Archive of Our Own

He clears his throat and beats his chest. Kaito chases that feeling, of flattening his palm against the front of his sternum and feeling no resistance. One more lap and he’ll be good, he’s sure. Just a little bit longer in the sun. It’s slowly turning the tops of his shoulders brown. The sun in his eyes only serves to invigorate him more, and as he blinks back a drop of sweat dripping from his brow, he feels like a man.

The moment he begins to pick the pace back up, he takes a look over his shoulder to spot Shuichi meandering in his direction, hands planted on his hips as he wobbles to and fro. Each step he takes makes his entire body jostle as if spring-loaded. Clad in the tiniest blue shorts Kaito’s ever seen and a thin, white t-shirt, Shuichi shouldn’t be overheating. He bends at the waist with his palms crashing into his knees. Kaito shouts across the field.

“Hey, no! What’d I tell you, Shuichi? Arms on top of your head!”

Jogging up to his sidekick and yanking him up by the arm, Kaito corrects his supine posture. Shuichi groans, his thin, wiry frame jittering under the exertion. Sweat pools and hangs from his chin.

“You can’t breathe all bent over like that,” Kaito chides. “C’mon, both arms,” he says as he takes each of Shuichi’s wrists and hikes them over his shoulders.

Breathing heavier but soon easier, Shuichi’s beet red face contorts out of its pained frown and into a sheepish smile. Kaito makes a strained one back.

“Sorry, Momota-kun. I just… I think we’ve been out here way too long. It’s…”

Shuichi’s wrists are bound but he gestures lackadaisically with his hand in a way that Kaito only grasps because he knows what he’s guilty of: the way both their lungs are working harder than they should. His sidekick’s chest is still bounding. He thinks he hears Shuichi muffle a wheeze when he clears his throat. Kaito hangs his head some, resigning it to being his fault but reluctant to show it. Kaito slips his damp hand into Shuichi’s, hauling him off the track field and toward the water fountain near the bleachers.

“I know, c’mon.”

A small hut is designated for a pair of bathrooms. Kaito drags Shuichi into the shade of it’s roof. Lingering against the wall outside are a pair of water fountains, the second taller than the first. In near unison, they both lean down, gulping in the sharp city water with abandon. Kaito’s sure he’s tasted an entire quarter in his mouth by the time he stands up right, splaying his hand against his pleasantly flattened chest once more as he cocks his head back.

It’s much better in the shade. Kaito shoves one hand beneath his jaw and plants the other on the back of his head, cracking his neck and sighing out super hard. Shuichi’s mouth hasn’t left the water yet. It’s a good few seconds until he does. Kaito’s turned to watching him now, laughing with a slight sputter in his throat that he tries to cover up with a few fake coughs.

“Augh- somethin’ in my throat- You alright there?” he asks, and Shuichi nods back silently, shuffling toward the bathroom as he moves to tug his shirt off his back.

Kaito follows after.

“Hold on, ‘mme get that,” he says, knowing how easily Shuichi gets stuck when he’s clammy.

Both in the secrecy of the men’s bathroom, Kaito pulls his friend’s t-shirt off with ease. In one fell swoop he snags the hem of the binder between his fingers and peels it off Shuichi’s sweaty body. He thinks he almost takes his head off in the process. Kaito slaps Shuichi’s back and the boy clears his throat some, taking a spit into the sink. He breathes in deep, feeling his lungs lift to their full capacity once more. It aches just a little. He knows it shouldn’t.

“All better?” Kaito asks.

“Yeah,” Shuichi answers, shyly holding an arm across his chest as he takes his drippy shirt back from Kaito. “You need help?” the boy asks like he always does and Kaito answers the same as he always does.

“Nah, ‘m’gonna use the facilities first. Feel free to go on without me.”

He’d wanted to ask the first time why Kaito asked him to wait outside but he’d missed his chance. Now it’s been too many times for him to stop and beg questions of him now. Shuichi thinks he knows though, thinks he can hear subtle grunts and whining from outside where Kaito’s always wrestling to get his own off and won’t let anyone help him with it.

To Shuichi, that feels… strange, and so antithetical to everything Kaito says to him. Shouldn’t he feel comfortable relying on his friends?

Usually though, when Kaito says to go on without him, it’s because he and Maki are also hanging out. The three of them usually do their rounds together. She’s nowhere to be seen today and Kaito’s not commented on it even once. As Kaito reaches for the back of his shirt, slipping it over his head with a small groan, he turns toward the stalls and Shuichi stammers.

“I-I can wait. After all… there’s nowhere for me to go ‘til you’re done. Harukawa-san’s not with us today.”

Kaito locks the stall door behind him. Shuichi begins to hear the shifting of uncomfortable clothes.

“She might not be for a while.”

Shuichi frowns.

“Huh? Why’s that?”

The pause between them’s longer than he’d like, and all he can envision is his friend holding his breath, wriggling every which way to get his binder off. Expectantly, he huffs some, probably after making some progress before he says, “We broke up.”

The detective stares at the floor, frowning knowingly.

“Ah, I thought that was coming, to be honest.”

Kaito is either taking another long pause or he declines to dignify that with a response. Shuichi fans his shirt against his chest and tilts his head beneath the bathroom’s air vent.

“You didn’t seem to be spending a whole lot of time together anymore. You’ve been at my house a lot,” he says, closing his eyes as the air conditioning bathes him.

“She broke up with me,” Kaito says, with a tone in his voice that suggests he’s correcting something.

Shuichi can’t possibly think why that would be the case, and he pockets both of his hands with a simple, “oh.”

A bit more shifting around and Kaito grunts, forcing out a chuckle nonetheless.

“It’s alright! I wasn’t makin’ her happy. I was kinda thinkin’ about focusin’ just on number one for right now, y’know?”

“Oh yeah?” Shuichi calls out.

“Yeah! Just givin’ some quality time to Momota Kaito, luminary of the stars. It kinda… wasn’t workin’ out anyways with her always breathing down my neck. I’m a spaceman! I need space,” asserts Kaito, laughing all the while.

Leaning up against the bathroom wall, unsure about how he feels about it, Shuichi simply listens and hums. It’s a good few seconds of audible struggling before Shuichi hears a small bang, like Kaito’s slammed his hand up against the bathroom stall or something.

“Ghg!!” he grunts. “Just… smacked my hand into the fuckin’ door,” Kaito confirms.

Chuckling to himself, Shuichi gets away with a small, “nice one,” in jest before Kaito starts up again.

“I can have time for girlfriends and a wife or whoever when I get back from space. I’m thinkin’ maybe I can just take an abstinence away from girls y’know. I mean… they’re great- women are, you know? You… They- They can be distracting, and I think that’s what's happening with me? I just gotta set my priorities in order.”

“Mm,” Shuichi hums.

“You know what I mean, right?”

Shuichi feels a bead of sweat run down his cheek. His mouth is an uneven line as he glances at the stall door.

“I wonder about that.”

Kaito bangs his hand again but this time the sound’s accompanied by a rapturous cough of the lungs. Shuichi suspects he's finally yanked the damn thing off and is coughing up more mucus than he knows with what to do. Wincing in disgust as he overhears Kaito spitting what he knows is a whole bronchial tube full of mucus into the toilet, Shuichi checks his phone to see that Maki hasn’t texted him all day. He hasn’t received a single message from her, not since yesterday at 5:35 pm when she left him on read.

“My bad,” Kaito apologizes. “I forgot that you’re…” he trails off, making Shuichi wince slightly. “I mean! I kinda get you. I mean, you know I’ve been thinkin’ about it… maybe bein’ bi, you know.”

Certain that his friend’s usage of the phrase ‘you know’ gets worse with his anxiety, Shuichi gives a small but hopeful smile.

“Y-yeah, you told me about that the other day,” Shuichi says, thinking a bit too hard about the fact that Kaito apparently just forgot that he was gay.

Thinking on it some more, he probably didn’t. That was probably something he just said spur of the moment. They were surely closer than that. Shuichi bit his lip some in shame. Or maybe it was a good thing that he forgot? Maybe it was a sign that Kaito really didn’t think about it that much. He’d like that. If nothing else, he didn’t want his friend to think he was… crushing on him.

Even though it’s true, Shuichi didn’t know how to act on those sorts of feelings right now. Not that he thought Kaito would take it poorly but, there was always something bubbling under the surface of his smile whenever sexuality was brought up. You’d think that an out trans man would be exempt from ending up a closet case, and yet… Shuichi can’t help but think he’s not quite as comfortable with himself as he’d like to be.

God though, weren’t they all?

Allowing his thoughts to marinate on this, he decides he’d better get Maki’s side of what happened. Shooting her a line real quick, he cranes his head back up once Kaito’s marching back out to him, clenching his soaking wet binder in one hand while his white tank top sits nearly transparent over his chest. They’re both in the same predicament- sweaty in white shirts with no bra and no binder. They’ve done this enough times though. On the way out to the empty bleachers, Shuichi rummages through his bag and pulls out two grey jackets. It’s boiling outside but they’ll be on the city bus soon where it’s ice cold. This’ll help cover them up.

Clearing his throat and spitting some more, Kaito aims it into the grass before sliding the thin workout jacket on. It’d normally dangle off his right shoulder but Kaito needs to keep his chest hidden until he gets home. It’s zipped up but the shape is still unsightly to him. Shuichi takes note of his grimace and touches his hand softly.

“I think you just look really beefy,” he says about Kaito’s chest. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I am beefy,” Kaito reiterates blankly. “I… also look like I’m-”

“You’re not,” Shuichi reassures.

