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Kaoru takes the whisky back with barely a twist to his lips. His throat aches with it, though, and his eyes have begun to haze over. He tilts the empty glass in his hand and stares at it with a particularly loud sneer, as if drilling the extent of his sullen mood into it. He hates this stuff with a passion.
“Look at that any harder and you might break the poor thing,” someone says, their feet sliding against the floor as they move to sit onto the stool next to him. Kaoru shifts his eyes over to the man without so much as a flinch. “But I’ve gotta say, you are easy on the eyes.”
He extends a hand out with a confident grin and offers him his name, and Kaoru wonders, how is it so easy for people to do this? Just up and approach whoever strikes their fancy and attempt to woo them without a thought to it? In spite of doubt and hesitancy and fear? Although this attempt… is banal at best.
Kaoru doesn’t catch his name.
He leans on a palm and lets himself observe the man as he talks himself up. He’s got these luminous brown eyes, a dimple pressed into his right cheek, black hair slicked and styled back, the top button of his shirt gone unbuttoned, which is probably done in hopes of seducing him.
Kaoru knows what possibilities are offered to him here. He could talk to this guy, could try to have a good time. You know, because of spite. He could even go home with him, if that’s something on the table for them. Though his desire for this man is minimal, there’s a flame that has been begging to be extinguished inside him for a long, long time. The whiskey has riled it up, it seems.
Will this do the trick? Will it finally be proof? That he’s truly over it, that he’s done letting Adam win after all these years?
He looks at this guy and thinks, maybe. But aren’t these things supposed to light you up on the inside? Make you feel this undeniable pull? A fierce wanting that could control you more than you could hope to control it? It’s supposed to be — exciting. And that’s… that’s what he wants.
A visceral longing knows exactly when to strike Kaoru best: at his weakest. When he can’t fight it anymore. He can’t hold back the thoughts about deep red eyes that could be blazing if they were embedded within someone not as warm. Tangles of green hair pillowed against his own pale skin, the bleachers cold underneath him. An easy smile, one he has known for so so long. The one that has grown with him.
And as he looks at this guy, all he can think is, you’re not him.
It’s an extraordinary experience, sitting here and letting himself want. Letting himself desire. Here, as he lets his heart do as it pleases, Kaoru realizes just how deep the trench he has dug for himself really is. He sets the glass back down and stares at his fingers, finds himself wondering what it would feel like to lock hands with the person he’s never let himself long for… what it would feel like to cup his cheek… hold him in his arms… kiss him.
He swallows and closes his eyes. These thoughts are far too brazen, but that’s the point isn’t it? He has always treated them like they were too brazen for himself. Like he didn’t need something like that. But he’s done with pretending.
“I’m afraid you’re not going to get lucky tonight,” he tells the guy, point blank, and doesn’t bother excusing himself before leaving.
His injuries following the beef with Adam leaves him with too much time on his hands. He can’t hold a brush with his fractured arm so he’ll have to put his calligraphy and AI projects on the backburner. And it all leaves him with too much time to think.
The beef with Adam reappears in his head like a virus. Even as he lays down with intent to rest, images slide through his mind over and over again. It leaves him exasperated and absurdly annoyed. He’s mostly annoyed with himself and his need to challenge Adam again after all these years as though it would give him closure. The way he hasn’t seen how Adam isn’t even worth his attention, let alone a beef.
And then there’s the reality of his realization. It has become this fluid thing that he swears has suddenly come alive inside of him, roaring and growling at him to move. To do the thing that he’s always been so afraid to do. It has become impatient, unrelenting, starving.
It leaves him too aware of himself, of his lonesomeness.
He really needs to get out of here. Staying cooped up will only make him think more and further exhaust him.
He thinks of one other place that he’d want to go to clear his head, and his hands move for the wheels of his chair before he even thinks it through. It’s an instinct at this point, a place his muscles have all memorized for him.
But just as he wheels himself to the door, there’s a knock on the other side of it. His fingers fidget mid-reach, causing himself to retract. With a line forming in between his brows, he opens the door.
And there Kojiro is, with a bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, because of course he is. Kaoru swallows what feels like a lump in his throat. The sight of him is almost ethereal — a thought turned to reality.
Kojiro raises the aforementioned items with a puckish grin. “I brought food and I come in peace.”
“Since when?” Kaoru shoots back so instinctively that he bites his lip after it.
“Shut up,” Kojiro snarks back, seemingly just as instinctively because he invites himself in and leads himself right to the dining table. “I brought some bruschetta chicken and risotto. Hot and ready.” He looks back at him and tilts his head, glances down at Kaoru’s shoes. “Were you heading out or something?”
