1. Teeth (Fukutomi Juichi/Shinkai Hayato)
Some of Shinkai’s features can be overwhelming—those viciously plump lips, those perfectly-toned thighs, the way his toes curl when he’s happy and his constantly-moving, very gorgeous arms and that thick, red hair—but really, Juichi’s favorite are his teeth, bared like fangs when his eyes are half-lidded with lust or biting softly on Juichi’s lips or pressed against his skin, bright in his smile and still glimmering in even his most hurt or tired expression. It’s hard to articulate that to him, and maybe he likes them best because they’re strong—but no, even that’s too simplistic and it doesn’t matter.
2. Forest (Kagami Taiga/Furihata Kouki)
Kagami’s like a tree, his chest the solid trunk and his feet the roots that Furihata spreads his palms against when they’re watching TV in the living room and he’s sitting between Kagami’s legs, the hollows of his wrists like branches that Furihata clings to when he’s trying desperately to get higher, farther up, to reach Kagami’s level. Kagami’s fingers, tangled in his hair as they’re curled up together on the couch and he’s reading a book, are not like any part of a tree at all—rather it’s as if he’s lost in a forest of Kagami, surrounded by him on all sides.
3. Shadows (Sado Yasutora/Kurosaki Karin)
She moves in the shadows; she’s not a real shinigami (or quincy or whatever he really was) like her brother but she’s got some of those kinds of qualities about her, something supernatural. He can always sense her, though; his spiritual pressure may not be as large as it once was but he can still reach out—at first he almost wasn’t sure it was her, the way she so readily accepted him, but then again she’s been trusting him for a long time, hasn’t she? She hasn’t always been this shifty but he hasn’t always been this cynical, but this way they fit together; this way they watch soccer quietly on the couch (except when they’re rooting for different countries in the world cup); this way he plays her brother’s old guitar for her and she hums along a harmony under her breath; this way they stand in the shadows together and breathe synchronously.
4. Coffee (Kise Ryouta/Midorima Shintarou)
On Sunday mornings Midorima tastes like coffee, strong and sweet exactly the way Kise has come to like it—in a roundabout way, because that kind of coffee reminds him of Midorima even though his agent tells him to use zero-calorie sweetener and not to drink too much coffee anyway. Kise always drinks two cups anyway and waits (too long it seems, sometimes) for those perfect mornings when he gets up late and Midorima is already in the living room reading the newspaper next to a Kise-sized spot on the couch.
5. Low (Fukutomi Juichi/Shinkai Hayato)
Some days it’s hard to get up in the morning; some days Shinkai just wants to throw himself off the top floor or out the window, even though he knows it won’t really solve anything—those days he gets up anyway even though he can’t pay attention in class or to anything, really. Juichi still holds his hand at lunch and lets him rest his head on his shoulder, forces him to eat (even if it’s just a few bites of rice or half a power bar, it’s still something)—and then he has the afternoon in the sunlight, time with Usakichi who somehow doesn’t hate him (even if he doesn’t understand in his little rabbit mind wouldn’t he at least associate Shinkai with the loss of his mother?) and time to gather himself before turning in. Some days, everything feels like a chore, like he’s on the edge, scraping his skin against the cliff, that his head will explode, and he barely manages to stuff it back in.
He rides alone, eyes on the road and slow enough to brake if he needs to, and that’s when it feels like the burden might be lightening, like he’s transferring the weight from his back to the bicycle. He doesn’t notice he’s crying until his vision starts to blur; he moves to the side of the road and lets the tears fall and soak his jacket until he’s exhausted. He rides back slower; he feels so low again—but when he wakes up the next morning it’s a little bit easier and he’s a little bit lighter on his feet and he eats almost all of Juichi’s lunch (and Juichi tells him he’s strong before he kisses him and Shinkai doesn’t resent the sentiment at all).
