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Eijun couldn’t believe he was doing this. He wiped his clammy hands on his shirt again for the second time in the past five minutes, brow furrowing as he heard barely concealed snorts of laughter from Kuramochi along with quiet titters from Asada. They were a few paces behind Eijun, watching him gleefully from behind a wall in a poor attempt at hiding.
Hackles raised along with his clenched fist, Sawamura stood frozen in front of dorm number 203. Miyuki’s dorm room. He couldn’t bring himself to knock.
“Get on with it, Sawamura!” hissed Kuramochi from behind the wall. “If you don’t catch him before he goes to sleep, you’ll have to do the forfeit, remember?”
Ah. Yes. The forfeit. Now that Eijun was actually here outside Miyuki’s room, the forfeit of doing both Kuramochi and Asada’s laundry for two weeks was starting to look much more appealing than it had done when Asada had first suggested it back in their room a few minutes ago. Eijun was starting to suspect that himself and Kuramochi were perhaps becoming a bad influence on the first year.
He blamed Kuramochi more of course.
“He’s supposed to be our mature, respectable senpai, dammit!” Eijun grumbled to himself through gritted teeth as he hesitated before raising his fist to knock again. This never would have happened under Chris-senpai’s watch!
Eijun certainly felt confident in saying that Chris-senpai would never have dragged his roommates into a childish game of truth or dare at nearly 10pm at any rate.
To give Mochi-senpai a bit of credit, the game had begun as a silly way of cheering up their kohai. Asada had had a bad day at practice and Kuramochi’s usual technique of “a video game night with the senpais” wasn’t quite working to get the glum look off of Asada’s face. What had started out as answering mildly embarrassing personal questions and stupid dares—like holding one of Kuramochi’s dirty socks in their mouth for thirty seconds—had quickly escalated into, in Eijun’s opinion, a targeted attack on himself by his other roommates. Somewhere along the way, “taking turns” had stopped happening and Kuramochi had worked out that the quickest way to make Asada smile was at Eijun’s expense specifically.
So now Eijun was here, outside Miyuki’s dorm at 9:49pm and with the stupidest dare of all time hanging over him. The moment of its conception still echoed loudly in his mind.
“What?!” Eijun had spluttered indignantly as the words had left Kuramochi’s mouth. He had only briefly registered Asada’s unsure chuckling from beside him, all of his focus instead being on Kuramochi’s words as their senpai had repeated himself. Surely Eijun had misheard?
“I dare you to ask Miyuki if you can kiss him.”
“I-I can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“He would make fun of me forever! It would be even worse than that time I fell off the mound at Koshien!”
“And? That’s the point of the game. Embarrassment”
“No it isn’t! Also I’ve done the last three dares!”
“Hm?” Kuramochi had pretended not to hear him, picking idly at his cuticles.
“I can’t kiss Miyuki Kazuya!”
“I’m daring you to ask him, not to actually do it. The point is that he laughs at you. Which he will.”
“I don’t want that either!”
“What if he says yes?” Asada’s voice had piped up curiously.
They all went very quiet for a moment. Then Kuramochi had snorted derisively as if that solved the matter.
“Y-yes!” Eijun had clung on desperately to his last beacon of hope. “If he says yes, then the dare won’t work as intended. So dare me to do something else—!”
“If in the very unlikely scenario that he does say yes,” Kuramochi had interrupted smoothly, “you then have to follow through.”
Eijun blanched at the memory.
Follow through.
Blushing wildly, Eijun shook his head and took a very big and deliberate step away from the door. This was ridiculous! He didn’t have to do this. He couldn’t do this. He’d take the damn laundry.
But as he turned back around towards the others, Eijun’s gaze fell on Asada’s face. His eyes were wide and shining with awe as he stared back at Eijun with a bright grin, and Eijun’s steps faltered.
Dammit!
Of course he couldn’t back out now. Not after Asada had been saying how cool and brave he was the whole night for going through with all of Kuramochi’s wild dares. And although Asada’s opinion on what exactly constituted “wild” was probably out of alignment with what most people would agree upon, Sawamura Eijun was absolutely not going to destroy his dear kohai’s perception of his most favourite senpai. Not to mention Asada was smiling the hardest that he had all day.
