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Kojiro’s mother smooths the band-aid - bright green with yellow spots - over the scrape on Kojiro’s knee. In another room one of his baby sisters gives a high pitched wail and Kaoru flinches.
“All better?” she asks and Kojiro nods, beaming. She stoops then, to kiss just above the band-aid and when she straightens up she turns to Kaoru and fixes her amber eyes on him.
“Did you get hurt too, Kaoru?” she asks.
He’d hit his elbow pretty hard when they’d fallen but he’s not sure how to handle the tender way she just patched up her son, doesn’t know how he’d react if she decided to kiss him too. Kaoru doesn’t remember the last time he fell at home, doesn’t know if there’s ever been a time his own mother had stuck a brightly coloured band-aid onto his skin.
So Kaoru shakes his head and tucks his arm in closer to his side so she won’t be able to see the rough, broken skin or the slow trickle of blood dripping down from his elbow.
It was his fault they fell, it was him that Kojiro was trying to catch when he suddenly lost balance on his new skateboard and almost toppled right onto the ground. It should have scared Kaoru entirely off but all he can keep thinking is that he’s happy his mother didn’t see because he’d quite like the opportunity to try again.
The sister screeches again and Kojiro’s mother pats Kaoru on the head.
“I better go see what’s wrong. Are you staying for dinner, Kaoru?”
Kaoru bites his lip to stop himself from saying yes, please. He glances at Kojiro uncertainly to find him watching him.
“Please, mama,” Kojiro says. He swings his legs so his socked feet knock against the counter his mother had hefted him onto when they’d limped in from the garden. Kaoru had been a little jealous, though he’d never admit it, Kojiro is bigger than him, yet his mother hadn’t even hesitated.
“I’ll call your mother to let her know,” she says kindly and Kaoru smiles in response but half turns away so she can’t really see. Another peel of noise from the room holding the babies draws her away.
Kojiro hops down from the counter and Kaoru winces, wondering if that hurt his knee even more but his friend doesn’t seem to notice, just turns away from Kaoru to go up onto his tiptoes and drag the medical kit his mother had been using to the edge of the counter.
“What are you doing?” Kaoru demands, feeling less awkward without the heavy presence of an adult in the room.
“Getting you a band-aid for your arm,” Kojiro says, “You’re such a baby, why wouldn’t you let my mom do it?”
Kaoru scowls, “I’m not a baby.”
“Yes you are,” Kojiro says and Kaoru’s reply dies on his tongue when Kojiro settles back onto his feet with a pink square band-aid in his hand, “Give me your arm.”
Kaoru huffs but lifts his arm, turning slightly so - after a momentary fumble - Kojiro can brush the dirt away with his thumb, peel the wrapper away and stick the band-aid over the graze. Its lopsided but Kaoru likes the colour so keeps his criticism to himself.
“You’re welcome,” Kojiro says.
Kaoru stamps on his foot.
- - -
There’s a message on his phone from Kojiro’s mom being what can only be described as hysterical. Kaoru can’t pick out many words but he hears car and hospital and the lingering irritation at having been stood up in the skate park for an hour vanishes in short the time it takes Kaoru to toss his board onto the ground and push off in that direction.
He skids to a stop outside with his heart pounding, his phone chiming with an incoming text just as he’s about to head inside.
Kojiro’s sister is a little more reasonable. Her text message is short but oddly reassuring.
He’s fine. An idiot, but an alive idiot. Room 313.
Kaoru breathes a sigh of relief and pushes through the main doors of the hospital, ignoring the nurse that asks him where he’s heading to approach the bank of elevators and tap every single call button that’s not already lit up.
His phone goes off again as the first set of doors open.
He’s been asking for you.
Room 313 is easy to find, a small private room almost dead opposite the nurses station. Kojiro’s mom is nowhere to be seen but his eldest sister is propped up in one of the plastic chairs, turned away from her brother on the bed with eyes fixed on the TV.
“You’re a buffoon,” Kaoru says to announce himself instead of blurting are you okay?
“You don’t even know what I did,” Kojiro argues.
There’s a bandage stuck along his hairline and wrapped around his wrist but most alarmingly, of course, is his cast covered leg half suspended.
“You got hit by a car,” Kaoru guesses. He has no way of knowing of course but he has a little information and he’s nothing if he’s not smart.
Kojiro pouts and Kaoru rolls his eyes, striding over to the bed and propping his skateboard up against the edge. He can’t see Kojiro’s board and he hates to imagine all that could mean.
“How did you get hit by a car?” Kaoru demands, jabbing his friend in the side.
Kojiro doesn’t answer because all the breath wheezes out of him, his face scrunching up in agony.
