Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A few weeks before the Spring tournament of the college American football league, Kongo Unsui walks into the team clubhouse and finds the devil waiting for him.

There’s no good reason for the man to be here, so Unsui spares a brief, irritated glance at his pointy, polished shoes, propped up on the coffee table, and then walks past him and starts to strip off his muddy, sweaty jersey.

“Hiruma,” he says, in belated acknowledgement, and hears the faint, ringing clink of gunmetal as Hiruma shifts his weight, waiting expectantly but not answering.  “Here to spy?”

Hiruma Youichi is not actually the devil, despite all his attempts to pretend to the contrary.  He's a narrow whiplash of a man, a caricature of himself, a blackmailing, foul-mouthed, cackling devil with an endless supply of guns.  But he doesn’t have the means to know things without seeking them out.  If he wants information on the Enma Fires’ strategy before the tournament, he has to come and find it himself.

Normally, Unsui would assume that no one would be bold enough to come to an opponent’s school, spy on them, and then wait in the clubhouse with their feet propped up.  But he’s played against Hiruma Youichi for years, first in high school and now in the college league, and he’s well aware that the man has no conscience, no fear, no limits, no depth of shame he’ll flinch from.  He likes to sell himself as a demon, playing up his image with shock and awe and over the top shows of force, but the reality is even more terrifying, as far as Unsui is concerned.  A man with no special strength or speed or skill, so set on surpassing his natural limitations he’s willing to degrade himself to any depths and force himself to any heights.  

Anything to win.  Whatever he has to sacrifice, to get what he wants.  And always, relentlessly, Hiruma lies.

“Just coming around for a visit,” he lies, now, and pulls a stick of gum out of his pocket.  His teeth, when he pops the stick in his mouth and grins, are as pointed as ever, white and even and sharp.  “Where’s the rest of your fucking clowns?”

Half of the ‘clowns’ he’s referring to played football on the Deimon Devilbats under Hiruma, when they were in high school—despite Hiruma’s vicious, confrontational tactics and abrasive personality, they speak of him with startling fondness.  But from what Unsui has heard, if Hiruma was actually here to catch up with old friends he could easily hijack a security camera and go hunt down his former teammates himself.  Which means that isn’t actually what Hiruma is here for.

“Practice was in the morning today,” Unsui says briefly, and starts to carefully unbuckle his pads, shoulders aching.  

“And second practice just for you was at…” Hiruma ostentatiously checks a watch.  “Eight at night?”

He hadn’t realized it was getting that late, actually.  Unsui keeps his face as calm as a carved statue, blank and cool, and doesn’t address that.  “I suppose if you’re here, Saikyoudai must have no further preparation to do before the tournament.  Congratulations.”

Hiruma gives his barking, coughing laugh and pops his gum.  “Three years out of that fuckin’ Buddhist sausage party and you’re still up your own ass, you fucking monk.”

Shinryuuji high is a prestigious, well-respected and championship-winning school with an impeccable sports program.  The fact that it is also a Buddhist all-boys school has already been the topic of several years of jokes from Unsui’s college peers.  Not Hiruma’s most effective jab, in the grand scheme of things.  

“You aren’t ready, then?” says Unsui, and arches his back until something pops, bending and twisting carefully.  “It’s not like you to come here for no reason when there’s still work to do.”

“It’s not no reason,” says Hiruma nonchalantly, and props one of his ever-present guns over his shoulder.  “We’ll come up against each other in the third round of the tournament, this year.  Seems like a courtesy visit’s in order!  If Enma’s got what it takes to make it there.”

“Your concern should be making sure your own team makes it to the finals,” Unsui says, on distant autopilot, and considers the rest of his uniform.  He can’t finish with his pads without taking his pants off, and although that would certainly show off how unperturbed he is by this strange, late-night visit, the thought of taking off his pants while Hiruma sits there watching with his feet up seems completely ludicrous.  Unsui turns instead, leans back against the wall and folds his arms, giving Hiruma the full force of his blankest stare.

“Oh, we’ll make it,” says Hiruma.

“We’ll see.”

“You talk a lot of smack for somebody who got sacked five times last time we played,” Hiruma says, and stands up abruptly, setting his rifle down.  They’re only a few steps from each other; he closes the distance to arm’s reach, still smiling that vicious, sharp-toothed smile.  “Hope your line can cover you better this year!  He’s already planning how he’ll crush you.”

He doesn’t say who he means.  He doesn’t have to.

“And how is my brother,” Unsui says, and he’s well aware that there’s a muscle working tensely in his jaw, and that Hiruma will take note of it.  Agon is his twin, after all.  If Hiruma has grown used to reading one face, he’ll know how to read the other.  “Still refusing to run the plays you set him?”

“Still a real piece of work!” Hiruma agrees, easily.  “He gets the job done, though!”  He takes another step closer—too close, like some street punk getting into Unsui’s face and trying to intimidate him.  Not sneering or flicking a cigarette butt away; grinning like a wolf, breathing out the sweet, incongruous smell of bubblegum.  

Unsui doesn’t twitch, doesn’t step back.  His back is against a wall, but he’s not pinned against it unless he yields, and he’s not going to yield.

“How are you gonna stop him, huh?” says Hiruma, low and searching, and his strange, narrow, cat’s-eye pupils flick over Unsui’s face, measuring something.  Calculating.  “Or are you going to let him flatten you some more?  Feeling bad about your win last year, mister This Is All For Agon’s Sake?”

It’s a much more calculated dig than the offhanded insult to his school, and this time it hits home;  a flare of rage and shame like blood from a wound.  Unsui breathes through it, tempering his reaction, smoothing out the emotions with the long practice of meditation and discipline, and then says, coldly, “We’ll see.”

“I guess we will.”

The Agon that Unsui grew up with, the one he tried and failed to manage all through their high school careers, never came to practice and never bothered to be on time to games.  He would run Unsui’s plays only when it suited him, bring his hookups to the school dorms, and browbeat or threaten any teammate regardless of their seniority.  And he would never, in a thousand years, have allowed Hiruma Youichi to dictate even a single step of his play.

It provokes a lot of…useless, aimless thoughts and feelings, thinking about that; how Agon only seems to take the game seriously now that Unsui doesn’t get to play with him anymore, how he never wanted Unsui’s help or support but took his decision to go to a separate college with furious bad grace.  How he’s better at Saikyoudai.  He goes to practice, he gets to games on time; he’s come a long way from the vicious punk kid, who casually took everything Unsui wanted in life without even trying.  

And Unsui is—he thinks, he has to hope—far from the exhausted, hopeless child who bowed and broke under the weight of his own inferiority.  The boy who saw his brother succeed at everything he tried, blessed with speed and strength and skill with no effort on his part, and quietly, painfully, bowed to inevitability.  Having that version of himself thrown in his face, here, like this, is just as infuriating as Hiruma doubtless hoped it would be.

…At least now that they’re in separate universities, Agon’s new teammates are the ones who have to handle him day by day.  Unsui spent years taking his brother’s penance for him, making his apologies, adjusting to his plays, and cleaning up their damn dorm rooms.  As painful and humiliating as it is, finding his feet and trying to struggle against his own inferiority again, at least he’s not fielding the constant traffic of women his brother has charmed into bed and then dropped without a word.

This is exhausting, and stupid, and pointless.  Unsui finds, with an almost surprising suddenness, that he’s done with this conversation.

“I have things to get done tonight,” he says, and straightens his spine, leaning into the inch or two of height advantage that he's gained since high school.  “Whatever you’re here to do, Hiruma, it isn’t going to work.  The Enma Fires will beat you, and there’s no mind-game you can play that will shake me.”

“...Oh yeah?” says Hiruma, again, and fists a hand very deliberately in Unsui’s collar.

There’s something about the tension in the air—adrenaline like the height of a game, like waiting for the snap before a trick play, a cold, waiting pressure.  The blood pulsing hard and steady through Unsui’s palms, his throat, behind his eyes.  Hiruma’s smile is as unreadable as ever, a mask carefully cultivated over years of obfuscation; he’s planning something.  This change in tactics—it must precede some trick.

Whatever it is, if he intends to intimidate Unsui with physical force, he’s a hundred years too late.  

“If you—” Unsui starts, and then has to stop, because the hand on his collar tugs him forward and dry, cool lips press against his.

Time abruptly slows.  There’s time enough, suddenly, to notice that the points of Hiruma’s fangs aren’t as obtrusive as Unsui would’ve guessed they’d be, just scraping brief and light.  That his lips taste like his gum, startlingly sweet.  There’s a nip, sharp fangs catching at his lip, and then it’s gone and Unsui’s blinking and catching his breath, off-balance like an invisible earthquake just hit him, standing still as stone but reeling on the inside.

“...Looking pretty fucking shaky there,” says Hiruma, still close enough to—to taste, to feel his breath on Unsui’s lips.  “Kongo.”

The concept of men kissing other men isn’t new, either to Unsui or in general—  The Shinryuuji Naga’s running back, Sanzo, was very open about the way he was, the things he liked—  But Sanzo advertised it at every opportunity, flirted and preened and made sure his makeup was perfect even for games.  He flirted with boys, he dressed—  He acted like—  Hiruma has never shown any inclination—

Sanzo had romantic interest in Unsui, when they were in school together.  Unsui was aware of this, and had intently and purposefully treated Sanzo exactly the same as his other teammates, with high expectations and respect, and no romantic interest whatsoever.  When he’d been flirted with, he’d acted as though he had no idea, and continued with the conversation as though it hadn’t happened.  But he’d been aware.  It hadn’t come from nowhere.

This has come from nowhere.  Hiruma Youichi isn’t wearing lipstick, he’s wearing a leather jacket and a black shirt with what appears to be a screaming pit of burning skeletons on it.  He’s not throwing Unsui a soft look under his lashes, he’s grinning like a wolf, with a mouthful of sharp white fangs.  He isn’t taking fleeting opportunities to brush his fingertips over Unsui’s knuckles, his hand is still fisted hard in Unsui’s shirt.

This came from nowhere.  So: It isn’t real.  So: this is a trick, a disarming tactic.

So: Unsui needs to stop staring and respond.

“What,” says Unsui, and is keenly, painfully aware that whatever stoic expression his face might have locked itself into in his shock, his cheeks are damningly warm.  One part of his mind demands, do something, his plan is working, you’re losing! The other part says, your first kiss was a cackling bastard of a man, because he thought it would make you more likely to lose to him at football.  The thought is as deeply paralytic as a hard tackle directly into the diaphragm.  

“I,” he says, uselessly.  “That’s.”

“Kehe!” Hiruma pushes himself back, turns on his heel and sweeps his gun up off the couch, slinging it over his shoulder.  “I’ll see you on the field, fucking monk.  Don’t you dare wuss out of the tournament early!”

The door closes behind him, and Unsui is left standing in the clubhouse in half a sweaty uniform, absolutely off-balance and increasingly furious about it.

–

Kongo Unsui’s a fucking nuisance.  He’s the only person with any real brains on the Enma Fires, and shaking him off his game is going to be crucial for a Saikyoudai victory this summer.  The plan was to get in his face, read his intentions, get in his head.

What happened today was not the plan.

–

Hiruma shows absolutely no sign that he remembers doing what he did, over the next few weeks, and Unsui has plays to run and passes to practice.  

He’s growing stronger, and Hiruma can’t stop him.  Raimon—Monta, the nickname is so ubiquitous it seems ridiculous to call him anything else—insists on as much extra practice receiving as Unsui will give him, and the rest of the team voluntarily stays to run interference, making Unsui scramble to avoid being sacked or pass through heavy cover.  

It’s difficult, but he relishes the difficulty, pressing himself to be better in ways he never had to focus on when he played with Shinryuuji.  He’s proud to say without artifice that his training and his gameplay don’t suffer at all from whatever mindgame Hiruma thinks he’s playing.  

His personal meditation, however, suffers immensely.

He was already struggling.  Meditation has been a stabilizing source of tranquility ever since he picked up the habit in high school—a time to steady himself, and smooth over whatever ripples disturbed his composure.

There are more than just ripples, now.  Tossing waves, swirling whirlpools, sudden motion under the surface like something vast and alive is moving without his permission.  Things push intrusively to mind that he came to peace with years ago—memories of high school, of middle school, of elementary school.  Memories he didn’t know he was still carrying, conversations he brushed past at the time.  Hurt, over wounds that should have been long-healed.  

He breathes, and—five years old, their mother laughing when Agon shoved in front of him and demanded to be hugged instead—his hands twitch despite himself.  He stills them, and—thirteen, their father telling him sternly not to get his hopes up, Agon was eligible for that scholarship as well—a shock of tension twitches his shoulders forward.  He straightens them, and—seventeen, winning a football game Agon hardly bothered to play in, and hearing nothing except imagine if he’d been there before the fourth quarter, Agon made such a difference in so little time, as expected of the genius, Kongo Agon—

It’s deeply pointless to retread that ground now, years after the fact.  Unsui straightens his back, and breathes steady and slow, and forces quiet over the churning waves until they’re still again.  

What happened is done.  What he felt about it, irrelevant.  Unsui doesn’t speak to his brother anymore, and Agon has made no effort to speak to him; he went to a separate college, he moved into a dorm.  He hasn’t even had to speak to his parents—

No.  He hasn’t had a chance to speak to his parents, of course he would if he could.  There’s no reason to avoid them.

…Not that they’ve made much attempt to reach out.  As they doubtless have, to Agon.

This, this self-consuming chaotic nonsense, is the exact problem.  Unsui breathes, lips moving silently through the muscle memory of namu-myoho-renge-kyo, and stills that uneasy ripple back down to an icy calm.  

Hiruma’s scare tactics, if that’s what they are, aren’t a problem; there’s nothing special about what happened.  The occasional flashes of Hiruma’s red-knuckled, long-fingered hand knotted harshly into his collar, or the taste of bubblegum and nip of sharp teeth, are just as easily pressed down as any other troubling thought.  They’re inconsequential, and so they can be discarded.

Just like everything else about you, huh, says a thought that sounds very much like Agon, and a muscle works for a second in Unsui’s jaw, tension ratchets up in his spine and his shoulders.

Breathe.

The kiss, if it can be called that, is irrelevant.  The past, Agon’s behavior, is irrelevant.  The unfairness of it all, irrelevant.  All this turmoil and petulant whining about the state of things, pointless.  As long as they can win, as long as Unsui can carry them to victory, it doesn’t matter what’s bubbling at the pit of his throat, or churning in his stomach, or sweet and lingering on his lips.

–

The spring tournament game against Saikyoudai goes into overtime.  Unsui and Sena manage to slip the ball past Agon with their new play Enma’s Gate and start their fourth and final down too far to kick—just close enough for a hail mary.  Just close enough for one miraculous run.

Unsui has a choice; to hand the ball off to Sena again, to pass to Monta.  Wherever he chooses, there are monsters waiting—whoever he gives it to, the game rests on their shoulders.  He can’t carry it himself, and he knows that.  But some part of him whispers they know you know that, they’d never expect—if it was Hiruma—

He hesitates a moment too long.  As he’s drawing back his arm for a pass, Agon jukes past Kurita’s powerful, slow-moving bulk at the center of the line and sacks Unsui so hard something in his side pops.  His feet leave the ground, his head bounces off the turf; everything goes white for a second, ringing and flashing, and for a moment he can’t breathe at all.

Then he’s awake again, gasping and winded on the ground.  His team is—  The ball—

Agon is climbing back to his feet, smirking down at his brother; Unsui’s hands are empty, and Ikkyu is getting up from a diving catch, tossing the ball away, high-fiving his teammates, and Unsui lost it.  The ball.  The play, the game.  

"Too slow, Unko-chan,” Agon says, and walks away.  

Someone is asking if Unsui is hurt.  Someone is yelling for a time-out.  Someone is shrieking a laugh to the sky, and it’s Hiruma, because there’s seconds left in overtime and Saikyoudai has possession.  Unsui has already lost.

He gets to his feet, and waves off the referee’s concern and his teammates’ worry as his ribs give a stabbing ache.  He doesn’t scream in pain and frustration, or throw his helmet, or let his cold, steady expression waver.  He gives his all, and plays the game to its end.

They lose.

–

Unsui has two cracked ribs, it turns out.  Painful, but manageable.  It’s not an injury to his arms or his legs, it didn’t puncture his lung, so it can be compartmentalized.  Agon probably didn’t even notice he broke a bone.  

The pain of losing is harder to tolerate.

Hiruma finds him after the game, while the rest of the Wizards are out on the field celebrating and the rest of the Fires have trooped silently out of the locker room to wait for the bus back to Enma.  Showering is a slow, painful exercise with a cracked rib, and Unsui isn’t motivated to hurry back out to see his team’s dull, tired expressions; he’s just managed to get his pants on, and he’s taking a breather before the daunting prospect of putting on a shirt, when he hears footsteps.

Hiruma is still in his uniform, hair stuck to his temples and forehead with sweat.  Lit up, the glow of victory Unsui’s used to seeing in the mirror, the fierce, panting adrenaline rush.  Hiruma grins at him, eyes sharp and bright like a knife, and Unsui turns away.

“Not bad,” Hiruma says, without preamble.  “I put your odds at 35%, but you and your fucking shrimps still managed to push it to overtime.”

Unsui throws him a flat, icy look and digs pointedly into his locker, ignoring the gloating.  There’s a deep, purpling bruise spreading across his side where Agon hit him.  Allowing Hiruma to see that, at the moment, feels like its own tiny loss.

“Silent treatment?” Hiruma says, apparently amused.  “Like you’re not angry, you fucking monk.”

“Anger is a weakness,” says Unsui dully.  His voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away, even to his own ears.  “...Unless Agon indulges in it, of course.”

Hiruma goes tch, which is not exactly the reaction Unsui expected.  He glances over, frowning, and he’s too tired to control it when he startles—Hiruma is much closer than he was a second ago, catlike eyes narrowed on Unsui’s face.

“...Fucking coward,” says Hiruma, not smiling even a little, fierce and triumphant and terrible.  And Unsui’s eyes catch on the line of his snarl and hang there for just a second too long before he manages to pull them away.

He doesn’t lean down, doesn’t—do, anything.  He reaches out instead, perfectly controlled, grips the front of Hiruma’s jersey, and pushes.  Hiruma’s stronger than he was in high school, but with his body type he’ll never come close to matching Unsui’s strength.  He doesn’t attempt to stop Unsui from moving him—he knows he’d lose that fight, and despite appearances, Hiruma Youichi picks his fights carefully.

His pads rattle the lockers when Unsui shoves him back against them, slow and controlled, careful with every movement.  Hiruma watches his face, eyes still narrowed, unafraid and considering.  Calculating.  

It would be easy, so easy, to let go of his jersey and grip his throat instead.  Unsui can imagine how it would feel under his palm, warm and strong and narrow.  He can imagine squeezing until his fingers left bruises.  He can imagine kissing that thoughtful, jagged smile.

There’s something wrong.  And it’s Hiruma’s fault.

“What did you come here for,” Unsui says.

“I’m a good sport,” says Hiruma, in tones of absolute dismay that Unsui would even need to ask.  “Of course I need to pay my respects to the loser.”

The word loser twinges down Unsui’s spine like an electric shock.  His grip tightens unintentionally, and the lockers rattle as Hiruma’s back presses harder against them.  Hiruma has his threats and his tricks and his connections, but Unsui could still—  Like this, even in pads, Hiruma is an inch shorter and much leaner.  It wouldn’t be hard to make him stop talking.  To hurt him.

Unsui goes still as he registers that thought.  That’s not what he is, who he is—Agon’s the one with the temper.  Agon hurts people.  

The thoughts are a pointless circle, like a trapped animal running in its cage.  He’s not Agon.  He doesn’t want to be Agon.  Even if he wanted to, even if he worked for it until he bled, he couldn’t be.  So wanting to be would be pointless, and he doesn’t want to be, because Agon hurts people.

It aches to breathe, but he does it anyway, slow and deep.  Realizes, after a long second, that he can feel the slow rise and fall of Hiruma’s narrow chest under his hand, matching him breath for breath.  Sharp bones, hard-won muscle lean and tense as cables.  There’s no bubblegum sweetness on Hiruma’s breath this time, but it’s harder than it should be for Unsui to wrench his eyes away from the glint of fangs and strange, crooked smile.

Hiruma says, “What.  Don’t like that?” and the tone of pretend-kindness is gone again.  He says, “...If you want to say something, say it.”  Hissing it out like an attack.  

Everything about this man is dangerous.  His teeth, his eyes, his voice; a weapon, a sharpened edge.  The words bury themselves between Unsui’s aching ribs like a knife.

“Why did you do it.”

He can see Hiruma consider pretending not to know what he’s talking about.  A split second of eye contact, holding each other’s stares, trying to read each other’s minds, like they’re still on the field.

Hiruma says, “Because I thought it would be fun.”

A throbbing headache is stabbing up Unsui’s temples.  He’s grinding his teeth again.  It’s become an increasingly bad habit.

“Fine,” he says—snarls, in Agon’s furious, gritted growl—and lets go, pushing himself back in a rush, stepping away.  The water of his thoughts won’t be still, the waves won’t calm, so he freezes them forcibly over, a familiar hard ache of swallowing something that fights the whole way down.  He wants, stupidly, to punch something.  He doesn’t, because he’s not his brother.  

“Fine,” he says again, smoother and steadier this time, and turns away, refusing to wince at the throb of his ribs.  Opens his locker and pulls out a clean shirt.  “That’s fine.  I didn’t expect you to tell me what you were planning so easily.”

When he turns back around Hiruma is considering him, eyes narrow and head tilted minutely on one side.

“Maybe I’m not lying,” he says.

“Maybe you should stop wasting my time.”

Hiruma cocks a brow at that, and Unsui forces his breath back under control, letting the air out slow and hard through his nose.  Agon’s the one with the temper.  Agon’s the one who loses control.  Agon’s the face he’s familiar with, twisted up in rage, and Unsui can feel it on his face like a mask, now, the way his jaw is set and the twist at the corner of his lip.

There’s a sink behind Hiruma, on the opposite wall.  There’s a mirror.  If Unsui looks past Hiruma’s shoulder, he knows he’ll see Agon’s face glaring back at him.  

“So fucking stubborn,” says Hiruma, breaking the tense, silent moment, and steps past him like it’s nothing, strolling toward the door.  He pauses, a step away, and glances back over his shoulder at Unsui, considering him one more time.

“Why did you do it,” Unsui says again, despite himself.

Hiruma snorts.  “Like you’ll believe me,” he says, and turns away.  “You’re asking the wrong questions!  The question you should be asking is why you want me to do it again.”

Unsui is stone.  He’s ice.  He’s rooted in place.  He watches Hiruma stride out of the door, kicking it shut behind him.  He stands and stares at the door with his shirt in white-knuckled hands, long after the sound of footsteps fades away.

When Monta comes to tell him the bus has arrived, he hasn’t moved.

Chapter Text

Hiruma Youichi is a monster.

He’s also a man.

Unsui meditates, the night after the game, and weighs both things carefully.

There are a lot of monsters in the world, and a lot of men.  Many of them contained in the same person.  Unsui has played football with or against many of them.  But he hasn’t been kissed by any of them.

It was a team joke, by the time he graduated from Shinryuuji; Unsui was never all that distracted by pretty girls.  Agon’s rampant womanizing, combined with Unsui’s extensive work on his self control, combined in turn with the absolute knowledge that everyone who had ever approached him with interest had either intended to get to his brother, or had been immediately snatched up by him with the same end result—  There was never any point to entertaining any brief attraction he might have felt.  After being woken for the fourth or fifth time in a year by women loudly storming out in a state of undress yelling about how his brother deserved to have his balls ripped off—or seeing them sheepishly, heartbrokenly let themselves out after Agon bluntly told them he was tired of them—whatever thrill might have been there rapidly abated.

Hasty conclusions are the enemy, here.  Unsui has also spent years in the company of other men, half-dressed or hardly-dressed, on the field, in the dorms, in showers, under waterfalls.  That never provoked any inappropriate responses either.

The split second, though, where his eyes had betrayed him—when his gaze had caught on the line of Hiruma’s lips and the flash of his white, sharp teeth—  The thought of Hiruma’s throat under his hand, or how his chest shifted as he breathed—

Troubling.  A shifting paradigm.

There are many beautiful women in the world.  There are many handsome men as well.  Neither thought stirs much response of any kind, in the abstract.

Adding the specific—a person who wants him, not his brother, who wants to know him more deeply, who wants him…

Unsui thinks about gripping the knife edge of Hiruma’s jaw and feeling sharp teeth nip hard at his lip.  He thinks about allowing himself to bite back.

Then he breathes and squeezes his eyes shut, and does what he does best.  Packs that thought neatly away.  Puts away Agon’s sneer, and the pulse in Hiruma’s pale throat, and the despair when Unsui realized it was impossible to win.  The loss, on top of a painful lifetime of other losses.  How much loss hurts, when you hoped you could win.

His mother called him the morning after the game, a long enough wait that Unsui is fully aware he was most likely the afterthought.  She would have called Agon first, of course, to congratulate him.  Unsui has to wonder if Agon bothered to pick up her call.

“You did a very good job, sweetheart,” she’d said, and he could almost have spoken the words along with her when she went on, “I know Agon played a little rough, but make sure you don’t think too harshly of your little brother.  He’s just such a competitive spirit!  Really, you have to be excited for him!  Even if you couldn’t both make it through, I’m sure he—”

“I have to go, mother,” Unsui had said, in a stranger’s voice, and ended the call almost before his mother was done saying goodbye.

There’s something like nausea in his spine, in his skull, behind his teeth.  No matter how many times he tries to quiet it, it rises again.  

His parents know Agon “sees” women sometimes.  He got a scolding, of sorts, when they were sixteen.  Unsui had been included in it, not that he’d needed the talking-to; there had been a by-then-familiar tone to the whole thing.  Stern scolding as a thin veneer over teasing fondness from their mother and wry pride from their father.  The trappings of disapproval, with a winking indulgence running under it.  Unsui stood silently to the side, present only to complete the set, to make it fair to his brother—and waited for it to be over.

He doesn’t actually know how his parents would react, if they saw how Agon treats the women he wins over.  He doesn’t know if it would be better or worse than if their other son was seen being kissed by a man.  He doesn’t even know if that would be a problem or not.  The topic hasn’t been discussed.

The nausea is stronger, prickling through his skin.  Clenching his jaw, aching through his skull.  He wants to hit something.  Hiruma.  A window.  Something that would break, like Agon never has and never will.

It takes him a long time to settle his emotions again.  By the time the thoughts are packed neatly away where they belong, everything in him feels bruised and unsteady.  Every deep, measured breath makes his ribs throb and ache.

His body feels heavy, stiff and wrong, when he comes back to it.  Tonight’s meditation is on the dorm balcony; it’s warm and windy for the late hour of the night, but despite the warmth his body has still settled into a stiff, throbbing ache.  He unfolds his legs, refusing to allow himself to wince, and begins to methodically stretch the pain into something fluid and bearable. 

Someone knocks tentatively on the door behind him.

“Ah, hey,” says his running back, and edges out onto the balcony, closing the door behind him.  Sena's feet are bandaged, and so are a few of his knuckles; the bruises Agon left on his forearms during the game have had a day to set in, and they’re dark, stark and ugly.  “Can’t sleep?”

Answering that question feels too much like defeat.  “I was meditating,” says Unsui instead, and tries to twist in place; a sharp, warning stab of pain from his ribs catches him off-guard, and he swallows a noise of pain but knows he wasn’t quick enough to hide his wince.

Sena is kind enough not to comment.  He nods, instead, and comes over to lean on the railing, looking out over the campus. 

“It’s frustrating,” he says.

Unsui doesn’t respond.  

“We still have the winter season,” Sena says. 

“Yes,” says Unsui, and swallows the urge to snap at him.  It doesn’t matter how many more chances there are.  This chance was given to him.  Wasted on him.  

But Sena is a genius, a hardworking genius, growing endlessly more talented just like Agon, and he just says, “We’ll be stronger, next time.”

Unsui nods.  That relentless, driving force…Hiruma taught his players a lot of things, but their reckless pursuit of what they want, in defiance of all odds and challenges, is perhaps the most frightening thing of all.

“Would Hiruma blackmail an opponent to win a game?”

Sena looks startled at the question—Unsui is startled too, to hear the words come out of his own mouth.  He hadn’t realized that was something he was thinking about, until he heard the words.  Hiruma saw…something, in him, and knew he’d be susceptible to whatever mind game they’re engaged in.  It seems reasonable to be concerned that he would reveal whatever he saw, if he thought it would benefit him.

Sena stares at him, worried and then thoughtful.  Then, slowly, he shakes his head.  

“No,” he says, with unshakeable certainty.  “That’s not how he wants to win.  He wants to beat us on the field.”

Unsui nods.  In reality, he has to take into account the possibility that Sena doesn’t know his former quarterback as well as he thinks he does—but if anyone in the world knows Hiruma, it’s his Deimon teammates. That’s…a weight lifted.

“Has Hiruma been, uh.  Talking to you?” Sena says uncertainly.  “He wasn’t with Saikyoudai outside, after our game.  Nobody saw where he went.”

The feeling of Hiruma’s jersey in his fist rises inexorably to the back of Unsui’s mind.  The vicious glow of his smile, and the paralyzing force of his snarl.  The rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of his skin where Unsui’s knuckles brushed his collarbone.  More details seem to return every time he runs over the memory.  It’s…inconvenient.

“We talked,” Unsui says.  “Briefly.”  He considers for a few long moments, and then says, carefully, “I think he’s trying to intimidate me.  To…his own ends.  Whatever those are.”

“Oh—yeah, that…that sounds like Hiruma,” says Sena, and scratches the nape of his neck, grimacing.  “Kurita probably could help you out?  If you’re not sure what he’s trying to do.  I mean, he’s a genius, but sometimes those two can figure out what he’s doing anyway.”

This is a very good point, and one Unsui is almost embarrassed not to have considered earlier.  As opaquely cunning as Hiruma is, Kurita Ryokan and his former kicker, Takekura Gen, have been friends with him since middle school.  Kurita tends to see the world through rose-colored glasses, wandering cheerfully through his life and largely treating the Demon of Saikyoudai like Hiruma is a mischievous stray cat who can only be expected to sometimes bite.  Unsui will have to take his insight with caution.  But as the Center of the Enma Fires, he’s very easily available.  He would most likely be more than willing to answer Unsui’s questions. 

Takekura Gen has his construction company and his own semi-pro team in the league, and would therefore require Unsui to go out of his way for a meeting.  But he seems to have a much sharper eye, a stoic, silent, watchful demeanor and a steady, direct personality that would likely lead to much more valuable insight.  Still, he’s…a dangerous prospect.  More likely, in being questioned, to demand his own answers and interrogate why Unsui is asking.  

The prospect of talking to Kurita is considerably more palatable.  Unsui nods to himself, considering that, and puts it away in its own box.

“Whatever he was doing, he’ll probably stop now anyway, right?” Sena is saying.  “We’re out of the tournament until fall—he’ll probably leave you alone until then.  If it’s about football.”

“Yes,” says Unsui, distantly, looking out over the dark campus.  “Yes.  It’s about football.”

“Yeah,” says Sena again. “It’s gotta be.  Eh, so, well…  Good luck!” 

–

Unsui gets a text from an unknown number.  The attached link leads to a digital ticket for a whole row of sideline seats at the Saikyoudai Wizards’ championship game in three days.  Then a picture of a corner of the stadium, an equipment room.  The text below it just says MEET ME WHEN WE WIN, YOU FUCKING COWARD.

–

The next day, Unsui stops after practice to talk to the center of his line.

The story he tells Kurita is abbreviated, and without details.  He only mentions that Hiruma stopped by and made some unexpected gestures for unknown purposes; Kurita sighs fondly about it, like that’s just what he would expect.

“He seems to be threatening me,” says Unsui.

“Oh, yes, definitely,” says Kurita, scratching at his spherical stomach with a soft, doughy-looking arm that could easily lift Unsui’s entire body.  “It’s just the way he does things!  Because he just likes football so much.”

“Yes,” says Unsui.  “I’ve noticed.”

“That means he thinks you’re a good challenge!” Kurita says.  “Hiruma does all kinds of crazy things to help him win.”

“He knows we’re not a physical match,” Unsui says, feeling his way through the sentence with care, “I don’t know why he seems to be attempting to goad me into a…physical altercation.”

“Oh, no, he’s not,” Kurita says cheerfully.  “Don’t worry about that!”

“He grabbed me by the shirt,” says Unsui.  “Apparently to intimidate me.”

“Oh!” says Kurita again, and this time his eyebrows go up.  “Huh!  That is pretty strange, actually—Hiruma doesn’t like touching people much!”

“Hm,” says Unsui.

“Sometimes he shoots at you, but he misses, so that’s just how you know you’re friends.  Or he kicks you, if you made a good play!  Ah, but not usually if you’re not on his team…”

Unsui pinches the bridge of his nose.  “He hasn’t shot at me,” he says, more sharply than he means to.  “Or tried to kick me.  But he keeps…making contact.”

Kurita considers that.  “Well,” he says, “Maybe he wants to be friends!  I think he likes playing football against you.  He always looks like he’s having fun.”

–

Takekura says, “He’s not trying to start a fight.”

The Babels’ clubhouse is a masterpiece, of course.  It belongs to a construction company, after all.  Takekura Gen sits in it like a king in a castle, arms folded, feet planted.  Years of construction work has given him the sturdy, resilient build Unsui associates more with a lineman than a kicker; pure genetic lottery has granted him all the expressive readability of an especially stoic and rugged cliff-face.

Unsui can respect it.  It’s an impressive glower.

“He wouldn’t risk being suspended,” Takekura says, “And he wouldn’t get an opponent suspended to win, either.  Believe it or not, Hiruma plays football because he likes playing football.”

“I see,” says Unsui.  That does match up with what Kurita and Sena said, although it doesn’t give much more information about what exactly Hiruma’s aim is.

Takekura considers him impassively for a few more seconds.  Unsui considers him just as impassively in return.  

“Hiruma lies,” says Takekura eventually.  “All the time.  But he’s always—always honest in going after what he wants.  There must be something he wants that he thinks he can get from you.”

Unsui doesn’t blink.  Doesn’t allow himself to shift or glance aside or—anything.  Takekura taps one finger against his bicep.

“It is strange, though,” he says, thoughtfully.  “What you’re describing.  He doesn’t like to touch people.”

The fact that both of Hiruma’s closest friends have zeroed that out as the most unusual point is—Unsui doesn’t know what it is.  He doesn’t have the mental space or the wherewithal to process that, at the moment.   “I’ll consider this,” he says, instead of providing the further information that Takekura’s very clearly waiting for.  “Thank you for your time, Takekura.”

“It’s Musashi,” says Takekura. 

His grip is vice-like when they shake hands, a hard, warm machine of callus and dirty fingernails.  He grips like it’s a test, and he holds Unsui’s eyes like he knows—something.

Unsui leaves quickly and quietly, and doesn’t relax until he’s back in his dorm room.

—

He types a message to Sanzo, his high school running back.  He gets through the words, I know this is a sudden question, but how did you realize that you 

He deletes the message.

–

Watching the championship hurts.

Hiruma isn’t a Devilbat anymore, but he burns like one; screaming, jeering, scrambling, passing as hard and straight as his bullets.  Throwing himself into the game.  Yamato and Agon his unstoppable right and left hands, Taka and Ikkyu his arsenal, the line guarding him an insurmountable wall of power and technique.  Their manager Anezaki on the sidelines, watching the play with piercing eyes and flashing impenetrable hand signs at Hiruma, her insight giving his relentless attacks calculated direction.  The Wizards are in fine, flawless form.  

Oujo University makes them sweat and bleed for it, but Saikyoudai takes the win, two points up at the final buzzer, and the rest of Unsui’s team cheers and groans and shouts, on their feet, waving and yelling.

Unsui finds himself sitting silent in the stands, again, watching Agon shove at Yamato to pry the trophy out of his hands, shaking his sweaty dreadlocks out of his face, ferociously delighted in his victory.  Watching Hiruma laugh himself hoarse and deal out gleeful kicks to his teammates.  Waiting.

Hiruma doesn’t look up at him.

–

The equipment room Hiruma sent a picture of has a lock on the door, but when Unsui tries the handle it isn’t locked.  Hiruma is sitting inside on a cart, freshly-showered and spotless, as though he didn’t just give more than everything he had on the field.  In a plain black T-shirt and black jeans, Unsui might as well have run into him on the street.  He might as well have met him in the clubhouse, shoes propped up on the table, gun under one arm, waiting.

Unsui closes the door behind him, and very deliberately twists the lock.

“Not so cowardly after all,” Hiruma says, in that tone of voice, that damn tone, like he just watched a child make a moderately impressive move at shogi.  Amused and condescending, just a spark of surprise. 

There’s a bruise on his arm.  One of the first runs he attempted, Oujo’s star linebacker Shin Seijuro crushed him with merciless efficiency.  Hiruma wrapped himself around the ball, took the blow, and held possession with a gain of four yards.

When Agon sacked him, Unsui lost the team six yards, and the ball, and the game.  His ribs ache.   So does his clenched jaw, his pounding skull.

“Why did you call me here,” he says, flat and unamused.

“To see if you’d come.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Of course it fucking is,” Hiruma says, and grins, a flash of pointed teeth in the dim light.  “Just not the one you wanted.”

There is no single man in the world more infuriating than Hiruma Youichi when he’s inclined to be unhelpful.  Unsui bites his tongue for a moment, breathing, and then says, “...You don’t know what I want.  You like to act like you do—”

“Keep telling yourself that—”

“—Because you like people to be off balance.  But you aren’t a mind-reader.”  

“You’d like to think that, huh?” says Hiruma, unfazed.  

Something is wrong, has been wrong.  And it must be Hiruma fucking Youichi’s fault.

“Are you trying to get me to fight you?” Unsui says.  “Why.”

“Do you want to fight me?” Hiruma says, parroting the question back at him.

Unsui’s fists, he finds, are clenched hard enough to shake.  He loosens them, and feels Hiruma take the motion in with calculating eyes.  

“Why—” he starts, and stops again, stretching his fingers, closing them into fists again, squeezing until his joints ache.  When he finishes, “...Why this.  Why me.” His voice is very nearly steady.

“I told you,” says Hiruma.  “I thought it would be fun.”

Unsui’s head throbs.  “Well, it isn’t,” he says, very curtly.  “Tell why you’re doing this.”

Hiruma considers him for a long second.  “...It was an accident,” he says, half-mocking, half-thoughtful, watching.  

Something deeply-buried stings hard and white-hot, somewhere behind Unsui’s bruised ribs.  It takes him a second to understand what it is—another sharp, rising wave of memories and half-forgotten disappointments.  We didn’t mean you, we didn’t want you.  I’m sorry, Unsui-kun, you’re very sweet but your brother is just so charming!  Your brother is so strong!  Your brother is—  Your brother—

Oh, are you Unsui?  We wanted—

“Who was it meant for, then,” Unsui says, and it comes out very cold.  He wishes he could say that this would be the first time someone approached him, intending to get to his brother—or the fifth, or the tenth.  He wouldn’t have thought—that isn’t what Hiruma meant, he knows it can’t be.  But the roaring, nauseous mess of emotion is pushing at the back of his throat again, and the words come out anyway, as stupid as they are.  “Who did you think you kissed, exactly?  You know my brother, Hiruma.  If that’s your goal, you should stop now.  Before he…”

He doesn’t know what Agon would do.  Sanzo always had the good sense to show no interest in him whatsoever, and Agon didn’t seem to hate him any more than he hated the rest of the weak trash he was always complaining about.  But Unsui knows how his brother feels about Hiruma.  And he doesn’t want to picture what Agon might do if someone he hates so intently, someone he already thinks of as below him—

Hiruma is grinning at him.

“What.”

“You’re still scared of him!” Hiruma gloats, and laughs his sharp bark of a laugh.  “Kehehehe—  Scared of what he’ll think, you fucking monk?  After all your big talk about how you’re your own man now, you still give a shit if he knows who you put your hands on!”

“Of course I—” Unsui starts, and cuts himself off, biting the words in half and swallowing them back down.  “...Of course I care what my family thinks of me.  Most people would.”

