Tadashi had never been hugged by someone who was in every way bigger than him before. Oikawa's arms stretched all the way around his shoulders and overlapped across his back. His nose was barely higher than Oikawa's chin, and he had no choice but to tuck his face against a collarbone that showed through the shirt. Oikawa was muscle where Tadashi was bone, all heat and solid padding. No sharp edges. No jutting bits.

Tadashi's entire body felt swallowed whole.

The feeling of those hands on his back stayed with him until he heard Michiko's knock at the door. It stuck around as Oikawa exchanged phone numbers with him and Taiga and promised to talk again soon. It followed him as they said goodbye to Michiko, waved Oikawa off to the train station, and went to get something to eat.

Tadashi ordered the lightest looking ramen they had and handed over his own menu. It took no time at all to arrive, and they both ate in silence until every last drop of liquid was drained from the bowls. He collapsed back into his chair and tugged at his collar—the humidity was thick. Sweat was rolling down the back of his neck.

"So," Taiga said as the waiter cleared their table. "That was intense, huh?"

"Yeah," he said. "I, uh...don't know what to make of it just yet."

"Me either," Taiga said. "If you want to think out loud or anything, go for it."

Tadashi shook his head. Slowly, like he was watching a game of tennis.

"Not yet," he said. "I need a while to turn it from information into thoughts, you know?"

"I do know," Taiga said. "But you're okay?"

He searched himself for an honest answer, and all he could come with was 'I don't know'. It was all a mish-mash of suff. Some of him wanted to grin like a maniac, some of him wanted to burst into tears.

And behind all that, something extra.

Something important.

Something he couldn't make sense of just now.

"Yes," he said, and smiled. A drop of sweat tickled its way from his forehead to the bridge of his nose, and he swatted it away. "Hot, though."

Taiga snorted, and the laugh made him bounce. The bounce shook free a smile that was waiting for the right time to loose itself. One side of his mouth turned up further than the other, his teeth snagging on his bottom lip to gently bite it as he widened it to a grin.

Tadashi knew this smile from TV.

This was a sexy smile.

"Hot, huh?" Taiga said, tugging theatrically at his collar. "Me, too. You know, our room has an air conditioner. If we wanted to find somewhere to escape this stifling heat..."

"Oh, definitely," Tadashi said, fanning himself with his napkin. "We should hurry, too, before the heat gets so bad we can't make it."

"Good idea," Taiga said. "I'll pay up."

And on his way to the cashier, he bent down to whisper in Tadashi's ear.

"You better remember where we were up to."

Tadashi tapped his temple.

"All up here."

The door clicked shut and their hands were on each other.

Tadashi felt Taiga grab him and spin him, face-to-face. He didn't have time to think before a hand cradled the back of his head and brought him into a kiss. He leaned into it, arms wrapped around Taiga's shoulders, and tilted his head so he could push in closer. Taiga's fingers curled in his hair—little tingling pinpricks as they tugged at the roots.

He could taste the miso from the ramen on Taiga's tongue. He could smell the way Taiga smelled after a long day—sweat and faint deodourant and skin. His lips were soft. His back was firm. He breathed deeply and heavily, and the rushing air from his nose tickled against his ear.

Tadashi was already straining in his pants.

"This isn't where we were up to," he said, his lips brushing Taiga's cheek.

"Don't care," Taiga breathed back.

Taiga grabbed the hem of Tadashi's shirt and yanked it up over his head—a starving man unwrapping a candy bar; a kid ripping the packaging from his brand new xbox. Tadashi flung his arms up, and Taiga tossed the shirt into the corner of the room. He started to peel himself out of his own shirt, but Tadashi didn't wait. He stuck his hands underneath the fabric and slid them upward along Taiga's bare skin, the shirt bunching and gathering as he went, all the way up his ribs and shoulders, along his arms and wrists and hands. He tossed the empty, deflated shirt away.

