With Love From Japan, a sket dance fanfic

This is probably the hardest I've ever worked on any fanfiction EVER. This fic is dedicated to Lex Complex. He's been a great friend these past few months, always reviewing my fics and talking to me when I need someone to talk to etc, all while bouncing back from some pretty difficult stuff. He's one of the strongest people I know. And I suck at saying thanks, so here it is. Everything is for you (especially the Switch-centric scenes).

Disclaimer: Kenta Shinohara owns Sket Dance.

Rated T for language, sex references, and health disorders.

With Love from Japan

The hallways reeked with an odd combination of clean linen and sweat, the smell causing him to choke on his breaths as he inhaled them. He expected as much, the Olympic village was a home for the world's most talented athletes; a little sweat was far from an uncommon occurrence among them. He did not however expect, for the sour smell to have reached the hallways quite so quickly.

Bossun had touched down in Rio de Janeiro yesterday, as the sun (seemingly brighter than the Japanese one he was familiar with) set across the horizon, sneaking behind the towering skyscrapers and white sand beaches. Travelling was an unfamiliar, and in some aspects uncomfortable, activity for him, much like that entire experience. It was new and incredibly strange, so much so that he felt he'd completely lost his bearings. Under other circumstances, he may have revelled in the blatant differences between the two countries: the tanned olive skin of the locals, the Brazilian reais plastering every billboard, the clustered, low-set houses. The sea had roared in the background, the angry cry of the water as it pounded against the rocky shore repeatedly. The ocean had seemed more docile in Japan.

The language barrier was formidable, and quite frankly, terrifying. He tried not to dwell on the seemingly unending list of things that could go wrong. His English was elementary at best, but there wasn't much time for mid-morning language lessons when you were required to spend eight hours a day shooting arrows at targets from 76 yards.

He turned the corner, shabby sneakers crackling over the carpet, to collide with what Bossun assumed was a European couple, violently sucking face against the wall.

He stumbled backwards, cheeks turning red and blurting quick-fire apologies that he would later realise were in Japanese, not in English, not in Portuguese and definitely not in the language from whatever country the pissed-off looking blondes were representing.

They glared at him, ice-blue eyes almost identical, and Bossun writhed in his skin. Their eyes were in fact so similar that he wondered for a brief second whether they were somehow related, before the thought was shaken out of his head by the taller of the pair flipping him off, middle finger waggling in his face momentarily, and then proceeding to shove the other against the wall again.

Bossun's eyes raised an uncertain eyebrow and scampered off, not daring to turn back; the numbered doors flew past him as he ran. Nearing the end of the hallway, he relaxed into a fast stride, all too aware of how he probably looked to Olympic runners, grey duffle back awkwardly slung over his holder and twisting his arm...not to mention that he ran with two left-feet.

He halted in his tracks as he caught sight of room number 451. The number was written with brass in the upper centre of the wooden door, gleaming and polished as if someone had made it their personal mission to guarantee he would be able to see himself in the metal. Dropping his bag on the floor, he rummaged through his pockets for his prescribed keys, given to him earlier by the young woman at the athletes help desk, an overly-cheerful short haired brunette who had handed him the wrong keys, and then reprimanded by a bored looking older man who had snatched the jangling pieces of metal out of Bossun's hands and thrown him a different set.

Delving into his pocket, he produced a small piece of paper, barely the size of his hand and lined with yellow and green. The small card presented all of Bossun's details, his country (Japan), his expected time of arrival (19th July at approximately 1:30pm, although his lack of concern for punctuality was evident; he showed up three hours late with a half-assed excuse involving a train, a pot of yogurt and some angry goats), and other information including his room number. Bossun squinted at the number written at the bottom of the paper and released as sigh of relief.

He turned around and stared at the room opposite his. Occupying that room were three... well Bossun supposed they could be labelled teammates, maybe even go so far as to say role-models, but they were really neither. In the room opposite his were the Japanese men's archery team. All countries were only supposed to have three representative male archers. It wasn't exactly breaking the rules, per say, as not conceding to strong suggestions.

He snorted and shook his head. The shortest of the trio, a balding chubby man who's name Bossun could never remember, wouldn't even have been there if it wasn't for Bossun's blatant refusal to do both events. He would rather eat one of those puke-inducing sweets constantly advertised, pelil...pela...pelco, he would rather attempt death by lollipop than shoot an arrow anywhere near those archers and he couldn't, for the life of him, understand how they could still see the damn target, with their balding heads and sagging faces.

He was content to shoot individually. He didn't need some old geezers to hold him back. And as an added bonus, he got a two bed room all to himself. At least, that's what he thought until he fit the key into the lock and opened the door.

The room was much larger than he had expected. The walls were washed in a light green and the windows scattered light generously over the floor. Two beds were pushed against the east and west walls. They were single-beds with thin blankets stretched over the mattresses and gift items ranging from shaving cream to dressing gowns, all marked with the same logo, pooled at the foot. A pair of small stuffed toucans (that Bossun recognised to be the Brazilian team's mascot) sat atop the fluffy towels. It was no bigger than his forearm and its multi-coloured beak seemed brighter, more luminous, in the sunlight.

But the real showstopper of the room, Bossun thought as he gawked in disbelief, was the grown man sitting on one of the beds and completely absorbed in whatever was on the screen of his laptop. He was in his late twenties, a few years older than Bossun, with short choppy, black hair and thin wire-framed glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. He was dressed in nothing more than dark socks, baggy boxer shorts and an oversized t-shirt advertising a Shoujo anime that Bossun had never heard of. Official Olympic staff identification hung from his neck by an orange neck strap and swayed slightly as he enthusiastically pressed buttons on his keyboard.

Bossun hopped from foot to foot and coughed, drawn-out and loud, in an attempt to catch the man's attention. There was no immediate reaction. Bossun stood by the door awkwardly as the man who had somehow been granted a place as a member of staff (or had just stolen the I.D, Bossun wasn't sure), continued to pretend he didn't exist. He coughed again.

Sighing slightly, as if just noticing that Bossun was a problem that wasn't going to disappear, vanish or combust, the older man looked up at him through his glasses.

"Hi." He typed, "I'm Switch."

The first time Bossun met Onizuka Hime, she stood at the door to his room.

Bossun sat on his pillow, leaning against the dark wood headboard as he flicked through the channels, eyes unfocusing as he past yet another cooking show. His blanket sat at his feet and he puffed out his cheeks and lolled his head, turning the remote control in his fingers.

He had inhabited the Olympic village for a grand total of four days. A variety of events had come and gone. He and Switch had managed to sneak through the back doors of the large stadium to cheer on Japan during the football qualifiers...and hiss in sympathy when they lost. He had not been so fortunate with the women's beach volleyball however, and had to watch perky Turkish girls dive around a sand pit in their bikini-like uniforms from behind his room's TV screen. He could have blamed Switch for not checking the security arrangement prior to their embarrassing entry failure, but he couldn't bring himself to be annoyed. He was just glad he had someone to practise breaking-and-entering with.

Switch had also been present at Bossun's archery qualifiers, standing behind a tiny camera women, both thumbs up in a manner that was so condescending, even he was impressed. He had shot a glare back at him, which was returned with Switch wiggling his glasses and gesturing to Bossun's own to which he replied by rolling his eyes behind the thick red frames and turning away.

After further investigation and some snarky comments from Switch, Bossun determined that his roommate was not a pickpocketing squatter, but in fact a very highly positioned member of the Olympic tech team. He had explained, typing hastily on his laptop, that although, yes, the building was only for athletes, and, no, he was not lying and planning to steal all of Bossun's possessions, and regardless of the fact that Switch's assigned accommodation was designed for the tech team, that Bossun's building simply had the fastest Wi-Fi in the village and that his was the only room with a spare bed.

When presented with the information, Bossun nodded uncertainly and momentarily considered reporting the stranger who seemed so at home in the room, but then decided against it. Switch wasn't hurting anybody, so what did it matter that Bossun had a little less space to himself.

After explaining his situation, Switch gestured towards the silver laptop perched on his knees. His name was Kazuyoshi Usui, he explained looking Bossun dead in the eye, and he was born mute. It was due to birth trauma, the umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck when he came out, severing his vocal chords from the moment he was alive. He was unable to cry at birth. The speech-synthesis software was a creation that he and his younger brother ("A genius." Switch had gushed) had spent months working on. Switch's eyes shone with an emotion akin to pride as he went on to animatedly explain all the projects he was working on back in Japan.

"Insomnia," Bossun indicated to himself with one hand and he scratched the back of his neck with the other, the feeling of a strong tide rocking against his ribcage, "I've got chronic insomnia. I haven't slept for over 4 hours in," he counted on his fingers, "about 6 years...not since I was 19."

Switch had just nodded slowly, mutual sympathy present between them, before Bossun had taken his wash bag to the bathroom to unpack.

The television hummed with static as Bossun halted on an unused channel and scratched the back of his knee. Contrary to the popular belief, the Olympic city wasn't brimming with life 24/7, the large bars and movie theatres only opening in the evening. He supposed there would be nearer the stadiums or even if he left the town. Bossun tapped the remote against his leg and considered calling Switch. He had left the room at 10, departing with an excuse about technical difficulties with the swimming timers and shut the door behind him. Bossun stood up and stretched, joints popping in his back. There was no point disturbing him when he was busy and even if he did answer his phone, he doubted the older man would be allowed to leave his job to play crappy video games with his roommate.

