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“This…”
“Obscene. It’s obscene.”
Hanamaki gags as Oikawa swings his and Iwaizumi’s linked hands; there’s a smile on his face bright enough to blind, and god, he wants to puke. Matsukawa gasps beside him.
“Are they-Makki, they’re leaning in.”
Iwaizumi rolls his eyes before pressing his lips to Oikawa’s, chaste, and Hanamaki thinks he could forgive them seeing Iwaizumi’s blush reach the tip of his nose, but then he notices the first years.
“In front of the kids,” Hanamaki shakes his head. Mattsun throws a ball to bounce off the crown of Oikawa’s head.
“Kiss it better, Iwa-chan?” Makki hears, dissonant, and that’s it.
“We have to do something,” Mattsun says. “I didn’t think it could get worse.”
“I thought if they dicked it out they’d get it out of their system.”
Oikawa’s giggle is piercing, high, and Iwaizumi-Iwaizumi's indulging him.
“For the team?” Makki holds out his hand. Mattsun shakes it, solemn aside from the glint of mirth in his eyes.
“For mankind.”
***
It becomes painfully apparent that this is Oikawa’s game, and Makki wonders if his and Mattsun’s efforts are causing more harm than fixing-fixing catching them fucking grinding in the sacred sanctuary of their clubroom.
Mattsun drops their latest attempt on Makki’s lap.
“It still tastes good.” he says, and hands Makki a fork. “Oikawa saw right through it. He said Iwaizumi’s handwriting could never look that amazing.”
Makki looks down; atop his knees is a miniature chocolate cake frosted with “get out of my school” in impeccable handwriting.
“It is pretty,” Makki says, and takes a bite, “I’d feel threatened if you left it in my locker.”
“Bastard didn’t even eat it.”
“He’s missing out.”
Mattsun plucks the fork from his hand and digs a crater out of the cake.
“I thought I did enough.”
“They’re very strong.” Makki pats him on the back. Mattsun eats in silence, leaning heavily on Makki’s shoulder. It’s cold enough that Makki can appreciate the proximity, content to huddle in closer for warmth, but then Mattsun’s distracting him, holding up a bite and waiting until Makki opens his mouth.
Footsteps, heavy and measured beside light, skipping things.
“Oh my god.” Oikawa’s hands cover his eyes, gaps where he’s watching through his fingers. “You two have no right to give us shit.”
“If you wanted to just have lunch together, you could have told us to eat somewhere else,” Iwaizumi says, eyeing them. “We’ll just go to the clubroom-”
"No,” Makki insists around his mouthful just as Mattsun flips the fork at them.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We told you we were dating within hours,” Oikawa pouts.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Makki gets halfway through his sentence before he’s cut off, muffled, and it takes a second to realise that Mattsun is kissing him, tasting like chocolate and something even sweeter, something that’s probably fucking victory because he can hear Oikawa retching in the background.
Mattsun grins at him when he pulls away, furtive and sly, and speaks.
“It’s only been two days.” he says, lies so smoothly that Makki almost believes it. He tries not to jump when Mattsun’s hand settles warm on his hip. “We didn’t know if we wanted to publicize it.”
“You’re making out in the courtyard.” Iwaizumi deadpans.
“Feeding each other.” Oikawa adds, leaning forward, “Didn’t you leave that in my-”
“He’s such a good cook, isn’t he?” Makki croons, and Mattsun ducks to bump their noses together. He’s close enough that Makki can see the dent of Mattsun’s dimple, telltale of him about to lose his shit. “Anyways, now you know. We’d like to get back to kissing, if you don’t mind.”
Iwaizumi sighs as Oikawa sprints, hightailing it back towards the school building.
“Be safe, please.”
“Thanks, mom,” Hanamaki deadpans, and then Mattsun’s tilting his head with one hand to kiss him and flipping Iwaizumi off with the other.
Makki blinks his eyes open to check if Iwaizumi’s left before pulling away, Mattsun’s face still just millimeters from his own.
“Holy shit,” he says, and Mattsun whoops, loud and raucous.
“That was brilliant.”
“We did it-”
“We fucking-we beat them!”
“At their own game, too.” Mattsun laughs, holding his palm up for Makki to hit.
Mattsun kisses his cheek as they pass Oikawa and Iwaizumi while walking back to class, snorts when they spring apart, embarrassed and blushing.
