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500,000 subscribers and counting. That’s how many people around the world were on board, so far, with the Phantometrics Youtube channel. Supernatural investigation. Irreverent in tone. Off the beaten path stuff, fueled by local legends and newspaper clippings and microfiche moreso than Google searches. At least, that was the elevator pitch. As co-hosts Shouto Todoroki and Yoarashi Inasa said at the end of every video, though, one quiet and calm, one loud enough to peak the mic levels every single time:
“Your guess is as good as ours!”
The goal was never to figure anything out. It was just to…explore. To chase down anonymous tips given in emails full of typos, or record snippets of oral history from bumpkins with more tattoos than teeth, or show up with no plan in a place with an ominous name and start peeking around empty buildings. That last technique facilitated their most popular video: We Found A Skeleton In a Blockbuster!!! No clickbait there. In a tiny town in Virginia called Devil’s Row, they’d found an honest-to-god pile of bones among the bare shelves of a long-abandoned Blockbuster Video. They were raccoon bones, sure, but Inasa’s shrieked reaction when they realized that a family of live raccoons had taken shelter in the unlocked break room was entertainment enough for anyone who made it past the eight minute mark.
Fun stuff. Weird stuff. Phantometrics didn’t take itself seriously, even when it delved into darker themes. The dynamic between Inasa and Shouto was too odd couple to be anything but incidental comedy. Didn’t matter if they were chasing down a bloodthirsty wendigo in the dead of night in a national forest, something they’d literally done. All that came out their adventures were shaky-cam antics with slowly increasing production value, and stupid catchphrases for fans to latch onto. For example, Shouto’s go-to reaction whenever he was scared shitless, available on a shirt in their web store in 5 different colors:
“Oh.”
So what, exactly, were a couple of knucklehead Youtuber roommates supposed to do with their new footage? 15 hours of it, languishing unedited on a handful of memory cards? Footage that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, even though doubt was Shouto’s second fucking language, that ghosts were absolutely, unequivocally real?
They day after, luggage still gathered in the entryway, Shouto and Inasa sat across from each other in their cramped kitchen. Heads down, jetlagged, shellshocked. Each clutching a brimming mug of coffee, sipping on full autopilot and not saying a goddamn word. Not at first. Not until Shouto fished a crumpled Idaho postcard out of the front pocket of his hoodie and tossed it onto the layered, multi colored scatter of other ones. 35 postcards spread across the table. Each from a different state. Each in far better condition than the newest one.
“Well,” Shouto began, letting out something between a croak and a sigh. His throat and sinuses were still in hell from the sagebrush allergy he’d apparently had all this time, growing up in a city and never having an opportunity to suffer from it. “We earned this one.”
“Sure did...” Inasa dropped his buzzed head into his hands and squeezed, as if to pack back in his recently blown mind. “...I can’t believe it, Shouto!”
“No?” More than a sip now. Shouto took a solid gulp of coffee, tired of being tired. “You’re the one who believed it from the beginning.”
“True, but-!” A goofy grin spread across Inasa’s face. He stood suddenly, slammed his hands flat on the table, bouncing postcards every which way. “Now you believe it, too!” A triumphant fist jab towards the ceiling. “After all this time!”
“Don’t get too excited.” Preventing his coffee from tipping over with one protective hand, Shouto flapped the other one around dismissively. “I’m still on the fence.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Leaning down, Inasa caught Shouto under the armpits and hoisted him out of his chair. Halfway through a Disney princess spin: “We have it all on tape! You said it out loud! Ghosts!” Shouto’s feet dangled six inches off the floor, banging the legs of the table, the side of the fridge. “Are!” Inasa squeezed Shouto breathless with a hug and bellowed, “Reeeeeal!”
