Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shinya woke up with his head aching so much that it seemed like his brain was trying to break his own skull for escape accompanied with his nerves setting fire to every single thing in his found in his head with each having a certain radius.

The lights in the room spun, duplicating, separating and blurring as he opened his eyes. There was a sour taste in his tongue so bad that he thought he actually threw up in his sleep, imagining green liquid oozing from his mouth bringing his lunch out of his stomach to soak the sheets of the bed and Shinya quickly regretted bringing the image in his mind because the moment he did, he ended up really wanting to throw up his insides.

“Oh Shit.” He groaned, covering his eyes. The lights were too damn bright and every scent touching his nostrils smelled like twelve different kinds of booze mixed together despite the fact that they only drank whiskey last night. “Shitshitshitshit.”

Shinya turned to his side, trying to ease the pounding in his head as he tried to pull over the blankets all over his body (but even the sheets smelled like whiskey) even if it never really did anything to ease the pain.

Shinya always thought that getting drunk felt good. After all, there were times when Krul comes home drunk and always looked like she was having fun but if being drunk would make people go through some kind of impromptu apocalypse with the whole world on fire in his head the moment they wake up then fuck alcohol. Fuck whiskey. Fuck hangovers. Fuck.

He finally had enough with the smell of booze, thinking of navigating himself to the bathroom without tripping and hitting his head on some solid object and dying in the process out of head trauma but before even attempting to sit up, a weight on the other side of the bed started shifting closer to him and as it turned around to face him, Shinya already felt like dying when his forehead touched the other human’s next to him.

“Shit.” He cursed again, seeing Guren doubling in his vision.

Guren. Next to him. On a bed. Both of them on a bed. Half naked.

“Shit!” He said with much shock that his body somehow forced itself to sit up, his back landing on the wall next to the bed.

He observed Guren shift once more on the bed and Shinya couldn’t help but feel his head ache more at the thought of Guren actually being real and actually being on the bed with him.

Shinya scanned himself, feeling his disheveled hair, looking at his hands and looking through his body --- haggard, drunk, half-naked and now red faced; this was not good.

“D-D-Did I j-just!?” He stuttered, trying to remember what the hell happened last night.

The events came to him like faded out tapes in his mind with the gritty scenes and almost sepia color, alcohol cracking each scenario. He went to Yuu’s house with Mika, he went straight to the kitchen to drink, Guren approached him and confessed to him, both he and Guren drank whiskey together and then----

And then…

Within the hazy film, Shinya somehow saw it, some kind of memory with the sound echoing in his ears; one, two, three, uncountable times ---- Guren’s lips on his. He could remember how Guren’s heated hands removed his shirt and how his back burned against the cold wall because of Guren’s touch, because of Guren’s voice, because of Guren’s kiss, because of Guren overall.

“Oh my God, shit.” Shinya must have broken his swearing record with another cuss adding to the string. “Shit.”

Yes, somehow he forgot how to speak.

“If you keep on swearing then Mika might end up doing the same.” There was a groan on the bed, Guren’s rasp and tired voice filling up the room. “Ugh. The world’s spinning. This is why I hate getting drunk.”

Shinya didn’t know how to respond, the words were already jumbling in his throat, having a death battle as to who emerges victorious and comes out of his mouth. Should he just laugh? Should he comment how hypocritical the statement was because Guren curses all the time and of course it affects Yuu?

“G-Guren,” He called hesitantly, his face going into a deeper shade of red. “Last night, d-did w-we…” He swallowed the lump in his throat and it tasted like sour death. “D-Did we---”

Guren just flipped himself over, laying on his stomach and giving Shinya a tired gaze.

“What do you think?” He asked and Shinya just froze. Guren then just chuckled at this an continued. “No, no we didn’t.”

For a moment, Shinya just let the words sink in, a pause that he desperately needed to stop being an embarrassed potato faced writer because of his hazy memories. Other than that, there was a funny feeling in his stomach accompanied by a heated feeling on his lips in which his fingers made an attempt to trace them.

The memory played again: the passionate kisses.

Guren kissed him; kissed him so hard that he went to a state of shock the next morning.

“Well, what are you going to stay there or get rid of this hangover together downstairs?” Once Shinya looked up, Guren was already standing --- wobbling but standing nonetheless --- putting on a black cotton shirt over his head. He rummaged through his closet and threw a white button up shirt and sweat pants at him.

“Y-Yeah.” Shinya replied, still not fully recovered from last night’s events. “You go first, I’ll follow.”

Guren just sighed at this, grabbing his probably aching head and just dragged his feet through the door.

God, there was a lot to process.

Shinya took his time to scan the room, gray walls, gray carpet and mostly monotone elegant colors. There were framed pictures of Guren and Yuu on the bedside table along with another one with Guren and Mahiru in their wedding day; Guren wearing a suit that he could obviously not breathe in.

