself in
the stretch of his arm, the swing of his shoulder as he pitches straight to
Gokudera, the pleasure of the present moment enough to overwhelm the
bittersweet loss approaching.
Gokudera is getting to his feet, lifting his arm to toss back, when there’s
movement, one of their teammates coming around the edge of the dugout. They
both know what that means, don’t need to hear “You’re up” before Gokudera is
tossing the ball aside, before Yamamoto is taking a breath in the rush of
excitement that always hits him before he goes out onto the field. They fall
into step with each other as they head out to the diamond, the ambient sound of
the audience and the other players enough to drown out any attempt at
conversation. Yamamoto doesn’t know how it is that he hears Gokudera’s “Do
good, Mo-chan” over the shouts and the pattern of the cheers, but when he looks
sideways Gokudera is watching him, his eyes already sad with the oncoming
ending.
So Yamamoto smiles, lets all his joy in the game radiate out into the curve of
his mouth and crease into his eyes. Gokudera blinks, some of the shadow
clearing away, and if he weren’t wearing his helmet Yamamoto would kiss him,
would duck in over the gap between them regardless of their teammates and their
opponents and the audience in the bleachers. The urge is so strong he starts to
lean in an inch before he catches himself, draws back with the edge of an
apology to his lips while Gokudera’s expression breaks into a laugh before he
looks away and out at the field.
It’s too far away to see the expression on Gokudera’s face once Yamamoto takes
up his position on the pitcher’s mound. The crowd falls silent with
anticipation as the batter steps up, takes a practice swing before setting
himself, but Yamamoto isn’t watching the batter or the audience. He’s staring
at Gokudera, watching the considering tilt of the other boy’s head as he
strategizes before he looks back out at Yamamoto and signals for an inside
curveball. Yamamoto nods, willing to follow Gokudera’s lead in this as in
everything else, but the other boy’s fingers are still moving, forming into a
different signal, one so familiar in the different context of the classroom it
takes Yamamoto a moment to piece together the angle of the other’s fingers, the
shape of his thumb into the gesture that means I want to kiss you.
Yamamoto can’t help the startled delight in his laughter. It just bubbles up in
his throat, fizzing like warm carbonation through his blood, and he doesn’t
need to be able to make out Gokudera’s expression to know that he’s smirking.
One more signal, from school again, this one pay attention, and then Gokudera
is lifting his mitt and rocking his weight forward in expectation.
Yamamoto is still smiling when he steps back to wind up for his pitch. This
might be their last game in junior high, but the sun is warm on his skin, and
the ball is heavy in his hand, and there’s no one he’d rather be watching than
Gokudera.
***** Trust *****
“No,” Gokudera snaps for the third time, reaches out to drag Yamamoto’s
practice sheet entirely out of his hands. “No, you have to subtract first
and then divide, you can’t mix those up or it doesn’t work.”
“Sorry,” Yamamoto says. He doesn’t make any effort to retain the paper; when
Gokudera looks up the other boy has his mouth tight in concentration and his
hands folded in his lap, is staring at Gokudera’s fingers like watching the
other solve the math problem will somehow grant him perfect understanding.
There’s no judgement in his face, nothing at all except dedicated
concentration, but Gokudera still flinches from the press of guilt, the ache of
apology hot on his tongue.
“Let’s take a break,” he says with no transition, pushes the paper aside and
slides back from the table. Yamamoto tracks the paper for a moment, a little
slow to shift his frame of reference, and when he looks up his eyes are hazy
and out-of-focus. He looks exhausted, his shoulders slumping forward like
Gokudera has almost never seen them, and the hurt in Gokudera’s chest swells
bigger, crushes out into him until he’s grimacing from the responsibility of
causing that expression on Yamamoto’s face.
“Come here,” he says, reaching out for Yamamoto’s wrist, and the worst of the
stress at Yamamoto’s forehead eases away at his touch, the worst of the tension
in his shoulders relaxes as he crawls around the edge of the table to fit
himself into the offer of Gokudera’s arms. His head drops against Gokudera’s
shoulder, the soft of his hair catching at the other’s skin, and Gokudera turns
in to match him, sighs a breath that feels like an apology on his tongue.
“We should have stopped earlier,” he admits. Yamamoto’s arms come around him in
lieu of an answer, the weight of the other boy’s body leaning heavily into him
like Yamamoto can’t manage to sit upright on his own. “You’re not used to these
marathon study sessions.”
“Mm, it’s okay,” Yamamoto says against Gokudera’s shirt. His voice is soft,
completely absent the edge of judgment that might make it easier to bear. “I
have to focus on exams.”
It’s uncanny, to hear Gokudera’s own words turned around and recited back in
Yamamoto’s voice. It makes him cringe again, shut his eyes and press his mouth
against the top of the other’s head until he can breathe again, can trust his
voice not to break.
“Mo-chan,” he says, the familiar syllables shaking themselves into anxious heat
in his throat. “Mo-chan, what if we don’t--”
“We will,” Yamamoto says, fast, like if Gokudera doesn’t put words to it the
possibility can’t become a reality. “I will, I’ll pass and I’ll come to high
school with you.” His arms tighten, some fragile sound in his throat muffled
into incoherency against Gokudera’s shirt. “I promise you, Hayato.”
Gokudera doesn’t speak. He can’t put words to the panic in his chest, can’t lie
his way to easy agreement with Yamamoto’s words and can’t offer the crushing
hurt that voicing his worry would bring. So he stays still instead, with
Yamamoto’s arms tangled around him and his lips pressed to the familiar
darkness of the other’s hair, keeps his eyes shut to the threat of the future
and breathes Yamamoto into his lungs like he’s never going to let him go.
He can’t trust to tomorrow the way Yamamoto can. Every morning carries the
danger of the unknown with it, too much uncertainty for Gokudera to blindly
trust to fate to lead him to safety. But Yamamoto insists that they’ll be okay,
and even though Gokudera knows he has no reason for that it’s easy to believe
the steadiness in his voice, easy to think maybe Yamamoto knows something
Gokudera doesn’t.
It’s always been easy to trust Yamamoto.