“Mothman,” Shouto gasped into the enveloping broadness of Inasa’s chest, appealing to their supernatural “safe word.” It had been decided on by a subscriber poll, and only used once so far in any of their videos, when Inasa started swinging a Civil War-era bayonet towards a furnace that spooked him when it turned on. “Mothman, mothman, dammit-”
“Sorry!” When Inasa replaced Shouto’s feet on the floor, they both had tears in their eyes. Shouto from being choked with affection, Inasa from simple, bright wonderment. “I’m so happy!”
“Yeah, I got that,” Shouto puffed, smoothing his shirt over his collarbone. Sweet, sweet oxygen flowed back into his lungs. “And I don’t mean to ruin this for you, but I never said that ghosts are real.”
A pout now, turning Inasa’s masculine, sun-tanned features childlike. “You did.”
“I absolutely didn’t.”
“You did!”
The back and forth could have gone on for an hour. They were, as always, exactly as stubborn as each other. Instead, Shouto gestured towards the camera bag in a friendly, but obstinate challenge. “Prove it.”
“I will!”
“And while we’re at it, we can rewatch the ghost part. The alleged-” Shouto rushed to qualify, seeing Inasa start to wriggle with excitement like a puppy left alone all day and hearing a door knob turn. “-ghost part. I don’t remember any of it all that well. Because of the...well, you know.”
In grave unison, aware of the killer hangover they had in common, Shouto and Inasa both said, “Moonshine.”
The smaller of their apartment’s two bedrooms was a dedicated editing suite. Dual monitors, tripod-mounted digital camera for intros, walls studded with soundproofing foam. The twin bed sleeping arrangement it forced them into in the remaining room was...fine. They’d met at a summer camp, so it didn’t particularly bother them to drift off side by side in glorified bunks. Downright nostalgic, really. And it’s not like they’d never suffered through a night on one mattress in some godforsaken roadside motel in the Bible belt, lit up by their phone screens, complaining about the bad cell service and brainstorming about their next adventure long into the night.
“Oh, got lucky!” Inasa trilled, seeing he’d chosen the correct memory card on the first try.
Play.
The computer screen on the left filled up with bumpy footage of Shouto trudging into a yawned-deep mineshaft, back to the camera and lit by nothing but a flashlight. He spoke over his shoulder, underscored by both their gravelly footsteps, voice slurred ever so subtly from the homegrown liquor a local farmer had given them. Fer courage, in his lazy twang, as he’d shoved a sealed, sloshing mason jar into Inasa’s waiting hand.
“As far as we know,” Shouto began, “The Placerville mine hasn’t been entered since 1899, when a fire destroyed the surrounding town.”
“Ohoho!” Inasa hooted from behind the camera. He came through crisp and loud, so close to the microphone that the rhythm of his breaths was unmistakable. “We’re breaking it in again, huh, Shouto?!”
“I mean, I hope we don’t break anything.” Shouto tapped one sagging timber support, wincing at the soil that rained down from it. “The tunnel...our bones…”
“Momentum-!” A sneakered shoe crept into frame and tapped Shouto’s butt through his jeans.
“Oh.” When he whipped around, Shouto’s eyes were wild in two colors, washed out by the harsh light. “Keep it down.”
“Wh-why!” Excitement crept into Inasa’s voice. “Did you hear something?”
“No. Just don’t want you causing an avalanche.”
“Dirt-valanche.”
“Haaaa.” Shouto laughed without joy, speeding up his strides. “Sounds like someone’s name.”
“Dirt...no, Dirk Valanche!”
“Private eye.”
Pause.
“Yeah, can we skip forward a bit?” Back in the editing room, Shouto tapped the keyboard and reached across Inasa’s arms to fiddle with the mouse. “I do remember this part. We spent ten minutes coming up with Dirk Valanche’s back story.”
“Poor guy was one day from retirement when it all went wrong-!” Inasa peeled Shouto’s hand off the mouse and recaptured it, ever territorial about the equipment he’d invested far more money in than his co-host. “I’ll find the part with the elevator. I think that’s when we finally remembered to explain the, uh…the...” He dragged the video progress bar to a random later timestamp. “...muh-...”
