Camisado

-o-

"That was entirely unnecessary."

Kidou's voice was nothing but a low, frustrated hiss. Genda allowed himself to be pushed down into an armchair, all energy drained out of him. His eyes widened for a moment, and he almost jerked back; in the semi-darkness, all he saw was the other's hand closing in on his face with surprising speed, and for one unbelievable fragment of a second, the brunette thought he was about to be slapped across the face. A moment later, he could already feel his cheeks heating up with shame - Kidou wouldn't ever do something like that, no matter how pissed he currently was -, as the blond brushed the locks of hair that had stuck to his skin out of his face. The next moment, he closed his eyes automatically as the desk lamp was flicked on, a sudden, blinding light compared to the blackness that had encompassed them until now. "Don't be a baby now, you idiot," Kidou said between gritted teeth. "I can't look at it if you don't relax your face." Although at first Genda wanted to retort with something just as biting - after all, what grown man would like to be called a baby? -, in the end, he simply did his best to get used to the light (albeit still keeping his eyes closed), and relaxed, leaning back in the armchair.

Outside, heavy rain was still hitting against the windowpanes, rattling them along with the wind. Kidou pulled a drawer open, and lifted a wooden box out of it, before shutting it closed again with his hip, settling the box down on the arm of the chair. Now that he could finally get a good look at the other's face, better than lit by dim streetlamps, rain beating into their face, the blond couldn't help but wince - good thing Genda still had his eyes closed, so he wouldn't see how concerned the other was.

Kidou tugged the goggles off of his eyes, and threw them onto the coffee table, along with the band that kept his hair together. Soaked with rain, his dreadlocks felt heavy, as if something was pulling his head backwards constantly; he wished there was a way to work the kink out of his neck, but, for now, he had more important things to do.

The liquid dripping down on Genda's chin was a strong rosy colour as blood mixed together with water. They'd both completely gotten drenched, but the colour still made Kidou pale more than any amount of rain would have concerned him. Shouldn't have the bleeding already stopped? A rolled-up ball of cotton began to dab gently at the wide, gaping gash on the brunette's forehead, right above his right eye. Kidou could hardly keep his hand from shaking, especially as he saw Genda's lips tighten, albeit the other still didn't say a word. "You fucking idiot..." This time, his voice was close to cracking. Genda opened his left eye to peer at him, but still didn't say a thing - he merely continued to watch Kidou as he carried on with cleaning the wound, occasionally inhaling a little more sharply when the blond's actions intensified the throbbing pain he felt in his forehead.

Another few moments passed, the silence only broken by the continuous downpour. Genda would have liked it otherwise; Kidou wasn't someone to talk only for the sake of filling space with words, and they'd spent many a nights just sitting side by side on the couch, usually with either of their heads settled on the other's shoulders, reading a book together, only speaking when the other wanted to switch pages before he would have reached the bottom of the previous. Now, though, the quiet was weighing down on them, heavy, almost suffocating, becoming worse and worse with each twitch of Kidou's lips as he worked, each painful tingle of the antiseptic wiped over the wound. Genda wished he could have said something comforting, but it was clear as sunlight that the other was still angry and upset, and there was nothing he could say that would have made the situation any better.

Some gauze, and then bandage was applied, and then finally, Kidou took a momentary pause, one hand reaching up to fiddle with a dreadlock that had fallen into his eyes. Idly, Genda wondered if he could squish water out from it if he squeezed hard enough. But, then again, Kidou didn't like his hair being touched, not even when everything was all right between them.

"He could have..." Kidou's sentence trailed away, and he drew in a shaky breath. His hand let go of the dreadlock, reaching towards Genda's forehead to smooth down the bandage, then changed his mind halfway, letting the limb drop onto the brunette's knee. "You could have lost your eye."