He nudged open the door to the bathroom and padded over to the sink, beige tile cold against his bare feet and making him shiver. Reaching for the shelf, he produced a small tube of toothpaste. The sun was already setting, sinking away from the sky and an orange glow streamed through the bedroom window Bossun could see through the door. He considered turning in early, and then snorted at the thought, toothbrush hanging between his lips. He wasn't going to sleep regardless.

A sharp knock came from the door. Bossun furrowed his brow and glanced at the small silver clock hanging from the far wall. It was only 6 and Switch wasn't due back until after the Swimming qualifiers had finished at 9. He walked over to the door, sloshing around white foam in his mouth and considered asking Switch to go out and buy some candy for the night. He didn't question the reason his roommate didn't open the door with his own key until it was too late.

She wasn't very tall, quite a few centimetres shorter than him, and only just reaching Bossun's chin. Her short blonde hair was scrapped back into a messy pony-tail, the tuft at the top smaller than her fist. And her fists were small. One was still poised above her head and she lowered it slowly, cocking her head to the left and watching him with large grey-blue eyes, the colour of a light storm, cast under froth, salt water churning beneath her irises. They caught his mouth, before glancing back upwards. She had a small heart-shaped face and high-arched eyebrows, swamped in heavy bangs, messy and large like her clothes. His mind barely had time to resister her sports hoodie before she was opening her mouth.

"Are you brushing your teeth? What the hell? What kind of idiot answers the door looking like that!" He didn't have time to respond, or even notice the fact that she was speaking in Japanese before she started up again.

"Geez. What the hell? We were you raised with no manners?"

"What about you!?" he snapped, suddenly angry at the new arrival and spitting slightly, "What kind of person knocks on random strangers' doors to shout at them for doing something perfectly normal! Where the hell are your manners?"

She opened her mouth and immediately snapped it shut. Her hoodie shifted as she rolled her shoulders back. It was an oversized dark blue piece of cotton with white capital letters spread across the front reading: "OSAKA YOUTH HOCKEY TEAM" A small silhouette of a woman wielding a hockey stick stood in the middle.

She rolled her eyes, "It's Yuuskue, right?"

Bossun raised an eyebrow at her, "Seriously though, I can't believe you were shouting at me about manners. You met me like 30 seconds ago and you're already calling me by my first name. How old are you?"

She tsked, "I'm 26. How old are you!?"

"25."

"Ha!" she jabbed him in the chest, "Respect your elders."

Bossun felt like screaming. A random stranger had barged into his room, with no sign of civility or even a damn introduction in sight and had the nerve to reprimand him about etiquettes. He huffed and narrowed his eyes. He was not going to stand there and be shouted at and... abused by someone he didn't know. He didn't care if she was cute.

"What do you even want?" he groaned, kneading the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

She crossed her arms over her chest and clenched her small jaw, scanning the room and snorting in disgust as judged the state of his bed. "Well, I was looking for your tech, who's obviously the smarter of the two of you, friend to help me fix my laptop, but he's not here."

"What a shame," Bossun said, his eyes widening in mock disappointment, "I guess you'll just have to leave then."

Her eyes snapped away from the bed to glower at him, a low growl erupting from her throat, before pivoting on her heel and stalking off. The last thing Bossun heard from her as the left was her angry mutters as she scowled at her shoes.

"Idiot's lucky I didn't bring my hockey stick."

That night, he sat upright in his bed, eyes drifting over the freckled bumps on the walls and ceiling. The small lamp beside him cast a pale orange glow throughout the room and he observed his shadow, its form rising as he inhaled and exhaling with him.

His fingers trailed down from behind his shoulder where he was scratching absent-mindedly to the bottom of his forearm, where he hooked his smallest finger into the brown elastic band that was circling his wrist, pulling it upwards and letting go with a quick practiced motion. He winced at the sharp contact. The snap echoed across the room, unbearably loud against the absence of sound, and after a quick check of Switch's figure determined he was still asleep, Bossun allowed himself to relax into the sheets.

He had stopped trying to sleep a few months earlier. Unsurprisingly, he had grown tired of the long nights lying in bed with his fists curled into the blanket, shuffling through the memories and misplaced thoughts as he tried to find a quiet place in the depths of his mind.

He was drowning, he thought, as the pain faded into a dull sting against his skin. The waves were beckoning to him, begging him to sink into their clutches, to watch the surface retreat as he submerged. It would be so much easier, they sang, to fall asleep under the safety of the pale foam, coaxed by the lullaby of the whitecaps breaking over the coast, water gradually blocking out the sunlight as he fell deeper and deeper.

He feared he was already drowning.

Bossun flicked off the lamp and the darkness swallowed him, and with it came a weak feeling of apathy, accompanied by a low churning in the pit of his stomach. He stared ahead at what he couldn't see, but knew were the freckled bumps on the walls and ceiling, and snapped the band against his wrist again.

He was struggling to keep his head above water.

If he had drifted off that night, he would have done it to the thought of grey-blue eyes, over-sized hoodies, and the sound the ocean lapping against the shore.

The second time Bossun saw Onizuka Hime her was standing outside the door to her room.

Switch, Bossun soon found out, had an extreme passion for crappy games and horror movies. The latter was the single most prominent reason they had ended up in their predicament. The crappy games, however, was something Bossun could deal with. The archer didn't want to understand the train of thought that led him to the assumption Switch would be bad at video games in the first place. Not bad-bad, but bad enough that Bossun, who was unwilling to admit to himself that he wasn't actually that good, would be able to beat him. He was sadly mistaken.

Bossun groaned and slunk back against the bed as the corner of Switch's lip twitched at yet another high score. If Bossun really thought about it, it was the stupidest assumption he had made since 'Girls don't poop, do they?'

Even if he had reached the obvious conclusion that a tech master was good at playing video games, any form of competition would result in Bossun's merciless defeat. His roommate sat on the floor, and stopped his examining of the dark grey controller for a few moments to type out an arrogant remark, stating that he was only just warming up and that Bossun better up his game. Bossun groaned again and rolled onto his stomach to bury his face in the fabric.

A sharp, all too familiar, knock echoed through the room and he wanted his blanket to swallow him. A few seconds passed, both of the men lingering in their positions, before the sharp knock came again, louder this time, and more forceful. He heard Switch shuck his controller and pick up his laptop. The door opened.

Bossun raised his arms over his head in an attempt to mute the infuriatingly pretty voice that soon filled the air and tried to think happy thoughts.

He thought of his mother and his little sister (who in his mind would remain little until the end of time) waving goodbye to him as he passed through airport security. He thought of himself unwrapping the first sheath of his own arrows, bubble wrap crackling against his fingers. He thought of his best friend's tears of happiness as she frantically waved the letter that accepted her to a music program in Germany. His sister's first birthday. His trip to London. Winning the honour to represent Japan in the Olympics. He smiled against the cotton sheets.

"—it's actually still in my room. I could bring it here his you want, but if you want to fix it in my room then you can. Some of my teammates were playing a horror movie if you're into that stuff."

Switch inhaled through is nose sharply. "Which horror movie?"

"Uh- Something from 'The Demon's Intestines' series, I think?"

How convenient, Bossun thought, rolling his eyes as he was lugged off his bed and dragged across the hallway, Switch gripping his wrist like a vice. His bare toes curled against the coarse carpet, his bed was awaiting him back in his room, warm and soft and far more preferable than being forced to stand awkwardly at the corner of a room filled with women whilst Switch fiddled with a broken laptop.

The strange woman led the way, waltzing down the hall, hands shoved in her hoodie pockets, and whistling a tuneless song. He glared at the back of her head.

The trio approached her door (identical to Bossun's own in every way sans the number) and she shouldered it and stepped in. The room was substantially larger than the one he shared with Switch, but that may have been due to the fact that 16 odd women lounged around the space, reading on their bunk-beds, chatting, texting, polishing matching red hockey sticks...It was surprisingly intimidating.

The one on the bed nearest the door looked up from her phone to greet them, friendly smile lighting up her face. She was slightly shorter than her blonde team mate and two neat brown pigtails stuck out from both sides of her head, making her look much younger than she probably was. Her eyes were also blue, but darker and warmer and she laid the metallic pink object on her crossed legs.

"You two must be the guys from down the hall." She beamed at the pair of them and turned towards Switch. "It's so nice of you to fix Himeko's laptop for her." The blonde girl's lip quirked slightly and Bossun turned to stare at her. Himeko. It wasn't like any name he had heard before, in terms of Japanese names at least. And she was Japanese, right? The longer he looked at her, the further his eyebrows furrowed. He was fairly certain her hair was unnatural, but her skin was slightly lighter than her friendly roommate's, his, or Switch's. Yet, she still had the distinguishable almond shaped eyes and small stature. The language she spoke was also a slight giveaway.

"-archer, right?" He snapped his eyes away from Himeko to identify the asker. Bossun recoiled in shock. The speaker stared back at him. Long matted black hair rested around her shoulders and her skin was almost milky white in colour.

So much for Himeko being the lightest person in the room, her thought as he stuttered back a reply.

"P-pardon?"

"You're Japan's archer, right?" Dark circles rimmed her eyes. She had small black irises, pupils indistinguishable in the darkness.

"Umm, yeah. I-I do the men's single."

"Hmmm," she murmured, "that's very interesting."