“Murder. There, I said it for you.”
“Shouto! Scary!”
“Double murder. Crazy prospector. Pick-axe.”
“Shoutooo-!” Inasa whined now, eyes darting around with vague paranoia. “Stop! What if-”
“What if the ghost of a double murderer from 1860s Idaho followed us to Los Angeles?”
“Stranger things have happened!”
“They literally haven’t.”
“Oh yeah?!” Choosing a thumbnail frame, Inasa restarted the video. “How’s this for strange?”
Play.
The shot was an almost exact downward angle on the crown of Shouto’s hair, because he was actively hugging Inasa around the middle. Really going for it, face smooshed against the closure of Inasa’s windbreaker so hard he might as well have been trying to crawl inside.
“This was such a bad ideaaa.” A drawn out, drunken syllable, followed by an organically well-timed hiccup from Shouto. All muffled in the rustling fabric at Inasa’s chest. “Edit this part out.”
Pause.
“First of all, I was cold-” Shouto rushed to save face, but Inasa was cackling over him already. “-not scared.”
“You never hug me because you’re scared, Shouto!” Clapping a friendly hand onto Shouto’s shoulder, Inasa leaned in towards his ear. Not loudly, for once, just low and teasing: “You hug me because you want a hug.”
He was stone-sober now, but Shouto’s face lit up even pinker than it looked in the video. “That’s the last hug you’re ever getting.”
“Noooo!” Inasa looked genuinely mortified, in much the same way he did when Shouto said something blasphemous towards the dead, or tried to antagonize an unseen spirit. “You don’t mean that!”
“Well...fine,” Softening, even as he rolled his eyes. “Last hug on camera.”
“Already out of the final cut, Shouto! Say no more!”
“Good.” He patted Inasa’s hand over the mouse. “The comment section already has enough speculation about our...relationship.”
“Ahh, a symptom of good chemistry!”
“...sure,” Shouto responded. As in all things, though, he wasn’t quite convinced. Whatever there was between them…? It was one-sided. Before he zoned out looking at Inasa in profile, Shouto shook his head to clear it.
Play.
In the mineshaft, they’d reached the elevator. It filled the end of an off-shooting tunnel, little more than a rough square hole in the ground, eroded more circular by age and disuse. A column of frayed metal cords hung down the middle, the walls of the shaft caged in by what looked like rusted-out chicken wire and sloping straight down into the dark. A narrow enough space that two people couldn’t have stood on the platform without touching...not that the platform existed anymore. It was wood, and wood was always the first thing to rot away. They’d learned that lesson well, Inasa’s leg having gone through the floor of one too many attics.
“How deep do you think it goes?” Shouto asked, somewhere between nervous and rhetorical. He was keeping a respectful distance from the edge of the hole.
Inasa was too eager to be careful, picking up a pebble and bounding forward. He tossed it down the shaft with a bright “hup!”
For what seemed like a minute, they stayed silent, waiting to hear the rock hit the bottom. It didn’t.
“Well, we found it,” With a casual lean onto the wall, a look straight to camera, Shouto continued. “A tunnel to hell.”
“Don’t go there, Shouto-” Inasa warned, camera going lopsided as he searched for another pebble. “Besides, we’re not here to find demons. Take two!” Once thrown, the second pebble didn’t make any more noise than the first. “Ah, shit.”
“Satan caught it.”
“Ha!” A bark of laughter so sharp and fast it could only be fake. Inasa tipped the camera to capture the darkness of the elevator shaft. It was inky and thick as velvet, bits of dust floating in the stale air seeming to get sucked down and swallowed in it. “To think people used to come up and down this thing every day. Had to be terrifying! Or maybe they were bored with it. It was kind of their morning commute, hm?”
“Yeah, and it was better lit back then. See those lantern sconces?” The frame slid up to the seam between the wall and the ceiling, where metal loops were studded into the wall every few feet.
