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Looking back, Katsuo has no idea how he got here.
He remembered a perfectly ordinary Saturday evening, simply doing his job at one of the region's smaller soccer stadiums. After he returned to Japan after the World Cup adventure, the network asked him if he wanted to keep his job as the interviewer asking key players of the match about their thoughts post-game. So he thinks he must have done a good job at the World Cup. Either way, he said yes, and now he is combining sports commentaries with rushing down to the press room and talking to the players afterwards. With lower stakes, a single match can no longer eliminate a team, which in turn results in far more relaxed post-game talk. Which sometimes gets boring, so he always works hard to come up with fun questions to ask.
Either way, he was doing just fine commenting on his favorite player and national team captain Sugiki Shinya's in one of the less high profile matches of the season, that Saturday. He had some really interesting questions prepared for after Sugiki's imminent victory. And then Katsuo had suddenly found himself upstaged by a love confession.
Point blank. Out of absolutely nowhere. And apparently, so he discovered later, very much on air.
Of course it was on air. Nobody told the cameras to stop rolling.
The point is that Tsubaki knows.
His brothers definitely do, too.
And extremely likely—and infinitely worse—is that his dad might, too.
All of that before he knows how to even respond to Sugiki's words.
He didn't exactly do the best job with his reply. He knows he didn't. Laughing awkwardly, Katsuo had forgotten all his nice questions on the spot, pummeled through with a standard, "...So what was your favorite moment of the match?" and just booked it as soon as he could.
Sugiki Shinya likes him. And the whole country knows.
Which is disorienting enough even if he disregards his parents. His father has already been commenting on the things Katsuo says when he covers a game—mostly about Sugiki's games and about how Katsuo doesn't sound professional enough to his liking—and now, Katsuo gets to look forward to him shaking his head disappointedly at a love confession.
Honestly, his parents' TV suffering a freak accident and dying on them just before they can see the moment is the best case scenario. Not that he wants them to spend money buying a new one. He's just saying.
His dad must think he's completely hopeless. For one, Katsuo should have done the confessing himself. It's not very manly, is it?
Well, whatever. The point is, he doesn't know what to do. Or say. Or think. It is all a mess, and so many people have an opinion when he doesn't even know what his own opinion is, exactly. So he escapes the situation as soon as he can, ignores every phone call, and finally, three hours after that fateful confession, he has to poke Tsubaki in a message to ask her about her thoughts.
"Wow," she types back drily, "took him long enough."
Katsuo stares at the phone, holds it away from himself with a scowl as if that might change what is written, and pulls it back to type a reply.
"Took him long enough?!"
"Yes?"
"You knew?" He wracks his thoughts. "Did he tell you? Wait, do you know each other?"
"Katsuo."
He feels like he should know the answer. He doesn't.
Tsubaki takes pity on him, at one in the morning, and sends him a link to some internet article. He thinks he reads something in the URL like sugihara_central. That can't be good. "I'm going out to get a drink," she says. "Read this, it explains it better than I can. If you are down for a drink after you read it, you know where to find me."
And so Katsuo finds himself on a fan account on some social media platform he is not very familiar with. He is looking at an entire essay, dated two days back with a Photoshopped image on top with Sugiki's face surrounded by pink hearts, and a byline that this article is 20k words long—he did not want to know—on Sugiki Shinya's tragic courtship of one Ebihara Katsuo. The actual what?!
"By the way," Tsubaki sends in the middle of the first and already appalling paragraph, "it might be wise to stay off social media right now."
"Why?"
"...You are kind of trending."
Oh. "Ah? Should I respond?"
"Definitely and most certainly not!"
It's a relief that Tsubaki is so much better at PR than he is.
"Just stay offline and read the article," she insists.
He does check his social media after that, of course he does. She shouldn't have mentioned it, and now he can't leave it alone. And then, ears burning, he promptly puts away his phone and decides to forego the article, too.
Tsubaki has to call him a cab, a few more hours closer to the next morning, to haul his drunken ass back home.
It feels like half of the country is invested in his friendship with Sugiki Shinya.