***
Oikawa ambushes him as practice is wrapping up, waving Makki’s kneepads above his head as ransom.
“Just give me a minute! Did you two have a fight?” He asks lowly, narrowing his eyes.
“No?” Hanamaki snatches his kneepads from Oikawa’s grasp.
“Really?” Oikawa falls into step beside him, walking backwards so they’re face to face. “You haven’t done anything remotely couple-y since you told us you were together.”
“Just because we’re not as handsy as you and Iwaizumi doesn’t mean we’re not in love,” Makki says, and Oikawa makes a noise, surprised.
“In love?”
“No,” Makki says, but Oikawa’s already skipping, waggling his eyebrows and nudging him, “that’s not-you know what I meant.”
“Does our dear Mattsun know?” Oikawa teases and ducks below Hanamaki’s hand. “No need to be violent, Makki-chan, I’m here for you!” He simpers, and Makki can’t think of a time when he wanted to hit him more. “It was obvious, you know.”
Hanamaki stops, staring.
“What?” He asks, dumbly, and Oikawa rolls his eyes.
“You two? That you were infatuated with each other?”
“We were obvious?” Hanamaki wracks his brain, rattling around every memory of him and Mattsun that could even possibly allude to-
“Yes? I’m surprised you got together after Iwaizumi and I, honestly, and we’re a match made in heaven.” Oikawa simpers. “You’re seriously that oblivious?”
“I just didn’t see it, I guess.” Makki says, and starts walking again, long, purposeful strides in the opposite direction. Oikawa cries out, indignant, bemoaning Makki abandoning him for his boyfriend and something about a “bro code”.
***
“He didn’t.”
“I swear to god he did.”
Mattsun whistles, flipping backwards onto his bed.
“The nerve,” he says, and Makki snickers.
“The sheergall .” Mattsun throws a pillow at him.
“What does this mean, then? Do we have to act like them ?” Mattsun shudders, stricken.
“I think we might have to be worse.” Mattsun’s face contorts at this, twisting, but then he’s shrugging, characteristically nonchalant.
“I’m okay with it. You’re not a bad kisser.”
“You sure know how to flatter a girl, Issei.”
Mattsun winks at him, crooking a finger.
Hanamaki feels the pit of his stomach flip, wonders briefly if he’d eaten too many of Mattsun’s failed cake attempts.
“They said we didn’t act like a couple?” Mattsun asks, and draws Makki close enough that their foreheads touch. “We’ve kissed, what, twice?”
Makki has time to inhale before Mattsun’s slotting their mouths together, licking Hanamaki’s bottom lip into his mouth and latching on with his teeth, and Makki feels it again, the dip in his stomach, and it persists even after Mattsun’s pulled away.
“We need a rhythm.” Mattsun says. There’s a pang in Makki’s side when he sees that Mattsun looks entirely unaffected, bored, even. “Kiss me back.”
“Right,” Makki hears himself say, and leans in, Mattsun’s lips soft and pliant beneath his own, the scratch of Mattsun’s stubble against his hand, and Hanamaki’s sort of imploding; his face heats till it's borderline painful and the thudding of his heart feels strong enough to crack a rib and Mattsun’s-
Mattsun’s fine. Mattsun’s cradling the back of his head and slipping his tongue into Hanamaki’s mouth, only letting on that he might be enjoying this when he sighs soft against Makki’s lips
“There we go,” he says, exhales, and Makki hates that it’s so easy to arc forward and kiss Matsukawa again, again, till they’re breathless and heaving. Instead, he sits back, resting on his heels.
“Believable?”
“I’d say so.” Mattsun smiles, too broadly, his eyes nearly closed. “It’s getting late. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Makki nods, doesn’t trust his voice to hold strong saying goodbye.
Matsukawa walks him to the door and does it again, smiles too-wide and too-bright, and Hanamaki hates that he’s glad when the door closes and he doesn’t have to see it anymore.
It’s when he’s halfway home and the cold turns biting that he remembers his jacket, draped off the edge of Mattsun’s bed.
***
He wakes to his head throbbing and the inside of his mouth desert-dry.
Matsukawa’s halfway down the road outside his house when Makki sees him through the window and manages to trip through the door.
“Hey, asshole,” Makki voices, winces at the ache in his throat, and Mattsun turns, “leaving a sick guy to walk to school on his own.”
Mattsun grins; this time, it’s familiar, relieved.