Kaoru clears his throat and crosses his arms, feeling defensive. Suddenly, admitting that he’d been heading to Sia La Luce feels like a trap, even though Kojiro is none the wiser to his musings. “No.”
Kojiro hums. “I’m gonna set these up. You haven’t eaten yet, right?” he tells him while working on the packaged food. He takes out all the containers and spreads them between two sides. He’d gotten some for himself too, it seems.
Kaoru licks his lips and wheels himself to the table. “Just sit down,” he mutters.
Eating together isn’t so much awkward as it is difficult. Kaoru finds it hard to focus on the food when Kojiro’s hand is laying right across from him, as though for the taking. His eyes follow the lines that make up the creases of his hands, and he wonders what it would feel like if he traced them with his fingers. It probably feels rough but soft all the same, being a chef and all. Trained to hold things with care.
“This is pretty generous of you to do,” Kaoru says, making it sound like it’s something he didn’t expect Kojiro to do. It’s baiting. It’s always baiting between the two of them.
Kojiro catches on to his tone and hums, scooping some rice onto his spoon. “Thought I would share the wealth. My cooking is an experience.”
“Do you take refunds?” he feels the need to say, even as he sticks a piece of the chicken into his mouth. When Kojiro huffs at him and rolls his eyes, he feels a kind of calm settle in his stomach. This is normal. This is how it usually is for them.
He’s suddenly struck at himself from minutes ago, thinking that going to Sia La Luce would clear his head when seeing Kojiro only fogs it up even more.
“You should consider yourself lucky, getting to eat my food for free.”
And then Kojiro pours the wine for him and gingerly sets it in front of him, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips like he knows Kaoru is just teasing him. Kaoru feels something in his chest begin to hurt.
“You feelin alright?” Kojiro asks in between bites, probably noticing how Kaoru hasn’t touched his plate all that much.
Heat prickles against the back of his neck, like he’d been caught. His jaw tightens and he feels like his stomach is rolling in on itself. That thing inside him is propelling him to speak, to move . He isn’t sure how to fight it anymore, but he knows he doesn’t want to fight it anymore, either. He just needs… time.
“You didn’t have to come,” he says, because right now it’s what he needs to say. It’s the only thing that wants to come out.
Kojiro leans back in his chair, looking doubtful. Kaoru’s grip on his chopsticks is tight. “You just came out of the hospital, Kaoru.”
Kaoru tries not to let that deter him. “So?”
“It’s the polite thing to do. You should know, seeing that you’re supposed to be the king of courtesy. And—”
“And?” Kaoru bites out.
“I don’t know,” he mutters, balling up his napkin and tossing it to the side. He looks like he’s considering something, jaw clicking. And then his eyes flicker back to him as he says, quietly, “you always liked my cooking.” Like — like he specifically brought him food to make him feel better. Like he knew his food would take his mind off of things, like he knew he would take his mind off of things.
Kaoru shoves his head in his hands and begins to shake it; he feels his resolve begin to crumble. This would be easier if Kojiro wasn’t being so… Kojiro. If he could convince himself that he wasn’t worth this internal struggle, but Kaoru knows what a big fat lie that would be.
“Kaoru? What’s… going on?”
“This isn’t how this is supposed to go,” he says, his voice low and distracted.
Kojiro sounds completely lost. “This isn’t how what’s supposed to go?”
“I need you to leave.”
Now this, this is a new one. He says it steely, with new resolve and not a drip of how they would usually bicker. Their arguments are usually trivial and light hearted. Nonsensical. They’ve never asked one another to straight up leave or stop before. It was always a string of bickering, of getting the last insult. It gives Kojiro pause.
“Are you serious right now—”
“I’m not prepared,” he blurts, tearing his head out of his hands and looking at him. He needs him to understand this. To see through it.
Kojiro, on the other hand, looks like he’s close to complete and total eruption. “For what?” he asks incredulously.
Kaoru licks his lips and looks at him. “To see you. So leave.”
The furrow between his brows comes undone, as he’s probably taken completely by surprise. It hadn’t been what he was expecting to hear.
“Kaoru, what are you…”
“Kojiro,” he says his name warningly, and Kojiro’s shoulders drop. He lets out this sound of disbelief, before looking off to the side and hefting himself up.
“Alright, fine. If seeing me is so painful then I’ll go,” he says, and Kaoru feels mortified by his words. He doesn’t even look at him as he says it, but it sounds just as steely as Kaoru’s own words, like he’s trying to match the coldness of it. It has something heavy dropping into his stomach, like a lump of cold bulbous rocks. That isn’t at all what he’d meant.
