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It’s warm. There’s some sort of light, flickering and nudging at his closed eyelids, keeping him in this hazy state of almost-sleep. There’s a voice, too. There’s not usually a voice.
“Come on, get up. Dinner’s ready.”
He groans. He’s not exactly hungry, not really, but also, he’s never not been hungry, so that should be fine, anyway. It’s the getting up part that’s going to be difficult. It’s warm, and it’s nice, and he really doesn’t want to get up yet. There’s no place in the world he’s ever—or will ever, very likely—belonged, but what that only means, naturally, is that he belongs everywhere.
.
The patio of the restaurant is tinged honey-golden by the setting sun. It’s warm enough for just a shirt, and Shidou thinks that back in Japan he’d have to wear a jacket already, probably, given the hour. It’s certainly much nicer like this. He enjoys the sun, even if right now it’s just the dregs of it.
“It feels weird,” he says out loud, picking at his fish with pursed lips, “to sit with you like this. Doesn’t it? Feels almost alien to not be confined to our little world.”
Kunigami across from him glares. “You’re full of shit.”
Shidou frowns. “No, I’m serious. Doesn’t it feel weird to you?”
At this, Kunigami looks around—almost surreptitiously, like he’s in the army scouting out the area, and that PTSD did hit him pretty hard, didn’t it, hah?—like he’s seeing the restaurant for the first time, never mind that they’ve been here almost an hour. It’s a nice restaurant, to be fair: a pretty building, small and almost quaint in that old fashioned European way (not that Shidou knows all that much about that), with a patio that overlooks the coast. If everyone outside here shut the fuck up for a second or two, one could even hear the waves crashing into rock, and wouldn’t that be something?
“No,” grunts Kunigami. “We’re eating. We’ve done that a million times before.”
Which is true, of course. They have done that a million times before: alone, of course, but also together. This is not the weird part, however, for it does feel weird to Shidou, even if Kunigami doesn’t share his sentiment. He kicks Kunigami under the table for it, and Kunigami glares again. Same old, same old.
They’re not in Japan, though, and they’re not in Kunigami’s apartment or somewhere small together, and they’re not even with their usual team, however much those losers matter. It’s World Cup season again, and the sun is shining down on them, and still it’s the two of them, right here. Like there’s never been a tiny world confining them at all. Like it’s just normal that this would be happening outside of very specific circumstances. Like this is just how things go, with them.
“It is weird,” Shidou insists. Kunigami sighs.
“You can fuck off if it bothers you. I’m just here to eat.”
Humans are creatures of habit, Shidou thinks. It’s easy, and it’s convenient, and it settles in their bones until it becomes nearly inextricable from their self. Habits die hard, and even more rarely are they ever examined. Patterns form and humans cling together and getting used to anything is easy, even when it’s objectively terrible.
Shidou’s never liked things that are easy and convenient. That stuff is boring, and for losers.
Kunigami isn’t boring, hasn’t been boring for years. It’s still weird to sit here like this. Shidou kicks Kunigami under the table again, like it’s reflex; like that, too, is habit.
Instead of getting up and leaving like he might have just a rather small handful of years ago—then again, his food’s right in front of him, and if there’s one thing Shidou’s learned about the guy, it’s that he eats a lot—instead of even glaring at him again, or telling him to knock it off, growl and hiss like the grumpy animal he is, Kunigami aims without looking, and crushes Shidou’s foot down with his own, pinning it. Shidou winces, sucks in a breath so he doesn’t make a noise. Then laughs.
No, boring it is not. They repeat the same with Shidou’s other foot before Shidou officially capitulates.
“You win for today,” Shidou says. Kunigami says nothing. They eat.
(And then later, when it’s past midnight and they’re supposed to be asleep already, they’re in the ocean together: icy in the deep dark of the night, Kunigami’s hair ashen and bright like the sunset and stuck to his face with how wet it is. They wrestle because Shidou picks a fight, and Shidou jumps on Kunigami’s back to topple them over and holds Kunigami’s head under the water until Kunigami bites, until Kunigami wrestles Shidou’s head under his arm and then under the water, too, and right there, down below, there’s nothing. No sound, no light, just pure blackness and the flex of Kunigami’s bicep.
