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Tatsumi lightly traced the outline of the car door, fiddling with the child-locked window switch. He’s never this nervous with anything, but what could he say? He’s really been having a sexuality crisis. Himeru inviting him to his house is not helping.
He could only wonder, how did Himeru live? Did he have a good relationship with his parents? He knew he had a brother, but he’s never heard or seen much of him. He also knew they were twins, but Himeru was the oldest of the two. (How they deduced that, Tatsumi will never understand.) Was his house clean? Did his bed follow the same format of every teenage boy’s bed? Blue, Plaid, or Grey? Blue and grey plaid?
Tatsumi had so many questions. He was not ready for something like this.
That being said, did Himeru even have a bed? Or did he sleep on a futon? Tatsumi couldn’t imagine Himeru sharing a room with his brother. Did they still do that? Did twins share rooms even now? He was going to have a migraine before he even got to Himeru’s house.
The car stopped quickly, throwing Tatsumi a little forward and out of his thoughts as well. He clawed his way out of the car, waving to the church driver as they drove away. Tatsumi gazed at the average home, Himeru’s home was certainly that. Home. Tatsumi really had begun to doubt normal idols existed, and that most idols he knew came from rich and boisterous families, a certain green-haired idol came to mind.
Ah, but he probably looked creepier than ever standing outside the gate. Alone. Much more like a criminal than a friend, even if criminals didn’t wear polo shirts and jeans. He reached for the gate, before a hollered “Sumichan!” reached his ears.
Himeru’s blue hair flopped as he tore open the front doorway, rushing down the path in his socks up to the gate. Himeru snapped the deadbolt quickly, opening it wide for Tatsumi to enter.
Tatsumi steps inside, awkwardly waiting for Himeru to close the gate. From there, Himeru excitedly pushes him inside, explaining how it’s been forever since they had company. The cool air conditioning makes Tatsumi feel at ease, like there was a heat he could never explain nipping at his neck.
“Actually, Kaname’s always so busy I hardly see him either! My mom says he’s been getting really good at lacrosse on top of advanced studies.” Himeru’s voice is oddly cheery, considering he just explained to Tatsumi how lonely he is without his twin brother or family.
Tatsumi gazes at the family photos, several are of a boy who looks just like Himeru, but he smiles differently. He smiles in a way that screams he isn't done, he won’t be done. Dissatisfaction.
Tatsumi interrupts Himeru showing him around his empty house, “Is this Kaname?” Tatsumi pulls the picture off the wall. “He looks just like you.” Tatsumi chuckles a little, as if it wasn’t obvious the boys were twins.
“Yeah, that's him. Doesn’t he look dorky like that? Kaname’s always been a bookworm, or something.” While describing his brother, he reaches into the fridge to get out strawberries, tossing them haphazardly onto the counter. “He’s mom’s favorite, you know, not every mom wants their son to shake their ass on stage.”
He tries not to look shaken, but Himeru doesn't swear much. Not in a high-maintenance image way, he just didn't need them. Himeru effectively pops a strawberry into his awaiting mouth, near-violently pulling it away afterwards to gaze at the inside of the fruit.
“I suppose most mothers wouldn’t, huh?” Tatsumi smiles back at Himeru, who shuffled through the contents of the cupboard before victoriously gripping confectioners’ sugar.
He mixes it with a regular grained sugar in a bowl, dipping his now mangled strawberry into the sugar.
He licks at it, and Tatsumi feels himself go silent. Himeru inspects the strawberry comically, his gaze watchful and serious. He yanks out the stem of the strawberry before eating it, and coughs up powder sugar trying not to feel startled.
There’s a sudden knock at the front door, a roughly shouted “I’m home!” and the aggressive
removal of shoes that clatter against the tiles. There’s padding of socks across the house as another, scarily similar blue mop pokes his head inside the kitchen.
“Oh, your friend is here?” The boy is clearly Kaname, who is positively dripping in sweat. His hair is worn the exact same as Himeru, except his is pulled into the tiniest ponytail for best breathability, Tatsumi supposes.
