Chapter Text
Once the trainer came, she explained in detail all the rules and regulations as far as the day to day exercise of tributes and the new way of playing the Games goes.
They will work out in hourly rotations every day except for weekends (unless they wish to catch up on a specific ability they lack on), undergoing training to improve their physical shape by practicing sports and to learn survival skills. Practice begins early in the morning in an underground gymnasium beneath the lobby and ends late in the afternoon. Fortunately for Koushi, it is not obligatory to collaborate with teammates in any way to complete most of the given tasks.
This year it is possible for two people to win. However, they cannot be of the same district. The only way for more than one tribute to be crowned victor is to be teamed up with their respective partner who was chosen in the beginning of the Quartel Quel.
Tributes are not allowed to leave the hotel premises, except for their weekly tours around various parts of the city accompanied by escorts and any other happening that requires their presence and includes camera reporters.
When the first day rolls in and after a sleepless night with him laying on his bed staring up at the wall, not being able to be in a calm enough state to rest, he hears a knock on his door.
With a soft creak, Yamaguchi enters.
"Good morning, Sugawara-san. It's time to wake up."
He comes near, to probably shake Koushi's shoulders but the boy saves him the trouble. He stirs lightly and turns his body to face the servant.
"Good morning.", his voice betrays his lack of sleep, as do his eyelids that are ironically now starting to droop.
"And it's just Sugawara", he corrects. Yamaguchi is the only person with whom he feels remotely comfortable. He figures that in order to establish a solid relationship they should drop the honorifics.
Even though they will most likely never see each other again after a month.
But he might as well take what he can get.
"Sawamura-san is at the dining room."
He feels a pang of irritation at the mention of his teammate. How on Earth did he manage to get up and ready at such a short notice? It wouldn't be so far fetched if it is revealed to Koushi that Sawamura himself is asking for him and it wasn't just something Yamaguchi informed him about to hurry.
Then again, the world doesn't revolve around him and Sawamura might just be fast.
He decides to believe whatever is convenient to him and his hatred towards the young man.
"Okay, I will be out in five minutes."
He dresses quickly with the same grey pants and t-shirt with yesterday and runs a hand through his hair in front of the mirror. He has misplaced his single hair tie and now has to endure this day with hair blocking his vision. Sleep deprivation hangs heavy on his features, every cell in his body screaming at him to go back to bed. With a persistent rub at his eyes, he exits his room to find all kinds of food splayed across the dining table. As he walks over the image gets clearer, slices of bread with three different jams, various fruits in bowls, tarts, milk, juice, cakes and cheese jump into the picture.
And Sawamura.
"Good morning", he greets with a fruity tone.
"Hi", Koushi responds.
He sits opposite his partner, who has moved to the side, right next to where Koushi was on their first day. Yamaguchi serves them, awkwardly passing salt or napkins that the boys could not reach. After some silent moments of juice pouring in cups and forks and knives lightly clinking on glass plates, he makes a move to leave.
"I will take care of your chambers. If you need anything else please let me know."
It only crosses Koushi's mind that he didn't ask him to eat with them, but exhaustion is keeping him from functioning properly. He makes a mental note to make it up to the young butler.
"So, did you sleep well?"
He doesn't know how he stops his eyes from rolling and sighing loudly as he looks at Sawamura and deadpans:
"Yes."
He can tell. It shows that he can tell, if his lowered gaze and fumbling give away anything.
He understands that he said something wrong, yet he makes no move to lighten the air.
But whatever he would have done would have no effect whatsoever, because Koushi has decided to shut him out. His thoughts on their working together shouldn’t have been considered for more than a second.
*
The gym is quite spacious, considering the facilities it offers. Every activity has a designated space big enough for all tributes to exercise there at the same time, with at least three instructors. The walls are covered in a light shade of grey, full of promotional posters for the Games and sheets of paper with every person and their assigned team for the day according to the patch of color next to their name. He and Sawamura, along with a guy from district seven and a girl from district two – the yellow group - are to attend self-defense lessons first.
He quickly spots the ring, blue mats spread on the floor and a yellow sign at the side. There stands a tall muscular brunette along with…
…who Koushi identifies as Oikawa’s buddy from the other day. As he closes in, he sees the same untamed hair and proud posture. He seems to be talking to Sawamura and by the looks of it, it is a pretty one-sided conversation, with his partner simply nodding in agreement at every statement and glancing around every now and then.