Kaito squints, pursing his lips anxiously.

“You’ve not even got yours zipped up,” he says, getting a helpful eyeful of Shuichi’s chest through his t-shirt.

They both make their way toward the front of the school building, carrying their backpacks in their arms to keep the wind at their back. Shuichi rubs the center of his chest, between his breasts.

“Yeah, it’s way too hot to keep it zipped.”

“I hope nobody sees you,” Kaito murmurs, and a worry permeates his voice that brings some more color to Shuichi’s face. “You know that nothing anyone says to you means anything, right?” he continues. “If anyone ever says anything to you for how you dress or look, just let me know and I’ll-”

“It’s fine,” says Shuichi, and the smile on his face suggests he really means it.

This puts a stopper in Kaito’s voice, and his eyes find themselves on a line of concrete following them up to the bus stop. Both of Kaito’s hands linger helplessly at his sides, squeezing into fists, ready to punch a hole in whatever’s making him feel uncomfortable but… he doesn’t know what that is right now. Shuichi’s hand finds Kaito’s again, grazing it slightly like he’s dying to take hold but Kaito won’t reach back. His voice is featherlight, and Kaito quickly pockets his hands.

“You’ve helped me out so much. I’m not afraid anymore of what people might think of me.”

Shuichi’s words dig through Kaito’s chest. Kaito’s hands are steaming inside of his jacket pockets. They bleed sweat through the fabric as his fists open and close relentlessly. A stray thought creeps from the back of his brainpan, he doesn’t need your help.

Kaito shivers. A more cocky smile replaces the vacant look spread on his face.

“Huh! Well, you say that now, Shuichi. Just wait ‘til you start T,” Kaito gloats. “You’ll be looking manlier and manlier every single day!”

Since the day that he’d met Shuichi, he’s worked to make the fellow trans man feel more in his skin and unafraid to be himself. It had started with training to help build up muscle, and extended to having a friend to play games with on Sundays. Together with Maki who Kaito had already worked out with, the three of them were a trio of triathletes! …with the exception of swimming, that is.

Most of the time they would do crunches, push-ups, or running the track field. Other times they would get their bikes and just go. Dysphoria and public opinion made attending a public pool impossible, but Kaito vowed that one day he and Shuichi would have a freestyle race. It wouldn’t be until the two of them had years of hormones and their top surgery complete. It wouldn’t be until they both appeared completely male to anyone who could look. No one would be the wiser. It made his blood pump faster. Nothing excited him more than going on this journey with him. Tugging at his goatee with a grin, Kaito nudges Shuichi with his elbow. The detective blushes at the contact, his voice low as he shares something he’s not told anyone else yet.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to go through with hormones,” Shuichi says.

The air of camaraderie dissipates on Kaito’s end. His face turns neutral, attentive but… somewhat fearful. Shuichi’s smile back at him is so full of starlight and mirth, he feels as though he’s looking back at a happier himself when he says, “I’ve started to feel the comfiest the way I am now.”

Only… Kaito’s never been that person. He’s getting a glimpse of the ghost of a person he never was.

Angling his head every which way, the astronaut trainee trains his vision on the cut of his jaw. Does it look softer for some reason? Are his eyes playing tricks on him? Running the razor along his skin, he nicks himself three too many times and comes away with a face full of toilet paper, dabbing at every spot that continues to prick with blood in a testosterone induced panic. Nothing feels right.

The fact that even after all this time, he has to shave because his facial hair still doesn’t come in even all around- it feels like he’s false, and won’t end up right. Kaito’s got to shave it all off, only able to leave his goatee that he’s prouder of than anyone knows. It’s something he didn’t have before. It’s something he grew himself. It’s proof of his change, his metamorphosis. No one can take that from him, not even all these cuts he just gave himself on accident.

Men of his kind traded shaving their legs for shaving their face, and yet… he recalls Shuichi at the track field the other day. He still shaves his legs, doesn’t he? Kaito scoffs. Doesn’t he want to be seen as a man?

He drops the razor into the sink finally when he notices his hand shaking. No wonder he’s unsteady today. Sighing and snatching his wrist, fighting to steady his tremble, Kaito eyes the drug cabinet. The orange translucent bottle with his name on it mocks him. He hates that he takes it- hates that he has to.

Depakote, great at helping the bipolar disorder, terrible at not causing hand tremors. Kaito winces with shame, knowing how much he cheers on Shuichi to take his, cheers on Maki to attend her therapy, and yet he wants nothing more than to stop these meds cold turkey.

They limit him so much. He used to have such a mind, or so he’s convinced- so much more spontaneity. Spontaneity is what made a man a man, and separated him from the uncreative and destitute. Kaito scowls as he washes the razor off, spanking it against the sink to shake the water off before he tosses it back into the cabinet. Silently and to himself, a dark voice he’s never had before lurches out with, “next you’ll be telling me you don’t need your Zoloft either.”

A guilt unlike anything he’s ever felt rocks him the moment it leaves his mouth. Gripping the sink with both hands, Kaito hangs his head.

Why’s what Shuichi said weighing on him so much? It’s okay to not want hormones. Plenty of people don’t. Hadn’t he told him to embrace the path that makes him happiest and not care what others think?

Why then does he care? Why the apprehension?

Kaito’s eyes zero in on his unclothed body- stuck in such a state of incongruence. His flesh, a gallimaufry of mismatching attributes jeer back at him. His breasts, still here, not any smaller but plenty hairier. His shape, less curvy, with pants that fit him strangely now. His stomach, much chubbier, with a happy trail that’d turned into a gnarly forest.

Really, the biggest change had been all the hair he’d gained, and the weight he’d gained, and the zits he’d gained. The latter of them was decent enough to handle. He was in the mirror every day looking for new changes. It was easy for him to remember to wash his face. When he’d started gelling his hair every morning it became a routine. Most of all, the sight of his very own adam’s apple made the girl inside him turn her head. Yeah… he looks like the kind of man that he’d be into, if he were into men. Definitely.

He frowns just a little, knowing that he really felt that way- like he still had a girl somewhere inside of him. He’s sure that if he doesn’t do everything he can, she’ll come out of him again. Everyone will know that he’s a fraud.

The thought turns itself over and around in his mind, what being a man means. More than that, he thinks about what it means to be a trans man and… maybe be into men. He’s a man himself now, like he’d always wanted to be. All the movie posters where the hero gets the girl- he can do that now. It just makes sense to him. Kaito takes a deep breath in, ignoring the way his chest subtly bounces in the corner of his vision. His eyes close tight and he overhears a voice from beyond the bathroom.

“Don’t go in there, Kaito’s in there,” his grandmother warns, using his chosen name.

The footsteps leading into the bathroom halt just outside the door. Kaito blenches slightly and watches the door’s lock. It remains shut.

“You in there, space cadet?” the old man calls.

“Y-yeah, jii-chan” he utters softly, turning to mush instantly at the sound of his grandfather’s voice. “I’ll be out soon.”

“Alright now, don’t take too long,” he says.

The astronaut trainee smiles at the childhood nickname, feeling like he really needed something gentle to calm him right now. Overhearing a barely audible, “she said she’d be out soon,” after, just feels cruel and unusual.

After a few more tentative sips of his soda, Shuichi finds the words in him that have been sitting on his tongue for days.

“Why’d you and Momota-kun… split?”

The fierce red eyes that land on him are every bit as fearsome as he’d been expecting them to be. He doesn’t flinch though, instead returning the glare with a confidence of his own. Maki’s mouth is a sharp black line.

“You haven’t hung out with us since then, and… something tells me Momota-kun isn’t telling me the whole truth.”

“Is that the only reason you’ve been trying to get me here?” the assassin asks, looking like a stranger in Shuichi’s bedroom.

Maki’s sat completely upright in a beanbag chair. The second one beside her still has the indent of Kaito’s ass the last time he was here. She’s skillfully ignoring it, preferring to stare down the detective instead who’s postured criss-cross on his plain black bedspread, tinkering with the marble inside his Ramune. His hands fiddle and fidget but his eyes are clear and calm.

“I thought we were friends,” he says. “Even if you and Momota-kun are going through something… you can still talk to me.”

“You’re always around him,” she challenges, the bite in her voice not going unnoticed.

Shuichi smiles sadly.

“I thought so,” Shuichi mouths, flicking his fingernail against the bottle with a hollow tink. “You think that there’s something between us.”

Narrowing her vision, Maki leans forward.

“Are you saying you think I broke up with him because I’m jealous of you?”

The thought alone is harsh. The fact that he even insinuated it to Maki’s face is even worse. Still, he’d had some reservations about it so his hypothesis wasn’t air tight. Something told him he was moments away from finding out the real truth then. Hiding his lips inside of his mouth momentarily, Shuichi bites down.

His guilty eyes do nothing to dissuade Maki’s ire. In fact, the way they peer across at her from the corner of his sockets gives her all the strength she needs to make a mirthless laugh.

“You don’t know either of us as well as you probably thought,” she says, with a conviction that he wasn’t anticipating out of her. “Momota is one of the most stubborn, stagnate people I’ve ever met. He wouldn’t make a move to say how he really felt if his life depended on it. I knew he wanted out,” Maki says sadly. “So I gave him an out.”

Shuichi scoots closer, dangling his feet off the bed.

“How did you know he wanted to leave?” Shuichi questioned.

“He’s gay,” she says, and Shuichi quirks an eyebrow. “Is that somehow funny?”

