Chapter Text
As spring continues to barrel toward them, two opposing tensions begin to pull on Kazuya's mind. There's the leadup to the start of the baseball season, and the waiting game for Sawamura's heat.
At their noodle shop, he cracks his chopsticks apart and asks, "Do you know when it's going to start? Can you tell in advance?" Heat season starts in earnest in April, and so do the Big 6 league matchups.
"I can sort of tell like a day before," Sawamura says, muffled around his first, enormous mouthful.
"Stop that," Kazuya says. Broth dribbles everywhere as he watches. "What about… Can you time it at all? It would be best if it started on a Monday."
"No!" Sawamura says, jerking as if offended.
"I was just asking," Kazuya says. "I heard there were pills for that lately."
Sawamura finally swallows his noodles, a grouchy look on his face. "Well, you can use suppressants to push it off, but I don't like it. I tried it last year but it made me feel nauseous, I couldn't really play, it sucked."
"Hmm," Kazuya says. Loosely, he remembers the first tournament after Sawamura had entered university, the first time Kazuya had ever heard of him getting sick. "Well if that's not an option, then we'll just see what happens. I'll tell coach since it could take us both out of the starting lineup."
Sawamura simmers briefly, then grins, with an energy that Kazuya tries hard to reflect back at him. Of course Sawamura would always rather be on the mound all the time, but as a pitcher, he physically can't. It's different for Kazuya. Barring injury, he would be starting catcher for every single game they play in this tournament. He reminds himself: Yabu is a seasoned fourth-year who knows his stuff and will keep everything straight. And even if he wasn't, absences like these are no small part of the reason for the round-robin format commonly played in the spring.
"Hey," Sawamura says, softening and poking Kazuya in the side. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know! A week of seasonal leave is everyone's right!"
"I know that," Kazuya says, reaching out to scrub at Sawamura's hair. It's only as he's doing it that he realizes he's using his wrist in the motion, trying to scrub scent on him, but of course he's got his tape on.
From the smug way Sawamura looks at him after, he'd noticed too.
He delivers the news to the coach as neutrally as he can. It's not just that he's planning to take his first seasonal leave, but that it will be at the same time as Sawamura.
The coach only nods, as professional as Kazuya could ask for.
"We've always known that was a possibility," he says. Perhaps he feels he's being kind when he adds, "It's not that uncommon, for batteries with your dynamics."
Kazuya knows that, of course, but he's still self-conscious and a little sore about it. He's sore about this fact that Sawamura and Tetsu-san and others have already probably spent years dealing with: that his nature and its out of control hunger could put a wedge between him and the baseball he was seeking. He's sore about the fact that if his alpha had its selfish way, this would be something that kept happening — this year, and next year, and the next — as long as he and Sawamura are a battery.
He's especially sore about the fact that he wants it, regardless.
In the end, the timing of it isn't horrible — in fact, it's just about as good as Kazuya could have hoped. Sawamura is a baseball junkie, so perhaps he has an innate baseball compass helping them. His phone call wakes Kazuya up at nearly the crack of dawn on a Monday morning, the day after the last match of their semifinal series against Keiou.
"It's starting!" comes Sawamura's voice, oddly tinny over the phone, but still insistent. "You'd better be here by tonight or I'll kick your ass! I'll kick it harder than Kuramochi-senpai could!"
Even half asleep, a wave of relief washes through Kazuya's body, just from finally knowing. After it, though, comes a deep wave of tension, which has his stomach clenching into knots.
"Miyuki Kazuya?" comes Sawamura's voice, "…Are you awake?"
"Mmhmm," Kazuya grunts, and hangs up.
He has a checklist of things done and half done and still to do, which he returns to as soon as he's properly risen and washed his face. These include filing with the school's seasonal health office, messaging the coach and team doctor, and packing a bag. (The bag contains water, a box of protein bars, his toothbrush, extra clothes, extra underwear, more extra underwear, extra towels, copies of his recent sexual health records, and a long strip of just-in-case condoms, which Sawamura had insisted he'd had no need for and did not want to see hide nor tail of.)
