Archive of Our Own ^beta

+

“I really think you should go with blue,” Mei says, as he’s going up the stairs of the subway station. “A light teal wouldn’t be a bad choice either.”

Shirakawa makes a frustrated sound, slightly muffled in Mei’s ear from the traffic on the street. He grips his phone a little tighter. “I asked if you had salt, not your opinion on what color I look best in,” he says, and Mei blinks to see the lights of Shinjuku surprisingly bright in his eyes. “I need to make something for a potluck my professor—”

Oh, Mei thinks. He got off at the wrong stop. He turns around, Shirakawa’s voice fuzzy somewhere in his peripheral, back into the station. There’s no reason for him to come to Shinjuku if it’s not Carlos or Shinji conning him into getting lunch, when he doesn’t have practice. He hasn’t had practice in a while, as Yoshizawa not-so-kindly reminds him in the form of passive aggressive weekly emails, but it’s also been about that long since he’s been to Shinjuku. Why is he here?

“—Tsubasa-kun dropped by earlier, he brought me an aloe plant, of all things. Can you believe it? What the hell am I supposed to do with an aloe plant, is it even edible like that?”

Mei sees him off in the distance, the crowd separating them by the width of the station, the overwhelming snap against his bones yearning bitter towards his fingertips, his chest, his heart within. Mei ducks, pulling his hood up. By the time he gets to the subway, his breathing is normal again. Two months after the end of it, Mei is still accidentally getting off at Kazuya’s stop instead of his, still feeling the urge to call out to him, halfway expecting him to smile back.

“—Mei? Where are you?”

There’s nothing to do now except watch the subway doors close. “Home,” he says. “I’m going home.”

+

Kazuya once told him that he didn’t like celebrating the holidays, and Mei had resolved, in the uncomplicated way of new relationships, to make every holiday Kazuya spent with him the best ever.

Of course, because Kazuya was the second most stubborn person Mei had been unfortunate enough to come across, they fought about it a lot. Mei wanted to go snowboarding, Kazuya wanted to go to the ocean.

“What’s so great about the ocean in the winter?” Mei grumbled, even as he settled himself in between Kazuya’s legs, leaning his head back against his chest. Kazuya’s hands settled somewhere above Mei’s hips, his fingers sinking warmth into the worn fabric. It was Kazuya’s shirt, anyway. Mei always wore his clothes when he came over. “You can’t even go in the water.”

“I think it’s pretty,” Kazuya said, but his chest wasn’t shaking like it did whenever he laughed. “You’d think so too, if we went.”

They did go, and Mei did think it was pretty, but he kept his mouth adamantly shut, turning his face to look at the window as Kazuya drove them back towards the city.

“We can go snowboarding next winter,” Kazuya said, like he was offering up a grand deal, except Kazuya ended things halfway through the next December, so the ocean trip had been their last winter one. Mei hadn’t even taken a single picture, too preoccupied by the way Kazuya laughed, delighted in the chill of the frozen sand, the deserted, calming quiet of the wind ruffling up the ends of his hair.

“How did it happen?” Shirakawa asked, when he came over to see Mei drunk, curled up in a ball in the middle of the living room. He picked up the whiskey and put it on the kitchen table, where Mei couldn’t reach. Then, “Are you okay?”

Mei laughed, a little hollow, somewhat reflective of how it felt like his sternum was caving in. “Don’t you have class tomorrow morning?” he slurred, struggling to get up. Shirakawa came over, put a hand on Mei’s arm to steady him.

“The semester’s over, jackass,” Shirakawa said, but there was no bite behind it.

Mei winced, his stomach lurching. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

Shirakawa sighed, getting up to find a plastic bag, or to drag Mei to the bathroom. Then Mei put a hand on his knee, the highest part of him he could reach. “Never mind, I’m fine.”

Shirakawa went to get a bag anyway, twisting it in his hands as Mei said, “He was waiting for me after practice, and we went shopping because I needed to get alcohol to bring to a party.”

“And then you came home and drank it?”

Mei hit him, almost missing in the haze of his brain. “He broke up with me outside the liquor store. Then I came home and put the wine in the cabinet and drank the whiskey.” His head spun, and he leaned forward against the coach, tilting slightly so his ear was pressed to the cushions. “How hungover am I going to be tomorrow?”

“You don’t want to know,” Shirakawa said, and didn’t bat an eye when Mei threw everything up into the plastic bag.

+

“Jesus, this is a mess,” Yoshizawa says, the next time he comes over. Mei throws him an affronted look and goes back to washing the dishes. “When was the last time you vacuumed?”

Mei snorts. “When was the last time you looked in the mirror, Yoshi-san?” he asks, his voice sugary. “You’re wearing clashing colors.”

Yoshizawa glares at him, fumbling with the papers in his bag before pulling out his laptop and setting it on Mei’s kitchen table. “Are you serious about not renewing your contract?”

Mei dries his hands. There’s still dredges of soap bubbles in the sink drain, but he just leaves them to sit there. “The team will be fine without me,” he says, as humble as he’s ever going to get. “For a season, that is. I’m sure I’ll have to burst out onto the scene once more next Spring to re-establish the legacy of the Giants.”

Yoshizawa sighs, opening his laptop. “You don’t even know if they’ll take you back.”

Technically, it’s true. Mei can’t just take a year off from professional baseball and expect things to be the same, but that doesn’t change his mind. “Then I’ll do something else with my life,” he says, false confidence ringing high and syrupy, even to his own ears. “After all, I’ve always been good at everything!”

“You failed your exams your first year of high school,” Yoshizawa reminds him. “I distinctly remember Shirakawa coaching you through literature and Carlos teaching you how to fucking count with your fingers.”

“Aw, Yoshi-san, you remember that?” Mei chimes, settling himself into a chair backwards, facing him. “I always knew you were sentimental.”

Yoshizawa makes a sound of long-standing suffering in the back of his throat, and Mei grins. “I said, when I agreed to be your agent, that I would help you not get ripped off from advertising agencies and other endorsement opportunities,” he grits out. “I did not sign up to babysit you.”

Mei waves it away. “Then don’t! Maybe I’ll write my autobiography this year, or hire someone to do it. I’m sure people would pay a lot of money to read about me, Narumiya Mei, the first draft pick of the Yomiuri Giants right out of high school.”

“You’re only twenty-five, and no one cares about you, you little—”

“I’m telling Masa-san you’re being mean to me,” Mei says, dangling the threat in front of his face. “He’ll make you be nice to me, you know.”

“Harada was the one who sent me here to knock some sense into you,” Yoshizawa informs him. Then he sighs again. “Mei, everyone’s worried about you. I know it hasn’t been that long since— If you just let us know that you’re doing okay—”

“I’m doing fine,” Mei cuts in, spreading his hands and gesturing to himself. “Look, I’m in peak physical condition, and my skin is beautiful and clear.” He’s really not in peak physical condition, and he’s actually hiding two pimples in his hairline. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Yoshizawa obviously doesn’t buy it, but he doesn’t say another word on the topic. “So I’ll tell the representatives that you’re taking, what, a gap year?”

“Phrase it more eloquently, will you?” Mei says, flashing him a grin, fake and forced, and Yoshizawa groans, snagging an apple from the fruit bowl.

