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Ryuuji first noticed it on the day that Moriyama had been out sick. It wasn’t unusual for this time of year, spring brought out all sorts of allergic reactions in everyone, and Moriyama appeared to be no exception. Rin and Yukio seemed relatively unaffected, but chances were that could be owed to their demon heritage.
Izumo had asked the instructor a question about the recent surge in demon activity in rural areas, when a grating screech interrupted her. All heads turned towards the middle front row, where Rin sat, shoulders slouched, and clearly uncomfortable.
“Uh… sorry,” Rin mumbled. He crossed his arms on the desk in front of him, and set his chin on them, as if sulking.
The instructor turned back to Izumo, an answer on her lips, but Ryuuji continued to stare at Rin. Rin looked to be a mixture of uncomfortable, angry, and stressed, but Ryuuji couldn’t figure out why. As far as he could tell, nothing had happened earlier in the day that could invoke such emotions, and he was sure the Moriyamas absence wouldn’t cause Rin to sulk like a child.
“Dude,” Shima whispered from beside him. “Stop oogling your boyfriend. You’re being kinda obvious.”
“I wasn’t oogling him,” Ryuuji grumbles, but he can feel heat rising to his traitorous cheeks any way.
Shima snorts, but doesn't say anything more.
--
The lesson went on, dull, but informative. Rin never raised his head from his arms, except to occasionally stare at the clock at the back of the room, but otherwise, he was unusually subdued.
When the bell rang, signaling the end of the class, Rin jumped up, and strolled over to Ryuuji’s table, his tail swaying behind him.
“Are you wearing some new cologne or something, Okumura?” Shima asks, and Ruuji almost stupid for not throttling the pinkette earlier. So much grief could have been avoided. A confused look passed over Rin’s face.
“Aha, uh, no? Why?” Rin asks, and Ryuuji mentally takes note of Rin’s fingers idly twisting a small red ribbon.
“It’s because your boyfriend couldn’t take his eyes off you the whole lesson,” Izumo says, and the way she enunciated Ryuuji’s status in Rin’s life makes it almost an insult. Almost.
Pink dusts Rin’s cheeks, but he doesn’t do more than sputter something incoherent. Shima leans into Ryuuji’s side, mimicking the position he so often found Rin in, when the two were together.
“I think you got sweet Bon here all hot and bothered,” he croons, and Ryuuji pushes him away, willing Shima’s laughter to choke his fellow exwire. His prayers, tragically, go unanswered.
Ryuuji grabs Rin’s hand, slotting their fingers together, and stalks out of the classroom, to the jeers of his friends. Rin manages to keep up with Ruuji’s pace, to his credit, and whatever mood that had overtaken Rin earlier seemed to have passed, so Ryuuji considered it a win. A lack of stimulation, and the inability to actually interact with his classmates was probably the answer, as it so often was with Rin.
Together, hand in hand, the two made their way to Demon Pharmaceutics.
--
Demon Pharmaceutics was as lively as ever, with Rin immediately insulting Yukio to his face, moments after entering the classroom. Somehow, Izumo had managed to get here before the couple, and Ryuuji cursed her punctuality.
Yukio responded to whatever it was that Rin said, resulting in an argument between the two, but it was all white noise to Ryuuji. If ever a day went by where the twins didn’t bicker, then he would worry, but that has yet to actually happen so Ryuuji considers himself lucky.
Ryuuji dropped Rin’s hand, and shuffled over to his seat, as the rest of the exwires drifted in, but Rin seemed to barely notice, too intent on popping the vein on Yukio’s temple that had begun to make an appearance. Before Rin could succeed however, the bell rang, signaling the start of the period. Yukio led to Rin to his desk, both hands on his shoulders, pushing from the back, as if Rin had suddenly become directionally challenged, and needed the assistance.
It struck Ryuuji, mostly because it was something he never noticed before. It was certainly a thing , whatever that thing was, but he couldn’t quite put a name on it.
Ryuuji watched, trying to not be too obvious, as Rin took his seat, and turned to where Moriyama normally sat, his mouth already forming some half-throughout joke, but he stilled when the empty seat next to him registered as an empty seat. Rin crossed his arms on his desk, and rested his head on them, just like he had last period. Ryuuji watched Rin’s tail wrap around the leg of Moriyama’s chair, and then the realization hit Ryuuji like Kuro in his enlarged form.
It was one of those things so routine and normalized, Ryuuji had stopped noticing it. It was just another of Okumura's quirks, manifesting so often that Ryuuji failed to even notice it. But now, with that routine broken, it was almost hard to not notice. The Okumura twins were touchy, clingy bastards.