Turning her back on them, she fixed her eyes on the television mounted on the far wall.

Bossun looked up from her to the film, just in time to catch someone's throat being slit open by a little blonde girl, complete with rosy cheeks and a purple frock, eyes completely engulfed in black.

He had never been a big fan of horror movies and flinched violently away from the screen, repressing a scream and the warm sickly liquid bubbling up through his throat. Back home, his younger sister gained plenty of amusement from his cowardice. Whenever she flicked past something even marginally disturbing on the television, she would turn up the volume to max and jump up on him at the most unpredictable times, then laughing and call him the ultimate weenie, before settling back into the couch cushions. He had to give her kudos though, when she tried, she was a walking talking nightmare.

Switch gingerly took the laptop from Himeko's hands as she presented it to him. A sleek purple case coated the back, but the professional finish was ruined by the stickers that submerged it. Most of them were similar in design and size, depicting a range of brightly coloured lollipops adjacent to their plastic wrappers. In the middle sat a small cartoon character, with a daft costume and even dafter hair, her tongue sticking lopsidedly out of her mouth.

"You actually like those things?"

Himeko halted in her tracks and turned to him, face on the defensive before she even understood what was going on, and she crossed her arms over her chest tightly.

Following his line of sight, she frowned at her laptop, now resting on Switch's crossed legs where he sat perched near the television. If he was at all disturbed by the unnerving woman, he showed no indication as he typed animatedly over what Bossun assumed was the movie. The archer didn't dare glance at the television, and kept his eyes averted from the screen.

Himeko rolled her eyes pointedly and snarled at him. The storm simmered behind her irises.

"Yeah, I do. You got a problem with that?"

"I just don't understand how you could like Pelollipops. They're disgusting."

Sensing the tension from across the room, the small woman who had greeted them at the door stood from her bed, still rolling her phone between her fingertips, eyes flickering over the pair. She offered a weak smile. "Is everything okay?"

Himeko gave her a pointed look, eyes reading 'It's nice of you to try and help but I can handle this, okay?'

She wavered in her place for a few seconds, before sighing and offering a small smile in attempt to be reassuring before sitting awkwardly on the side of her bed and pretending not to listen to the conversation.

Bossun eyed the door and then Switch, and after coming to the conclusion that his roommate was more than comfortable tinkering with electronics and discussing horror movies with someone that look like they belonged in one, he spun to the door and left, convincing himself that he imagined the disappointment on Himeko's face as he turned away.

The third time Bossun saw Onizuka Hime, her actually waiting by the door had become a privilege that he did not have the right to. She came in, turning the unlocked door like it was her own and strode forward, head raised purposefully, until she stood in the middle of the room where she caught Bossun's eye and faltered, then attempted to resume her facade of disinterest; rolling her eyes and shoving her thumbs into the elasticated waistband of her bright pink pyjama shorts.

His windows were thrown open, cool salty air rolling off the surface of the ocean and into his room and he wondered how hard she was trying not to shiver. Or maybe she didn't feel the cold. Maybe she was naturally cold-blooded. Regardless, Bossun barely raised an eyebrow at her arrival and merely shimmered down in his sheets, repressing a smile as the curtains fluttered languidly from the draft.

He frowned internally. She should have been back in her own room, laughing with her team mates and polishing her hockey stick and watching horror movies as Switch fixed her laptop. He glanced at the clock and the hands read just past 1:20am. She should have been asleep.

But instead, she stood next to Switch's bed, unconsciously swaying from side to side and blinking heavily, eyes clouded with neglected sleep. She licked her lips before she spoke, and he caught a flash of pink, darting in and out quickly.

"Your friend fell asleep on my bed." She stated as if the short sentence explained everything. Bossun caught what would have been a stupid sounding 'huh?' before it left his mouth and swallowed it. Instead he raised an eyebrow and waited, snapping at his band against his wrist beneath his covers.

She sighed and continued, "Him and Yūki were arguing for hours. Something about science and occult." She waved one hand, expressing how unnecessary she felt the topic was, "He was arguing on my bed. He fell asleep on my bed."

She shoved her thumb back in her waistband, accidentally pushing a little harder than necessary and exposing a good 2 inches of the fair skin stretched tightly over thin hips and firm-looking stomach muscles.

His eyes were transfixed on the thin strip of skin momentarily, before looking back up to her face and, this time, failing to withhold the stupid comment.

"Huh?"

She rolled her eyes and he was very suddenly aware of the thick bags underneath them.

"You know Yūki... the," she sighed, "the super creepy one."

"So what, you want me to wake him?"

Switch wouldn't enjoy that. He wasn't, by any definition of the word, a morning person. Or a night person. Or any kind of person that could easily be woken, sans the fuss, at any time during the day. He was, unfortunately for everyone, the kind of person who could only wake comfortably to the sound of birds chirping and late-morning light streaming through pastel coloured curtains.

She was lucky. She had never had to wake him at 8am after 7 missed calls, resulting in 7 strongly-worded voicemails from his boss.

"I could wake him if I wanted to. But I didn't. You don't do something like that after someone's done you a favour."

"Wait," he said, sitting up in his bed, "So why are you here?"

"Well, if he's sleeping in my bed, I figured I could sleep in his."

Bossun blinked slowly. "So you're gonna sleep in here?" His voice cracked at the end. He snapped his band.

"That's literally what I just said."

She shifted into the bed parallel to his, completely uninterested in any reply he was about to give and wriggled down unto the mattress. She seemed surprisingly at ease for someone sleeping in another's bed, pulling the sheets up to her neck and spinning until the covers resembled a cocoon. Bossun rolled his eyes and tried incredibly hard not to find it endearing. He shimmied down until he was horizontal in his bed and turned away from her, silently praying she wasn't a snorer. It wasn't as if it mattered, he thought, there would be very little sleep for her to disturb.

Her breaths slowed gradually, and just when he thought she was finally unconscious, she spoke, voice thick with sleep. "You better not be a snorer." She mumbled.

He let out a dry chuckle, heavy with sarcasm, and muttered back a nauseatingly sweet sounding "Have sweet dreams."

And just for the sake of it, he added, "You know, Switch drools on that pillow a lot."

She spluttered loudly.

She woke again at 4am to the sound of relentless shifting. Himeko sniffled and delved deeper into her covers, a low moan escaping the heap cotton. Bossun was lying on his back, counting his breaths, his fingers entwined over his stomach. He had closed the window a few hours earlier; there was only so much warmth his sheets could provide, but the glass was thin and he could still feel the outside air slide through them. Brazil shouldn't have been that cold.

It was evident she had tired of struggling to fall back to sleep when her fidgeting stilled and he heard her sigh. Unsurprisingly, she had snored, but not in the way he had expected. Her breaths were low, sporadic rumbles that came out as long puffs. She had scarcely moved. It had seemed as though she had been trapped in her tightly wound cocoon, but Bossun supposed it was more comfortable than it looked.

"You're still awake." She said. It was a statement, not a question and she furrowed her brow, pulling her arms up over her sheets and pushing them down to her waist.

"Why are you still awake?"

He rolled his eyes, but doubted she could she them in the dim light if her lack of reaction was any indication. Bossun shrugged a large shrug and turned his attention back to the ceiling.

"Maybe because of your snoring." He waited for an annoyed scoff, a pissed off sigh, a snarky comment. When he was met with little more that silence, he shifted to his side and then smiled widely at her glare, chest shaking with the chuckles he was too tired make audible.

"But seriously," she said and sat up on her bed, clutching her sheets around her frame and eyeing at the closed window, "Why are you still awake?"

He didn't look at her. He could see her eyes, open and curious, a surreal shade of blue, as she leaned forward and he didn't want to look at her. He didn't want her to think he was weird, or worse, offer him the utterly useless advice he had heard so many times before. 'Just close your eyes' they said. 'Just close your eyes, you'll fall asleep eventually.

He didn't want to watch her pity him.

The answer was on his tongue before he was even aware he would reply. "I –Sometimes, I have...problems sleeping." He snapped his band, pain hard. The waves dulled.

He didn't hear a response, and continued, wringing his hands.

"I just...uh...I don't know. I just don't sleep as easily as regular people."

Silence stretched over the room. The water increased in volume. She hesitated before replying, "So what do you do at night? Like, when everyone else is sleeping...do you read or...?" She trailed off uncertainly, voice collapsing into a mumble, strangely timid for someone of her boisterous disposition. He could sense her caution, the way she was tiptoeing around the subject, like she was afraid she of angering him. Though, he would be surprised if she was suddenly concerned about offending him. She was hardly the most empathetic human on the planet.

"If you don't want to talk about it," she said, making him wince, "it's okay." Her voice was too soft, too smooth, too trepid, like a trickling tap.

He swallowed thickly and used his feet as hoists, pushing himself up against the bed, his mess of hair sandwiched between his head and the cold wood of the headboard.

"I usually just think. You know, contemplating life and all." He threw back at her, internally wincing at the sound of his own voice, at the preppiness of it, or maybe at how painfully fake it sounded.

"I read manga a lot." He shrugged before mentioning, "And I'm really into this game show. 'Laugh Out Loud Tsukkomi Battle'. Do you know it?"

