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“That’s just how we are,” he says. “We can go anywhere if we’re together.”
Makishima feels his throat tighten, breath narrowing into his lungs like this is the first pinch of the climb, the moment his body realizes it’s being called to service and will be tried beyond what his brain thinks is possible. Toudou stands with his back to the wind, hair drifting off his shoulders as though he were underwater and not the centerpiece of a mountainous Hakone vista. Lake Ashi shifts far behind him, moonlight scraped out in large white swathes like chalk over asphalt.
God of the Mountains, Makishima thinks before he can stop himself. He swallows hard.
Toudou’s eyes are lit like soft purple lanterns adrift on the quiet lake; on his small, upturned palm are balanced every one of Makishima’s doubts and indecisions.
“So let’s go. Maki-chan.”
When Yuusuke Makishima thinks about it, he knows depressingly little about Jinpachi Toudou.
He knows his name. He knows what school he goes to. He knows his best time for a five-hundred-meter sprint; how many sports headbands he owns; his choice bike manufacturer; the names of his favorite teammates; and his preferred type of pasta, but surprisingly little else. They’re well practiced at the type of small-talk expected of rival athletes, but the other details – particulars of their childhoods; their desired futures; what Makishima appreciates more than pin-ups or what Toudou fears more than cheap bodywash – have been largely left unsaid. Makishima supposes he could have asked Toudou about any of these things at any time, but it simply never occurred to him to interrupt one of Toudou’s diet lectures to ask what he supposes life is all about.
So despite Makishima’s intimate knowledge of Hakogaku’s ace climber, the human named “Jinpachi Toudou” might as well be a stranger to him.
It’s a lame hang-up, Yuusuke, he tells himself feebly. He’s sitting cross-legged on his futon, his hair tied in a turban, thumb raking an endless scroll of text messages as he tries desperately not to panic. Kinjou and Tadokorocchi are still in the bath, and judging from the enraged roaring down the hall, Imaizumi and Naruko are still expending their remaining energy on ping-pong. Onoda wandered off earlier, muttering something about a water bottle. (Makishima isn’t totally clear on the details.) But after three short, brutal days, the Interhigh has finally ended.
But none of that matters, because he can’t remember Jinpachi Toudou’s birthday.
His zodiac sign? His blood type? Favorite color or preferred hair products?? He could be a cat person, but does Toudou even like animals?? He has a sister, right?? What was her name again???
And why does it feel so important to know all of this in the first place???
It’s ridiculous – he knows it is, knows that now is the time to relax and revel in a job well done, not obsessively hunt through old text messages for clues. But fighting these spells of unease has always felt like trying to dance on a crappy bike: frustrating and essentially impossible.
But he really should stop worrying about it, Makishima tells himself, flicking resolutely through one-line messages.
Because at the end of the day, Jinpachi Toudou is just some random guy he bumped into at a race.
---
“Oh for goodness sakes, just give me your phone.” Exasperated Jinpachi Toudou, his bangs fraying out from his headband in a bad case of helmet hair. He wiggles his fingers impatiently as Makishima drops his cell into Toudou’s palm.
“Sure,” Makishima smirks. He might not know how to create a new contact in his address book, but he sure as hell knows how to beat this guy in a race.
“Don’t think this is over,” Toudou mutters, his manicured eyebrows furrowed as he attacks the keyboard. Makishima can’t tell if Toudou is angry or unreasonably happy, but he gets his answer as soon as Toudou’s own cell phone buzzes and he grins in triumph.
“There!” Toudou thrusts Makishima’s phone back at him. “You’ve texted me. It’s official.”
“Sure?” says Makishima, even though he isn’t, actually; it just seems like the right thing to say, anyway. Even dripping in sweat and glowing with exhaustion, Toudou’s delicate features make his the prettiest face Makishima’s probably ever seen outside magazines. It’s a pity about the headband, really.
“Later, Yuusuke Makishima!” Toudou flashes him a smile, twisting back just far enough to point. “Good race today! But get ready to lose next time!”
Makishima snorts, lifting his cell phone in careless farewell. “Whatever you say. Jinpachi Toudou.”
The next time they race, Toudou does win, but Makishima is too busy laughing over his new nickname to care.
---
It’s stupid. It shouldn’t matter – truthfully, Toudou’s never been much more than a voice in his phone that materializes for bike races, right? It’s only natural that he wouldn’t know anything real about Toudou; they’re only minor acquaintances.
