Archive of Our Own

I say, I promise I won't do anything awful,
and he says you are something awful,

but I'm keeping you anyway.

—"When Rome Falls," Yves Olade

In the liminal space of a museum gallery, Kageyama finds peace in landscapes molded by brushstroke. Surrounded by the four walls of gilded frame is an universe suspended in time and oil paint, tip-toeing trees and golden fields and a life much simpler, much gentler. He takes a step into the cypresses imagined by Van Gogh, with the clouds that curl like cotton and sunshine that sprays over the reeds like warm water.

Other times, he is staring as a voyeur into a world that he doesn’t know, the forms of divine beings painted with such unattainable beauty. Venus and Adonis, reaching for each other in a Titian. Soft bodies adorned with light. Tiepolo, a circle of angels and gods spiralling upwards towards heaven. In these moments, he feels small in his body, utterly human, and wishes desperately that he too can reach those heights, this staircase to the sky that seems only accessible to the holiest of beings.

And so Kageyama admires the curve of burnt gold, of a scene of dreams, and wonders what he might be like if he too had been painted as a masterpiece, eternal and unburdened by the world. What might he do if he was a god hanging up on the walls of a museum for everyone to see. Where are his wings, what must he do to fly, what must he do for people to look up at him and point and say, wow. Wow, what a beautiful, beautiful work of art.

-

“Have you ever gone out since you started grad school? Tobio, it’s been an entire year since you started.”

Kageyama shifts a little on his couch. Hinata’s visiting for the week, crashing at Kageyama’s dingy little studio in the Upper West Side, and as always he’s a bundle of energy, vibrant and glowing and all things that Kageyama never understood. They’re both grown now, a far-cry from the stupid boys they were in high school, but nevertheless Hinata’s boundless, electric enthusiasm feels overwhelming to Kageyama’s irritable, weary bones. “Drinks, a few times. With my classmates.”

“You mean you’ve gone to a few networking events at school and stood around awkwardly with a beer.”

“You asked a question, I answered it,” Kageyama defends.

“Why do you even go to those? You stare at paintings all day and go to museums for your academic studies.”

“Networking is very important for all career paths. It’s a necessary evil.”

“Evil,” he snorts. Hinata’s eye roll is almost audible. “We are going out tonight. I wanna dance.”

“You mean,” Kageyama echoes, “you want to shake your ass and get drunk.”

“Same thing, Tobio. You’re a New Yorker now, don’t you want to have fun?”

“I’m not really a New Yorker,” Kageyama protests, frowning. “I don’t even really know what that means.”

It’s true: Kageyama has lived here for a year and doesn’t really know what it takes to belong in this sprawling city. Yes, he does look at paintings all day and goes to museums and galleries for school, and so he drifts between neighborhood to neighborhood, searching the corners of the city for knowledge and beauty. There’s a buzzing to this place that doesn’t quite sit right with him, who before moving here has only ever really known quiet, small suburbia, where the trees are lush and smiles are wide and everyone knows each other. Here, though, there are big fish, a big pond, and Kageyama is merely trying to stay afloat. There’s something acutely depressing about being in a place with millions of people and not knowing a single one.

As if sensing Kageyama’s gloom, Hinata reaches over and grabs Kageyama by the shoulder, shaking him gently. “Hey. We’re going to go out tonight, and we are going to have fun. God knows you need it.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kageyama tries again. Though, he thinks it might not be so bad, going out like this, maybe making a poor decision or two. He can’t remember the last time he threw his head back and lost his mind for a night. Undergrad, maybe.

That’s also acutely depressing, Kageyama realizes. The thought settles in the back of his mind like an unreachable itch, and suddenly, he feels small and stupid again, like a little kid lost.

“Are you serious right now?” Hinata whines. “Can you at least do it for me? I’m visiting you from across the country, you know.”

Kageyama pauses, considers Hinata for a second. There’s an eagerness from him, but also a concern — Kageyama startles, coming to the conclusion that he must really look like a special type of pathetic right now, Hinata’s fist curled around Kageyama’s arm, like an immovable vice.

Still.

“I don’t need to develop a dependency on alcohol — I don’t want to be an art student stereotype.”

“For the love of god,” Hinata groans, “shut the hell up, Tobio.”

-

And because Kageyama has never been good at refusing Hinata, he finds himself an hour later with his back against the wall in a bar lit up by rainbow neon lights and crowded with sweaty, shirtless bodies, muscles and grins and stifling heat that makes him choke. Hinata’s got his shirt off too, his clothing tied around his waist, and he’s handing Kageyama a clear drink with a skinny black straw in it, a wedge of lime perched precariously on the rim.

“Vodka soda,” Hinata shouts over the pounding music, “because we’re gay.”

Kageyama has no idea why this particular drink had anything to do with his homosexuality, but nonetheless accepts it gratefully — Hinata did pay for it after all, insisting that he should be the one to pick up the tab because not only is Kageyama letting him crash, Kageyama is also a broke art history grad student subsisting entirely off of his university research grant and Shin Ramyun instant noodles. It’s some sort of miracle that he’s survived this long, Hinata tells him, without having some sort of outlet for all the stress.

Really, Kageyama doesn’t think he’s stressed, per se. He’s been called high-strung by several people in his life, tense by others, and maybe just a little socially awkward by the rest. He is, perhaps, all three, but doesn’t find that those traits will go away with a little bit of alcohol, no matter how much Hinata and Hoshiumi tell him that Tobio, you need better coping mechanisms. Nonetheless, he takes the little flimsy straw into his mouth and gingerly takes a sip. It’s bitter, piercing, and burns his throat as it goes down.

"You wanna dance?" Hinata yells, barely audible against the pounding earthquake of a bassline, the beat so heavy it vibrates the wall against Kageyama's spine.

Kageyama just levels a look at him.

"Tobio," Hinata sighs. "Fine, I'll leave you here, okay?”

Hinata gives his hand a squeeze before letting his fingers slip through Kageyama’s, turning around to swim through the crowd and disappearing from sight.

Under the filtered lights overhead, the club is a scene painted in blue and pink and with too much overwhelming detail, as if he’s staring at La Moulin de la Galette but saturated with neon and the sweaty sheen of exposed skin, the elegance of waltz dirtied to the depraved slotting of hips against hips, pressed up against strangers. With the acrid cocktail that coats the inside of his mouth with an ugly sting, the vodka also stains his vision with a foggy blur, lines and colors blending together, and Kageyama knows that he is a foreigner, both to this club and to this city. Both vibrant and larger than life and existing in a different universe than the one Kageyama is in, stuck on earth, shaky ground underneath his feet.

