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In the summer Okinawa peels open like a boiled egg forgotten in a basket for too long in an onsen, bits of shell sticking obstinately to white flesh, damp and altogether unpleasant to the touch. Kaoru sips aggressively at an iced tea in the shade of his porch and regrets, the same way he does every August, his decision to stick to a traditional style house.
Not even the echo of a cloudless sky in the brilliant blue of his carefully curated koi pond can soothe his irritation. His yukata sticks to his neck, sweat pooling under his obi; he halfheartedly bemoans that choice, too, fanning at sticky pink hair with a sensu with his own brushwork on it.
But the Sakurayashiki way is culture, and anyway, he looks good in traditional print. It also doesn’t hurt that the sharp juxtaposition against Carla’s brushed chrome and glowy lighting makes him look really cool at S.
There's the thud of heavy footsteps before a plate of ice-cold watermelon is dropped none too ceremoniously onto his stomach. "Oi, Kaoru," the shadowy silhouette says. "Can't you get a proper electric fan, at least?"
"Why are you in my house," Kaoru states more than asks, one eye cracking open to regard him disdainfully even as he moves the bowl to the ground next to him and extricates a slice to nibble on. "And not on the porch, it's unsightly."
That earns him a laugh, the belly-loud variety Kojiro only gives when he means it. "Unsightly, says the guy who regularly eats it in his fancy bespoke wafuku." He doesn't answer the first question, which hadn't really been one, anyway. Hasn't been in years.
He drops into a squat, loose-limbed and far too close for Kaoru's taste. His tacky Hawaiian print shirt is wide open as usual; Kaoru doesn't let his gaze linger on the worn leather-corded pendant resting in the dip between his collarbones, only barely suppressing a flinch as Kojiro takes a slice for himself and jams it into his mouth with a satisfied crunch. "I meam, thabi, thewiousy?"
"Don't tabi, seriously me," Kaoru snipes, waving airily. "You fall far more often than I do. And it's never about my footwear."
Kojiro chuckles again, causing a spray of watermelon juice that Kaoru dodges with no small amount of consternation. "Fair," he pronounces, clearer after he's taken a pause to chew and swallow and wipe his mouth on his forearm. "'Fact, don't think you've wiped out since -"
It is almost tangible the way the conversation crystallises as their thoughts collide on the common memory, tugging them out of the languid to and fro of sun and sky and too much time into a blazing crash.
Kaoru's eyes are trained on Kojiro's as they fall to the slope of his nose - still impeccably straight with an elegant turn up at the end, no visible trace of damage. They linger, lower, a fraction of a moment before he tugs them away and exhales, low and controlled despite the furrow that has carved itself between his brows.
You wouldn't know it now, looking at him. But Kojiro hasn't looked in on Kaoru from the outside for a long time.
"Kojiro - "
"Fuck, Kaoru," Kojiro bites out emphatically, wiping a hand over his face hard, like he's scrubbing the memory out of his mind. "Are you - okay?"
Sometimes I hear the sickening crunch of cartilage giving way when a leaf flies too close to my face, he doesn't say, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and have to turn the lights on so I know my eyes aren't squeezed shut moments before impact.
"Best surgeons this side of Japan, remember," he drawls instead, tapping the side of his perfectly re-set jaw and unblemished cheekbone, elegant fingers splayed in a See? motion. "Careful, I might think you're concerned if you keep that up."
He doesn't realise the other hand has somehow found the side of Kojiro's shirt and fisted there, desperate for something grounding. Doesn't shift when warm skin closes over his own, not even when the humidity drenches them in heavy air, settling ponderous into the creases of their skin.
---
He'd met Kojiro second year of middle school, escaping to his favourite corner of the school roof only to discover there was a green-haired interloper in his lunch spot.
"Hah?" he'd huffed, because he was having a phase where he was rejecting tradition and yankii was what he was trying this week. He tossed his head, tucking an unruly lock of pink hair behind his ear so his fresh piercings could glint more threateningly. "Who're you?"
The stranger had turned, one hand raised in greeting. "Oh, hey," he said, like he'd been waiting for him and this was a scheduled rendezvous, or something. "Sakurayashiki Kaoru, yeah?"
Kaoru had been dumbfounded. "This is my spot," he'd grunted, then, as an afterthought, "That's my name."
"That it is," Tan-and-Mossy had agreed amiably. "Nanjo Kojiro." He held out a hand to shake. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Still off balance but unable to ignore over a decade's worth of etiquette classes, Kaoru took his hand for the briefest moment before letting go. Then, figuring with a resignation born of laziness that Nanjo - that was his name - wasn't going to move anytime soon, he tucked his hand safely back into his pocket and dropped to the ground, unwrapping the furoshiki so carefully tied by his mother to reveal a delicate lacquered bento box that, he realised in retrospect, didn't much match the vibe he was going for currently.
"That looks amazing," Nanjo gushed, leaning all the way into his personal space to peer at the neat, colourful partitions when he lifted the lid. "Everyone talks about you, but no one said anything about godly bento."
He was pretty unremarkable in stature and - like - average looking, Kaoru supposed. But this guy ignored social convention with all the bumbling grace of someone who didn't quite know or care what it was, the way he'd not taken his cue to leave someone else's spot and was now more interested in the contents of his home made lunch.
He didn't know what possessed him - maybe it was the shine in Nanjo's gaze as he stared at the food, or his uncouth but also oddly unobtrusive no-reservations demeanor. Before common sense could kick back in Kaoru picked up one of his much-beloved tako sausages and held it out to Nanjo by the cocktail stick. "Want one?"
The other boy's eyes sparkled. "Do I," he said, excitedly. "It even has a seaweed face!"
Which was too cute for the demeanour he had taken to cultivating to dissuade people from bothering him, which brought him back to one of the reasons he tended to eat alone in his lunch spot, in the first place.
"My mother's an artist," he explained, as he began to tuck into his food. "But first - I gave you a tako sausage, so tell me how you know my name."
Nanjo huffed a laugh as he unpacked his own bento, which looked delicious in its own right, if not quite as beautiful. "Blackmail," he complained, but he was still smiling. "How could I not, when everyone's head over heels for you for some reason?" He took a moment to eye Kaoru, as if appraisingly. “Eh, alright, I guess.”
Kaoru scowled at the reminder of the unwanted attention he had been steadily getting ever since middle school had started. "I've never seen you around, though," he said, tilting his head and squinting at Nanjo like that would help him place him.
Nanjo grinned lopsidedly. "Just moved here from Naha."
"Ah," Kaoru said, since that explained a lot of things. He took his time chewing on another bite before he drawled, "Ha, transfer student."
Nanjo spluttered. "I don't count! I'm from like, next door!"
Kaoru's lip curled. "Name 5 elementary schools in the area."
"Huh? I - what - Of course I wouldn't - !"
It was entertaining, the way his face was turning red and lending a picturesque contrast to his oddly coloured hair. Kaoru sat back in satisfaction, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, smugly, "See? Transfer student."
"You're just an annoying ass under the cool facade, huh," Nanjo said suddenly, with dawning clarity. "Wait til the girls hear about this."
"I'll pay you if they'll stop calling me out for confessions," Kaoru muttered darkly. "It's either that or homework help. What am I, a nice person?"
That made Nanjo laugh out loud, an ungainly squawking sound that nearly made Kaoru lose his grip on his chopsticks. "You're not so bad," he said, reaching over to pat Kaoru on the shoulder. "You shared a sausage and your lunch spot with a stranger." He paused, and smiled, an unexpectedly gentle expression. "Thanks, by the way."
