Work Text:
It starts because Sawamura finds something very much like weeds early in spring and gets oddly, dumbly excited about them. Kazuya hears too little on the side before Kuramochi informs him later – that Sawamura has by now charmed the kitchen personnel, the janitor, a hoard of the admin staff apparently, and somewhere in that social network he produces flowerpots and soil, a tiny watering can.
In fact, the tiny watering can is how Kazuya realises that something is going on.
It’s dark that night, the lights not quite flickering as he turns around the corner on his way to the bathroom. Sawamura, hair feathering up and eyes carefully on the ground in front of him, is carrying a miniature watering can with an undue amount of sobriety. Kazuya feels himself blink, then laughs.
“Ahahaha?! What are you doing?!”
Sawamura stops abruptly enough to spill some of his clearly limited water. “Miyuki Kazuya! I'm working on living a healthier life!”
Kazuya, who has seen this boy run laps before the sun ever had any chance to rise doubts that very much. In fact, he's having a hard time coming up with anything about Sawamura that could be healthy. Even Nagano-air can only do so much. “Seriously,” he replies, voice wry. “Are you for real?"
Sawamura makes to twitch his shoulders but checks himself. “You should have faith in people when they tell you something. Just wait, shitty catcher, I'll show you!”
And Kazuya waits, not that he’s aware of that.
-- June
Kazuya walks into his classroom on a Thursday and – stops. Stares at Kuramochi for a moment before taking up his own seat, grateful for the chance to drop off his bag.
Turns around to look at Kuramochi. “Since when do you eat fruit? During class, at that.”
“It's strawberries man, everyone eats strawberries.”
“Sure, If you have any.”
Kuramochi slaps Kazuya's hand away from his last strawberry and laughs even before he’s finished chewing. “Stole them from Sawamoron. Idiot can't eat them all on his own anyway.”
“He's gonna love that.” Kuramochi flips the stem out of the window. “He owes me for, yeah, just about everything really. The shit he's putting me through is crazy.”
It’s Thursday, so in an hour, two, class 1-C will head outside for PE and Kazuya, with the window seat, the heart full of yearning, will have one ear full of Sawamura's laughter. He'll sit here during Lit knowing that he could always just turn his head, that Sawamura won't be able to tell, that here's an indulgence Kazuya can't be judged on.
That kind of crazy stuff indeed.
-
He sees them, actually. Sprouting up from the windowsill in room 5, leaves deep green and wide, is something very much not a weed.
“I have no idea how you do the things you do, Sawamura.” Kazuya says, strawberry in his mouth. Next to him the other boy is yelling, talking, shaking a fist at Kazuya's right ear, creating the kind of noise he’s coming to rely on.
“They should be sweeter. What's the point in doing this stuff if it tastes so sour?” Kazuya says, chews through the words. “You're the champion of wasted effort.”
-- July
In July, Sawamura wanders off into the deep parts of the school grounds, the corners and nooks Kazuya never paid attention to. Sawamura, breathing hard from training, mud streaked across his elbow, clearly on the lookout for something, disappears often enough from sight that Kazuya – takes notice. The experience of turning his head to check on Sawamura only to find him gone, it’s repeated so often that it becomes a kind of haunting in reverse, Kazuya attuned to something just-gone, something softly-aching.
He follows him one day, surprised that Sawamura can tell (“Miyuki Kazuya, stop being creepy! You can't scare me!”) and surprised, too, at his own curiosity, the lack of control behind it.
“Hey, hey, aren’t you planting something this month, Sawamoron? Kuramochi said this was a year-long plan. You haven’t already given up, have you?”
And that is how Kazuya learns that blackberry stains are near impossible to get out of white clothing. Also, that he really doesn't like his uniform dirtied beyond repair, that despite all of this he gets impossibly, starkly distracted by the sight of Sawamura's fingers, the nimble length of them sweetly stained with blackberry juice. They fit, in that moment, with Kazuya dropping insults on Sawamura, with those fingers linked to him outside of baseball for once. The stains, they should creep under his shirt, to his skin, his ribs, to the place behind that, if they are out for truth.
Kazuya in too deep with no clue how to cushion his fall, with near-reckless investment.
