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“You’ve been quiet today,” says Daichi. “Not even one joke about riding in the shopping cart. Everything okay?”
“I’m nervous,” Suga admits as he follows Daichi down the produce aisle of the supermarket, pausing by the bananas to pick out a bunch that’s almost ripe.
“For your recertification exam?” asks Daichi. He puts the bananas back on the shelf and replaces them with an indiscernibly different bunch. “Don’t be. You always do fine on exams.”
“No, I used to always do fine. I haven’t had to sit an exam in years. And this one’s an oral exam, so I—what? What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Daichi insists. He has one fist pressed to his mouth, doing a bad job of hiding his grin. “It’s an oral exam?”
“Yeah, and I—”
“So,” says Daichi, and snorts, “so they’re examining you? On your oral?”
By the time Daichi made team captain in their last year of high school, he had The Look perfected—the Shut-Up-And-Sit-Down, the Get-Your-Act-Together-Right-This-Minute , the Behave-Yourselves-Or-So-Help-Me. Suga, after seven years of teaching elementary school, has developed his own Look, ostensibly for keeping his kids in check, although he can’t help noticing how often he has to break it out on their parents. He uses it on Daichi now, settling his mouth into an unimpressed line, raising one eyebrow. “Excuse me? Are you twelve ?”
“I hope you’ve,” says Daichi, cutting himself off short with another snort of laughter, “I hope you’ve been practicing—”
“You really think I’d go into an exam unprepared?” says Suga, grinning. “I’m offended. But hey, if you’re volunteering—”
“I feel like I have to,” says Daichi. “For the sake of your education.”
“So generous,” says Suga. “And what if there’s a lady on the exam panel?”
“Well…” Daichi picks up a papaya. “I mean…”
Exam nerves and the weird surreality of talking about giving head with Daichi in the middle of the supermarket have Suga doubling over, clutching at their shopping cart and shaking with laughter as Daichi loses it beside him. Other shoppers radiate quiet disapproval as they give them both a wide berth.
Suga does feel a little better by the time they’ve managed to calm themselves down and make it to the checkout. Daichi tends to have that effect on him. Their old underclassmen would never believe it—Daichi’s coworkers would never believe it—but when Daichi’s off-duty, when there’s no one around he feels like he has to impress, he can be just as badly behaved as everyone complains Suga is himself. You’re going to have your hands full, their friends told Daichi sympathetically, when Suga decided to move in with him—and yet sometimes Suga is the one who gets called to pick Daichi up at two in the morning when he’s been out drinking with his coworkers, and sometimes Suga is the one cleaning up the kitchen after Daichi comes home in a bad mood and burns off steam stress-cooking dumplings, and often Suga is the one complaining Daichi, that’s disgusting as he watches Daichi drink their milk right out of the carton.
The clerk at the checkout is young, probably a university student. She stares at them as she rings them through, her eyes flicking between Suga and Daichi, Daichi and Suga, watching Daichi nudge Suga out of the way so he can pay, watching Suga take the credit card they share from Daichi and stick it in his own wallet so he can buy gas later. The clerk opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, and Suga wonders if she’s going to tell them off for causing a scene in the produce section. He hits her with his biggest smile as a precaution, and she goes red and stares intently down at the register, suddenly very focused on punching in the code for Daichi’s papaya.
“You guys are really cute,” the clerk finally blurts out at the very last minute, when she’s handing Daichi their receipt. She’s blushing even redder now, but she goes on anyway: “It’s nice to see—um, it’s just, it’s nice—um—anyway, have a good day.”
“Ooh, you’ve got an admirer,” Suga says, nudging Daichi in the ribs as they carry their bags out and start heading for the train station. “Don’t let it go to your head, old man.”
Daichi just rolls his eyes and elbows Suga back. “She said you guys. I’m pretty sure she thought we were a couple.”
Once that might have made Suga self-conscious, but now he just laughs. “A couple? Please. As if I would marry a man who thinks khakis are ‘dressy.’”
***
About a year and a half before Daichi implies that Suga is sitting a professional recertification exam to evaluate his proficiency at oral sex, Daichi announces that he’s planning to buy a house.
“A house? What are you going to do with a house?” Suga demands, when Daichi mentions this over dinner at the Tanakas’ house.
“Live in it,” Daichi says, shrugging. “I don’t really need the space, but it’s a good long-term investment. Better than renting, anyway. I’ve been saving for a downpayment.”
“Hey, maybe Suga-san can move in with you,” Ryuu jokes. “Then you guys can finally stop arguing about who has a bigger kitchen.”
“Alternatively, Suga could just admit he’s wrong,” Daichi points out.
“I’m not wrong. I looked up the blueprints for your building,” says Suga, stealing a shrimp off Kiyoko’s plate. “Even when you account for the curved wall in my building, I calculated the square footage, and—”
“Okay, let’s not start this again,” says Kiyoko, rolling her eyes and nudging her plate further along the table, out of Suga’s reach. “Maybe you should move in, Suga. You two spend all your time together anyway.”
“I don’t know, I don’t want Daichi getting jealous about all the girls I bring home,” says Suga. He tries to steal a shrimp off Daichi’s plate, but Daichi slaps his hand away.
“Your girls could hang out with my girls,” Daichi suggests.
“Then while they all have brunch together, we could ditch them and go to the movies,” says Suga.
“As if either of you ever brings any girls home,” says Ryuu, grinning. “You two are, like, the most incredibly single guys I know. You might as well just marry each other.”
“I’m not about to marry a man who can’t even calculate square footage correctly,” Daichi says scornfully.
But apparently Daichi’s marital standards don’t extend to his stance on roommates, because a few weeks later he shows Suga a real estate listing on his phone and says, “What do you think?”
Suga flips through the pictures. The house is bigger than Daichi’s apartment, but it’s not huge. Two bedrooms—maybe Daichi wants one for an office, although what Daichi needs an office for, Suga can’t imagine. The kitchen has nice full-sized appliances and lots of counter space. Plenty of light. A quiet residential street. The exterior needs repainting, and the garden looks like it could use some work, but that probably appeals to Daichi. He likes having projects.
“Very nice,” says Suga, handing Daichi’s phone back. “Are you going to put in an offer?”
“I think so, yeah,” says Daichi. “So—you like it?”
“Definitely. Please say you’ll let me sleep over whenever my upstairs neighbour is practicing the trombone,” says Suga.
“The trombone? Last time I was over it sounded like she was tap-dancing.”
“She likes to multitask,” says Suga. “Tell you what—if you let me sleep over once in a while, I’ll make you breakfast. How does that sound?”
Daichi hesitates. Suga is just gearing up to get offended when Daichi says, “You wouldn’t want to just, I don’t know—move in?”
Suga stares at him. They’d been joking around with Ryuu and Kiyoko, but—moving in together, for real? That’s—well, he’s not opposed to it, per se, but—but he knows Daichi likes his space. So does Suga, for that matter. They’ve both been living on their own for nearly a decade now. Suga knows they have contradictory views on matters such as how long it is appropriate to leave discarded clothes lying around in the living room (for Daichi, 0.5 seconds; for Suga, three to five business days), or whether buying brand name is worthwhile (for Suga, sure, if he’s feeling fancy; for Daichi, not even if threatened at gunpoint), or the relative acceptability of eating ice cream right out of the tub with a spoon (for Daichi, yes, always; for Suga, no, never, ew).