It takes Katsuo two weeks to call Sugiki.
During the World Cup, Sugiki once called him unexpectedly, and they ended up talking about food for two hours. That was nice. It has been nice talking to him regularly after that, too. Sugiki has really sophisticated interests, and Katsuo likes talking about food, their jobs, and his most recent interest in food photography and plating. There is so much attention that goes into it. They have talked a bit about his ex, too, but that is a hard-to-avoid topic when he has been with her so long. And when Sugiki has been asking him about her on several occasions.
He thinks that might have been a first sign. One of the many things he never paid attention to, until that evening in front of the cameras. The online dissertation has informed him that he has missed many others.
"Hi," he says a little breathily over the phone.
"Ebihara?" Sugiki asks. He sounds slightly wary.
It's ten in the evening on a regular Tuesday. Sugiki has played two matches since that evening where he confessed on air; two weeks after the headlines became interested not in the results of the match but the results of his confession afterwards. Katsuo covered the two matches since, as his contract stipulates, but he has avoided interaction.
"Yeah."
"Ah. Hello, Ebihara." Tentative, now. Cautious. Maybe scared? At least not angry, that's a start. After two weeks of radio silence, anger is valid.
"I just," Katsuo starts, then thinks, and then doesn't know how to complete that sentence. He has been so prepared. He even wrote down icebreakers on the note in front of him. "I just, I guess. Ah. Well..."
On the other side of the line, Sugiki sighs. Resigned. He exhales. "So what did you make for dinner tonight?"
Sugiki tries to keep the topic from where it needs to go, and he is a gentleman for it, but Katsuo can't. "I'll do my absolute best!" he declares.
The other end of the line is still.
"I will!" he reaffirms. "I won't back down!"
"...It is not a competition," Sugiki mutters. "Do you know what you're saying?"
Katsuo shrugs. "You want to be my boyfriend, right?"
He doesn't want to stop and think about everything that comes with that. He is familiar with kissing. It was nice with Ayumi, and he's sure it will be nice with Sugiki. More than nice, if he is honest with himself. He is getting a bit fuzzy just thinking about it. As it was with Ayumi, he is sure the rest will follow naturally.
Sure, he has never thought about kissing guys before. But Sugiki Shinya is, like, the best soccer player in the country. Hands down. He's so good at everything he does. And he is very handsome; Katsuo can admit that much. It's a bit of a romantic fairytale.
Katsuo loves romantic fairytales.
Sugiki sputters a bit, before he carefully prompts, "And you want that, too?"
"Sure," Katsuo nods. "Let's date."
It will be perfect.
Mitsuoki, number 12 and on Sugiki's team in the national competition, is out of commission for a few matches. A twisted ankle. He plops down next to Katsuo in the commentator's box unexpectedly. "Welcome to the family, I hear."
"Hm?" Katsuo looks away from the still-empty field below him, perplexed. "Oh, Mr. Mitsuoki."
"Ebihara," he grins. "Your boy got into the tour bus this morning looking like he won the lottery and wasn't allowed to tell anyone." Mitsuoki huffs before he looks him over. "I take it nothing actually happened though, did it?"
Katsuo smiles, a little confused. "Why would you say that?"
"Because you're not a mess."
Katsuo protests.
Mitsuoki leans forward. "Listen." He looks him over once and then states, with full confidence, "You're baby gay, aren't you? Never been with a guy before?"
Now, Katsuo looks a little uncomfortable. "I don't know much about being baby gay or anything, but is that—" and his eyes flit to the field where the spectators are still busy finding their spots, then back at Mitsuoki, who seems to be intent on hanging out with him for a while, "—a bad thing?"
"Eh," Mitsuoki shrugs. "Just makes it a bit more complicated."
"For Mr. Sugiki?"
"For both of you, probably," the man says. He makes himself comfortable in his seat. Katsuo wouldn't mind his company. Mitsuoki is openly out, and Katsuo has to say that he has a lot of questions. Questions he's never been able to ask a gay guy before, because there was never any need to. And Mitsuoki looks like he really doesn't mind. He looks like he's here for that, actually.