-
That same day, in the middle of room 5 and backed against the bunk bed, Sawamura is pressing his hands to Kazuya's collar, shaking him a little, mostly fussing.
“Baking soda helps, don’t you know anything?” is what Sawamura says, pushing now at his shoulders, and Kazuya, who thinks of brittle picture frames with his mother's face, the faded date of them, laughs and laughs and laughs.
“Look at that,” Kuramochi says, shrugging into the general direction of the window. “Sawamura brought another green thing into our room. Idiot won't stop until he's turned this place into the fucking boonies.”
On the card attached to the new flowerpot there's a single word: ZINNIA, the characters for it a little bit hapless, a lot sweet. Kazuya has no understanding of the name, gets stuck, instead, on the bold-shaky letters that spell it out. He doesn't know it yet, but the flower beyond the name, it will grow pink, and white, and red, the plant something he’ll associate with Sawamura for years to come.
-- August
“A broom? What do you want with a broom?!”
“It's because I don't know where they keep their gardening stuff! There are like three measly fruit trees, but even so they need to prop the branches up.”
Kazuya laughs, slings an arm across Sawamura's sun-warm shoulder. “You really care about the weirdest things, you moron.” Propping up the fruit trees, leaving tokens of attention as well as the late summer light, these things bring out more freckles on Sawamura, scatters them across his ears, right above his eyebrows, has them shy along his mouth, even.
That night, sitting in room 5, Kazuya finds himself watching the back of Sawamura's head, looks at those light-loved ears. Hoping he won't be caught, he wants to know if there are more freckles on one ear than the other, remembers thinking about it idly last night. Yet another thing to make him feel achingly tender and too-full of thoughts.
In front of Sawamura, the small but oddly deep flowerpot has freshly moved soil; when asked, Kuramochi shrugs his shoulder, controller in hand. “Radishes man, what do I know.”
-- September
“I asked the kitchen ladies if I could, and they said it's fine, so we'll go an dig up some of the herbs to keep them indoors for the winter! They are amazing, by the way, absolute heroes!” is what Kazuya gets for an explanation as he's dragged out of his own room. Sawamura a golden presence at his side, but that doesn't lessen his confusion. Heroes, yeah sure.
“That might make sense – which is a surprise coming from you, I guess. But what am I doing here? Have you considered that I've got other things to do besides looking after idiot pitchers?”
“What, Miyuki Kazuya, scared of a little hard work? Of mother nature?” a gleam of white teeth behind that dangerous curl of his mouth. “It'll be okay, I won't leave your side, promise.”
And so they dig: shiso, chives, mitsuba; herbs Kazuya never sees except when cut into pieces, when he cooks, maybe. They prick his fingers or make his eyes sting a little, but through it all Sawamura laughs, wipes his face with his forearm, leaving a streak of dirt.
“You look a sight for real,” Kazuya laughs.
Sawamura starts, rolls up his shoulders, grins. Turns around and drags his arm down Kazuya's face, the wetness of the earth already seeping into him. It's the blackberries all over again, except that by now Kazuya feels less hopeless, just a tiny bit aggravated at his own emotions in general. Could be that he’s feeling a tiny bit brave, perhaps.
“Now we match, shitty catcher. That's supposed to be good for your skin,” Sawamura laughs around the words, soft lips, sharp teeth. “Not that you need that, huh.”
“What.” Kazuya says, swallows, voice weird. “Hey, no, what. Is Sawamura Eijun, moron extraordinaire, calling me handsome?”
“I -no! I'm saying that Tokyo soil is probably toxic, just like your personality!”
-
Later: Sawamura, who’s hunting for a tissue in his pockets pulls out small green tomatoes, one by one by one, thudding softly against the wet ground. “And what are these, snacks?”
“Are you blind? They're mistakes. Tomatoes of that size all the way in September... they’ll never ripen and just keep the plant from doing well.”
Kazuya sees the parallel in this, the tie to how humans work, sees the past in it, but he stays quiet where he'd normally laugh. Could be that he's a little bee-stung about the compliment-that-wasn't. A little bit ruffled, in that space directly under his skin.
Kazuya says, “So you have tomatoes in your room now, too? You really are that greedy with everything you do.” He thinks, Sawamura's mistakes are small and green and grow roots.