“Cozy!” Inasa theorized. With a snort, taking off his backpack and ditching it, Shouto tagged up:
“Cozy.”
An quick overhead stretch, a hummed vocal warm-up, and Shouto squared off with the camera. He flashed the reflective strip around his cuff in a makeshift slate and began.
“Mineshaft Murders intro, take one. Inasa, remember to come up with some stupid Minecraft pun for the title. Ahem.”
“Roger! Action!”
Knowing that a cheesy, overproduced intro would precede him in the posted video, Shouto launched right in.
“This week on Phantometrics, we investigate an abandoned gold mine outside an Iowa ghost town-”
“Idaho.”
“Shit. Moonshine. Mineshaft Murders intro, take two.”
“Action!”
“This week on Phantometrics, we investigate an abandoned gold mine outside an Idaho ghost town. In 1866, at the height of the gold rush, two enterprising young men from Maryland travelled West to seek their fortunes. Less than a year later, they were dead. Brutally murdered by rival miner over an amount of gold that, adjusted for inflation, would be worth around a thousand dollars today. Their bodies were thrown down this very elevator shaft.” Shouto gestured towards it, trying not to look too spokesmodel, “Local legend says their screams come out of it every sunrise, not that you can see the sun down here. To test the veracity of those stories, we’re spending the night at the scene of the crime.”
“If these ghosts have anything to say,” Inasa interrupted, as he often did when Shouto was on a roll. “They can say it to Youtube!”
“Right. Cut?”
“Cut!”
Pause.
“They didn’t say anything, now that I think about it…” Inasa mused, toggling the video window with a hot key. “Just kinda showed up.”
“We were probably hallucinating.” Though he was running out of things to blame on it, Shouto yet again appealed to: “Moonshine. Seeing things isn’t uncommon when you're drinking…hooch.. Surprised we didn’t get poisoned.”
“You’re the one who started drinking it again!”
“Was not.”
A corner of Inasa’s mouth and one of his eyebrows raised at the same time, on the same side. He restarted the video.
Play.
“Inasa, get this jar open for me, I want another shot. Last one made my gums go numb-”
Pause.
“Trying to rewrite history never works, Shouto!” Inasa preached with all the smug confidence of someone who just won an argument. “You of all people should know that! There’s always a primary source!”
“Fine. I started it. But I needed to take the edge off, because I was…”
“Scared!” An enthusiastic guess, and Inasa leaned in closer to Shouto with every subsequent one. “Nervous! Getting a bad feeling! Um...finally seeing the error of your ways!”
“Bored,” Shouto stated flatly, planting his palm over Inasa’s face and pushing him away. “Us being drunk doesn’t change anything. If what we saw was real, it wouldn’t be camera-shy. Skip forward again.”
“To the good part…” Reverence in his eyes, Inasa dragged the progress bar to the last few minutes of the mineshaft footage. Time stamp, around 6:20 am. Sunrise. Ish.
Play.
At first, all that was visible was two blanket-covered lumps with shoes. One smaller, and shivering, one hulking in the foreground and snoring so loud the camera frame shook.
“Oh, no!” At the computer, Inasa’s cheeks flared with embarrassment. “Do I snore that loud all the time, Shouto?!”
“Every single night.”
“I’m sorry!”
“I should be apologizing...that was my shift to be awake.” Cringing, Shouto scratched the back of his head. “Guess I passed out.”
“I forgive you!”
“Thanks. Shh. Watch.”
Minutes of footage passed with no real change. Just little shifts in their sleep, an adjusted blanket, an ambient dripping noise.
Then, suddenly, Shouto’s blanket was whipped up and off of him by invisible hands. It floated in midair above him, then kited away as if on the wind.