It’s not until Maki queries that he realizes he’s got some dumb, absent-minded smile on his face. Shuichi shakes his hands and his head, the marble clattering around the Ramune bottle.

“No, no. I just thought it was so… matter-of-factly the way you said that. It was, kinda funny.”

“Well, it’s true,” Maki maintains, pursing her lips in a pout.

“How so? Is there like… something that he did to make you think that, or…?”

“I think we were both playing this game with each other,” she suggests. “Both telling each other that this is what we wanted. He realized far quicker than I did but was helpless to do anything about it. I don’t think he can let himself.”

Sinking down further into the beanbag, staring up at Shuichi’s popcorn ceiling, Maki sighs.

“He’s got something going on with him. I think he thinks he has to like girls. It’s a wonder why he’s so avoidant of it.”

Shuichi takes another sip of his soda. The bubbles fizz against the back of his throat with a gentle sort of burn. He wonders if he understand how Kaito feels.

“Is it weird, to not want to face that you’re gay?”

“Maybe if you’re cis, yeah,” Maki argues. “You’d think of the two, coming out as transgender would be harder. God only knows what’s his problem.”

There’s a certain callousness to her voice that Shuichi notes off the bat. Tucking a sliver of hair behind his ear, he tries to pivot on what his friend could need and not the fantasy brewing in his head where the two of them could be together. Shuichi remembers what Maki had said only moments ago and points toward her with the bottle.

“H-hey, didn’t you say that… he realized before you did? Does that mean that you…”

Maki slants her head back down, chin digging into her collar as she glances back quizzically. He hesitates to finish the sentence.

“You… you’re gay?”

Leaning her head back once more, peering into the ceiling, she shrugs.

“Who knows.”

Shuichi smiles some to himself.

“I think you knows,” he says, bad grammar on purpose.

Being gay was never something Shuichi had to realize. Since he’d been young, he’d always been attracted to boys, wanted boys to take him by the hand and lead him somewhere special. For a time, that’s what Kaito had been to him- a pillar to lean on, and an adventure always constantly happening. A shame always grips him when he isn’t careful, though. Shuichi knows that he relies on the other boy for a lot and hasn’t given a lot back in return. Not as though he hasn’t tried however. Kaito closes himself off when he doesn’t want to burden anybody. Shuichi thinks that he’s afraid of the vulnerability. If he can come to understand how Kaito really feels… Shuichi thinks he might be able to pay him back. He would come to his friend’s aid if it’s the last thing he does.

Shuichi basks in the silence, mulling on these thoughts.

The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but Shuichi finds himself itching to get something else out. This isn’t all he needed to know.

“You two aren’t mad at each other though, right?”

“Oh, I think he’s angry with me,” she asserts. “He didn’t like what I had to say.”

“What’s that?”

Maki’s hands are folded up across her belly and the way her hair and legs lay limp against the beanbag and upon the rest of the floor, she almost seems lifeless. Shuichi can almost picture someone lifting her up like a doll and the rest of her body parts simply clattering against one another.

“I told him I knew he was gay.”

Shuichi shrinks back, thinking of how many different ways that conversation must’ve gone south. Curling his legs back up into his lap once again, he crosses them and buries his hands behind his legs. His empty bottle jingles against the marble.

“Harukawa-san, I don’t think he’s ready to realize that now.”

“That’s not my fault,” she answers, and Shuichi thinks it must’ve been a bit hurtful to say the least, being with someone while realizing that you aren’t what they want, even if it's before they’ve come to terms with that yet.

Eventually, her voice softens into something more malleable, and what comes out of her mouth sounds a great deal gentler.

“I just didn’t think either of us should be lying to each other, or to ourselves, or holding each other back. Isn’t that… what he told us we should never do?”

Shuichi hangs his head a bit, thinking about how their conversation had ended the other day. What are… the right words to say?

Mondo flicks his cigarette before aiming it at Kaito, pointing slackly.

“You’re gonna kill yourself wearin’ that thing,” he insists, remarking on the way Kaito’s been adjusting his binder every two seconds.

Kaito’s already shuffling the deck of cards once again, getting them sorta bent out of shape with his clumsy hands. The tobacco in his hand sat snug between his middle and forefinger, and the ash slips into the cards. The biker rolls his eyes and pockets his own cig between his lips before snatching them out of Kaito’s hands.

“Gimme those.”

“Hgh! You’re sayin’ the luminary of the stars can’t shuffle a deck of cards?”

Sliding the worn out deck between his thick, adroit fingers with ease, Mondo hums to himself. The astronaut trainee finds his eyes lingering on the sinew of his arms. The way he rapidly shuffles the cards, Kaito can’t help but think he looks… so cool. His hair coming apart from the heat in the basement, the subtle sort of tan of his arms, muscled and… the way his beater sort of grips his chest tight. The cigarette hung out of his jib so subtly, like he won’t care either way if it falls out. Kaito keeps thinking it will and instead it simply bops gently and sits in place.

When Mondo slaps the cards down in the center of the table, Kaito shakes from his reverie.

“‘ere,” finishes Mondo. “You deal, I’m gettin’ another drink. Put my five hundred in the pot.”

Kaito exhales another puff of smoke, flicking his cigarette while debating following up on Mondo’s offer- to take his binder off. It’s broiling down here and smoking with this thing on isn’t doing his lungs any favors. It’s not until Mondo is turned around and across the room that he finds an answer.

“You wouldn’t mind that?”

“Hah?” Mondo asks in what’s more of a noise than anything else, as if he’s already forgotten what it is he’s said a minute ago.

The cosmonaut doles out their hands, careful to not toss them too hard to Mondo’s side of the table. He’s been chucking the other boy’s cards off the edge all night.

“Me takin’ this thing off,” Kaito reiterates.

Once they’ve both got five cards each, Kaito reaches across to a stack of yen on Mondo’s side of the table, sliding a 500¥ coin into the center of the table. He slides his own in, payment just to see the cards. His pile of money is looking much more meager. Kaito tries to not let it bother him.

“Nah I’ont give a shit. Tits are tits,” Mondo maintains, and Kaito feels a sort of pride swell in his chest.

There’s something uniquely gratifying when a cis guy validates him. He shouldn’t need it, he knows. He should be confident in himself regardless but it’s hard to deny the warmth in his ribs. It spreads throughout the rest of his body as he turns the other way, straddling the back of the chair.

While Mondo cracks another soda open and takes his seat across from him, Kaito plucks the shirt off his back, the binder coming off swiftly thankfully. Still Mondo awkwardly asks if he needs a hand while he’s wriggling around a bit. Kaito works it off and chucks it into the corner of the room. It startles Mondo’s dog, a small Maltese who jumps and seems to regard the stinky article with an annoyed curiosity. Kaito clothes himself once more, the sight of his cleavage unable to override the sheer pleasure he feels at being able to breathe once again.

Beating his chest with a cough, Kaito spits into the garbage can beside them, the smaller one in comparison to the one by the door and Mondo lofts a brow.

“Why’re you always coughing and spitting?” he asks. “You got some kind of bronchitis?”

Kaito laughs.

“Dumbass, no. You’re supposed to when you’re done binding,” he explains, watching as Mondo takes a sip of his soda and leans forward, intrigued.

“Is it supposed to make your lungs feel better?”

“Well, sorta,” Kaito admits. “But that’s not really the reason why. It helps to agitate your lungs and break up any fluid that might’ve built up.”

Mondo regards him strangely, blinking and setting his coke down flat.

“So let me get this straight- you purposely wear this thing that could give you fluid build up in your lungs? Just to look… flatter, you’d risk seriously harming yourself like that?”

Gazing off to the side, Kaito pouts his upper lip some.

“I guess you could put it that way, but binding’s only dangerous if you don’t take care to do it right,” he says, guiltily thinking back on he and Shuichi’s run the other day.

“But sometimes,” Kaito continues, stars shining in his eyes once again. “You’ve gotta be reckless in order to make your dreams a reality!”

Exhaling cooly, the biker smushed the head of his cigarette against the ashtray beside them and scraped his hand against the table to pick up his cards.

“If you fuckin’ say so,” he contends.

“Yeah! I do,” Kaito chirps, taking a gander at his cards as well; he winces on instinct.

Mondo clicks his tongue.

“Oi, oi, c’mon Momota. You can’t keep makin’ it obvious to me that you’ve got a shit hand. How am I better at this Western game than you are?”

“What!?” Kaito cries.

“Every time you get screwed you get this look on your face. It’s too obvious,” says Mondo, and Kaito grins all lopsided and doofy.

“That’s just what I want you to think, Oowada. Never underestimate a man’s ability to play the fool!”

“Hn, did your little clown friend impart that knowledge to you?” he asks.

Kaito scowls and takes a sip of his own drink. It’s been sat there since he got here. It’s lukewarm carbonation by now.

“Tch, like I’d take away any wisdom from a liar like him. Talkin’ to him’s like talkin’ to a brick wall, except the brick wall’s gay.”

The way Kaito doesn’t even look up from his cards is something startling to Mondo, who instantly peers up at him and taps a single finger against the table.

“What’s bein’ gay got to do with it?”

“Nothin’s wrong with it,” he says. “The kid just hits on me a bunch. Hits on any dude that moves, I think. He could just be lyin’. He likes the attention.”

Mondo’s posture untenses, leaning back in his chair with a huff. Kaito winces a bit too knowingly for how dumb he just sounded.

“My bad. I didn’t mean to say somethin’ strange.”