Hiruma gives another jagged laugh, but not like he thinks it’s funny this time.  “I don’t!”  he says, and for once Unsui believes that there’s no lie whatsoever in the words.  “But you don’t have to piss your pants about it, don’t worry.  I’d rather stick it to a pencil sharpener than that smug fucking bastard.”

That’s…baffling.  Reassuring, in a way, but also deeply, infuriatingly baffling.

“I made a tactical choice in the field of battle, baldy,” says Hiruma.  “That wasn’t the accident.  I didn’t have the wrong guy, I just thought he’d be less of a wimp about it!”

“You’re trying to make me angry,” Unsui says distantly.  His pulse is roaring in his ears.

“Too easy,” says Hiruma, with a sharp, dismissive wave of one long-fingered hand.  “I’m trying to make you admit you’re angry.  Turns out it’s a whole lot harder to do!  You stubborn son of a bitch.”

There’s a trick here, somewhere.  There’s always a trick somewhere.  But the nauseating, fist-shaking, hot and cold feeling is rising up in the back of Unsui’s throat again, and the source of it is standing right in front of him, grinning at him with a mouth full of sharp, white teeth.

“What,” says Hiruma, mock-sympathy dripping off his voice.  “Is this because you look like him when you’re pissed off?”

Unsui punches him.

It’s a stupid, childish reaction, lashing out to provocation like that—it’s a stupid reaction, but Hiruma must be expecting it, because he turns with the blow and comes back laughing.

“There the fuck you are!” he says, triumphant, and Unsui snarls at him, bile on the back of his tongue.  It’s rage, the dizzying force that’s been rising up over and over again.  He didn’t realize until he tasted it. 

“Here I am!” Unsui agrees, louder than he means to—his voice rings back at him off the walls.  “Are you happy now, was this what you wanted?!  Of course I’m angry, you—you—”

“Motherfucker?” Hiruma suggests, sounding out the English syllables with glee.

“No,” Unsui says, “Yes!  We aren’t even your opponents anymore, you bastard!  We aren’t even in the running, I lost!  You set the play, you set me against my brother again, and I lost, is that what you wanted to hear?!  I lost!  I lost it for us, he took it—” the words choke in his throat, too raw and unintended.  The rage pushes them out anyway, bitter with poisonous resentment.  “...He took it from me, and I let him have it.  Like I let him have everything.”

Hiruma isn’t grinning anymore.  His mouth is a hard, straight line, a slash of fangs.  His eyes are narrowed again, like he’s reading something off Unsui’s face.

“So?” he says.  “What are you gonna do about it?”

Unsui throws his hands up, because it’s that or make another attempt at caving in the bastard’s smug, watchful face.  “I don’t know!” he says.  “Quit this damn game and stop giving him the satisfaction?!  Try to find something to do with my life he won’t try to take away?  What do you want me to do?  What do you want?!”

“I want you,” says Hiruma, “To stop being a fucking coward.”

“How.”

“Stop giving a shit what I want,” Hiruma says, and this time when he steps forward Unsui steps back, before he can stop himself.  Hiruma just follows him, burning eyes and flashing teeth, electric with sudden rage.  “Stop giving a shit what he wants!  Find something you want and don’t fucking hand it over to him this time.  Tell him ‘fuck you’ and hold on with both hands!  Drag yourself through the mud if you have to, forget about what people think about you, you fucking coward—want something!  I know you know how!”

Unsui kisses him.

It’s a stupid, childish reaction, a knee-jerk response to provocation.  Like trying a play for the first time in a championship game with no practice, and expecting a touchdown.  For a second Hiruma’s mouth is slack with shock, and then he recovers, like he always does, and gives a huff of a laugh.

“Better,” he says, and kisses back like it’s a fight he intends to win.

Unsui puts a hand on Hiruma’s throat, and it’s exactly how he couldn’t stop imagining it would be.  Warm skin—feverishly warm, after the game, and an all-too-human pulse against his fingertips.  Even the devil himself can’t control his heartbeat, although if anyone could figure out a trick for it, it would be Hiruma; it’s racing, pounding hard.  This close, Hiruma’s expression is even more unreadable than usual—this close, the almost flawlessly-hidden hitch of his breath is something felt instead of heard, a tiny, silent victory.

It was a long game.  Hiruma spent years playing both offense and defense for every game, and his stamina is exceptional.  But he threw everything he had into this championship, like he always does, and every so often there’s a faint, fine tremble through his whole body, muscles protesting the abuse, fighting exhaustion moment by moment.

He’d rather die than let Unsui see that, though.  Unsui makes no mention of it.  Just kisses him again, counting in his head, calculating the increase of the pulse under his palm.

“I don’t like you,” he says, when they pull apart again, and Hiruma laughs, the same laugh as ever, like the tips of his pointed ears and his nose haven’t gone almost imperceptibly pink.  From the warmth on his own face, Unsui has to suspect he’s considerably redder, which is inconvenient but an inconsequential loss at worst.  

“I don’t like you much either, fuckin’ monk, but it looks like we’re both here anyway!”

“I didn’t think you were,” Unsui starts, and finds he doesn’t know what the hell to say.  “...like this.”

“What,” says Hiruma, and jerks him down by his collar to kiss him again, like a challenge.  “Like that?  Why should the devil give a fuck, huh?”

Hiruma Youichi is a monster, a devil.  He is also a man.  He knows there are reasons.  Unsui gives him a look, unimpressed, and Hiruma snorts.

“What,” he says derisively, “Are you going to get squeamish about it, now?”

He doesn’t look hesitant, or fearful, but watchful.  He is waiting to see what Unsui is going to say.  Unsui has the sudden, distinct sensation that he’s been dumped into a test without the chance to study. 

“No,” he says.  Feels the faint shudder of fatigue climb up Hiruma’s spine again, sees the split second where he blinks and his heavy eyes don’t want to open again.  Hiruma is playing at a disadvantage.  It would be stupid to give ground, to try to level the playing field.

The Enma Fires are not the Shinryuuji Naga.  And this is not a game of football.  Unsui says—admits, “...I didn’t think I was like this.”

“Like you ever bothered to be like anything,” Hiruma says.  “You were a fucking monk and you still are a fucking monk—”

“I’m aware,” Unsui says, and knows as he says it that it’s exactly the words and tone an ignorant, embarrassed young man from an all-boys school would use.  “...Agon is my brother.  Sanzo was my teammate.  I’m well aware of the available possibilities.”

“Well, your frame of reference is shit!” Hiruma says, and cackles, apparently deeply amused.  “You thought if you didn’t go around in lipstick and do your lashes every day you couldn’t be,” he puts on a mockery of Unsui’s hesitant tone, “Like that?”

The anger, half-forgotten in the rush of trying to figure out what the hell is going on, stings again.

“Please speak about my former teammates with respect,” Unsui says, very coldly.

“I don’t do respect,” Hiruma says, rolling his eyes.  Trembles, exhausted to his bones, and then gathers himself like it never happened.  Says, “We can’t all be pretty fuckin’ queens, cueball,” like he’s not fighting to keep his legs from giving out under him.  “If that’s your flavor, you should call up your former teammate and respectfully let him jump your bones like he always wanted to.”

A jab, but not a very effective one.  It’s not clear if Hiruma thinks Unsui wasn’t aware of his teammate’s interest and is hoping it’ll shake him—Unsui is not a fool, and of course he won’t allow that, however crudely Hiruma phrases it.

It does shake him to be kissed again.  But Hiruma still hasn’t thrown off the hand on his throat, so the situation is still tolerably under control.

Kissing is a new, strange experience, but this…game, whatever this is they’re playing, is familiar.  In some ways, in fact, much simpler than American football.  On the field, there are a dozen moving pieces Unsui has to coordinate and direct, and this at least is a one-on-one challenge.  Which leaves the rest of Unsui’s mind free to chew over what exactly the hell is going on, here.

Kurita said maybe he wants to be friends.  Not quite right, it doesn’t seem.  One half of the puzzle.  Musashi said he’s honest about what he wants.  Even if he lies and schemes and manipulates to get it.

They both said, he doesn’t like to be touched.  But he’s not shaking off the hand on his throat, and when Unsui shifts his thumb back and forth minutely over the man’s pulse, he feels it pick up abruptly.  And Hiruma still doesn’t pull away.

If Hiruma wanted him, there were much easier ways to go about testing the water than abruptly kissing him on the mouth at eight PM on a school night, shortly before a tournament.  It seems like a faulty strategy.  Like there must be some larger plan behind this clumsy overture, a genius, devilish scheme behind the bluff.

…Except that Hiruma Youichi is also a man.  And he said, offhanded like a joke, it was an accident.

The concept that Hiruma might want him, Unsui specifically, is startling enough.  The thought that Hiruma might want him intently enough to slip, to make a move he didn’t intend, is…

Unsui doesn’t have the first idea how to flirt with someone, but he has spent several seasons playing football against this bastard.  So he steps back, and takes his hand away.

“Congratulations on your successful tournament,” he says, and straightens his shirt.  Sometimes he still misses his high school uniform; having a gi to wear always gave him somewhere to tuck his hands.  “I hope with this win in hand, you won’t feel the need to pursue me quite so desperately.  I’m afraid your play might suffer as a result, and as you know we intend to crush you at your full strength, next time.”

Hiruma’s eyebrows go up.

“Oh-ho,” he says, “Ballsy!  Reverse psychology only works on idiots, you know.”

“Yes,” says Unsui.  “I know.”  He steps back, and gives Hiruma a look up and down—no overt weaknesses, of course.  Hardly a crack in the armor.  Hiruma’s muscles are worked to the point of exhaustion—of course he’s breathing hard.  He just played a full championship game, of course his heart’s pounding in the hollow under the hard edge of his jaw.  Neither of those things can be blamed on any kissing that might or might not have happened here.

…Hiruma is probably hoping that his gleeful, impenetrable grin hides the faint flush on the tips of his ears, and along the knife-sharp line of his cheekbones.  It does not.  Unsui catalogs all of these things, and then politely says, “Goodnight,” and turns and walks out of the room.

He’s stepped onto the field, and made his play.  It’s Hiruma’s offense now.

Chapter Text

Kongo Unsui is a fucking nuisance.

Youichi is not an idiot.  Blatant reverse psychology is child’s play bullshit, and Unsui knows it as well as he does. A trap set that obviously must have another trap behind it.  The fucking monk is crafty, in a way his genius asshole brother Agon never bothered to learn; he reads the odds.  He makes sure the coffin is nailed shut.

On the summer break, the Wizards go to America.  Youichi restocks his supply of firearms for cheap, and puts together a new library of plays, and adds a few new politicians to the “International” tab of his blackmail book, and successfully doesn’t devote more than five to ten minutes of total thought per day to the fact that he has a time-sensitive project across the ocean fully on hold.

Then again, the fucking monk moves slow.  Maybe this will give him time to get his shit together.  Or even to scheme up his countermeasures.  Youichi has always enjoyed the moment of finding out what an opponent’s strategy is, and making his own counterattack on the fly. 

Even after the week of training camp is over, though, and the team is back in Japan, the follow-up play keeps on not materializing.

Youichi is very well aware that for all his various weak points, Unsui is very willing to be mind-numbingly patient about stupid bullshit—and he’s damnably hard to shake, but he’s willing to go on the defensive or disengage, if he thinks the water’s too hot.

Consequently: the onus is on Youichi to manage the situation—and the uptight bastard’s sense of propriety—without pushing so hard he takes his ball and goes home.  

That’s not really an option, in football.  It shouldn’t be an option in soliciting this kind of shit either, as far as Youichi is concerned.  But being pissed about it has never changed the rules of the game, and the rules of this game say that if the damn monk gets spooked about kissing other men and bolts, it’s Game Over.

Well, that’s fucking fine.  It’s a new challenge, in fact, which is always entertaining at least.  A new game in a new field, one where Youichi actually has to think on his toes and doesn’t have access to half of the arsenal he’s used to.  Getting people to do things is easy.  Getting people to want to do things takes more effort.

Counterpoint: sometimes people want things without prompting, and it’s startlingly easy.  Those are the times it’s important to be suspicious.

For example: Youichi wants a lot of things, all the time.

It’s a damned inconvenient thing, really.  He spends all his time and processing power on playing, practicing, or thinking about football, but libido can’t easily be excised or ignored.  Inconveniently, his tastes run toward sharp-edged bastards who are smart enough to keep his interest piqued, and most of the people he meets who fit the criteria are either his teammates or his opponents.  The former is a pain in the ass; the latter is dangerously close to a liability.

Thinking about your opponent’s chest and shoulder muscles is a distraction on the field.  It’s bad strategy, to want to see the fire in their eyes, the determination to win.  It’s not helpful, drinking down the thrill of locking eyes across the field and knowing one of you is going to come out on top.  More to the point, it does nobody any good to scope out the enemy’s ass, no matter how tight the uniform pants are.

It does nobody any good to think about the very careful touch of one broad, warm palm resting against the side of his throat.  Not a threat like it would be if Unsui’s asshole brother did it.  Just resting there, one thumb stroking absently under his jaw.

It’s absolutely intolerable.  If he tries to pull a trick like that again, Youichi’s going to kick his ass.

Addendum: Youichi’s well aware that he’s not, actually, going to kick Unsui’s ass.  That would be a game-ending foul, and dammit, he didn’t intend to kick this game off, not the way he did—but he’s playing, now.

Of course, he could still cut his losses, call it off himself…

The list of positives is short: this is what Youichi wants, enough that impulse pushed him into the damn monk’s face.  It’s what he wants, and it looks like fun.  The list of negatives and complications is pretty damn substantial.

…But at Deimon high school he started a football team with three players, and he did what looked like fun, and they won the fucking Christmas Bowl.

Hiruma Youichi does what the fuck he wants.  It’s the only thing worth doing.

–

On the last few days of the summer break, Unsui visits his parents.

His childhood bedroom is still largely intact.  Agon’s belongings on one side, medals and plaques and awards kept cleaner and neater than they ever were when Agon lived there.  Unsui’s side of the room, plain and austere and almost empty; even before he entered a buddhist school, he didn’t have much in the way of worldly possessions.  Here, in his own home, in his own bedroom, there’s no sign of himself.

It feels strangely invasive to be here.  As though he’s accidentally walked into the room of some kind of ghost.  A child who died young, their room left untouched out of sentiment or delusion.

…But he hasn’t, and he didn’t, and that’s a wildly irrational thought that’s not worth entertaining.  Unsui sleeps in his own bed and puts that unease away in the same deeply-buried place he puts everything else.

Agon has not come home for the break.  He’s supposed to come back  for dinner tomorrow, on the last day before school starts again; the first time Unsui has seen him since Agon cracked his ribs during their game.

“Oh, I wish you would be more careful,” his mother says, when she hears why Unsui winces when he bends down to slip off his shoes.  “I know it’s a violent game, but I’ve always said you threw yourself into it too aggressively.  Agon never injures himself!”

The response—the correct response—is a nod and reassurance that he’ll be more careful not to make her worry.  What Unsui says instead, despite himself, is “Agon is the one who tackled me.”

His mother looks startled, and then concerned, and then she sighs and shakes her head.  “He doesn’t know his own strength,” she says, and it’s that tone.  Fond and wry, forgiving.  Well, it’s Agon, what can you expect?  “Ah, you boys...  I wish you’d both gone to the same school, dear.  You know when it comes to competition, your brother just can’t help—”

Something is boiling in Unsui’s throat.  Waves churning and heaving, nausea, a ringing in his ears.  

“Yes,” he says, flatly.  “Of course.”

“Un-tan,” his mother says, chiding.  “You’re not holding it against him, are you?  You’re the older brother—”

“I think I’ll go meditate,” says Unsui, from the other end of a very long tunnel. “Excuse me.”

“Dear—”

“Excuse me,” says Unsui, and turns to walk away without waiting for an answer.

After dinner that night, his father stops him in the hallway and tells him “It was very disrespectful to treat your mother like that.”

Unsui packs his belongings that night, leaves a note on the kitchen table, and takes the next train back to Enma.

–

The Saikyou autumn festival is really impressive.  

Sena spent a while in America before he came back to go to college, and festivals were one of the things he missed the most.  The food, the clothes, the fresh air, the clubs out showing off for the students and families.  

The Wizards are full of old friends from Deimon highschool, and old rivals from teams they played in the highschool Christmas Bowl; Juumonji, one of the former Devilbats linemen, comes over and claps Sena on the back, and then gives Kurita a gentle kick for old time’s sake, and then gets almost crushed by a tearful hug in return.  It’s only the revelation that the Takekura Babels have also come that saves him; Musashi nods around to the Fires and then deftly avoids Kurita as he comes around for another devastating hug. 

Hiruma’s not welcoming anybody; he’s cackling, shooting off fireworks and rockets, wearing a huge varsity jacket that flaps around behind him like bat wings as he dances across Saikyoudai’s practice field.   

“Oh, wow,” says Kurita, and beams.  “I’m so glad!  Hiruma sure is having a great time!”

“He’s showing off, is what he’s doing,” says Musashi, and digs a finger at his ear, squinting narrow-eyed at Hiruma as he cackles and sets off a spray of pyrotechnics.  “I don’t know why.  At Deimon he had no choice, but Saikyoudai’s got no need for showboating.  Who’s that cagey bastard trying to impress?”

Someone by Sena’s shoulder makes a quiet noise.  Sena glances back and startles a little—Unsui has moved up by his shoulder, watching Hiruma with the impassive, unnerving stare he puts on every time he doesn’t want people to know what he’s thinking about.

Hiruma jogs to a stop, slings the enormous gun he’s carrying over his shoulders, and throws a very obvious grin over at them.  Sena stands abruptly straighter, trying to look cool and strong and not like he’s intimidated by giant guns.  Kurita waves enthusiastically, and Musashi snorts; Hiruma makes deliberate, insolent eye contact with each of them, and then keeps going down the line and stares Unsui down with a really really intimidating grin. 

Sena dares to glance back; Unsui’s jaw is working, and his lips are pressed into a strict, straight line, arms crossed across his chest.  Although maybe his jaw’s clenched to keep his teeth from chattering.  Sena gave up on asking if he was cold halfway through their first year at Enma University; years of meditation in the icy waterfall at Shinryuuji have apparently made Unsui impervious to extreme temperatures.  He’s still wearing the same plain black shirt he wears almost every day, even though it’s cold enough that there’s a pink flush across his nose and cheeks and his breath steams.

He huffs as Sena is looking up at him, a draconic puff of frosty breath through his nose, and works his shoulders, stony-faced.  Sena would swear he can feel the air sizzling over his head as the two quarterbacks hold each other’s eyes, flat glare to devilish grin.

“Oh, uh,” says Kurita, and pats Unsui reassuringly on the back, which is approximately as effective as patting a stone statue.  “Don’t worry!  You know how he can get.”  He waves again.  Hiruma doesn’t even look at him.  Neither does Unsui.

“Hm,” says Musashi.  Sena glances up at him; he’s looking from Hiruma to Unsui and back again.  Sena catches his eye, and Musashi huffs, shakes his head a little and looks away.

Hiruma turns away, cackling, and goes back to firing off rockets.  Unsui huffs through his nose again and turns as well, walking away in fast, sharp strides.  

“Ah—  Hey,” Sena starts, and then startles as a heavy hand lands on his shoulder.  

“Hm,” says Musashi.  He’s watching Hiruma, eyes narrow, as the man runs out of rockets and tosses the rocket launcher carelessly onto the ground, striding off to…wherever he keeps more rockets, probably.  “Not a good idea.”

“What?”  Sena says, bewildered.  “Why?”

Musashi looks off into the distance for a second, digging a pinky meditatively at his ear, then says, “...They’re playing their own game, those two.”

“Huh,” says Sena, and considers that.  “Quarterbacks have their own battles, I guess.  Is that what you mean?”

“...Mm,” says Musashi, and pats his shoulder.

–

Kongo Unsui is sitting in the Saikyoudai clubhouse when Youichi comes in, throat rough from cold and laughter.  He’s watching the door, like he’s been waiting; sitting perfectly straight-backed, jaw up, a familiar expression of expectant pride but without Agon’s insolent, sneering slouch.

“Hiruma,” he says.

“Fuckin’ monk,” says Youichi.  “Spying on our demonstration?  How cunning!”

“I’m not here to spy,” says Unsui.

An offensive play, then, instead?  It’s hard to tell, with this one.  It could be a feint.  It’s hard to even tell if he’s blushing, or if the cold is making his face flushed—most people it would be safe to assume that was accidental, but the fucking monk is crafty.  

Addendum: flushed from the cold is a damn good look on him.  And so’s that tight fucking shirt.

Youichi considers all of this for a split second, and then says, “Well, I have to be a good fucking host, don’t I?!  Tea?”

Unsui isn’t shivering, but he looks visibly relieved at that.  “Yes, thank you.”

Yamato Takeru, the Saikyou team captain and former ace running back of the entire Japanese highschool football world, is also irritatingly friendly and hospitable to a fault.  There’s an electric kettle of water on for this exact eventuality.  Unfortunately for Unsui, and anybody else on the team who cares, Hiruma gives more of a shit about tea being fast than tea being good.  He holds eye contact the whole time he carelessly pours a cup of hot water and drops a tea bag into it.

Unsui reaches out and takes the cup without looking away from Youichi’s face, sets it down on the table, and folds his arms over his chest.

“Thank you,” he says, like it’s a challenge.

Fact: Inconveniently, in a video interview Youichi dug up about the Shinryuuji Naga training regimen back when he was preparing for his last shot at the highschool Christmas Bowl, he got a very clear view of the fucking monk in the background, ignoring the camera completely, doing one-armed pushups with Ikkyu cross-legged on his back.  

Conclusion #1: There’s no reason anybody should ever do one-armed shirtless pushups anywhere Youichi is going to run into it.  Especially when he has a tournament to get ready for and other shit to use his brain for.

Conclusion #2: Fuck people who can put on muscle.

Hiruma throws a teabag in his own cup, because why the fuck not, and then sits down on a couch opposite the damn monk, considering him.  He doesn’t look nervous, but he doesn’t look resolved, either.  Just that irritating, blank stare that makes him so damn hard to read.

Agon has never bothered to get good at hiding what he’s feeling, because who the fuck cares if somebody notices he’s pissed or smug or horny or…those are most of his moods, actually.  At least the ones he feels when Youichi is around.  Despite the jab about their angry faces, now that Youichi’s managed to get a good look at the fucking monk when he’s really mad it’s not as similar as he thought it would be.  Colder, less wild.  A proud, biting, vicious kind of “pissed the fuck off” that’s been hammered down so long it’s hardened into diamond.

Grievance #1: he won’t stop fucking swallowing it, still playing some kind of suffering enlightened monk even after he said he was going to stop lying down and letting Agon walk all over him.

Grievance #2: “pissed the fuck off” looks a lot better on him than it does on his brother.

Grievance #3: he’d better look hotter horny too, because if he leers like Agon does then this whole game might be off.

Apparently they’ve stared each other down long enough.  Unsui leans down and picks the cup of tea back up, takes a sip of it, very visibly grimaces and immediately puts it back down again.

“This is terrible,” he says.  “You don’t know how to make tea?”

Youichi laughs, and he’s not actually faking it this time.  “Why should I?” he says.  “It’s bullshit!”

“You’re terrible at hospitality as well,” says Unsui, because he’s a little bitch in a surprisingly amusing way.  

“You’re terrible at flirting,” Hiruma shoots back, because he can be a bitch too, if that’s how they’re going to play.  Unsui’s low brows twitch up and then furrow.

“...Why shouldn’t I be,” he says.  “It’s bullshit.”

Tou-fucking-che.  “You would say that,” says Youichi, instead of admitting the point, and takes a boiling-hot swig of his tea.  It is pretty fucking terrible.  

Unsui considers him for a second, then sets down his tea in precisely the same spot he picked it up and says, “Have you been with men before?”

That’s both bold as fuck and completely out of left field.  Youichi laughs, sharp and warning. “More than you, baldy!”

“You’re dodging the question,” Unsui says, relentlessly.

Youichi puts his cup down, stands sharply up, and steps over the low table between them and directly into the fucking monk’s space.  “None of your fucking business,” he says, still smiling, wide and toothy and fake-friendly.  “...Unless you’re planning on making it your business.  Kongo.”

He’s expecting the narrow-eyed, set-jaw expression that crosses Unsui’s face at that—he’s actually not expecting it when Unsui rocks up off the couch in one explosive movement, grabs Youichi’s wrist and pulls him firmly down into his lap.

Youichi laughs, because that’s always a good response—makes it look like he expected what’s happening and he’s in control.  There are a couple of clumsy seconds where he gets really close to either falling off the couch or kneeing the fucking monk right in the dick, and then both of them settle and go still, assessing the new situation.  

Assessment: Youichi is in Kongo Unsui’s lap with two handfuls of his shirt-front.  The hand gripping Youichi’s side is still cold from the air outside, but the chest rising and falling under his hands—a little too fast—is warm.  The shirt knotted up in his hands is soft, like it’s been washed over and over for years; the muscle under the fabric is definitely not. 

Conclusion: Fuck people who can put on muscle.  And fuck their flimsy fucking shirts.

“You make me…so angry,” Unsui says, but his eyes keep flicking down to Youichi’s mouth again and again.  Quite a fucking tell.  He’d never make it in Vegas.  “Is that what you want?  Why?”

Youichi’s not too proud to admit he’s absolutely fucking tickled to hear the damn monk actually admit it out loud.  “I make a lot of people angry!” he says, and Unsui narrows his eyes.

“You’re still dodging the question,” he says, and slides his hand down to Youichi’s waist.

A significant chunk of brain cells are immediately sidetracked.  Dammit.  A surprisingly cunning play.

“I’ve been told you don’t like to be touched,” says Unsui.

The options: laugh it off.  Try to weasel out of him where he heard that.  Assume he’s a better cold-reader than Youichi anticipated and it was a lucky shot.  

There’s a split second to pick one, and unfortunately the hot, uncomfortable preoccupation with the hand on his hip is taking up valuable processing power.  A distracting conflict between the sharp, urgent need for more, and the twitchy, hair-trigger urge to pull away.

Unsui says, “...But you don’t seem to mind,” in a careful, steady tone like he’s solving something in his head.  

Option one wins.  Youichi laughs and rolls his eyes and doesn’t shake off the hand touching him.  “That’s a great excuse!” he says.  “So, that’s why he’s going so slow!  Not because he forgot he had a dick for two fucking decades and he doesn’t know what to do with it!”

“There has only been one dick in my life that demanded my attention,” says Unsui calmly.  “He’s on your team now, though.  So he’s your problem.”  And before Youichi has time to laugh at that, the fucking monk actually takes some initiative for once, pulls Youichi down by one shoulder and kisses him.

Positive: this causes a break in conversation to allow Youichi to recalibrate—Unsui doesn’t seem to have realized yet that Youichi has no more experience at this than he does, which is a bonus.  

Negative: Unsui does that fucking thing again, rests his hand very gently on the side of Youichi’s neck and runs his thumb back and forth up his jaw in slow, deliberate motions.  

Fucker won’t just tighten his grip, turn this into some kind of fight, something for one of them to win—if he’d dig his fingers in and squeeze, Youichi could bite back.  But he fucking won’t.  Even though Youichi can feel how strong his grip would be, the fucking monk just leaves his hand there and strokes his thumb back and forth and back and forth, like somebody carefully petting a wild animal—

Impulse #1: smack his fucking hand away!! 

Impulse #2: if he stops doing that I’ll fucking kill him.

Youichi vengefully shifts over and nips at the side of the bastard’s throat instead of letting either of those really stupid reactions win—and gets a sharp shudder and a hitched breath for it.  The hand on his throat twitches; not gripping harder, but going still.

A weakness.  Yes, excellent.  Another data point, a play added to the playbook.  And besides…leaving marks feels good.  That’s good, actually.  That’s fucking good.  

But.  Leaving visible marks, when the rest of the team knows where Youichi went, and someone on Enma’s team might also know where their quarterback went…less good.  Youichi lets himself have one more bite; scalene muscles, the hollow at the edge of the trapezius, the crook of shoulder into throat.  Unsui gives a soft hiss of a breath and—grips the back of Youichi’s neck, damn.  Dammit.  That’s…new input.

Being attracted to people is a pain in the ass.  Losing braincells because of how broad the palm on the back of your neck is—completely idiotic.  Being pissed for the millionth time because some people can bulk up without fighting their body for every fucking pound of muscle, useless.  The fucking monk might never stand up to his brother in speed or reaction time, but he sure as hell puts on muscle like him.  Bastard.

Observation: biting only left a faint pink mark.  It would be easy to leave something much darker, a bruise right at the collar of his shirt.

Observation: The hand on Youichi’s hip has shifted—the hem of his shirt has shifted too.  A few warm fingertips are almost absentmindedly brushing across the bare skin there.  

“Are you,” Unsui says, and apparently thinks better of whatever he was going to ask.  “Do you want—”

One of Youichi’s phones chirps in his pocket.  

When he sits back to pull it out, pretending to ignore the satisfyingly clear flash of frustration that briefly passes over the damn monk’s face, it’s an angry message from Ikkyu to the team group text.  Complaining about how when some cute girl showed up to the football demonstration—

Youichi is upright immediately.  Unsui frowns at him from the couch, looking refreshingly irritated and flustered instead of blank and calm, but Youichi doesn’t spare him a look, just goes and grabs his gun again, swings his jacket back on and settles down on the couch opposite from him.

“Let’s see how good that poker face really is, you fuckin’ monk,” he says, and watches Unsui’s face go from confusion to realization as both of them hear the first distant sound of footsteps from outside.

“—Show you around,” says one of the voices, rapidly getting closer, and Unsui’s eyes widen for a split second and then go flat and cool and distant, face freezing over.  His twin brother shoulders the door open, doing his fake sweet bullshit grin, and then stops dead with a look on his face like he just found something rotten in his shoes.  

There’s a single long, frozen moment of silence, as everyone stares at each other.  Then Unsui leans forward, picks up his abandoned cup of bad tea from the table, and takes a measured sip.

“Agon,” he says, and gives the faintest twitch of one low brow.  “...And guest.  Hello.”

“Hi!” says the girl hanging on Agon’s shoulder, and glances up at him uncertainly, then back to the monk, apparently doing some math in her head.  Hiruma can almost see the points click into place in her head as she looks back and forth—same build, same jaw, same thin lips and eagle nose.  Same steady eyes and low eyebrows.  Agon and Unsui wear their faces completely differently, but it would take somebody pretty blind not to notice they’re related.

“I’m Agon’s twin brother,” says Unsui, in a tone of voice like he’s definitely given this speech before.  “Kongo Unsui.  It’s nice to meet you, Ms…?”

“Ahh, better question,” says Agon, “What are you doing in here, Unko-chan?”

It’s a rude-ass fucking nickname, just like it always has been; the girl on Agon’s arm blinks at him, confused and uncomfortable.  Unsui doesn’t even twitch.  “I’m performing a courtesy visit,” he says coolly—instead of getting the fuck out, which is pretty clearly what Agon’s face is saying.  “I was invited in for tea.  It would have been rude of me to decline.”

“Just a courtesy visit,” Youichi repeats, gleefully enjoying the way Agon looks at him with murder in his eyes.  “Between quarterbacks.  Since Enma took us out of the tournament last year, I thought we’d sit down and…talk.”

Agon’s face transitions, at the reminder of their loss, from something rotten to I just bit down on a lemon.  “Well, do it somewhere else,” he growls, and narrows his eyes at his brother.  “...Didn’t figure you’d tell me you were coming, huh?”

“I didn’t come here to visit you,” says Unsui, and if he was cool before, he’s icy now.  There’s a muscle standing out at the corner of his jaw.  “...Because you didn’t extend any invitation.  I didn’t see any need to bother you.”

“I’m Takahashi Kaede?” says the girl, looking back and forth between them with an expression somewhere between concern and intrigue.  “Agon, I didn’t know you had a twin…?”  

She doesn’t seem all that bright, but she’s at least smart enough to have stepped away from Agon’s side when he took the pleasant good-boy mask off.  Agon can be hard to predict sometimes, but if he’s got a girl on the hook and he has to pick between playing nice to keep her around or throwing his weight around to win a dick-measuring contest, he’ll start snapping and snarling without hesitation.  

“He doesn’t go here,” says Agon tersely, without looking at her.

“Yes, I’m studying at Enma University,” says Unsui mildly, because his pleasant good-boy mask is a lot sturdier than his brother’s.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms Takahashi.  Agon and I don’t feel the need to talk about each other much, since we’re each occupied with our own teams.  It’s that sort of relationship, you see.”

That’s enough of a nothing-answer to make Takahashi go “Ah, I see,” politely, but Youichi also sees Agon’s nostrils flare as his brother takes another slow, measured sip of tea.  ‘We don’t talk about each other’ means ‘I don’t talk about Agon, either.’  Not giving a shit about Agon is the quickest, easiest way to get him to flip his lid, and by the way Unsui’s eyes don’t even flick to his brother’s face, he knows it.  

The fucking monk grew some teeth in college.  It’s excellent to watch, when he’s willing to show them.

“Take it somewhere else,” Agon repeats, louder, because that usually works on people who aren’t Youichi.  The fucking monk has had even longer to become immune to Agon’s bitching; he doesn’t even look in his brother’s direction.

“A football clubhouse isn’t an appropriate place for affairs of the body,” he says gravely to Takahashi, because he’s secretly a dick, and secretly hilarious.  Youichi puts on an expression of serious agreement, nodding, and Agon gives him a look that promises death, later.  Youichi gives him a look back that says I’d like to see you fucking try.  Takahashi blushes.  

“He was just showing me around,” she says.

“You deserve to have him ‘show you around’ somewhere more respectful of your worth,” says Unsui, the little fucking shit, somber and formal and buddhist as fuck while there’s a pink, scraped mark from Youichi’s teeth fading in on the side of his neck away from the door.  “The football clubhouse is unfit for this sort of liaison.  Besides.”  He sips his tea again, poker-faced, showing no sign of how bad it tastes.  “We are in the middle of a courtesy visit.  It would be rude of me to leave at the moment.”

“Oh, well,” says Takahashi, really pink now, and glances up at Agon, obviously hoping that’s going to be it and it’s time for them to leave.

Agon is puffing up like he’s about to blow, when more footsteps come down the hallway outside and another man appears in the doorway behind Agon, tall and broad with a mop of wavy brown hair and an irritatingly blinding smile, like some schlocky goody-goody superhero had a baby with a movie star.

“Agon!” says Yamato Takeru, and claps Agon on the back with a firm, friendly hand, beaming.  Agon jumps almost imperceptibly and then bristles, elbowing off the hand on his back.  If Yamato notices he doesn’t show any sign of it, just beams at everybody in the room.  “You’re giving a tour!  How proactive."

"Yeah, that's me," says Agon, through his teeth.  "Mr fuckin Proactive."

"And I believe I’ve seen you around the campus as well—Takahashi, isn’t it?”  Yamato gives Takahashi the movie star smile again.

“Oh, yes,” says Takahashi, looking about as dazzled as people always seem to when they meet Yamato in person.  “Well.  Yes?  Takahashi Kaede?”

“Hiruma as well!” Yamato says, like it’s a pleasant surprise, and turns that blinding grin on Youichi and Unsui.  “Hosting an opposing quarterback?  Excellent, excellent, I’m so proud to have teammates who are upholding such a high standard of hospitality!  Ms Takahashi, the new facilities we’ve had installed for data analysis between games are really exceptional, it would be my pleasure to help Agon show you around.  Please, after you!”

Yamato sweeps Agon—seething—and his would-be hookup—shyly pleased—out of the room and off down the hallway, holding forth confidently on the history of the Saikyoudai football team and American football in general.  

Youichi puts his teacup down on the table, listening to the sound of footsteps fading away down the hallway.  Then looks back at the fucking monk, and waits.

–

Hiruma is watching Unsui expectantly again.  Unsui doesn’t move, just sits in silence, listening to the sound of his brother’s angry footsteps as it gets further away—counting to fifteen in his head, waiting for Agon to come storming back.  

The last time they had anything like a real conversation, Unsui told his brother he was going to another college and they would be opponents, going forward.  Agon had fumed and growled at him for the remaining weeks of that summer, persistent and insistent, as though Unsui was just being stubborn and would inevitably throw up his hands and change his mind.  And after they each moved into their respective dormitories, and it became clear that Unsui intended to stay his course, that was that.  And they haven’t spoken to each other since.

It’s irritating, to realize that Unsui had been hoping their first conversation would go better.  It’s frustrating, to realize that he wishes they’d gotten to talk alone.  It’s painful, to have spent the entire conversation quietly, viciously pleased by Agon’s anger, and then to have realized as Agon turned away that Unsui didn’t want him to go yet.  That he misses—

Hiruma stands up abruptly, steps over the low table between them, and shoves his way into Unsui’s lap again.

The resemblance to an intrusive cat is startling.  The sudden urge to laugh is probably unwise.  Unsui controls that impulse and raises his eyebrows instead, a wordless question.

“You’re a fucking bastard,” says Hiruma, like it’s a compliment, and leans down, fangs scraping at the side of Unsui’s neck just hard enough to make him shiver sharply.  Pausing, and then making a very, very quiet noise that sounds a lot like frustration.  He takes his teeth away again.

It’s for the best, if he doesn’t leave any marks.  Marks would certainly lead to questions, and vague non-answers wouldn’t dissuade Unsui’s team, who have much more enthusiasm than discretion.  

Unfortunately, Unsui would quite like him to keep doing that, and damn the results.  It’s a relief, to let himself be distracted from everything else that’s struggling under the surface of the water. 

Hiruma says, “Maybe you piss me off too.” and bites one more time before pulling away and grinning, a sharp, wide slice of white, jagged teeth.

“We’re still enemies,” Unsui says.  “—Opponents.  I mean.  Whatever else this is.”

Hiruma rolls his eyes.  “You think you have to tell me that?” he says.  “Who the fuck do you think I am?”

“Hiruma Youichi,” says Unsui.  “Unfortunately.”

That makes Hiruma laugh again and rock a little in his lap—not exactly grinding, just making it clear where he is.  Unsui keeps his eyes up instead of…anywhere else, and holds perfectly still.

His phone chimes.

Hiruma sits back to let him check it, watching keenly like he thinks there’s going to be some sort of key strategic information in the text that he can read off of Unsui’s face.  

“...Mizumachi is being escorted off campus,” says Unsui instead, and shoves his phone back into his pocket, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.  Annoyance, frustration—raindrops on the surface.  Much easier to focus on and then settle, to let the water still and feel everything else sink far below it again.  “By campus security.  For taking his shirt off in public.  Again.”

“All the idiots really went to Enma,” Hiruma says.  “Your fucking loss!”

Unsui throws a brief glare at him, unamused, and then firmly turfs the man off his lap and stands up.  “It seems like I have work to do,” he says, as Hiruma picks himself over like a grooming cat, getting every wrinkle smoothed out and swinging his jacket back on.  “We should—continue this some other time.  Somewhere private.”

“Sweaty jersey smell doesn’t do it for you yet?” says Hiruma, with horrible cheer.  “You’ll learn!  Now, get the fuck off my campus.”

Agon isn’t waiting outside, like some small piece of Unsui worried he would be; he’s nowhere to be seen, and neither are Yamato or the unfortunate Ms Takahashi.  The milling students and visitors wandering around the festival don’t take any note of a single figure slipping out of the clubhouse alone, and Unsui takes a deep breath of the icy air, straightens his spine, and takes a resolute step forward—

“Oh!” says a voice from startlingly close to his elbow, and Unsui jumps so hard he almost stumbles.  “Are you leaving already?”

The Saikyoudai Wizards’ manager is standing next to the door, carrying a garbage bag of what appears to be the detritus from Hiruma’s impromptu firework display.  She’s a very pretty, put-together woman, with red-brown hair and blue eyes, and her smile is an impenetrable combination of sweetness and concern, and either Unsui is much more distracted than he thought or she’s damnably light on her feet.

“Oh,” says Unsui, deeply wrong-footed.  “Anezaki—”

“Oh, everyone calls me Mamori,” says Anezaki Mamori brightly, waving off the attempt at formality.  “It’s nice to see you again!  I’m glad I ran into you; I wanted to compliment you on our match in the summer tournament.  Sena seems to have so much fun playing on your team!”

