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The first time Yuu acted weird was when he was 8.
Guren had been taking care of the kid since they adopted him three years ago. Yuu was loud, obnoxious, quick to anger, and was fast to react to anything he didn’t like with his fists. Guren had no idea why they had chosen that brat when there were cuter kids around, but Shinya had insisted, saying that Yuu was like a small version of Guren.
How were they even similar, he couldn’t say.
But Shinya had been unyielding. And had babbled about Yuu day in and day out until Guren had to relent, else his ears fell out.
So far things had been predictable. Yuu would wake up, try to fight Guren and then he would sulk when he wouldn’t be able to land a single punch while he ate his breakfast. He then would go to school and Guren would have some hours of peace. But then Yuu would come back from school with a fighting roar, scream obscenities at Guren until he was bribed with sweets or snacks, and then Shinya would finally come home to smooth things out.
But one day Yuu came home without screaming, and just quietly and quickly locked himself in his room. Guren had frowned from where he had been working—the perks of his job was that he could work from the comfort of his home in his pajamas— and had decided to check on the brat.
While he was grateful that there was no attack to his person, he had to admit he was creeped out by how Yuu acted.
He quietly went to Yuu’s room and pressed his ear to the door. For a few seconds it was totally quiet, until there was a high and happy squeak that almost gave Guren a heart attack.
What the fuck.
He guessed that normal parents would knock on the door and ask their kid if they were okay. But unfortunately, Guren wasn’t a normal parent, so he just shrugged and went on with his day pretending that he had heard nothing.
Of course, Guren waited until Yuu had gone to school the next day to creep into the brat’s room. He didn’t have to look around for long to find the cause of Yuu’s bizarre behavior and he raised an eyebrow at what he found.
It was a kid’s doodle of what was obviously Yuu, holding hands with a blond kid. Both of the kids were smiling widely and there were some meaningful hearts drawn above them.
Ah, of course.
He guessed that this had been drawn by Mika, the overly happy kid who clung to Yuu like glue no matter how loud Yuu screamed his little brains out whenever the blond tackled his brat in a hug. Most likely Mika had drawn it and gave it to Yuu as a gift, who must have pretended to hate it but took it home nevertheless and had been secretly thrilled, if the fact that Guren found the drawing in Yuu’s “box of treasures”—his words, not Guren’s— had something to say about the matter.
Guren sighed at how stupid and childish Yuu was being—then again, Yuu was a child— and returned the drawing to where he found it.
At least he was going to save Yuu’s pride and keep it a secret from Shinya, who he knew would gush like crazy and then frame the picture, to then boast about young love to anyone who wanted to listen.
Why did it feel like he was taking care of two kids instead of one sometimes, he wondered with a sigh.
Yuu had, to Guren’s mild surprise, taken up drawing.
At first they were stick figures that Shinya would stick to the fridge. Whether he did that because he was proud of Yuu or because he wanted to piss off Guren because he was clearly not in the drawing, Guren couldn’t say. And the times he was drawn, it was with demon’s horns hissing through a snake tongue, or simply comically dead with two big ‘X’s instead of eyes.
He sometimes felt a vein popping in his head when Shinya would laugh and cherish those drawings, taking pictures and using them as his home screen. The Hiiragi would then wipe some tears off his eyes and sense Guren’s bad mood to smirk knowingly.
“Oh〜Is someone jealous? I can’t believe that even lil’ Mika got into the picture but not you, you big baby.”
And that was what pissed Guren the most.
The fact that Yuu’s “family” was always Shinya, Mika, and himself. Guren not included.
Yuu would never acknowledge the fact that Guren was missing in his doodles. And Guren was prideful enough to not say anything about it.
When Yuu’s drawing skills improved drastically throughout the years, Guren started to feel a pang of regret that had nothing to do with the fact that Yuu only once doodled the three of them, with him alive and normal, although he had been skeptical of the weird clothing combination Yuu had drawn him into.
(Shinya had giggled and wiggled his eyebrows in a very suggestive way, and Guren was not surprised when Shinya had barged home the next day with a French maid costume. Thank Gods that Yuu was at Mika’s that day, because even he didn’t want to scar the brat so early on.)
Yuu had gotten into an age where kids don’t draw their family anymore, and Guren wondered if Yuu would ever get to draw him normally one day.
Hell, all Yuu drew those days was anime, and Guren cringed thinking of the future. Yuu was only 12, and Guren hoped his brat got out of that nerdy phase soon.
