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7/7/2009, Dark Hour. A room at a hotel on Shirakawa Boulevard.
The room is dim, the darkness murky—it is the Dark Hour, after all. The sound of the shower running slowly becomes apparent. A figure lies, alone, in the bed. He appears to be asleep. The room feels at once abandoned and like it is the only place in the world.
Akihiko’s eyes flutter open. He stares at the ceiling, dusted with shadows, his vision blurred. He feels strange, kind of like he’s weighed down by something he can’t see. His lungs feel heavy. He wants to go back to sleep, and he can’t figure out why that would be such a bad thing.
The shower shuts off. Akihiko blinks, considering the implications of this. Someone is in the room—yes, he knew that, but the person’s identity is just out of his reach. It’s as if the fog of sleep hasn’t quite cleared from his mind. He sits up gingerly, like he’s avoiding an injury, and as he does, the door to the bathroom opens.
Akihiko’s mind takes a moment to catch up.
Minato stands in the doorway, a towel around his waist, fingers running through his hair. His expression is blank, gentle. He pauses in the doorway a moment before walking toward the bed and stopping at the edge of it, looking down at Akihiko.
“You stayed,” Minato says so softly that Akihiko isn’t sure he heard him correctly at first.
He reaches out and takes Minato’s hand. He doesn’t know why he does it, but it feels good, and once Minato’s hand is in his, he pulls him down to the bed. Minato is magnetic, his presence electric, and Akihiko doesn’t know how to resist or why he would.
“Been thinking about you,” he says without forethought. The towel around Minato’s waist is bunched up around his thighs. It’s in the way.
“I know,” Minato says. His face is so close. He smells of mint, and his hand works at the towel around his waist until he gets it free and casts it aside. Akihiko can’t breathe. And then Minato kisses him, and there’s no more room to breathe anyway.
Akihiko has no idea how to kiss—he’s read about it on several occasions, but of course that doesn’t mean he’s actually practiced—but Minato’s lips are warm, and his body is warm where Akihiko’s hands linger on his waist. He’s not wearing clothes, which makes Akihiko feel overdressed in comparison. The room seems too warm for him to still be in his vest and shirt.
Minato’s skin—Akihiko wants to touch him everywhere, to hear and feel how his body responds. When Minato drops his mouth to Akihiko’s neck and starts to kiss him there, hot and wet, Akihiko lets his hands trace slow patterns over his bare skin. Their breaths fill the silence, rhythmic. Minato bites lightly at Akihiko’s neck. Akihiko groans, pulling him closer.
The stutter of feedback makes them both stop short. A gentle voice breaks through, reaching them in pieces at first. “. . . hear me?”
Minato rolls off the bed, ends up on his hands and knees on the floor beside it, and grabs for his towel. When they hear the voice again, he wraps it hastily around his waist and goes straight for the bathroom. Akihiko’s mind feels foggy. He watches Minato leave, frozen.
“Akihiko-senpai? Minato-san?” Fuuka’s voice asks. Minato doesn’t say anything, just shuts the bathroom door behind him.
“W-we can hear you,” Akihiko says. His voice sounds raspy as if from disuse. He rests a hand on his throat, thinking of how Minato’s mouth felt there. His heart is still pounding.
“Oh, good!” Fuuka exclaims. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t contact you sooner. The Shadow interfered . . .” She begins to explain what happened, but Akihiko is staring at the door to the bathroom, no longer listening. By the time he registers what she’s saying again, she’s asking if the connection is still stable.
“Yeah, sorry,” Akihiko says. The bathroom door hasn’t budged. A watched pot and all that. “We’ll meet back up with you as soon as we can.”
Fuuka murmurs her affirmation. Receiving no reply from Minato, she calls to him. “Did something happen?”
“Uh—no, we’re fine. Nothing happened.” And that’s a flat-out lie, but how could he tell her the truth? No matter what kind of mindfuckery the Shadow used on them, the idea of telling the rest of SEES what he and Minato did—and what they almost did—is horrifying. He tries to reassure Fuuka again, and she signs off, reminding him where the Shadow is likely hiding.
The bathroom door opens, and Minato emerges, fully dressed. Akihiko scrambles up from the bed and tries to straighten his clothes. He runs a hand through his hair, waiting for Minato to pass him by like he doesn’t exist and leave the room. He doesn’t. Instead, he stops a few feet from Akihiko and looks at him.
“Hey—please don’t tell anyone about what happened,” Akihiko says, desperate. Minato looks for all the world like he doesn’t give a damn, his hands in his pockets. “I know I wasn’t really in my right mind, and I don’t want that to reflect on you if—”
Minato closes the distance between them, pressing a chaste kiss to Akihiko’s lips. “I won’t tell anyone,” he says easily once he breaks away. “But don’t count on me forgetting anytime soon.”
With a smirk, he turns and leaves the room, and Akihiko nearly sinks to his knees.