He placed both his hands behind him, propping up his body, and tilted his head up until he was facing the sky, which was clear blue with luxuriously fluffy clouds. An absent enjoyment came over his features then, almost as if he were a bird of prey remembering keenly what it was like to soar. "It's a good spot. All open with fresh air, but tucked away from the crowds."
"It is nice, isn't it," Kaoru agreed, feeling oddly validated. He rooted about in his pocket for a bit. "Some melon milk would top this off."
Nanjo got abruptly to his feet then, twirling a faintly grubby wallet in a hand. "I'll buy, I wanna figure out where the closest vending machine is anyway."
Kaoru's hand found the edge of his still healing piercing and tugged at it, fidgety. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "What's the catch?"
"Isn't it obvious," Nanjo had retorted, one bushy brow raised. "You don't take back my permit."
"Hm," Kaoru said, appraising. A hundred-yen packet drink and a 2-minute walk, or an entire school year's worth of peace and quiet?
Something stayed his hand. He didn't refuse.
---
"I should get a loyalty discount with how often I come here,” Kaoru quips into his green tea, off the menu in an Italian restaurant but stocked specifically to his tastes.
Kojiro wipes down the counter again before chucking the rag aside, crossing beefy arms across his chest in no small amount of displeasure. “You do,” he says, flatly. “Fifteen percent off the whole menu.” And then, to be spiteful, he swipes the cup and takes a swig from it. “And free flow green tea. How’s that for a steal?”
Kaoru eyes the cup warily before reaching for the tea pot to top it up, but doesn’t comment otherwise. “I’m giving you business,” he retorts. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to work entertainment at an Italian restaurant into the profile of a calligraphy house?”
He snaps his fingers and Carla glows to life, summoned. “Seven-hundred man-hours of market research were conducted on a select sample of comparable businesses to determine the most effective method of assimilation.”
Kojiro laughs. “And how many Carla hours is that?
In the after-hours glow of Sia La Luce Carla almost seems alive, slipping into the space between them that had so indelibly shifted to accommodate the requirements of a trio. “Five,” she titters.
Kojiro breathes out something that sounds like a gasp of awe, and when Kaoru peers up at him Kojiro is shaking his head in a way that seems almost chastising. “What,” he says, flatly. “It’s efficiency.”
Kojiro laughs in response, still shaking his head. “Nothing,” he says, reaching behind him to grab a bottle of wine and two glasses from a cupboard. “Nothing,” he repeats again, slower this time like he is savouring the taste of the word on his mouth. “It’s just… sometimes.”
Wordlessly Kaoru accepts the offered glass, inclines his head in thanks as Kojiro begins to pour for him. “Sometimes... I think that you could be doing so much more, you know? Set up base HQ in Fukuoka, at least. Move on to Kyoto.” The smile on his lips is wistful, almost self-deprecating as he swirls his own drink and takes a sip. “We don’t have much of anything out here.”
Kaoru is quiet as he stares at his glass, inky maroon catching warm light and blinking back at him. “Sakurayashiki was established here and continues to practice here,” he says, eventually. “At the core of our house tenets is tradition. Surely even you know that.”
“That’s an excuse, though. There's always ways to expand,” Kojiro retorts, ignoring the halfhearted token insult. "Don't say it's skateboarding, either, even if it isn't S there's scenes everywhere else in Japan."
Kaoru sucks in a breath, bothered, then exhales it slowly in stages. "Why's it matter to you, anyway," he snipes. "Want me gone so badly?"
He's thought about it. Of course he has. Despite his availability for bookings the rule he has set is no trips longer than two days, and no more than four times a month. Even if it’s good for exclusivity and profit, he could still make more if he just expanded, it would be so easy, but - but.
Kojiro makes a sound like a growl. “Do you have to be so pissy all the time,” he bites out. “It might surprise you, genius, but I’m actually looking out for you here!”
Kaoru smiles very slightly at that. “I know,” he says, after a pause. Feeling indulgent he allows himself to take in how at the end of a day Kojiro looks tired but fulfilled, the way he can come alive with passion so easily, even now. “I’m looking out for me, too.”
The aggression leaks out of Kojiro in a rush. “Huh?” he asks, dumbly. “What’s that mean?”
Kaoru shakes his head, wondering himself. “Don’t break anything thinking too hard,” he suggests, putting just enough sincerity into it that it takes Kojiro a genuine second before he realises he’s still being insulted. In the interim Kaoru leans in and taps gently on his cheek, patronising.
Something makes him let his finger linger a breath too long, angle his head so his gaze slants out through long lashes. He downs his glass, then sets it down steadily on the counter. “Sleep on it if you have to. I’m heading home.”
---
Later, there was Adam, who crashed into their lives like a meteor, in his private school uniform that said born to money, the always-up hood that confirmed someone important.
He and Kojiro were rooftop lunch friends first, people who skateboarded together later - after Kaoru had bumped into Kojiro taking his stuff out of his locker one day and caught sight of his board, going completely still in one part incredulity and three parts what he would years later identify as a tentatively hopeful joy.
But with Adam he didn't exist outside of the arcades after hours, the bypassed road works barricades, the underside of an overpass. He skated like no one else they'd ever seen, graceful, unbound - he seemed to dance careless through the city's streets, a fey thing who disappeared when the sun came up.
Of course Kaoru was entranced. It was so difficult not to be.
Even if they never saw him in the day the moon was always bright and they carved eternities out of the night, bedroom windows left pushed open and curtains rustling in the balmy breeze. There stopped being a Kaoru and Kojiro, and in its place it was simply that they were waiting for Adam to join them.
After - after, there was almost a relief at the fact that he had left. Because he had hurt so many people with how consumed he had become with the sport, because he did it so heartlessly, and nothing they said could get through to him.
They were special, weren't they? Was that why they begged and pleaded for him to go back to how you were but never did anything more? Was it fine as long as his bloodthirst never turned upon them, as long as they were allowed to bask just a little bit more in the sun?
The last night they skated together had been after S - then a small gathering of neighbourhood skateboarders with only enough in attendance for a beef or two, every other week. Kaoru and Kojiro had remained on the swing set for hours after he'd bidden them goodbye, rusted chains creaking as they went.
"I'm… not sure I'm as upset as I should be," Kojiro had said eventually, slow and careful like he was afraid of how Kaoru might react. "Sorry, Kaoru. I know you guys were close."
"He never really looked at me," Kaoru said simply, shaking his head. He was exhausted, all of a sudden, and sank his knuckles into the grooves just above his eyeballs, feeling the strain of wearing contact lenses for the better part of a day compounded with recent events. “I don’t think you can call us that.”
Kojiro was silent for a while, swinging to and fro very slightly. In the past two years he had had a bit of a growth spurt, started to put on muscle in a way that meant he was getting his fair share of rooftop confessions now, too. But he was still the same guy underneath - hotheaded, ignorant of social convention, there when you needed him every single time.
“Don’t say that,” Kojiro remarked aloud, frank and to the point. “Just because he’s different now doesn’t mean it was never real, you know? When he comes back we’ll just beat the sense back into him. It’ll be fine, you see.”
Always the hopeful one of them two. In the future Kaoru won’t remember thinking this - not when he’s exasperated at Kojiro for being stubborn, calling him crass, or lecturing him for attempting to charge like a bull into every situation ever.
But in their present, seated on the same swingset they used to split convenience store sushi after skate sessions all through middle school and blue with the glow of the moon, he smiled his thanks, thinking at least this much will never change.
---
“Hey, Cherry.”
“Don’t call me that outside of S, Joe.”
“In a number of ways are we not presently undergoing an ordeal of similar proportions to S?”
A sigh. “Carla.”
“Kojiro-san. The Nago Summer Festival is a highly anticipated yearly festival that celebrates the arrival of summer. Highlights include various performances, fireworks, and a decadent selection of festival food. It is customarily viewed as an event to look forward to and enjoy.”