He pushes himself off the wall and worms his way through the crowd, squeezing through the small breaths of space between bodies. When he makes it to the bar, he nudges his empty glass over to the bartender and says, “Another, please.”

The bartender wordlessly grabs a handle of vodka in one hand and sparkling water in the other, pouring the two liquids over a fresh batch of ice and garnishing again with a healthy wedge of lime. “That’ll be sixteen dollars. Do you want to close your tab or leave it open?”

Kageyama balks. Back in college, a vodka soda would’ve been five dollars, max. Begrudgingly, he reaches for his pant pocket to dig around for his wallet before a voice cuts next to him, lilting. “Leave it open.”

Next to him, a man in silver silk. Kageyama flickers his gaze over his figure: leather-clad, sharp, small ruby studs at his ears that glint purple under blue light. He looks, Kageyama thinks, a bit like a blade of sorts, the ceremonial kind that kings keep at their hip. Vermeil, royalty, threateningly beautiful.

The man slides a credit card across the wood to the bartender, who takes it and turns away; the card looks heavy, metal, and it too glistens under the light.

Breathless, Kageyama says, “You didn’t have to do that.”

The stranger laughs. “Of course I didn’t. But I wanted to. You looked like you were about to faint at the price of the drink — which, by the way, is standard in New York. First time in the city?”

He flushes. Hinata’s words echo: it’s been an entire year since you’ve been here, Tobio, how the hell have you not gone out yet. “I’m… not visiting. I live here. For school.”

A raised brow. “Really? First time at a bar, then? Did you just turn legal or something?”

“No.” Kageyama looks away. “I’m twenty-three.”

“Dragged out here by a friend, who abandoned you to be slutty on the dance floor,” the stranger guesses. At that, Kageyama whips back up, bewildered, and the man laughs again, the sound entirely too soft and amused. “Figures. You seem way too gentle to be in a place like this. I’m Kunimi, by the way. Kunimi Akira.”

Ku-ni-mi. The words tap against the top of his mouth with the tip of his tongue as he mouths it silently: three syllables, three beats. A-ki-ra. Like a waltz. Triple-meter. He offers his name in turn in a fumble of melody. “Kageyama. Kageyama Tobio.”

“Tobio,” Kunimi sings. “Pretty name for a pretty face.”

Before Kageyama can figure out how to respond to that, Kunimi continues on. “So school, huh? What do you study?”

“Art history. I’m getting a masters,” Kageyama explains, then dips down to take a sip from his straw, face tinged with heat. The stranger — Kunimi, Kageyama reminds himself, then quietly, Akira — smiles slowly.

“Ah, grad school then. I can never be smart enough for that, I think. You must be a genius, to be putting words to something so untouchable as art.” Kunimi cocks his head to the side, a lock of hair falling into his face, the angle of his neck sloping into a curved path that Kageyama traces with his eyes. Perfectly mathematical.

“No,” Kageyama murmurs, “nothing of the sort. Corporate employment scares me.”

“Running away from a job? I’ll drink to that.” A chuckle into Kunimi’s glass of amber — whiskey, or a dark rum. “Though I wonder if you’ll be scared of me. I’m pretty much as corporate as you can get.”

“What do you do?”

Kunimi leans in, then, not close enough to exchange air but close enough for Kageyama’s skin to prickle, high alert. Like he’s at knifepoint, something sharp at his neck. “Banking.”

Kageyama simultaneously wants to both run from where he stands and to lean even closer, closer. He grips his drink, the condensation on the glass beading dew on his fingers. “I heard that was soul-crushing work.”

“You wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that I sold my soul to the devil. Some call me morally bankrupt.”

“Is that supposed to be wordplay of sorts?”

Kunimi grins. “Smart.”

Kageyama flushes under the weight of Kunimi’s attention, the pressure of someone else’s gaze heavy and heady. Distantly, he wonders how Hinata’s doing, but then finds that Kunimi’s a bit taller than him — about an inch, Kageyama wagers, their eyes meeting in a diagonal. “Though, you must be pretty smart too, to work somewhere like that.”

“Nonsense,” Kunimi dismisses with a wave of his hand, and Kageyama follows the line of Kunimi’s fingers, silver metal encircling each digit as if each ring is embracing the bone of his knuckles. “So, tell me, do I scare you?”

Kageyama looks at him and feels like he’s looking at an exhibition. Something that should be studied with reverence, distance, and glowing awe. “Maybe a little.”

“Because I’m a filthy corporate?”

“It’s like you said,” Kageyama mumbles. “I’m too gentle.”

“Gentle,” Kunimi repeats. Then, snaking an arm around Kageyama’s waist, Kunimi tugs Kageyama into him just a bit. Just enough distance between them. Just enough, not enough, too much. “I can be gentle.”

Kageyama hears this, and knows, somehow, that it is a lie. Still, still. He lets himself be dragged in, and looks at the ruby studs in Kunimi’s lobes, and wonders if it tastes cold if he kisses it. Wonders if Kunimi will let Kageyama call him Akira into his ear, three syllables to touch, or if it’s too familiar. Too familiar for two strangers, too familiar for Kageyama, the foreigner in a new land, who doesn’t know the paths down the plains of Kunimi’s body or how to discover someone without learning them, not yet.

Kunimi smiles and clasps the dip of Kageyama’s waist. Kageyama leans in a little closer and breathes, and against Kunimi’s skin is the scent of sticky rum, smoked coffee.

“Going to close the tab now,” Kunimi says. “You wanna leave?”

Not yet, Kageyama thinks. Maybe now.

“Where do you live?”

-

The first thing Kunimi does when they get back to his apartment in Tribeca is to light a candle, the flame casting dim orange light against the sleek black and grey of his apartment, all angles and lines and no room for comfort. Then, he turns his speakers up, the song playing dulcet, crooning tones and strumming guitar.

“It’s Steve Lacy,” Kunimi explains, fingers brushing against the hem of Kageyama’s shirt. “Heard of him?”

Kageyama shakes his head, and reaches for the buttons on Kunimi’s shirt, the silk coming apart and slipping down from Kunimi’s shoulders. “No.”

“Mm.” Kunimi tugs off Kageyama’s shirt. Then, his hands settle at the top of Kageyama’s pants. “It’s called Dark Red. No idea why. It sounds more blue to me.”