***** Sure *****
Gokudera is waiting for Yamamoto when he comes out of the exams.
It’s not hard to spot him; the hallway is empty, absent of any lingering
students except for the figure slouched alongside the door, his head bowed into
shadow and hands stuffed into his pockets. Yamamoto just looks at the other boy
for a moment, caught somewhere between pain at the stress written into the
slump of Gokudera’s shoulders and simple joy at seeing him, until the door
shutting behind him startles them both and brings Gokudera’s gaze up to land on
Yamamoto’s face.
“Mo-chan,” he breathes, as breathless as if he’s been running. His eyes are
very soft, his mouth nearly trembling as he stares at Yamamoto, still leaning
against the wall like he can’t stand upright. “How did it go?”
“I--” Yamamoto starts, stalls. He wants to offer reassurance, wants to soothe
all the stress out of Gokudera’s forehead and straighten the weighted-down
angle of his shoulders, but he can’t manage a convincing lie, has to stick with
the less-than-comforting truth. “I’m not sure.”
Gokudera blinks, sighs, and after a moment he pushes off the wall and starts
down the hallway, moving with perfect assurance that Yamamoto will fall into
step behind him. It’s not unjustified; Yamamoto is right at his heels, close
enough that his fingers brush the edge of Gokudera’s jeans as they move, close
enough that he can look down and watch the shift of silver in Gokudera’s hair
instead of paying attention to where they’re going.
“I finished all the questions,” Yamamoto offers, talking to the strain in
Gokudera’s spine and the shine of sunlight off his hair. “I’m just not sure if
they were right.”
Gokudera forces a laugh. “Even if you thought they were, that’s no guarantee of
anything. You can’t be trusted with things like this.” He pauses for a moment
to let Yamamoto catch up, catches at the other boy’s hand with so much casual
disregard it take Yamamoto a moment before he realizes Gokudera’s interlacing
their fingers, pressing their hands together with no apparent intention of
letting go. It makes him smile, even with the exhaustion of the tests and the
worry of the results hovering over them both, brings him swinging in closer to
lean against Gokudera’s shoulder.
“Did you do good?” he asks, the words near-meaningless but worth saying, if
only for the way Gokudera scoffs amusement at him.
“Of course I did,” and they’re stopping, there’s another hand swinging around
to gently punch him. Yamamoto curls around the impact, laughing more out of
relief than anything else, and Gokudera’s grinning, looking up through his hair
to mock-glare at the other boy. “It was a piece of cake.”
“Mm, that’s just because you’re so smart, Hayato,” Yamamoto says. He’s leaning
down, he can’t help it, Gokudera’s mouth is too much of a temptation, and
Gokudera huffs and rolls his eyes but he doesn’t pull away, he turns his head
up instead to let Yamamoto brush a kiss against his lips.
“Don’t try to butter me up with compliments,” he growls as Yamamoto pulls back,
lingering as close as he can get under the circumstances. Gokudera’s fingers
are digging into Yamamoto’s hand, his hold so tight it’s nearly painful, but
Yamamoto doesn’t make any effort to pull away, just squeezes right back against
the familiar shape of Gokudera’s hand. “You know how much trouble you’re going
to be in if you didn’t pass.”
“I’ll pass,” Yamamoto says, the promise that has become a mantra over the last
months. “I will, you taught me everything, I’ll pass.”
Gokudera’s forehead creases, his laugh coming out a little strained and
skeptical. “You just said you weren’t sure how you did,” he points out. “How
can you be so certain now?”
“I’m going to stay with you,” Yamamoto says, turning his head so he can press
his nose against Gokudera’s hair and breathe in against it. “So I’m going to
pass.”
“How are you so sure?” Gokudera demands. This time his fist carries more
weight, enough that it makes Yamamoto lose his breath all in a rush before the
other’s fingers uncurl to slide in against Yamamoto’s back. “You always
sound so sure, it doesn’t make any sense.” The weight of Gokudera’s head lands
at Yamamoto’s shoulder, his arm looping around Yamamoto’s back like he’s trying
to cling to the other for support. It’s only for a moment that he’s dragging
Yamamoto in closer, pressing his face hard against the other boy’s shirt; then
he lets go and moves away all at once, stepping back and turning away to face
back down the hallway. His hand lingers, though, his fingers laced together
with Yamamoto’s in complete disregard of anyone that might see them.
That’s enough to make Yamamoto smile, the brighter when Gokudera doesn’t let
him go as they make it outside and start the walk back to his home and the
promise of post-exam sushi. It’s several blocks, with nothing like enough
shadows to hide the tangle of their hands from anyone who might walk or drive
past them, and usually Gokudera drags his hand free as soon as they step
outside with some huffed protest about being subtle. But today he’s holding
tighter than Yamamoto, keeps their contact the whole way back to the other
boy’s home, and even though Yamamoto can feel the stress that is drawing
Gokudera’s fingers tense around his, he can’t stop smiling.
As long as he has Gokudera with him, he can’t imagine anything going wrong.
***** Results *****
Gokudera’s been waiting for almost an hour by the time the knock comes.
He’s been expecting it. The steady thud of raindrops against the roof has been
enough to drown out the patter of approaching footsteps, but he didn’t need a
phone call to let him know to expect a visitor. The exam results unfolded in
front of him more than did that, promising him the acceptance he knew to expect
and offering none of the relief they might bring to someone else. He can’t
relax, not until he knows, and in the slow slide of minutes passing he has been
left to the shadows in the corner of the room, the single point of light
overhead steadily becoming more and more necessary as night begins to fall
around the darkness of the continuing rain.
He’s expecting it, but it’s still hard to react when the knock comes. His legs
ache from his hunched-in position on the couch in the middle of the room, his
mind skids out on over-analyzing, until by the time he’s getting to his feet
he’s moving slow with dread, convinced that the tentative sound promises bad
news as soon as he pulls the door open. Even when he reaches it he pauses, lets
his fingers linger at the handle while foreboding swamps him, drowns the last
of his borrowed optimism, until he’s sure he can’t be surprised by anything.