He remembered that the very first time Shinya entered Guren’s house was because of a flu and Guren spent the night taking care of him. Last time, Guren also shared some clothes to him and Shinya could remember the faint rays of sunlight spreading inside of the room, welcoming them to a calm pleasant morning; a morning much like this one if Shinya didn’t feel like shit.

Erasing his thoughts for a little while, Shinya started to wear Guren’s button up shirt and some sweat pants. Before escaping the room, a chuckle escaped from his lips. Was waking up sick some kind of routine he should keep while staying at Guren’s house?

The thought was so lame that it became incredibly funny.

When Shinya got to the kitchen, Guren was already done with clearing the table full of drinking glasses and was bringing out a pan and a spatula along with some ingredients he scavenged from the cupboards.

“So, what are you making?” Shinya said, observing the things placed on the kitchen counter.

“Well, I have some medicine for hangovers and stuff but I think it’s best that we eat first.” He replied, still scavenging.

“That doesn’t answer my question though.” Shinya smiled and then laughed. “Medicine does not count as breakfast and I thought Mr. Smartass Doctor knows this.”

Guren faced him, a sullen look on his face, the one that Shinya knows so well that if he ends up imagining the man at some times, it would be impossible for his expression to be anything but sullen.

“The hell should I know? There’s barely anything in here.” Guren complained, shutting the cabinets and turning around to the kitchen counter just to analyze on whatever breakfast he could come up with like he was solving a math problem.

Mika and his friends did mention dropping by Guren’s house to bake a cake when Yuu was not around and judging by the massive mess splattered on the cupboard done by whatever cake demon was summoned, there was no doubt that those teens massacred the entire pantry of food Guren had left.

“We could make some pancakes with these though, enough for the four of us.” Shinya commented, observing the eggs Guren just found. “Only if we have two pancakes each though.”

“There’s no syrup.” Guren deadpanned.

“And who says you can’t eat pancakes without syrup?” Shinya replied, puffing out his cheeks.

“There’s no butter.” Guren continued, looking at his pan already on the stove.

“Now that’s just you making excuses. Did pancakes ever do anything bad to you or something?” Shinya raised a brow.

Guren just groaned and Shinya didn’t know if it was from his pounding head or his oozing laziness that he has been sensing the moment Guren started to drag his feet.

“I prefer waffles.” Guren continued.

“Waffles are patterned pancake copycats that need butter too!” Shinya replied swiftly, already measuring the flour with a measuring cup he found in the drawers. “Butter’s hidden at the back of your fridge because I checked your fridge last night before you came on a whim.”

“Stop snooping through my stuff. The fridge is a sacred place.” Guren said and then sighed in defeat. He went to the fridge to grab some butter. “Ugh. Fine let’s cook.”

Yes. This was definitely just Guren being sleepy and lazy and bringing waffles on the excuse table.

Guren yawned, beads of unwanted tears already on the corners of his eyes. He looked at the ingredients shifting on Shinya’s hands in a daze, like he was in a baker’s trance.

You should help too, y’know. This is your house.

And then a light bulb just brightened Shinya’s mind and a smirk was knitted onto his lips. His hands scooped up a handful amount of flour.

“Guren,” He called, glancing at Guren. The man’s eyes were shut and his head was dropping and getting back up, he was certainly fighting sleep.

Not for long though.

“Flour bomb!” Shinya cheers, throwing the flour onto Guren’s face, a puff of white flour smoke forming with Guren coughing immediately.

“What the fuck Shinya!?” Guren cursed, white-faced like a ghost and of course, Shinya laughed so much that he could feel his stomach setting fire to his throat.

“Finally awake, are we?” Shinya continued laughing.

Shinya was busy laughing. Guren absolutely looked like a ghost or if not, a grown man trying to put on some kind of overused foundation of the wrong shade without blending it to his skin but before he could even take a breath from laughter, a bomb of white smoke just hit his face, tickling his nose until he was one sneezing mess as Guren’s voice filled the air with such a loud laugh that he never really heard before.

“Oh man,” Guren pointed at his face. “And you call me a ghost?”

With the next few minutes, Shinya scooped up a handful of flour and threw it again on Guren’s face with the man mimicking the same action afterwards. The kitchen was overflowing with white smoke and white particles raining and blurring in the sunlight reflected from the windows, like snow falling from that cold cold night in Sayuri’s cafe where they met. But in that room, with flour taking over the snow’s role, it wasn’t cold at all. The warmth was overflowing; filling up his heart, a kind of feeling that he hasn’t experienced in a long while.

When Shinya had a final shot with the flour, Guren was the one to tackle him and white specks from his palms went flying to the air as both their bodies fall on the floor messed up with whatever ingredients they dropped. The smell of whiskey finally faded, disappearing through the fragrance of vanilla spilled on the counter.