Now there was nothing between them, and Tadashi felt hotter even though he was wearing fewer clothes. That heat filled the entire room as they rushed to meet lips again—the slippery, suckling sounds so loud in the tiny space. Tadashi let his hands wander wherever they wanted, and they made their way to Taiga's waist. Then the small of his back. A jutting backbone, two divots either side, the muscles beneath shifting as Taiga pressed in closer.

Tadashi shook as his fingers kept moving.

One fingertip, pressed firmly against Taiga's skin, slid downward between cloth and flesh. His blood quickened as he touched this untouchable place. The sacred skin beneath the wasitband. He snaked a second finger down. Then a third. Then his entire palm was resting inside Taiga's underwear, cupping the space between his hip and butt.

Without ever breaking their kiss, Taiga answered with his own hands. Tadashi felt them trace down his back, one either side of his spine, until they bumped into his belt. Then slipped beneath it. Taiga's hands had none of Tadashi's hesitance, one each firmly planted on Tadashi's cheeks. Taiga pulled him closer, and Tadashi arched his back so not a single part of their fronts didn't touch. Didn't squeeze together.

He was harder than ever, and he could feel himself sandwiched between his own hip and Taiga's pants. As the initial rush of sensation wore off, he could map out Taiga's body against his. Ribs. Hip bones. That stiffness pressing back against his.

He was still shaking. Not much, but enough to shudder as he breathed. Taiga was doing the same—tiny little trembles as he went from breathing in to breathing out.

"Let's—" Taiga said, interrupted as Tadashi pressed against his lips. "Let's lie down."

They made their way to the bed, hands still lost in a tangle of cotton and skin. Tadashi didn't want to give up an inch of the space between them, but it was harder to keep up contact as they lay beside one another. Instead, he moved his hand from inside Taiga's pants and planted it on his chest. The searing skin, the flat muscles, the bumpy landscape of bones...the heartbeat pounding against his palm. He needed to touch it all. Clavicle, the dent between his chest and stomach, the neat line that divided his stomach into two halves, his navel, the wisps of hair that sprouted beneath his navel.

Taiga's hands moved, too. One followed Tadashi's lead, exploring his chest and stomach and neck. The other stayed inside Tadashi's underwear, and inched around. From a girm grip on his cheek, to a caress beneath his hip, to the empty space above his thigh. And then, finally, tracing so lightly it tickled, his fingers found a patch of hair. Tadashi gasped as, fingertip by fingertip, Taiga took him fully in hand.

The kissing that had been the constant soundtrack to their fumbling stopped as Tadashi suddenly couldn't concentrate on breathing. The whole moment hung in the air, still, as Tadashi felt a warmth in his groin he'd never known before.

He moved his own hand downward, following the trail of hair to Taiga's waistband. He slipped beneath, slowly as he could, and found Taiga as hard as a rock, straining to escape his tight underwear.

Then, all at once, the kissing started again. Different, this time.

More desperate.

Their hands knew what to do. They worked almost in unison, rising up and down slowly, gripping just hard enough. Every muscle in Tadashi's body clenched as Taiga coaxed tingling, straining pleasure out of him. Sweat was running down his forehead now—Taiga's, too—and he could feel himself tumbling into the feeling in his crotch.

Not now...no way...

He pushed upward and let go of Taiga, who followed his lead. The relief of it made Tadashi sigh as he relaxed all over.

That was close.

They were still wrapped up in pants—stupid, unnecessary pants—and so Tadashi traced his way to Taiga's top button and fly. He undid it carefully, fumbling the zip, and helped Taiga out of his jeans. Taiga did the same, popping Tadashi's buttons much more forcefully and yanking his pants over his feet. They kissed again. And without looking, Tadashi slid his hands into Taiga's waistband. Just like he'd done with the shirt, he slid his hands down along Taiga's skin, over his thighs and shins and feet, until all he held was an empty pair of boxer-briefs.

He swung his knee over so he was straddling Taiga's thighs and pressed him to the bed with one hand. Then he drew himself up to his full kneeling height and looked.

Taiga didn't try to hide himself, and Tadashi didn't look away.