While it was a daily occurrence for Mika to visit their household, Guren had more or less gotten used to the boys getting rowdy and loud in Yuu’s bedroom, no matter that they were already 14 and they were no longer children.
So he was really confused when the two boys had been silent and quiet for more than half an hour.
Guren frowned, and while he should have been glad he didn’t have to suffer another migraine, Shinya’s advice to try to be a better and responsible parent echoed in his ears, so he sighed and went to check on them, God forbid the boys had knocked each other out in a childish brawl and were now dead in his house.
He opened the door without knocking first—he had to remind the kids that this was his house and was still the parent here—and he didn’t know why he was shocked to find Mika sitting quietly on a chair while Yuu drew him.
Mika smiled and waved at his direction briefly before returning to his previous position, while Yuu completely ignored him or didn’t even register that his adoptive dad came to check on him. He seemed really concentrated staring at Mika, and Guren suddenly wasn’t sure if this was normal for Yuu or if it was a first, even considering all the time the boys spent together.
Shinya would have awed, still convinced that Mika and Yuu were going to end up married.
Guren could only back out slowly, unexpectedly feeling like he was intruding in something he shouldn’t stick his nose in.
The first hint that something was amiss should have been the copious amount of yellow and blue oil that Yuu purchased for his paintings, but somehow Guren had overlooked that detail, thinking that Yuu must really like those two colors.
The second hint should have been the long and meaningful stares that Yuu gave Mika, but Guren had scratched that off as Yuu being an airhead as usual.
The third hint should have been when Yuu sometimes came back giddier than usual, showing off—mainly to Shinya—a drawing that Mika had made and had given him as a gift. Guren had feigned going to the kitchen to drink some water so he could take a peak, and would roll his eyes every time that he saw another doodle of Mika and Yuu together, usually holding hands.
The fourth hint should have been when Shinya finally introduced Shinoa to Mika and Yuu, and Yuu had practically glared at the girl, growled and snatched Mika away from her curious eyes. Guren had hit him—lightly, mind you—in the head for being rude, but instead of starting another argument with his father, Yuu just glared at him and then took Mika’s hand to take him away, promptly locking themselves in his room.
Guren had lamented that Yuu hadn’t even given Shinoa a second glance that night, because it was high time that Yuu had gotten himself a girlfriend and Shinoa seemed like a nice choice. Shinya had given him a deadpan look that Guren hadn’t understood at the time, but now everything seemed to fall into place.
Looking back now, Guren had to admit he had been quite stupid for having missed the signs.
And now he had to awkwardly watch how his teenage soon was having a seemingly existential crisis because he couldn’t capture Mika’s ‘perfect, angelical, mind-blowing’ existence in a portrait.
He sighed; partly because now he owed Shinya money, partly because hormonal teenagers are a pain in the ass and like to blow everything out of proportion, and partly because even years after adopting Yuu, he still sucked at showing him that he cared and would always be there for him.
Guren patted Yuu affectively in the head, hoping that that would make the trick.
It didn’t. Yuu screamed and kicked him out of his room.
What the hell.
But Guren could now hear through the door how Yuu was calling Mika and freaking out because ‘it seems that fucking Guren got sick because he got affectionate.’
Oh well. At least Yuu wasn’t having a crisis because of his freaking crush anymore.
Now that Guren’s eyes had opened, there were a lot of things he had started to notice.
Yuu was constantly drawing Mika. Sometimes it was a sleeping Mika, sometimes it was Mika smiling, sometimes it was Mika looking away at the distance. But it was always the blond that Yuu drew. He would start painting some foliage, and next thing Guren knew was that there was a painting of Mika playing with some fallen leaves. Whether Yuu was conscious or not of this, Guren could not say.
Mika and Yuu would also always stay closely together: hands brushing, feet kicking the others’ playfully, leaning into the other’s shoulder when they were seated close. They could never keep their hands off the other.
And the stares. Those longingly gazes and warm smiles when they thought the other wasn’t looking.
Guren didn’t know whether to barf from all the sweetness in the air or join Shinya in teasing the two boys, gushing about how cute they were together.
Mika and Yuu just blushed comically each time and averted each other’s gazes for a while, and that’s the first time that Guren realized after seeing the light that the teens could keep on fidgeting around for hours if he didn’t do something that annoyed the hell out of Yuu. Guren had always loved to tease Yuu and he used to smirk annoyingly whenever Yuu got flustered, but now that he kept quiet, wanting to know what was going to happen next, he found out that Mika and Yuu would not really move and act really awkward.