Kunimi’s fingers unclasp Kageyama’s jeans, and he murmurs, “What color does the song sound like to you, art boy?”

Something catches in Kageyama’s throat when Kunimi slides a hand under Kageyama’s waistband. “I… I don’t know. Red seems fitting.”

Kunimi pushes Kageyama down on the bed; he falls down on the sheets without resistance. Pliant. Willing. “Is that so?”

Kageyama gasps around the three syllables of his name. Ku: a finger tracing down the dips of his ribs. Ni: a kiss where his neck meets his shoulder. Mi: a hand around his throat. Squeezes lightly, Kunimi’s palm cupping around his windpipe, pressure only at the tips of his fingers, where Kageyama’s blood runs hot underneath.

“Red,” Kunimi says. “What’s red to you?”

“Passion, anger,” Kageyama mumbles, word thought feeling blending together until the only thing Kageyama knows is the pressure against his jugular. “Danger. Heat. Sin.” Then, “Sex.”

Kunimi asks, “Do you want me to be gentle?”

His gaze flickers over the candle on his nightstand. Kunimi picks it up and blows out the flame.

“No,” Kageyama admits softly.

The swell of violins; sandy, whispering drums. A man’s voice, mourning.

-

something bad is 'bout to happen to me / i don't know what, but i feel it coming

-

“You ditch me at the club,” Hinata says slowly, “and you come back with hickeys.”

Kageyama shifts a little where he stands. Hinata’s sitting at his dining table, mussed hair and sleepy in the wake of night out, and Kageyama can’t tell if he looks more surprised, impressed, or indignant. So he settles for a shrug. “Weren’t you the one who was telling me to socialize more?”

“Is this your definition of socializing!?” Hinata near-screeches. Then, his voice drops. “Was he hot, at least?”

I didn’t feel like I had the right to touch him. “He’s rich, I think.”

“That’s sexy. Do you have a picture, or something?”

Kageyama pulls up Kunimi’s Instagram, tapping on the first picture — it’s a black and white photo, grainy and slightly out of focus, as if it was a moment hastily captured on analog film. Imperfect and candid, yet fleetingly beautiful all at once. Kunimi’s in crinkled white linen, the same rings on his fingers, holding a black leather bag that looks entirely too expensive for Kageyama to know what designer it belongs to.

“Jesus Christ, Tobio. You fucked that man?”

“I don’t really want to talk about the technicalities,” Kageyama grumbles, remembering warm wax dripping down his chest, the half pain, half pleasure, all depravity. How he liked every single moment, every second of touch that Kunimi spared for him. “But yes, I slept with him.”

“Dude,” Hinata gawks. “Good for you. The last time you slept with someone was…”

“Atsumu,” Kageyama finishes, a little embarrassed. “Senior year of college.”

“Hope he’s a step up from that, at least.”

“Atsumu wasn’t that bad.”

“I slept with him too, you know.”

“And?”

“I’m moving on to bigger and better things.”

“I’m going to tell him that you said that. He’s in New York now too.”

Hinata laughs, the sound bright. “Go ahead. You know he’ll just pout.”

Kageyama concedes the point and takes the chair across from Hinata, pouring himself a glass of water from the pitcher he keeps at the center of the table.

“Dude,” Hinata says eventually, “it’s five in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama replies, uncomfortable.

“I hope he got you an Uber, at least.”

He nods. Kunimi sent him off after two hours in a black car, a phone number saved in his phone, and a promise: we’ll see each other again, I’m sure, we’ll do this again, won’t we? And Kageyama tucked his phone back into his pocket and thought, if you’ll have me again, because Kunimi is entirely like the things he keeps around: sharp. Kageyama thinks that if he gets too close, he’ll cut himself on the edges of Kunimi’s body and bleed out knowing that the two of them live in entirely different worlds. That he shouldn’t have come for seconds, or thirds, or however many times Kunimi decides he wants him.

“One night stand?” Hinata asks.

Kageyama’s sigh is shaky, rattling. “He said he wanted to take me to the Guggenheim. Says he wants to pick my brain about the paintings, and that if he doesn’t, the free tickets he gets from his company will just go to waste.”

Hinata’s jaw drops. “That’s a date, Tobio.”

And yes, it is, isn’t it? For all intents and purposes. “I don’t know.”

“What— he’s taking you to that fancy-schmancy museum. Even I know about it.”

“I don’t know,” Kageyama repeats. Then, “He just… he feels like the type of person you can talk to for hours and you would still never know what he’s thinking.”

Hinata stills, and looks at Kageyama. His eyes are piercing, like a thousand suns, knowing. “Tobio. Give yourself a chance.”

Kageyama closes his eyes for a second, squeezes them shut, and imagines Kunimi amidst a room of statues, carved marble. On a pedestal, above. Chiseled sinister, caught in a different time.

“I’ll try,” he says eventually. The words are bitter.

-

When the night goes quiet to a steady murmur, Kageyama dreams of places he's never been. Calvados, with its soft white cliffs and mirrored waters. Shanghai, towers of neon and old harbors. Kópavogur, magic in green hills and rolling peaks. The little chapel in his hometown with its stained glass like a kaleidoscope Kageyama once wished he could hold up to his eye and marvel in its shattered wonder.

Here, in this city, Kageyama feels disembodied. In his dreams, he is drifting from destination to destination, searching for beauty and belonging and finding only loss. Throughout this artless journey, he wonders if his body is his only home. Somewhere along the way, he has thrown away the key, and now he sits waiting for an intruder to barge in and steal him away.

Maybe that way he won’t be as lonely.

-

The Guggenheim, for all its notoriety and glitz, is a relatively small museum, nestled quietly along the viridian trees of Central Park on the Upper East Side. The museum’s claim to fame is primarily due to its modern architecture: a white spiral, wounding upwards six floors up into a spiral staircase that looked up to a domed window, echoing the palaces of old. The space looks like a temple, its atrium pointing upwards only to the heavens, but in a sleek, crisp line; almost as if the Vatican somehow got transported into the twentieth century and translated to fit the minimalist sensibilities of the city.

Kageyama looks skyward and winces, momentarily blinded by light.

Next to him, Kunimi hums and says, “It’s smaller than I thought. I think they only have three exhibitions right now, or something. Definitely doesn’t live up to the hype for me so far — though, the building is pretty, I’ll give them that.”

