Notes: I just realised I never posted this here! I hope people still remember Atobe, Yuuta and their whacked kind of love, haha :) I wrote this a while ago but I do have a more recent fic to post soon, and hopefully more AtoYuu to come, since I have the bug back. Thanks for reading, feedback always read and appreciated. This is set in the future when Yuuta and Atobe share an apartment. :)
Too Many Pairs of Shoes
Yuuta has a favourite pairs of sneakers. They're old and slightly more worn than all his other pairs of sneakers because he's kept them the longest, and to a sneaker collector, they're obviously fairly out of date (but not old enough yet to be classics), no longer in great condition, and no better than most shoes pounding the pavement in Tokyo, but to Yuuta, they're awesome.
He has a collection of sneakers, but he still has favourites even among so many. Atobe's taken to calling the collection the 'monster in the closet', if only because the shoes have a habit of attacking him occasionally when he opens the door and Yuuta's stacked them badly. Pairs of shoes tumbling onto Atobe's carefully combed and styled hair in the morning doesn't make him happy. No more than having a slightly smelly cupboard full of smelly shelves of shoes, in fact.
When they first moved into the apartment, Yuuta hadn't had such a large collection, but, like a tiny goldfish placed in a huge pond, as soon as Yuuta recognised there was space to expand, expand his collection he did.
"Yuuta, it's time to get rid of these," Atobe sniffs, picking up a pair that had fallen when he opened the cupboard door. "I don't think you've even worn them lately."
Yuuta comes rushing into the bedroom. "I have," he insists, and snatches the shoe from Atobe, protectively. "You haven't worn all your ties lately. Have I asked you to toss them out?" He shoots back.
Atobe glances at his collection of ties all rolled neatly and organised by colour and design in a drawer. "Of course I wear them all. I just wear them with differing frequencies," he states, shrugging his shoulders.
"Well I wear my shoes like that too," Yuuta snorts, and then gently shoulders Atobe out of the way to replace his shoe in the pile.
Atobe gives half a sigh a he realises Yuuta probably has three times as many shoes as he has ties. "But some of them are particularly smelly. Do you even wear all of them?"
"Of course!" Yuuta hurriedly says.
"What if we cut a deal," he suggests carefully. "Do you actually love them all equally?"
"Yes, of course!" Yuuta insists again. He squares his shoulders and puts his arms out to the side, defending his collection from person threatening to dispose of them.
Atobe rolls his eyes slightly. Does it even occur to Yuuta that he isn't the type to just lunge forth and start pulling shoes out of his boyfriend's bare hands? You'd have thought Yuuta know him better by now.
"Well, what if you keep only the number of shoes that you can wear in a month?" Atobe suggests, thinking it a kind enough idea. He estimates by eye that it would cut the collection to half, even going so far as to assume Yuuta might wear two different pairs of sneakers every day for 31 days.
"Well are you going to get rid of some of your ties too?" Yuuta demands. "It's only fair."
Atobe snorts. "That's hardly fair. My ties don't take up room like your shoes do, they don't smell like your shoes do, and you borrow them too, you know."
Yuuta shuffles awkwardly, feeling backed into a corner by Atobe's logic. Of course he's right, but... "Ehhh, but I don't see why I have to get rid of any shoes at all," he protests. "They fit in the cupboard."
Atobe gives Yuuta a slight nudge, pushing his head back into the pile of shoes and knocking the top of the pile onto him.
He raises his eyebrow as Yuuta pulls faces.
"As many pairs as you can wear in a month, agreed?" Atobe smirks. He knows Yuuta has to give in now.
But Yuuta still looks reluctant.
"If you do that, I'll get you something even better than a cupboard full of old shoes," Atobe bribes. Of course, one shouldn't always resort to bribery, but with one's own boyfriend, it can be hard to get things done using any other method, he finds.
Yuuta suddenly looks more interested. "Well, there's this other pair I've been wanting."
Atobe sighs. "That defeats the point, you realise?"
Yuuta stares.
