ushitenevent

[ushitenevent]

Quick Study (model Tendou AU) (M, ~950 words)

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The beginning of the end comes when he sees Hoshiumi leaning smugly outside of the door to the locker room in their practice facility.

“We��ve got a surprise for you in your stall, Wakatoshi-kun,” he says, and bursts out into laughter that follows Wakatoshi as he shrugs and heads inside.

If he hadn’t been running late, maybe he would have stopped to wonder why Hoshiumi said his name so strangely, and fate's fickle hand wouldn’t have reached him. But instead of wondering, when he reaches his stall, he’s shocked and assaulted by a riot of color: dozens upon dozens of editorial photos, all taped to the inside of his locker. Upon closer inspection he realizes they’re all of the same man — a strawberry flash of red hair, pale skin, wide and piercing eyes — done up in clothes Wakatoshi could never afford.

In some, he’s draped across another body, spidery arms and mile-long legs. In others, he stares directly at the camera, eyes tipped with vibrant eyeliner, mouth hanging open and coated with gloss, and that look stirs something inside of his body.

Something very low in his body.

He catches sight of another one, the same man, nearly nude, except for a pair of dark leather shorts. His arms crossed, he smirks, expression like a challenger on his face. Wakatoshi’s mouth goes dry as he traces the pale skin of his legs all the way down to his feet.

Someone clears their throat. “Y’okay, Ushijima?” Hirugami asks, raising a knowing eyebrow at him.

“What’s all this about?

“This is Tendou, a model,” Kageyama says, holding a magazine. “He mentions you in this interview.” To Wakatoshi’s horror, Kageyama starts reading. “‘I know I don’t look it, but I’m an athletic guy! Or at least, I used to be.’” He nods down at the paper, like he approves. “‘I still watch sports, though! My favorite athlete? I’d have to say that volleyball player, Wakatoshi-kun? He’s real dreamy, and I bet he’s a cannon in the bedroom, too!”

This is what Semi calls ‘an out-of-body experience’, Wakatoshi realizes. All he hears are Hoshiumi’s relentless cackles, and that name — Wakatoshi-kun, in Kageyama’s soft monotone — on an endless loop in his mind.

After a moment, Kageyama looks up in alarm. “He says you give him steamy dreams. Does this mean you’re a ‘hot guy’ too?” he asks, and — not for the first time — Wakatoshi wonders what the hell they taught those Karasuno kids.

Someone slipped a Tendou photocard into his shorts. It falls out on his evening jog home, and he has to scramble to save it from the mud.

Eventually the Adlers move on from the joke, clearing Wakatoshi’s stall of all the pictures, except for the one of Tendou in shorts. “It’s for good luck,” Wakatoshi lies, when Hirugami asks him about it.

All of the Adlers move on, that is, but Wakatoshi. There’s something about Tendou that grips him immediately. He has the photocard carefully placed on a shelf at his home, alongside the magazine and the stack of pictures from that day.

That first night, he went home and searched Tendou online, carefully clicking through his portfolio, overwhelmed by the plethora of images available to him.

Satori in all shades, draped in elegant gold dresses or wearing striking, dark green suits. Sometimes splayed sinuously across a table, soft glitter highlighting the planes of his chest, long fingers playing with the buckle of his tight jeans. Runway shots of him in all sorts of clothes, walking with intent and that curious little smile and that forthright gaze that digs right into Wakatoshi’s chest.

Every night after, Wakatoshi picks a different one to study. He prints it out and stares at it to commit it to memory. Head full with the sensitive, pale skin on Tendou’s inner thigh, his tiny dusky nipples, the way silk looks when it falls down the length of his body. Each piece of Tendou brings him warmth, until he’s red and tender and burning.

Then his thoughts shift, and he slips a hand down his shorts while he thinks about biting dark hickeys into Tendou’s thighs, twisting his fingers around those nipples until he squeals, kissing the silk where it crests his ass before sliding a hand underneath.

Those big eyes, the weight of them all focused on Wakatoshi, and they pierce through him when he comes, satiated, after his studies.

Some people might call him obsessive. Wakatoshi just likes to be thorough.

The end itself comes, of course, with Hoshiumi. Wakatoshi could die and he’d be standing there at the gates of hell, waiting for him.

“We’re filming ads today,” Hoshiumi explains when Wakatoshi finally gets to practice, running a little late because Tendou posted a picture of himself on instagram, wearing something tight and black that made his waist look small enough to grab, and Wakatoshi needed to study every inch of it.

Hoshiumi’s wearing ratty Kamomedai sweatpants.