Ryuuji had more data on Rin than he did Yukio, and he wasn’t ever sure the shoulder thing from earlier counted, that could’ve just been a sibling thing, but Ryuuji doubted it. Something in the back of his mind told him it was relevant, and he was inclined to agree. All too sudden, Ryuuji’s train of thought was broken, as Shima’s bony elbow plunged into his ribs.
“Mr. Suguro? Did you hear me?” Yukio asked, and Ryuuji felt shame flare up inside him. Being a diligent student was something he prided himself on, and here he was, zoning out to think of his touch-starved boyfriend, and his possibly touch-starved brother.
Yukio repeated the question, and Ryuuji answered correctly, something about the application of bandages to wounds infected by demons, but soon enough his thoughts turned back to the Okumura twins. Shima snickered some more beside him, but a glare from Ryuuji shut him up.
“Bon, are you ok?” Konekomaru whispered from behind him, and Ryuuji inwardly cursed his own inability to stay off everyone’s radar. Even Izumo was looking at him, one eyebrow arched quizzically.
Ryuuji growled a response to Konekomaru, before turning to his notes, his mind absolutely not focused on the lesson in front of him.
--
Moriyama was back the next day, which worked out perfectly for Ryuuji, as he was intent on watching Rin’s behaviour, and seeing how it differed from the previous day. A small part of Ryuuji chided him, claiming it was creepy to think of his boyfriend as an experiment, but a larger part of Ryuuji’s brain wanted to know the answer to his own hypothesis, and Ryuuji chose to indulge that part.
The difference was immediate.
Rin seemed more animated when Moriyama walked in, perking up in his seat as Moriyama took her usual seat beside him. Cute, a part of Ryuuji’s brain thought.
Rin’s tail snaked its way around Moriyama’s chair, slowly pulling her closer, before resting in her lap, docile and almost looking inanimate. Ryuuji had never been the jealous or possessive type, and he certainly wasn’t gonna start now. Rin was always touching someone, when he could. Holding hands with Ryuuji, an arm thrown around Konekomaru or Shima’s shoulder. Even Izumo wasn’t exempt, as Rin seemed to always be brushing knees with her when the two sat near each other.
And while Rin letting someone touch his tail seemed intimate, Rin let just about anyone he trust do it. Moriyama, Yukio, and Ryuuji himself were the most regular candidates, but occasionally one could find Rin’s tail wrapped around Shima’s thigh, or Izumo’s forearm. It didn’t make any difference to Ryuuji. It was more data, more proof.
The lesson continued on, and eventually, nature took its course: Rin falling asleep in the middle of class. Rin’s head was lying on his textbook, his face facing the side of the room that Ryuuji sat on, no doubt bad for his neck. The angle let him appreciate the way the sun hit his hair, and the jawline that seemed both impossibly sharp, and unreasonably smooth. Ryuuji could practically hear Shima’s voice, stop fawning , but a quick glance at the pinkette let Ryuuji know that Shima was too interested in the porn mag he had hidden under the desk. Ryuuji decided to be angry about that later.
Ryuuji turned back to Rin. Moriyama was writing her notes with one hand, and the other was carding through Rin’s hair. That wretched green familiar of hers was sitting on Rin’s tail, like it was the best seat ever. Ryuuji refused to acknowledge the jealousy he felt towards a six-inch tall creature made of chlorophyll and mulch.
When Shiemi slipped her hand out of Rin’s hair to turn the page of her notebook, Rin’s face scrunched up, even in sleep, upset at that loss of contact. But when Shiemi’s hand returned to it’s spot on his head, the look passed. Even subconsciously, Rin Okumura enjoyed the intimacy of touching another person, platonic or not,
“Dude,” Shime whispered. “Stop fawning.”
Ryuuji felt his eye twitch.
--
Now that Ryuuji was on the lookout, it seemed that wherever Rin went, as long as he was touching someone, he was happy. In the hallways between classes, if his hand wasn’t linked with Ryuuji’s, he was getting physical with someone else.
Rin had somehow managed to convince Shima to give him a piggy-back ride, along with a small degree of worry from Konekomaru (bless him), and much eye-rolling from Izumo (curse her). Nevertheless, Rin was hoisted upon Shima’s back, and his tail was wrapped around his waist, before the two took off down the halls, laughing and hollering. The noise attracted many of the eyes from most of the students in the halls, though this was nothing out of the norm, realistically. Izumo side-eyed Ryuuji.
“What’s been up with you lately?” she demanded. Ever the perceptive one, she is. Ryuuji grunted.
“It’s none of your business,” he said, hoping she would drop the subject. She didn’t.
“Oh, please,” Izumo scoffed. “Normally you don’t let Okumura distract you, but suddenly you can’t take your eyes off him? Very suspicious.”
Konekomaru nodded his head in agreement, the little traitorous bastard. “Yeah, Bon. We can tell something is up with you.” Ryuuji can feel a migraine coming on. He fell back on the only thing he had left, considering Konekomaru’s recent defection.