The door closes and Kaoru doesn’t watch him leave.
9 years ago
Kaoru is in the middle of a skateboarding flip when Kojiro comes flying past him on his own board, heading fast toward the halfpipe and gliding in the air. He lands the flip as Kojiro comes rolling back down the halfpipe. Kojiro turns his head to look at him and he notices the wide glint in his eyes, the brightness of his mirth taking up the space within them. It has him rolling his eyes at him, though his lips are smiling.
“Show off,” he decides to say, still.
“Look who’s talking, Mr. Kickflip Underflip,” Kojiro remarks, jogging his way back to him with a sweaty smile.
“I’m still working on getting it down.”
“Yeah, but you’ve basically got it. No one else can do it like you, man.”
“It isn’t… accurate enough.”
“Which proves my point exactly,” Kojiro says with a confirming nod, and Kaoru pinches his waist and then is taken down with him as he leans down in a show of pain. Definitely over-exaggerating.
“Let go of me, you gorilla.”
Kaoru reaches to pinch him again, but Kojiro wiggles away before he can do more damage.
“Alright, alright! Enough with the pincers,” he says, looking more amused than anything. And then he’s looking off to the side. “Hey, is that Mr. Hagiwara over there?”
Kaoru turns to look, and then hears the sound of a skateboard being dropped onto the ground.
“Race ya back!” Kojiro declares, speeding past him and cackling wildly. Kaoru can’t believe he fell for that, but is quickly chasing after him with more than a few expletives on his tongue.
Kojiro throws his head back and sticks his tongue out at him and Kaoru bends his knees to speed up and catch up to him. He tries to swat at him but Kojiro dodges it with a loud howl of laughter.
When they reach the front of the school, Kaoru gives him another pinch in the side and Kojiro throws an arm around his shoulders like he expected it. Kaoru scrunches his nose and lips at him.
“You reek.”
“No I don’t. I showered this morning.”
“And now you’re drenched in sweat.”
“Shut up. Anyways,” he gestures with the hand that’s wrapped around him. “My parents are gonna be out this weekend. You should come by. We can skate and watch movies all night.”
Kaoru remembers that he has calligraphy lessons during the weekend, but he figures he can just practice at Kojiro’s house.
“Okay,” Kaoru says, shoving his hands into his pockets. He licks at the side of his lips, where his piercing is missing. He has to take it out during school or else the administration will give him shit. He hums in consideration. “I think I wanna get another piercing.”
“Oh?” Kojiro quirks a brow.
“Yeah, I’m thinking my eyebrow.”
“Oh.” Kojiro says, suddenly sounding parched. He coughs into his elbow and clears his throat. Kaoru frowns at him.
“What? You don’t think it’s a good idea?”
“No, no, it’s a great idea,” he says, still sounding kind of sore. “Eyebrow piercings are sick.”
“Right? I thought so too.”
“We’ll get your piercings in the morning. I wanted to do some baking later too. You can be my taste-tester. And that reminds me,” he stops and reaches into his bag to pull out a bento box, “I brought you these.”
Kaoru feels the way his own eyes must light up as he snatches it from him with a speed that could rival lightning. He tugs the lid off in a blur. There are round ball-like confections inside smothered in syrup, and he marvels at it for a moment. “Is it another Italian dish? It looks like Dango.”
“Yeah, it’s called Struffoli. It’s basically deep fried dough with honey. I think you’ll like it.”
Kaoru doesn’t doubt that for a second. Give Kojiro a whisk and some flour and he’ll probably be able to make something amazing out of it. He pops one of the balls into his mouth and lets himself observe the flavor. It’s definitely sweet; hard on the outside and oh so soft on the inside.
“Interesting,” he says, and presumes walking.
Kojiro scrambles to follow him and leans in close. “Is that a good interesting or a bad interesting?”
Kaoru throws him a look as though berating his audacity to ask while they head into their classroom.
“What?” Kojiro asks, innocently.
Kaoru shakes his head at him and pops another one into his mouth, like that’s all the answer that he needs.
He gets a knock on the door the following day and it immediately puts him on the defensive, assuming it’s Kojiro coming back to set the record straight.
It’s not Kojiro.
Miya walks inside his house without much of a word as soon as the door is open, Hiromi laying against the wall with a very tired look drawn over his face. Langa stands next to him, arms crossed and looking at a very distant point past Kaoru’s head, foot tapping incessantly.