On the other hand, Kiyoko is right—when they’re not working, they do spend most of their time together. And Ryuu is right too—neither of them really dates, which is handy, because while Suga knows many of the intimate details of Daichi’s romantic history, he’s not sure he could withstand getting a front-row seat to the action, such as it were, if there were any action to be observed. Also, Suga’s upstairs neighbour experiences outpourings of creative expression way more often than is healthy for Suga’s sleep schedule.
“No pressure, obviously,” Daichi says quickly. “Just an idea. You’d get cheaper rent and I’d get help paying off my mortgage. That’s all.”
“Let me think about it,” says Suga.
He’s determined to be reasonable about this, before he throws away his most important friendship and his rent-controlled apartment on some kind of ill-considered teenage fantasy, so he does what any other twenty-seven-and-a-half-year-old man in need of advice would do: he goes home and calls his mom.
“What do you mean, move in with Daichi?” says Sugawara Megumi. She sounds confused. From the muted snick of scissors and the rustle of newspaper in the background, she also sounds like she’s in the middle of giving Suga’s dad a haircut.
“Like, move in with him,” Suga explains. “You know, like we’d live in the same house and I’d pay him rent. Do you think it’s a bad idea?”
“I know what it means , but—move in with him? Don’t you already live together?”
“What? No,” says Suga. “Mom—you’ve been to my apartment.”
“Yes, and Daichi-kun was there,” his mom points out. “He was asleep on the couch. I thought maybe you two had been fighting.”
“No, he just does that,” says Suga. “But that’s not—”
“Is that Koushi? What’s he asking?” says Sugawara Kichi, his voice faint and tinny.
“He says he’s moving in with Daichi-kun,” says Sugawara Megumi.
“No , Mom, I was just asking if—”
“I thought he and Daichi-kun already lived together,” says Sugawara Kichi.
“He says they don’t!”
“They don’t?”
“That’s what he says!”
Suga isn’t particularly superstitious, except when he wants to annoy his friends, but this feels as close to a cosmic blessing as he’s going to get. When his upstairs neighbour proceeds to spend nine p.m. to eleven p.m. in an on-and-off screaming match with her boyfriend and eleven p.m. to one a.m. tearfully tromboning, Suga makes up his mind and calls Daichi.
“How much rent are we talking?” asks Suga.
“Oh, uh—I don’t know—¥45,000?” says Daichi. “Utilities included.”
“¥44,500, you let me get a cat, and I’ll put you on my car insurance,” says Suga. “Also, you have to keep the thermostat at a reasonable temperature in the winter, you hot-blooded freak.”
“Done,” says Daichi.
So Daichi buys the house, and Suga gives notice on his apartment, and Suga moves into Daichi’s second bedroom, which has a nice view of the back garden and enough light to revive his one straggly orchid, as well as—and this is very important—regular access to Daichi’s cooking.
“For financial reasons,” Suga tells Asahi, when he calls to explain the situation. “I mean, the rent, obviously, but we split on groceries now too. Daichi eats more than me, but I drink more than him, so it basically works out.”
“Right…” says Asahi.
“I’m serious—you wouldn’t believe how much money I’m saving! Hey, move back to Miyagi. You can get in on it too.”
Asahi considers this. “Live with Daichi? I don’t know… does he still hum when he cooks?”
“All the time,” says Suga. He’ll be the first to admit that all evidence to date suggests that Daichi is physiologically incapable of carrying a tune, but he thinks it’s kind of a cute habit.
“And he still wears those ratty pajama shorts around the house?”
“Yeah, he loves them,” says Suga.
“And he falls asleep watching movies and then wakes up right at the end to ask a million questions?”
“He wouldn’t be Daichi if he didn’t,” says Suga.
“Then I think I’m good, thanks,” Asahi says firmly. “I’d hate to ruin our friendship by murdering him in his sleep.”
***
“Where’s your boyfriend? I haven’t seen him in a while,” the clerk at the pet store says as she rings through can after can of Tuna Bisque.
“My what?” says Suga. He glances over his shoulder instinctively, as if somehow he might have forgotten about a hulking 6’5” hunk trailing behind him, devotedly carrying his groceries.
“You always come in together and hit each other with the cat toys,” says the clerk. “You didn’t break up, did you?”
“Oh, Daichi—no, no. He’s just been working a lot of night shifts lately,” says Suga.
It’s not until he’s out on the street that Suga realizes he’s forgotten to correct the clerk’s fundamental misapprehension. He jogs back down the street, the bag of cat food thudding painfully against his thigh, and sticks his head back in the door of the pet store to call to the startled clerk, “Excuse me, he’s not my boyfriend! He’s actually my landlord! Sorry for the confusion!”
The prickly fragrance of roasting chili peppers and the quiet sizzle of oil indicates that Daichi is in the kitchen when Suga gets home. Kit-Kat trots up to greet him, butting her stripey head against his leg and trying to attack his shoelaces. Suga leaves the cat food by the door, scoops her up over one shoulder, and wanders into the kitchen, where Daichi is standing over the stove.
“Dinner’s ready in ten,” says Daichi. He sniffs and glances up at Suga, wrinkling his nose. “Why do you smell like fish?”
“Ah, you see, it was pack-your-own-lunch day today, so of course our sweet little Jun packed an entire tin of anchovies for her lunch, which she immediately spilled all over my pants,” says Suga. Kit-Kat licks his face, evidently of the opinion that this development has made great strides in increasing Suga’s attractiveness. “Did you know the lady at the pet store thinks you’re my boyfriend?”
“Oh yeah?” says Daichi, sounding unconcerned. He winces and leaves off stirring for a moment to roll his bad shoulder a few times.
“I bet she’d change her mind if she knew you don’t even let Kit-Kat sleep on your bed. I’d never date someone so cruel.”
“She’s a cat. She has her own bed,” Daichi says flatly. “And she sleeps on the couch, and she sleeps on your bed, and she sleeps in the window, and she sleeps on you. I think she’s doing okay.”
“That kind of attitude is exactly why you’re still single,” says Suga, shaking his head. “But it’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, first at the grocery store, and again today—that’s twice in one week. I wonder why everyone thinks we’re dating?”
“No idea,” says Daichi, and winces again. “Can you rub my shoulder?”
Kit-Kat yowls her displeasure as Suga sets her down, but he nudges her out of the way and digs his thumbs into the muscle of Daichi’s left shoulder. People don’t usually ask Daichi what happened: they know him as an athlete or a police officer or both, and make their own assumptions from there, which suits Daichi perfectly well. The embarrassing truth, which Suga, Asahi, Ennoshita, and a select few others know, is that Daichi went rock climbing with Kuroo once, got over-competitive about the bouldering, and tore something in his shoulder, which—after a year and a half of doctor’s appointments, scans, physio, and cortisone injections—has yet to heal properly. So much for Mr. Mature-For-His-Age. Still, Suga can’t tease him for it too much (although obviously he has to tease him for it a little bit) because it means that often in the evenings Daichi and Kit-Kat will compete to see who gets to lie across Suga’s lap and let Suga rub their shoulders while the three of them watch TV. Suga can say with confidence that this is the best landlord-tenant relationship he’s ever had, hands-down.
