"Seven point four seconds," Yuu announces as Kei's stride carries him over the line printed clear enough on the track to see even in the fast-fading light of day's end. "That's almost point five seconds faster than you did this course last week!"
Kei tosses his head to knock his hair back out of his face, cuts Yuu a glance that loses none of its exasperated edge for the encroaching weight of darkness settling around them. "It's not," he says as he reaches out to snatch the weight of the stopwatch out of Yuu's hold in a single effortless motion. "Last week was eight point nine seconds, and it was a different course." He clears the stopwatch without looking and stuffs the weight of it into his pocket as he steps past Yuu, cutting his movement so close Yuu can feel the catch of Kei's sleeve against his. He smells good, his skin damp with the clean-sweat smell that comes after exercise; it's like he's glowing, his body radiant with the aftereffects of effort and talent and skill to leave him sunlight-bright even against the blues and greys of the twilight falling around them.
"Was it?" Yuu says without turning around to track Kei with his eyes. He looks down, stares at his empty hands for a moment before he lets them fall to his sides, heavy with the weight of nothing to bear. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize," Kei snaps in the tone that always drags the beginnings of another apology up Yuu's throat before he can press his mouth closed on the sound.
"Right," Yuu says this time, soft so he can fit it around the pressure of those unvoiced words. His mouth tugs into a humorless smile, his shoulders curve down under that same nonexistent weight; it's hard to turn around to follow Kei towards the locker room, hard to find the energy to follow his brother's glow into the illumination that will cast them both the more clearly into what they are.
It's because his head is down, Yuu thinks, that he doesn't see, or maybe it's the dim lighting that betrays his peripheral vision to give him no warning. He's moving towards the locker room, his feet following one another with the leaden step of disappointment, of failure curling yet again along his spine, and suddenly something is slamming against his shoulder, a force colliding hard to stop and reverse his forward motion, and when his chin comes up in shock Kei has a grip at his shoulder, is glaring down at him with the mirror-grey of his eyes gone nearly as dark as his hair.
"Stop it," he snaps, his voice so low and insistent Yuu is ready to do anything if he only knew what Kei was talking about. He thinks it's movement Kei means, first, stalls any attempt at forward motion in his first confused attempt at obedience, but Kei is stepping in closer and shoving him back, forcing Yuu to stumble backwards to keep his balance against the grip his brother has at his shirt. "Stop doing that, you always do that."
"What?" Yuu manages. He has his feet under him now but Kei is still coming, walking him backwards with growing speed, and Yuu is stumbling without taking the time to look behind him, because whatever he could run into is a far better option than the futile attempt to fight against the impulse of Kei's shove and the shadows in his eyes. "What did I do, I'm sorry."
"That." Kei's other hand comes out, his fingers seizing to a fist against Yuu's other shoulder, and when he shoves it's hard enough to pick Yuu's weight up off his feet for a breathless moment, to leave him hanging from Kei's hold at his jacket as the other pushes him back hard against one of the obstacles set up on the course. All Yuu's breath leaves his body at once, the impact jarring his exhale into a whimper of shocked response, and then his feet are back on the ground and Kei is leaning in closer, his forehead creasing on frustration to match the weight of the frown clinging to his lips. "You're always so sorry and you're always so sad." His hold tightens, jerks for a moment; Yuu's dragged off the support only to be shoved back against it, his shoulders as submissive to Kei's force as all the rest of him has ever been. "You look so resigned all the time."
"I'm sor-" Yuu starts, and Kei growls such a vicious noise that he shuts his mouth on the half-formed word in a spasm of fright. Kei is leaning in close towards him, his hair falling around his face; Yuu can see the dark strands clinging to the sweat against Kei's forehead, can feel the heat of his brother's exhale blowing warm against his mouth. There's a frisson of heat along his spine, a tremor of reaction running through his blood; he shoves it away, crushes it down hard, tells himself it's just fright, that the adrenaline pounding in his pulse is just from the panic at the threat of physical violence and nothing darker or hotter than that. He swallows down the knot in his throat, tries to find words to say that aren't apologies, that aren't frantic sorrys repeated over and over again as if that will do anything but fan Kei's anger hotter. "What...do you want me to do?" The words are stammering, tripping over themselves to leave the gaps of unspoken apology clear, but Yuu can't steady his voice, can't manage this one thing any more than the infinity of other things he can't succeed at.