Atobe rolls his eyes and shifts his footing. Yuuta and his shoes, he thinks.
Yuuta smiles. Yuuta wins.
"Okay. Deal," Atobe says, putting out his hand. "Starting today. Thirty-one days and you have to keep photographic evidence that you actually wore them."
Yuuta grins and shakes his hand.
(S)
After 5 days, Atobe reflects on the fact that he's sure he's seen at least two to three pairs of shoes on Yuuta's feet per day. He realises he forgot to set a time requirement, but he'd expected Yuuta not to flaunt the unspoken assumption. Putting on a pair of shoes, taking a photo and then taking them off five minutes later doesn't constitute enough wearing of the shoes. He suggests this to Yuuta, who at first disputes, and then relents.
They decide to agree that 5 hours of wearing constitutes enough to keep the pair of shoes. Half of the average shoe-wearing day. Enough that Yuuta will probably only get through two pairs of shoes each day for the rest of the month, ensuring at least some will have to go.
(S)
It's a Sunday evening. As Yuuta packs up the dishes from dinner, Atobe realises they've hardly shared any of their free times together lately. Either he's been busy with work meetings or Yuuta's been away. It's been a while since they've been... intimate, as Oshitari would say.
He approaches Yuuta slowly from behind as the tap for the dishwater starts running. "How do you feel about doing the dishes later and doing something else now?" he suggests, arms wrapping around Yuuta's stomach.
Yuuta obviously isn't adverse to the idea, but as they slowly make their way to the bed, Atobe notices Yuuta trying to tug him towards the cupboard in the room.
"What are you doing?" he asks, pulling away from Yuuta and looking at him strangely. Yuuta's behaving in a rather distracted manner.
"Nothing," Yuuta replies guiltily, blinking.
"Then hurry up and get in bed," Atobe demands, flopping back on the aforementioned piece of furniture.
"Okay," Yuuta nods. "But there's just one thing I forgot to do at lunchtime."
"What?" Atobe asks, wondering what could be so imperative now.
Yuuta backs into the cupboard slowly while keeping an eye on Atobe, then as quick as lightning, pulls off the sneakers on his feet, digs into his pile of shoes in the cupboard to grab a pair and runs out to the lounge. Atobe hears the snap of the Nikon and then Yuuta reappears.
"Do you think the sheets would get dirty if I kept them on?" he asks.
(S)
Atobe has doubts that any of Yuuta's shoes will end up going in the charity bin. Day 30 and he suspects Yuuta's cheated his way through wearing all of his sneakers for the bare minimum of time. Atobe's had to institute rules stipulating not wearing shoes while sleeping or while taking baths, and that should Yuuta forget to take photographic evidence, it doesn't count.
Atobe understands the attachment to them in one sense, but on the other hand... if Yuuta really makes no effort to wear 80% of them most of the time, where's the point in keeping them? Atobe contemplates it at work all day and comes to the conclusion that many of the shoes Yuuta hangs on to have been bought at significant occasions in his life. Birthdays - his and Yuuta's (for some reason, his mother thinks Yuuta needs two sets of birthday presents each year) - the occasional Christmas, but also times like graduation from university, the time Yuuta got his first job offer, the time he beat his brother in a ping pong match (apparently significant enough for a shoe-buying spree), and the time he and Atobe nearly broke up only to reconcile a few hours later over stale sushi and a long session in bed. Other pairs, he's bought himself in what Atobe would call crazed sneaker-buying sessions.
Atobe wonders if it was too harsh of him to ask Yuuta to get rid of the shoes.
(S)
The next day, Atobe gets home to find the lights in the lounge off.
Funny, he thinks. Yuuta should have gotten home before him.
He flicks on the light switch and begins walking towards the study to put down his bag, when he realises Yuuta is indeed home - asleep on the couch.
"I was waiting for you," Yuuta mumbles as he takes in his surroundings and registers the fact that Atobe is in the middle of them. "I've worn almost all my shoes this month," he says triumphantly, though the effect is lessened because the statement is followed by a large yawn.
