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It’s a rare lazy morning for them. Josuke is ahead of schedule on his university assignments, and Rohan is ahead of schedule on his manga chapters. All things considered, they had earned this: hours of lying in bed, tangled up in each other’s limbs. Making a competition of it (as they tend to do with so many things) to see who will kick his way out of the sheets first. So far, it’s a draw.
“Rohan,” Josuke mumbles a little after ten o’clock.
It’s intoned as enough of a question to get Rohan to grunt acknowledgement.
“It’s… pretty fair to say you don’t… hate me anymore, right?”
Rohan snorts into the cradle of Josuke’s bicep under his cheek. “What are you talking about? I hate you with every fiber of my being.” But his voice is suspiciously fond. With another grunt, Rohan flops closer to Josuke and plants a sloppy kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I hate you so much that… I’d never let anyone else deal with you the way I do. It would be an insult… to the rest of the world.”
“You’re so romantic,” Josuke scoffs, but catches his lips in a proper kiss.
They don’t speak again for some minutes, preoccupied with their drowsy exchange. It’s nice, though. Josuke knows Rohan appreciates these little moments more than flashy declarations of love. He says the little things reflect reality better (and make better reference material, should his editor ever succeed in forcing him to wrangle a romance story into his manga). And Josuke, having long given up resisting how much of a sap he is himself, must admit that he prefers the little moments, too.
“But, seriously, tho,” he pants against Rohan’s open mouth.
“Seriously,” Rohan echoes, seemingly a little dazed from the kiss. “Seriously… you aren’t so bad.” Which is pretty much Rohan’s way of saying he’s completely besotted with devotion.
Peeking through one bleary emerald eye, Rohan adds, “What brings this up? You aren’t doubting me, or something, are you?”
“It’s not that.” Careful as he repositions himself, Josuke curls the arm under Rohan inward, practically pulling Rohan up on top of his chest. “I was just getting nostalgic for a moment, and I couldn’t help but laugh to myself when I remembered how much you hated me when we first met.”
“You were pretty bratty,” Rohan points out.
“I wasn’t the only one,” Josuke replies with a light squeeze around Rohan’s chest. The simple fact that Rohan doesn’t bite his nose off for that comment shows how far they’ve come. Which brings to mind a particular nugget of information, something he probably should have admitted to ages ago, but he’d been worried what Rohan might have done to him in vengeance. Now, though… he feels safe.
“Hey, um… I have a confession to make.”
One of Rohan’s plucked-to-perfection eyebrows forms an arch, but he waits for Josuke to continue.
“…I cheated.”
It takes Rohan’s expression, sharply alert and somewhere between confused and appalled, for Josuke to realize he’d said that woefully without context.
“Shit. Wait. That’s not what I meant.”
“Do I want to know what you meant?” Rohan prods, his voice deadly calm in spite of a growing fear behind his bright eyes.
“Yes, dammit, trust me, you want to know. Now, just let me—”
“It’s a little counterproductive to ask someone to trust you after you’ve just admitted that you—”
“Will you just listen for a second!?” Josuke sits up, hauling Rohan with him, so that he can hold the stubborn mangaka by the upper arms. When Rohan doesn’t immediately retort, Josuke makes a second attempt.
“I’m talking about the game. That stupid dice game. I cheated, okay? I admit it! I wanted to con you out of some spending money.”
Like the sun appearing from behind a cloudbank, Rohan’s calm returns. “Oh, is that all.”
For a moment, Josuke thinks he may have to use Crazy Diamond to try to reattach his own jaw. “Whaddya mean, is that all? Weren’t you more concerned about figuring out if I was cheating than about putting out your house fire? You held that shit over me for months!”
Rohan just throws his head back and laughs. A real laugh, too: full and ringing. As much as Josuke loves to hear Rohan laugh like this, the circumstances draw his mouth into a pout.
“What’s so funny?”
Rohan has to take several breaths before he can finally answer. “I already knew you’d cheated.”
Josuke blinks. “Wh… What!?”
“I’m not stupid, Josuke. Given your behavior at the time and the abilities and allergies I later learned your unusual classmate possesses, I put two and two together ages ago. I even confirmed it with Mikitaka-kun himself, who felt badly about his involvement in the fire and let me interview him all about his alien homeworld to make up for it.”
Josuke’s jaw is hanging open again. Rohan plows on.
“Whether what he told me is the truth or an elaborate delusion, it makes for excellent inspiration, should I ever need to involve aliens in a manga.” He smiles at Josuke with a hint of bite. “I only held it over you afterwards because it was too much fun to watch you squirm.”
Josuke might have deserved that, but he keeps the thought to himself.
“But,” Rohan segues, “enough of that. It’s in the past, and you’ve found your own bumbling ways to start to make up for it.” Which is pretty much Rohan’s way of saying he cherishes their relationship too much to hold a petty grudge against Josuke.
Even if it had been from so long ago, Josuke feels a little knot of guilt in his chest unclench. “Oh. Um… thanks, Rohan. I appreciate it.”
“Yes, I am rather magnanimous, aren’t I…”
Josuke snorts and pulls Rohan close to him again, tipping them back towards the bed. “We must never forget the generosity of The Great Kishibe Rohan.”
Rohan puffs up a little in Josuke’s embrace. “You’d better not, ruffian.”
Knowing better than to feed Rohan’s ego too much, Josuke just kisses him.