Shidou breathes out and then in and it burns everywhere, the salt, and he’s laughing when Kunigami yanks him out again, when Kunigami curses loudly and demands to know what the fuck is wrong with him, but that’s the whole thing, isn’t it? That’s their whole thing.
It doesn’t feel so unfamiliar, then, and that alone is strange.)
.
Shidou isn’t exactly lonely. He’s not exactly not lonely, either, though, he supposes.
Kunigami’s apartment makes him feel lonely, however, deep in his bones. It’s sympathy, he supposes, partly at least: because it’s just so impersonal, all of it, isn’t it. It’s so cold, so devoid of any sort of spark. Shidou likes that. Sparks, that is.
It’s a nice place otherwise, however. Kind of small, but mostly well-lit, and the bathroom and kitchen aren’t cramped. It’s pretty bare, which might be because Kunigami only recently moved in—after all, Shidou’s own place is still a minefield of boxes—or might be because that’s just the kind of guy Kunigami is. Shidou wouldn’t know; he barely knows the guy, after all. Sure, yeah, they played together in Blue Lock, and sure, yeah, Kunigami’d been a right plague with his grudge about Shidou kicking him off, or whatever, but it’s not like there was much more to it than just that mutual belligerence. And obviously that means more than nothing, belligerence is a type of connection, too, but…
Kunigami is cooking. It’s disorienting, just a little, with the copper taste lingering in Shidou’s mouth and the way he keeps tonguing at the cut on his lips where Kunigami punched him, earlier, but that is what is happening. Shidou is in Kunigami’s apartment, and they’re… cooking.
“Thinner slices,” Kunigami says, without so much as looking up from where he’s pushing onions around in a pan.
“How the fuck do you know I’m not cutting them thin enough, you aren’t even looking!”
Kunigami clicks his tongue.
It’s stupid. The window is opened just a bit, and there are noises from outside spilling in; a car, every once in a while, the rustle of leaves of the trees lining the streets, the caw of some birds. It’s peaceful, nauseatingly so, but Shidou’s not entirely whacked-up, he can appreciate the beauty of it. It’s part of why he decided to go here, take this club’s offer, after all: something about tranquility and watching the flow of a small, glistening stream and jumping around in it, kicking all the water around. Messing it all up, at least for a little while, because nature repairs all of it, and Shidou’s only alive once.
He almost wants to ask, right here, right now, if Kunigami knows that. If he’s aware of it. If he knows that this is it.
But, ah, who wants to waste deep talk on Kunigami Rensuke? Fallen loser hero? Kunigami jiggles the pan over the heat, triceps flexing with the movement, and Shidou sure as hell knows about some other things one could waste on the guy, however.
The thing is, he knows why Kunigami punched him. He doesn’t know why Kunigami took him home.
The meat sizzles when Kunigami tips it over and into the pan. Shidou carves a serrated edge into one of the carrots, because he’s bored as all hell, and Kunigami isn’t even in biting distance, the asshole. The smell wafts through the kitchen, and it balls up somewhere tight inside of Shidou’s body, until his stomach growls loudly.
Kunigami scoffs a sound that could have been a laugh if he was a different man. Shidou sticks out his tongue to his back. Shidou isn’t exactly lonely, but he knows this guy most definitely is. Fuck, why else would he do this, after all? Makes no damn sense.
“You should get a girlfriend,” Shidou says, pressing the tip of his tongue into his canine tooth. “This is just sad, man.”
“Says you,” grunts Kunigami, and then doesn’t elaborate.
Stupid fallen hero. Shidou’s having the time of his life, he always is. The sun is still up and the day is still going—even when it’s slowing down, even when it’s starting to feel like honey in Shidou’s veins—and his cells are still firing off and there is still blood in his mouth, and what does Kunigami have? Chopsticks in one hand and the handle of a pan in the other. Shidou is holding a knife!
Granted, it’s Kunigami’s knife, but some would say that makes it even better. Shidou turns it in the light spilling in from the window, watches it reflect in the moisture left on the blade from the vegetable. Clear. Shidou frowns.
“You want me to get a girlfriend?” Shidou asks into the sizzle of the stove top, the edge of his mouth tilting. “Where else would you get a hole this good, then?”
Kunigami clicks his tongue.
