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The sound of shifting sheets and blankets woke Joe up from his sleep. He looked to his side to see a ball of pink hair. Cherry. He sighed and shoved his head under the covers. ‘Not again..’ he thought as he sighed.
He slowly pulled the blanket off of his head and turned over to look at the other. His hair was a mess, entangled and all across his face. Joe brushed some of the hair off to get a clearer look at Kaoru. He rested so peacefully, even though Joe knew the time they had the night before was not, in the least, peaceful.
Cherry slowly opened his eyes, unrolling out of his fetus position. He laid on his back and stared at the ceiling. He immediately recognized the room from countless times before.
It was an almost monthly occurrence that the two had gotten drunk together after a long day and gone back to Joe’s place. The intoxication always took over and one thing led to another, they would end up sleeping with each other.
Cherry sighed softly as he turned to the side opposite from his designated bed side. He looked at Joe as their eyes locked. Both of them felt pain in their chests. They knew it wasn’t the best thing for them to keep doing this on an almost monthly basis.
Shuffling his legs off of the side of the bed, Cherry took his glasses off of the bedside table. He wrapped the smaller blanket that was resting on the bed around him like a robe and walked over to Joe’s closet.
“Good morning,” Joe said as Cherry was doing this. All he got in response was a slight nod. The other was not a morning person in the slightest. He grabbed a fresh pair of underwear out of his drawer on his bedside and put them on.
The robe that Cherry had put on was a robe that Joe kept in his closet. After a few times of them doing this, Joe ended up just buying Cherry a robe for the mornings afterwards. He took the hair tie out of his hair, letting his hair flow freely.
Joe caught himself staring at Cherry’s figure. The robe fell off on his right shoulder, but his hair was there to cover it. The way that he walked back over to the bed and sat at the edge of it checking his phone. Everything he did seemed so flawless, graceful, beautiful.
Sighing, Cherry turned to the other. He locked eyes with him.
“What are we doing?”
This caught Joe off guard, as he raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean-“
He was cut off by Cherry, “It’s obvious that we’re into each other. There’s no other reason for us to be doing this so regularly. Of course it’s only ever when we’re drunk-“ He sighed, “Am I a rebound for you?”
Joe shook his head, “Of course not Kaoru-“
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry-“
“-It just makes no sense why you’ve never shown interest in me other than when you’re drunk or high or somethings going on with you.” He turned his back on Joe again, keeping his composure.
He started to remember bits and pieces of the night before. He had gone to Joe’s restaurant after closing hours looking for something but he didn’t know what. He always found himself going there when he felt lost in his life.
That night they had spent having a heart to heart and drinking. It felt different then all the other times they’d done this. Instead of it being Joe to go to Cherry for answers, it was reversed. It felt more intimate than the times before.
Joe put his palm on Cherry’s shoulder, “I promise you aren’t a rebound… I don’t- I don’t know what you are. I’ve never felt this way about someone before. It’s all confusing.”
Cherry turned his head slightly, looking at Joe out of the corner of his eye, “I have feelings for you, Kojiro,” Cherry said. That was the first time in a while that Joe had heard his actual name uttered from those lips.
“I think I do too,” Joe said, “Kaoru… I don’t know what we are or what’s going to happen from here.”
“Well,” Cherry said, not rejecting his name like he had in the past. He turned around fully, looking Joe in the eyes. He smiled lightly for what felt like the first time in forever.
He felt butterflies in his stomach as he looked Joe’s face up and down, examining his expression. He seemed nervous for what Cherry would say next.
A hand caressed Joe’s cheekbone, as the tension started to worsen. He looked to his lips and back to his eyes. Then, it happened. He planted a kiss. This was the first kiss they had that wasn’t because of intoxication.
Joe’s ears became red. He chuckled lightly as the kiss broke away. He looked into Cherry’s eyes, “Well..?” He looked at him for the continuation of his cut off sentence.
He smirked lightly, “We could be lovers if that’s what you would like…” Joe got red in the face before. He was used to being either rejected or asked out by girls in the past, but it has never felt the same as this.
“I would like that.”
”Me too,” Cherry said as he felt relieved by Joe’s answer
“So,” Joe started- but was cut off by a kiss once more.
”No need to say anything,” Cherry said pulling away from the kiss. “Just shut up and kiss me.”
And so he did.
They stayed in an embrace like this for a while, and they were both happy.