Chapter Text
Okay so being in love with your best friend was a rough time. Like, stupidly weird and difficult to deal with nearly every step of the way.
Every time Yosuke thinks ' it'll be okay, this is fine I can keep it cool, I can play it out ', Yu walks in with that smile and he loses all ability to think or process things and the realization provided to him a few weeks ago is really not helping matters.
The fact he hasn't blurted out his crush is nigh amazing considering his constantly running mouth where he had a habit of shoving his foot. Perhaps it's the fact he hasn't told anyone he's gay yet that's keeping that little secret in.
It had to be obvious, didn't it? That Yosuke likes him. He rapidly cycles between never shutting up and beings speechless, and Yu's bound to notice that right?
God this sucks. He sucks, he's a moron for falling for the closest friend he's ever had but then again so has half the town so maybe it's something in the water.
No.
It's Yu, it's all Yu.
He's not perfect but god does he feel perfect to Yosuke sometimes, the other half he didn't know he was missing. He gives so much to Yosuke without even trying, things Yosuke didn't ask for or knew he needed and things Yu didn't even realize he was offering.
Yosuke caught himself staring for the third time this week during lunch, and it was to the point he wasn't even able to get angry at himself about it. Not when he got to see every small change in expression on Yu's face as he told another dumb joke that somehow managed to get a chuckle.
He was going to apologize.
Doing so was... Difficult. But he was going to do it!
Kanji never deserved a single comment he'd made when it was clear to Yosuke now how every single one of them had been made out of fear.
Yosuke had been attracted to guys for a while now, and being confronted with the stereotypes had scared him into being an utter jackass.
But that wasn't an excuse, he knew it wasn't, so he was going to apologize wholeheartedly.
And he was going to come out to someone for the first time.
He wasn't sure why he decided he'd decided to tell Kanji first out of anyone. Maybe it was the fact that Kanji clearly didn't care about peoples orientation considering the situation he himself went through.
Yosuke just trusted him. And after all the bullshit he's pulled, it felt like Kanji of all people deserved to know.
Kanji accepted his apology immediately. Barely even blinked before doing so, seemed more surprised that Yosuke had felt the need to say anything.
And he... hadn't seemed overly surprised when Yosuke admitted he liked guys either. The only part of the conversation that seemed to be of surprise to Kanji was Yosuke admitting he didn't like girls in the slightest.
Now that, that got Kanji's attention. Yosuke couldn't blame him, not after the stupid shit he'd pulled over the past year. He tried to explain as best he could why he'd thought he'd liked girls, why he was fooled for so long. Kanji wasn't fully able to understand because he did like girls, but he apparently got the gist.
Yosuke might have cried a little bit. Kanji was a good friend and didn't comment on it, and when told not to mention it, said he saw nothing.
Exams were around the corner. Yosuke was losing his mind.
Even the usual music that calmed his nerves and made it a little easier to focus was doing nothing. He couldn't stop thinking . He couldn't stop shaking his leg, fiddling with his hair, twirling the cord of his headphones.
He felt wired and yet unmotivated to move. Stuck at his desk ready to pull his hair out.
Maybe he'd take Yu up on that offer to study after all, even if it meant the danger of being less than a foot away from his crush at all times. Yu didn't let him stray very far any more, not when he realized that keeping Yosuke close and working together kept the brunette on task.
He could probably crawl into Yu's lap and the guy would probably let him as long as he focused on studying. ( Like he'd be able to focus in Yu's lap, when he could just shift and wiggle and writhe until- )
Hard stop on that line of thought. Yosuke pulled his phone out to text his partner before he could get distracted again.
( Now wasn't that the story of his life. )
Telling the rest of the investigation team about his newly discovered orientation was... certainly a big hurdle to think about. He had no doubt the girls would question him about every little thing, god they were nosey , and when the topic of how he finally figured it out arose.....
Yosuke wasn't sure how he could get outta that one without spilling the ' I'm in love with Yu Narukami' beans.
Though he was about 90% sure some of them already knew.
Not about the gay part. The loving Yu part. Though perhaps they had an idea about the first part because of the aforementioned second part.
Whatever.
Telling them all individually seemed like a hassle.
But he wanted to tell Yu last.
It was stupid. It was so stupid to tell your best fucking friend last out of everyone but he just couldn't do it yet. Not when he had a dream last night of them holding hands and making out next to a field of orange and yellow flowers filled with penguins waddling around. ( No one said the dream made sense . Just that he dreamt of kissing his best friend. )
And well. Maybe if he told all of the investigation crew except for Yu, it wouldn't matter if he spilled the 'wow, my bestfriend is really hot please help me' beans.
He'd be mildly terrified of Rise's reaction to competition, if it weren't for the fact Yu had let her down gently last month. She was nice but damn if she wasn't competitive.
They did, in fact, all ask him if he figured out he was gay because of a boy.
He did, in fact, attempt to lie, babbling through a few excuses, before everyone cut in to ask if it was Yu. Nodding his head never felt so heavy in his life.
His face had never felt so warm either. Kanji clapped a hand on his back in solidarity.
Telling Kanji first had been a good choice, if it meant he had someone so huge to lean on.
They tried to convince him to tell Yu. He.... well, he wasn't sure how to go about it.
They all were right, Yu wouldn't care and would accept him and wouldn't treat him any differently. Naoto had quietly pointed out that Yu himself didn't show interest in girls much, and they could quite possibly be in the same boat.
But that just seemed too good to be true, so Yosuke ignored that hopeful possibility.
Should he explain his crush as well? Should he just tell him he was gay and then promise not to hit on him? Which was a blatant and utter lie now that he thought about it and maybe he shouldn't try and promise him that...
He was ripping his hair out over it.
He was avoiding him slightly over it.
And he missed Yu so fucking much right now, enough that he just decided to say fuck it and invite him over that afternoon.
He was a mess. More than usual. His hands were shaking, something that happened sometimes when he was particularly restless but not very often.
Yu had noticed immediately. He placed a hand on Yosuke's arm to try and ask what was wrong.
Yosuke's fumbling words and fake smile wasn't very convincing.
Yu was patient though. He sat on Yosuke's bed ( 'no distraction, no distraction, don't wander off on that, don't' ) silently as Yosuke paced frantically, biting at his thumbnail in thought.
At some point his brain got tired of waiting to talk and just blurted it out.
The words "I'm gay" were way louder than he intended. He froze and watched Yu's expression, saw his eyes widen in surprise followed by a flutter of fast blinks.
"Oh. Me too."
What?
Okay so maybe he missed a lot of obvious signs.
The key ones being Yu's clear discomfort when Yosuke had made his stupid asshole comments to Kanji and mistaking his frustration in the bathhouse being about a guy hitting on him and not that Yu was just uninterested in being hit on at the time because he had a team to lead and a person to save.
But he also missed him having a lack of any and all interest in dating any girl in town, his dismissal every time girls were brought up or compared to each other, his lack of dirty magazines, Yosuke missed a lot of things okay.
It was okay though, because they were sitting and comparing notes, talking about how Yosuke had been so sure he liked girls until suddenly he had been very unsure. Discussing what was appealing about guys, what they liked in guys.
That's where Yosuke... might have messed up. You know, like he always does.
Perhaps describing his ideal person as ' tall, kind, a good listener, light haired, strong but not super muscular, a good leade r' was too obvious. Just a tad.
But he found himself unable to breathe as Yu looked him straight in the eyes and explained he just how much liked ' loud fast talking brunettes who tried really hard but often got distracted and that cared too much for their own good '.
He only caught his breathe again after Yu pulled his lips away from Yosuke's to smile against his cheek.