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The tattoo was Kojiro’s idea.
More specifically, Kojiro’s idea was matching tattoos
“What am I, your wife?” Kaoru spits, and decidedly ignores the flash of disappointment that passes over Kojiro’s eyes.
“The ladies love tattoos, Kaoru,” he smirks. “And given your luck I thought you might need all the extra help you can get.”
Kaoru wordlessly sends his latest Carla prototype careening into Kojiro’s ankles.
The ladies also love my piercings, Kaoru doesn’t say, mostly because he’s not really interested in any of the girls that have confessed to him and he doesn’t want Kojiro to badger him about asking one of them out on a date.
The reason why he’s not interested in dating any of them is not something he likes to think about that much.
When Kojiro finally stops jumping around and spitting expletives towards Carla, Kaoru comes over to lean against the railing next to him. They’re at their favorite spot under the bridge, where they’ve been practicing their tricks since they were kids.
They watch the sun set behind the horizon quietly, elbows brushing against one another.
“You’re not even eighteen yet, you moron.” Kaoru says, breaking the silence that has fallen around them. He’s not against the idea of Kojiro getting a tattoo, Kaoru himself has so many piercings that he lost the higher ground on body modifications years ago.
But the idea of matching tattoos feels permanent in a way that puts him on edge. It feels like a branding of some sort. But that’s not the thing that makes Kaoru most nervous; it’s the fact that he wouldn’t actually mind getting one, as long as it was with Kojiro. It’s the fact that he’d felt his stomach swoop when Kojiro had first brought up the idea.
He’d like to be bound to Kojiro in some way, and that scares him to the bone.
He knows Kojiro could never turn out like Adam. He’s too caring, too good. But Kaoru’s afraid that maybe he’s the corrupting force. Maybe he’s the reason Adam went off the rails the way he did before leaving. Maybe he could corrupt Kojiro too if he let him get too close. It feels egotistical and unrealistic to think that he might have been the one to push Adam to the limit, that he might have been that significant to him; but he can’t stop his mind from wondering anyway. He could never forgive himself if he ever hurt Kojiro.
“I will be, in a month. It’s not a big deal,” Kojiro answers without turning his gaze away from the last rays of light. The sky is almost blood red now, and Kaoru thinks the way the color contrasts against Kojiro’s hair is so... pretty.
Kaoru catches himself staring at his best friend’s profile and promptly turns away, ignoring the way his heart beats just a little faster.
“A sun,” Kojiro says, finally.
It takes Kaoru a couple of seconds to piece together whatever it is Kojiro’s trying to say, but when he does, he huffs and repeats, “A sun? You want to get a sun tattooed on you?”
“Got a problem with that?” Kojiro sounds vaguely defensive, but when he turns around, Kaoru can see he’s smirking his usual smug smile, always ready to bicker. “It looks cool and has a nice meaning.”
“What the fuck can the sun mean other than light or some shit?”
“Of course it means light, you idiot. But it also means rebirth.” Kojiro turns pensive for a moment. “That’s a good meaning to get stuck with forever, don’t you think?”
Kaoru doesn’t want to think about how well the meaning actually fits Kojiro. Kojiro, who can light up an entire room with his smile. Whose personality shines brighter than anything Kaoru has ever seen. Who can always pick Kaoru up when he falls and help him begin anew. So he shoves those thoughts deep into the recesses of his mind and hopes desperately that they disappear.
“Do you even have a design in mind or are you just going into this blindly, like you do with most things?” He demands, as rude as he can manage when his throat feels like it’s closing up.
Kojiro looks at him, slightly incredulous.
“It’s a sun,” he says slowly, in the same tone he uses to explain very simple concepts to his younger sisters. “You know, a circle with little lines coming out of it? I didn’t think I’d have to draw it out for you, it feels fairly simple.”
“Oh my god,” Kaoru groans. “I always knew you were an imbecile.”
He turns to his backpack and fishes out a pencil and a loose piece of paper.
“Give me ten minutes.”