Kazuya skips his morning class to go to the grocery store instead, and skips the rest of his classes after that. He spends the entire day cooking, a pile of onigiri and experimental dorayaki and other meals that will keep longer, all as nutritious and flavorsome and beautiful as he could make them, useless though it might be, and all carefully packed away in containers to last as long as possible. It feels necessary, for whatever reason.
For the final item on the list, in the early evening, he locks the door behind himself.
The thing to remember is this: Kazuya is already closer to Sawamura than most people could ever dream.
Accidentally or intentionally, he's imprinted himself into Sawamura — into his pitching, his goals, his ambitions, everything. Sawamura will never, ever be able to forget him, will never, ever be able to escape him, no matter how far apart they may be, or how he might try to run. And yet, Sawamura still feels impenetrable.
Kazuya wants more of him. He wants to sink deeper, to claw and root his way inside by brute force this time, by any means necessary, until he's sure his presence has been felt.
For the first time in a very long time, Kazuya leaves his home without any tape on his neck. It makes him almost nervous, stomach twisting, though it's nothing out of the ordinary where anyone else is concerned, and the distance is short. What he's about to do is more important.
Sawamura buzzes Kazuya into the building and he bounds directly to the elevator, bags of food and essentials thudding against his legs. The ride up takes too long. He can't smell anything in that little moving box, but something in the air feels urgent, his nerves rubber-banding between his heart and stomach. When he reaches Sawamura's door he bangs on it, shouting, "Sawamura, it's me."
Sawamura opens the door slowly. He's flushed, wide-eyed, wrapped neck to toes in an enormous, pillowy thick blanket.
The smell is—
Kazuya shoves his way inside and slams the door hard behind him before any more of that scent can escape.
He drops everything he's holding like it's garbage, in favor of gripping Sawamura (and the blanket) around the waist and pinning him against the wall. He pulls Sawamura's sweaty face against his own exposed neck, hears him immediately gasp and inhale, breath ragged, like he's been suffocating. Foregoing the tape had been the right call, Kazuya decides, a tense lump in his throat. He feels Sawamura's tongue, his teeth against Kazuya's skin, the clutch of his hungry hands.
The air in here has grown close and thick. With the door safely closed, Kazuya breathes deep, nose against Sawamura's damp temples. The smell of him has permeated everywhere, earthy and lush like an ancient forest.
Sawamura is completely naked inside the blanket. Kazuya reaches in slowly, creeping down the smooth trail of his back, down his spine one vertebra at a time. He digs his hands into the smooth skin of Sawamura's ass. He pulls the cheeks apart, fingers flirting with the slick that's already spilling out of him.
"Fuck, Sawamura," he breathes.
Sawamura only hums, agreeable, nose still planted under the corner of Kazuya's jaw, mouth hot against his pulse.
Kazuya ducks and kisses at Sawamura's shoulder. He clenches his jaw, trying to hold back, but it doesn't take long before his nose is leading him inexorably down. He pauses along the way, sucking brief pink marks into Sawamura's chest and stomach to soothe his protests and hopefully not seem too eager, until he gets to where he's been seeking. He rubs his face against Sawamura's cock, pressing with his lips, his cheeks, his neck, his hands, until he hears Sawamura above him saying, "Oh fuck, oh fuck, Miyuki Kazuya, ah…"
It's like that smell has taken over Kazuya's mind, is puppeting him in his need to possess it. He tries to part Sawamura's legs to get his hand in between, but Sawamura only squirms uncooperatively until Kazuya drags him down onto the floor. There, he pins Sawamura by the waist and lifts one of his marvelous legs to get at that place where — wow — where he is pink and open and wet.
"Yes," Sawamura gasps, "Do it, ahh—"
Kazuya is hungrier than he's ever been, has to get more deeply to the core of that delicious smell. He buries his nose and tongue and then two fingers in Sawamura's ass as Sawamura sighs above him and envelops them in his blanket.