“Fuck off.”
It’s sad and it’s fucking stupid, Kunigami’s apartment. Shidou thrills under it. He should sneak into the bathroom and lick Kunigami’s toothbrush later before he leaves. He should grab a few random things and put them somewhere else entirely. He should—
(In the middle of the night, the blackness of Kunigami’s apartment swallows Shidou whole. The wall is not smooth like teeth would be when he rubs his hand along it to guide his way, and he supposes he could turn on the light, but this is something, isn’t it?
This is something, and it’s too late, anyway.
He walks blindly down the hall and almost trips over something in the way, the ache throbbing dully in his shin, spreading up and into his knee. Ah, coach is going to bust him open if he got hurt, but he can’t manage to care about that right now; can’t quite manage to care about any of it.
In the bathroom, the porcelain of the sink does feel like teeth. In the mirror, there’s a silhouette, a vague shape of nothing. Shidou lingers, swallows, then slips past it to go piss.)
.
“Dinner’s ready,” says Kunigami, voice so rough that Shidou can feel it everywhere, racing, prickling, exploding. Love cells popping all over, buzzing inside of him like a choir.
He opens his mouth wide, wide, wider. Kunigami is so close. Like this, his eyes are burnt auburn and empty and circled dark from lack of sleep and that grim sort of hopelessness that clings to him, the stupid cyborg rotten hero. His hair is wild, crowned white as if from the light on his ceiling, his muscles bulging.
His ceiling. His bed. His mattress. His apartment.
Kunigami’s lips glisten. There’s a wet noise in his mouth and another noise from the back of his throat and then he spits right onto Shidou’s offered tongue. Shidou is so hard he’s losing his goddamn mind; feels like he’s stuck in an endless, bursting fever, itching in every inch of him, scratching at his insides, begging to come out. He trembles under it, moans. Grins so wide it aches in his cheeks, aches everywhere. Kunigami curls a hand around Shidou’s throat and squeezes until everything blurs together like wet paint, foaming at the edges.
All of Shidou is foaming. All of Shidou is alive.
It’s the violence, he thinks, that has always held him together like this. His heart sings for it. He thinks Kunigami’s might, too.
It’s not some tragedy, not at all—Shidou enjoys life and all that comes from it, all of its ephemeral, explosive beauty—it simply is. Oxygen fizzes out around his edges, sharp and icy cold inside of him. Kunigami stares, stares, stares, hovering on top of him, breathing. He’s so strong. His grip on Shidou, pinning him down so completely, is so strong that Shidou doesn’t think he could fight back much even if he wanted to with all the air he’s losing. Adrenaline courses through him and he claws at Kunigami’s wrists and laughs, and it’s perfect, all of it is perfect.
“Kill me,” he gasps, chokes, spits out like bile. Feverish and vivacious and complete. Kunigami bares his teeth. “Kill me. Tear—tear a hole in my throat and fuck me through it.”
Kunigami lets go. Kunigami squeezes tighter.
.
The ryokan is so traditional that it’s almost laughable. Kunigami looks good in his nemaki, however; dipping low at his collarbone, exposing the very beginnings of buff pecs with how haphazardly he tied it shut. Shidou wonders if he’s naked under it.
Well, probably not. Shidou is naked under it for sure, however.
It’s funny, too, to see Kunigami sulk around in an environment like this. They’re here on an away match, and because coach said they should try the hot springs to relax and soak their muscles a little, and all that. And also to get forced to eat copious amounts of rice, naturally. Kunigami is done already, but Shidou is still fighting with his last bowl.
And Kunigami, too, is sulking around, because that’s what the asshole is always doing. Glaring, hackles raised, tense all over. No wonder coach dragged them here.
Outside, there’s fields and even mountains. They’re at the very edge of the city, so far out that there’s cicadas and their noises all around them. The tatami mat is leaving imprints on Shidou’s thighs. He wonders if he’ll be able to trace the ones on Kunigami’s legs with his tongue, after. Later.
“You know that you can just leave, right?” he sing-songs. Kunigami scoffs.
There’s a thing that Shidou has. He’s alive right now, and so are so many other people, and that’s a miracle in itself, isn’t it? Life is so vast and so short and every second of it counts. There’s a thing that Shidou has: he wants to leave his mark on the world. Wants to leave his mark on everything, on something. Everything fades and dies but he’s right here right now, and that will always be true.