It takes a second longer than it should to remember why they’re suddenly talking about Sena—but of course, they’re childhood friends, aren’t they?  Every day, Sena gets a text message from Mamori exactly ten minutes before evening practice, reminding him to stretch, warm up, drink plenty of water, and do his best.  She is, by all accounts, a disarmingly perfect friend, the caretaker of whatever friend-group she finds herself in.

She’s also one of the Wizards’ most well-kept secret weapons.  Hiruma’s devious strategies on the field wouldn’t be nearly as effective without Anezaki Mamori on the bench, performing live play breakdowns and flashing hand signs, taking their opposition apart one neatly-filmed analysis at a time.  

Hiruma’s strategy is to present himself as fearsomely as possible, to put his enemies on guard and direct their vigilance in the wrong direction.  Anezaki, meanwhile, is sweet and pleasant and polite, and behind all that has an analytical mind to match Hiruma’s blow for blow.  She is to be respected as an opponent.  She is, in fact, to be feared.

“Congratulations on the spring championship,” Unsui says politely, because not to acknowledge that would be tantamount to admitting that thinking about it bothers him.  “Your team’s march to victory was very impressive.”

“Oh, thank you!” says Anezaki—Mamori.  “We certainly gave it our all.”

“I’m sure,” says Unsui.  He’s deeply aware that there’s a stinging, tingling spot on the side of his throat, where doubtless some amount of a mark is beginning to show. 

“You know,” says Mamori, “I think it might be good for the relationship between our schools if we didn’t just see each other as rivals on the field.  You can certainly come over to visit whenever you would like!  Next week?  You could come over on Saturday, bring whoever wants to come; I’ll buy some cream puffs and make some tea.”

“Oh,” says Unsui, and is abruptly caught between the urge to be polite and the sudden, frozen feeling that he’s being set up, somehow.  “Well, that would be—yes, if you think—  Alright.”

“Ah, I’m glad!” says Anezaki Mamori, and smiles an absolutely impenetrable sweet, kind smile.  “We’ll see you then.”

–

Unsui gets a text message on the way back to Enma University.  This is Anezaki Mamori!  Hiruma gave me your phone number.  I thought this would make things easier to arrange things in the future!

Unsui doesn’t have a single girl’s phone number in his phone.  He saves Mamori’s contact information painstakingly, feeling strangely embarrassed to do so and strangely irritated with himself for being embarrassed.  Texts back, Yes.  I will speak to the team and let you know. 

Anezaki M: Please do!  I’m sure Hiruma can get the lecture hall by the field opened up for us.

I’m sure he can.  Thank you for having us today.

Anezaki M: Our pleasure.  Please come again!

Unsui is still staring at that message, feeling strangely warmed in a way he can’t exactly put words around, when his phone begins, abruptly, to ring.  For a second he thinks—but it’s not Mamori.  The screen is showing an unknown number.  Unsui frowns at it, and then picks up the call and raises it cautiously to his ear.

“...Hello?”

Musashi says, “What are your intentions with Hiruma.”

The train is loud enough that for a moment Unsui isn’t sure what he just heard.  When the words process, he actually has to take the phone away from his ear for a second, staring at it, before he realizes what he’s doing and raises it again.  

“I beg your pardon?”

“I know what I saw today,” says Musashi.  “Your intentions.  His feelings.  Do you reciprocate.”

Unsui pinches the bridge of his nose.  Well—well, alright.  Alright.  He had a feeling Takekura had noticed something.  He’s somehow both surprised that the man waited until after the festival, and surprised this is happening so soon.  Regardless, it’s in Unsui’s best interests to be calm and rational about this.

“He hasn’t made his feelings or intentions clear,” he says quietly, as the rest of his team chatters and argues around him.   “So I don’t know if I reciprocate them.  He’s…a challenging man.”

“He’s an asshole,” says Musashi bluntly.  “He won’t be easy to manage.”

“I’m not interested in managing him.”

There’s a noise from the other end of the phone that might be an irritated huff or might be a laugh.  A moment of silence.  

“Let me give you some advice,” says Musashi.

“Mm,” says Unsui, instead of yes please, absolutely, thank you.  

“He’s skittish,” says Musashi.  “If he feels like he’s losing control before he trusts you, he’ll bolt.  And it takes a long time for him to trust people.”

“I’ve noticed,” says Unsui.  “I don’t trust him either.  That’s fine.”

Musashi sighs.  “I don’t understand either of you,” he says, but it sounds like he might be smiling.  “Alright.  Second.  That bastard’s too smart for his own good, but he’s curious.  He likes things he doesn’t understand yet.  He wants to figure them out.”

Be unexpected, in other words.  Not Unsui’s strong suit, but he’s gotten more practice in his years at Enma.  With a team like the Fires, playing an unpredictable game is the only way to win.  “Yes,” he says.  “Anything else?”

“I already told you the last piece,” says Musashi.  “He goes after what he wants, Kongo.  Seems like he’s decided what that is.  If you decide to give him shit about that, we’re going to have problems.  Personal problems.”

“Were you involved with each other?” says Unsui’s mouth.

His brain, lagging behind, snaps his jaw shut too late.  The other end of the phone is silent for a long, long moment.  

“No,” says Musashi, simple and flat.  Not a lie.  But the kind of denial that has a thousand other answers around it.  No, but…something.  But he knows, somehow, picked up on things the way Kurita didn’t.  No, but he obviously feels invested enough to make this phone call.

“Alright,” says Unsui.  “Thank you for the advice.  And the warning.  Anything else?”

“Hey, Unsui!” yells Mizumachi, and comes bounding over to throw an arm around his shoulders.   Unsui almost drops his phone.  Mizumachi, tall and gangling and gifted much more abundantly with spirit and height than with brains, doesn’t appear to notice—he has, at least, put his shirt back on since he was firmly escorted off of the Saikyou campus.   “Nhaa, hey, captain, settle this argument—”

“Debate!” yells the Fires’ kicker, from across the car.

“Sure yeah, settle this debate!  Would you rather climb up on top of Mount Fuji and—”

“That’s not what I said!  That’s not what I said, you’re saying it wrong!  Uncool!”

Musashi gives a rough huff of laughter, on the other end of the call.  “Go take care of your team,” he says.  “And then…  Figure out what you want.  He’ll want to know.”

Chapter Text

Kurita is overjoyed by the idea of going back to Saikyoudai on Saturday—with none of Unsui’s secondary motives, no less.  He just happens to be one of the very few people in Japan who genuinely seems to enjoy spending time around Hiruma, and wants to do it more often.  The rest of the team seems varying levels of excited or suspicious about the invitation, but almost all of them do agree to go.  Hiruma has pulled some amount of strings, little blackmail book in hand, to get a classroom in the nearest building to the football field reserved, and between the two combined teams it’s relatively full.  

The tea is much, much better this time.  Unsui takes a cup and fetches up fairly quickly into the corner of the room, sipping quietly and watching the ebb and flow of the party around him.  Juumonji has snuck in a beer while Yamato is distracted and can’t smile disapprovingly at him, and he’s laughing with Sena about something.  Kurita is telling Banba Mamoru, another former rival, all about the gym facilities at Enma, comparing new personal bests.  Conversation and laughter form a new current, an external one that flows over and around Unsui, drowning out the internal toss and churn of waves.

Agon isn’t here.  Of course.  And Hiruma…

Hiruma is talking quietly to Mamori in the opposite corner, body canted away from the rest of the group, voice lowered from its fearless shrieking cackle to an inaudible murmur.  Mamori nods once, looking concerned—then again, with a flash of realization, smiling.  Laughs quietly, and says something that makes Hiruma snicker.  Tucks a few strands of her hair behind her ear, and absentmindedly moves to put it up, pulling it up off her neck and rolling a hairband off her wrist to tie it up.  Still talking, as her hands work deftly, brushing wisps off the pale nape of her neck—

“Hey,” says Unsui’s former cornerback, and falls in next to him against the wall, with Unsui’s new wide receiver tagging along by his elbow.  “Senpai, hey!  I was easier to make passes to, right?  Uh, and, nice to see you.  But I always caught your passes, right?”

“Uh, unfair comparison to the max,” says Monta, before Unsui can even attempt to answer.  “I always catch his passes too!”

“You show off though.”

“You show off!”

“It’s not showing off when I do it!” Ikkyu says, proudly.  “I’m just that good.”

“And I’m better than you!”

The reminder makes Ikkyu bristle like an angry cat.  “Come on!” he demands of Unsui, and waves his hands incoherently at Monta, apparently expecting a rebuttal.

Unsui is still reeling, in a strange way that he’s almost positive he isn’t showing on his face—the distraction, at least, is welcome.  “You’re both…very talented receivers,” he says carefully.  “I’ve been lucky to play with both of you.”

This is, unsurprisingly, not sufficient, judging by the expectant looks both of them are still aiming at him.  On the other side of the room, Mamori just said something that made Hiruma laugh out loud, head tossing back and teeth flashing sharp and white.  Now that Unsui has started noticing things like that, it’s startlingly difficult to stop.  

…Damn.  He had self-control to a perfect artform, and Hiruma hasn’t managed to throw off his play but he certainly wreaked plenty of havoc in other ways.  At least if it’s only his personal peace of mind that suffers, Unsui doesn’t have to worry about letting down his team.

He draws his focus back together with the experience of long practice and says, business-like, “...It’s not comparable.  If I was passing to a clear field with linemen that could hold indefinitely, you would be equal candidates.  But the field is never clear and the line can only hold for a matter of seconds.  Ikkyu can shake most man to man coverage, and when he’s open he’s certain to make the catch, but needs a few seconds—”

“Ha,” says Monta.

“He’s not done,” says Ikkyu waspishly.  

“Yes,” says Unsui, and takes another sip of his tea.  Thinking about football is familiar, and steadying, and much less strangely uncomfortable than wondering what Saikyoudai’s geniuses are discussing on the other side of the party.  “Well.  Those seconds aren’t always available. A checkdown pass to Monta through coverage is risky but those plays tend to gain more yards when they succeed, and they’ve certainly been critical in many games—”

“If you were as good as me,” says Ikkyu, smugly, “He wouldn’t need to pass through cover.”

“He said you take too long!”

“He said you’re a freakin’ gamble to pass to!”

Unsui is distinctly, absurdly reminded of the times he’s seen two girls driven to a shrieking fight over Agon’s attention.  He sips his tea, observing the way Ikkyu and Monta have boxed him into the corner, and considers means of escape.  Trying to leave directly between them will draw both of their attention back to him, and he knows both men well enough to know that they’ll undoubtedly follow him and keep pushing for a definitive choice of which one he prefers to pass to.  If he waits long enough, and one of them physically moves to get into the other’s space—

Hiruma and Mamori aren’t talking anymore, in the corner across from him.  Both of them are gone.

“—That’s how the Enma Fires play, to the max!  We’ve got yards to make!”

“Yeah, well, if you were as good as we were, you wouldn’t be so freakin’ desperate about it!”

“Uh, well I don’t know if you remember, but we still took you out of the Spring tournament last year, so—”

“That was a fluke,” Ikkyu says huffily.  “Agon’s a great player but he’s gotta run the plays, and he knows that now.  Mostly.  He was just pissed we were losing points to—  Uh.”

He stumbles to a halt on the words before he can say them, and then completely ruins the attempt at subterfuge by throwing a very obvious glance over at Unsui.

Unsui’s ribs gives a sharp throb.  A wave rises and falls inside him; a thundering ripple of something painful, deeper down in his chest than the healing bone.  

“Anyway,” says Ikkyu.  “I’d rather make a clean pass for the same first down than try for a hail mary all the way to the endzone and get my quarterback stomped on.  Fuck you.”

Monta bristles in indignation, but Unsui abruptly finds he doesn’t care anymore.  It would be polite to say something; he doesn’t.  Just steps silently forward and shoves his way out of the corner, past the two receivers’ startled stares, walking blindly away from this conversation and the pointless, stupid hurt.

“Aw—dammit,” he hears Ikkyu say behind him, irritated pride breaking into a much more familiar flustered uncertainty.  “Senpai, hey—”

“Dick,” says Monta—in a hissing undertone that’s probably meant to be a whisper, instead of being perfectly audible even as Unsui walks away.  “You know he’s the kind of guy who takes stuff like that seriously, to the max!!  Why would you—”

They’re still arguing when Unsui ducks out of the party and closes the door behind him.

The air is getting cooler, as autumn comes relentlessly closer.  It’s refreshing, usually.  Unsui turns his face up toward the night sky, and finds himself abruptly wishing for the empty pool at the base of Shinryuuji’s ice-cold waterfall.  The cool is grounding; the icy cold was centering in a way very little else has been.  Tempering, almost painful.  

If he could meditate through that, he can focus through this.  As long as he doesn’t—  As long as Hiruma doesn’t—

He doesn’t mean to glance over at the football clubhouse, across the field.  When he does, a sudden, startled shiver goes up his spine that has nothing to do with the cold; the door is cracked open, and there’s a light inside.

He doesn’t make the conscious decision to walk across the field, but that’s where his feet carry him.  It’s a stupid impulse; if he’s seen there without an explanation, it would be reasonable to assume he was trying to spy, and he would have no way to explain otherwise.  But…

The clubhouse would be empty, right now.  When Unsui said he wanted privacy, next time, Hiruma didn’t say ‘no’.  

The light is coming from the equipment room inside, when he steps through the door, somehow both numb and electrified.  There are footsteps inside.  Unsui steadies his expression, straightens his spine—tries to bring the cold of that waterfall from his memory into himself, letting it batter against his head and shoulders until bearing steadily up against it becomes a meditation in and of itself.  Then he opens the door and steps calmly and confidently through it.

It’s not Hiruma who looks back at him when he comes in.  It’s Anezaki Mamori.

“Ane—  Mamori,” says Unsui, blindsided, and comes to a halt so sudden he almost stumbles, feeling abruptly like a child who’s been caught coming to play in his parent’s office.  The strange daze he was in pops as abruptly as a soap bubble.  Kissing someone—touching someone—here?  Ridiculous.  What was he thinking.  She’s still looking at him.  “Ah.  I, mm.”

“Were you expecting someone else?” says Mamori brightly, and unloads a carton of cream puffs from a basket.  She’s still got her hair up in a ponytail, a few wisps of it escaping down the nape of her neck.  When she turns to turn her full attention on him, her smile is so sweet it’s hard to look at.

It would only be a rhetorical question if she knew—something.  Presumably, she doesn’t.  Which means that an answer is required.

“Our teams can be a little loud,” Mamori says, because she’s capable of mercy that Hiruma would never voluntarily offer.  “If things are overwhelming in there, of course you can relax in here for a while!”

It’s a generous and kind thing to say, and she has no way of knowing how correct she is.  Unsui has never been a man for large, loud groups or celebrations.  It’s one of the few things he can point to without a qualm that he has in common with his brother—although Unsui’s energy largely goes toward football practice, and Agon always seemed to leave some in reserve for the occasions girls wanted to go to bars or karaoke.

…Possibly she does have a way of knowing how correct she is.  Unsui’s face is warm again.

“Ah, well,” he says, inanely and too late, as though that’s in any way an adequate answer.  “I wouldn’t want to impose on you for no reason.  I could help you carry those.”

“It isn’t ‘no reason’ at all,” Mamori says warmly, which is—baffling, and also deeply convicting in a way that Unsui chooses not to examine at the moment.  “But that would be very kind of you, thank you!  I was going to put them all out on these plates and take them over on trays, if you really don’t mind.”

“Of course.”

This was not the encounter he came here prepared for.  But he has no business questioning it, when she was generous enough not to question his presence in the clubhouse in the first place.  At least there’s something he can do with his hands, while he recalibrates.  

For a little while, there isn’t much sound in the room apart from the shuffle of paper plates and the steady sound of Mamori unloading containers of cream puffs.

Mamori breaks the silence first.

“I suppose I’m not surprised that Agon didn’t come,” she says, as though she’s mostly saying it to herself.  “I thought there was a chance—just a slim one—that he would.  But he isn’t much for parties, I suppose.”

Of course Agon wouldn’t have come to a party he knew Unsui would also attend.  But—he wouldn’t have come regardless.  So the ache of frustrated, angry hurt is as pointless as it is unfounded, and it can be put away.

“He doesn’t like crowds,” Unsui says, and realizes as he says it, with a rush of resignation, that he’s making Agon’s excuses for him again. “He would rather spend time with one or two people.  In a more intimate gathering.”

The look Mamori throws at him at that says that she knows very well what sort of people Agon likes to spend time with, and exactly how intimate those settings might be.  Despite his year or two out of high school, what feels like most of the attractive young women within a five-mile radius around Shinryuuji still recognize Unsui immediately as Agon’s brother when they see him, and either pass along direly furious messages or attempt to solicit Agon’s phone number.

Sometimes, worse, they just assume that he’s his brother with a new haircut.  Unsui has been slapped several times by angry women demanding explanations for Agon’s outlandishly bad behavior.  A nonzero number of them then attempted to kiss him, at which point his football instincts to straight-arm away people trying to suddenly lunge at his face became very useful.  

“It’s probably better he didn’t come,” he finishes belatedly, and busies himself with unpacking more cream puffs.

“Well, I’m certainly not going to drag him in,” Mamori says.  “If he doesn’t want to come then he doesn’t want to come.  I do wish…”

She’s silent for a few seconds, hands stilling on the container of cream puffs, and then she sighs and glances over at him.

“...To be very honest,” she says, and her expression is apologetic and warm even while Unsui is fairly sure he can feel her eyes boring straight through his skull.  “Your brother and I don’t always get along!  To be very very honest, and maybe this is a little rude—if so I have to apologize!  But I would rather spend time around you, actually.”

Niceness, Unsui is aware, is not the same as kindness, and either thing can easily be real while also being much more than they appear on the surface.  Anezaki Mamori is often kind, and often nice, and is easily Hiruma’s superior when it comes to reading someone who doesn’t want to be read. 

…It still feels shamefully good to hear her say that, though.  As though some sort of peace offering has been made.  Unsui should, presumably, offer something back.

“Agon can be hard to deal with,” he says.  “I hope he’s been…” he searches briefly for a way to voice what he’s thinking without sounding somehow threatening or paranoid, and then finishes diplomatically, “...respectful of your boundaries.”

“He hasn’t tried anything since high school, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Mamori says briskly.  “We’re working on teaching him better habits.  The whole team together is making their best effort!”  She casts him a sidelong look, thoughtful.  “...You really are very different.”

That has not, historically, been presented as a positive.  Having it said as such is obscurely startling.

“Yes,” says Unsui, and plates another cream puff.  “In…some ways.  Yes.”

“Yes,” Mamori repeats, and Unsui can see her glance over at him again from the corner of his eye, before she goes on, tone light, “I would have thought that assessing his play style would give me more insight into you as a player, but his play style hardly predicts yours at all, even when you ran combination plays.  I’ve had to scrub footage of the games you played when he arrived late instead.”

“And what have you seen?” Unsui says, despite himself.  

Mamori hums thoughtfully and dishes out another cream puff.  “Well, of course some of it I can’t share,” she says.  “We are opponents, after all!  And not all of it is turning out to be reliable.  When I went through your high school footage, I would have said that you almost never make aggressive plays in the first down, or even the first half, but your first play against us in the last tournament definitely took us by surprise!  You’ve always been very reliable, but you’re starting to become much, much less predictable. You’re a fascinating player.  Hiruma thinks so too.”

Unsui opens his mouth and finds, abruptly, that he has no idea how to respond to that.  “Well,” he says, after a second too long, face damningly hot, “Well.  To face Hiruma and be predictable is to lose.  Especially with your eyes on the game.  You’re…a very valuable asset to his team, I’m sure the two of you are—”

“Oh, no no,” says Mamori, and waves a hand, brushing away the compliment—and cutting him off, he can’t help noticing, before he manages to state any kind of assumption about their relationship.  “That’s very kind of you!”

“It’s only honest.”

Mamori goes hmm, quietly.  Unsui keeps his eyes on his hands, and focuses on doing the task set to him and not on glancing over to see her expression.  He’s very keenly aware that they’re standing just close enough their elbows keep almost brushing; he must be imagining it, that he can feel the warmth from her arm through his sleeve.  

Knowing it’s his imagination doesn’t make it any easier to ignore.

“Well, I’m glad you were able to come tonight, anyway,” Mamori says, and opens the last carton of cream puffs with a businesslike tug.  “You don’t have to think of an excuse to come and visit, you know.  The others don’t either.”

She reaches over and pats his arm, a brief brush of one soft hand on his bare wrist.

Unsui has seen a lot of young women in various states of undress and activities he would be glad to forget about.  He isn’t like his former teammates, shy and flustered young men with no experience seeing or talking to girls.

The place she touched his wrist is warm.  So is his face.

Troubling.

“Hiruma had to go and deal with something, he said,” Mamori says, after a few more mercifully quiet moments, and Unsui is almost completely positive that the only sign of his shock is a hardly-visible hitch in the motion of his hands.  “He said to tell you to make sure you don’t drag the party down.”  She sighs. “...I’m sorry about him.”

“Mm,” says Unsui, only a tiny bit strangled.  He’s not disappointed, really, that no more hasty, clandestine necking is going to happen tonight.  He isn’t.  This gives him more time to prepare himself, to think this through.  

…And Hiruma wasn’t the one who invited him here, after all.

“...He’s quite an asshole,” he says, distantly surprised to hear Musashi’s words coming out of his own mouth.  “He must not be easy to manage.”

“Ah…well,” Mamori says, half-laughing, and puts the last cream puff carefully down on a plate, resting both hands on the counter, going still for a moment.  When she starts to move and speak again, there’s something very careful in her tone.  “...Hiruma is a very unusual person,” she says.  “He doesn’t care very much what’s expected of him.  He only cares about what he wants to do.  It’s selfish!  I mean, please don’t misunderstand, he’s so incredibly selfish, and infuriating sometimes.  But I think it’s very honest.  To say what you want, and not mind if someone thinks it’s greedy or wrong.”

Unsui is increasingly aware that he seems to be missing some form of secret code.  What exactly is being communicated to him, he has no idea.  He half-assumed that they were rivals for the same man—it would be reasonable for her to deliver some kind of challenge, in that case.  But that doesn’t seem to be what this is.  If she’s interested in him—but he’s seen her talk to Hiruma, the quiet, intense way they look at each other, how they bicker and tease and work together like a dangerous, efficient machine.  

Selfish, she said.  But honest…

“I…suppose so,” Unsui says, warily.  “Everyone has, mm.  Earthly desires.  I suppose.”  

“And it’s easy to resent people who let themselves be selfish,” says Mamori, still with the same sweet, genuine, but utterly unknowable smile.  “Especially when you’re someone who…only knows how to give things up for other people.  I think some of that is justified.  But I think some of it might be envy.  Don’t you?  Maybe sometimes, those people deserve to be selfish as well.”

There’s the slightest twist of something tired and inviting in her eyes, as she says that.  Unsui looks back at her, entirely blindsided, and thinks.

Thinks: Anezaki Mamori is the caretaker in every group she falls in with.  Thinks: my brother was blessed and he deserves it, the closest I’ll ever come to greatness is paving his way.  Thinks: you know better than to take that tone with your parents, I expect you to speak to us with respect.  About giving everything to someone else, to other people, year after year.  Until they expect it, and anything less than everything is a failure.

It doesn’t make it any clearer why she’s saying what she’s saying.  But the sudden sharp twinge of kinship is as pleasantly unexpected as it is painful.

“I’m sorry,” says Mamori, and hoists up a tray of plates, smiling again with unreadable warmth.  “I’m rambling.  Let’s take these back over!  And please, try a cream puff!  They’re delicious.”

Unsui takes a cream puff. It is, in fact, delicious.

–

Kongo Unsui is…a puzzle.

He’s the only person at Enma who would stand quietly watching at the edge of a party, not bored or distant—just watching, listening.  Paying attention. When he appeared in the clubhouse (looking for…?  She’s not going to assume.  But she saw him glancing over at them) the plan was to bridge the gap between Enma and Saikyoudai, have a casual conversation, keep things professional and friendly and try to sound out what might be going on behind the unflappable, sad-eyed mask.

What happened tonight was not the plan.

–

Unsui receives two text messages, the next day after class.  

The first says, Thank you for helping me arrange last night!  I enjoyed talking to you, we should organize another visit some time.

The second says, heard you came looking for more.  i thought you knew how to play hard to get!

Unsui stares at both of those messages for much longer than he would admit, if asked.  Then he pulls up a number, moving slowly and carefully, and types out an invitation.  And then he turns off his phone, puts it down in his locker with the care of a man handling an undetonated bomb, and goes to put his pads on.

–

The teahouse is one Agon always made fun of Unsui for going to, because apparently only “old ladies and tightasses like you” liked to frequent it.  But it’s familiar, and modestly-decorated, and not overwhelming to be in, and quiet enough Unsui has had plenty of time to think by the time a familiar figure arrives at the doorway and hurries over to meet him.

Sanzo looks happier than he did when they played football together in high school.  Taller, a little less scrupulously slim and nervous; he still shaves his head and paints his lips and puts—whatever he puts on his eyelashes, that make them look that long—but his makeup is a little more subtle in a way Unsui doesn’t have any vocabulary to define.  He’s wearing a very billowy shirt, and pants tight enough to make it very clear he kept up on his running after he stopped playing American football.  

He kisses both of Unsui’s cheeks when Unsui stands to greet him, a habit he apparently picked up in France—because while Unsui has been playing football and failing to meditate and trying to discern what it means to be attracted to someone, Sanzo has started working for some kind of international brand name design company, and he’s spent several summers in Paris.

Unsui is struck by a feeling that he’s had increasingly often over the years since he started college, of being very old and very young both at the same time.

But he isn’t a child anymore, he’s a grown man who can realize his own shortcomings.  So, after the tea arrives, and the conversation about travel and football and studying lulls for a moment, Unsui says, “I think I owe you an apology.”

Sanzo raises his perfectly-pencilled eyebrows, and lowers the cup he was about to sip from.  “An apology?”

His tone implies that he wasn’t expecting this—  That seems like a good thing.  

“Yes.”  Unsui folds his hands on the table in front of him and then loosens them again.  The few patrons scattered around the shop are engaged in their own quiet conversations, and no one is paying attention to their table in the corner—still, getting the apology out feels intensely embarrassing.  “I think I was…dismissive of you, when we were in school together.  I realized, recently, that I might have—” he stumbles over the words for just a moment, uncertain if they’re too presumptuous or not, then resolutely finishes, “...hurt you, somehow.”

“Ah,” says Sanzo.  He doesn’t look pained by the reminder—if anything, the expression he’s aiming at Unsui at the moment looks fond and wryly pitying.  “I…think I see.  Well, in that case; it’s perfectly alright.  Honestly, I was never even sure if you noticed or not, but I suppose I should have known!  You were never a stupid man, except about Agon.”

Unsui manages to keep his wince minimal, but Sanzo must see it anyway, because he sighs.  “...I’m sorry,” he says, although he sounds more like he’s being gracious than like he means it.  “What I mean is, it’s really fine.  It’s very sweet of you though, to think about it after so long and try to make things right!  That’s what’s charming about you, you know.”

Unsui did not in fact know, and isn’t entirely sure what the charming part is.  Now doesn’t seem like the time to ask.

“That’s just how high school is, anyway,” Sanzo says firmly.  “I knew I was spending my time crushing on straight boys—I thought maybe, when you were such a gentleman to me and you didn’t start talking about girls like all the other little perverts on our team—well.  And then I thought maybe you just didn’t like that sort of thing at all.”

He says that like it’s part of an expected spread of options.  Unsui falters on that, frowning, and then pushes past it, disregarding that for now.  “I did notice,” he says.  “I didn’t intend to mislead you, I just had—other things to focus on.  Than whether or not I was…”

Sanzo’s eyebrows rise again, much more emphatically this time.  “Whether you were…?” he says.

This was not the direction that the conversation was intended to go in.  “Mm,” says Unsui, and abruptly shuts his mouth, scrambling internally.  There’s a moment of painful silence, overplayed by the teahouse’s tinny, projected music.

“Unsui,” says Sanzo.  “Is this…hm.”  He taps his painted nails on the table a few times.  “...You’re very sweet, and you’re still very handsome, but I’m afraid I do have a boyfriend, so if you—”

“Oh, no,” says Unsui, and feels a very stupid flush rising on his face at the look Sanzo gives him.  “I mean, it, no, that wasn’t—  My intention wasn’t—  No, thank you.  Or, I apologize.”

Sanzo laughs at him, which…seems incredibly fair, at this point.  

“You’re welcome,” he says, “And I forgive you.  But oh, you have to tell me what you’re talking about.  We went to the same high school!  I know all the beautiful young men you saw soaking wet and almost naked!  How in the world are we having this conversation now?”

There are so many ways to try and fail to explain what’s going on.  Unsui opens and shuts his mouth a few times, and then says out loud, for the first time, “Hiruma Youichi kissed me.”

The words come out very quietly, but evidently clear enough for Sanzo to make them out—his eyebrows, which Unsui would have assumed were risen as far as they could rise, contrive to rise further.  “Oh,” he says.  “Really?  I assumed he was dating that American girl, their manager.”

“M—  Anezaki,” says Unsui.  “...She’s only a quarter American.”  And the topic of her relationship to Hiruma is the most baffling mystery on the field at the moment, and not one he necessarily intends to discuss at a teahouse.  

“Yes, her,” says Sanzo.  “Was he—I don’t suppose he was doing it to…hurt you?  Some people really are like that, you know.  Cruel for cruelty’s sake, I mean.”

He says that with a sort of off-handed, careless resignation, more startling than if he’d looked distraught about it.  Like he knows cruelty for cruelty’s sake.  Like it’s only to be expected.  

Unsui opens his mouth to say, did anyone at Shinryuuji ever—  and closes it again, smoothing away the wave of unsettled regret.  It isn’t his business.  He was asked a question.  Focus.

“...No,” he says, only a moment late, and catches himself raising a hand to run his fingers absentmindedly over his lips—lowers his hand to the table again and presses both palms flat there.  “No.  I think it was sincere.  I don’t know why.”

“Of course you don’t,” says Sanzo, half-sighing.  “No, of course you don’t.  Well, good for him I suppose, but he’s not going to get many boys, acting like he does.  Did he take it alright?”

“Take what,” says Unsui.

“When you turned him down?”

Unsui’s face is going hot again.  “He, hm,” he says, and finds he’s run out of words entirely.

“Unsui,” says Sanzo, in horror.  “No.  No!  He’s a brute!”

“He—well, yes,” says Unsui, because there’s no purpose to arguing that point.  “It’s a very bad idea.  But I’m…”  He waves a hand abstractedly, hoping the words will manifest out of the ether—which, obviously, they fail to.  “Thinking, and feeling things.  This wasn’t a problem before.”

Sanzo is looking at him with some strange combination of pity and a helpless fondness that makes his eyes incredibly hard to meet.  Unsui rushes on, before he can voice whatever thought is making him look like that.  “I thought he was interested in his manager as well,” he says, and rolls his cup of tea back and forth once between his palms, focusing on the heat.  “It definitely seems to me that there’s interest on her end.  But if he’s…” he waves a hand, and Sanzo quirks his lips, apparently amused, and makes a delicate gesture in return, acknowledging.  “She’s very…she’s very kind.  I wouldn’t want her to be…  I don’t know.”

“Well, you can like both,” says Sanzo.  “I’ve heard. I mean it’s not for me, but so I’ve heard!  I know a girl in Paris who’s seeing a man and woman at the same time.  Menage a trois, they call it.  They all have a very nice apartment together.”

“You what,” says Unsui.  “They what?”

“You can like men and women,” Sanzo says, in a tone like he’s kindly educating a child on basic addition.  “You can do whatever you want!  There aren’t rules.  Or, if there are, they’re not worth your time.”

Unsui is aware that he’s staring, and equally aware he’s not able to stop himself.  “Ah,” he says, and thinks about a soft hand resting on his wrist, and Hiruma’s vicious, proud laugh, and Mamori saying you really are very different and smiling at him.  

“Oh,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Sanzo is looking at him with something like concern on his face.  “Drink your tea,” he says, and reaches over to delicately pat Unsui’s arm.  “You know, you really should spend some time looking into these things.  There are more options than you think there are.”

“Yes,” says Unsui, and takes a sip of his tea.  “I’m starting to realize that.”

They drink tea in silence for a few moments.  Then Sanzo says, “...He kissed you because you’re a very handsome man.  I know I said that already, but you’re apparently still not aware.”

“Ah,” says Unsui.

“You should dress a little sluttier sometimes.”

“...Hm.”

“Agon’s style has always been horrendous, but those earrings he had for a little while were a very good look, I thought.  They would suit you!”

“Mm.”

“Do your parents know?”

Unsui doesn’t answer.  Abruptly, he’s aware of an ache in his hands; he’s gripping his cup of tea hard enough his knuckles are white under his skin.  

Sanzo says “...Ah,” half a sigh, and reaches out to rest a hand on his.

“If it was Agon,” Unsui says, convulsively—bites off the words, breathing out slow and hard, forcing himself to inhale again.

“...It’s alright,” Sanzo says quietly.  “Go on.”

It isn’t alright.  It’s childish, frustrated and selfish.  Unsui says it anyway.  “If it was Agon, they wouldn’t care.”

“Mm.”  Sanzo looks down at the tabletop for a few moments, lips pursed, thinking.  “...If it was Agon,” he says, finally, “...I don’t know what your parents would think.  But I know that Agon wouldn’t care.  And for once, he’d be right.”

Unsui lifts his cup mechanically.  Drinks.

“I’m not Agon,” he says.

“No, you aren’t,” says Sanzo, and for the second time in a week he says it like a compliment, a reassurance.  “Of course you aren’t.  Why do you think I fell for you?”

–

When Unsui arrives back to his dorm room that afternoon, he texts Hiruma, Playing hard-to-get makes for an ineffective offense, and I don’t play to lose.  As you must be aware, since I’ve heard you spend extra time reviewing my tapes.

There’s a break of four or five minutes, and then a single text in response.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: done with practice for the day.  club’s empty.

Unsui considers it, and his schedule, and what he wants, and why he’s afraid, and how angry it makes him that he’s afraid.  And Sanzo saying if there are rules, they aren’t worth your time.  And then he sends back 1730 and goes to get his shoes on.

The first thing Hiruma does, when Unsui steps in and closes the door behind him, is drop something into his hand.  The second thing he does, as Unsui frowns down at the concealer in his hand in total confusion, is step in and start biting an absolutely shameless mark into the side of Unsui’s throat.

Very little of the noise that wants to come out of him makes it through Unsui’s clenched teeth and sealed lips, but a sharp breath and a hint of a muffled groan escape, and Hiruma snickers against his neck like that’s a victory and goes back to work.

He’s trying to overwhelm Unsui’s defenses too thoroughly for a counterattack.  Relentless offense, that’s always been his strategy and it seems like it always will be.  Unfortunately, knowing that makes it only marginally easier to counter.  Unsui manages, with a concerted effort, to twist away enough for a real kiss, biting Hiruma’s lip harder than he means to—Hiruma twitches and makes his own held-back noise, but it doesn’t sound nearly as displeased as Unsui might have expected.

Knowing your enemy is key, on the field.  Unsui is aware that the bastard who is currently biting marks up and down his throat is a mobile quarterback, used to using trick plays and versatile formations to make up for a lack of teammates and options.  He’s also aware, now, that Hiruma twitches and shifts every time their skin touches, that he likes an aggressive counterattack.  He discovers, when Hiruma gets too aggressive with his teeth and Unsui grips him hard by the hips to push him back, that it makes Hiruma’s strange, slitted pupils dilate and wins an almost inaudible noise from the back of his throat.

It’s not much of an intelligent or strategic battle, compared to the times they’ve clashed before.  What it is, unfortunately, is deeply exhilarating.

Hiruma bites him again, incautious with his sharp teeth.  Unsui hisses, distracted from strategizing by the hot sting of pain, and grabs at him instinctively to pull him away; when one of his hands catches in Hiruma’s hair, the wiry body pressed up against him twitches and goes still.  Unsui stops as well, uncertain if he’s done something wrong, and this close he can easily see the unreadable, conflicted expression that flashes across Hiruma’s face when he lets go.

“For the amount of complaining you do, that I’m impossible to read,” Unsui says, frustrated enough he knows it’s audible in his voice, “You’re making this very difficult.”

Hiruma cackles and unfreezes again, like the moment of stillness never happened.  “What,” he says, “Do you want a referee or something?”

“Unless you’re going to call the fouls yourself.”

“What fouls?” Hiruma says, and grips the front of his shirt, shoving him back against the couch.  Trying to provoke him, pushy and cocky and aggravating.  “...Unsportsmanlike Conduct?  You don’t have the guts.”

Hiruma’s hair is startlingly soft, for how wildly spiked it is.  When Unsui runs his hand through it, it slips through his fingers; when he closes his hand into a fist and tugs Hiruma’s head back, Hiruma bares his teeth and tenses—no, shivers, a fast twitch-and-release, and his breath hisses out of him.  When Unsui bites the side of his neck, his chest hitches sharply and a formless noise makes it out between his fangs.  He shifts, tugging at the hand in his hair, and the faint, pink flush on his ears and his pointed nose deepens almost imperceptibly when Unsui fails to let go.

“Bastard,” he says—like he has before, like it’s a compliment somehow.

“You aren’t going to call a foul, then?” Unsui says, as though he’s not well out of his depth and feeling pretty breathlessly flushed, himself.  “Rough Play?”

“You call this ‘rough’?” says Hiruma, and grins at him, the reddened mark of Unsui’s teeth painted across the side of his throat.  “I’m not even bleeding yet.”

It’s a little alarming, being kissed after that, but Hiruma’s careful with his fangs for once, not breaking skin.  He grabs fistfuls of Unsui’s shirt as they sink awkwardly back onto the couch—one cool, long-fingered hand scrapes at the shaved fuzz of Unsui’s hair like he’s trying to find something to pull and he makes a frustrated grumbling noise when he doesn’t find anything and kisses him harder, like revenge.  

It feels almost like being angry.  It feels like playing a game, and giving up, and wanting something and taking it—

The door clatters open.

Unsui jerks back, breathing hard, staring around; his face is hot, his mouth feels sore and warm and sensitive and his head is swimming like he just got flattened on the field.  Hiruma is looking over at the door, grinning, but he’s gone tense and still again, and not in the way he did a few minutes ago.  There’s an unquantifiable difference in the way he’s holding himself, turning from a warm, moving body into a motionless collection of sharp angles, narrow eyes and bared teeth.  And in the doorway—

“Oh,” says Unsui.

“Hey there, fuckin’ dreads,” says Hiruma, with horrible cheer.  “Didn’t hear you come in!” 

“What,” says Agon.

Unsui knows his brother, and he knows how quickly he can put two and two together.  His reaction time is one of the many things that makes him so terrifying on the field; Agon can react to things before lesser players have time to blink.  Which means the delay of his reaction can only be because he himself can’t believe what he’s seeing. 

Hiruma says, “Quarterback courtesy meeting,” like the words are a challenge, and doesn’t let go of the front of Unsui’s shirt.

“What,” says Agon.

“Oh, he’s speechless!” says Hiruma, still grinning maniacally.  “That’s a new one.”

“What the fuck,” Agon says, this time directly toward Unsui.

“Ah,” says Unsui, and licks his lips.  He doesn’t have enough hair to be tousled, and his expression is as carefully-controlled as it ever has been, but he’s aware of the damning warm flush on his cheeks and—unmistakable this time—the red marks bitten into his throat.  “Well.”

Agon steps inside and slams the door behind him, and Unsui tenses despite himself, freezing in place.  He’s not—

He’s not scared his brother would hurt him.  He isn’t.  Agon’s willing to take down whoever crosses him, willing to resort to violence at the slightest provocation—but not to Unsui.  He’s willing to play rough on the field, but he’s never raised a hand to his own brother in anger.  He wouldn’t—

Agon is watching him.  Unsui is abruptly aware of how long it’s been since he inhaled.  When he does, it’s unforgivably uncontrolled, shaky and sharp; his cracked ribs give a stabbing throb.  

Agon’s mouth tightens into a straight, thin line, an expression Unsui can’t read through his mirrored sports glasses and the fall of his dreadlocks—then he looks back at Hiruma instead and says “The fuck do you think you’re doing?  Some kind of blackmail bullshit?”