“Yeah, my friend is here. Where’s yours? You smell terrible.” Himeru glowers slightly, biting off another strawberry.
“Leave me alone, I actually exercise, fatty.” Tatsumi can't help but snicker, Kaname takes note of this as they lock eyes. And by God, Tatsumi feels some part of his brain engulfed in flames.
Is this what it felt like to die? Was this smoulder? Should Tatsumi have done research on what the hell a smoulder meant? He had no idea. He feels his throat constrict, going abstractly dry. Tatsumi knows his hand is shaking just slightly, as if his body is trying to vaguely tell him this could be a stroke, or it could be newfound affections.
Where Himeru felt like melancholic music, or meadows, his brother felt like a hurricane. The dancing rondo of darkened skies locked behind eyes just the same as Himeru’s. They overflowed with a hunger, a desire. To where Himeru’s eyes felt like gold, Kaname's was every gas giant that lined one’s field of view at night.
Tatsumi’s thoughts escape him, the brothers continue to bicker before rushing out to the ringing phone because, “When the parents are away, it is a big brother’s duty to answer to strangers!” Leaving Tatsumi alone with little say of who he remained with.
Kaname reaches to the other side of the kitchen counter, aiming for the strawberries and sugar. Tatsumi can only assume both the brothers have a tell-tale sweet tooth from the manner in which Kaname licks the strawberry before choosing the decorum of the sugar mix.
And before anyone asks Tatsumi, he didn’t watch Kaname lick around the strawberry, honest. He was focusing on how he was going to make small talk.
Kaname continues the process, effectively wolfing down sugar-covered strawberries to the point where his fingers have long since been lost to the coatings of powdered sugar dust. Himeru’s voice can be heard arguing with someone on the other end of the phone, and Tatsumi silently eats his strawberries, trying his best to lick the powdered sugar off his hands. They feel sticky after awhile.
“You’re not doing it right,” Kaname asserts, taking Tatsumi’s wrist in his non-sugar hand. “Let me show you how to make sure your hand isn't sticky after”
With that, Kaname promptly begins sucking on the ball of Tatsumi’s hand. He can feel Kaname’s tongue lap at the skin, and some of the powdered sugar that was smudged on the edges of his mouth. He can see the furrow in his brows as he concentrates, he can also feel the very painful bite Kaname indents into his skin before leaning back with a smug expression.
“Agh! That hurt, what’s your problem?!” Tatsumi nurses his slightly wet hand, the bite was nothing serious, but still hurt, he was bitten!
“Sorry? I was keeping you on your toes, your eyebrows shot up, all 'ah!’ when I bit you.” Kaname looks proud of himself, and shoves his sugary fingers into Tatsumi’s face. “Now clean up my hands, I’ll make sure you do it right too.”
The wink that accompanies it shouldn’t make Tatsumi flush as much as it does, but Tatsumi’s teenage ego won’t be challenged by someone who can out-perform his finger sucking capability. But it definitely will.
He takes Kaname’s pointer finger into his mouth, they’re bony. His fingernails are sharper and long, poking at his tongue as he moves over it, attempting to mirror what Kaname had done on his hand. Kaname’s other fingers are curled against his face, rubbing sugar against Tatsumi’s complexion. He’ll get chewed out if he lets his skin go to waste from a rendezvous involving sugar in his best friend's kitchen.
He moves closer so that they both lean against the counter, gripping Kaname’s wrist as he attempts to make work of the sugary strawberry residue left on them. When he’s deemed it ‘clean’, he attempts at Kaname’s middle finger.
Kaname can only look shocked, before tugging against Tatsumi to tell him he’s had enough. Kaname’s finger is connected to the base of Tatsumi’s lip through a quickly broken saliva string. He tries to speak, but his face feels entirely too hot, and Kaname looks wildly uncomfortable. Himeru’s voice echoes down the hallway in a manner of: “Okay! Bye.” his footsteps are more prominent.