“We?” Wakatoshi asks, pointedly.

He doesn’t laugh, and that should have been warning enough. “Well, just you,” he says, guiding him to their media room and pushing him in. “Have fun! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

The door shuts behind him.

Wakatoshi blinks.

Tight, black clothes; milky pale skin; flashfire hair.

“Hello there, big guy,” Tendou says, eyes narrow and hungry, grinning like a predator, already stepping in to fill the space between them, “I hear you like my pictures.”

Wakatoshi would love to be devoured. “I hear you like—me,” he chokes out, realizing at the last possible second that they’re not alone; a whole film crew is behind Tendou, waiting for them to begin.

This time, when laughter follows him, it belongs to Tendou; he’s good with that, honestly.

[ushitenevent]

Gold Dust (touch-starved Ushijima) (G, ~1800 words)

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Ushijima Wakatoshi is not, as a general matter, a tactile person. He never learned how. His mother was older when she had him and was not, as a general matter, particularly warm and his father’s favorite form of affection was setting a volleyball to Wakatoshi so that he could learn how to spike it back. At most, sometimes his grandmother would hold him when his stomach hurt, or his grandfather would ruffle his hair when he showed him a finished drawing. But even that was only on special occasions. Mostly, Wakatoshi was not held, casually or otherwise; consequently, he learned early that this was not something you did and, in return, this was not something he overly thought of.

It never occurred to him that this was out of the ordinary. No one had ever broached his personal space when he was growing up and as he grew taller—and broader, and stronger—no one else further dared.

It’s Semi who makes the observation, one day in their second year on the volleyball team.

“You really don’t like people touching you, do you?”

It’s the first time Wakatoshi even considers the subject.

“That isn’t true,” he says, puzzled by the question. “I’m not bothered by it.”

Semi blinks and gives him a look of half-surprise.

“Really?” he says. “Then how come you’re the only one Tendou doesn’t touch?”

Wakatoshi never considers it before—that he might come off as touch-averse—but once Semi points it out, there’s nothing else he can think of. It’s obvious, now that someone has brought it to his attention. He rifles through two years of memories and the evidence is so clear that he’s not sure how could have missed it before. In two years, there’s nothing else there but the very first time they had met, two fifteen year olds, freshly named to the volleyball team. Tendou had offered Wakatoshi his hand, and after a long moment of hesitation, Wakatoshi had taken it. That was all. That was the last time Tendou had even attempted to touch him.

The more Wakatoshi thinks about it, the more obvious it becomes, and the more obvious he finds it, the more upset he gets. Because while it’s true that Ushijima Wakatoshi is not, as a general matter, a tactile person, it is equally true that Tendou Satori, as a general matter, is the most touch-forward person Wakatoshi has ever met.

Tendou touches people the way that most people smile, genuinely and without a second thought. His touches are graceful and fleeting, a momentary brush of his fingers or the solid press of his palm for only a few seconds. There’s no ulterior motive behind it; he touches because that is how he expresses himself, because Tendou Satori is all explosive energy and external fire and, in those few moments, something both ephemeral and grounding.

It’s in the way that slings his arm over Goshiki’s shoulder, pulling him in close and whispering into his ears before letting him go. Or the way he will run his fingers through Semi’s hair teasingly, just to mess it up a little, just to get a reaction out of Semi, but just as often to fix what’s messed with a warm, teasing smile. When Reon isn’t paying attention and stumbles into someone, Tendou will catch him with a steadying grip on his arm, and when Shirabu is being a little bitchy—which even Ushijima, who never has a mean thought about anyone, can admit he is being—Tendou will place his hand in the middle of Shirabu’s back and give him a little shove to counteract his bad attitude. Tendou touches his teammates constantly, with little thought and great abandon.

Once Semi tells him, Wakatoshi can see it everywhere. Tendou leaning against a teammate, or idly playing with their hand when they’re sitting together, pressing his thigh against someone else’s for comfort, or draping his chin over someone’s shoulder as he talks across the room to someone else.

Tendou gives his touches freely, generously. But no matter how many people Tendou touches, how many people he brushes against, there is one person Tendou Satori never comes close to.

Wakatoshi wonders why. And then he wonders why it bothers him to be the only one left out.

*

They graduate together—Ushijima, Tendou, Semi, and Reon. It’s a long ceremony, because what is Shiratorizawa if not a little pretentious and thirsty for prestige? Their graduates always go on to do great, esteemed things, so they throw a ceremony that reflects this expectation. As it is, Wakatoshi is joining the Schweiden Adlers, Tendou has secured a coveted internship with a pastry school in Paris, Reon is beginning college courses in business, and Semi is…starting a band?

