Jun was in pain.

There was a postgame soreness slowly creeping its way through his body, small cuts and scrapes stinging his limbs from the numerous times he had tackled members of the opposing team to the ground. He was sure he would wake up the next morning sporting a wild variety of bruises, their purples and blacks and blues forming painful nebulas on his skin, but, in that moment, his aching body still wasn’t the thing that was hurting him the most.

He pulled his jersey over his head with a wince and held it in his hands, the thick fabric a little damp, smelling of his sweat. He knew he should have continued undressing, but as he looked to the left, he couldn’t help but pause as his gaze landed on the boy two lockers away, and he knew that prying his eyes away would be much harder than pushing his muddy shorts down his thighs ever would be.

Mikiyo’s mohawk was matted close to his skin from his scrum cap, and sweat shone on his cheeks, still a little red from exertion. He pulled off his jersey and tossed it in his locker, then picked up a towel from the bench beside him, mopping the sweat from his face and underarms. He yanked his shorts down as he hummed quietly to himself, and peeled away the spandex that stuck to his thighs. Despite his weight, Jun could still see the curves of his quads under his skin.

Jun tried to convince himself that he had only envied Mikiyo’s body. He was built like the props in the professional leagues were, and he partly wished he could be as capable as he was. But as his eyes moved down his body, he knew he couldn’t fall for that lie anymore. Without his glasses on, he couldn’t quite make out the thin white lines of the stretch marks on his sides, or the thin hairs that crept up his bare thighs, but he had caught glimpses of them before, and thinking of such details made him shiver.

He tore his gaze away before Mikiyo noticed his lingering stare and clenched the yellow and black stripes of his jersey in his fists, torn between wanting to cry out and wanting to laugh—it was almost pitiful, how desperately he wanted Mikiyo. He wanted to press his face to his neck and breathe in the scent of his sweat, no matter how badly it might sear his nostrils. He wanted to find out how soft his fat felt under his hands when he groped his chest, his sides, his thighs, his ass. He wanted to hold him, to massage his tender, bruised skin under his fingertips. He wanted to pin him against the lockers and kiss him until he forgot how to play rugby, until he forgot how to breathe. He <i>wanted</i> Mikiyo, so badly that he barely felt an ounce of shame as such thoughts pounded through his head, heat pooling in his crotch even with the rest of the team in the locker room beside them, and yet…

“Hey, Jun! Great game today!”

He stiffened outwardly, teeth clenching to lock in the whimper that threatened to escape from his throat. He carefully turned his head towards Mikiyo.

“You too, Mikiyo,” he managed with an even voice. “Good game.”

Mikiyo grinned and scratched his mohawk a little sheepishly at the comment, and Jun tried his best to stand firm even as he felt his heart rise into his throat. He wanted to pounce on him, and was sure that he would have if they were alone. He partially wanted to push his feelings deep down, to repress them for as long as he could, but his defenses were weakening, that much was certain. The looks Chisato gave him during practice let him know that he could sense the tension Jun projected.

Maybe he hadn’t caught on fully, and if he did, Jun was sure that he could be trusted with his secret—unless his feelings started to affect his playing, that is. And that was where Jun started to worry. He had already felt flashes of worry when Mikiyo went down in a particularly rough tackle, urges to pull him into a hug with more-than-platonic inclinations when they celebrated a win after a game. No matter how tightly he tried to bottle up his feelings, they had begun to eke out through the cracks.

He felt himself moving closer to a confession as each day passed, something that he would not be able to silence when it finally wanted to be heard. He waited for that day with a sour mixture of hope and shame swirling around in his head and heart—Mikiyo was friendly, and he might be open to something with Jun. But, at the same time, it was all too likely that he would only want to have him as his teammate, and nothing else, and Jun wasn’t sure how he’d be able to handle that kind of rejection.

As his gaze drifted back to Mikiyo, he steeled himself. That smile, second in brightness only to the sun itself, made him feel like everything would end up okay.