“I heard Shirakawa’s actually dying in university,” Yoshizawa says, putting his feet up on Mei’s table. “I still can’t believe the kid fucking quit the pro leagues to study pre-law.”

“I can’t believe you quit baseball to study… whatever you studied,” Mei says. What an awful counter.

“I can,” Yoshizawa says, leaning over to brush Mei’s hair away from his forehead gently. Then, “Are those pimples I see?”

“There’s a strange man in my apartment,” Mei yells, immediately pushing away Yoshizawa’s hand away. Yoshizawa laughs, and Mei sidearms an orange at him, for good measure.

+

Back before they started dating, when Kazuya was moving apartments from Fukuoka back to Tokyo, he’d called Mei out of the blue.

“Who is this?” Mei asked, because he’d accidentally wrecked his old phone by leaving it in the dugout, and someone had spilled some sports drink on it.

The laugh that followed was too familiar. Mei definitely remembered the clench in his gut that came with it. “Really, Mei?”

“Fuck off, Kazuya, I lost all my contacts—”

“I’d have expected you to have mine memorized,” Kazuya said, a languid smoothness to his tone that never failed to make Mei feel like he was where he belonged. Mei didn’t bring up that they hadn’t talked in, what was it, three years? Four? Mei had kept track of his baseball stats, naturally, and their teams had played each other, but always, one or both of them had been benched.

“Well, I don’t,” Mei replied, tapping his finger on his kitchen counter as he tried to remember if he still had vegetables in his fridge. He went over to check to see that he didn’t. “What do you want?”

“What if I wanted to talk?” Kazuya asked. In the background, Mei could hear the chatter of a terminal. Maybe he was at an airport. “I heard you broke up with your girlfriend.”

“Yeah, well.” Mei set his mouth in a line. The truth was, she’d broken up with him, because Mei was infamously awful at remembering important dates like dinner parties and birthdays and anniversaries. “Do you follow my updates on social media, then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kazuya said. “Are you in town?”

“I live in Bunkyo,” Mei told him. “Remember? I play for the Giants?”

“I know,” Kazuya said. “Wanna pick me up from Tokyo Station?”

So he wasn’t at an airport. He was at fucking Tokyo Station. “Now?”

“Yeah,” Kazuya said. “I just got off the train. Like ten minutes ago.”

Mei swore, feeling around in his jacket pocket for his keys. “You could have given me a warning,” he said, shoving his wallet in his back pocket. “I could’ve made you an embarrassing sign.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Kazuya said, and hung up. Mei stared at his phone, a little in shock, but still went down to his car, starting the engine.

It took him about half an hour to get there because of the traffic, but Kazuya was there, sitting on a bench with a duffle bag next to his feet.

“You came,” Kazuya said, grinning, and Mei crossed his arms over his chest, unsure of what to do with his hands. “Come on.” He threw an arm around Mei’s shoulders. Typical Kazuya. He never passed up an opportunity to remind Mei of their barely noticeable height difference. “I’ll treat you to dinner.”

+

“You need to get out of your apartment,” Shirakawa says, as Mei towels his hair dry. “You’ve been holed up here for too long.”

“Have not,” Mei protests, but grudgingly shuts his bedroom door to look for some clean clothes. When he emerges, dressed with a pair of socks in his hand, Shirakawa is flipping through the channels, not even bothering to stay on one for longer than maybe five seconds.

“Okay,” Mei says. “I’m here. What do you want from me.”

Shirakawa turns the television off. “I just checked, you have only expired food in your fridge,” he says. “We’re going grocery shopping.”

“I can handle going grocery shopping by myself,” Mei complains, but doesn’t say much else as they go down to his car. He buckles his seatbelt and waits for Shirakawa to do the same. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on not failing your classes, anyway?”

“Shut up,” Shirakawa bites out. Mei snickers, steps on the gas. He makes Mei buy a bunch of healthy things like leeks and cabbage; half of the cart is green vegetables, to Mei’s dismay.

“You do realize this is for me,” Mei says, as Shirakawa bags some carrots. “Who’s going to eat all this?”

“You,” Shirakawa says. “That’s what you just said.” Mei clamps down on his next remark and settles for whacking Shirakawa on the elbow with a cucumber.

After Mei pays, he watches Shirakawa load all the groceries in the trunk of car, slightly pleased when he hits his head on the hood.

“Karma,” Mei crows, as Shirakawa slams the trunk shut. Shirakawa doesn’t grace him with a reply, and Mei takes a detour to his favorite cat café in Chiyoda.

“I want to see if they still have the gray striped one,” Mei explains, as he climbs out of his car. Shirakawa pauses, and yanks on his arm so Mei stumbles back into the seat. “What the hell—”

“Look at this article Carlos sent me last week,” Shirakawa says, fidgeting around on his phone. Mei waits. “Like, what does he even do with his time these days?”

Mei leans over. “25 layered cakes that are on a whole different level,” he reads. He looks up, suspicious. “Carlos sent this to you? I thought he made like… meat based food things.”

“I’m sure he is trying to get in touch with his inner baking muse,” Shirakawa says, scrutinizing something behind Mei’s head. Mei makes to get out of the car again, but Shirakawa interrupts, “Look he sent me this too.”

“15 poke cake recipes— What the hell is a poke cake?”

“We could ask him,” Shirakawa suggests. “I think he has a day off coming up, here, let me text him.”

Mei shrugs, swinging his legs out of the car again. “You do that, I’m going to go check on—” He breaks off when he sees Kazuya, standing next to the front doors with a hat pulled low over his head.

Shirakawa swears under his breath. “Bastard hasn’t left yet and it’s been like five minutes.”

Mei moves before he thinks; he shuts his car door, his feet taking him to where Kazuya’s standing, wearing a pair of jeans and a hoodie that Mei used to borrow all the time. He’s ready to snap out a witty remark, or something else that’ll make him seem natural. Anything to hide what he’s really feeling.

Instead, his voice almost cracks when he says, “Kazuya?”

Kazuya doesn’t move. His hands in his pockets tighten imperceptibly into fists, but Mei doesn’t take his eyes off of his face.

“What are you doing here?” Mei asks.

Kazuya manages a laugh, echoing hollowly in the concave pit of Mei’s chest, heavy on top of his diaphragm, making it stick in place when he really needs it to work. “I wanted to see if the—”

“—gray striped cat was still here,” Mei finishes. He flushes, color rising inappropriately on his cheeks as he finally looks down, away. “I remember. It was your favorite one.”

Kazuya doesn’t respond.

“Was it?”

Kazuya lifts his hat, pushing his bangs out of his forehead before letting them float down again. “Was what?”

“The cat,” Mei says. “Was it still there?”

“No.” Kazuya drops his arms. Mei aches to touch him again, to run his hands up the length of Kazuya’s torso and melt into him, find a reminder of how Kazuya’s hair feels between his fingers, re-teach himself how to kiss him to make him moan low in his throat.

Kazuya looks out at the parking lot. “That’s my ride,” he says, holding a hand up in farewell. Then he’s gone. Mei doesn’t watch him go, he squeezes his eyes shut until he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Want to go in?” Shirakawa asks, much more kindly than Mei’s used to.

“I—No.” Mei wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Can you— Can you drive?”