“What—” he begins, looking altogether flabbergasted. His outburst seems to knock Langa back into his body, and his gaze shifts over to him.
“Oh. Hi,” he says.
“How’s it going Mr. Blossom?” Hiromi asks, before inviting himself in. Langa follows.
“Children—” he begins again, and then shuts his mouth. “What are you doing here?”
“Children?” Hiromi immediately taunts. “I’m twenty four years old!”
“Yeah, he’s an old man,” Miya calls out from somewhere in the room. And now just — where did that one go?
“I’m only twenty four years old, I’ll have you know!”
“We wanted to check in on you,” Langa finally answers, looking around the room like he doesn’t know where to place himself.
Kaoru, while it does lighten his heart to hear that, is currently trying to figure out how they found out where he lives. “That’s not necessary. I’m doing fine,” he says, rolling his wheelchair further into the room.
“Joe— I mean! Uh, we thought it would be a good idea to see if you needed anything,” Hiromi says, and Kaoru stiffens in his seat at the mention of Kojiro, which seems to be a slip-up. Langa’s shoulders drop as he looks at Hiromi with a disgruntled expression.
“Nice going,” he murmurs, and Hiromi elbows him.
“What, I saved it!” he says hushedly, though Kaoru can hear him. He sighs. He notices then that Hiromi is carrying a bento box.
“As I said… that’s not necessary.”
Hiromi hums, narrowing his eyes at Kaoru. “So something did happen between you two.”
Kaoru bristles and feels the need to swat at him with his fan. “That’s preposterous.”
Miya comes out of the kitchen and yawns into a fist. “He’s been looking like a kicked puppy ever since he came back from your place,” he says, and Kaoru’s stomach twists in knots. “He’s distracted all the time.”
Kaoru leans back in his chair and tries not to let his expression give him away. “Have some respect for your elders,” he chides instead, then digs his fingers into his forehead, pinching his temples. “I can’t believe this,” he mutters to himself.
“Did you two have a fight or something?” Hiromi iniquires, and Kaoru notices at that moment that there’s one person missing from this little crew. It cues him back to Langa, naturally expecting that missing piece to be standing there, only to find it noticeably vacant. Langa stands alone, with his arms crossed over his chest and his finger picking at a nail like he’s not there at all.
Kaoru wants to slump into his chair, but he does not let himself. “Even if we did have a fight, it’s none of your concern,” he says, and gestures for his couch. “Go on and sit. Carla, bring out refreshments.”
They don’t try to pry any further about it afterwards. People generally know better than to poke more than they need to with Kaoru.
Kaoru looks down at the prepared bento box that sits on his lap and thumbs at the cover, frowning subtly. He opens it and sneaks a look, before taking the lid off. It’s tempura shrimp, and it makes Kaoru shake his head slightly. Kojiro owns an Italian restaurant, and yet he made him Japanese food. One of his favorite dishes, actually, which doesn’t make this any better.
He picks at the tempura with a chopstick, before putting it in his mouth. Just at the first bite, the first burst of flavor, he knows it’s Kojiro who made it. There isn’t even anything distinct about it. Even if Hiromi hadn’t let it slip, he still would have known. It just… feels like it’s made by Kojiro’s hands.
He doesn’t eat much. He looks up from his food and finds Langa on the other side of the couch, his cheek pressed into a fist as he stares at the TV. He thinks that maybe he should say something to him, perhaps a word of advice, but falls short. He’s noticed how Reki hasn’t been showing up to S, how Langa had been looking relentlessly for him.
What is he to say to him when he isn’t sure what to do with his own problems? Especially when they involve the heart? The one thing he’s struggling with, and has been struggling with for so long now?
Kojiro would know what to say.
After they leave, Kaoru is found staring down at his phone. His bento box is sealed tightly and stowed away in his fridge.
His thumb hovers over Kojiro’s name and as he’s fighting the throws of logic in his head, he suddenly thinks about Kojiro frowning while cutting cucumbers or stirring soup or whatever and something in him creaks.
He taps his name without thinking about it. And that’s just not how Kaoru works. He doesn’t do things on impulse, and yet here he is, his heart skipping a very palpable beat when the call connects.
He hears Kojiro’s voice, a low “Kaoru?” when it hits him that this isn’t right. What is he even doing right now? All his talk about needing to be prepared only to falter as soon as he hears that Kojiro is upset.
“Kaoru? You there?” Kojiro’s voice echoes in his mind, and he quickly ends the call.
God. What is he doing ?