“Gimme a break, you know what shit like that sounds like, don’tcha?”

For some reason the placidity of Mondo’s voice is more potent than screaming would’ve been. It would’ve been easy for Kaito to laugh it off if he got chewed out for his comment. It’s strangely poignant that he just sort of… mutters that under his breath, like he’s talking to himself more than talking to Kaito- like it’s a thing that he’d brush under the rug ordinarily for whatever reason. Kaito doesn’t know why. They aren’t that good of friends that it’d be worth it to swallow himself down to keep the connection.

Kaito ogles his cards, frowning at the pitiful pair of two’s, pair of five’s, and an eight of hearts. Maybe they should’ve stuck to mahjong after all. He sighs and turns his cards face down to the table.

“Say, Oowada,” he starts. “I was thinkin’ about maybe bein’ bi.”

Mondo’s eyes don’t leave his own cards initially.

“Yeah? What’re you tellin me for?”

When Kaito doesn’t answer immediately, the biker glances up, squinting.

“Is it so I’ll not think too hard on that weird thing you just said?”

The astronaut fumbles some, frowning with his hands squeezing the table, realizing just how much it must’ve bothered him. A shame coats him like thick grease.

“N-no, I just… how did you come to realize that sort of thing?”

Taking a swig of his soda, Mondo makes a peculiar face like he’s just tasted something sour.

“You’re trans and you don’t know?”

“It’s not the same thing,” Kaito argues, not sure if he’s ever going to find someone who understands why these are two different concepts to him, and why one is easier to stomach than the other.

Trying his hardest to, Kaito plops both of his elbows on the table. He runs a hand down his face, tugging at his eye bags while he formulates a thought. Mondo grits his teeth some, steadying the table as his soda nearly teeters off the edge.

“I think- …I think seeing you has helped me a bit. Helped me to figure some things out.”

The unusually forthright nature of his words throws Mondo for a loop, who sorta rubs the back of his neck with a furrowed brow.

“Thanks? Geez, if you’re sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’ I’m not sure what I’m supposed to tell ya.”

Gawking back at him with an uncharacteristically strict expression, Kaito’s finger finds its way to a stray coin, fiddling with it as he finds himself.

“It’s just that… you’re really cool, and you’re also gay. It hadn’t dawned on me until now that you could be both of those things- that I could be both of those things.”

Mondo’s eyes widen, stunned momentarily. It’s like looking into a side of him Kaito’s never seen moments before his exterior hardens once more, and the lines in his face turn sharper to disguise the pink in his cheeks.

“Y-yeah… okay,” he stammers.

Kaito smiles a smug one, spinning the coin beneath his finger.

“Every time I see you and Ishimaru together, I get to thinkin’ that maybe that could be me. I guess… I don’t wanna try and be somethin’ that I’m not but, something feels off-putting about what I’ve been doin’ y’know?”

It’s almost as if the longer he talks about it, the more in his skin he feels. All the while, Mondo’s bouncing his leg with anxiety and turning his attention away with cautious eyes.

“You get to thinkin’ that… you could be what?” Mondo asks.

Does he really have to say it? Kaito supposes he’s come this far. He takes a deep breath and says, “I could be a gay guy.”

Mondo’s neck and shoulders, taut for the past two minutes have started to slacken.

“Yeah? ‘n how do you know that?”

A redness blooms in Kaito’s cheeks, one hand reaching up to squeeze the bridge of his nose.

“I get to thinkin’ sometimes that other guys are really good looking, but… I’ve always thought it was because I wanted to be one.”

Kaito makes a sideways sort of smirk, as though Mondo’s going to compliment him back when he says, “I think you’re pretty sharp, for example!”

The biker winces at Kaito’s pointed finger.

“Yeah, yeah, I get you. So you think dudes are hot. So be gay if that's what you want.”

Kaito turns his head and stares up at the ceiling fan, watching as it’s subtly shivering like it’s aching to bust free. Or like it just needs some tighter screws in place.

“Maybe. I think what’s selling me on this idea is…”

He trails off.

“…is?”

The older of the two pivots his head, waiting for Kaito to finish the thought and rolling his eyes when the idiot starts laughing again.

“Sorry! I just haven’t told anybody this before. I think I might… be attracted to Shuichi,” he says, and Mondo hangs his head. “He’s… not super masculine. I don’t look at him and think that I want to look like that. I think, what I feel might just be attraction. I-I don’t… I’ont know though, man. It’s all-”

“God, don’t fucking scare me like that, Momota,” Mondo groans, and Kaito’s face turns blank.

“Scare you?”

Gritting his teeth, the biker turns his attention back toward the other boy, gesturing wildly with a fearsome right hand.

“You had me scared to death this whole time that you were comin’ onto me! Tellin’ me that I turned you gay or some shit,” he says.

Kaito laughs hearty, loud and longer than he has in a while.

“Sorry, sorry! My bad there, Oowada. I didn’t think about how I sounded.”

Mondo clicks his tongue, turning his eyes back toward their ‘pot’ of 1,000¥ in the center of the table.

“Yeah, I can see that. By the way, are you gonna check or what?”

Shaking his head, Kaito takes another silent sip of his soda, flipping his cards face up.

“I’m done for tonight,” he says, and Mondo collects his would-be earnings, pocketing the rest of his coins lazily.

As Kaito scoops up the remainder of his cash, a thought occurs to him.

“So wait, you wouldn’t date me?”

Mondo jeers with a smirk.

“Not if you were the last shitty gambler on earth.”

Kaito yelps in reply.

“Aw, c’mon! I’m gorgeous as hell, ”he says. “I’ve got the gelled up hair and goatee of a punk rock star, with all the charm and charisma of a smooth celebrity. Have you seen these threads?”

And immediately he’s yanking his jacket up from it’s pile on the floor beside him, peeling it open to display it’s galactic guts. Mondo gives a wry shrug.

“I don’t know, man. You’re just not my type. You’re alright though. I’d give you a… a seven maybe,” Mondo says, and he really looks like he’s trying hard to contemplate this as he says it.

“I’ll pretend that’s a ten and just round up,” Kaito announces with an embarrassing level of confidence.

“I don’t think that’s how math works,” murmurs Mondo, sliding the deck of cards into its box before shoving it across the table. “And I know I’m not your type either. Your last girlfriend was the size of a toothpick and so’s that kid.”

By that kid, Kaito thinks he means Shuichi, and he’s right. Kaito does seem to have a typing when it comes to who he’s attracted to most but he can’t lie about thinking beefier guys are beautiful too. It’s astounding how much more honest his thoughts become once he’s voiced them. It’s not like he can lie and say he doesn’t think Mondo’s really good looking.

Still though, there’s something about this that still puts a knot in his belly. It’s to do with Shuichi, and Kaito knows he won’t be able to fix it unless he lets it come out of him. He pockets the box of cards and pouts.

“You probably wouldn’t know anything about this but… I get the feeling lately that I’m being harsh on him. Like, because he’s doing better than I am.”

“Huh? Doin’ better than you? In what? School?”

Kaito snickers.

“No- well, that too a little… but,” he continues. “He told me the other day he wasn’t scared of what anybody thought of him anymore because I’d helped him, because I supported him. He’s still got… a pretty feminine voice, and pretty feminine features, and- and there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s no more or less man than I am, but… for some reason I felt…”

“Jealous?” Mondo asks.

“Yeah, I think,” Kaito says, and Mondo’s wearing a serious straight line for a mouth.

“You feel like, you’re being mocked because someone else is able to be strong in a way that you can’t be.”

Like a lightbulb has come on, Kaito blinks and points a finger.

“Yeah, that’s… really how I think it feels. It’s like… I felt bad, y’know, like he was mocking me. But I know he would never do that and that wasn’t what he said at all. It’s just… irrational thoughts, yeah?”

As if recalling something and someone else, Mondo’s gaze turns far off and vacant. He’s hiding both of his hands in his pockets and sucking on his teeth. The subtle squeak of it tempers Kaito’s nerves and the biker shrugs his shoulders.

“S’not a feeling I’m a stranger to,” he begins, standing up from his chair and pushing it into the table with his knee. “It can feel like you’re being attacked when other people can be more honest with themselves, or try harder against their demons, or can simply be strong in the way you pretend to be.”

Kaito stands up too. He turns his eyes toward the binder in the corner of the room, sat there unceremoniously crumpled in a heap.

“What’s stoppin’ you from being as confident as he is?”

Now across the room, Kaito bends down to pick up his binder, wincing at the pain in his back from wearing it entirely too much. The pain reminds him of all those feelings, and the way his breasts jostle in his shirt when he stands up right only serve to poke him like a cattle prod. The binder is stiff with dried sweat. He’s not putting it back on.

“I try as hard as I can to be as masculine as possible. I give it my all to pass. I have to or…”

He remembers his body, fiercely incongruent and ugly to him.

“I won’t feel comfortable or right at all, no matter what anyone else thinks.”

Turning back toward Mondo, it’s easier to make some semblance of eye contact when he’s on the other side of the room and his interlocutor’s face is comprised of more than just a pair of eyes.

“He said he’s okay without hormones. He probably doesn’t want surgery either. If he’s so comfortable with himself without all of this then what am I doing it for?”

Mondo shifts his weight to the other foot and tips his chin back.

“We don’t all want the same things. Maybe what it means to be a man to him is different than what it means to be a man to you,” he explains, crushing his empty soda can in a fist before chucking it over his shoulder; it lands perfectly in the garbage can that’s by the basement door. “Considering what you’ve said to me about being a ‘cool guy’ and also being gay, maybe you should revisit what being a man means to you.”