“Kojiro,” Kaoru says, twisting his hands into Kojiro’s sheets to keep from grabbing for him. It's a real effort to keep his voice steady when he asks, “Kojiro what is it?”
Kojiro groans but forms no words to answer.
He’s been asking for you, Kaoru remembers.
“He’s got bruised ribs,” Kojiro’s sister says and Kaoru shoots her a glare because she is, of course, at fault for not warning him.
“Why didn’t you tell me, idiot?” Kaoru seethes.
“Be nice,” Kojiro whines.
Kaoru huffs, propping his hip against the edge of the bed.
“What happened?”
Kojiro glances at him then away again.
“I wasn’t looking where I was going,” Kojiro hedges.
“Why not?” Kaoru demands.
“I was running late,” Kojiro admits, “I was trying to let you know so you wouldn’t go off in a sulk.”
“I don’t sulk,” Kaoru snaps, wrapping his arms tight over his chest and tilting his head away.
“Just be late next time,” Kaoru says, “I was still waiting when your mother called me.”
Kojiro winces again, almost as much as he had when Kaoru had hurt him. Hurt him more, he supposes, because that broken leg is kind of Kaoru’s fault too. That wound on his head better not scar, Kaoru doesn’t want to have to look at Kojiro’s dumb face for the rest of his life and be reminded of this moment over and over again.
“We were supposed to work on your backside flip,” Kojiro says, sounding for all the world like that is the problem with what’s happening here and not himself being laid up on a hospital bed.
“Work on getting better,” Kaoru tells him. He slumps a little, unfolding his arms and setting his hand against an unwrapped part of Kojiro’s arm, fingertips just brushing the edge of the bandage, “Dumbass.”
Kojiro’s sister laughs, “You tell him, Kaoru.”
- - -
“You’re going to get in real trouble one of these days,” Kaoru criticises.
He grabs a clean towel off the neat row of hooks by the oven then crosses to the freezer to dig out a few handfuls of ice and shove them into the towel. The force he uses when he presses the tied bundle against Kojiro’s face is probably a little too harsh but he’s still bristling with a sour mix of anger and worry and it’s putting a huge knock in his already substandard bedside manner.
“He grabbed you,” Kojiro says, taking the makeshift ice pack from Kaoru and holding it more carefully against his jaw.
There’s a dot of blood sitting just underneath the split on Kojiro’s lip and Kaoru stares at it, the way it curves under the fullness of his friend’s mouth until Kojiro darts his tongue out to sooth over the little hurt and the blood mostly disappears. Kaoru turns away, focusing on getting Kojiro a glass of water instead because he’s probably thirsty.
Kaoru would be thirsty if he’d squared up against a complete stranger at three hours past his curfew in a part of town they really shouldn’t have been in.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Kaoru says. They’re talking quietly because they’ve technically just snuck back into his house even though Kaoru doesn’t really have a curfew so much as an unspoken agreement with his parents not to do anything they’d need to be embarrassed about.
“He grabbed you,” Kojiro repeats.
Kaoru knows, can still feel the sudden shock of being pulled off kilter while he was just trying to enjoy the music. It hadn’t hurt, Kaoru had been more annoyed than scared but Kojiro had immediately gotten in between Kaoru and the older man. They’d exchanged words Kaoru hadn’t been able to hear over the pounding of the music and the echo of his own racing pulse. Then all of a sudden there had been a clenched fist smashing into Kojiro’s jaw and one of the too tall and too broad men working security had been tossing them out onto the dark street.
“Does it hurt?” Kaoru asks.
Kojiro takes the ice away and rotates his jaw, it clicks in a way that might as well be a gunshot in the quiet of the kitchen.
“Not really,” Kojiro says, though Kaoru can tell he’s lying by the way eyebrows pull in together.
“What is it?” Kaoru questions. Kojiro looks away rather than answers so Kaoru jabs him in the chest and demands, “Tell me.”
“It’s stupid,” Kojiro says.
“You usually are,” Kaoru says, “I don’t know why you’d be embarrassed now.”
“Thanks,” Kojiro mutters. Kaoru jabs him again.
“I don’t like that he beat me, okay? I shouldn’t have let that happen,” Kojiro explains.
Kaoru frowns, it’s hard to tell when Kojiro is blushing anyway, let alone when most of the lights are off so he steps closer just to make sure he’s not imagining things.
“You’re upset that you - that you lost a fight?” Kaoru clarifies, “And not that we’re going to have to explain to you mother and your little sisters why you got injured when we were supposed to be studying.”
Kojiro rolls his eyes, “I slipped off my skateboard on the way home or I wound you up when you were trying to sleep and you elbowed me in the face… I’m not worried about excuses Kaoru I’m worried about -”
Kaoru twists his fingers into the length of his hair draped over his shoulder and he can feel the weight of Kojiro’s eyes on the movement almost as much as he can see them.