“What, you think I’m being unsubtle?” Ryuuji asked, meaningfully glancing to the closeness of Izumo and Moriyama. “Sounds like someone’s being hypocritical.” Moriyama’s face turned scarlet, but Izumo barely even blushed.
“Don’t change the subject,” she snapped. “Spill it.” Well. Damn. It was worth a try.
“I don’t owe you an explanation,” Ryuuji countered, sauntering down the halls, praising God for his superior stride.
--
Ryuuji certainly had enough evidence against Rin (what was this, a goddamn trial), but the jury was still out on whether Yukio was just as clingy as his older brother. Maybe not to the degree that Rin was, but time would tell.
Ryuuji got his answer, on the ride to a mission. And he was right .
The mission was somewhere in a small mountain village, a sudden increase in demon activity or something, but Ryuuji wasn’t focused on the mission. He was focused on Yukio and Shura.
Rin was asleep next to him, drooling on one of Ryuuji’s favorite hoodies, but he couldn’t find it within himself to care. Instead, he was focused on how that Ms. Shura had somehow managed to snag one of Yukio’s pistols, and was using her long arms to keep it just out of reach. Yukio wasn’t necessarily angry or annoyed, understanding that acknowledging either of those familiar emotions would mean that Shura won.
Instead, Yukio was just flicking Shura’s ear whenever he could, and failing that, he just pinched her exposed skin. Ryuuji could barely believe that Mr. Okumura would resort to such tactics, but it was refreshing to see him acting his age, for once.
Eventually, Ryuuji could hear a muffled conversation between the two, mostly filled with Shura’s loud laughter. Ryuuji managed to catch the tail end of the conversation, and, arguably, the most important part.
“What’s that magic word?” Shura asked, dangling Yukio’s gun in front of his face, and moving it away impossibly fast when he made a desperate grab for it. A long, broken sigh from Yukio. Ryuuji almost felt bad.
“Please, Shura.” he muttered, none too happy about the situation. The Vein was beginning to appear.
“What was that?” Shura laughed, bringing a hand up to cup her ear. The Vein was throbbing, and Ryuuji was almost worried Yukio was about to go into cardiac arrest.
“Please.” Yukio’s face may have been neutral, but there was murder in his eyes. Shura laughed again, nonplussed, and handed the gun back to Yukio, patting him on the head, twice.
“Good boy!” Shura said it like she was speaking to a dog, but Yukio remained silent. But Ryuuji wasn’t focused on that. He was instead watching how Yukio, almost imperceptibly, leaned into Shura’s touch, when she touched his head. It was almost too quick to catch, but Ryuuji was sure he saw it, and added it to the rest of the compiled data.
--
Over the next two weeks, Ryuuji watched the Okumura twins, and began to test his theory, no longer content to just watch . And test he did.
During the first week, on a Tuesday, Moriyama, Izumo, Ryuuji, and Rin had left to study as a group in the library, after Cram School had finished for the day (a double date, Shima had said. Ryuuji had to restrain himself from braining his friend with his own k’rik).
During the session, many times, Rin had attempted to snake his hand into Ryuuji’s, but Ryuuji always found an excuse to slip out of it, grabbing an extra eraser from his back, or using both hands to flip through a textbook. Rin had been frustrated after those moments, and squirmed in his seat, like the chair had suddenly become made of stone and iron, instead of cushions on wood. Eventually, Ryuuji took pity on Rin, and let him rest his legs across Ryuuji’s lap, and wrap his tail around Ryuuji’s bicep. Notably, Rin had been able to study for a whole three minutes longer, beating his previous record of eleven minutes, with a respectable fourteen. Ryuuji considered that a win.
After, when Ryuuji walked Rin to his dorm, he wrapped his arms around Rin’s chest, and pressed a kiss to the smaller boy’s forehead, in an unusual display of intimacy. Rin hadn’t initially reacted, but when he tried to move away from the hug, Ryuuji clung to Rin tighter.
“Uhh, dude,” Rin said, ever eloquent. “Are you gonna let go?”
“Are you complaining?” Ryuuji mumbled against Rin’s forehead. Rin seemed to consider this for a moment, before relaxing into the embrace, humming contentedly. Wait… no, not humming…
Was Rin Okumura goddamn purring?
The two stayed like that for a whole six minutes. Ryuuji counted. At some point, a group of second-year girls passed, pointing at the couple, and whispering excitedly, but neither of the boys paid them any mind. Eventually, Rin reluctantly pulled away, bidding Ryuuji goodnight, before heading into the dorm.