His heart pounded while he took it all in. He'd never even seen Taiga with his shirt off—apart from glimpses down loose tank tops—and now felt like he was spoiled all at once. His tight dark skin wrapped around long, lean muscles and bone. Tiny nipples on an utterly flat chest. He was compact, shoulders and waist almost the same width and nothing but sinew between. His erection—he couldn't help notice they were roughly the same size—was so tight it was raised off his stomach by an inch.

It was brave, Tadashi thought, to let yourself be seen like this. Laid out, naked beneath somone else. Excited. Vulnerable.

Taiga tensed his stomach to sit up—his muscles dividing his body into the sexiest creases—and kissed Tadashi on the chest. Hands slid across his underwear and slipped it downward, and Tadashi lifted his knees so the last of the clothes that separated them could be tossed away.

They studied each other like there'd be a quiz later.

"You're..." Tadashi said, but stopped.

What could you say that didn't sound like a horrible cliché?

"Naked?" Taiga said.

Tadashi laughed.

"So naked," he said.

Taiga grinned, and he leapt up to kiss Tadashi on the lips. He hooked his elbow around Tadashi's neck and pulled him back down to the bed. They lay there together, lips to lips, hips to hips, throbbing against one another.

Tadashi couldn't tell how long they stayed that way. As close as they could be, nothing between them. They gyrated as they kissed, letting their mouths set the pace, and listened to the sounds of their breathing. Sweat had worked its way between them and made things a little slippery. Each time their skin slid apart, Tadashi ached with the need to press tighter. Get more traction. Get closer.

They eventually took each other in hand once more, stroking more gently than before. Taiga quickened his kisses, though, and his wrist followed suit, like he was on a downhill slope without any brakes. Once he got started, he couldn't keep it at a steady pace. Tadashi strained against the feeling, pulled his hips backward, and eventually had to catch Taiga's forearm.

"I don't wanna finish yet," he said.

"Me either," Taiga said, slipping from Tadashi's other hand.

He rolled Tadashi onto his back and straddled his stomach. Tadashi felt his erection press against the small of Taiga's back. It throbbed and bobbled on the spot, and Tadashi could feel it building. A swelling in his gut. The rushing sensation deeper down.

Taiga leaned down and kissed him. Then moved his lips to the side and took Tadashi's earlobe in his mouth. The gentle sucking on his ear, the sound of close-up breathing, the incredible warmth at the side of his head. So hot...

"Taig—" he said.

But it was too late.

Without even being touched, he felt himself tighten all over. Heat and sensation gushed through his entire body, and his legs jolted as he came without control. The pulses kept coming, one after the other, until he finally remembered to breathe.

"Ahh," he finished Taiga's name.

But Taiga couldn't answer.

So gentle until now, he dug his fingers into both Tadashi's shoulders. He wrung a whimper from his throat in little waves—right in Tadashi's ear—and in each silent gap Tadashi felt a new searing-hot wet spot slap against his chest and neck. When Taiga stopped shaking, their foreheads were pressed together, and they shared the same warm air between their mouths.

"Sorry," Taiga said. "I felt you go and...that made me go."

Tadashi kissed him. He didn't want to apologize.

"That..." Taiga started. "The way I could feel you lose control to it. I even know exactly what I did to make it happen. That was—"

"That was hot," Tadashi said.

Taiga laughed, and pressed his forehead against Tadashi's again.

"So hot," he said.

For a few seconds they did nothing but breathe together. Taiga closed his eyes, and Tadashi stared at him. This close-up he couldn't see anything but a sketch. A blur of dark skin, dark hair and the smell of their bodies.

They'd barely touched each other. It could only have been fifteen minutes since they first walked through the door. They'd each managed to come without any help from the other and the whole thing was short and sloppy. If this was a TV show they'd both be totally embarassed, mortified that they hadn't executed a porn-perfect sex marathon on their first try.

But this was real. And Taiga was real. And what they'd just done was so real.

It was perfect.

"Um, hey," Taiga said. "So I don't want to kill the mood, but..."

Tadashi's eyebrows went up.

"I sort of can't move, or this mess on my back will go basically everywhere."

Tadashi looked down at his chest.

