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Calum’s not tired enough for this time difference.
Sixteen hours is too many. One day is not enough time to adjust to a whole new circadian rhythm. Their 7pm concert is 11am to Calum, and by the time it’s over it’s smack-bang in the middle of the day in Calum’s brain, and the fact that it’s dark outside in Tokyo is really, really fucking him up.
“This is really, really fucking me up,” he mutters, pulling the curtains of his and Michael’s hotel room shut with a swish.
“What is?” Michael’s voice echoes from the bathroom, where he’s brushing his teeth. It’s a strange choice, since Michael also brushed his teeth before the show and they haven’t eaten anything since then, but whatever.
“The fact that it’s dark outside and I feel like it’s the middle of the afternoon,” Calum says. He pulls his cap off his head and throws it aside, ruffling up the matted hair underneath. It’s nice and air-conditioned in the room, and the sweat sticking Calum’s shirt to his chest from the show is starting to dry. It strikes Calum that he doesn’t need to be wearing his gross sweaty t-shirt anymore, so he pulls that off, too, and throws it in the general direction of the hat.
Michael makes a kind of humming noise. Calum can hear the sounds of a toothbrush, and takes no offence at Michael’s non-answer. He kicks off his jeans and flops back onto the bed, revelling in the cool air on his sticky skin for a minute before sliding off to put on some clothes.
Michael traipses out of the bathroom. He’s still in full show attire, and he’s wearing the camouflage baseball cap from before, a pastel galaxy of lavender hair sticking out underneath it. Calum likes this colour on Michael. A lot of the time Michael makes his bizarre hair colour look good, but this time, the hair colour looks good on its own, which is a refreshing change of pace.
“You look tired,” Michael says.
Calum frowns. “I’m not. And no I don’t.”
“Fine, you look cosy.”
“That’s not the same thing at all.” The sweatpants and hoodie Calum have donned are cosy, but in his mind it’s still that lazy break between lunch and dinner where the only way to kill time is to play video games. He blinks owlishly at Michael. “You look…colourful.”
Michael snorts a laugh. The only colourful part of him is his hair; his attire is all-black, as usual, but Calum is pretty focused on the hair. Maybe the jet lag is getting to him more than he knows, because all Calum can think is that Michael looks yummy, deliciously kissable, and he wants to tangle his fingers in the lilac mess that is his hair and make it worse.
“You look…like you’re plotting something evil,” Michael returns, strolling towards Calum. He grins. “Stop staring at me! What are you planning?”
“I may be delirious,” Calum solemnly informs him. “What time is it?”
“Midnight,” Michael says without checking. He steps even closer. “Stop staring, you weirdo.”
“Make me.”
“No offence, but you look like you might snap and go serial killer,” Michael says. “I’m not kissing you, crazy eyes.”
Calum blinks. His gaze refocuses, flitting around Michael’s face too quickly, like trying to calibrate himself. “What if I kissed you? ”
Michael shifts his weight, barely a foot away, and smirks. “That’d be okay.”
“I would never snap and serial killer kill you,” Calum says, frowning as Michael’s words finally pierce the thick haze of jet lag clouding his mind. “If I killed you it would be deeply personal and I’d leave a note and everything.”
Michael bursts into laughter. “This is why I say you’re insane!”
“I’m not insane! I’m adorable.”
“Adorably insane.” Michael calms down and catches his breath. “Well? Are you gonna kiss me or—”
“Stop calling me insane and we’ll just see,” Calum says, except then he kisses Michael anyway because he’s tired of not kissing Michael and this argument is not worth the time they’re wasting not kissing.
Michael’s hands immediately find their way to Calum’s waist, pulling him closer so they’re flush against each other. In the stillness of the room, Calum’s own heartbeat is loud in his ears. He wonders if Michael can hear it, or feel it, or if he’d find it strange if he could. They’re just friends who kiss. There’s nothing strange about that.
Anyway, Calum’s a man on a mission, and his palms slide up Michael’s arms and shoulders, framing his face for a second, then continue around the back of his head to the unexpectedly soft strands of hair at the back.
Victory.
Well, almost victory. His fingertips bump against the brim of the cap on Michael’s head, and Calum grabs the hat and tugs it off him. The gesture makes Michael choke on a laugh and pull away.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s in the way,” Calum insists, taking advantage of the pause to push Michael’s hair off his forehead. A blissful smile breaks across Michael’s face, but he shakes his head anyway like he has to at least pretend to mock every single thing Calum does.