"The one with Kibitsu Momoka!?" She leapt off her bed, hands clasped and eyes bright, and grinned. He had never seen her smile before, he had seen her smirk and even chuckle, but never smile. Her smiles were far too toothy, like a shark or young child. Bossun found himself slightly too enamoured for comfort. Though her eyes glistened, they were unmistakably calm, a low tide, not churning but rocking, swaying, the kind of ocean one wouldn't mind jumping in to.

He sucked in a small breath and tried not to choke on it.

Bossun felt like someone had punched him in the gut, but it was a good feeling, assuming that made any sense, which he doubted it did. "Uh, yeah." He muttered, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm guessing you know it then?"

"Have you seen the latest episode? It came out on Tuesday. The supermarket one?"

"Actually, no." He glanced at his phone on the bedside table, "I've been kind of busy lately." Bossun was disgusted by the extent of lie. Aside from his competitions, he could count the number of times he had left the building on one hand. He had gone out with Switch twice (the first to watch a football match, the second to explore the town). He had gone out to buy pocky. He went on a walk at 4am, when the only occupants of the Olympic village were a scattered collection of security guards, restless (or drunk) athletes, and a few unfortunate workers appointed the graveyard shift.

Himeko crossed the room, bare feet padding against the carpet, until she stood at the head of his bed and looked down at him expectantly.

"What?"

She squatted a little, until she was head height with him. The corner of her mouth turned upwards.

"Move over." Without waiting for a reply (which Bossun was starting to understand, was a profound kink in her personality), she slid into his bed, seated upright, and wriggled her toes under his sheet, brushing his shins slightly as she did so. He tried not to comment on their lack of temperature.

His phone was grabbed and thrust into his hands, and his fingers fumbled to secure it, a lot more distracted and flustered than he'd like to admit. He blamed it on the surprise.

"I'll watch it with you. I've already seen it but," she threw him a lopsided smile, "Sleep-deprived laughter is better anyway."

Bossun opened his web browser.

Switch had a crick in his neck that ached no matter which way he stretched. He should have been at work, he glanced at his watch, two hours and fifteen minutes ago. It was a wonder he hadn't already been fired. He was a hard worker, labouring his way through the most difficult programing (swimming clocks, it was always the swimming clocks) 30 minutes faster than his supposedly more experienced elders, but when the task was boring, when it was mind-numbingly easy, he played video games in his office until the sun set and he determined he had been pretending to work for long enough. He was a slacker at heart.

Yuki slept in the bed adjacent to his and he frowned at her, unable to decide whether she was more of less disturbing looking while she slept. Shaking his head, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, a light layer of crust coming off on his fingers.

Shit.

He spun around and knelt at the foot of the bed, hands splayed wide and searching, mouthing swear words at his stupidity. He eyed the disarray at the head of the bed, the pillow slanted at a crooked angle, and what he had honestly thought at the time was a flash of black. He lunched forward and froze at the crunch under the new position of his knee, praying it wasn't what he thought it was. But with his luck, it was probably exactly what he was looking for. At least he had found them. Peeling the covers back he winced at the state of his mangled glasses. The right lens had a large crack running vertically down the glass. Both of the thin black arms were bent askew, twisted in the same direction. The glass from the left lens was scattered over the mattress.

He clenched his jaw as he picked up his glasses and attempted to bend the less impaired arm back into place. It snapped off in his hands. Picking up his laptop from the floor, he walked in the general direction of the door, turning the handle slowly as to not wake the other occupants of the room. The women were surprisingly late sleepers. Everyone should have an opportunity for a lie-in, but it was already 9am and not one of them had stirred. Switch slid the door shut behind him.

He was suddenly painfully aware of his bedraggled bed head as he stepped into the hallway, discretely attempting to smooth his hair back with his fingers as he passed a lean dark-skinned woman who stared at him, blatantly unimpressed, before re-entering the room she had come out of. If he could see past the blurred mesh of colours his crappy vision restricted him too, he would have noticed her raise an eyebrow in his direction.

Reaching the end of the hallway, he looked at his door, a thin crack visible between the edge of the wood and the frame. He squinted at the crevice. It wasn't like Bossun to leave the door askew. He hardly ever locked it, but he closed it, Switch was certain. He considered the possibility of Bossun having already left the room (probably at some ungodly hour of the morning) and, when leaving, pulled the door too lightly behind him, not turning back to check if it was shut. Regardless of the short time he had known the younger man, he doubted it.

He shouldered his way into the room and froze at the threshold, not entirely certain if he was seeing the sight correctly, but amused by it nonetheless. Switch's own bed was a mess, sheets hanging haphazardly from the frame, his two pillows strewn across the floor. 'Himeko' was his first thought. It made sense, he thought, that if he slept in her bed she would sleep in his. But Himeko was not in his bed. And there was the kicker.

Switch was interested to discover that a single bed could easily accommodate two people if they were pressed together closely enough. Bossun was pressed flat against the mattress, with the exception of his head and neck, which were propped up against the headboard. Switch rubbed the back of his neck in sympathy. If he thought his aches were bad...

A smaller, blonder, figure lay on top of him, arranged in a manner that left her head resting in the crook of his neck, both arms squashed between them, legs tangled with his. One of Bossun's arms settled on his chest, the other thrown across Himeko's waist, fingers twisted into the back of her pyjamas.

She snored lightly into his clavicle.

Her head raised and fell slowly with his chest, their breathing almost perfectly in sync. A small metal item that Switch recognised as Bossun's phone balanced against the back of his knee. Switch didn't know what he was more surprised at, the fact the two people he was certain were glowering at one another less than 12 hours ago were now curled up in the same bed, or that Bossun was actually sleeping, at 9am no less.

He crept across the room and crouched on his side of the room, blindly searching under the bed for his laptop charger. Grabbing the smooth plastic, he dragged it out across the carpet, wincing at the hissing sound and praying to every and any god out there that it woke neither of them. Switch left the room and for the second time that day, quietly slid the door shut for the sake of the occupants.

Bossun deserved this. Actually, he thought as he plugged his charger into a hallway socket, they both did.

"I'm moving out."

Bossun looked up from his manga to focus on Switch, and craned his head forward as if he didn't hear his roommate.

"What?"

"I said, I'm moving out."

Switch pulled a small duffel from under his bed and opened his night stand draw, carding through the litter and unsystematised sheets of paper that lay waste to his side of the room. A variation of diagrams and charts were scattered around the floor and Switch shuffled through them, picking at the edge of one with his thumb, before standing to look through his draw for a second time. He frowned.

"Have you seen my phone?"

"Have I – wait what?"

"I said–"

"I heard what you said."

Bossun dog-eared the page of his book and placed it on his lap, pulling his glasses off shortly afterwards. "Why the hell are you moving out?" he said calmly as he watched Switch stuff his socks into a side compartment and zip it shut.

"My boss caught me walking in to this building. I haven't been sleeping in my own room. She added two and two together."

"How could your boss have caught you? Isn't she staying on the other side of the–"

"Stuff happens, okay?"

Switch turned his back on Bossun, hand hovering over his stripped wash bag for a second, before frowning, as if strengthening his resolve, and shoving it in his bag, and zipping it hastily.

Bossun frowned at his friend, fingers twitching against the edge of his sheet, and twisted his body, sliding his toes to the end of the bed and out into the open air, before pulling them back in again. Switch's boss hadn't caught him doing anything. Bossun was no idiot, and Switch was a terrible liar, regardless of his expressionless face and electronic, un-wavering voice. But why, he thought, would he lie. Bossun slouched down in his bed.

It wasn't because Switch didn't like him, Bossun knew that much. Everybody, including the archer, had some self-esteem issues, but they were fast friends. Friendship at first sight. If reincarnation existed, if all those religious things that he chose to ignore really existed, he and Switch must have been friends in a past life...in an alternate universe.

The friend in question slunk his bag over his back and turned to Bossun, one arm hitched over his shoulder, the other hovering over the keyboard of the laptop hanging from his neck.

Neither of them spoke for a few strained seconds, staring at each other from across the room, before Switch's resolve shattered.

"So I'll see you later."

Bossun said nothing, and instead, chose to chew on the side of his lip. Switch looked at him, stare pensive and slightly annoyed, then rolled his eyes and walked to the door, legs tight, as if to stop himself from stomping. Just before he reached for the handle, Bossun called out to him. "You better visit every goddamn day."

Switch's closed the door a hell of a lot softer than Bossun expected. It was a good sign.

Himeko showed up at his door that night, surprising Bossun by waiting by in the threshold like a polite human being. It was a tad disconcerting. She fumbled with the hem of her t-shirt and sighed, refused to meet his eyes. They hadn't talked about it. They hadn't wanted to. Or maybe she had, but he wouldn't know, he hadn't asked. He didn't want to; he was too shaken up. 6 hours. He had slept for 6 hours.

And what was worse, when he had woken up, with his legs tangled with hers, his nose buried in her hair, he was at ease, comfortable even. He didn't want to be comfortable. He didn't want to start thinking of her smile when he was doing something as random as brushing his teeth, or watching television. He didn't want to remember her cocoon and grin over his cereal like a madman.

So when they woke up he said nothing; he had barely sat up, and as she untangled herself from him, he had tried not to hang on tighter. Himeko had fled his room with nothing more than a mumbled goodbye.

It was late, Bossun noted, considerably earlier than last time, but late nonetheless. She was wearing the same pyjamas and now that the hall light cast a pale glow over her body, he noticed the small white bunny rabbits scattered over her flannel bottoms. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. She looked up at him and frowned.