"Uh, me too."

Taiga laughed.

A huffing, shaking laugh that Tadashi felt through his entire body. He joined in, and soon they were giggling like they'd heard the funniest joke ever told.

"We didn't think this through," Tadashi said.

"Nope," Taiga said. "And now we're stuck like this forever."

And then—like it was the last one he'd ever get, like it was the final scene in a romance film, like it was to win a contest—Tadashi put all his energy into one more kiss. Deep and powerful and loud, the kind where he tried to steal all of Taiga's breath and keep it for himself.

When they broke apart, he looked Taiga in the eye.

"Worth it."

Tadashi woke at twelve past three in the morning.

They'd fallen asleep too early. It was only nine o'clock when the cleanup was finished and they collapsed onto the bed, exhausted.

Now he was wide awake.

Taiga was still splayed across him. Chin on his shoulder, arm across his chest, bare thigh on Tadashi's bare thigh. They hadn't bothered getting dressed, and the covers were only half-up on the two of them. He looked down at Taiga's hair and his bumpy back. At just the top of his butt before it disappeared beneath white sheets. At the way his arm rose and fell with each one of Tadashi's breaths.

Taiga.

He brought his left arm up to stroke his back.

Their nakedness didn't make him shake any more. Lying here together, so close and comfortable, warm and quiet...it was beautiful. This was his, now. He had this place he could come back to, where he and Taiga could love one another without anyone to tell them different.

His heart skipped.

Love one another?

For some reason, the thought brought back memories of Oikawa. Of the story he'd told about Iwaizumi, kicked out of home because of who he fell in love with. Of all the things Oikawa had done—come out to the entire country, made himself the rallying cry for an entire cultural change, shouldered the responsibility when that failed...

All because he loved Iwaizumi.

Tadashi stared at Taiga.

His hand on his back, right where Oikawa's had been on him earlier. The memory brought back the feeling. Two slabs of hands, arms wrapping him up. That weird mix of sadness and joy he felt at the ramen joint. That one thing trying to get out of him that he couldn't quite understand.

And then, out of nowhere, his eyes stung.

Not gently, like an 'Ooh, I'm getting teary' kind of sting. It was the kind of pain that made him squeeze his eyes shut, and his whole body shake. These tears hadn't knocked; they'd barged the door down and stormed from his eyes. His face went red. His throat went tight. Air wheezed out of him uncontrollably, and he felt his nose clog up with runny gunk.

And that's when he knew.

It wasn't that he didn't understand what he was feeling. It's that he didn't want to admit to it.

Taiga stirred, and straight away knew something was wrong.

"Tadashi?" he said, and he rolled onto his chest. "What's wrong?"

Tadashi couldn't quite talk yet.

He was still piecing it together, but he knew this was everything. This thing that was gushing out now—this was why he'd been so mad lately. This was why he came to Sendai to see Oikawa. That meeting wasn't the goal, it was the last step on the way to reaching his goal. And however accidentally, he'd just managed to reach it.

All that was left was to let it out.

"I'm so..."

What was the word Tsukki liked to use?"

"Pathetic," he said.

Taiga—whether from surprise or bewilderment—laughed.

"What? What are you talking about?"

There were no more excuses left. No more reasons to lie to others or to himself. He and Taiga had shared everything now. Thoughts, feeling and bodies. Here they were, naked, completely open to one another.

For some reason, Tadashi felt it was the first time he'd ever been naked.

"I thought I was doing so well. I thought I was so confident. But I'm not."

"Slow up," Taiga said. "What do you mean?"

Tadashi squeezed his eyes shut.

His brain and mouth were working independently of the rest of him. Now that he knew what he was accusing himself of, the examples were coming thick and fast.

"That night at your house, when Noya turned up. And I ran. I didn't even say anything, I just ran away as quickly as I could and hid. Or the other day, when your name came up during practice and I had to keep pretending like I didn't know you that well. I made Tsukki go to his brother's place for the weekend so I could tell a more convincing lie to my parents. I made you come to the train station at seven-thirty just so I could keep you a secret. My stupid, stupid grin. I'm...I'm just pathetic."