Those words land squarely between Kaito’s ribs and sit there, burning a hole steadily through until he’s choking on it later that night.

Thumbing through his Twitter feed, the luminary of the stars takes a long pause when the sight of Shuichi’s icon slides across the left hemisphere of his screen. An anxiety consumes him, as if he’s unallowed to click on it because his thoughts aren’t the same as they used to be. Across town where Shuichi’s lying in bed probably (it’s 1:44 am), he thinks maybe the budding detective will feel some kind of a disturbance, as if the universe itself is ready to abandon him and tell on him if he scours his best friend’s media.

Following through with the curiosity blooming in his heart, his thumb taps the icon, opening up his page. His icon’s a candid that Kaito remembers taking. He’s slurping soba with a somewhat startled look in his face. It’s cute to him but, Kaito wonders why Shuichi would think it’s good for a profile picture. His description reads, saihara | 17 he/him | FUB free | hope’s peak attendee | talk to me about minato kanae novels!

For no real reason, Kaito feels himself blushing. There’s nothing to even get butterflies over. He jabs his thumb at the media tab as if he’s mad at himself for it, bracing himself for the flood of selfies he’s about to witness. He feels his own tongue turn to lead when the latest is of him and Maki. He’s not sure why. Kaito knows that the two of them are still friends. He wants to continue being close to Maki too but… recalling their last conversation makes a corpse out of him.

He continues to scroll, catching glimpses of screenshots Shuichi posted from his phone of lyrics to songs he likes. Lemon by Kenshi Yonezu’s on here. Blinking, he ambles by what are decidedly English lyrics, surprised because Shuichi has never expressed understanding the language at all. It’s Shape of You by Ed Sheeran, a song Kaito had heard plenty of times. Learning English meant he got to enjoy all those Western hits he thought were catchy and endearing.

His baa-chan didn’t mind it when he’d learned English and went about perfecting his linguistic skills by playing some American Top 40’s. In time he found that the songs she vibed with most were older songs, with beats that weren’t so sharp and had a sort of dreamy feel to them- think 80’s Madonna, like Borderline. It was fun to have something new to combat his jii-chan’s love of Okinawan folk music.

Not that there was anything wrong with it though. Too many nights had been spent squatted at his grandfather’s side, letting the warm summer night air blow against his bare knees as the sounds of high voices filled his ears; the pattern of the tatami imprinting itself on the balls of his feet. These memories are kind to him, mostly.

He’d sat squatted, because it was improper to sit cross-legged as a young girl. His grandfather would smack the hell out of him if he caught his granddaughter sitting agura.

Kaito glances down at himself momentarily, taking pride in his slack posture, crossed legs and all.

Attention turns back toward the screencapped lyrics, Kaito’s eyes zeroing in on the caption, www this one’s too relatable right now.

Shape of You is a love song. Kaito’s eyebrows slope toward each other. Why does Shuichi find a love song ‘relatable?’ He’s not dating anyone right now… is he?

Kaito blinks. His face faults. Could this mean… ?

Icebergs begin to form in his bloodstream. Did Shuichi have a crush on someone? The thought smothers him alive. He shivers at how much that frightens him, how much that wrings the truth out of him. Kaito squeezes his phone a little tighter.

He couldn’t. They are best friends, aren’t they? They’re sidekicks. If Shuichi had feelings for someone… wouldn’t he tell him? Doesn’t he trust him?

No, Kaito has to be honest with himself. He knows the real reason a panic siren went off in his head. His chest feels so much tighter. There’s no binder wrapped around it. Kaito sits choking on his unprofessed love.

Kaito loves him, doesn’t he?

The cosmonaut curls one sweaty palm across his mouth, staring a thousand yards ahead. There’s no way that can be true. Maybe he doesn’t know how he feels about Shuichi, but he knows that the idea of Shuichi loving someone else… is scary. God knows what that means.

Fuck, he knows what that means. God dammit.

“God dammit,” he says audibly too, victim to the quickening of his heartbeat and the urge to pry open his Spotify.

Maybe he’ll feel closer to Shuichi if he does. Maybe listening will be able to tell him something, maybe who Shuichi’s hot for.

Or maybe, you’ll just make yourself more wound up.

The spaceman collects all the saliva he can and swallows it down, like he’s trying to drown all his gay with it.

He scrolls further down Shuichi’s media. A few pictures of the book he’s reading and a lot of food photos bombard him. Kaito can see his peace sign in countless of them, always off to the side and nearly poking into his food. A sort of warmth replaces the fear he once felt.

What if it’s him?

The slightest hope buries itself deep in him and it’s an awfully dangerous one. The worst part about having hope was the fear that it could be dashed away. Still… that’s never stopped him before.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they could touch hands the way that boyfriends do? The way he’s seen Mondo and his boyfriend do? The way Mondo’s arm snakes around Kiyotaka’s shoulders and grips him tight, fending off any evil with a glare that dares anyone to mock them… the way he holds him so tight his hands are making subtle prints in Kiyotaka’s skin- protective, possessive.

Not in an unhealthy way but in that… I’m proud to let everyone know that you’re mine, way. And the, I’m proud to let everyone know that I’m yours, way.

That sort of bravery, that’s manly, isn’t it?

Kaito bites his lips hard. That sort of honesty, isn’t that manly? That sort of straightforwardness and unabashed authenticity for who you are and who you love, doesn’t that make you a better man?

A surge of pride overwhelms him, and he’s writing Shuichi.

u up
?

The question mark hangs on a different line. People must really hate the way he texts.

It’s only been thirty seconds and Kaito thinks Shuichi is probably asleep. He goes back to perusing his Twitter with total abandon. More plates of food and the odd candid of him or Harumaki await him. Scrolling back far enough yields a photo of Kaede and Kaito feels a frown work its way across his face.

They still spoke. There’s no bad blood between them. They’d dated closely as friends and split when they found their interests too divided, if you can call it that. He knew Shuichi continued to feel so guilty over it too. Still, it’s been a long time since Kaito has seen Shuichi that happy. It’s a photo from a summer festival from last year. They’re both in yukata and Shuichi’s got a wish in his hand. It’s obscured from view, soon to be hung from bamboo. Kaito wonders if he ever misses that time or misses the hand held in his.

Kaito thinks back to the last time he and Maki hung out before he’d started avoiding her, started fearing the thoughts he’d been having. They held hands a lot. He glances down at his own, marveling at how bigger they feel. It’s probably his imagination. Her’s were always so rough, proof of her upbringing, proof of her continued struggle.

Right now he’d do anything to have Shuichi’s hand in his, and warm it. For that he feels guilty, feeling like he failed her.

His phone buzzes loud.

hey whats up? are you alright?

The worry evident in Shuichi’s tone feels somehow psychic, and once again Kaito’s heart picks up speed like a hard drum beat. His thumbs hit all the wrong keys. It takes him much longer than usual to spell out, lets go out tomorrow.

Kaito gets an answer quick.

yeah! sounds fun! where to?

A bright grin breaks out on Kaito’s features, a warm whirr of glee squeezing out of his throat as he rocks side to side. He hasn’t even thought of where he wants to go yet but knowing Shuichi’s so excited to go with him is validating. Has Shuichi always been this enthusiastic about their friendship? Maybe Kaito never noticed. Lately it seems as though he’s been blind to Shuichi’s more subtle behaviors, and blind to his own attraction up until this point.

All he’s done lately is gone to Shuichi’s house, watched funny YouTube videos on each other’s laptops and slept in until Shuichi’s uncle is griping at them to get up. Could he really have spent this much time with his best friend to only realize now that he had such a budding crush? Kaito flushes and leans backward, letting himself flop back onto his futon on the floor. His arms flood the sides of his face with a groan.

How long exactly has this been going on for?

Wincing some to himself, he tries to pick something that certainly isn’t a date.

odaiba?
we can hit tokyo leisureland b4 it shuts down
wbu?

For all of his anxieties, Shuichi is wide awake and giving prompt replies. Kaito couldn’t be happier.

sure! we can meet at shinagawa station at 5

5 pm is later than Kaito’s hoping for, but Tokyo Leisureland is open 24/7. It shouldn’t be an issue. Grinning and clenching his phone tighter, Kaito sighs out, lovesick. He doesn’t know where this came from.

All at once, it’s crept up on him. There’s a fear that he doesn’t know what to do with these feelings or where they can stand to go. It’ll grip him a bit longer while he formulates a plan but for now, he’ll plug his headphones in and find that English song on Spotify.

And think of Shuichi Saihara.

It’s Testosterone Tuesday. Kaito specifically chooses to shoot up on Tuesdays because it’s alliterative in English and it’s a day when nothing’s really going on. It’s his ‘chillax day’ (English slang for chill and relax) and he typically doesn’t do a whole lot after jamming a needle in his thigh. It always seems to hurt worse here. Had he a partner to help him inject his hormones, it wouldn’t feel so bad. The first ever time he’d been injected, the doctor showed him how to do it. It hurt a lot less being shot in the ass than the thigh, but he could never get the angle right and felt too squeamish about it.

Right in his thigh it was, then.