“Yeah,” Shirakawa says, curling his fingers in Mei’s palm, around the keys. “Yeah, just get in.”

+

Truthfully, Mei knew that his girlfriend was going to break up with him weeks before it actually happened. All the signs were there: the careful distancing, last-minute cancellations, not staying over as often.

So it was kind of a shock with Kazuya, because Mei didn’t see it coming at all. Or if he had, he was so blindsided by the belief that it wouldn’t happen that he made himself lie to his own face.

See: with Kazuya, it wasn’t exactly a cookie-cutter, picture-perfect relationship, and he had a total shit memory when it didn’t have to do with baseball, worse than Mei, but he always remembered the things that were important. Mei was kind of the same way, maybe not to the same extent, but he never felt that Kazuya didn’t put his all into trying to make them work. By the time they’d been dating for a couple months, Mei didn’t even remember what it was like to kiss his ex-girlfriend.

“I missed your birthday,” Kazuya said.

Mei looked up from the game stats he was studying, his reading glasses slipping down his nose. “What?”

“Your birthday,” Kazuya repeated. “I missed it.”

Mei frowned, taking off his glasses and squinting at the calendar on the wall. “It’s September,” he pointed out. “We weren’t even dating on my birthday.”

“But I missed it,” Kazuya said, coming over to where Mei was sitting on the couch. Mei lifted his legs automatically, draping them over Kazuya’s thighs once he sat down. Kazuya’s hand trailed up Mei’s calf, stopping when he got to the hem of Mei’s shorts, then back down again.

“Quit that,” Mei said, smacking his wrist with the notebook. “Tickles.”

Kazuya grinned, and didn’t stop.

“Just get my next birthday,” Mei said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Really?” Kazuya asked, skepticism not for no reason. Mei tended to make a big deal out of everything, mostly. It was kind of his thing. “That’s not like you.” He cupped Mei’s knee, using his other hand to pull him closer.

“I need to read this,” Mei protested, even as Kazuya started mouthing at his neck, his tongue slipping out to graze Mei’s skin, sending shivers down his spine.

Kazuya glanced at the game before tugging it out of Mei’s hands and tossing it on the coffee table, next to Mei’s glasses. “Harada’s injury is really hurting the Fighters,” he said. “They’re down their main catcher and a good batter, it’s obviously going to hurt their performance a little. Their new main catcher is okay, but he’s too cautious when he needs to be aggressive—”

“Okay, I don’t feel like talking about baseball anymore,” Mei said, as Kazuya leaned back down to kiss between his collarbones, lips softly brushing Mei’s skin as he pulled down Mei’s shirt with his teeth. “Jesus, just take it off if you’re going to be like that.”

“You’re quite the poet,” Kazuya remarked, light sarcasm weighing on the words, and Mei pushed him back, straddling him properly, leaning down to kiss him. Touch him the way he was meant to be touched.

+

Mei doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until he drops his phone on the counter of the bar. It’s nowhere near last call, but he’s way too drunk to be there alone.

So he dials the first number in his speed dial, the number he should have deleted months ago. The only number he has memorized, still.

Kazuya picks up after two rings. He’s always been quirky like that, almost never missing a call. Despite everything, this hasn’t changed. The knowledge tethers Mei’s feet to the ground, despite the plain absence, the very fact of being alone.

“Mei?”

Mei sucks in a breath, clenching and unclenching his fists as he reminds himself that he’s still human and he needs to breathe, it’s just Kazuya on the phone, the same thing as usual. Kazuya on the phone when Mei called him right out of the shower, the teasing lilt procuring its place between them as Kazuya yelled, Okay, okay, I’m coming over. Kazuya on the phone when he was leaving the university library and he said, Your apartment’s closer than mine, I’m coming over. Kazuya on the phone when he couldn’t find Mei in the stadium after one of Mei’s games, his voice hard to distinguish through the rumble of people leaving in the background, but Mei could still hear him say, I’m coming over anyway, I’ll just meet you at your apartment.

“Mei? Are you there?”

“I—” Fuck, fuck, this isn’t what he wanted. Mei hastily ends the call, his heart thundering in his ears as he asks the bartender for a glass of water. He should just take a cab home; it’s not very far, and he doesn’t want to call anyone else at this time of night.

“Narumiya-san?” Mei jerks back, almost dropping his phone again. When he looks up, he sees that a not-so-familiar face is peering at him worriedly, like he’s worried Mei’s going to break. “Are you okay?”

“Kominato,” Mei guesses. “Junior.”

“Haruichi,” he reminds Mei.

“Wow,” Mei mutters, rubbing his eyes with a knuckle. “I haven’t seen you since…” He abruptly breaks off, his teeth clamping down on his bottom lip almost painfully. Kazuya used to do that to him, but it hadn’t hurt nearly as much. “What are you doing here?”

“I was about to leave,” Haruichi says, climbing up onto the seat next to Mei. “I was here with some of my teammates.” Ah, Mei thinks. The other Tokyo team.

“You didn’t go with them?” Mei asks. He’s too drunk to be embarrassed thinking about members of a rivaling team seeing him like this. Well— They’re not really his rivals, now. He hasn’t played in a while.

Haruichi shrugs, nudging Mei’s unfinished glass of water into his hands. “Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

“Thanks,” Mei says slowly. “I guess.” Haruichi smiles, leaning against the counter to prop his chin up.

“Is it true that you’re not playing this year?” Haruichi asks, when Mei downs the rest of his water.

Mei tsks, “You’ve been in the business long enough to know that you shouldn’t ask questions like that to an opposing team.”

“Maybe,” Haruichi says. Mei’s head starts spinning more, then, and he rests it down next to his water. “Do you want help getting home?”

Mei laughs, dizzy and off-balance, his stomach reeling. He’s never handled alcohol well. “Don’t think this means you get to seduce me.”

Haruichi laughs too, tinkling and deceptionally sweet, and waits for Mei to get up to lead him out of the bar.

+

When he woke up, there was a glass of water on his bedside table and a trash can next to that. Mei groaned, rolling over and burying his face into the sheets, until he remembered why exactly he drank so much, why exactly he had the raging hangover. Kazuya outside the liquor store, his face half-illuminated and all too serious. Mei’s least favorite things, his nightmares.

He drank the water, his stomach churning but having nothing to throw back at him. In his kitchen wasn’t Shirakawa, but Haruichi, stirring something on the stove.

“Narumiya-san,” Haruichi said, smiling as Mei gaped at him, completely disoriented. He glanced down to see that he was only wearing boxers. His hair was probably awful.

“Don’t look,” Mei croaked out, before groping around on the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee. He barely waited for it to cool before taking a gulp, the scalding liquid flashing heat over the inner surfaces of his mouth.

“I didn’t know you drank your coffee black,” Haruichi commented, as he turned the stove off.

“How did you get in?” Mei asked, because he hated black coffee. He was just that desperate right then.

“Shirakawa-san had to leave,” Haruichi said. “So he called me to make sure you ate something when you woke up.”

“Look at him, being a good friend,” Mei grumbled. His head pounded relentlessly. Even putting his mug into the sink made him wince.

Haruichi checked his watch, putting down the wooden spoon next to the mug. “I have to go, but I made rice, and Shirakawa-san said he would drop by later to check on you.”