“Blackmail’s not how you play this game, dreads!” Hiruma says.  “Not how I play it anyway.  Maybe you’ve got a different rulebook.”

Unsui is belatedly aware that his brother suspects he might have been coerced here.  There’s a very, very worrying line of tension at the corner of Agon’s jaw, the same one that shows on Unsui’s when he grinds his teeth.  

They have the same face.  It doesn’t hide its anger well.

“There’s no blackmail,” Unsui says with an effort, and he can tell by the twitch of Agon’s head when his gaze shifts.  He forces himself, somehow, to hold that unreadable, reflective stare.

Agon is motionless for a long second, watching him.  Then he shifts, a single tense twitch forward, shoulders rounded and fists clenched.

Despite himself—he knows, Agon wouldn’t, he’s not doing anything wrong, he knows—Unsui flinches.  Agon goes still again.  

“...What’s,” Agon starts, and the word comes out sharp enough to shock a hoarse breath into Unsui’s lungs.  It’s been too long since he took a breath.  

“We’ll go elsewhere,” his body says, like the voice of a stranger, quiet and formal and far away.  He moves mechanically, almost tips Hiruma out of his lap—reaches out to steady him without thinking about it, settling a hand on one sharp hip bone.  Hiruma makes no movement to get out of his lap.  Just sits there, watching Agon with an expression like a knife’s edge, eyes narrow and cold.

Agon isn’t looking at him.  He’s still watching Unsui.

“Well?” says Unsui, and then winces at the sound of his own voice.  It’s a mess, badly-hidden apprehension and anger turning the edges hard and sharp.  

Agon doesn’t answer.  There’s a deep line between his brows.

Unsui swallows hard around that strange, sharp voice that isn’t his, and says, “...I didn’t know you’d be here.”  It’s as close to an apology as he can manage, with the defensive anger still ricocheting around in his aching skull.  “I didn’t hear—”

“This is bullshit,” says Agon.

Hiruma raises his eyebrows, but thankfully doesn’t say anything.

“This is bullshit!” Agon says again, louder this time.  “Fuck.  If you’re gonna be—  Get better taste in dick, for fuck’s sake, goddammit Unko-chan.”

That’s not the complaint Unsui was waiting for.  It does at least take the edge off of the anger, if only because he’s so deeply blindsided.

“You don’t know how good the dick is,” says Hiruma gleefully.

Unsui’s going to kill him.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” says Agon through his teeth.

“You can fucking try!” Hiruma cackles.  “Are you going to just stand there looking like you need to take the world’s biggest shit, or are you going to fuck off?  We’re busy.”

Unsui shifts sharply before he can stop himself—catches one of Hiruma’s lean thighs and squeezes it hard, warning.  Under other circumstances he would push Hiruma out of his lap for being a provocative bastard, but Agon is still watching, as motionless as a stalking predator.  As intelligent as he is, as wily as he can be, Hiruma has never seemed to really respect how dangerous Agon can be.  To people who aren’t Unsui.

Agon wouldn’t hurt his brother.  He wouldn’t.  He won’t.  

But…

Agon starts forward in one fast, rushing step—Unsui freezes, uncertain, and Agon goes past him without looking at him, snatches up a wallet and a pair of sunglasses from a half-open locker, and stalks out the door, closing it sharply behind him.

Unsui doesn’t move for a few long seconds; he can hear Agon walking away, fast footsteps, heavy shoes on the hard hallway floor—they fade.  Keep fading.  Then they’re gone.

The relief of his absence lands hard and startling, all at once like a bolt of lightning.  A sudden, shaking shudder slams down Unsui’s spine, like the first time he stepped into the icy Shinryuuji waterfall in autumn, shaking to the bones in hard, helpless waves.

Agon wouldn’t hurt him.  Why does he keep having to remember that, why does it feel—  He wasn’t in danger, he isn’t in danger.  Not from his own brother.  

There’s no reason for this.  And Hiruma is watching him.  Watching—whatever the hell this is.  Unsui can’t be like this, whatever’s happening, it has to stop.  This is intolerable.

He opens his mouth to say something, and nothing comes out, even air.  When he forces himself to exhale, his breath bursts out in hitching gasps. The next breath comes rough and shaking, and the third finally manages to fill his lungs, even if the shaking persists.

Hiruma doesn’t ask if he’s alright, but he doesn’t look confused or disturbed either.  He just sits, quiet and watchful, as the strange spasms of shaking rise and fall, as the cold panic slowly subsides, as Unsui forces his breathing into order.

Hiruma says, “If he didn’t beat the shit out of me for this, you really think he’ll go after you?” like it’s a stupid question, and Unsui is already shaking his head even as the words send another brutal shudder through him.

“No,” he says, and closes his eyes.  He’s still gripping Hiruma’s leg, hard enough it probably aches.  He can’t seem to move to let go, at the moment.  “No, he’s not— No.  He wouldn’t.”

Hiruma makes a noise to himself, but doesn’t say anything.  Thankfully.

Calm.  Steady.  Slow the heart, quiet the mind.  Set that feeling back in its place.  Letting go of the tension in Unsui's body takes physical effort, slow and deliberate; it leaves an ache behind like a championship game, as though he used some part of himself up.

Hiruma grumbles something to himself in English, too unclear and brief for Unsui to catch, and then goes tch and tries to push himself up off Unsui’s lap again.  “Fuckin’ dreads knows how to kill a mood!” he says, and then looks down at where Unsui’s hand is clamped on his thigh, and raises an eyebrow at him.  Unsui stares at his hand as well, and then belatedly recalls his control over his own numb body and forces himself to let go.  “He’s all talk.”

He isn’t.  They both know that.  And Agon wouldn’t hurt his brother.  And Agon probably wouldn’t hurt his quarterback, not with the winter tournament looming in the future.  And they both know that.  They know that.  Unsui knows that.

“Go get your head on straight,” Hiruma says, and it’s nowhere near gentle but it’s not quite harsh enough.  He leans down, plucks up the concealer pen from the floor, spins it around his long, clever fingers and then presses it deftly into one of Unsui’s hands.  “We’ve got practice tomorrow.”

–

Two days later, Agon sends a text at two AM.  A date, a time, an address.  Unsui reads it a hundred times that day, after he wakes up to find it waiting on his phone—as though this time he’ll be able to read his brother’s mood through the unchanging pixels.  

He types why should I, and deletes it.  He types you can say what you need to say over the phone, and deletes it.  He types are you going to— and deletes that too, before he can bring himself to put words around the thought.

Agon will see that he’s read the message.  That’s answer enough.  Unsui puts his phone away, and goes to practice.

Chapter Text

Unsui almost leaves a thousand times, in the ten minutes that he’s waiting for Agon.  

The address from the text message is an American-Japanese fusion restaurant near their parents’ house.  They used to go there when they were children, for their birthday—or, more frequently, to celebrate Agon’s latest accomplishment.  The server greets Unsui by name and seats him in a booth near the back of the dining area.  And then he’s left alone, to wait.

Agon arrives five minutes before the time he said, as though he was hoping to arrive first.  When he walks in, he ignores the staff at the door; his head turns, lights flashing off his mirrored sunglasses, and then he steps right past the server and heads directly toward Unsui.

He doesn’t say anything, when he gets to the booth.  Just sits down on the opposite side of it, and takes his sunglasses off.

He’s wearing his dreadlocks tied back tonight, and with a strange, flat, calculating look on his face and no glasses to cover his eyes, it’s harder than ever not to see Unsui’s own face looking back at him, judging, measuring.  Silent as a mirror.

A server comes with two glasses of water, and sets down a menu for each of them.  Agon doesn’t acknowledge her.  Unsui gives her a very stiff nod and a smile, and then goes back to staring at his brother, arms crossed, waiting.

Agon says, “So.”

“...So,” says Unsui, and reaches out to his cup.  Pauses there, like he didn’t mean to drink in the first place.  He just doesn’t want to.  It isn’t because picking something up will make it clear that a familiar fine, uncontrollable tremor has started in his hands.

He has a terrible feeling Agon notices that.  All of it.  They know each other better than anyone, after all; Agyo and Ungyo, matching halves, not comparable but not separable.  And Agon is watching him with undisguised scrutiny in his narrowed eyes, gaze flickering from Unsui’s hands to his face to his throat, where Unsui is well aware there’s still a chain of faint, red marks.  

The concealer Hiruma handed him is in his dorm room; it was effective enough to hide the marks completely, and hardy enough to last through practice.  Unsui washed it off, before he came here.

Agon gets impatient first, like he always has and always will; he breaks their silent staring contest to click his tongue, lip curling briefly away from his teeth.  

Without preamble, he says, “If that piece of trash is making you do this, I’ll kill him.”

His tone is almost conversational.  Unsui stares at him—he looks serious, eyes narrowed, jaw set.  Like he’s trying to read Unsui as intently as Unsui is trying to read him.  

After everything, the mixture of startled warmth and affronted disbelief is…difficult to surround.  His brother, the genius, the monster, the world-class football player.  The man who ruined Unsui’s life without even trying to, and then made it hellish with every sign of intention and amusement.  His brother.  He thinks Unsui is being forced into this, and his response is protective anger, after everything.  After all the years of increasingly painful, unspoken tension between them, he still set up this meeting.  He’s still offering the help he has at hand.

He thinks Unsui is being forced into this, because he can’t—won’t—believe that his brother would kiss a man, or that someone would want Unsui on his own merits, or both.  As though there weren’t people who approached Unsui in middle school.  As though Agon didn’t immediately jump in to tempt them away, at the first sign of his brother having something he didn’t.  Some of them came to Unsui with his brother already in mind—he knows, he knows that some of them didn’t.

There’s something rising at the back of Unsui’s throat, boiling in his chest, until he can feel his heartbeat in his bones.  Reverberating in the ribs Agon cracked.  Hiruma’s given him a name to put to that feeling, now; he recognizes it, even if he has no idea what to do with it.  But.  He’s so angry.

“I never asked you to do that,” he says, quiet and flat.  “I never asked you to do any of this.”

“Aah,” Agon says, in dismissive acknowledgement.  “So?  Who else is going to get him to back the fuck off?  You?  You’re not a match for that shifty piece of shit.”

Unsui has felt Hiruma’s pulse beat against his palm, something fragile and easily-crushed trapped and struggling under his grip.  He’s felt the way Hiruma’s breath catches when their bare skin touches.

He doesn’t mention any of that, just says, “I can handle him better than you might imagine.  You’re underestimating me, Agon.”  

Agon gives half a laugh, amused and disbelieving.  Unsui’s teeth grind so hard it aches all the way to his temples.

“...If I wanted him to stop, I could tell him so.”

Agon’s jaw sets stubbornly; a mirror, a muscle at the corner of his jaw and a flash of bared teeth.  “Since when do you even fuck?” he says, accusing.  “Like you’d start for him?”

Unsui has to pause and rub his temple for a second, trying desperately to assuage the headache that’s starting behind his eyes.  “That is none of your business,” he says.  

“How long have you been—” Agon waves a hand, encompassing all of Unsui in a fast, dismissive gesture. 

“A few months.”

Agon doesn’t say anything, but it’s clear from his frown that he thinks Unsui is lying to him, or withholding something.  Unsui holds his stare.

“This is new,” he says, and considers—what to say, what he’s willing to say.  His brother thinks he’s being extorted, hurt or used or…whatever he’s imagining.  But they don’t talk about this kind of thing.  But Agon isn’t likely to believe him, if he can tell Unsui’s holding something back.  Some honesty seems to be in order.  “I stopped—  It didn’t make sense to—”  

He doesn’t want to discuss—that.  Agon stepping between him and any girl who so much as smiled at him, How everyone in his life seemed content to believe that it was because of Agon’s inherent superiority instead of a petty, deliberate play by a boy who couldn’t stand to see attention given to anyone but himself. Unsui breathes, and gathers himself, and says, “It wasn’t of interest to me,” in the same distant, politely-detached tone he’s always used to apologize when Agon broke a window, a bone, somebody’s heart.  “Men and women are both—” if he thinks about the words he’s saying he’s going to choke on them.  If he thinks about sharp fangs, bubblegum-sweet lips, red-brown hair on the nape of a pale, slim neck—  “Acceptable.”

He’s expecting Agon to grimace—which he does for a moment, as uncomfortable as Unsui is with having this kind of thing said in the open—but he also gives a brief, sharp laugh and relaxes, shoulders loosening.  “Oh!” he says, “Yeah, okay, fine.  So?  Just pick.”

“Just…pick,” repeats Unsui.

“Yeah, Unko-chan, you fucking heard me.  You got two options, it’s not like it’s hard to pick—throw the shitty option away, problem solved.”

Approximately a dozen responses rise up in response to that.  Unsui stares for a second, struggling to pick one, and then says, “...Do you—  Is that—  Is that what you do?”

Agon’s face goes blankly startled, and then—just for a split second—contorts with a strange, stumbling affront more convicting than guilt.  Rage covers the look a second later, but there’s no way for Agon to wipe that second away, and Unsui knows when his brother is angry because he’s been misunderstood, and when he’s angry because he’s been caught out.  Knows how much Agon hates it to be known.

“Fuck you,” says Agon, and then apparently catches the raw, sharp, defensive anger in his own tone and says “I don’t have to think about shit, Unko-chan,” in a tone that’s a lot more derisive and careless.  “I’m drowning in pussy whether I try or not, you know that.”

This time it’s Unsui’s turn to cross his arms and stare his brother down.

Agon is like him.  Not in many ways, hardly at all—but in so many ways, at the same time.  In almost every way.  In more ways than either of them will willingly admit out loud.  Unsui would never have guessed in a thousand years that this might be one of them; knowing that, now…recontextualizes things.

There was a time, when they were all much younger, that Agon and Hiruma spent hours out  in the city together.  Unsui isn’t exactly clear what they did, but Agon used to come back swaggering and pleased with himself, knuckles bruised, girls’ phone numbers in his pocket.  Unsui knows that something happened, some kind of argument, and then Agon shut Hiruma’s friends out of Shinryuuji, and the two of them have been viciously butting heads ever since.  

He knows, although he didn’t understand what happened at the time, that Agon spent the days after his final, conclusive fight with Hiruma pacing the house, snarling at anybody who talked to him, viciously angry about something he was never willing to talk about.

A thought is taking shape in the back of his mind.  Accompanying it, a petty, vicious satisfaction.  A theory, worth testing.

Unsui says, “You don’t have to worry that he’ll take interest in you instead.  He made it very clear that he doesn’t.” and sees the split second where Agon twitches and a muscle works at the corner of his jaw again.  “I think his phrasing was ‘I’d rather stick it to a pencil sharpener—’”

“Why would I give a shit,” says Agon, very clearly giving a shit.  

Unsui folds his hands on the table, and gives his brother the hardest, most unimpressed look he’s capable of.  Agon glares back, and then picks up a fork and starts methodically bending one tine at a time with his thumb, mangling the metal beyond repair.

Well.  That’s certainly something to know.  

Unsui’s immediate assumption would have been that Hiruma’s interest in him was some deferred interest toward his brother, an inclination he knew would never be satisfied and therefore moved to the next available target.  The assumption didn’t occur to him—wouldn’t, in a million years—that Agon wanted something from their strange, violent relationship, in the past.  And, for whatever reason, his own self-sabotage or Hiruma’s rejection, that he hadn’t gotten it.

Asking outright, considering the expression on Agon’s face and the tension in his shoulders, is likely to end this conversation here and now.  A few minutes ago, Unsui would have been more than willing to take the escape; now, with a baffling array of new questions laid out in front of him, he finds he doesn’t actually want Agon to storm out.

“What I’m saying,” Agon says before Unsui can find the words for all the questions he means to ask.  He’s taking the tone of someone angry to be talking to a very stupid toddler, every word gritted out through his teeth.  “—Is why the fuck would you go for the shitty option, if you can take your pick of either?  And that smart-mouth piece of trash is the shittiest option there is.”

“I disagree,” says Unsui, flatly.  “Obviously.  Besides, it’s not as though you can think less of me than you already do.”

Agon looks, of all things, taken aback.  “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you’ve made it extremely clear what you think of me,” Unsui says, very coldly now.  The waves are tossing inside of him—the urge to break something is back.  He watches Agon bend the handle of the fork absently in half, closes both hands on his glass, and doesn’t throw it.  “That you’re superior to me in every way, and I’m hardly worth the time it takes to crush me, now that I’m not serving your ends anymore.  Why should you care who I’m with, or why?”

Agon tosses down the mangled fork on the table with a ringing clatter and crosses his arms, scowling thunderously now.  “Yeah, I’m better than you,” he says.  “I’m better than everybody!  There’s shit-tier pieces of trash, and then there’s me—”

“And I’m one of those shit-tier pieces of trash,” Unsui says, from the icy pit where his emotions used to be.  “Yes.  I’ve gathered.”

“I didn’t fucking say that,” says Agon.  “Clean your damn ears out!  You’re not…bad.  Not that bad, alright?  You’re not me, nobody fucking is, but you’re closer than the rest of these losers.”

He waves a hand broadly around at the rest of the restaurant—the rest of the world, in a single broad, derisive stroke.

“You’re my brother,” Agon says, like that explains everything.

“Oh,” says Unsui, through lips that feel almost numb with rage.  “I’m aware.  Every day I’m grateful for my luck, sharing a family name with the blessed genius Kongo Agon.”

Agon gives him a narrow-eyed look at that—like he knows there must be sarcasm in that sentence somewhere, but he can’t seem to find it among all the true statements Unsui just said.

Unsui could throw the cup directly at his face.  It wouldn’t make contact, Agon’s reflexes are at the knife-edge of physical possibility, almost inhuman—but it would feel so damn good.

“...So you’ve really still got your dick in a knot about something?” Agon says, irritably.  “Fuck’s sake.  Fine!  Go back to ignoring me after this, but I’m telling you you’re gonna need my help, you stubborn little—”

Unsui almost stands up—to hit his brother, to walk out, he doesn’t know.  Agon catches the shift of his weight and cuts himself off in a frustrated growl before Unsui has a chance to finish the motion.  

“Whatever the fuck kind of blackmail he found on you,” he says, low and frustrated, “Just tell me already, and I’ll shove his stupid threat book down his damn throat.  And you can stop—doing that shit.”

“I’m not being blackmailed,” Unsui says, and hears his brother’s voice in his own, the exact tone Agon took with him earlier; someone explaining simple truths to a petulant child. Agon’s frown darkens.  “He’s been very clear that he wants—”

“What,” says Agon, a laughing mixture of anger and incredulity.  “You?  Uh, yeah, Unko-chan, I bet he thinks you’re just dreamy.  Just like every other little chaser bitch who cozied up to you in middle school trying to get into my pants—”

“This isn’t. About.  You!” says Unsui, clear and hard, and then goes still as he sees heads turn in the restaurant around them, startled glances being thrown his away.  He breathes, and then says, “...It’s not about you,” in a low, angry hiss instead.  “Everything you’ve ever had has been handed to you as a gift—you never even had to ask, and I—and for once, it’s not about you, Agon.  For once.  For once, it’s for me.  If you can’t accept that, at least don’t pretend it’s for my sake.”

Agon’s chin twitches up, and his eyes narrow like some part of that hit home.  He opens his mouth—bites off whatever he was going to say, lip twisting, and breathes out sharp and derisive through his teeth.

“...Yeah, he says.  “I didn’t ask.”

Unsui doesn’t—can’t—answer that.  Just watches his brother, rage boiling in his throat.

“...Fine,” says Agon, and the bitter, vengeful twist of his lip clashes with the edge to his voice, a tone of warning that rings too genuine to be mocking.  “That bastard’s going to chew you up and spit you out.  And when he’s done with you, and you come crying to me telling me I was right, I’ll crush his ass into the fucking ground—but I’ll tell you I told you so.”

“I realize it hurt when he didn’t want you,” Unsui says, quiet and crisp as cracking ice, and the words feel like they’re drawing blood as they come out, one soft, jagged wound at a time.  Agon’s hard expression twitches, his eyes widen incredulously—a burning reflection of Unsui’s cold rage.  “—But you’re projecting, Agon.  You really should learn to control your emotions.  I recommend meditation.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” says Agon, and Unsui sets his cup and his menu neatly down at his place and stands up, stepping away from the table.  “Oh no you don’t, Unko-chan!  Sit the fuck down.”

“Don’t call me that,” says Unsui coldly, and starts to walk toward the door—and then stumbles to a halt as his brother’s hand closes on his wrist so hard it feels like his bones grind together.  Unsui jerks despite himself, startled into a brief, tight noise of shock and pain—Agon twitches as well, like the sound surprised him, and abruptly lets go.

“I said sit down,” he says through his teeth. 

“No.”

People are staring now.  Agon looks furious, lip curled and eyes narrow—no control, no subtlety, just rage he never bothered to learn how to swallow.  It would be too much to expect, that anything Unsui could say after all these years would hurt him somehow.  But he thinks maybe he’s come as close as anyone can, anymore.

It feels damn good.  It feels like bleeding out—biting until he draws blood—breaking something.

“...Unsui,” says Agon, flat and rough.  Demanding, or expectant, or hopeful, or furious.  Unsui’s own face is staring back at him, and he has no idea how to read it—when was the last time Agon called him by name to his face?  Why can’t he remember?

Unsui turns away and walks toward the door, and this time his brother doesn’t try to stop him.

–

He gives up meditation after fifteen minutes.  He lies awake much, much longer.

–

Unsui has just gotten out of his early morning history lecture the next day, when his phone rings.

The number is a familiar one, albeit one that hasn’t contacted him in a while.  Unsui frowns at it, rubs his heavy, itching eyes, and then sighs and picks up the call.

“Ikkyu,” he says.  “What can I do for you.”

“Senpai, hey,” says Ikkyu.  “So, uh.  Hey, what the heck did you say to Agon last night?”

Unsui considers the broad scope of all the things he said to his brother, in the cold light of morning, and then says, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” says Ikkyu.  “I mean, no reason!  Just, I asked him if he wanted to run some new plays at practice and he said he wasn’t coming to practice today and if I talked to him again he’d rip my freakin’ balls off.  So, I guess it went not so good.  But, so, can you get him to come back to practice, already?  Just, fix whatever he’s pissed about?”

Unsui considers, once again, the broad scope of all the things Agon is pissed about.  Then he considers, with inexperienced care, all the things that he’s pissed about.

“No,” he says.  “I don’t regret anything I said, and I don’t intend to take any of it back.”  He hears Ikkyu make a conflicted noise, and pushes on before the man can object.  “...What does Hiruma say about this?”

“You think I freakin’ told him?” Ikkyu says incredulously.  “Senpai, come on.  I know Agon’s a dick, but you gotta help me out here!  Nobody else could ever get him to chill out!”

“It’s not my job to babysit him,” says Unsui sharply, in a tone not nearly as calm and polite as he intends.  “It isn’t my job to apologize to the people he’s injured, or the women he’s blown off, and it isn’t my job to drag him to practice!  Not—  Not anymore.”

“Oh, uh,” says Ikkyu.  “Oh.”

He sounds completely taken aback.  Unsui breathes, clenches a fist, lets it go again.  Ikkyu was a good teammate.  Competitive and intense but deeply obliging with his team, shy to the point of uselessness around women but devoted enough to the game to shake off his distraction when he stepped onto the field.  More than anyone else at Saikyoudai, he’s used to Unsui cleaning up his brother’s messes.  It isn’t his fault the situation has changed. 

“I’m…sorry,” Unsui says, with an effort.  “I didn’t intend—  I can’t help you.  Good luck.”  

“...Senpai,” says Ikkyu, before he can hang up—in the incredibly awkward tones of a young man with very few interpersonal skills to speak of, embarking on dangerous new territory.  “Are you.  Uh.  You good?”

Unsui stares at the floor, then up at the ceiling, then out the window of the hallway, looking out at cloudy gray autumn sky.

“I know Agon’s a dick,” Ikkyu says again, when Unsui doesn’t answer.  His voice is a study in discomfort.  “Y’know, to you.  Sometimes.”

It’s kind of him to try, at least.  Unsui was never especially under the impression that Ikkyu had an issue with the way Agon acted, beyond his very obvious flustered jealousy when Agon would show up to games late with a girl under each arm.  But still, they had been teammates.  For just a moment, right now, they still feel like teammates.

“Dinner went…badly,” Unsui says, every word measured.  

“Oh.”  A few moments of staticky silence.  Ikkyu clears his throat and offers, valiantly, “That sucks.”

It’s so deeply an understatement, it’s hard to fathom.  

“Yes,” says Unsui.  “Yes.  It does suck.”

“Yeah,” says Ikkyu, and clears his throat again.  “I think he’s.  Y’know.  He’s Agon, so.  Sometimes he says stuff that’s, that’s like that, when he means something that doesn’t uh.  Suck so freakin’ hard.”

Says stuff like I’ll kill him for you and you need my help, instead of I’m worried about you.  Because that is what he was trying to say.  It would be much, much easier if Unsui could pretend it wasn’t.  

When he was in high school, he would have been desperately glad to learn that his asshole twin brother thought he was anything better than trash, that he was worth being defensive of. It’s agonizing, now, to regret what he said to Agon, and regret not saying more, and regret not apologizing, and regret not trying at least once to punch his brother right in the mouth.

“Yes,” says Unsui, quietly and too late.  He doesn’t especially know what he’s responding to.  But he has to say something.

“Yeah,” says Ikkyu, and blows out a staticky, uncomfortable breath on the other end of the call.  “Well, okay, so.  I guess I”ll just.  Go talk to Hiruma, then.  Uh…I hope you feel better, senpai.”

Me too, Unsui thinks, and says “Good luck.”

–

Youichi is listening to one of his morning classes with one headphone in, watching footage of the Jaazudai Sharks’ most recent scrimmage and taking mental notes on both, when the door to the analysis room slides open.

Youichi doesn’t turn around as the footsteps come closer behind him.  Too fast to be Taka, their thoughtful, slow-moving wide receiver—too light to be any of the linemen, but too heavy to be Ikkyu.  Their tight end has a distinct footfall because of his pretentious shoes.  It’s not Anezaki, because he’d barely hear her coming if it was; she’s annoyingly light on her feet.  

He knows who’s behind him within the three seconds between the door opening and the intruder announcing themself.  He isn’t actually expecting that announcement to take the form of Agon grabbing the back of his shirt and physically dragging him over the back of the couch.

Youichi played football with Kurita for years—he’s more used to being picked up and hauled around than he would actually like.  Agon drops him, and he lands on his feet and straightens up without a stumble, assessing.

Observation #1: Agon looks like absolute dogshit.  There’s blood on his knuckles, and it’s not his.  His collar isn’t ripped, but there’s a subtle strain to the seam like someone made a desperate grab for it in a fight.  

Observation #2: it’s barely ten AM, and he’s still wearing the same clothes he had on for dinner last night.  Ikkyu guiltily showed Youichi the text messages from earlier that morning, and apparently practice isn’t the only thing Agon’s decided to skip out on.  Youichi would bet half a million yen the fucker never slept.

Observations #3: however many people he beat the shit out of last night, it apparently wasn’t enough to cool him off, because he also looks pissed.

“Long night?” says Youichi brightly, because blinking first would be an almost hilariously bad idea in this context.  

“What the fuck did you tell him,” Agon says.

This has to be about his brother.  Nobody in the restaurant heard what exactly got said, but they all definitely noticed when things almost turned physical and then Unsui stormed out.  To Youichi’s annoyance, the cameras in the building didn’t pick up on any of the fine details, either.  This is what fucking happens when he leaves the country for training camp, the upkeep of his information network gets fucking sloppy.

“He pissed you off that bad?” says Youichi, grinning.

“You slippery piece of shit,” Agon says, and advances a step.  Youichi doesn’t back up—yet.  But he does mentally add another level or two to the hazard of this situation.  Agon doesn’t usually pose a physical threat to his teammates anymore, but Youichi has seen him waste six thugs at once, and he knows exactly how hard Agon could hit him if he wanted to.

Data points are being presented here, however scattered they are.  Point #1: if Agon thought Youichi had lied about something, he would most likely be going in harder on what a lying piece of trash Youichi is.  That, plus his genuine rage, implies he thinks some real secret of his has been betrayed.

Point #2: as proud and arrogant as he is, there are very few things about Agon that he doesn’t baldly wear on his sleeve.  And even fewer of those that he would immediately assume Youichi specifically had leaked.

Point #3: there isn’t a feasible way for Unsui to somehow know about the last night before Youichi’s…mutually-beneficial partnership…with his brother broke up.  But it would go a long way toward explaining why Agon looks a few seconds from actually snapping and beating the shit out of him right now.

Denying the unspoken accusation directly is going to make this situation exponentially worse. Youichi considers his options, and makes the split second decision to do what he usually does when Agon’s pissed about something, which is redirect his anger by being an aggravating piece of shit.

“What did you tell him,” Agon repeats, dangerously quiet, through his teeth.

“I didn’t say jack about shit!” Youichi says. “We don’t get up to a lot of talking.” 

This method of distraction has the hilarious side effect of forcing expressions out of Agon that Youichi’s never even seen before.  The affronted distaste on his face is absolutely fucking amazing.

“I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last warm body on the fucking planet,” Agon snarls at him, and yes, okay, shit, apparently the damn monk really is that good of a cold-reader.  Youichi was not actually planning on telling Unsui about that whole mess; Agon’s pushy, awkward pass at him, the messy bitching contest it devolved into, the shit Agon said, the shit Youichi said—  

It’s going to change the playing field, however much Unsui figured out—Youichi has no idea how the rules have changed now.  Well, at least he sure as fuck won’t be bored.

“I told you,” Agon says.  “I told you if you went around talking shit I’d knock your damn teeth out.”

“For a guy who brags so much about getting tail, you sure are a fucking prude!” Youichi says.  “I wouldn’t fuck you either, Dreads, we hashed this out years ago.  And I didn’t say shit!  It’s not my fault the fucking monk’s got eyes and ears and he knows how to use them.”

Agon’s fists work, his nostrils flare.  He doesn’t answer.  It would be easy to get under his skin, right now; Youichi has taken a lot of this bastard’s shit over the years, and even if pushing further right now would be dangerously stupid, the urge to say something that’ll really shake Agon up is tantalizing. 

Scenario: Youichi says the quiet part loud, I thought you were some kind of superhuman who’s not scared of anything, you’re pissing yourself because somebody found out you secretly want to try dick?  Youichi gets his clock cleaned.  Agon could break bones—hard to judge if he would or not, but either way it wouldn’t bode well for their upcoming games.

Scenario: Youichi says I’m surprised he even agreed to meet you!  What’s he trying to punish himself for now?

Scenario: Youichi says I still haven’t figured out why he’s pretending he doesn’t think you’re waiting to beat the shit out of him! 

Scenario: Youichi says it would be a real shame if you got in his face like this and somebody had to ruin your fucking life over it.

…Hm.

Saying any of those things because they would piss off Agon is one thing.  The urge to say them for other, unrelated reasons is a lot more troubling.  Youichi doesn’t fight other peoples’ battles for them, especially not other people who aren’t even on his football team.  Defensiveness is an easily-exploitable weakness, which Agon is fully willing to aim for, which Youichi knows.

Troubling.

“I didn’t tell him you hit on me,” says Youichi, instead of any of the other things, and sees Agon twitch away from the reminder of that night like somebody else would flinch from a brandished knife.  “He must have figured it out on his own!  He’s crafty, that fucking monk.”

A familiar muscle works in Agon’s jaw.  “You think you’re getting back at me,” he says, “Both of you—  He thinks he’s gonna teach me some lesson—”

“Try again!” says Youichi, and bares his teeth in something that really isn’t anything like a smile.  “We didn’t think about you at all.”

Agon stares at him for another second, and Youichi keeps his weight on the balls of his feet, keeps his body loose, keeps himself ready to turn with the punch he’s 73% sure is coming.  Then Agon says, “Dammit,” and turns away, stomping out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

–

Hiruma doesn’t show up at the Fires’ clubhouse, this time.  He shows up at Unsui’s dorm room.

“Fucking Dreads seems to think we’ve been talking about him,” he says, instead of a greeting.

Unsui has several classes and then a long football practice on Wednesdays, starting barely after sunrise, and he estimates he got three or four hours of sleep at most; his mind and body are a creaking mess of exhaustion.  He stares at Hiruma, waiting for his sluggish brain to process that, and then steps back and lets Hiruma into his room, closing the door behind him.

“Did he hurt you?” he says, tiredly, almost on muscle memory, and Hiruma looks startled by his concern for the skin of a second before he laughs.

“Like he could!”

They both know very well that Agon could.  Arguing over that would be pointless, so Unsui doesn’t bother.  Instead, he says, “And when you told him ‘no’.  Before.  Did he hurt you?”

Hiruma’s eyes narrow and flick over his face.  Trying to read him. “I tell him ‘no’ all the time,” he says, elaborately unconcerned.  “You’re going to have to be more specific than that—”

A bluff that he doesn’t think Unsui will call.  Well then, he’s deeply underestimating how little Unsui has slept since last time they saw each other.  “Before our first year of high school,” Unsui says, clipped and frustrated, “When he tried—whatever he tried, and you told him ‘no’.  I know my brother, Hiruma.  He doesn’t like to be told he can’t have what he wants.  Did he hurt you.”

Hiruma must be rattled by that, because he doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t say ‘no’.  Just gives Unsui a brief, knife-sharp look, calculating.  “You know what he did,” he says.

Closed one of Hiruma’s best friends out of Shinryuuji.  Ruined any chance of playing on the same team with him.  Took every opportunity afterward to crush Hiruma’s dreams into the ground—and, whenever possible, his face as well.  It’s not like Agon to be so persistent in his grudge against someone, going after the same person for years at a time; Unsui had always thought it was strange.

“I’m sorry,” he says, on the same deeply in-ground reflex as before.  Because—it’s expected, and deserved.  Agon will never say the words in a million years, but Unsui wears his face and carries both their responsibilities for him and—  

He needs to sleep.  He needs to meditate, persist until he regains control of himself, do the damn thing right.  How long has it been?

“Nothing to do with you,” Hiruma says, dismissively, and waves his hand in careless absolution.  “That time back then, anyway.  Sounds like this time might have been you all the way, though!  What did you say to him at dinner last night?”

“How did you—” Unsui starts, and then pinches the bridge of his nose as the obvious answer comes to mind.  “Ikkyu.  Of course.”

“He came crying to me when your fucking brother wouldn’t come to practice, yeah,” says Hiruma, “But I’ve got cameras up in that restaurant anyway.”

That isn’t objectively worse, but it does feel worse, somehow, even if the cameras apparently didn’t capture what was said.  Hiruma must see some amount of what Unsui’s feeling on his face, because he gives a strange, small smile.  “You already knew I was a bastard,” he says. “So?”

Unsui did know.  There isn’t much point in being shy about it, he supposes—it isn’t as though a dozen people in the restaurant dining room didn’t also see the argument.

“...I told him he should learn to meditate,” he says stiffly, “Because getting emotional over you was unproductive.”

Hiruma gives a startled peal of laughter.  “Fuck yes!”

“And he told me when it turned out you were manipulating me, he would kill you.”

Hiruma’s laughter falters.  Not afraid, but…caught by that, somehow.  On what part of it, Unsui can’t begin to guess.  The look Hiruma gives him is brief and blank enough that guessing what the man is thinking is next to impossible.  

“If it comes to that,” he says, “You can kill me.  He can keep his nose out of it.”

That’s objectively an unhinged thing to say—it definitely shouldn’t be as reassuring as it is.  The noise Unsui makes doesn’t come out quite as a laugh, or as a sigh, just a brief huff through his nose.  “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” he says dryly, and looks around the room, belatedly aware that Hiruma is still standing and in his shoes and jacket.  “Ah.  Do you want—”

“If you try to make me a cup of tea I’m leaving.  You and the damn manager, fuck.”

“She’s an excellent host,” says Unsui, pointlessly, and is laughed at, as he knew he would be.

“Yeah, well, I’m a bastard,” Hiruma says again.  “And all that stuff is stupid.”

“Which is why you’re so bad at it.”

“Which is why I’m bad at it!”

“I don’t know how she puts up with you,” Unsui says frankly—a little more frankly than he intended.  Before he can catch himself, “...For someone who has to clean up after you so much, she still manages to think very highly of you.”

Hiruma’s grin stays in place, but the rest of his face freezes momentarily around it.  “She’s an idiot!” he cackles a second later, as though the moment never happened.  As though Unsui would possibly believe such a transparent lie, or believe that Hiruma believes it.  “She thinks very highly of everybody!  Hell, she even puts up with your shitty brother!  What kind of lies is she telling about me, now?”

It’s disguised very deftly behind the persona—but it’s a probe for more information.  Curiosity.  Despite all his cackling and trash-talking, he wants to know what she thinks of him.  

The image returns, in Unsui’s mind, of the two of them on the other side of the party; murmuring to each other, laughing, talking like there was no one else in the room with them.  When his chest aches in foolish, selfish envy, he has no idea which one of them it’s for.

“I think she admires you,” he says, despite himself, with the self-sabotaging care of a man pressing at a bruise to see if it will hurt.  Hiruma’s eyebrows dart up sharply, genuine surprise flashing through the mask for a brief moment.  “Beyond that, I don’t think it’s my place to say.”

Hiruma scoffs, but he looks pleased, even beyond his impenetrable grin.  “Stick-up-your-ass fuckin’ monk,” he says, with a shade of something approaching fondness.  “No wonder she keeps inviting you around.  The two of you are cut out of the same cloth, huh?  Polite.  Not fucking nice!  Just polite.”

“I’m capable of being nice,” says Unsui.  “I’m not nice to you because you’re a bastard.”

“Fucking right,” says Hiruma, and plucks one of his phones out of his pocket as it buzzes.  He glances over whatever’s on the screen, frowns, derisively pops his gum, and then pockets the phone again.  “...Well, that’s all the courtesy visit I have time for.  Don’t you have practice?”

“Do you?” says Unsui, irritably.  “Practice is done for the day.”

“Already?” says Hiruma, and pulls one of his sleeves up to glance ostentatiously at what appears to be one of three watches. “I thought second practice just for you went until at least ten, you masochist bastard.”

To answer would be to justify his needling.  Unsui walks to the door, opens it, and stands expectantly next to it instead.  Hiruma rolls his eyes, smirking, but does at least take the hint and starts toward the door, pulling a different phone from a different pocket and tapping away at it one-handed.

He stops on the way by for the briefest moment, grabs Unsui’s shirt and tugs him down to bite his lip.  Then he presses a button, raises the phone to his ear, and strides off down the hallway already talking.

It occurs to Unsui, frustratingly, that this has been the single time he has been in the same place as the man and they’ve had privacy and comfortable furniture.  An opportunity noticed much too late to be taken advantage of.  

He scrolls through his phone, finds the unknown number that messaged him before the spring championship, deliberates for a few minutes, and then sends, If you could have come to Enma this entire time, why have I been the one traveling?

There’s a brief pause, and then the unknown number texts back, I don’t know, why the fuck have you?

Because he’s not playing aggressively enough, apparently.  

Next time, come here.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: mouthy

If you invite me to that clubhouse again, I’m not going.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: oh he’s playing hardball

Unsui doesn’t answer that text, just decisively closes his phone and goes to sit at his desk, staring bleakly down at the list of assignments he has to get done before the end of the week.  If nothing else, now that he’s put the ultimatum out, it should prevent him from getting…distracted, by further daytime trips to other universities in the middle of the school week.  Hiruma may well attempt to demand he “visit” again, but if he does Unsui now has no choice but to turn him down.  Anything else would be as intolerable as walking onto the field and deliberately earning his team a 15-yard penalty.

It seems unlikely that Hiruma will give in any time soon, either.  For the best, most likely.  Unsui pulls a notebook over, opens the day’s notes, and puts his brother and his parents and his—and Hiruma—far from his mind.

–

Mamori texts him at six PM, Sena says you sometimes stay late at practice or study so diligently you forget meals.  Please make sure to eat dinner so we can play you at your full strength!

Unsui sits very still and reads the words again—struggling, for some reason, to understand plain Japanese.  There’s no reason for him to feel so—  Whatever it is that he’s feeling.  Something new is churning in his stomach, almost like fear or anger but…lighter.  Warmer.  

Why would she send him this?  Why would his running back volunteer that information to her, childhood friends or not?  Were they talking about him already?

Did she ask about him?