“Didn’t Ennoshita tell you to try massage?” asks Suga, pressing in harder, while Daichi adjusts the heat on the stove.
“Too expensive,” says Daichi.
Says the guy who just bought a ¥27,000 chef’s knife, Suga thinks, but doesn’t say. Instead he thinks about the lady at the pet store again. He means it as a joke—as a joke—when he says, “You know, it would be cheaper if we go together. I saw an ad the other day—¥8,800 for a single session, but ¥16,000 for a couple’s massage. Since everyone seems to think we’re dating anyway, we might as well make the most of it. All we have to do is play it up a bit and we save a whole ¥1,600.”
Daichi doesn’t laugh, or roll his eyes. He just gives Suga a calculating look and says, “That’s a pretty good deal.”
Is it, Daichi? Is it really? Suga wants to ask. ¥1,600—that’s one bowl of ramen and one beer at the place a few blocks from their house, where they go when Daichi doesn’t feel like cooking. No, not even that, actually, if they split it in half. ¥800 each isn’t exactly going to make a dent in Daichi’s mortgage. Suga can’t believe Daichi is actually considering this. It’s ridiculous. It’s completely absurd. They’re not broke teenagers or destitute students anymore; they’re both grown men with steady jobs and saving accounts and disposable income. Suga should cut the joke off now, in case it gets weird. He doesn’t want to make things weird with Daichi, his best friend and landlord and reluctant cat co-parent, over what amounts to the price of one bowl of ramen with extra pork.
But… well, Suga’s sense of adventure has always been his downfall. He always wants to see where things will go. If Daichi seriously wants to do it…
“That’s all it takes? ¥800 and I’ve got myself a big, strong, handsome boyfriend?” says Suga.
“Sure. I mean, ¥800 is ¥800,” says Daichi.
***
The closer they get to the massage clinic downtown, the slower Daichi walks, until finally he just stops in the middle of the sidewalk and stares up at the clinic’s sign in front of them.
“What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” says Suga. He forces a smile, trying to hide his own unexpected jitteriness.
“I’m not,” Daichi insists, and Suga notes the way his face settles into that familiar bullish frown, the same expression Suga imagines he was wearing when he destroyed both Kuroo’s dignity and his own shoulder in one fell swoop at that Tokyo climbing gym. “It’s just—do we look too straight? Maybe I should have worn a different shirt…”
“Who cares? This isn’t exactly a high-stakes operation,” Suga points out. “I think as long as we behave ourselves and pay in full then they won’t really care either way.” Daichi still doesn’t look convinced, so Suga offers magnanimously, “We can hold hands if you really want.”
Daichi takes Suga’s hand, lacing their fingers together, squeezing just a little too tight, so tight that Suga can feel his knuckles creaking. Then Daichi’s frown deepens, and he presses two fingers of his other hand against the inside of Suga’s wrist.
“Is that supposed to be romantic? What the heck are you doing?” Suga demands.
“Checking your pulse,” says Daichi. “Your hands are freezing. Is this normal for you? Did you die on the way over?”
“Oh? My hands are cold? Guess I’d better warm them up,” says Suga, and sticks his hands up the back of Daichi’s shirt.
The receptionist at the clinic barely spares them a second glance when they finally check in; their massage therapists just ask them where they’d like to focus and then leave the room for them to undress. Suga lets himself relax while his masseuse’s hands dig into his back, watching Daichi grimacing beside him as his shoulder gets worked on, content in the knowledge that they’re both coming away ¥800 richer than they would have otherwise. It turns out pretending to date your best friend-slash-landlord is a pretty easy scam to pull off.
This is dangerous knowledge to have. It gives Suga Ideas.
***
“Landlord! ” Suga hollers down the hall. “Come quick! It’s an emergency!”
Kit-Kat skitters madly past the bathroom door, followed by Daichi on her heels, calling, “What happened, what happened? Are you okay?”
Suga pokes his head out into the hall, shivering as the humidity disperses out the open door, and grins at him sheepishly. “Can you bring me my towel? I left it in my room.”
Daichi does not look amused. In fact, he looks downright pissed off, his face settling into that alarming glower that so intimidated their underclassmen back in high school. Wordlessly, he turns on his heel and stalks off down the hall, returning to thrust Suga’s towel at him a moment later.
“Why so cranky?” Suga asks when he comes down into the kitchen a few minutes later in his pajamas, still toweling off his hair.
“I’m not cranky,” Daichi says irritably. He’s slicing salmon vengefully, like the poor fish did him a grievous personal wrong in its earthly life—but at least there are two bentos sitting on the counter in front of him. That’s a good sign.
(Once and only once, Daichi was in such a bad mood that he didn’t make Suga’s lunch for him. Suga sulked all the way to school and all the way through his morning classes, only to get interrupted on his break by a contrite Daichi showing up right at his school with takeaway from the Szechuan place downtown and a gruff apology.)
“When was the last time you had a vacation?” asks Suga.
“I took three days off last year,” says Daichi.
“You mean when you had the flu? That’s not vacation.”
Daichi shrugs. “I haven’t had the time to plan anything. I’ll get around to it.”
“Hm,” says Suga, who knows this is Daichi for I have no intention of doing that ever. When Daichi wants to do something, he just does it. Refinishing the kitchen table? Done the afternoon after Suga pointed out some scratches in the varnish. This year’s taxes? Filed within three days of receiving his last slip. Physio exercises? Completed in full every evening by 10:00 p.m. latest. I’ll get around to it is what Daichi tells his mom when she asks if he’s going to call the latest eligible young woman she’s found for him. It’s what he tells Asahi when Asahi asks if he’s finally thrown out those awful pajama shorts from university yet.
Which is perhaps why, when Suga gets home from work the next day and sorts through their mail, the brochure stands out. Superimposed on glossy laser-printed photographs is the thought-provoking philosophical question: WHY NOT VISIT HAWAII? And then, in smaller text under that: THE PERFECT ROMANTIC GETAWAY! And under that: EXCLUSIVE LIMITED TIME COUPLE’S OFFER! And finally: BOOK TODAY!
Suga tugs off his tie and tosses it absently over the arm of the couch, which drives Kit-Kat into a frenzy of excitement as she attacks the end dangling over the floor. He flips through the brochure, looking at the cutesy pictures of couples cuddled up together in front of waterfalls or walking down the beach hand-in-hand at sunset, looking at the exciting pictures of people snorkeling and kayaking, looking at pictures of fussy cocktails and seafood spreads that make his mouth water, looking at—crucially—the couple’s package price. He thinks: you know what, why NOT visit Hawaii?
Suga’s cooking skills have atrophied significantly since he moved in with Daichi, but he makes an effort when Daichi works later than him, and Daichi always thanks him and goes back for seconds, even if Suga screws it up big-time. So tonight he throws together hot pot right before Daichi gets home, waits strategically until Daichi is halfway through his first bowl, and says, “So, what does my handsome boyfriend think about a romantic Hawaiian vacation?”
Daichi hesitates, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “What does your what think about a what?”