Kept together by finish lines and…well, rivalry.
How did this happen, though? Makishima asks himself, grinding his teeth as he continues to dig through text after text. It’s just statistically improbable, is all.
In all these years of talking, how could they have failed to exchange one single message of substance?
---
“You’re popular.” After practice, Tadokoro lifts his eyebrows as Makishima’s phone buzzes for the third time in as many minutes.
“Nah.” Makishima wipes his face with a towel, peeking at the display in time to see yet another message from “Jinpachi Toudou” pop to life. “Just that Hakogaku guy I told you about. You know, the climber?”
“Ohhh, that guy. You two stay in touch, huh.”
“Not really,” Makishima shrugs. “He asked for my number after I beat him last spring. He’s a good climber, but he talks too much. Strikes me as one of those lonely types who can never shut up.”
“Does he not have friends or something?” Tadokoro grumbles, tying his shoes.
“I mean, he probably does,” Makishima says, shrugging on his jacket. “He seems to like his team a lot. But I imagine Hakogaku’s tired of listening to him, y’know?”
Tadokoro’s laugh turns into a disbelieving snarl as Makishima’s phone buzzes twice more.
“What, does he have a complex?!”
Makishima laughs. “Probably.” He flicks his phone open. They’re the kind of text messages he’s grown used to receiving after they evened their score to 2-2:
Maki-chan~
Are you done with practice??
Are you going out to eat?? It’s Friday!
We’re all going to eat. Our lineup is killer this year, better watch out~
You should eat hiyashi soba tonight. I’m going to.
It’s good for you as a climber and perfect summer dining~
Tiny, trivial words. Makishima snorts, but he’s smiling all the same.
“You coming with?” Tadokoro zips his jacket and shuts his locker. He must have been saying something.
“Sorry, what?”
“Dinner. The chosen six.” Tadokoro grins and claps a meaty hand on Makishima’s shoulder. “Captain Kanzaki wants to celebrate.” Makishima grins.
“Sure.”
“Great! Let’s get some food, I'm starving!!”
It just so happens that Makishima’s been craving noodles anyway – and thirty minutes later, surrounded by the cheer of his team, it somehow feels right to text that guy a picture of his delicately arranged soumen set. He gets a phone call immediately and lets it ring to message:
Maaaaki-chaaaaaan, that looks DELICIOUS! Ugh, we ended up getting a hotpot, A HOTPOT. Can you believe it?? IN THIS WEATHER. Just because it’s supposed to build team spirit or whatever, I don’t know, something stupid, but it was NOT worth it because I SWEAT ENOUGH TODAY ALREADY, DIDN’T I?? Ugh, so now I have to shower again, because I’m disgusting and smell like fish.
But anyway, get some good sleep tonight, Maki-channn~ And I KNEW you’d make the team, by the way, congratulations! I’ll see you at the Interhigh~! I mean, it’s a team race, so we might not be able to face off one-on-one, but Maki-chan! You better take care of yourself, okay?? Because this is only our second year and we have MANY more races ahead of us! So while Hakogaku is OBVIOUSLY going to crush you guys, my eyes are going to be on YOU, Maki-chan, so just try to keep—
In the background, Makishima can just make out the whiny twist: “Toudou! For the last fucking time, stop fucking talking and get your skinny ass over here! We’re leaving you!”
—up, ugh oh for the love of I’M COMING ALREADY!! DICK!! Seriously, that guy needs a new personality—Agh sorry about that, Maki-chan, but I’ve gotta go now! Later~!
It feels like a shame to delete it, but Makishima can’t think of a real reason not to.
---
Down the hall Naruko crows a victory and Imaizumi begs to differ. Their argument steams through the thin walls, hot and fluid to the point that Makishima vaguely wonders if he needs to break them up – before the tension condenses into slow, unexpected laughter. Naruko’s chipper challenge, Imaizumi’s cool reply – then the empty thock of a ping-pong ball as their game resumes.
The feed of texts dead-ends in late March. Makishima bites his lip, slides his phone shut, and tries not to cry.
He leans back against the wall, laughing bitterly at himself because since when did you become this pathetic, Yuusuke? He’s viciously glad that neither Kinjou nor Tadokorocchi are here to see him like this. Even alone, his malaise is humiliating enough.