“This was Wright’s greatest work,” Kageyama murmurs, eyes still caught in the lines of infinity of the rotunda’s spiral. “Central geometry. You go up to the top, and then witness the art as you descend the ramps. It was conceived to be ‘a temple of the spirit.’”

“Spirit, huh.” Kunimi repeats. “Let’s go up to the top, then.”

The two of them take the elevator up to the sixth floor, the lift ride passing with quiet, abated silence. The doors slide open with a small chime and Kunimi steps out, before looking back at Kageyama and saying, “I’m hoping you’ll be a tour guide for me here, Kageyama. I know nothing about art.”

“Ah.” Kageyama gulps, following Kunimi out of the elevator and down the ramp. “You… you can call me Tobio.”

“Tobio, then.” Kunimi cocks his head slowly to the side. “Then you can call me Akira.”

“Akira,” Kageyama says quietly. A dance on his tongue, something baroque. “It’ll depend on the era where the art is from. I’m not good with modern work.”

“You mean like this?”

The two of them approach an open room, brightly lit and adorned with massive paintings, a psychedelic blend of splatters and swatches.

“Jackson Pollock,” Kageyama affirms. “Yeah, I never really understood his stuff, even though I do appreciate it.”

Kunimi squints at the painting. “It looks like a mess to me.”

“It’s called The She-Wolf. Pollock used a lot of myth in his work, actually, even though it looks… like this.”

Kunimi’s face settles into something like contemplation and confusion.

Kageyama scratches his head. “Well, it’s named after the creation story of Rome. I’m not too familiar with it, but I think it’s about the city’s twin founders — Romulus and Remus. It’s said that a wolf nursed them.”

“And that’s… this.”

Kunimi gestures broadly to the canvas, which, to be fair, did look a bit more like sporadic street-art than the fine, immortalized pieces that Kageyama personally enjoyed looking at more. Then, with a shrug, Kageyama just says, “Well, it’s art. There’s meaning to everything. And at the same time, there doesn’t have to be meaning at all, if you can’t find it.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Kunimi says sagely. “I don’t think I agree with that phrase.”

The two of them move on to the next painting, a similar mess of paint and swirls in saturation.

“And why not?” Kageyama asks.

Kunimi’s eyes slide away from the painting and onto Kageyama. “Well, some things are objectively beautiful, I think.”

He shudders a bit, before shaking off the feeling and clearing his throat. “There’s always going to be someone out there who disagrees with what one might find beautiful. And if they don’t exist currently, they existed in the past, or they exist in the future. Objectivity doesn’t really exist in art, because of each individual’s personal sensibilities, which are shaped by infinite factors in life.”

“And that’s meaning,” Kunimi murmurs.

“That’s meaning,” Kageyama agrees.

They filter out of the room, ending up back at the spiral ramp, and descend to the next room, an impressionist exhibit filled with paintings that feel much more familiar: warm hues, blurry strokes. Kageyama walks forward to the first painting, a Picasso framed by an elaborate, gilded frame. He knows this one — it’s Woman Ironing, the strokes rough and monochrome, the oil paint almost appearing charcoal-like in texture.

“Tell me about this one, Tobio,” Kunimi says from behind him.

“What do you want to know?” Kageyama mumbles.

“Everything you know, I suppose.”

He takes a deep breath. “Well — look at the colors. It’s all shades of grey, essentially, except for the yellow on the woman’s arms and hands. This brings attention to her overworked limbs, and look at the form of the woman — she’s hunched over. Whereas most portraits would have the head as the highest point of the form, Picasso further accentuates the weariness of labor by making the apex of the body the tense shoulder. The lines travel dowards to the yellowed hands, which are the focal point of the entire canvas, and overall conveys the exhaustion, yet perseverance, of the subject.”

Kunimi whistles lowly. “You’re an art history student, alright.”

Kageyama flushes a bit. “It’s simple analysis, really.”

“Don’t be cute. It’s a compliment.” Kunimi laughs. “So, work sucks. Got it. That’s something I can get behind.”

The next painting they stop at is a lush green scene of ballerinas, bending at the waist.

“Degas,” Kageyama says, mostly to himself.

“I like this one,” Kunimi declares. “What do you know about it?”

“Degas… well, his art is pretty distinct. He paints a lot of ballerinas. There’s a lot of criticism in the art world about how his art is problematic, since it’s clearly painted through the lens of the male gaze. The ballet was a pretty voyeuristic thing, back then, since a lot of it is rich men watching women dance around in very little clothing.”

“I feel a little bad for liking it now,” Kunimi sighs.

“Oh, I mean—” Kageyama splutters. “Well, if you think it’s beautiful, then there’s something to that.”

“There’s meaning, you mean.”

“Yes,” Kageyama says.

“Dance is an objectively beautiful thing, I think. At the very least, it’s fun.”

Kageyama, beside himself, imagines Kunimi’s hips swaying to triple-meter, a soundless beat somewhere, and swallows. “Yes, I think I agree with that.”

They walk past more paintings, Kageyama listing off facts that he remembers and dressing his observations into an analysis that he hopes Kunimi finds interesting; Kageyama does really love art, after all, and showing and explaining techniques and colors is always something he enjoys. Kunimi hums and asks questions, making little off-hand observations of his own, scanning over the pieces with a passive, polite interest.

They come up to the last piece in the room, a dark still-life of a bowl of fruit. Kageyama recognizes this one instantly.

“Are those apples?” Kunimi wonders, before squinting. “No, they’re peaches.”

“Cezanne,” Kageyama says quietly. “I love his work. It’s… dark sometimes. Like, this bowl of peaches. It’s painted with blues, dark greys, and the only sign of life is the burst of oranges and yellows in the fruit. Otherwise it’s quite somber.”

“Depressing fruit.”

“Yes.”

Kunimi studies the painting for a moment, then laughs. “Well, it’s pretty. I suppose that’s all that really matters.”

Kageyama falters for a second. “Did you… did you like it?”

“The art? Oh, sure.”

“I see,” Kageyama says, something fluttering uncomfortably in his stomach. “I hope my explanations made sense.”

“Oh, Tobio,” Kunimi coos. “You did great. It’s not that. Come with me.”

Kunimi takes Kageyama’s wrist in between his fingers and pulls him out of the exhibition. Against the bird-bone of Kageyama’s joint, Kunimi’s touch feels cold yet inviting, and he is tugged out and into a small bathroom in a quiet corner of the museum.

Kunimi locks the door behind them, and Kageyama goes hot.