“This is for Asada,” Eijun muttered to himself as he turned back around towards the looming door in front of him. “I am kissing Miyuki-senpai for—wait no! I am asking! Asking!”
He knocked loudly before the fresh wave of embarrassment could get a chance to flood his face.
Eijun barely had a second to let out a relieved sigh at finally getting the first step of the dare out the way before the door opened and he was on high alert again. Eijun glanced up.
Miyuki stared back at him blearily from across the threshold, hair mussed and glasses slightly askew. It looked like Kuramochi had been right to suspect that their captain was just about to go to bed. The eye mask clutched awkwardly in Miyuki’s left hand all but confirmed it.
Eijun’s eyes widened as his eyes fell on the mask in question, and he couldn’t help smiling as he recognised it as one that he himself had given Miyuki as a gift for his seventeenth birthday last year. It had a tanuki face design. Originally it was meant to be a joke. An attempt at teasing his battery partner. It did earn Eijun an eye roll which he counted as a win on that front, but a small part of him had hoped that Miyuki might also appreciate the gift at least for its practicality.
It looked like Eijun had succeeded on that front too.
“Oi, Sawamura.” Miyuki’s voice brought him sharply back to the unfortunate situation. “Are you going to stand there with that creepy smile on your face all night, or are you actually going to tell me what you want? It’s 10pm.”
Miyuki glanced pointedly towards the inside of his dorm. Eijun surreptitiously peered over Miyuki’s shoulder. Kimura was already in bed, trying and failing to pretend to be asleep, opening his eyes a crack every couple of seconds to look curiously over at the pair standing in the doorway. And although Sawamura couldn’t see Okumura from this angle, he could sense his overwhelmingly threatening aura from the depths of the dimly lit room. Eijun shuddered.
He didn’t want to do this dare. He definitely didn’t want to do it with an audience. No audience greater than the sniggering idiots behind the wall that he already had anyway.
“Yes! No—I mean—can we talk outside?”
Miyuki sighed.
“Sure.”
Eijun took a step back to give Miyuki space to leave the room and close the door behind him. Miyuki looked at him expectantly.
“So? What is it?”
“I’m here to ki—to ask you something!”
“Okay...?”
This was so much harder than Eijun ever thought it would be. Not that he had ever envisioned being in this scenario beforehand, but on the way towards Miyuki’s dorm he had been sure that the hardest part of this whole thing would be dealing with the humiliation after he’d asked Miyuki the dreaded question.
Miyuki’s stare was slowly morphing from mild irritation to bewilderment as Eijun opened and closed his mouth at him for a few, painful moments. Thankful, Miyuki’s short laugh stopped the tension from rising any further.
“It’s not often you’re struck speechless. It must be something really—”
“Can I kiss you, Miyuki Kazuya?!”
Miyuki stared at him. Eijun drew in a sharp breath and clasped his hands over his mouth. There was a quiet sound somewhere off to the side that sounded awfully like someone smothering their laughter, but it was admittedly hard for Eijun to tell over the sound of his heart thumping deafeningly in his ears as a blush consumed his face. That and the internal screaming that had started up in his head as soon as the words had pushed themselves out of his mouth without his permission.
“Can you—?” Miyuki’s eyes narrowed as he glanced off to the side, and Eijun followed his gaze in panic, but Kuramochi and Asada had hidden themselves fully behind the wall now. He glanced back at Miyuki and his heart gave a strange jolt in his chest as he found Miyuki’s eyes already meeting his own. There was a faint blush on Miyuki’s face.
Miyuki cleared his throat.
“You want to kiss me?” Miyuki said.
Eijun marvelled at how composed his captain was in his response. Even the small blush that had barely been there in the first place had disappeared, making Eijun start to doubt that it had ever been there at all. This was exactly what Miyuki was like on the diamond—unruffled, face and body giving nothing away to his opponents. It was a little disconcerting to see the figurative catcher’s mask come down quite so rapidly in front of his eyes.