It would be nothing to find out whatever he wants to know. He could call Toudou right now and ask him any number of personal non-sequiturs and Toudou would probably answer him without a second thought; the guy loves talking about himself.
But Makishima knows this is much more than just lacking or mismanaging information about Jinpachi Toudou; it’s the lack and mismanagement of Jinpachi Toudou himself.
It’s the ache of having had a real friend and only realizing it two years too late.
---
As time passes, “that guy” turns into “Hakogaku Headband;” which in time changes to “that Jinpachi Toudou guy;” then to “Toudou;” then to just knowing smirks in the locker room; until Makishima’s buzzing cellphone has completely integrated into the rhythm of everyday life. It’s around that time that Toudou insists Makishima call him “Jinpachi.”
Now that we’re super rivals~<3 he texts as though they crossed some meaningful checkpoint miles back without Makishima’s knowledge. They’re at 5-6, Toudou’s lead, and maybe, Makishima considers, that’s why he’s being so generous.
But even when Makishima evens their score at the next race, Toudou corrects him.
“Jin-pa-chi,” he emphasizes, tossing his hair. There’s always something tight and aggressive about Toudou’s energy when he loses, but his eyes are alive as ever – and gleaming wickedly. “You should let me call you Yuusuke too, Maki-chan.”
“N-no way,” Makishima stutters, feeling his face heat. He scratches his cheek, trying to verbalize a good reason for why not, but Toudou – Jinpachi – just laughs.
“Kidding!” he says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll always just be ‘Maki-chan’ to me. Maaaki-chan.”
It always makes Makishima giggle, that nickname – nobody has ever used “-chan” with him, not even in elementary school. He’s too weird and too awkward and too creepy-looking for such a cute title. But, for whatever reason, whenever Toudou says it, Makishima believes it. It works.
And now, for whatever reason, Makishima feels his heart sink a little and his laugh ring more hollow than not.
Just Maki-chan. What does that mean?
More like, why should he even care?
The thought that he might is almost more embarrassing than the thought of Toudou calling him Yuusuke. He’s just some random climber, Makishima reminds himself, but the reasoning feels empty.
Still, he shrugs it off; who knows what Toudou is ever thinking, anyway?
“You talk too much,” Makishima blurts, and Toudou just laughs.
---
Somehow, it all just feels meaningless, like he’s rolling across a goal line long after being timed out. He and Toudou are done – with the end of the Interhigh, so too ends their rivalry, and now they have no real reason to keep talking, right? Honestly – other than biking, what do they actually have in common?
Not fashion sense, Makishima thinks gloomily, but chuckles a little despite himself.
The day has abandoned itself to darkness and Makishima watches the moths bounce themselves against the garish overhead lighting. He sighs. He should just call Toudou. Thank him properly. For being a peerless rival and the kind of person Makishima would feel comfortable riding beside forever. For being his friend.
It’s never too late to be thankful, right?
He eyes the still little cell phone cradled in his pale fingers. It’ll be just like flicking those two gears, he tells himself – just the click, the drag; one heavy push, and then he’ll be up, wind in his hair. It’ll be –
His phone lights. Buzzes. Makishima chokes out a laugh.
It’s only really ever shown one display.
---
The frustration bursts through his heart as he feels the drop and telling crunch of metal against pavement. He’s been riding flat for god knows how many kilometers and preparing to beat Toudou anyway, but there’s just no working with two bum tires.
Bad luck is just bad luck, though, and he really needs Toudou to understand this, wipe that look of horror off his face and go win the race, but for one horrible second, Makishima thinks he’s actually enough of an idiot to stay and forfeit on principle.
“Go,” Makishima orders. Toudou stares at him, rain slipping down his cheeks, his eyes dark and unusually opaque.
He doesn’t forget to turn back and point, though, shouting through the storm that this doesn’t count, that they’ll settle things later – at the Interhigh – at their last race of the season.
You mean our last race ever, Makishima thinks, and the numbness running underneath his grin is more unforgiving than asphalt. He won’t look down at it, though; you can never move forward if you’re looking down.
It’s just a race, he thinks. It’s just a race and Toudou’s just another—
He wonders vaguely when he’s going to stop kidding himself.
Not today.
Thankfully his voice is clear when he calls back. “Roger that.”
If only for Jinpachi’s sake, he’ll make it a race to remember.