It takes so much effort every two weeks to do this. He’s been given the option to take his hormones weekly or biweekly. Unable to stomach jabbing himself that often, he relegates himself to the latter. It’s still a trial every time that he can never get used to, holding a needle above his leg and working himself through the effort of stabbing himself with it. A muddled, sad sort of frustration paints his chest sometimes. It almost makes him cry, wondering to himself if he’ll have to do this forever. It doesn’t get easier. Through the winding curls of his leg hair, he can feel with his fingers the tiny scabs where the pinprick sized holes heal over. They’re markings only men of his kind will ever know. He wonders if it marks him as fake.

Some trans boys have rich families who can support buying their hormones in gel form. Some trans boys have families who are much poorer and can only afford the injections, but help them shoot up. Kaito has neither.

While his grandparents are relatively accepting apart from the odd pronoun slip, they can’t bear to stick him. He suffers on his own every Tuesday.

Today though, the rush of sudden adrenaline would be pushing him on. Today, despite telling himself repeatedly not to call it that, Kaito Momota has a date.

Kaito Momota puts his binder on and hitches a ride from his grandfather up to the station. Kaito Momota… is now here thirty minutes early. In his haste he’d forgotten to sprinkle some baby powder over him so his binder won’t chafe in the same damn area it always chafes in. He shouldn’t get sweaty, then.

Whistling a tune that absolutely isn’t Ed Sheeran, he hides his hands in his clothes and waits on the bench- one in his jacket pocket and the other in his pants pocket.

The whirlwind of cars and buses rolling by make his jacket flare up. In the space beside him, his coat clenches an invisible stranger. Kaito tries to not check his phone. He’s gotta let his nerves die. The insistent bobbing of his knee proves more enticing; it’s all he can do to keep his cool. He traded out his slippers for some sneakers today, knowing that he was going to do a lot of running around. Odaiba’s a big place! Who’s to say they were only going to stay at the Tokyo Leisureland all night? That wouldn’t make a good date anyways.

Kaito blanches.

Stop calling it a date, dummy!

Kaito grumbles.

C’mon man. No luminary of the stars can be defeated this easily. There’s nothing to even worry about, he thinks to himself.

His thoughts are restless, mended only once the seat beside him becomes warm. Kaito looks over at the boy now offering a sunny grin at his side.

“Momota-kun! Were you waiting long?”

And all at once, Kaito feels like the world has righted itself again. It’s been entirely too long since they hung out last. In truth, his feelings for Shuichi have simply blossomed exponentially since then. Kaito then gouges a thumb into his own chest, smiling wide and true.

“Who, me? Don’t worry about it! I just like to be early!”

Shuichi scoots closer, huddling beneath his jacket. His voice carries a curious cadence. It’s light and prying.

“You’re usually late whenever we hang out though, aren’t you?”

Is he? Kaito bites his lip. Maybe. He probably is, actually.

Shit.

Chuckling loudly, bright and boisterous as thunder, the astronaut crooks his arm around Shuichi’s neck. All the while he keeps a lookout for their bus.

“Not all the time! You gotta give me more credit than that!” he shouts, and Shuichi’s giggling some too.

Kaito’s smile wanes marginally when the thought occurs to him-

“Say, have you ever ridden the bus to Odaiba? I said I’d meet you here but to be honest, I’ve no idea what I’m lookin’ out for.”

Before Shuichi can get a word out, it arrives. Without the need for elucidation a royal blue bus comes honking into the station. The astronaut nearly jumps out of his skin. Emblazoned across the side in plain English reads, Odaiba Rainbow Bus. ‘Rainbow’ is predictably, in rainbow. Shuichi leaps up, pulling Kaito with him.

“This one!”

Kaito’s laughing from the bench to the bus.

“You seem chipper today! Chipper-er… You’re not usually so giddy and get at’em,” Kaito leads with, his heart already beating harder than before. “Could it be that you’re really excited to hang out with me?”

It’s a ploy. He’s testing the waters like this. It’s not good for his nerves that start screaming all at once, ready to self immolate once the words fall out of his mouth. Was that even a successful flirt? Kaito rides the line too often, a dizzying blur that happens when you’re over familiar on a regular basis.

Shuichi gives a warm smile back. It’s winsome and honest, and Kaito doesn’t know how long this date is going to last without him doing something dumb.

“Mhm. I am excited,” Shuichi says, and Kaito’s heart does a flip in his mouth.

He’s no good at hiding it. He sweats a bit harder than before.

“O-oh?” Kaito nearly whimpers, mouth ajar before he finds the words slow.

“That’s good! We’re gonna have a great time today!”

It’s not usual for him to get all blushy and shy. Kaito clears his throat, taking Shuichi by the wrist. Trying hard to ignore the way he’s stumbling over himself, Kaito forks out the cash for their bus fare and the two of them sit side by side at the very back. Kaito’s windowside and grinning. He pumps his fist.

“Alright! Are you ready for a night out on the town, sidekick?”

For what is only a trip to a measly gaming center, Kaito sure is hyping it up. Shuichi just nods in that way he does, where he follows after everything Kaito does. For the most part, he serves as the taller boy’s impulse control. While Kaito takes the lead, Shuichi makes sure there’s no casualties involved. Not bodies or blood but financial casualties. Anything that requires Kaito to be fiscally responsible ends in tragedy. He wouldn’t trust Kaito in Tokyo Leisureland by himself.

Come to think of it, he wouldn’t trust Kaito by himself in many situations. God, when he really thinks about it, he doesn’t know how Kaito gets along half the time but he’s sure glad he does.

Yanking a pamphlet off the bus wall, Kaito spreads it open and traces the route of the bus. It goes over the Rainbow Bridge and into Odaiba. It’s only five o’clock. He pauses, wondering if the bridge will be lit up or not. Shuichi stares keenly over Kaito’s shoulder.

“The entire bus ride takes an hour, but that includes coming back to Shinagawa. So really, it’ll be about thirty minutes to get where we wanna go? Something like that,” Shuichi asserts confidently.

Kaito takes notice to this, peering back at him with a toothy smile.

“Yeah? You sound like you come here often. I didn’t know you’d been there.”

Shuichi’s smile turns strained but Kaito doesn’t seem to notice.

“Y-yeah! I’ve maybe been once or twice,” he says.

The bus picks up soon enough and they both head off to Odaiba. Shuichi explains the history of the island the entire way there. Kaito listens, engrossed. It’s a man-made island that had originally been created to protect Edo (now Tokyo) from attack by sea. Kaito isn’t actually taking in as much as he looks, but hearing Shuichi impart all this knowledge to him so cooly is a charm. Multiple times, Shuichi denies having visited that often, insisting instead that it’s just common knowledge.

Kaito prods the window with his finger once they reach the Rainbow Bridge.

“Hey, what gives!? This thing’s not even rainbow!”

“Ah, yes,” Shuichi starts. “The Rainbow Bridge is only lit up in rainbow lights in December, I think.”

Ordinarily, it seemed, it was lit up in white. Kaito begins in a very matter-of-fact voice, “if that’s the case, why don’t they change the name?”

Knitting his eyebrows, Shuichi regards him with a strange laugh.

“Rainbow Bridge isn’t it’s official name. The public more or less… dubbed it that.”

The astronaut trainee is gazing past the faint white lights and watching as the sun makes its way through the sky. It climbs down steadily, embossing the sky in orange and purples. He hums some to himself. When it’s late enough, they could go stargazing. The thought alone is tender though they’ve done it many times before. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time Kaito’s thinking of it like this, like a date.

In less time than even Shuichi was expecting, they pull up to the Kaihinkoen station. It’s a brisk walk but soon they see the Daikanransha in closer proximity. It’s the massive ferris wheel that lights up the sky every night in Odaiba. Every night it casts a slew of gorgeous patterns all over the island. As the sun dips lower, the lights seem brighter, and Kaito’s eyes gleam as they approach Palette Town.

“I wanna run the rest of the way. How ‘bout it, Shuichi?”

The other boy grimaces, slipping over his own feet.

“I-I don’t think we should run where we could trip other people.”

Kaito jogs in place with a grin.

“Eh, don’t worry! I never trip!”

As Kaito makes a run for it, Shuichi calls after.

“I said trip other people!!”

They’re both lucky Kaito wore his sneakers today. Thankfully, the luminary of the stars doesn’t bite the concrete just yet tonight, nor does he send some poor lady careening into the bushes. He keeps a brisk jog up to what he thinks might be the Tokyo Leisureland, but he can’t be sure by the lack of lighting out front. Coming to a full stop in front of what should be a glittering glow of pastel and neon lights, he takes a glimpse at the rusted colors and feels his heart sink.

“It’s… closed?”

His chest stings through the binder. The 24 hour center for gaming, karaoke, and more… was closed?

Shuichi caught up to him soon enough, resting a palm on his shoulder blandly.

“I… thought so,” he winces.

Kaito spins on his heels.

“You knew it was already closed?” he asks, discerning the truth much quicker than Shuichi had been expecting him to.

The detective smiles weakly, a liar’s expression.

“Yeah. I used to come here a lot actually,” he explains. “It actually made me kinda sad when it closed down. Last time I came here was with…”

Kaede probably. Kaito simply fixes his mouth into a jagged line and shifts his weight in thought.

“I see,” Kaito murmurs. “So… if you already knew it was closed, why didn’t you tell me?”

Pinching up the cuff of Kaito’s jacket, Shuichi gives a mild tug. It snags Kaito’s attention and his heart too when he gives a dulcet sort of whisper.

“I was thinking, maybe we could ride the ferris wheel.”