“Your mom said to go ahead and she’ll drive you.” Matsukawa says, peers at him. “You look really bad.”
“And you, beautiful as always.” Makki mutters, shivering. Mattsun tsks, and there’s something being slung over Makki’s shoulders, warmed by body heat and just nearly a centimeter too large on him.
“Left your jacket in the middle of winter?” Matsukawa chides, and Hanamaki hopes its illness that twists his gut something awful.
“I think I forgot it at your place,” he rasps, and Mattsun blinks.
“Didn’t see it,” he says, and zips the jacket up to Makki’s collar, “use mine till you find yours.”
Hanamaki finds Mattsun’s hand far too close to his own, his mind addled enough to begin rationalizing reasons to reach for him, to thread their fingers together, and he nearly stumbles when Mattsun does, leaning to whisper in his ear.
“Oikawa and Iwaizumi are at the gate.”
Hanamaki presses his lips into a line.
“Nice job,” he says, and Mattsun squeezes his hand.
“Is it just me or does Makki look more ready to keel over than usual?” Oikawa taps his chin. “Really, though, why are you here?”
“I’d be able to brave through anything as long as I have my Mattsun beside me,” Makki croons, turns to Oikawa, and promptly sneezes on him.
Matsukawa doesn’t ask for his jacket back once they’re inside, rather, forces it back onto Makki’s person, insisting that the school gets chilly.
Oikawa raises an eyebrow at them, mimicking shoving a finger down his throat.
***
Mattsun kisses him twice that day: once, right before practice, when Iwaizumi and Oikawa are standing a little too close for comfort. Again, after walking home, when no one is looking, really, and it kind of fucks with Makki’s brain a lot .
It's different, too, borderline listless. Mattsun tastes less of chocolate and more of something distinctly him, cloying and warm, and he keeps his palm pressed again Makki’s cheek afterwards.
“You’ll get sick.” Mattsun rolls his eyes.
“How dreadful, missing school.”
“We’ve got matches coming up.”
“Yeah,” Mattsun says, and fingers trace over the bridge of Makki’s nose, up to feather across his forehead, “feel better quickly.”
Makki calls Oikawa once he gets upstairs, his hands shaking, and he picks up on the third, painful ring.
“Wha-Makki, is it important?” Oikawa’s breathless, hoarse.
“I don't know. It could be nothing.”
“If you're going to be cryptic, I’ll just hang up and go back to sucking Iwa-chan off-”
“Is there no justice?” Hanamaki hears the clicks of a zipper being pulled, rustling, then Oikawa’s clearing his throat.
“What's wrong?” He asks, and in that moment, for a split, fleeting second, Makki’s thankful he's living in a world with Oikawa in it.
“I think I like Mattsun.”
“We know?” Oikawa answers, and Iwaizumi mutters lowly in the background. “I’m putting you on speaker.”
“I’m not seeing the problem, here,” Iwaizumi says. “You're dating, so-”
“But are we ?” Makki poses, and Oikawa groans.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Makki?”
“Mattsun and I thought that if we pretended to date and outdid the two of you in,” he pauses, “shenanigans,” Iwaizumi snorts, “you'd quit on the PDA. And now-”
“Oh.” Oikawa breathes. Makki can see the giddy smile plastered to his face and hopes Iwaizumi will smack it off of him. “Well, first of all, we’re pissed.”
“You’re pissed,” Iwaizumi interjects, “I think its funny.”
“They tried to fuck with us, Iwa-chan, and now fate is fucking with them right back.”
“It’s not fate,” Makki tries, but Oikawa cuts him off.
“It’s a thing, Makki-chan, and it’s cruel and ruthless, but sometimes it’ll screw you over in just the right ways.” A pause, during which Makki assumes Oikawa’s batting his eyelashes at his boyfriend. “Anyways, did you tell him?”
“As if.”
“You have to.” Iwaizumi says, adamant.
“I don’t,” Hanamaki wonders if he’s selfish for thinking of not telling Mattsun that their plan’s been found out, wonders if Mattsun will just shrug and continue to kiss him and look at him like that.
“You’re going to fake fake-love him for how long, Makki?”
“As long as he’ll go along with it, probably.” Makki says, and winces; he sounds desperate , the embodiment of the rheumatism in his chest.
“You’re content with another week or so, then,” Iwaizumi says, taciturn. “That’s all you’re going to end up getting. Mattsun isn’t dumb.”