Unsui half-types and then deletes a dozen messages, and then sets his jaw and picks out, carefully, Thank you for your concern.  I will make sure to do that.  Considers what he knows about this woman, and then adds, In return, please make sure to get adequate rest.

The text message he gets in return says What did you hear?!  I keep telling everyone, I feel fine!  And then, before he can compose an apology, uncertain if he’s overstepped; It’s very kind of you to worry, though.  Let’s both do our best!

–

Agon texts him at thirty minutes past midnight, do those idiots you play with know?

At one-forty-five AM, we all know he’s already fucking anezaki

At two AM, this is bullshit

At three AM, did you tell mom and dad?

Unsui wakes up from restless dreams before dawn and reads the messages.  Feels something vast and nameless rise up in his chest like some kind of unfathomable, devouring monster.  The hard trembling, the thing that tears the bottoms out of his lungs so he won’t be able to fill them no matter how fast or hard he breathes.

He lies motionless in bed long after his screen has gone dark again, staring straight ahead into the night, freezing the raging ocean inside of him one agonizing drop at a time.  Then he picks up his phone in numb hands, as the sky outside begins to go gray with dawn, and blocks his brother’s phone number.

Chapter Text

The winter tournament starts four days later.

Unsui is half-expecting Agon to try to make contact in the meantime; he doesn’t hear anything, and he doesn’t unblock his brother’s number.  Agon’s team members in Saikyou actually keep him busy leading up to games, and Unsui already resolved himself to live without defining himself by his brother.  It doesn’t matter.  If Agon doesn’t want— 

It doesn’t matter.

Unsui considers for much longer than he would admit, the last night before the tournament; opens Hiruma’s number, and then closes it, and then opens it again, and then closes it and types a message to Mamori instead.

Carry them to the Rice Bowl.

There’s a brief pause, and then a message arrives back.

Anezaki M: Of course.  Don’t let anything stop you from meeting us there.  

Unsui sits on the bed and stares at that message for a few minutes too long, struggling with a warm, spreading ache that—for once—doesn’t hurt at all.

–

Youichi spends the night before the first game watching the last two winter tournaments.  When the door opens behind him, the only sound he hears is the faint sound of fabric shifting and the slightest tap of footfall;  the fucking manager.  She shouldn’t be up this late—then again she’d definitely say the same thing about Youichi.  So there’s not a whole lot of point in pointing that out.  Youichi slings an arm over the back of the couch and signs, strategy observations?

Mamori comes quietly up alongside the couch and settles down on the arm of it, watching the footage.  It’s their loss to Enma, the first year, when Agon wouldn’t stop going after his brother, when their teamwork was still a fucking shitshow.  Enma scraped a win and lost one game later.  Fucking disastrous.

Mamori signs back, Limited field to your vision.

Where should I look?

She raises a hand, but doesn’t sign anything yet.  On the screen, Unsui pushes himself upright, looking after his brother as he stalks away, jaw set and shoulders square. 

Mamori signs, Keep looking, but opposition is watching you.  Trick play incoming?  All options risky.

Youichi snorts, despite himself.  She’s not fucking wrong.  Ten-four.

Mamori stands up and dusts her jeans off.  “Get some sleep,” she says, soft but very authoritative.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bring your fucking A-game,” Youichi says, and Mamori nods and vanishes just as quietly as she came.

–

When Unsui does receive an invitation to Saikyoudai, eight days later, he goes.

If it was Hiruma who sent for him, he would of course have held firm on his convictions. However, unfortunately for Unsui’s limited free time, the message isn’t a brusque demand from a nameless burner phone.  It’s a polite and friendly request from Anezaki Mamori.

Unsui shouldn’t go.  The Enma Fires took down their first competitor of the tournament 38 to 3, but the knowledge of how much further there is to climb hung over the victory celebrations that night.  When Unsui managed to meditate again after class today, it was…unproductive.  

Ignoring his own rebellious thoughts has only gotten harder.  Practice was brief and light, more of a protracted series of warmups than a real practice—which means he has no excuse not to get some much-needed studying done, and catch up on his homework, and rethink a few of the plays they ran for the first time during the game—

He shouldn’t go to Saikyoudai.  But he does anyway.

Here, at least, in the Wizards’ clubhouse again, there’s a good reason for him to feel tense and out of place.  He’s been hurried to a couch—the couch where Hiruma left a mark across his throat, the couch where Agon found them—and now Mamori is flitting around the room deftly making him a cup of tea, making light, friendly conversation about the train ride over and the autumn weather and the course load.

What she hands him is a real cup of tea, not a cup of hot water with a cheap teabag thrown into it; Unsui knows it will be delicious before he tastes it, and it is.  Mamori picks up her own cup, takes an appreciative sip, and then settles down on the couch across from him and says, brightly, “You know, Hiruma has spent 14% more time reviewing Naga and Fires footage over the past few weeks.”

If he’s intended to take something from that, Unsui’s not entirely sure what it is.  He is clear, however, that some opening move has just been made.  

“Ah, really,” he says.  It feels strangely familiar, sitting here across the table from someone he knows is dangerously intelligent, playing a game he’s not sure he knows the rules to.  At least the tea is better, this time.   

He resolves, silently and firmly, not to allow himself to think about how things went last time.

“And you’ve spent 14% more time reviewing where Hiruma’s attention is directed?” he says, and thinks by the way Mamori’s eyes flick down and she raises her cup to her lips that she might be taken by surprise.  

“I pay a lot of attention to where people are looking,” Mamori says.  “I’m the manager, after all.”

“Ah,” says Unsui, empty agreement with no further data offered.  That doesn’t feel like a threat exactly, but it’s carefully-worded enough to set an aching tension between his shoulder blades.  “...I see.”

They both sip again.

“You’re more difficult to read, that way, than most people,” Mamori says.  “You hide your plays very well.”

“Thank you.”  His hands feel cool and stiff, despite the warmth of the tea; some distant relative of the long, frozen moment when his line can’t hold.  The split second when his cover breaks and he has to decide his play…  “From the Wizards, that’s a generous compliment.  Hiruma is very capable at hiding a play, when attracting attention might be…disastrous.”

“Disastrous,” Mamori repeats, and one of her fingers shifts back and forth against the side of the teacup, the slightest thoughtful tic.  She says, “...Ah, well.  He seems very happy, I think.  To play against you.”

“And I’m sure he’s very happy to have such a reliable manager,” Unsui says, and then sips his tea again as though he can pretend that he isn’t watching for a reaction.

Mamori cocks her head to one side, and brushes a few strands of red-brown hair thoughtfully behind one ear.  Then she says, “...What do you think my relationship is with him?”

It’s a startlingly bold question.  Damn.  She’s willing to play as aggressively as Hiruma is, when it suits her.  

Unsui takes another defensive sip of tea, rapidly recalibrating, and then says, “I think…he’s a very reckless, selfish, dangerous man, but he easily seems to draw people to him.  People who are used to being more careful.  Who wish—who would like to act a little more recklessly, and selfishly.”

“I think all of those things are true,” says Mamori, and smiles sweetly at him, like she’s succeeded in some trick play he didn’t catch.  “But I asked you what you think my relationship with him is.  Not yours.”

It feels very similar to being tackled.  The moment of confusion, then impact, then weightlessness, then impact again.  Unsui keeps his mouth firmly shut, biting down hard on any stammering or argument, refusing to be shaken.  Once his heart rate has settled again he says, just as politely, “...I don’t think you know, yourself.  So I would have no way to know if I’ve answered correctly.”

Mamori goes “...Hm,” and rests her chin in her hand, and it feels like a touchdown, like he somehow guessed his way through the rules and got a point in—whatever this game is.  

Unsui’s mouth says, “...And what do you think your relationship is with me?” entirely without his permission.  Mamori looks startled, and then amused; Unsui has the distinct feeling that he’s just given up an equal or greater point to the opposition.

“We’re opponents!” she says, bright and laughing.  “Of course.”

“Of course,” Unsui repeats, and is aggravated to feel his face warming.  A counter-play, quickly, before it’s too obvious he didn’t mean to ask that.  “Do you often ask your opponents for romantic advice?”

Mamori sips her tea.  Unsui sips his tea.  Neither of them blinks.

“...You aren’t much like Agon at all, are you,” Mamori says, just like she did after the Autumn festival.  Not touching his arm and smiling at him, this time—but still, saying the words with care, like she knows the weight they carry.  “But you are quite a lot like Hiruma.  You just hide it better.”

“I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Good,” says Mamori, and takes her last sip of tea, setting the cup down on the table and standing up, business-like.  Unsui follows suit, feeling—he isn’t actually sure.  Relieved, or possibly more frustrated than before.  Confused, certainly.  Reckless, possibly.  His hands are twitching to do…something.  He isn’t sure what, yet.

Mamori doesn’t look surprised, when he steps closer—in arm’s reach, but not reaching out.  She’s still smiling, thoughtful and unreadable, watching him like a play she’s taking apart over that relentlessly kind, sympathetic smile.

“He’s really too much, sometimes, that man,” she says, and there’s no question at all of who she’s referring to.  Unsui manages not to laugh, or to say anything incriminating, but he feels the corner of his mouth twist wryly and knows she notices.  “I hope you’ll forgive him for being so…” she waves a hand abstractedly.

“Reckless,” Unsui echoes for her.  “Selfish.”

“Exactly.”

She’s still standing very close.  Neither of them have moved away.  Hiruma kissed him in this room barely more than a week ago.  The heat of the tea has put a soft, pink flush along the curve of Mamori’s lips, and over her cheeks.

You’re not like Agon, she said.  You’re a lot like Hiruma…  Like Hiruma, who she laughs with in quiet corners.  Like Hiruma, who can dissemble and redirect as much as he wants, but can’t resist the urge to ask what she says about him.

“I think it’s possible,” Unsui says, measuring the words out steady and careful, and feels his heart in his throat as he swallows.  “That we could both stand to follow his example.”  Not making any offer she would have to refuse, just putting the statement out between them.  “To be more reckless.  And more selfish.”

Mamori’s eyes widen, searching his face.  “Ah, is that so,” she says, shaping the words as cautiously as he did.  “But, I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt…”

“I don’t think they would have to.”

Mamori’s eyebrows rise—then she smiles, not her usual bright, friendly expression.  Something strange and sharp and thoughtful.  “Is that so,” she says, more to herself than to him.  “...It isn’t selfish if everyone gets what they want.  Is that what you mean?”

She undoubtedly knows her quarterback better than he does—knows how his mind works, after so many years, and knows what he wants.  Unsui raises his eyebrows right back at her.  “Do you disagree?”

The feeling is familiar.  The last seconds of overtime, with no one else who can carry this through for him.  In the strange, quiet calm of a game’s last play, Unsui closes the half-step of distance between them, reaches out, and touches one of her wrists.

Mamori goes still.  Unsui stops, uncertain, ready to draw away again if he’s misread something; she glances down, and then up to his face, and then shifts her own arm as slowly as he did, turning it until her fingertips can brush past his palm, lingering there.

Somehow, it’s almost more shocking than the moment Hiruma kissed him.  Unsui takes a sharp breath, abruptly aware that he hasn’t done so in several seconds, and then steps back despite himself, breathing out slow and controlled.  His face is warm again.

“Well,” he says, and squeezes the hand she touched into a fist.  His palm is tingling.  He opens his mouth, tries to say something, and then manages, “Well.  Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.  If Hiruma—  Mm.  If that’s…” he almost says ‘allowed’—a useless concept, when Hiruma Youichi is involved.  Unsui can’t stop seeing the way Hiruma’s eyes flashed when he said find something you want, hold on with both hands.  Sanzo saying people like to tell you there are rules.  Mamori saying you don’t have to find an excuse.  Sometimes we deserve to be selfish.

“Yes,” he says instead, as simple and steady as he can, and ignores how warm his face feels.  Meditation tonight is going to be an absolute disaster.  “Do you think he’ll be alright with that?”

“I think he’ll be glad we can all come to an agreement,” says Mamori brightly, like this is some kind of difficult scheduling conflict they’ve settled, instead of some bizarre French dating arrangement that Unsui’s parents absolutely must not hear about.

There’s a strand of hair coming loose from her ponytail.  When Unsui reaches up and carefully brushes it back into place, Mamori glances up at him in surprise—then her eyes drop away from his and her smile turns warmly self-conscious.  Her lips look much, much softer than Hiruma’s.  There aren’t any fangs behind them at all.

“I should—” says Unsui, and steps back—folds his arms, realizes he isn’t wearing a gi and can’t tuck his hands into the sleeves, and unfolds them again, feeling like an idiot.  “I wouldn’t want to, mm, well, it would be—this is a sports clubhouse, after all.”

Mamori actually laughs at that.  “Yes, I suppose it is,” she sighs, and shakes her head.  “Of course it would be here.  Of all places.”

“Of course it would be,” Unsui repeats, and brushes a hand back over his head, rubbing at the back of his neck.  His palm still feels too warm.  

This is not Hiruma, and as strange as this situation is, it seems like he should make an effort.  There are ways to do this; conventions, expectations.  Unsui is…aware of them, although he’s hardly had the chance to put them into practice.  He could do this right.  He isn’t his brother, after all.  

“Well, to put it plainly,” he says.  “As your opponent—I like you more than I should.  I would be honored if you would consider going out with me.”

Mamori laughs again, covers her mouth with one hand but seems unable to stop herself.  “Yes,” she says, when she’s regained control.  “I’m glad we’re being so clear! I think I would like that too.”  She smiles at him, and there’s a sweet, testing edge to her voice when she says, “...Please don’t be too upset when the Wizards defeat you in this tournament.”

“I won’t be,” says Unsui, through the sound of his pulse in his ears.  “Because you aren’t going to.”

She pats his arm again.  “Kariya Bakery is my favorite place,” she says.  “We could go there some time, if you’re not busy.  Now.  Let’s go talk to Hiruma.”

–

Hiruma is sitting on top of one of the school buildings, at the top of a flight of stairs, through a door with multiple warning signs and forbidding notices on it.  Mamori puts her hands on her hips at the sight of them, sighs, and then pushes the bar and steps through, out onto a windy rooftop.

Hiruma is settled in what appears to be a well-established bolthole; a stolen umbrella has been zip-tied into the corner of the fencing around the rooftop to make a shady, sheltered corner, where he’s camped in a luxurious-looking sunchair.  Some very dubious-looking extension cords have been run out to his corner to power three separate laptops, a blasting space heater, and a bank of mismatched cellphones hooked up to various wires and plugs.  Mamori steps over all of it, nudging the cords out of the way with the toe of her shoe, and crosses her arms as Hiruma unhooks his headphones from one pointed ear and looks up at her impatiently.

“Hiruma,” she says reprovingly.  “Using your computers outside again—you’ll ruin your eyesight!  How will you complete passes when you go blind?”

Hiruma snorts and snaps his gum—there’s just a moment, a split second, where his eyes flick back to Unsui and his eyebrows twitch up, a barely-visible expression of surprise.  Then he laughs and the moment is gone.  “If the fucking receivers run their pass routes like they’re supposed to, who needs eyes?” he says—glances down at the laptop and switches fluidly to English.  “[None of your damn business, is who!  Your business is figuring out who had the balls to rip down my cameras.  Figure it the fuck out!]”  He closes the laptop and leans back in his chair, taking his headphones completely off to hang them around his neck instead.  “What are you doing bringing members of enemy teams up here, fucking manager?  I could’ve been working on plays.”

“I’m going to date both of you,” says Mamori.

It’s a very rare thing to see Hiruma Youichi completely taken aback, even for a moment, but that apparently does it.  For just a split second, his mouth is slack and startled, his eyebrows rise, his strange, slit-pupiled green eyes go wide.  Then a moment later he’s recovered, cackling out loud.  “You?!” he says, incredulously.  “Kekekeke, no fucking way!  A goody-two-shoes like Anezaki Mamori, Ms Student Council President, with two guys on the side?!”

“Well, since you apparently can’t make up your mind which one of us you want,” Mamori says sternly, arms still folded, not budging even an inch, “Someone had to be responsible and make a decision!  There’s no reason this can’t be worked out with some diligent time-management.”

“And the fucking monk’s on board with this?” Hiruma says, still in apparently-delighted disbelief.  

“It sounds like the most reasonable course of action,” says Unsui, from the depths of the most surreal fever-dream he’s ever experienced.  “Unless you find the idea too intimidating.”

Hiruma says, “Your brother is going to flip his shit.”

Unsui hadn’t actually considered that.  He stares into space for a second, considering the look on Agon’s face when he realizes that Unsui has tenuously secured a relationship with not one but two of his failed conquests, and then says, “...Yes, I suppose he will,” with an unintentional undertone of vicious satisfaction that tastes much sweeter than anger at the back of his throat. 

Mamori says, “So?” and Hiruma stands up abruptly, unfolding off his sunchair.

Watching him kiss someone else is a very strange experience.  He seems to mind his teeth better, with Mamori, although as he’s about to pull away he nips her lip and she twitches and swats at his arm.  They don’t say anything to each other, afterward; there’s a moment of brief, searing eye contact, and then Hiruma breaks away from it with a sharp jerk, like it takes him more effort than he would ever willingly admit, and looks at Unsui instead.  

“Not so cowardly after all,” he says, low and sharp, hot enough to burn.

That look in his eyes—startled, intent, as though Unsui did something impressive and worth his full attention—provokes a rush of something powerful enough it feels almost like rage.  It lifts Unsui’s chin, straightens his spine, and it isn’t until he hears his own voice say “I would have thought you would have learned not to underestimate me, by now,” that he recognizes the foreign sound of his own pride.

He has a moment to feel deeply conflicted about that, and then has to stop thinking because he’s being pulled down for a very pointy, forceful kiss.  Everything focuses, simple and clean as the pitched intensity of a game; the teeth trying to find purchase on his lip, the handful of hair closed in his fist, the way Hiruma’s breath hitches when he gives a hard tug, the long-fingered hand shoving up the back of his shirt—

“Youichi,” says Mamori, very firmly, and Unsui becomes very abruptly aware of himself again and almost stumbles as he steps back, taking a hard breath.  Hiruma breaks away at the sound of his name, eyebrows rising—grins, and runs his tongue provocatively across his fangs, and Mamori flushes a startlingly pretty pink and her gaze slides away from his face.  "Do you really think this is the best place for this?" she says.  “We're on a roof.”

Hiruma makes a dissatisfied noise, but he must see the validity of the concern because he steps away again, letting go of Unsui’s shirt and wiping the back of a hand across his mouth.

His thin lips are faintly pink, redder at the side where Unsui bit him in retribution.  Noticing that, at the moment, is incredibly difficult to bear.

Unsui has born difficult things before.  He breathes through the base urges that are happening in his overheated body, and then says, “Well, if that’s all decided.”  Should he kiss Mamori as well?  That seems forward.  She’s.  Polite, and intelligent, and much less accustomed to being tackled and thrown around than either of them are.  With other men Unsui is flying entirely blind as far as convention goes, but he’s relatively sure it wouldn’t be appropriate to kiss a woman he hasn’t even dated yet.

He looks over, and sees Mamori looking back at him with a very thoughtful expression—both of them look away at the same time.

“Oh, you’re shy, now, fuckin’ manager?” says Hiruma, with spiteful glee.  “What, you’re that kind of girl?  You just like watching boys kiss, huh?”

Mamori swats him on the shoulder, to raucous cackling.  “It’s not like that at all!” she says, pink-cheeked, “You—  Ugh, you’re terrible!  Stop it already!”

“Miss Anezaki doesn’t even want to get her hands dirty!” Hiruma says, in tones of mocking deference.  “Miss Anezaki just likes to watch her boytoys make out for her—”

Unsui’s phone rings.  He pulls it gratefully out of his pocket and retreats from the ongoing argument, face burning and composure deeply rattled—then blinks and frowns, distracted from embarrassment, when he sees who’s calling.  

“Hello?” he says, and covers his other ear as the bickering rises in volume.  “Captain?”

“Oh!” says Kurita, as though he’s somehow surprised that Unsui picked up.  He sounds deeply worried—but he often does, and he doesn’t usually feel the need to call Unsui about it.  “Um, well, we were all talking, and we had an idea about a play, so we went out to practice it—”

“You’re the captain,” Unsui says, and sees Hiruma and Mamori both catch the word this time, heads twitching toward him, abruptly paying attention.  “We can run over whatever it is as soon as I’m back, I’m more than happy to—”

“Yes, but, um,” says Kurita—interrupting him, which is more concerning than the rest of the call so far.  “Ah, well, it’s, you see, we went out to try the play, and Agon is here?”

It takes a moment for the words to register; then Unsui almost drops his phone.  “What?!” he says, sharply.  “At Enma? Why?”

“He says he’s looking for you,” says Kurita.  “Monta asked him why and he—”

“Told Monta to get out of his way or he’d kill him?” says Unsui.

“Well…yes.”

“Damn,” says Unsui, with feeling.  “I’m on my way, captain, please just…let him do whatever he wants, don’t get in his way, I’ll be there soon.”

–

Anezaki Mamori isn’t the sort of person who’s inclined to get flustered or panicky.  Upset, sometimes, or angry, she’ll definitely admit to that.  But despite her tendency to worry about things, she’s always prided herself on having a fairly cool head.

Youichi, as usual, seems intent on proving her wrong.  But he can keep his teasing to himself, today.

“I really wasn’t expecting him to make the first move,” Mamori says, and watches the small figure of their rival quarterback hurry across the university grounds below, not quite running but definitely in a hurry.

“He pulls those first-play trick shots out of his ass sometimes!” Youichi says, and kicks out with a long, lean leg to nudge her calf with a shoe.  “Like he’s the only one here!  What the hell did you say to him, huh?”

“Well, that’s between us,” Mamori says, and takes a calculated step away from Youichi’s kicking foot.

“What, I’m not part of ‘us’?” Youichi says.  When Mamori glances over at him, she feels a strange, soft shiver run up her back; Youichi is watching her with a strange, intent look on his face, eyes narrow and searching.  Hungry?  Or maybe even hopeful.

“I told you, didn’t I?” she says.  “I want both of you.  So that’s what I’m going to get.”

“Greedy,” Youichi says, shaping the word like it’s delicious, and Mamori has to look away from that thoughtful, piercing look.  

“Well, I thought it looked like fun!” she says, to the empty air in front of her.  “I’ve heard ‘whatever you want’ is the only thing that’s worth doing.”

Youichi laughs—not the ringing cackle, this time.  A more candid, hissing snicker, caught between his teeth.  “Damn fucking right,” he says, and his voice is a little lower, a little stranger than she’s ever heard it before.  “I think we better talk about that later, if you’re going to be such a fucking prude about the whole ‘rooftop’ thing.  Like there’s any point, when the whole damn school thinks we’ve been fucking since high school.”

Mamori could swat him with a broom for that.  She elects not to, for the moment; far below, Unsui is on his phone again, running now.  Mamori watches him quietly for a few moments, until he vanishes around the corner of a building, and then sighs.

“...He’s worried,” she says.  “Do you think that call was about—

“Fuckin’ dreads,” Youichi finishes for her.  “Yeah.  He ditched class today, he must’ve headed over to Enma.”  He blows a bubble, snaps his gum contemplatively and then reaches down to pull a rifle from under his chair, opening his mouth as though he’s about to say something.

“Whatever you’re about to suggest, the answer is ‘no’,” says Mamori, and Youichi blinks and then snorts and sets the gun back down again, grinning at her.  

“You know me too well, fuckin’ manager,” he says, and Mamori has known him long enough to recognize fondness in his tone when she hears it, but also to know that acknowledging that fact will lead to a fresh storm of obfuscating jackassery.  She pretends not to hear it, and turns away from the fence around the rooftop instead, coming over to stand by Youichi’s shoulder. 

He’s flipping through video feeds—idly, at first glance, until Mamori catches a short-haired figure in a tight black shirt, running toward the nearest train station with the practiced, steady pace of an athlete.

“...Should we do something?” she says.  “About Agon, I mean.”

Youichi spins the rifle around his hand like someone absently flipping a pen.  “Mm,” he says, and makes a distinctly catlike expression, wrinkling up the bridge of his long nose in distaste.  “Those two… You seriously want to wade into the shit they have going on? You didn’t even take the fucking monk on a date yet.”

“We have tentative plans,” Mamori says, with dignity, “And that has nothing to do with it!”

He’s not exactly a monk, either—Mamori has put together the broad strokes of what she missed, but she certainly wasn’t expecting them to kiss each other like that.  It’s not so surprising to see Youichi biting and handsy and aggressive—it’s just his nature.  But Unsui off the field has always come across as composed to the point of sternness, and courteous almost to the point of shyness.  

Mamori has been a very polite, appropriate, modest young woman for a lot of long years, now.  And she isn’t in the mood to hear Youichi cackle at her again.  But she would be lying not to at least admit to herself that she would have liked to see what the two boyfriends that she apparently has now are capable of doing with each other.

Polite young women do not think about things like the deeply distracting way Youichi’s jeans fit his hips and thighs, or the brief flash of shifting muscle in Unsui’s lower back when one of Youichi’s hands shoved under it.  But then again, polite young women don’t date two boys at once, either.  So.  That’s certainly a thought for later.

On Youichi’s screen, Unsui hurries onto a train and vanishes from the sight of the camera.  Youichi blows a bubble and snaps his laptop shut as it pops, leaning back in his chair like he intends to sunbathe up here in the middle of autumn under an umbrella.

“...Why would Agon go all the way to Enma to talk to him?” Mamori says to herself.  “He must be able to call him…”

Youichi snorts.  “You don’t have to fix their shit,” he says.  “And both of them would get pissed if either of us stuck our noses in.  Let it go.  They’re not gonna kill each other.”

He’s right, like (unfortunately) often is.  Mamori sighs, and lets go of most of the worry with an effort, letting tension bleed out of her back and shoulders.  Maybe Yamato will rub her back again, if she asks him to.  He’s very good at it, like he’s good at most things, and enough of a gentleman he would never even think of taking it the wrong way.  

“We’ll have to find a way to break the news to Agon, eventually.  He’s not going to be pleased.”

“Ha!” says Youchi.  “Yeah, he was pretty pissed about just us.  If he finds out the fucking monk’s hooking up with girls too, he might blow his top.”

Mamori starts to nod absently, and then registers what she heard and fully turns to stare down at him.  Youichi raises his eyebrows at her, and then shrugs.  

“...I got distracted,” he says, like that’s an explanation.  “In the clubhouse.”

“In the—  When—”  Mamori does not lose her composure.  She isn’t that person.  Damn it.  “You never mentioned—  Alright.  We need to strategize.  Tell me what happened.”

“Oh yeah?” says Youichi, because he’s terrible, and he has never in his life let go of something when he’s realized it gets him a reaction.  “You want all the details?  Gonna make a doujinshi about it?  Gonna draw your shitty D- art class doodles about—”

“Youichi,” says Mamori again.  Just like the last time, it feels ridiculous and presumptuous to say the name, but just like last time it draws Youichi’s attention like a cat seeing a mouse, watchful and interested.  “If you find him this distracting to talk about, we’ll have to put this on hold until after the Rice Bowl.  Are you going to focus?”

She’s not making any attempt to hide the blatant attempt at provocation, but it has the intended effect of making Youichi perk up, delighted to be argued with in a way he’s probably not aware is so clear.  “Like you could stop me!” he says.  “Okay, okay.  Here’s the first half—”

He presents the events as though they were planned out and executed perfectly, a facade that probably would have fooled Mamori when she first became the team manager back in high school.  Now, knowing Youichi as well as she does, she can very clearly see the trajectory, first of the impulsive move that triggered things, and the ongoing scrambling that has led to where they are.  

If he decided to play a courtship with most people in the way he’s played this one—frustrating feints, challenges and trick plays—they would be too confused, intimidated, or irritated to follow through.  Really, he’s very lucky he ended up making a move on someone who can keep up with him.  Mamori listens patiently through the explanation, and puts the events in order in her mind as neatly as she orders the plays in their playbook.

“He said he wouldn’t come back over here,” Youichi finishes, and shrugs.  “But I guess he made an exception for you!”  He grins, all teeth and saccharine teasing.  “What a gentleman.”

“Mm,” says Mamori, ignoring that last.  “I wonder if his parents know.”

Youichi’s expression of glee goes blank around his smile, like it always does at the mention of parents.  “Ah, who gives a shit,” he says, with the amused carelessness of somebody who’s definitely giving a shit.  “He’s dating the devil anyway!  Who cares if they clutch their fucking pearls about it.”

Mamori’s parents had a very traditional courtship, a long, steady, romantic relationship and then a nice marriage in a nice house with a nice daughter who never causes them trouble.  Mamori considers the thought of telling them that two boys have agreed to date her at once, knowing full well about each other, and then says, “I’ll talk to him about it then, when we go on our date.  Now, if you’re going to use your screens, take them inside out of the sun!  You’ll ruin your eyes.”

Chapter Text

The Enma Fires are gathered on the field when Unsui arrives; they’re running plays halfheartedly, in street clothes and cleats, with Sena playing fill-in quarterback, obviously waiting for Unsui and unwilling to leave until he arrives; when he does, everybody stops in mid-run and hurries over.

“Where—” Unsui starts, and the entire team starts talking at the same time.  Agon has been sent to the clubhouse, but not before threatening to crush, kill, maim, or destroy several members of the team.  They’re united in defensive outrage.

“We didn’t tell him where you were,” says Monta, who’s more than a head shorter than Agon and considerably leaner, but is absolutely puffed up with indignant protectiveness.  “You can just head back to the dorms and not talk to him to the max, if you want!  We’ll tell him to leave!”

Unsui considers the times he’s seen Agon cover Monta during games; Agon has proven himself both willing and able to crush Monta into the ground with completely unnecessary force to prevent him from catching Unsui’s passes, and that’s with a referee present.  “No,” he says.  “No, that’s…fine.”

“He’s all talk,” says Riku, the Fires’ other running back, coolly.  

“I don’t think he is,” says Sena, who’s clashed directly with Agon repeatedly over multiple years of tournaments, and has come out of it with black and blue arms every time.  He scratches the back of his neck, glancing over at the clubhouse.  “Senpai, I don’t know if you should go in there.  It seems, uh…dangerous?”

Agon wouldn’t hurt me, Unsui thinks, and says,  “I have it under control,” instead, wearily.  “Just—go back to the play.  Sena, you need to tighten your spiral.  Mizumachi, you’re advancing too aggressively, keep the line tight.  I’ll go handle Agon.”

Reluctantly, the team drifts away from him.  Unsui doesn’t glance back at them, but he can feel their eyes on his back as he walks to the door of the club house and steps quietly inside.

He’s almost expecting to find Agon waiting when he comes in, but there’s no sign of him in the entryway.  Someone is talking further inside, in the room they use to screen footage; the door is shut, but even before Unsui can make out words he knows it’s his brother’s voice, sharp and irritated.

“—Headed back to your place, or something,” Agon is saying, when Unsui pauses silently at the door.  Underneath the sound of his voice there’s a roaring crowd, clipping and jumping as whatever play tape is running inside cuts from shot to shot.  “Sounds like no.”

There’s a few moments of silence over the muffled sound of commentary and the recorded click and rattle of helmets and pads—Agon scoffs. “No, ma, because he blocked my fuckin’ number!”

Quiet again—as on the other end of the phone, no doubt, their mother tries to half-heartedly scold him for cursing.  Agon growls to himself, and then sighs.  “Yeah, yeah,” he says.  “Okay.  Whatever.  I’m pissed though.  Something’s up with Unko—tch.  Unsui.  And his fuckin’ friends don’t like me, so they’re not saying shit.  What’d he tell you?”

More quiet.  Unsui stands, strangely frozen—holding his breath, staring at the blank wood.  The stillness he’s struggled for in his meditation seems to have caught up with him all at once; something inside him is frozen, and he doesn’t know if it will ever move again.  The urge to run into the room and smack the phone out of Agon’s hand wars with the urge to stop his own heart, die here frozen in place and become a stone temple guardian who never has to be alive or deal with his family ever again.  

Both are equally impossible.  He stands there, instead, and stares at his own hand motionless on the door handle.

“Uh, I dunno, because you’re our mom?” says Agon, in a tone Unsui would be immediately chastised by their father for.  “Wasn’t he around for summer break for like three days?  Did he just sit in his room and meditate the whole time, or what?”

A pause.  Unsui breathes in, with an effort, and out.  Inside, Agon gives another frustrated grumble.  

“What, when we played in spring?  He doesn’t give a shit about getting tackled, ma, we’re football players.  Something else got up his nose and now he’s—  Did he say any shit to you about having a—” 

He doesn’t finish the words, just cuts himself off in an angry growl; Unsui feels himself catch a tiny noise in his throat as the air around him turns abruptly drowning-thick and cold.  Something like terror pounds hard and fast in his chest, battering against the underside of the ice where his heart used to be.  

“Ah, whatever!  Whatever.  Never mind.”

Pause.  Breathe in.  Breathe. 

“Because if you wanna know something you can ask him your own damn self, ma!  I’ve told you a million times I’m not his damn interpreter, butt out!”

Breathe out.

“...Yeah.  Sorry.  Whatever.”

Breathe in.

“Yeah, if he shows up.  It’s not—nah.  He’s fine.  How would he not be fine, he doesn’t have a life.  Probably found a waterfall somewhere to freeze his nuts off in, for old time’s sake.”

Breathe out.

“Yeah, fine!  Fine.  I know.  He’s not—  Yeah.  Okay already, I get it.”

Agon hangs up without saying goodbye—then, by the sound of things, kicks a chair.  There are a few seconds of grumbling, too low to make out words—then a quiet beeping as Agon dials another number.

“Hey, trash,” he says, without preamble.  “Where’s my brother.”

Unsui doesn’t need to hear the cackle from the other end of the phone, to know who Agon called.  But he can hear it anyway, loud enough the tinny noise cuts through the sound of the tape playing in the background.  Hiruma’s response is too quiet to hear.  Agon’s half of the conversation sinks to a quiet growl, like even without knowing someone is listening he can’t bear to say the words too loudly.

“None of your fucking business is why.”

“...Well, where the hell is he then?”

“If you could hunt down that jackass and his gang in the middle of Ginza back when we were in middle school you can find my goddamn brother, don’t play dumb with me.”

“Who the fuck else’s business would it be, huh?  Who the fuck else, huh?!  What, yours?  Don’t make me laugh.”

Another rattle, most likely the same chair as before being kicked even harder.  

“Shut your mouth or when I get back I’ll shut it for you.”

“Yeah, well, I called their place first and he’s not.  All I ever fuckin’ hear is ‘your brother always calls!’ so if he didn’t let them know where he went sneaking off to—”

He growls and kicks a chair again, cutting off like Hiruma just interrupted him.  Unsui stands perfectly still, staring at nothing; something strange and heavy has settled into the pit of his chest, suddenly.  He’s never in his life heard his parents compare the two of them in his favor, but there’s an edge of frustration in Agon's voice that leaves Unsui completely certain he's speaking from experience.  

“Like you’ve got room to talk about half-ass parents,” Agon is growling at Hiruma, on the other side of the door.  “At least we had a bedroom that wasn’t a fuckin’ hotel.  ‘Didn’t give a shit’ is a couple hundred steps up from ‘kicked their freak kid out of the house’.”

He’s pacing, Unsui can hear his angry stride getting closer and further again.  Whatever Hiruma says in response to that, it makes Agon’s footsteps abruptly stop.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Agon says, sharp and cutting, voice suddenly rising.  “Like hell they would!  Unko-chan’s been the kiss-ass good kid ever since the little shit could talk, what the fuck would they cut him off for now?  Just because he’s—  Bullshit.”

Unsui knows his brother.  Knows how he sounds when he’s certain, how he disregards things when he thinks they’re truly ridiculous.  Hiruma thinks their parents would disown him for this, for this inane, impossible, greedy thing he wants to take.  And Agon didn’t laugh it off.

Agon is still talking, but Unsui can’t manage to listen.  Echoes of the past few months are circling and rebounding in his mind.  Frantic, repeating, mixing and re-mixing into new shapes; Agon’s my brother, he wouldn’t hurt me.  Did you even talk to him?  You’re our mom.  You’re my brother.  They wouldn’t cut him off.  He’s the good kid.  I’ve told you a million times I’m not his interpreter.  If Hiruma’s making you do this I’ll kill him.  They’re my parents. They wouldn’t hurt me.

Unsui’s phone rings.

Inside the room, Agon stops abruptly in the middle of whatever he’s saying.  Unsui tears himself from the place he’s been rooted for the past endless minutes, fumbling for his pocket, and pulls it out—the screen says ANEZAKI MAMORI.

He hangs up the call just as the door slams open, and Agon lunges through, grabs his collar and slams him against the wall hard enough to stun the air out of his lungs.  For a split second, his grip is hard enough to hurt, his face is twisted into a snarl and one of his fists is twitching back to throw a punch—

And then he sees who he’s threatening, and realization overtakes his fury.  “You,” he says, in a tone of absolute confusion, and abruptly lets go.  “What the fuck?”

“I’m,” says Unsui, and stumbles over the words, hands half-raised in belated, pointless self-defense—to shield his face, or to punch back, he doesn’t know.  He’s seen Agon’s rage turned on other people before, but he’s never imagined—never had any reason to imagine—what it would feel like to have it turned on him.  The conflicting urges to shove Agon away, throw a punch, run, do something, are paralytic.  “I was just—”

“You fuckin’ blocked my number!  Dick!”

“Agon—”

“Tell your loser friends when I’m looking for you they better watch their fuckin’ mouths!”

“I’m not—”

“Where were you?!”

Unsui is not a child anymore; he’s a grown man, a capable athlete, and he’s not scared of his brother.  

He doesn’t think of any of that, when Agon shifts his weight like he’s going to step closer; he turns and runs. 

He hears Agon say something behind him; as Unsui reaches the door out of the clubhouse he feels a hand snatch at the back of his shirt, tears free, dives through the doorway and then runs directly into what feels like a wall with a thick cushion over it.

“Oh, Unsui,” says his center, and puts two huge, steadying hands on his shoulders.  “What’s—” 

“You little fucker, get back here!” Agon shouts, and Kurita’s entire helpful, worried demeanor shifts in an instant, unstoppable as a landslide on the slopes of a mountain.  Unsui has seen the massive power the man can bring to bear when he’s in the weight room, and the steely determination he can muster when he plays in the line, but he’s very rarely had any cause to feel either firsthand; one enormous, soft arm tightens protectively around him with the terrifying power of a piece of heavy machinery and drags him effortlessly back behind the mass of Kurita’s body.

Somewhere a few feet behind him, Agon grunts and then yells in fury.  “Lemme go you fat-ass piece of trash—!”

“No,” says Kurita—not harshly, but very firmly—and looks down at Unsui instead, who’s currently being crushed against his side so hard he’s genuinely having trouble breathing.  “What’s going on?  Should I call Hiruma?”

“No!” says Unsui, at the same moment as his brother but much wheezier.  “What?!  What—no, no.  I’m fine, it’s fine!”

Kurita gives him a worried frown, apparently oblivious to the power of his own grip.  When he shifts his arm, something in Unsui’s back pops.  “It doesn’t look fine,” he says.  “Hiruma told me if Agon ever came and caused any trouble, I should call—”

“Let me go,” Unsui croaks.  If nothing else, the feeling of his freshly-healed ribcage being compacted has given him something to focus on that isn’t the strange and absolute panic that overtook him for a moment.  “Please.”

Kurita goes “Ah!” like he just remembered that other people are soft and eminently crushable, and releases him.  Unsui hardly realized his feet were no longer on the ground; he stumbles as he lands, stares around wildly and then finds his brother: dangling at the end of one of Kurita’s arms, held off the ground without any visible effort by a huge handful of his shirt.  His sunglasses have fallen off, and the seams of his shirt are making a tearing, popping noise as it supports his weight.  He’s bringing a hand down repeatedly on Kurita’s wrist, with a force that would instantly break him free of most men.  Kurita, who was already almost 200cm and 150kg in highschool and has only gotten bigger, is definitely not "most men" and hardly seems to have noticed he's being hit. 

“He’s not going to hurt me,” Unsui says, and only realizes when Kurita looks alarmed and worried all over again that the topic of Agon hurting him hadn’t actually been broached, except in his own mind.  Agon gives Unsui a look somewhere between irritation and startlement, scanning his face, and whatever he sees there makes him pause in his attempts to twist loose, one hand raised to keep hitting Kurita but not coming down.