Mitsuoki smiles. "You know, I've actually never been up here before."
"It's nice, right?"
"So this is where you sit when you comment on Sugiki's ass on the field."
Katsuo chokes. "I don't—"
"Oh, you most definitely have. Many times."
"Maybe one time. He is in top shape, you have to adm—"
"You spewed all that shit Tanaka told you word for word."
"That was about food."
"Donuts. You wanted him to eat your donut."
"Which is food."
Mitsuoki throws up his hands and grins. "Tell him that in person, and I can guarantee you it won't be a donut he is taking a bite out of. No matter how great your cooking is."
Katsuo stares. Feels himself grow a little paler. And stares. "Oh god." And then, "Uh. Actually. It's baking."
Mitsuoki looks smug and happy with himself. "You're cute, Baby Gay."
"Please don't call me that."
"It's cute."
"We're almost live."
Mitsuoki obligingly holds his tongue after that.
Besides, Katsuo thinks to himself, shouldn't it be Baby Bi?
Mitsuoki sits through the first half of the match in an exemplary fashion. He doesn't butt in and never gestures that he has something to say. Katsuo brought his friend Shirosaki from his foodie club over once, and the man gushed about every little detail as soon as the mic went off: about the players, about actually being there, about having the best seats in the house.
He was also looking at him the same way Mitsuoki now looks at him whenever he covers Sugiki's plays. But whatever.
"Give me your phone," Mitsuoki cajoles when Katsuo ends his broadcast for halftime and is about to go down to the press room to see if he can catch someone to interview. "I'll put in my number, in case you ever need tips."
Katsuo stares at him too long, wastes precious time, and mumbles, "I gotta run. Leave it on the table." Over the span of the first half, he has come to decide against asking tips. Way too embarrassing. But arguing about it now will only cost him time.
Okay, fine, so he has one single priority right now: to find Sugiki. It is not very professional, but he also hasn't seen him in weeks, and they are in the same building. He won't pass up on that chance.
And so Katsuo leaves his phone behind and doesn't think it through when he knocks on the door to the locker room. He is just trying not to chicken out. Quite frankly, that takes up all of his brain capacity.
Ryuuichi, 7, opens the door. He is a newcomer who wasn't in the National Team. Katsuo doesn't know him that well yet. He shifts from side to side and looks past him.
"Oh," the young man lights up. And calls over his shoulder, "Captain! Your boyf—Mr. Ebihara is here to see you!"
The locker room buzz was at a regular volume before. That changes instantly. Katsuo finds himself met with a rising chorus of catcalls. He wants to sink through the floor. Yup, should have listened to Mitsuoki telling him to wait until after the match. Definitely.
Sugiki appears in the doorway. He looks, well, just like how Katsuo is feeling; a little disoriented. But Katsuo likes to think he sees a bit of hope under all that, too. Sugiki also regularly scowls back over his shoulder. The catcalls do not diminish.
"I don't have a lot of time," Katsuo mumbles awkwardly. "I have to get back to the box soon."
"Are you doing something tonight?" Sugiki asks.
"Oooh!" The locker room swells to new volumes. Among them, one deep voice boisterously fills in exactly what Katsuo will be doing tonight. Or who.
Sugiki's scowl deepens. "Takada."
Riotous laughter follows. Sugiki sighs in the doorway. "I have a game to focus on now. Can we talk after?"
"Yeah," Katsuo nods. "Yeah, of course."
The smile doesn't reach his eyes. He knows. It's all just, well, much. He feels like he doesn't know what to do. It wouldn't take much to do the wrong thing and mess things up.
Sugiki's eyes catch it. He looks down, then pushes forward and into the darker gray brick corridor outside the locker room. Crowding into Katsuo's space, he closes the door between them and the team.
Under a chorus of muffled, muted laughter on the other side, Sugiki pulls Katsuo close and kisses him.
Oh.
Well.
That is kind of nice.
It completely stops the five different threads that have been actively processing in his head. Idle at once, his attention is solely primed on soft lips and a slightly sweaty afternote.
It's really nice.