"You're wearing glasses." She pouted lightly and cocked her head to the side, "Why are you wearing glasses?"

Biting the inside of him cheek, Bossun smirked at her and stepped back, allowing her space to enter his room, which she did so promptly, and shut the door behind her. He waved his hand in front of his eyes.

"They make my eyesight shitty."

Himeko turned to face him and knitted her brows.

"Why the hell would you want your eyesight to be shitty?"

"I dunno," he shrugged, "I can concentrate better like this, I guess."

It was stupid, he knew it was, and judging by the expression on Himeko's face, she thought so too. It was a necessity though, an idiotic, potentially blinding necessity, but Bossun felt he could see only when he couldn't. Sight was such an overwhelming sense. It was the reason he could grin at old photos, it was the reason he didn't get hit by cars when crossing the road. It was the reason he could pick his favourite song, or get ramen noodles into his mouth, for god's sakes.

And when he took it all away, what did he have left. He was confined to the abyss of his mind. Him and his memories, him and his speculations, him and his thoughts. And the resolute sound of the ocean intensified until it was deafening. He didn't know whether the latter was a good though...

They were a shabby, second-hand pair, large circular lenses rimmed with red metal. The too-thin left handle slanted further inwards than the too-thin right handle, causing it to dig into his head and leave a slight indentation on the skin behind his ear. The connecting rod in the centre was too far prominent, and they slipped down his nose whenever he looked down. The glasses were far from perfect, but he was sentimental about his flea market goods.

They also made shooting easier, but Bossun couldn't explain that for the life of him.

The middle of his room seemed to be a well-liked zone for the young woman, and he understood why. From the point where she was standing, a bee-line could be made to the door, she had a perfect view of the skyline through the window, and she could turn away from him to look at other items of the room and not...say, a wall. She could, basically, ignore him without looking like an idiot.

Himeko was just standing there, rolling forward on the balls of her feet, and looking at him, eyes large and apprehensive. She looked as if she expected him to know what to do.

"Do you want..." he paused, wishing the floor would swallow him up, "to talk abou–"

"I really don't." she blurted, fiddling with her fingers. Her head titled to the side, indicating the bed, his bed, and she slipped her thumbs into her waistband again. She was buzzing with something Bossun identified as nervousness.

"Can we just...?"

It was clear what her intentions were as she walked over to the bed, and little to no eye contact was made. It was purely business, a civil agreement of two adults. But Bossun struggled to remember that way as he climbed under the sheets after her and pressed his nose to the back of her neck, arms circling her waist until they rested on the worn fabric of her t-shirt over her stomach. The back of her neck smelt faintly of sweat, salty water.

A rising tide washed over him as he drifted off.

It soon became an unspoken arrangement. Every night at about 11pm, Himeko would show up at his door, always wearing the same weird (adorable) pyjamas, climb into his bed and leave as soon as she woke up. Sometimes he would wake up first, and he would lay in bed with her, wrapping his arms around her tighter, until she stirred and he feigned sleep until he heard the door close with a click. Other times, she would wake up first, and when she did so, he was met with an empty bed, still warm, but empty, and he would try to push the frustration away, snapping the elastic band against his wrist. If it was weird to awake pressed against someone you barely knew every morning, neither of them questioned it.

A week passed. He won his semi-final, scoring two tens and a nine, but his victory was short-lived when the opposition started crying beneath his palms and Bossun tasted bile at the base of his throat.

Himeko and her team won their semi-final also, against either Britain or Australia; the details were fuzzy. He had watched it from his television, smiling and overwhelmed with a sense of pride as Himeko scored the winning goal. She had grinned at her team, slinging her stick over her shoulder and striking a ridiculous pose, hair and uniform sticking to her head and skin (respectively) and causing her friends to burst into chortles and cheers.

Switch had been there. Bossun had noticed him hiding behind one of the cameras opposite the television view, thumbs up and smirking at Himeko, just as he had done for Bossun and when he had questioned the older man about it, albeit a little cynically, he had rolled his eyes so hard, Bossun was scared he would dislodge them from his head.

Switch visited like he'd been asked to do, letting himself in every other night with and movie or video game, a bag of sour gummy worms, and two cups of mandarin jelly.

Which was a very effective way of getting Bossun's mind off his unsuccessful (read non-existent) love life, because, come on, who didn't love mandarin jelly?

It was Himeko's idea. She had found it, though why she had been so excited or determined to show them, Bossun didn't ask.

Switch was seated on his old bed; gesturing wildly with one hand as he attempted to describe an olden sport his uncle had been so enthusiastic to teach him. His eyes lit up as he explained the rules, evidently very fond of the game, though he doubted its real age. There were no flippers or volley balls in ancient China.

Bossun wasn't sure whether he was curious or pitiful of Switch's relative, but he was laughing and nodding at the right moments, intrigued by the score counting system when she burst through his door, without knocking (again), hair mused and smiling bright enough to light up the closing ceremony.

Switch had looked up, surprise barely registered on his face, before Himeko started nattering, heavy pants strung between her long sentences.

"Woah woah woah, Himeko, slow down." Bossun said, swinging his legs of the end of the bed and facing her. "You need to start again."

"My whole room went to get clams from a market near the beach, ya' know, the one near the airport?"

The time between Bossun's landing and check in at his room had passed in a vague blur, no memories sticking with the exception of the distant piss smell of the airport baggage claim and his taxi driver's strangely shaped moustache.

"...but I don't like clams, they're disgusting." He watched as Himeko spoke with her hands, gesticulating in large motions. Failing to bite back his words, Bossun raised an eyebrow.

"So clams are gross, but you like Pelollipops?"

"I was really bored," she continued, punctuating the fact that she was ignoring his commentary by angling her body to face Switch, "and I was climbing up the stairs and–"

Her arms flapped by her sides for a few moments and she pressed her lips together until they disappeared completely inside her mouth. Bossun had no idea what she was talking about, but her excitement was evident and if this thing was as awesome as she made it out to be, he wanted to see it too.

"Come on," she said finally, "I'll show you."

Bossun knew his stamina was almost non-existent, which was surprising for an athlete, but to be fair, archery didn't require much physical strain. That didn't mean it was easy, he had the arm and chest muscles to prove it, but he certainly wasn't as fit as say...a field hockey player.

He was still surprised however, by how hard he was breathing and how much his lungs were stinging and the enormity of the ache in his legs and, Jesus Christ, he needed to start running.

Switch was in even worse shape, doubled over with his hands on his knees to support himself, an action in which he was barely succeeding, and he looked close to vomiting. The hair on his head stuck out from its usual order, curly and slick with sweat. His eyes were filled with something that looked akin to tears, but when asked about it, he fluttered his hand pathetically and flipped opened the laptop swinging from a strap at his side. Apparently, his eyes were 'watering'. The stench of bullshit was overpowering.

"You guys are just weenies." Bossun had never hated her more than in that moment. She stood perfectly poised at the top of the 21st floor, smiling down at them and laughing. She wasn't sweating, she wasn't breathless or wheezing, she didn't even look fazed, as if she ran up flights of stairs in her free time. Maybe she did. He had heard that some coaches were pretty vicious. She took her out of her pocket and aimed it at them, telling them to smile between her giggles.

"Don't you fucking dare!" he yelled half-heartedly, but he heard the snap of the camera nevertheless. Plodding up the last set of steps, Bossun shoved her in the shoulder and she toppled, tripping over her own feet before catching herself on the wall. She was laughing too hard to glare at him. A thin layer of grime coated her sleeve as she pushed herself off the surface. He scanned the area, taking note of the tall piles of cardboard boxes and the grubby wooden floors. The 21st floor was an interior designer's nightmare. "Remind me why we're here again."

Himeko pointed to the ladder propped against the neighbouring wall, and then to the small sealed hatch on the ceiling. Placing one foot on the bottom rung, she swung herself up to the low ceiling and grinned at him. Switch raised an uncertain eyebrow.

She braced herself, squaring her shoulders against the rusty metal and shoved up against the square opening repeatedly, thumps echoing through the room, until it flew open and Himeko white-knuckled the ladder in fear of falling at the backlash. It swayed but stayed upright and she let out a slow breath through her nose.

Soft white rays streamed in through the aperture, providing little light to the otherwise dark room, and Himeko wasted no time scurrying up and through until she was no longer visible. Bossun turned to Switch. The 21st floor was clearly off-limits; it was so unlike Bossun's own that under other circumstances, he would not have known it was part of the building. It was devoid of the plain green walls he was almost used to. Switch looked at him in a way that read 'What do you think? If you go, I'll go.' And if that area was banned, Bossun could only imagine the trouble he could get into by being on the roof.

"Hey. What are you guys still doing down there? Hurry up." called a voice from above them.

Bossun didn't think twice as he clambered up the ladder.

The first thing he noticed was the distinct smell of exhaust fumes, followed by a lighter covering of something crisp and salty and the smell of wet wood. He turned to face Himeko, who was facing the sea and leaning against the concrete railing.

The second thing he noticed was how he could see the light splatter of freckles across her cheeks and nose in direct sunlight. He was unsurprised that he hadn't noticed them before. They were small but generously distributed and minutely darker than her skin, a whole tone at most, starting under her eyes and ending where the base of her nose met her upper lip. He also noticed how they made her just that more beautiful, but he pushed that thought aside for a rainy day.