“Music?” Tendou laughs, throwing an arm around Semi’s shoulder that Ushijima definitely does not notice and definitely is not jealous about. “Your great plan is to starve while playing the guitar?”

“Fuck off,” Semi says and shrugs off Tendou’s touch. “You’ll be sorry when I’m a rockstar and you—”

“Are making pastries in Paris?” Tendou says grinning and pinches Semi’s cheek. Semi slaps his hand away and Wakatoshi finds himself irrationally annoyed. “In the city of love?”

“You’re so annoying,” Semi glares at his closest friend. “I hope you die.”

Tendou laughs and throws his arms around Semi’s neck. He leans up close and smacks a loud kiss to his cheek that makes Semi glare and Wakatoshi burn. “Come visit me in France before I do.”

Wakatoshi’s father is abroad and his mother is too busy to attend his graduation ceremony. He’s too used to the situation to be offended, but it does make something twinge in him to see his friends and classmates with their families around them—how Reon’s father claps him on the shoulders, and how Semi’s mother fusses with his hair, and how Tendou is engulfed by both of his parents in a hug that makes it obvious where he got all of his affection from.

Wakatoshi isn’t jealous, really, and he’s not bitter either. But it does make a part of him ache with grief, because for the first time in his life, he realizes how much he’s missed, by not being touched at all.

Wakatoshi accompanies Tendou to the airport. It’s the last time he will see his best friend for the foreseeable future, so he doesn’t mind it—sitting on the train next to him while Tendou gestures wildly and rattles on about all of the things he will do in Paris.

There’s three inches of space between their thighs. No matter how wide Tendou gestures, it never comes close to Wakatoshi. It makes him sad in a disconsolate way that he is not used to. He would like to close the gap, but he doesn’t know how. Ushijima Wakatoshi is good at a lot of things, but this is not one of them.

“—and then we’ll see the Eiffel Tower while eating a croissant and after, we’ll get a Nutella crepe to share, and we’ll walk along the Seine while wearing berets and striped turtlenecks, and it will all be so offensive that the French will probably want to kick us out of the country!” Tendou says excitedly, with a laugh so wild and free it’s nearly infectious.

They’re inside the airport now, before the security line. Tendou will have to leave him soon. Wakatoshi does not want him to.

“Won’t that be fun, Wakatoshi-kun?” Tendou says with that warm, open smile. “You’ll come, right? You promise?”

Wakatoshi watches his best friend’s expressive face—his wide, electric eyes, the curve of his infectious smile, the untamable, fiery hair, and the slope of a small nose Wakatoshi knows so well. He knows nearly everything about Tendou, except for the one thing he wants to know most.

“Wakatoshi-kun?” Tendou says, his smile faltering. “You promise, right?”

“Satori,” Wakatoshi says.

Tendou blinks. “What is it?”

“We are best friends, are we not?”

“What? Of course we are!”

“And you find me pleasing to be around, do you not?”

Tendou laughs, a little nervously. “We wouldn’t be best friends if I didn’t!”

“You do not dislike me,” Wakatoshi says. “Or find me disagreeable. Or repulsive.”

“Of course not, Wakatoshi.” Tendou’s brows furrow. “What’s this all about?”

“I have been wondering something,” Wakatoshi says. “For some time.”

Tendou looks at him, confused and concerned. It occurs to Wakatoshi then that there’s no way to explain this; there is no good way to walk Tendou through years of avoidance and only tell him now, as they part, that Wakatoshi wishes he, too, had been touched by Tendou Satori.

Wakatoshi takes a deep breath. He feels a little jittery, but he thinks there is only one way to solve this issue. Ushijima Wakatoshi is not a man of many words, but he is a man of action. Tendou will not understand it if he asks, so Wakatoshi will show him what he means instead.

The first time Wakatoshi touches Tendou, it’s gentle—the brush of volleyball-calloused fingers to Tendou’s jaw. Tendou’s eyes widen in shock. He inhales loudly.

Wakatoshi’s palm curves around Tendou’s cheek. The skin warms under Wakatoshi’s hand and he thinks, with sudden clarity: I understand now, why people need this.

Tendou looks up at Wakatoshi, surprised, but not unhappy.

“Yeah?” he says quietly. “Are you sure?”

Wakatoshi nods.

“Oh,” Tendou says. Then, “Okay.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he touches his fingertips to Wakatoshi’s wrist and Wakatoshi smiles.