Sugiki chuckles against Katsuo's lips. "Go. Do your job. Apologies for making things harder on you."
Katsuo doesn't know whether that's just an expression—if anything, Katsuo has made it harder on him—or a reference to the current state of his body. Damn it. The last time Katsuo kissed someone was a long time ago, okay. He cannot be faulted for that.
On the way back, Tanaka from the opposing team sees him and looks at him knowingly. And winks. Traitor.
Katsuo pulls himself through, covering the second half of the match with trouble. Mitsuoki, bless his soul, has made himself sparse.
Alone with his thoughts again, Katsuo fails spectacularly in the next half of the match to keep a perfectly professional commentary on Sugiki.
In hindsight, having Mitsuoki in the room might have been nicer. Katsuo isn't sure. He doesn't know anything anymore.
All he knows is that in the middle of his commentary, the coach calls for a timeout on the field. He talks to Sugiki, and Katsuo narrates on the air that Sugiki seems to be handed a phone. Five seconds later, his phone buzzes with an unfamiliar number, he exclaims, "Oh!" also live, and Sugiki tells him definitely not to come to the press room after the match but to wait for his word.
The coach actually used a timeout for Sugiki to send Katsuo a text. Katsuo has never seen that before in his professional life.
It is his job to mention this to the viewers. He doesn't do it.
So Katsuo sits in the commentary box for an hour after the end of the match without a word. Time drags. It feels a little like he has been stood up, really, when no word is forthcoming. Sugiki hasn't been online since.
Katsuo tugs and plays with the drawstrings of his hoodie. The player bus took off fifteen minutes ago, many of the fans are already out, and the broadcasts have been cut. The commentary box closed a few minutes ago, too.
He doesn't know what to do. He has had exactly one relationship in his life, and it was usually him making the decisions. To just wait for someone else to do something, powerlessly waiting and in the dark about what's on their mind, is surprisingly nerve-wracking.
When a message comes in, he perks up from his lone bench in a corner away from the public exits. Sugiki. "Are you still here?"
Katsuo feels his eyes burning. "Yeah. You?" On the bus, or home already?
"Locker room."
Katsuo's face does a thing. He rubs at his eyes. That is good news, isn't it? Why is he getting sentimental over good news?
"Come here?" Sugiki messages.
"I guess," he types back. He doesn't know why he says that. He is already on his feet, his heart pounding a little, and he would run, but at the same time, he just wants to drag his feet. Why is it this difficult?
From the middle of an empty team locker room on a lone bench, dressed in regular clothing, Sugiki looks up at him. The rest of the team is out. He looks isolated. A little lost, too.
"Sorry," Sugiki offers. "I had to argue with the PR team to let me stay. Then they had to find someone who looks enough like me to pass as me and get on that bus."
"You could have gotten on that bus," Katsuo mutters. "We could have called. Or met some other time. If it's not a good time."
Sugiki looks at him fondly. Like Katsuo is a puppy and his sadness is nothing but adorable, or something. "You don't have any idea of the chaos you've caused for yourself, have you?"
"...You kissed me. Why am I the one—"
"—Not that. Your commentary."
Katsuo shields himself. "What about my commentary?"
Sugiki laughs, but it sounds a little wet. "You're an idiot. I'm dating an idiot. You cannot go declaring, live on the air, that you want to see if I have tan lines."
"...Okay. Alright. Noted."
"Or that I have so much stamina."
Okay, yeah. That's valid. Tsubaki pointed out how people could misinterpret that—
"—Or say my name, just that and nothing more, and draw it out like you're in the middle of," and he looks at Katsuo pointedly, "a private moment."
Yes, okay. Valid, all of them. Though Katsuo wants to argue about that last one. He does not sound like—
But either way, none of those arguments sound like their budding relationship is in any actual danger.
"Everybody knows." Sugiki looks up at him fondly. A little out of his depth, but mostly fondly. And wryly. "You are practically out, Ebihara."
Ah. Yeah. Yeah, he supposes he is.
Huh.
"I am sorry I put you in that position."
