Prompt for day 5 of the week was also "overdone trope", and... soulmates AU... I mean, I love those, but they're really a trend. I wrote this while listening to Bite, by Troye Sivan, even though the lyrics didn't inspire me. I hope you enjoy !
Day 5: Cliches. Choose any cliche/overdone trope and do what you will with it.
5. When you met and sparks didn't flow
Everyone at school calls him Suga, because Sugawara is too long for their five year old tongue, and "Koushi" becomes the name only his parents use. "Pass me the salt, Koushi". Even their tongues sometimes slip. Nobody calls him by his name anymore, and that's fine – he's five, he doesn't even think about it, but it's there, and when the new boy with hair just as dark as his own hair is light calls him "Koushi" with a tilted face, he feels butterflies in his chest just by how special it sounds.
Even if the other boy seems to feel nothing at all, when his chest is about to burst from the sudden warmth, Koushi can't help but check, when he is back home – his mark is still empty on his chest, the circle barely tingling when he runs his fingers over it. His mother hushes him out of the bathroom, telling him to put his shirt back on unless he wants to catch a cold.
"Don't worry, dear, you'll find your soulmate. I'm sure you will."
He will, the mate-circle on his chest promises him so after all, but he was so sure the boy would be his soulmate that it feels a little disappointing to know he'll have to wait.
Daichi is a shy little boy that only talked to him on his first day because he speaks "nice", they're friends now, and he forgets everything about the butterflies when Daichi smiles his toothy, wide smile, or frowns too deeply for his small face, and calls him "Suga".
4. When you drank tea together and he called you "pretty"
Sunset is very pretty from this hill, Daichi said, so here they are, two little boys perched on top of a field, waiting for the sun to disappear with snacks and blankets. Koushi had sneezed a bit – "It's the pollen, Daichi, stop fussing over it", but Daichi wouldn't, had even complained that the tea was cold. Actually, he feels anything but cold. Warmth, so familiar and comforting, seeping from his chest through his clothes, he wonders how Daichi isn't feeling it yet.
"I wish I could be in Tokyo right now. Yui's going to need people to make sure she doesn't cry too much. I'm not kind enough, you should come comfort her, too."
Michimiya's grandmother has died just a week ago, and she is away for the funeral. Coming to this hill is probably Daichi's way of getting closer to the sky – "Do you think dead people go to the clouds, Suga ? I do. They're probably watching us, thinking that we're doing great without them. I'm sure my grandparents are ok somewhere."
Koushi doesn't talk much. The view is breathtaking, rooftops gleaming orange, peaceful clouds drifting high above him. He feels at peace, both acutely aware of his surroundings and very distant, swirling in the sky with the peachy clouds. Weightless.
"You're so pretty, Koushi…"
He's about to say yes, the sunset is pretty, but then his mind processes what he just heard. Daichi is not looking at the sunset, he's looking at him, fingers clutching his chest like he's feeling it too – his lungs are burning by the time Daichi finishes his sentence, the heat of his mate-circle is almost unbearable – it all stops in one second when he shuffle and the tea spills all over the blankets they are nestled into.
They've known each other for more than four years now and it's the second time it happens, but Koushi would be a fool to pretend he never hoped it would, and an even bigger one for believing his mate-circle would activate just because Daichi said he is pretty. In four years, they had plenty of occasions to be mated, and it just. It wouldn't happen. Daichi is still clutching his shirt like nothing is wrong, smiling, and Koushi is at least happy they have this.
3. When you were playing volleyball and he tossed the ball right onto your head
Daichi and him aren't going to the same middle school and honestly, he's as relieved as he's upset. Less time together, certainly, and that's something they both resent. Less laughter, when they see each other, less games, more chatting, but Koushi thinks he has never known Daichi this well, now that he tells him everything that happened while they were apart and how he felt about it. Less time to think about how his circle has been dead cold ever since they watched the sunset together, less time to think that people tell him his smile is blinding like they never saw it before – they haven't, they don't know him like Daichi does. His ever growing popularity is new, people crowding around him that are not Daichi, and it's not exactly something he doesn't enjoy. By now he's twelve, Daichi used to call him Koushi an eternity ago, and he gives up properly on the idea of being mated with Daichi when it's Yui who calls him because Daichi is sick and can't see him. The next day, when Daichi feels better, Koushi learns he joined the volleyball club and was sick because they played outside while it ran – how dumb, he hits him over the head and laughs when Daichi makes his deep, face-scrunching frown. They play a bit, Koushi promising to join the volleyball club too, so they can play together when they're in high school. It's a pleasant idea. Even when Daichi tries to serve and the ball hits him on the back of the head, hard – "You weren't looking at it, idiot ! What were you looking at anyway ?!" He was looking at his dumb best friend and thinking about how he never wanted them to grow apart, but that's something he can't tell, so he just smiles and laughs some more before trying to serve himself. It hurts, not only at the back of his head.
It's alright, Koushi tells himself, it's alright, he still has a mate-circle, he still has someone waiting for him somewhere. He doesn't really want someone waiting, though, he wants to spend his life with his best friend, and play volleyball, it sounds fun.