Then he opens the door, and sees Yamamoto’s face, and the lack of a smile, and
he realizes he was desperately wrong about how much hope he had left to lose.
“Mo-chan,” he says, his lips going numb even as he speaks. Yamamoto is
drenched, his shirt clinging to his shoulders and his hair dripping and
plastered flat to his head by the rain, breathing hard like maybe he ran the
whole way here. Gokudera looks away from his face -- he can’t stand to see the
lack of a smile on the other’s lips, can’t bear to look for the sparkle of hope
absent in those gold eyes -- down to the paper clutched in the other boy’s
hand. “Are those your results?”
Yamamoto holds them out without speaking. Gokudera takes the paper, hesitates
again before unfolding it. It’s as wet as Yamamoto himself, soaked through with
the steady downpour outside, until he has to be careful in unfolding it to keep
it from tearing through at the creases. He’s frowning at that, huffing
frustration at Yamamoto for forgetting an umbrella, so caught up in his
expectations of disappointment that it takes him a minute to process what he’s
seeing.
He’s very sure that his heart skips a beat, when he takes in the meaning of the
ink on the page. If his lips were numb before now it’s his whole body, tingling
through and through with electricity overriding any more sensitive feeling. He
reads the paper again, a third time, a fourth, and his hands are starting to
shake, his throat is going tight, and then he looks up and Yamamoto is smiling
so bright Gokudera forgets that it’s raining.
“You--” he starts, and Yamamoto blurts, “I did it, Hayato,” his voice low and
shaking with more emotion than Gokudera’s ever heard in it before. “Look,” and
he’s pointing, vague gesturing towards the page as if maybe Gokudera can’t see
it. “I passed, we’re going to high school together.”
Gokudera doesn’t know what he does with the paper. It’s critical, really, it
ought to be stored away safely so he can look at it again when he starts to
doubt his own reality, but in the first shuddering jolt of joy it’s gone,
dropped or thrown aside he doesn’t know which, because he needs both his hands
to reach out for Yamamoto and pull him down into a kiss. The other boy is
smiling as Gokudera steps in to press against him, breathing hard enough that
it interrupts the line of their mouths coming together, but Gokudera doesn’t
care, he doesn’t care about that or the chill of Yamamoto’s skin under his
hands or the fact that his own shirt is going damp from secondhand contact with
Yamamoto’s. The only thing that matters is right under his hands, is here with
him and isn’t going anywhere, and for the first time in months Gokudera can
actually believe that. It feels bizarre to lose that constant source of stress,
as if he has been bracing for a fall off a cliff that turned out to be solid
ground, the relief so strong he’s trembling all through his body and can’t stop
even when Yamamoto’s arms come around him to pull him in closer. Yamamoto’s
lips are wet, his skin cold and his mouth hot, and they’re on the front step
and in plain sight of everyone and Gokudera doesn’t care at all.
“I can’t believe you did it,” he says when they break apart to gasp for air.
Yamamoto’s eyes are fixed on his mouth, he’s breathing like he’s still running,
and Gokudera has to kiss him again, a rushed slide of lips and tongues before
he can recover enough to keep talking. “You idiot, my idiot, I
can’t believe you did it after all.”
“I told you I would,” Yamamoto says. When Gokudera takes a step back Yamamoto
trails him, stumbling forward until they’re in the warm-lit interior of the
house and not the dim shadows of the front step. “I promised you.”
“You did,” Gokudera agrees, letting Yamamoto go long enough to drag the door
shut behind them. “But I didn’t think…”
“Can we stay together?” Yamamoto asks, pleads, his voice trembling in his
throat to match Gokudera’s hands. “Please, Hayato, move in with me, we can get
an apartment and live together.”
Gokudera is laughing, helpless to the force of joy rushing through him. “Okay,”
he says, easy, without even having to think about it. “We’re going to starve,
you know.”
Yamamoto shakes his head, smiling so wide when he leans in he can barely manage
to kiss the corner of Gokudera’s mouth. “No, I’ll cook, I’ll make everything
you like best.” He’s holding to Gokudera’s hips, pulling the other in with a
motion Gokudera is pretty sure is unconscious, ducking his head to stay as
close to the other boy as he can. “We can do the dishes together, we can study
together, we can wake up together.”
“You’re so ridiculous, Mo-chan,” Gokudera declares, but he’s laughing, he can’t
stop smiling, he can’t remember ever being this happy in his life. “Come to my
room, you’re going to get sick in those clothes.”
“Okay,” Yamamoto says, but he’s kissing Gokudera again, shutting his eyes and
ducking in close until Gokudera can’t manage to step away immediately, has to
dig his fingers into the inky wet of Yamamoto’s hair and pull him in hard
before he can persuade himself to stumble backwards and take Yamamoto’s hand
instead of clinging to his shoulder. Even then he takes the hallway all but
backwards, spending more time looking back at the boy trailing in his wake than
paying any attention to where he’s going. It’s just too hard to look away from
the shine of Yamamoto’s gaze, the apparently irrepressible smile clinging to
his lips, until by the time they make it to the bedroom Gokudera has to pause
to kiss the other again before he’s even managed to fumble the light on.
“God,” he says as illumination fills the room, reaching out to push his fingers
up against the soaked-through hem of Yamamoto’s shirt. “Why didn’t you get an
umbrella?”
Yamamoto shrugs, grins half of an apology. “I didn’t think about it,” he
admits. The shirt clings to his skin as Gokudera keeps pushing it up, and it’s
not like Gokudera hasn’t seen Yamamoto’s skin before but this is different,
this feels like the first time for the rest of their lives, now. “I wanted to
tell you.”
“You scared me,” Gokudera admits. The shirt catches under Yamamoto’s arms
before the other lets his touch at Gokudera’s waist go and lifts his hands so
his shirt can peel free of his shoulders. “You looked so serious when I opened
the door I thought…”
“Sorry,” Yamamoto says. When Gokudera looks up he looks impossibly tall, his
shoulders wider than Gokudera remembers them and his eyes softer. His gaze
drops to Gokudera’s mouth, clings there as Yamamoto licks his lips and lifts a
hand to ruffle through his hair. The slide of his tongue against his mouth
burns through Gokudera like fire, offers a whole array of mismatched images and
ideas that settle into the pit of his stomach like they’re all a single knot of
want. “I wasn’t thinking about what I looked like. I just needed to tell you.”