Katsuo thinks about that. Sure, he doesn't mind his closest friends knowing. Broadcasting it to the entire country on day one was not on his checklist, though. Was it really that obvious?
But he also doesn't like Sugiki indirectly apologizing for kissing him.
So fine, maybe Katsuo isn't very suave and in control of the situation when he pushes forward, climbs bodily into Sugiki's lap, and kisses him. Properly. A peck first. Kissing is easier than thinking, he finds. One more. Another. He accepts Sugiki's tongue in without a moment's pause.
In return, Sugiki pulls their hips flush. And Katsuo is happy he no longer has to provide half a match's worth of commentary. He wouldn't be able to wrap his mouth around a single syllable appropriate for his general soccer audience.
Sugiki wraps him in a bear hug and makes a frustrated sound, and it's only then that Katsuo understands he was worried for him all this time.
"So I heard the recording," Mitsuoki types later that night. "Gotta say, Ebihara, I wish I was there for it."
Tsubaki is a bit more subtle. "Let's have dinner with the three of us sometime, now that you're practically official."
Katsuo swipes them away in favor of continuing to read the horror that is his social media landscape right now. Sugihara is a cute nickname, he thinks. But it's the only light, really, in a suddenly dark and wild place. Theories have circulated about him since that afternoon. From one moment to the next, Sugiki and he have rocketed to the front page of a national newspaper. It is online already, and it will be further solidified in print tomorrow morning. His parents read that newspaper. He guesses there is no way around it anymore. At least they live in Oita, and he can give it some time for the dust to settle before visiting them. Right?
Honestly, though. Did that one conservative newspaper really have to call it a scandal? Isn't that a bit much?
"Please," Sugiki repeats, "put the phone away."
Katsuo looks up from the other side of the kitchen table, appalled. "Why are we national news? Why not the economy, or that guy who embezzled millions from the elderly? Look," and he holds his phone out, "one paragraph. Meanwhile, us—" and he has to scroll through an entire section. "Crazy!"
Sugiki swipes the phone from his hands, does something to instantly stop the dinging, and puts it away. "We have a PR team. Let them do their job."
"It's not right," Katsuo insists.
"Mitsuoki survived, didn't he? So will we." Sugiki looks at him over their bowls of casually whipped-together ramen. Katsuo still had some stock and braised pork, and Sugiki had taken one look in his fridge and brought up that he might be able to help with this. He's not the best cook, but he listens to Katsuo's guidance. And for a while, thinking about food instead of the media circus outside his flat had been nice. "But," Sugiki adds, "we might have to look into a voice coach."
"What's wrong with my voice?"
"You know how it cracks when you get overly excited?"
"It does not!"
Sugiki just has to give him a look—an indulgent one—for Katsuo to shut up.
He does repeat a quiet, muttered, "It doesn't."
Sugiki leans over the table and shuts him up properly with a kiss. Now that they have moved on to that, Katsuo finds himself grasping every occasion by the horns to explore this new side of his life. He likes kissing Sugiki. Sugiki makes him feel safe.
"I want to keep those sounds all to myself," Sugiki whispers between two kisses in increasing intensity.
"Wow," Katsuo gushes, "so smooth."
"Shut up."
"Understood."
Naturally, his mom wants to talk to him first thing in the morning.
Not so naturally, she is on his doorstep when she does.
It is eight in the morning, and Katsuo had no indication she was coming or how she managed to get a plane this early, so he is getting ready for work while Sugiki is sorting out the spare futon in the living room before he has to leave for practice, himself.
Katsuo takes one look at her, then nervously laughs, finds the keys, and swiftly pushes himself outside. "Mom! What—what are you doing here?"
She frowns at him. "Is it true? Are you—" and she brings her voice to a whisper, "—are you and that soccer player..."
He smiles. Stops. Titters nervously. And pushes himself right back inside his apartment, leaving his mother standing alone in the hallway.
Fuck, what does he do, what does he—
"Who was that?" Sugiki looks at him from the middle of his living room.
"... My mom. Maybe." So maybe Katsuo is hyperventilating a little.
"Your—"
"Yeah."