Switch scaled the ladder behind him, clunking and huffing and generally making a lot of noise until he stilled at the top and scanned the roof top. He was impressed. Bossun spun in a slow circle and, for the first time, really assessed his surroundings. They were further up than he would have initially thought, having completely underestimated the height of the building. The people weren't ants, per say, more like tiny blurs bustling across a sheet of green, and grey, and yellow, carrying footballs the size of bread crumbs and fold away tables the size of toothpicks.

The sea stirred softly in the distance, pounding rhythmically against the sand as crests broke and dissolved into a spray of white foam. A small docking bay overlooked the shore and the tiny blurs milled around it boarding boats and hanging miniscule feet over the edge to dip them into the water.

Himeko planted her butt on the ground and gestured for them to do the same. Switch tried to sit down slowly, juggling his laptop between his arms and the floor, only to end up falling unceremoniously onto the concrete and mouthing profanities as he checked his computer for scratches.

It was unlike anything Bossun had done in a while. He wasn't a romantic, or the type of guy to climb up to the roof as the sun was setting and spend bonding time with friends. For starters, he was an indoorsy person (generally speaking), and usually opted to spend his time somewhere where he could control the temperature and light distribution. He played video games with his friends, he watched movies, and, on occasion, he used to be dragged to violin concerts. But Himeko was smiling and laughing at Switch's misfortune, making joking comments about how distressed he looked over the tiny nick at the corner of his laptop, and he retaliated by pointing out that at least he didn't cover his with stupid stickers. She punched him in the arm and laughed, leaning back against the barrier. And if this was the way his new friends wanted to hang out, he could roll with it.

Himeko looked up at Bossun, who was yet to sit down, sun glinting through her dark eyelashes. A smile flashed across her face as he took a seat next to her and she looked over her shoulder, watching the people below her. "It's so nice up here. I could stay for hours."

And so they did.

The rain took them all by surprise at around 8pm, while they were in the midst to laughing, Himeko especially so as she clutched her stomach and cried over a story Bossun recounted about his sister and exactly how she got her foot stuck in a toilet. The shower had been light at first, barely noticeable, until small dew drops started running down Switch's laptop screen and he looked up in alarm.

"Oh," Bossun halted his tale and stuck out his hands, palms turned upwards, "it's raining."

Himeko rolled her eyes at him. "Congratulations, you spotted the obvious." Switch opened his mouth in an inaudible scream and wiped his screen with his sleeves furiously. The downpour was getting heavier quickly and Switched leaned over his computer as he struggled to stand, attempting to protect it from the onslaught of water.

"Water is the natural enemy of electronics!" he typed hurriedly as the sprinted for the exit, or as much as he could sprint, curled over a machine and barrelling towards a hole in the floor. He kicked open the wooden flap and shimmied down feet first, hugging his laptop to his chest with one arm and gripping the ladder with the other. By the time Bossun comprehended what was happening, only the tip of lightly matted black hair was visible.

He smirked, thinking a certain line form Alice and Wonderland would fit Switch's actions perfectly, before he disappeared from sight completely and left only the sound of pounding footsteps as he ran down the stairs. Bossun couldn't blame him, even if his actions were a little...melodramatic. It wasn't hard to see how attached he was too his computer, there was no other explanation for a tech genius to be carrying around a device that may as well have been prehistoric. It was three years old at the least. He had heard enough complaining about 2 GHz dual core processors (complaints he didn't even pretend to understand) or something of the like, to know that its insides weren't in top shape either.

They sky spluttered down over him and he looked up to the light grey clouds casting down the rain. They were lighter in colour than to be expected and Bossun held back a sigh as he stood and rubbed his palms on his trousers, hands already slick with water, and half jogged over to the ladder, pleased to be escaping the cold. It was a warm day, not much other should have been expected from South America, but the rain seeped through his clothes and left his shivers in its wake.

Her voice called out to him as he squatted next to the ladder. "Wait," she said, eyes squinted against the rain but fixed on him, "where are you going?" Bossun looked at the ladder before looking back up at her, eyebrows knitted in confusion. She showed no signs of leaving, feet unmoving against the floor and fingers spread wide towards the sky. "I'm..." he faltered and scratched the back of his neck uncertainly, "well it's raining, so I was just going to go back inside..." he trailed of and nudged the open hatch with his foot, looking down at the pool of water collecting inside.

"Aren't— aren't you coming?" he said.

"Why? The rain is so nice!"

"It's freezing!"

"It's beautiful!"

People were fleeing for shelter below, ducking into buildings, or whipping out umbrellas and increasing their pace. The occupants of the streets rapidly lessened until they were almost scarce. Evidently, some people actually had the sense to get out of the cold and wet.

Knocking aside the urge to flee to the dry and warm, Bossun ran his hand through his hair, droplets pouring from his head with abundance, and tried not to smile. The small heels on the bottom of her shoes make a series of small clacks, sharp against the dull drone of rain, as she trotted over to him.

She smiled at him, eyes shining and identical to the ocean that lay waste to the shore behind her, waves rolling heavily over the surface. She was standing close to him, too close, and Bossun's breath was trapped in his lungs. He shivered but his blood boiled under his skin. Content, yet terrified. Everything, yet nothing. What she was doing he understood perfectly well but that did not stimulate his movement, allowing himself to only release a breath, long and shallow, in hopes she wouldn't notice his impatience, thinly veiled as unrequited panic. But he was so, so tired of waiting. Because whenever they curled up against each other, whenever Bossun's voice caught in his throat, whenever he thought something was finally going to happen, her lips were always too far away from his, pressed into his collar bone, or his shoulder, or his hair, or turned away from him, her front facing the wall. And he was so goddamn tired of it all.

"This isn't some cliché movie." She murmured, tapping the toe of his shoe with her own. Her hair looked almost brown when wet, clinging to her cheeks and forehead and hanging limply over her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and glossy. She sighed and a drop ran down the curve of her jaw, "So what now? We just look into each other's eyes and fall in love in the rain?"

Bossun said nothing and instead, concentrated of the sound of his heart thrumming through his ears. After waiting a few moments, the silence stretching like a chasm between them, she rolled her eyes, growled a distinct "Fuck it." under her breath, and surged forward, capturing his lips with her own. Her movements were rushed and uncoordinated and Bossun winced as her teeth collided with his, but smiled because finally, and brought his hand up to meet her jaw, the same one he had watched the drop trickle down moments ago, because finally!

Her hands were grabby and fumbling, coming to rest on his shirt and grasping the fabric like vices, pulling him flush against her, almost painfully, as if he were a life boat in the middle of the vast ocean but he gripped her back just as tightly. He was drowning, but Himeko was holding him, and for a second he didn't mind.

He broke away from her eventually, breath strained and hard, and he felt her grin against the corner of his mouth, teeth pressed against his skin. "You know," she said, carding her fingers through his hair and looking up to meet his eyes, "It is actually kind of cold."

He pulled her in again.

His feet were cold, but his torso was hot and he snarled as he pulled the cover down slightly with his toes and curled them over the edge of the fabric. As much was to be expected, his feet didn't have a body wrapped around them.

Constellations stood out in the ceiling freckles, pencilled in on his second day as Switch read out the description of Gemini, which was neatly drawn next to the only constellation Bossun had known of beforehand, a messy sketch shaped like a lopsided saucepan. A shock of cold ran up his leg as Himeko pressed into his already freezing feet with her toes that may as well have been the embodiment of the Antarctic. If he didn't know any better, he would have almost thought she was laughing silently at him, breaths coming faster than before and her lips trembling against the crook of his neck. He smirked into her hair, before moving and re-angling his foot to press into the small of her bare back and she released a little shriek, fist connecting with his naked chest and making him groan.

"Harsh, much?"

"Well what you did was rude."

"You started it!" he argued.

"It was an accident!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!" she retaliated and nudged his foot back down the bed with her elbow. "You're just a nuisance." A shudder wracked his body as she bracketed his hips with her thighs and buried her nose deeper into his neck. Her arms wrapped around his back, tracing patterns and following the curve of his muscles with her fingertips, and raked across the skin with her nails.

Bossun's boxer shorts lay discarded across the room, resting under the window sill where he had thrown them the night before, completely oblivious, not to mention uncaring, of where they landed because, at the time, he had more...pressing matters to deal with. Something black, straining of his eyes revealed it was a bra, hung over the back of the desk chair to his far right.

Her hair still smelled like rain water, he supposed his did also, and created a damp patch on the pillow that spread slightly more than the circumference of her head and only just reaching the tip of his nose. He grimaced as he reached the realisation that their soaked clothes were probably also creating damp patches in the carpet.

He didn't know how fast the patches would dry, and assuming they took more than a few hours, Switch would start asking questions. And how the hell could he explain his situation to Switch. He was barely able to comprehend it himself, let alone clarifying the nature of Himeko and his relationship to someone else. 'Hey Switch, you know Himeko? Yeah, well, after you fled the roof like a damsel in distress we kissed and then I slept with her and now I'm thinking about introducing her to my mother?'

Worst case scenario, Switch makes a couple of jokingly derogatory comments but doesn't really care. Best case scenario, Switch makes a couple of jokingly derogatory comments and cares a little bit. Or maybe he would roll his eyes and tell them how utterly predictable they were, only to lose interest in them to a computer game.