It's only at this point, ten seconds away from unzipping his pants and fucking Sawamura within an inch of his life, that Kazuya realizes he's still got his shoes on, that they're barely even inside the entryway.
"Now," Sawamura demands, grabbing both sides of Kazuya's face with hot hands.
And so that's exactly how it happens.
They hadn't been particularly quiet last time, but this time blows it out of the water. This time, Kazuya doesn't care about Sawamura's neighbors or anyone — can barely even contemplate an existence outside of this forest-smelling blanket cocoon — and so he fucks Sawamura hard enough to make him howl. Sawamura clearly doesn't care either, shouting and moaning and clinging wantonly with his entire body as Kazuya grips his hips and nails him.
When Kazuya finally comes back to his senses, he's face-down on Sawamura's flushed chest, knot still stuffed in him and not going down anytime soon. Tiny shivers of pleasure shudder through his brain as he keeps coming in slow, steady waves.
"You got here early!" Sawamura says brightly, lifting his head. "That shows great initiative! Not that I had any doubts about you of course, wahaha, though you need to get a little better at answering your messages."
"Like you're one to talk about that," Kazuya says faintly.
Sawamura only pats Kazuya's head and squeezes his legs around Kazuya's hips. There is more accompanying squeezing with that motion, which has Kazuya groaning with vivid pleasure. Sawamura folds the blanket more tightly around him, and it's hot inside.
"It's barely starting," Sawamura scolds him, somehow perfectly lucid even though he looks like a feverish mess. "You've got something else coming if you think this is what it's like. Don't underestimate me, Miyuki Kazuya!"
As if Kazuya ever intends to make that mistake again.
Eventually, still shocked at himself and his total lapse of control, Kazuya heaves them both up and drags Sawamura further from the door, further into the den where the lingering air of heat is more strongly concentrated. In that room is a Sawamura-smelling nest built from two futons, the kotatsu, a mountain of blankets and pillows, and Kazuya's own hoodie and socks which he'd "forgotten" here last time (neither he nor Sawamura had said a word about it). He keeps his mouth shut even now, but lets his eyes slip over the hoodie again, in pride of place near the center; something in his stomach settles at seeing it there.
The nest is already damp in a few spots, but Kazuya throws Sawamura back into it anyway. Then he strips off most of his clothes and throws those in too.
"Where are you going?" Sawamura asks, as Kazuya pads back to the door to collect his bags.
"What's all that?" Sawamura asks, as Kazuya packs the containers of homemade food into Sawamura's little fridge.
"Miyuki Kazuya, did you bring me food?" Sawamura asks.
"Just picked some stuff up for when we get hungry," Kazuya lies.
By now Sawamura has arranged his clothes into the nest just so, except for Kazuya's shirt, which he's got pressed to his face, breathing happily. Kazuya does his own bout of arranging, most of his items outside the nest: a pile of towels, the open box of protein bars, a pitcher of tea and two cups for when they get thirsty.
"Hurry up and get in here," Sawamura tells him, bossy. Kazuya's done all the preparing he can, so all that's left is to acquiesce, and he does easily, covering Sawamura with his body until his whining stops. Until a different kind starts again.
Sawamura is rambling.
"—what you smell like, huh… something spicy, I dunno. Sort of, maybe, cinnamon or something? I can feel it in my… ah, my throat."
Kazuya grunts, sunk deep inside him.
"Mmm, yeah. People say I don't smell super omega-like. What does that mean, what do you think I smell like?"
It's true. There is usually some sweetness to omega scents, which isn't immediately apparent in Sawamura's. Kazuya had always quite liked that. Now in the throes of heat it's even more intense, transformed into something that Kazuya can't get enough of. There is the faintest, sweet note in there somewhere — Kazuya inhales deeply, leaning forward — like a hint of nectar, a single wildflower crushed into the earth.
"Miyuki Kazuya, are you paying any attention to me at all?!"