"...Should I..." and Sugiki looks at the same door that keeps his mother standing in the hallway with far too little fear in his eyes.
"What?" Katsuo laughs, "Talk to her?"
"I could."
Katsuo doesn't know. What a bizarre idea. But his mom is on the other side, and now that she is here, he can't ask her to leave. He also can't face her yet. Not when he is still figuring out how to break it to her. Her youngest son might no longer be a ticket to additional grandchildren to fawn over.
"I am talking to her," Sugiki decides with one look at him. "Want me to tell her we're just friends?"
"But we're not."
"I know, but."
"Don't lie to my mom."
Sugiki gives him a fond smile, and then he's off.
How can he be so cool about this?
Muffled voices filter in from the hall while Katsuo is having a little panic attack in his kitchen. He looks around his flat quickly. No signs that a guy stayed over? Even if he slept on the guest futon and—
But that futon is no longer in sight. So there is only one conclusion his mom can draw if she were to come in right now.
Is it too late to pull the futon back?
Better yet, put it as far away from his own bed as possible? In the kitchen, if he can?
But isn't he a grown man who can make grown-up decisions?
While all of that courses through his head, Katsuo is simultaneously rooted to the floor and doing absolutely nothing.
Five minutes or something pass—it could also be an hour—and then he hears it.
His mother is laughing.
And then Katsuo's phone buzzes.
"I am taking Mrs. Ebihara for a coffee. Do you want to come?"
Katsuo blusters. He opens the front door instead of replying through a text. To his boyfriend. Who is on the other side of the door. "You two are having coffee?"
"If that's alright with you," Sugiki nods.
Well, and wow. Don't they look a bit like mother and son-in-law.
Katsuo was right all along.
"Is Dad here too?" he wants to know.
His mother's smile is a little brittle. "Ah. Well. Your father needs more time." She wriggles her nose. "But don't worry about him. You went for his favorite soccer player. He really wants to meet him. Just, you see, as soon as he lets himself."
His dad wants to talk to Sugiki the soccer player, not Katsuo's partner. Well. At least it is a start.
And suddenly, telling his parents has stopped being daunting.
"Besides," she smiles pleasantly, "you can still adopt."
This time, Sugiki and Katsuo both flounder.
While his mom stays over, Katsuo spends a few days going through his daily routine as it was before Sugiki entered his life. He wakes up, makes food, goes on a morning walk and jogs the final leg of the round, then showers, gets ready for a day at the network office, and heads out. His mother stays behind when he does. She cleans the house, goes sightseeing in the afternoon, and sometimes meets up with some friends.
Throughout her stay, Katsuo is relegated to text messages and the sparse moments Sugiki and he get to run into each other professionally. Which isn't frequently, because Sugiki needs to train and keep in shape while Katsuo is just keeping up with the most recent developments and doing some feature piece for the network. He occasionally appears on some radio shows.
The network—which miraculously hasn't fired him after that morning in which the whole country read of his scandalous reciprocation of the national soccer team's captain's confession—even saw fit to send him out to cover one of Sugiki's trainings.
His mother reads about that in the newspaper the next day, of course. Not that Katsuo has a newspaper subscription, but his brothers kindly took a picture of it and forwarded it to her.
Admittedly, it is kind of hard to miss with a headline like "Soccer commentator spotted behind training building with national team captain".
It wasn't even his idea. Sugiki had found him—probably by the gaggle of girls that may or may not have been slightly more enthusiastically crowding him, that team training—and waited until after practice to drag him there. Besides, how is Katsuo supposed to know the best spots for making out when he only ever comes here as a member of the press?
It was a really nice spot.
Anyway, it takes a few days for his mother to announce she is returning home. He loves her, and he doesn't get to see her nearly enough, but Sugiki hasn't been over once during that time. Neither has he deemed it fit to visit Sugiki when his mother was alone at home. And Katsuo, Katsuo has been severely on edge for days because of all the text messages.
"Hello," Sugiki says far too patiently from his dimly lit hallway.
Katsuo smiles. "Hi."