“Fuck,” Gokudera blurts, the word sticking in his throat. He reaches out for
Yamamoto’s skin, fits his fingers against the curve of the other boy’s waist;
the damp of the rain is drying already, evaporating fast in the inside warmth
of the house. “I’m…” He flinches from the surge of heat under his skin, the
ache of want in his chest, pressure from too much to say and a lack of words
for any of it. “I’m so glad.”
“Hayato,” Yamamoto says. When Gokudera looks up Yamamoto is leaning in for him,
rain-chilled fingers catching into his hair, and then they’re kissing again
like they were on the front step, as frantic and rushed as if their time is
something other than endless. Gokudera’s teeth scrape Yamamoto’s lip,
Yamamoto’s tongue slips over Gokudera’s mouth, and they’re closer, Yamamoto
stepped in or maybe Gokudera did, both of them edging in farther until
Gokudera’s damp shirt is catching against Yamamoto’s chest.
“You’re wet too,” Yamamoto says against Gokudera’s mouth. One of his hands
frees itself from Gokudera’s hair, the warmth of his fingertips sliding up
under the other’s shirt just enough to be the outline of a suggestion.
Gokudera’s chest goes tight, his breath stalling in his lungs. But “You’re
right,” is what he says, and what he does is to stumble backwards the half-step
he needs to catch at his shirt and drag it up and off all at once. This isn’t
special either, or shouldn’t be; they’ve changed in front of each other dozens
of times, maybe hundreds, years of friendship and months of sports practices
combining until spending entire afternoons together in t-shirts and boxers has
been more than normal. But now Gokudera can’t breathe, and he can’t stop
flushing, he can feel every inch of his bare skin like it’s written over with
the suggestion he wants it to have.
“Hayato--” Yamamoto says, faint and breathless, and Gokudera takes a breath and
looks up to meet the nervous uncertainty in Yamamoto’s eyes.
“I want--” he starts, stalls before he can find the words. It’s easier to reach
out, to press his hand to Yamamoto’s waist and let it slide down until the
motion becomes clear suggestion, until his fingertips catch at the heavy weight
of the wet denim.
Gokudera can hear Yamamoto’s startled exhale, the air rushing out of his lungs
like he’s forgotten how to breathe. Its answer in itself, well before the touch
at his shoulder or the lips against his hair, Yamamoto kissing against him as
he says, “Yeah,” and “Me too,” talking as quietly as if it’s a secret. It makes
Gokudera laugh, even if the sound is a little bit shaky with nervousness
“Okay,” he says, takes a breath, lets it out. “Okay.” He lets his hand linger
against Yamamoto’s pants, right at the hip where he can feel the heat of the
other boy’s body radiant through the denim. “Take your jeans off.”
Yamamoto’s laughing when Gokudera takes a half-step back, ducking his head with
something that looks a little like nervousness. “I did get them wet.” He’s
toeing his sneakers off, pushing them to the corner of the room, and Gokudera
is staring at the movement of Yamamoto’s hands at the front of his jeans for
long seconds before he can collect himself to respond.
“Yeah,” he growls, “You got me wet too, idiot.”
“Ha,” Yamamoto says. “Sorry.”
“No you’re not,” Gokudera insists, ducks his head to watch his hands as he
works his belt buckle open and tugs at his button and zipper. His hands are
still trembling, anxiety written into every moment of his fingers, but it’s not
a difficult task, and the faint damp of his jeans makes them infinitely easier
to take off than Yamamoto’s soaked ones. He’s just stepping free when Yamamoto
makes a faint noise of frustration, moves to sit on the floor so he can drag
the denim down and off his feet with enough force to completely ruin any
elegance the movement might have had. It’s a relief to remember that this is
Yamamoto, after all, that Gokudera knows him and that nothing really has
changed. It makes Gokudera laugh, loud enough that Yamamoto looks up to blink
at him, and then he’s stepping in to offer a hand and pull the other boy to his
feet.
“Come on,” and this is easy too, taking the lead to pull Yamamoto towards the
bed as simple as signaling him to a particular pitch in the middle of a game.
“I don’t know what you’re going to wear home, my clothes barely even fit you
anymore.”
“They’ll dry,” Yamamoto says, following in Gokudera’s wake, and then Gokudera
is dropping to sit on the bed and turning back. Yamamoto starts to follow,
reaching out for Gokudera’s shoulder to brace himself, and it’s only the other
boy grabbing at his hip to stop him that brings him up short.
“You’re soaked straight through,” Gokudera says, and if his mouth is going dry
he thinks that can probably be forgiven under the circumstances. “You’ll get
the blankets wet like this.” It’s an excuse, even if it’s completely true,
feels like the suggestion it is on his tongue. Yamamoto hesitates, like he’s
not quite sure what Gokudera means, and Gokudera slides his fingers under the
waistband of the other boy’s wet boxers and starts to push them down without
waiting for understanding to sink into Yamamoto’s thoughts. They cling as badly
as the shirt, as badly as the jeans, stick to Yamamoto’s skin as they come
down, but Gokudera is paying more attention to the way Yamamoto is starting to
tremble under his touch and the fact that the other boy is half-hard as
Gokudera gets his clothes off than anything to do with the clothes themselves.
“Move,” Gokudera snaps, more sharply than he intends, and Yamamoto takes a step
away from the bed so the other can push the clothes to the floor. Then Yamamoto
is stepping free and Gokudera can’t stall anymore, there’s nothing to think
about other than the stunning amount of bare skin in front of him and the fact
that he’s flushing hard against his own boxers just from the very idea of
contact.