6. Ends (Aomine Daiki/Alexandra Garcia)
She says she doesn’t think about ends, that wasting thoughts on them only hastens their arrival—it’s superstition but perhaps there’s something there. He’s never been great with phrases anyway, especially not ones in English (idioms had been hard enough). And he’d thought (foolishly, but she’s told him laughingly that she has forgiven his youth) that being with her was an end in and of itself and it wasn’t and isn’t and he learned it the hard way, the work and time it takes to keep their relationship off the ground, even if it feels like it’s just hovering a few centimeters above the ground sometimes (and it did more often than he’d care to admit in the early days). But she doesn’t think about ends, only continuums and things that will resume, doors that she will leave open or close but not lock or lock but keep the key, and she pulls him along and somehow they’re making it.
7. Doorway (Uta/Yomo Renji)
Uta leans against the door frame, glass of blood (so he’s finally opened his birthday gift from Itori) in his hand. Renji looks up from his computer, where he’s checking order forms for Anteiku—tedious work, but he owes Yoshimura more than that. Still, he lets his finger hover over the keys and drinks in the sight—Uta’s oh so artfully ripped shirt showing the flesh beneath, pale in some places but covered by ink in others. It would feel much better to tap his fingertips on that than on these stupid keys, especially when he and Uta have had so little time together lately.
He turns back to the screen, forcing back a sigh (it does no good) and staring down the numbers again. He’s more than dimly aware of Uta crossing the room, the creak of the floorboards under his bare feet and the rustle of his clothing. Then, the couch dips beside him and Uta’s breath is hot on his neck. Despite himself, Renji glances at him—his legs are tucked up so his feet are on the couch and he’s left the glass on the table, hands spread at his sides.
Renji scoots over, slings one arm around Uta’s shoulders. He can finish this last one up one-handed and send it off; even if it takes longer it will be worth it. Uta laughs, short and quiet and very happy.
8. Obvious (Nijimura Shuuzou/Himuro Tatsuya)
It’s obvious from the way Shuu looks at him, obvious he’s totally head-over-heels; he’s so into him that Tatsuya almost doesn’t feel guilty—it’s easy to shove it aside when he flirts with him, prods at the borderlines beyond friendship with his fingers against Shuu’s skin and looking up from under his lashes and attaching himself much more than he ought to but it’s hard when Shuu’s so straightforward and honest and uncomplicated and unashamed, when it’s easy to fantasize that he won’t leave Tatsuya behind, will pull him alongside somehow even though Tatsuya doesn’t deserve it.
Sometimes the guilt claws at him until his insides are raw and he can’t eat and they’re moving so fast he can’t sleep but curls up tighter on his bed and hates himself for wishing Shuu was here, wishing for strong hands on his forehead and curled lips at his ear (because Shuu would) and he’s the worst kind of man and Shuu doesn’t seem to let it bother him, doesn’t brace himself or run or turn away in disgust and it only endears him to Tatsuya and makes the whole thing twenty times as painful. He’s a goddamn fool, and Tatsuya can’t help but fall for him anyway.
9. Teammate (Twelve/Nine)
They’ve been working together so long that they’re like every teamwork cliché in the book (so to speak), the cogs in the well-oiled machine and extensions of each other and two peas in the same pod and yes, they’re partners but that’s not quite it. It’s hard for Twelve to define what Nine is to him and in some ways it’s fitting—it’s something only they know, something they only slightly understand (but that slight understanding is greater than anyone else’s), something that is unique to them, precious to both of them, like the light shining off a building at a perfect angle—perhaps their bond will decay or be severed with time, or change in some way or other but it will be awfully hard to break.
10. Defeat (Imayoshi Shouichi/Momoi Satsuki)
She has known defeat, of course, but never like this, never this desperate and early and surprising, never this lonely feeling afterward like the world is spinning wrong on its axis, never like the victim of someone else’s story (who the protagonist is she can’t say; it might be anyone else but her—she already knows she’s only human and it wasn’t any failing of hers that really did them in but they lost anyway).
His eyes are red but they both pretend they’re not, turn the lights off so they can’t see anyway, hold each other in the quiet when their breathing starts to get shuddery—life isn’t fair but they always turn the tables to their favor, almost always until now at any rate.