The second time Wakatoshi touches Tendou, it’s firm. It’s in the middle of an airport, on the brink of departure. Tendou will be gone for years and Wakatoshi will be busy for that amount of time too. Maybe he will visit France and they will offend some French locals. Maybe Tendou will come back and they will play volleyball at the park.

But each time he visits—and each time Tendou returns—it will be the same as this. They will do this over and over again, Wakatoshi promises.

Wakatoshi , something starved inside of him finally quieting, Tendou with a smile so bright and so disbelieving that Wakatoshi thinks he understands better now, why he had never tried to touch him before.

Wakatoshi closes the gap between them and kisses Tendou Satori on the mouth.

It’s the second time they touch and the beginning of a third time, a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth, a lifetime of just this—of kisses, of leaving and returning, of grounding each other through the press of fingertips against skin. It is what Wakatoshi has never gotten, what he has only realized recently he was missing, and what Tendou promises him an entire lifetime of.

“Ah,” Tendou says as Wakatoshi pulls back, warm and a little flushed. His fingers press against Wakatoshi’s neck, against the barrel of his chest. Little presses of Tendou against all of the hollow places of Wakatoshi. “Some things are worth waiting for after all.”

Wakatoshi agrees. Then, happily, he leans down and kisses him again.

[ushitenevent]

Be Still My Heart Thief (pickpocket AU) (G, 765 words)

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Satori's got a favorite target.

Maybe that's a little weird to say. He’s a thief, after all, and thieves aren’t supposed to have regulars. But it's hard not to pick favorites among the masses: the excitable little Tsutomu, who always has friends over at his place so he’s not keeping an eye on the balcony when Satori scales it; Eita and his cool clothes and room full of guitars, always patting his pockets during rehearsals looking for his spare picks that Satori’s already stolen; even Reon who he’s cased for years, watching his spare room fill with baby supplies, and breaking protocol to slip a soft little doll into the mix, a gift for his daughter who stole his brown eyes.

Of them all, though, Wakatoshi’s his absolute favorite. He’s a sweetheart. A businessman with a windowsill full of herbs and flowers, who commutes on the same train every morning and evening, and waters his plants on a rigid schedule that would make the sun weep. Satori loves to pluck a sprig of basil for his pasta, thanking Wakatoshi for the flavor. In the spring, he steals a few spare seeds that Wakatoshi wouldn’t miss and plants them carefully at his apartment, so their flowers grow in tandem.

Who cares if it’s strange? Satori’s a thief! It’s an atypical profession, and from his favorites he only steals the littlest things, stuff his targets would barely miss. A pint of ice cream, a can of cola, maybe one or two spare notecards. He makes his money through bigger targets; he’s banned from every museum in Tokyo, but that’s never stopped him.

It’s odd, but no one is in the business of calling Satori normal, anyway.

Things take a turn one fall morning, though. The season’s just beginning to turn, and Satori warms his hands around a can of coffee he’s not drinking while he waits for the train. Disguised in a soft, green beanie and a patchwork coat, he’s got half an eye on his target, patiently waiting a few meters away.

Wakatoshi, in a navy suit and scarf, staring blankly as he waits for the train.

Satori loves pickpocketing Wakatoshi. He can’t do it all that often, lest he get suspicious, but he always has something fun to show for it. A business card for a doctor in Miyagi, a spare stick of strawberry gum that seemed too sweet for him. Once, even, a handwritten recipe; Satori felt so bad about that one that he took a risk and slipped it back under his door later that day so he would think he’d just forgotten it at home.

He has to be careful, though, and disguise himself, so Wakatoshi doesn’t recognize his wide eyes or fiery hair or the lean arc of his body slipping past him.

There’s a rumble, and Wakatoshi’s head rises; his train slowing down to reach their stop, Satori’s signal.

With his coffee in one hand, he steps backward before walking behind Wakatoshi, barely brushing against him as the man moves to slip onto the train after the passengers exit. In a cacophony of touches, it shouldn’t even register. The doors close behind him, and then Satori pretends he’s been waiting for a train heading in the opposite direction this whole time.

His reward is in his hand: a small slip of paper that he stuffs into his own pocket while he boards the next train, and he waits two stops before he finally lets himself examine it.

What could it be? What part of Wakatoshi’s life will he be gifted with, this time? A spare ticket from a night at the symphony, or a receipt for a new book? A stub for his post-work ramen, the wrapper to a drink he liked, or a piece of wrapping paper?

He falls in love with all his sweet targets through these quiet glimpses of their lives, the ephemera and moments of distraction that make them (and him) all the richer.