The look in his eyes is bold and inviting. It makes Kaito’s knees wobble and his hands go dewy with sweat. How much has Shuichi matured in their time together? The kid he had roped into working out with him isn’t the kid that stands before him now. That guy before would hide under his hat, avoid people and avoid speaking out of turn. Here he stands, self-assured and comfortable, unafraid to take Kaito by the arm and insist his way. He even lied to do it. That took guts.

Was Kaito even slighted by the little white lie? Not at all. The thought of lifting higher and higher into a technicolor sky with his sidekick was a saccharine daydream- not a reality. But it could be, and Kaito’s heart quivers at the notion. So many feet in the air, they’d be so much closer to the universe, just the two of them.

All of the blood in Kaito’s body pools in his face, and he laughs like he’s about to fall apart. His only saving grace is managing to choke out an incredulous, “you want to!?”

Shuichi cheeses.

“Yeah!”

With wild bliss, they take off.

Kaito’s dragging them both to the ferris wheel, the rapidly setting sun setting the stage for what might be the moment he’s been waiting for. The line’s not long at all. It’s their luck it’s a Tuesday. They’re both too ecstatic to even talk. There’s no awkwardness between them but neither boy share another word until they’re on board.

Each car of the Daikanransha is a different color. They run in rainbow order, pink following red, following orange, following yellow, following green and following blue- running in a circle around the sky. Every spoke of the wheel is changing colors and flashing slow. It’s like staring up at something magical, something otherworldly. His hand melds with Shuichi’s. The stars peek out of the sky.

Once they’re on board, sat across from each other, Kaito can’t avoid making eye contact any longer. He takes a deep breath with his hands pressed to his knees. His stance is wide and brazen as usual. Shuichi’s much smaller by comparison, always sitting with his knees and arms in tight, like he’s afraid to take up any space. Still, he doesn’t look burdened by this or uncomfortable in the slightest. He beams back at Kaito with fidgeting hands. Kaito’s are restless too.

“We’re gonna be a hundred feet in the air soon! Gonna get real up close and personal with the stars,” he gloats excitedly.

Shuichi looks pale but he grins back.

“Not quite, Momota-kun.”

“No? Not that high?”

Shuichi looks paler still, but the ferris wheel lights make his face glow and he leans forward more.

“The… Daikanransha is over three hundred and fifty feet tall.”

Kaito suddenly feels a wave of vertigo.

“Th-that high!? No way…”

And suddenly Kaito doesn’t feel so good.

The looks they share between each other tell a story they weren’t expecting to tell. Kaito can’t open his mouth to say it. His eyes do as the wheel begins to turn. They peer out at the people staring at the ground level and at the lights and street lamps that make their faces all twinkle. They get smaller and smaller, and Kaito feels his gut churn.

He can’t say it though. He quivers and crosses his legs.

“W-we sure are moving now.”

Shuichi takes a deep breath.

“I’m afraid of heights.”

Flinching up at the brusque honesty, Kaito’s pupils shrink.

“Y-you’re afraid of heights!? Then why are we on a ferris wheel!?”

The detective stands straight up, his knees knocking together and Kaito reaches his hands out sharp.

“Hey! Y-you can’t get off the ride now, idiot! What the hell are you doin’!?”

Clamoring for the seat beside him, Shuichi unsteadily collapses beside him. The two reach for each other without hesitation. Kaito sits him upright and scoots to make room. Shuichi doesn’t look so frightened as much as he looks sick. There’s no barf bag up here, Kaito remarks to himself, so the both of them had better pull it together.

“I’ve never been on a ferris wheel before,” Shuichi says.

“N-n-neither have I, Shuichi, but you don’t see me cowering, do ya!?”

Shuichi doesn’t cower. He nestles into Kaito’s arm.

“I’d never been able to ride this with Akamatsu-san,” Shuichi says quiveringly. “She’d wanted to but I have a big fear of heights. I thought…”

He pauses, taking a deep breath.

“I thought I could conquer it if I rode it with you.”

Kaito squints his eyes, feeling… different and feeling strange. He frowns and then he sighs.

“Geez, next time be honest with me. We didn’t have to do this,” he explains to Shuichi. “We could’ve found somethin’ else to do.”

“But you wanted to, right?”

Biting his lip, Kaito withholds a cringe.

No. No, this is far too high in the air in a way that he can’t control. Kaito thought he’d like this but suddenly, he isn’t so sure. He doesn’t know who’s operating this thing. Kaito has no fear in space simulations. He has all the faith in the world in those technicians who will work on his spacecraft and help command the mission from a computer screen. That’s a different beast.

Right now? He’s hundreds of feet in the air in a hanging car that could drop at any time. What could possibly protect them if it did? Kaito’s looking worse and Shuichi shakes him slightly.

“Momota-kun, are you okay?”

Kaito’s smile is queasy.

“I-I’m fine. D-don’t worry about it.”

Shuichi frowns, better at deduction than Kaito remembers.

“No,” he insists, his hands resting at Kaito’s side. “You’re afraid of heights too.”

“I’m not afraid of heights! I just… don’t trust this thing,” he argues. “I thought it’d be nice up here but… m-maybe you freakin’ out started to make me freak out! Really, it’s fine. Just-”

His hands find Shuichi’s.

“I’ll- I’ll hold you steady,” he says, and Shuichi thinks that he’s the one who needs his hands held.

Nodding back, Shuichi squeezes the hands in his. Leaned up against Kaito like he’s the only thing in the world, Shuichi closes his eyes a little. It’s easier now. The gentle descent up feels less awful when he can’t see how high up he is. Kaito wishes he could find that place in his mind. Every time his eyes shut he feels as though he’s going to fall through the floor. There’s a tingling in his feet that he associates with those dreams he has, where he falls into his bed.

When he opens his eyes back up, he expertly dodges Shuichi’s gaze. Through the glass windows leading outside, he spots the dazzling gold glare of the Tokyo Tower. They’re so high up now, the all white Rainbow Bridge looks like a toy model. The skyline is shimmering with a love he can’t recognize. All Kaito can focus on is the fear in his bones, and the hands in his.

Stealing a gaze down at the boy burrowed beside him without a care, Kaito frowns with a stray thought.

Geez… he really, is honest, huh?

After nearly smushing Shuichi’s hands in his own, Kaito finds a question he didn’t think he could ask.

“You don’t feel embarrassed?”

“Embarrassed?” Shuichi parrots.

“Embarrassed that you’re afraid.”

Shuichi opens his eyes, giving a small smile with knowing.

“I don’t feel embarrassed when I’m around you,” he says. “Not usually.”

Kaito’s mouth is all cotton and dry.

“Don’t you worry that people won’t think you’re a man if you cower like that?”

The question comes out much more harsher than he means. He’s honestly lucky that Shuichi doesn’t take it that way.

“I don’t worry about what other people think. Is this related to what we said the other day?”

Their fingers interlock, less like the grips of two hapless boys and more like the deliberate hold of a loved one.

“I don’t care if other people don’t see me the way I see me,” repeats Shuichi slow and true. “Are you afraid of not acting ‘like a man?’”

There’s nowhere for Kaito to run to now. Avoiding Shuichi for the fifteen minutes they’re up here won’t go over well. He can’t jump out of the cable car. His eyes woefully pass over the car door with longing. All he can do is hope for the best. His best involves him shifting in place, trying to find comfort when there’s nothing comfortable about what he has to say.

“I am,” he says, and the flood gate opens. “I’m afraid that this is the only way I know how to be. I can’t… show fear, or cry- I’ll sound like a girl. I can’t afford to skimp hormones, or sit back without surgery. I can’t afford to go anywhere- do anything without wearing my binder at all times because I’ll be found out if I do. You know what they say about us.”

Kaito grits his teeth.

“They think that we’re confused and we just need to ‘find a man.’ I didn’t want to be that. I’m not a confused woman. I’m a man.”

His frame grows shaky and Kaito isn’t even sure he can cry without his binder choking it down. All the stars in the sky are listening now and he feels like he’s failing them.

“I needed to be that… man who likes women. I’d pass better, wouldn’t I?”

The astronaut’s voice strains under the weight of his hurt.

“I have to be all of these things and you don’t,” he says. “That’s why I envy you.”

Shuichi sits up straight and turns toward him.

“Momota-kun, that’s not true.”

When their gazes next meet, Shuichi’s eyes (a warm silver) are breaking down every wall. He sees through the façade and to the boy inside- the boy who still thinks he’s got a girl to muffle- the boy who doesn’t even believe in himself, who somehow thinks that he can instead help other people.

“You don’t have to be any of those things to be a man. You can make up what you want masculinity to be.”

Kaito shakes his head and Shuichi takes him by the face.

“You told me that, remember? Don’t tell me that you were lying to me.”

Shuichi would be all but a shadow to him, if not for the ferris wheel’s colors fading in and out from outside. Guilt floods Kaito’s chest. He wasn’t lying at all but he certainly wasn’t talking about himself either. Shuichi gives his face the once-over as the spokes nearest them turn bright blue, brushing some bangs out of the way and observing every inch of Kaito’s face. The other boy shivers, wrinkling his nose.

“What?”

“Nothing, uh- just… you look so handsome.”

Time stops then for each of them. The adjacency of Shuichi’s hands and face brew a tension thick between the both of them. Kaito flushes dark, his mouth trembling with want. But what did he want? The colors surrounding them fade into a deep purple. Watching Shuichi’s eyes dart down, examine his lips and climb back up, Kaito hangs anxiously. He’s at this boy’s mercy now.

“You don’t have to do anything unnecessary,” Shuichi says dotingly. “Everything you’ve taught me is just advice that you haven’t been taking. You should listen to yourself when you talk to me.”