“Thank you, Carla.”
Kojiro bristles, waving his arms around demonstratively. “Not the festival, robot-brain, the babysitting assignment we’ve taken on for a reason I can’t remember but was definitely your fault!” He’s in a yukata for once, the v pulled far looser than strictly acceptable. Around them the crowd surges as a tide; Kojiro alone is a rock in the current, and Kaoru stands close to him to avoid being swept away.
“It is our duty as adults to ensure the youth do not attend crowded events unsupervised,” Kaoru responds primly, pushing up his glasses. “And Miya wanted to go.”
“Does that explain the two high schoolers and a fully grown man who have also become our responsibility for some reason,” Kojiro whinges, nearly breaking his head swiveling it to follow a group of beautiful women walking past, giggling and chatting. “I’m too young to be a father of four!”
Kaoru eyes him disdainfully over the curve of his sensu. “I hardly think it’s your age that makes you unsuitable as a role model.”
“What’d you say, four-eyes?!”
“Look, takoyaki,” Kaoru says abruptly, snapping the fan shut and pointing with it. “Keep an eye on the kids, I’ll get us a boat.”
“Hiromi is twenty-five,” Kojiro protests, but Kaoru notes he doesn't put up any more of a fight. Ten to twenty metres ahead of him the other four are meandering along as a unit, largely driven by Reki’s excited gestures and Langa’s questions, along with Miya’s attempt to chronicle (if not eat) every festival food possible.
Takoyaki is another one of their rituals. Back when 600 yen was a hefty sum to bear, they'd split a boat of eight, huddling in the eaves of the stall two streets behind their school to eat. Kojiro would scarf his down, tears streaming down his face as he bemoaned his burnt tongue, mouth, throat; in her early stages then, Carla would be brought close to the food to report, tinny, the temperature until Kaoru deemed it was the perfect time to dig in.
Everything loops back to things we've always done, Kaoru catches himself thinking, then resolves not to think any further. He smiles demurely at the cashier and watches as an extra ball is slotted into the side of the paper container with a blush, taking it gracefully in one hand and two cups of beer with the other.
"Beer?" is all Kojiro says as he moves to take the cups from him, squinting back where he'd last seen the other four. "They're a little up ahead. We should catch u - Kaoru?"
Kaoru is already looking for a good spot at the green just behind the rows of stalls, walking in the opposite direction. "You're right, Hiromi is twenty-five," he shrugs. "I think I need a drink."
"I should've recorded that," Kojiro jokes, jogging to keep up with him and indicating an empty space with his chin. "Not sure I've heard those words ever in the past fifteen years."
Has it been that long? Distracted, Kaoru is slow to reply. "Don't get used to it."
"I'm not used to anything when it comes to you," Kojiro quips, but it's so unmistakably fond that it causes a treacherous stutter in Kaoru's chest, one he disguises by picking up the takoyaki at the side by the toothpick and shoving it straight into Kojiro's grinning mouth. Tears instantly form in his eyes. "Ouwh," he whimpers.
"Spare one's for you," Kaoru deadpans, taking a sip from his drink. "Since you need to feed your unnecessarily large muscles."
After taking some effort to chew and swallow, Kojiro shamelessly gropes his own pec in reply. "Glad you finally noticed."
It's a joke, of course - ever since he’d started working out, Kaoru has never let him live it down. But it has the desired effect - Kaoru lets out a snort and mimes gagging, and Kojiro grins widely in response, arms akimbo as if showing off just how proud of himself he is.
Who’s the one, a voice in the back of his mind hums as Carla chimes Takoyaki is at optimal temperature and he heeds her call, who hasn’t noticed?
He doesn’t examine that thought. “Don’t look so proud of yourself,” he chastises instead, taking a drink of his Asahi. “It wasn’t a compliment.”
Kojiro winks mysteriously at him, then a lot less mysteriously at a few girls seated nearby who are watching them with undisguised interest. “Doesn’t have to be,” he quips, leaning closer, “for it to count.”
---
Life went on, to the surprise of their seventeen year old selves. In the last year of high school they skated a little less and studied a whole lot more, and S took on a life of its own in the scene. It was in this period that it became a special event whenever they showed up. The rumours made Kaoru snort when he heard them, mostly because they were true but treated like there was no way they could be.
Yes, the founders were in high school, yes, there were three and one of them had caused several grievous injuries before he’d mysteriously flown off somewhere. Carla was indeed his pride and joy, built from scratch, and was not commissioned from an expert in Europe, thank you.
“Mathematics,” Kojiro pronounced dolefully from his bedroom floor, “Is for fucking losers.” A pause, as if he was thinking, and then he added, “...Like you. Stupid brain Kaoru.”
Kaoru didn’t even flinch from where he was puzzling out an English essay. “Mathematics provides clear constructs through which we can view an otherwise haphazard world. It’s rather comforting, really, once you get the hang of it.” He made a note of a particularly difficult word and sighed, knowing he would have to study it in greater detail later.
He could hear the frown without needing to look at it. “Hard,” Kojiro said, petulantly.
Hard? Mathematics wasn’t hard. Trying to concentrate on his essay while Kojiro bitched up a storm was hard. With a longsuffering sigh Kaoru set his pen down as a bookmark and carefully closed the dictionary over it, then got out of the desk chair and joined Kojiro on the ground. “Maybe if you studied at an actual desk you wouldn’t find simple tasks so difficult,” he jibed.
Kojiro grunted. “You’re using mine.”
“You offered. If we studied in my house we could use the living room.”
“But my house is more comfortable to me!”
Kaoru could feel a headache coming on. “There’s also the library, but I’m afraid you’d get us kicked out in half a second if we even dared try,” he sighed, before hitting Kojiro in the arm. “Sit up. It really isn’t that hard if you break it down.” Grabbing a pencil, he began to scribble on Kojiro’s empty workbook. “Okay, so see how the point x has coordinates (3, 6, 4)?”
Kojiro nodded, begrudgingly. “Point y is (-2, 4, 3).” Kaoru made an obligatory marking on the paper, then drew a straight line. “So this is xy. To find the distance, take the square root of (3 - (-2))² + (6 - 4)² + (4 - 3)²…”
As he wrote, patiently explaining each step as he went, a lock of pink hair loosed itself from behind his ear. Vexed, Kaoru ignored it in favour of penciling out his workings until a hand that wasn’t his reached out and did it for him.
He felt, suddenly, impossibly warm. Kaoru glanced up, pencil slack in his hand, and saw Kojiro looking at him in a way that seemed - awed, but also confused, like he was trying to make sense of something.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro breathed, tips of his fingers still curling briefly around the shell of his ear. His tongue slipped out between his teeth, like he was testing words out before he said them. “You know, I -”
Something had snapped in him then, a want and a wild certainty and the feeling that everything had aligned to be impossibly right. Kaoru leaned forward, brushing their lips together, tipping over too far so Kojiro had to catch him by the waist, grip burning into his uniform as Kaoru recklessly pressed closer.
They kissed, and kissed, and broke apart for air when his lungs felt like they were going to burst. He let go of Kojiro’s collar - which he hadn’t been aware up to that moment he’d been holding - and let his hand fall to the side, blinking slowly as he struggled to figure out where this put them.
“...Pretty,” Kojiro mumbled, dumbly, eyes slightly unfocused and mouth red. “Kaoru. You - “
The word made him bristle; an ugly flash ripped through his torso. It felt like shame. “I’m not a practice case,” he hissed, drawing back as if struck. Pretty was the word Kojiro used on all the girls he picked up. It was also the thing Kaoru most hated being reduced to.