Was Eijun Miyuki’s opponent in this situation?
Eijun swallowed and forced his head to nod, heart still hammering.
“Y-yes,” he said, failing to mirror his partner’s unwavering cadence. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead
Miyuki’s eyes examined him carefully for a moment. Then he exhaled a short huff of breath and his serious demeanour left with it.
“Okay,” Miyuki said with a small smile, and Eijun felt as though the Earth had tilted on its axis.
“Okay?” Eijun repeated back at him weakly, light-headed. He suddenly felt way too close to the other boy, but he didn’t dare step away for fear of his legs giving way beneath him.
“Okay as in sure. You can kiss me,” Miyuki said, his voice still somehow unbelievably steady.
What was happening?
Miyuki had actually said yes. He had actually said yes. The internal screaming in Eijun’s head was louder now and screaming for an entirely new reason. He had to fight hard not to reflexively turn towards where Kuramochi was hiding and beg him to tell Eijun what he should do next. Though of course Eijun knew in his heart what the answer was regardless.
Follow through.
Eijun inhaled slowly, his face feeling somehow even hotter than it had been before. Miyuki was looking at him, still smiling, and if Eijun didn’t know any better, he would almost say that Miyuki looked...
His no-nonsense captain mode was well and truly gone now. He looked relaxed, arms folded loosely—hand still holding onto the ridiculous eye mask—and a gleam in his eyes that for once had no mischievous intent behind it. Even the small blush was back on his face, and the smile he was sporting was one that Eijun didn’t recall ever seeing on Miyuki’s face at all before.
Not that Eijun kept an extensive catalogue of Miyuki’s smiles or anything.
It was easy now though for Eijun to tell the difference between a fake smile and a genuine smile from Miyuki. Being battery partners practically meant that he was forced to be in tune with even the slightest changes in expression and body language from him. Reading Miyuki was his job . And yet, most of Miyuki remained a mystery to Eijun despite his best efforts. Eijun was determined to change that however. Not just for the benefit of their battery, but because he was Miyuki Kazuya, and for some reason Sawamura Eijun was compelled to know everything he possibly could about him.
Right now Miyuki was sending him signs they’d never practised. Signs Eijun never even knew existed until tonight. Signs that held no meaning for him because Miyuki hadn’t told him what any of these signs meant and there was no way they could possibly mean anything close to what they looked like on the surface.
Miyuki after all had a history of being a trickster.
Before making the ill-fated journey to room 203, Eijun had grilled Kuramochi thoroughly on his motives behind the dare. His insistence that Eijun carry out the dare was, in Eijun’s mind, suspicious, his friendship with Miyuki even more so, and the fact that they both seemingly lived to tease Eijun mercilessly was the nail in the coffin as far as Eijun was concerned. It had to be an elaborate prank cooked up between the two of them.
Kuramochi denied it of course, but it was only after a disgruntled look had appeared on his face that Eijun had believed him. The clear annoyance Kuramochi displayed for not having come up with that plan himself convinced Eijun more than anything Kuramochi had actually said .
“Sawamura?”
Miyuki’s voice cut through Eijun’s internal panic. Eijun took a steadying breath and forced his mind to still, if only for a minute, just to properly take in the boy in front of him. He pretended he was on the mound; calm, focused, and with nothing but Miyuki, his signs and his mitt in front of him.
He was looking at Eijun, eyes still gleaming and face tinged pink. His smile was still there, but there was a small furrow now in his brow as he said Eijun’s name questioningly. Eijun noticed that although Miyuki stood tall, arms folded and looking the very picture of casual confidence, he was now rubbing the soft fabric of the eye mask between his fingers and minutely shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
When Eijun looked up from his feet and back at Miyuki’s face, his heart jumped at the sight of Miyuki biting down on his bottom lip slightly before quickly letting it go again. It was Miyuki’s one and only tell when on the diamond. The one sign Eijun absolutely knew the meaning of.
A nervous excitement.