2. When you went to the beach together and he crushed daises under his feet
The team is something else. They're two, as they have always been, then three when Asahi joins – although sometimes he's so quiet it feels like there is no one at all so they get a little too intimate and then Asahi is blushing so red they're reminded he hasn't left yet – then four when Shimizu becomes the manager. She's quiet, too, but a different kind of silence that speaks of confidence, not one that reeks of fear. And then they're six with Noya and Tanaka, the loudest people Koushi has ever met, the quickest ones to get on Daichi's nerves, too. Then, nine with the other second years, thirteen when the first years join as well. It's a lot of people, even more of a crowd when they're all shouting and fired up and so full of energy. He can't really blame Hinata for calling him "mum" once, since it's actually what it feels like. When Hinata turns to Kageyama, whispering oh-so-discreetly "Captain must be the dad then, right ?", Koushi almost choke on his water bottle. So… this is what they look like to outsiders ? Is this what people understand when they see them ? He knows nothing has changed in their three years of high school. His mate-circle is still cold. It might even have faded a bit, but he's stopped looking a long time ago. Daichi and him have grown closer, that's all, just like people who are constantly together do, like vines tangled on a single threshold. If anything, they're even more of a pair than they have ever been – best friends, Captain and Vice of the Karasuno volley club. Oddly enough, Koushi doesn't complain. Even to himself (has he ever complained aloud ?), he's satisfied with the situation, he really is.
Daichi is handing him some paper. At first he thinks it's something for the club, but no, it's smaller and handwritten.
"My parents and I are going to the sea for the holidays. Would you like to come ?"
Of course he does, when did he ever say no to such an invitation ? That's how he ends up with sand in between his toes and Daichi smiling at his from where he is standing, knee deep in the water, more beautiful than he has ever been, his mate-circle empty on his chest.
Koushi can't fool himself, he never even thought about giving up on him. Pretending is just easier, barely, it turns the wait into something acceptable that doesn't shatter his hopes even more each time Daichi smiles at him and nothing happens, when Daichi takes his hand while they're walking and nothing happens, when he want to tell Daichi or kiss him or just stay like this forever with the sun painting their faces and nothing happens.
1. When you thought so and he didn't
"D'you think we're mated ?"
Strange that Daichi is the first to ask. Strange that it took him fifteen years, when Koushi was thinking about it since the very first day they met.
"I don't know, maybe ?" Definitely, because if his circle ever activates, he wants to be with Daichi, anyone else would be pointless. "You know circles only activate when you're ready to be with your soulmate, not right after meeting them."
"We've known each other for more than ten years, Suga. We're practically joined at the hip. Really, I think it would have understood by now."
Yeah, it probably would have clicked a little sooner, and he's more bitter about it than Daichi expects. He's not letting his frustration show, that's all, because there's nothing he can do. Why is Daichi even asking questions ? Koushi was fine brooding over it on his own, without having to actually rip the truth out of his throat.
"I don't really care though, you know ?" Daichi is shuffling, obviously uncomfortable, but he's too busy being stressed out to say something comforting – not right now when he wants the earth to swallow him whole. "I've just… I don't think it's that important ? Never stopped us from getting along."
That's an understatement, he can admit as much – he is currently laying on top of Daichi, the both of them are in their pants because it's too hot for clothes anyway, and Daichi's fingers are carding through his hair at a leisurely pace he knows by heart, since situation like this happen close to all the times they are sleeping together. And by that Koushi means in the same bed. House. All the times they have sleepovers. Which is often.
"Do you think it'll kick in, some time ? Like… when we're older ?"
"Suga. We're twenty. Fifteen years older than five. I think… Maybe we're not mated ?"
But they are. They have to be. Koushi doesn't even want to think about an alternative.
"Where are you even trying to go to with this conversation ?"
Daichi sighs, running his hands through his hair as he always does when he's stressed – Koushi knows his face by heart, the little wrinkles around his eyes when he smiles, that are different from the ones when he frowns, the softness of his mouth when he says "Suga", the way his hair flops to the left no matter what, the scar on his right brow from when they were running to the beach and he tripped on a rock.
He's actually scared out of his mind and he almost forgets to look at Daichi this time, but when he does his smile is so soft Koushi might actually start to believe he is in love with him.
+1. You don't need a "when", you always had it
Daichi is kissing him, and he feels great. He has leaves in his hair and probably dirt all over his shirt – stupid idea to wear pink when he knew he was going to the park.
"Hey, Koushi," he tries not to laugh at how breathless Daichi sounds, "do you remember the first time we kissed ?"
"Not at all, actually."
It's out of his mouth as naturally as he would say he loves Daichi when he realises how mean it could sound. Was that a trap ?
"I hoped you'd say that," this has him confused, "I don't either. It's like… like we've been doing this forever ?"
They have been going to the park and have lay together and had leaf-fights since forever, adding kisses to those memories is something a lovesick mind can easily do – and alright, Koushi gave up two years ago, Noya and Tanaka can call them a lovesick couple. "You really have to be dumb to be in love for ten years and never tell each other a word about it," Asahi had said, and he had looked at Noya with a small smile.
"Yeah. I think I've loved you for forever."
And maybe his mark will activate in the shower when they're lazily making out, maybe when they're cooking breakfast and Daichi snakes his arms around his hips to steal some of the eggs from the frying pan, maybe when they're kissing in front of an altar and Koushi says "Yes" a little too low to see how Daichi's eyes gleam, he found out that he doesn't really care – it activates right now, in this park, with his chest burning like a sun under his dirty pink shirt, and he's almost too busy being in love to notice.
I reaaaally like coffee shops AU. I hope people will write/draw some for day 5, so I can enjoy more ! (I don't want to write a coffee shop AU it's going to turn into Kagehina before I can stop it and I seem to have enough trouble to stick to Daisuga as it is ^^)