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"Shin-chan."
Takao's voice sounds uncharacteristically contemplative from where he's across the room, fiddling with a ceramic mouse that was Shintarou's lucky item two days ago. (Shintarou's told him not to touch the lucky items, he really has, but all it takes is Takao looking at him—not even doing anything in particular, just looking at him—for him to relent.)
(Shintarou is in so deep, even he's resigned to it now.)
He blinks at his Biology homework, then looks up, mind still whirring over fatty acids and glycerol. Takao said something, didn't he? "What?"
"Akashi." Takao doesn't turn around; he sounds like he's relaxed a bit, trademark teasing lilt in his voice, but Shintarou knows him well enough to notice the way his shoulders tense beneath his shirt. For some unfathomable reason, Takao is nervous. "Did you ever—"
He stops, hands stilling on the china mouse. (He's probably put fingerprints all over it by now—Shintarou'll have to go over it with a wet cloth when Takao goes back home. It's going to be an absolute pain.) (He's used to it.) "Did you ever."
Shintarou raises his eyebrows. "I don't understand what you're trying to ask."
"Did you—" Takao picks up the mouse again, then sets it back on the table. He still doesn't turn around. Shintarou frowns. "Are you—were you ever in love with him?"
"What?"
Takao's shoulders stiffen at Shintarou's scandalised tone—almost too slightly for Shintarou to tell—but he keeps his voice casual, unaffected, even teasing. "Were you ever in love with your terrifying, redheaded, point-guard captain, Shin-chan."
Shintarou sits up, all residual thoughts of fatty acids dissolving into nothing. In his head, he replays their conversation. Takao was rambling about the merits of different brands of potato chips literally half a minute ago. Shintarou knows, because even with concentration honed from three years of ignoring Kise Ryouta, it is near impossible to tune out Takao when he's on a roll. (Also because he may or may not be in love with Takao Kazunari, but that is not the point.)
The point is, at no point during his enthusiasm-filled potato-chip rant did Takao mention Akashi Seijuurou, and yet here he is asking Shintarou if he's ever been in love with him. With Akashi Seijuurou.
And, from what Shintarou can tell, it's a genuine question.
That's the only reason Shintarou swallows his first reaction (which is to turn red and sputter out an incoherent denial), and actually starts to think about it.
"You're asking me if I ever had feelings for Akashi."
Takao stretches, possibly in an effort to seem casual. Shintarou watches the muscles under his shirt shift, the soft curve downwards of his neck to his shoulder, and swallows. He looks away. "I guess I am, yeah."
"For Akashi Seijuurou. Rakuzan's Akashi Seijuurou."
"No, Shuutoku's Akashi Seijuurou—Jesus, Shin-chan, how many Akashis do you know?" Takao finally turns around, flops onto Shintarou's bed (with his feet on Shintarou's pillow—dear God, why is Shintarou condoning this), and gazes at him with a grin that looks a touch too forced. He tilts his head at Shintarou, face barely a foot away, and suddenly Shintarou is all too aware of how close they are, how small the room is, how he could technically close the distance between them and—
He frowns, more at himself than at Takao, hoping the heat he feels creeping up his neck doesn't show. "I fail to see how this is relevant to Calbee potato chips."
"Oh my god, just answer the question," Takao says through half a snicker, rolling over so his back is to Shintarou. (His feet are still resting on Shintarou's pillow. He's going to have to change the pillowcase.) (Again.) "Also, I knew you were listening, there's a reason you're my favourite tsundere—"
Shintarou sighs with exasperation. (Ignores the reference to him being Takao's favourite tsundere, because a) he is not a tsundere and b) he is not, as far as he knows, Takao's favourite anything.) (As much as he wants to be.) "It is very hard to ignore you when you talk incessantly loudly—"
"Deflecting, Shin-chan," Takao singsongs. "That's really suspicious."
Takao is excellent at basketball passes to Shintarou, but he is terrible at keeping secrets from Shintarou. Takao has about fifteen different tells for when he's on edge. Shintarou eyes his back, notes the thread of tension running through his insinuations, and wonders.
(Could it be—no. Wishful thinking has never done anyone good.)