Kaoru was 16 years old when he got his first boyfriend. It had been a short thing, one of only a couple months. He’d been among the small circle of skater friends that he had made in high school. Eichi. He would come up to Kaoru and ask for help on different moves, though it had just been a ruse to talk to him. He’d been a good skateboarder on his own.
It was fun at first and Kaoru enjoyed the attention, but their time together had grown bumpy when Eichi began having doubts about them. Kaoru still remembers the way he had stood in front of him deep into the night. He had placed himself a good distance away, which already told Kaoru that this wasn’t going to be good. But Eichi had looked so nonchalant about it, shrugging and toying with his skateboard as he told him, “let’s just break up.”
Kaoru had screwed his brows up, his piercings heavy against the movement. Among all the other feelings he was having, he remembers being so annoyed that Eichi looked relaxed about breaking up with him. “Why?”
Eichi gave him a very cynical look, his lips curled back and his eyes distrusting. “You’re smart, Kaoru. Don’t act like you don’t know.”
But Kaoru had been completely at a loss, unsure where this was all coming from. It was sudden, if anything. Eichi had been the one to pull back more and more for the past couple of days, not Kaoru. He thought it was something he needed to sort out on his own. Apparently not?
“What are you talking about?”
Eichi didn’t say anything for a moment, before kicking a pebble on the ground and rolling his eyes. “Nanjo,” he snapped, like the answer was so glaringly obvious.
“What does Kojiro have to do with—”
“Gosh damn it Kaoru, do I have to spell it out for you? Don’t you see the way the guy looks at you?” He had looked so frustrated, like he couldn’t believe Kaoru was making him say all this. Like he was mad Kaoru hadn’t done the apparent math himself. “I’m just breaking up with you before you choose him over me.”
And that night, when Kojiro had snuck his way through Kaoru’s window at 2 in the morning after Kaoru texted him that he and Eichi broke up, he’d looked at him and wondered if he’d been oblivious after all. But Kojiro was being the same old Kojiro, as he laid there in his bed and told him it would be alright.
And how was he supposed to interpret that, when Kojiro was the kind of person who went out of his way to say these kinds of things to people?
“I know,” Koaru had said, because logically he knew that a relationship of only three months shouldn’t affect him as much, but something in him still shook and there was this thing — this thing about Kojiro being there that made him know that it’ll be alright.
He’d looked at his best friend in a different light, then. Suddenly, his own feelings had been made clear as well. He’d realized how much he cares for Kojiro, but also began wondering what it would be like to have Kojiro’s attention on him. How it might feel to be loved by him. If that’s something he’s already had but just… didn’t know it.
The thought had burned severely within him.
But then they had met Adam and letting people in hadn’t felt like an option anymore. Adam made him feel wanted and adored until he got bored and left. Maybe it was his sense of pride that kept him latched onto the fallout, but he’s had this need to prove that he’s worth sticking around for ever since.
Suffice to say, relationships have been harder to form after that.
Kaoru slumps into his wheelchair and lets his head hang heavy. He doesn’t want to think about all this right now, but he needs to be calculated about this. It’s as if going through all his memories will help him draw the most perfect, precise conclusion to how his feelings may be looked at.
Carla plays a comforting tune and he thinks about the nonstop bickering that had sewn its way in between them throughout the years. How even outside of high school and college, Kojiro has still found his way into his life one way or another. How Kaoru has come to rely on it, this string of fate or coincidence or whatever you want to call it. How maybe it wasn’t fate at all and Kojiro just always knew to come back to him, to stay by him.
This shouldn’t be as hard as he’s making it out to be. He thinks, Kojiro. Kojiro. Kojiro. Kojiro. Kojiro. If only talking about it was as easy as the way he made him feel.
He thinks of Adam holding his board up high and slamming it down as though with a vengeance, and he stands up abruptly. He grabs onto his crutches and hurries to the door. He’ll give him power no more.
Calculations be damned.
There have been many moments where he could have said something. Where he could have laid out his feelings for Kojiro to see, where he could have exposed a part of his heart. Like that time they graduated high school and had jumped on their skateboards as soon as the ceremony was over. When they had dug spaces out for themselves in the grass and the stars were twinkling up high above them, their gowns gone tarnished and muddled with dirt.
His diploma had declared an end to his high school years, and his heart was beating fast in his chest as he looked at Kojiro from the side of his eye and thought, you’d better not leave.