“Aw〜Young love! I guess in this you and Yuu are not similar,” started Shinya. “Remember our high school days? Those were good times!”
“How did you two get together?” asked Mika quickly, most likely trying to break the tense situation he was in with Yuu.
Normally Guren would glare at Shinya to keep quiet, but he guessed that little sacrifices were necessary sometimes. He could just need to demand Shinya to ride him later as compensation.
“Guren here was so heartless! He would try to act like the bad boy and he even ignored me when I tried to become his friend!”
“So… what did you do?” asked Yuu, all three of them ignoring how Guren had stepped on Shinya’s foot as a warning.
“He wouldn’t go away and talked non-stop all day, so I was forced to talk to him to make him shut up,” replied Guren quickly, before Shinya said something ridiculous that would taint his reputation.
“And… how did you end up together?” Mika seemed nervous to ask, slumping down on the sofa a little, and Guren had a feeling that the teen was trying to get ideas from them.
Shinya gloated at the question and opened his mouth to answer, but Guren, already feeling the advent of his doom, held his husband’s mouth with one hand so he couldn’t talk and embarrass him.
“This bastard faked his own kidnapping and death.”
Yuu and Mika frowned and looked at each other in confusion.
Unfortunately, Shinya used the opportunity when Guren was distracted by the two teens to lick free of Guren’s hold in his mouth and smirk at his husband’s disgusted face.
“Guren here cried and screamed so much about regretting not being closer to me that I couldn’t help but laugh, and voilà! We were a couple!”
Oh my God. He couldn’t believe that Shinya had just done that.
Guren was definitely tying the little shit to the bed this night. And the cock ring was also getting out of the drawer, for sure.
He was so focused on glaring at Shinya and thinking what kind of punishment he could deliver to his lover later that night that he missed the way Mika shivered in mild disgust and how Yuu’s first reaction upon seeing that was to sit straight and put a comforting hand on Mika’s arm.
“Mika, I’ll never ever do that to you,” he pleaded almost desperately. “No matter how bad I wish I could hear you say that you love me as much as I love you, I—”
Shinya and Mika had gasped at the same time, and Shinya, sensing that Guren had missed everything, slapped him in the arm and pointed at the two teens discretely, before getting up and dragging Guren away with him.
But this was Shinya, so of course they didn’t go far. Just far enough so Mika and Yuu would think they weren’t there but close enough to witness what Shinya had preached about since the boys were 8.
Yuu was gaping like an idiot—why was it so funny, this wasn’t the best timing to snort and Guren had to summon all his willpower to keep quiet—, seemingly realizing what he had just blurted out, and of course Mika had noticed his slip. They were both red to their ears, and the silence was deafening.
Until Mika slowly held Yuu’s hands in his, and leaned forward to whisper something in his ear.
Shinya almost groaned audibly and Guren slapped him quietly.
Yuu squeaked and tackled Mika into a tight hug, both teens giggling into the sofa and nuzzling each other.
Shinya awed. Guren facepalmed.
Well, at least he wouldn’t have to witness more longing stares, meaningful sighs, and a really expensive water bill.
Guren stared at the childish drawing of two boys holding hands with pink hearts above them, now openly framed in Yuu’s room, feeling how it had been only yesterday when Yuu had come back home excited about Mika drawing them together. He then glanced the drawing framed next to it: this one was Yuu’s, a very realistic portrait of Mika and Yuu holding hands, sans the hearts. But everything else screamed about their love: the way they looked and smiled at each other, how they leaned into the other’s space, how open and relaxed and happy they looked.
Funny how things changed but were the same 10 years later.
Behind him, Yuu was packing his things. He had been accepted at a university in Tokyo, and of course Mika was also going there with him, sharing an apartment. Guren didn’t feel like turning back, for he was still not ready for Yuu to leave the nest, and to avoid staring at Yuu’s very noticeable hickey—Guren really didn’t want to think of the ones that were hidden underneath his brat’s clothes, because he was sure that there would be several littering his body.
Kinky kids.
“Guren〜” called Yuu with annoyance clearly expressed in his voice.
Hell, he would be annoyed too if your father had offered to help you pack but was not moving a muscle.
But Guren supposed that this was how things were supposed to go.
So he sighed, and turned to help Yuu.
Yuu was going to be okay. Mika was there with him, and Guren smiled thinking that the next framed picture would be one of the wedding of an overly happy kid with his surly brat.
Yeah, things were going to be okay.