That was more than what Genda could take. He knew Kidou was upset because he was worried, but this particular thought hadn't crossed his mind up till now, and the thought itself was somehow both laughable and terrifying at the same time. "Now, Kidou, stop that!" he said firmly, leaning forward. "Nothing of the sort happened, and it's already over, so-..." The sentence ended in a hiss rather abruptly; the goalkeeper made the mistake of wanting to grab the other's shoulder with his left arm - the one that was currently more or less unusable. The pained noise escaping his throat seemed to return Kidou into the present as well; eyes widening, it was his turn to lean forward, meeting Genda halfway, and without further ado, he grabbed a good fistful of the brunette's shirt - accompanied by a loud, protesting yelp from the owner of said shirt - and tore the fabric off entirely. "Oi! I liked this shirt!" Genda complained, but Kidou's expression made him shut up once again.

"It was already ruined anyways, wasn't it," came the quiet response, and Genda could barely suppress his gasp - he'd never heard his ex-captain sound this close to tears before. In lieu of anything to say... he merely nodded.

Kidou sucked in his lower lip as he examined Genda's shoulder. The gash running down vertically from his shoulder almost to the middle of his upper arm was even deeper than the one above his eyebrow; it was a cut deep into his flesh - no wonder the sleeve he'd torn off had been so heavily soaked with blood. Kidou blinked a couple of times, wishing he hadn't taken his goggles off. It was only here, at home, that he ever did such a thing; in the company of the one single person he never felt vulnerable around. And still, now, he wanted to hide his face again, not out of vulnerability, but out of utter shame. This is all my fault. If I wasn't with him... or if I had just picked a different route... But what he ended up saying out loud was no more than, "This will need a few stitches, Koujirou."

Genda didn't need to ask to know what exactly was going on in his lover's mind at the moment. Kidou had the tendency to put the world's weight on his shoulders, to take responsibility for things that weren't his fault at all. From one point of view, it was self-destructive, and kind of stupid, but from another, it was one of the most noble things Genda could think of - one of the many things that had captured his attention about Kidou Yuuto back then. After all, who else but him would have willingly offered to forfeit a match before it even started, because of something their coach had done behind their backs? Kidou hadn't been responsible for anything Kageyama had done, and yet he'd offered to hold his back - that was one of the main reasons Genda had decided to follow him wherever he wanted to go in life, even if at the time, he hadn't been able to follow him to Raimon. (Someone had to take care of the rest of Teikoku in the meantime, after all.)

Then again, he wasn't the only one who found this endearing in Kidou - what put him apart from the rest was the ability to sense when it would have been wrong to say these thoughts out aloud; so, in the end, all the brunette said, allowing the corner of his lips to quirk a little upwards, "Do you know how to do that?"

The retort - finally, Genda noted with some relief - was met with a raised eyebrow, and a slightly incredulous expression. Suits you much better than worry, the brunette thought, the smirk now etched onto his face. "First-aid is one of the things you need to know when you're the coach of a football team," Kidou replied coolly, his voice holding as much superiority as he could gather, while trying to collect the pieces of his composure. This shouldn't have happened...

"Then go ahead and do it," Genda seemed to literally interrupt his line of thought this time, and this time, the goalkeeper couldn't hold himself back from adding, "... instead of chewing yourself out over what happened."

Kidou averted his eyes. Genda couldn't help but note that, in a certain sense, he really did look vulnerable, with his eyes naked like that. Then again, most of the time, when they were like this, just the two of them, they held nothing but warmth, love, and contentment. Now, they were full of worry, guilt, and self-consciousness. Genda reached out with his good arm, and gently tipped the blond's cheek upwards, forcing him to look into his eyes, crimson red meeting iridescent blue. Time seemed to freeze up on them once again; Kidou's mouth dropped slightly open, and Genda's expression softened, leaning forward till his forehead touched the blond's. "Why did you do that?" Kidou finally asked, his voice choked-off and breathless. "We could have just... just ran..."