“No need,” Mei said, swallowing a couple painkillers, almost forgetting to take them with water. “I’ll text him to tell him I’m not dead.”

Haruichi looked unsure, but didn’t say anything more before he left. When the door closed behind him, Mei ladled himself out a bowl of soup, and forced himself to eat it before he showered. This turned out to be a good idea, because under the spray, he could cry and pretend that it never happened, once he turned off the water.

+

He and Haruichi end up splitting a cab back to Mei’s apartment.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to go up the stairs by yourself?” Haruichi asks, fully prepared to come help him.

“There’s an elevator,” Mei tells him, waving him back down the best he can. “And I’m not that drunk.” He’s really not, compared to how bad he got in the past. Kazuya’s twenty-second birthday, after winning the Japan Series, the one time his ex-girlfriend actually wanted to drink and Mei indulged her.

“Okay,” Haruichi says, but he puts his number into Mei’s phone. “Text me when you get upstairs.”

“All right,” Mei snickers, almost tripping over the curb. Haruichi gives him a look. Mei waves it away. “I’ll be fine!”

The elevator takes forever to come back down, so Mei actually does end up climbing ten flights of stairs. He’s drunk enough to not feel much of it in this legs, mainly because when he finally gets to his floor, Kazuya’s sitting on the staircase with his head in his hands.

His voice breaks this time, too, when he says, “Kazuya?”

Kazuya almost jumps up, grabbing Mei by the shoulders and pulling him into a hug, a little rougher than Mei remembers it, but no less good. He lets his eyes flutter shut and just breathes him in; Kazuya still smells like leather and the cologne Mei got him for his twenty-fourth birthday, but now the scent of wooden bats and baseball dirt is more discernable.

“Are you okay?” Kazuya asks, and Mei stumbles down a step before Kazuya catches him. “How drunk are you? What the hell were you thinking, calling me like that—”

“Why?” Mei asks, and he would force the haughty tone, if he could with Kazuya back, his face flushed and angry. “Were you worried about me?”

Kazuya stares at him before he drops his hands. After a couple beats, he says, “Just because we’re not together doesn’t mean I don’t care about you anymore.”

Instinctively, Mei leans in, rests his head against Kazuya’s chest, right over where his heart is. He used to fall asleep like this, Kazuya’s hand playing with the hair at the base of his neck, tangling so gently that it didn’t hurt at all. Kazuya’s touch never hurt. At most, it was the only thing Mei really craved at the end of the day. His lashes flutter shut, and Kazuya inhales, Mei feels the air pushing against Kazuya’s ribs. Fighting to be freed.

“Mei,” Kazuya says, and Mei’s just heard him say it, but it had been over the phone. In person is so much better. “You need to sleep it off.”

“Don’t have to,” Mei murmurs, into Kazuya’s shirt. “Don’t have practice.”

“What have you been doing then?”

Crying, mostly, Mei thinks. Taking long showers. Going on really long runs and not returning for hours. Crying while running. The other day he went home and helped his mom weed her garden. The list goes on.

“That’s not really important,” he says instead, and doesn’t move. Kazuya shifts, and Mei’s not exactly sure who initiates it, but then Kazuya’s mouth slides against his. Mei lifts his heels off the ground — he’s one stair down from Kazuya and the added difference to their heights is something he isn’t used to — and fists his hands in the collar of Kazuya’s shirt, underneath his jacket. Kazuya’s lips part easily, as his hands come to pull Mei up higher, until somehow Mei’s pressed into the wall of the staircase, legs wrapped tight around Kazuya’s waist. Mei sucks Kazuya’s tongue into his own mouth, scraping his teeth the way Kazuya wants it, has always wanted it.

“Mei,” Kazuya says, against Mei’s mouth. Mei makes an unintelligible noise in response, probably something like, Kazuya your timing sucks. Because really, it does. “Mei, I should go—”

“No,” Mei interrupts. “Please, just—” He curls his fingers into Kazuya’s hair, as if that would hold him there. Kazuya’s hands tighten on Mei’s waist, his thigh. “It’s late,” he says. “Just stay.”

Kazuya lets him slide down the wall, but Mei keeps a firm grip on his wrist, as he fishes around in his pockets for his keys. He takes so long that Kazuya starts looking too, and finds them in one of Mei’s jacket pockets.

“You should be more careful where you put your stuff,” Kazuya says, when he hands it over. Mei would grasp his wrist tighter, if that was possible.

Kazuya doesn’t put his shoes on the shoe rack like he used to, but he still pushes them to the side neatly, so they’re not in the way.

“This is really neat, for you,” Kazuya remarks, and Mei lets go of his wrist so they can take off their jackets. He shoots a quick text to Haruichi, before he forgets. “What happened?”

“Yoshi-san made me vaccuum,” Mei says shortly, and leans in to kiss him before he’s ready.

Kazuya kisses back until he doesn’t, one hand on Mei’s chest. “How drunk are you?” he repeats, and Mei flushes, probably all the way down to his waist, from how hot and bothered he’s getting. He rolls his shoulders back, eases out the nerves. This is a really stupid thing to do, but it would be so hard to walk away.

So Mei doesn’t. “Not so drunk that you should feel bad,” he says, the truth, and kisses him again. This time, Kazuya doesn’t stop.

+

Kazuya once told him, “I’m thinking of moving apartments,” and Mei’d shrugged, going back to the game he was reviewing. Kazuya kicked him, under his kitchen table. This was maybe three months before he ended it.

“Are you listening?” he asked, and Mei put the notebook down, folding his glasses and setting them primly on top. Then he put his hands in his lap and straightened up, batting his eyelashes. Kazuya looked absolutely taken aback, before he laughed. “What the hell, you’re so weird—”

Mei kicked him back, and it caught him off guard enough that he almost fell.

“You have no sense of balance,” Mei observed, as Kazuya scooted his chair closer to the table.

Kazuya ignored him, and said, “I said, I was thinking about moving apartments.”

“Okay,” Mei said. “Why, do you want help looking? I know Shinji’s looking for someone to take over his lease, and that’s pretty close to your campus.” He still doesn’t quite get why Kazuya came back to Tokyo for university after making such a splash, down in Fukuoka for three years. But it was Kazuya, so there must be a reason. “Or I could ask Yoshi-san if he’s heard of anything.”

Kazuya stared at him. Mei frowned. “What?”

“Nothing,” Kazuya said. “Go back to your notes.” He adjusted his glasses, highlighting a passage in his economics reading, or whatever he had printed out in front of him.

+

In retrospect, Mei thinks he knows when they started falling apart, when he stopped receiving all the signals Kazuya was sending him. If he could, he’d go back and punch past-Mei for not getting that past-Kazuya was hinting that he wanted to move in together, that past-Kazuya loved him a lot, too much, probably. Mei hates past-Mei.

But when Mei wakes up for the first time, he doesn’t open his eyes. He can feel Kazuya rustling around in the room, putting on his clothes to go back to his apartment. He’s just coming back to consciousness, but Mei can already feel the achy hickies marring his skin. Maybe Kazuya had left them all over his body, like he never did when they were together. Mei squeezes his eyes shut harder, but relaxes into a more natural expression when he hears Kazuya coming towards him, despite the hangover pulsing through his head.