“Worried about what?” Kaoru prompts when Kojiro doesn’t seem forthcoming with the rest of his thoughts.
“I wanna be able to look out for you,” Kojiro says, “To keep you safe.”
Kaoru bristles at the idea he needs looking out for, that Kojiro sees him as a job to do and not -
Kojiro brushes his fingers across Kaoru’s jaw and tugs his bottom lip free from his teeth with a press of his thumb.
“Careful or we’ll match,” Kojiro says.
Kaoru knocks his hand away and for some reason Kojiro smiles for the first time since they initially slipped into the crowd they had no right to be in.
“Let’s go to bed,” Kaoru says, “It’s late.” Almost three in the morning at this point. They don’t have school tomorrow but Kojiro has his apprenticeship at a local restaurant in the afternoon. He’ll probably be tired now, he should definitely have just said no when Kaoru proposed the scheme. They should have just gone skating instead, then the worst they’d have to contend with is skinned knees and scuffed palms. If they fell at all, which they so rarely do anymore.
“I can just go home,” Kojiro offers. The ice has barely spent any time against his face but he tosses the cloth into the sink where it can melt away by morning so no one else in the house will be any the wiser.
“Why?”
They’d warned Kojiro’s family he’d be spending the night, a long study session they expected to run late in the lead up to their final exams.
“You seem like you’re mad at me,” Kojiro says.
Kaoru is always kind of mad at him except he’s also never really mad at him. Exasperated mostly, because they approach things so differently and Kojiro exists in a constant state of easy smiles and open conversation while literally being the only person in the world with the ability to make Kaoru smile at all.
“Kojiro,” Kaoru sighs.
“Kaoru.”
“I won’t be able to sleep if you go,” Kaoru admits. It’s not fun to admit it, but Kojiro knows this about him anyway, having spent many nights sleeping on his floor or tucked onto the mattress next to him. Has answered his phone at three in the morning when Kaoru finally gives in and calls because he just can’t stand being alone any longer.
“Better not let you miss out on all that beauty sleep, right?” Kojiro teases, stepping away from the counter to touch the back of Kaoru’s neck with a palm still chilled by the ice. Kaoru shivers even though the cold is actually soothing and Kojiro retracts his hand with a mumbled apology.
They soften their steps as they make their way upstairs, taking quick turns in the bathroom next to Kaoru’s bedroom. Kaoru changes into pyjamas but Kojiro has long since outgrown the point where they can share clothes both ways so instead, Kaoru just keeps his back turned while Kojiro slips to his boxers and buries himself under Kaoru’s covers, poorly covering up the way he chuckles at Kaoru’s bashfulness.
It hadn’t always been like this, he’d never been worried about seeing or being seen in a state of undress before but sometime in the last year he’d looked up and realised that Kojiro was suddenly a man - a realisation that had coincided with the epiphany that men, in general, are a thing Kaoru is interested in.
“Shut up,” Kaoru snaps, feeling embarrassed and he slots himself into the bed too, rolled up on his side with his back to Kojiro and his knees pulled up towards his chest. Kojiro always sleeps flat on his back, limbs spread out and peaceful like there’s nothing that could possibly bother him enough to keep him from sleeping. Kaoru’s always been jealous of that, he doesn’t remember a time when he’d slept easily by himself.
Kojiro’s hand pets a little clumsily over his hair and Kaoru would never normally allow it yet somehow, when they end up like this, he always does.
Perhaps they’re too old for this, aged out of it being appropriate to share a bed, but Kaoru waits for Kojiro’s breaths to even out, turn heavy with sleep, and scoots back the short distance between him to the curve of his back is pressed to Kojiro’s side so he too is able to drift off into a sleep full of only peaceful dreams.
- - -
“I’m happy for you,” Kaoru says but it’s no wonder Kojiro clearly doesn’t believe him with the way his voice shakes.
“I’m not going forever,” Kojiro says, “And we can talk all the time.”
Kaoru rolls his eyes.
“You’re going to end up loving it,” Kaoru says, the added and not want to come back going unsaid.
What’s not to like? Italian weather, the first steps on the career he’s wanted since the moment he realised food was a thing that was made. The absence of a clingy best friend.
He’ll be abandoned again, reminded that he’s simply not enough to make people stick around.
Kojiro shrugs, “Plenty of things for me to love in Okinawa too.”
Heat rises up Kaoru’s face and he scowls.
“You better not squander this opportunity,” Kaoru snaps.
“And you better take that offer to spend a year in Tokyo the university offered you,” Kojiro shoots back.
Kaoru’s eyes widen. He hadn’t told Kojiro about it, hadn’t wanted to be encouraged away from the only thing in his life he likes having around all the time.