Suga slides the brochure across the table, open to the last page, so he can tap the section that breaks down the costs. “Looks nice, right? The only thing is, it’s a couple’s vacation package,” he explains. “What do you think?”
Daichi sets down his spoon. He flips through the brochure. He flips back to the pricing chart. He says, “That’s a pretty good deal.”
“It’s a great deal,” says Suga.
***
“So you’re dating,” Kiyoko says flatly. She sips at her beer and nods. “Well, good. It’s about—”
“No, no, we’re not actually dating,” Suga explains. “We’re just pretending to be dating for the six days we’ll be in Hawaii so we can get the couple’s package. But I can see where you got confused.”
“As if we’d actually date,” Daichi adds, rolling his eyes. “I’m not interested in older men.”
“And you know I like a man with a little more experience,” says Suga.
Kiyoko just looks at them. Beside her, Ryuu has his head down on their table at the izakaya, smacking his fist against the worn wood and sobbing with laughter.
“I’m just curious,” says Kiyoko, apparently unconcerned that her husband is on the verge of going into cardiac arrest, “about what exactly you think is going to happen if the resort finds out you’re not actually a couple. You seem to be under the impression that there will be consequences.”
“Right, we’re not totally sure about that,” says Suga. “Daichi thinks they’ll revoke our complimentary Dinner Under the Stars Romantic Experience for Two. I think they’ll make us fight a shark.”
“Obviously, mine is worse,” says Daichi. “That dinner costs almost $250 USD on its own. That's—how much is that?"
“Around ¥27,500," Suga supplies. He shakes his head. "Mr. Tough Guy over here thinks he can take a shark no problem. Meanwhile he can’t even fold a fitted sheet without my help—”
“Okay, no, I specifically said a nurse shark or a hammerhead . Not just any shark. We talked about this,” Daichi interrupts.
“Well, let’s just hope you’re not facing off against the hammerhead in a fitted-sheet-folding competition,” Suga says darkly. “Anyway, we just figure it’s safer to pretend we’re madly in love. Look, we’re holding hands to practice.” He raises his hand, where his fingers are interlocked with Daichi’s, to demonstrate. “Pretty convincing, right?”
“Very convincing,” Kiyoko agrees.
***
Daichi spends the entire flight out cold on Suga’s shoulder; Suga spends the entire flight absolutely wired, watching the first twenty minutes of every movie available on the in-flight entertainment system and making faces at the little kids seated across the aisle. Thus, when they land on the tarmac at Kahului Airport in Maui, jetlag slams Suga like a bulldozer, leaving Daichi in charge of picking up the right luggage and giving the cab driver the right hotel name and telling Suga nope, no, sorry, you can’t sleep there. The dusky sky darkens around them as their cab shoots down the highway, so Suga’s first impression of Hawaii is just a strip of asphalt with traffic driving down the wrong side.
When they finally check in and make it up to their room, Daichi starts unpacking; Suga just passes out fully clothed on top of the covers of their bed. He wakes up around three in the morning to see Daichi fast asleep in bed next to him—properly in bed, in his pajamas, with the sheets pulled up over him. Still half-asleep, Suga kicks off his pants and climbs in beside him.
One of Daichi’s eyes cracks open as the mattress shifts. “Don’t think you can try anything just ‘cause we’re on vacation,” he mumbles.
“Like I’d put out for a guy under six feet. Get over yourself, Sawamura,” Suga mumbles back.
***
“What do you think a sensual meditation workshop involves?” Suga asks over breakfast, skimming their resort’s list of services as Daichi starts on his fourth pancake. “It sounds dirty. Want to try it?”
“Maybe after we go surfing,” says Daichi.
“Or they have something called the couple’s paradise retreat. Hey, it says we can rekindle the warmth of our connection. We probably need to do that, right? To nurture the passion of our landlord-tenant relationship?”
“We can do whatever you want,” says Daichi, “as long we get to go surfing first.”
Suga sets down the resort guide and props his chin on one hand as he gazes across the table at Daichi. He’s proud to say he has hands-down the most attractive landlord in Miyagi, probably in all of Japan—and Daichi does look especially handsome today, dressed down in a t-shirt and shorts, his hair gelled up even though they’re on vacation (Suga makes a mental note to rib him for it later), framed against the clear blue ocean and the verdant hills behind him. Any of Sawamura-san’s eligible young ladies would probably sell a non-essential organ to be here with Daichi, but Suga is selfishly glad to be the one sitting across the table from him instead.
“I get the feeling you might want to go surfing,” says Suga.
“Well, we should try it out. When we checked in last night, the lady at the front desk said she could get us an instructor,” says Daichi, a familiar gleam in his eyes. “Or we could start with kayaking.”
“I’m impressed,” says Suga. “You’ve managed to pick the two activities offered here that are most likely to aggravate your shoulder. Did you have to think about that? Or were you just organically drawn towards self-destruction?”
Daichi waves this away. “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry so much.” Then he frowns and leans forward, touching his fingers to Suga’s cheek. “Did you put on sunscreen? You already look pink.”
“I put it on,” Suga insists. “You saw me put it on. Anyway, I have a very hardy complexion. I never burn.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you should reapply—”
“It’s fine. Quit poking me—”
“Quit poking you?” Daichi puts his entire hand over as much of Suga’s face as he can cover. “Well, I’m not poking you now—ew, don’t lick me—!”
Later, when Suga and Daichi are down at the beach tugging on rented wetsuits over their swim trunks, Suga digs the toes of one bare foot into the sand and thinks of all those pictures Hinata used to post when he was in Rio. That gets him thinking of high school, when Daichi was constantly barking at Hinata and Kageyama to quit horsing around. Suga can’t help grinning.
“What’s so funny?” says Daichi, struggling to tug up the zip on his wetsuit, which Suga suspects was designed for people without quite so much raw muscle mass or such a critical weakness for tonkatsu.
“Oh, I was just thinking—our old team would never believe me if I told them how badly behaved you can be,” says Suga.
“It’s your fault. You’re a terrible influence,” says Daichi. He yanks on the zip again and scowls. “What’s wrong with this thing? How did you get yours done up?”
“Well, for starters, I ate fewer pancakes at breakfast,” says Suga, and ducks just in time to avoid the swat Daichi aims at his head.
***
“Hi there,” says Suga, breaking out the English he keeps in shape for teaching his students. He rubs the back of his neck and winces at the pressure of his fingers on his skin, which is radiating heat and stinging with sunburn. Beside him, Daichi is clutching at his bad shoulder, his face set in the pained grimace of someone who ‘maybe overdid it a little’ on the surfing. “Would it be possible to get an ice pack, a few ibuprofen, and maybe some aloe lotion?”
To the resort receptionist’s credit, her smile is polite and professional, not showing the slightest hint that she’s judging them for being stupid tourists, although Suga has no doubt that privately she’s doing exactly that. “Of course. I’ll have it sent up to your room,” she says. She glances at Daichi and asks, “Did your husband hurt his arm? We offer in-suite massage, or I can arrange a taxi to the walk-in clinic in town if it’s serious.”
Husband! Now there’s an upgrade. Daichi, his husband. His husband—well, good! That’s good. That’s the goal. Suga has been so dazzled by Hawaii and Daichi and being in Hawaii with Daichi that he’s totally forgotten to act like they’re dating, so this must be beginner’s luck. Good, good. He’d better start paying more attention, though. He really doesn’t want to have to fight a shark, species notwithstanding.