(Besides, Cancer is in eighth place today. There is no possibility he could be this lucky.)
"It's okay if you don't want to tell me, I get it," Takao says to the wall after a moment of silence, too fast for him to be as casual as he probably hopes he seems. "Figured I'd ask for the heck of it, you're hilarious when you blush, Kise said something and I was like, no way Shin-chan—"
"I couldn't say," Shintarou says carefully.
Takao stops mid-babble, flips back over and fixes him with a startled look, eyes wide open.
"You mean you can't tell?"
Shintarou adjusts his glasses, pushes them up his nose. "I believe that is what I said."
"How can you not tell if you're in love with someone," Takao says, disbelieving. He's rolled onto his front now, slate-blue eyes fixed on Shintarou. Something jolts in Shintarou's stomach, hot, searing. How can you not tell, indeed.
He forces himself to think about it. "I admired him, of course," he says. "And he was considerably charismatic. We also liked a lot of the same things—shogi, for instance. We played during our breaks."
Something closes up behind Takao's eyes. Shintarou would panic if he wasn't completely out of his depth—and if he wasn't speaking the truth.
(It's just—was that hurt that flickered in Takao's eyes? Because of Akashi?)
(Because of Shintarou?)
"We came from similar family backgrounds," he continues nonetheless. "I spent so much time in close proximity with him, something developed, I suppose."
(He can still remember the feeling in his chest when he used to look at Akashi, it’s true. Tentative, familiar. The quickening of his heartbeat, slight, when he looked into calm red eyes not yet destroyed by calculated insanity.)
(Nothing more.)
The closed-off look in Takao's eyes doesn't disappear, but he laughs anyway, high and disbelieving, probably means it to come off as amused. The sound grates on Shintarou, mostly because he has never seen Takao look like that—never this upset. Never this false.
"Huh. Kise was right after all, what are the odds?"
In spite of everything else, Shintarou feels a twinge of irritation for Kise Ryouta. "Kise knows nothing. He spent the majority of middle school signing autographs and challenging Aomine to various pointless contests. All of which Aomine won."
This time, when Takao laughs, it's looser, more genuine. Shintarou adjusts his glasses again, if only to hide the relief he's sure is plain for all to see.
"He still got you on the whole in-love-with-Akashi thing, though," Takao says. "Mr Lower-Your-Head, I-Am-Absolute—"
"This was all before he changed, of course," Shintarou points out irritably. The idea that he could have ever held affections for a monster such as Akashi had subsequently become is absolutely appalling. "All and any feelings faded after that—if you could call them feelings at all. I always assumed it was some kind of—amalgamation of loyalty and admiration. Nothing like—"
(Nothing like what he feels for Takao, he wants to say. Akashi inspired awe, the kind of feeling Shintarou gets when he looks up and realises the sky is impossibly high above him, magnificence he can never hope to reach. Takao—)
(Takao turns on every light inside of him. Takao's touch makes his skin burn with the memory, the imprint of casual fingers brushing over a wrist, the feel of even the lightest pat on the back after a game lingering far too long. Takao confuses him, keeps him on his toes, grounds him—he's the impossible longing in Shintarou's chest, the last thing on his mind at night, the first thing in the morning.)
Takao blinks at him, less than a foot away, and Shintarou finds himself flushing, fingers curling tight in his lap, unable to look away.
"—nothing like love," he manages to say. "Nothing remotely close."
Takao's watching him, eyes intent. He's sprawled out on his side, now, posture textbook-definition lazy, but alert and on his guard as he always is. One side of his shirt has ridden up from all his tossing and turning. Shintarou tries not to look.
"It's nothing like love," Takao says, slowly, as if he's testing something.
"Nothing at all." Shintarou blinks, suddenly registering the way Takao has been using present tense this whole time, the way he looks like he's bracing himself for some terrible thing, almost as though—
No. No, surely not.
"Takao. Surely you cannot think I still harbour any kind of affection for Akashi."
A pause.
