the curtain call will be ours

Matsukawa lays a hand on his shoulder. "Don't listen to the haters, Makki. I always knew you'd make it."

"Thanks, Mattsun. I do have a powerful stage presence and a golden voice."

Oikawa looks suspicious. "I don't believe Makki can sing."

It's like he doesn't know Takahiro at all. Matsukawa smirks, and "Nice going, idiot," says Iwaizumi, as Takahiro opens his mouth.

"I love you baby—"

Oikawa lunges forward and slaps a hand across his mouth. "Mm mmf mf mmm mm mmm—" Oikawa won't budge. Takahiro licks his palm. Oikawa snatches the hand away with a yelp.

Takahiro smacks his lips. "Mm. Tastes like milkbread."

"Anyway," Oikawa complains, "I can't believe you waited until the last week of vacation to tell us, what kind of friends are we."

The obvious answer is You only got home four days ago, so Takahiro says, "Didn't want to upset you." He shakes his head, sorrowfully. "Professional jealousy's never pretty."

"I beg your pardon—"

"I know, I know. You think, it seems so glamorous. And you know what? It is." Oikawa tries to break in; Takahiro talks over him. "But listen, Oikawa – as the great philosopher once said: you can't hurry love. You've just got to wait. And if you like the way you look that much, you should go and love yourself." Oikawa makes a noise like a dying cat. "Then, who knows? The commercials, the interviews, the C-list music video cameos—well, I can't promise anything, but maybe."

It's like a switch is flipped—it always is. Oikawa's expression goes cool and confident, untouchable. The conviction that nearly took them to Nationals. Their captain.

"They'll come," Oikawa says. "When I make the national team. They'll come."

Takahiro trades a disappointed glance with Matsukawa. It takes all the fun out of it when Oikawa gets serious.

Iwaizumi's got his Oikawa Face on, half-irritated, half-proud. All indecent. "You should go to a match," he says. "If you're in Tokyo."

The captain vanishes as Oikawa's face lights up by a thousand watts. "That's right! Me versus Iwa-chan!"

"I'm not a starter yet, dumbass."

"You too, Mattsun! This is perfect, you can be my cheering squad."

"Push it, push it, Trashykawa."

"Hit it, hit it, Trashykawa."

"The two of you are creepy, has anyone ever told you that?"

"What have I said about calling me that!"

"By the way, Shittykawa, your mom's expecting us in thirty minutes."

"Iwa-chan!"

Iwaizumi lingers a moment after Oikawa's loped off for the nearest recycling bin with a bag of their empty cans in tow. "We still on for tomorrow?"

Matsukawa raises a hand lazily. "Same time."

"Same place."

"Same face."

"Same... alien race."

"You deserve him," Iwaizumi informs them. "Or he deserves you."

"I think we all know the only one he deserves is you," Takahiro says, at which Iwaizumi flushes a bright, unattractive red, growls something inappropriate for family programming, and leaves them alone. Too easy.

Matsukawa tilts the hand still suspended mid-air. Takahiro meets it in an equally languid high five and collapses back on the picnic blanket. It's perfect weather, right on the edge of too hot, sweat beading at the back of his neck. Just how Takahiro likes it.

Matsukawa rolls a blade of grass between his lips. Takahiro closes his eyes and lets the sun beat down on his face.

Matsukawa's lazy voice says, "You serious about this?"

"Dunno."

Hard now, basking in the late afternoon sun, insects buzzing over the tumble of water on the rocks, picking up grass stains on his elbows, to explain the itch under his skin all winter. Worse after he quit going to volleyball practice, the slow realization that Seijou had ruined him for casual. Catching sight of a shitty Photoshop flier outside his econ lecture, showing up at auditions on a whim—as a joke on himself.

The moment he opened his mouth and became someone else.

"Didn't know they recruited from college drama circles these days," says Matsukawa.

"Lucky break. Manager's nephew or little brother or something is a TGU alum." Leading Yajima-san to the student production of Whales in the stairwell, leading the poor nephew or little brother to stalking Takahiro on Facebook, leading Takahiro to a strange woman accosting him by the science building and a surreal hour over coffee in Birthday Café and twenty-four hours later a draft contract in his email.

Because Takahiro, half-incredulous half-amused, kept saying Sure, because – why not?

It was sort of their thing. Sure. Why not.

Matsukawa makes a thoughtful noise. "You gonna drop out?"

"Leave of absence." And that only once his parents signed off. "My folks are gonna spot me key money and the deposit and shit. After that I'm on my own."

"Our Hiro-kun, all grown up and leaving home."

"Just following your example."

The words hang there, longer than Takahiro intended, taking on shape, weight.

Matsukawa says, "I knew you were pissed."

"I'm not pissed. Just—"

Just what, anyway.

Matsukawa's waiting. Takahiro can't come up with anything better than a shrug. "I dunno. Didn't expect it."

"If it helps, I didn't expect you to be scouted for your face."

"Guess that's adulthood. Lotta shit no one expects."

"Where's that Tendou dude when you need him," Matsukawa says, but it's halfhearted.

The first real question Yajima-san had asked, after the self-introductions, after the compliments:

Hanamaki-kun, have you ever thought about making this a career?

Sure. Why not.

* * *

To be honest, he'd never bothered to think much about where they'd go after high school. He'd always figured it would sort itself out once the world's greatest love story figured their shit out and got rolling on the path to that Olympic gold medal proposal he had ¥1500 at five percent compound interest riding on. The usual suspects would set out to take on the world; the rest of them would pick universities in Sendai and just—be college students.