Thread by @pettykawas

#ushioi — non-traditional relationships

Ushijima, arranged to be married to a woman he barely knows, meets stunning and single Oikawa, their wedding planner.

The attraction is instant. It’s dangerous, like a lit matchstick in a forest.

To his credit, Oikawa keeps his distance. There is always space between them. But his glances, brief as they are, linger like the touch of a hand that Ushijima aches to hold.

His fiancée and Oikawa are both strangers to him, but Ushijima can see himself loving only one, and it is the person he cannot have.

“You like him,” she tells him one day while waiting for Oikawa to arrive. It’s not an accusation, but an observation.

“I do,” he responds, and it’s the same words he’ll utter in just a few months’ time.

Two words should not rest so heavily on his tongue.

When she regards him, there is no anger, no sadness, not even pity.

There is understanding.

“I’m in love with someone, too,” she admits, and Ushijima is neither surprised nor concerned, but the grief that is painted across her face makes him feel less alone. “I’ve loved him since we were children.”

He is reminded, once again, of the fate of people like him. Raised to be providers, groomed to be successors, so they are fit to be married off, start families, and continue the cycle.

Ushijima doesn’t care much about money or titles or power, but he doesn’t like letting family down. He supposes the same could be said about his future partner.

“I am sorry to hear that,” he says, and it is sincere.

“Don’t be.”

A frown. “What do you mean?”

“We only need to be wed,” she points out. “We don’t need to be in love.”

That day, he finds an unlikely ally in a stranger.

When Oikawa arrives, the silence has gone from tense to companionable. He looks at them, perhaps at Ushijima’s face for a heartbeat longer, before he asks:

“Sorry, am I interrupting something?”

His fiancée smiles, and it reminds Ushijima of glass in the way that it is delicate but formidable when used with purpose.

“No, don’t worry, you aren’t.”

/ /

Oikawa had been prepared to handle a laundry list of hiccups at the Ushijima-Hashimoto wedding. Gatecrashers, sudden rain showers, inebriated guests—you name it.

He did not anticipate this: chancing upon Ushijima at the gardens, a few yards away from the grand reception of the man’s own wedding, the wedding Oikawa helped plan.

“I must have done a shit job at planning the reception if you’re here and not there,” Oikawa jokes to break the ice.

Ushijima doesn’t visibly startle, but he looks at Oikawa like he isn’t so sure he’s there. Like he might be a mirage, something Ushijima wouldn’t be able to keep in his grasp.

“It is no fault of yours,” Ushijima says. (It’s a white lie, but there’s no way Oikawa would have known it.)

“Why are you here, then?” Oikawa asks as he approaches the bench where Ushijima is sitting.

“I could not stand being dishonest around my family,” he says. “So I sought some respite.”

Oikawa pauses. He tilts his head. “Are you being honest now?”

When Ushijima returns his gaze, there is a challenge in his eyes, tempered by an unnamable emotion, something like what Oikawa had felt when Ushijima kissed his bride.

“Would you like me to be honest, Oikawa?”

It’s not a threat, but it makes the atmosphere grow cold and hot, all at once. Oikawa feels his instinct to flee and his desire to stay or get /closer/ warring.

The latter wins.

“Yes.”

It comes out as a whisper, so soft that the wind might carry it away, but Ushijima still catches it.

“I am preoccupied with thoughts of you,” Ushijima admits, and the confession makes Oikawa’s pulse kick up. His heart thunders so strongly in his chest, it is as though a storm were raging within him, barely contained by his rib cage.

“You just got married,” Oikawa points out, dazed. “What about…?”

“We will have her blessing.” Ushijima pauses, as if remembering something. “We are… in love with other people.”

Oikawa swallows around the lump in his throat. “Love, huh?”

He feels a little breathless at the weight of what has been spoken, a little lightheaded thinking about the hows and the whys and the what nows.

‘What now, that you have given it a name? What now, that we both see it? What now, that you see me, too?’

“I had wanted to ask if you would be willing to have me court you,” Ushijima starts, “but…”

“But?” Oikawa prompts gently, hanging on to every single word.

Ushijima smiles wryly. “I realized you deserve better than someone who cannot give you everything you deserve.”

Oikawa frowns. “And that is?”

“You deserve a relationship that doesn’t need to be hidden,” Ushijima says plainly.

That is the truth, isn’t it? No one wants to be hidden away like a secret. Love should be celebrated. It is at the core of the very industry Oikawa works in.

Is his attraction to Ushijima, a man he knows nothing about beyond his kindness, worth this sacrifice?

He lets the words hang in silence as he takes a seat beside Ushijima, still careful to put distance between them. Mostly for his sanity, partly out of habit.

“Listen, I like you, Ushijima. But this is… a lot.” He pauses to take a breath, looking out into the gardens as if they could offer him the right combination of syllables. “I don’t know what I’m ready for, or what I’m prepared to let go of.”

He’s only thinking out loud, but when Ushijima closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, he knows Ushijima has taken what he said as a rejection.

The other man begins to stand, and Oikawa begins to panic.

“I understand—”

“I’m not saying no,” Oikawa amends quickly, hand rising to latch onto Ushijima’s wrist before he even realizes what he’s doing. Ushijima’s pulse races under his thumb. “Do you… wanna see where this goes?”

He does manage to startle Ushijima, this time. Ushijima resumes his seat, staring at the hand around his wrist before taking it into his own.

His hand is warmly weaved with Oikawa’s, and the look in his eyes is even warmer, like spring’s first sunrise.

“I do.”

Oikawa bites back a smile.

/ Hopefully that was okay! This demanded to be written in a style I’m not entirely familiar with so I’m a little unsure about how it turned out. Still, I wanted to share it anyway :)