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Fingers trail up Keito’s naked spine, sending a shiver right back down it. Each touch is careful, quiet, gentle, and Keito never knew it was possible to attribute those adjectives to Hibiki.
Hair tickles his skin and then Hibiki’s lips are against Keito’s ear. “To think the right hand man would bare himself for me.”
Keito shoves a hand against Hibiki’s face and ignores the heat on his own. “Quiet. I’m not about to ask one of your juniors for this. Just get it over with.”
Hibiki falls back and cackles, peals of laughter filling the drama room like heavy patters of rain that weather away at Keito’s walls. “Amazing! And that is the only reason you asked me to help you dress?”
Keito doesn’t want to answer, but the longer he goes without speaking the harsher his condemnation is. He clears his throat and turns away. “Exactly. Now hurry up. The play’s starting soon, isn’t it?”
Hibiki laughs again and pulls the dress up one of Keito’s arms, slow, easy, his hands roaming up and up and up until they cup Keito’s shoulders and fingers spread out along his back, warmth pressing into warmth. Hibiki mimics the motions on the other arm until the dress covers his chest and protects Keito from those wandering, astute eyes.
“Stop screwing around,” Keito says. “It’s almost like you’re enjoying this.”
“And if I am?”
Keito stops breathing. “D–don’t joke around like that. It’s not like you to get so distracted.”
Hibiki hums. “So you’ve been watching me. Well, then.”
The squeal of the zipper cuts off whatever thought might have followed that. Keito’s breath is pushed out of his lungs, the bodice of the dress tight, fit to every curve of his body. Hibiki’s hands linger at his waist, play with the fabric gathered there. “You look stunning.”
He’s too close again. If he closes his mouth now, he’ll catch Keito’s ear lobe in his teeth—the thought alone is enough to send him into overdrive, his vision spinning and his limbs stiff and uncoordinated. He tries to push Hibiki away again but misses entirely, his hand catching in silky hair.
When he pulls back, a web of silvery blue comes with, twisted around his fingers like a ring. Hibiki chuckles—softly, and Keito stares down with wide eyes, suspended in his thoughts as if teetering on a trapeze.
Hibiki bites down, and Keito yelps, throwing his hand down and shaking it free of the hair.
“Hibiki!”
Hibiki’s response dissolves into wild, boisterous whoops, and his hands leave Keito entirely and wrap around his belly. “Wahaha, what amazing reactions! How delightful it is to work with you…!”
“How can you be so…!” Keito reaches around and grabs Hibiki by the fabric gathered at his throat, jerking him forward.
It’s only when their noses bump into each other that Keito realizes what he’s done. Hibiki stares down at him, blinking slowly. His jaw is slack and his movements languid as he reaches up and wraps those gentle fingers around Keito’s wrist.
Then his lips spread into a cheshire grin, his eyes narrow with knowing humor. “What is it, mister right hand? Do you have something to say to me? Or are you content to stare?”
Keito drops him like he’s been scorched. “No. Get on with it.”
“Oh, I assure you,” Hibiki says, “I was trying.”
Keito swallows whatever words refuse to come out.
Hibiki leans over him, chin resting on his shoulder as he slips the corset around him, and there’s a chill on Keito’s neck when he pulls away. Hibiki laces it up, pulling the ribbons tight until it rests comfortably around Keito’s waist.
There’s a light shuffling behind him and then his hair brushes away. “Just the finishing touch,” Hibiki murmurs as he fixes a pearl clip in his hair.
“Well?” he asks, impatient and desperate. “How is it?”
Hibiki brings his hand down to caress Keito’s cheek. “Absolutely lovely.”
He can’t find any words to say, no comprehensible thought in his empty head. So he stares, and continues to stare. And it goes until he watches Hibiki’s eyes glide up and down Keito’s body to admire his handiwork, finally stopping on his lips.
He finds the words. “Do—do you need help getting ready?”
“Oh?” The sparkle in Hibiki’s eyes grows until his whole person is radiant, glowing even in the dim lamplight of the room. “You’re offering your assistance to me, Keito-kun?”
Keito crosses his arms. “You got this dress on me. It’s only fair.”
Hibiki’s expression softens into… something. “You continue to surprise me. Perhaps this is why Eichi keeps you around.”
“Are you going to answer?”
“Rather than help me, I would prefer you look over your lines once more. This play is a big moment in little Tomoya’s life, after all!” Hibiki pulls away entirely, and in the space where he had stood remains only a vague sense of longing. “And, perhaps, in your own as well.”
Keito bristles, suddenly feeling too exposed in this dress. And yet somehow Hibiki twirls around the room in his own, just narrowly avoiding the dozens of boxes littering the floor as he dances. He’s completely in his element, and like this, with unbridled joy brightening his features and adding passion to his step, Keito can only admire him.
“I highly doubt that,” Keito says, and it feels like he’s signing his own will.
Hibiki hums the opening track to Cinderella and glances over his shoulder at him, smile wide and open. “If you insist. Now go, go! Our audience won’t wait for us to be ready; we must go to them!”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Keito gathers the dress in his hands and steps over the boxes of props and costumes, shaky on the heels Hibiki insisted he wear. When he’s in the doorway, he stops, and though he tries not to turn back he finds himself searching for Hibiki once more. “Will you be okay by yourself?”
Hibiki doesn’t respond for a half-second. “But of course! I always am! Now run along and play nice with your co-actors. Make sure your little samurai is all dolled up!”
Hibiki’s dance takes him before Keito once more, and he stops fast, the world slowing down around them. He runs a hand up Keito’s arm, down his waist, and rests it there for the tiniest of moments.
In a breath so small Keito can hardly hear it, he says, “You are beautiful.”
And before he can even process what that might imply, the door slams in his face and muffled chortles explode from inside the room, leaving Keito empty-handed and wanting more of something he can’t even explain himself.