"I should've known Kise was spouting a bunch of crap," Takao groans theatrically, flopping a hand over his face in comic despair. "Shin-chan, your love life is so boring. Not that I wanted you to be in love with a crazy point guard who thinks he's the emperor of basketball, but like—"
Shintarou misses the rest of Takao's rambling in a haze of confusion, because—at his words, Takao's whole body relaxed. His shoulders unstiffened, his eyes brightened. Shintarou watches in stunned disbelief, mind whirring with this new information.
Could it be—?
"Why did you ask?" Shintarou says before he can stop himself.
Takao stops mid-ramble, arm still flung over his face. He takes it away and raises himself on an elbow to look at Shintarou, mouth half-open like he wasn't expecting to be asked.
Shintarou doesn't even know if he wants the answer, but he waits anyway.
"I—I mean, I told you," Takao says, faltering for a second before recovering, grin back full force. "We were at the last match, it was Seirin and Rakuzan—I saw Kise when I went out to get us drinks, we talked some, and he mentioned something about how close Midorimacchi and Akashicchi used to be, and I wondered, I guess?"
Shintarou is going to kill Kise Ryouta. (He could probably persuade Murasakibara to do it if he gives him some Maiubo, that way he won't even have to get his hands dirty.) "He mentioned what, exactly?"
"That you used to hang out alone all the time?" Takao smirks. "That he used to send you passes most of all the Generation of Miracles? I don't know, Shin-chan, it didn't sound very innocent to me, and as your teammate and basketball partner, I am very invested in making sure my ace hasn't been affected by a psychopath of Akashi-san's calibre."
He tilts his chin up at Shintarou, almost challenging, like he's daring him to ask further.
Shintarou has never been one to back down from a challenge.
"Really."
Takao chooses to take it as an exclamation of exasperation. He gets up on his knees on the bed, gives a mock bow. "Sorry, O Ace-sama, for taking up so much of your valuable time with such a pointless question—"
"Takao."
Shintarou sees the moment Takao gives up hiding it, sees the way his shoulders slump a little and the way he blows out a breath, how he sits back down on the bed, not looking at Shintarou. "Man, they say you're oblivious, Shin-chan, but nothing gets past you, does it?"
Only when it comes to you, Shintarou thinks, and it comes so naturally now that he doesn't even flush, is hardly even affected by it anymore.
"You were clearly upset," he says.
"Yeah, well." Takao rubs a hand over the back of his neck, self-conscious. "I just wondered. It's just—Akashi was your point guard too, y'know?" And then, so quietly and so sincerely that Shintarou doesn't know if he means it to be heard, "he's a really hard act to follow."
Shintarou freezes. Takao looks up, blinking and bemused, then realises the implications of what he just said. His eyes widen.
"I, uh, I didn't mean, I meant—"
He stutters to a halt.
Shintarou doesn't take risks, he really doesn't. He makes a three-pointer only when he's absolutely sure he'll make the shot, ball dropping through the hoop without even touching the rim. He makes sure he has his lucky item with him at all times to ensure success. He does everything humanly possible to make sure he doesn't fail...
Takao. Takao is—has always been—the one risk Shintarou absolutely cannot take, because he risks losing him completely, risks losing everything. The only way never to fail is never to try, so he's never tried.
But looking at Takao now—all wide eyes and flushed cheeks, flustered—Shintarou isn't sure he's risking everything anymore.
"You meant?" He says quietly.
Takao looks away, silent.
Shintarou is very, very sure.
"You say the fact that Akashi and I were often seen in each other's company, and the way he used to pass the ball most often to me on the court, were what made you think I had feelings for him," he says softly. Takao swallows, still not looking at him.
"Yeah, it didn't exactly sound like friendship the way Kise put it," he mutters.
"Perhaps it wasn't," Shintarou acknowledges. How much clearer does he have to be? "Let me put it this way, then." He clears his throat, adjusts his glasses, self-conscious. The silence hangs between them, heavy and tense. "Who, exactly, accompanies me most often these days? Who passes me the ball on the court, more often than to anyone else?"
There's a beat of silence.
Takao raises his eyes to Shintarou's.
"You mean—"
Shintarou pushes his glasses up again, for lack of anything better to do. It's his turn to look away; he can feel the heat creeping up his neck, feel it in his cheeks. "They say you're the perceptive one out of the two of us," he says. "Hawk-eye and all."
