Work Text:
The odd thing about being sad is that there were different types of sad. There was the kind of sad that had you screaming into a pillow for release. There was the kind of sad that had you feeling like someone had scraped your throat with sandpaper and had forced you to chop onions for hours. And then there was the kind of sad that left you feeling hollow, amiss. At first, you might think that you’re having an off day or that you’re simply in a bit of a ‘funk’. But then, as the day drags on and nothing – not even mindlessly binging a new season or the same one you’ve seen a million times – offers you a sense of fulfillment, you come to understand that you’re experiencing a kind of sad.
That kind of sad is one that pulls you in like a siren’s call, subtle and sweet, almost, until you notice that your head is sinking under water and your hand is desperately clutching at nothing but air. It’s the kind of sad that you suffer quietly, settling over you without rhyme or reason. The kind of sad that’s like water in a pot. Once it’s hot enough, it comes boiling over, raging and uncontrollable until someone turns off the heat.
You were feeling that kind of sad – you had had a rough day to say the least.
And it wasn’t anything in particular that had sent you spiralling. Rather, your insecurities that you’d locked away neatly had sprung free like Pandora’s box, crawling and fighting and clawing their way out, smiling demons emerging victoriously from their solemn slumber. You had tried for hours to ignore them, flinging yourself into meaningless tasks. When that didn’t work, you tried shoving them back inside. Needless to say, that also did not work.
Which is how you found yourself staring at your phone, Hanamaki Takahiro’s contact glaring up at you. You had been like that for a few minutes, apparently hoping that some spirit would possess you and just push the damn call button for you already. But, you sighed, it seemed like you would have to find the courage to do it yourself. And it’s not like you should even need the courage! This asshole was your best friend of nearly ten years, whether he or you liked it or not, and there shouldn’t be a single problem in pushing that fucking button.
And yet, that was another thing about this kind of sad. It made you feel utterly, hopelessly, simply… alone.
But you had more faith in your friendship than what any kind of sad could tell you otherwise.
You pushed the damn call button.
“Yo,” Hanamaki picked up on the third ring. “What’s up, shithead?” In the background you heard guns blazing and dramatic music swelling to its climax.
You chuckled weakly, doing your best to reply as usual. “Nothing much, ugly.”
“Whoa, you okay? That had none of your typical asshat-ery to it.” Leave it to Hanamaki to notice that your insults had less bite than normal.
“Maybe I’m feeling nice,” you tried to cover.
“You? Being nice? To me?,” Makki questioned and you could hear his teasing smile, “Never.”
“Like anyone would ever be nice to a moron like you,” you heard someone in the background say. Matsukawa, maybe.
“Makki! We’re in the middle of a movie, put the phone away!” You could tell immediately from the nickname and the ever present whine that it was Oikawa which meant that it was definitely Matsukawa from before which meant that Iwaizumi was also present.
“Oh, shit, sorry. I forgot you had guys’ night or whatever the hell Oikawa makes you call it,” you apologized, tugging at the hem of your sweatshirt. On second thought, it might have been Hanamaki’s. It was certainly large enough to be.
You heard Hanamaki move, the background noise growing more distant. “Nah, don’t worry about it. He’s making us watch some stupid fucking alien movie that I swear he’s seen, like, fifteen times.”
“This is only my eighth time, jeez!”
Oikawa yelped as Iwaizumi undoubtedly hit him. “Shut it, Trashykawa.”
“Atta boy, Iwaizumi,” Makki cheered, drawing himself further from the noise. You heard a click of a door, assuming he had found a separate room. “So? What’s up?”
“Oh. Nothing,” you half-lied. There was something wrong, you supposed, you just didn’t know what.
“Bullshit,” Hanamaki said firmly, “you’re a terrible liar. Something’s bothering you and you never call unless you either need something or you had a shitty day.”
You scoffed. “I call you just to call you!”
“Last time you called me you asked me to get you a meat bun and you hung up before I could say anything,” Makki reminded you, amusement clear in his voice.
“Okay, well,” you said sheepishly, “it worked. So… there.”
He laughed, the sound light and mischievous. It never failed to make you smile, even if the smile now was small and half-hearted. “You’re such a dork.”
“Why thank you, I try.”