“Holy shit,” Shouto said, tapping the monitor like Inasa had scolded him for doing a thousand times. “Did that just-”
In a rush of reflexive joy, Inasa hopped out of his desk chair so fast it took wild spin across the room. “Hooo-oooo!” He grasped the neckline of his shirt and pulled in opposite directions, a Spartan scream spilling out of him as it ripped halfway to his navel. “Ghoooooost!”
“Inasa, for fuck’s sake- just watch!” Shouto snapped and yanked Inasa back to the monitor by the wrist. Not losing his cool, because there was no cool to be had anymore. Post-production couldn’t explain what he’d just seen, what he replayed five times before letting the recording continue. The footage was raw and taken less than 24 hours before. “How…?” He asked in a voice as weak and vague as his understanding of what the hell was going on. “....how?”
“Shouto look, looklook!” Hypocritical and not caring one bit, Inasa poked his index fingertip to the screen. Followed an icy wisp of white that swirled around Shouto’s prone form and settled on him like a fogbank. His shivering intensified, and in his sleep he thrashed over to face Inasa, waving an unconscious hand and breaking up the mysterious cloud until it dissolved back into the darkness.
Flopping to the ground, Shouto’s hand searched around for his stolen covers. It crawled forward, clumsy, impatient, until it found the corner of Inasa’s blanket.
“...’nasa,” he mumbled, screwing his eyes shut even tighter and scooting forward. He lifted the blanket, flopped over and ducked in like a scared bunny into a hole in the grass. “...heyyy.”
Inasa’s snoring hitched, paused...then came roaring back.
“Hmph,” Shouto huffed, petulant in his half-awake, drunken state. He thrashed closer, until his chest was flush with Inasa’s back. Proportionally, the world’s smallest big spoon. One arm and one leg slung over Inasa’s side, and now Inasa woke up with a startle.
“Shouto? Whazzat…”
“I’m cold.” His limbs all clenched around Inasa at once, a full-body hug, a horizontal koala. “You’re warm.”
“Shouto, oh my God!” Inasa rocketed Shouto back in the present, back to the computer, where he was clutching at his bare chest as if to stave off a heart attack, “Since when are you adorable!”
“Skip forward-” Shouto dove for the mouse, but Inasa predicted his movement and blocked him with one big, solid arm. He scrabbled around it until Inasa captured both of his wrists, locking him in a powerless surrender. “Dammit, Inasa-”
“Let me have this, Shouto!” Practically pleading, then literally begging, Inasa got down on his knees. “If you’re not going to admit that we saw a ghost, at least admit that you like hugging me!”
“Is that really a good trade for you?” Teeth gritted, Shouto tried to fight out of Inasa’s grip. No use. The hold on his wrists only let up when Inasa dropped them voluntarily, then captured him around the waist in a desperate embrace.
“It’s better than nothing!” Inasa shouted, chin propped on Shouto’s belt buckle. “Please!”
“Arrrgh,” Shouto rapped the butt of his fist on the top of Inasa’s head. “Fine, I’ll-”
Though they’d gotten distracted from it, the footage had continued playing throughout their entire spat. And now some soft, telltale…wet sounds were coming out of the computer speakers. Shouto and Inasa turned their heads slowly, simultaneously-
-to watch close-up video of themselves tangled in the blanket, face to face now, making out like it was going out of style. The cinematography, accidental or not, was pretty beautiful. In frame but off-center. Catching the subtle upturn of Shouto’s jaw as he kissed Inasa harder, deeper. The way the tendons of Inasa’s big hand flexed and let go when he delved his fingers into Shouto’s hair. Pink flashing in the seam between their mouths. To say nothing of the noises, soft coos and yeahs and mmms. Inasa kept whispering “Shouto” over and over, the only word Shouto had ever heard Inasa whisper, now that he thought about it-
“Uh,” Eyes wide, looking up at Shouto from where he knelt open-shirted in front of the computer desk, Inasa swallowed. “...Did a ghost just wingman me?”