-- October
Kazuya is hanging across Sawamura's bed when he spots the thermal bag hidden under the mattress. Inside, instead of food he finds three plastic bags filled with moss, heavier than they should be, something round hidden between the moss. Like pebbles almost, if you'd keep pebbles in the dark under your bed. Kazuya frowns, pushes his glasses up. “Don’t tell me you’re eating this?”
“Of course not! Those are nuts, Miyuki Kazuya. They aren't for eating.”
Kazuya turns his head to touch his grin to his forearm. “Well, that's new. They're yours, then?”
“Ours, if they manage to grow. Seeing as you and Kuramochi-senpai always steal my stuff,” Sawamura replies. “I'm having a bad feeling about storing them like that though. It’s doesn't seem to work out.”
“Why not keep more to more to make sure? Maybe 18, like your jersey number?” he hears Sawamura huff, and adds. “Or you could always go back to 20, I guess.”
Sawamura, draping a hot cloth over Kazuya's back, can't shake him like this, but his fingers dig into his shoulder, slender and gold in the corner of Kazuya's eyes, no longer stained with blackberry juice except – except when Kazuya doesn't catch his thoughts in time. When his memories start to burn in the corner of his lungs and make him slow with wanting.
He swallows, turns his head to look at the funny little plant on the windowsill, probably matching his funny little heart, the bigger-than-planned affection rattling inside of it. The fruit look like persimmon, but he's never thought a plant this tiny could be harvested to begin with. By now, having known Sawamura for over 100 days and counting, he's more likely to think about having been wrong than any failed attempts.
“We'll need to wait for frost after all,” is what Sawamura says, the point of his knee brushing against Kazuya's ribs, that drumbeat-heart hidden behind them.
-- November
“Are you planning to kill the plant or is this the same as with the tomatoes? The murder for the greater good thing?” Kazuya pokes his head across Sawamura's shoulder, eyes on the broad hands plucking withered leaves from the, well, the plant, at random. Kazuya supposes he'll never learn to name these things. He certainly never cared to, before.
“I wouldn't kill them! I want them to do well! Sheesh, Miyuki Kazuya, so twisted!”
“Yeah, yeah, you got me there. So. these leaves are...?”
“Mostly dead, don't you see their weird colour? They keep draining energy from the plants in winter when they aren't getting enough energy as it is.” Sawamura says, for some reason not even fighting Kazuya's invasion of his personal space, not yet melting back against him either. “It's like, carrying around baggage I think.”
“The deep life of foliage, is it?”
Kazuya lets his head sink down, just a little bit brave. Inside his throat, he can feel his heart hammering away, louder now that his chin is resting on Sawamura's shoulder, now that he lets himself have this. The hair brushing his cheek is soft enough to hurt, the spread of a bird's wing pulling him close. It's getting harder to ignore, the fact that he's fond of Sawamura, that he thinks of him and the weight of the word like in the same sentence all too often. That he wants and doesn't think it doomed, maybe.
“Want to come back to our room and help me put mulch on the plants?”
“No way,” Kazuya says, eyes on the line of Sawamura's throat. “That's like a hundred by now, right?”
“There are only seven, Miyuki Kazuya, and only the roses and the strawberries need mulching. You can handle that with me at your side, can't you?”
Kazuya closes his eyes, thinks of Sawamura working, Sawamura in the way he is when looking after plants, quiet and content and so sweet it pulls at Kazuya; an invisible line, the tide in slow motion, an ocean inside each of Kazuya's bones, making him ache. He thinks of how he never saw this side of Sawamura before this thing between them began, and how he could have missed it all too easily. Really, for all the chiding he does, he's just as capable of greed as these idiot pitchers in the end.
“I guess,” Kazuya says, meaning yes, yes of course, yes because it's the only word he's left with.
-- December
It's the last night before they leave for training camp and Sawamura has his hands deep in a flowerpot of azaleas, is looking over roots and adding mulch as he goes. A stray piece of it is hanging near his ear, another clings to the line of his jaw. Kazuya reaches over and brushes them off, fingers tingling with their closeness.