“What are we doing?” Shinya chuckled on Guren’s black messy hair mixed up with blotches of white flour, still trying to catch his breath.

“Who knows? You started it, dumbass.” Guren replied breathlessly, bringing himself up to get a full view of Shinya’s face.

They were acting like children; throwing whatever object that lands on their hands and it was somehow refreshing and just that moment; that brief moment of a pause with only both of them looking at each other no matter how messed up they may seem put Shinya’s wavering heart at ease.

Shinya doesn’t count the seconds that pass by. He only feels Guren’s breath and then later on, his lips as they land softly on his.

Shinya looked at the small pancake, almost burned to a crisp, on his plate. With all the flour they wasted, they managed to make only four of them, enough for the people in the house.

“Seriously, what were you thinking?” Guren passed a cup of coffee on the table, dusting his hair of flour.

“Trying to wake you up.” Shinya replied with a smile.

But Guren’s silent this time; opening and closing his mouth like he was hesitant to say something.

“What?” Shinya asked, trying to open up whatever Guren wanted to say but within seconds of waiting, Guren just stood, moved to the counter and grabbed a third cup of coffee and bringing whatever leftover ingredients they had left onto the table. “Guren?”

A cup of coffee, more flour, vanilla extract, hot sauce, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, curry powder, cornstarch --- the list goes on and on and Guren showed no sign of stopping on emptying his pantry. Finally, he brings a can of Coke, some kimchi from the fridge, natto beans and the last of Yuu’s cheesecake.

“I don’t think these would go with pancakes.” Shinya said, confusion wrapping around his voice but before Guren could answer, he sent out a smirk and dumped little portions of whatever he laid out on the table on the coffee like a witch preparing a potion in a gurgling pot until the coffee looked like it was summoned directly from Satan’s lair that absolutely spelled the word demonic.

Black liquid with floating bits and clumps of mixed condiments and leftovers accompanied by a dangerous foul smell had Shinya spelling the word death in his head.

“Let’s play a game.” Guren started, finally taking a seat and bringing the cup of demonic coffee --- Satan’s coffee --- in the of the table.

“A game?” Shinya tilted his head. He never predicted Guren to be the playful type.

“I have a lot of questions and I’m selfish so I want to know more about you.” Guren continued, bringing the cup closer to Shinya. “But it wouldn’t be fair if you don’t know anything about me so the game goes like this: I ask a question and you answer it as honestly as possible. You don’t have to tell a whole story, a sentence will do but if you lie--” He pointed at Satan’s coffee. “You drink this.”

Shinya looked at the deathly coffee. He didn’t want to drink it. It seemed like his lifespan would decrease with each sip or even deplete at a single one. Shinya didn’t want to play it. He didn’t want to risk dragging Guren into his problems more than he already did. After all, that was the sole reason as to why he needed to erase Guren from his life. Guren’s feet were already buried deep within the clutches of darkness Shinya had riding on his back; about his family, about Mahiru, about himself --- but the way Guren looked at him was sincere, so genuine. His eyes had that glimmer of determination that he wasn’t going to stop.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, took a deep breath and pushed the cup towards him.

“Then let me as you first.” Shinya said, offering a smile and Guren nodded and commented about giving his best shot so Shinya decided to lift the heaviness weighing down his feet with showering Guren with some embarrassment. “Are you a virgin?”

And the sentence just plunged Guren into silence with a deep shade of red filling up his flour covered face that even the red shade he got from being drunk would be ashamed.

“W-What kind of question was that!?” Guren slammed a hand on the table in shock while some of the contents of the coffee threatened to spill off the edges and probably melt the whole table that Shinya just willingly moved away from it.

“You said any kind of question.” Shinya retorted back, grimacing.

“I never expected you to throw that one you rude idiot!”

“But you made the rules of the game.”

“I’m now questioning as to how you stole my heart with that way of thinking.”

And Shinya flinched at this. He was brought back to that drunk night, the scenes replaying in his head, Guren saying his confessions, Guren kissing him, Guren’s hands on him --- was Guren really true to those words or did his heart just falter?

“Ahahaha” He forced out a laugh. “Just answer it. No rules said that I shouldn’t ask about whether or not you had sex before. Well since you married Mahiru once, I know the answer and I just wanted to hear you say it.”

Guren hesitated for a moment and then sighed in defeat.

“Fine,” He answered. “no. I am not a virgin. There. I said it, happy?”

“As happy as I’ll ever be! I recorded the whole thing!” Shinya replied cheerfully and he swears that Guren was about to throw the table at him. “Well, your turn.”

Guren pushed the cup to Shinya, thinking in the process and with the steam coming out of his ears from the previous question, he threw it back on Shinya’s face immediately.