It’s easier to touch. His hands fit into the creases at Yamamoto’s hips, his
thumbs press perfectly against suntanned skin, and when he leans forward to
press his mouth to the other boy’s stomach Yamamoto makes a whining noise and
curls in over him like he’s going to fall. Gokudera isn’t sure if he actually
will, doesn’t want to risk it in any case, so he pushes Yamamoto sideways and
turns himself and they’re both toppling onto the bed, Yamamoto falling onto his
back to lie spread out over Gokudera’s pale sheets and Gokudera turning in over
him, their knees fitting together effortlessly as he kneels between Yamamoto’s
legs. Yamamoto is breathing hard, his eyes not quite in focus, and it’s
reminding Gokudera of the first time they kissed and sparking heat all down his
spine.
“Hayato,” Yamamoto breathes, and his fingers are dragging over the other boy’s
boxers, pushing against the thin fall of the fabric. “You’re hard.”
Gokudera chokes a laugh, shoves his hand sideways over Yamamoto’s stomach so he
can angle his wrist down to bump against the other boy’s length. “So are you,
Mo-chan.”
That gets him a smile, dreamy and slow, a flutter of dark lashes and the quick
motion of Yamamoto licking his lips. “Can I…?”
“You never listen,” Gokudera complains, and his heart is pounding in his chest
and his hand is shaking and he can’t think of anything but this exact present
moment, all the past and future are collapsing together into heat in him.
“Didn’t I say I wanted this?” And he’s moving, sliding his hand down until it’s
too late to back out, it’s too late to panic, and his fingers are closing
around Yamamoto’s cock and he can’t think straight. Yamamoto’s eyes shut, his
entire expression goes slack for a moment, and Gokudera’s isn’t sure if that’s
good or not but when he moves his hand the sound that pours up Yamamoto’s
throat is unquestionably encouraging.
“Hayato,” and he’s moving too, his fingers fumbling against Gokudera’s boxers
until there’s pressure against the other boy too, the heat of Yamamoto’s palm
grinding in against him.
“Jesus,” Gokudera gasps, and there’s fire prickling through all his veins, he’s
rocking in for more contact without thinking and they’re falling together, he’s
landing on top of Yamamoto and Yamamoto is reaching out to hold him there,
tipping his chin up for a kiss. Gokudera isn’t sure who’s doing what; his hand
is caught between them but he’s still moving, stroking up with his hand as much
as he can manage, and he can feel every shudder of reaction run through
Yamamoto like he’s controlling the other boy’s body. They’re barely even
kissing, less deliberate contact than gasping against each other’s mouths, and
then Yamamoto gets his hand free and pushes Gokudera’s boxers down and there’s
the impossible heat of skin-to-skin contact.
Gokudera doesn’t know which of them moves -- if he falls sideways or if it’s
Yamamoto twisting under him. Maybe it’s a mutual effort, the two of them
falling into sync as they so often do, sliding until they’re facing each other,
legs tangled together and Yamamoto’s hold keeping Gokudera close in against
him. Gokudera lets his grip on Yamamoto’s cock go for a moment, leaning back
enough that he can look down to coordinate their movements; it takes some
doing, a little shifting against the bed and the breathless half-formed order
of “Move, Mo-chan, just--” before Gokudera can pull Yamamoto’s hand where he
wants it, but then it all falls into place, the texture of Yamamoto’s fingers
pressing them in against each other, and Gokudera looks up to see Yamamoto’s
face go slack and overheated again.
He can’t help but kiss him. It throws off his attention, makes it harder to
settle his grip into sync with Yamamoto’s as they start to move, but it’s worth
it, Gokudera can feel how hard Yamamoto is breathing from the heat of the other
boy’s exhales against his lips. He’s arching in closer himself, can feel the
heat of his skin catching at the damp-warmth of Yamamoto’s, and they are
falling into rhythm, finding out a pattern somewhere between Gokudera’s rushed
movements and Yamamoto’s slow strokes. Gokudera’s trembling against the bed,
his head is filled with heat and his breathing is coming shallow and taut, and
he can feel Yamamoto’s fingers tightening against his back, the other’s hold
drawing tighter around their lengths to press them closer together. He can’t
speak, words are wholly absent, but Yamamoto is taking a breath, inhaling so
deep and deliberately Gokudera thinks he might be about to come, is leaning in
to be close enough to feel the shudder of sensation through the other. But it’s
not that, he’s speaking instead, blurting “I love you, Hayato,” and Gokudera’s
orgasm hits him with no warning at all, like the words were some sort of
trigger for his body. He jerks against the bed, splashes hot over Yamamoto’s
wrist and the top sheets, and Yamamoto keeps stroking them even as Gokudera’s
movements go slack and shaky. It feels like he’s drawing all the heat up out of
Gokudera’s body, pulling the ripples of satisfaction long and endless, and then
Yamamoto sighs, a breathless noise of relief against Gokudera’s lips, and
trembles into pleasure against the other boy.
They’re both still for the first few seconds, silent but for the frantic gasp
of their breathing and the faint sticky catch of skin against skin. Then
Gokudera lets his hold go slack, and when he blinks himself back into attention
Yamamoto is staring at him, his eyes as wide and starstruck as he looked the
first day they met.
“God,” Gokudera says, startled by how faint his voice sounds. “We should do
that again.”
Yamamoto’s smile is slow and soft, spreading out across his whole face and
dimpling in his cheeks. He barely manages to get out “Yeah” before he’s leaning
in to kiss at Gokudera’s mouth, pressing his lips to the corner of the other
boy’s like he can’t stand the lack of contact, and Gokudera shuts his eyes and
takes a deep breath to steady himself.
“I love you too, Mo-chan,” he offers. He can hear the way Yamamoto’s breathing
catches, can feel himself starting to flush before he opens his eyes to see the
shocked-silent glaze in the other’s expression. It’s the lingering pleasure in
him that makes it easy to laugh past the burn of self-consciousness, that makes
it simple to duck in and press his nose to the corner of Yamamoto’s mouth. “You
should have known already, idiot.” This makes Yamamoto laugh, like it was
supposed to, at least until Gokudera turns his head up to catch the other boy’s
mouth with a kiss.
It’s a while before either of them say anything coherent again, longer still
until they make it to the shower to rinse clean. It’s not like they need to
hurry, not with the whole of their future before them.