Suga beams at the receptionist. “Thanks very much. We’ll keep that in mind.”
***
The sky is velvety dark above them, the rumble of the distant surf mingles with the slosh of pool water, the gentle glow of the cabana lanterns casts Daichi in a very nice light, and Suga is on his fourth—fifth?—mai tai, definitely not drunk.
“Daichi. Daichi. Daichi,” he says, to get Daichi’s attention. “We should. We should. Here’s the thing. We should.”
“You’re right. You’re so right,” says Daichi, nodding. “We definitely should.”
“Wait, wait. I didn’t say it yet.”
“Oh,” says Daichi, and blinks. He’s been matching Suga drink for drink. Or maybe he’s passed him by now. Or he’s one drink behind? Suga has lost track. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. As Suga explained to Daichi, bartenders don’t put much alcohol in resort cocktails; as Daichi explained right back to Suga, he has a very high alcohol tolerance anyway. This all checks out. They are definitely not drunk.
“We should,” Suga starts again, trying to keep his train of thought from derailing. “Okay, listen. We should talk. We should talk about how we met.”
“How we met,” Daichi echoes. He frowns. “Well, we… you were… how… how did we meet…?”
“In high school,” Suga reminds him.
“High school?”
“High school,” Suga confirms. “I’m pretty sure.”
“High school…” Daichi says thoughtfully. “Yeah. Right. I remember. You were. You were so hot in high school.”
Suga claps him on the shoulder, looks him in the eyes, and says, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” says Daichi.
“But I mean,” Suga goes on, “I mean. I mean for our cover story. We need a cover story. Like. Like if someone asks how we met, we can say—”
“High school,” says Daichi.
“Noooooooooo . Daichi. That’s so boring. We’ll say. We’ll say.” Suga sniggers, tries to take another sip of his drink, misses his mouth, and hands his glass to Daichi instead, who dutifully pours the contents into his own cup. Suga isn’t totally sure this was his end goal, but it seems to make sense. “Daichi, here’s what we’ll say. We’ll say you were—here’s what we’ll say. Daichi. We’ll say. What we’ll do is this. We’ll say you were my parole officer. No, wait—we’ll say you were investigating me for tax fraud. No, wait—”
“You were my divorce lawyer,” says Daichi, grinning.
“Yes! Yes—wait, wait, listen—I was your ex-wife’s divorce lawyer—”
“We’ll say my twin was dating your twin,” says Daichi. “We switched by accident.”
“We’ll say we met a sex club,” says Suga, cackling. “I was the owner’s insurance broker, you were the municipal health-and-safety inspector. Classic shoujo setup right there.”
“We’ll say you stole my car,” says Daichi, “which is a coincidence, because—”
“—because the next day I stole your car,” Suga finishes. He’s clutching at the bar to keep himself upright, laughing so hard his stomach hurts.
“We’ll say we own rival 7-Elevens—”
“Stop, stop—”
If Suga is entirely honest, he doesn’t one-hundred-percent remember getting back to their room, or going to bed, but both of those things must have happened, because he wakes up to scalding island sunlight streaming through the windows of their room, accompanied by the percussive thump of Daichi rolling out of bed. Suga also doesn’t remember putting his pajamas on, but this seems to be because he opted to strip down to his underwear and sleep on top of the covers for the second night in a row. Suga does remember drinking a lot, in a very physiological way, because his head is pounding and he feels like something may have died in his mouth.
“You okay?” he mumbles in Daichi’s general direction.
“No,” Daichi groans from the floor. “I think I’m still drunk…”
“Lucky,” says Suga.
“I only… I only had five drinks… six? I might have had six… I used to be able to do that no problem… oh my God, am I old?”
“You were born old,” says Suga. He manages to haul himself upright, and immediately regrets it. Their room spins slowly around him. On the other side of the bed, Daichi has managed to heave himself up off the floor. He staggers into the bathroom and returns with two glasses of water, which they sip in a haze of hungover silence.
“Never let me do that again,” Daichi says fervently.
“I promise,” says Suga.
***
“Suga, you promised,” Daichi moans the next morning.
“And you believed me?” Suga mutters into his pillow. “That’s on you. You know I use you as my impulse control.” He presses a hand to his mouth, which feels warm and a little swollen, and frowns. “Did I have an allergic reaction to something, or did I make out with someone last night?”
Daichi doesn’t say anything.
“Okay, so I made out with someone,” says Suga, and tries not to panic. “Who? Do you know? That’s so uncool—I come on a romantic vacation with my husband and make out with some stranger—oh no, was it another couple? Am I a homewrecker? I guess if I made out with both of them, that might be okay…”
Daichi continues not to say anything. Suga forces himself to roll over, at the great personal expense of incurring slight motion sickness, so he can face Daichi beside him in bed.
Daichi’s hair is sticking up funny, and he has the dark circles under his eyes of someone nearing thirty who just spent two nights in a row drinking like a twenty-year-old. His face is ruddy from too much sun, and his shirt is wrinkled like he slept in it (which it appears he did), on top of which the buttons look like he did them up drunk with his eyes closed (also likely). Suga expects he doesn’t look much better himself right now.
“Daichi,” he says. “Tell me who I made out with. Just break it to me. I can take it. I need to know if someone’s angry husband is going to come after me.” He hesitates. He thinks of himself as mostly straight, but he knows that he only has to look at a Kaku highball for that to start becoming easily negotiable. “Or someone’s angry wife. That’s even worse. I don’t want to inspire someone’s sexuality crisis again…”
“No, it—uh, it was me. You made out with me,” Daichi tells the ceiling.
“Ohhhhh,” says Suga. He heaves a relieved sigh and lets himself flop face-down on the pillow again. “Thank God.”
“Thank God?” Daichi echoes.
“Well, we’re fake-married, right?” Suga points out. “If I’m going to drunkenly make out with someone’s husband, it might as well be my own. I figure that’s legal. No foul. Was it any good?”
“Uh…” says Daichi. He squeezes his eyes shut as if he’s trying to remember the answer to a tough exam question. “Well—you were drunk, so you were kind of sloppy. But I was also drunk, so my standards weren’t that high. And after a while you put your hand over my mouth and told me your parents raised you better than to hook up with a Scorpio. And then you fell asleep.” He glances at Suga, his mouth twitching like he’s trying not to smile. “I’m a Capricorn, by the way. I looked it up.”
“Oh God, that’s so embarrassing,” Suga groans. “If you want a fake-divorce, I completely understand. This isn’t what you signed up for when you fake-married me…”
“Please. As if you’re any less embarrassing when you’re sober,” says Daichi.
***
On the very last day of their vacation, Suga brings Daichi to the beach and puts his foot down.
“One picture,” he tells Daichi. “One picture where you’re not squinting and you’re not drunk and you’re grimacing in pain because you aggravated your shoulder doing something I told you not to do again. That’s all I want. Please? Just one .”
Daichi crosses his arms. “No. I don’t like taking pictures. What do you need a picture of me for? You know what I look like. You know what Hawaii looks like. There’s no point.”