He does this, thinking about the heart beating high in his throat, making his skin feel papery and thin, the dead giveaway he can maybe afford, maybe not. There are words beginning to take shape inside of him, coaxed into being like Sawamura's plants. They are a tiny bit monstrous, still awkward, and Kazuya shies away from them just yet, waits for something to distract him.
Waits, again, for Sawamura. “Do you know what amaryllis are?”
“You could at least call me senpai now, right?” Kazuya asks, eyes on Sawamura's hands, his wrists, on the roll of his shoulders.
“Hmmmm, no. Only a shitty senpai wouldn't answer my question, do you want me to call you shitty senpai?”
“Will you spare me if I answer you?” Sawamura pouts, mumbles something, his mouth brightly distracting. I could kiss him, Kazuya thinks, and there's heat washing over his own face chasing a jolt down his spine. He fumbles. “It's those plants with the giraffe look at the side of your desk, right?”
Sawamura laughs now, mood like the weather, his eyes brightening to a wild golden colour, bringing with it the memory of his skin just a few weeks earlier. He's mocking Kazuya, that much is clear, but there is little inside of him that bristles. Instead, there's a grin tucked into the corner of his own mouth and the taste of it is unexpected, honey-sweet and rosered-blooming. He pulls at Sawamura's hair in retaliation for the mocking, for that little bit of gold coating his lips. Doesn't even move his hand away, after.
“It should look like a star, you know. With its six corners? Anyway,” Sawamura says, his tone low. “You should take one of them home with you when you leave for the holidays.”
“Isn't that a bad idea?” Kazuya says, trying to stall. “I'll only be gone until some time in January. I'll come back to it next year just to find it withered to pieces. You're the one who'll yell at me for that.”
“Miyuki Kazuya, amaryllis grow from bulbs! You can always start over with them. Also,” a pause as the neck under Kazuya's hand pinks up. “also, it's not like I gave you a present in November, so…”
And of course this is how it goes between them; the most ungraceful gift from the most amazing boy. Kazuya finds himself curling his fingers closer around the side of Sawamura's blushing neck, quite helpless against the weight of his feelings, the heavy thump of his heart, punch-drunk with love.
-- January
Kazuya owns a flowerpot now, a wide thing filled with soft brown earth smelling like – something, something he associates with Sawamura and that’s all he bothers to learn about it.
“I'm not gonna screw this up, am I?” Kazuya asks, eyeing the pot critically.
“What, so even people with crappy personalities get scared? Don't worry, the plant won't bite you, you'd be too tough to digest anyway.”
“Easy for you to say, having grown up in Nagano and all," Kazuya says. "What did you do, go to sleep with the cows at night?”
Sawamura kicks his feet out at his shoulder, expression like thunder, like lightning, but not yet dark enough for clouds. Kazuya's skin feels tight, just the way it does on a storm-laden day. “Shut up,” Sawamura says, and then: “that only means I've got more experience for once. So, I win!”
Win what exactly? he thinks, feeling like it would be too easy to give Sawamura too much, like it wouldn't ever be a loss. Without turning around, Kazuya can see this summer-sun boy and his satisfied grin, a lure, the hook-line-sinker of his life.
Kazuya hums, frustrated, tongue heavy in his mouth. He doesn't know when these biology lessons started, this agriculture 101. He doesn't entirely know the why of them. Sawamura knows, but to ask him Kazuya would have to actually look at him, and he can’t bring himself to, jittery as he is, throat hot with anticipation. Can't do it on his own.
“Hey, Miyuki-senpai? Turn around?”
And how can he help it, with those words directed at him? Kazuya stops digging his thumbs into the earth, feels himself blink. When he turns, he does so to a quick movement from Sawamura, and then – then, to find a tiny, wooly, white worm resting on the lens of his glasses.
In the ensuing chaos Kazuya not only manages to displace his glasses, but also upends the flowerpot he was working on, barely catches himself before he steps on the bag of seeds right after. Sawamura, laughing, Sawamura yelling, all that noise crashing through his head, it distracts him from his crush, that near-devotion, from sweet-bitter-sweet thoughts that cost him.
Cost Sawamura, when he pushes him back onto the bed with Kazuya's hands in his hair, pulling with force.