“How did you know?” Kaoru asks. It’s an impressive offer, he’s proud of getting it but he’s still been sitting on the information for a few weeks, not sure how to broach the subject. He couldn’t have asked Kojiro to come with him - would never have imposed to such a degree - but now Kojiro is flying halfway around the world of his own accord for who knows how long Kaoru might as well go. What would he be sticking around for?
“Your mom told me,” Kojiro says.
“What -” Kaoru sputters.
“She talks to me,” Kojiro tells him, “Thinks I’m a good influence.”
“You’re a good something,” Kaoru mutters even though it makes no sense.
Kojiro puts two heavy hands on Kaoru’s shoulders and ducks his head a few inches to thunk their foreheads gently together.
“You can just say you’ll miss me,” Kojiro teases, “No one else is around to hear you.”
Kaoru pulls his head back and jerks it forward again with enough force they both have a fresh bruise come morning.
At least his hair covers it easily enough.
- - -
Kojiro comes back from Italy two years later twice as large as he’d left.
Kaoru had visited one summer and seen the intermediate growth in his arms and shoulders - and height annoyingly even though he assumed they were past the point of adding inches to their height - but the change still surprises him a little when he’d collected Kojiro from the airport along with half his siblings and both his parents. Their presence is the only reason Kaoru allows himself to be lifted right off the ground when Kojiro hugs him. And the film of wetness over his eyes when he’s put back down again is simply because his allergies have been particularly brutal this year.
Kojiro is back two weeks before they really get any time together; Kaoru’s business is established if not yet thriving but Kojiro still has a kitchen to fill and tiles to choose and walls to paint. Kaoru can’t help as much as he wants and he can’t simply ask Kojiro to put anything on hold just to spend a little time with him when getting Sia la luce off the ground is imperative for Kojiro being able to rekindle a stable life here in Okinawa. So when Kojiro messages him wanna be a menu taster? Kaoru's response is an immediate affirmative.
Kojiro’s apartment is in just as bad a state as his business, unsurprising considering they’re in the same building and consequently Kaoru thinks nothing of it when Kojiro asks if he can cook for them in Kaoru’s apartment instead.
Kaoru pulls his front door open and wrinkles his nose when he takes in his friend’s, well, everything.
“You smell like paint,” Kaoru tells him.
“I did a lot of painting today,” Kojiro explains, lifting his arms a little so the paint splatters on his forearms are all the more obvious.
“And you didn’t think to shower before heading over to someone else’s home?” Kaoru asks. He really is unbelievable sometimes.
Kojiro shoulders past him into the apartment, kicking out of his shoes and dropping the large bag he has with him that is presumably full of food onto the floor.
“We had the plumbers in to install the sink and they had to turn the water off and didn’t think to turn it on again before they left,” Kojiro explains.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, unlike you I’m not ever an asshole on purpose,” Kojiro says.
Kaoru huffs, “Go for a shower now.”
“What?”
“I have perfectly serviceable running water, go use it,” Kaoru says - demands more like.
Kojiro laughs, “Sure thing, Princess, I’m sorry for offending your nose.”
Kojiro’s not actually been here before so Kaoru has to lead him to the bathroom before he can hole up in his office while he showers, getting ahead on a few emails for the morning. As usual Kaoru gets a little absorbed with the task of running a short diagnostic on what he thinks is an issue with Carla’s programming while simultaneously arranging his schedule for the next six days. Kaoru doesn’t really notice how much time has passed until the rich smell of garlic tickles his nose.
He finds Kojiro in his kitchen, of course, wearing an apron but having deemed it either unwise or unnecessary to put his shirt back on underneath and -
“What is that?”
“Ratatouille,” Kojiro says without looking up, “Don’t worry, I have pasta dough chilling, I’ll shape it in a minute.”
“No, I mean what is that?”
Kojiro glances up, eyes falling first to the hand Kaoru has pointed at him and then back down to frankly huge tattoo covering the mass of his shoulder.
“It’s a tattoo,” Kojiro says, like that was actually what Kaoru was asking.
“When did you get it?” Kaoru asks, “Why did you get it?”
“I wanted a memento from Italy,” Kojiro explains.
“Couldn’t you have bought yourself a fancy kitchen knife or something?” Kaoru questions.
He can’t stop looking at it even though it’s actually very simple. It’s just a sun but there’s something about the way the artist has laid the ink into his skin that makes it look like it was applied with smooth brush strokes.
Like something Kaoru himself might do when he picks up his calligraphy brush with the intention of making something beautiful.
“I can’t carry a meat cleaver with me down the street now, can I?” Kojiro asks, “Besides, this gives me all the more reason to show off all my hard work.”
