Published: June 18, 2021.
Words: 935.
Chapters: 1/1.
Summary:
But this? It's just strange. No one normal flings themself into another guy and manages to lock lips like in one of Akari's cheesy BL manga.
(An AU where everything is the same, but Yuma meets Shingetsu in a slightly different way.)
Notes:
this started life as a shitpost between friends at the idea of "what if foilshipping met with an accidental kiss like sasunaru," then i took it sort of seriously to a very strange result.
thank you ci for the help with the summary and reading over this nonsense!
title taken from how to be a heartbreaker by marina and the diamonds. (because ci loves memes.)
On AO3.
To put it one way, it's confusing. To put it another, well--synonyms are a pain, and no one should expect him to stare at a thesaurus all day, so Yuma settles on "confusing" being perfectly good. It describes this mess plenty well, encompasses the present and the before and, certainly, the after. He can apply it a dozen times over, and he won't lose marks because this is his internal monologue.
So.
It's confusing.
And, by now, a few full beats have passed in silence. (Or, silence from himself and this weirdo; Heartland isn't exactly renowned as the quietest city in its early hours, Akari and other unfortunates hustling off to paying jobs.)
Action is an ideal beyond his reach. Not that he is ignoring this--
--this--
--thing. Adults enjoy denying complicated subjects labels, so Yuma will be mature about this and do the same. Because he lacks any idea of where to begin. The morning had been proceeding along familiar lines--Akari yelling up at him, his grandma pleased when he didn't leave a crumb behind of his breakfast, and Tetsuo steering into him on his skateboard. Normal as normal could be. A day's start that Yuma could anticipate with each dawn if he cared to think farther ahead than his next meal. Odd occurrences don't phase him like they used to, either. Hang around someone like Astral, and shrugging the odd stuff off becomes a necessary second nature.
But this? It's just strange. No one normal flings themself into another guy and manages to lock lips like in one of Akari's cheesy BL manga. (She doesn't know Yuma knows, but he does, and he has looked at her under-the-bed collection. More kanji than he likes, yet he can't say the appeal is beyond him.)
Right. That's enough, has been enough. Shock releases Yuma from its grip, and a single good shove throws the stranger back onto the ass he should have landed on to begin with. He wipes his forearm across his mouth, doesn't have a damned idea where to start, and so the reprimand spills out from him in a stuttering mess.
"Wh-why would you--how...h-how do you even?!" Verbalizing the cartoonish accident proves harder than Yuma expects, a belated embarrassment descending to fluster him as he sits up on the pavement.
Annoyance swings in to sprinkle a dash of itself in the emotional stew, turns it rancid as humiliation when this idiot blinks then laughs, daring to wave a hand like it's no matter.
"Ahaha, sorry 'bout that! I wasn't looking where I was going, and I did try to warn you to be fair. Well, uh, I hope it wasn't your first?"
Yuma couldn't have less of a clue what this guy is talking about, but Yuma thinks he might dislike him, which is absolutely fair considering the circumstances. "Whatever," he grumbles, and he makes to stand up.
Only--
Like the guy finally gets a proper eyeful of Yuma, like this whole stupid incident needs another layer of confusion, his eyes blow wide, and his jaw works in silence for a moment. "Oh. You're...you're Tsukumo Yuma! The champion! This is so amazing!" With every word, he inches closer to Yuma, lurching up almost like he means to stymie Yuma's attempt at standing, all forward momentum until near averting a forehead-to-forehead collision. "I'm Shingetsu Rei. Meeting like you like this is so, so, so cool!"
"Ah...yeah." Yuma laughs, awkward, forced. "You're, um...you're a bit close."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Shingetsu doesn't move; he hovers from beside, from over Yuma, too-broad smile filling the breadth of Yuma's vision. Unnerving energy buzzes around him, a part of his enthusiasm ringing not hollow, but so abyssal deep it pierces out the other side in negligible truth. Nerves fried in the oil of unfamiliar intimacy, and so Yuma can't tell if his neurons misfire in alarm at a kind-of-odd-but-harmless kook, or if an existential threat knocks once more at his door. Astral is silent, uninterested absorbed in his own internal dealings. Yuma's alone against a looming pressure that in their short acquaintance has accidentally, absurdly fallen atop him and kissed him and now refuses to take a hint and retreat. Maybe Yuma sees too much into it, but the wide eyes orbiting a breath away embody something he lacks a vocabulary for, a fixation, a--
"Oh crap, I'm gonna be late!" Half excuse, half real, Yuma propels back out from under the intensity of Shingetsu's stare, having been beholden to some awful cocktail of cultural courtesy, emotional turmoil, and the sort of raptness spawned only by a bloody wreck. Yuma's quick to be on his feet and jogs in place. "I gotta go!"
Contemplation cleaves through Shingetsu's smile, a corpse of exuberance left in its wake, only for it to revive at half strength. Shingetsu pounds a fist against his palm and avows, "Then, I'll provide my best service to my hero Yuma-kun and get you there on time!"
So earnest, so unsettlingly genuine, denial comes to Yuma too late. "No, wait, that's more than I could ask."
But, Shingetsu doesn't register Yuma's rejection, and nor is it Yuma's hand that Shingetsu grabs like Yuma would expect. An arm scoops under Yuma's legs, and another braces his back, and it is apparently bridal style that Shingetsu intends as the vehicle to ferry Yuma to school. Their eyes meet in Yuma's tremendous bafflement, and Shingetsu vibrates in a frenetic excitement Yuma could not hope to talk down to rationality.
"Please...just don't run into anything."
Shingetsu doesn't miss a beat: "I probably won't!"