Work Text:
Ryoma will kiss Tezuka for the first time when he is fourteen and very slightly drunk.
It will be at Hyotei's victory party, and everyone Atobe has ever met will be invited to be gloated at. (Later, Tezuka will have stern words with him about allowing alcohol, and inviting fourteen-year-olds if he is going to have alcohol, and Atobe will offer him a drink.)
Ryoma will stare up at Tezuka with a look he learned from Karupin and when Tezuka pulls him up he will stumble and fall forward, sliding his lips against Tezuka's cheek first, then correcting his aim. He will feel Tezuka breathe him in for three heartbeats and then be set carefully back on his feet.
He will say: "Buchou," and Tezuka will shudder, once, and make Momo take him home.
Ryoma will spend the rest of the year wondering what sort of shudder it had been, exactly, and Tezuka will spend the rest of the year avoiding him.
*
Kunimitsu will kiss Ryoma for the first time when he is seventeen and the captain again.
He will tell himself that he is not going to do it, and then he will tell himself that he is not going to do it until the Nationals are over, and then he will tell himself that he is not going to do it until they have made it through the Regionals.
He will think constantly of the three heartbeats, months before, when he'd had Ryoma in his arms and under his mouth and wonder how drunk, exactly, the boy had been.
He will give in on the Tuesday before the Kantou semi-final.
Ryoma, for once, will not be doing anything provocative. He will not be smouldering at Kunimitsu from under his hat, or finding transparent reasons to wander around without a shirt, or sliding past him like they are cramped together on a train instead of surrounded by open space.
He will only smile.
Kunimitsu will never remember what the joke was but Ryoma will look up at him with laughter open in his eyes and he will quietly surrender.
He will pull Ryoma gently back into his arms and it will not feel like the first kiss, or the second. It will not feel new or earth moving or world changing but like they have never been anywhere else, like they have been kissing all along, since the first time.