"Unhh, you smell like…" Kazuya presses his face slowly to the underside of Sawamura's jaw, fits his teeth gently around that hot, swollen spot. He drags his tongue against it and drowns in the depth of the scent. "Like… ah. Trees?"
"Mmm… what? Trees? That's so boring."
As if this scent could be in any way boring. "Not all of us grew up in the backwoods. Smells mean different things to… to different people."
"Well, how could a tree smell sexy though?"
Kazuya sighs, giving up and putting a hand over Sawamura's mouth. "I'm not saying you smell like a tree, stupid. You just smell so…"
He inhales and gets caught up in it again as he presses his nose back to Sawamura's neck. In a sudden instant, his mouth waters; his jaw tenses.
Completely oblivious, Sawamura pries Kazuya's hand off his mouth and says, "I smell so…? So what? Don't just stop there!"
"So… interesting," Kazuya finishes, and clenches his teeth.
There is a point where it suddenly becomes real.
Kazuya wakes abruptly in the early hours of the morning. He doesn't quite know why he's awake. Without his glasses, he squints. The faint, blurred line of dawn creases the horizon out the window, shedding the softest light on the edges of things.
Sawamura is awake too, and there is something different about him. When their eyes meet, he makes a low sound in his throat and rolls on top of Kazuya, languid. He is in his element.
"Hnnh?" Kazuya asks, still sleepy and slow.
"Shh," Sawamura says, hushing him. He leans down close and fits a hand to the side of Kazuya's face, wrist pressed directly under his nose. The unfiltered scent of him from that spot hits Kazuya like a drug, oh shit, oh shit—
Sawamura pants above him while Kazuya pants below. They are a circuit connected, a live wire, an exposed nerve.
Sawamura reaches back with his free hand to Kazuya's dick, already hard. Kazuya shifts in the dark and positions himself without thought, so that Sawamura can simply lift his hips and — ah — fit Kazuya inside, so easy. They both gasp, Kazuya closing his eyes, Sawamura purring in pleasure as he sinks down, down, all the way.
It's tight but so slick, fuck — he can't think. Sawamura is so wet it has to be dripping down Kazuya's balls, his hips, all over him.
Sawamura presses his wrist harder against Kazuya's face, not letting him escape it, gagging him with the depth of his scent. Kazuya breathes harder, faster, until he's dizzy and can't contemplate holding back in the slightest.
He lifts his chin and bites at Sawamura's wrist, bites again around his forearm. Sawamura hums and presses into it. Kazuya groans into his skin and can't stop, sucks deeply, digs in his teeth for long, dark moments as Sawamura moves on his cock. He knows there's going to be a deep purple circle just under Sawamura's wrist when he's done, marring his strong forearm. Oh shit— which arm is he biting, which—
It feels too good. He whimpers.
Sawamura's bright eyes bore into him for an age of pleasure. His heightened smell punches through merely lush, beyond rich, into a new world of two creatures entwined in vicious, unending union in the forested dark.
Kazuya is overwhelmed to be staring up at him. He grips Sawamura's waist and feels drenched in him, swallowed and consumed by him.
"Yeah," Sawamura whispers, rocking just as slowly as ever. "Give it to me. Knot me, you bastard. Fuck me better than you've ever fucked anyone in your life."
It's instantaneous, how Kazuya swells to meet that challenge. He squeezes his eyes shut, teeth still trapped against Sawamura's skin, shuddering, almost in pain from how good it feels.
"Yeah… like that," Sawamura says. His body trembles.
Finally, finally, Kazuya's jaw relaxes, and he lets go.
He thinks it's late on Tuesday, when there start to be moments to relax. Kazuya has a heat-flushed, exhausted Sawamura under his arm, even though he barely fits there anymore what with how he's grown over the years. He's fed Sawamura the clear soup, and he's finally gained enough appetite for some crisp-broiled fish and an onigiri.