Kaoru has always been artistically gifted to some degree, though drawing with pencil isn’t really his favorite medium. But, in a few minutes, he sketches out the design for a sun that doesn’t look like it was drawn by a three year old.
“What do you think?” He asks Kojiro, who over the last ten minutes has settled against him, peering over his shoulder, soft hair tickling Kaoru’s cheek. “This way it won’t look like you let your 10-year-old sisters draw on you.”
Kojiro plucks the paper from Kaoru’s fingers and holds it up critically. His eyes are shining a little though, Kaoru notices, and a small smile is tugging at his lips.
“I guess this will have to do,” is Kojiro’s final verdict. “The offer still stands for a matching one, Pinky, I’m sure we could get a discount!”
Kaoru pretends to retch over the railing and Kojiro bursts out laughing, head thrown back carelessly, laughter booming around them in the low light.
.
Six months later, Kojiro grips Kaoru’s hand while the last of his sun is being etched into his shoulder.
It looks good, because of course it does. Kojiro can make almost anything look good (and that’s a piece of information Kaoru will never tell him; they don’t need his head getting any bigger than it already is). But mostly, it feels good, to see his design on Kojiro’s skin. It feels maybe a little too good, if Kaoru is being honest with himself. It feels like staking his claim, like somehow Kojiro belongs to him now.
Kojiro smiles at him in the reflection of the mirror where he’s admiring the new ink, and Kaoru feels his face grow pink under the warmth of Kojiro’s gaze. His heart skips a beat and Kaoru forces his eyes away, forces his body to act normally. He knows, by now, that it’s a losing battle, but he tries anyway.
Kojiro’s eyes on him will always burn, but that doesn’t mean he has to let him know.
.
Three weeks later, after Kojiro’s boarded the plane towards Italy, towards his year-long apprenticeship, Kaoru finds himself in the same tattoo parlor, with a sun drawn on a small piece of paper and his heart hammering away in his chest.
The skin behind his ear burns for hours afterwards.
.
By the time Kojiro comes home, a whole two years later than he should have, Kaoru has gotten rid of all his piercings (a decision he made to appear more proper and elegant for his clients), and he’s gotten into the habit of keeping his hair down at all times, effectively hiding the small sun tattooed behind his ear. Even when he skates, he makes sure either his mask or a strategically placed lock of hair is always covering his ear, and the mark underneath.
He’s changed in the three years Kojiro was away, but he’s not surprised to find his feelings for his friend have remained the same. Kojiro is bigger now, taller too, almost towering over Kaoru’s slighter frame, but his smile is still the same he had when he was a teenager, and Kaoru still feels faint when its light is directed at him.
Both his treacherous feelings and his tattoo remain a secret though, even as Kaoru starts spending more and more time with Kojiro, at S and in his newborn restaurant and on their trips around the world that Kojiro swears are for research purposes only.
Kaoru keeps up with their banter, bickering and fighting about every little thing, begs his heart to stop beating so loud and keeps his hair carefully down. It works, for the most part.
There are accidents, of course.
Miya, the little kid their weird skating group picked up recently, is painfully observant.
“And what exactly is that, Cherry?” he asks one night, while they’re watching Kojiro win a beef against Shadow. Kaoru’s mask has slipped a little, he can feel it barely grazing his jaw, but the tattoo should still be hidden by his hair.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he answers, but hurries to pull his mask up as subtly as possible.
Miya taps a finger behind his own ear and raises his eyebrows. “Is that a tattoo?” He asks, pretending to be surprised. His voice carries loud enough to reach Langa and Reki, sitting together a short distance away.
“And it looks exactly like Joe’s, too!” Kaoru puts a hand over Miya’s mouth and shoots him a dark look. The kid’s eyes are sparkling with mischief as he licks Kaoru’s palm, forcing him to let him go.
“Don’t even think about speaking a word of this to- “ he starts, as stern as he can manage, but Miya interrupts him before he can finish.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I won’t tell Joe.” He looks down at his phone again, bored, before continuing. “It’s not like this is news, anyway.”