“Yeah, sure seems like it half the time.”
You would have punched him if he were there with you. “Hey!”
“You said it first, not me,” he chuckled. He waited for a few moments, perhaps for you to say something, but you honestly didn’t know what to say. You were sad but you didn’t know why and you felt like the whole world was against you. It was a miracle you were even able to call Hanamaki in the first place. He sighed. “Meat buns or Pocky?”
The question startled you as your brows knitted together. “What?”
“Fuck it, I’ll just bring both. I’ll be at yours as soon as I can.”
Your eyes widened as you tried to stop Hanamaki. “Hana, wait, no–”
A door opened and the background noise of the movie became clearer as Makki moved yet again. “Yo, Shittykawa! Got any Pocky?”
“Get away from my kitchen, you snack monster!” you heard the man squawk.
“Nevermind, I’ll just get it with the meat buns. Oh,” Makki seemed to remember that he hadn’t hung up on you and softly said, “I’ll see you in thirty minutes, Y/n.” And the line went silent.
“What the hell?” you whispered to yourself. You glanced outside your window, surprised that it was already dark outside, meaning that you had wasted away your entire day. You didn’t know what you expected to come out of talking with Hanamaki, but it certainly wasn’t for him to ditch his friends to come see you. You sighed, flopping back across your bed and closing your eyes to take a few moments to focus on your breathing. The pilates girls on campus were always preaching about how good it was to take a few centering, meditative breaths throughout the day. Hanamaki and you constantly snickered at their bullshit but right now, you honestly felt as if you were a dam with a weak point, just waiting for that one final push to break you. So if the pilates girls were right and this whole centering bullshit ended up not being complete bullshit and it didn’t hurt to just breathe – what the hell, might as well try something. All of your previous attempts turned out to be useless, so what harm could deep breaths do? You honestly were just hoping to keep your mind occupied until Hanamaki apparently showed up on your doorstep, ditching his old high school teammates he only gets to see every now and then in favor of coming to see your mopey ass. He just saw through you so easily – a spy career was out of the cards for you, you mused – that it was almost infuriating. All because the usual insult that you fling his way sounded a little less bitchy. Damn him and his stupidly keen intuition.
The breathing thing must have worked because, before you know it, your door is opening and Hanamaki is calling out a casual “Yo!” as he lets himself in.
You groan, forcing yourself to get up and actually greet him. He’s in your kitchen, shuffling through the fridge to find the beer you keep for him hidden in the back. You can tell he’s been sweating, beads of it lightly dripping down his temples. “You stink, ugly.”
Makki turns around beer in hand, lifting an eyebrow at you. “Nice to see you, too.”
“You’re sweating, what else am I supposed to say?”
He rolls his eyes, clutching dramatically at his heart. “I ran here from the station and I even brought you food and this is how you repay me? Some friend.” He gestures to the bag sitting on your countertops. “You’re welcome, by the way,” he adds, sipping from his beer.
“Hana, you didn’t have–”
Hanamaki huffs, lazily waving your words away. “Yeah, yeah, but food always helps when you’re feeling down and you’ve been nagging me to get you meat buns for the past two weeks.” He gave you a pointed look. “So consider this as me caving. I even got you Pocky, too.”
You persist, “Still–”
“Listen,” he sighed, glancing at you, his features almost bored, “I know you’re sad and there’s nothing wrong with a guy wanting to be there for his best friend, now is there?”
(Your heart did a weird thing and you knew it was because he had called you his best friend but you had always been that and would continue to always be that, so what was the problem?)
You shifted your feet, tugging at the hem of your shirt. “Well, no, but guys night–”
“Whatever, I see those guys every month,"
You quirked your brows. "You see me almost every day, Hana, we go to the same college.”
“Yeah, but I actually like you instead of those dweebs. Plus, you’re sad. I’d be a dick if I just ignored that.” Hanamaki made his way over to your couch, perching onto the arm, facing you and nursing his stolen drink.
You crossed your arms as you leaned against the counter. “You’re really annoying for being able to do that, by the way.”
“For being able to do what?”
“For being able to tell that I’m sad! Sometimes a girl just wants to be sad by herself.”
Makki quirked his brow. “You called me, princess.” You swallowed the heat that wanted to rise at hearing your best friend call you that.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” you choked out defiantly.