---
Makishima flicks the phone downward and the display snaps into ticking seconds as he lifts the phone.
“What’s up,” he says, pleased to hear his voice as loose as always, “Jinpachi?”
“Maki-channn~” Having that nickname in his ear again is like the first mouthful of water on a hot race. “Good work today!”
“You too,” Makishima says, knees curling to his chest. “It was pretty close there, right?”
Then they talk, just like they always do, Toudou’s shrill voice tinny and familiar in the speaker. Makishima finds himself falling into the same, comfortable grooves of conversation he’s used to – rehashing the more epic moments of the race; critiquing the performances of other riders; debating the quality of the track. They retell the same stories to each other again and again, laughing and arguing over the details, like nothing about anything could ever change.
“You were so beautiful, Maki-chan,” Toudou sighs and Makishima blinks, feeling his face warm. “Part of me wishes we could have raced like that all three days, you know? Just me and you. But then again,” he laughs in that precise, staccato way, “I don’t know, that might have been too good. I wouldn’t have been able to control myself.”
Makishima snorts a laugh to displace the pressure in his stoppered throat. “Like you’ve ever been able to keep yourself in check,” he says. “You’re making yourself sound responsible, Jinpachi.”
“I am responsible!” Toudou insists. “I’ll have you know I’m practically the only one on my whole team who has managed to stay out of remedial classes without cheating off anybody’s homework! And I’m in absolutely perfect condition. As you well saw.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“But maybe when it comes to you, I lose it a little,” Toudou says, and as Makishima’s stomach flips, he stutters an amendment. “Responsibility, I mean. Uh. Responsibility. You know.”
“Sure,” Makishima says weakly. “Yeah.” His pulse is suddenly hammering in his neck, face unreasonably hot. “It’s,” he scratches his cheek as he considers his words, “hard to not wanna race you too.”
Toudou laughs, but it’s a little more forced than before. A beat of silence passes between them in which Makishima’s previous anxiety (now accompanied by some new, blind terror he can’t even begin to explain) rushes to the surface. There are too many words in this silence, too many things he should be saying or asking or—
“Listen, Toudou—”
“Hey Maki-chan.”
It’s not the first time Toudou has ever talked over him, but this time it sounds like he actually means to. Makishima waits.
“What are you doing right now?”
Makishima blinks. He surveys the empty room strewn with futons and pillows and half-packed duffle bags. Somewhere down the hall, Naruko is howling under Imaizumi’s victorious laughter. Still no sign of Kinjou, Tadokorocchi or Onoda.
“Nothing,” Makishima replies honestly. “Uhh. Drying my hair.”
Toudou is silent for a moment, and it’s the kind of quiet Makishima has learned not to underestimate. When he speaks next, it’s softly, a low hum that lifts a chill across the nape of Makishima’s neck.
“Would you go riding with me?”
Makishima finds himself on his feet before he realizes how he got there. The room dims and sways in head rush, but his mind is already on the road, throat working on the words.
“Sure.” A grin is unzipping fast across his mouth and he tugs at the turban, damp hair tumbling free. “Yeah. Let’s go, Jinpachi.”
Makishima isn’t sure what he was expecting, but Toudou pulling up to the ryokan on a mommy-bike thirty minutes later isn’t it.
“Maaaaki-chan!” Toudou rings his bell in two metallic chirps, and Makishima bursts into ugly laughter.
“What the hell is that?” he chokes. The contrast between Jinpachi’s casually elegant summer clothes and the beat-up mommy-bike is absurd; he looks like an idol in the throes of some last-ditch effort to escape his fans.
“It’s the bike the hotel lent me,” Toudou shrugs. “My Ridley’s got two flat tires, would you believe it? It’s like the past is mocking us, Maki-chan.”
“At least it wasn’t during the race,” Makishima says, raking his bangs out of his eyes. “That would’ve been worse than bad.” The night air is cool on Makishima’s bare arms, and he wonders if he shouldn’t grab a jacket. After all, his hair is still damp – he might catch a cold – but that would mean going all the way back to his room. And now that Toudou’s here, he doesn’t want to leave.
Toudou drapes himself across the crappy bike as though it were a lavish chariot and not barely more serviceable than Onoda’s first ride. “Well?” he says, lifting a slender eyebrow. “Are you coming or what, Maki-chan? Don’t make me wait.”
Makishima chuckles. “My bad,” he says, doubling back. “Hold on a second.”