“Please?” Suga begs, giving Daichi his very best pout, the one that says give me what I want or I’ll be so unbelievably annoying you’ll want to drop-kick me into the ocean. He can see in Daichi’s face that his resolve is already starting to crumble, so he breaks out his secret weapon: “So I can show my mom? You know you’re her favourite son.”
“It’s not like I have much competition,” Daichi grumbles, but he looks like he’s trying very hard not to show that he’s pleased, and he doesn’t complain when Suga goes up to a couple wandering along the beach nearby so he can ask them in English to take a picture.
“Oh, sure!” says the woman, taking Suga’s phone, waiting expectantly while Suga jogs back to Daichi.
“Don’t just stand there. Put your arm around me,” Suga demands. “What kind of husband are you?”
“You want me to be a good husband? Fine,” says Daichi. He puts his arm around Suga and smiles. Then, at the very last second, he twists his head around and kisses Suga on the cheek, so that Suga is the one who ends up ruining the picture by squawking in surprise.
“Um… did you want me to take another one?” asks the woman, grinning.
Suga sighs, but Daichi has technically fulfilled the terms of Suga’s request, in letter if not in spirit, so he says, “That’s okay. Thanks very much.”
Later—when Daichi is fast asleep in bed beside him, the heat of his body keeping Suga just a little too warm—when Suga is lying awake in the dark, fretting over the details of their flight the next morning, wondering absently why the thought of sleeping alone in his own bed again seems so lonely all of a sudden—Suga grabs his phone off the nightstand and looks at the picture again. His own eyes are wide with shock, his mouth set in an offended O of astonishment; the kiss doesn’t quite manage to hide that shit-eating grin of Daichi’s. Stupid jerk, Suga thinks fondly.
There are probably a few other photos of Daichi that turned out halfway decent. He thinks that maybe he won’t show this one to his mom, after all.
***
“Hey, Sugawara—how was the honeymoon?” Sato from 4-B calls from across her staff room desk, and Suga glances up from his grading in surprise.
“I’m sorry? The what?” says Suga, his head still caught up in correcting shaky third-grader multiplication.
“The honeymoon,” says Sato from 4-B, rolling her eyes. “You know—Hawaii? You were all excited about it.”
“Did you get married, Sugawara?” asks Shikichi from 2-A. Several of the other teachers are already looking over at him as well, very happy to take a break from lesson-planning when exciting coworker gossip seems to be on the table.
“Ah—no, no,” Suga says hastily. “I’m not married, no. I went with my landlord, actually.”
(“You make it so much weirder when you call me that,” Daichi said once, when Suga offered this correction to one of their neighbours.
“I know—why do you think I do it?” said Suga.)
“Oh!” says Shikichi from 2-A. “That’s—um—”
“Super weird,” Sato from 4-B finishes. “I bet your boyfriend wasn’t too happy about that, huh?”
“Boyfriend?” says Suga.
“Boyfriend!” says Furakawa from 3-B, like he’s never heard of such a thing before. “Sugawara, you have a boyfriend?”
“Yeah, you know, the guy who makes all his cute lunches,” Sato from 4-B explains, with the confidence of an expert in her field. “Haven’t you seen him? He comes by sometimes when Sugawara forgets his bento at home.”
“That’s actually also my landlord,” says Suga.
A moment of contemplative silence settles across the staff room as Suga’s colleagues digest this.
Eventually, Furakawa from 3-B clears his throat and says cautiously, “Your landlord packs you cherry tomatoes cut into little hearts…?”
Suga bites the inside of his cheek to keep from cracking up. Daichi’s been doing that for almost a year now. It started as a joke, but Suga is pretty sure he just does it out of habit now, which is almost funnier. Suga tells his coworkers, with the straightest face he can manage, “Yeah, I negotiated that as part of my lease.”
The faculty at large thinks this over.
“Wish I lived in your building,” Sato from 3-B says at last. “My landlord won’t even let me get a budgie.”
***
“—so now we’re on the same phone plan, too,” Suga is explaining to Kiyoko across the counter of Ishii Sports, as she folds a new shipment of running shorts to put out on the shelves. “It’s such a great deal! I can’t believe we didn’t think of it earlier. And you know, when we went to see Daichi’s parents the other day, they said—”
“You’re married,” Kiyoko says flatly, without even bothering to look up. Her slender fingers snap the fabric deftly, one sharp, clean fold after another.
Suga laughs. “What? No, they were saying that when they got their wills written up, their lawyer gave them a ten-percent discount for doing them together, so Daichi and I were thinking—”
“And I’m saying you’re married,” Kiyoko repeats.
“No, no, no. Kiyoko, come on, keep up. You think we would get married without telling you? We’re just pretending to save money. Anyway, legally, even if we wanted to—”
“I’m not talking about legally,” says Kiyoko. She pushes aside the last stack of shorts and rubs her eyes, her contacts probably bothering her after a full-day shift. “Of course you’re saving money. You live together. You take care of each other. You’re in a committed relationship. Emotionally, you’re married. You two are the only people who don’t know it.”
“You think I’d get emotionally married to a man who wears socks to bed?” asks Suga, rolling his eyes.
“I think you both keep coming up with increasingly stupid excuses for why you’re not together so that you can avoid processing the fact that you actually are together and want to stay that way,” says Kiyoko, who apparently isn’t feeling inclined to pull her punches today.
Suga frowns. He says, “Well, hold on—” and then stops. He knows she’s wrong, of course. It’s not like that between him and Daichi. They’re good friends, but they’re not together, and they’re certainly not married, emotionally or otherwise. It’s just not like that, except when faking romantic entanglement is convenient for financial purposes. On a completely unrelated note, he’s suddenly very glad he never mentioned the drunkenly-making-out-in-Hawaii incident to Kiyoko or Ryuu, or the fact that he and Daichi have taken to very occasionally soberly making out on their couch when they don’t feel like watching TV. He feels like that might not do much to aid his case here, even if he does explain that they always keep all their clothes on.
Well. Most of their clothes, anyway.
“We keep our finances separate,” Suga says, trying for a different angle.
“So do Ryuu and I,” Kiyoko counters.
“We don’t have sex,” Suga argues. Not that he’s opposed, that is. The making out is very good. Maybe he’ll casually float the idea. This seems like something else Kiyoko doesn’t need to know.
“Not every couple does,” says Kiyoko, shrugging. She props her elbows on the counter and rests her chin in her hands, staring at Suga intently. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I—? I’m talking to you! We’re friends, aren’t we? That’s allowed!”
“Sure, but we have dinner plans with you two tomorrow night,” says Kiyoko. “I’m guessing you’re here because it’s only a block from the clinic down the street and you’re waiting to pick Daichi up from his doctor’s appointment.”
That is, in fact, exactly why he’s here. Suga fumes. “Lucky guess,” he tells her. “Face it, Kiyoko—all you’ve got is circumstantial evidence. You can’t prove anything.”
Kiyoko just looks at him. Suga stares defiantly back, crossing his arms over his chest for good measure, although he’s well aware that this gesture is far more effective when Daichi is standing behind him doing it too. Eventually, Kiyoko seems to get tired of their stalemate, because she sighs and straightens up. Her final, cryptic words on the matter are, “Daichi has feelings, you know,” after which Daichi texts Suga to say he’s done, giving Suga a timely excuse to escape.