“Oh,” he says, mouth falling open as he finally looks at the paper, a handwritten note in dark green ink on heavy cream, “Wakatoshi, you rascal!” Blush fills his cheeks, and that’s the glimpse of him the other strangers on the train are allowed to steal.

Your green hat is nice, the note reads, but I like your red hair better. I want to see it tonight. Come to mine? I trust you know where that is.

Regards, Wakatoshi P.S. I have a pot of basil for you, so you don’t have to keep stealing mine.

[ushitenevent]

UshiTen Drabble, Day Four: Sunflower, Pt. III and IV (Soulmates)

Sunflower, Pt. I and II

Sunflower, Pt. III and IV (Soulmates) (G, 1000) ☼ UshiTen Exchange 2023 Creator Sign Ups: here ☼ UshiTen Exchange 2023 Beta Sign Ups: here ☼ Join us at the UshiTen Exchange Discord: here

Satori opens his own chocolaterie and Wakatoshi visits for an entire week to celebrate its grand opening. Satori is busy, but Wakatoshi is patient, and although the days are for his customers, the evenings are for him and Wakatoshi to explore Paris together. They eat expensive French dinners, drink wine on the grass of the Champs de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower, take a night boat along the Seine, and walk along the banks of the water while sharing ice cream cones.

“All these years and you never found someone either, huh Wakatoshi?” Satori says one evening as he licks at his gelato. They sit together in the grass in the Tuileries.

“No,” Wakatoshi says. “It does not bother me.”

“Maybe you’ll be a late bloomer,” Satori says excitedly, waving his cone around. “Your mark’ll appear when you win nationals and they’re putting the gold medal around your neck. Or you’ll be a hot, retired volleyball player and someone will come up to you and say they went to every single one of your matches and then you’ll get your flower. Or you’ll—”

“Maybe,” Wakatoshi says with a shrug. “It does not matter to me, really.”

“I know,” Satori says with a sigh. “I don’t get it.”

“Why does it matter to you so much, Satori?” Wakatoshi asks. “Your soulmate does not make you who you are.”

“I know that,” Satori says. He leans against Wakatoshi’s big shoulder as he stretches his legs out in front of them. “I guess I like the idea that I belong to someone. That they belong to me too. Divine intervention, fates intertwined, all of that. It’s romantic.”

Wakatoshi hums in consideration.

“What if you do not like your soulmate?” he says. “The fates cannot know everything.”

“I think it wouldn’t matter,” Satori says. “I think the soulmate bond would make you like and love each other even if you wouldn’t normally, right?”

“Maybe,” Wakatoshi says, but he’s frowning, like something’s bothering him.

Satori doesn’t like the shift in his best friend’s demeanor, so he bumps his shoulder.

“Hey, you cut your hair short,” he says. “Are you copying me?”

Wakatoshi nibbles at his cone and nods.

“You look very handsome with your haircut.”

Satori flushes. The back of his neck heats.

“Oh, you,” he says. “You’re too good to me. You always have been.”

“I treat you the way you deserve,” Wakatoshi says and he says it seriously, like it’s offensive that Satori might consider otherwise. Knowing him, that is exactly how he feels. Ushijima Wakatoshi is the best person Tendou Satori has ever known.

Satori smiles and sighs and tilts his head onto Wakatoshi’s shoulder. “You’re great. I love you.”

Wakatoshi smiles back. “I love you too.”

That’s when Satori feels the skin above his ribcage suddenly heat.

“Ow!”

He frowns and pulls away from Wakatoshi, slapping his hand over his side.

“What the—”

Wakatoshi scratches the back of his neck at the same time.

Satori looks up just as Wakatoshi pulls his hand away.

There’s something there. At the nape of Wakatoshi’s neck, visible now that his hair is so short.

Satori doesn’t understand what it is at first. Then he leans in closer and his eyes widen.

“Satori?” Wakatoshi asks uncertainly into the shocked silence.

He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand. How could it be?

Satori reaches forward and brushes his fingertips against a little sunflower on Wakatoshi’s skin.

“Wakatoshi-kun,” Satori says, his voice trembling. He looks up at Wakatoshi with big, glowing eyes and a disbelieving expression on his face. “Have you ever looked at the back of your neck?”

It turns out, the universe isn’t mean; it just has an unfortunate sense of humor. Give an unlovable child, a baby monster the promise of a soulmate from birth, and then mark his soulmate somewhere almost impossible for him to see.

“When you were three months old, you had a terrible fever,” Satori’s mother tells him when he asks, later. “We took you back to the hospital.”

It was near the middle of August.

“My birthday is in the middle of August,” Wakatoshi says to him, wonderingly.