"Guchi-chan," Taiga said, rubbing his chest. "Where's all this coming from?"

"Oikawa," he said, sniffling. "He's out there trying. And he needs help, you know? He deserves to make this work and he can't do it alone. He needs someone with money or good looks or talent or whatever to stand by him and force things to change. And instead, out of all the people it could be, out of all the high school athletes who could possibly step up, the only other person in the world who knows how much help he needs...is me."

The stinging again.

So sore it made him bend in the middle while he squeezed his eyes closed.

"Oikawa needs a hero," he said. "Instead, all he has is pathetic Tadashi Yamaguchi."

He didn't even try to stifle his sobbling, and Taiga didn't say anything for the time being. He just lay his hand on Tadashi's stomach, stroking up and down his belly like he was calming an animal. Tadashi let the tears gush out until he ached all over, and the wellspring seemed to dry up a little.

"I'm not strong enough," he said. "I want to be, but I'm just...I'm sick of all this. I'm sick of excuses and lies and secrets. I want to be proud of you. I am proud of you! I want people to know that. I want to help Oikawa. I want to help make a Japan where he and Iwaizumi can be happy. Where you and me can be happy. I want...I just..."

Here it was.

Here was the thing.

The all-important, tear-jerking, impossible mother FUCKING thing.

"I want to be out," he said. "But I'm just not strong enough.

And then, like a faucet, the tears turned off.

Like he'd just vomited up some posion and was no longer dying.

Like someone had taken all the pins out of their Yamaguchi Voodoo doll, and he didn't hurt any more.

Taiga took his chin between his fingers.

"You know you don't have to do anything, right? Just because Oikawa's out there doesn't mean you have to be. This isn't your responsibility. You're gay—that doesn't mean you owe anyone anything."

Tadashi nodded.

"I know that. But that's not how it feels," he said, and he peeled Taiga's hand from his chin. He rested them both against his chest, Taiga's hand beneath his. "In here."

Taiga sighed and lay his head down next to Tadashi's.

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

They lay together in silence for a while, Taiga's hand pressed to his Tadashi's chest. His heart tapped against it—slower and slower with each beat as he calmed down. He felt spent. Like he had nothing left inside.

"You say you're not strong enough, but who is, really?" Taiga said. "And besides, nobody starts off strong. And we're only just starting off, Guchi-chan. It's like your serve. That jump-float serve that nearly killed Oikawa's plan to win the exhibition match. You didn't start strong with that, right?"

Tadashi snorted.

"Not at all."

"Right," Taiga said. "You start off small. You change little things, you learn and you improve. You don't do it overnight. It takes time."

Tadashi stared at the ceiling. No words offered themselves.

Taiga snuggled in closer.

"Same thing goes for this. For being out. You start off small, and you get stronger. Learn from the people around you. Lean on people who support you. It's okay to have role models before you are one."

Tadashi's head flopped to the side.

"And then?" he said.

Taiga kissed him. A little peck on the lips.

"Then," he said, pausing for another kiss. "Bit by bit, you make a difference."

The kisses.

The heat.

The closeness.

Everything they'd done tonight.

It all flooded back to him as he leaned in to Taiga. Through all the turmoil in his head, this sensation was clear. Being here, now, with Taiga—this was what mattered.

The rest could wait until it was day time.

Start off small.

He snorted.

A tiny little laugh. Then another one. The bed shook as he got carried away, and Taiga stared at him.

"Laughing, now?"

"Yeah," Tadashi said. "I just...I don't know. This was weird of me. Sorry I laid all that on you. I don't even really know why I said it."

Taiga snorted, yawned, and nestled in against Tadashi's neck.

"Don't worry about it," he said.

"People say weird things when they're naked."

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NOTE: This is being updated behind schedule. The most up-to-date version is over at AO3. Either search my username or add this to the end of the AO3 URL: /works/5107319/chapters/11749094

There's also illustrations there!

If you like this story, consider leaving a kudos or a comment over there! I really love hearing from readers :-)