“When did I say I was going to, huh?!” he demands.  “Don’t go putting weird bullshit in their heads, you asshole—”

“Are you sure?” Kurita says.  “But, your ribs—”

“Please put him down,” says Unsui, instead of answering that.  Agon is still watching him, angry and confused.  “That was for a game, it was—it’s fine.  He won’t hurt me.”

“Stop saying that,” says Agon tensely.

“Hey!” somebody shouts, and footsteps get rapidly closer—the rest of the team, jogging over.  Several of Unsui’s linemen and backs shove immediately in front of him, when they see Agon.  To Unsui’s obscure horror, so does Monta, looking outraged.  

“What’d you do, huh?” he demands, and jabs a finger up at Agon—who has at least stopped fighting Kurita’s grip on his shirt, dangling like an angry, scruffed cat, looking irritated and confused.  “He’s his own man now, to the max!!  You can’t show up here and get in his face!”

“He’s not,” Unsui starts, and tries to step forward from the bizarre protective barricade of angry, sweaty, young men.  “Everyone, stop.  I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Kurita says again, because he’s incredibly softhearted for a man almost seven feet tall and capable of bending steel with his hands.  Agon tries to kick him; it bounces off of Kurita’s almost spherical belly with no visible effect.  “Why were you running away from him like that?”

The rest of the team reacts to that about as well as Unsui would have predicted, which is to say that they all turn and look at him in horrified worry.  

“I don’t know,” says Unsui, from somewhere at the depths of a very deep pit.  Agon is still staring at him.  “I don’t—  It was stupid.  There wasn’t a reason.  He wasn’t going to hurt—”

“He broke your ribs,” Riku points out, deadpan and sharp.  He’s a dependable running back, a sharp, intense young man who isn’t the type to lose his head, but he’s looking from Agon to Unsui with a very narrow, silver-eyed stare.  “Do you think we’ll believe that didn’t hurt?”

“When the fuck,” says Agon, affronted. “No I didn’t!  I’ll kill you, you lying little—”

“That was during a game,” Unsui says.  “It’s nothing.  All of you, just, get back to practice.”

“Like hell we would!” Monta says, and a clamor of agreement rises.  Somebody is tugging at Unsui’s arm, and Agon is still looking at him, just looking at him, and there are a dozen voices trying to reassure him and argue with him and interrogate him and yell at his brother and—

“ENOUGH!” Unsui snaps, with the full-throated force he used to use, trying to shake his team during meditation.  Everyone jumps, and the chaos freezes in place.  Something is—  He feels—  He’s so—  

He can’t bury this feeling this time, and he doesn’t want to.  He can’t calm himself through this, and he doesn’t see why he should.  He steps forward instead, pushing past his startled line, putting enough force into his voice to make his ribs ache.  “That’s enough. Kurita, put him down.  Agon, if you raise a hand to my teammates, I’ll have you thrown off this campus.  The rest of you—back to practice.  I’m going to have a private conversation with my brother.”

“But—”

“A private conversation!”

“Senpai—”

“Okay,” says Kurita, and lowers Agon back onto his feet, as easily as a smaller man might set down a glass of water.  His round, mild face looks worried, still, but he’s looking at Unsui the way he does when Unsui makes a risky call during a game, determined.  Trusting.  “Alright, everyone.  If he says everything is okay, then—we should believe him, right?  Come on, let’s go…”

It takes Kurita a minute to herd the rest of the team back toward the field—eventually, with a few of the hottest-blooded ones tucked under his huge arms, he clears the area.  Leaving Unsui burning with rage and Agon standing in resentful silence, arms crossed.

“Trash like that—” Agon starts, and Unsui rounds on him in icy fury, teeth bared.  Agon doesn’t take a step back, but he does stop talking abruptly, wary like he has no idea why Unsui’s angry.

“You,” Unsui starts, and almost chokes on the words, struggling to say a thousand things at once.  “You!  How dare you?!  What the hell are you doing on my campus?!”

“Aah, better question,” Agon says, and his eyes narrow on Unsui’s face, accusing.  “...How come when you told them I wasn’t gonna kick your ass, you made it sound so fake?”

The question is enough of a surprise that it stymies the anger, at least for a moment.  Unsui stares at him, wrong-footed, and then says, “You—they were—”

“How come you’re—”  Agon crosses his arms, then finishes in an irritable half-mumble, “...being a little—fuckin’, bitch now.  Every time I look in your direction.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Unsui says, because that was the question, even if Agon is incapable of asking it in so many words.  Even hearing it echoed back to him makes him twitch—and then give Unsui a suspicious, irritable frown, like he thinks he’s being lied to.

He’s not.  Unsui’s not scared of his brother.  He meets the frown with one of his own, and Agon growls to himself, jaw working. 

“...And this is because, what, I didn’t baby you in the spring tournament?”  His hands work on his biceps, crossed arms flexing.  “I don’t play to lose.  So?  It’s the game, it’s not like I—”  He cuts himself off, lips twisting.

“It’s the game,” Unsui repeats.  “I know.  I’m not—  I’m not upset.  About that.”

“Bullshit you’re not,” Agon says, because he knows Unsui, deeply and painfully and inconveniently. 

“I’m not angry about that,” Unsui corrects, reluctantly, and it must be close enough to the truth to satisfy for the moment, because Agon makes a derisive noise and shifts restlessly, arms crossed and shoulders up, lips twisted.

“...I seriously broke your ribs?” he says.

“They’re just cracked,” says Unsui, like he has to every member of his team at least a dozen times.  “And they’re almost healed.  It’s nothing.  I’m fine.”

Agon’s jaw works like he’s biting his tongue.  “I didn’t hit you that hard,” he says, but Unsui knows his brother, deeply and painfully and inconveniently, and he knows the rare, uncomfortable edge of uncertainty in his voice. 

“Yes,” says Unsui, coldly.  “You did.”

He’s seen the way Agon grimaces and looks away from that, too—like the rare times he got scolded when they were children, guilty and angry about it.  Agon’s never handled it gracefully, feeling things he doesn’t like.  

“Yeah, well,” Agon says.  

“Well what.”

Agon makes a vague gesture.  Unsui doesn’t throw anything at him, only because he has nothing handy to throw. 

“Should’ve just come to Saikyou,” says Agon, resentfully.

“No!” Unsui says, much more sharply than is probably wise. “No, I shouldn’t have!  I told you—”

“Yeah, I heard what you fuckin’ told me,” Agon snaps—abrupt, flaring anger like fire catching.  “I got the message!  You’re the guy who wouldn’t stop lying down on the ground in front of me, but I’m the douchebag who kept walking, and you’re pissed about it—”

“What?!”

“You’re always fuckin’ like this!”

“Like what,” Unsui says, through his teeth.  His skin feels hot and cold and electric, the rage is so hot in his throat it feels like he could breathe it like fire. 

“Like it’s my fault I’m good!”  Agon snaps.  “Like I asked you to do your weird bullshit in high school!”

“If you didn’t want me to support you, then why haven’t you spoken to me since we went to college?” Unsui shoots back, outraged.  “And as soon as I told you I wouldn’t give up my whole damn life to clean up your mess—”

“Why didn’t I talk to you?!”  Agon says incredulously.  “You blocked my number, asshole!”

“A week ago!  You’ve been giving me the silent treatment for years, Agon!”

“Yeah, well maybe I figured the guy who vanished off the face of the earth to get away from me didn’t wanna talk about it?!  Fuck off!”  Agon kicks a discarded helmet—it slams into the side of the club house and bounces away across the ground, faceguard dented beyond repair.  “But I’m not gonna be—not me, just because you’re a fuckin’ pussy about it!  It’s not my fault I’m better than you!”

“I never asked you to be something you’re not!” Unsui pushes forward on the force of his rage, grips the front of his brother’s jacket and shakes him hard. Agon lets him, and it only makes the fury stronger. “When the hell did I—  I know!  I know you’re better than me, I know you won’t hold back, I know!  I don’t care—”

“Bullshit you don’t,” Agon says, tight and hard and—rough, and strange.  “You think I’m blind?  Huh?  You think I’m a fucking moron?  You think I don’t know how you look when you hate somebody?  You’re my brother.”

He said that, in the restaurant.  It hurts just as much, now.  Unsui stares at him, blindsided, breathing too hard—his eyes are hot and burning, and he hasn’t cried since he was in middle school and he won’t—  He won’t.  He’s just so angry.

“You can’t just say,” he starts, in a voice that hardly sounds like his own, thin and strained.  “You can’t just. You bastard.  Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve said, you expect that to be enough?  You’re the older twin, Unsui, tell your brother you forgive him?”

Agon’s lip twists.  “Don’t you fuckin’ bring mom and dad into this,” he snaps.  “I don’t wanna hear it from you, Mr Favorite Son.  Mommy’s fuckin’ precious perfect polite little straight-A Un-tan, Dad’s damn ‘if you were polite like your brother’—”

“Favorite son?” Unsui repeats incredulously, and laughs a stranger’s laugh, cracking in disbelief.  “That’s—  The hell they—  You thought they—  Agon, they don’t care about me!”

He hardly hears himself say the words, until he sees Agon go still.  Then he realizes what he just said, and catches on his next breath in, stumbling over it.  Something snuffs out, in his chest; the driving heat of the anger turns abruptly to something cold and paralytic.  Poisonous.  Still, but not calm.

“...What?” says Agon.  Not angrily, though, this time.  Blankly startled.

“They don’t,” Unsui starts again, and swallows on the words, the choking weight of them in his throat.  Like a realization, or a confession.  Like putting a name to something that’s been aching in his chest for longer than he can remember.  “They don’t care about me.  They don’t know anything about me.  You hardly care to know anything about me, and you’re—   We were always…”

He can’t finish the words.  Agon’s face twists again anyway, an uncomfortable, wincing grimace.

“...Bullshit,” he says, but there’s not enough force behind it.  “Don’t give me that.”

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Unsui says—demands—pleads—he doesn’t know, but when he holds Agon’s eyes, his brother’s shoulders tense and his eyes dart away.  “Agon.”

“They’re our parents,” Agon says, just like before, like he means everything by it.  Like he doesn’t understand why that’s not enough. 

“Look at me,” Unsui says, and catches the words as they come out, too loud and too raw.  Breathes, forcing himself back into line, and finishes, “Look at me, and tell me I’m wrong.”

Agon doesn’t.  Crosses his arms and glares past Unsui’s shoulder, shifting his weight, working his hands, like whatever he’s feeling is fighting for a way out.

“...Yeah, well, fuck ‘em,” he says, finally, low and tight and resentful.  “We didn’t need them, anyway.”

I did, Unsui thinks, and opens his mouth, and doesn’t say the words.  Just runs a hand uselessly over his head, staring aimlessly around like he might happen on something sitting on the ground to fix the way all of his ribs seem to be rebreaking at once.  A crumpling, squeezing pressure at the base of his throat, wrapped around his heart. 

“...So, you didn’t tell them, then,” Agon says.  “About—” he twitches a shoulder wordlessly, as though saying Hiruma’s name might burn him.

He must know the answer already; Unsui shakes his head anyway.

“I’m sure it would be fine,” he says, but it’s a thin shell of his voice.  Agon stares at him for a second or two, and then looks away.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says.  “They don’t know shit, and they don’t need to know shit.  I know how to keep my mouth shut.”  He gives Unsui a look—not angry, but very intense.  Threatening?  No.  Expectant.

“...You know I do, too,” Unsui says, and knows he read the unspoken question correctly when Agon folds his arms and gives a minute twitch of his chin that might be a nod.  “They don’t need to know anything.  About either of us.”

“Aah,” says Agon.  Then, like the words are being dragged out of him, “...I wasn’t trying to break your ribs.  If I wanted your fuckin’ ribs broke, you’d know about it.  Okay?  Call off your loser team.”

It’s not a good apology, but it’s the only one Unsui can remember hearing from the man in the last decade.  

“I can’t call them off,” Unsui says.  “But.  I know you didn’t mean to.”

Agon goes tch and twitches his head, flicking his dreadlocks out of his face.  “Yeah, well, good then.  Fine.”

There’s a moment or two of silence—not as tense as it has been, for the past few years.  Painful, but in the way that stretching turns stiffness into a hot ache.  

Agon says, “So are you gonna unblock my number, or what.”

Unsui has to laugh—painfully, stiffly, but.  It feels better.  “I didn’t know you’d take it so personally,” he says, and pulls his phone out of his pocket, picking his way through the options.  “Alright, fine.  If I can figure out how.”

“Take my fuckin’ ass personally,” Agon grumbles, but he steps over and leans on Unsui’s shoulder, watching.  “How do you like these things?”

“I don’t,” says Unsui, and accidentally taps the wrong button.  “Damn.  There was nothing wrong with the phones we had before.  I don’t know who thought it would be an upgrade, to have phones without real buttons on them.”

“Yeah, I already broke the screen on mine, this touch-screen thing is bullshit,” Agon says.  “But dad’s gotta buy the new shiny shit, and mom hasn’t known what to get us for our birthday since we were fuckin’—ten, so.”  He reaches over Unsui’s shoulder to jab a finger at the screen.  “It’s right there, for fuck’s sake.  You’re such an old man, Unko—”

“Don’t call me that,” Unsui says firmly, and waves his brother’s hand away.  “Alright, fine, there.  Let’s see…”

“Wait,” says Agon sharply.  Unsui pauses, startled, thumb hovering over his call history.  “Why the fuck do you have Anezaki’s number?”

Unsui knows his face doesn’t change.  But Agon is his brother, and of course he feels the tiny, tense twitch Unsui doesn’t manage to catch.  He reaches out a hand, grips the top of Unsui’s head, and turns it slowly but very firmly toward him.  

“Hey,” he says again.  “Hey.  Lookit me.  Why the fuck do you have Anezaki’s number.”

“She texted me to arrange our campus visit,” Unsui says, which isn’t a lie.

“Okay, sure,” says Agon, in the tone of a man who isn’t convinced even slightly.  “So why’s it say she called you fifteen minutes ago.”

Unsui opens his mouth, tries to think of—something, anything—to say, and doesn’t manage it.  “Well,” he says, “That’s.  For—professional reasons.”

Agon gives a startled bark of a laugh, like he didn’t mean to at all.  “Shit, you’re such a bad liar,” he says, and thumps a palm against the back of Unsui’s skull.  “Don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not fucking with—anyone,” says Unsui, tripping over the words slightly, and clears his throat.  “She’s a very hospitable—  She was very welcoming.  She sent me her number, to plan the event.”

Agon is grinning at him, wider and wider the longer he talks, with a familiar antagonistic glee.  “You like her,” he says, with the sadistic delight of a middle-schooler teasing someone over their first crush.  “Holy shit, you’ve got the hots for Anezaki, you fuckin’ dog.  She’s not gonna go for it, she’s too…” he waves a hand dismissively, grimacing.  “But hey, her ass—”

“Don’t,” Unsui says, convulsively.  His face is going damningly hot, and listening to his brother talk about any part of Mamori’s body is, at the moment, absolutely unthinkable.  “It isn’t that type of—” No.  “We haven’t—”  No, absolutely not.  “Not that it’s any of your business.  You’re reading into things.”

“I’m reading a lot, yeah,” Agon says, smirking.  “Aim lower.  She’s frigid as fuck, she won’t even let you get started.”

Of course Agon has attempted it.  It isn’t a surprise, exactly, but…it’s extremely generous of her, in light of that, to agree to a date with someone who looks exactly like him.  Since it’s very unlikely Agon took the refusal well.  She would have told him if Agon hurt her, wouldn’t she?  He can’t have.

“You went straight for that asshole Hiruma and now you wanna two-time him right out of the gate, shit.” Agon is saying, over the background of Unsui’s worry.  “Bad idea, Unk—  Bad idea.  Ballsy!  But stupid.  If you’re gonna fill your pockets you gotta go for bimbos.  ‘Too hot to care’ or ‘too stupid to notice’—”

“Do you remember all the times in highschool I told you that I didn’t want to hear about your reprehensible sexual habits?” says Unsui. “Because that hasn’t changed.”

“Fuck off,” says Agon, but he still sounds gleeful.  He lets go of Unsui’s head with an uncharacteristically soft shove and strolls back over to the clubhouse door, bending down to pick up his sunglasses, polishing the mirrored lenses off on his shirt.  “Ahh, well, I won’t get in your way.  Don’t do that shit in the clubhouse anymore, though.  It’s nasty.”

“I will honor that request as faithfully as you honored my request not to bring girls home to our dorm,” Unsui says, and Agon snorts and flips him off.  Unsui doesn’t validate that with a response.  It’s not even evening.  It’s been such a long day.  

“So,” he says.  “Are we done here?”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Agon, and slides his glasses back onto his face.  “Get off my campus, got it.  You’re so damn mouthy these days.”

“I’ll work on that,” Unsui says dryly, and Agon scoffs and rubs a hand over his shaved head on the way past, a familiar moment of slightly-too-rough warmth.

“Unblock my number,” he says, and then strolls away.

–

Unsui comes back to the field looking tired and worried, but that’s how he usually looks, and he doesn’t look angry anymore.  When Sena offers him the ball, he actually smiles.

–

Agon comes back to Saikyoudai just in time for the strategy briefing for their next game, looking smugly pleased with himself.  The first thing he does when he gets to the clubhouse is drop his bag on the ground and give Youichi a sharp grin, like he thinks he knows something.  

Youichi grins right back at him, and doesn’t break eye contact until their center, Banba, sits down on the couch, blocking them off from each other.  He might not know exactly what game Agon’s playing, but he knows with absolute certainty that he’s going to play to win.

–

Agon and Youichi won’t stop glaring at each other like a pair of circling feral cats.  

Mamori presents her cut of the footage and analysis, and watches.  When she pulls up an old clip of Agon running the Golden Dragon with his brother in highschool, she sees Agon glance at her and smirk to himself.  When she refers to his brother in passing, he looks at Youichi again.  There isn’t much opportunity to bring Unsui into things, since they’re not playing against Enma, but…Agon very clearly looks at either one of them or the other every time his name comes up.

She texts Youichi after the meeting, I think Agon may know something.

Youichi texts back, I think he THINKS he knows something.

There’s not much more to say than that.  Not enough data, and no good ways to get more without inviting Agon to intrude.  Mamori sighs, considering the new strategies the situation puts in her hand, and then very intentionally folds the worry away and makes an offensive play.

So, when are YOU going to take me on a date?  Unsui is beating you very handily at this game so far.

Youichi: Dates are stupid.

A few seconds later:

Youichi: Get your coat on, I got a helicopter.

Is this helicopter stopping at Kariya on the way to whoever we’re spying on?

Youchi: Depends on if there’s some hungry fucking manager onboard with shitty mission focus!

This man.  Honestly.  Mamori smiles to herself, puts her phone in her pocket, and goes to get her jacket.

Chapter Text

The practice after Agon leaves is brief and impromptu, more of a disorganized scrimmage than any sort of structured training session.  It helps, though, to burn off some of the strange, jittery residual energy.  The team eventually stops treating Unsui like he might snap at any moment, and by the time practice ends he doesn’t even bristle at Kurita’s very ginger pat on the back.

The walk back to the dorms is long enough for a dazed exhaustion to set in; Unsui showers, dresses, and drops into his desk chair much more heavily than usual, leaning his head back, closing his eyes for a moment.

There’s schoolwork for him to do.  He can’t afford to let his grades slip.  But today has been…long, and his sleep has been disastrous since his dinner with Agon.  And he has a girlfriend now, possibly, and…whatever Hiruma is, that man could never be anything as normal as a boyfriend, and he’s still angry at Agon but only as angry, now, as he’s ever been…

He doesn’t realize his thoughts are drifting off into vague, shapeless dreaming until his phone rings and he jolts upright in his chair, groggy and startled.  It’s barely sunset outside, and he’s falling asleep at his desk already—maybe Agon’s right, maybe he is an old man.  There’s far too much left to do before bed, and he needs to answer—

Oh.

Unsui almost doesn’t accept the call.  But he knows exactly how that would go, he knows it would just cause more trouble later.  Damn.  Now, of all times…

He picks up the call on the last ring, and finds himself straightening his shoulders as he says, “Father.  What can I do for you?”

“Ah, there you are,” says his father.  “Your mother wanted me to call you.”

Of course she did.  Damn.  This is all Agon’s fault. 

“I see,” says Unsui, impassively.  “About what, do you know?”

“She says she thinks something is bothering you.”

“Mm,” says Unsui.

There’s a long moment of silence.  Then his father sighs.

“Is she correct?” he says, in a tone of strained patience.

This is an inane line of questioning.  What reason does this man have to care.  Unsui looks up at the ceiling and then down at his feet, steadying himself, and then says, “I don’t know how I gave either of you that idea.  I have everything under control.”

“Agon called us—” a pointed emphasis, laughably.  Unsui knows for a fact that his brother doesn’t call home any more than he does, usually.  Or, he never did before.  If he does now, then Saikyoudai truly has changed him to a startling degree.  “...He mentioned something to your mother.”

Mentioned something, yes, and then immediately said ‘never mind’ and refused to elaborate when it became clear she didn’t know anything.  There wasn’t necessarily a better way for Agon to proceed, but he must have known there was no better way to make their mother relentlessly worry.  Unsui pinches the bridge of his nose, grimacing to nobody.  

“...Agon can be…dramatic.  Whatever impression he gave you—”

“He says you were missing from your college, and not answering your phone.”

“—Whatever impression he gave you, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Your mother worries about you.”

And not about Agon, of course.  Agon seems to enjoy spending his free time starting fights, drinking to excess, and angering half the women—and their boyfriends—within several dozen miles of wherever he’s currently living.  Unsui’s life is relatively risk-free, comparatively, apart from the occasional rough play on the field.

…But of course, Agon’s lucky and strong and invincible, and Unsui is…Unsui.

“Please explain to me what you’re worried about,” Unsui says flatly.

A silence.

“There’s no need for you to turn this into a confrontation,” his father says stiffly.  “We know things have been…hard for you, since you started college.  It's natural for parents to worry about their children.”

It’s a laughable simplification—since you started college, as though things weren’t hard in high school, in middle school, as long as he can remember—  

“And, since you asked; your mother and I had been dating for three years by this time,” says his father, and Unsui comes abruptly back to earth with an unpleasant lurch.  In the background, he hears a faint noise—his father’s voice turns muffled.  “Well, he asked me what I was worried about!”

There’s a fumbling sound; the quality of the sound changes.  “There,” says his mother’s voice.  “Dear, can you hear both of us, now?”

“...Yes, mother,” says Unsui, to his ceiling.

“Your father just wants you to have a life as happy as we have!” his mother says.  “You know we don’t mean to rush you into finding someone, as long as she makes you happy.”

For a moment or two, the urge to say something is overpowering.  Something vast and gasping, thrashing at the surface of the water inside him, struggling to break loose.  

“You don’t need to be concerned for me,” Unsui says, and he keeps his voice steady, even if the words come out flat and rough.  “...Anyway.  I’m dating someone.  Currently.”

He doesn’t know exactly what reaction he’s expecting—what he gets is a startled, slightly concerned “oh!” from his mother, and a very neutral “Mm” from his father.

…Ah.  Of course.

“She isn’t after Agon,” Unsui says, tiredly, knowing as he says it that he’s said it before, and that they aren’t going to believe him.  “She knows how Agon treats women.  She’s not interested in him.”  

“Oh!” says his mother, sounding—he thinks pleasantly surprised.  It’s difficult to tell over the phone.  “You asked!  Well, that’s…that’s lovely, sweetheart.  I hope it goes well.”  And then, “...What do you mean, how your brother treats women?”

Unsui considers his willingness to go into detail, the likelihood that he would be believed—the likelihood that any positive change would happen in Agon’s behavior if their parents did know—and then says, “I mean to say, he doesn’t seem interested in settling down.  He’s very…distractible.”

“Oh, well, yes, I suppose he is,” says his mother.  “I’m sure he’ll settle down eventually!”

“I’m sure,” says Unsui, with as little sarcasm as he can possibly manage.  “Eventually.  Was that all you wanted to call about?”

“Yes,” says his father, in the tone of a man deeply grateful to finally be released from an onerous situation.

“Oh, well, alright,” says his mother.  “Well, make sure you call us afterward and tell us how it went!  Oh!  What’s her name—”

“Goodnight!” says Unsui, and hangs up.

He has a message, when he closes the call; he hadn’t looked at his phone since his argument with Agon, and Mamori has texted him.

Anezaki M: I heard that you talked to Agon.  Sena said it seemed like it got heated.  Are you alright?

It’s become very clear that messaging back As I’ve said before, my brother wouldn’t hurt me, would have the opposite of the intended effect.  Unsui deliberates, and then sends back, We discussed some difficult topics, but he was very civil, actually.  He considers for a moment, thumb hovering over the “send” button, and then adds, For Agon, anyway.  

Anezaki M: Thank goodness!  Youichi wouldn’t say so, but I could tell that he was worrying about you too.  I’ll tell him.

He’ll laugh at you for it.

Anezaki M: Of course he will!  But he’ll be glad to know, anyway.

…Dammit.  

Unsui puts his phone down and leans back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling, hands gripping the arms of his chair with a white-knuckled grip.  Then he stands abruptly up and walks out onto the balcony and settles down to meditate.

It’s still not as simple as it should be.  In a way that’s easier to resist, but more painful to ignore; there’s more to look away from, more to quiet down.  He doesn’t want to flatten away the memory of fingers brushing his palm or a hand on his lower back.  He doesn’t know what to do with the memory of Agon’s arm around his shoulder and the way he said you think I don’t know you hate me?  You’re my brother, but pushing it down feels worse.  

It’s a cold night.  By the time he settles everything, he’s been sitting much longer than he meant to, and his joints are stiff and aching—the wild, hungry hope is tamed and leveled out, the hurt and frustration are smoothed over.  It’s much quieter, in the space left behind them.

The last thing he wants to do, in this moment, is open the door to more he has to keep under control.  But Agon’s never been patient, and is obviously more than willing to come and make his impatience known.  Unsui sighs, takes his phone out, and unblocks his brother.

The back-dated texts that come through are mostly increasingly-angry swearing as Agon realized what was going on. Once, just before the swearing starts, a message reading you better be kidnapped or something or I’ll kick your ass and then another message a few minutes later; if you are kidnapped then whoever’s got this phone’s in for a fucking world of hurt, I’ll fucking kill you.  And then, predictably, wait, did you block my number?  You little shit!

You’re unblocked, don’t make me regret it, Unsui sends—and then, because he is still angry even if they’ve somehow made up—  If I’d realized that blocking you would hurt your feelings so much, I would have been more circumspect about it.

He gets back a long block of swearing—there’s nobody there to see when he smiles to himself and closes the message.

He’s prepared to ignore any further messages for a while, but in the last moment before he lets go of his phone, another text comes through and he picks it back up to glance at it.

Anezaki M: By the way, if you would still like to go out, I’m free on Sunday! 

Of course. Of course their conversation couldn’t be over after such a brief, manageable exchange.  The world is determined to test his peace of mind tonight.  

Scrambling has never been Unsui’s strongest skill as a quarterback; he sits back and puts the phone down for a few moments, absorbing the sudden change of pace, switching gears.

Sunday will be the day after a game, and the Nishigawa Jets promise to be a steeper challenge this year than last year—but Saikyou will also have a game, so at least the footing will be equal.  Unsui nods to himself, and picks his phone back up.

I am also free on Sunday.  Is there a Kariya Bakery near your school?  I wouldn’t want to put you out.

Anezaki M: There’s actually a special sale this weekend at a site near Yokohama, if that’s alright with you!

There’s a brief pause, and then another text arrives, this time with an exact street address, hours, and what appears to be an off-the-cuff listing of a significant portion of the bakery’s menu.  

The address she included is fifteen minutes from his parents’ house, and thirty from his high school.  That was almost certainly not intended as some sort of—attack.  Because why should it be. And it’s no reason to balk from a trip that otherwise sounds…very nice.

Unsui loves his parents, and he isn’t afraid of them.  And the thought of somehow encountering them on the street while on a—an interest meeting—with a girl, is at most mildly embarrassing.   Not disastrous, or humiliating.  It’s fine.

Yes, that would be fine.

Anezaki M: Excellent! Next time you’ll have to tell me somewhere you like going, I wouldn’t want you to be bored.

I’m sure I won’t be.

–

Hiruma: fucking monk, why am i getting updates about you in my strategy meetings now

That sounds like a question for your manager.

Hiruma:this is the big plan, huh?  trying to get her distracted in the middle of the season?

Never.  Believe it or not, you aren’t the only player on the field who likes to defeat his opponents at their full strength.

Hiruma: yeah you’re just playing dreamy gentleman for the hell of it

I’m playing a gentleman because I think she deserves a gentleman after having to put up with you.

Hiruma: bastard

Only to you.

–

Mamori is watching the Wizards last pre-game practice, picking at her recommendations for the upcoming game, when Agon waves off the man he’s supposed to be marking a minute before the scheduled break and comes strolling over to the bench instead.

“Aah, hey,” he says—not quite in the voice he uses to seduce the women he brings around, but not quite like he’d talk to one of his teammates either.  It’s honestly a little funny, how clearly he doesn’t know how to categorize Mamori in his brain.

“You’re a little early, Agon!” says Mamori, without looking up from her clipboard.  “What can I—’

“My boring-ass brother’s got the hots for you,” Agon says, with the glee of a man half his age.

Mamori laughs before she can stop herself, then covers her mouth with a hand and shakes her head.  Considering.  

Agon doesn’t voluntarily talk to her very often, and certainly not about his brother.  From the way he’s looking at her, he’s probably expecting her to find this concept as funny and inconceivable as he apparently does.  This seems like a great chance to gather information both about what Unsui had to say to a third—or fourth—party, and also to find out what exactly Agon thinks is going on. 

“Yes, alright, Agon,” she says.  “Very funny.”

“I’m not fucking with you,” says Agon, but he looks gratified by her apparent disbelief.  “He’s got your name saved in his phone.  It’ll probably take him five or ten years to make a move, but you better watch your ass, ‘cuz he sure the fuck is.”

“He has my number because I texted him to set up that interschool visit a while ago,” Mamori says, waving that away.  “He seems like a very organized person, I’m sure he wanted to keep his messages neat.”

“Oh yeah, he’s fuckin’ organized alright,” Agon says.  “You could eat off that fucker’s bedroom floor.  What, that’s what does it for you?  He irons his pants and shines his shoes too, you like that?  Boring-ass—maybe you should fuck him.”

“Oh!” says Mamori, as though he’s made a novel and intriguing suggestion.  “Do you think so?”

Agon opens his mouth and then shuts it again abruptly.  Startled and uncomprehending, like Mamori just started speaking a different language.  “What,” he says.  “N—  He’s—”

“He does seem very kind,” says Mamori.  “And if you’re telling me he’s really like that, it isn’t an act…”  Her voice might harden just slightly on that word—it’s been several years since Agon first approached her, before she knew who he was or ever saw him on the field; the memory of the moment she pulled away from his hand on her shoulder and the mask of a warm smile dropped away still sends an old, cold chill up her spine.  “...How sweet!  I’ll think about it.”

“Hold the fuck up.”

“Thank you for the advice,” says Mamori, and turns away to pick up a tray of water bottles as Agon makes a strangled noise.  “Alright, everyone, water break!”

“Hey,” says Agon, and then the rest of the team is jogging off the field and crowding around Mamori to hand out waters, and he’s cut off by a wall of sweaty footballers.

“Thanks very much, Ms Anezaki,” says Ikkyu, who still hasn’t quite managed to be normal around girls yet, and takes a water bottle, stepping carefully and conscientiously around Mamori to get to the bench.  “Oh, Agon, hey, you good?  Somebody kick you in the balls, or what—”

“Shut the fuck up, Ikkyu.”

–

A text arrives on one of Youichi’s phones after practice.

fucking manager: Agon was eager to inform me today that his brother ‘has the hots for me’.   I think he expected me to think it was funny, he seemed very out of sorts when I took it seriously.

Intriguing.  So that’s why Agon was in such a fucking snit during the back half of practice today.  Did Unsui say something, or did Agon just use his upper head for once and put two and two together to get three?  So fucking annoying, not knowing what’s going on on one third of the field.  

Agon’s been in some kind of mood ever since whatever happened at Enma yesterday—mercurial, strangely docile and irritably rebellious by turns, swaggering around like something’s gone his way.  Youichi had it at good odds the concept of his brother picking up a woman he struck out with back when they were in high school would throw him straight into a grade-A stamping, threatening, equipment-breaking trantrum—but then again, it doesn’t sound like he’s learned to take the fucking monk seriously as a threat yet.  After all, if Unsui’s just got a toothless schoolboy crush, it’s funny.  If Agon knows he’s already making moves…

Lots of variables on the table.  Youichi sets down the rifle he’s stripping and picks up his phone.

so what’s the play?

fucking manager: A fake handoff.

oh?  trick plays in the first quarter, how sly of you, miss anezaki.

fucking manager: Of course.  Agon isn’t an opponent we can beat without using our full strength.

what did you tell him?

fucking manager: I told him that was very interesting and I would have to consider it.  I’m *going* to tell him we’re going out on Sunday.

Youichi is startled enough to laugh out loud, delighted. 

you better wait until i’ve got eyes on him

–

Unsui is tutoring the center of his line patiently through their English homework, when a pair of heavy boots clomp up behind him and Takekura Gen pulls out a chair and sits down.

“Huh?” says Kurita, who spared far more energy for practice than for homework, and has been nodding vaguely over his textbook for the past ten minutes; when he realizes who’s sitting next to him, he bounces up so fast the chair he was sitting in gives a dangerous creak.  “Musashi!”

“Mm,” says Musashi, but he looks pleased, as far as Unsui can read anything on his face.  He throws a quick look across the table, taking in the books they have out, and grimaces slightly.  “...English?”

“I have a C, now,” says Kurita happily.  “Unsui’s been helping me a lot!”

“I would be a poor quarterback if I let our captain fail,” Unsui says, when Musashi gives him a thoughtful, blankly interrogative look.  “Takekura—”

“Musashi.”

“—Musashi.  Why are you here, exactly.”

Musashi actually smiles slightly at that—as expected, if he’s such good friends with Hiruma, rudeness must be the last of his concerns.  “I heard you might have figured out what you wanted,” he says.

“Oh, you two know each other!” says Kurita, beaming.  “That’s so nice.”  And then, apparently processing what Musashi said, “What you want?”

Unsui looks at Musashi.  Musashi looks at Unsui, and tilts his head the barest millimeter toward Kurita, thick eyebrows rising slightly.  Unsui considers the implicit question, and gives a quick, ambivalent twitch of one shoulder.  Musashi knows his friend better than Unsui does, even after several years of playing with the man.  If he trusts Kurita... 

“Hiruma has decided your quarterback seems like fun,” says Musashi, and Kurita nods immediately, like he’s being told something he already knows.  Musashi’s thin mouth twitches in something like a smile.  “...Romantically,” he clarifies.

“I don’t think romance has much to do with it,” Unsui says, very dryly, as though his heart isn’t beating—strangely, strangling—in his throat.

“Romance?” Kurita says, nose wrinkling.  “Hiruma?  Oh, no, I don’t think so.  Oh, but, so…”  He turns to look at Unsui, and gives him a look of dawning delight.  Something in Unsui’s chest that was winding slowly and steadily tighter gives an abrupt, shuddering twist and loosens all at once.  “Ah, that’s so nice for the two of you!  Congratulations!”

“Mn,” says Musashi ambivalently, and narrows his eyes at Unsui.  “Which brings me back to my question; have you decided what you want.”

“I want,” Unsui says, slow and measured, “...To know why you seem to think that it’s your business.”

Musashi’s square jaw sets thoughtfully.  He’s silent for a long moment, performing some form of internal calculation that he doesn’t show at all on his face, and then he gives a single, abrupt nod.  “...Fair enough.” 

“Well, I mean, he’s our friend,” says Kurita.  “So of course we’d want the best for him!  Oh, but…you mean because of how he was, about you?”

Musashi gives him a rueful look.  Kurita looks back at him with an uncomprehending smile of mild curiosity, and Musashi relents with a rough huff.

“So you knew.”

“Knew—oh!  That he cared about you a lot!  Yeah, of course!  He was so upset when you had to leave…  I mean, both of us were, but…” 

Kurita’s normally sunny face clouds over with some remembered pain.  Unsui does his best not to watch with too much interest, keeping his eyes away from Musashi’s hard-edged face—he knew that Deimon high school was missing their kicker for more than a year, limping along with a center and quarterback and a team of press-ganged, faceless athletes bribed or blackmailed away from other sports—  Where Takekura went, and why he came back, was never exactly a matter of public comment.  By the time Deimon made it to challenge Shinryuuji in Unsui’s second year of high school, they had managed to rope the man back into the fold, and his massively powerful kicks were instrumental in the Devilbats’ hard-won victory.

Musashi’s face shows no sign of whatever he feels about the topic being raised—but his hands clench, briefly, on his knees.  “We never brought it up,” he says, brushing past that as though it’s of no consequence.  “But we were both aware.  And he was aware it wasn’t in the cards.”

“But you never discussed it,” Unsui says, and Musashi seems to read something from his neutral tone, because his permanent faint frown darkens a shade.

“We know each other,” he says, and leaves it at that.

“Ah, yeah, he’s easy to read when you pay attention,” Kurita agrees cheerfully, which is an inane thing to say—although Unsui finds himself believing, against the odds, that for these two it’s somehow true.  “I thought he really liked Mamori too, but maybe they aren’t—”

“They are,” Unsui says, with more certainty than he’s had about anything for the entire preceding conversation.

Kurita and Musashi both look at him, expectantly, waiting for an explanation.  Unsui locks the uncertainty away behind his ribs, and looks back at them without flinching.  

“Both of them expressed interest to me independently,” he says—taking a play from Mamori, saying it calmly and confidently, as though it’s a simple equation that he solved for “X” and he’s waiting for everyone else to catch up.  “And of course, those two are…”  He fumbles the words, and bridges the gap with a meaningful pause and a twitch of his head, encompassing everything that he’s ever heard said about Saikyou’s quarterback and team manager.  “...So it only made sense to simplify things.  Consolidate the situation.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Musashi shakes his head and gives a startling, sudden huff of laughter.  “Not a single one of you is normal,” he says—not accusing, but definitely amused, and stands up.  “I guess that answers my question.  And you intend to stick to this?”

“We’re writing the playbook on the field,” Unsui says, and shrugs.  “But I don’t play to lose.”

“Oh, Hiruma’s really good at doing that,” Kurita says.  “Making things up as he goes, I mean, especially now he has Mamori to help him!  So, that’s good.”  He looks down at the English textbook he was nodding over, looking vaguely dismayed.  “...I don’t remember what we were working on…”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Musashi says, and stands, rolling his shoulders. 

“Oh, no,” says Kurita, enormous shoulders slumping.  “You’re leaving already?”

“I’m here to see a job site,” Musashi says.  “Pop’s company is starting to get more jobs down south—I’ve got work to do.”

“Aw, okay,” says Kurita, but he looks so dejected even Musashi sighs and softens slightly.

“I’ll give that bastard a call,” he says.  “See if we can find time for the three of us to catch up.”

“Yeah!” says Kurita, brightening.  “I know we’re all working hard for the tournament, but…”

“Not hard enough he can’t come eat a lunch that’s not gum,” Musashi says firmly.  “I’ll call him.  Kongo—bother him sometimes.  It’s good for him.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” says Unsui.  “We were working on present-subjunctive clauses.”

“Oh, right,” says Kurita, unenthusiastically.  “Okay.”

“I’ll call you,” says Musashi, and pats him firmly on the back.  “Do your homework, Kurita.  You need to stay in the tournament—I think Gaou might go wild if you don’t.”

Unsui saw Gaou Rikiya’s high school games; his team’s strategy had been to use their center’s brutal strength to smash through any resistance and crush the opposing quarterback badly enough to make it impossible to play.  With his new team he’s been discouraged from actually injuring anybody, but the concept of trying to play against a monster like that without Kurita to stand in front of him sends a cold chill down Unsui’s spine.  

“You have work to do,” Musashi concludes, and nods to Unsui.  “Kongo.”

“Takekura.”

“Bye, Musashi!” says Kurita, and picks up his book again with an expression of determination on his round, mild face. 