Satori wasn’t born with the little sunflower on his ribcage, his mother tells him. He was kept in the children’s ward for two days. When his fever finally got better, they brought him home. It was only then that they noticed the new little mark.

It seems impossible to him. That two babies should pass by each other in the children’s ward of the hospital and their souls should recognize each other, even if they will not know that for years. They will not grow up together, but they will meet again in high school. Their souls will be familiar, they will continue to call to each other, to be comforted by each other, but still Satori and Wakatoshi will not know.

They will not know for years and years, although that will not matter. Not in any real way. They will still love each other all the same.

“You were right,” Satori says, smiling up at Wakatoshi. His arms around Wakatoshi’s neck, the Seine quietly whispering against the bank beside them. “I don’t need a soulmate either. I have you.”

“I am your soulmate, Satori,” Wakatoshi says, amused.

“Well so you are,” Satori says. “Guess it works both ways then.”

Wakatoshi laughs and Satori reaches up to kiss him.

“You were right too,” Wakatoshi says, his voice a gentle rumble.

“Oh? I usually am, but what about this time?”

Wakatoshi rolls his eyes a little—or as close as someone like Ushijima Wakatoshi can get to such a thing—and brushes his fingertips against Satori’s cheek.

“I like the idea of belonging to you. And of you belonging to me too,” he says. Satori’s face warms, his heart pounding in his chest. His little sunflower twinges.

Wakatoshi smiles gently and leans down to kiss Satori, his best friend, the other half to his own soul. “It is romantic.”

[ushitenevent]

UshiTen Drabble, Day Three: Sunflower, Pt I and II (Soulmates)

Sunflower, Pt. I and II (Soulmates) (G, 1155)

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Satori always thought it was a bit mean that the universe would mark a person like him. He knows how this works: one day, with no warning or prelude, the universe will introduce you to your soulmate—your other half, the person the fates created to complement you—and it will flower on your skin, a mark meant to bind you both together. Usually it will happen to teenagers, serendipitously sitting down together at the same lunch table or meeting in competition on opposing teams, or people will meet their soulmates in a college class, eyes meeting across the lecture hall, or at the bar during a work happy hour where, fortuitously, they will both order their drink at the same time, or at work when their computer is suddenly melting down and there’s only one person in the entire IT department. Sometimes it will happen later in life and that’s frustrating in its own way, but at least people have a better sense of who they are and what they want by then and it’s crystal clear that this person with the matching flower mark can only mean one thing.

Satori has had the little sunflower on his ribcage since he was a baby. He has never known who has the matching part.

“Makes no sense,” he complains often to Wakatoshi, his best friend. “How can you be born with a soulmark? You haven’t even met anyone yet. Unless it was a nurse. Can a baby’s soulmate be their nurse?”

Wakatoshi frowns. “That would be a little strange, but I do not know how the logistics work.”

Satori wrinkles his nose. “It /would/ be weird. Which is probably why it would happen to me.”

“Perhaps it is not your nurse, then” Wakatoshi says, soothingly. Or soothingly for him, which is to say, in a straightforward and measured manner. “But another.”

“No. I probably don’t have one at all,” Satori says, throwing up his arms. He looks both dramatic and gloomy. “Which is stupid. How can a guy have a mark but not a soulmate? Are the fates laughing at me? Am I a joke to the universe?”

Wakatoshi looks thoughtfully at Satori across the lunch table and nods.

“You are very funny,” he says.

“That’s not—” Satori starts and then sighs and slumps his head onto the table. “Forget it. My soulmate is probably in hiding. I’m going to die alone.”

“Death is inherently a solitary activity,” Wakatoshi says wisely. Bless his little Wakatoshi heart. “No one can die with someone.”

“I want to be mourned, Wakatoshi-kun,” Satori says, turning his face toward him. “I want someone to fling their body across my cold, dead body and sob about all of the good times we had together.”

Wakatoshi picks up some curry with his chopsticks.

“That sounds onerous, but I could try,” he says. “Although I do not cry easily.”

“You won’t cry when I’m dead?” Satori looks as sad as he is able. It has no impact on Wakatoshi. Or maybe it does; it’s hard to tell.

Wakatoshi considers this the way he considers most things—with gravity. After a moment he nods.

“I would be very disappointed.”

Satori almost smiles, but sighs instead.

“Good enough, I guess,” he says. Then he stretches and says, “At least I’ll always have you, Wakatoshi-kun. Right?”

Wakatoshi smiles, finally looking pleased. “Yes, Satori. You will always have me.”