Kaoru refuses to acknowledge the kid further, choosing to ignore him in favor of hurling some kind of half-hearted insult towards Kojiro, who’s just now approaching them. Miya keeps his word, though, and drops the subject.
.
Then, one day, Adam comes back.
.
In the aftermath of what Kaoru is sure could be considered attempted murder, he finds himself leaning on Kojiro more than he’d like, both physically and emotionally.
He falls asleep in Kojiro’s restaurant and wakes up in the middle of the night, tucked in warm and snug in Kojiro’s bed, while the man himself snores away curled up in an armchair. Never out of arm's reach. Never any closer, either.
In the next few weeks, Kaoru settles into Kojiro’s apartment, not for lack of trying to go back to his own, but because I have a restaurant to run, four-eyes, and this way I’m only thirty seconds away from you if you need anything.
Kaoru doesn’t need Kojiro at his beck and call every hour of every day, and he certainly doesn’t need him to lend him his shirts, or cook for him every day, or sleep on a futon in his own room so Kaoru can take the bed, or stay awake with him and rub his back on nights when the pain or the insomnia keep him from falling asleep.
But Kaoru can admit that it's nice for once, to be cared for this lovingly.
What Kaoru does actually need is to learn how to tie his own damn hair with only one arm, because he’s tired of having it fall in front of his eyes all the time, and he certainly can’t ask Kojiro for help. He hasn’t spent years hiding his incriminating tattoo for nothing.
So, one day, he waits for Kojiro to leave for work and stations himself in front of a mirror, with Carla displaying tutorials on the wall. He lasts less than an hour before the idea of shaving everything off starts to sound like a truly brilliant one.
He sits, defeated, looking at the mess he’s made of his fine hair, now sticking out in every direction, full of pins that aren’t really holding up anything.
If he turns his head slightly, he can see the little black sun peeking out from behind his ear. Almost as a reflex, his hand lifts to stroke over it, in gentle, repetitive motions.
He finds himself thinking back to that day, years and years ago, Kojiro looking at him with warmth in his eyes and a new tattoo Kaoru had ached to touch. The way his whole body had felt warm and electric; how that wasn’t the first time his best friend’s smile had made him feel so full of emotion, but it had been the first time he’d allowed himself to call that feeling by its name. Seeing Kojiro wear his design proudly on his skin had made him realize that his feelings may be as permanent as the sun on his best friend. He’d realized that maybe he was allowed to call it love, was allowed to feel it and wear it on his skin, too.
In the end, he was right. After almost ten years, the feelings are still there. They’ve settled into something else now, something more mature, more comfortable. His heart doesn’t threaten to kill him when he catches Kojiro looking at him now, but the warmth that fills his body when his friend’s gaze falls upon him has remained the same.
Kaoru doesn’t ask Carla to screen him for heart attacks anymore, even though his heart never once stopped burning.
He’s still sitting there, staring darkly at the mess on his head, when Kojiro walks into the apartment.
Kaoru jumps a foot in the air when he hears the door close and Kojiro’s voice filter through the apartment. Wasn’t he supposed to be at work? Why did he come back so early?
“I’m home!” Kojiro shouts, taking his shoes off in the least elegant way possible, if the sound of them hitting the floor hard is anything to go by. “It’s almost lunchtime, Kaoru, what do you want to eat?”
Kaoru doesn’t answer, still frozen and looking desperately for a way to tidy his hair in the scant thirty seconds he has before Kojiro inevitably sees him. If Kojiro catches him looking like this, he will certainly offer his help, and then his hands will be in Kaoru’s hair and he will see the tattoo and-
“Kaoru?” Kojiro’s head peeks into the bedroom. “You alright?”
In the end, Kaoru decides to just stare his inevitable demise dead on, and turns to look at Kojiro straight in the eyes, as if nothing’s wrong.
“I’m fine, why are you here?”
“You don’t look fine,” Kojiro laughs. “You look like a bird made a nest out of your hair.”