“Um,” Eijun forced out, because he was becoming increasingly aware of the silence stretching between them as well as the still very real presence of Kuramochi and his wrath lingering only a few feet away from them. There was no time to think about why Miyuki was going along with this and whether it really was a scheme Miyuki was in on after all. All Eijun could do was get it over with as quickly as possible and deal with the humiliating consequences later.
And if it turned out Miyuki was playing a game of chicken with him, Eijun was not going to lose!
“R-right,” Eijun spoke again, throat dry as he took an excruciating step forward. “I’m going to...”
He reached forward and placed his left hand on Miyuki’s shoulder, something he had done so many times before casually without thinking, but now felt like the most intimate touch in the world.
“I’m going to kiss you now, Miyuki-senpai.”
He couldn’t bear to meet Miyuki’s eyes anymore. Eijun’s face might as well be on fire at this point. He felt a droplet of sweat creep down his brow.
“Okay then,” Miyuki said with his usual lilting laugh, and for a heartbeat or two, the spell of the moment lifted long enough for Eijun to snap his eyes up angrily to meet Miyuki’s—his usual knee-jerk reaction to hearing the trademark teasing tone that Miyuki so often adopted.
It was a mistake.
Miyuki’s eyes were full of mirth, but there was so much more there that Eijun couldn’t understand and so desperately wanted to. And it was that overwhelming frustration that broke him.
We’ll see who’s laughing after I’m done with you, Miyuki Kazuya!
He tightened his grip on Miyuki’s shoulder and pulled him forward, kissing him squarely on the mouth.
By all rights, this should have been the part where it was finally all over and Eijun could slink back to the relative safety of his dorm, albeit humiliated, but no longer caught in the increasingly confusing web of Kuramochi’s diabolical plot to get him to lock lips with his battery partner.
But it wasn’t over in the slightest. Eijun had kissed people before, but he hadn’t counted on being reminded of just how nice it was to kiss someone. He also hadn’t counted on how nice in particular Miyuki’s lips would feel underneath his and also how the small sound of surprise Miyuki made upon being kissed would somehow send Eijun’s spine tingling with delight. He’d never heard Miyuki make a sound like that before, and it was new and precious and now Eijun felt every bit the greedy pitcher Miyuki accused him of being for wanting to hear that sound again for him and only him.
Then Miyuki’s lips began to move cautiously against his.
Eijun tore his mouth away from Miyuki’s as quickly as he had placed it there and forced his mind away from his runaway thoughts just as fast.
“Okay!” Eijun said decisively, gripping Miyuki’s shoulders and wondering when his other hand had migrated there. “I did what I came here to do so—”
Eijun took in Miyuki’s face that was still so very close to his. His face was red and his eyes were closed.
“So...” Eijun repeated, but his words were abandoning him faster than he could say them.
Eijun watched Miyuki’s eyes slowly flutter open, transfixed by the way his eyelashes caught on the loose strands of his bangs. Eijun noted that Miyuki’s lashes were almost long enough to brush up against the lens of his glasses. The same glasses that Eijun had felt bumping into the tip of his nose when seeking out Miyuki’s lips and he would now never be able to forget the unique feeling of.
There was a smudge on the lens now that Eijun was sure hadn’t been there before and he couldn’t explain the strange, giddy sensation he felt at that realisation.
As Miyuki’s eyes started to refocus on him, Eijun looked down at the floor. If he couldn’t deal with Miyuki’s eyelashes he wasn’t going to fair well against whatever dangerous myriad of emotions Miyuki’s eyes would likely evoke.
“So,” Eijun said to the ground, “I guess I’ll be on my way b—”
He stopped abruptly as his gaze landed on a small, brown and white object caught under his foot.
“Ahh!” Eijun shouted and felt Miyuki jump beneath his hands before releasing him quickly and bending down to pick up the tanuki eye mask that now had Eijun’s dusty footprint on it. “How did this get here?!”
Straightening up, Eijun stared down mournfully at the mask and tried fruitlessly to rub off the dirt with the sleeve of his hoodie.
“It’s not a real tanuki you know.”