Kojiro grins and does something exceptionally dumb with his eyebrows that might actually work on the empty headed people he generally surrounds himself with.
“I assume you’re taking good care of it?” Kaoru deflects because allowing himself to follow that train of thought along never ends particularly well for him.
Kojiro fully laughs, then asks, “What?”
“Your tattoo,” Kaoru insists, “I assume you’re applying lotion and you’ve finally started wearing sunscreen.”
“You know I don’t burn,” Kojiro says and he returns to his chopping with an exaggerated eye roll.
Kaoru stomps out of the room to his bathroom, grumbling when he has to pick a damp towel off the floor and pulling open a drawer with much more anger than is probably justified.
Kaoru doesn’t have a tattoo but he’d considered it when he’d first realised he’d have to take all the piercings out of his ear to be presentable in his chosen field. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered but that irritating voice in the back of his head that sounds too much like his mother had told him no one would take him seriously if he still looked like a punk kid.
So he has all the stuff you need to care for a tattoo even without one to take care of because he’s nothing if not over prepared for absolutely every situation.
He could just toss it into Kojiro’s bag and text him every single day about it until the chef is irritated into doing as he says. Instead he goes back into the kitchen, walks right up to Kojiro’s side and unscrews the lid to take a generous amount of the ointment onto his fingers.
Kojiro hisses when it makes contact so it must feel colder against his skin than it does Kaoru’s hands.
“What are you doing?” Kojiro breathes, frozen with his knife hovering over a half diced tomato.
“Making sure it gets properly treated at least once,” Kaoru says. With the exception of their hug in the airport they haven’t really touched in a long time. They grew up with arms around shoulders and grabbing onto each other to avoid nasty falls, sitting too close on the couch as they watched movies and cramming for tests with notes held up above a head resting on someone’s lap.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro says softly, “Do you have no faith in me? Of course I’m treating it right.”
“I have no faith in you,” Kaoru confirms and looks up through pale lashes to meet Kojiro’s face. He tries not to let it but the exasperated look on Kojiro’s face makes him smile.
“I still refuse to wear sunscreen,” Kojiro says decisively and returns back to his tomato.
“Then it will fade,” Kaoru warns.
When the entirety of the tattoo is covered Kaoru absently wipes his fingers clean on the fabric of Kojiro’s trousers, completely ignoring the soft but indignant huff he gives when he realises what’s happening.
“Are you making carbonara?” Kaoru asks. He’s not a great cook by any means but he’s fairly certain there’s things needed for the dish that he can’t see spread across his countertop.
“No.”
Kaoru pinches the inside of Kojiro’s wrist and Kojiro drops the knife so he has a free, and safe, hand with which to tug roughly on a lock of Kaoru’s hair. His hand lingers after he’s done, twisting the pink strands around two of his fingers a few times then letting it unfurl.
“Why not?” Kaoru asks, more upset than he should be.
“Because I already know I need to have carbonara on the menu,” he explains, “It’s all the other stuff I want your opinion of - you’ll never let me live it down if I put something up you don’t like.”
“No I would not,” Kaoru confirms.
“So instead I want you to try my ratatouille and my puttanesca and my Minestra di Pane if you’re patient enough to wait for it.”
Kaoru’s glad Kojiro’s shoulder is sticky with ointment because if it weren’t he might give in to the sudden urge to slump against Kojiro’s side and rest his head against all that warm skin.
I missed you, he thinks, the words burning the tip of his tongue. It’s safe to say here, in his own apartment, with only Kojiro to hear. Kojiro would never tell anyone he said it - why would he? - and even if he did no one he told would believe it anyway. The feeling of it had built and built inside of Kaoru during Kojiro’s absence, barely soothed by their brief visit the summer before, exacerbated, if anything, by the short reminder of how things were supposed to be.
They’ve relied on each other for everything for almost their entire lives no matter how big or small the situation. Skinned knees and broken hearts, absent parents and rejection letters. Kojiro had held his hair back the first time he’d drunk so much wine he’d made himself sick and Kaoru had sat through hours and hours of Kojiro practising his Italian ahead of his trip even though he’d only understood about one in twelve words.
“I’m glad you're back,” Kaoru says, the closest thing he can manage.
“I’m just glad you didn’t starve to death while I was away,” Kojiro says though he turns his head and presses his nose just briefly into Kaoru’s hair, “Carla reminds you to eat, doesn’t she? Like I suggested.”
Kaoru presses his lips together in a flat line and exhales through his nose. It was a good suggestion considering he’s prone to getting so intensely focused on tasks that he forgets to sleep let alone eat.
He just wishes he’d thought of it himself.
Kojiro scrapes the diced tomato into the pan and as it sizzles away he pats Kaoru on the shoulder.