That sounds like a good idea. Anything coming from Shuichi’s lips sounds like a good idea right now.

“I… see,” Kaito mumbles.

The detective runs his hand down his cheek, feeling the sandpaper prickling of Kaito’s hair growing back. The Daikanransha burns a bright red against them.

“What are some things you want to do?”

Kaito frowns candidly, his eyes glistening like a puppy dog back at him.

“Get off this ferris wheel.”

Shuichi chuckles weakly.

“I mean… you do want to keep taking your hormones, right?”

The other boy nods into Shuichi’s fingers.

“You want to have top surgery one day too, right?” he asks, curling his lips up gentle when Kaito nods once more. “Then what are some other things you want to do? Don’t think about what you think is right or wrong.”

A crevice opens up in Kaito’s chest and he feels some hidden emotions come crawling from inside. When he closes his eyes, he doesn’t see Shuichi or the stars above. He doesn’t see the Tokyo Tower, a beacon in the distance or the Rainbow Bridge. He sees colors changing from beyond his eyelids, a shifting kaleidoscope of things he doesn’t understand and can’t put a word to. The things he feels are like a new color entirely in his mouth.

How then can he say them?

Maybe… by starting slow.

“I want to be able to say when I’m… freaked out,” he starts, opting for this wording rather than ‘scared.’ “I want to… not care so much.”

Gazing back up at Shuichi who’s simply nodding at him, his heart wrenches pliantly and makes truth-teller out of him.

“I want to be able to cry sometimes, y’know. It… it just sucks when I feel like I can’t-”

Kaito stops short. It’s so hard to say. It feels wrong on his tongue. It’s a flavor he doesn’t recognize. He moves his face away and Shuichi gives a subtle shake of the shoulders.

“No, you can! You just started to!” Shuichi shouts, and his voice sounds so happy and proud too, despite all his misgivings. “Crying’s not bad. Boys can cry too.”

Shuichi isn’t even angry that he’s faltering like this, that he’s finding it hard to be honest like this. Kaito’s hands grasp Shuichi’s sides and he makes a weak whimper.

“I just want to feel comfortable.”

The tears don’t quite come out but something else does. As the ferris wheel’s lights turn a searing, shimmering white, he finds a speck of brightness in Shuichi’s eyes and knows that he put it there. It wasn’t there when they met but it greets him now. Proof of their friendship, of how he’d helped him for a while. It comes back now when Shuichi’s crooning back at him.

“I want you to be comfortable too, Momota-kun.”

Shuichi doesn’t shiver beneath Kaito’s touch. Their hands are both rested on one another’s sides, and he’s steadying Kaito for once, because now he’ll let him.

“Do you think that girls are weaker? You know that’s not right.”

Kaito shakes his head and the sides of his mouth pull down.

“No, I just… other people think that- other people will think that I am, if I cry, because they are-”

“Other people don’t matter,” Shuichi interrupts, voice like velvet but still so sturdy. “Just tell me more of what you want. Don’t tell me what other people think.”

The spaceman takes a deep breath, his lungs trembling against the binder's hold.

“I want to be able to breathe more often,” he exclaims. “I don’t want to wear my binder for more than twelve hours a day. I don’t want to die early because I’m destroying my lungs.”

Every word that he says gets a nod from Shuichi. He’s smiling wider now and rubbing his sides up and down, supportive and sunny.

“I want…”

Kaito trails off, still lingering off of the last thing he’s yet to say. It’s so easy now, or so it should be. He’s so close now, but what if this is one selfish wish too many?

To say that he wants him.

Recognizing the lull in between, Shuichi tilts his head deliberately.

“Y-you want?” Shuichi stutters.

It’s too arduous. Kaito hesitates, trying to start easy.

“I w-want… to be with men,” he confesses. “I don’t want to fear that I’m not… manly enough, or that I won’t ‘pass’ as male if I’m into men.”

That slid out so much nicer than the astronaut thought it would. Gesturing back with a nod of his head, Shuichi squirms in his seat.

“Yeah, you can be. Nothing’s stopping you,” he says, with a yearning in his eyes that wants him to do just that- right now.

All at once, Kaito is hyperaware of Shuichi’s hands at his sides and his fingers tugging closer, pulling at his shirt. The glimmer of want in him is urging Kaito to him. He tries to think of how to admit his feelings- these feelings that ground him, these feelings that strangle him, and get him higher than this ferris wheel ever could. Nothing comes to mind but before they know it, their car jerks to a stop at the top of the wheel.

Neither one of them noticed just how loud the subtle roaring of the ferris wheel was until it comes to a stop, and they rock in silence. A ringing replaces it in Kaito’s ears. The Daikanransha fades momentarily to black. A dead quiet engulfs them both and Kaito can’t make a move. His jaw begins to lock.

“I w-”

Shuichi’s fastens his mouth to Kaito’s. The astronaut blinks back awe as every muscle goes taut, and then slacks, and slacks, and melts into him. Kaito leans into the kiss and sighs as he turns his head.

Like they’re the only two people on earth, they kiss. The colors outside flash into rainbows in every spoke. Lightning bugs burst free from Kaito’s stomach and into his hands, spurring him on with thunder and earnesty, pulling Shuichi to him until they’re on top of each other. There’s only so much room sitting sideways so Kaito slides his back against the car wall. Shuichi nestles over top of his lap, running his hands through every corner of Kaito’s hair until he’s moaning back into his lips.

It’s eager but authentic, and a bit poorly done. A few times their teeth knock against each other. Kaito’s hands are clenching Shuichi’s body tight. Shuichi’s are pressing up against his perfectly flattened chest.

They break for air.

“I… wh-”

Kaito flounders for words.

“You…”

“Me,” Shuichi confirms breathlessly.

“You kissed me,” Kaito says, blinking, putting words in order.

“You kissed me too,” the other asserts, reigning Kaito’s brain in.

They both stare for some time, panting breath and thinking hard. Or maybe not at all. Kaito’s face looks blank and lost, until he snickers.

“That... felt really good. Good thing I thought fast and kissed you back, right?”

Shuichi nods and laughs those words back.

“Good thing, good thing… I’d been wanting to do that,” he says, resting his forehead down on Kaito’s shoulder like he’s gotten the hardest thing in the world off his chest.

Pleasure is the only thing in Kaito’s veins now. Raw, boyish pleasure seeps in slow. The feeling of Shuichi’s body close to his doesn’t feel wrong at all. It feels like coming home. Being loved for who you are beyond those scars you see in the mirror, and beyond those body parts you feel you could do without, is coming home.

Kaito perks his voice up.

“For how long?”

Shuichi turns his head, talking into Kaito’s collar.

“A while.”

Kaito tries to look down at him.

“How long’s a while?”

Shuichi shrugs with a jerk.

“Just…! I don’t know, Momota-kun. I’ve… really wanted to be with you for a long time.”

How long of a time? Kaito wants to ask but doesn’t. How long had the two of them done this dance? Shuichi far longer than him, he surmises. Every notion of finding Shuichi attractive had been tossed out on the regular. It’d taken so long for him to come to terms with it, knowing that something was different, something was… strange.

No, not strange. He replaces the word in his head. Something was beautiful, beautiful and different from the way that he looked at girls and the way he looked at boys.

The night before flashes in Kaito’s mind- lying back on his futon with a lovesick grin, sighing like a princess who’s just been engaged, daydreaming about his date the next day. He won it all, didn’t he? Kaito holds Shuichi close to him.

Words are still weird. They aren’t formulating. Kaito sits quiet and lets his thoughts marinate. Shuichi isn’t so patient.

“You… don’t have to be with me,” he says. “If you don’t want-”

“Oi,” Kaito beckons, squeezing Shuichi tighter. “Don’t tell me what I do or don’t have to do.”

The astronaut’s hands, warm with moonlight smooth along Shuichi’s back. The wheel starts moving again.

“No one’s gonna do that anymore,” he says, voice gruff and sure. “I wanna call you my boyfriend.”

Kaito almost can’t believe he’s said it. As it falls out, it feels like he’s finally free. When Shuichi gasps, it’s audible and sweet. His arms lace themselves stronger around the skin of Kaito’s neck, and he giggles, enchantingly.

And Kaito rocks them back and forth as he lets out a sing-song voice.

“I’ve got a cute new boyfriend, I’ve got a cute new boyfriend,” he coos.

Just like that, Shuichi is beaming and smacks his lips against his cheek.

“That’s crazy,” he says. “That’s what I’ve got.”

The ferris wheel brings them down and they maneuver to sit side by side once more. Kaito inspects the car for any cameras, face flushing pinker at the idea of having been caught making out in the middle of the ride. Shuichi traces a heart into the top of Kaito’s hand before picking it up and holding it tight. Tighter than usual, and Kaito turns to him.

“You’ll promise to be yourself, now?”

Kaito’s face becomes neutral. Shuichi brings Kaito’s hand to his chest, letting his fingers brush against the space where the material dips down, where his compressed breasts end and his collarbone begins.

“You’ll let me be there for you?”

The astronaut smiles strangely, eyebrows knitting.

“If that's what you want.”

The other boy shakes his head.

“Tell me that’s what you want for yourself. You have to want to change.”

Knowing that the stars are listening, Kaito can’t disappoint them, himself, or Shuichi ever again. He splays his hand against Shuichi’s chest.

“I do.”

Shuichi’s nose crinkles and he smiles with his whole body.

“Then I’ll never let you down.”