Eijun gave a start at Miyuki’s voice. It was oddly surreal to hear it again and sounding no different from before, as though somehow Eijun expected it to have changed like everything else had once his lips had touched Miyuki’s.
“You’re treating it like an injured animal,” Miyuki continued, and Eijun finally gathered up the courage to meet his gaze again.
Miyuki’s face hadn’t changed after the kiss either. Maybe it was more flushed than usual, but his expression was one Eijun was intimately familiar with. It was the one Miyuki made after catching a particularly good pitch from Eijun, and that fact simultaneously put him at ease and set his heart racing.
“I’ll wash it for you!” Eijun blurted out. “The mask. I’m sorry I trod on it.”
Miyuki snorted and took the mask from him.
“It’s fine, Sawamura.”
“It’s not fine! You can’t wear a dirty mask on your face!”
“No, I mean I can wash it myself.”
“Oh—! Well...”
“It was my fault anyway. I’m the one who dropped it.” Miyuki let out an airy sort of chuckle. “You surprised me. I wasn’t sure if you were really going to do it for a moment.”
There was something in the subtle tone of Miyuki’s voice that sent a prickle of unease through Eijun, whisking him away from the short lived, comfortable familiarity that he had tried so hard to hold on to in the past few precious seconds.
“W-why? What do you mean?”
“This was a dare, right?”
It was like being suddenly doused with a bucket of ice water. More jarring still was that the smile on Miyuki’s face was not malicious in the usual way that the bluntness of his words would suggest. Instead it held nothing but warmth and genuine fondness.
Nothing was making sense.
“You wouldn’t actually want to kiss me,” Miyuki added.
Eijun wanted to protest, but didn’t know how. Because Miyuki was right, but at the same time he was wrong in a way that Eijun couldn’t articulate, but felt so strongly in his gut that he had to try.
“It was a dare,” Eijun confessed softly and with an anguish that really had no right to be there, “but that— but that doesn’t mean I don’t—”
Then Eijun’s brain finally caught up with him and struck him down with a thought that cut through the confusion.
“Wait,” he said, “if you knew, why did you say yes?!”
Miyuki shrugged, his grin becoming wicked.
“I’m an opportunist,” he said simply.
After a pause in which Eijun gaped silently at Miyuki, Eijun found that he really couldn’t argue with that at all.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” Miyuki continued, “so I figured I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth...”
Gift horse?
Something was lingering once more in the tone of Miyuki’s voice that betrayed something more than mere “gifts” and “horses” or whatever else Miyuki was going on about, but Eijun’s mind had come to a screeching halt half a second before the horse had even entered the picture.
“That was your first kiss?!” he shrieked, and Miyuki clapped a hand roughly over Eijun’s mouth.
“No need to tell the whole team about it!” he bit out as Eijun made to tug Miyuki’s hand off his face.
“You let me steal your first kiss?!” Eijun said in a stage whisper, and Miyuki rolled his eyes.
“I gave it to you,” he said. “There was no stealing. You’ve been reading too much dramatic romance manga.”
“But why?! ”
“I told you. I’m an opportunist.”
“And how?! You’re Miyuki Kazuya! You’re the captain of our school’s star baseball team! Girls are always confessing to you—”
Miyuki flushed slightly.
“Not that many,” he interjected.
“—and they’re always talking about how cool and good looking you are! How have you not kissed anyone?!”
Miyuki’s more sunny disposition finally seemed to be cooling off at Eijun’s words.
“Baseball, Sawamura. Isn’t it obvious? I don’t have time for stuff like that even if I wanted it.”
“Not even in middle school?”
Miyuki scoffed and the look on his face was answer enough for Eijun in regards to that line of questioning.
“Why do you care so much anyway?” Miyuki said. “It’s my first kiss not yours.”
“A first kiss should be special!”
“Too. Much. Manga.” Miyuki emphasised each word with a poke to Eijun’s forehead. “And...” he hesitated for a half a second, “who says it wasn’t?” he added a bit more quietly.
“What?” To say Eijun’s mind was reeling was a gross understatement. What did Miyuki mean by that?
The look in Miyuki’s eyes was unreadable.