-- February
“Hey Sawamura? I'm pretty sure the plant is dead by now. The one you pushed on me, remember?”
“Don’t make a gift sound like something awful.” Sawamura replies. Tilts his head, adds: “Isn't someone there to look after it?”
Kazuya is watching Sawamura sowing new radishes while eating the last of the old batch, the taste sharp in his mouth, partly pleasant. He’s not going to answer, but he might just compromise – by not joking, or half-lying, by not making this a game. Could always just redirect his attention, really. Sawamura’s question only has ugly answers and, right now, Kazuya doesn't want to think about his father, the hollow shape he leaves in that house. The feeling he has when he looks at his watch late in the evening, during the night, imagining his father still at work.
Kazuya laughs and the sound of that, too, rings too hollow. “How do you get a bulb to grow again anyway? Does that even work at all? You could be talking a whole load of crap for all I know.”
“I'll show you,” Sawamura says, teeth pressing deeply into the pink of his mouth, the line of it half-frown, half-smile. “You just need to sit down and watch the master. Pay attention to me, Miyuki!”
Kazuya watches the light slant across the broadening shoulders of the boy across from him, catches his heart dropping down to his stomach, his gut twisting. They’re in his room now, the remaining single everyone uses as they please. There’s a reason why, instead of draping across the bed as he does in room 5 he’s merely leaning against the bed frame. It’s his own bed after all, and that’s only ever filled with restless thoughts.
“Say, do you ever do anything with the stuff you grow?”
“Do?” Sawamura asks, puzzled and sweet in that way of his, a huge moron just as always. Here’s the person, the smile, the laugh Kazuya thinks of before he leaves the room in the morning, thinks of now, when he’s too close and his cheeks sting with a blush.
“Yeah, just – do. Like, use it in dishes or cook with it, that kind of thing.”
“You shouldn't make your pitcher say something uncool,” a turn of his head, back to Kazuya, with those eyes forever that candlelight and amber colour. “But I’ll tell you because I'm honest. I suck at cooking, okay?”
Kazuya sees it again then, the thing that lingers inside of him often, the thing he takes around with him. The red of Sawamura's cheeks, the pink of his mouth, the soft rose of his nails even. A thing to take around for when Kazuya is feeling cold, and brittle around his heart.
He laughs and it's a bit mocking, still soft around the edges, full of fondness, not hollow at all.
-- March
Kazuya finds the tiniest of plants in front of his door, green leaves thick and heavy and all but overpowering the small white blossoms. So small, really, that he smells it before he sees it even, which might just save the plant from being stepped on. It’s March, and Kazuya is tired enough that he feels like he hasn't woken up in weeks, that he’s seeing things, that his eyelids hurt him whenever he blinks.
Still, there's a plant in front of his door but no people around, a mystery with the easiest possible solution when Kazuya just needs to close his eyes to think of morning-bright eyes and a laugh, that singular way to be sharp-sweet.
There's also a card, peeking out between the leaves, its handwriting familiar. He’s seen it on class notes, curved around practice sheets, he’s seen how it spells out the name of a flower, and now, too, his own name. His full name, of course.
“miyuki kazyua,” he reads aloud. “i’m a pi-tto-spo-rum! please take care of me and protect me from kuramochi-senpai. he hates my smell, and your room is big and empty. consider me a roommate and treat me kindly! you will be watched! yours faithfully, pitto xs.”
Kazuya knows he's blinking, a bit too confused to laugh. He thinks about Sawamura's stiff posture these past few days, how he'd actually almost bowed to him, overly polite for all that he normally treats him more roughly than any other of his upperclassmen. Kazuya thinks of Sawamura's eyes flickering away, then gold, then away again. An entire circus act for – what, a gift? a threat? A thing only Sawamura Eijun could come up with, in any way.
Turning to open his door, Kazuya stops. Has to touch his free hand to his mouth to figure out the softly burning shape of it. As if he has any chance but to smile, just now.
-
During dinner, Kazuya makes sure to sit next to Sawamura, makes sure to sit on his left too, at the very end of the bench with their sides not quite pressing together. There are no freckles on his ears now, only a few on his cheeks, but there’s that blush instead and Kazuya bounces his legs, needs to burn off energy all of a sudden, breath gone thick in his throat.