He can almost see Kazuya’s hesitant face, engraved on the back of his eyelids. Kazuya drops a kiss on his forehead, and then his jaw next to his ear, his bottom lip, before he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. Mei checks the time, it’s not even six in the morning, but he could never go back to sleep now. When he hears the front door close, he swings his legs out of bed. Puts his clothes in the hamper and strips the sheets.

+

“You have got to stop leaving these so high,” Kazuya said, examining his neck in the bathroom mirror. Mei, who was right outside the door brushing his teeth, almost choked. “One of the girls in my group project said that the girl who’s leaving these must be an amateur.”

Mei bristled at the insinuation. “I’m not an amateur,” he flared, the best he could with his mouth full of toothpaste. “And not a girl,” he added.

Kazuya moved over so Mei could rinse his mouth. He pressed his mouth to the back of Mei’s neck, his hands against Mei’s hips. “I know,” he said. “That you’re not a girl.”

“What about me being an amateur?”

“Yeah, you’re really experienced,” Kazuya said, face straight, as Mei toweled his face dry. He pulled in Mei closer, when he finished. “Please teach me sex, sensei.”

Mei spluttered, twisting around so he wouldn’t have to watch in the mirror the color creep up on his cheeks. “What the hell? Is that something you say to your professors?”

“Definitely,” Kazuya said. “Yeah, I totally sleep around with the entire staff of the university.”

Mei pinched the side of Kazuya’s neck, right where a hickey was still bruising. Kazuya winced, but still followed Mei out of the bathroom. It was one of Mei’s rare days off, on a Saturday, no less, and Kazuya’d cancelled his plans with one of his university friends to sleep in with him.

“Do I have any groceries?” Mei asked, as Kazuya checked the tea that he’d been steeping.

“You’re the one who lives here,” Kazuya said, taking a sip. “Do you want some?”

Mei nodded absently, squatting down to go through his fridge. There were still some eggs, he could probably just fry those and pass that as a meal. Yoshizawa would kill him if he found out, but what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

“Here,” Kazuya said, and Mei almost knocked his forehead into the mug.

“You did that on purpose,” Mei accused. Kazuya didn’t reply, just grinned at him over the rim of the mug. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and Mei thought he looked a lot less predator-like without them. Softened the edges a little. “Give it here.”

“What’s the magic word,” Kazuya lilted, lifting it slightly above his head.

Mei could reach it if he tried, but he played along. “Please?”

“No.”

Mei glared at him. “What is it, then?”

“Wrong again.” Kazuya grinned, and Mei decided Kazuya was always one-hundred percent Kazuya, with or without those stupid glasses.

“Fuck you, Kazuya!” Mei would grab for it, but he didn’t want to risk burning either of them. Because he knew Kazuya was a big baby about getting hurt when he was in front of Mei.

Kazuya still had that grin on his face. “It always sounds like a compliment when you say that to me.”

Mei flushed. “Give me the tea.”

Kazuya deliberated dramatically, complete with a finger tapping against his mouth. “I can change the price of it to one kiss.”

Mei laughed, “Put the mug down then”, and the second Kazuya did, Mei pressed him up against the counter and kissed him breathless, the way couples kiss after not seeing each other for weeks, like a kiss under the rain, a pinprick of warmth amidst the chill making its home under their skin.

+

“You look better,” Shirakawa says cautiously, when Mei brings him a bagel while he’s holed up at the library, working on an essay.

Mei scoffs. “Did you think I would never bounce back from a puny break-up?” Except Mei himself hadn’t thought he wouldn’t bounce back. And he hasn’t bounced back, not really.

“I take it back,” Shirakawa says, turning his eyes back to his laptop screen. “I don’t know who you are, there’s a strange man here—”

“I already tried that with Yoshi-san when he was being mean to me,” Mei informs him. “It doesn’t work.”

“Yeah, because you were in your apartment, right?” Mei nods. Shirakawa spreads his arms wide. “This is a public place, with witnesses.”

“No one would think that someone as perfect as me would be a threat,” Mei says, tilting his nose up. “If anything, you’d get dragged away.”

“If I don’t have to write this essay, anything goes,” Shirakawa replies tiredly, and Mei laughs, before leaving to let him focus.

He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets as he makes his way across campus, towards the train station. He makes a mental list of things he needs to do today, and makes calling Yoshizawa the first.

Because really, Narumiya Mei shouldn’t be wallowing in a cesspool of something as fleeting and impossible as feelings. Narumiya Mei should be getting ready to take back the world, no matter how much it supposedly hurts. Besides, dating Miyuki Kazuya hadn’t even been that great. Kazuya was lame and always spun his pen (really badly) while doing his homework, he ate Mei’s ice cream and kissed him afterwards so Mei could taste it in his mouth, as if that was an acceptable form of apology. Yeah, Kazuya made a great pillow and Mei always slept better if he could hear Kazuya’s heart beating under his ear, but it’s been almost two dozen weeks since they ended it, and Mei is sleeping just fine.

Yoshizawa calls him first, before Mei has a chance to dial. “I hope your ass is out of bed,” he says, in lieu of a greeting.

“Yoshi-san,” Mei whines. “So mean.”

“Cut Magazine wants to interview you,” Yoshizawa says, ignoring his complaints. “In three weeks. It’s a little sudden, so I can try to push it back—”

“No,” Mei interrupts. “It’s fine. I’m still in shape so there’s nothing to worry about for the photoshoot.”

“Yeah,” Yoshizawa says uncertainly. “But there’s an interview portion, and if you’re not ready to talk about taking a year off from the pros, I can negotiate something.”

Mei wants to hesitate, but he doesn’t let himself. If he’s honest, the only reason he’s finding it so hard to move on is because he doesn’t want to. So that’s the deal: Mei doesn’t want to forget about what it feels like to kiss Kazuya like he had so long ago about his ex-girlfriend, he doesn’t want to forget waking up next to Kazuya and kissing his throat until he woke up, too. What a shitty deal, he thinks sourly, kicking a rock on the sidewalk. It skitters along the path and comes to a stop, half-buried in the grass.

“That’s fine,” Mei says. “Three weeks is fine. I’ll come up with something.”

Yoshizawa knows no one’s ever forced Mei to do something he doesn’t want to do, so he reluctantly agrees, and hangs up. Mei pockets his phone with a sigh, and takes the train back to his apartment. He goes to the gym afterwards, and runs until he can’t feel his legs anymore.

+

“So that’s it?” Mei asked, an eyebrow quirked up. “You’re quitting the pro leagues?”

“Not forever,” Kazuya said, stretching out on Mei’s couch. They’d just gotten back from Tokyo Station, because they couldn't decide where to go for dinner, and Kazuya already looked at home.

Well— That was probably because Mei spent so much time picturing Kazuya there that it just felt like they’d been doing this forever.

“But you’re going back to school,” Mei said, to confirm. “Why?”

“Can’t play baseball forever, Mei,” Kazuya said easily. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to go to college.”

Everything Kazuya said could potentially be a lie. Kazuya was skilled enough at manipulation to achieve that, and Mei used to boast that he could see through it. He hadn’t been able to later in high school. Maybe he never had.

“Where are you living?” Mei asked, ungraciously pushing him over so there’s room for him on the couch too. “How long do I have to let you sleep on my floor?”

