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i.
Kaoru didn’t mean to punch him.
Well. That’s not exactly true. He did want to punch that smug smile off the bastard’s face, but he didn’t mean to knock him out. It’s not his fault that his punch landed exactly at an angle that made the guy’s head twist on the side and bang on the streetlamp, before collapsing on the ground and invoking a silence so loud everyone’s breathing felt like an entire storm.
And then all the guy’s goons start screaming and yelling for blood, pointing accusing fingers at Kaoru like Kaoru just killed someone (their boss isn’t dead, not yet), and most of them also start crowding around him with a palpable vengeful intent. As if that will ever intimidate him.
Nobody thinks that Kaoru is built to fight, which propels them into a state of shock and complete disbelief when he attacks first and manages to strike down two people by smashing their heads together and kicking them in the stomach for good measure. He doesn’t stop moving, always ready to spring back and to collide his fist with something breakable or crouching low to dodge and literally sweep them off their feet. He’s like a volcano being poked until it swallows everything around him.
His impulsiveness means he gets hurt too, mostly from his own moves that use more strength than necessary, but also from attacks he decides to go up against instead of avoiding, simply to get closer to his opponent. He ends up with scratches on his face and bruises on his legs or cuts on his arms, in a way that undeniably adds to his overall appearance of a troublemaker. He doesn’t give a shit; the messier and more dangerous he looks, the better.
It’s when most of the guys have fled, leaving Kaoru breathing hard and leaning forward with his hands on his knees, that Kojirou materializes next to him.
“What the hell, Kaoru?” Kojirou yells, not knowing if touching Kaoru will be a wise idea. “Did you pick a fight with random people again?”
“I didn’t pick a fight with them, they provoked me,” Kaoru growls, wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. It comes away with a little blood. “Why do you always assume I’m the one instigating?”
“Maybe because two times out of three you’re the one who throws the first punch,” Kojirou mumbles.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“Am I wrong, though?”
Kaoru makes a poor attempt at shoving Kojirou in the shoulder but he misses by a large margin and ends up swatting at his chest, which does nothing to abate Kojirou’s annoyance.
“Shut up,” Kaoru says.
Kojirou shakes his head and takes Kaoru’s arm to steady him, dragging him towards a less crowded and more luminous place to get a look at his injuries with supplies that seem to have appeared from nowhere.
ii.
Kojirou nearly lands on his face after failing a trick, all graceless and devoid of finesse, which makes Kaoru double over in laughter.
“That was really stupid,” Kaoru snorts.
“Yeah, I didn’t see you try doing that trick,” Kojirou scoffs.
“At least I don’t look like a limp caterpillar when I’m on the ground like you are.”
“You’re insufferable, you know that?”
Kojirou picks himself up from the ground and dusts off his pants, looking back at the track that he just descended from. Kaoru watches the way Kojirou is considering the path again, eyes focused on the last meters of the bumpy pavement. They chose this part of the track specifically because it isn’t well-maintained, full of holes and uneven ground that forces them to work on their stability. Kojirou, like the brainless ape he is, wanted to show off by doing some fancy trick that only served as evidence of his stupidity.
“Hey, you’re Sakurayashiki, right?”
Kaoru turns around and raises en eyebrow. He has no idea who the guy talking to him is.
“Get out of our turf,” the guy says on a tone that’s supposed to be menacing. “Or you’ll regret it.”
“Your turf?” Kaoru repeats, unimpressed. “The hell are you on?”
“You thought you could swing by after sending some of our guys to the hospital?”
The words go in Kaoru’s ear and make a swift exit in the other. He blinks.
“I didn’t send anyone in the hospital,” he says, tone raising like a question as he turns around to address Kojirou.
Kojirou lifts his hands in sign of innocence. “I don’t know, I’m not there to watch you fight every single person in this city.”
“You would remember if I did anything like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I just said I don’t know!”
“Stop ignoring me!”