He could have said it during one of their movie nights (after they had fought over nearly every movie suggestion), when they shared a dorm room in college and Kojiro looked so comfortable laying back in his bed as he made comments on whatever they decided to play. Or maybe after finals week, when Kaoru often forgot to feed himself because of how much he was studying and would find himself asleep over his notes rather than his bed. Kojiro would rouse him awake with a heavy hand on his shoulder and set a bowl of steaming curry in front of him and tell him to eat.
He often fed him what he would make in his culinary classes; funny how that worked out for them (Kojiro often liked to say).
Maybe he should have said it then.
Or when they managed to graduate college with tired shoulders and yet another diploma in hand, and Kojiro had baked quite the feast. His apartment had been filled with other students and suddenly it wasn’t just them laying in the grass and watching the stars anymore. But Kojiro still glanced at him every time someone made a joke as though wanting to laugh with him, and he’d still whisper things he found amusing into his ear and Kaoru would still pinch him in the waist and berate him for his shamelessness. And Kaoru still found himself thinking, you’d better stay right here (beside me).
Maybe when Kojiro carried him to the hospital because he wanted to show the jackass who broke his heart all those years ago that he was still worth it.
But as they grew older, having Kojiro by his side outweighed any feelings he ever has had for him. Because getting to walk into Kojiro’s restaurant and bicker with him about literally anything and still getting to skate beside him after all these years — it’s all been so much more important. It became who they were when they were together, and Kaoru never ever wanted to do anything to threaten that.
Sia La Luce is basked under amber street lights. It rests beneath a blanket of stark night with jewels of stars sown into the fabric. The restaurant stands in lonesome against the dark veil. Everywhere is dark but the light that Sia La Luce emits. The loneliness seems to hit him two fold, as he stands in front of the door and squeezes his crutches tight. He shivers against it.
He enters after someone leaves and holds the door open for him. He thanks them and heads inside with his head bowed, choosing a corner booth.
The restaurant only has a couple customers left; closing time is near.
He can see Kojiro flipping something in a pan in the kitchen, and Kaoru tries not to stare too hard at him. He also tries not to think. He knows he shouldn’t be thinking right now. He’s done enough of that.
It takes approximately 17 minutes for the last customer to leave.
Kojiro sets a dish into the sink and stares at it for a couple moments, like he’s preparing himself for something, before he turns around and leans back against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. Their eyes connect like the snap of machinery coming together. They stare at each other for a while, over the tables and booths that separate them. Neither of them speak.
The staring goes on for a while. Maybe it’s something they need.
Kojiro eventually breaks the standstill and grabs a wine glass off of a shelf. He pours something rose colored into it and walks over toward him. He sits down across from him and makes it look like he’s going to hand him the glass, before he whirls his hand back around and downs the drink himself.
Kaoru still doesn’t speak.
Kojiro swallows the drink and picks at the cup as he talks. “I’ve gotta say, you’re kind of scaring me, four eyes.”
Kaoru trains his eyes on him, a twitch visible in his brows. “Don’t start, gorilla.”
Kojiro raises his arms and it’s a weird look on him, not fighting back. He knows not to right now. And that’s the thing with him, huh? He just knows what to do when it comes to Kaoru. The thought makes him burn, up his neck and down his back.
Kojiro is waiting for him to speak, and while it isn’t news, it dawns on him with unspeckled clarity that he’s never done this sort of thing before. People have always confessed to him. He’d never been the one to do the confessing.
He ends up scoffing, leaning over to hold his forehead in a palm. “It’s just always going to be you, isn’t it?” he says, and it isn’t how he wanted to work his way around a beginning to this — but what other way is there to start with him? With his Kojiro?
Kojiro screws his brows together and he continues, almost defeatedly. “You’re — you’re the one who keeps sticking around. You never leave. Why haven’t you left yet? Damn dopey gorilla.” He doesn’t look at him, feels as though he’s already said so much. Though he knows he hasn’t even scratched the surface.
“Kaoru…” Kojiro mumbles, a kind of rasp to his voice. The fire in his eyes seems to dim. Perhaps he expected a fight. He looks like he’s trying to find the right words to say, to maybe match his own intent, but he winds up looking profoundly confused. “What are you trying to get at?”
“I’m tired of living this way, Kojiro.” He still won’t look at him, and the side of his head burns against the heat of Kojiro’s gaze. “You didn’t sign up for a confessional... so I’ll keep this contained to what pertains to you—”
“No,” Kojiro says, firmly, and with so much conviction that Kaoru is forced to flick his eyes over to him. He sees the blaze in his usually warm eyes and is forced to watch it burn. “Tell me all of it. What you have to say.”
A slightly hysterical laugh is nudging its way against his throat, but he delivers it as a weak, scornful chuckle. He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. He narrows his eyes at him, probably looking downright murderous because Kojiro raises both brows at him.