Kazuya put a hand on his chest, over where his heart should be. If he even had one, Mei thought bitterly. “That hurts,” he said, in a swoop of mocked drama. “I thought our friendship was more than that, Mei.”

Mei didn’t know what exactly their friendship entailed, but his hands still felt shaky, so he curled them into fists on his knee. “Just answer the question, asshole.”

“Shinjuku,” Kazuya replied. “I’ll get the address to you once I move in.” He said it almost in a conspiratory tone, which was weird but so Kazuya. So Mei let himself remember what it was like again, to be around Kazuya. To be in his inner circle, one of his people.

+

It’s just Mei’s luck that he runs into him again, this time when he’s with Shirakawa again, getting lunch near Waseda campus. Kazuya doesn’t even go to Waseda, but he’s there, at the same dumpling shop, getting up from his table, about to leave. He’s with some people, but Mei doesn’t recognize any of them.

Shirakawa sighs, seeing that Mei has already made up his mind to talk to him. “I’ll get us a table,” he says, as Kazuya tells his friends to go ahead without him.

Mei doesn’t look directly at him. The hickies are mostly faded, but there’s a particularly nasty one on his thigh that’s still pretty red. Mei sometimes pressed his thumb into it to see if it hurt.

“I didn’t know you were friends with people from Waseda,” he says, wishing he at least had a hoodie on so he could hide his hands. But it’s finally starting to get warmer, reminding Mei, of all things, Koshien. Baseball, Masa-san yelling at him in the bullpen. Kazuya thirteen too many miles away.

“Nah,” Kazuya says. “They’re some the guys on my baseball team, this was just closer for us than Keio.”

“Why’d you choose that apartment, then?” Mei mutters, half to himself.

Kazuya doesn’t answer, but he does lift Mei’s head with a hand. “You should look at people when you talk,” he says. “It’s common courtesy.”

“It’s also common courtesy to say goodbye to someone before leaving,” Mei says, angrily, without thinking. Then he pauses. He’s surprised even himself.

But Kazuya’s face doesn’t change. He’s always been different like that. Even when he was most upset, his face didn’t twist and he didn’t cry. He just drew himself up, like the thunder of his anger added ten centimeters to his height, and spoke quietly. Mei hated seeing him angry, because it scared him more than anything. “I knew you were awake.”

“I— What?” Mei blusters, trying to feign ignorance.

Kazuya sighs. He’s not angry. He looks tired. “I knew you were awake, when I left.”

Mei juts out his chin a little farther. “You could’ve done a better job with that goodbye then.” It comes out harsher than he means it to, but the message is the same. Before Kazuya can say anything else, Mei pushes past him, relishing the feel of him under his hands for a split-second before he reaches the table Shirakawa’s already sitting at, perusing the menu.

“These soup dumplings sound good,” Shirakawa says. Mei see Kazuya duck out of the shop from the corner of his eye. “What do you think?”

“Yeah,” Mei says, blinking rapidly and glaring at his menu. “Soup dumplings are fine.” Anything’s fine, really. He might not be, but he could count on the dumpling shop for good soup dumplings. And that’s better than nothing, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Anything is better than nothing. Mei drills it into his mind until he can recite it unconsciously, and it shows up unsettlingly often in his dreams.

+

They’d never been a big one for anniversaries, because truthfully Mei kind of hated celebrating the day that he might come to hate in the future. The night before their one year mark, Mei laid awake, even after they had sex. He mostly listened to Kazuya’s surprisingly noisy snuffling, and had to fight a little more than expected to keep his body covered with the blanket. His stomach fluttered from nervousness, among other things. But mostly nervousness, and a lot of it. He hadn’t even felt like this a year ago, the first time he kissed Kazuya, unexpectedly, when Kazuya had been making dinner, humming something under his breath. Mei had accidentally bumped into him, and Kazuya’s mouth opened in surprise, then for Mei.

“What the hell?” Mei had said, his heart beating so fast he was afraid he was going to collapse right then, on the spot. “What was that?”

“A solid eight out of ten, I think,” Kazuya had replied, his expression thoughtful, and that had annoyed Mei so much that he’d just grabbed Kazuya by his shirt and kissed him again. Just to get that stupid look off his face.

Kazuya snuffled again, his eye mask shifting so the bottom curve of his lashes were visible. He was turned away from Mei, but that was Mei’s own fault, for not letting Kazuya put his arms around him before he fell asleep. Sometimes, Kazuya held him so tightly Mei was more worried about asphyxiating in the middle of the night than anything else. It was a wonder he was even surviving the relationship, in Mei’s humble, honest opinion, with Kazuya and all his weird and strange habits. The way he liked to be choked sometimes, the death grip he kept on Mei’s wrist whenever there was a goddamn spider in the apartment. Seriously Kazuya, Mei always said, You’re an adult, just kill the spider.

No, Kazuya couldn’t kill spiders. Or anything of the kind. Truly, Mei was more worried about Kazuya than about himself, as he laid awake on the eve of their one year anniversary.

Then Kazuya woke up, snuffling disappearing as Mei feigned sleep. Kazuya rolled out of bed. Mei could hear the water running in the bathroom, the toilet flushing. He thought about getting up too, but then Kazuya came back in the room right as he sat up.

“Oh,” Mei said, a little sheepish. “I was going to get up.”

Kazuya’s sleep mask hung around his neck, and it was, surprisingly, endearing. Mei liked him like this, wearing a stretched out t-shirt and boxer briefs, hair messed to high heavens. A version of Kazuya that only Mei was allowed to see.

He squinted at the bedside clock. “Missed it,” he said, coming to sit next to Mei, lifting one of his hands to his mouth. “I wanted to tell you happy anniversary right at midnight.”

The gesture is a little too much, for them. It kind of made Mei want to die on the spot. “Jesus, you sappy fuck.”

Kazuya smiled slightly, smoothing Mei’s hair away from his face.

Mei was sure his face was red, glad for the dark of the room. “Besides,” he said. “Technically we didn’t start dating until later than night, after you kissed me.”

“You mean after you kissed me.”

“No— Kazuya!”

This time, Kazuya grinned, a real one, the kind that lit up his whole face. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you again at, what was it? Half past eight at night?”

Mei tugged him forward until they were both in bed, Mei’s limbs sprawled over Kazuya’s. “Yeah,” he said, his breath ghosting on Kazuya’s chest, over his shirt. “That sounds good.”

And Mei, he wasn’t lying to himself— It really did.

+

There’s still a box of Kazuya’s stuff sitting in Mei’s solo-occupant apartment, so once spring is actually ending and it’s time to sweep the dust out, Mei takes it with him and gets on the train to Shinjuku. It isn’t a long trip, and it doesn’t feel particularly long to Mei either. He mulls over his options on the commute: he could chicken out and call Shinji to pick up the box, and have Shinji drop it off. He could also call Carlos to do the same. He could leave it in front of Kazuya’s door and go. Or he could knock, like a proper human being, and give the box back with dignity. If he had any of that left.

It turns out, Mei doesn’t actually get to decide, because Kazuya’s getting off a train around the same time as him, so Mei never makes it to his apartment by himself.

“You’re going to do this here?” Kazuya asks, and Mei would love to think that it’s hurt that flashes across his face. “At least come over for a drink or something.”