“It’s part of my look,” he says. Calum drops the cap carelessly to the floor and wraps his arms around Michael’s neck.
“Don’t care,” he says airily. “My enjoyment of our kiss is more important than your aesthetic.”
Michael breathes a laugh. “Rude.”
“Rude of you to wear a hat and hide all this sexy hair.”
“Oh, I see. It’s all about the hair.”
“Yeah, duh.” Calum leans their foreheads together. “Pick a bad colour and this is over.”
“Better not pick a bad colour, then.”
Calum smiles. “Don’t think a bad colour exists for you,” he admits. And I don’t think anything could convince me to end this, no matter what I say.
Michael is quiet, watching him, and after a moment of silence he leans in to kiss Calum again, like it’s the only adequate reply he can come up with.
Calum threads his fingers through Michael’s lilac hair and imagines the colour staining his skin, leaving an amethyst residue on his fingertips. He drags his hands down to Michael’s face, imagines leaving a lavender trail, marking the trajectory of his touch. Smudging violet across Michael’s cheeks with his thumbs.
Michael doesn’t taste like lavender or lilac — he tastes like mint toothpaste — but the colours are so vivid behind Calum’s closed eyes that he can swear he can taste them on Michael’s tongue.
When Michael pulls away, Calum licks his lips and opens his eyes. He’s disappointed to find Michael looking like Michael, no extraneous hair dye anywhere, all pale and pink lips but no purple in sight beyond the disaster that is his hair.
“Um,” Calum says, catching up to his own train of thought. “I think I’m tired.”
“Wow,” Michael says. “Hard for me not to take that personally, Cal.”
Calum grins. He’s not sure if he’s tired so much as just ready to call it a night. Otherwise he risks ruining this perfect ending to their day. Any day that ends with kissing Michael can’t be that bad.
“Hey, I could keep going,” he says.
Michael shakes his head, then hesitates, then kisses Calum once more. It goes straight to Calum’s toes, to the tips of his fingers. Somehow, the last kiss is always the best one.
“Well I, for one, am fuckin’ beat,” Michael says when they’re separate again.
Calum resists every single urge to just keep kissing him. If it were up to him they’d never stop. The only reason he ever lets up is the promise that at least they’ll get to do it again the next day. Even now, with the post-show exhaustion catching up to him and Michael basically swaying where he stands — even now, he wants to steal one more, one for safekeeping, one to lock up in a memory box Just In Case.
That would be insane, though.
“We need to sleep,” Michael says. “Or at least I need to sleep.”
“Fine, I’ll sleep,” Calum says. “But dibs little spoon.”
Michael sighs. “Fine.”
Calum kisses his cheek, then leaps backwards and lands on the bed spread-eagle. He doesn’t even have a chance to readjust before Michael’s climbing on top of him like a baby goat or a particularly needy cat. “Oof,” Calum says. “Get off me, stupid.”
“Technically, I think this counts as you being the little spoon,” Michael observes, which is absolutely not true and complete bullshit.
Calum jerks his shoulder until he dislodges Michael from on top of him. “You’re still in your show clothes, you disgusting pig. Put on some pyjamas at least, Jesus Christ. I’m not cuddling with your sweaty arse.”
“Alright, fuck, chillax,” Michael huffs, clumsily stumbling off the bed and over to his suitcase. While he changes, Calum pushes the covers back and snuggles up underneath. It’s wonderfully warm with the blanket and the hoodie and everything. Calum sighs contentedly. “Don’t forget to turn off the lights,” he adds.
Michael finishes changing into sweats and a t-shirt and kills the lights. On his way back to the bed Calum hears him almost trip. “What the fuck is this?” Another pause. “Oh, it’s my hat.”
“Whoops,” says Calum. Michael finally returns to bed and crawls under the blanket where Calum’s made himself comfortable. “You looked pretty good in it. I just really— I wanted to touch your hair.”
Michael kind of laughs quietly. “And? How was it?”
“Delicious,” Calum hums. He grabs Michael’s hand and presses a kiss to his palm. “Very tasty. Would touch again.”
“You can’t— that doesn’t even—”
“Shh. Shhhhh. Just let it happen.”
Michael sighs. His arm wraps snugly around Calum’s waist, and Calum takes back his thoughts about jet lag. It doesn’t seem like such an issue anymore. “I love you, weirdo. Goodnight.”
“Love you too,” Calum says. He yawns, which leads to Michael yawning; they both giggle, but then silence descends, and Calum falls asleep surprisingly quickly after that, with Michael breathing in his ear.