“I was experimenting,” says Kaoru primly. Kojiro only laughs harder. “Why aren’t you at work, you useless gorilla?”
“The restaurant’s closed today,” Kojiro answers when he regains composure. “I only went downstairs to clean up a couple of things, I wasn’t even gone that long.” He looks at Kaoru’s hair again and stifles another laugh. “Though I guess it was long enough. Want a hand with that?”
Of course he’d ask.
“I would rather cut off my own legs than have you touch my hair.”
“Oh, c’mon, you’re underestimating my abilities.” Kojiro starts creeping closer, wiggling his raised fingers. “I’ve done my sisters’ hair a thousand times, I know what I’m doing.”
Kaoru can recognize a losing battle when he sees one. He knows that no matter what he says or does, Kojiro will find his way to doing his hair, sooner or later. He also recognizes that he does need his help to get everything untangled and tidy.
And maybe a small part of him doesn’t mind the idea of Kojiro finally seeing the tattoo, of him finally knowing. Of finally being able to stop pretending.
So he settles back down and lets Kojiro walk up to him.
“What exactly were you trying to do here?” Kojiro starts taking out the pins and letting Kaoru’s hair tumble down his shoulders. Kojiro’s hands are gentle, his fingers running through the pink strands without ever pulling.
“I was tired of having it all in my face, it’s annoying. It’s just hard to put it up with only one hand.”
Kaoru feels his eyes slip shut as Kojiro keeps combing out his hair, caringly smoothing out the knots. It’s relaxing, unsurprisingly, to have Kojiro so close to him, to feel his hands on him and his warm presence behind him.
Kojiro keeps stroking his hair long after all the pins are out, hands smoothing over the back of Kaoru’s neck and his shoulders. Everywhere Kojiro touches, Kaoru feels warm.
“Do you want me to put it up for you?” Kojiro asks softly, voice barely breaking through the silence that has fallen between them.
It’s almost a miracle, that Kojiro hasn’t noticed the tattoo yet, and Kaoru could ask him to stop touching now and save face. It would be so easy.
He finds that he doesn’t want to.
He nods, almost imperceptibly, and offers Kojiro the hair tie around his wrist. His skin sparkles where Kojiro’s fingers graze him. Every touch right now feels impossibly big, and his body is buzzing with each one.
“I’ve always liked your hair, you know?” Kojiro is still doing little more than stroking Kaoru’s hair, letting the silky strands whisper through his fingers.
“Shut up, you dumb gorilla.” Kaoru grumbles, but it sounds unconvincing even to his own ears.
“I have! It’s very soft.” Kojiro laughs a little and starts gathering the strands. “You wear it down a lot more now than when we were younger, though. Why’s that?”
Kaoru shrugs, ignoring the way his heart is, once again, trying to beat its way out of his chest. There is absolutely nothing to be flustered about: of course Kojiro noticed Kaoru wears his hair down now, they spend most of their free time together, like they did as children. It makes sense that he’d notice a change. That’s no good reason for his body to betray him like this.
“Just wanted a change,” Kaoru whispers. He can’t seem to make his voice any louder without it trembling.
“Sure you did.” Kojiro huffs an amused breath. “The tattoo you’ve been trying to hide had nothing to do with it, I’m sure.”
Kaoru turns around so fast his hair whips Kojiro in the chest.
“You knew?”
His voice really is trembling, now, shaky under the weight of all that he’s feeling. He doesn’t have the time to sift through every emotion running around in his head, though, so he settles easily for his default when dealing with Kojiro: poorly concealed irritation.
“You knew and you didn’t say anything?” Kojiro looks a little taken aback by his lively reaction, but talks back with a speed only years and years of fighting like this could have granted him.
“Why didn’t you say anything, huh? Why did you hide it from me?”
“I didn’t hide it from you! I hid it from everyone!”
Kaoru tries to stand, because fighting while having to crane his neck up to see Kojiro’s face is making him uneasy. He doesn’t like being at such a disadvantage. And he knows the doctors told him he shouldn’t be standing yet, not for another week or so, but he really doesn’t care at the moment. The need to be on the same level as Kojiro is more important.