“Akira—”

“Hush.”

Kunimi reaches into the pocket of his shirt, pulling out a small bag of white powder. Then, he fishes around in his pocket for his keys. Kageyama stares, mesmerized as Kunimi opens the bag and dips his key into the powder, collecting a bump on the metal.

“Trust me,” Kunimi whispers. “Watch.”

He lifts the key to his nose and sniffs, suddenly and sharply. Then, he dips it back into the powder. “Your turn.”

Kageyama splutters. “Akira, what are you—”

“Shh.” Kunimi presses his mouth against Kageyama’s jaw, where it curves up to his ear, and lets his lips ghost on the skin there, and it feels like a crime, a sin, or something too easy to do. “Trust me, Tobio. Let’s have some fun.” Then, he holds the key to Kageyama’s nostril. “Just breathe, baby.”

Kageyama falters for a second, before looking up at Kunimi, with a few strands of hair draping over his eyes, heady. The scent of metal is coppery and thick, almost like spilt blood on a rusty knife. Here, in this room, dimly lit, it’s just the two of them, and a little secret that Kunimi offers to share with a open-mouthed kiss on his neck and a little hill of white nestled right under Kageyama’s nose.

“Tobio,” Kunimi purrs.

It’s all he needs. Kageyama closes his eyes and inhales.

-

“How was the date?” Hinata asks over a video call. He had flown back home from New York last week, a day after the night at the bar, but insists on maintaining their weekly catch-up sessions despite the fact that they just saw each other.

Kageyama makes a strangled noise at the question. "It was good."

Blurred sight gone sharp; something bitter, dripping from his nose and down to his throat. Kunimi’s knee is between his thighs, his mouth hot against his skin and fingers cold, tugging at Kageyama’s belt. Don’t be a prude, Kunimi had laughed into Kageyama’s shoulder, I’ll be quick, I promise. Kunimi, dropping to his knees. Kageyama, burning, blinded, head rolling back. Muscles firing with unattainable delights.

Hinata, of course, immediately picks up on the tension and Kageyama's uncomfortable expression. "Tobio. How was the date."

"Fine."

"Tobio!"

"Jesus— god, okay." Kageyama rubs a hand over his eyes. Then, he mutters, "I think we snorted cocaine in the bathroom."

The resulting screech from his phone nearly makes Kageyama nearly drop his phone. "What do you mean you think you snorted cocaine?"

"Well, I snorted something white. It was probably cocaine. It just made me feel hypersensitive, I guess. It was fine. I think."

"Tobio. What the hell— this isn't like you at all."

"I know," Kageyama says remorsefully. "I know it's not.”

Hinata blinks, furrows his eyebrows. “So what’s going on?”

Kageyama thinks of Kunimi, dressed in white, silver, lithe and blinding against the dark, oscillating lights of the club, against the impossible infinities of the Guggenheim’s rotunda, the light filtering down on him like a holy statue, like a sculpture in the middle of a cathedral. Against the black satin of his bedsheets.

“There’s something about him,” Kageyama says simply. “There’s just something.”

“Something that makes you want to do cocaine in a museum bathroom with him.”

“No. It’s like…" Kageyama grasps at the words. “It’s like something in me knows that he’s special, somehow. And I want to find out why.”

“So you’re — fucking him, doing drugs in the bathroom with him.”

Kageyama shifts a bit. “Yes.” A pause, uncertainty bubbling in his throat. “I know it sounds pathetic.”

Hinata falls quiet for a bit, over the phone. “No, it doesn’t. Really, Tobio, I’m just happy that you’ve found someone you can spend time with.” Then, with a dazzling smile, he asks, “So, when are you seeing him next?”

-

something bad is ‘bout to happen to me / why i feel this way i don’t know maybe

-

Kunimi again asks for Kageyama’s permission to ruin in a way that makes Kageyama feel small. Do you want me to be gentle?

Yes. No. I’ll take anything you give me. Kageyama shakes his head.

Say it. Kunimi drags his fingernails up the softness of Kageyama’s thigh. He feels like a crime scene. Tell me what you want, Tobio.

I want to know you better. I want you to know me better. I want you to want more than this.

You can do anything you want to me, Kageyama says instead.

Kunimi smiles. He reaches again for the candle, and pours a bit of the wax into the valley of Kageyama’s collarbone. It pools there for a second, before overflowing down and tracing a river of warmth down the divots of Kageyama’s chest. Runs right over his heart, which skips in time with Kunimi’s fingers, fluttering in beat with an unheard symphony. An off-time staccato: one, two.

Is this enough? Kunimi asks, moving down now, lips tracing circles on Kageyama’s hips. Do you want more?

No, it’s not enough. Yes, I want more. Yes, I want everything.

Please, Kageyama whispers. He doesn’t even know what he’s begging for anymore. Something. Anything. Anything at all.

-

Where’s the meaning, Akira?

-

“Do you love this city?” Kageyama asks softly.

They’re at a rooftop bar, overlooking the hills and mountains of Soho’s skyline, and Kunimi is leaning on the railing with a cocktail in his hand. A pool sits in the middle of the roof, and the light reflects off of it and casts angelic blue onto the angles of Kunimi’s jaw, his cheekbone, a halo of dancing water. As if Kunimi will sprout wings and take flight, leaving Kageyama stranded on a peak, watching him soar away quietly and with lament.

“Sometimes,” Kunimi says. He swirls the drink slowly in his hand, the glass clinking on the metal bands around his fingers like windchimes. “The rats are disgusting. And the subways fucking suck. And there’s always construction, and it smells terrible in the summer, and the snow on the roads is always grey and chunky and unpleasant in the winter.”

Kageyama waits, holding his breath.

“But there’s so much to do here. There’s never a dull moment. And I can be myself and be with people and never be bored.” Then, he glances over at Kageyama, and the shift makes his face go dark, the light of the water disappearing with the movement. “I really do hate being bored.”

It feels like a threat. But Kunimi hums, and turns his attention back to the city lights.

“I see,” Kageyama says. Stumbles a bit on his words. “I just never feel like there’s enough time.”

“Oh, I never have enough time,” Kunimi laughs. “That’s not the point here.”

“Then,” Kageyama murmurs, feeling caged, “what is the point here?”

If you don’t have enough time, then why are you here with me?

Kunimi smiles. Doesn’t answer the question. “Want to head back to mine?”

You don’t have to do this to me, Akira, you can just fuck me. At least then I’ll know where I stand with you.

