Disclaimer: Not mine.
Warning: This is yaoi.
Summary: Maybe a little more.
"We should stop seeing each other," says Sena.
He won't look up.
"Ah," says Kazuki. He's looking down at his glass of beer, and, for some reason, thinking about the all the paperwork that's waiting for him back at the station and how he should probably go in early tomorrow morning.
"I'm sorry," says Sena.
He's obviously just come from work. The satchel next to his chair is full of tests waiting to be graded and his tie actually has a smudge of chalk on it. For weeks, Sena's been rushing to school and back, clutching evaluations, attendance sheets, a lot of other things Kazuki remembers the newbie teachers from his own childhood holding onto for dear life as they ran between homeroom and the staffroom. Sena has the same look now as they did then, all stress and hurry and a little panic.
Except Kazuki doesn't remember ever having any teachers who looks the way Sena does, with his loosened tie and flushed face and long, long eyelashes.
"I see," says Kazuki, because he can't think of anything else.
Sena won't look at him, and Kazuki has to pick his beer up very, very carefully so as not to shatter the glass.
He asks "He waiting at home for you?" without being able to stop himself.
Oddly, Sena doesn't flinch. He keeps his eyes on the complimentary tea in front of him and only presses his lips into a thin line.
What else is there left to say? Sena's made his choice. Took him long enough—nearly a year. A year of weekly dates assigned by schedule and rushed meals and clinging, desperate morning afters. Of sitting at home on the Friday that isn't his and getting drunk in front of the TV wondering if Sena's at dinner or in a cab or in someone else's bed.
It's better this way.
Don't go, Kazuki almost says, but he's finishing the last of his glass of beer and Sena's standing up.
Out of nowhere, Kazuki's struck by the memory of watching Sena stand up countless times before. When they were in high school, Sena's skinny shoulders hunched over the desk in front of him until the bell, and then that skinny back stretching itself out under its shirt as Sena got up to bow the teacher out. At practice, or in the locker room, the Deimon red and the white 21 pulled taut over protective gear as Eyeshield 21 stood up go out onto the field. When they were in university and Kazuki got to look across the field at the opposing bench and see Sena, wearing Enma's colors and his signature 21, getting up to bump arms with Enma's Kongo and Enma's Mizumachi just before he came out onto the field and led his team to an underdog victory over Saikyoudai by a margin of one.
But that was a long time ago. And neither of them are kids anymore.
Outside the bar, just as Sena's turning away to catch a taxi, Kazuki takes his arm.
He doesn't care who's looking.
"Come home with me." Please please please. "Just for tonight."
It's a terrible idea. Kazuki isn't drunk enough to think that he can get through this with any kind of dignity if Sena comes home with him. It would be too easy to take Sena in his arms, clutching that smaller body to his, his mouth in Sena's hair, Don't go, I don't care what I have to do, just don't go.
To throw away all pride and self-respect.
"I can't," says Sena. He's looking away from Kazuki, still won't look at Kazuki, as if he's determined that Kazuki should no longer exist in his eyes. "I'm sorry."
Kazuki lets go.
The street is wet and the lights of the bars and stores glistening with rain. When a taxi does pull up, Kazuki can see his reflection and the reflection of the lights behind him in the windows.
Good-bye, Kazuki, says Sena, but so softly that Kazuki can't hear him, only see the words on his lips.
Then Sena gets into the taxi and it slides out into traffic.
And Kazuki watches Sena leave.
Without looking back.