The ryokan lends him an even crappier bike than Toudou’s, and they clatter off side by side into the dark Hakone hills.
Makishima doesn’t know where they’re going, and he gets the distinct sense that Toudou doesn’t either. Normally having no destination might bother him, but tonight he’s grateful; it feels like there are enough finish lines facing them as it is. He lifts off the saddle, hair ribboning out behind him as he gazes up the dark path ahead. Don’t think about it, he tells himself. Just have this now.
The air is cold and sweet with the smell of summer leaves, bike lamps rendered mostly obsolete by the full moon hanging heavy overhead. They ride shoulder to shoulder, streaking through swatches of white light and pitch shadow as they climb the winding roads. Toudou coaxes his rattling mommy-bike into silence; Makishima dances over Toudou’s mixed shrieks of delight and disbelief; and with just a shouted exchange of names, they’re racing again, up the hill in front of them, poor bikes shuddering to their limits as they reach the peak.
Nothing, Makishima is certain, could be better.
Exhausted from the intensity of three days – tipsy on night air and the absurdity of their rides – Makishima and Toudou stall out in a fit of laughter.
“You’re crazy, Maki-chan,” Toudou gasps. “I can’t believe you can dance like that on that thing.”
“Of course I can,” Makishima pants, shoving his hair off his face, fingers slipping through a light crown of sweat. “What do you take me for?”
“Well you shouldn’t try it again – it’s too dangerous,” Toudou manages matter-of-factly, tucking a few dark strands behind his ear. “Especially without a helmet.”
Makishima chuckles. “Whatever you say.”
They’ve reached a small outcropping, not significant enough for vending machines, but just enough space to pull over a vehicle. They wheel their bicycles off the road and kickstand them beside the guardrail, looking out over the vista beyond. Stars are peppered across the sky like white sand on thick black velvet, and a clean breeze kicks up from Lake Ashi far beneath them, cut from the mountainous backdrop in shifting slivers of light.
“The moon,” Toudou says. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
His face is tipped towards the sky, and he’s smiling faintly at some secret Makishima can’t even begin to guess. The moon is pretty; its hard light etches out sharp lines in Toudou’s face. Makishima studies him like a photograph, noting the fall of shadow, the glowing highlights, the black sweep of his hair contrasted with alabaster skin. Makishima can’t believe he never realized how handsome Toudou is. “Pretty” he knew – nobody ever seemed to shut up about how “pretty” Toudou is (least of all Toudou himself) – but in this light, Toudou looks older. Masculine.
Makishima’s pulse is running high in his throat, and it’s an effort to pull his eyes carefully away.
“Sure,” he agrees evenly, trying not to think about anything, especially not the aggressively attractive man standing beside him. It’s a night full of late revelations, Makishima realizes with a twisted smile. It’s still a pity about the headband, though; he won’t budge on that.
“Maki-chan,” Toudou says, his voice low and full of the inflated romantic sentiment that only Hakogaku’s ace climber can manage. “I’ve decided something.”
“Yeah?” Makishima says, slouching his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “What is it?”
“We should go out.”
Makishima’s eyebrows lift. “Sure?” he says, but again, he isn’t quite. Aren’t they already out right now?
After a moment of pregnant silence, Makishima decides to clarify. “Where?”
Toudou snaps to face him. “What?”
“Where should we go?”
Toudou is glaring like someone just told him pasta has been outlawed in Japan due to new international trade laws. “Wha—Maki-chan!”
“What?” Makishima says, recoiling from the one hundred and seventy-four centimeters of indignation bearing down on him. Did he say something wrong?
“Go out!” Toudou repeats, then waves his hands as though that explains it better. “Like…date! Be together! You and me! Go out!”
Makishima stares at him, lips slightly parted.
Then heat rolls in slow rotations from the pit of his stomach to his crown.
“W-what?”
“Together!” Toudou says again, as though he has not yet made that point abundantly clear. “Like—like boyfriend a-and boyfriend!” He forces his hands awkwardly to his sides and narrows his gaze intently on Makishima’s. “Will you,” Toudou swallows hard, “will you go out with me, Yuusuke Makishima?”
It’s an unforeseen development.
Makishima curls into himself, one arm snaking around his own waist, other hand passing across his mouth. His face is so hot it hurts.