Bossun's fingers chilled as he ran them through the base of her hair and she sighed, her grip tightening fractionally around his midriff. He sought relief in her actions, burying his face deeper into her hair, because in was so much easier to take comfort in the present than agonise about the future. 'Future'. He almost scoffed at the word. What the hell did it mean to him? He was from Tokyo; Himeko was from Osaka. That much was obvious, the Kansai dialect was hard to miss, not to mention the information on the sports hoodie Bossun was sure must have been lingering around his room somewhere.

It was a 6 hour drive, and that was with minimal traffic and a decent car, both of which were non-existent in the life of Fujisaki Yūsuke.

Besides, even if by some impossible chance they could make it work, what good could he do for her? A young man with nothing but his bow, a few arrows and his quiver. It was quite pathetic actually. He wasn't saying sport was more important to him than it was to her, god he wasn't saying that at all. He had watched her on the pitch, in the middle of a game, oozing adrenaline and an overwhelming buzz, body slightly slouched as she ran forward, mind on the offensive and swinging her hockey stick like it was made of cardboard.

And that was just it, team players had the 'it' factor, whatever 'it' was. If Bossun had to guess, he would have probably described it as little more that the way light shone through their eyes, the way their bodies screamed 'Unity' and the way their gestures represented those of millions.

Archers didn't have that. They had poise and calm. They had stability. It was no so much their eyes or gestures, but the way they held themselves, the little nick under their lips from pulling and holding the drawstring at their chins one too many times. They deserved the title 'athlete' just as much as any other Olympic participant. But they didn't have the 'it'. Careers passed silently, slow but steady. Competition remained a common factor in their lives until old age or...at least by athletes' standards. But there was no ending spark, no fireworks, no bang, no crackle, or pop. They faded out as easily as they came in. People would recognise Himeko, she would be the one signing autographs and taking pictures with children. Worthwhile people belonged with worthwhile people, he guessed.

She shifted next to him, and laying her hand flat on his back, looked up at him. Half of her mouth jerked into a half smile. "What are you thinking about?"

He crinkled his nose and grinned at her, choosing to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach, "I think," he held on to her fractionally tighter, "I've slept more in the past week than I have in the six months before this."

"You're exaggerating."

He kissed the top of her head. "I don't think I am."

The next morning he threw away his rubber band, along with all the extras packed into the nooks of his suitcase.

To be honest, the thing that surprised Switch the most was that they hadn't done it sooner. Unresolved sexual tension and 24/7 bedroom eyes could only really lead to one thing, unless they had been expressing their hated and plotting each other's murder, in which case, he had read the situation completely wrong and should have probably cut down on overly-sappy shōjo manga. But then again, murders didn't usually spend the night wrapped around their intended victim...maybe the clever ones did.

Bossun had the audacity to approach him carefully, like he was some kind of time bomb prone to explosion and Bossun had a SWAT team on speed dial. He had told him carefully and Switch had to control every nerve in his body to refrain from kicking his idiotic roommate in the shin, and instead, settled for a snarky comment and feigned disinterest, staring back at his laptop and watching Bossun through his peripheral vision.

Bossun seemed completely and utterly unsurprised at Switch's reaction, but relieved nonetheless. He threw a sad half-hearted smile at him and turned back to his phone, punching in a set of numbers, and walked out the room, but not before Switch heard a "Hey, Rumi." followed by the door closing smoothly behind him. The rest of his conversation was muffled through the wood, and thus, entirely incomprehensible, to Switch's ever-so-slight displeasure.

He attempted to broach the subject later in the day, a friendly, harmless ambush, a few seconds after he heard the shower switch off in the bathroom. Switch made the voice soft, or as soft as a computer program could be made, and Bossun responded accordingly.

"Are you okay?" said Switch, back pressed against the outer bathroom wall and sitting with his toes buried in the carpet.

"Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I be?" Bossun's voice was calm, still caught up in the euphoria that came with hot water and a powerful shower head, and clear despite the wall separating them.

"No reason," Switch replied, glad his monotone software hid his annoyance, "Is Himeko okay?"

There was a definite pause, the kind that only came right before someone started to realise what was happening with perfect clarity, followed by harsher sounding words through the door. "Where are you going with this?"

"Nowhere, I was just asking how you guys are doing. I'm interested."

"Really," the door opened a crack and Bossun stuck his head through, hair curling slightly at the humidity, "'cause you didn't seem interested a few hours ago."

"But you looked—"

"I looked what?"

"Sad, crushed, emotionally vulnerable, I don't know." Bossun's eyes narrowed and, clenching his jaw, he slammed the door shut violently, the gust of air created blowing Switch's hair back.

"I'm fine. We're fine."

"There's no point lying to me."

Switch didn't usually do concern. It wasn't in his top ten most used emotions...maybe 27th or something. He felt worry just as much as the next guy, but there was a difference. Worry was problem orientated. Concern was the compulsion to find a solution. But the feeling was definite, spiking severely as he heard Bossun release a ragged sigh and slide down the inside or the door, until he sat parallel to Switch, most likely directly behind him, and a soft thump as he rested his head on the wood.

"I dunno, man."

"You don't know what?"

"Himeko's all– y'know, and I'm all– y'know..."

"No, I don't know."

Bossun groaned and Switch pictured him dropping his head in to hands, possibly slamming one of his fists into the tile floor.

"I mean, she's not perfect, but she like...I don't know how to—"

"You think you're not good enough for her." said Switch, finishing his roommate's train of thought.

It wasn't a concept he was unfamiliar with, the entire overplayed movie cliché of thinking the person you were in love with was out of your league. However, in those versions, it was usually followed by a lot of crying and an unnecessarily angsty sub-plot, occasionally a musical number, which Switch had less than no desire to watch his friend live out.

When no reply came, he continued typing, and having Bossun best interest at heart, said, "Sometimes, Bossun," he paused and rolled his eyes, "you are so full of shit." Indignant splutters washed through the door, followed by the sound of clammy skin against a bathroom floor and the door being wrenched open. It was a display of anger, but he detected a hint of surprise. He scarcely swore, he was no prude, but it was an unnecessary addition to his sentences. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Switch remained seated.

"Like you can talk! You're the one who ditched me and left the room for some mysterious unknown reason that I know had nothing to do with you being caught." Bossun towered over him in nothing but light pink boxer shorts and ankle socks, hair soaked, fists clenched, and seething.

Switch replied, unflinching. "For starters, I don't see what that has to do with anything." He stood up and shook out his legs. "Secondly, I had good reason to. And thirdly," he stood close enough to feel the warmth of Bossun's heavy breathing on his face, "this isn't about me or my actions, this is about you being stupid."

"How am I being stupid!?"

"Do you honestly think Himeko is," he raised one hand to form an air quote, "'too good for you'."

Bossun hands hovered around the top of his boxers, as if searching for pockets to shove them into, but eventually dropped them by his sides. "You don't know anyth—"

Switch shoved him backwards, causing him to stumble over his own feet, but he managed to stay upright, and when he regained his balance, looked ready to punch Switch in the face. The older man raised an unimpressed eyebrow in retaliation. "You're not doing yourself any favours by degrading your worth or judging yourself, or her, on your..." He waved a hand vaguely, "looks, skill, success? I don't know." Shrugging, Switch took note of Bossun's dwindling anger.

"I'm not the sappy type but you're not a bad person. And Himeko obviously likes you so she can't think you're a bad person either. I'm sure everyone in a relationship feels like this sooner or later, obviously you didn't opt for the latter like most people." A small chuckle almost escaped Bossun's throat, but he drowned it with a poorly falsified cough.

"But I bet, maybe not now, but in a few months, Himeko's going to feel the same way. So just calm down and..." Wracked with an unidentifiable emotion similar to the brotherly affection he only felt for his younger sibling, he offered a slight smile and rolled his eyes, "take a bubble bath or something."

Bossun's expression of gratitude was different to those of others Switch had seen before. His smile was barely there, but it was written into his eyes, small crinkles surrounding his eyes and adding a few years to his appearance. Drops of water struck Switch in the face as Bossun flicked in hand in his direction. "I already showered."

"Judging by all the promiscuous activity you've gotten up to lately, I think you need another."

He was completely unsurprised when Bossun punched him in the arm.

Ears could only handle so much noise until some serious damage was inflicted and Bossun had always been fond of the ability to hear sound. The sound came from over them, the sound of stamping (Canadians were particularly passionate about any kind of hockey), and enthusiastic cheers as the announcer spurred on the crowd.

Switch was a member of staff, and being so high in the hierarchy, was given some leeway in terms of access to restricted areas, but Bossun was still surprised he had managed to get them into the girls' changing room. No indecent activity was involved, all the women had finished changing long before they entered, and were chatting and stretching when, chock-filled with second-hand nerves, he had knocked on the door.

Himeko was stretching her triceps to the left hand side of the room, one arm flung up and over until her hand was pushed into the centre of her back, the same spot Bossun had pressed his nose to the night before as she'd toyed with his fingers.

The already present smile on her face, most likely pre-game eagerness and anticipation, grew marginally as she spotted him, halting her conversation with one of her teammates.

"Hey."

"Hi." He said. The room was larger than expected, a low celling but wide floor space, complete with rows of benches, three toilet cubicles and a seemingly unnecessary coat rack. The floor was a pale green, much like their rooms and the rest of the village, and the walls were stark white, one of them lined with half a dozen separate mirrors.

The smell of floor cleaner tickled the inside of his nose and he fought back a sneeze, watching Himeko double knot her shoe laces and he smiled at the wonky, lop-sided bows.