***** Home *****
“There’s really not much moved in yet,” Yamamoto reminds Gokudera as they turn
off the main street and head for the tiny apartment complex just visible from
the street. “It’s not very big and I don’t even have the dishes unpacked yet,
there’s not a lot to see.”
Gokudera glances back at him, raises an eyebrow and flashes a smirk of white
teeth. “Are you trying to convince me to go back to Bianchi’s place for the
night?” he asks, fingers drawing tighter at Yamamoto’s hand. “You’re the one
who wanted to move in together for high school. We’re in high school now,
right?”
Yamamoto doesn’t even try to hold back the smile that spreads over his face.
“Yeah,” he agrees easily. “We are.”
“Then this is home now,” Gokudera insists. He hesitates by the foot of the
stairs, glances back before Yamamoto can recall himself enough to point to the
door at the top of the short flight, the sun-faded blue of the paint looking
faintly purple in the bright light. Gokudera takes the lead after this
confirmation, moving up the steps so fast Yamamoto has to nearly run to keep
pace, though neither of them lets his hold on the other’s hand go. “Though
you did promise to feed me, you know.”
“I know.” Yamamoto isn’t looking at the door, not even glancing at Gokudera’s
hand as he reaches into his pocket to fish out the key Yamamoto greeted him
with this morning. “My dad’s going to bring over sushi later and I’ll have
everything for the kitchen unpacked by tomorrow.”
Gokudera glances at him again, huffs the shape of a laugh before he looks back
down to manage the lock one-handed. “I’m not completely sure that counts, Mo-
chan.”
“It’s still food, right?” Yamamoto smiles, and then the door opens and they
both go silent at once. Yamamoto at least has seen the apartment when he was
moving his few boxes into the space, the tiny kitchen laid out against the wall
and the open space that doubles as a living area and a bedroom at once. His
desk is still in his old room, awaiting more energy and time to move it than he
and his father could muster yesterday, but the double bed at least has made the
migration. It’s the only furniture in the space, as yet, the rest of the empty
room waiting the desk and Gokudera’s low table and bookshelf, but Yamamoto did
tug the sheets straight to make it at least look at presentable as possible in
the otherwise bare apartment.
“It really is tiny,” Gokudera says, but there’s no judgment in his tone and
he’s not letting Yamamoto’s hand go as he moves forward. It’s just an
observation, that voice he gets when he’s too caught up in absorbing
information to collect any emotional context for his thoughts. He moves forward
and pulls Yamamoto in his wake, barely glancing at the pair of pillows on the
bed before he veers towards the kitchen, reaching out to brush his fingers
against the stacked boxes awaiting time and energy to be unwrapped.
“I’m sorry everything’s a mess,” Yamamoto offers, anticipation of Gokudera’s
reaction turning into filler words in his throat. “I’ll unpack some tonight and
some tomorrow when you’re moving your things over.”
Gokudera takes a breath, shakes his head as if to clear his thoughts. When he
turns back from the door leading into the closet-sized bathroom he’s looking up
through his hair, the shadow of the silver only half-hiding the smirk at his
lips.
“You’re ridiculous,” he declares, his hand shifting in Yamamoto’s. He’s not
pulling away; it’s just movement of his fingers, his thumb shifting and palm
tensing into a different shape. Yamamoto keeps watching the other boy’s face as
Gokudera’s hand moves, feels out the alignment of the other’s hand by touch
instead of sight. “At least we have the important part.”
Yamamoto pieces together the curl of Gokudera’s fingers, the angle of his
thumb, starts to smile as he recognizes the signal. “I’m so glad you’re here,
Hayato.”
Gokudera tips his head, the softness at the corners of his eyes asking for a
kiss as clearly as the gesture he’s pressing into Yamamoto’s palm. “So are we
going to take advantage of our new apartment, or do you want to just stand in
the kitchen all day?”
Yamamoto laughs at that, the sound catching contagious at Gokudera’s mouth and
breaking out in the form of a chuckle in the other’s throat, and then they both
let the other’s hand go at once, reaching out over the short distance between
them to step in close together. Gokudera’s fingers settle against Yamamoto’s
hips, the grace of his fingertips curling against the bottom edge of Yamamoto’s
new school uniform, and Yamamoto is reaching for the endless appeal of
Gokudera’s hair, tangling his fingers into the silky strands and sighing
satisfaction even before his lips have brushed against the soft of pleasure at
Gokudera’s mouth. There’s pressure, the crush of lips against his for a moment,
and then Gokudera is pulling away to purr a laugh as he backs them up across
the room.
“I can’t believe you set the bed up before you unpacked the kitchen.” His grin
is sharp enough to cut at the edge, catching bright in the green of his eyes,
and Yamamoto can’t breathe for watching the words form at Gokudera’s lips,
can’t think but to lean forward in unspoken plea for more contact. Gokudera
dodges this time, leans away and glances back as they draw closer to the
mattress so he can drop smoothly to the blankets. Yamamoto is less graceful
about his motion; he’s just trailing Gokudera, obeying the urging of the
fingers fitting in against his belt loops and toppling down until they’re both
sprawled across the bed, Yamamoto more atop Gokudera than he is supported by
the mattress.
“I wanted us to sleep together,” he says somewhere in the vicinity of
Gokudera’s hair, slides his hand down to fit against the flushed-warm skin at
the back of Gokudera’s neck. “If you wanted to stay the night here with me.”
“I bet you did,” Gokudera purrs, pushes at Yamamoto’s hip to invert their
positions. Yamamoto turns, rolls over onto his back as Gokudera’s knee fits
between his, and then he’s blinking up into the light from the window, his
attention caught and held by the halo the sunlight is casting around Gokudera’s
head. “You had no ulterior motives at all.” One of the hands at Yamamoto’s hip
loosens, slides down against the outside of his thigh, and Yamamoto’s eyelashes
flutter involuntarily, his throat tightens on a startled gasp of reaction.