–

Mamori doesn’t have to work hard to find Agon, once she decides what she’s going to say.  He’s been appearing intermittently in the middle distance, hovering in her periphery, every since she didn’t play along with his expectations during morning practice.  Apparently he isn’t as prepared for this confrontation as she is, though, because when Mamori pretends to finally notice him and turns to hurry over to him, he goes still.  Not like a prey animal in front of a predator—he’s just not that type of man—but like someone who isn’t sure if he’s about to have to throw a punch.

“Agon, I’m glad I caught you,” Mamori says—clearly and pleasantly, making sure to show no sign at all of wariness or uncertainty.  Some animals need to be backed away from, and some need to be intimidated—and some need to be firmly and fearlessly stared down.  “Thank you so much for talking to me on your brother’s behalf.”

Agon’s face twists in a strange kind of agony.  “There’s no reason to go talk to him,” he says, and his tone is all sullen irritation but it’s honestly very satisfying how much it feels like he’s pleading.  “He doesn’t do that kind of shit.  I was just fucking around.”

“Oh, I already talked to him!” says Mamori.  “But I know what you mean, he is a little shy.   I don’t know if he would have said anything if you hadn’t.”

“Uh-huh,” says Agon tensely. 

“He asked me on a date!” Mamori says brightly, and Agon’s brows rise well above the frames of his glasses.  His jaw works, and his nostrils flare—Mamori hurries on, before he can explode.  “We’re going out on Sunday, actually.  So thank you for letting me know.”

“He’s—  Not—”  Agon says, starting and stopping, like the words are fighting.  “If you’re looking for somebody to—”

“Hm?” says Mamori, brightly.

She knows very well that the rest of the team has very firmly forbidden Agon from making some kind of belated second pass at her.  By the horrible twitch of his expression, flickering between bewildered anger and his mask of friendly sweetness, he remembers this as well, and is very painfully weighing the moratorium against the idea of someone dating his brother.  He might as well have some sort of read-out over his head, flipping rapidly—  Seduce?  Threaten.  Threaten? Seduce. 

Neither will work, and maybe he’s aware of that, because he doesn’t act on either, just stands there looking increasingly frustrated by the moment.  “He’s not—the guy for, fuckin’, anything,” he bursts out finally.  “Why the hell would you—  He doesn’t know what’s up.  What the fuck are you trying to pull?”

“I’m trying to have a nice date,” Mamori says brightly—and then, because she’s seen plenty of enamored women hanging on Agon’s arm, and heard exactly how he talks about them when they aren't there, she adds, vengefully sweet, “We’ll see where things go from there.  The clean-cut look is very handsome, I’ve always thought.”

Agon makes a noise Mamori can only compare to the sound Sena’s cat makes before it vomits on the carpet.  “Gross,” he says, convulsive as a reflex.  “Don’t you fuckin’—  Don’t.”

“Oh!” says Mamori, and makes a show of considering that.  “...No, I’m afraid I’m going to.”  She checks the time, and gives Agon a polite, pleasant smile.  “I need to get to class.  I’ll see you at practice!”

Agon doesn’t stop her from walking away; she gets three hallways away before her phone chimes, and she gets a text message.  A still image, from the viewpoint of a camera high in the hallway, of Agon’s face absolutely contorted with furious, disbelieving disgust.

Mamori snaps her phone shut, irrepressibly smiling to herself, and keeps walking.

–

Hammering Kurita’s English homework into something worth turning in takes the better part of the afternoon; Unsui’s own homework is a nonissue, comparatively, and afterward he finds himself in his dorm room with a few hours of free time before dark.  Practice is done for the day, and with the game tomorrow, there isn’t much more to do; going back out to work on his passes or run until dark would be a waste of much-needed energy.  He has…free time.  To relax.

Unsui sits for a moment, considering the prospect of being alone with his thoughts in his room, and then goes to do laundry.

The quiet, repetitive work of folding and ironing isn’t quite meditation, but it’s closer than many other things are.  Unsui lets his thoughts gently turn over, not running after any single thought or focusing on any specific feeling, and as he’s just finished ironing the last pair of his pants, one of the many things that have been turning over at the back of his mind drifts gently to the foreground.

Sanzo is close to the top of the recently received messages list, when Unsui finds his phone.  The man seems to have taken the re-introduction of communication between them as an invitation to text whenever he likes, and seems reassuringly unconcerned that Unsui has often been too tired or stressed to reply at more length than a word or two.  Unsui contemplates, then pecks out, Do you mind reminding me about that relationship term you brought up at our meeting?  The one you saw in France?

There’s a very brief break, and then his phone lights up in response.

Kamata G: A menage a trois?  Why do you ask?

For research purposes.

There’s another pause, and then his phone chimes—and then, before he has a chance to even read the message, begins to ring as Sanzo calls him directly.

“Unsui,” he says, as soon as Unsui picks up the call—out of breath as though Unsui caught him in the middle of a run, with the sound of a busy street in the background.  “You cannot tease me like this!”

“Oh,” says Unsui, startled.  “I…apologize?”

“No—dear, no,” says Sanzo, and the noise fades a little behind him as he steps into somewhere more secluded.  “Oh, you’re so serious, I always forget—  No, I mean you’re piquing my interest, being so coy like that!  I just have to know why you’re asking, I have to.”

Today has been a lot of unplanned disclosures to multiple people, already—but Sanzo was the one who he told first, and the one who mentioned the concept of multiple people dating in the first place, and if there’s anyone to tell it has to be him.

“You were right,” Unsui says.  “Hiruma and his manager are definitely interested in each other.”

“Mmhm?”

“And she...likes me.  I’m given to believe.”

“And you like her as well?”

“She’s very polite,” says Unsui.  There’s no reason for the admission to feel as intensely vulnerable as it does.  He stares straight ahead, and finishes, “And very beautiful,” with only the slightest hint of strangling discomfort in his voice.

“...And so you’re looking up menage a trois,” Sanzo concludes, and laughs, apparently delighted.  “Of course you are!  You and all your plans and practice…you could never bear to be less than perfect at something.”

Unsui is positive that he’s never been perfect at something in his life—he’s seen “perfect”, and it wears his face and a smug, self-confident smile, always out of his reach—but he would be lying to say that the warm amusement in Sanzo’s voice didn’t soften some of the strained tension in his chest.  

“Outstanding performance requires outstanding practice,” he says, instead of voicing that, and Sanzo laughs again.  

“So serious,” he says again, fondly.  “Well, if you’re going to date a woman too, those parts are outside my expertise!  But when it comes to Hiruma... if you ever need some of that kind of thing to research, let me know.”

Unsui looks into nowhere for a moment or two, contemplating the implications of that.  Then he says, “I’m going to go meditate for the evening.  Excuse me.”

“Of course,” says Sanzo, who sounds deeply amused.  “Enjoy your research!  And your…meditation.”

–

The hot, giddy, childish feeling, somewhere between excitement and fear, is no more helpful than the banked, confused churn of the anger.  By the time Unsui goes to bed, his heart is a low-burning coal behind his ribs.  This time, at least, even his unruly emotions aren’t enough to keep him awake.

–

Unsui’s understanding of his college cheer team is as follows; they encourage the players, and enthuse the crowd.  In a setting that isn’t an all-boys school, they’re a net positive, and not a deeply distracting liability to all of the players.  

The head of Enma’s cheer squad, as she was head of Deimon’s cheer squad previously, is Taki Suzuna, a small, slight, quick-moving young woman who’s hardly ever seen out of her inline skates.  She’s very helpful and upbeat, and quick to encourage any of the players who are having a hard time, and Sena specifically seems to be extremely fond of her.

She’s also an incorrigible gossip with a deep interest in the love life of anyone and everyone around her, which is why, when she appears next to Unsui ten minutes before the second game of the fall championship and says “...So…?” Unsui’s palms immediately begin to sweat.

“So?” he repeats, warily, and settles his pads, reaching over to pick up his jersey.  The game was temporarily delayed, and it’s a very cool evening to be waiting on the sidelines, despite the press of bodies moving back and forth; there’s no reason for the prickle of heat on his face and the back of his neck.

“I heard you might be meeting someone in a couple of days,” says Suzuna, and sidles a little closer.

…Of course, she’s friends with Mamori.  Everybody seems to be, but Suzuna especially was at the sidelines of many high school games.  Even though the era of the Deimon Devilbats has passed, it appears the camaraderie still remains.  

“...Yes,” says Unsui, because there doesn’t appear to be any advantage at all to trying to preserve his secrecy or dignity here, and busies himself pulling his jersey on.  He can still hear Suzuna’s very quiet excited squeak through the thin fabric, but at least he doesn’t have to see however she’s looking at him.

“You’re so lucky,” she says earnestly.  “Mamo-nee is such a catch!  And she seems excited, too.  Are you taking her to Kariya?  That’s her favorite place, you know!”

“Yes,” says Unsui, to the inside of his jersey, and reluctantly tugs it down over his head.  “Tomorrow.”

“What are you wearing?”

Unsui owns the same shirts he owned in high school; fifteen or twenty plain black shirts with varying lengths of sleeves.  He pulls his jersey the rest of the way down, and gives her a confused look.  “I’m sorry?”

Suzuna purses her lips.  Unsui is aware, without understanding why or how, that he has given an incorrect answer.  

“You’ve seen my shirts,” he offers, by way of explanation.

“...Okay,” Suzuna says, in much the same way Unsui would say it if one of his teammates suggested a phenomenally stupid play in the fourth quarter.

“That is to say,” says Unsui—because he is not, after all, stupid, “I haven’t bought an outfit yet.  For Sunday.  I was wondering if you would like to…help me?”

“I’d love to,” Suzuna says, with a fervency that’s more intimidating by a power of a thousand than the team of burly men across the field planning to crush Unsui and his dreams of a college championship into dust.  “Yaa~!  We’re going to make you so hot!  I can’t wait!”

“...Yes,” says Unsui, and pulls on his helmet, adjusting the fit as slowly as he can in an effort not to look at her face.  “I’ll…rely on you, then.”

“You got it!” says Suzuna, and jumps up, bouncing up onto the tips of her skates and then streaking away toward the rest of the cheer squad.  “Okay, everybody!  Let’s do our best, okay?!  Five minutes until go time!”

Five minutes.  

There’s no time to be embarrassed, or distracted, or hopeful or afraid.  Unsui tips his head back, breathing in the cool fall air, and listens to the roaring rise and fall of the crowd, feeling the pressure of them beat down on him like a waterfall.  Tomorrow, he’ll be lost again.  Here and now, at least, he knows who he is and what he’s doing, and everything else can be set aside.

He allows himself to think I’m coming for you.  Then he steps onto the field.

Chapter Text

After Saikyou beats Jaazudai, Youichi rounds the team up and hurries over to watch Enma play.

Enma’s game was delayed—something about an equipment malfunction—and so for the first time this season they don’t overlap; Saikyoudai didn’t become as strong as they are by ignoring happy chances like those.  The whole team goes, without more than token grumbling from Agon.

At the moment they arrive, it’s the very end of halftime and the Enma Fires are sweating and dirty and snapping at the bit, ready to get back out on the field.  Youchi pulls some strings and gets Saikyou seats close enough to Enma’s bench he can almost make out what Unsui’s team of numbskulls is yelling about—not that it’s anything critical.  A lot of determination, a lot of fire.  If there’s one up-side to a team of idiots with more spirit than brains, it’s that they throw their all into every fucking play, yelling and cheering each other, ready to burn the stadium down.

And at the center of all the chaos, straight-backed and silent, is their quarterback.

Unsui has his helmet off, as he walks out to the edge of the field; he doesn’t look at the stands, hardly seems to hear the crowd.  He just looks over the opposing team with a steady, stony glare, chin up and back ramrod-straight, watching the clock tick down toward the start of the third quarter.  

Then he nods once, and turns back to his team to say a few words that take the unfocused blaze of their enthusiasm and narrow it to a cutting, blowtorch edge.  Their chattering and arguing shifts and changes—tightens.  Quiets, to something much more dangerous.  

Unsui looks around at his teammates’ faces, smiles a very warm, brief smile, and then puts his hand out.

Youichi can’t hear what’s said in their huddle, but he hears the rest of the team scream out their answer—BURN THEM TO THE GROUND!—from all the way in the stands.  He sees, unfortunately, the fierce, vicious edge of Unsui’s determined expression, before he takes his hand back and pulls his helmet on.

The first half of the game, Nishigawa made two touchdowns and a kick, leading Enma by three points—in the second half, they don’t score even a single point.  Enma takes the lead with a touchdown, takes possession back almost immediately with an intercepted fumble, and drives brutally up the field, taking advantage of an offense with two of the fastest running backs in the country, an unsurpassed powerhouse playing center and a devastatingly talented wide receiver.  Widening the gap with merciless aggression under Unsui’s brief, sharp commands.

It’s a different play-style than he had at Shinryuuji, but the man at the core of it is the same.  Playing to win, because just like his brother, he can’t tolerate losing.  Putting points on the board like a man hammering nails into a coffin, not satisfied until defeat is impossible, never resting until the final whistle blows.  

Youichi spins his rifle idly around one hand and watches, running the numbers on the strategies he’s seeing on the field vs the defense he would build, firmly cordoning off the part of him that’s stupid about smart, aggressive bastards. 

“Come on, fucker,” Agon growls, down the row from him—quiet enough he obviously doesn’t mean it to be heard, quiet enough he probably hardly realizes he’s saying it.  “They’re marking the pipsqueaks, use your goddamn eyes, c’mon—”  And there’s no way for Unsui to have heard him, but when the ball’s snapped and Sena and Riku take off like bullets, drawing Nishigawa’s blockers after them, Agon is the first person up out of his seat, slamming a hand down on the railing in delight and satisfaction as his brother darts forward through a gap in the line and takes off down the field.

One of the Jets’ players plows into his back a yard or two from the end zone—too little, too late.  Unsui throws himself forward in the man’s grip, twists and hits the ground just over the goal line with the ball securely in his grasp, and the crowd roars.  Unsui pushes himself up as his teammates swarm around him to slap his back and cheer; he doesn’t join in, just tugs his helmet off to scrub sweat off the bridge of his nose and then looks up with a cold, burning satisfaction writ large across his face, to watch another six points tick into place.

If Unsui was as dull as Agon likes to act like he is, Youchi wouldn’t be having his…little problem…in the first place.  But the only reason Agon hates his brother’s play style is a difference of scope.  Agon wants to win against the players; prove his superiority, prove they were stupid to ever step on the field with him.  Unsui wants to win the game, wants every win so bad it’s like he’s starving for it.  Now that the fucking Kongos are on different teams, it’s only clearer to see the difference between them; a monstrous, raging berserker and a relentless, steely-eyed executioner.

…Fuck, but he looks good out there.  

But Youichi has his shit under wraps, dammit.  He’s a rival team leader watching one of his opponents fucking clean house, he has every reason to be keeping an eye on the guy.  Basic strategy.

–

Mamori keeps her camera on the field as Enma demolishes their opponents, but her eyes are on Youichi.  Out of interest at first, and then out of amusement; he’s sitting forward in his seat, eyes flickering across the field, tracking Unsui’s every move like a hawk.  To any of their teammates, he probably looks engrossed in the game—which he definitely is.  But there’s a feral twist of a smile at the corner of his mouth every time Enma scores again, and a hungry, twitchy fascination in the way he’s staring.

Mamori holds up her camera like she’s filming the play, as Enma takes the offense again, and makes sure to catch Youichi’s hungry, intent stare.  Then she aims her camera back toward the field again, and gets back to work.

–

Unsui receives a clip from the stands, the evening after the game; Hiruma, watching the game with an expression like a cat barely holding itself back from snapping up a bird. In the body of the email it’s attached to: I think he likes to watch you play.  So do I!  Congratulations on your hard work.

Suzuna, thankfully, doesn’t seem to notice that he got a message, and is too engrossed in digging through the racks of clothing to notice whatever expression crosses his face when he reads that.  Unsui closes the message quickly, turns his phone off, and shoves it into his pocket.

“Okay!” Suzuna says, a split second later, and turns around with an armful of fabric.  She’s still remarkably full of energy, considering how much she already put into cheering and yelling on the sidelines; she hoists the clothes into Unsui’s arms. “Do you like any of these?”

Unsui stares blankly down at his armful of clothes for a moment, body and brain aching, and then says, “I…  Mm.”

“...Okay,” says Suzuna, taking pity on him, and takes the clothes back to offer them one at a time instead.  “How about this?  Or this?”

Simple decisions.  Just eliminate options.  That’s fine.  This is fine.

“That’s too big,” says Unsui, in response to a jacket covered in patches.   Suzuna purses her lips and holds up a pair of baggy pants with several extraneous chains dangling off it.  “So are those.”

“Oh, I know!” says Suzuna, and holds the jacket up in front of herself, making a grim, glaring face.  “But I thought I’d put some different kinds of outfits on the pile!  In case you wanted to look, y’know, tough.”

Agon has always liked baggy clothes, gold chains and jewelry, patterned and branded shirts.  Unsui considers the outfit Suzuna is holding out to him, attempts to picture himself in it, and feels a familiar, dizzying swoop of something all too close to nausea in his stomach.  

“...Aw, Un-nii,” says Suzuna, because apparently Unsui’s composure is in shambles enough that she can see some amount of that nonsense on his face.  “I’m just having fun.  You can wear something you like more, it’s okay.  What kinds of things do you like to wear?”

Unsui stares at her, attempting to process the question.  It’s not so hard, usually—usually he has the energy to spare for untangling things people say and do, and deciding best strategies moving forward.  Usually he isn’t dragged to unfamiliar stores full of unfamiliar clothes the same day as a game.

“You’ve seen what I wear,” he says, after a few seconds of trying and failing to find the point of confusion.

Suzuna flattens her hands together and holds them in front of her mouth, considering him with the expression of a scientist studying a strange new species of animal.  

“Unsui,” she says.  “Have you never gone clothes shopping?”

Unsui was fairly sure he had, until today.  “Our parents bought clothes for us until I was in high school,” he says.  “Agon bought his own clothes after that.  I just wore my uniform.”  His shoulders have the hot, too-loose ache that means they’re going to be truly sore tomorrow.  If Nishigawa was that great of a challenge, they have a long way to go before they have a chance of beating Saikyoudai.

Suzuna is still looking at him like he said something outlandish.  “You’ve been in college for years,” she says.

“...Yes?” says Unsui, too tired for manners.

“You’ve owned all your shirts since high school?”

“Not all of them,” says Unsui, uncertain why he should be defensive but gamely attempting a defense regardless.  “They can be bought in bulk, and I know my size.  It’s very simple to replace—”

“Oh my god,” says Suzuna.

“They’re practical.”

“Mm!”

“And comfortable.”

“Mmhm.”  Suzuna sighs, regarding him thoughtfully, and then nods decisively to herself.  “Well, here then.”  She digs through the pile of clothing she picked out, and holds out a button-up shirt in a shade of faded gold that reminds him comfortingly of his high school uniform.  “Try this on.  It’s not too exciting, but she’ll definitely know you dressed up a little.”

It’s respectful to your team and your opponents to maintain your pads and uniform appropriately.  In dates, it seems reasonable the same rule would apply.  Unsui mulls that over in the hot, exhausted soup of his brain, as he buttons the shirt, and wonders for the first time what Mamori is likely to wear.  Probably not the windbreaker she normally wears on the sidelines of games.  Something nice, probably.  She probably owned nice things already, and thought about the fact she should dress nicely.  Has she been on dates?  Not with Hiruma, apparently, but it seems likely she’s gone out with someone before—

He can’t afford to think about this right now.  Now, it’s time to think about this shirt.

Unsui steps out of the changing room again and gives Suzuna a patiently expectant look, gesturing vaguely at himself; Suzuna hops up and hurries over to skate in a circle around him, nodding to herself, taking in the whole picture.

“Aah, that looks good!” she says, when she’s done looking him over.  “That looks really good, actually!  What do you think?”

“I think it’s a size too small.”  The buttons aren’t gaping or anything, at least, but it’s certainly an unfamiliar cut.  “Should I—”

“No, you shouldn’t,” says Suzuna, very firmly, and starts rolling up his sleeves.  “Here.  We’re going to show off your arms.”

There’s nothing particularly of note about his arms, as far as Unsui is concerned—they’re arms, they do what he needs them to do, there’s not much point giving them thought beyond best practice for strengthening them—but the aches of the game are truly setting in now, and he isn’t inclined to argue. 

“...I was told I should ‘dress a little bit sluttier’,” he says, tiredly, as Suzuna goes to roll up the other sleeve, and she gives a startled yelp of laughter and then covers her mouth with her hand.  “Is that the goal, here?”

“Whoever told you that is very smart and you should definitely listen to them,” Suzuna says, when she’s done giggling at him, and finishes with his sleeves, leaving them rolled most of the way up his forearms and smoothing the fabric carefully.  “Put your hands in your pockets?  Hm, okay.  Cross your arms.”

Unsui follows instructions.  He’s worn button-up shirts before, under a suit usually, for graduation or for some event in his father’s company—he definitely doesn’t remember them fitting like this around his arms and chest.  But it’s becoming increasingly clear he’s in very much over his head, and that Suzuna is calling the plays now.  

“I should buy a tie.  I don’t think I brought any to the dorm,” he offers, to show willing, and Suzuna nods and then pauses and shakes her head firmly.  

“Actually,” she says, and beckons him down.  When he bends over obediently, she undoes a few of the buttons at his collar, and claps her hands, looking pleased.  “There!  Definitely better.  You don’t need a tie.”

“...Alright,” says Unsui, defeatedly.  “So I can wear this.”

“Unless you want to get some other—”

“I do not,” Unsui says, very firmly.

“Aww, okay,” says Suzuna, conciliatory, and pats him on the arm.  “You did a good job!  And now you have a nice shirt.  Next date, we’ll go earlier, when you’re not so tired.”

“Next date.”

“Yes,” says Suzuna firmly.  “You’ll do a great job.  Next date, Un-nii!  I believe in you!  Now, let’s go.”  

“That’s all?”

“That’s all!” Suzuna pops up to balance on the tips of her skates for a second and then hops back down again, as absentmindedly as someone else might shift their weight from foot to foot.  “I mean, I’d keep finding you outfits if you wanted to, but you look like you’ll pass out if I make you stay out any later.”

“I think I might,” Unsui admits, and turns back toward the changing room—pauses there, glancing back.  “...I appreciate your help, you know.”

“I know,” Suzuna says, and reaches up to pat him on the shoulder.  “You’re welcome.  Now, let’s get out of here!”

–

Sunday turns out to be bright and mild.  Unsui rises early, secure in the knowledge that Suzuna will hunt him down and try to pregame with him if he stays on campus too long, and gets on a train headed home.  It’s been a while since he came back to Yokohama without specifically intending to visit his parents, and the prospect of being in town for his own purposes is strangely exciting, in a giddy, childish way he does his best to quiet during the long, quiet train ride south.  

There are plenty of paths to the bakery that don’t require him to walk past his parents’ house.  But Unsui’s feet lead him there anyway.

Trying to put a name to what he’s feeling takes up the space in his mind that would otherwise have been occupied with second-guessing himself as his feet carry him closer.  A tangled clash between the urge to ask for reassurance and the urge to rub it in their faces.  Agon hasn’t taken this from him, and their doubt hasn’t either, and Unsui’s going to go and meet someone and have a nice afternoon together.  But also.  He’s never done this before.

All his arguing with himself turns out not to matter, in the end.  The gate is closed, and nobody answers when he buzzes.  Which is for the best.  There’s no reason to feel—anything, really.  

Unsui stands for just a second longer, and then turns and keeps walking.  

He makes it to the end of the street in a haze of cool and detached resolve before a gaggle of women come around the corner with shopping bags on their arms and almost run directly into him.

“Oh, excuse me!” says one of them, and then does a double-take.  “Oh!  Unsui?  Sweetie, what are you doing back in town?!  Ladies, it’s Mrs Kongo’s son!”

A crowd of familiar aunts, mothers, and grandmothers surrounds him as immediately and completely as any hoard of charging defensive linemen.  Unsui considers, for a single mad second, putting his head down and slamming through.  Then he settles his weight deliberately on the flats of his feet, steadies himself, and puts on a smile, returning as many greetings as he can manage.

“—Visiting your parents?” says Mrs Yamamoto through the chatter, and Unsui attempts to refocus in her direction.  “Such a good son, my youngest could stand to learn a thing or two!”

There’s a chorus of agreement.  “And I’m sure your grades are perfect, of course,” says Mrs Inoue, and reaches up to pat his cheek like he’s still eleven, beaming.  “As expected, with parents like yours, going to such a good school, you boys turned out just wonderfully…”

“So handsome!”

“Your mother will have my vote, of course, and my husband’s too—”

“You were always such a polite boy, even in middle school you were so serious—”

“Ah, so strong!  Just look at those arms, dear—”

“Have you had a chance to say hello to my eldest daughter since she went to college?  She’s a good girl, I think she’d be—”

“You look more like your mother every day—”

“He does!”

“Oh, like your father too, of course!  I told him, when he used to take you boys with him in those adorable little suits and ties—”

“How are your parents?”

They really don’t mean any harm.  Unsui smiles, as much as he can bear to.  “My parents are well, thank you,” he says, because…  Well.  He has no idea how his parents are, but no matter how they’re actually doing, they would never want him to say anything else.  “We’ve been very fortunate to have all of your support.  I know my mother appreciates it.”

“And how is your brother?”

Unsui maintains his smile, from a great distance outside of his body.  When his voice emerges, it’s perfectly pleasant.  “Agon is...excelling,” he says.  “Of course.”

“Ahh, as expected of that boy,” one of the women says, admiringly, and Unsui is struck with another wave of that wild urge to turn and run.  He doesn’t.  Just stands, smiling pleasantly, as she finishes, “Well, you must be so proud to be his older brother!”

“I know our parents are very proud of his accomplishments,” Unsui says, through a deep haze of something balanced perfectly between deep, nameless agony and profound boredom.  “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me—I have some engagements while I’m in the area, and I wouldn’t want to be late.”

“Engagements with your father’s company?” one of the women says, with a sharp tone, as though she thinks she’s shrewdly judged something she needs to catch him out on.  “We all know that one of you boys will step up after him, and your brother—”

“Haruna, let the poor boy get to his meeting,” her next door neighbor says, but she’s looking at Unsui with interest as well, expectantly.  “I’m sure it’s very important.”

“I don’t want to keep anyone waiting,” Unsui agrees, instead of addressing any of…all that.  “Excuse me.”

–

Mrs Yamamoto would like to know which one of us is going to take over father’s company.

Agon: Tell Mrs Yamamoto to go fuck herself.

I’ll pass it along.

Agon: Was her daughter around

The daughter who said she would call the police if you ever talked to her again?

Agon: Ugh fuck you’re right. nvm 

–

Kariya Bakery is a small, nicely-appointed building that Unsui vaguely remembers as being a dinner restaurant in his childhood; the tables outside have been refitted in bright, cheerful colors, and the windows are full of a wide array of sweets and baked goods.  

There’s a young man and woman having what appears to be a date at the table nearest to the window.  They both look several years younger than Unsui is, and look comfortable, happy to be there, and completely at ease.

Whatever he’s feeling about this, it’s not productive.  Other people had these experiences years younger, with no sign of confusion, fear, or uncertainty.  That’s fine.  This is fine.  If he can call plays under the roaring weight of an entire stadium of onlookers—

“Agon?”

Unsui blinks and twitches, staring around—and doesn’t find his brother.  Instead he sees a woman with long, bleached hair and a very low top, who’s very much his brother’s type, and who’s looking at him with an expression Unsui is, unfortunately, familiar with.  

“Babe,” she says, “I didn’t know you were coming back into town!  Oh my god, are you here for a job interview or something?  You look so sharp!  Awww, but you cut your hair…”

“I’m not Agon,” says Unsui immediately.  He’s given this speech several dozen times over the years—unfortunately, their shared face is distinctive enough that the women Agon has hooked up with are able to recognize it from a distance, and are at times hard to convince they’ve made a mistake.  It’s for the best to make things clear as quickly and firmly as possible.  “I’m Agon’s twin brother Unsui, and I’m afraid I’m not interested.  Thank you.”

The woman at least appears to believe him and doesn’t throw herself onto him—but she looks Unsui up and down again, looking…not nearly as disinterested as he was hoping she would.

“I thought he said his brother was a monk,” she says.

“I went to Shinryuuji,” Unsui says, with a vague gesture in the direction of the rising mountain peaks in the distance.  “We both did.  Agon just…wasn’t concerned with the school rules.”

“I thought…”  the woman trails off, then shakes her head and looks at his chest, for some reason, then back up at his face.  “You don’t look like a monk.”

“Well, yes, I don’t attend Shinryuuji anymore,” Unsui says wearily. “Do you want Agon’s number, or…?”

“Maybe.”  The woman cocks her hips, folding her arms under her chest.  “...I wanted something to do today, though.  And Agon’s not here right now.”

“No,” says Unsui, fervently.  “No he isn’t.”  And then, as the way she’s looking at him registers, “...Oh.  No, I see what—  Ah.  No, thank you.  As I said before, I’m not interested.”

She stops doing all the things she’s doing with her face and hips and chest, and gives him a look somewhere between baffled and offended.

“I’m here to meet someone,” Unsui clarifies.

“So?” the woman says, nose wrinkling.  “Trade up.”

“No thank you,” says Unsui again, because there isn’t much else to say.  “Do you want Agon’s number?  I can give it to you if you don’t tell him where you got it.  I believe he still finds time to meet women on the weekends, although he might be booked—I do my best not to involve myself with those parts of his life, so I’m not sure.”

“Maybe I already have his number,” says the woman, who still looks offended by…some part of this interaction.

“Well, no, you don’t,” says Unsui.  “He got a new phone for our birthday and he doesn’t care to memorize phone numbers so he never transferred them.  He hasn’t been ignoring you on purpose.  This time.”

“Oh.”  The woman purses her lips and gives him a look he isn’t entirely sure how to read, then pulls out her phone.  “Well, alright, fine.”

She’s already texting as she walks away—texting Agon, presumably, and much good may it do her.  If nothing else, at least Agon might be distracted into keeping his nose out of Unsui’s business if Unsui hands his number over to five or ten of his brother’s old hookups in Yokohama.  A startling number of them seem to be completely unbothered by the fact that they’re sharing his brother with whatever other young woman catches his eye…

Unsui is still watching the place the woman vanished into the crowd, when he catches a flash of a familiar shade of red-brown hair and refocuses abruptly.  Mamori is ten minutes early, looking around with interest as she makes her way down the street.  She pauses to check her watch and fix her hair in the reflection of a window—and then looks over at the bakery, catches sight of him standing there, and smiles.

She’s let her hair down out of its ponytail, and she’s wearing boots and a nice jacket and a dress that looks…flattering.  In ways that Unsui doesn’t have the vocabulary to articulate.  And she’s here to see him.  And she wore it for him.

–

Unsui is already waiting outside Kariya when Mamori arrives early; when he makes eye contact with her down the street, he freezes in place like a forbidding stone statue, face going fiercely impassive.  

Mamori pauses as well, abruptly uncertain, and then catches the faint, spreading stain of pink spreading over his perfectly emotionless face and essays a hesitant smile and a wave.

Unsui unfreezes abruptly and smiles back at her, almost warily.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Mamori says.  “I thought I was going to be early!”

“I had some business in the area,” Unsui says.  “You didn’t keep me waiting.”

“Well, good.”

There’s a moment of uncertain stillness.  Mamori considers the intent, expectant look on Unsui’s face, and comes to the sudden, startling realization that she might have more of a playbook on hand for this situation than he does.

Well.  Someone has to call the plays.

“Why don’t we order?” she says, firmly, and Unsui nods in clear relief and falls in next to her, pausing at one of the outdoor tables and glancing at her questioningly.  “I think it’s very nice out here.”

Unsui nods immediately and pulls out her chair with the same grave, intent expression he wears when he’s huddling with this team during a time-out, like it’s crucial for him to do this right.  

“I’ll go and order,” he says.  “If you know what you’d like…”

Mamori does.  Unsui listens—not taking any notes, just standing very still with that expression of intent concentration on his face—and then says, “Alright,” and turns to immediately walk away.

Suzuna texted her last night to say I hope you like Un-nii’s date outfit! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧  But Mamori wasn’t expecting that to mean that she would be able to pick out most of the man’s muscle groups through the fabric.  When he steps inside to talk to the girl behind the counter, raising one hand to point up at the menu, the woman behind him in line gives the muscles of his back an incredibly transparent stare and then hastily looks down at her phone as Unsui twists a little to reach for his wallet.

Mamori picks up her phone, and texts Suzuna.

It’s very nice!  Did you help him buy it, I suppose?

Suzuna texts back so immediately she almost must have been waiting for a message.

Suzuna♥: RIGHT?  (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)  He was going to wear the same shirt he wears every single day…  But he was a really good sport about a little shopping trip~! 
Please treat him nicely, Mamonee, he’s SO nervous lol

I’m always nice!

Suzuna♥: I knoooww but still!  Be gentle!  We need him back in one piece!

If being related to Agon all these years has left Unsui in one piece, Mamori is fairly sure there’s nothing she can do to break him too badly.  People manage to meet interesting, attractive people and casually ask them for dates all the time, and Mamori is a very competent person, and she can meet an interesting man over the course of several years of shared sports experience and ask to spend more time with him and both of them are going to be fine.

If Youichi hadn’t decided to be so uncharacteristically cagey—or shy, or indecisive, or wary, or…whatever kept him from making some sort of clear move, in the ongoing nameless situation of their relationship…  Mamori might have found the time to gain some dating experience at some point during her last year of high school and the following years of college.  Although then again it’s not uncharacteristic of him at all, to deftly sidestep the prospect of genuine and open emotional vulnerability.  Possibly, Mamori should have marched up to him and informed him they were dating several years ago.  Or possibly he wasn’t ready yet, and that would have just put the man into some sort of neurotic scramble…

Her musing is interrupted by Unsui returning to the table, followed almost immediately by a server with an appetizer tray of sample pastries and drinks.  He’s moving stiffly, when he settles back down into his chair—and not just because he must be sore from the hard-won victory yesterday.  He reaches up absently, as the server sets everything down, and plucks a few fingers absentmindedly at his shirt, rolling his shoulders like he’s not used to the fit of it. 

Suzuna is presumably also responsible for the sleeves being cuffed up around the shifting muscle of his forearms, and the open button at the collar that’s showing a distracting slice of throat and collarbones.  

Youichi is very lean no matter how hard he works himself, a fact he likes to pretend he isn’t quietly, viciously furious about—since coaxing him to assess or treat any kind of strain or injury is like trying to give an angry cat a pill, Mamori has historically been the only one willing to attempt it, and has probably had her hands on his body more than any other human since he stopped talking to his parents.  Mamori has considered telling him straight out that it’s a perfectly nice body, as far as she’s concerned, but the prospect of any of the likely responses—”laughing at me as a deflection” being the highest on the list—makes the idea considerably less appealing.

Unsui, meanwhile, has managed to match  his brother in build, despite playing different roles on the field—and since Agon has obviously realized that the girls walking by the field on their way to class find his muscles and intricate full-back dragon tattoo both intimidating and intriguing, Mamori has had a regrettable amount of opportunity to become familiar with them as well.

At this point, Mamori’s imagination helpfully removes Unsui’s shirt for her, and she looks abruptly down and picks out a cream puff instead of looking at him anymore.

“Have you been to a patisserie before?” 

Unsui blinks like the words startled him and then looks down at the plate of desserts as well, like he’s never seen one.

“I don’t eat sweets often,” he says, which is exactly what Mamori  would have assumed he’d say—except that instead of something about calories and training, or even some esoteric monk-like denunciation of earthly pleasures, he says, “Our—my mother didn’t keep them in the house.  Agon liked them more than I did, anyway.”

He doesn’t say, so I let him have them.  He doesn’t have to; the wry twist of his mouth says it for him.  He takes a bite of a cream puff and makes a quiet noise, pleased and just a little surprised, as cream threatens to spill out of the filling—sets it down, and wipes a thumb absentmindedly at a fleck of cream at the corner of his mouth.

“...Mm,” he says, with every sign of genuine enjoyment, and Mamori watches him lick his thumb and then shakes herself and takes a bite of her own cream puff.  “That’s delicious.”

It is, as a matter of fact.  And much less expensive than normal, with the promotion they’re running.  Mamori was worried that suggesting somewhere not close to either of their schools would seem like an imposition, but honestly as far as she’s concerned the difference in price is more than worth the train fare.

“I haven’t been to this part of town in quite a while,” Unsui says, and gives the street a long, thoughtful look, solemn face briefly softening in something like fondness.  “Shinryuuji is quite close, but…it’s a long climb.”  He gives her a smile that only looks slightly sad, which is an improvement on most of his expressions.  “Have you ever been to Yokohama?”

Discussing the merits of their respective home cities fills the air for a surprising amount of time, and by the time the topic shifts Mamori has almost forgotten to be self-conscious about how many cream puffs she’s eaten, and Unsui has stopped self-consciously picking at the fit of his shirt every few minutes and has almost started smiling.

They’ve just started comparing notes on study and memorization strategies, a topic that most of the people Mamori spends time around will only entertain briefly and in the context of playbook memorization, when a figure she assumed was a waiter steps forward by her elbow and swipes a long, thin, familiar finger through the crumbs on her plate.

“That good, huh?” says a voice, and Mamori looks up to see Youichi standing over their table in an apron and a Kariya uniform, with a paper hat perched ludicrously on the spikes of his wild blond hair.

“Hiruma,” says Unsui, sounding more weary than startled.

“Kongo,” Youichi says brightly.

“You work at Kariya, now, Youichi?” Mamori says, as though she doesn’t know the answer already.

“Started today,” says Youichi.  “And I’m quitting today.  Brunch is on me.”

He produces his little black book from apparently nowhere, flashing the word “THREATS” written conspicuously on the front of it before making it vanish again into some unseen pocket, looking increasingly smug by the second. “The fucking bakery’s not going to charge you.”

“You can’t threaten my favorite bakery!” Mamori says sternly, and Youichi snickers.  “I have plenty of spending money—”

“So do I,” says Unsui, in a startlingly similar sharp, scolding tone.  “That was completely unnecessary, A—” He catches himself, the briefest hitched breath, and then corrects almost seamlessly, “—Hiruma.”

“So give the kid behind the counter the tip of a lifetime and take the free cream puffs,” Youichi says, amused, and shrugs that off.  “I had to get in on this date somehow, since I didn’t get invited, after all.”

He’s smiling like it’s intended as some kind of joke, but Mamori can’t shake the feeling, somehow, that it must be at least a tiny bit true.  Youichi would never allow himself to be seen as needy, of course, but he would certainly make himself intrusively present at places he wants to be.  By the way Unsui’s stern frown softens slightly, he’s aware of this as well, and can’t quite manage to be as angry as he wants to be about it.  

“I assumed if you wanted to come along, you would invite yourself,” he says, not exactly in the cadence of an apology, but much less sharply than a moment ago.  “...Which you did.  If you showed any sign of wanting a date, we could have arranged one.”

“Yeah, I’m too embarrassed to ask ‘cause I don’t have my little black dress ready to go,” says Youichi sarcastically, and Unsui’s face twitches through some very well-hidden but very interesting emotions one after another.

“That’s, yes, alright, fine,” he says, slightly strangled, and clears his throat.  “Well, then—” he looks at Mamori.  “Would you like him here?”

Mamori’s been watching the interplay with interest, and wasn’t entirely expecting to be consulted.  “Oh!” she says, startled.  “Well—  Would you?”

Unsui gives her an increasingly familiar steady, thoughtful, unreadable look.  “...I’d like to know what you want,” he says.  “Please.”

Youichi opens his mouth.  Unsui gives him a sudden, sharp-edged glance, and Youichi meets it and cocks his head on one side, like he does when Mamori signs at him from the bench.  He closes his mouth, and both of them turn to look expectantly at Mamori.

“Ah, hm,” says Mamori, truly off-balance for the first time this morning.  “Well—I know Youichi doesn’t much like sweets, so—”

“Avoiding the question, fuckin’ manager,” says Youichi.

“And this date was meant to be for you—”

“That’s not a concern right now,” says Unsui.  “We’re both on the same date, after all.”

