Work Text:
It was hot inside the store - the kind of hot that suffocates a person, stuffy air and broken air conditioning unit. A shopkeeper smiles, undeterred by the lack of cool and fresh air. Kazuya discreetly wipes the sweat forming on his eyebrows, and looks. Rows and rows of glasses are perched behind glass cases, perfectly aligned in their position, from shape a to shape b, from color a to color b. To Kazuya they might as well be the same.
Beside him, Eijun dawdles, peering in the mirror as he examines the pair of glasses perched upon his face. An atrocious piece of red sits proudly on Eijun’s nose, and when he turns around to face Kazuya it is with a smile. A smile like he doesn’t see the ugly thing he’s wearing. Kazuya wonders if that’s the case with him - if Eijun doesn’t see how terrible Kazuya is.
“Ne, doesn’t this look good on me?” he queries, voice floating in hot air. “Maybe I should take a pair for me!”
“Hmm,” he squints, faking a thoughtful look towars Eijun. “Are you trying to appear smart to deceive other people? That isn’t going to work, yknow. Idiocy can be spotted a mile away.”
Eijun huffs, says, “Rude,” but doesn’t rise to bait. Instead he turns around and gently takes off the red pair, plucking a new one from the stand. It’s yellow this time, and it doesn’t look half as bad as the red one did.
“How about this?” beams Eijun, excitement quite easily seen in his face. “How do I look?”
“Terrible,” drawls Kazuya.
“Why are you so cruel,” grumbles Eijun, looking at himself in the mirror. “I like this one, actually. It’s your fault for not liking vibrant colors.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. All you do is pick boring stuff. You only read scorebooks. You don’t like sweets. You chose a similar pair of glasses to the ones you already have now - learn to live a little, Miyuki Kazuya! Choose a violet pair, or maybe a leopard-print one?”
“If that’s what living a little, then no thanks,” responds Kazuya dryly. He lets his eyes wander lazily towards the shelves around him, as if he hadn’t browsed it a few times already, expecting Eijun to retort. When he doesn’t Kazuya then looks up - sees Eijun frowning, a look on his face.
Self-conscious and apprehensive, Kazuya asks. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” replies Eijun. “I just remembered your choice of caps.”
“And what’s that got to do with this?”
“..Well if someone’s daring enough to wear those caps in those colors, and in a sideway manner no less, then Miyuki Kazuya is the most daring man I’ve encountered.”
“How about you shut up, huh?”
“Sore topic, captain?” quips Eijun, a grin in full force.
Whatever Kazuya’s about to say - something between at least it isn’t as terrible as your shoujo mangas and my fashion sense is quite alright, thank you very much - is interrupted when the ophthalmologist appears from the back room of the store, holding what appears to be Kazuya’s new pairs of glasses. Finally, he thinks, eager to leave the clammy hotness of the store and enter the warm but familiar Tokyo heat outside.
“Here you are, Miyuki-san,” says the shopkeeper. “Would please test it out to check if it’s to your satisfaction?”
A little bit awkward, Kazuya takes off his own pair of outdated lenses, resolutely ignoring Eijun’s face, full of wonder at seeing him glasses-less. He folds it, reaches for the new one, the temples of the pair smooth and unblemished, cold even in a hot room. Kazuya fumbles for a bit with it and the feeling of wearing something that’s considerably tighter than his usual pair is a bit jarring.
What’s more disconcerting is the quiet scattering of colors around him. Like an explosion, but not quite; the sharpening hues of the variety-colored frames around him, the small, inconsequential details that lost their blurriness - Kazuya takes them all, like a breath of fresh air after a long dive under water, or a gulp of cool water after the afternoon baseball practice.
“I went from 480p to 1080p,” he jokes, cracking a smile. The frame is a bit uncomfortable for him. He’ll adjust, though.
The shopkeeper smiles. “So I take it it’s okay, then?”
Kazuya looks at Eijun, who’s a lot more clearer, and drinks in the sight of Eijun’s brilliant eyes, the bow of his lips, takes in the faint freckles littered on his face like miniature stars caught in a sky of tanned, golden brown skin and the curve of his smile. He looks like art that’s meant to be touched and prodded and loved, for Kazuya and Kazuya only.
“Yeah,” he answers. “Just perfect.”
[x]
They step out onto the bustling city of Tokyo, Kazuya donning his new pair of glasses, Eijun carrying a small bag which holds his pair of reading glasses. Nothing fancy, like what he’d initially wanted - he took a liking to a frame with the nearest design to Seidou’s colors, and it’s not as if I’ll wear it in public, Miyuki-senpai is what he says to Miyuki’s snickering.
“Now that I’ve accompanied you with your super important mission of acquiring new glasses, what do you say to accompanying me, your very generous kohai, to a cafe somewhere near?” asks Eijun before Kazuya can say anything.
“We have practice tomorrow,” points Kazuya out. He doesn’t dwell on the fact that it wasn’t a no.
Eijun cocks an eyebrow at him, challenging. “So? That is tomorrow, today is today.” He takes three steps from Kazuya and spreads his arm wide, managing not to hit any passersby. “Come on and show me the city you grew up in, Miyuki Kazuya!”
Kazuya snorts, and takes three steps forward, crossing the distance between them. “Don’t do that, you’ll hit people.” His eyes are still adjusting to the new found clarity of his field of view, so when he looks directly at Eijun he can’t help the way his eyes linger on the way golden eyes peek from full lashes. Just a tiny, tiny second. A small eternity, maybe, too. “Do you not want to take a rest like the others are doing?”