“Fine,” Mei says, and Kazuya smiles, waiting for him to pick the little box up again before crossing the street.

Mei is familiar with how to get to Kazuya’s apartment still; Kazuya’s phone number is a little fuzzy in his memory now, but the path to Kazuya’s door isn’t. Some things take more time than others, and that’s okay. Mei is okay with that.

“I heard you’re getting a lot of endorsement offers,” Kazuya says. “Now that you actually have time for them.”

He’s not wrong. Yoshizawa has been calling a lot more often, now.

“I’m starting to think this gap year thing was a good plan,” Yoshizawa’d said, and Mei’d scoffed, because of course it was. Mei wasn’t hailed as Japan’s number one southpaw for no reason. A title like that was thanks to equal parts talent and brains. Maybe a little more talent than brains.

“Had to turn some of them down,” Mei says, an imperious tinge to the way he talks. Kazuya’s eyes soften, like he’s missed it. Mei isn’t expecting or ready for the ugly twist in his chest, and he almost thrusts the box into Kazuya’s hands and runs for it then and there.

“Careful,” Kazuya says, before Mei has a chance to decide what to do. It’s like the universe wants Kazuya to toy with him like this. It’s so unfair, Mei thinks, a little miffed, as Kazuya pulls him further into the sidewalk to avoid bikers, too. Then they’re at Kazuya’s building, and Mei readjusts his grip on the box several times, like he’s forgotten how to hold onto things that he wants to keep.

Kazuya doesn’t say anything either, only breaking the silence when they get to his floor. “Did you want to come in?” he asks, tentative in a way humans only are around people they care an unfortunate amount about. It should make Mei’s heart lift. He wonders if that’s what’s been happening this entire time.

Mei steps in, but he doesn’t take his shoes off. “Here,” he says, and holds the box out to him. Kazuya takes it. “I have to get going, but it’s just your CDs and some small stuff I thought you might want back.”

“No clothes?” Kazuya asks. He was still halfway in the hallway, so he put it down on the floor there.

Mei mocks a scowl. “You should’ve known that once you let me wear those clothes, you said goodbye to them forever.”

Kazuya laughs, too sweet to be a real Kazuya laugh. Mei wonders if he’s going soft. What a revelation, Miyuki Kazuya, of a people, going soft! That Sawamura kid would have a field day, if he knew. Kuramochi too. Mei isn’t in contact with either of them, but if he were, he would’ve messaged them in a heartbeat, so Kazuya could endure endless belittling. Someone had to do it, and it wasn’t Mei’s job anymore. See universe?, Mei thinks acidly. I’m a fucking nice person, I care about Kazuya too. I care about his well-being and that his friends know about what’s going on his life, even if I don’t get to be in it anymore. 

Then Kazuya leans in, his fingers brushing Mei's face, preceding anything else. He kisses Mei’s cheek before moving to his mouth. Mei freezes, jerks back at the very last second.

“Mei—”

“No,” Mei chokes, covering his face with his hands to keep himself from falling apart. “I can’t do this, Kazuya, not again, I can’t put myself through that again—”

Kazuya seemed at a loss of what to say, for once. Mei wishes he could be proud, but his chest fucking hurts and what the fuck? He should look up if people can die from a broken heart. He still needs to put together a last will and testament for Yoshizawa to read at his funeral, attended by the entire population of Japan, of course. He’ll leave all his money to his parents and sisters, and Shirakawa his favorite glove and baseball bat. Shirakawa wouldn’t tarnish them, now that he doesn’t play. Yoshizawa can have all his furniture, he’s been eyeing Mei’s coffee table for years anyway.

“I’m going to go,” Mei says, attempting to make his voice stronger. The problem is: Mei’s been in love with Kazuya for so long that he’s forgotten what it’s like to live without a possibility of them toughing it out. He always thought that endgame, it would be them, and that isn’t the truth anymore. It’s one of the things he’s re-learning how to do now, and it’s only really been about six months. These things take time. A lot of time.

Then he remembers their anniversary, and how they would’ve been together for two years last week, if they hadn’t broken up.

He turns to look at Kazuya, and Kazuya slots his hands over Mei's hips, breathless, right in the middle of the open door, where all his neighbors can probably see. Scandalous, Mei thinks faintly, before Kazuya pulls him into his apartment completely.

“One for the road?” Kazuya asks, the familiar mischief coloring his voice, and Mei wishes he could just keep him. Wishes it could be easier to say, Let’s try again.

But it isn’t, so Mei kisses him, memorizes the way Kazuya gasps and moves against him, the possessive way he sucks Mei’s bottom lip, like he’s afraid that he’ll never be able to do it again if he stops now. Right when Mei thinks that he could just live like this forever, they’ll just starve to death together and kiss each other through it, it ends. Mei’s breathing hard, he might be crying a little bit. Kazuya isn't; he’s not much better off than Mei but he’s certainly not crying.

“I’ll go,” Mei says, when he finds his voice, and Kazuya doesn’t stop him, this time. In the hallway outside is still Kazuya’s box of stuff, mostly CDs that aren’t even music, they’re actually DVDs of baseball games that they used to watch together. Some of them they’d watched so many times Mei can remember everything Kazuya said about each play with frightening clarity. Another thing that will fade with time, he thinks. He isn’t sure if he’s comforted by that or not.

Mei takes the box back with him. If Kazuya really wants it, he can come get it himself, go through Mei one more time.

+

“Why’d you want to meet up?” Mei asked, jamming his hands into his winter coat pockets. His breath made little clouds when he talked. “It’s freezing out, let’s go inside somewhere.”

“Wait,” Kazuya said, ducking under the roof of the Edogawa baseball field dugout, if they could even call it that. It was just a bench with a flimsy piece of metal overhead. “I just thought we could talk now that we’re retired. Like, as friends.”

Mei couldn’t stop the amusement that bubbled up. “Kazuya, I thought we’ve been friends,” he accused, enjoying the way the cold made Kazuya look like he was perpetually blushing. “If not, you must’ve been lying to me the entirety of high school.”

“You know it,” Kazuya laughed.

“Besides,” Mei pushed forward. “We’re still not playing for the same team, we’re still rivals.”

“I know,” Kazuya said, and in the years to come, Mei would wonder if Kazuya was gearing up to confess right here, but fell a little short at the last minute. Not unlike Mei, who didn’t realize that Kazuya basically asked him if he wanted to live together, missed the message by so much it was almost comical.

So they’d both made their share of mistakes, which Mei wasn’t even surprised by. After all, it was them, just plain old them, all wrapped up in winter clothes, or maneuvering within the same living room and never touching, brewing coffee and leaving it in the pot, never pouring it out without being asked. Most of Mei still wanted plain old them, the same kind of hopelessness as having to finish a game he knew he wasn’t going to win, giving the ball to someone else as he left the mound.

“So you’re going down to Fukuoka?” Mei asked, because he’d seen it on the news. Just not heard it in person.

“Yeah,” Kazuya said. His smile was a lot of things: excited, happy, nostalgic— Maybe sad, but that was probably from Mei’s wishful thinking. “Got my shirt already to show off.”