“Anyway,” Miyuki ran a hand through his hair, not looking at Eijun. “Are we done here? You’ve done your dare. Kuramochi’s idea I’m guessing? Figures he would eventually try that one out after we saw Chris-senpai dare Jun-senpai that time back in first year...”
“Wha—?” Eijun shook his head to erase the slanderous words that had just come out of Miyuki’s mouth. Now was not the time to be questioning Chris-senpai’s virtue. There were much more important matters to attend to. “No, Miyuki Kazuya. I am not done here.”
“Oh?” Miyuki blinked owlishly at him.
“I can’t leave now when my honour as a man is at stake.”
Miyuki let out a small confused huff of laughter.
“Sawamura, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Eijun took a deep breath and stood ramrod straight, “Please may I kiss you again, Miyuki-senpai?”
Miyuki’s mouth fell open slightly in response, but no sound came out. So Eijun carried on, taking no care at all to reign in the passion behind his words. If Miyuki had a horse of gifts, then Sawamura Eijun had a horse of justice!
“Because you might not agree,” Eijun said, “but I believe a first kiss should be special and not taken away from you on a stupid dare. Because everyone deserves a proper first kiss. And because I want to give it to you.”
He chanced a small glance at Miyuki. He had stopped looking surprised and was instead smiling fondly at him.
“And to make up for the one I stole,” Eijun finished, heart aching with the truth of his own words.
Stealing himself, Eijun stepped forward and grasped Miyuki’s wrist gently. The soft material of the tanuki mask clutched in Miyuki’s hand brushed Eijun’s fingertips as he did so.
“So...” Eijun said quietly. “Can you forget the last one, Miyuki Kazuya? Because I have a much better one for you.” He looked directly into Miyuki’s eyes as he spoke, and for the first time since this whole fiasco had begun, he had no doubt in his mind about what he wanted to do. What he needed to do.
Miyuki’s eyes were wide again and the blush on his face was undeniable this time.
“Okay” Miyuki finally said into the silence left in the wake of Eijun’s speech, eyes never leaving his.
Eijun didn’t think about the dare. He didn’t think about his roommates behind the wall watching them and what they must be thinking right now. He didn’t think about all the things Miyuki was leaving unsaid, and most importantly, he didn’t think about his own unspoken truths that now lay simmering beneath his skin.
Because while Eijun knew thinking was important and that understanding why people choose to do the things that they do was key—Miyuki himself had taught him that—right now none of that mattered. Right now he wanted to kiss Miyuki. Not because of a childish dare, but because every last fibre of his being wanted to kiss him—and kiss him again and again and again should Miyuki so wish.
The “why” right now didn’t matter. Miyuki had given him a sign. A sign he found he would never shake off.
This time he did it properly. He didn’t awkwardly grip his shoulder, but gently caressed Miyuki’s face with both hands, because he touched Miyuki’s shoulder all the time, but he had never touched Miyuki’s face before and definitely never like this.
Miyuki watched him as he did so, eyes bright beneath his glasses that were still askew, which was something Eijun now suddenly realised he found endearing. Endearing just like a thousand other different things about Miyuki that Eijun liked and had apparently filed away unknowingly until they had built up and spilled over in a torrent that he would gladly drown in.
It turned out there was an extensive catalogue of Miyuki Kazuya smiles after all, and one of Eijun’s most favourite ones was currently being directed at him.
“Are you kissing me or admiring my face, Sawamura?” Miyuki said cheekily, a beautiful, wide and infectious smile adorning his face.
“Both,” Eijun responded in kind, and revelled in the surprised flush that decorated Miyuki’s cheeks before capturing his mouth in a kiss.
Whereas before he was trying hard not to feel anything at all, Eijun was now doing his very best to greedily absorb every single possible sensation he could from the exhilarating touch of Miyuki’s lips on his own. That point alone was already enough for this kiss to blow their first one out of the water.