“This city is really lonely,” Kageyama says instead. It’s like they’re having three different conversations all at once. The city. The sex. The two of them, on different timelines. “I just feel so lost, sometimes.”

Kunimi hums, and takes a sip from his drink.

Kageyama’s words are spilling out of his mouth. “Do you ever feel lonely? Here?”

A beat, a moment of death.

“No,” Kunimi says eventually. “Of course I don’t. I don’t have the time to be lonely, Tobio. I barely have time for things like this.”

Like what? Say more. Say anything.

But Kunimi’s emptying his drink, throwing his neck back, and Kageyama watches the line of his throat like it’s a lifeline. “I’m going to close my tab, Tobio. Let’s get out of here. I have work in the morning.”

Kageyama stares at Kunimi’s back, and thinks desperately, I should be so lucky. I should be so, so fucking lucky.

-

I hang myself up for you like a Cézanne on display, still life: peaches. Will you reach for me? Look at me? Pass me by, look at these fruits I bear for you. Can I be a Degas, ballerinas at the pole, can I dance for you? Will you watch me as I spin and twirl in this dress you bought for me? Will you clap your hands in applause when I bow and kiss you on the thigh? Will you tuck my hair behind my ear and tell me that I did good? Tell me, did I do good for you? Did I do enough for you?

-

“Tobio,” Kunimi breathes, cupping Kageyama’s cheek as he struggles to breathe around Kunimi’s cock. The touch is entirely too gentle for the way Kageyama chokes and pulls away, eyes burning, throat aching. Kageyama swallows the discomfort and opens his mouth again. Takes communion, this sacrament that he slips between his lips. “You try so hard for me. You always do."

Kageyama tightens his grip around Kunimi's thighs. Kunimi's moan is broken, strangled, and he grabs Kageyama's hair and tugs him closer. Kageyama feels hot and cold and alone all at once.

-

I’m just a little lonely, you know? You are so beautiful. Do you see me? Have I done enough for you? If I spread my legs just a little more will you come inside my body and make it your home?

-

“Get up,” Kunimi says, “Face down.”

Kageyama obeys. Of course he does.

-

I’m here. I’m here, and you don’t look at me. What do I need to do? All this desire I’ve laid out for you. Overripe, and you don’t even toss me away. You just leave me here to rot.

Tell me, Akira, what more do you want me to do?

-

“You are in love with him,” Hinata declares over Facetime.

Outside, the city is quiet. Kageyama looks out his window, the window frame only a painted plane of darkness, the clamor and light of the city dull and impossibly far from his studio uptown.

“No, I’m not,” Kageyama sighs. “I can’t be.”

“Why not?”

It’s been three months since Hinata was in the city and Kageyama collided with Kunimi headfirst in Hell’s Kitchen. Three months since Dark Red. Three months of Kunimi’s texts at twilight, the messages short and curt: you free, or are you awake, Tobio, or just come over. Three months of Kageyama splitting himself open and sprinkling the salt of Kunimi’s nonchalance into the wound, and every day he rubs the pain in and waits again — sometimes days, sometimes weeks, once, an entire month — for Kunimi so they can do it all over again.

“He doesn’t have the time for me, Shouyou. I barely know who he is. If anything, I’m in love with the idea of him. He’s just so far away. I’m running after him but I can’t close the distance. It’s like being in love with a god, like the old stories we learned. Someone falls in love with divinity and then they pay for it with their life.”

“So what’s the difference,” Hinata says, “between being in love with someone and being in love with the idea of someone?”

“You don’t love a god for his heart, Shouyou. You love him for his holiness. You love that he’s so much better than you. You love him for the blessings he gives to you out of kindness, or of boredom, or just because he can — do you understand me? I don’t compare.”

“You think he’s too good for you.”

Kageyama thinks of Tiepolo, a staircase to heaven, wings in flight.

“I don’t think we even exist in the same universe, Shouyou.”

Hinata falls quiet for a moment. Then, he says softly, “Tell me about him.”

Akira is a knife, Kageyama thinks. And I want to cut myself open on all of his edges. I think it would be so beautiful to die by his hand. Isn’t that art? Tragedy, captured in all its horror. I love him like the Greeks loved. With aching, boundless desire that hurts more than it is good.

“Kunimi Akira,” Kageyama sighs, “is a twenty-five year old banker, working in the Financial District in Downtown Manhattan. I don’t think he ever sleeps, honestly, and at the same time, I think he loves nothing more than a night where he can lose himself and forget about everything just for a little while. He talks to me about art. The city. My life. He doesn’t talk about himself much. I just know bits and pieces I’ve discovered by accident. He never wants to leave this city, he’s in love with it, and I think he wants to make enough money so he can finally rest. Rest, and look upon this city with the knowledge that he has finally made it. So he can sleep for a little while.”

“He loves the city,” Hinata repeats.

“He loves this fucking city.” Kageyama closes his eyes. “And I don’t belong here.”

-

Kunimi’s Tribeca apartment is thirty-eight floors up with a balcony that looks over the brick townhouses of the neighborhood. At night, the surrounding blocks are quiet, and the only sound is the distant rush of taxis on the streets. Kunimi’s got a cigarette lit in his mouth, between his teeth, and the smell of tobacco is heady, mixing with the sweet woody coffee-rum of Kunimi’s cologne.

“You sure you don’t want one?” Kunimi says, taking a deep drag from his smoke.

“I don’t smoke,” Kageyama admits, shaking his head.

“Right.” Kunimi shakes his head, leaning against the railing. “You seem like you need it, though. You’re so high-strung all the time.”

Kageyama murmurs, “I get that a lot, actually. I don’t think I’m particularly high-strung.”

“Trust me,” Kunimi laughs, “I work with high-strung people daily. I can tell when someone’s stressed out. You are definitely high-strung. You’re tense all the time, I can see it in your shoulders. Even when we fuck, I can see you’re on edge.”

Kageyama’s heart drops a bit. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Not really. Though I’d wish you’d relax a little. I don’t bite.” A grin. “Well, metaphorically.”

You bite both metaphorically and literally. Then, you’re just lying to me at this point. “You do, though,” Kageyama says quietly.

Kunimi stills, hand pausing in its journey to his lips. Then, he repeats a question that he asked, all those nights ago, the familiarity settling in between them. “Do I scare you?”