Kojirou shouts wordlessly and yanks Kaoru by the arm, saving him from a well-aimed kick that would have sent Kaoru sprawling, and suddenly it’s like a switch has been flipped.
People say that Kaoru has a bad temper, an accusation that’s not totally unfounded. He’s quick to anger and he doesn’t mince his words—when he’s having a casual conversation with someone, many wrinkle their nose at his lack of proper forms of address, and others outright say he shouldn’t be so aggressive in his choice of words. One can only imagine how vulgar and straightforward he is when he’s insulting someone or spitting out a string of curses that are probably not yet in the dictionary.
Kojirou, of course, has a deep knowledge of the ways Kaoru can react before a taunt, a physical threat or a low blow to his ego. He’s not exactly a saint either, since he will without a doubt get into a fight if he’s provoked enough, or throw back cruel words when the situation calls for it, but between the two, Kojirou has less difficulty keeping his bad mood in check.
Kaoru twists around and is ready to swing his fist at full speed, but Kojirou is already scolding him while having a grip of iron on his arm. He’s also trying to drag him back, stopping him from making even one step towards their opponent who is, quite frankly, looking too fucking pleased with himself.
“What, too chicken to fight me?” the guy snickers. “Too scared of hurting your little hands?”
“I’m gonna punch a hole through your skull, you absolute buffoon,” Kaoru hisses, struggling against Kojirou’s grip. “Let me go, Kojirou!”
“Stop getting into fights, damn it!” Kojirou yells.
“He asked for it!”
“Same difference, you idiot!”
Kojirou loops his arms under Kaoru’s armpits and keeps him still, pressed against his torso, even when Kaoru is trying to pull forward with the sheer force of his will. Kojirou’s stronger than Kaoru, but Kaoru doesn’t give a shit when he is moved by rage alone, stomping and wriggling and squirming in the hopes of getting away.
The guy is watching them with the most self-satisfied smirk ever, as if Kaoru’s inaction is proof of his victory over a petty squabble that Kaoru himself doesn’t remember. It pisses him off.
He usually wouldn’t resort to such dirty tactics. In a fight, the more they use their fists and feet and entire bodies, the more gratifying it is. Sporting injuries and scars are simply a natural consequence of it, and everyone should wear them proudly—like real battle scars, resembling a physical history of their hard-won fights.
Kaoru’s skateboard is within leg reach. He has long legs, Kojirou keeps reminding him, so might as well make use of them. He makes one big step forward, grunting when he’s met with resistance due to Kojirou holding him back, but he manages to have his foot on the tail-end of the deck and brings the skateboard at his feet. He can feel Kojirou’s and the bastard’s confused and intrigued gazes on him; all he does is offer a grin, the sunlight catching on his lip ring like some wicked gleam of mischievousness.
Kaoru gives a harsh kick into his skateboard that goes straight towards the guy, hitting his ankle at full speed and tearing a cry of pain and surprise out of his throat. He puts all his weight on his other foot and cradles his injured ankle, glaring at Kaoru with burning anger. Kaoru isn’t sorry in the least.
“I’ll end you,” the man threatens, visibly shaking with fury.
“Good luck with that ankle,” Kaoru replies smugly. “You’ll fall over before you can land a single hit on me.”
Kojirou audibly sighs and shakes his head. And then, two things happen at once.
The first is that their friend bends down with difficulty, not wishing to put strain on his ankle, and picks up the skateboard. He gives it a long contemplative look, like he’s wondering if this object is worth his interest, before dropping it back on the ground and getting on it.
The second is Kaoru watching this with mounting irritation and rage, and he decides that stomping on Kojirou’s foot to let him go is less aggravating than letting some random prick steal his skateboard. So he does just that with minimal hesitation, causing Kojirou to loudly yelp as his grip loosens enough for Kaoru to slip out.
Skating all day doesn’t mean they can’t run with their feet. Kaoru pushes on his feet like his life depends on it and in a few large strides he catches up to the guy just as he starts skating away, and Kaoru, without a second thought, decks him.