As Eijun kissed him, he was struck immediately by just how much he could feel from Miyuki. Like the fact that he was obviously willing, but his lips moved so very carefully, that it was almost timid. It had never occurred to Eijun that there would be an opportunity for him to take the lead in something where Miyuki—his catcher, his captain—would feel less confident in doing so. And not just that, but that Miyuki wanted Eijun to. Was telling him as much through the tentative press of his lips.
The thought was thrilling.
So Eijun took the offered reigns, and controlled the pace. He coaxed Miyuki towards him gently—because he felt an instinctive need to treat Miyuki with an all encompassing tenderness—and slowly opened his mouth against the other boy’s. He didn’t use his tongue, already knowing Miyuki wouldn’t be ready for that yet, but he captured Miyuki’s bottom lip between his own lips and pulled, drawing it in and then releasing it slowly. Eijun did it again, enjoying the small sound Miyuki made as he did so.
Miyuki’s bottom lip was soft and slightly red already from his self-inflicted biting earlier, and Eijun decided himself right then and there that it was his new mission to make it even redder.
Tilting his head and changing the angle of the kiss slightly, Eijun felt his nose brush up against Miyuki’s glasses again like last time. He couldn’t stop his mouth curling into a small, self-satisfied smile against Miyuki’s lips at the possibility of leaving another mark there.
He hoped Miyuki could feel his smile. Feeling a smile was an altogether more special experience than merely seeing it. Eijun would know. He could feel Miyuki’s too.
Eijun’s hands still held Miyuki’s face, idly brushing his thumbs along Miyuki’s jawline before making the brilliant discovery of moving his hands further back to tangle in Miyuki’s soft hair and cradle the back of his head. Doing so also gave him the added bonus of being able to stroke his thumbs up and down the length of Miyuki’s sideburns and trace the shells of his blushing ears.
Every touch of his hands and mouth on Miyuki was soft and lingering, guiding Miyuki with a delicate assurance. And when Miyuki began to respond with delicate movements of his own, following Eijun’s lead as naturally as he caught Eijun’s pitches, the pride Eijun felt was of an entirely different breed.
Then Miyuki’s hands were on him.
A small sigh escaped Eijun as pleasant tingles reverberated throughout his entire body. Miyuki’s touches on the field were usually firm, steadying, comforting, and while these new touches of Miyuki’s hands on his waist weren’t any less of a comfort, they moved with a bashful wariness, as though Miyuki was afraid that if he clung on too hard, Eijun would disappear beneath his fingertips. Eijun didn’t know how else to assure him otherwise, other than to make his own touches more adamant. He traced lines into Miyuki’s skin with the promise that he wasn’t going anywhere.
But the kiss also had to end sometime.
Lazily, reluctantly, Eijun pulled back just enough so that their lips would part. He opened his eyes and saw with a wave of affection that Miyuki was keeping his eyes closed just like last time, as though unwilling to leave the moment behind him.
“So,” Eijun said as he watched Miyuki finally let go and open his eyes. “How was that for a second first kiss, Miyuki-senpai?”
He spoke with a slow grin that he hoped masked his nerves a little.
Miyuki said nothing. Eijun’s heart thumped erratically for a few seconds before he noticed the dazed look in Miyuki’s eyes.
It was funny really, Eijun thought, that Miyuki should mention earlier how rarely Eijun was caught speechless, because Eijun was thinking the same of Miyuki. Sure Miyuki definitely contemplated his words more often than Eijun did before speaking, but he never appeared short of an opinion or snarky comeback when prompted.
This time was different.
As his daze cleared, Miyuki appeared to look amused at his own apparent lack of speech, pressing his lips together to hide a confused smile. He let out a breathless laugh.
“Nice pitch,” he said hoarsely after a short while, and Eijun promptly collapsed with laughter, clinging onto Miyuki for support.
“Hey, don’t laugh too hard. You’ll hurt my feelings,” Miyuki said wryly.
“That was so lame Miyuki-senpai!” Eijun managed to choke out between wheezes.
“Forgive me for being out of my depth here.”
Getting a hold of himself, Eijun looked up at Miyuki. He was rubbing the back of his neck, looking sheepish, but noticeably happy. Eijun thought that look suited Miyuki just perfectly.