“Typical,” Mei scoffed, but he unzipped his coat for a couple seconds to show Kazuya the orange of his Yomiuri shirt. Kazuya laughed, a hand coming up to rest on Mei’s shoulder, the most they’d ever touched up until then. Mei burned from it, even through the layers and layers and layers separating their bones. It still sparked sharp, all the way down his spine, tingling its way through his nerves.

+

Mei’s always been popular, so he’s used to the flurry of people around him. Or at least, that’s what he tells himself as he gets his makeup retouched for the filmed portion of the interview. He’s waiting in his dressing room with Yoshizawa, who’s fussing over the answers Mei wrote to the interview questions.

“You can’t say this,” Yoshizawa says, massaging his temples. “Mei, I told you that if you’re not ready to talk—”

“I’m ready,” Mei insists, grabbing the paper from Yoshizawa. “What’s wrong with saying that it’s perfectly normal to exercise a lot after a break-up so you can take your mind off of it, and you’ll be toned to look good in front of your ex?”

Yoshizawa sighs. “Fine, do whatever. Ruin your career, ruin your love life, ruin your image, I don’t care.”

“You don’t mean that, Yoshi-san!” Mei puts the paper back down next to the blow dryer, about to run his hands through his hair before he remembers the amount of product in it. “Besides, Kazuya’s been working out too.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Mei says quickly. Yoshizawa gives him a look. Mei concedes, “I just saw him once and it looked like he’s been working out, that’s all.”

Mei remembers the first two months after they ended it, how everyone told him that he could do better, that there was someone out there who could make him happier. It’s been more than twice that time he’s been single, now, but Mei still thinks, it had kind of been okay to date Miyuki Kazuya. There had been other good things in addition to sleeping better. Kazuya always kept him warm and was a much better cook; he was kind of a neat freak so Mei’s apartment was perpetually dust-free. And sometimes the furrow between his eyebrows as he concentrated on his readings and spun his pen... that was kind of cute. Mei still has a picture of it on his phone, even though he doesn’t let himself look at it. As long as he doesn’t look at it, he doesn’t have to delete it. Ha!, he thinks viciously, Joke’s on you, universe! I have that picture memorized, I don’t need to look at it again. The universe probably thinks he’s insane, the amount he talks to it lately.

One of the staff members pokes his head into the dressing room. “Narumiya-san? You’re on in five.”

The interviewer is a pretty woman, maybe three or so years older than him, and Mei would flirt, if he still had any of his heart left to give. Still, he gives her a smile and shakes her hand before he sits down in the chair meant for him.

Right before the cameras start rolling, Mei’s phone goes off from his pocket.

“Oops,” Mei says, searching all the wrong pockets before finding the right one. “Forgot about that.” Yoshizawa looks like he’s going to hemorrhage, right there where he’s standing behind the director. He’s about to just shut it off and give it to Yoshizawa, but then he sees the name Kazuya flashing across the screen. He freezes, finger hovering over the green call button.

“Mei,” Yoshizawa says, a distant noise. “Mei!” Mei looks up. “You can’t answer that now, just return the call later.”

Mei swallows, as the call goes to voicemail. He locks his phone and gives it to Yoshizawa. “Okay.”

The interviewer looks at him, a megawatt smile on her face. Mei resists the urge to back away. “Ready?” she asks.

Is he? Mei doesn’t know. He’s spend so much time hacking through the shrubs instead of trying to get back on the paved path that he doesn’t know what he prefers now. He makes things hard on himself, and that’s never something he’d been able to train himself out of. He nods, instead of saying anything; even though maybe he hadn’t been ready, not for Kazuya, not for any of it.

But past-Mei isn’t Mei now, and Mei hitches a grin up on his face as he answers all of her questions, sticking exactly to his script.

“You’re actually doing well,” Yoshizawa says, incredulous, when they take a break.

Mei snorts. “Please,” he says. “Have some faith in me.” He glances at his phone to see that there’s a new voicemail.

Before he can listen to it, someone calls, “Narumiya-san?” Mei turns. “We need to fix your microphone.” Mei lets them fiddle around with it, sitting back down in the interview chair.

“Halfway done,” the interviewer says, her cue cards in her hand, smiling at him. “This is going very well, Narumiya-san.”

Mei smiles back, tilting his head slightly so the camera will catch the best angle of his chin. “I’m glad,” he says, and acts the part out spectacularly.

+

A week after they first kissed, Mei woke up to Kazuya reading a book in bed next to him. Mei made a face, rolling over and rubbing his eyes. “You still here?” he asked, his voice rough from sleep and disuse.

“Well yeah,” Kazuya said. His eyes fluttered up, resting briefly somewhere around Mei's neck. “Go wash your face, you look like death.”

Mei glared at him but listened. He brushed his teeth in record speed, rinsing out his mouth until the cold water numbed it from the inside. When he got back, Kazuya was still reading the book, some novel Mei couldn’t make out the name of.

“So what is this,” Mei asked, his legs sore from their session last night. “You just get to stay over whenever you want?”

Kazuya looked at him strangely. “What are you talking about?”

Mei fumed, pushing the covers off of Kazuya so he wouldn’t be warm and toasty while Mei was out here shivering in the cold. Not really the cold, because it was June, but Mei pretended, for the sake of the metaphor. “Stop acting dumb!”

“I’m not,” Kazuya said, cheek apparent. Mei sulked, turning off the lights again and combing through his hair just for something to do. Kazuya said something, and Mei missed it as he internally practiced his scowl.

“Say that again.”

Kazuya laughed. “Seriously Mei, you need to start paying attention, one of these days you’re going to misread your catcher and throw the wrong pitch. Then people won’t call you Japan’s number one southpaw—”

“Stop talking about baseball!” Mei yelled, and Kazuya fucking grinned, the nerve of him. Mei was about to storm out of his own bedroom and slam the door for dramatic effect, when Kazuya stretched his arms out toward him. It was almost electric, being guided by a supernatural force and falling into Kazuya. Letting him press him against the bed and kiss him, first thing in the morning; the charge coursing through his veins and polarizing his body. Except if Mei was a real magnet, he’d be a broken one, because no part of him intrinsically rejected contact with Kazuya.

“Just so you know,” Kazuya said, his mouth hovering somewhere near Mei’s ear and shoulder. “You don’t get to just quit dating me, I’m really in demand, so just know how lucky you are.”

Mei didn’t even rise to the bait, just said, “Whatever you say, Kazuya”, and punctuated it with an eye roll. It was weird, their roles being reversed. Mei would have to reverse it back sooner than later.

The birds were already twittering outside, so it was futile to try to get more good sleep in, but Mei dozed, his body curved in towards Kazuya’s, the kind of forever that wasn’t promised but was something he would have to work for. He figured, from the very beginning, Kazuya would break his heart. That was kind of Kazuya’s thing, anyway. Staying just out of reach so Mei couldn’t slap him across his stupid face.

Kazuya did actually fall back asleep, and when he woke up, Mei was tracing a pattern into the side of his neck, as far as his fingers could reach.

“Good morning again,” Mei murmured, blinking drowsily. “Sleep well?”

Kazuya didn’t respond immediately, but traced his way down Mei’s arm, his hand flitting across the jut of bone on Mei’s wrist and his knuckles. “Yeah,” he said, like he had suddenly just realized it. Mei repressed a smirk. “Yeah, I did.”

+