Yes, Kageyama thinks. Then, no. I’m scared of what you are to me. What I’ve let you become. I’m scared that I don’t mean anything to you. “Maybe just a little,” Kageyama says, and it’s all like deja vu. Timelines converging.

Kunimi drops his cigarette on to the ground, stamping out the cherry. Then he turns to Kageyama. “Come here, Tobio.”

Kageyama takes a step forward from where he stands, and feels like he’s stuck in the stand. “Akira,” he pleads.

Kunimi smiles a little, and closes the distance between them. Cups his cheek with a hand, deceptively gentle. Fingers tracing his jaw. Then, Kunimi leans in, and soft mouth meets open lips and Kageyama’s lids flutter shut. Something light floats in his chest, and then takes flight.

When Kunimi pulls away, his face has hardened into something serious. “I have a boat cruise for a work event next weekend. I wanted to ask you to be my plus one.”

The world stops, and then plays in reverse.

Kageyama’s breath hitches in his throat. Then he whispers, “What? Why—”

“Because you’re pretty.” Kunimi says, laughing, all tension disappearing with the sound, “and because you’re not boring. I can’t fall asleep during my work cruise, but you’ll keep me company, won’t you, Tobio? Keep me awake?”

Kageyama’s heart is tripping over itself in his chest, and his blood is running hot, and Kageyama blurts out, “I don’t know if I can—”

“Nonsense.” Kunimi’s smirk is wide. “We’ll just have to loosen you up, okay?”

“And… and how do you suggest we do that?”

A blade, glinting under moonlight. “Well, what do you think?”

-

don’t you give me up / please don’t give me up

-

“You said he talks to you about art. Your life. Maybe he sees something in you that he doesn’t have. Something he wants.”

“What could that possibly be, Shouyou? He has everything.”

“No, he doesn’t. No one does. And Tobio, you’ve never been good at seeing yourself.”

Kageyama goes quiet.

“You said— you said he doesn’t sleep, but that he works so one day he might be able to. Maybe… maybe he likes you because you’re doing what you want. You love art, Tobio, you love it so much. I remember when you took me to that museum in undergrad, the Van Gogh exhibit. And your eyes lit up and you were rambling about Van Gogh’s life and the complexities of his work and the impact he’s had on art and I didn’t understand a single damn thing you were saying, Tobio, but god, I knew you loved it. You have so much passion in you. I think — and I don’t want to assume here, of course, but. But I think that Kunimi sees that in you. He’s working a horrible job, he doesn’t have time. And you give him a glimpse at the life that he wants. To him, you are hope. You are the hope that one day he can lay down his weapon and rest and do what he wants. Who wouldn’t want that? Who wouldn’t want someone that reminds him that life can be young and full of light? That’s what you are to him, Tobio. That’s what you are, and can be.”

-

The boat, shining white on the Hudson River, is deceptively larger than what it looks from the outside — the deck makes way into a large lobby, coated in red-velvet, triple-decked and glistening with gold. By the time they arrive, the boat is seconds away from leaving the dock, and the chatter and bustle of businessmen is loud and boisterous.

Kageyama shifts a bit in his suit, his feet already aching, unused to the stiff leather of the loafers that Kunimi had lent to him for the occasion. You are so cute, Tobio, Kunimi had said, but for the love of God you need to dress better for this. And so here he is, in a suit and shoes that don’t belong to him. Wearing Kunimi’s woody, sweet cologne — on his skin, it’s bitter, musky. Out of place.

Kunimi, next to him, perks up immediately after scanning the room for a moment. “Ah, Tobio. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

He places a hand on Kageyama’s back, in between his shoulder blades, and pushes him gently towards the center of the room where there’s a mahogany bar lit up by the reflections of the glass of champagne flutes and highballs. Leaning against the wood counter is a man, similarly dressed in a pressed black suit, with wavy hair that’s brushed cleanly back, and a wine glass nestled comfortably in his hand.

“Kunimi,” he greets politely. Then, he scans Kageyama up and down; Kageyama squirms, feeling distinctly dissected. “And who do I have the pleasure of meeting today?”

“I’m Kageyama,” he says. Then, after a brief moment, he sticks out his hand — that’s what businessmen do, right? Shake hands? “Kageyama Tobio.”

The man pauses for a second, studying for a second longer, and then nods. “You’re the boy who was with Kunimi at Industry a few months back.”

Kageyama can’t help but splutter. “You were there?”

Kunimi cuts in then, a sharp smirk. “Akaashi was preoccupied.”

The man — Akaashi, Kageyama reminds himself— furrows his brow slightly. “Kunimi,” he scolds, looking slightly exasperated.

But Kunimi, of course, is unabashed by Akaashi’s disapproval. “How’s Kuroo, by the way? Is he here?”

“No,” Akaashi says, shaking his head. “He’s in San Francisco this week. But enough of that, pardon me — I’m Akaashi Keiji. Kunimi and I went to school together.”

“Oh,” Kageyama says stupidly. For some reason, he never really considered that Kunimi had college friends — he never talks about them, after all, so suddenly coming face-to-face with someone who seems at least relatively close to Kunimi is… a little unsettling in a strange way. Like he’s digging under the myth and revealing surprises that he could’ve never imagined. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Keep Tobio company, would you?” Kunimi says, patting Kageyama where his hand already sits on his back. His fingers linger for a second, dragging down the bone of his spine lightly. “I need to go schmooze. My boss is here.”

And then Kunimi’s hand breaks away from Kageyama, and he slips away to disappear in the crowd.

Kageyama shifts a bit where he stands — Akaashi’s still looking at him, inspecting him like a specimen, before clearing his throat and saying, “Well. Would you like a drink? It's an open bar.”

“Ah—” Kageyama rummages through his brain for a drink he’s heard of, something classy and suitable for the event— “A martini?”

“Shaken or stirred? Would you like it dirty?”

“Dirty?” Kageyama repeats, frowning.

Akaashi blinks. Then, he catches the attention of the bartender, and declares, “Shaken vodka martini. Dirty, please.”

The bartender gets to work immediately, and Kageyama breathes out a sigh. “Thanks.”

“No need,” Akaashi dismisses, shaking his head. “I know these events can be uncomfortable. I’m not that used to them, either.”

“Really?” Kageyama asks. Akaashi looks so… prim.

“I’m not even from New York,” Akaashi says, shaking his head. “I just come here a lot for work. Trust me, over in London, we don’t have events on a boat, and even before London, I’m from the suburbs. Do you live here? I assume you do.”