“For the record,” Miyuki said, voice low, “the first pitch wasn’t bad either.”
Eijun beamed at him.
They looked at each other. Neither of them said anything, but Eijun could feel the urge to say something even if he wasn’t completely sure what that something was. And he could tell from the look on Miyuki’s face that he felt it too.
Eijun opened his mouth.
“Um, Sawamura-senpai? Miyuki-senpai?”
Moving in sync, Eijun and Miyuki turned towards the source of the small voice to see Asada peering out meekly from behind the wall.
“Is it okay if I go back to my room now?” Asada continued earnestly. “I promised my parents that I wouldn’t stay up past 10pm on a school night.”
Eijun was very sure he heard Kuramochi facepalming from behind the wall.
“R-right,” Eijun said, standing straighter and making a show of clearing his throat. He turned to address Miyuki beside him. “We should probably go to sleep too I guess.”
“Well that was what I was attempting to do before I was rudely interrupted,” Miyuki said without missing a beat, but Eijun could clearly hear the good-natured tone in his voice.
“Sorry for disturbing you!” Eijun said loudly, falling naturally into the safer, more performative roles that Miyuki had set up for them, though it was unclear why when Asada had very obviously witnessed everything up until now. “See you at practice tomorrow, cap?”
He knew his questioning tone made no sense, because of course Miyuki would be at practice tomorrow, but Eijun hoped that Miyuki would hear the real question hidden there.
“Sure,” Miyuki responded breezily, and for a moment Eijun was worried that Miyuki might not have caught on, but then Miyuki added, “Come to my room after evening practice?”
Eijun’s heart leapt at the light blush that appeared on the tips of Miyuki’s ears.
“Y-yes of course!”
They grinned at each other.
“Goodnight, Sawamura,” Miyuki said, eyes not leaving Eijun as he took his time opening the door, hesitating over the threshold.
“Goodnight, Miyuki-senpai.”
As Eijun grudgingly wrestled his gaze away from Miyuki’s retreating form, Miyuki’s voice rang out once more.
“Oh and tell Kuramochi I think it’s pretty sad that he’s still playing truth or dare at eighteen years old.”
Miyuki’s voice was much louder than it needed to be from this distance apart. Eijun snorted.
They waited.
“Fuck you!”
“Night, Kuramochi!”
Eijun laughed and then blushed lightly as Miyuki disappeared behind his door with a sly smile and wink.
The walk back to their own dorm room was a quiet one, none of them quite believing what had just occurred. Eijun fidgeted with his hoodie sleeve, the high he gained from his kisses with Miyuki now diminishing rapidly in favour of being mortified over the reality that Kuramochi and Asada had seen everything. Even the good parts. Still, he couldn’t help the small spring in his step as they ambled along the walkway.
Kuramochi appeared deep in thought each time Eijun sneaked a glance at him. He had expected loud jeering and teasing, but his senpai was remarkably silent. Eijun was unsure as to whether he should be worried or not.
Then Asada let out a small flurry of giggles. Giggles that got increasing louder to the point that he had tears in his eyes. Eijun and Kuramochi both turned towards him in alarm.
“What?” Eijun said as Kuramochi simply stared in bemusement.
“You kissed Miyuki-senpai!” Asada spat out.
Eijun bristled, face red.
“Yes,” he responded curtly, trying to keep his voice low.
“Twice!”
“Yep.”
“After you put Kuramochi-senpai’s dirty sock in your mouth!”
Eijun’s face exploded in crimson as Asada dissolved into harsh wheezes and Kuramochi’s silence finally broke, his braying laughter ringing out loudly into the night.
“I brushed my teeth after that!” Eijun screeched, but it went unnoticed. His indignation was short-lived however at the sight of Asada having been thoroughly cheered up at last. The stupid dare had been worth it.
More than worth it.
Eijun closed his eyes and tried to recall the way Miyuki’s smile had felt pressed against his own. The exact feeling escaped him, but Eijun didn’t mind. He would find it again.
Smiling, Eijun traced his fingers over his lips.
He had the feeling an opportunity would present itself.