Kazuya finds himself talking as Sawamura eats. "I saw the garbage you have in your fridge. You should be eating rice and lean proteins like this. I'm going to tell the nutritionist on you. No, don't stop eating — you're going to lose weight or muscle if you keep going at this rate."
"You're so talkative," Sawamura hums sleepily. He licks a few of his fingers, then seems to drift off into the curl of Kazuya's shoulder.
"Sawamura," Kazuya says, prodding him. "Come on, have some tea before you sleep."
"I… okay," he says, blinking as Kazuya pours barley tea into a cup, and then pushes the cup into his hand.
"Just a little," Kazuya insists. He's been sweating and slicking so much, he has to keep hydrated or he will end this heat a total wreck, in no fit condition to play.
Sawamura obediently drinks, and Kazuya pats him on the head once he finishes.
"I'll have more later," Sawamura mumbles. "The food was really good. Thanks… Miyuki-senpai."
"Hey," Kazuya says, soft. "I appreciate you finally dredging up some manners, but you don't need to call me that right now."
Sawamura blinks at him with sleepy eyes, then smiles.
"Sleep, if you're so tired," Kazuya says. He lets Sawamura slip back against the pillows, and gets to his feet to refill the pitcher of tea. Before leaving, he bends to ruffle at Sawamura's hair one last time, feeling the softness of the ends, the sweatiness at the roots. Again he uses his wrist, rubbing more scent on him even though Sawamura has to be drenched in it already. Sawamura puts up with this doting, his smile turning oddly fierce.
As Kazuya retreats to the kitchen, he looks back once. Sawamura's sleepy eyes are still open, watching him go.
There are blurry times, at the peak of it, when Kazuya remembers Sawamura's face scrunched in agony, like the emptiness is tearing him in half.
Some parts are blurry, but others play back in his mind with vivid clarity. Sawamura's high whimpers when Kazuya presses him into the blankets. The grateful sigh he releases as Kazuya opens him up and fits his cock inside the dripping slick space of him, as if this is all he could have asked for, as if Kazuya's cock is the medicine he needs to relieve his suffering.
Memories like that will do things to a person.
There are blurrier times, in the dips and troughs, when Kazuya remembers wiping the heat-sweat from Sawamura's brow and kissing tenderly at his lips.
"Miyuki," he remembers Sawamura moaning.
He remembers kissing him more deeply, hungry to taste his edges and corners. He'd wanted to wedge his fingers into Sawamura's cracks and tear him open.
"Miyu— ah— Kazuya," he remembers Sawamura moaning after that.
Memories like that will do something too.
By Thursday, as the sun slopes down toward evening, they have both gotten to rooting around for things to do that aren't each other.
Kazuya steps back into the den after another shower, hurriedly toweling off his hair. He's half afraid Sawamura is going to be in the middle of another heatwave, groaning and near-tears from his absence — which is what had happened the last time he'd left for so long. Instead, he finds that Sawamura has dragged a small pile of shoujou manga to the edge of the nest, and is reading one against the pile of pillows and Kazuya's (horribly ruined) clothes, brow furrowed with focus.
Kazuya prods him to make room, trying to find a suitable spot to sit in the (incredibly defiled) nest now that he's clean. Sawamura barely budges, just turns his page and smiles, sighing contentedly with whatever he finds there.
He gives up and sits on one of the last remaining fresh towels, reaching out to pour Sawamura some more tea, and to grab the next volume from the top of the pile. The cover features a character in a cute, modest swimsuit smiling widely under a beach umbrella. "You're a romantic, aren't you Sawamura? What are these manga you read about?"
"They're about youth, and dreams, and life," Sawamura says, drawing his knees up and holding his manga closer to his nose.
"Isn't that some shorthand for alphas and omegas finding their destined, perfect matches?" Kazuya flips through the pages, looking for something interesting amongst the bubbles and flowers. "Getting married in high school and fucking on the beach into eternity or whatever?"
"There are no scandalous scenes like that in the manga I read!" Sawamura objects. He snatches the volume out of Kazuya's hands and puts it back on top of the pile. "These stories are about two people falling in love, nothing more or less!"