“I go to school here,” Kageyama confesses. “I’m in grad school for art history.”

“Mm. So completely different from this crowd.”

“Yes.”

“Interesting,” Akaashi says. Then, casually, he continues, “I would have never guessed that Kunimi would pick up a grad student. Though, it makes sense, I suppose.”

Kageyama barely registers the sound of his drink being set down in front of him; his mind still hangs on the words pick up, and it makes sense. “What?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Akaashi says, blinking. “Did I assume? I apologize if I overstepped.”

“No, no,” Kageyama splutters. Well, yes. He picks up the glass and takes a tentative sip. It’s salty, savory — pleasant. “I don’t know, actually.”

Akaashi makes a noise of understanding, a little hum. “Well, he’s certainly been bugging me less about clubbing every single time I’m in town. I thought that was a matter of work getting hectic — it seems like there are other reasons for that.”

Kageyama stares. A little thing that feels like hope flutters in his stomach, before he takes another gulp of his drink to drown it. “Oh. It’s both, probably, I think. He’s so busy.”

“Everyone in this industry is busy,” Akaashi says with a light snort. “But if you see him more than every few weeks, that means something, I think.”

There’s meaning, Kageyama thinks quietly. Thinks of Kunimi’s late texts sent in the dead of night; sporadic, but often enough, if what Akaashi’s saying is true. He takes another sip of his drink. “I guess.”

“I was always worried for Kunimi,” Akaashi continues, as if he didn’t absolutely turn Kageyama’s world upside down. “He has terrible coping mechanisms. Work is stressful, I understand that. He needs some sort of respite.” Then, he sips from his wine. “You’d be good for him, I think.”

“Do you,” Kageyama gulps, “do you really think that?”

Akaashi looks at him, eyes boring into Kageyama’s, before nodding. “Yes, I think so.”

A silence passes between them. Kageyama opens his mouth, to thank him, to say something, but a hand curls around Kageyama’s waist and Kunimi slinks up next to him again, as if he never left. “And what are you two talking about?”

Kageyama stiffens, but Akaashi shakes his head and says, “Confidential.”

“You are no fucking fun, Akaashi Keiji.”

“Sorry,” Akaashi says, looking not sorry at all. “I need to make some time for others, as well. You two should step out to the deck — I hear the views are beautiful.”

Then, Akaashi lifts his drink in acknowledgement. Gives Kageyama a meaningful look, before stepping back and away.

“Fucking Akaashi,” Kunimi grumbles, “Always acting like he’s so sexy and mysterious and shit.”

“He is, kind of,” Kageyama says without thinking, looking down at his martini.

Kunimi gives Kageyama a weird look. “He’s taken, you know.”

He blinks. “I didn’t—”

But Kunimi cuts him off. “Well, you heard him. The deck.”

Kageyama feels, somehow, like he’s being steamrolled by multiple cars, running him over mercilessly, but he shakes his head and says, “Yeah, the deck. Let’s go.”

The two of them make their way out of the velvet room and onto the deck, and Kageyama holds his breath — Akaashi’s right, the views are indeed beautiful. They’ve drifted off miles away from Manhattan, an expansive landscape of black water between them and the city. From here, New York looks like the place Kageyama’s always heard of in the stories and the songs: a place lit up by sleepless lights, white and blue and gold, millions of dreams contained in an island whirling by in quick time.

Beside him, Kunimi whistles. “Objectively beautiful, I think.”

“Yes,” Kageyama agrees.

The two of them approach the railing that keeps them from the edge of the boat. Kunimi props his elbows up on it, looking out towards the sea and to the city. “So you agree, then? That some things are objectively beautiful?”

Under the moonlight, Kunimi looks silver. Kageyama says, “Maybe just a few things.”

“You’re supposed to fight me more on that, Tobio. You’re an art history student, after all.”

“I can’t disagree with the New York City skyline.”

A smile. “No, I suppose you can’t.”

The water rushes underneath them, colliding against the walls of the boat.

“Have I kept you awake?” Kageyama murmurs.

Kunimi laughs. “Of course you have. You look so uncomfortable here — it’s cute. Refreshing, really.”

Another moment passes between them. Kageyama thinks that maybe, on this deck, this could be their own little island, filled with unspoken things. Thinks of Hinata’s words to him: that’s what you are, and what you can be. Kunimi, purple-blue of the lights of a club. Kunimi, warm orange by a candle. Kunimi, blinding white in the atrium of the Guggenheim, like sculpted marble, or just a lovely, lovely thing to be looked at, to be worshipped, to kiss.

On the horizon, the city lights twinkle, dim, and blink alive again.

“There’s meaning to this,” Kageyama says softly, stripped down to nothing but a vulnerable heart. “There’s meaning to this.”

“Meaning,” Kunimi repeats. Then, he looks out to the water. “I suppose there is, if you want there to be.”

Here he is, laying himself out. Out on the deck, the two of them are alone again, the rest of the crowd inside, the clamor and commotion a distant afterthought, muffled against the sound of waves. It’s the two of them and the endless, boundless ocean. The two of them, displaced and unanchored, sharing a secret only they know. Away from the city. Away from everything.

Kageyama says, “I do.”

Kunimi falls silent. Then, he laughs, free and unfettered. “You’re a weird one, Tobio. You… you’re so young.”

“I’m two years younger than you,” Kageyama says stiffly.

“I know. You know that’s not what I mean.” Kunimi combs a hand through hair, pushing it back; the salt of the seabreeze wets the hair so that it stays put, slicking the stray strands away. “You’re a bit of a masochist, I think.”

“Yes,” Kageyama says quietly. “But I thought that much was obvious.”

“Maybe. You’re right about that one.”

Kunimi leans in closer and lifts a hand to Kageyama’s face; with slow, unrelenting hands, he tucks a lock of Kageyama’s hair behind his ear.

“You want to keep me awake, Tobio?” Kunimi murmurs. “You want to be mine whenever I want?”

I’ve been ready for that for a while. I’ve wanted this since we met.

Kageyama says, “As long as you’ll have me.”

Underneath their feet, the boat rocks over a surging wave. Kunimi grins, and drops his hand down from Kageyama’s cheek down to his wrist, which he takes between his fingers, wrapping his hand around the bone.

“Come now,” he says. “There’s a party waiting for us.”

Kageyama lets himself be tugged towards the light inside. Lets himself be taken away by this man of a god, this beautiful thing.

-

“Maybe he doesn’t love you, but he could, I think. He could.”