Kojiro blinked rapidly, stunned. He didn’t move from his spot, but reached a hand out. “Kaoru - I didn’t mean - I know, you’re my best -”
“Friend? Yeah, we should keep it that way.” It was an ache that had crashed suddenly upon him, the fear that he’d given too much away and wouldn’t be able to claw it back this time. Kaoru scrambled to his feet, backpedaling as quickly as he could, grabbing his rucksack and sweeping his study materials into it.
“Kaoru. Wait,” Kojiro said, making an effort to get to his feet now. “Don’t go. What do you want, we can pretend it didn’t happen -”
“Forget it, Kojiro.” Kaoru brushed past him, the ugly feeling burrowing deeper into his chest and driving them further apart. “I’m sure you’d like to, anyway.”
---
“Kaoru,” Kojiro announces, suddenly. They’re at S, just watching. Kaoru hasn’t been actively racing at S as much since the injury, working back up to it with skate sessions with Kojiro in their old hangouts. But it’s still good to keep a finger to the pulse, to keep an eye out for any rookies even if a Langa isn’t going to turn up again anytime soon. It makes them proud, too, watching how something they created so many years ago has bloomed and come alive.
Kaoru hums, reading a datasheet Carla is projecting for him to view. He’s distracted enough to forget to chastise him for using his real name when they’re at S. “Yes?”
“We should move in together,” Kojiro continues, moving to bump their shoulders. “You, me, that bigass incredibly luxurious house you bought last year with space you surely don’t need all of.” He nudges Kaoru again. “Yeah?”
“Huh,” Kaoru says, not really paying attention as Carla flips the page. “A shorter turning radius… interest -” His head whips around. “Huh?!”
Kojiro beams, pleased at having gotten a response. “So, how about it?”
With a wave Carla shuts the projection so Kaoru can turn to give him his full attention. “I’m sorry,” he says, kneading the space between his eyes. “I must have heard you wrong. Come again?”
“Aw, don’t be so modest,” Kojiro grins, slinging a massive arm around his shoulders. “It’s always been your eyes that are defective, not your ears.”
Kaoru goes completely rigid under the weight, then turns around to squint at Kojiro. "Come. Again," he repeats, carefully, even. “And I’ll pretend I didn’t hear what you just said.”
Kojiro shrinks back an inch at the look, but presses on. "Listen, I actually thought about this a little. Hear me out." He sounds unnaturally serious, so Kaoru twists his neck to work some of the tension out and does hold off on the retort, waiting.
"One, your house is way huge and you're going to go crazy if you stay there alone with just a robot for company all the time."
True on the first point, very arguable on the second. Kaoru wants to defend Carla's honour, but holds his tongue, gesturing at Kojiro to get a move on with his case.
"Two, I already have a key."
Well, yeah, but they didn't have to live together for Kojiro to invite himself into his house whenever he wanted, anyway. Kaoru clucks, and jerks his head again in a Next.
"Three, my current lease is expiring and the Landlord wants to raise rent. Considering it's farther from Sia La Luce than yours is, I'd actually rather pay rent to you." Two years ago, with a restaurant struggling to get off the ground, Kojiro had chosen a modest place that wasn't at all centrally located in order to afford a better locale for the eatery. He takes his bike to work, but the commute is the better part of an hour that could be better spent otherwise.
Finally, a solid point. Kaoru mulls it over for a while, turning the idea around in his head. He knows it's Kojiro's roundabout way of asking him for a favour while phrasing it just casually enough that Kaoru can wave off the ask and he'll drop it, no questions. But he could always just ask me to run Carla on recent lease listings in the area. Why this - ?
"And last, it's like we're having an eternal sleepover. You get to see me every day! Isn't that a treat?" Kojiro finishes off suavely, drawing back in favour of striking a pose. When Kaoru looks up at him he winks, exaggeratedly corny.
There's something there, he realises with an odd clarity he isn't usually privy to in his personal life. That last point. But why?
"You do realise I'll be your landlord, right," he says instead, leaning back and crossing his arms. “It’ll be up to me to stipulate whatever I wish. Like no pets allowed.”
“I don’t have a pet. You know this.”
“No bringing your...lady friends into the house.”
“I’ll go to theirs.”
“You’ll have to do the cooking, you know.”
“Wouldn’t eat your cooking, that’s for sure. Also, you should give me a discount on rent for that.”
Around them another beef grinds to a conclusive halt and the crowd buzzes excitedly, money changing hands on bets won and lost. S is dust and heat, the thrill of speed and the heady rush of the fight. There could be no other place for them to have this conversation.
“One month,” Kaoru says - blurts, almost, if he did that kind of thing. It feels like it should be something momentous, like he should be quivering as he says it, but mostly he’s a little hungry and thinking about how he’s going to bother Kojiro into rustling him up a late night snack before they go home.
Kojiro, great big buffoon, tilts his head. “Kaoru. When people talk about living somewhere, they usually mean -“
He holds up a hand to shut Kojiro off and continues. “You get a trial period of one month. If neither of us is dead by the end of it, you have my bank details and the key.” It isn’t a big step because the two points aren’t at all far apart.
Kojiro blinks for a while, clearly dumbfounded, then his eyes narrow into a suspicious expression that is almost comical on his wide, gentle face. “No contract? What’s stopping you from just kicking me out when you feel like it, then?”
“My impeccable code of honour, take it or leave it,” Kaoru purrs, hooking a finger into the collar of Kojiro’s open jacket and tugging a little. “Now that’s settled, come on. I’m hungry. Feed me before we go home.”
---
After The Kiss, Kaoru resolutely avoided Kojiro for two weeks.
He genuinely couldn’t say for sure whether the other was just living his life, or also avoiding him, or actively seeking him out and failing. The embarrassment that burned a pit into his gut drove him almost single mindedly to go to school, eat his bento at his desk under the guise of being busy (working on early Carla’s schematics), then to head straight home.
If he skated, it was in places he’d never haunted previously - yes, he had a run in or two with policemen eyeing a punk with pink hair and a lip ring loitering in parks, but it was worth driving the chance of running into Kojiro down to zero, and no matter how much he’d given up by accident skateboarding was one thing he could never let go.
It was a Thursday after school when he walked past an alcove on his way to calligraphy club (it was an easy extra curricular, made his parents happy, and didn’t interfere with skateboarding), and heard a familiar low tone, soft enough to miss if he hadn’t been so attuned to that voice.
Kaoru’s head whipped around - and there he was, Nanjo Kojiro in the flesh, arm propped up against the wall as he leaned down to kiss a girl Kaoru recognised as Minato Nana from his class. Nana giggled into his mouth in response to something he said, her hands smoothing over his chest, and Kaoru thought he might be sick from an emotion he refused to recognise as envy. Practice case, he reminded himself. Just like I said. See?
Somehow it wasn’t terribly satisfying being right. That evening, Kaoru turned up at S and challenged Kojiro to a beef. He won by a hair, eking out a win at the last moment with the mechanical adjustments he had recently installed to his skateboard and a burning desire to put Kojiro in his place. And even though it wasn’t necessarily his style, it felt good to taunt Joe while his supporters chanted Cherry Blossom, lauding his skill, his style, his brain.
He didn’t say a word to Kojiro after that, leaving immediately to go home, but the coming week they were back to normal and the fiery race had become something of a minor myth amongst the community, earning them both a fair amount of repute and attention. And as was now becoming their respective wonts, Kojiro basked in it, while Kaoru shied away.
---
He's plummeting downhill down a course he doesn't recognise. It looks like Crazy Rock - feels like it, except he's skated across its every inch for a decade and he knows there's no part of it that looks like this.