“Uhh?” he says, trying desperately to think of anything to say – anything – but he can’t seem to move past the fact that Hakogaku’s ace climber has just confessed to him in the moonlight and wants to be his boyfriend.
As the silence stretches on, so hardens Toudou’s expression.
“If,” Toudou says finally, eyes dropping to Makishima’s knees, “you don’t want to, just tell me and I’ll forget about it, I just thought— It’s just— …Haha, you know, what am I saying?” His smile hitches back in a practiced move, but Makishima knows him better than that, knows his energy when he loses—
“Do me a favor and forget that, will you, Maki-chan? I was just—”
“Jinpachi,” Makishima says quickly. Toudou shuts his mouth.
“Maki-chan,” he murmurs.
Makishima isn’t used to this. He isn’t used to being confessed to – in fact, it’s never happened before – and so he doesn’t know what one does in such a dire situation. He also doesn’t know this Jinpachi Toudou that watches him silently like he is the answer to something giant and unspoken.
He doesn’t know Jinpachi Toudou at all, he reminds himself.
But he wants to.
“Okay.”
The word is small, but meaningful – perhaps the most meaningful thing that Makishima has ever said. It takes a moment to reach Toudou’s ears, but when it does, his face screws up in – exasperation? Fury?
“Mmakkkiiii-chhaaaannnn…!”
“Wha—what?! Are you crying??”
“No!” Toudou lies loudly, kneading the back of his wrist into his eyes. “I just…I-I just sweat a lot on the way up here!”
“Th-then maybe you’re not in such great condition after all!” Makishima teases, feeling his face slump into a relieved grin. “That little hill? That was nothing!”
“Shut up, Maki-chan!” Toudou chokes into the back of his hand, but his smile is aching when he pulls away. “Ugh, I didn’t bring any tissues, I’m disgusting.”
Makishima has a few in his pocket.
After Toudou takes a moment to recompose, he returns to the chatty rider Makishima knows so well, talking fluently about his nerves and feelings, and a great many other embarrassing things that make Makishima color up to his hairline. (“I just couldn't stop thinking about you, Maki-chan. It’s been driving me crazy.” “I asked Arakita about it and he told me, well, first he told me to stop whining, but then he said not to talk so much and just do what feels right and, well, we feel right, I realized. Whenever we’re together, it’s the most right I ever feel.” “Our race was so perfect that I thought it would satisfy me but in the end it just…made me want more of you.”)
Ears burning, Makishima wonders what he’s gotten himself into. Still, he can’t seem to shake his dazed smile.
“Because I realized,” Toudou continues, “that you’re important to me, Maki-chan. Even racing aside, you’re,” he sighs, “wonderful.”
You are too, Makishima thinks. I don’t think I totally know who I’m talking about yet, but you are too, Jinpachi.
But “Uhh?” is about all he can manage through a throat so choked by embarrassment.
“But you feel it, don’t you?” Jinpachi’s voice sinks a little as a breeze kicks up from lake far below. “When we’re together – when we’re riding and the road is open and it’s just the two of us – you feel it, right? That sense of…limitlessness. Like eternity.”
Makishima swallows. It’s so poetic it’s almost cloying, but he understands exactly what Jinpachi means. He nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I feel it.”
Jinpachi grins and looks up at the sky, enthroned by the distant shadows of the mountains. “It’s like the road will keep going. Like no matter how high the peak is, there will still be an even higher one that we can climb. And we will. Because that’s just how we are. We can go anywhere if we’re together.”
The breeze cuts between them in a rustle of leaves and Jinpachi turns to face him, lifting his hand in invitation. His eyes are pink and fresh from tears, hair slipping loose in uneven bunches from under that silly headband. He’s smiling in a way that Makishima supposes Jinpachi thinks is sultry and mysterious, but under the hard light and his previous crying spell, he just looks kind of pained.
“So let’s go. Maki-chan.”
Makishima’s breath catches. His mouth twists and he breaks down laughing.
Jinpachi’s expression crumples a little. “What?” he says. “What’s so funny? Maki-chan, did…was that not good?”
Makishima shakes his head, snatching Jinpachi’s hand out of the air before he can pull it away. It’s simple, if foreign, to slip his fingers through Jinpachi’s, marveling at the way they instantly curl around his own hand. Jinpachi’s palm is soft. Sweaty.
“No good,” Makishima chokes, shaking his head. “That was horrible, Jinpachi.”