Daichi doesn’t say anything when Suga picks him up. He just gets in the passenger seat and slumps down, staring gloomily out the window as Suga pulls out of his parking spot and turns onto the road, heading home.
“Bad news?” Suga guesses, trying to ignore the prickly anxiety twisting his stomach up into knots. “What’s up? Don’t tell me you’re pregnant. We've been so careful.”
Daichi grumbles something irritable and inaudible. When Suga pulls up at the next red light, he takes the opportunity to glance at the bundle of papers sitting in Daichi’s lap.
“You’re getting referred for surgery?” asks Suga. His grip on the steering wheel relaxes a little. He hadn’t even noticed himself tensing up. “That’s not so bad. Ennoshita said your doctor would probably recommend it eventually.”
“I don’t see why the physio didn’t fix my shoulder,” Daichi says mulishly. “I did all the exercises. I shouldn’t need surgery.”
Daichi doesn’t seem in the right mood to be reasonable about the variability of natural tendon repair, so Suga tactfully changes the subject. “I had a weird conversation with Kiyoko just now,” he says. “She said you ‘have feelings.’”
The light turns green, and Daichi stares at Suga, momentarily startled out of his sulking. “Feelings? What feelings?”
“Just in general, I guess,” says Suga, shrugging.
“Of course I have feelings,” says Daichi, sounding offended. “Is that news? Did she think I didn’t have feelings?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what she said.”
“Weird,” says Daichi. Then he reaches over and ruffles Suga’s hair, his hand lingering at the nape of Suga’s neck, tugging a little. “Your hair’s getting long. Want me to cut it tonight?”
“Sure, thanks,” says Suga. He’s not picky about his hair, and Daichi does a good enough job, which lets him save a little money. That’s the only reason. Seriously! Okay, maybe Suga does kind of enjoy it, kneeling on the floor with a towel around his shoulders while Daichi sits behind him, one hand steadying Suga’s head while the other makes careful, considered cuts with the scissors—but it’s not about that. It’s fundamentally about financial stinginess. So there, Kiyoko , Suga thinks, confident in his ability to win this argument with her now that she’s no longer present to fight her case.
Then Daichi laughs, and very casually utters the worst five words Suga has ever had the unparalleled displeasure of hearing with his own two ears: “We’re turning into your parents, don’t you what the fuck are you doing Suga you can’t brake in the middle of an intersection—”
“Sorry! Sorry!” Suga yelps, his heart in his throat as he slams the gas and the car lurches forward, the drivers behind him honking. “I thought—I thought I saw a squirrel run into the road—ha! Okay. Wow. Okay. We’re okay. Um. You were saying?”
But perhaps because he’s wary of the consequences, or else just because he’s still shaken, Daichi doesn’t revisit the horrifying parent comment, which Suga is trying really hard to bleach right out of his memory. Instead he just sags forward against the seatbelt, letting his head thump against the window as he says darkly, “I guess on the bright side, I won’t need surgery if you just give me a heart attack and kill me first.”
***
As soon as they get home, Suga makes a vague excuse about lesson prep and disappears into his room to look up Japan’s constitution. Then he calls Kiyoko. He gets her voicemail.
“Listen to this,” Suga says triumphantly after the tone. “Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes. Mutual consent, Kiyoko. Mutual consent. Did you hear that? Let me say it again. Mutual. Consent. Well, I never consented, so don’t think you can just go around marrying me off to some random guy who talks back to the ref when he’s watching baseball on TV—”
“Okay, I only do that when the ref clearly made a bad call,” says Daichi, hovering in the doorway to Suga’s room. Kit-Kat rockets past him, leaping onto Suga’s bed and flopping over to have her tummy rubbed. “What are you doing?”
“Defending my virtue,” Suga says firmly.
Daichi just laughs, which Suga considers to be in extremely poor taste.
***
Initially, the surgery is scheduled for early May. Then it gets bumped a few weeks to the end of the month. Then it gets rescheduled again, into June, until finally—
“June thirteenth,” Suga reads over Daichi’s shoulder as he opens the letter from the hospital.
“Shit,” says Daichi, and shoots Suga a guilty glance. “I’ll call my dad. He should be able to pick me up after—”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll pick you up,” says Suga. “It’s not a problem.”
“No, my dad can do it,” Daichi insists.
“I really don’t mind—”
“Suga. It’s your thirtieth birthday. You told me yourself your whole next decade would be cursed if you were still sober enough to walk in a straight line by eight p.m.,” Daichi reminds him.
This is true, but somehow the prospect doesn’t seem so appealing knowing his best friend won’t be there beside him. Also, not that Suga would ever admit this out loud, but the headaches he got in Hawaii were a visceral reminder that drinking like a university student now has serious physiological consequences. Instead, he and Daichi have taken up an exciting new habit of falling asleep on the couch around nine o’clock most evenings, which, yes, okay, is basically what Suga’s parents do every evening as well. He’s trying not to think too hard about that.
“We’ll reschedule,” says Suga. “I’m going to have a ton of marking to do around then anyway. Besides, if we wait a week, Asahi might be able to come. Let me pick you up. I want to pick you up,” he adds quickly, when Daichi opens his mouth to protest.
“This is so stupid,” Daichi grumbles.
Suga claps him on the shoulder, the good one, and says, “Hey, just remember, you busted your shoulder kicking Kuroo’s ass.”
“You’re right,” says Daichi, nodding. “At least it was for a good cause.”
Suga spends the night of June twelfth lying awake in bed, listening to Daichi pace around the house restlessly, Kit-Kat trotting around after him and meowing hopefully every time he goes near the kitchen. And so, at six a.m. on his birthday, after two-and-a-half non-consecutive hours of sleep, Suga drags himself blearily out of bed. He struggles through half a cup of coffee before he notices the wrapped package sitting out on the kitchen table, with his name scrawled on the paper in Daichi’s cramped handwriting.
Suga spends a couple of minutes staring at it blankly. He and his friends don’t do birthday gifts; they just take each other out for dinner. Birthday gifts are—well, they’re for couples. But—but! Daichi probably feels bad about the fact that he won’t be able to take Suga out tonight with their other friends. Yes. That’s all. That makes sense.
Suga opens the package, and unfolds a Team Japan Olympic volleyball jersey. Number nine, with KAGEYAMA written out across the back. Kageyama has even signed it—once with his actual, adult signature, and once with the stupid scribbly one Suga made up for him the night before their last day at nationals in high school. He’s even included the little heart and everything.
Suga traces his thumb over the kanji. He touches the two signatures. His lip starts to tremble.
“Are you okay, Sugawara?” asks Matsui, the assistant coach, when Suga shows up to volleyball practice before school, still sniffling and wiping at his eyes.
“Fine, fine. Just allergies,” says Suga. “Can you supervise the girls’ serving drills? If anyone asks, I’m sitting on the bench strategizing, and I’m definitely completely awake.”
“Looks like thirty hit you hard, huh?” Sato from 4-B says later, cackling at him from across the staff room. Suga does the mature thing and just flips her off.