He suffers for the next two years. First Shirabu and Goshiki accidentally discover that they’re soulmates in a completely insane incident that involves a bat, running through the dormitory hall in the middle of the night, a lot of shrieking, and Shirabu trying to coax Goshiki off the rooftop and back inside. It’s actually very funny, but the end result is that now Shirabu looks disgruntled all the time (fake) and Goshiki can get away with murder around him and they hold hands in the hallway and sometimes when they think no one is looking, they share a sweet kiss.

Then Reon’s soulmark blooms when he bumps into a girl from the girl’s volleyball team, the team crushes Aoba Johsai in competition, but when their annoying setter and the spiky haired guy pull up their shirts to wipe away sweat, Satori clearly sees the matching marigolds on their chests, and no matter where he looks, Satori keeps seeing sunflower imagery, with absolutely no one to show for it.

“I don’t get it,” he says to Wakatoshi almost every night. He knows he’s being whiney, but Wakatoshi never minds. Sometimes when Satori is suffering from insomnia and is feeling dramatic and gloomy, he’ll knock on Wakatoshi’s door in the middle of the night. Wakatoshi will always let him in and let him crawl into bed with him.

Satori will rest his head on Wakatoshi’s ample chest and Wakatoshi will pull him in closer, tucking his arm around Satori’s shoulder, and Satori will feel safe, comfortable, and ready to whine for the foreseeable future.

“I’ve never heard of someone having a mark for so long and never meeting their soulmate.”

“Maybe it is someone you already know,” Wakatoshi advises as Satori snuggles into him.

“But who?” Satori says. “I haven’t known anyone since I was a baby.”

He tries to think, but can’t come up with anyone. No one reveals themselves to him either, which makes sense, because if Satori was Satori’s soulmate, maybe he wouldn’t want to acknowledge it either. He tries not to sulk and mostly fails.

“What about you?” Satori asks, tilting his face up toward Wakatoshi. “You haven’t met your soulmate either.”

“I do not need a soulmate, Satori,” Wakatoshi says and he smiles at him, the way he always does, as though he wants to smile at Satori because Satori makes him smile. “I have you.”

They graduate from Shiratorizawa with honors and bright futures. Wakatoshi has been invited to play professionally with the Schweiden Adlers and Satori has been offered an internship with a culinary school in France.

“You’re not gonna forget me, are ya, Wakatoshi-kun?” Satori asks him, the last night he visits him in his dormitory room. “When you’re a big, hot shot volleyball player in Tokyo?”

“Of course not, Satori. I have already marked in my calendar to visit you for the winter break,” Wakatoshi says and Satori feels warm and happy all over.

Maybe he doesn’t need his soulmate either; not when he has Wakatoshi too.

It’s fine. Satori is very popular in France (it turns out that long-legged Japanese men with model-thin limbs, sharp bone structure, and buzzed hair is very appealing to the French) and so it’s fine that he never meets his soulmate. It’s fine that he remains without his predestined, romantic other half. He dates a few women and a lot more men and Wakatoshi visits him at least twice a year.

Satori doesn’t need anything else. All he needs is good people, good food, and his best friend.

[ushitenevent]

UshiTen Drabble, Day Two: Thrill Me, Try Not to Kill Me (Vampire/Vampire Hunter)

Thrill Me, Try Not to Kill Me (Vampire/Vampire Hunter) (G, ~350 words)

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Tendou doesn't need light to know his days are numbered.

"I think it would be 'nights' for you, Satori," the giant hunk of a hunter corrects with the slight twitch of a smile.

That's all Tendou needs. "You shouldn't interrupt me when I'm being dramatic, Wakatoshi-kun. Isn't that what vampires are known for?" Tendou actually hates capes and velvet and gothic interiors; give him Scandinavian minimalism any night of the week.

So what if his guilty pleasure is IKEA?

"It's my job to be accurate."

Tendou spares a glance at the stake in Ushijima's hand, freshly sharpened to a neat point. The burn just over his frozen heart is still healing, testament to Ushijima's skill with a silver bullet.

Luckily, Tendou was fast enough to avoid the full brunt of the bullet. Unfortunately even the slight graze — especially when dipped in holy water — knocked him out, leading him here: a hunter's den, somehow gaudier than Tendou's own lair.

"Did you do the interior?" He wiggles in his seat. "This is comfy!"

The smile stretches wider on Ushijima's handsome — hey, he's undead but he's still got eyes! — face. "You can blame my father for this. I thought IKEA would be sufficient. He laughed at me."