Jinpachi picks up his laughter nervously, squeezing Makishima’s fingers like they’re all that’s keeping him on top of that cliff. “Y-yeah? Well, I—Well, you win some, you lose some, Maki-chan, that’s just the way of things.” He shrugs his hair off his shoulders, finding his cocky grin again and pointing at Makishima’s neck. “Next time I’ll knock you off your feet, though, so you better watch out.”
“Sure,” Makishima says, taking a step in. “Whatever you say.”
“I’m serious, Maki-chan, I’m going to think up something great—”
“Jinpachi.” Makishima carefully brushes a few dark clumps behind his ear. “You talk an awful lot.”
Jinpachi laughs weakly. “I’ve heard that before,” he mumbles.
The line of movement is clear enough, and Jinpachi meets him halfway, free hand brushing delicately past Makishima’s ear. Lips are much more awkward than Makishima first thought, and he pulls back too quickly, face blazing. A blow of guilt hits him in the gut and his thoughts start turning again – he doesn’t know what he’s doing, why he’s trying something like this in the first place, why he agreed to go out with someone whom he knows practically nothing about—
Jinpachi opens his eyes, chuckling low and embarrassed against Makishima’s chin. “Like I said,” Jinpachi murmurs. “You’re wonderful, Maki-chan.”
Makishima doesn’t have the wherewithal to smile, but he presses his forehead against Jinpachi’s.
So that’s what it is, he thinks. Maybe he’s been wrong.
He might not know much about Jinpachi Toudou, but maybe he knows enough.
Makishima tries meeting him a second time – then a third – and then it’s easy to lose track, Jinpachi’s chest warm against his, his fingers laced at the small of Jinpachi’s back. Their phones don’t interrupt them, and by the time they muzzily pull back again, Makishima’s mouth feels pleasantly swollen and Jinpachi is running slow circles with his thumbs over Makishima’s hipbones.
“Maki-chan,” Jinpachi says, voice husky as the full rustle of summer leaves.
“Y-yeah?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to say it. Maki-chan.”
Makishima coughs a laugh, ears heating again. Now it’s impossible not to smile. “Sure,” he manages. The moon is dipping in its arc, shifting the trees into steeper shadows. “Should…should we be heading back?”
“Absolutely not.”
Makishima laughs. “Won’t Hakogaku worry?”
“They don’t care,” Toudou insists, tossing his hair off his shoulders. “Fuku and Izumida always go to bed early, and Arakita and Shinkai are probably scr—uh. Doing their usual thing. And I don’t care about Manami; he wandered off earlier saying something about a hill he had to climb, so who knows. But they won’t miss me.”
“Tadokorocchi might wonder about me,” Makishima says. He should have left a note or something.
“Text him,” Toudou shrugs, then grins. “Heyyy, Maki-chan, can I call you Yuusuke now? Now that we’re going out?”
Makishima has no idea how one person can be so embarrassing.
“N-no way!” he says. His face is going to char at the rate he’s going. “Nobody calls me that!”
Jinpachi frowns. “Not even your ‘Tadokorocchi?’”
“No, not even him! And he’s not ‘mine,’ anyway, we’re just friends—”
“So then it would be really special if I got to call you Yuusuke?”
Makishima knows Jinpachi is just teasing him; he can see it in every inch of his wicked grin and in those dark, lit eyes. But still, hearing his first name in Toudou’s mouth…. An odd shiver works its way over his shoulders.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Makishima scoffs. “You can call me that as soon as you give up these things.”
He tugs the headband free to Jinpachi’s yelp of disapproval.
“Maki-chan, no! Ugh what is it with all these philistines I associate with—this is a beautiful look, okay? It’s elegant, you just don’t understand. I know what I’m doing, so give it back, I need to— …Maki-chan?”
Makishima stares, holding the offending hairpiece just out of Jinpachi’s reach. It really is a night of late revelations, he thinks.
“Maki-chan?” Jinpachi clears his bangs with the swipe of a finger, face framed in soft, dark locks. “What is it? I—see, my look is better with a headband, give it—”
“Jinpachi.”
“What?”
“No.”
“What?”
If Tadokorocchi is worried, Makishima reasons as he sinks his fingers into Jinpachi’s loose hair, he’ll text. But for now Makishima has further business with Jinpachi Toudou, Hakogaku’s ace climber.
(It really is, though, a pity about the headband.)