“Idiot, it would have been more embarrassing for someone to read the card than for you to hand it over yourself, don't you think?” is what Kazuya says, but Sawamura stays quiet, is eating almost mechanically. “Also, I don’t know how to care for this thing. Seems like you’ll have to teach me.”
Under the table, Sawamura knocks his knee against Kazuya's leg, rattling free a laugh that lies in his mouth like a cloud, like something soft, like all things that aren't rough after all.
-- April
Kazuya thinks that the rhubarb Sawamura is handing him with his pitcher’s fingers is consolation, or a bribe, something to make him stay quiet for sure. He takes the pieces, not thinking about it, too busy with that shiver still sliding down his back. “That was the most disgusting bug I've ever seen and you unleashed it on me.”
“That stink bug just wanted to be your friend. It’s not like you have too many of those, shitty senpai.”
“Stink bug,” Kazuya says, curling his shoulders up with a shudder. “I can see where that name comes from. I feel like I’ll never get rid of the smell.”
“That’s what happens if you kill things you don’t understand. Come here, city boy.” Kazuya huffs, goes so far as to move very slowly. He’s just sulky enough that the image of Sawamura reaching for him doesn't have him tied up with longing and warmth for curling golden fingers. Not very strongly, in any case. Kazuya sighs. Gesturing with his hands, the one that is fine and the one that smells like hell, he tries to convey just how miserable the entire situation is.
“You owe me for this, Sawamura. You owe me big time.”
Grinning, soft cheeks rounding out with glee, Sawamura puts a hand to Kazuya's wrist, pops another piece of rhubarb into his mouth, fingers flirting with his lips, the skin just to the side of his pout, a weight like a stone in this single-simple movement, dragging him along.
For a moment Kazuya thinks he can hear his name under Sawamura's breath, another of the oddly gentle gifts hanging between them.
“I can live with that, I think.”
-- May
It’s spring and Kazuya considers calling himself happy; there’s always, always, always baseball, the thing he’s greedy about the most, but there’s also Sawamura, and Kazuya's heart is full of like, a ringing thing nestling down in his stomach, turning his bones transparent with light.
It's spring, and the time he spends with Sawamura costs him a little and often leaves him smelling like a woodland creature, the tanuki Sawamura accuses him of being. He might have dreamed about that, one night, or two, of being something odd but magical, something quite weird. Night-dreams embarrassing enough he can't even open his mouth to complain about them.
Tonight, he's back to lying across Sawamura's bed, Kuramochi killing something on their TV with curses caught between his teeth. Kazuya, who hasn't been around for the past few mornings blinks his eyes closed slowly, moves his glasses out of the way to rub at them.
“It's amazing that you can still see that window at all. I figured you guys would be walled in by now.”
“Sawamura relocated some of the plants apparently. Don't ask me where.” Kuramochi says, elbows locked tight to his body. “I'm cool with the edible stuff as long as it’s useful at least.”
Kazuya laughs, looks at the plant that is meant to grow into a cantaloupe and thinks about growing. Doesn't think about growing apart for once. What would happen, really, if he were to step closer and set all his wariness aside? Kazuya could show his cards, knowing that at the other end of it is Sawamura Eijun, the sweetest boy alive, heart so big Kazuya is likely to step on it.
Waiting like this, the screen of his phone turns dark just as Sawamura crashes into the room. He stands, near-gaping, from Kuramochi to Kazyua and that's it – Kazuya is up, has his hand clawed into Sawamura's shirt to drag him away, the knowledge that Kuramochi is judging them hot on his heels. Outside, it’s raining because it’s May, because this is their luck multiplied when together. Maybe it’s better this way, Kazuya thinks as he’s shouldering his door closed, eyes on the huge hydrangea his room is facing. Thinks even as he knocks his elbow against the stack of books on his desk, as he reaches behind it.
(“There has to be a reason why you can see the hydrangeas from my room, right,” Kazuya says, and, Sawamura answers, naturally: “Smooth, Miyuki Kazuya.” Voice like a bell, voice like laughter, but not saying no. Not saying no at all.)