That following Thursday, after class, Ryuuji had made his way to Yukio, asking some question about exams he already knew the answer to, but Yukio seemed happy enough to indulge him. Especially when Ryuuji managed to casually place his hand on Yukio’s shoulder. Ryuuji was afraid that Yukio would shrug him off, but the closest his teacher/friend/hopeful brother-in-law (wait, what), did was glance at Ryuuji’s hand, before focusing his eyes back on the student.
When Shura strolled in, immediately present and so very there , Yukio seemed to, almost subconsciously, lean into Ryuuji’s touch.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ryuuji could see Izumo staring at him.
The next Wednesday, the Exwires were taking advantage of an unseasonably warm day, to lay around on the grass, content to drink in the sun’s rays. Shura and Yukio even joined in.
Rin was sprawled out on the ground, fast asleep, his head in Shima’s lap, hid legs in Moriyamas, one of his arms thrown over his eyes, and his tail wrapped around Ryuuji’s anke. When Ryuuji glanced at the teachers, he was simultaneously surprised, and expectant, of what he saw. Yukio and Shura were back to back, resting their heads on each other's shoulders, behind them, to stare up into the sky.
Izumo had looked up from the book she was reading, to glare at Ryuuji.
‘What are you doing?’ she mouthed. Ryuuji shrugged, ignoring the huff from her.
He instead looked up at the sky, noting the clout that looked like a coal tar.
--
Ryuuji and Rin were laying in Ryuuji’s bed, in his dorm room, cuddling the night away. Ryuuji’s back was to the wall, and Rin and Ryuuji were front to front simply enjoying the closeness of each other, legs tangled together beneath the blankets. But Ryuuji’s mind was racing a million miles a minute.
Ryuuji had ample evidence that the twins were touch-starved creatures, too socially stunted to just ask , for a little physical intimacy. Ryuuji tried to think of the few times that Rin or Yukio had mentioned their father, but Ryuuji heard nothing but good things about the former priest, and from the stories he had been told, Father Fujimoto hadn’t sounded like the type of guy that would be PDA repulsed. If anything, he sounded like he was always wrestling with Rin, or swiping a hand through Yukio’s hair, or other fatherly things. It was an utter mystery to Ryuuji.
“What’s got you all distracted?” Rin mumbled softly. He was purring again, Ryuuji realized.
“Nothing,” Ryuuji murmured, pressing a soft kiss to Rin’s cheek. “Just thinking about some things.” Rin frowned.
“Is this about how you keep touching my brother and me?” He asked.
Busted.
Ryuuji was glad of the low light, because heat used to his face, both out of embarrassment of being caught, and the particular phrasing of Rin’s statement. Rin seemed to realize his mistake a moment later.
“Not like that!” He seemed flustered. Cute , Ryuuji thought, off-handedly. “I meant like how you keep putting your hands on us? Or… wait that didn’t sound right either. But you know what I mean!” In the low light, Ryuuji watched Kuro jump onto his desk and curl up in one of his hoodies. Ryuuji grimaced. Maybe it was because Kuro was a demon, but his hair never seemed to come out of Ryuuji’s clothes.
“I don’t know, I just… ugh…” Suguro Ryuuji, making the english language his bitch since 1995. “You two just always seem to… I don’t know… crave being close to people? I never really noticed before because it was just part of who you were and I was so used to it, but you remember a few weeks ago, when Moriyama was out?”
“Yeah.” Rin’s tail was tickling Ruuji’s stomach.
“That was just the first time I really noticed it, I guess.” Ryuuji had to give Rin credit, because he never expected to be caught by someone who once left the sword that housed all his demonic power on a bus, in downtown Tokyo. Rin was quiet for a moment.
“Huh,” he said, thoughtfully? ‘Huh’? That was the best he could to? No personal introspection? No reason as to why he and his brother seemed so bereft of human touch that they seek it out, almost against their will? Ryuuji felt something akin to anger blooming in his chest, before letting it fizzle out. Pick your battles, Bon, Shima would’ve said. Next time Ryuuji saw that pink-haired menace he was gonna wring the life outta his miserable little-
“Well,” Rin said, breaking Ryuuji’s train of thought. He shifted around the bed, bullying Ryuuji onto his back, so he was straddling Ryuuji’s hips, with his thighs. “What do you intend to do about it, now that you’ve noticed?”
The sharp glint of light that reflected off of Rin’s teeth would’ve looked menacing, if the dopey, love-struck grin wasn’t also plaguing his face. Ryuuji raised an eyebrow.
“Well,” he said. “I’m sure I can find something to appease you.”
Rin laughed, small and quiet, not at all like how he was around others. Something flashed in Rin’s eyes that made Ryuuji swallow.
“Kuro?” The cat lifted its head to stare at Rin, who only had eyes for Ryuuji at the moment.
“Beat it,” Rin said, pressing a kiss against Ryuuji’s lips.