"Is that so?" Kazuya wiggles his eyebrows. "Well, instead of fucking, it must just be picnics on the beach then. The big strong alpha feeding the omega the food they've made while they share a blanket and watch the sunrise. Anything like that?"
Sawamura is glaring at him, completely red in the face.
Kazuya leans in, and slings his arm around Sawamura's shoulders. "Do they scent each other in these manga of yours, and say they'll be together forever? Do they promise it with a mark? That would be a little scandalous, I think."
He nips gently at Sawamura's ear.
"You—!" Sawamura yells, jerking away. His breath heaves like it might be the start of another wave. "You are making fun of me!"
Kazuya grins and draws away. "I'm just trying to figure you out."
It is the start of yet another wave, and half an hour later they've descended into another round. Kazuya is still thoroughly enjoying everything there is to enjoy about Sawamura. The indignant arch of him as Kazuya stretches him out flat on his stomach — the strength of his wrists as Kazuya pins them to the ground — the way he shivers as Kazuya gently worries at the skin of his nape with his teeth.
"Hurry up and get back inside me," Sawamura finally snaps.
Kazuya snorts a laugh and continues to delay, sucking on the skin of Sawamura's broad shoulders, his powerful back. Sawamura churns beneath him, discontent, until finally Kazuya gives in, fingering him open in the way he's discovered makes Sawamura moan and melt. After teasing and stretching him sufficiently, Kazuya presses his cock in beside his two fingers, just to watch Sawamura squirm.
Once Kazuya gets into a rhythm, Sawamura hums and turns his head. "You should mark me again, Miyuki Kazuya."
Kazuya doesn't mean to slow, but can't help it, blowing out a sharp breath. "I already did, earlier."
"No you didn't!" Sawamura protests.
"What the hell is this then, idiot," Kazuya says, squeezing at the nearly baseball-sized blue bruise on Sawamura's right forearm.
"That doesn't count!" Sawamura insists. "I made you do it."
"Sawamura, you haven't made me do a damn thing."
"Well, I'm gonna make you now," he says fiercely. He grabs backwards and twists his fingers tightly in Kazuya's hair. Kazuya grunts, his thrusts arrested as he's dragged abruptly up closer to the back of Sawamura's neck.
"Please mark me again," Sawamura says breathlessly. "I want another one."
Heat licks through Kazuya, but also annoyance. Hasn't he put enough of his cards on the table with what he's done already? "What do you think a mark is exactly?" he asks. "A party favor?"
"They're serious," Sawamura says, not giving an inch. "I know that."
Do you? Kazuya wonders, clenching his jaw. That's why you want it so bad, hmm?
"I don't care where," Sawamura says, "I don't care how much. I'll treasure it." He doesn't relent, pulling harder on Kazuya's hair, trying to smash Kazuya's face — his lips and teeth — directly into the stretch of his neck.
Kazuya stretches further past the direction Sawamura is pulling, biting sharply at his cheek in warning. Sawamura winces, and Kazuya slaps his hand away roughly, freeing himself. "That's enough," he says, pushing himself back up, using the weight to keep Sawamura pinned. "Don't try to force me. I'll give you what you want, but on my own time, my own way. Be patient."
Is this enough? Is it enough yet? Is he deep enough?
"How do you feel?" Kazuya asks, on Friday morning.
A shower-damp Sawamura frowns at him in the entryway. "I'm fine," he says.
"Make sure you stretch properly," Kazuya tells him, zipping the last of the empty containers into his bag. "Drink some more water. Let them check your condition and get you cleared ASAP."
"I know how this works better than you, Miyuki Kazuya," Sawamura says. "Take your own advice."
He's right, but Kazuya doesn't waver. He throws the bags down and gestures Sawamura over. "Come here then, o experienced one," he says.
Sawamura steps close, his brow creased and mouth slightly sour.
"Hey," Kazuya says. He taps at Sawamura's chin until he lifts it, and meets his eyes. "Did I do a good enough job?"