The atmosphere changes, like this. But Sawamura cackles at him still, white white teeth dipping into his lips once more. Kazuya takes him in, the impossible colour of his eyes, the slant to them, how his tongue touches the back of his teeth for a few seconds then dips away, out of sight. He's grown these past few months, still beautiful, still something thrilling enough that it has Kazuya tamper his own fears for a little bit more of that smile. More of his time. Kazuya imagines Sawamura at his side, and the thought has a weight to it like pure gold, a shining thing to anchor him home.
Anchor him, but also more than that because Sawamura always had the strength to push him. A moment of quiet and he's already walking up to him. “Tell me you brought me here for a reason.”
“Sure,” Kazuya says. “What do you take me for?” and he presses the glass of jam into his hand, the left one, the one that has him fight with scissors and table space, that has made him magic and bright and stunning to Kazuya's eyes. A miracle, coming out weird, coming late, the thing Kazuya trains his eyes on with anticipation.
“Aah, on that note,” he moves a hand to his neck. “it's pretty useless knowledge, but I actually remembered this idiot's birthday. Consider it payment for having to look after that dumb dead amaryllis come next January.” And Sawamura, because he's Sawamura, has one of those moments where he understands Kazuya. Easy as anything, dangerous as hell. “That’s made from the strawberries you stole from me, huh?”
“Better for me to use them than for you to waste them. Unlike you, I can actually cook..”
“Next you'll tell me that's considered teamwork, too.” And maybe it's because they have that first day between them, the memory of never having talked but fitting together smoothly that allows Kazuya to step closer. Maybe it happens because this is Sawamura after all, who touches his forehead to Kazuya's, who rolls his head slightly to the left, the right, who touches his nose to Kazuya's own, something so tender it makes his knees feel weak.
“You dig around in the dirt and I clean up the mess?”
“No way! I put effort into something and you take it for yourself.”
“Partner,” is what Kazuya laughs into the kiss, not an agreement, just the word he forgot for a bit. Hid in the back of his mind. They kiss, Sawamura's mouth plush and so giving his heart drops to the bottom of his stomach, they kiss and Kazuya presses his tongue to the places he's seen those teeth dig into, soothes an imaginary hurt that's mostly his own aching desires rearing up.
They edge closer, knees and hips to knees and hips, the nervous pads of their fingers touching fabric, touching skin until they spark off the other, until they laugh right into each other's mouth, star-drunk with this thing between them.
Being in like, being in love, being gone on Sawamura Eijun in the span of a year, the ring of 300 days and a thousand thoughts–
that's all just fine, just what Kazuya wants. What he takes pride in wanting more than anything.
-- June, 2
In June the cycle starts anew, but there are changes, this time. Growths burnt into them like tree rings, like something permanent. Kazuya, draping across Sawamura's bed, looks at that boy of his and has learned to spot not only the potential for things to go wrong between them but also the potential for success.
“I want a gift this time,” Kazuya says, the hand hanging near-thoughtlessly over the edge of the mattress inching closer to Sawamura's neck, toying with the collar of his shirt. Playing with the feathery hair next to his ear. Kazuya could be nervous here, but already the skin next to his feels warm, fire-lit and welcoming. “A proper birthday gift, what do you say?”
“Who's greedy now? You got one already, remember?!”
And Kazuya looks at Sawamura, at this dawn-and-dusk boy, at his heavy heart and ember eyes. Thinks about how this boy is his to like, how his feelings are a little bit too big to be cupped in his hands. A little big too big to be hidden under his skin, apparently. It makes Kazuya touch the shape of his mouth to Sawamura's neck, share the flow of it, that singularly odd expression he's taught Kazuya.
He keeps his lips there even as he talks, so full of want to know every single possible touch.
“Sure, seems like I got some kind of gift right here.”
They don't kiss just then because Sawamura is busy insulting him, angry at his cheesy lines and trick-charm. They'll kiss later, right after the laughter, with Kazuya angling down from the bed to pull Sawamura into him. They'll kiss, soft mouths, bruised sighs, and it will be golden and wild, it will be theirs grown up from seedlings, a thing sprouting like weeds.
Sawamura can be his gift to keep and he won't tell anyone about it.