“Boy, do I love your ‘getting ready’ face.”
It makes him falter.
“I do not have a ‘getting ‘ready’ face—”
“You definitely do. You wear this nasty, almost constipated glare and your nose twitches on the right side. Like a rabbit.”
He feels the need to argue with him, but the part of himself that he’s kept under such heavy maintenance — the part of him that he’s trying so hard to let free right now — it wants to laugh. He shakes his head at him and lets out a sigh in place of a retort.
“Adam is an asshole,” he decides to say. It feels like the right thing to say. Kojiro should understand.
Kojiro nods and Kaoru notices how his fingers twitch, how his mouth turns into a scowl. “A bastard,” he mutters, his jaw tightening like he’s holding back more things he wants to say.
Kaoru’s fingers itch for his fan, or for something to toy with as he tries to find his words. He intertwines his fingers together and rests them on top of the table. “Look, I wanted to do this in a calculated way, but I don’t think that ever applied to you. I could never read you as well as I thought I did, and I’m... starting to think that I just would never let myself. I wasn’t ready for that.” I wasn’t ready for you to love me.
He keeps his gaze trained on his fingers and squeezes them together, almost bracing himself. Perhaps for rejection, for the shift in their relationship, for what could be a fracture in the friendship he’s been so afraid to lose.
“Kaoru?” Kojiro is suddenly saying, pulling him out of his mental focus. He glances up at him and Kojiro doesn’t say anything, but his expression… looks so soft. The hard edges of whatever anger he was feeling at the mention of Adam seems to disappear as he just… looks at him. It makes Kaoru’s heart stutter.
“What?” he asks, and hates how it comes out in a whisper.
Kojiro stands up and gestures for him to scoot over so he can sit next to him instead. Kaoru does, and it feels like a trap. This wasn’t a part of how he envisioned this to go.
“I think I know what you’re talking about,” Kojiro says, and Kaoru feels goosebumps prickle on the back of his neck.
“Kojiro,” he says, like he isn’t sure what to do now that Kojiro has stuck a thorn in the scenario he had concocted of how this would happen. Or maybe it’s a plea for him to stop talking, to not take this away from him.
“Let me make it easier for you, yeah?” he says, and Kaoru wants to laugh at how expected this is of him. Kojiro reaches out and slides a strand of Kaoru’s hair to the side, the tips of his fingers caressing his cheek. Kaoru follows the movement with his eyes, and then focuses them on Kojiro’s own, swallowing roughly. Kojiro’s gaze is just as warm as always, smiling that — he’s gonna say it — charming smile that he so often loves to wear. And he is suddenly filled with this desperate kind of desire to make it so that they never stop looking at him, and only him. “Will you let me kiss you?”
Kaoru feels his breath fall short, though he fists his hands tightly where they rest underneath the table. “Even after all these years?”
Kojiro grins at him but there is something so damn genuine about it, so whole and real about that simple glide of his mouth. “I know how much Adam hurt you. Personally. And I just… I always wanted you to have time.”
Kaoru doesn’t bother holding in his incredulous laugh, though it sounds wet as it escapes him. “Eight years of time?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Kojiro shakes his head at him, and he notices the way his eyes skim down to his lips and back. “I’ve loved you all this time. Every time I tried to get over you, you’d be there, at the counter of my restaurant with something smart to say or next to me on a skateboard or even on the damn TV and I — it always felt like I was…” He sighs, messily threading a hand through his hair. “God I sound so corny right now, don’t make fun of me, but I just... kept on falling for you again and again—”
Kaoru kisses him.
And Kojiro is frozen for only a moment before his hands fly up to hold Kaoru’s jaw in his hands so he can press in deeper, so Kaoru can feel how much he wants this. Wants him. It doesn’t even take that long for Kojiro to begin laughing against his mouth, and for Kaoru to purse his lips at him when he ends up kissing a part of his tooth. Though Kaoru has to smile, too, because he’s got his arms wrapped around Kojiro’s bulky shoulders and Kojiro is still holding him close and Kaoru finds himself being hit by that tell-tale warmth in his eyes.
“I thought you were really angry with me,” Kojiro admits, his fingers still holding his face there and leaving Kaoru nowhere to look but at him. He has to take a breath in. Kojiro has stolen it all from him.
“Angry with you?” he questions, somewhere. Peripherally. He’s taken by the movement of Kojiro’s lips.
“I thought you, I don’t know, didn’t want me around anymore or something.”