A loud knock echoed behind him, and Bossun barely had the time to think, 'I'm not allowed to be in here' before the door swung open and a short middle-aged woman, complete with an Olympic hoodie and headset, smiled at the athletes. If she noticed his unauthorised presence, she didn't say anything, and instead tapped her watch and gestured to Himeko's friend with the brown pigtails.

"Takahashi Chiaki, I expect you and your team to meet your escort outside in twenty minutes." She left immediately, sparing no time for questions, in a flurry of pale green, clip board paper, and the smell of coffee. Silence lapsed across the room momentarily, before the occupants once again burst into conversation. Switch and Yūki were particularly loud.

"I see you're still a sceptic, Switch-kun."

He scoffed, "I'm a realist."

"You look, but you don't see."

"I see what is actually there."

The woman referred to as Takahashi Chiaki nudged her way past the bickering pair, throwing an uncertain side glance at Yūki, before standing in front of the door and putting her hands on her hips in the picture perfect stance of a leader.

"Okay everybody! Someone will be coming to pick us up in twenty minutes, but I think we should go right now. If we're early, we can take some time to look up at the stadium and really get motivated." She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and grinned, "Coach is already waiting for us in the stadium so let's make her proud!"

A loud round of cheers erupted from her teammates. Shoe laces were hastily tied and hockey sticks were grabbed, and she pushed open the door, holding it wide open as the women streamed out in single file, some high-fiving her as they passed. Switch was completely oblivious to the rush of optimism spreading across the room, and instead continued his argument, talking about how science reigned supreme to occult as he exited the changing room, trailing slightly behind Yūki with an attempt at a nonchalant expression.

"Himeko," Chiaki watched the last of her team trail through the door, with the exception of Himeko, who sat on a bench to Bossun's left, pulling at a loose thread on the black sweat band circling her wrist, "are you coming?"

"I'll...catch up with you in a second."

The team's captain frowned, concern written on her face as she stared at Himeko, and pursed her lips, turning away. "Well, okay. But don't be too long."

"Bossun," Switch stuck his foot through the crack of the door, halting its closure and sticking his head through the door, "I'll go find our 'seats'" Switch smirked on the way put, leaving Bossun with a sigh and a sinking feeling that, for the duration of the match, he would be seated (if he was lucky) in an awkward staff area, view block by cameras, and wires, and computers, and left peering over equipment to watch the game.

The door swung shut with a small bump. Himeko rolled the strand between her fingers. They listened to the spurs of the crowd and just as Bossun thought he could finally say something useful, he grinned at her and, instead, said, "Well...good luck!"

She didn't reply, obviously far too enamoured in the intense intrigue of a piece of thread to interact with him. Bossun hardly had the highest self-esteem, but he was highly doubtful that that was the case.

"Hey." he murmured voice softening significantly. He leant down until their heads were equal height, perching on his knees before her and gripping both sides of the bench around her. "You'll do great!"

She forced a small smile and ducked her head. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just nerves, ya know?"

"You'll do great."

The thread dropped from her fingers and fists replaced her open palms, coiled on top of her lap and shaking. Her fringe was pinned back against her head with small white clips, and yet he recognised the gesture. It was a barely noticeable, self-conscious quirk, in which she tilted her head downwards slightly, until her bangs hung in front of her eyes with the intention of either blocking her vision or impairing others' vision of her.

When she finally spoke, her voice was small; it was more than a whisper, but quieter than usual, stuck somewhere between there and not. "But what if I don't."

He opened his mouth to argue but she cut him off. "We've come all this way and what if someone messes up, what if I mess up!" She looked almost angry, eyes filled with tears of frustration, and dug her nails into the top of her long hockey socks, scraping the red cotton.

"Or worse," she said, "what if I'm just not good enough." If Switch thought he was full of shit, Bossun was sure he would have slapped Himeko. She was being ridiculous, and he was genuinely unsure whether she knew that. He wanted to knock some sense into her, shake her until she saw reason. It wasn't like her. She should have been confident and cocky, swinging her stick back and forth and making plans for when her team won.

"Like," her fists stilled against her knees, "Captain has pure drive, and Yūki is naturally intimidating. Yagi has tactical smarts. What do I have?"

"Extreme, unadulterated skill." The frown on her face quirked into a closed-mouth smile, and she rested her forehead against Bossun's, releasing a long breath. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders and he could almost feel her slowing pulse through her fingertips.

"Besides," he grinned, "silver is a cooler colour anyway."

A tall, well built, brunette scored Canada's winning goal four seconds before the referee blew her whistle to signal the end of the match. Bossun suggested ice cream. Himeko asked for rainbow sprinkles.

His lungs stopped functioning when his third and final arrow hit the bullseye, less than a centimetre away from his second, and before that, first arrow. The crowd roared but he stayed silent, unable to speak, or even see behind the fog of his glasses, which definitely was not a result of tears brimming from his eyes. He wasn't a happy crier.

His opponent, a tall Korean man with a good ten years and 12 centimetres on him, placed his bow on the ground and curled his fist, breathing deeply through his nose, closing his eyes, and generally looking as if he was trying not to cry. In that moment, Bossun almost wished he had missed the target completely. Winning, especially in a competition of such high stakes, was a bitter-sweet affair, at least, if the winner had a conscience, which he was sure he did. A small ache wouldn't be nestled in the back of his mind otherwise.

Official congratulations past in a blur of cameras and perky news reporters in pencil skirts, shortly followed by a member of staff giving him a short speech about the change in his timetable in regards to the medal ceremony and interview that he didn't really listen to, far too distracted by the pounding of his heart and the grin on Himeko's face from her position behind Switch, who was also smiling widely in a way he had never seen before. He didn't recognise it on his friends face.

Bossun didn't want to follow the typical cliché of thinking back to all his hard work and the hours of practice he put in, complete with a blurry edged flashbacks and pretentious background music, but he did spend a second acknowledging the worth of the callouses that had grown between his top and middle knuckles on his right hand, evidence of practice in its most physical form, aside from, of course, the medal he would be getting soon. He didn't think he would ever take it off.

That was if Rumi didn't steal it. He used to be almost certain she would out grown her minor kleptomania by the time she turned 18, but that was another thing he was drastically incorrect about. He had no doubt she would take it the second he visited her, and wear it around her apartment for a good day or so, at least until she got bored and grudgingly returned it to him.

But with winning, with the end of his competitions, came the slow realisation that it was all over. At least for the next four years, by which time Himeko was unlikely to still be playing hockey. She would be 30, which was almost unthinkable. 30 was practically ancient. 30 year olds didn't take active parts in the Olympics. And hockey was nothing if not active.

He would have to pack his suitcase soon, but not neatly, meaning Switch would have to sit on it whilst he pulled at the zips and prayed they didn't break. He would have to carry the souvenirs in his hang luggage, shoving his knickknacks in the nooks and being thankful that all his photos were one his phone. He didn't take as many pictures as he would have liked to. If he could re-live the two weeks; that was what he would change. He would take pictures of the view of the beach from his bedroom window, of the village streets at night, of Himeko curled up in his bed, catching himself in the frame if he was lucky.

Said woman was approaching him rapidly, breaking into a sprint as she neared him and throwing her arms around his neck in the most unprofessional manner possible and throwing him off balance, leaving him stumbling over his own feet and gripping her for purchase. He managed to keep them on their feet (barely). A quick glance at crowd, hoping none of them had seen him stumble over his own feet, revealed most of them had already left, the last few picking up their possessions or filtering through the exits.

"Hey," Himeko tilted his face back towards her with her hand and grinned like a child on Christmas morning, "congratulations."

She kissed him suddenly, pulling him closer and threading her hands through his hair, letting them rest at the back of his head where his hair met the back of his neck. He was the first to pull away, looking down at her through hooded eye lashes and smiling sheepishly.

"I don't mean to sound like a whinny teenager, but promise you'll call me, alright?"

"What are you talking about?"

He tried for a larger smile, pushing down his unease and pressing his forehead against hers, in the way she had done in the tense minutes before her final.

"When you get back to Osaka, you'll call me?" Her eyebrows creased in the most extreme state of utter confusion he had ever seen Himeko express. She took a step backwards and held him by his shoulders, eyes filled with uncertainty and searching his face.

"I...I live in Tokyo, not in Osaka," she said, shaking her head, "not for the past 6 years anyway."

"But...I thought...your hoodie." When the comprehension of his misunderstanding hit her, she laughed so hard Bossun startled backwards, the shock on his face only causing her to burst into another round of giggles. "I grew up in Osaka."

"Oh, I thought—"

"Almost all Japanese Olympic teams operate form Tokyo anyway," She punched him in the arm, too light to inflict any real damage, but hard enough for Bossun to hold back a wince, "idiot."

"So," he grinned at her and pulled her close again, eyes alight with mischief and a new brand of happiness he hadn't felt in a while, "you're coming back to Tokyo with me and I get a gold medal."

Himeko laughed and stared up at him, eyes seeming a lighter shade of blue than they day they met, the day she had scolded him for his lack of manners and he had been tempted to spit his toothpaste at her. The storm was gone and replaced with still seas, glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

The drowning man had found land.

"Don't get cocky." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Someone once told me silver is a cooler colour anyway."

The End

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

-Pablo Neruda

I hope everyone liked this, but especially you, Lex.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.