11. Dark (Ishigaki/Midousuji)
Midousuji doesn’t like to do it in the dark, likes to look long and hard at Ishigaki until he’s more self-conscious than he’s ever been, stare at him like he’s sizing him up, not even bothering to hide his eagerness at looking at every part of Ishigaki, lingering on his thighs and cock and forearms before he attacks them—that’s not the right word but it’s the closest approximation Ishigaki can think of while he’s still got presence of mind enough to try and name his feelings, before Midousuji overcomes them.
12. Pleased (Kagami Taiga/Furihata Kouki)
Furihata is adorable when he’s pleased, eyes flickering like a movie on a computer screen at highest brightness, body much less timid and hands more assertive, hands pulling at Kagami’s until his face lands on Kagami’s chest or he pulls himself up to kiss Kagami’s cheek. His voice is loud, buoyant, beautiful; Kagami wants to grab the words like falling stars in that song they made him learn for elementary school choir and put them in his pocket and release them one by one whenever he needs one—but why should he when he’s got the real thing right here?
13. Tender (Kurosaki Isshin/Kurosaki Masaki)
Sometimes Isshin gives her these stupid, sappy looks, when he’s had too much to drink or he’s too tired or he’s had a good day at work (or an especially shitty day at work) or one of the kids has done something or other, like the first time Yuzu finished a cross-stitch or when Ichigo couldn’t shut up about finally landing one kick in karate or when Karin admitted that she had a good day at school, or at a random time when they’re just talking and she glances away and then back. Sometimes she throws a glancing retort or laughs but sometimes her breath is caught in her throat because even though he’s growing rougher around the edges and showing signs of getting older (like a human should, not like a shinigami—don’t they live for thousands of years?) he doesn’t regret it for a second, is still very much and very earnestly hers as she is completely and decidedly his. They have a past and they have a future and they have a present and Isshin will give her tender looks and she will return them until they are physically unable to and even then they will give it their best; of this much she is sure.
14. Lock (Nijimura Shuuzou/Himuro Tatsuya)
Sometimes all Shuuzou wants to do is lock Tatsuya in a cage just so he can properly pin him down and get answers and explanations and truth and words that actually mean something for once—but the want is gone in an instant when he realizes just how much that would hurt Tatsuya, the way it would pierce their relationship like a rusty knife, and he just can’t bear to think about it even as an abstract concept. With some people this kind of thing is a game but with Tatsuya it’s more of a coping mechanism even as he buries what exactly he’s coping with deeper inside of him. Shuuzou’s never been the most patient person; he knows this all too well, but even keeping that in mind the wait for Tatsuya to just come out and tell him things is torture. At this rate he’ll be dead before he knows even a quarter of the important things there are to know about Tatsuya (or anything about that ring on the chain around his neck).
And yet he stays, arm tighter around Tatsuya’s waist and lips finding Tatsuya’s jaw and ear and soft hair and he will touch and kiss and hold Tatsuya until Tatsuya stops letting him (and even then he’ll continue until Tatsuya stops needing it). And even if he’s barely scratched the surface when it comes to things about Tatsuya that are worth knowing, the things he does know—the outline of Tatsuya’s hand, the way he bites the inside of his lip before trying a jump shot, the way Tatsuya’s fingers dance when he’s nervous like he’s dribbling an invisible basketball, the dent his fist makes in a wall, the way he spits words from inside of him when he’s angry like they’re poison and keeping them inside any longer is going to kill him, the way he smiles when he forgets anyone’s looking and the meandering way he thinks about things sometimes—are precious in their own right, both already enough and never even close to it.
15. Can You Hear Me? (Shibazaki Kenjirou/Nine)
“Can you hear me?”
There’s heavy breathing on the other end but no affirmative. What the hell is he doing this time? Maybe Shibazaki doesn’t want to know, but he has to know, the crawling feeling of unrest inside of him, the crushing awfulness of being left in the dark when something horrible is happening like in his childhood when he didn’t fully understand what was going on like a self-fulfilling prophecy (he never understood because they never told him or even tried to).
“Nine?”
A cough, heavy, wheezing—shit.
“Get out of there if you need to.”
(He’d picked up the phone, hadn’t he?)