Kaname quickly runs his hand under the sink, before walking briskly out of the kitchen, Leaving Tatsumi alone in wait of Himeru. He arrives quickly enough, talking of how someone in the industry wants to go to France for a second time. Tatsumi tries his best to focus, but it’s increasingly more difficult when he reflects on the barely noticeable bite marks.
-
Time passes impossibly fast in Himeru’s house, it was nearly eight when they retreat upstairs.
They’re laying together, in Himeru’s bed. It makes his mind whirl around in circles, makes his stomach feel like a pinball machine. Also sends his mind places it shouldn't, he tries to void the thoughts as they come. Himeru’s hair is cascading in light blue waves, he's lying face up as Tatsumi is adjacent on his stomach. Their heads are painfully close.
“You ever just, feel weird?” Himeru’s smiling at the ceiling, his hand coming to rest on his forehead in an act of self-consciousness.
“I feel weird all the time, yeah.” I feel especially weird around your brother, also you. Tatsumi’s thoughts are better left unspoken around him.
“No, no. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a movie, Tatsumi.” He looks up from under his hand, his eyes are crinkling, but they set quickly as he tries to explain himself.
“A movie? What do you mean—” Tatsumi pushes himself up onto his forearms.
“Ah. Don’t say my name right now? But I’ve just been thinking a lot.” His eyes are closed, hiding everything Tatsumi adores away from his line of vision. Tatsumi wants their eyes to meet again, to feel that spark, to see if his heart will light aflame.
“Thinking about?” Tatsumi wants to cringe. He’s so awkward, but Tatsumi knows that he’ll keep talking even if he's a socially inept idiot.
He smiles at Tatsumi, his eyes still closed off, “What would happen if this all ended so fast? Not if we died,” he rolls over, his body snug next to Tatsumi’s as he faces him, “but if we had to stop. Would you be happy?”
His eyes are flowering in gold and gaze onto him. It makes his heart play fortissimo in his chest, Tatsumi keeps himself steady, looking anywhere but back at him.
“I don’t think so.” Tatsumi thinks back to Reimei, he thinks back to all the times he looked straight at Hiyori’s back. Back to all the times he caught Sazanami’s luminous gaze, bright and full of a promising future. He has more work to do.
“No, I wouldn't be happy.” Tatsumi announces.
Tatsumi can see the gears turn, in Dai—no, Himeru’s head. A slumbering piano that's springing to life, gently playing the melody that winds around Tatsumi’s heart and cradles it. Ever since that, that party. He’s been different, and it’s not because his career is reaching a new growth of popularity.
Tatsumi’s not jealous of Himeru. He is jealous, however, of all the eyes that seek Himeru. He's not sure why he’s humouring Himeru’s new life either, but it doesn’t stop the fact that he doesn’t want Himeru to be far from him.
He’s never met someone more beautiful. He’s never met someone so fascinated with music, with the world around him. Himeru is full of life, he’s a hurricane, but also a serene ocean. He's everything Tatsumi wants to be, and Tatsumi’s a successful revolutionary as is.
And Tatsumi’s being honest. He may only be sixteen, but he’s pretty sure this is what love would feel like. If only Himeru’s eyes were a little more serious, a little more dissatisfied with the world around him. Much like Kaname’s.
“I think I would be, Tatsumi.”
It sinks into Tatsumi’s mind, and before Tatsumi can ask what that could possibly imply, the hollow ringtone of his tell-tale church driver buzzes. Himeru gets up with Tatsumi, rushing down the stairs together. Tatsumi quickly thanks Himeru’s mother for allowing his visit, even if she wasn't there for the majority of it, he doesn't even know when she got there.
He tries not to think about what Himeru might’ve meant all night long. He tries not to think about the piercing feeling of a stare he couldn’t place leaving the Tojou residence. He falls asleep eventually after going home.
Tatsumi couldn’t wash off the scent of the Tojou house, his fingers still feeling like they were covered in powdered sugar.
He goes to wash off the nonexistent residue.