“One day you’ll find a spouse you didn’t have to build yourself,” Kojiro tells him, “And they can look after you instead.”
“Get out of my house,” Kaoru says flatly, though they both know he doesn’t mean it.
He never means half of what he says to Kojiro, not the way it sounds to most people.
- - -
Sia la luce establishes itself well in its first year and Kaoru becomes a common fixture at the bar in the few hours before closing.
If he also schedules all his client lunches there too it’s simply to support a local business and show clients something they’ve maybe never had before. It’s not because he genuinely just likes Kojiro’s food more than pretty much all other food that exists.
Kojiro always comps his food when he eats there alone, too, no matter how many times he tells him it’s bad for business.
And when Kaoru has a really long day he’ll often turn up after closing, ignore the sign flicked to Closed and enter through the door that Kojiro doesn’t lock when he’s closing up, just in case.
“Why are you still cooking?” Kaoru asks as he collapses into his preferred seat. There’s a bottle of wine already open and he sloshes some of the crimson liquid into the wine glass set outs beside it. Kojiro’s either left it out purposefully for him or was drinking it himself and Kaoru considers both options fair game for him to help himself.
“Trying to get ahead on lunch prep,” Kojiro says and he sounds tired for a change, “It’s been more popular than we anticipated.”
Which would be good, Kaoru thinks, if Kojiro had a single delegatory bone in his body.
“Can you prep ahead of time?” Kaoru asks, “You’re not going to be serving stale food, are you?”
That would also be bad for business.
Kojiro rolls his eyes and that’s probably fair. If there’s one corner in life he never cuts it's the quality of his food.
“It’s just the carrots and stuff for the soups,” Kojiro explains while he carries on, “It won’t matter and no one will - son of a bitch.”
The knife clatters onto the chopping board and Kojiro gives his hand two rough shakes before he pops his finger into his mouth.
Kaoru sits frozen for a few moments. He doesn’t think he’s seen Kojiro cut himself with a kitchen knife maybe ever.
Kojiro pulls his finger free, wincing when he looks down at the small wound. Kaoru slips out of his seat and walks right on into the kitchen.
“You’re not allowed back here,” Kojiro reminds him and Kaoru shoots him his most withering glare.
Kojiro had given him the full tour before the restaurant officially opened so it’s the easiest thing to slip all the way through the kitchen, into the back office and retrieve the medical kit from where it’s stashed on a shelf behind the desk Kojiro uses for maybe twelve minutes in a given week.
“You don’t need to do this,” Kojiro says when he reappears with it.
“Sit down and shut up,” Kaoru demands and Kojiro hops up onto an empty patch of the counter like the giant overgrown man-child that he is.
“I can do it myself,” Kojiro feels compelled to complain so Kaoru makes him sit through the sharp sting of an antiseptic wipe before he digs through the supplies for an appropriate band-aid. They’re blue, which Kojiro tells him is so they’re more likely to notice them if they fall off into the food. Which is a good thing, Kaoru supposes.
Kaoru makes sure the edges are stuck down tight and is just about to suggest Kojiro call it a night if he’s so tired he’s cutting himself when Kojiro speaks.
“What, you’re not going to kiss it better?”
Kaoru must be tired too because for whatever reason his reaction to that comment is not a sharp word and a rough shove but it’s him gently lifting Kojiro’s hand by the wrist and pressing a kiss to the knuckle wrapped in blue fabric.
Kojiro goes stock still and Kaoru drops his wrist like it’s suddenly scalding hot.
Kojiro usually has something to say, usually has a funny quip prepared to stop a silence stretching into awkwardness. But he simply sits there, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted as he looks at Kaoru like he’s never seen him before.
It’s utterly ridiculous to think about it now but Kaoru has to wonder how startled Kojiro would look if Kaoru had pressed that kiss right onto his mouth.
“Shut up,” Kaoru snaps even though Kojiro is silent and what he actually, desperately wants is for him to say anything.
“You shouldn’t have joked if you didn’t want - if you wouldn’t like it if I actually did it,” Kaoru barrels on, flustered by his embarrassment.
“That’s not - Kaoru, where are you going?”
“You’re tired and I have an early meeting tomorrow,” Kaoru says.
“Wait a minute,” Kojiro says, jumping down from the counter, “We should talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Kaoru insists, “It was a joke - it didn’t mean anything Kojiro. Don’t be so stupid.”
Shockingly Kojiro is silent again and Kaoru makes his escape, the chill of the night air is almost painful against his burning cheeks even though he remembers the weather being rather mild when he arrived.
Kaoru’s the stupid one, what was he thinking.
It’s not like he’d never considered it before. They’ve been together forever, closer than most friends can ever hope to be and Kaoru knows that he needs Kojiro, is thankful for the string of casual affairs he’s racked up in his life because it’s meant there’s never been anyone more permanent around to take Kojiro’s attention away from him for longer than a fleeting evening.