But the feeling is unshakeable, and uncertainty creeps in. Maybe, he thinks, Maybe it’s always been here and I've just never noticed?
Warning. Approaching dangerous speeds. 79.8 km/h. Approaching dangerous speeds. Carla trills, suddenly, her cool purple glow turning red in caution. Danger. 80.1 km/h. Danger. Danger. Danger.
Some part of him knows, now, that it’s a dream, because in reality - in reality, Carla has abort-operation mechanisms built in precisely to stop this happening. That part of him is buried miles and miles below ground now, stifled by the rising panic and the fear of being helpless. He wants to get off. He can’t. He’ll crash and burn either way.
Dream-Carla doesn’t save him, her chant rising to a wail that morphs into a human voice. They’ve reached a speed where even her stabilisers are failing, her wheels rocking violently and jostling him so hard his knees are locked solid with the strain of bearing the force. She isn’t going to last, Kaoru realises with a stunning clarity on this endless downhill slope, I’m not going to last.
An absent part of him wonders where his competitor is - who it is, although another, lovingly tugging his eyelids shut, whispers you already know his name. The wind is roaring in his ears now, biting his skin, and it’s almost enough distraction to tamp down the terror, so he doesn’t scream when Carla catches on a rock in the road, catapulting to a halt and hurling him metres into the air with reversed momentum, his human body a mockery of weightless as it spends an eternity suspended —
— He wakes up before he hits the ground, panting and drenched in a cold sweat.
It takes a few seconds before the familiar scenes of his room in the dead of night swim into focus - the serene green of his bedsheets, the moon shaped lamp on his table glowing a gentle yellow, a carefully framed poster from a rock show Kojiro dragged him to see when they were sixteen and learning to express themselves through art.
He stares at the last one the longest, seeing it in full colour despite everything being washed out shades of night. Then he gathers himself and climbs out of his bed, running a hand through his unruly hair. He isn’t going to get back to sleep anytime soon.
There’s a phantom ache in his jaw as he carefully takes the steps down, and he rubs at it as he makes his way to the kitchen. In a low murmur he tells Carla to boil him a cup of tea, then leans against the counter, fidgety, hands folded into his sleeves as he stares at her mild glow and thinks.
“Carla,” he says aloud, “Set a reminder to check your emergency protocols at 7 am, please.”
The purple light pulses in response. “Reminder set, Master.”
The tick of the electric kettle alerts him to the water having been boiled. In silence Kaoru opens a cupboard to retrieve his green tea leaves and spoons them into a pot, pouring in hot water and covering it to wait once more.
Routine, like this, is calming. The warmth of the steam is grounding as well, and he feels better as he arranges the pot and a cup onto a tray, bringing them out to the porch where he takes a seat to stare out at the moon.
She looks back at him, a large, limpid eye hanging in the sky humming a forgotten tune. Kaoru takes a long sip of his tea and rests his head against his knees, feeling exhausted but wired and wishing there was a button that could let him skip the hours until dawn.
Kojiro would know what to do. The thought is traitorous, unbidden; he sinks a hand into his eyes and lets himself be honest when there is nobody else around to see. Yes, he would. Kaoru knows without a doubt that Kojiro would know exactly what to do or say to make him feel better.
Isn’t that the problem, he muses, taking another warming sip. The trial period has come and gone, and even without Kojiro being on his best behaviour it has only served to confirm that this - this being housemates thing - it is a logical and optimal solution in all the ways that matter except one.
They had grown up with and into one another. That means Kojiro cooks while Kaoru washes up; when Kaoru is grocery shopping he’ll add saba and shiitake mushrooms into the basket without being told; Kojiro, of his own accord, spent time to carefully memorise the cleaning instructions for Kaoru’s arsenal of ridiculously expensive tailored yukata, later joking that he should get one of his own.
(You’d bankrupt them from the amount of cloth needed for your mountains of muscle, Kaoru drawled, I’m afraid I can’t do that to my favourite tailors in Southern Japan.)
They fit together perfectly, like limbs of the same whole. He cannot imagine anything worse.
Yes, it had been Kojiro he'd seen before he'd lost consciousness, and again Kojiro he'd seen just as he'd woken up. This much has held true for nearly every skate injury or crisis he has had since that very first day on the rooftop.
When he had a dip in grades in university and was forced to face the very real prospect that he might lose his apprenticeship to a prestigious calligrapher, it was Kojiro, too, who took a day off school and video called him for an entire day to cheer him up, instructing him to do stupid things like find a minimalist cafe and sit by the window, then put your laptop facing you - see? We’re practically in the same place! Now order an Americano like the freak you always are, and something sweet to share.
The memory of it has him sinking his head into the space between his crossed arms in humiliation. How banal, how completely cliche, how very typical of him. In his mind there isn’t a shred of a doubt; nothing will make him rouse Kojiro now, not when he has already given him so much and Kaoru hesitates to say what he has given in return.
“Kaoru.”
The voice is warm, cracked at the edges with sleep. Mortified at being caught in this state, Kaoru hastens to sit up properly, smoothing out the creases in his clothes.
Kojiro doesn’t care; of course he doesn’t. He pads straight over and drops into a sprawl next to Kaoru, on the other side of him from the tray. “Bad dream?”
Kaoru doesn’t want to admit it, but he flinches at the nail being hit on the head. Kojiro hums in acknowledgment, and Kaoru can feel the weight of his gaze until he looks away, unusually quiet.
“If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen,” Kojiro murmurs, eyes cast out towards the moon. The night seems brighter with him around, the way he lends a warmth to everything he touches. “But if you don’t, I’ll be right here anyway.” Then he shifts closer to Kaoru, bumping their shoulders so they’re pressed against each other from shoulder to thigh.
How did you know, Kaoru wants to ask, that I needed you?
He doesn’t, because what matters is he’s here - they’re here. In lieu of saying any more he takes Kojiro’s silent offer up and tips his head, leaning until it comes to rest against the dip between shoulder and collarbone. Kojiro huffs out a soft sound and manoeuvres them into a more comfortable position, his arm braced around his waist.
Like this they sit quietly, and watch the world soften into sunrise.
---
After having the fortunate sense to bully them both (yes, himself included) into a halt on skateboarding activity until after their university entrance exams were over, Kaoru and Kojiro found themselves in possession of their respective admissions letters - his to his first choice school in Kyoto, Kojiro to his second, a culinary institute in Tokyo that offered secondments in their last year.
He recalled not knowing what to feel - elation, on one hand, because then he was almost there - but on the other, they had never been so far apart before. In the premises Kojiro secured from him promises to exchange emails, and to return to Okinawa over the long breaks, and they scheduled their flights to the mainland for the same day so they could still be huddled up with each other in the last few hours before they took big, shuddering steps into the unknown.
It was the longest he’d been away from Kojiro in his life. On the plane to Kansai International he stared out of the window, imagining he could see Mt. Fuji behind the fog that perpetually shrouded it, drawing a mental line in his head between Kinki to Kanto and Chubu who sat nestled between.
You’re being melodramatic, an internal voice that sounded suspiciously like Carla’s chastised. At least it’s only a few hours by shinkansen.
It wasn’t halfway around the world, that was true. So they managed, living in shitty student accommodations in their respective cities, video calling every other Wednesday like clockwork and sometimes on a weekend if they didn’t have any other plans.
These big city kids are way different, Kojiro told him early on, rubbing the back of his head and looking embarrassed. The words came out haltingly, like it was difficult for him to admit. Especially in culinary school. The number of just - things I don't get - He huffed, the sound crackly and distant as he looked away from the camera. God, Kaoru. I wish you were here.
Kaoru leaned his head against his hand, listening as Carla played soft r&b in the background to keep him company. You know what, Kou, he said, very quietly. I wish I was, too.