"IKEA! A man after my own heart!" There's a brief click in the silence and, in a flash, before Ushijima even has a second to react, Tendou crosses the room and pins him against the wall, one hand against his heart. "In more ways than one," he utters, just against the softness of Ushijima's mouth, plucking the stake out of his hand and tossing it aside.

"Now," Tendou says, staring into Ushijima's dark green eyes until they glow golden, pulsing in time with the heartbeat that used to belong to him, "show me the way out? Pretty please?"

Ushijima grips the hand pressed against his chest, raises it briefly to his lips. "It would be my eternal pleasure," he says, and Tendou's too busy laughing to notice the way his eyes flicker green.

[ushitenevent]

UshiTen Drabble a Day, DAY ONE: Monsters and First Meetings

Now we here at the UshiTen Exchange understand that some of you are already personal subscribers to Ushijima/Tendou. Many of you already know the critical things, such as: Ushijima Wakatoshi and Tendou Satori are BEST FRIENDS. Or, for example: Ushijima Wakatoshi was taught how to read by Tendou Satori using Shonen Jump Magazines (REAL). And, of course, the most important thing: Ushijima Wakatoshi and Tendou Satori are monsters who are also teammates and soulmates.

But maybe some of you don't know those things. You know about UshiTen (of course) but you don't really understand them. You need More before you're fully on board.

To that end, the mods of UshiTen Exchange say: an UshiTen drabble a day keeps the Hinata Shouyo away!

For the next eight days, we will be giving you a short UshiTen drabble a day to help bring you over to the light. We'll be sorting through a variety of tropes and situationships because UshiTen? They have the RANGE.

And maybe by the end of it, who knows?, you'll want to try your hand at UshiTen too (with us)!

USHITEN DRABBLE A DAY, DAY ONE: Monsters and First Meetings (G, 600 words)

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When Satori was a child, he would craft monsters out of clay. He would give them all of the things that scared him—wide eyes and fanged teeth, pointed horns and claws so sharp they could pierce. His monsters were mean; they could chew through bone and swallow eyeballs and crush little boys between their fingers. They would protect him, his monsters. They were scary and they were not real and he loved them very much.

He thinks he looks like one of them, the first time he meets him.

Six foot two inches tall, with the kind of body brick walls are built of and the kind of intensity that breaks waves against shores. He has thick, serious eyebrows, and unmoving brown eyes, and soft hair that is either brown or olive or both. He never smiles and his arms are always crossed at his large chest, and he is relentlessly polite.

Satori’s monsters had always been protective, but never been kind.

The first time he meets him, he’s almost afraid.

“Wakatoshi-kun, eh?” he says, as a joke, because everything is easier as a joke. “I hear we’re on the same team.”

Satori has never been on a team before. He’s never been allowed.

“Tendou Satori,” the monster says and his voice is as steady as the ground. “I hear you are able to score points.”

He says it not as a challenge, but as an expectation. Whatever Satori had been expecting, it wasn’t this.

“Have you heard of me?” Satori asks and tilts his head, baring his teeth. If the other boy won’t challenge him, he’ll push back first.

“Yes,” Ushijima says.

“Most of it is true,” Satori says and he smiles, a bitter, sharp thing. It’s a smile made of fanged teeth and pointed horns and claws so sharp they pierce. “I’m scary, and I’m mean, and I’m intense, and I probably have a bad attitude. They call me a monster. A yokai.”

“Are you one?” Ushijima asks and Satori laughs, hurt and pleased.

“Yes.”

“I see,” Ushijima says, accepting this.

Of course. Satori’s smile dims. Even monsters can be hurt.

He turns to leave, when Ushijima says, “But I hear you are able to score points.”

Confused, Satori turns back.

“Yes?”

Ushijima stares at him with those unmoving eyes, a monster facing a monster. He is steady and curious and utterly unafraid. After a moment, he nods.

“Then, that is fine.”

Satori doesn’t understand.

“All that matters is that you are able to score points,” Ushijma says. The monster’s expression softens. Like this, he is almost human. “That is all that matters when we play volleyball, Tendou Satori. That is the only thing I care about on my team.”

He will think later that this was the moment he fell in love with Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Or maybe it was the first time he reached forward to help Satori up from the ground; the first time he sat next to him—not away from him—at lunch; the first time Satori knocked on his bedroom door and Ushijima let him in.

Or maybe it was the first time Satori lay down on the ground next to him after a hard-fought game, the two of them panting, sweat damping their temples. Their hearts racing, victory in their blood. Ushijima turned to Satori and smiled.

Maybe it’s then that Satori learned that there are many kinds of monsters. Some are scary and some are mean, but all of them can be beautiful.

All you need is to find the one that matches the kind that you are.