It’s selfish of him and that’s why Kaoru's never let himself seriously entertain any of the wayward thoughts he’s had over the years. A teenage crush was easy to excuse, the pain in his chest while he was in Italy was natural. Kaoru’s not blind, he has a type, even though he’s kept it a closely guarded secret by refusing to talk to Kojiro about the men he sees and hiding that under a faux disgust at the way Kojiro approaches his own romantic entanglements.
They can just not talk about it. It’ll blow over. They’ve had awkward moments before and they’ve always made it through them. Theirs is not a friendship to be torn apart by something as silly as a chaste kiss on a bandaged finger.
- - -
Kaoru is groggy when he comes round and all his senses zero in on the feeling of rough fingertips stroking gently over the inner crease of his elbow.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro croaks and his voice almost sounds like he’s been crying, “You can’t do that again - that’s not how this works.”
Kaoru blinks a few times but clearly his contacts are gone and no one has slipped his glasses back onto his face. It takes a while for his eyes to focus on Kojiro’s features and even then he remains a little fuzzy at the edges, his hair a while green halo around his head.
“What are you talking about?” Kaoru rasps.
It comes back to him in a series of flashes. Racing Adam. Carla chiming with a successful turn. The quick relief of ducking one of his tricks.
The crushing pain of Adam’s board sending him flying.
“You’re not allowed to get hurt like this,” Kojiro says.
“We get hurt all the time,” Kaoru argues, demanding, “Get me a drink.”
“The nurse is getting you something,” Kojiro says, “For now just settle down with your IV like a good boy.”
Kaoru glares at him.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro says, voice softening and his fingers stroking restlessly over whatever bandage free skin there is available on his arm, “Promise me I never have to do this again.”
Kaoru’s glad to have the excuse of a head injury to explain away why he’s struggling to follow along with what Kojiro is saying.
“You’re fine,” Kaoru points out. His pride is probably a little hurt at being soundly beaten by a rookie with less weeks of experience than skateboards Kojiro has owned in his life. But Kojiro had walked away from his round, he hadn’t needed carrying away like -
Kojiro had carried him, he remembers now, a vague memory of being picked up with no effort and the soft sound of his name being whispered over and over.
“But you’re not,” Kojiro says, tone almost short, “I told you a long time ago that I want to be able to keep you safe and here you are, in a hospital bed.”
“You did it first,” Kaoru points out.
“I was a dumb kid and you didn’t have to watch it happen,” Kojiro says, “Fucking hell, Kaoru it looked like you were -”
Kojiro cuts off, like he can’t bear to say the words though Kaoru thinks he can probably make a good guess.
The way Kojiro is looking at him now feels different. Still familiar in it's basics but more intense than ever, like the process of watching Kaoru get hurt and then sitting there, waiting for him to wake for however long it took has rubbed away all his edges, made him raw and open in a way that he never normally shows.
Kojiro had always been so open with him, he’d thought, but Kaoru can see now that he too has been keeping things back, thoughts and feelings that he foolishly thinks Kaoru didn’t need to know.
“Why don’t you kiss it better?” Kaoru blurts, made bold by the painkillers surely coursing through his veins and the constant back and forth of Kojiro’s thumb against his pulse.
Kojiro looks startled, like he had those months ago in his restaurant when Kaoru had made a mistake that doesn’t feel so foolish now.
What if he’d stayed to talk? What if he’d just agreed to listen to what Kojiro has to say then rather than writhing in private agony for a few days until he’d braved going back to the restaurant and found a Kojiro that treated him just the same as always. Just called him Pinky and promised to bring him a glass of red wine and turned up with white with the message to suck it up or get out.
Kojiro swallows and lowers his head to kiss where his thumb had been stroking just a moment ago. Kaoru would have gasped if he could painlessly fill his lungs to do so. It even hurts a little to turn his hand and press his palm against Kojiro’s jaw, ever so slightly rough with stubble in a way that indicates it’s been a full night since he was admitted.
“After this we’re going back to how it normally is, okay?” Kojiro says, going on before Kaoru can even answer, “One of us will get a tiny hurt - and it’ll continue to mostly be me, please and thank you - that can be fixed with a band-aid. The only thing that’ll change is now whoever applies the band-aid kisses it better and no one runs away.”
Kaoru flushes.
“That isn’t where I hurt,” Kaoru says.
Kojiro grins, all teeth and joy and relief.
“Where does it hurt, Kaoru?” Kojiro asks and he utters Kaoru’s name with a type of reverence that Kaoru’s never heard from anyone in his whole life.