“Resting is bo-ring.” Eijun singsongs the last word, and Kazuya’s a little bit struck dumb on the way his voice rose, melodious. “I’m not giving you any chance to say no! You owe me.”
“Fine, fine,” relents Kazuya, as if he was planning on saying no in the first place. “If my very generous kohai insists on treating his poor senpai to free drinks, well, who am I to resist?”
A beat, and two. Then - “I didn’t say I would treat you!”
“Oh? I thought you were my very generous kohai?”
“I am!”
“Then you’re going to pay for me, right?”
“I - MIYUKI KAZ -”
[x]
Kazuya lets himself be dragged from one cafe to another, until Eijun settles on a small one with chairs that squeak too much when you so much as moves. When Eijun orders he grumbles as he pays for Kazuya’s share, the latter only grinning cheekily as he swipes his drink from the counter.
They return to their table and lean over their drinks; Eijun comments on the different people outside, walking. "That one is a teacher," points out Eijun. "She just recently found out that her husband is cheating on her, so she’s on her way to divorce him."
"How do you know," asks Kazuya.
"Don’t you watch drama shows, senpai," answers Eijun, squinting at the people. "And oh, look, there’s her best friend who’s actually in love with her but refuses to say anything."
"How dreadfully cliche," offers Kazuya, following Eijun’s sight. The woman with the white scarf - the teacher, according to his companion - is now with a man who’s looking far too happy to be in her presence. She looks up at him, and Kazuya cannot un-see how her face softens ever so slightly at him, the look mellow and calm. Eijun might not be accurate in his dramatic inference of her life story, but there, while the two people subtly gravitate towards each other, his hands mere centimeters from her, Kazuya sees a story of yearning and love-hooked heartbeats.
"Huh," says Kazuya. "You might be right, after all."
When Kazuya turns to look at Eijun the other isn’t looking at him - he’s looking at Kazuya’s hand that’s placed on top of the table, free, unoccupied. Eijun takes his sweet time and when he drags away his gaze from Kazuya’s hand to Kazuya’s eyes, there’s no hint of embarrassment in his eyes.
[x]
“C’mon, there are no kids in there, senpai! This is like, the land of my dreams now!”
“There’s a reason the playground is for kids, Sawamura,” sighs Kazuya, but he’s entering the spacious lot as well. “You really are a child, are you?”
“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?”
“Hehe.”
Eijun throws some weeds at him. “Evil Miyuki Kazuya.”
“How did you get - where did you - ugh. The sign says no picking of flowers.”
“And it’s weeds I picked, so it’s fair game.” Eijun does a funny little jig, a silly turn of his hips, arms poised like one might imitate a chicken. “Ah, freedom!”
Kazuya cannot believe him. He laughs. “What are you even doing?”
“Don’t laugh!” exclaims Eijun, stopping. “It’s the dance of freedom!”
“What are you free from?”
“Certainly not you,” complains Eijun. His eyes spot the empty swing sets and he outright runs for it, like a child would. It’s not without fondness that Kazuya watches as he settles on one of the empty seats. He follows, taking a seat next to the pitcher, but instead of pushing himself with his feet he stays still, unlike the person beside him.
“You know -” swing “- I’ve never had -” swing “- many chances -” swing “- of using swings because the -” swing “- other kids would always -” swing “- occupy them before I could.” Eijun stops abruptly. “That’s why I like the swings, because when I get the chance to ride them, I make sure I do for the whole afternoon.”
“How greedy,” murmurs Kazuya, gripping the chain handles.
“What about you?” asks Eijun with a tilt of his head. “What do you like in the playground?”
“Same as you, I guess,” replies Kazuya with a shrug. “The swings are nice. You don’t need someone else to push for you.”
“Are you telling me -” Eijun gasps, eyes wide as he gapes at Kazuya. “That you’ve never been pushed by someone from a swing set before?”
“I.. think so.” Kazuya knows so. He knows, for trivial matters such as his swing being pushed by someone or an approving smile from a parent standing at the sides of the diamond has been on his mind, when he was little and a bit naive. “Why? Would you like to push your senpai?”
“Of course!” snaps Eijun, already standing up from his seat. “Tuck your feet up, Miyuki-senpai, for I, Sawamura Eijun, will make you fly!”
“Oi oi wait wait -” And suddenly he’s pulled back, the ground far away from him - then pushed too abruptly, his position a little bit unbalanced, feet up in the air. Kazuya hits the highest point the swing could reach and comes down. Before his feet reaches the ground he feels Eijun’s hand on his back, pushing him, and the cycle repeats.
After a couple minutes Kazuya finally persuades Eijun to stop, when he’s winded and his cheeks hurt from smiling too much.
Eijun slumps on his back and curls his arms on Kazuya’s shoulder, hugging him. Eijun’s head is burrowed on the catcher’s neck, and Kazuya’s too aware of the sweat that must’ve dried off from him. But Eijun doesn’t say a word about it; in fact, it seems like he breathes it in, the way Kazuya smells, the way Kazuya is.
“Miyuki-senpai,” he whispers, a muffled voice against skin. “I had fun. Thank you for today.”
Kazuya turns his head to look at what he could see: a mop of brown hair, strands easily picked apart from each other, a glimpse of red tinged ears. He reaches out and pats Eijun once, twice. Eijun looks up.
And when Eijun looks up, Kazuya twists his upper body in order to press his lips against the one he’s been desperately staring at the whole day.