The rest of the time Kojiro would talk and Kaoru would listen. If asked, he would say it was because Kojiro was incapable of shutting up in general. In truth, it was also simply that Kaoru had been brought up with the same attention to tradition and practice that he had gone to Kyoto specifically to pursue further, so he wasn't doing anything new in a sense. By contrast Kojiro would tell him things like I literally gaped at the number of people in Shibuya station at rush hour and Apparently almost nobody in my class has surfed before and I think I just ran into some pop idols on the street?
He talked about dating, too, as he had always done. Tokyo girls are totally different, dude, he said with some enthusiasm. These girls picked me up in a bar the other day! Can you fuckin’ believe? Ah, they knew how to make a guy feel special, let me tell you.
Kaoru halted that line of conversation, telling him in no uncertain terms that he didn't need the details of his oafish, primal activities. And Kojiro had let it go, easily; the names of the girls never stayed the same, so Kaoru didn't keep track, either. Time rolled on, and so did they.
In their last year, Kojiro excitedly broke the news that he would be spending it in an institute in Italy.
For Kojiro, the entirety of the past two years had been leading up to this point. Kaoru remembered to congratulate him - and he meant it, he really did, before asking, in a much smaller voice, what's the time difference?
Are you going to miss me that much, Kojiro teased, shit eating grin on his face. It softened when he said, I’ll be seven hours behind. Then, scratching the back of his head in the tell he had whenever he was nervous, he said, Why don’t you come up and visit on break?
Why would I do that, he’d retorted, but come the first week of May he was in Florence with Kojiro, sipping wine and sampling a pizza and giving halfhearted answers to Kojiro’s numerous questions about how he felt about the taste and texture of the dish.
“I don’t even particularly like Western cuisine,” Kaoru sighed at last, even as he took another bite. “Isn’t there someone more suited to answering your questions?”
Kojiro sighed, giving him a look that said And all these years you said I was the stupid one. “That’s exactly why you’re my perfect subject, Kaoru,” he explained. “I need the most traditional, picky Japanese person possible to proof the sort of dishes I’ll be focusing on when I set up my own shop back home.”
Kaoru considered this for a long moment as he chewed, not at all taking offence at being called what were, objectively, pretty accurate descriptors of who he was as a person. Then abruptly his eyes narrowed and he wiped his mouth with the edge of a napkin before jabbing an accusing finger at Kojiro.
“Is that why you made me spend my Golden Week all the way on another continent?” he demanded, resolutely not whining. “So you could get a head start on market research?”
Kojiro held both his hands up in placation and surrender. “Caught red-handed,” he said, shaking his head as if bemoaning his fate. “Oh great Sakurayashiki-sama, I can only plead humbly for your mercy.”
In the middle of that sun drenched afternoon, seated al fresco with cobblestone beneath their feet, Kaoru remembered he still had a fan somewhere on his person, and pulled it out in order to thwack Kojiro soundly on the face.
“Why do you have that on you even when you’re dressed like a normal person,” Kojiro whined, rubbing his rapidly reddening nose sorrowfully. He pressed down on it, and said, pathetically, “It hurts, Kaowu.”
“One must be prepared when going to deal with you,” Kaoru tutted, even as a smile threatened to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Otherwise, you’ll never learn to behave.”
There was, he realised as Kojiro threw his head back and laughed, a palpable relief that despite time and distance, they could still be like this. Like Adam had been just a blip in the collective course of their intertwined lives, and it was difficult to remember, again, just why he had seemed to mean so much when they were good and fine on their own.
---
After closing hours at Sia La Luce, Kaoru turns up at the front door with two boards in tow. “Catch,” he says, making as if to toss Kojiro’s at him.
“Don’t - !” Kojiro splutters, making to catch a board that never goes sailing.
“Got you,” Kaoru announces smugly, kicking it flat and sliding it over to Kojiro instead.
“You’re a dick,” Kojiro mutters, toeing it vertical so he can pick it up. “If I did that to Carla you’d have my fucking head.”
“Carla, tell Kojiro you’re upset he would even consider that.”
“Kojiro-san, all of your access permissions will be revoked if you attempt bodily harm on Carla,” Carla recites dutifully.
“You’re a skateboard, you don’t have a body,” Kojiro gripes. “Kaoru. You need to get out more. Stop coding weird things into your robot skateboard.”
Kaoru smiles very thinly, aware that Kojiro of all people would be able to recognise the expression even through the mask obscuring most of his features. “Stop that,” he deadpans anyway, “You’ll hurt her feelings.”
Kojiro finishes locking up and heaves a sigh, arms propped up on either side of his waist. “Talking to you any more is going to drive me crazy,” he announces. “Come on, let’s go.”
Without anything further he kicks off, and Kaoru scrambles for a moment before he catches up to Kojiro, winding on their boards through the city. Their city.
“It’s been a while since we’ve done this properly, huh?” It’s Kojiro who speaks at length, breaking the silence as they pass through street lamp haloes, whistling down side roads and taking paths they’ve trodden countless times before. “Just skate for the sake of it.”
Kaoru tilts his head. “I never took you for being that serious at S,” he says, implicit admission and I’ve always been watching.
“Depends on the opponent,” Kojiro shrugs. “It’s just that the opponent was someone who required seriousness, for a while.”
Kaoru grimaces at the reminder. Sometimes he isn’t sure which hurt more, the injury or the death of his belief in having been special, once.
But it’s as Kojiro said back then, isn’t it? Just because Adam changed doesn’t mean it was never real.
Next to him Kojiro has gone all tense and autopilot, his stance making him look a little silly. Kaoru prompts him gently. “Kojiro?”
Kojiro startles a little, swerving briefly before he gets back in control. They’re moving slow, now, riding idly through side lanes that cut through residential areas. “You know,” he starts, apropos of nothing, “I admired him. Think we all did.”
Kaoru lets out a snort, again at the reminder of their younger, idealistic selves. Kojiro continues. “But mostly I hung around to see if I could see what you did.”
How very typical of him, to try to understand Kaoru in even something like this. He closes his eyes, savouring the wind on his face, and when he opens them again he can't help but smile at Kojiro, bright. "And did you?"
Kojiro's looking at him in that funny way again, exasperated but fond. "Nah," he says, easily. "I just saw you."
---
Kojiro stood, in the middle of the empty space that was going to become Sia La Luce, and flexed his arms.
From where he was inspecting his wallpapering handwork Kaoru scowled. “Put a fucking shirt on,” he said. “It’s in the middle of winter.”
Kojiro lifted a brush that he had been using to varnish the wood and pointed it in Kaoru’s general direction. “We’re in Okinawa. And indoors. Have you checked the weather forecast recently, Four-eyes?”
“Not sure if that’s any way you want to be talking to the only person you could coerce into helping you renovate your restaurant for you,” Kaoru muttered, even as Carla - resting on his wrist as a bangle - sang out measurements and projected a grid line to assist him with cutting. “I closed the studio to help you out, if you recall.”
Kojiro laughed, slightly apologetic but mostly fearful. “You know I never mean it when I say mean things, right? Sweetest, most angelic, adorable Kaoru-chan. Never leave my side.”
A spare piece of crumpled wallpaper flew straight at his forehead, missing only because Kojiro ducked at the last moment. “Never. Call. Me. That. Again.”
“You’re so hard to please,” Kojiro tsked, crossing his arms over his chest. His tattoos gleamed with the thin sheen of sweat that had formed from the work - it took a conscious effort to look away from them. “Okay, okay, tell me what you want in exchange for your gracious hard labour.”
He paused. “Within reason, some of us are struggling to start up our first business and have no working capital whatsoever to throw around.”