Kaoru sighs and they rest forehead to forehead for a moment.
“Kojiro, that’s…”
Silence falls as he tries to find the words to describe such a ridiculous assumption, and Kojiro hums to get his attention. “That’s what? Don’t hold back on me. You have to be nice to me now because you like me.”
Kaoru stifles a groan in the trenches of his throat. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult?”
He shrugs. “You’re cute when you’re irritated.”
Kaoru pinches his shoulder, lightly, which only has Kojiro beaming.
“I wanted to get it right. My feelings and how I told you about them,” he tells him, the corner of his lip twitching upwards. There’s an apology within its gait, for making him think something so ludicrous. “The beef with Adam made me realize… some things. I don’t want the past interfering with the present anymore.”
Kojiro nods like he understands, which he probably very much does, while pressing a kiss to his forehead. Kaoru has to close his eyes against the impression; perhaps because he doesn’t know how to react in any other way, to being cherished in such a simple way.
“Me either,” Kojiro says, and it feels like it’s been forever since Kaoru’s wanted to say these words and have them reciprocated by him. “This is kind of… unbelievable,” he confesses as he thumbs at his bottom lip, and Kaoru is stuck trying to figure out how to return such a gentle gesture back to him. “You never looked at me like I wanted you to,” a laugh, perhaps a distraction, “other people always had your attention.”
And Kaoru thinks maybe they were both a little bit afraid, a little bit in denial, to not see the longing in one another’s eyes . Because it feels like all he’s ever done is look at him. Even when he was around other people, when he had crushes in high school, he would always gravitate back to Kojiro. Always back to him.
“I wanted to tell you,” Kaoru breathes out, the words coming out easily now that they know there’s a cushion to fall onto with their descent. “The thing I wanted to get right was… telling you how much you mean to me. I’ve never let you know it. But you went and blew that for me, which I guess is typical for a gorilla.”
Kojiro shakes his head at him and slides his thumb up Kaoru’s sharp jaw. “Then tell me.”
“Tell... you?”
“Yeah, tell me how much you like me.”
Kaoru eyes him levely and knows this would be the perfect place to say something snarky. But he doesn’t. He licks his lips and reaches out to hold Kojiro’s cheek in his hand. And Kojiro was right in saying that this feels unbelievable because the fact that he can hold his face in his hands feels so unreal. But it’s real and Kojiro is right here and he’s waiting for Kaoru to tell him how much he loves him.
“I care about you, Kojiro,” he says, and it leaves him almost effortlessly. Because it’s the truth and he’s been so afraid of caring for another person but Kojiro makes it so easy. He has always made it so easy and he always had to know. “And you deserve to know how much I’ve always cared about you.”
A flush settles high on Kojiro’s cheeks and Kaoru has to smile at the sight of it.
“Uh, yeah. That should definitely do it,” Kojiro suddenly says, coughing into his hand but he can see him smiling into it. His words must embolden him because he leans closer to him and smirks something devious. “I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses.”
The mood doesn’t so much twitch as it does curl like a breeze of familiarity in between them. Kaoru scoffs and shoves a pointed finger onto his chest. “Don’t push it, you giant gorilla of a man.”
Kojiro’s smile widens and he looks so terribly happy that it makes Kaoru’s gut clench. “Turns out you like this giant gorilla of a man,” he says, leaning in even closer. “You really, really like him—”
“Kojiro, ” Kaoru hisses, clapping his hands against his chest and only getting a laugh out of him. Kaoru finds himself struggling to hold back his own smile.
“Alright, alright,” he says, still smiling, and then continues with complete calm, “wanna make out some more?”
“You’re an animal, Kojiro,” he returns, though it leaves him in an uncharacteristically soft manner, as though in fondness. Oh, the things this man is doing to him...
“Just come here, you oaf,” Kaoru mutters, grabbing the hem of his shirt to pull him into another kiss.
Kojiro hums into it, and Kaoru is overcome with his warmth. And all he can think of is, this is worth it.
His doubts, his fears, none can compare to kissing Kojiro here under the heat of his truth. Suddenly, all the time spent not feeling the smoothness of Kojiro’s lips doesn’t matter. Not in the slightest. Wasted time, perhaps, but time gone without feeling the press of their bodies together and thus, time completely irrelevant. Nothing seems to compare to the steadiness he feels as he leans against him. As they lean against each other .
In the end, as they hold each other close and still find something to bicker about and Kaoru can almost physically feel a page turning in his life, all he can think of is how this feels so inexplicably right. For him, and for them. And that’s all he could ever really ask for.