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“Have you ever wondered what that’d be like?”
"What?”
“To kiss someone.”
They’re sitting on the floor in front of the television, LUNA SEA live playing at full volume. His old guitar is resting in his friend’s lap. He watches his friend’s long fingers curl around the neck of the guitar, chipping black nail polish dark against fair skin.
He shrugs, pushing his new bass off his lap to the floor. “Yeah. Of course I have.”
“No, but I mean…” His friend’s fist closes around the neck of the guitar. “I mean, like that. Like Ryuichi kisses Sugizo.”
His eyes drift away from his friend’s hands and back to the screen. He shrugs in response again, picking his bass back up, watching J’s fingers and mimicking the chords he can pick up on.
His friend sighs, “What if we started a band?”
He stumbles over the next chord, gaze drawn back to his friend’s face. His eyes are bright and his lips curl into a gentle smile with an enthusiastic nod.
His friend smirks, a mischievous glint in his eye, “Yeah, but you’d want to be a band like LUNA SEA. You’d probably have to kiss a guy.”
He shrugs again, “So? If you were in the band with me, you’d have to, too.”
“But, what if I had to kiss you?”
He pauses, thoughtful for a moment, and shrugs again.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before. What if I screwed it up?”
He freezes for a minute, steel string digging into fresh calluses. Did his friend just sound nervous?
He glances up, and the boy is biting his lip, staring down at his bare legs between his soccer shorts and shin guards. He drags his gaze across them, realizing his friend must have shaved them recently. Last week, the other boy had talked about hating his thighs, even considered wearing pants to soccer just to avoid exposing them. He understood, had even done the same thing himself with his nose. For some reason, though, his friend decided not to hide his insecurity. His friend exposed it, leaving it even more vulnerable to ridicule. It was so brave and beautiful he couldn’t stop looking. The more he looked, the less he understood what the problem was. They looked smooth and supple, silky like a flower petal and sweet like ice cream, but warm and alive, so tempting he’s certain anyone would want to feel the creamy pale skin against their cheeks and tongue and fingertips, gripping his slim muscles as they lick up the inside of his thighs to reach the soft skin hidden beneath his boxers…
“That’s uh…” He shakes his head, trying to shake the image out of his head and bring himself back to reality before his friend realizes what just happened. “That’s why bands have rehearsals.”
“Huh?” His friend looks up from his guitar, seeming lost in his own world for the moment.
“Bands have rehearsals so they aren’t as likely to screw up on stage,” he says with a false huff of annoyance at his friend’s perpetual obliviousness, relieved his friend missed his momentary lapse of control over his imagination, “You’re the one who’s always saying practice is so important, Uruha. You become what you do or whatever.”
“Yeah, but do you really think they plan that kind of stuff? When they’re going to kiss each other?”
He watches the screen for a minute. They’re all sweaty and full of energy, so grounded and present in the moment, yet immersed in the song. He knows that’s what makes a band good, that duality and energy. Some of that is surely rehearsed, but Sugizo’s smile looks so raw and genuine… “I think it’s both.”
Uruha watches the screen for a moment. They have an unspoken rule where they’re always quiet for the guitar solos. He takes a deep breath before picking back up the conversation, “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not like you can just kiss someone without asking permission first.”
Uruha narrows his eyes, focusing a skeptical look on the charcoal of the young bassists noseband, “But people kiss each other all the time without asking.”
“Yeah, but they have permission. At some point they both sort of say yes. That’s what people agree to in relationships. It’s like building a list of things you’re allowed to do with each other, you know? Like, I let you have my guitars and come into my room, but I’d never let my sister do that.”
“Oh,” Uruha seems to ponder this for a moment, lips parted like there’s a word on the tip of his tongue, a question he can’t bring himself to ask.
“All I’m saying is that if you want to kiss somebody, all you have to do is ask.” He plucks at his bass, playing the previous song as the next one starts, watching his friend shift in the corner of his eye. Uruha peels the guitar from his sticky and sweaty thighs, still tinted red and imprinted by the guitar.