There wasn’t anything he really wanted, except to be a part of something so important to Kojiro, but he couldn’t very well say that out loud. After university Kaoru had set about immediately to take over the Sakurayashiki business, but for Kojiro it had been another two years apprenticing before he’d had enough saved up and thought he was ready to give it a try.
Most people didn’t make it that far in their entire careers, much less in as little time as Kojiro had. It was that indomitable fire of his, the way he didn’t stop to second guess or be afraid. How he could stand on his own and face forward, smiling the entire time.
Kaoru’s chest ached. Kojiro was the more mature of the two of them, had always been. That Kaoru needed to be there at all in any capacity - that was a farce they carried out, wasn’t it, a favour born out of long association and pity.
“A lifetime discount,” Kaoru said, decisively. “For me and also when I bring any clients here to dine.”
Kojiro furrowed his brow in confusion. “You’re going to bring your clients to a brand new Italian restaurant run by a twenty something year old? Isn’t that, I don’t know, bad for business, or something?”
Kaoru sighed, and resisted the urge to toss something sharper than wadded up paper. The thing about Kojiro was, he had a terrible habit of making it very difficult to do something for him. “You said as long as it was within reason,” he countered, arms crossed. “You can pick the percentage.”
“Five?”
Kaoru set down the penknife. “I’m going home.”
“Come back, come back,” Kojiro shouted, but he was laughing. “Okay. Fine. Ten?”
Kaoru cocked an eyebrow. “That’s the kind of discounts Tokyu Hands gives. Is that who you want to be? The Tokyu Hands of Okinawan-run Italian restaurants?”
Kojiro threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. Twenty. That’s as high as I can go before I go into the red.”
“Hm,” Kaoru said. “Make it fifteen and we have a deal.”
“I just said I couldn’t go any h - wait.” Kojiro stopped. “Did you just -“
“I’m not helping you move furniture, I might injure my important and precious hands and then I would have to sue you for my loss of profits,” Kaoru explained, very calmly and reasonably. “I gave you a discount on your discount for that.”
Kojiro stopped and looked at him, head cocked, for so long that Kaoru cleared his throat and moved on to the next segment of wall, averting his gaze as he worked.
“You literally can’t even be real,” Kojiro said after a while, brush back in hand and concentrating on keeping the layers of varnish even. “I’m convinced you’re actually a demon who’s come to haunt me for my sins in a past life.”
Kaoru rolled his eyes at that, luxuriously. This territory was familiar, safe and well-traversed. “If I were to be a demon,” he drawled, “Heavens forbid I would be one unfortunate enough to be summoned by you.”
---
His house is extraordinarily quiet when he’s the only one at home.
Kaoru’s never been an exceptionally loud person; he’s just not good at it. If he’s to be frank, Kojiro isn’t far off the mark when he says Kaoru has a sensitive disposition. He doesn’t deal well with attention, particularly not to his general person. It’s why Cherry Blossom and Master Sakurayashiki are both so carefully carved out of his personality, boxes he steps into when the timing is right. With the buffer of a persona, Kaoru is kept safe.
But, equally, he hates the thought of being alone. Kaoru actively encourages the perception that he is self-sufficient and withdrawn, because people exhaust him; the breathing space afforded by a prickly personality lets him seek out people he does want around. Sometimes the Sakurayashiki name is painfully apt, he notes with a grim amusement. A flower that blooms only on the right side of spring, and even then for no longer than two weeks, once a year.
The thing is - he hadn’t noticed, before, just how large the house is, how his energy saving appliances make minimal noise and how far the softest sound travels in all the quiet. It’s that he’s been spoilt, having become accustomed to Kojiro being in the space, filling it with his boisterous laughter and bright colours and terrible habit of leaving things lying all over the place (except in the kitchen, where his manner is impeccable).
He scrubs particularly viciously at a spot on a frying pan. Why are you thinking about it like he left you, Kaoru mentally lectures himself. He’s literally just at the store.
And then -
Left you? ? ??? ?????? There isn’t anything to leave. Kaoru scores the frying pan with more spite than is necessary as he swears under his breath. Having Kojiro no more than ten metres away nearly all the time is driving him crazy. He can’t remember what he was thinking when he accepted - that it would be fine, that there would be no difference from how they already were, that he already knew all of Kojiro’s bad habits and vice versa -
And it is all of those things, it's just that his own heart has never thudded quite so loudly in his chest when he's standing there just thinking, before, and he needs to get himself under control because it really isn't Kojiro's fault he's still in love with his best friend and only just allowed himself to think it aloud. Right now, in his own kitchen, hands covered in suds doing the dishes after Kojiro's cooked.
A sharp pang arcs through his chest. I certainly know how to fuck myself over, don’t I.
He rinses the pan out and sets it aside, reaching for a plate next. It's fine, just think. If you were Kojiro, what would you want?
The answer is instantaneous. I would want to know.
He does smack the side of the sink in exasperation then, careful not to injure the crockery that was a gift from a particularly tasteful client. Great, I just have to find a way to tell him. As unobtrusively as possible. Just … just to let him know.
He deserves that much, at least.
The plate is rinsed and dried as Kaoru reaches for another victim. It's fine. He'll just rip it off like a bandaid, have it in the air, and they can proceed never to talk about it ever again. Like that first kiss, forever ago. Everyone falls in love with their best friends in the normal course of things, don't they?
There's the sound of the door sliding open, Kojiro shucking his shoes off messily in the genkan with the sound of plastic bags rustling. Oh fuck, Kaoru thinks in despair, oh fucking shit. He isn't even done with the dishes. There is no way he's prepared to say this, but if he doesn't, he'll find excuses to put it off and let it fester. He deserves better.
"I'm home," Kojiro calls, shrugging off the light jacket he'd put on as the weather has begun to turn and chilly days have become more frequent. He shakes his hair out of his face, coming over to the counter to set the bags down. "Passed a vendor selling roasted chestnuts on the way back," he adds, grinning handsomely, effortlessly as he holds out a paper bag, still lightly steaming.
Kaoru’s pulse catches in his throat as their eyes meet over the bag. "I'm in love with you," he blurts.
Then, realising how it looks, he quickly removes the washing gloves and rinses his hands off, wiping them hastily on his yukata. He can't quite look Kojiro in the eye any more.
"I mean - not for the chestnuts, although it's partially because you know me well enough to do these things, but I mean for real. And I think I have for the longest time, but it wasn't something I could just admit, and I didn't, not until just now and then you came home and you said you were home and it might've been all I ever wanted and I thought I should at least let you know - oh."
Kojiro's come over to his side of the counter, settled his warm large hands on either side of his waist. He smells like the first few days of fall when he leans in, gaze ineffable, thumb drawing a circle against the fabric of his clothing. "That's good," he breathes out, the other hand coming up slowly to card through the hair at Kaoru’s temple. "Because it's been killing me how much I wanted to do this."
When he leans in, Kaoru meets him halfway.
Kojiro tastes like he remembers, but the kiss is nowhere near as chaste, as questioning. Kaoru lets out a quiet moan when Kojiro licks into his mouth and he kisses back, desperately, feeling like he’s been given spring water after years and years of thirst.
"Okay?" Kojiro murmurs, trailing off to press kisses against the side of his mouth, drawing a line down his jaw with his lips. "Not gonna run off on me like last time?"
Kaoru shudders from the touch, then cringes. He'll have to explain that one eventually. "Okay," he says. "Never better."
He reaches up for another kiss, wanting more, and it's slow and easy until they break apart and Kojiro is looking at him in a mixture of awe and sorrow. He'll never ask anything Kaoru isn't ready to talk about, but Kaoru knows what he's thinking.