Atobe is unimpressed. "And you're sleeping on the couch because?" he asks.
"Because I couldn't move when I was wearing all these shoes. I couldn't even get up to turn the light on when it got dark," Yuuta points out.
"No wonder," Atobe snorts.
Yuuta has a pair of shoes on his feet, a pair on his hands, a pair stapped ingeniously onto his head with a sweatband... and what looks to be about 5 pairs stuffed up his shirt.
"They're touching my body," he contends, before Atobe can point out what's wrong with the picture.
Atobe's caught between smiling and sighing. The image of Yuuta with shoes all over him, so determined to keep as many as he can... He looks ridiculous, and had anyone else walked in the door with Atobe, they'd have thought his boyfriend was nuts. In a bad way.
"Do you really think this counts as wearing them?" Atobe questions, tilting his head. "You wouldn't go out in the street like that, would you?"
Yuuta looks pained. "But I'm not ready to get rid of them. You didn't say I couldn't wear more than one pair at once."
"Shoes go on feet, not on heads and hands, Yuuta," Atobe reminds him. "If you walked like this out in public, people would call the police."
Still, as he says so, he recognises the pair of shoes strapped on top of Yuuta's head. One of the ones he will admit that Yuuta wears more often than the others. The pair he bought Yuuta first. The soles are coming off and they must be irksome to wear by now, but Yuuta has doggedly clung to them all these years.
"I think it's time some of them went," Atobe says gently.
Yuuta looks hesitant, but slowly seems to come to terms with the idea, as though he's been expecting Atobe to put his foot down the whole time and is relieved now that he has. He stands up, letting the shoes fall out of his shirt to the floor.
"Okay. I know."
(S)
Yuuta stacks the box carefully. Some shoes are so worn that they'll go into the garbage. Some can go to the charity bin. But even the ones that are headed to the garbage are being cleaned and stacked carefully, catalogued by colour. It's the first time Atobe's seen Yuuta bother to organise his shoes since his collection expanded so greatly.
Suddenly, Atobe feels he may have made the wrong decision. But then again, the spare space and lack of bad smell in the cupboard is telling him it was the right decision, and in the end, very few pairs of shoes are really heading out the door. Only a quarter of the collection.
"It's okay," Yuuta says loudly. Atobe startles from his thoughts.
"We've had some good times together, but they're just sneakers," Yuuta declares.
Atobe thinks he hears a wobble in his voice, but isn't sure. Once again, the scales in his head are tipping in favour of keeping the shoes. He's still um-ing and ahh-ing about it though when Yuuta sets out the door to deliver the first box to the charity bin. And by then, Atobe's decided that Yuuta's old enough to make his own decisions. If he's really not okay with giving away his shoes, he'll come back and say so.
He doesn't. So Atobe, feeling guilty, sits down in his office and distracts himself with work. But inevitably the distraction doesn't last long, and he ends up picking up the phone and dialling the first number that comes to mind... The number that always comes to mind in situations like these.
"Kabaji."
(S)
A few days later, Yuuta arrives home from work in the middle of the day to find a note on the kitchen table.
These are best enjoyed worn one pair at a time.
Beside the note, written in Atobe's hand, there are not one, but two boxes.
Yuuta opens the first to find a brand new pair of sneakers; the exact model he'd been lusting after. But the second box contains one of his old pairs of sneakers - refurbished. The soles and insoles have been replaced. The broken stitching on them has been fixed and they no longer smell like overcooked bacon.
With a smile plastered to his face, Yuuta puts the new sneakers on his feet and places his old pair back on top of his (reduced) pile in the cupboard. Humming to himself, he heads back to the kitchen to cook a suitable thank-you meal for Atobe.
He's realised he doesn't need to hang on to his sneakers but it's still nice to have them, and he can't imagine the bother Atobe went through just to get them back for him.
(S)
When a pair of shoes falls on Atobe's perfectly styled hair the next morning, he sighs and figures he's going to have to live with it. At least until Yuuta's next birthday, when Atobe plans to buy him a much-needed shoe rack.