“Reita…”
Reita looks up from his bass. Uruha has shifted closer to him, propped up on his hand behind Reita’s back. He smells like his sister’s synthetic peach perfume, and Reita looks up at his lips where the cracks and crevasses of his dry lips trap black lipstick and tint his lips grey, and he’s struck by how pretty he looks right now, windswept hair brushed over one eye. He doesn’t know why he does it, but he moves the hair out of Uruha’s face and licks his lips, shifting foreword as he watches the dark hair slip through his fingers, “We should bleach our hair.”
Uruha just nods, watching Reita’s hand as it uncertainly settles on the carpet.
The words tumble out of his mouth before he’s certain he wants to say them, “Can I kiss you?”
Uruha’s entire being seems to relax in response as he gently whispers, “Yes.”
Reita finds himself breaking into a grin at that, and he leans forward faster than he means to, lips fumbling against Uruha’s over his smile, teeth scraping for just a second and catching against Uruha’s chapped lip. He pulls away, and Uruha immediately apologizes.
“I’m sorry, I-“
“No, It’s fine. You were-“
“I should just go-“
“No,” Reita grabs Uruha’s wrist. Uruha’s eyes shine with embarrassment, pleading with Reita to let him go, but Reita tightens his grip, “I want to try that again.”
Uruha’s frozen, staring at Reita a bit perplexed. The moment is growing colder by the second, and Reita has the sudden desire to pull him into his lap and hold him close, because this is Uruha, whose skin gets red at the slightest bit of exertion, who is so distant and self-confident in his obliviousness, but in this moment he’s shaking. This is the same boy who never made fun of Reita when he started wearing the noseband, and fuck, he’ll follow that boy to the end of the earth, the boy that likes him for who he is. Reita’s not going to let this boy slip away with his confidence shaken.
“I just mean that if you ever want to do that again, I’d want to.”
Uruha just watches him for a moment, almost like he’s looking straight through Reita, “You’d want…” His lips part in shock, still lost for words, “to kiss me again?”
Reita smiles and nods, “Yeah. Anytime you want.”
Uruha smiles and nods, eyes darting around so fast he can’t possibly be processing anything, “When are your parents home?”
“Uh…” he glances to the clock, “five minutes?”
“Next week, then. Next week I’ll come over and we’ll…” Uruha bends down and picks up Reita’s old guitar, eyes shining and dazed with mischief again, “rehearse.”
Reita raises an eyebrow, thankful to see the dreamer back in Uruha’s eyes, “for the band?”
“Yeah, the band,” Uruha stands up straight and stumbles back towards the door, hand around the doorknob before he turns around. “Reita?”
Reita has already ejected the dvd and is putting it back in its case, “Yeah?”
“You know I… I like the idea of kissing boys too, right?”
“You mean you’re gay?”
“No! Yes. Kind of.” Uruha sighs, “It’s hard to explain.”
Reita taps his knuckles against the dvd case a few times, before turning around and facing Uruha, “Me too. Just… don’t tell anyone, all right? I-“
Uruha nods, waving a hand in dismissal, “Yeah, you have a bit of a reputation. I know.”
Reita nods, putting the dvd back on the shelf next to the television, “Hey, Uruha,” he walks over to the door and puts his hand over Uruha’s on the doorknob. Uruha’s hand immediately melts into Reita’s in response, and he tangles their fingers together, other hand cradling Uruha’s jaw. He feels breathless, holding a face carved by angels, and leans forwards to kiss him again.
It’s better this time. Chastised, maybe, but it’s nice and sweet, and they have to pull away because they both feel a little breathless. Uruha cheeks turn rosy, almost as blotchy as he gets after soccer practice. Uruha looks a little dazed and mesmerized, and Reita could keep him here, probably would if he didn’t think his sister was likely to barge in the front door any moment, “See you at soccer.”
Uruha has always been a clumsy mess, but Reita has never seen anyone stagger quite like that before. Reita’s not surprised, though. He too finds his legs weak, and he leans back against the door, slowly sinking to the floor. He still tastes the earthy sweetness of Uruha in his mouth, like sugared tea, and smiles as he thinks of the chance to taste the boy again.