When he manages to get up, Kojiro’s hands shoot out to steady him, one holding his uninjured elbow, the other on his hip. He doesn’t drop the subject even as he practically carries Kaoru to sit on the bed.
“Everyone already knows,” he says, voice softer but no less determined. “I think maybe Langa hasn’t noticed yet, but it’s only a matter of time before Reki tells him, so-”
“How long have you known?” Kaoru interrupts, because that’s what really matters, at this point. He doesn’t care if the entirety of S knows about his tattoo and about his feelings, he only cares about Kojiro. He only cares about why Kojiro never said anything if he’s known for so long. Why he’d never asked for an explanation. Because if he did know, then he couldn’t have missed the meaning behind the small sun on Kaoru’s skin, he must have known, and not saying anything can only mean that he doesn’t share the same feelings. That the love (because it is love, Kaoru can admit it, even only in the privacy of his own thoughts) Kaoru feels, and has felt for the longest time, isn’t reciprocated.
“We facetimed a lot, while I was still settling down in Italy, remember? It was almost every night.” Kojiro gently moves to cradle Kaoru’s uninjured hand between his, giving it a little squeeze.
Of course Kaoru remembers. Kojiro would always call him whenever he had time in between shifts, accommodating for the time difference that meant Kaoru was going to bed when Kojiro was sitting down for lunch.
“You fell asleep a lot while we were talking, because you insisted on wanting to hear about my day even if it was already the middle of the night here.” Kojiro smiles fondly, but doesn’t tear his eyes away from their hands, now intertwined on his lap.
Kaoru never told him, but the sweet cadence of Kojiro droning on and on about his new life was the only thing that could put him to sleep easily. His voice always worked better than any lullaby Carla could play for him.
Kaoru never told him, but he thinks Kojiro knows anyway.
“One day you moved while you were sleeping, and I caught a glimpse of black behind your ear. I didn’t see what it was, that first time, but I pieced it together not long after that.”
Kojiro meets his gaze, a warm smile on his lips. “It looks good on you, from what I’ve seen.”
Kaoru is speechless, he doesn’t think he could form words if he tried, and Kojiro seems to understand that, because he doesn’t really give him any chance to respond. One of his hands reaches for Kaoru’s ear, fingers pressing gently to the black sun.
The first touch of his fingers feels like sunlight, appropriately enough, and Kaoru shivers.
“I didn’t say anything at first because I wanted to see what you’d do, but then when months passed and you didn’t say a word, I started thinking maybe you had come to regret it, and I didn’t want to put you on the spot like that. We both know how well you deal with pressure.” He says all of this with his fingers still touching the tattoo, palm pressed to the side of Kaoru’s face, their faces inches apart.
He’s looking at Kaoru with a weird expression in his eyes. Kaoru has seen that look directed at him thousands of times before, always when Kojiro thinks Kaoru isn’t looking, but looking at it so directly feels different, somehow. Kojiro’s eyes are soft, their red deep and syrupy sweet, and his whole face looks more… open, more vulnerable, in a way Kaoru had never stopped to analyze before. But here, with Kojiro’s face a breath away from his, Kaoru can look at him and study him as much as he wants, and Kojiro looks-
Oh.
He looks in love, Kaoru realizes.
“You love me,” Kaoru breathes. The realization is making his fingers shake, and his heart suddenly feels too big for his chest.
“I’ve loved you for years, Kaoru. How did you not notice?” Kojiro smiles, brings up his other hand to cup Kaoru’s face. “I asked you to get matching tattoos, for God’s sake, I couldn’t have been any less subtle.”
“You love me,” Kaoru repeats, because this is the one thing he’d never allowed himself to hope for. The one thing he’d always thought impossible.