"Damn it," Kei spits. "Why do you always make it so hard for me?"
"I'm sorry," Yuu blurts before he can think, the words torn out of him by the tremor at the end of Kei's sentence, by the drag of emotion terrifyingly clear under the familiar grit of anger.
"Stop," Kei says, loud and hot and furious, and Yuu would cringe away from the vicious edge of that sound except. Except there's nowhere to go, between Kei's hold on his jacket and the wall at his back, and his heart is speeding into overtime in his chest, and Kei is. Kei is.
Kissing him, hard and vicious and desperate, shoving Yuu's head back against the wall behind him as if he's trying to push the other right through the solid surface by force alone. There's teeth against Yuu's lip, the grate of friction catching and digging in against his mouth, and then he whimpers something shocked and helpless and Kei's tongue is in his mouth too, licking the sound out of the back of his throat as if it's made of sugar. Kei's hands are on his shoulders still, dragging hard against the fabric of his jacket, but Yuu's touching him too, he realizes, his hands have lifted of their own accord to hover at Kei's hips, to land feather-light against the elastic edge of the other's shorts. Yuu's entire body is flashing into heat, all his skin flaring electric as if he's become a conductor for Kei's glow, and then Kei draws back by an inch to gasp against Yuu's mouth and the friction of his brother's mouth on his turns to ice in Yuu's veins.
"Oh god," Yuu chokes off, his hands twisting to fists at Kei's clothes like he's trying to keep the other there, like he's trying to hold him still long enough for Yuu to come up with an explanation, for Yuu to: "I'm so sorry."
"Fuck" Kei blurts, the sound coming so harsh Yuu flinches as if from a blow. But there's no impact, no force but the rush of Kei's breath on the word, and when Yuu blinks there's just Kei staring at him, his eyes dark and focused and intent in the way that always makes Yuu feel like he's in a spotlight, like everything he says or does is being memorized for future reference. It's overwhelming, terrifying as if he's suddenly gone into freefall, and Yuu goes still and quiet, even the reflexive panic in his head falling to shaky silence under the weight of Kei's stare.
"Don't," Kei says, low and hot and so radiant Yuu can feel the burst of each consonant against his lips like an explosion. "Don't say it." His hands tighten at Yuu's shoulders, drag the fabric of the other's jacket out of alignment against his neck. "Unless you mean it, really mean it, don't say you're sorry." His hold eases, one of his hands slides sideways; Yuu's throat tightens at the touch of Kei's fingers in his hair, his entire body drawing into thrumming tension at the fit of Kei's palm against the side of his neck. His pulse is humming, going so fast he can't even make out the separate beats anymore; he wonders if Kei can feel it pounding under his touch, wonders if he could feel Kei's heartbeat if he lifted a hand to touch his fingers to the line of the other's throat.
Kei swallows, hard enough that Yuu can hear it, hard enough that it flexes his fingers against the back of Yuu's head for a moment. Even in the dark Yuu can see the slant of Kei's lashes as he looks down, can track the angle of the other's gaze as he watches Yuu's mouth. Kei leans in again, his hand tightening at the back of Yuu's head; and then he stops, hesitating a breath away like he's waiting for something, like he's hoping for some kind of cue. It doesn't make any sense; Yuu's never been the one to give cues, even in races it's Kei, it's always Kei, it's always ever been Kei. Yuu's the one who makes mistakes, who fails no matter how hard he tries, who is always apologizing for-
And just like that, he knows what Kei's waiting for.
It's hard to get the words out. They tangle on his tongue, try to invert themselves into something they're not, into the familiar shape of submission instead of the strength of certainty. But Yuu's heart is pounding under Kei's touch, and all his blood is singing hot in his veins, and finally he lifts his chin a half-inch, and licks his lips to damp, and manages, "I'm not sorry," in a voice trembling with the weight of responsibility, in a tone shaking with all the things he's accepting and all the things he's throwing away for the heat of his brother's mouth on his again.
When Kei's lips crush against his, Yuu finds this weight is easy to bear.