Before Shouto could answer, or process, or push Inasa away, or pull him in for a damn round two, or scream “Moonshine!” to the rafters, a high, almost feminine “eeeeeeeeeeek!” crackled out of the speakers.
They’d reached, as Inasa described it, the good part.
Onscreen and sideways, because Inasa had kicked the camera over in a panic, total mayhem. An almost opaque human figure was dripping white out of the wall, birthed headfirst out of the dirt between two planks. It swiped at Shouto and caught him on the ankle, only for its outstretched hand to scatter like mist. “Oh,” Shouto remarked, gathering what belongings he could scoop up in a single armful and struggling to his feet. His lips were parted a bright pink from the kiss. The rest of his face was as pale as the ghost still advancing on him. “Oh.”
Inasa shrieked again, crescendoing as he picked up the camera and turned it to the opposite wall. A second spirit was crawling into view, this time from the level of the lantern sconces, which lit up suddenly in two rows down the entire length of the tunnel with blue, ghostly flame. The elevator cords started moving, slowly then faster then so fast the spinning sheave became a blur, sparks flicked off of it and into the empty shaft. The hole glowed blue and vibrated with energy, bowing heat outward. Something was rising out of the depths. Whatever it was? It was on fire too.
“Run, Shouto!” Inasa yelled, the frame shaking like an earthquake, turning the flames overhead into electric streaks.
“Holy shit, holy shit-” Shouto’s voice, out of breath somewhere behind the camera but gaining, getting clearer, “Ghosts are r-”
The screen went black, and the editing suite didn’t need soundproofing to be dead silent.
Until Inasa stood, foot by trembling foot, and pointed accusingly at the blank monitor.
“Did a ghost just cockblock me?”
----
It made sense to end up back in the kitchen sitting across from each other, even in Shouto’s jumbled up brain where nothing else did anymore. It’s where all of their debriefs happened. One for every trip, one for every time they’d gone after trouble and failed to find it and put out a video anyway. Just another meeting. Except now the coffee had gone cold, and their feet kept touching under the table, and neither of them knew where to start.
“Uh-!” Inasa finally ventured, knitting his hands together and dropping them to the postcard pile. With a thumb twiddle, a bit lip: “Guess we have a lot to talk about!”
“Do we?” Hedging, Shouto shrugged and looked at the fridge. Wished there was something pressing to distract him, instead of just a shared shopping list with “detergent” at the top. “I mean...it’s all on tape. Clear as day.”
“Should we even release the episode? It’s the kind of thing our subscribers have always wanted to see...but they wouldn’t believe it if they actually did.”
“Right, right...maybe they’d think they were getting baited. Let’s sit on it for a bit. Figure out how to handle it. A hiatus is better than a scandal.”
“Between the two of us, though! I don’t want to sweep it under the rug.”
“Yeah, yeah….can’t deny it happened.”
“...Do you wish it hadn’t?” The insecure pause before Inasa’s question almost broke Shouto’s heart.
“Of course not, it’s just-” Sighing, rolling his neck back around to meet Inasa’s eyes, Shouto struggled to explain. “...it’s scary to know it all of a sudden. To admit it to myself...way scarier than anything we’ve filmed. But maybe I always knew it was real. Maybe I wanted it to be. Too much. For too long. And that’s why I couldn’t trust my senses.”
“Mmhmm!” Nodding with vigorous agreement, Inasa laid a palm face up on the table. Shouto hesitated, then made up for it by dropping his hand onto Inasa’s. Visiting a little pat upon it. A small affection, but the most Shouto could muster in that surreal limbo between things they knew and things they hadn’t spoken.
“Oh,” Shouto realized. The tiniest smile teased over his lips. “I still haven’t said it out loud.”
“Hmm...guess not!” Inasa matched Shouto’s smile, grew it to full size. “The video cut off! Found another loophole, huh, Shouto?”
“Yeah. Should I, though? Say it? Does it matter?”
“If you want,” Inasa laughed with slumped shoulders. “I won’t beg!”