"It doesn't work like that," Takao says automatically from the bed, but then there's a scramble of movement and suddenly Takao's in front of Shintarou, hand warm on his knee and the beginnings of a genuine smile apparent in upturned lips. He gazes up into Shintarou's face, eyes searching. Earnest. Shintarou's heart lurches in his chest at the closeness of him, the heat of the hand on his knee, the way Takao looks at him, gaze intense, steady, sincere.
"Shin-chan," Takao says, voice low. "Shin-chan—I'm not misunderstanding anything, right?"
"No," Shintarou says, and swallows. "I don't believe you are."
"Good," Takao says, and his small smile stretches into a full-out grin as he leans forward, slides the glasses off Shintarou's nose, and kisses him.
Shintarou's brain short-circuits.
Takao's mouth is warm on his, one hand on the back of his head. Their noses brush; Shintarou breathes out through his nose, shakily, because this is the one thing Takao is probably better at than he is (he's probably kissed someone before, kissed multiple someones, god) but he's never done this before and his face is burning and—
Takao tilts his head into the kiss, slips a hand around the back of Shintarou's neck, and Shintarou loses his train of thought completely.
It's over far too soon. Takao breaks away first to take in a breath, but he doesn't go far—just leans his forehead against Shintarou's, brushes the hair out of his face. Slate-blue eyes open into his, shining and happy and full of wonder.
It's as if the world has stilled around them, that one moment they're looking at each other. Just looking. Just gazing.
"Shit, I." Takao laughs quietly, drops his eyes from Shintarou's face. "I've wanted to do that for way too long."
Shintarou finds his voice. "I wasn't sure you would be—amenable."
Takao's breath ghosts over his lips, their mouths so close they're barely apart. "Are you kidding? I've been—Shin-chan, it's been months."
Shintarou lifts a hand to Takao's face, tentative. "Months."
"Months," Takao echoes, eyelids dipping shut, and then they're kissing again, Shintarou the one to close the distance between them this time.
Takao must feel it, when Shintarou starts smiling into the kiss, because his lips curve against Shintarou's in an answering grin, and it's perfect.
Really.
~~~
"I guess it was a good thing I was jealous of Akashi," Takao says, later when they're both sitting up. He leans against Shintarou's bed, hair tousled and messy, eyes bright. He's not looking at Shintarou, just smiling somewhat sheepishly at the floor.
"I suppose," Shintarou allows. (He can be magnanimous now that he has Takao—now that he's got Takao. It's like—some kind of daydream, fantasy, imagining.) "Although there really was no need. It was never like that."
"How was I supposed to know?" Takao complains, familiar petulance back in his voice. He's just inches away from Shintarou, impossibly, tantalisingly close; Shintarou resists the urge to move closer. "You dropped everything to go to him when he summoned the lot of you—"
Shintarou frowns. "That was one time, and all of us attended—"
"You were obsessed with beating Rakuzan—"
"That was more to do with proving a point than any supposed affections you imagined I might have had—"
"I dunno, Kise was the last straw." Takao tilts his head up at Shintarou, grinning. Bright, beautiful. Shintarou's breath catches. "But he got us here."
"Hmph."
"Shin-chan." Takao laces his fingers through Shintarou's, shoulder brushing against his. Something in Shintarou's stomach swoops. Takao's voice turns mischievous. "C'mon, Shin-chan, look at me."
Because he's hopeless, Shintarou does.
Takao cracks up. "You're blushing."
Shintarou glares. "And you point this out because?"
"You're cute when you blush, Shin-chan," Takao says nonchalantly, then cackles with undisguised glee when Shintarou's face turns an even more violent shade of red. "Oh my god, I'm going to be able to say things like that all the time now, it's going to be hilarious—you know what, I'm going to call Kise right now and thank him for the great service he's done me—"
"Why do you have his number," Shintarou says, aggrieved. Takao just laughs in response. "Don't you dare."
Takao just raises his eyebrows, smirks.
"Watch me, Shin-chan," he says sweetly, leaning over to kiss Shintarou again. "Just watch me."