"…Yeah," Sawamura says softly.
Kazuya takes him by the shoulders and swings him to the side, pressing him into the wall just like he'd done when he'd first entered, mindless with Sawamura's smell. This time, too, Sawamura immediately sighs and tilts his head to the side, pliant, nose seeking the corner of Kazuya's jaw. He smells clean and light again, a familiar tender woodiness that reminds Kazuya of darker, richer things. He drags his exposed wrists up Sawamura's neck, drawing as much of their scents out as he can, letting them mingle together in the air.
Sawamura perks up, eyes shining at him, and Kazuya's gaze drops to his lower lip, jutted out in a gentle pout. He leans in.
At first he kisses Sawamura's mouth, and they trade gentle licks and breaths in a steady, even exchange. Then Kazuya bites deeply at Sawamura's lip, catching it between his teeth and sucking, relishing in the gasp that washes over his face. He lingers there, sinking in his teeth hard, wondering if he can bruise it.
"Oh fuck," Sawamura says, lip still captured, and groans, gripping at Kazuya's biceps.
I am not finished with you, Kazuya thinks intently. He pulls down the collar of Sawamura's shirt, searching for the right spot with his hands. Somewhere soft. Somewhere firm.
"Oh— uh-huh, yes," Sawamura babbles.
Kazuya releases his lip with a wet, sucking sound, only to trail further down. He breathes harshly against Sawamura's neck. He wishes he could use his hands to bite, too, wishes he could mark Sawamura with his whole body. His teeth will have to be good enough.
The place he chooses is right in the center of Sawamura's chest, a little below the dip of his collarbones. It is a tender, painful place, the skin thin and soft. Kazuya bites with purpose this time. There is no tongue — only teeth. His blood rushes in his ears. Everything in him clenches with intent.
Sawamura's left hand threads through his hair, cradling his scalp, keeping him exactly where he is. His other hand circles Kazuya's neck and shoulders, hugging him close. It's an embrace, nothing less.
Kazuya's jaw aches, demanding more, harder. He realizes his breaths are sweeping out, wet and frantic, against Sawamura's skin. He can feel Sawamura's heartbeat between his teeth.
Finally, he lets go, everything in him relaxing in a sudden rush. He seals the spot with a lingering lick, a promise of a sort.
Sawamura's eyes burn like stars, but his hands are trembling. He touches Kazuya's mouth, then his own chest. He releases a shuddering, wondering noise.
"Does it hurt?" Kazuya asks, tracing a finger around the wet edges.
"I don't care," Sawamura says. He has the same look on his face now that he does on the mound, and it gives Kazuya goosebumps.
After a long moment, Kazuya lifts Sawamura's shirt collar back into place, covering the spot with care. He steps slowly away, moves down into the entryway, and slips on his shoes. He grabs at his bags.
Sawamura catches the shoulder of his jacket and turns him back for one last kiss. Kazuya sighs into it helplessly. He feels lighter than he has in a long time, and wants to laugh, but thinks it might give the wrong impression. Ah, how he's maturing.
When Sawamura finally pulls away, he pokes his finger hard into Kazuya's chest. "You're avoiding my neck, Miyuki Kazuya," he declares loudly. "Don't think I don't notice!"
"Until next time," is all Kazuya says, not bothering to hide his delight.
Sawamura smiles a little, slowly, then breaks into a grin to match Kazuya's own.
Kazuya doesn't move for a few long, breathless minutes after Sawamura shuts the door behind him. His stomach is jumping; he wants to sit and put his head between his knees to recover. Maybe he'll take the stairs down.
He's stirred from stillness when he hears Sawamura's booming laugh trickling through the door. He smiles to himself, feeling just as ridiculous.
Because he's a great friend, this time he texts Kuramochi: Maybe ignore any messages from Sawamura for the next while, for the sake of your health.
With that, he straightens his back and begins the journey back to normality.
Is he deep enough yet?
No. Not yet.
Maybe never.