Perhaps it’s that which bothers him about this idyllic sort of place.
And Kunigami could leave, of course. Granted, this is their room (whoever thought it would be a good idea to put them in one together, Shidou doesn’t know, but hey, he’s not going to complain; he didn’t think so initially—who would, with this antisocial bastard?—but coexisting with Kunigami Rensuke isn’t so bad), but nobody is keeping them cooped up inside here. They’re grown adults, and it’s not time for bed yet, either, so Kunigami could be anywhere. Outside, soaking up the green atmosphere, as opposed to the city. Fuck, in the damn hot spring that Shidou thinks he might spend all day at tomorrow. Just anywhere that isn’t right here.
Shidou puts his rice aside and crawls over, tatami mats digging grooves into the palms of his hands. He ducks his head and grins wide, dragging his tongue over his teeth, and Kunigami stares back, unmoving. His nostrils flare.
Shidou is so hungry. Shidou is so hungry. He hasn’t had yukhoe in ages. Or, well, any raw meat at all, actually. Shidou’s so hungry, and he wants to leave his mark on this world, he always, always has.
Kunigami doesn’t move, either, when Shidou climbs on him, when Shidou leans in to lick at the hollow between collarbone and shoulder muscle. He hisses a little, a low warning growl, but Shidou takes meat between his teeth and bites, bites, bites, and it’s admirable, he supposes, how long it takes until Kunigami claws a hand into his hair to pull him back, even if that just makes him bite down harder. Hey, it’s instinct, what can he say? It’s not like that’s his fault; Kunigami should really know better by now.
(“You’re such a beast,” Kunigami growls, in the inky blackness of their room. They might have broken one of the sliding doors. Shidou’s face is smeared with blood and salt, every inch of him buzzing.
He licks at the corner of his mouth, tongues at his tooth, but it’s still right there, secure in place. Lucky!
“Handle me, then. Ren-chan.”
Then he pounces. Kunigami might have been working on his hand-to-hand combat—and is also getting a lot of practice because of a very special guy—but he’s destabilized and sleepy and caught off-guard, because that is Shidou’s absolute favorite way of catching him. It races in Shidou’s brain; his heart; his dick. Pulses and throbs and pops and dances and screams, even like this in the dark of the night, and perhaps he is grateful for this at least.
Kunigami reels back then slugs Shidou across the face hard and something bursts sanguine in Shidou’s mouth and everything goes black. It’s beautiful, really. Like this, Shidou is full.)
.
Kunigami bends Shidou’s leg back, the stretch tugging at his hamstrings until Shidou moans under it; and the guy’s so clearly waiting for Shidou to piss him off to have an excuse for hurting him that it’s funny.
The grass tickles a little where Shidou’s kit has ridden up. He’s bored. Wrecking the J-League really isn’t as fun as he’d have imagined.
He wonders how big Kunigami’s dick is. Wonders if it’s bigger than his, rather. Wouldn’t that be something?
“I’m hungry,” he says out loud. Kunigami clicks his tongue. “Where are we going to eat tonight?”
Everything is so violent about the guy; and not even in a fun way, which is why they don’t really get along. There’s no spark, no instant connection—and Shidou has had those, but they are so very few and far inbetween, which he supposes makes them better, but ah, ah, ah—just this mutual belligerence and Shidou’s taste for poking bears. Something like that. But that’s something, too, isn’t it? There’s blood in both their mouths.
“What the hell do you mean, we?” Kunigami spits, bending Shidou’s leg higher, still. Shidou winces, grins, grins, grins up into the bright blue of the sky. Some of their teammates are whispering.
“Well, we’ve been eating together for a few days now. Do you want to get—ah, gentle, you asshole—steak or something? I’d like steak.”
“Course you would. Carnivore vermin.”
“I don’t think vermin are all carnivores, though…”
“Shut. Up.”
It’s the other leg, next. Shidou lifts it high up in the air, waves it halfheartedly so Kunigami has to chase it a little, before Kunigami growls and grabs it and yanks it closer. Pushes it down, then lets up to hold it in a normal stretching position. Hot, really. This guy wants Shidou bad, but it’s not like Shidou can blame him. He would want himself too if he was someone else. Hell, he does want himself, too.