He spends the rest of the day yawning and surreptitiously checking his phone in between classes, just in case, but all he gets are texts from his friends and relatives wishing him a happy birthday. Then he leaves Matsui to supervise cleanup for the volleyball team’s afternoon practice and drives to the hospital, where he goes to the front desk and says, “Hi, I’m here to pick up my husband.”
The lie slips out too easily. He’s used it so many times by now that it barely even feels like a lie any more.
“Sure. What’s your partner’s name?” asks the receptionist.
Suga just stares at him. Husband? Husband… he said it without even thinking… husband, like Daichi was his actual husband or something… ridiculous…
“His name?” the receptionist prompts.
“Sawamura Daichi,” Suga manages. “Sorry, I said husband, but he’s actually my landlord. You know how it is.”
“Not really…” says the receptionist, giving him a weird look before turning back to his computer. “Sawamura Daichi? I’ll let Dr. Matsuura know you’re here.”
When Dr. Matsuura calls Suga into a private exam room twenty minutes later, Daichi has his arm in a sling and his eyes set in the dazed, somnolent expression of someone still tripping on lingering anaesthesia and heavy-duty painkillers.
“I hope you behaved yourself,” Suga tells him. Daichi just blinks at him, so Suga turns to the doctor instead and says, “That’s amazing. The only person I’ve ever seen shut him up like that before is his mom. Outstanding work.”
Dr. Matsuura laughs. “The after-effects of the anaesthesia can last up to twenty-four hours. He should be back to normal by tomorrow.”
“So it went okay?” Suga asks anxiously.
“It went very well,” Dr. Matsuura assures him.
“He didn’t sit up in the middle and try to tell you how to do it, or anything like that?” Suga asks.
“He did not,” Dr. Matsuura confirms.
Daichi doesn’t say anything himself until they’re in the car and pulling out of the hospital parking lot. Suga has been filling up the silence with nervous chatter; now, as he waits for the traffic to clear so he can make a right turn, he says, “Asahi will never believe me when I tell him I’ve seen you docile. Frankly, it’s creepy. You haven’t even started asking what’s for dinner.”
This, finally, seems to shake Daichi half-awake. He looks in Suga’s approximate direction, his eyes struggling to focus, and says, “Can we get McDonald’s on the way home?”
“I’m not taking you to McDonald’s,” Suga says firmly. “You can’t even walk in a straight line. I’m taking you right home and getting you to bed. Not even in a sexy way.”
“I haven’t eaten since dinner last night,” says Daichi.
“So sad,” says Suga. “You can eat at home. Just wait half an hour.”
“Suga. Come on,” says Daichi.
“Nope,” says Suga.
“Please?” says Daichi.
“No way,” says Suga.
Which is how Suga finds himself standing in line at the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s three blocks over, waiting to order a Bai Big Mac set and a Red Hot Teriyaki set while Daichi dozes at one of the tables in the corner.
“You’d better not throw this up in my car,” Suga tells Daichi when he brings their tray over and sets it down on the table in front of him.
“No promises,” says Daichi, already reaching for his burger. He fumbles one-handed with the wrapper until Suga sighs and nudges his hand away to unwrap it for him.
While Daichi eats, Suga picks fitfully at his fries and stares at Daichi across from him. He should be hungry, but exhaustion and anxiety have killed his appetite. He spends some time dwelling on how he told the receptionist at the hospital that Daichi was his husband. He’s lost count of how many times he’s used that lie before, but never without obvious financial gain or calculated comedic potential. It was just an accident, of course. It doesn’t mean anything.
Then he thinks about the fact that he’s spending his thirtieth birthday struggling to stay awake in a suburban McDonald’s with his surgically hungover best friend who is also his landlord who is also his fake husband who he also sometimes hooks up with (now that the validity of his sun sign has been confirmed). He thinks about Daichi cutting his hair the way Suga’s mom cuts his dad’s hair. He thinks about Daichi kissing him on the cheek in Hawaii. He thinks about Daichi cutting his tomatoes into little heart-shapes and feeding Kit-Kat tiny bits of mackerel when he doesn’t think Suga is watching. He thinks about how right now he’s irritable and overtired and unfortunately sober and it’s his birthday and Daichi is sitting across from him in an overly humid McDonald’s and yet somehow he still wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“Are we married?” Suga says out loud.
Daichi makes the effort to focus on Suga’s face. The first few bites of his burger seem to have revived him a little, although his head is still nodding with anaesthetic exhaustion. He says, “Huh?”
“Kiyoko says we’re emotionally married. Are we?” Suga demands.
“Okay,” says Daichi.
“No, I’m not proposing, I’m asking if we ended up married by accident,” says Suga, exasperated.
“Sure. Are you going to eat your fries?” says Daichi.
“Am I—hey, eat your own fries! You haven’t even finished yours!”
“You just look like you’re not going to eat them,” says Daichi, taking another.
Suga lets his head sink into his hands and groans, “Oh my God, we are married, aren’t we? How? When? Did you do this on purpose? Have we been married this whole time? Was Hawaii our actual honeymoon? Do I have a crush on you? Am I in love with you? I guess that makes sense. Wait—am I bisexual?”
“How should I know?” says Daichi, looking at him (or at least at the plastic plant beside him) like he’s crazy.
“Well, you’re apparently my husband! You must know something!”
“I don’t,” Daichi promises. “Are you sure you’re going to eat your fries? Because—”
“I can’t believe this! We’re married! To each other! And you’re too stoned to do anything about it! God, you pretend to date a guy one time to save a couple hundred yen on a massage, and suddenly—would you stop trying to eat my fries! I’m going to eat them!”
“I’m just saying,” says Daichi, making steady eye contact with the limited-time-only retro Speedee poster just behind Suga’s head, “if you wait too long, they’re going to get cold.”
Suga sighs and gives up, pushing his fries across the table, dropping his head to rest on his forearms, breathing in the smell of cheap cleaning solution and fast-food grease. He needs a drink. No, he needs a nap. No, he needs to call Kiyoko and give her a piece of his mind. No, he needs to check whether the municipality of Sendai issues same-sex partnership certificates that will allow him and Daichi to qualify for the federal government's marriage incentive subsidy. No, actually, he really, really needs a nap.
***
At eleven p.m., after several hours of dozing together on the couch, Daichi finally regains the sentience to sit up, frown, and say, “Are we a couple now or did I hallucinate that?”
Suga lets his eyes drift shut. Daichi’s body is warm against him; Kit-Kat is curled up and purring on his chest. “Nope. We’re apparently a couple. Don’t blame me,” he says. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Not great,” says Daichi. “Can I—”
“You can’t take your next dose until midnight. Sorry. Go back to sleep for a bit.”
Daichi grumbles, but he settles down again. Just as Suga is on the verge of dozing off again, Daichi says casually, “Did you know I had a crush on you in high school?”
“Mm,” says Suga, not really listening.
“I got over it, though,” says Daichi.
“Oh, good,” says Suga.
“But I guess not that over it,” Daichi concludes.
“Uh huh,” says Suga.
Then Daichi’s words percolate through the haze of drowsiness fogging his brain and Suga jerks upright, dumping an offended Kit-Kat off him and onto the floor. “Wait, what? Daichi? Excuse me? In high school? High school? Daichi? Excuse me?”
But Daichi is already asleep.