Kojiro’s smile falters as he moves away from Kaoru, letting his hands fall back on his lap. “I’m sorry to spring this on you like this, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It’s okay if you never want me to bring this up again, or whatever, I’d understand- “
“No no no, Kojiro, listen-” Kaoru grabs his hand again, unwilling to let go, and squeezes it. He wants to say a million different things, but he doesn’t know where to start, doesn’t think his mouth would form the words correctly. At a loss for anything else to do, he pushes Kojiro’s hand on his own chest, right over his fast-beating heart. He looks into Kojiro’s eyes while he realizes, watches them grow big and round and lovely in surprise. “I- I feel the same way,” he manages to get out, an uncharacteristic giggle escaping his mouth. His eyes feel strangely damp, too. “I love you, too.”
He barely has time to finish his sentence before Kojiro’s smile is pressed against his lips. Kojiro’s mouth is soft and insistent against his own, lips slotting with his as if they were made to do just that. His hands are cradling his face again, warm on Kaoru’s cheeks, slightly calloused from years of working in a kitchen but still unbearably tender. Kojiro holds him like he’s something important, something to be treasured and cared for and loved.
Kaoru has never felt this loved.
The kiss lasts for far less than Kaoru wants it to, but Kojiro’s lips don’t leave his skin, pressing sweet kisses on his cheek and over his cheekbone until he reaches his ear. When Kojiro kisses his tattoo, a shiver runs through Kaoru’s whole body, and a small gasp leaves his mouth.
He tightens his grip on Kojiro’s shirt and lets himself feel.
.
Afterwards, when they’re lying in bed, legs tangled and arms around each other, Kaoru finds himself gently kissing Kojiro’s tattoo. It’s not the first time he’s seen it, nor the millionth, not with how much Kojiro likes parading around S shirtless, but it feels different now, with the low light of the late afternoon cascading over them. It feels more intimate, now that Kojiro knows.
He burrows closer to Kojiro and lets his eyes slip shut. Kojiro’s arms tighten around him, always mindful of his broken arm, hands burying themselves in his hair.
“You know,” Kojiro says, after a while, “I never told you I knew about the tattoo because I was a little scared of asking why you’d got it done in the first place.”
Kaoru lifts up from Kojiro’s chest to frown at him.
“Why would you be scared of that?” The temptation to tease Kojiro is strong;, Kaoru’s never been one to back down from a friendly fight, but Kojiro looks guarded, eyes not meeting Kaoru’s face at all. He actually looks worried about the answer. So Kaoru decides to be honest, for once: no teasing, no jokes, just the truth.
“Kojiro,” he murmurs, stroking his cheek with his thumb. He waits for Kojiro to turn to him before continuing. “I love you,” he says, just because he can, now, and because he’s taking his time to rearrange his thoughts into actual sentences. Kojiro’s lips quirk up, and Kaoru kisses him gently.
“And I loved you back then, too. You gave light to my life, and you were leaving and I-” Kojiro opens his mouth to interrupt. “-no, I’m not blaming you for leaving, let me finish. You were my sun and you were leaving and I wanted to feel you close to me. I wanted to have something I could look at and feel you with me, be reminded of your light.”
Kaoru smiles, kisses Kojiro again.
“You’re my sun, Kojiro.”
Kojiro looks a little flustered, eyes damp and cheeks flushed, and Kaoru is proud, deep down, that he’s the only one that can make Kojiro blush like this.
Kaoru lies back down on Kojiro’s chest, feeling his heart beat, just a little faster than usual, under his cheek. He doesn’t fight the small smile that tugs at his lips.
They’ll have to get up soon, wash up, eat something. They skipped lunch, in the end, so Kojiro will probably want to make something a little extra tonight. Kaoru will greatly enjoy watching Kojiro putter around in the kitchen, strong and confident and beautiful. Maybe he’ll try to entice him into another round of sex before dinner (him wearing Kojiro’s shirt and little else seems to be an easy way of riling Kojiro up).
But that’s for later.
For now, Kaoru curls even tighter in Kojiro’s arms and lets himself be lulled to sleep by Kojiro’s steady, strong heartbeat, by his slow breathing ruffling his hair, by the warmth surrounding him on all sides.