“Well, are you virgin?” Guren asked, a mischievous grin painted in his face.

“Of course I am!” Shinya answered in a heartbeat with the proudest tone he had.

The way Guren’s mouth just dropped open signified either the shock or regret that he asked that question. Of course, Shinya wasn’t going to explain anything. Guren wouldn’t want to know that he was his ex-wife’s fiancee and that alone prevented him from having any kind of relationship with people other than friends (well, not that he had that many) and Mahiru never did show interest in him.

So without further explanation, Shinya pushed Satan’s coffee back at Guren, savoring the red shaded embarrassment on his face and started to press on further with the topic.

“Who took the lead that night?” Shinya asked, his grin growing, a laugh threatening to spill out his mouth.

Guren was tomato red right now and avoiding Shinya’s eyes, he didn’t have any other choice or he’ll end up dying by the hands of his summoned coffee so he took a breath and answered.

“Mahiru…” He said as quietly as possible but enough for Shinya to hear and burst into uncontrolled laughter.

“Oh my God!” He said between chuckles, holding onto his stomach when it started to hurt and slamming his palm on the table. “Damn Guren, damn!”

“Shut up, it’s my turn!” Guren reprimanded, pushing the coffee back at him.

For some reason, he waited for Shinya’s laughter to die down and it was at that time that Shinya realized that he wasn’t waiting --- he was simply unsure on how to phrase whatever question inside his head. He opened his mouth, wanting to try getting it out of Guren’s system but before the words could come out, Guren already asked.

“Last night, what did you mean by sold by your parents? ” He asked hesitantly and this was when Shinya felt the ground shake.

When he was drunk, did he mention anything that he might have regretted? Did he mention anything that shouldn’t be said?

“Did I…” He started, looking at Guren’s face that was covered in whatever serious aura that he draped over it. “Did I say something about that when I was drunk?”

“You don’t have to answer for this question.” Guren said, bringing the coffee back to his side but Shinya’s fingers went to land a feather touch on his wrist for him to stop dragging it back.

Surely, he said something for Guren to act like this and Shinya knew that if he stayed silent, Guren would find some crazy and stupid way to find out so he started piecing everything up in his head, leaving out details that would drive Guren’s curiosity and or worry.

“It’s just as it says: my parents sold me.” Shinya answered. “My family always had bad financial struggles and like --- really really bad. Money was something you needed in order to survive and it really became important to my parents. In the end, more important than me.”

“Shinya…” Guren holds his hand this time, his thumb rubbing back and forth on the back of his palm to give some comfort.

“They sold me to a better family for money but I want to believe that they sold me so that I could live.” He continued. “Well, I wanted to believe in it even if it wasn’t true. Guess I was just a waste of space.”

He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say that the Hiiragis offered them money and the next day, he was sent off to the main house, never seeing his parents again.

“You’re not.” Guren replied, faster than usual. “You’re not a waste of space. Remember that everything, literally everything wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t here.”

Shinya scoffed. “Really? It’s okay, you don’t need to sympathize.”

“It’s empathy.” Guren said back, holding Shinya’s hand tighter like he was afraid to let go, like if he did, he might never see Shinya again.

“Then give me one thing that wouldn’t be the same if I were nonexistent.” He replied and Guren just stared at him, stared at him like he already knew the answer but he answered anyway.

“Me.” He whispered but even with the low, soft voice, Shinya could feel the confidence in it. “Me. I wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t here.” He repeated.

Just there, Shinya was filled up with electricity racing in his nerves. He wanted to hear those words again, he just wanted to confirm it and it was his turn to push the cup towards him but this time, he doesn’t and just squeezes back on Guren’s hand.

“Do you love me?” He asked.

And this time, Guren doesn’t reply but instead, he moves forward, planting a kiss on Shinya’s flour covered forehead like it was enough to answer the question.

His heart stopped. Why is it that every time he’s with Guren, he can’t help but feel such happiness and such pain mixing together? This time, sorrow had a punch on it. He loves Guren too, so damn much. He thought that somehow, if Guren was present, he could get by and finally be happy but it was more than he predicted --- Guren made him too happy to be with. Too happy that Shinya might think that he took too much happiness from the gods and in the end, they would have to take that much happiness away from him sooner.

He knows in his heart that Guren’s words were true and that his feelings were real too but he just couldn’t deny the fear eating him whole, the haze drowning him further scares him to death.

Because if Guren loves him, Shinya might end up losing him.

This time, he shuts the door to his heart again.

He escaped from Guren’s grasp and hid his hand under the table, the other pushing Satan’s coffee away from him.

“Drink up.” Shinya smiled and didn’t care if it appeared fake. “This time, you lied.”

He refuses to acknowledge anything if they end up hurting each other more in the end.