“I know,” Makki says, feels exasperation creep up into his tone, “I know, but I still don’t know what to do.”
“Iwa-chan, he just asked us for advice.” Oikawa’s smug, audibly preening.
“I think he was just thinking out loud.”
“I know a cry for help when I hear one,” indignant, annoyed, “and we’ll help you, Makki.”
“Oh no.”
“Hey, you came to us -”
“Bad decisions happen, they don’t define you.”
***
“We should go on a date,” Mattsun says, and Makki’s heart jumps into his esophagus. “With Iwaizumi and Oikawa. See if we can out-gross them there.”
“Yeah,” Makki responds, swallowing around the guilt collecting thick in his throat, “yeah. Of course.”
Mattsun stares at him, tilts his head a little, and leans in to peck Makki lightly on the cheek before leaving his side, walking to class down a deserted hallway. His jacket fits a little small, Makki notices, tight across his shoulders.
Oikawa greets them at the school gate, Iwaizumi shuffling beside him.
“We have to cancel,” Oikawa simpers, and sirens rattle inside Makki’s skull. “I don’t think I’ve ever had this much homework,” he caterwauls, and fucking flutters his eyelashes .
“We’ll take Iwaizumi, then.”
“Ah ah, it’s not a double date, otherwise! We’ll raincheck, I promise.” He steers Iwaizumi away by the shoulders and tosses Hanamaki a glance, meaningful and evocative.
“I think they’re onto us,” Mattsun whispers, taking Makki’s hand in his while Oikawa’s eyes are still trained on them. “Do you still want to go? The place they picked out is actually really good.”
“If you’re paying.” Makki teases, wishes he could account the rapid thrum of his heartbeat to anything other than the curve of Mattsun’s smile. He doesn’t let go of Makki’s hand, either, holds it tightly and rubs his thumb over the curve of Makki’s knuckles every so often until they reach the cafe; it’s quaint, secluded, and entirely un-Oikawa.
“This was a trap,” Matsukawa mutters, sitting across from him. The chairs are miniature and Mattsun’s tall enough to make them look like toys. There’s quite a spread in front of them; ten or fifteen huge plates with even bigger desserts. Perhaps to make up for the size of the chairs, Makki thinks. “My ass is stuck.”
“It’s just going to get bigger if you eat all this,” Makki baits, and Mattsun blushes, high up on his cheekbones and down the back of his neck, and Makki’s fingers itch to follow it, tug Mattsun in by his collar and kiss him right here.
“You pay attention to it, then?” Mattsun fires, arching a brow.
“It’s a good ass.”
“Grew it myself.”
Makki sniggers, dragging a plate towards himself.
“I got nervous and ordered the menu,” Mattsun says and nabs a bite of Makki’s dessert.
“You got nervous.”
“Of course I did,” Mattsun pouts, “don’t tease me so. Little old me, all alone with a gorgeous boy.”
Makki snorts, feels his face burn, and ducks into his dessert.
They finish three out of the fifteen plates, pitiful even by their standards, and Makki blames it on his flipping stomach, intent on performing gymnastics every time Matsukawa’s closer than a kilometer.
He pays, slamming money down on the counter before Makki has time to fish through his wallet, and grins, shit-eating and unctuous.
“You should’ve been faster.” he goads, and catches Makki’s hand. “I’ll walk you home.”
“They’re not here,” Makki says, extricates his hand gently from Matsukawa’s; his chest twists sharply, constricts at the blip of hurt contorting Mattsun’s features. “You don’t have to.”
Silence, sick and slow, weaving in tendrils through and around.
“Right.” Mattsun replies, short, concise, and Hanamaki feels nauseous, a throb at the base of his skull. “Bye, then.”
He waves. Makki does, too, keeps his hand up until Mattsun’s disappeared over the crest of the hill.
***
Mattsun’s jacket sits at the foot of his bed, folded crisply. Hanamaki hasn’t let himself touch it.
“You’re torturing yourself,” Oikawa says, scolding, “hold his hand, kiss him, damn it, but tell him.”
Makki shifts the phone to his other ear, freeing his hands. Matsukawa’s name is written inside the tag in the same, perfect kanji he’d used on the cake.
“Makki?”
“I’m here,” he says, and lifts the jacket onto his lap. “I’m holding it.”
“What? Holding-” Oikawa gasps, “Oh, Makki, I thought you’d given it back.”