Skateboard back in hand, a broad smile splitting his face in two, Kaoru leaves the track with a victorious fist lifted in the air, to Kojirou’s growing exasperation.
iii.
Kaoru presses his lips together and remains stubbornly silent.
“Kaoru.”
Arms crossed and a frown deeper than usual on his face, Kojirou is staring at him with disappointment so clear that Kaoru actually feels bad, for once. He shrugs.
“You’re lucky that it didn’t rip off your lip,” Kojirou continues. “Why did you get piercings if you know you’ll never resist fighting people? Do you want to risk permanent damage just because your brain is filled with a useless need to fight?”
“Shut up, Kojirou,” Kaoru mutters.
Kaoru winces when Kojirou presses something cold on his mouth, gently dabbing at it and being careful about the lip ring, whose presence alone did a number on his face. Having his head smashed into the ground would do that, he supposes.
Kojirou is silently working on cleaning and bandaging his various cuts and bruises on his face. Kaoru glances up, noticing that the tense line of Kojirou’s shoulders is heavier than usual, a bit more worried, as if today’s encounter could have ended in a disaster. It wasn’t any worse than the previous times. Maybe Kaoru got roughed up a bit more and maybe he got kicked in the ribs more times than necessary and yes, maybe he should have taken off his earrings and lip ring before going skating, but these are all possible factors disrupting his routine he always considers before doing anything. And it’s not like he knows in advance that someone will pick a fight with him. He just got unlucky this time.
Kaoru watches Kojirou’s brows knit together in concentration. This isn’t a rare expression on his face, but Kaoru has never noticed the way Kojirou’s focus is single-minded when he does this kind of detail-oriented tasks, or the way he purses his lips like he does when he’s trying to solve a complicated math problem. It’s the face he makes when something requires his entire attention, unperturbed and going at the pace he needs to finish what he started.
“Hm,” Kaoru says, partly because he’s thinking and partly because he shouldn’t open his still bleeding mouth.
“What?” Kojirou’s gaze never strays from Kaoru’s injury.
Kojirou takes Kaoru’s hand and guides it towards the compress placed on the corner of his mouth, and makes him apply pressure while the cleaning shifts to his ear. Kaoru’s lip isn’t bleeding as much as before, judging by the color of the compress that didn’t become completely red in five seconds, so he supposes talking shouldn’t make matters worse.
“Your precision is a bit surprising,” he admits, laughter in his voice. “I didn’t think you could be so calm while handling things that need careful maneuvering.”
“I’m not the one who can’t break eggs without dropping pieces of shell in them,” Kojirou snipes back.
Kaoru rolls his eyes. “Breaking eggs needs practicing, and I can still pick out the shell pieces if I really need to. If you poke someone in the wrong place while tending to their injuries then you’ll make it worse, moron.”
Kojirou is visibly putting all his efforts into remaining focused on his task, trying not to get riled up by Kaoru’s comments. It would be funny to watch, actually, if Kaoru wasn’t the one receiving treatment.
“I haven’t let you down yet, have I?” Kojirou asks.
And Kaoru can’t find anything scathing as an answer, staring at Kojirou’s bright eyes that never hide what he’s feeling.
“I suppose you haven’t, no,” Kaoru says lowly.
“You’re so much trouble, you know that?” Kojirou sighs.
But he finally meets Kaoru’s gaze and Kaoru is almost taken aback by the sincerity and raw emotion shining in it, like Kojirou is looking at a treasure he has locked behind a chest and kept the key close to his heart. Kaoru swallows.
“Not as much as you,” he replies with less bite than he intended.
“Says the one who is covered in bandages and band-aids.”
“I have to put up with your nonsense every day!”
“And I have to drag your ass back from whatever scuffle you get involved in!”
Kaoru shoves his hand in Kojirou’s face, and they start jostling each other, as if they weren’t being as still and cautious as possible to avoid complicating the process of patching Kaoru up. This familiarity, too, is something that will never change, no matter what happens—Kojirou has Kaoru’s back.