"Every day, Kou," he starts. Seeking comfort, he leans his head against Kojiro's chest, closes his eyes to think. "I regretted it every day until it became so present I forgot it was there. But you liked girls, and I thought, maybe the long hair confused you for a second. Maybe you would've kissed anyone who said they wanted to."
"Kaoru -" Kojiro protests, his voice rumbling through Kaoru's skull. "You can't possibly - I don't think you know how long I wanted you to look my way," he sighs. "It's in the past, but… you don't know how much it hurt when you left."
"You know how many people wanted you?" Kaoru responds, in a very small voice. "And you always flirted back."
"Because you were always looking in another direction," Kojiro chides, softly. "What was I to do?"
Kaoru shuts his eyes and tries to think outside of himself, for once. He remembers that period during their last year, after Adam had left and they didn't talk about him as much anymore and Kojiro actually listened to him when he said to study. If he really thinks about it, Kojiro had stopped dating around for the entire semester before The Kiss, but he'd credited that to examination preparation, never mind that he still seemed to always have time to slack off when Kaoru wanted to.
Maybe he would've noticed earlier, if he wasn't so self-preoccupied. "Sorry," he whispers. "We wasted all this time."
That earns him a snort, a playful grip at the shoulders as Kojiro separates them so he can crane his neck to bring them eye to eye. "Hey," he says softly. "But we’re still here, right? We've been here. All these years."
"Maybe it just wasn't the right time then. Maybe we would've pissed each other off so bad our friendship was irreparably damaged and we never spoke ever again. Now is as good a time as any."
Kaoru hums. "So is it our time now?"
Kojiro shrugs, grinning. "If we want it to be."
It makes him snort, and he finally extricates himself. "There you go again, always being the better part of me.”
His composure is shot to hell; Kaoru reaches back to loop his hair into a ponytail, leans against the counter to look at Kojiro, wondering what it is that has changed.
Nothing, he realises, with a startling clarity. I simply saw him properly.
Kojiro colours. "That's not true," he says, with a shake of his head. "You help me in so many more ways than you know. I'll show you sometime." He flails about for a bit, then grabs at the paper bag of chestnuts, opening it and thrusting it in Kaoru's face. "Chestnut?"
It's as clear a cue as any to let the conversation rest, for now. Kaoru sticks out his tongue and snatches the bag from him, absconding to the couch where Kojiro joins him, not a few seconds later.
The rest of the dishes never get done that day.
---
"And the next beef is a dynamic duo whom most of us can only dream of having as opponents…" The announcer bounces to and fro with his mic, feeding off the energy of the anticipating crowd.
"With their diametrically different skating methods, the clashes of these two titans are a treat to watch. That's right, everyone, give it up for…. JOE VS CHERRY BLOSSOM!!!"
The watchers at Crazy Rock - a thrumming, pulsing crowd - explode in a roar of excitement. The camps are evenly split, chanting Cherry or Joe in rhythm. Kaoru tosses his ponytail over his shoulder and eyes Kojiro. "Ready to lose, Joe?"
Kojiro - surrounded, as usual, by admirers, but now without any of them on his arm - grins back, gaze set evenly in challenge. "Check yourself first, Cherry."
The three, two, one is counted off and a whistle blown. From the outset Kojiro sets a punishing pace, hurtling down the first straightaway going into the turn. Kaoru hums. "Carla. Calculate Joe's energy efficiency."
"Joe will suffer a 35.3% loss in momentum in order to make the turn," Carla reports. "Calculating turn radius and speed."
Kaoru maintains his pace into the turn before speeding up significantly. He overtakes Kojiro at the corner, blowing him a kiss as he heads down the next stretch.
"Carla. Mode: Long."
Carla shifts, lengthening into a longboard for optimal speed as Kaoru picks up. He doesn't flinch when there's a magnificent crunch and Kojiro's skateboard crashes into the wall by his head, keeping abreast with him along the rock face. "Hey," Kojiro greets. "Missed me?"
Kaoru snorts. "You wish."
He gets a grin in response. "Well, you will."
In a feat that would arguably defy the laws of conservation of energy Kojiro gathers momentum to launch himself off the wall, bouncing onto the next and then ricocheting back onto the first. Like this he speeds on ahead, taking the outer wall into the turn.
Kaoru tuts. "Carla."
Her lights dance, alive with the challenge. "Recalculating route."
There. If he takes a jump onto that tree, he can cut Kojiro off on the next straightaway and once he grinds into the turn, he'll have a safe lead going into the warehouse.
Kaoru takes the ollie, executing the steps Carla has so meticulously calculated for him. He sails past Kojiro, maintaining his lead until the abandoned warehouse.
"You can't beat me here," Kojiro calls from behind, fast gaining speed on him. Kaoru suppresses a snort. Oh, but he can try.
Kojiro leaps into a flip, heading for the swinging construction beam he'd used in the race against Langa. Kaoru narrows his eyes. They've done the math; while it's flashy and he saves time taking the higher route, Kojiro loses a substantial amount of momentum in introducing an external force to get himself onto the beam.
Kaoru, though, is all about optimisation. He takes the rails, relying on gravity and amping up his speed until Carla cues him to launch into a flip across the break in the rails. The trajectory is perfect; he lands skilfully across the break, and from there it is only a short distance to the finish.
Kojiro slides in half a second after him as the crowd erupts in a roar. But he doesn't mind them, rolling up instead to Kaoru and capturing him in a hug from behind.
"Hey," he murmurs into Kaoru's ear, stepping off his board.
Kaoru turns around in his arms, putting on a cross expression as he links his own around Kojiro's waist. "I won. You know what that means," he says, very pointedly.
Kojiro sighs, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Okay. Fine. We'll go out to a proper restaurant and I won't cook, okay?"
His lower lip is sticking out in a pout. Kaoru brushes a finger against it, unable to kiss him with his mask on. "I want you to relax," he lectures. "You can't do that if you're worrying yourself silly over the meal."
Kojiro simpers. "Oh my god, you like me," he says. "You literally care about my wellbeing."
"I'm going to kill you," Kaoru responds flatly, taking a step back. "Everyone present is going to help hide the body."
"What the fuck," squawks a third voice, instantly identifiable as Reki, looking baffled as all hell as Langa attempts to shush him with very little success. "They don't actually hate each other? They're even d - they're even da - d - ?!?"
The dumbfounded teen is dragged away by his boyfriend, presumably to receive a talk on mating rituals. Hiromi follows after, looking somewhat apologetic; Miya shouts something insolent like "Remember, stay safe!" before cackling and skipping off in the direction of the other three. In the background the next beef is being announced. They remove themselves from the course, adjourning to the dust to watch the goings-on.
"Kaoru," Kojiro says very suddenly, squeezing their linked hands and looking away from the lights of the race. "Remember when I asked you why you stayed here?"
Kaoru smiles faintly. "Yeah. Have you finally figured it out?"
Even in the dim lighting, Kojiro's tan skin is lit ablaze by a deep flush. "Took me a while," he confesses. "But, you know - I don't want to hold you back."
Kaoru's head whips around. "Don't for a moment think I stay because of you, even though I do," he says. "What I mean is - it's not the one way road you think it is." I wouldn't last without you, he doesn't say. I wouldn't want to try.
Kojiro watches him for a while, contemplative, then opens his arms. "So demonstrative," he teases. "I'm absolutely spoiled by your displays of love."
Kaoru leans into the embrace, more eagerly than he would like to admit. "I can spoil you later tonight," he mutters. "All night long, if you'd just shut the fuck up right now."
Kojiro smiles. "Promise?"
Kaoru removes his mask for the express purpose of biting some of Kojiro’s openly displayed skin, grinning in satisfaction when he yelps in surprise. “Only if you earn it.”