“Okay...” A big breath in, a big breath out. “I’ll say it.”
“Ahhh!” Inasa gave Shouto’s hand a destructive squeeze, black eyes glinting like coal under lamplight. “I’ve waited so long! This is the best-”
“I like you.”
A pause. The ice machine turned over noisily in the freezer. Inasa’s mouth popped open and stayed there.
“Wait…” Understanding dawned on Shouto. The blush down to his collarbone was just a chaser. “...you thought I was talking about the ghosts.”
“Ah!” Inasa regained control over the bottom half of his face. “True! I did, but-!”
“God, I’m sorry, I-” Cheeks burning dark crimson, Shouto planned an escaped route. If he could launch out of his chair towards the front door, he could get out before Inasa’s pity kicked in. Maybe they could even pretend he never said anything. Or maybe he could sprint towards the hallway instead. Bust into the editing room and swallow the memory card like the bitter fucking pill that it was.
But in the end, Shouto didn’t have the chance to execute any evasive maneuvers. Because Inasa’s heavy, gentle hand stole across the table to grasp his forearm.
“Shouto! Please don’t worry!” Across the table, a pile of 50 cent postcards. A million dollar smile. A priceless moment of mutual, brand-new understanding. Shouto’s whole world was laid out in front of him, and he melted, vulnerable, under a flood of Inasa’s sweet reassurances. “I like you too, Shouto! I’ve liked you for years! Liked you forever, holy- I mean-” A swell of conviction, a swell in volume. “The whole time I’ve known you! You’re amazing! And smart, and cool, and, aww hell, gorgeous, I just never tried to-! Um, I mean…!” Now Inasa’s voice got small, and his posture shrank back to meet his chair again. “...it’s so hard to convince you of things. I was afraid of getting turned down, or ruining what we’d built together. Not even the channel, I mean our friendship- mmm!”
Faster than they’d bolted for their dear lives out of a haunted mineshaft, like the moment was playing at 1.5 speed, Shouto stood and darted around the table. All to capture Inasa’s babbling mouth in a decisive, slammed-home kiss. He used the shredded halves of Inasa’s shirt to drag him up and hold him close. Pouring out years of selfish, secretive pining into a very, very generous meeting of their mouths, Shouto tonguing down, Inasa tonguing up. They separated reluctantly, briefly, for long enough for Shouto to straddle Inasa’s lap and sweep a colorful waterfall of flimsy souvenirs off the table, to the linoleum floor. He gripped the edge of the table for leverage and dipped back down to Inasa’s lips.
“Want you...” Shouto half-growled, nipping in another kiss.
“Scary!” A thrilled whisper as Inasa walked his fingers under Shouto’s shirt, up his bare back.
“Not as scary as ghosts.”
“You believe in them now?”
Between two messy, long-overdue kisses, Shouto chuckled. “On the fence.”
“Nngh!” Surging out of his chair and depositing Shouto face-up on the kitchen table, Inasa mouthed down his neck. “Shut up.”
“Ooh…” The dominant ambition in Inasa’s command made Shouto shiver and suck his bottom lip under his teeth. Here he was, again, and always. Inasa. That single minded partner he’d built his life and burgeoning career alongside. The guy who never met an urban legend he didn’t like, yet remained fearless. Six foot something. Twenty something. Everything. Before his mouth got busy again, and stayed that way for awhile, Shouto murmured against Inasa’s jaw. “We’re still friends, ok?”
“What else are we?” Nuzzling sideways into Shouto’s soft cheek, roughly 15 hours of stubble scraping between then, Inasa ventured, “Roommates, co-hosts…” His fingers hooked over the top of Shouto’s jeans. “...fuck-buddies?”
Though the most sentimental recesses of his mind begged him to skip a thousand steps, to shout boyfriends!, all Shouto did was steal a hand around the close-cropped nape of Inasa’s neck and pull him down for another kiss.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
----