Koushi excused himself earlier from breakfast, simply because he decided that the face of Sawamura was too much of a reminder that he is stuck with him instead literally anyone else and that they were supposed to work together to survive the Games and just by thinking about it he felt exhausted.
Needless to say, they didn't arrive at training together.
A small groan escapes him and he thanks every god out there that everyone and the trainers aren’t facing him. Oikawa might not be his problem today, but he has reason to believe he is not the only one who will cause trouble.
He arrives and all eyes fall on him.
“Hi, I’m Sugawara”, he introduces himself.
"Hey, man! Nice to meet you, I'm Kuroo and this is Arima", Kuroo remarks, gesturing to the girl next to him, who is chatting with a boy, probably from her district - Koushi can't imagine any other reason why she would be talking to him, since making smalltalk and getting acquainted to new people is quite hard considering the circumstances they're under.
Or maybe he's her friend.
Koushi doesn't care.
"I'm from district seven", he hears Kuroo saying.
There is a glimmer in his eyes, mischief dancing on his facial expressions as he speaks.
"I'm from eleven", Koushi catches his cue to talk.
Kuroo is quite taller than him, looking over him like a beast over its prey. He doesn't say anything else, although it becomes clear to Koushi that the boy would give everything to get to know a few more things about his future opponent.
He also realises that this is not the time to back down or seem unsure and wavering. He gazes right at him, ready to answer whatever comes out of his mouth, which has now formed a grin.
"Awesome mane!" Kuroo unexpectedly exclaims, carding his fingers through a patch of Koushi's wavy hair and playing with a few curls.
He barely resists flinching away.
"Do you dye it?", it comes out of his mouth, with an easily traceable mock curiosity.
Everyone knows that most people in district eleven can't even pay for their food, let alone hair dye.
Koushi is pretty sure he has never seen anyone who has dyed their hair back home.
"No, this is my natural colour", he says as casually as he can muster, never breaking eye contact.
"Wow, what do you eat at the south to get that kind of hair?", Kuroo laughs at his own joke.
Mushrooms.
Week old bread.
Grass.
Sometimes nothing for days on end.
He keeps the answer for himself and lets out a breathy laugh. He sees Sawamura out of the corner of his eye quite stiff...
...with anger maybe?
What does he care anyway? It wasn't like he was the one made fun of.
"You talk about hair when you walk around with that bed head of yours?", Sawamura teases, jerking his head to the black mess on Kuroo's head. Apart from the smile on his lips, anyone could tell he is irritated.
Koushi feels the urge to silently curse at him for getting involved in his affairs.
Even though everything is said in a light hearted tone, it is evidently clear that there is venom hidden behind every word.
And he wants to defend himself, not be defended by anyone.
Especially Sawamura.
Kuroo fires back after chuckling and subconsciously petting down some stray black strands on his scalp:
"Whoah, easy there. You're so lucky, Sugawara! It's very difficult to find such a caring boyfriend."
All colour is lost from Koushi's face, as he stares at him with eyes slightly widening.
"He's not my boyfriend!" Sawamura almost yells and, for once, his partner is thankful that he talks for both of them.
"We're not together", he catches himself mumbling after looking away.
"Whatever, you say, lovebirds~", their opponent sing songs, right before the whistle signaling the beginning of practice blows.
All throughout the day the two boys don't even dare to look at each other. Even as they are paired, they try to do the exercise without talking and ignoring the awkward atmosphere between them.
It turns out that Koushi will have to improve by leaps and bounds in order to stand a chance against Kuroo, as he finds out during martial arts.
He guesses it's not only Kuroo that he has to work to surpass in order to survive, but small steps are better than setting unreachable goals.
With each passing drill, the guy felt obligated to show off every jump, stretch and punch, grunting exaggeratedly. He also never stopped glancing over at Koushi, then at Sawamura and smirking with satisfaction.
Trying to ignore the word boyfriend that was thrown to his face, the boy focused on the burn of his muscles every time he took so much as a single step, panting heavily and falling behind constantly. The only one who stayed on his side was Sawamura, even though Koushi kept telling him that "you can go, I'll be fine".
His limbs ache with exhaustion the first hour in and he is unable to do anything else than drag his legs to the apartment at the end of the day.