"Do I look like the kind of person who just runs?" Genda asked, still smiling a bit. "Who turns his back on the enemy? I could have gotten that knife in my back instead, too..." Kidou visibly shivered at the thought; Genda's fingers traced his cheek gently, hooking a thinner lock behind the other's ear. He didn't blame Kidou for being so shaken; truth to be told, he kind of was, himself, too - after all, who would be able to just brush off an attempt to be mugged by three shoddy figures with weapons? It had been a really risky situation, Genda could admit it in hindsight; they'd been outnumbered and under-armed from the start - but, what could they do, but fight back? Sure, he'd been cut, but when instead of begging for his life, Genda had managed to break one of the bandits' jaw with one swift kick, even while bleeding, they'd seemed to lose confidence, and ended up making a run for it. The two of them had made it home safely after that, although by the time they arrived, Genda would have been unable to tell if his left arm felt numb because of his injury, or because of how hard Kidou had been squeezing his fingers while they walked in silence, slowly being soaked through by the rainstorm. "Look..." Genda said softly. "It's all over now." Kidou managed to nod. "Everything's fine, so take a deep breath, okay?" Another nod. "... Well, everything except my left shoulder, so will you please stitch it up, Mr I-Learned-First-Aid-Because-I'm-A-Proper-Coach?"

Finally, Kidou's mouth jerked upwards too, although it looked more like a grimace than an actual smile - but it was a start. He reached for the wooden box again, getting out the necessary instruments. The brunette swallowed. It was one thing to break someone's jaw, but to allow someone to sew you together... "Are you sure about this?" he asked, and he found it with some horror that his voice didn't sound anywhere as calm as it had been a moment before. Kidou did smile this time. "Well, I'm certainly better at it than you..."

Genda snorted. He knew that, in this moment, both of them were thinking of the same occasion; back when they'd been kids, Genda had once injured Kidou at training, late at night, when it had been just the two of them, for some extra practice. As it'd later turned out, it hadn't been a serious injury at all, but Kidou had been bleeding so heavily that they decided that he needed stitches. To put it mildly, it had been sloppy work. Kidou put the accessories down for a moment, tugging one of his pants legs up; there was still a zig-zaggy, white scar running on the inner side of his left calf; the remnants of that training practice, and Genda's best intentions to help.

"Don't you worry," he said simply then.

The process, to Genda's surprise, was quicker and more painless than he would have anticipated. Kidou hadn't lied when he'd said he knew how to do things like this, and, strangely enough, as his steady fingers worked on the cleaned injury, Genda felt a lump growing in his throat slowly. Anyone could give a bad guy a lesson he deserved... but this? This was beyond his understanding... and it only made the amazement and love he felt towards the other grow, intensify, multiply even. By the time Kidou finished wrapping his shoulder and arm in bandages, and looked up, to his surprise, the goalkeeper's eyes were full of unshed tears. "What-..."

"You'll always do this, right?" Genda asked weakly, swallowing. Kidou frowned lightly, kneeling up on the floor to be eye level to the brunette. "Take care of me like this... You will, won't you? Because," at this point, his voice gained a little more strength again, "I sure as hell will continue doing my part - that is, that I won't ever let anyone come even close to hurting you, Yuuto."

Kidou opened his mouth, but no words came forward. The genius quick thinker and tactician was properly speechless. He did the only possible thing he could think of at this moment: he leaned forward, and pressed his lips against Genda's, hard, gaining an instant response from the brunette.

Nothing mattered anymore. Who cared that they were still both in drenched clothes sticking to their skin? Who cared that at the next lightning bolt, the desk lamp flickered, and then shut off as electricity went out? Who cared that Genda took the instant opportunity to reach around Kidou's neck and grab a handful of his dreadlocks, grinning into the kiss as he squeezed them together, making ice cold water dribble down on Kidou's back? Who cared that they were tired, scared, weary, injured? To Kidou, right at this moment, nothing else mattered than the previous promise - that Genda would protect him, no matter what, and he would take care of him in return. Together, they'd conquer any fear, wouldn't they?

And, after all, who could ask for anything more?