Hanamaki grins as you huff, snatching a box of the mint chocolate biscuit sticks and tearing into it, crunching one into your mouth. You glared at him as you swallowed the treat, his stupidly cute smirk doing its best to coax more warmth to flood your system.
“You’re feeling better now, yeah?” he asks, after a minute. You nod reluctantly to which he chuckles, grin never once leaving his face. “So you don’t mind if I tell you something?”
You cock your head to the side, a little confused. Usually the asshole doesn’t hesitate to ask you the most invasive questions so you can only wonder. "Tell me what?"
Makki nods, chugging the rest of his beer – you didn’t notice how little of it was left in the first place – and sets the bottle down onto the coffee table. "It's been on my mind for a really long time, now. Like, months. Years, even."
"That's surprising, I didn't know you could think for that long."
A wide grin split over his mouth. "Oh, shut it."
A matching smile lifts the corners of your mouth. "So, Hana, what has your brain so occupied? You need all the space you can get up there."
He exhales a shaky, laughing breath. You wonder why he seems so nervous. He never gets nervous. There's even a flush to his cheeks that you don't think is just from the beer. “I think," he says slowly, methodically," I’m in love with you. No, I know I’m in love with you.”
Your heart feels like it comes to an utterly abrupt stop. You swear you can feel it seize up. Heat climbs up your body, swirling throughout. Maybe you should have cleaned your ears while you were waiting for him to show up, you don't think you heard him correctly. “What?”
“My stupid fucking heart does this really stupid fucking thing where it feels like it can skip a beat when you call me ugly. My goddamn lungs feel like they are entirely incapable of breathing properly when I’m around you because I just love you so much–”
“That sounds like a personal problem,” you blurt out, wincing at your lack of self control.
Makki stops and just stares at you. Your fingers immediately find the hem of your shirt once again, playing with it to distract you from the total fool that you made of yourself. But, then again, that wasn’t anything new around Makki… who continues to just stare at you. And then he’s bursting into fits of laughter, trying to hold them in and only making the choking sounds worse.
“Did you– did you just… fucking insult me while I was confessing? Ouch,” he wheezed.
“I– This doesn’t happen to me very often, Hanamaki, how the hell else do you expect me to react?”
He quieted and for the first time when he looked at you, he looked almost shy. Almost. He was still the same calm and collected Hanamaki Takahiro that you had grown to adore. “Maybe for you to say that you love me, too?”
Your breathing hitched and you finally allowed yourself to admit that your heart always did weird things around your best friend because you were maybe, sort of, wholeheartedly in love with him too.
“Is this how you cheer girls up when they’re sad? By telling them that you love them?”
His smile is soft and kind. “Only the ugly ones.” You groaned, covering your face at his idiocy. “And the ones I get to call mine.”
Your heart fluttered as you peeked at him from beneath your hands. “There better only be one.”
“Is..." he takes a deep breath, "Is that ‘one’ gonna be you?”
You gulp underneath his serious stare, entirely unused to it. “O-Only if you don’t mind being the uglier half.”
It takes a moment for him to register your words and watching him do so is like watching fireworks explode. His whole body lights up and his face is quick to be reignited with his signature grin, his eyes beaming with joy and pride. In order to do something, anything but look at Hanamaki, you snatch up another Pocky, stuffing it into your mouth.
Emboldened by your return of his affections, Hanamaki slinks over, bracing himself against the counter with his arms on either side of you. A hand comes to gently guide your chin to look at him. Impossibly, his smirk grows wider as he bravely leans in and bites down on the half of the Pocky sticking straight out of your mouth. His eyes are alive with amusement in the face of your embarrassment. Honestly though, you couldn’t tell if you were more mildly disgusted or vaguely turned on.
“If you don’t fucking kiss me, I’ll kiss you myself.” It was impossible not to glance at his lips.
His grin widens, licking at his lips hungrily. “Is that a promise or a threat?”
“Both,” you breathe, butterflies battering around your stomach like crazy.
“Nice,” he grins and then you’re both diving in for a kiss, both of your hearts swelling with joy and amusement and the pleasurable insanity of being in love with your best friend.
So here’s to promises and threats and the kisses in between.