Sawamura - and even Kuroo and his teammate (and everyone else according to what he saw) - is in the same wrecked state as he is.
But he still can't forget about it.
You're so lucky, Sugawara!
such a caring boyfriend
He wants to throw up.
They open the door to find the house empty and a note left on the dining table:
Sugawara-san, Sawamura-san,
I will return to prepare dinner for you at 8. Until then, help yourselves with the sandwiches on the kitchen counter.
Respectfully,
Yamaguchi.
A quick look at the clock tells him it's six, meaning he has two more hours before Yamaguchi comes.
There isn't really anything he wishes to do that requires the boy's absence. It doesn't matter at all.
But the mere thought of something else, the momentary calculation of how many hours he will be with Sawamura alone is a distraction. Not a very good one, but a distraction nevertheless.
He can feel it. The change in his partner's behaviour. He isn't standing as close as he did the day before and the calm aura that usually radiated from him is gone, leaving heavy silence and distance.
At this point Koushi isn't sure this is better than Sawamura trying to strike a conversation with him and bugging him in general.
And then he remembers Kuroo's joke and he is glad they are not communicating in the slightest.
"Here you go."
A wrapped baguette nudges his arm and he turns to see Sawamura, smiling shyly at him.
With a muttered "thanks" he takes the food and moves to the couch with big strides, as far away as possible from him.
And that's when he snaps.
"I don't bite you know."
It comes as a shock to him, that the guy who wanted to be on his good graces from the moment they laid eyes on each other suddenly actively tries to piss him off.
"I know", he answers sharply, looking away. Because although he is shaking with rage, his heart is quivering.
If this goes towards the direction he thinks it's going, he is not ready.
He wants to throw up because he's not ready.
"It doesn't seem like it."
He is annoyed, probably because his teammate ignores and glares at him instead of reciprocating his friendly - to say the least - way of acting.
Koushi can't blame him.
"It's fine, Sawamura-"
"You keep telling me that, when clearly everything is not fine", he cuts him off, voice heavy. "And it would be crazy to say it is."
He comes nearer, the only separation between them a coffee table.
"We are chosen to leave our homes and slaughter people our age because it's the only way to come out alive while other people watch us on tv for entertainment. We get paired up with complete strangers instead of our own countrymen to honor our great nation and for- for suspense."
The words fly out of him, dripping of irony.
Sawamura doesn't seem like a person who has conniption fits.
I was never so offensive before the Games, Koushi can't help thinking.
People change.
Things change them.
"We are all we've got. You can't win with Kiyoko and I can't win with Michimiya and I won't let some snarky asshole lower my chances! The fact that I'm gay doesn't mean that..."
Koushi stared at him at a loss for words.
He openly admitted that he is gay?
Wait
"Wait."
He raises his voice to capture Sawamura's attention.
"You like...boys?" he hears himself whisper conspiratorially.
He receives an annoyed look and a nod of confirmation that for some reason makes him let out the breath he has been holding.
I'm not the only one.
He never talks about this. Never told anyone about this.
Because boys can't love other boys in district eleven.
That's what they told him at least, when he asked a long time ago.
He heard about stories from the progressive parts of the Capitol, such as district one. How men could love men and live together without being judged. They even take children from orphanages under their roof and raise them as their own.
He has never shown any interest in girls. He assumed it would go away when he got older and that it's something that can't be found.
However, as the years passed, he understood that there are boys who love boys in his district, same thing applying to girls.
They just don't live much longer after the get caught.
It was never public, for all eyes to see. It happened at night, when heads hit the pillow and windows were sealed shut.
"Their abnormal behaviour is a sign that they are in need of time in a correctional facility", officers used to say when those people were filed as missing by their families.
But they never came back, no matter how much relatives pressed on the issue.
Some of them, though, would act as if their child were gone, not mentioning anything to the police after their sentence had ended.
And they looked relieved.
Koushi didn't want to disappear.
He must be staying silent for a long time, snapping from his trance after Sawamura addresses him a couple of times.
"Are you okay?"
Most of the anger has dissipated from his face only to be replaced by worry.
Koushi laughs.
It's not loud, nor does it last long, but it escapes his lips anyway, ringing around the apartment.
"Yeah... I uh... I'm gay too."
He lets it out and looks his partner in the eye.
Only to find out that he's blushing furiously.
"Oh"
Sawamura averted his gaze with a fond smile.
"Okay."