For good measure, he makes sure the door is bolted shut as soon as Sugiki is inside. His mother has a key. And Katsuo did drop her off at the airport earlier today, but technically, he has no guarantee she got on that flight. Anything can happen.
Sugiki wastes no time letting him know how depleted his patience has become.
And okay. Okay. Katsuo didn't expect his immediate reaction to being crowded into the corner between the wall and the fridge and kind of hoisted up against it. He is a tall guy. He never thought he'd get to experience being lifted up. Or liking it this much.
It's just them now. For the first time in weeks; since Sugiki told Katsuo he liked him where everyone could see; since that moment Katsuo publicly reciprocated and the world took it as a confession before Katsuo himself even understood that a slightly heated game commentary could be interpreted as such.
Since the media circus of being called a scandal by one newspaper, and a cute couple by another, to the point where he understands there is just no pleasing everyone all the time. Not on this.
Katsuo feels a little like a princess when Sugiki hoists him up on the counter. Although he does have to complain, "Not in the kitchen." Half-heartedly. A little breathily. The kitchen is his sacred space, although sometimes that is a little hard to remember. Like tonight.
"Alright," Sugiki agrees. "Then where else do you want me to take you apart?"
Jesus what.
Sugiki has the gall to smile up at him angelically. A little sharply. And Katsuo has no doubt he is very capable.
"Ah," he replies unintelligibly.
"Couch?" Sugiki suggests while unbuttoning his pants. Which distracts Katsuo greatly and. Well. Still in the kitchen.
For all his ideas of just letting things run their course and seeing where they end up, Katsuo doesn't like having to make an active choice too much. Because now, he is already five steps ahead in his head, where Sugiki is naked and as sweaty as he always pretends he isn't post-game, and Katsuo very much pinned down under him—when did that happen?—and he doesn't know what to feel about that. Other than all over the place.
Except then Sugiki sinks between his legs, entirely unaware of his spiraling thoughts, and Katsuo shouts hurriedly, "Couch!"
Katsuo's morning walk is a nightmare.
He can barely move his limbs. His knees, too, refuse to walk normally, like they've given up on him already. A round that usually takes him half an hour is aborted halfway through because just, no.
On top of that, people keep staring at him. It's not like he wears a sign that says I Got Laid Last Night but somehow, it feels exactly like that. Maybe it's the fact that he smiles when he isn't wincing. A lot. He can't help the fact that he does; it's still a nightmare walk, but one following a really, really good night.
He comes back home to find Sugiki at work in the kitchen, wearing Katsuo's fancy work shirt—which is slightly oversized on him, and Katsuo wants so badly to ignore his own protesting body right now—and hears, "Ah, so that is where my shirt went." And suddenly, everything about his own morning walk comes back into great focus.
Sugiki chuckles. "We are never beating the allegations, are we?"
"Does it get better?" Katsuo winces.
At the stove, Sugiki stops and looks up at him.
"The—" Katsuo waves around and clarifies, because he feels he needs to, "—the bed part. I meant that part." Yes, he's a grown adult. Yes, he has had sex before. That doesn't mean he feels at ease saying it.
Besides, after last night, he kind of feels like he has been missing out for years.
"You didn't like it?" Sugiki asks him.
Katsuo backtracks immediately. "I didn't mean—oh god, I totally didn't mean—!" He winces. "I am so sore. You didn't hold back."
Sugiki blinks, then coughs. Katsuo's shirt looks entirely too good on him. "I was going slow."
"You were—"
Sugiki smiles and kisses his cheek as he passes him by with a tray of Japanese-style breakfast. For two. "You'll top next time, then. Let's try that out."
Katsuo follows him to the table like a puppy. He continues to be a sucker for people who make him quality breakfast. "We don't have to go that far," he mumbles.
Sugiki stops and looks over his shoulder. "No?"
Katsuo's face heats. "Nah."
He kind of likes it on the bottom, he thinks.
Sugiki smiles and nods. A little happier than before.
Nobody can ever find out.
Katsuo's secret lasts until Sugiki's next soccer match, and exactly one ill-fated comment seven minutes in.