“I wasn’t--” he starts, and Gokudera’s hand pulls in, over the top of his leg
to touch the inside seam of his jeans just above his knee. Yamamoto’s breath
leaves his lungs in a rush then, heat radiating out into every inch of his
body, and it takes him a moment to catch himself back together. “Hh. I...I
didn’t want to assume, after the first day of school--”
“You thought I couldn’t handle it?” Gokudera’s hand drags higher; when Yamamoto
blinks himself into focus the other boy is smirking at him, teasing and
pleasure alike catching bright in the green of his eyes. “I’m not the one who
needs to pay attention in class.”
“Hayato,” Yamamoto sighs, helpless to the overfast thud of his pulse, reaches
up to feather his fingers against the loose ends of the other’s hair, and it’s
admission that falls from his lips, unattached to any of the conversation. “I’m
so glad we’re together.”
Gokudera hesitates; then his smirk cracks into laughter, the amusement curling
into the corners of his eyes, and he’s ducking in close to giggle against
Yamamoto’s lips. “You’re such an idiot, Mo-chan,” he says, and Yamamoto can’t
decide which is more distracting, the warmth of Gokudera’s breath on his skin
or the friction of the other boy’s fingers shifting up the inside of his leg.
“You’re the one who always insisted we would be.”
“I know,” Yamamoto says, his hips tipping up off the bed to meet the glide of
Gokudera’s fingers up against the front of his jeans. “I knew we would.” He
pushes against the edge of Gokudera’s untucked shirt, rumples it up higher
against the other boy’s waist, and Gokudera grins and pushes the button of
Yamamoto’s jeans open.
“I did picture a bit more furniture,” he teases as he gets the zipper undone,
rocks back and away from Yamamoto’s lingering hold to tug at the other’s jeans.
Yamamoto pulls his hands in obediently, braces himself at the bed so he can
lift his hips and let Gokudera tug his clothes off. “I mean, this is even less
than a love hotel would have.”
“Sorry,” Yamamoto offers. Gokudera’s slow about pulling his jeans and boxers
down, is letting more his touch and his gaze drag slow over Yamamoto’s skin
until Yamamoto is flushing warm with delight, can feel the anticipation
settling into a knot at the base of his spine. “I got tired last night before I
was done.”
“Whatever,” Gokudera huffs, sounding resigned, but his hand is pushing back up
the outside of Yamamoto’s leg, his fingertips pressing into the other’s bare
hip while his eyes linger hot against the other boy’s skin. “Did you unpack the
important stuff, at least?”
Yamamoto’s too distracted for a moment to answer, his attention trapped by the
friction of Gokudera’s hand wandering sideways across his stomach, now, the
heat of the other’s skin dragging over his. “What? I mean, there’s the bed, and
some stuff for the bathroom too that I--”
“Idiot,” Gokudera says with as much affection as the word can plausibly carry.
“Did you unpack the lube yet?”
“Oh,” Yamamoto says, and “Oh,” and “One sec” and he’s wiggling away, letting
his hold on Gokudera go so he can reach out over his head and fumble under the
edge of the mattress. Gokudera is laughing, the amusement soft and warm by the
time Yamamoto hears it, tugging at Yamamoto’s jeans to strip them completely
off the other’s feet while Yamamoto is still reaching for the bottle he tucked
away yesterday.
“Here,” he finally declares, closing his fingers on the familiar cool of the
bottle and rolling back to offer it to Gokudera like a prize. He’s met with the
beginning of a smirk and a raised eyebrow, but Gokudera accepts the bottle in
any case, his smile only breaking completely free as he looks down to untwist
the cap.
“You are ridiculous, Mo-chan,” he observes, and Yamamoto isn’t sure to which
action Gokudera is referring specifically but it doesn’t make much difference
when he can see the other’s fingers going slick as he rubs liquid across them
and can feel his own blood going hotter in his veins as if in instinctive
response. He’s arching up off the mattress before Gokudera reaches for him,
stretching a hand out to cling to the other’s hip as he spreads his legs wider
in invitation, and Gokudera drops the bottle to the sheets so he can close his
hand steady and bracing against Yamamoto’s hip. “Were you thinking about this
instead of paying attention in class?”
Yamamoto laughs weakly, unable to voice a denial when he’s been thinking of
nothing but Gokudera here, alone, with him, in their apartment, and Gokudera
grins and slides slippery fingers across Yamamoto’s skin.
“You’re going to fail all your tests,” he observes, pushing the tip of one
finger just inside the other boy. Yamamoto whines against the flush of
sensation, falls heavy to the blankets in capitulation to Gokudera’s control,
and Gokudera pushes in deeper, easing his finger farther in as he speaks.
“Moving in together is going to be terrible for your studies.”
“I passed my entrance exam,” Yamamoto offers, his fingers tightening at
Gokudera’s hip to brace himself against the friction of the other’s touch. “I
do better with you.”
“We’ll see,” Gokudera says, sounding skeptical, but he’s still smiling, his
eyes going hotter as he looks down to watch Yamamoto’s legs tremble as he
starts to shift his finger. “You’re going to study after this, okay?”
“Okay,” Yamamoto agrees. He’d agree to anything Gokudera wants, has never even
wanted to resist, the less so when the other boy’s touch is pressing him open
and fluttering sensation up his spine and over his skin. “Okay, I promise I
will.”
“You and your promises,” Gokudera purrs, half-laughing and half-tender, and
fits another finger in alongside the first. Yamamoto shuts his eyes, focuses on
the tension of his breathing in his chest and the sharp edge of Gokudera’s hip
under his hand, imagines he can feel the texture of Gokudera’s fingerprints
dragging in against him. It’s easy to relax, between the stretch of pleasure
unwinding into him and the comfort of Gokudera’s breathing over him, the
deliberate care of the other’s movements so slow it’s almost teasing,
anticipation rising right into the edge of anxiety under Yamamoto’s skin.
Yamamoto rides out the heat, lets the waves rush out over him and tremble
themselves into pleasure under his skin, until finally it’s Gokudera’s patience
that frays first, the other boy who half-groans a sigh and slides his fingers
free all at once.
“You’re always so calm,” he complains as Yamamoto blinks his eyes open, tips
his head down so he can watch Gokudera tug at his belt buckle to get his pants
open. Yamamoto feels warmed-over, radiant and glowing with stoked-high heat
even without either of them touching his cock where it’s spilling slick against
the bottom edge of his shirt. “I can’t get you pleading for it.”