Well, he’s the one who said they should be greedy, after all.  And Mamori certainly has said a lot about letting herself be selfish.  It would be hypocritical of her to back down now.

“Then—alright, I’d like him here,” she says firmly, strangely defiant and not sure why she would be.  “If he can behave himself.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Youichi, and gives her a look like she just delivered him another team’s strategy on a silver platter, fierce and beaming.  “Well, alright then.  If you think you can share all this sugar and your new boytoy at the same—”

He bites off the words so abruptly it’s almost startling, going suddenly still.  Mamori is very used to reading his expression at a much greater distance than this, with the faceguard of a football helmet in the way; the sudden brief flicker of guarded, genuine alarm that means oh fuck I wasn’t planning for that is much clearer from a few feet away in broad daylight.  Youichi’s eyes widen, pupils thinning like a startled cat as he looks at something over Unsui’s head down the sidewalk, and Mamori is following his eyes before she can stop herself, scanning the street for…

Oh.  Dammit.

Chapter Text

Unsui has never had much patience for the concept of some special paranormal connection between twins—but there’s a moment, as he sees Hiruma’s face freeze in place and Mamori’s eyes slide past him and widen, as he hears a footfall coming closer, that he knows with unerring certainty what’s about to happen.  When an arm falls around his shoulders and a heavy curtain of dreadlocks swings against the side of his face, he hardly even jumps.

“I didn’t know you owned shirts that weren't black!” says Agon next to him, and scrubs a hand at Unsui’s hair, then looks up to leer at Mamori over his head.  “Nice look, Anezaki.”

“Oh, do you think so?” says Mamori, with a perfectly spotless, steely smile. “I didn’t wear it for you.”

“And this trashwad,” Agon says, turning a hard, threatening grin in Hiruma’s direction.  “What’s our quarterback doing all the way out here?  Huh?”

“Agon—” Unsui swats the hand away from his head, elbowing at his brother, who steps back effortlessly out of the way.  “What are you doing all the way out here?!”

“Of course you’d show up here,” Agon says, waving that off.  “This one won’t stop talking this place up like they sponsored her fucking life.”

“Well, it’s delicious!” says Mamori, a touch defensively.

“You don’t even like sweet stuff.”

Nothing Unsui says to that isn’t going to sound like some form of innuendo.  “I don’t need you to tell me what I do and don’t enjoy,” he says, after a moment’s deliberation, and Agon scoffs and twitches his head like he’s rolling his eyes behind his mirrored glasses.  “You didn’t answer the question.”

“Some chick I got with in high school said she saw you hanging around downtown and you blew her off and she wanted to know if I’d kiss it better,” Agon says, smirking.  “You’re hooking me up with pussy now, Unko-chan?”

“I didn’t ask how you knew we were here,” says Unsui, although that does answer at least one of the questions he has at the moment.  “I asked what the hell you think you’re doing here.  And don’t call me that.”

“I can’t come scope shit out for my darling twin brother?” Agon says, in tones of saccharine malice.  “My poor big brother who doesn’t know what he’s doing yet?  Wouldn’t want you getting taken advantage of, Un-tan—”

“Don’t call me that either,” says Unsui, because hearing his mother’s childish endearments of all things in the middle of this absolute disaster feels likely to be the thing that finally drives him mad.

“I know why he’s here,” Hiruma says casually.  “Fucker’s jealous.”

Agon’s fake smile drops abruptly off of his face.

“Say that again, trash!” 

“I said you’re jealous!” Hiruma says, and reaches down to pick up the last bite of a scone off the tray at the center of the table, popping it into his mouth.

“That’s rich coming from you, asshole,” Agon says, low and dangerous.  “You wanna watch your fuckin’ mouth—”

 “Don’t tell me your game’s dried up so much you’re trying to steal dates from your big brother, now,” Hiruma says, with amused derision.  “Go find some idiot who’ll put up with you for your dick, if there are still any left in Kanto!  There sure the fuck isn’t anybody here!”

Unsui’s reflexes might not be nearly as fast as his brother’s, but they don’t need to be, for him to know what’s about to happen.  For all the good that does him; he’s barely managed to shove his chair back, half-standing, before Agon launches forward to grab for Hiruma’s collar like he’s going to drag the man across the table—

Kobayakawa Sena comes out of nowhere, sprinting at full speed, and deflects Agon’s hand.

The moment of stunned silence that follows is interrupted only by the sound of running footsteps getting closer; just as Agon draws himself up, shoulders tensing, mouth opening to yell, a motley handful of Enma Fires stumble out of nowhere, all varying degrees of breathless from trying to keep up with Sena’s speed.  Suzuna on her skates, Mizumachi from the line, Monta—and, for some reason, Ikkyu, very flushed and not looking anybody in the eye.

“Sena!” says Mamori, more concerned about this development than she seemed to be about Hiruma almost getting punched.  “Suzuna, what are you doing here?!”

“Oh!  Definitely not spying!” Suzuna says immediately. 

“You weren’t?” says Mizumachi, and bends down from his impressive height, bumping his head on the umbrella over the table, to examine the treats on the tray.  “I thought that’s why we all came out though, right?  To see how the date went?  Ooh, these are cute.  Nhaa, hey, you guys mind if I…?”

“Oh, the whole fucking parade is here!” Hiruma says, with dangerous glee.  “Hosokawa, you’d better have a good fucking reason you’re here or it’s the death penalty for you!”

Ikkyu winces.  “Nobody else from the Wizards wanted to come…”

“Not an answer to my damn question!”

“Well, I heard Agon saying how pissed he was about the whole date thing—”

“You wanna die?” Agon says through his teeth.  Ikkyu, now caught between Agon’s glare and Hiruma’s, winces even further.

“And, so, Miss Mamori is our, our—the whole team, I mean!  Not just me.  But the whole team, even though they didn’t come, we’re all very...”  he trails off, gently frying under the entire group’s stares, now.  “Uh.  So.  Somebody from Saikyou had to come out and…check on things?”

Hiruma regards him for a second, then turns disdainfully away from him to the next person close to him.  “Fucking shrimp,” he says, expectantly.  “Tell me what the fuck you’re doing here.”

“Uh.  Hiruma, hi,” says Sena, nervously, and breaks his stare away from Agon for a second to give everyone present a very hangdog bow.  “Sorry!  Suzuna got excited, and then Mizumachi found out—”

“Bruh, these are so good,” says Mizumachi from the background, shoving his sixth madeleine into his mouth, and reaches one very long arm over to slap Unsui on the back.  “Dude, this is, like, such a good spot for a date!  Super romantic, and stuff.”

“—And then we were headed down here, but we didn’t know where the date was, and Monta called Ikkyu and he didn’t know where you were going but he wanted to come too—”

“She’s our manager!” Ikkyu says defensively, bright pink.

“And Suzuna said, uh, said,” Sena stumbles past that, throwing Suzuna a very flustered glance—she winks at him, and he makes a muffled squeaking noise in his throat and rushes on, “So then I came too, and I knew Mamori always likes to go to Kariya on her days off...  I’m really sorry!  We all wanted to, uh.  Wish you…well…?”

“Yup!” says Monta, sounding strangled, and gives Unsui a slightly manic thumbs-up.  “Anybody would be lucky to get a date with her, to the max!  Anybody here could definitely have dreamed about—so cool!  Wow!”

Agon reaches up, pushes his sports goggles out of the way, and pinches the bridge of his nose.  It’s a startlingly familiar gesture, and it takes Unsui a moment to realize that’s because he’s done it himself, many times before.  Sena hesitantly raises his arms again, like he’ll have any chance at deflecting Agon’s fist again without the element of surprise—and then looks mortified as Suzuna kicks herself forward beside him, rocking up on the tips of her skates to glare Agon down.

Agon looks down at her, and then looks past the crowd of people at Unsui.  Unsui raises his eyebrows, grimaces, and gives a slightly helpless shrug.

“...Okay,” Agon says through his teeth, in tones of strained patience.  “I’m gonna give everybody here fifteen seconds to go die in a hole somewhere not here.  Then I’m gonna start breaking bones.”

“No, you aren’t,” says Mamori brightly.  “But everybody can go now.  There are lots of fun sights in town, why don’t you go enjoy those?  I’ll text you an activity guide, Sena.”

“Yeah, clear out,” says Hiruma.

“Nhaa, sure,” says Mizumachi, and reaches over to try to sneak a cream puff off of Mamori’s plate.  Without looking, she gently but firmly swats his hand away.  “Aw, okay—  Only, what, are you four just all having a four-way date, or what?  Shouldn’t you two come with us?”

“None of your business!” say Agon and Hiruma, at the exact same time in two radically differing tones.  

“Oh, right on,” says Mizumachi sunnily.  “I mean hey, it’s super cool just to come down here for the day!  You guys wanna go see the Landmark Tower?”

Sena has to very carefully pull Suzuna away by the elbow, and Monta and Ikkyu are glancing suspiciously back over their shoulders the entire time as they walk away; Mizumachi goes bounding off without a care in the world, already chattering loudly about what the coolest tall buildings are and if they think he’ll be allowed to go on the roof.  Agon sneers at their retreating backs, and then turns back to Hiruma to scowl as soon as they’re out of earshot.

“What the fuck are you doing here, huh?” He demands, and Unsui catches the lightning-fast glance he throws at Mamori, then to Unsui, assessing.  Questioning?  Nobody needs to know shit.  I keep my mouth shut.

“I’ll leave that talk to the fucking blushing flowers over here,” Hiruma says, with the same opaquely gleeful malice he applies to everything.  The look he gives Unsui and Mamori, a split second after Agon, is hidden behind a different mask but it’s almost exactly the same behind that mask.  Neither of them wants to be the one to say it, apparently.

“I’ll discuss this with you later, Agon,” says Unsui, and Agon narrows his eyes, dissatisfied.  “Things are under control.”

Agon looks from him to Mamori to Hiruma, and then back to Unsui.  He doesn’t have to say—would never say—are you sure?  But it’s certainly written on his face.  Behind him, Mamori twists her lips in uncertain distaste, and then catches Unsui’s eyes and gives him a shrugging nod.

“...Fine,” says Unsui, relenting, and stands, pushing through the stiff ache of his muscles to make the motion smooth and steady. 

There aren’t any cameras in the corner he pulls Agon to, and there’s nobody listening; Unsui checks, but he also knows because he can see Hiruma blatantly watching, eyes narrow and head cocked, one long ear turned in their direction.  Unsui gives him a sharp look and very pointedly turns away; he doesn’t know if Hiruma has any proficiency in reading lips, but at this point he wouldn’t put it past the man.

“I told you that trash is too sharp to two-time,” is the first thing Agon says, looking furiously vindicated.  “Told you you needed my—”

“I don’t need anybody’s help,” Unsui says firmly.  “Especially not yours.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means every time you get near Hiruma, you regress to thirteen.”

“Ahh?” says Agon.  “Hey, fuck you!”

“If I could stay out of your way every time you brought girls to our dorm, you can stop sticking your nose in every time I so much as look in his direction.”

Agon growls in the back of his throat, obviously dissatisfied.  “If you think he won’t take his shot at blackmailing you—”

“He won’t.”

“—Then you’re a fucking idiot.  He’s still the same slippery fucking snake he was in middle school.”

“None of us are the same people we were in middle school,” Unsui says, and Agon’s lips thin, a brief, unreadable spasm of something crossing his features and gone too quickly to name.  “I…appreciate that you’re worried about me—”

“Worried about you,” Agon repeats, disdainfully.  “Who the fuck is worried.”

“—But you don’t have to be.  This is a mutual agreement, Agon.  Everyone’s aware of what’s going on.  I’m not going to be blackmailed, and I don’t need your help.  So please, go find that woman who texted you and let me handle this date myself.”

Agon has quite clearly been waiting for his chance to keep arguing, instead of listening to what Unsui actually said; he opens his mouth, starts “You—” and then grinds to a halt again, brow furrowing.  “What, you’re…”

“Yes.”  It’s important not to flinch—to say it like it’s normal, not to let his voice waver.  Unsui holds his brother’s eyes.  “I told you, I’m open to either, and I know that you know how they feel about each other.  Since you decided it was your business to text me about it.”

Agon shifts uneasily in place, a restless roll of his shoulders.  Still silent.

“I’ve seen you with two or three women at a time, I don’t see how this is different.”

Agon makes a derisive noise—it’s a flimsy pretense, and both of them know it.  “Like hell you don’t.  It’s not the same thing and you fucking know it.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

He does.  “I want to hear you say it.”

Agon’s lips twist, and he doesn’t answer.  The implication is somehow the worst part—the fact he refuses to even say the words, like something about them might rub off on him.  

“...Fine,” Unsui says coldly.  “It’s different because if someone saw you with another man—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Agon says—spasmodically, like an involuntary reflex.

“If you let another man—”

“Shut the fuck up!” 

He’s made his point.  Unsui crosses his arms, and lets the silence hang between them for a few long seconds, watching his brother glare down at nothing.

“...I think we’ve established, after all this time,” Unsui says finally—calmly, but not bothering to cover the cold edge of his voice.  “You and I are very different people.”

“People used to talk shit about you,” Agon says.  “In middle school.  You know that?  They said you were some kind of…”  He bites off whatever he was going to say, shoulders tense, and gives Unsui a strange, hard, expectant look.

Unsui’s stomach gives a slow, resigned lurch.  He never had the awareness his brother does—what people are saying, what they think of him, it takes an effort to take notice of, and he hasn’t often bothered.  What point would there have been, after all.  This shouldn’t be a surprise.  And it isn’t, really.  It’s just…strangely hard to hear said aloud.

“I see,” he says, once he’s mastered the strange pang of…something.  Shame, maybe.  Self-consciousness, at least.  It’s pointless to dwell on now, and so there’s no point examining it.  “And?”

“And?” Agon repeats, incredulously.  “You’re just gonna let those pieces of trash be right?”

It’s an almost laughable question—as though Unsui hasn’t spent years listening as judgment is passed on him, and knowing that every word being said is true.  Agon always has valued his ego and his sense of himself much too highly to accept that sometimes things said in apathy, or even dislike and disapproval, are simply true.  Resenting or questioning those judgments, trying to pretend they aren’t damningly correct, is a pointless waste of energy.

“Yes,” says Unsui.

Agon doesn’t seem to know what to say to that.  Unsui waits for a moment or two, to see if he’ll find an answer; then he turns resolutely and steps past his brother’s motionless form, walking back toward the table.  

Hiruma and Mamori are both watching with obvious interest, as he comes back, looking intrigued and concerned respectively.

“I told him,” Unsui says, and sits down, refusing to look over at where his brother is still standing.  If Agon is looking at him, Unsui doesn’t need to know about it.  “He doesn’t…understand, but I don’t think we’re going to have a problem.”

“Well good,” Mamori says, a little stiffly, and reaches up to comb her hair back, visibly gathering herself.  “I hope we won’t.”

“Looks like we’re about to find out,” Hiruma says, and sharpens his smile, leaning on the back of Mamori’s chair as Agon finishes whatever internal journey of horror he went on and starts back toward the table at a slow, almost wary pace.  “Hey, fuckin’ dreads.  Figured it out, huh?”

Agon’s taken his glasses off again; he glares narrowly at all three of them as he gets closer, like he’s looking for the lie.  

“Go enjoy your time back in town, Agon,” Unsui says, before his brother can say anything embarrassing, hostile, or both.  “In the meantime, if you have questions, Sanzo might be willing to explain things to—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Agon says, and throws a quick look up and down the sidewalk—not fearful, not worried, but sharp-edged and dangerous in that if I see someone looking they’re getting curb-stomped way Unsui is unfortunately familiar with.

He doesn’t go stomping toward anybody to punch them, though; in fact, he freezes abruptly in place and says “Shit,” and gives the leg of Unsui’s chair a hard kick.  “Why the fuck—  Oi.  Heads up.”

–

Youichi is willing to admit that this situation may be going slightly differently from what he planned.  Slightly.

He’s aware of Agon’s parents, and he has been since they started their partnership in middle school; he’s never seen them in person, but he can make an inference when the clues walk right down the street toward him.

Entry #1 to the black book that lives in Youichi’s mind: a big, broad guy in a suit cut to make him look even bigger and broader, with black hair and frown lines starting on his face.  The jawline, the low eyebrows and the solemn expression are all familiar.  He glanced over everyone at the table who wasn’t Agon as he caught sight of them, and then pretty clearly dismissed every single one of them as not important enough to pay attention to.

Entry #2: a woman with much more friendly lines around her mouth.  Taller than her husband and still wearing heels.  The shape of her mouth and the very clear hook to her nose are dead ringers, even if she’s smiling much more than either of her sons do.  A little surprising: her hair is a slightly silvered blonde that doesn’t look dyed, and cut neatly short.

Addendum: Agon and Unsui just gave each other a look Youichi has never seen on either of their faces, and—Youichi wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t watching them both closely, but Agon has stepped a few inches closer to his brother’s shoulder and Unsui’s shifted in his chair slightly, closing ranks.

“Did you—” Unsui says, under his breath, lips barely moving.

“What?” says Agon.  “No!  Fuck you.  How the hell did they—” his eyes widen, narrow, dart over to Youichi.  Youichi raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.

"Was there an announcement somewhere?" Unsui says, as frustrated as Youichi has ever heard him.  "Damn it—"

"Boys!" the woman says, and hustles up to the table in long, clicking strides, to smile at her sons.  "There you are!"

“Mother,” says Unsui, and smiles a smile that looks half-assed but not quite fake, standing to let her hug him.  “What a…surprise.  You look nice.”

“Oh, stop!” says his mother, and kisses his cheek.  “Don’t you look handsome?”  She looks over at Agon, and he rolls his eyes and then drifts, begrudgingly, close enough to let her peck him on the cheek. “Hello, dear.”

“What, I don’t look so handsome too?” Agon says, and he’d almost completely have sold that he was just making some kind of needling joke if he hadn’t actually waited for the compliment just a second too long.  

“Of course you do,” says his mother, absently, and goes back to picking at Unsui again, straightening his collar and smoothing his sleeves.  “But your brother obviously put some effort in!”

Agon’s face sours.  Unsui says “Mother,” harassed and flustered, and looks past her at his father.  “I wasn’t expecting to see either of you in the area—I didn’t think you spent much time downtown.”

“A client wanted to meet at that French-style restaurant they opened where your mother’s hairdresser used to be,” says Kongo Senior.  “Besides, your mother heard you were here.”

“I had to find out from one of my friends that you two were in town,” says their mom, and Unsui’s face doesn’t so much as twitch at the tone of her voice—disappointed, a chiding edge to the words that sets Youichi’s teeth on edge and makes his hands itch.  “Do you remember Mr Satoshi?  He was the one who got Agon into that Junior Olympics event, that time in fifth grade he was in the news?”  She smiles at Youichi and Mamori.  “Agon has been a very talented little troublemaker ever since he could walk, I’m sure you’ve heard—”

“Mm,” says Unsui, with all the mild, expressionless patience of a stone statue.  Apparently his input isn’t needed, because his fucking mother just keeps on going.

“Well, he thought you were Agon, since he saw you out with company, and he told his wife he’d seen you here, and she got a hold of me to ask if you were doing well, and of course Mrs Yamamoto sent me a message a little while ago telling me how sweet you’d been to the ladies at home—”

“If you had just let us know you were going to be in the area for your meeting, it would have been much more convenient,” says Mr Kongo, who’s been looking Unsui up and down as his wife talks, looking increasingly disapproving.  “...Where did you buy that shirt?  I know I taught you how to size them better than this.  And what did you do with your tie?”

Unsui’s thin lips press even more thinly closed, and his eyes dart to Mamori and then down to the tabletop, not looking at anyone.  “It’s not for a…formal event,” he says, a little too flat and quiet. “So, I thought…”

“It’s a date, actually,” says Mamori, bright and sweet and hard as ice, and Unsui stops staring blankly at the tabletop and stares at her instead, looking surprised and amazed in a way that’s actually a lot better to see than whatever the fuck he was doing before.

“Date,” repeats Mr Kongo, with an unconvinced, fine I’ll humor you flash of a smile.  “Of course.”

The fucking manager will shake it off when somebody’s a dick to her, but give her somebody to stand in front of and she’s got balls of steel.  It’s not the first time Youichi’s imagined putting her on the line and watching her scold the other guys into standing down.  Watching her smile freeze and her eyes turn hard and determined is even better with the fucking monk still making googly what do you mean somebody likes me eyes at her in the background.

“Yes, a date,” she repeats, and stands to hold out a hand to the man.  “I’m Anezaki Mamori.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She’s not a football player, but she makes it to every practice and every gym day.  Mr Kongo takes her hand to shake it and his eyebrows twitch up as the fucking manager very clearly gives him the firmest fuck you handshake he’s felt this year.

“Mamori,” Mrs Kongo repeats, and very clearly insinuates her way between them as her husband’s eyebrows lower again, like Agon’s do when another man gets a step too far into his face.  “Oh, that’s lovely, dear.  I’m sure Unsui has been a gentleman, hasn’t he?”

"Of course he has," says Mamori.

"Of course he has!" his mother repeats, and gives her son a saccharine smile.  "He always has been, you know."

“...Agon,” Kongo Sr says, and very clearly dismisses that part of the conversation, stepping past the table and past Youichi to crack a smile for the first time since he walked up.  When he claps Agon on the back, Agon shoulders the touch away and makes a toneless noise of acknowledgement, still looking sulky and irritable.  “You hardly told us what you were up to during that phone call the other day.  Are you captain of the team yet?”

“You think I give enough of a shit about it to be captain?” Agon says derisively, and their dad laughs.

Behind him, their mother is saying, “Well, anyway, it’s just nice to see my boy out spending time around people!” She leans down to kiss the top of Unsui’s head; he lets her and offers a very stiff, strained smile back when she smiles at him.  “Instead of locked up in your room or out playing that game all the time.  Your mother worries about you, you know!  Look at Agon, out with friends like he always is…”

Observation #1: Youichi is the “friend” Agon is out with, which is fucking hilarious.  If these two knew what Youichi and Agon got up to during their nights in middle school, they’d shit themselves.  

Observation #2: Youichi doesn’t know jack shit about parents, but he knows body language.  Which is apparently more than these two do, even when it comes to their own kids.  Agon’s shoulders are tight and his head is lowered like he’s waiting for the choke-chain to snap so he can go for someone’s throat.  Unsui’s back is straight and his jaw is held rigidly high like a man determined not to fold in front of a firing squad.  

Observation #3: they were at each other’s throats a minute or two ago, and their parents appearing has put them on the same side of an invisible line; they keep making brief seconds of eye contact past their parents’ shoulders.

Observation #4: Youichi wasn’t missing out on anything, leaving his dad’s house.  Parents are a fucking scam.

Conclusion: this is a fairly conclusive mood-ruiner and the date is a lost cause at this point, which is fine.  Youichi wasn’t invited in the first place, so it’s not like there’s anything for him to fucking cry about.  Salvaging something useful out of today is the name of the game now, whether that’s some actual valuable information or just the rare opportunity to watch Agon fucking squirm. 

Agon apparently doesn’t feel any more like going into their friendship than Youichi does, because he doesn’t make any attempt to deny it, just makes a derisive noise and shrugs.  “Thought I’d come back down,” he says.  “See what was up.  Check up on Unk—  Check up on the—  This whole shit.  Don’t you two have somewhere to be?”

“Not nearly as many places as you do,” his dad says, with a kind of we’re all in on it pretend-disapproval that somehow manages to be even more grating than the passive-aggressive scolding.  “I’m sure you have all kinds of plans now that you’re back in town—make sure if you end up on the news again, it’s for the right reasons, got it?”

“Uh-huh,” says Agon, with a heavy, cheerful sarcasm as impenetrable as his brother’s calm mask.  “Yeah, right.”

“Well, maybe we should all leave your brother to it,” suggests their mother, and rests a hand on the back of Unsui’s neck, giving him a worried look that somehow manages to be glowingly proud and tooth-grittingly condescending at the same time.  “Before Agon turns anybody’s head!”

“I don’t want his fuckin’—” Agon starts, like every word of it tastes bad.  Unsui’s head twitches up and he aims a really narrow, sharp look at his brother.  Youichi doesn’t need to cue to know the fucking asshole’s about to run his mouth; he widens his smile, showing teeth, and Agon’s eyes dart from his brother to Youichi—and then, unexpectedly, to his mom, who’s watching him with an expectant smile that’s somehow turned to ice around the edges.

“...Girl,” he finishes, through his teeth.

Mamori takes a break from frowning to let out a startled, muffled hiccup of laughter, then hastily hides it behind a napkin like she can pretend it was some polite little cough.  

“Well, you’ve never been the problem, Agon,” says his fucking dad, waving that off like he didn’t notice any of the shit just happened right under his nose.   “It’s your brother who needs to—”

“Dear,” says their mother, disapprovingly, and then pretty transparently turns on the damage-control charm and turns back to Mamori, whose brief smile has melted back into an expression of barely-repressed boiling rage.  “Agon was always our little lady’s man when he was younger, that’s all.  You’ll have to make sure not to fall for him, for our Unsui’s sake!”

She laughs.  Unsui opens his mouth and moves his face and makes a noise that sounds like a laugh, and then folds the noise and the expression away again as neatly as a barely-worn pair of clothes.  He looks so serene he might as well be asleep with his eyes open—except for the muscle working in the corner of his jaw, a perfect match to his brother’s as both of them grind their teeth.

…Goddammit.  Fucking with Agon for fun and profit is one thing, and prying the fucking monk’s shell open is another.  This, this absolute shitshow he’s watching, is neither, and it’s infinitely more frustrating than any beef Youichi has with either of these identical assholes.

“The fuckin’ old lady’s right,” Youichi says, and elbows Agon, who twitches and pretty visibly restrains the urge to threaten him with bodily harm.  Mr and Mrs Kongo both turn to look at him, for the first time since they transparently wrote him off as some punk thug in the first couple of seconds, and Youichi smiles at both of them, not bothering to make it look friendly.  He knows what he looks like—the hair and the eyes and the teeth will make his point for him just fine.  “Let’s get out of here, fucking dreads.”

Unsui makes an actual facial expression at that, for the first time since his parents arrived—not long enough or clear enough to read for sure, but something gratifyingly close to surprised disappointment.  Mamori looks surprised too, then worried, then raises a hand and flashes unnecessary risks on that play and hold the run in quick succession.

What, you don’t have to go?  Cute.  It’s not like Youichi’s exactly over the fucking moon about running interference either, especially not when Agon’s so keyed up already, but he’d rather do that than sit here and watch this fucking farce of Happy Families anymore.  

I’m making the call, he signs back, a few flicks of his fingers by one hip without looking down, and Mamori’s spine draws up, jaw setting.

“Oh, how rude of us,” says Agon’s mother, and when she smiles it’s the same way her son smiles the first time he meets a pretty girl; a friendly, charming, soft-eyed smile that Youichi has seen Agon seamlessly fake a dozen times.  “You must be one of Agon’s…friends.”

Youichi didn’t get far in life by being stupid.  He’s been seeing a lot of coddling and doting so far, and it’d be easy to assume that’s all there is to see and move on to the big husband in a sharp suit she’s playing her “I’m so harmless” act off of.  But Youichi’s faced down a lot of assholes, from street punks to snake-in-the-grass con artists to world-class poker sharks, and he knows a fellow bastard when he meets one.  Her husband’s a hard-ass executive, but his power is mostly limited to the company; she’s in politics, the invisible kind, the kind that weaves a web and climbs silently, reeling in flies as she goes.

“...Oh yeah,” Youichi says, and holds her eyes, smiling just as fake as she is.  “Best fuckin’ friends, you got it.”

“Ma, back off,” says Agon, but he sounds more tired than anything, annoyed and dismissive.  Fuckin’ dreads never did know how to gauge a threat if it didn’t have a dick attached.  Dumbass. 

“Just getting to know your friends, sweetheart,” Mrs Kongo says brightly, holding Youichi’s eyes, smiling.  “Are you also a student at Saikyou?”

“Sure,” says Youichi.

“He’s one of the top students in the university,” Mamori says, because she’s never quite gotten the message Youichi doesn’t need her to protect him, dammit.

“Oh, lovely,” says Mrs Kongo.  “What are you studying?”

“Little bit of everything,” says Youichi, deliberately careless, watching like a hawk, looking for tells.  “It’s not about the degree, anyway.  It’s about who you know.”

“It is,” says Mrs Kongo, intently.  “Well, I would be happy to make introductions for you, of course, since you’ve helped my Agon.  Are your parents interested in making connections as well?  If they live in the area I’m sure I’ve met them.”

Fucking spider.  Making introductions, right—making sure he talks to the right people, sure.  Filtering him into whatever little toolbox in her life he fits best.  Do your parents want any introductions?  What do they do?  How much money do they make?  Are they worth knowing?  Are you worth taking?  

Youchi’s put plenty of people where he wants them, over the years—if this lady thinks she’s going to handle him, she better get used to disappointment.  

“He’s from Tokyo, ma,” says Agon, before Youichi can even open his mouth, because the fucking stooges around him are determined to give out identifying information about him, apparently.  “He’s not going to vote for you, quit buttering him up.”

“Agon,” says his mother, and there’s a sharp edge under her quiet, warm tone, like someone flashing a weapon.  “Mom’s conversations are important.  It’s time to keep that kind of comment to yourself.”

Agon’s lip twitches, half a sneer like he’s thinking about saying something, and then he looks away and folds, without even an attempt at a bluff.  Resentfully, with a muscle shifting angrily at the corner of his jaw—but without a fight.

“I’m sorry for my son,” says Mrs Kongo, and turns firmly back to Youichi, smiling like the moment of steely disapproval never happened.  “I keep telling him he needs to work on his manners!”

“Uh-huh,” says Youichi, watching with interest.  Mrs Kongo smiles at him with relentless polite grace, and in the corner of Youichi’s eye her husband makes a show of rolling his eyes toward Agon, who ignores that to look at his mom instead, with an expression of intent, simmering resentment—and then looks sharply away again to make a brief, unreadable moment of eye contact with his brother.

Youichi can’t read it, but apparently Unsui can; his impassive face gives a brief, flinching twist and his hands clench on his knees.  Then the moment is gone again.  His face wipes blank, and his hands go slack and then fold absently into the loose shapes of some kind of buddhist mudra, cycling from one gesture to the next like he doesn’t even notice himself doing it.

“We do have places to be, dear,” says Mr Kongo, and claps Agon on the back sympathetically.  “Let’s leave the boys to it.  Unsui—”  His son’s hands go abruptly still again and he somehow manages to straighten his posture even further, which is saying something.  “—Fix your sleeves, before you ruin that shirt.”

“...Yes sir,” says Unsui, and then pauses as Mamori reaches over and puts a very firm hand on one of his wrists.

“I think it looks very nice the way it is,” she says, and then turns to Mr Kongo and gives him the most unfriendly smile Youichi has ever seen on her face.  “I hope you have a good meeting!  I’m sure you need to be going.”

–

Mamori wasn’t raised to take issue with her peers’ parents, but.  What an absolute disaster.  Unsui and Agon are both staring at nothing, looking furious and blank respectively.  Youichi is staring after their parents with the twitchy energy of a cat that’s been fighting to hold back the urge to bite something.  And Mamori—

And Mamori is—

“...Shit, don’t pop a vein, fuckin’ manager,” Youichi says, which is about as soothing as he’s capable of being, generally, and is unsurprisingly unhelpful.  “If I didn’t know better I’d think something pissed you off—”

“I can’t believe them!” Mamori bursts out, incensed.  “I can’t believe—  I should have given them a piece of my mind—”

“What?” says Unsui, looking baffled and startled and more than a little worried.  “Wh—  No.  Why?  About what?”

“Yeah, what the fuck,” Agon says, looking—for once—honestly confused.  Which is—well.  It certainly doesn’t make her less angry.

“Your parents are fucking assholes,” Youichi says, which is blunter than Mamori was planning to be, although she can't exactly pretend she disagrees.  Unsui grimaces in transparent discomfort; Agon bristles.

“I don’t want to hear it from you,” he shoots back, derisively.  “The fuck do you know about parents, douchebag?  Huh?”

“Agon,” Unsui says, sharp and harsh. 

“What,” Agon snaps, rounding on his brother.  “What?!  I’m not gonna stand here and listen to this piece of shit—”

“Then don’t stand here at all,” Unsui says flatly.  “You weren’t invited.  Go find that woman who was looking for you, and spend time around someone who wants to see you.”

Agon gives a frustrated snarl and kicks the table, hard—Unsui grabs the tabletop to steady it, and Agon sneers at him and stomps off without another word, vanishing into the crowd in the opposite direction from his parents.

There’s a long, painful moment of silence, after that.  Youichi reaches over to the nearest table, grabs a chair and drags it over to sit down, looking thoughtful; Unsui has gone back to staring blankly at the tabletop.

“Are you…”  Mamori ventures, and dithers for a second before concluding, “...Are you alright?”

“What?” says Unsui, and rubs a hand over his scalp, staring around—at the bakery, at the tray of pastries, at both of them, like he’s struggling to remember why he’s here.  “Am I—  Oh.  Yes, of course.  Just thinking—  Just thinking.”

“Uh-huh,” says Youichi, and reaches out for the tray of pastries.  Mamori reaches over and turns it, presenting him with one she knows he’ll like better; Youichi quirks a brow at her but doesn’t question it, just picks up a piece of shortbread and nips at the corner of it in a flash of startlingly sharp teeth.  Through the mouthful, he says, “Who cares what they think?”

Unsui stares at him for a long moment, and then shakes his head.  “Of course,” he says again, dully.  “Who cares.”

Youichi doesn’t like that, by the way his eyes narrow and one of his shoes taps irritably at the ground a few times.  Mamori doesn’t like it much either, for that matter.  

“There was no reason for your father to say any of that,” she says, aiming for calm reassurance, knowing as she says it that some of her anger is still making it through.  Unsui gives her a look she can’t read, blankly thoughtful, and then looks away again, folding his hands in his lap, fingers knotting into a series of complex shapes apparently without thinking about it.  “Especially in front of other people.  It’s… it does, it makes me angry.  But if you don’t want to talk about it—”

“Your fucking mom acts like you’re still in diapers,” Youichi says irritably, and Unsui’s dull, distant expression sharpens abruptly.  “She’s a fucking snake, I don’t know how she missed both of her kids thinking she’s—”

“Don’t talk about my mother like that,” Unsui says, flat and cold—not a request, uncompromising.  Youichi’s hackles are already up; at that he refocuses on Unsui like a predator catching the scent of prey, obviously spoiling for a fight and delighted he’s about to get one.

“Like I have to listen to—”

“Youichi,” Mamori says, loud and sharp enough both boys twitch and break off their glaring contest.  “That isn’t helpful.”

“I’m not trying to help!”

“Then please keep it to yourself,” Mamori says firmly, and looks back at Unsui as Youichi’s eyebrows rise.  “I shouldn’t have invited you to somewhere so close to home.  I’ll take responsibility for how this has gone—next time, we can go somewhere more private.  All of us.”

Unsui doesn’t repeat the words, but at “next time” his expression of cold, tired hurt breaks into something much softer and warmer.  Hopeful.  Even better, Youichi was opening his mouth to say something, looking delighted and affronted in equal measures, and at that he breaks off, looking…  Not startled, exactly, because he only rarely allows himself that, especially in public.  Mollified, maybe.  Satisfied.  

“...Next time,” Mamori repeats, for both of those looks, and stands up, dusting a few stray crumbs off her lap.  When she comes around the table and reaches down to brush the pad of her thumb past the tense line of his jaw, Unsui goes gratifyingly pink along the sharp edges of his cheekbones and the muscle untenses under her touch.  He reaches up to glancingly press the broad palm of his hand over hers—not holding it there, just leaning into the touch for a split second, like it’s some guilty indulgence he can barely let himself enjoy.

It feels a little like cheating, like a play that’s certainly going to be outlawed as soon as someone catches her using it.  But it’s fairly clear to see that left to their own devices these two are going to spend more time making each other angry than getting anything done.  She can see why Youichi would prefer anger to the dull, numb resignation, but…there have to be more effective ways to handle this.  They’re going to have to have a strategy meeting at some point…

“...I’m sorry he spoke to you like that,” Unsui says, voice low, like he feels guilty even saying it.  “They’re trying to—  I apologize.”

Ikkyu has told stories, which he obviously thought were funny, about Unsui following his brother around cleaning up his messes and apologizing to the people he upset—it doesn't make the anger any less, to find out he does the same thing for the rest of his family.  It does cut the anger through with a significant amount of hurt, which isn't an improvement.  He's clearly not going to listen, right now and like this, if Mamori tries to tell him that whatever his parents were trying to do, what they did was unacceptable—starting a fight with him is only going to push him away, and this date has been rocky enough without adding a fight to the end of it.  And if saying it won't help, there's no point saying it.  And it won't help.  Damn it.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Mamori says instead, resolutely, and gets one of those sad, faint, grateful smiles in return.  “I had a wonderful time, otherwise.”

“Next time we’ll make some improvements,” Unsui says, and she can see him steeling himself as he stands as well, determination overtaking the self-consciousness.  “Next time will be better.”

–

Mamori is years past the point in their relationship where she wonders how Youichi managed to make sure the entire car is empty on their trip back to Saikyoudai; today, she’s honestly glad for the privacy.  Even if the solitude only serves to sharpen the edge of the silence.  She tries to sit, scrolls uselessly through a few photographs Sena is very considerately texting her, and then has to stand again, pacing restlessly back and forth; Youichi leans casually against a pole nearby, meditatively chewing on a stick of gum, as the train starts to move.

“...So,” says Youichi, after a few long minutes.

“It’s unacceptable,” Mamori bursts out—sharper and harder than she means to, the words she’s been biting back since she saw how Unsui winced at them.  They make Youichi grin, a sharp, vicious slash of white fangs.  “The way they spoke to him, I won’t accept it.”

“But?”

“But we have to play carefully, this time.”

“His fucking mom’s not going to like us elbowing in on her turf,” Youichi says thoughtfully, and pops his gum.  “You think she thought you were good enough?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to care whether she did or not,” Mamori says, because she has been wondering, and having the question asked out loud stings to a startling degree.  “If he shouldn’t, why should I?”

“Because if she didn’t, I give it ten to one that fucking dreads gets a text from mommy gassing him up to give you another shot.”

“He can try,”  says Mamori, immediately, and then registers the rest of the sentiment and gives him a startled look.  “...You think it was her?”

“I think fucking dreads didn’t need the help,” Youichi says, with a twitch of one sharp shoulder.  “...But I’d put money down he got some anyway.”

Mamori…is going to reserve judgment on that.  Youichi is an incredibly intelligent man, but he’s spent a long time actively courting conflict in every possible area of his life, and he has a tendency to assume that people he clashes with are his enemies and act accordingly.  It’s quite the theory, and thinking about it in depth will only make her angrier, which is the last thing she needs right now.

“It isn’t going to make a difference,” she says firmly, instead of dwelling on it.  “We have the same amount of work to do either way.  And—Agon might be useful, actually.”

“You think you can get that bastard to help with something?” Youichi says, apparently amused.  “Some kind of fucking daddy’s boy he turned out to be—you think you’re going to go ask him nicely until he hands over the dirt?  He’s not going to give us shit on them.”

“I didn’t say he would be helpful,” Mamori says.  “I said he would be useful.  Whether he intends to be or not.”

Youichi makes an unreadable noise and pushes himself abruptly away from where he's leaning to close the distance with her, a step too close to be casual, a deliberate encroachment.  Mamori starts to step back, and catches the motion, somehow startled to be looking up at him; she’s known he’s taller than her for years, but it’s startling somehow to suddenly feel it so starkly.  He’s looking at her like…

She’s never known exactly what to make of that look, the times she’s seen it over the years.  It’s just close enough to anger, or wariness, or attention so intent it almost feels like a threat.  But things have shifted, now, finally.  She knows what it means, as clearly as if he signed it to her.

Youichi says, “We’re taking what we want, huh?” low and hard-edged, and Mamori leans up and kisses him.

–

Mother: I hope we didn’t interrupt your date too badly, sweetheart!  I hope you have time to stop by for dinner before you go back…papa and I would love to see you.  :-)

I’ll do my best.

–

old man: Stop by tonight if your friends can spare you.  Your mother’s got her heart set on a family dinner.

fine whatever