“Listen, Kenjirou-san—”
The call drops.
16. Silk (Nakatani Masaaki)
He never thought he’d be here, knotting a silk tie around his neck every day, up to his eyeballs in science tests and clipboards, chalk dust sealed against his fingers under a layer of sweat and grime from the gym, a dusty corner office in the athletics department, another endless Tokyo summer spent teaching another crop of teenagers how to jump like he never could. And yet he doesn’t resent it, really—he couldn’t have played forever (and as it is he did play until he had nothing more to squeeze out of himself) and this is a more-than-worthy next chapter, as surprising as it is.
17. Sunglasses (Kinjou/Arakita)
Sometimes Arakita feels like snapping those goddamn sunglasses in half; the way they make Kinjou look is fucking infuriating—that’s all he’s going to say on the matter, thanks very much (except the way they look framing his eyes and the fucking shade and no one should look like that riding a bike; this is—ah, fuck it). And the fucker has to know, that smirk on his face that Arakita wants to punch the teeth out of when he snaps the sunglasses because they make him feel more than weird, something else that he’d really rather not think about.
18. Jacket (Amon Koutarou/Mado Akira)
The first time he offers she refuses his jacket, calmly staring ahead, poised—he feels useless, like the worst kind of man, so he slings it over his shoulder.
“You’re not going to wear it?”
He shrugs.
“Then fine; I’ll take it. It’s too cold to waste such a thing.”
Even on her usually impeccably-silhouetted form, it looks pretty damn good. He half-grins and he hopes it’s not visible in the half-light (but she’ll probably see it anyway).
19. Complete (Kanzaki Miki/Tachibana Aya)
It’s hard to imagine a time in her life without the constant variability of Aya, her erratic words (complaints shifting to rants shifting to normal conversation shifting to almost overeager inquisitiveness about Miki’s life), the physical closeness of her (whether it’s leaning over to whisper a snide comment in her ear or their arms brushing against each other or accepting, blushing, when Miki grabs her hand), just her presence, the way she smells and her twitching fingers and everything about her—she was like an asteroid that collided with the surface of Miki’s half-dead planet of existence and left a giant crater filled with magma; she completes Miki in ways she doesn’t know and ways that Miki can’t possibly tell her, ways she tries to communicate in touches and kisses in words, ways that Aya seems to half-reject in the confused sort of anger that always colors her reactions to everything but that Miki has come to understand as a defense mechanism and that slowly she is breaking down.
20. Rain (Ishida Hideki/Hakzaki Shougo)
Haizaki is like rain, not a soft romantic drizzle or even a thunderstorm but a torrential downpour that puts everything in line for destruction, soaks all the papers and blows down and sideways so that even umbrellas don’t help. And despite this Ishida finds himself not exactly minding sometimes, the utter unpredictability and volatility of him—it’s actually a refreshing break from the tedious life he’s led, driven to succeed, yes, but mostly uneventful. With Haizaki he actually feels—the emotions are messy and he can’t describe them but that might be part of the fun, Haizaki’s lips against his, biting and muttering cruel things, the clawlike hands bruising his wrists and not having any idea where and when they’ll stop—if they’ll stop in the first place. But for now all he wants is for Haizaki to pour over him until he feels like he’s drowning.
21. Guns (Uta/Yomo Renji)
He goes once with Uta to the place where he gets his tattoos, browses the worn-out book of designs as Uta bares his back to the artist like a sinner confessing and he keeps his gaze half on Uta and half on the pages. He ends up staring for too long at an image of two guns, crossed and smoking, one a dark red and the other a shining black (even on the page). It’s not a tattoo that Uta would get (well, probably not), but there’s something strange and striking about it.
He doesn’t realize how long he’s been looking at it until Uta, finally finished, gets up and places a hand on his shoulder.
“You want to get that?”
Renji snorts. As interesting as it is (and as nice as it might look on Uta or anyone else) he’s not at all interested in getting a tattoo.
“It would look nice on your ass,” says Uta, squeezing his shoulder as he says it.
Renji shuts the book and shakes his head. Uta hums an indiscernible tune as they exit the shop.