Yamamoto shakes his head, laughs faint in the very back of his throat. “I’m not
calm,” he insists, angles his leg in against the back of Gokudera’s knee as the
other boy’s jeans come open. “I’m shaking, Hayato, feel.” He lets his hand go
from Gokudera’s hip, extends it so Gokudera can see the way his fingers tremble
when he tries to hold them still. Gokudera glances at his hand, looks back down
to Yamamoto’s cock; Yamamoto can see his throat work, the convulsive swallow
before he looks back down and pushes his jeans half-off his hips.
“Move,” he growls, pushing Yamamoto’s hand aside and bracing himself with a
hand over Yamamoto’s shoulder as he leans forward over the other boy. Yamamoto
blinks, stares up at the delicate lines of Gokudera’s face, the familiar green
of his eyes and the pout of his lips in the framework of cheekbones a little
sharper than they once were, a jawline that becomes more defined with every
year.
“I love you,” he says without thinking, the words slipping out over his tongue
as easily as his hand comes up to tangle into Gokudera’s hair and pin it
against the back of the other’s neck. “Hayato, I love you, I always have.”
Gokudera looks up at his face, his teasing smile fading into a blank stare for
a moment. His eyes skim across Yamamoto’s face, linger at the dark of his hair
and the corner of the other’s mouth before coming back to hold his gaze.
“You are an idiot,” he says again, soft and gentle, and then his free hand is
pushing against the inside of Yamamoto’s leg, urging the other’s position more
open, and Yamamoto spreads his knees as wide as he can as the heat of
Gokudera’s cock fits in against him. Gokudera’s hips come forward, he starts to
slide forward, and Yamamoto lets out a breath along with all the collected
tension in his body as the other boy’s cock starts to stretch him open. He’s
relaxing into the soft of the bed, his legs coming up around Gokudera’s waist
to urge him closer, and Gokudera is falling in too, sighing hard into
Yamamoto’s shoulder like he hasn’t taken a proper breath for hours.
“Mo-chan,” and that’s so familiar it turns all their surroundings into a home,
the boxes and the empty floor and the bare wall all becoming comfortable on one
breath. Yamamoto turns his head, his lips catching at the fine hairs against
the back of Gokudera’s neck, and he’s winding his arms around the other boy’s
shoulders too, pulling him in closer as Gokudera’s hand slides up his leg to
his hip instead.
“Hayato,” he breathes, faint and trembling, and Gokudera takes a choking breath
against his shoulder and gasps “You feel so good” and Yamamoto’s entire body
goes hot like he’s aflame even before the fingers at his hip go sideways to
close on his length. He’s pulling Gokudera in as close as he can get them,
crushing their remaining clothes together like he can press them out of
existence, and then Gokudera lifts his head and his mouth is against
Yamamoto’s, his lips catching the whimper of want at the back of Yamamoto’s
throat. He draws back to thrust in again, smoother and faster, and then his
fingers tighten and stroke up and Yamamoto is shaking under him, arching in
closer until he’s even breathing in time with the other boy. It’s Gokudera who
pulls back from the kiss, gasping for air before Yamamoto realizes he was going
light-headed, the heat of his breathing almost imperceptible over the waves of
warmth spilling out over Yamamoto’s body.
“Oh,” he manages, “I’m not...I’m not going to last much longer, Hayato.”
“I know,” Gokudera pants, his fingers dragging up over Yamamoto as the rhythm
of his hips starts to white out the other’s vision. “I can feel you getting
close.”
Yamamoto takes a breath, lifts his head to kiss against the corner of
Gokudera’s mouth. “Are you--?”
“Shut up,” Gokudera grates, the strain in his voice better answer than
coherency would give. “You first, Mo-chan, I want to feel you come.”
“Ah,” Yamamoto says, and “Okay,” because he can’t say anything else, and
Gokudera’s thumb slips against him and he lets the threat of inevitability
catch hold in his veins. Gokudera is breathing hard against him, Yamamoto can
see the tight-controlled attention in the green eyes fixed on his, and then the
ache of pleasure starts to sweep up his spine and his vision slides out-of-
focus, he’s arching up as close to Gokudera as he can get and gasping a huge
shuddering inhale of expectation.
“Yes,” Gokudera growls, “Yes, yes, come for me, Mo-chan,” and Yamamoto
obediently trembles over the edge at the command. His hands tighten against the
other boy’s shoulders, then fall slack under the upsurge of heat in his veins
and out into his fingertips, and when he spills hot against Gokudera’s hand
he’s gasping “Hayato” like it’s a reflex hard-wired into his system. Gokudera’s
fingers slide over him for the first few shudders of pleasure; then he’s
pulling away, bracing himself next to the other’s hip, and when he ducks his
head it’s to breathe with the desperate gasping rhythm of oncoming pleasure.
Yamamoto shivers again, blinks himself past the first overwhelming flood of
heat, and Gokudera’s head drops against his shoulder and the other boy is
coming too, gasping through the arrhythmic thrusts of orgasm as the friction of
his movement into Yamamoto catches and stills.
Yamamoto pulls at Gokudera’s shoulders as soon as the other boy has half-caught
his breath, tugging the weight of the other down on top of him so they can turn
sideways to fall to the bed in a tangle of arms and legs. Gokudera is smiling
when Yamamoto pulls back enough to see, blinking himself out of any lingering
sharpness and into the soft-glazed heat Yamamoto loves to see on his face.
“Hi,” Yamamoto offers pointlessly, still incoherent from the pleasure in him
and smiling too wide to try to regain control over his expression. “I love
you.”
Gokudera laughs at him, warmth making the sound slow and heavy, ruffles his
clean hand through Yamamoto’s hair. Yamamoto ducks his head, sighs in pleasure,
and Gokudera tips in close to press his lips to the other’s forehead.
“My Mo-chan,”he says, pleased and soft, and Yamamoto can hear the meaning under
the words before the fingers sliding against the back of his neck fall into the
shape of I love you against his skin.
Yamamoto has never felt more at home.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!