“You’re worse than I am,” he grouses, “Iwaizumi’s shirt is on your pillowcase.”
“Yes, but he knows it's there,,” Oikawa retorts, “makes it much less creepy.”
“Is this creepy?”
Oikawa pauses.
“Not really, no,” he says, quietly, “it’s kind of sweet. A little pathetic, but mostly sweet. You really ought to tell him before it gets worse.”
“It gets worse ?”
“Oh, so much worse,” Oikawa says, gleefully.
***
It gets worse, Makki hates to admit.
Mattsun’s embarrassingly touchy in public and then frigid once they’re alone, flinching if their arms so much as brush, catapulting between extremes so fast it makes Makki’s head reel.
“They’re better, aren’t they,” Mattsun muses, glances over at the respectable distance between their friends, “we haven’t caught them doing anything above a G rating in the past week.”
Makki nods, preoccupied, but Mattsun grabs his wrist, pulls him close and kisses him hard, desperate, his fingers curling at the nape of Makki’s neck and tugging at his hair as he pulls away.
“For good measure,” he says, and lets Makki go.
Oikawa barrels into him seconds later, exuberant and excited.
“That was-” Oikawa fans himself, “wow , intense,” he swoons, and Makki flicks him, twisting his nose.
“I think that might’ve been the last one,” he says, curses his voice for dropping off, crackling, and Oikawa’s face falls. “It felt final. He thinks you guys know.”
Iwaizumi sits beside him.
“Well,” Oikawa fidgets, “we do. ”
“He doesn’t know that though.”
“He might.”
Makki stops, turns, and Oikawa visibly shrinks.
“You told him you know.”
“Listen, you were never going to. We did this for you.”
“It’s not your job to ruin things for me, Oikawa,” Makki laughs, wry and mirthless. “I’m doing an awesome job by myself.”
“It’s not ruined,” Iwaizumi says, stepping between Makki and Oikawa, “he just kissed you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, and broke up with me right after.”
“Fake broke up with you,” Oikawa chimes, squeaks when Makki lunges. “If you’d talked to him we wouldn’t have had to butt in.”
“It wasn’t affecting you-”
“It was.” Oikawa says, sternly, standing tall and moving beside Iwaizumi. “You think that when you’re unhappy, it doesn’t affect us? We’re your friends.”
Hanamaki feels his ears heat, warmth pooling in his chest.
“Gross,” he says, and then Oikawa’s hugging him, long arms slung tight around his waist. “Get off of me.”
“Hug me back.”
“Get off -”
“Hug him back, Makki.” Iwaizumi says, and joins in.
***
“Okay. Now, say it like you mean it.”
“It’s hard when I have to look at your face-”
“Wow.”
Oikawa sighs, swinging his legs.
“Try again,” he says, “and convince me. You’re confessing, not telling me the homework assignment.”
Makki rubs a hand across his forehead.
“I like you,” he says, “might be in love with you, actually, and that’s kind of terrifying.”
“Holy shit.” Makki looks up, behind Oikawa, and Mattsun’s wide-eyed in the doorway, blinking. “I’ll just-” He stumbles backwards, through the door and down the hallway, and Oikawa kicks Makki in the shin hard.
“Fucking run, Makki,” he says, and Makki does, bolts from their classroom and sprints till he’s knocking Mattsun over, falling on top of him.
“What the hell-” Mattsun wheezes, “Makki, I’m not mad -”
“Bad timing,” Makki manages, coughs, “god, we have the worst timing,” he laughs, and Mattsun stares, his eyebrows raised. “I was-” he pauses, “don’t make fun of me.”
“I already have blackmail; you just confessed to Oikawa.”
“No, I didn’t, oh my god,” Makki wipes a hand over his face, “I was practicing. To confess to you. Like we’re in fucking middle school.”
“You still have the same haircut,” Mattsun teases, and his hand’s coming up to brush Makki’s hair out of his eyes, “and you’re still as goddamn dumb.”
“I like you." They’re still on top of each other in the middle of the hallway; Makki can see people with their phones out.
“Might be in love with you, actually,” Mattsun mimics, grinning, and then he’s pulling Makki down and kissing him breathless, licking the air out of his lungs and pressing his smile against Makki’s until they’re lightheaded.
“Can’t believe you though I confessed to Oikawa,” Makki mutters, and Mattsun pinches him before kissing him again, sweet and soft and tasting faintly of chocolate.