“So steak, then.”
“We can’t eat steak,” Kunigami growls, hoarse like he’s spent the entire night yelling. Who knows, with him, that might just be true. “We have a match tomorrow.”
How responsible!
“You’re such a bore,” says Shidou, kicking at Kunigami’s side. Or, well, attempting to, rather, because Kunigami catches this leg, too. If this goes on like this, Shidou’s going to be mating pressed, what with how Kunigami is looming over him and all. Shidou grins. “Boring stupid loser hero.”
Kunigami doesn’t respond, and that’s the worst thing about this guy, really. Can’t even fucking banter with him, because he just shuts down eventually, like clockwork. Hands and jaw tight with anger, and, fuck, what the hell is this guy so buff for, anyway, if not to fight? Especially with the hate boner he has for Shidou? Boring. Bo—ring! And that when he has such a nice face for beating, too! When he’s just irritating enough to crack open!
“Whoever does better at drills,” Kunigami says, then, slowly, measured, because he’s trying not to blow a gasket, probably, “picks the place. And the other one pays.”
And, ah, now things are getting interesting.
(They do eat steak.
“Thanks for the meal,” Shidou says, though that comes quite the bit later. He’s on his knees on the pavement of some alley, and it’s exciting, how dingy all of it is, how hidden away. Kunigami bites down on his bottom lip like it owes him money, like he’s trying to bite right through it. Shidou wants to kiss him, lick into him, taste it all.
Well, he supposes that’s what he’s doing. He curls his hand around Kunigami’s cock and lifts it up to put it on his face, and Kunigami’s breath shudders so much Shidou feels it everywhere.
It smells great. Sweat and musk, and fuck, he really is quite big. It’s awesome. Shidou wonders if he’ll be able to fit it all down his throat. Shidou wonders if he’ll be able to jack off without Kunigami noticing and come on Kunigami’s shoes, or something.
And god, he’s hungry.)
.
It takes a moment to arrive in his head that this time, even through the blurry filter he’s blinking against, he recognized Kunigami immediately.
“Hey,” Kunigami says, voice pleasantly deep. Instinctively, Shidou reaches out—to swat or to claw at, he’s not quite sure. Kunigami takes his hand. “Hey, get up, come on.”
Get up from where, anyway? Shidou blinks slowly against the film on his eyes, against the way his lashes are all tangled together. Did he fall asleep? Ah, his head really hurts. And he’s hungry. Bleh, wasn’t he supposed to eat dinner, anyway?
Dinner… ah.
He’s at the bar. That’s the light that’s hurting in his eyes right now; and that’s also the irritating noises, all that clinking of glass and the low chatter and the slurred voices. A susurrus of annoying nonsense, of worthless, unimportant people.
“What the hell are you doing here,” Shidou complains, yanking his hand back. Even blurry, he can see how Kunigami’s jaw squares, how he rolls his eyes. It’s stupid, how quickly Shidou recognizes him, these days.
“Fucking get up,” Kunigami spits. “You’re making a fool out of yourself. You’re drunk.”
Hm. Yeah, he probably is.
“Hero,” Shidou says, bitter. “How nice of you!”
And it seems right here is where all patience runs out, because Kunigami grabs at him and pulls. Shidou stumbles off his stool and face-first into Kunigami’s chest, which isn’t even nice, because the guy is rock-hard everywhere. Which is hot, usually, but right now, it just pisses Shidou off. His head is throbbing.
He’s complaining under his breath as Kunigami wrestles him out of the bar and into the cold outside. “Fuck!” he yells, but Kunigami doesn’t let up any.
Shidou isn’t entirely sure how they get to Kunigami’s apartment, but next thing he knows, he’s leaning into the wall, hand framing his jaw, while Kunigami fumbles with his keys. There are some stars in the sky already, splattered around wild and free, and Shidou stares, stares, stares, breathes deeply. Kunigami looks at him from the side and Shidou feels it like a brand.
“Don’t you dare throw up.”
And Shidou wasn’t even going to do that!