“Why don’t you try a few places and find out,” Kaoru suggests.
Even now he’s not going to make it easy for him, he wouldn’t be himself if he did, wouldn’t be the person that Kojiro has stuck by for a couple of decades if he didn’t if he let this go by without trying to make it at least a little tricky for him.
At least Kojiro can always be relied upon to be direct. He could kiss over every patch of bare skin he can find to punish Kaoru for being difficult but instead he simply stands up so he can get at Kaoru’s mouth without laying his mammoth bulk over his injured form. It doesn’t take longer than a few seconds for the breath to be kissed right out of Kaoru’s lungs but Kojiro doesn’t pull away immediately when it happens, instead fluttering surprisingly delicate kisses over Kaoru’s cheeks and brow, nuzzling gently at the edge of the bandage wrapped tight around his head.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” Kojiro breathes.
“You like it,” Kaoru accuses.
“Oh absolutely,” Kojiro promises, “Never change, not even a little.”
- - -
Miya, apparently, took a nasty fall just by complete happenstance as he and the other kids skated towards Sia la luce in search of free food.
“Hop up here,” Kojiro tells Miya, patting a countertop that Kaoru had just watched him clean with a kind of meticulous attention he usually reserves for more enjoyable endeavours.
“I’ll get the medical kit,” Kaoru offers.
“You’re not allowed back here,” Kojiro says, simply out of habit and Kaoru goes to snap at him but something about their exchange makes Miya laugh so he drops it.
“- wasn’t looking and my board caught the edge of the curb,” Miya is explaining when Kaoru returns.
“You just flew right off, huh?” Kojiro asks, gently dabbing at Miya’s knee with a damp cloth that Kaoru is going to give the benefit of the doubt of being clean.
Kaoru is still willing to argue that it needs disinfecting properly even though Kojiro seems to, admittedly, be doing a good job. Years and years of experience patching up himself and Kaoru are probably to account for that. But Kaoru doesn’t have to argue because the moment he has the medical kit down on the side and the lid unlatched Kojiro reaches for one of the individual wrapped wipes himself and tears it open with his teeth.
Miya swears when it rubs over the raw wound and in perfect sync both he and Kojiro snap, “Miya.”
“That was completely unnecessary,” Miya grouses. Somewhat defensively he pulls his injured knee up towards his chest, setting the heel of his obviously dirty trainer right on the shiny counter. Kojiro had put the kid up there in the first place but he frowns at that, finally having found the line he doesn't like crossed, even if he decides not to criticise Miya for it right now.
“Here,” Kaoru says, hoping to distract Miya and pulling out one of the larger band-aids in the kit, wide and square enough to cover the whole thing without any of the glue sticking to the rough edges of his skin.
“Thanks, Cherry,” Miya mumbles, flexing his leg a couple times.
“Where’s my thank you?” Kojiro demands, playfully jabbing Miya in the ribs so he first flinches then laughs when Kojiro zeroes in on his ticklish spots.
“He didn’t brutally attack me you jerk,” Miya giggles, batting Kojiro’s hands away. When he’s stopped laughing he offers, “Thanks, Joe.”
“Any time kid,” Kojiro says and Kaoru knows he means it. The door stays unlocked now even after Kaoru has turned up, because Kojiro would rather their evenings were interrupted than even risk one of the kids going hungry for even a minute.
It almost hurts sometimes, the way Kaoru feels about Kojiro now he’s allowed the flood gates to open. He still can’t say it very well, he’s still just as likely to bluster and snap when Kojiro does something sweet. Kojiro has mostly stopped bickering back when they’re alone now, just grins and leans in to kiss the frown off Kaoru's face or whisper I love you, too so quietly Kaoru is certain it’s for his ears only and not for show.
Kaoru reaches for another band-aid and unwraps it as fast as he can with the double weight of their gazes on him.
“I didn’t see another cut,” Kojiro says, “Miya where -”
He breaks off when Kaoru slaps the band-aid haphazardly onto the part of Kojiro’s bicep left exposed by the rolled sleeves of his t-shirt.
Thank you for staying, Kaoru wants to say, you’d be an amazing father, I love you, I’m so proud of you.
But Kaoru is terrible with words that matter so he just presses a kiss over the useless band-aid and hides his face in Kojiro’s arm.
“Ugh,” Miya groans and Kojiro is jostled slightly when he jumps off the counter and gives him a shove for good measure.
“Guys, they’re being gross again,” Miya calls as rushes away from them and Reki and Langa’s laughter briefly reaches them all the way from the dining room.
Kaoru’s shoulders shake with suppressed laughter that only subsides when Kojiro cups the back of his neck gently with a warm palm and encourages him to meet his gaze.
“I know,” Kojiro says, “I know, Kaoru, it’s okay.”