What he was going to do, however, he realizes when he’s inside with the door closed and when Kunigami is on his knees to tug off Shidou’s shoes, is cry. He’s crying.
Kunigami doesn’t even have the decency to look surprised when he looks up from down below. No, mostly he just looks really fucking pissed off, but he always looks like that, so. He’s even paler in the dim light of his apartment, ghostly so, with dark circles that Shidou always does find himself staring at. He presses thin lips to a thinner line.
“C’mon,” he says, for some goddamn reason. “Take a nap, I’ll cook.”
And what the hell is wrong with the guy, anyway?
Shidou doesn’t move. Eventually, Kunigami gets up again, groaning as he straightens out, kicking his own shoes aside, and it takes this moment, this small lapse of his eyes on Shidou, for something in Shidou to… well, he doesn’t really know.
He’s pounding at Kunigami’s chest. Wailing about something he doesn’t understand, which doesn’t help the head, either, really. Kunigami staggers back, then catches Shidou’s forearms, then slams him back into the wall of the hallway, right next to the fucking entrance. Shidou laughs.
“You’re fucking insane,” Kunigami spits. Everything is spinning.
He doesn’t think he’s insane, really. He thinks Kunigami is, though.
“Go take a nap,” Kunigami continues, stern like Shidou is a dog in training. Shidou laughs again, then swallows, then wipes at his nose. His back hurts now, too.
“I don’t want to,” Shidou finds himself say, tonguing at his lip, even though it isn’t even split. “I don’t wanna be nothing.”
Kunigami furrows his brows. He takes a step closer and reaches out slowly, brushing his hand up Shidou’s shoulder and behind the nape of Shidou’s neck to grab him there, then he turns and pulls Shidou over to his bedroom. Shidou almost stumbles a few times, but only almost. He’s still crying a little, though. Barely any anymore when Kunigami shoves him onto his bed.
There’s a comment at the tip of Shidou’s tongue, but he can’t focus enough to get it out.
“Sleep,” Kunigami says. “I’m making dinner.”
Then he turns and fucks off. Shidou laughs, incredulous. This fucking guy…!
Just out of principle, Shidou wants to stay awake. Wants to get up and poke around Kunigami’s bedroom—bare as it is—perhaps. There’s a wardrobe rife for messing up and weights stacked in the corner that don’t look like they’re organized in a certain way, but it’d probably still be annoying for Shidou to switch them all around. Just out of principle, Shidou almost wants to follow Kunigami into the kitchen and make his life hell some more. Pick another fight. End up with Kunigami’s fist in his face or the pit of his belly and his own foot in Kunigami’s balls, or something. End up face down on the floor, fucked into floors Kunigami has last wiped god knows when. Something like that.
He falls asleep despite all of that, anyway. There’s not really any point to this.
.
It starts a little like this: a masochist and a masochist walk into a bar.
Well, not at the same time. Kunigami is lagging behind, as always; Shidou’s already drunk when the guy slinks in. Takes Shidou a moment to recognize him, even now. It’s one of those things, actually, side note, that he’s never understood: how people get so hung up on others. If someone’s not in his immediate field of vision and also not a bother (or something nice) (or sometimes both) Shidou will forget about them. He can’t imagine spending all that time and energy stewing over others. Who does that?
Kunigami does, apparently. Because the moment he sees Shidou slumped at the bar, his whole expression sours, and he makes a sort of urgh noise that really gets Shidou’s blood pumping, actually. He’s also more grey than the last time Shidou saw him, he’s pretty sure.
Shidou grins, digging the tip of his tongue into one of his canines, because who could have known that there’d actually be entertainment ready immediately in this city, here in this club. And Shidou would have carved that for himself, anyhow, but isn’t is just so convenient that it just walks in here like a lamb for the slaughter?
It seems Kunigami takes this as a challenge, because he doesn’t, as Shidou anticipated, turn on his heel and leave again. Find some other waterhole, far away from him, or something.
No, he stays. Doesn’t even drink, just eats here, like some fucking lunatic. Who comes to a bar for fucking dinner, even if there’s food served here? Food’s nice, eating while drinking is also nice, but Kunigami doesn’t touch a drop of alcohol. A normal restaurant really should have been much more convenient than this.
No, he stays. And that’s how they start, those dinners of theirs.