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Sousuke should have expected nothing less from him, really, but he’s still taken aback when his long-neglected phone beeps accusingly, announcing two messages from Rin (9:31, 9:32), then three, and from there it’s a maelstrom of notifications, his phone rattling against the wooden study desk in frantic, jerky motions.
He tries to ignore the ruckus, tries to focus on the clear, block letters in tiny print (First choice of Programme) on the application form, but it’s a doomed cause because the infernal racket shows no signs of stopping and his eyes begin to drift subconsciously to where his phone is veering dangerously off the edge of the desk with its uncontrolled motions.
This better be important, Rin, he thinks moodily and reaches for the phone.
He can’t help the exasperated curl to the corner of his lips even as he does, because even from here, he can very well picture the triumphant smirk painted across Rin’s face at Sousuke’s unusually early capitulation. He usually holds out for at least five minutes.
When he unlocks the phone with a quick swipe across the screen, he’s anything but surprised at the increasing fervour of Rin’s tone, but the messages keep popping up one after another, startling him with the speed at which they flit across the screen. He absently speculates about Rin’s dexterity with texting; he hadn’t been this quick back in Samezuka had he?
SOSKE!, says the very first one, quite simply. The second one is once again, a gratuitous misspelling of his name, with a few more exclamation marks (and perplexingly, the number 1) thrown into the mix.
He skims past the next couple of messages enquiring rather interestedly about his whereabouts and if he was busy at the moment. Sousuke huffs out an annoyed breath at this because he knows that Rin knows that even if he’d been busy before (which he had), his chances of ever getting back on task after this were nearly nil, at least if Rin had anything to say about it.
When he clicks into the seventh message, unheeding of his resolution to stay properly irritated at the guy this time, his lips pull up the wryly at the corners.
S.O.S.
Leave it to Rin to be unfailingly dramatic even in his routine interactions. His little smile fades as quickly as it’d come to him though, when his gaze drifts down to the next batch of hastily typed messages.
You’ll never guess who I just had a nice, long conversation with on Skype.
I feel betrayed.
How could you not tell me.
Is that why you’ve been prancing around like you’ve had sunshine shoved up your ass lately?
Sousuke’s mind whirs with the possibilities all at once and he absently pulls his lip between his teeth and worries at it. It couldn’t have been Haru because while they’d had a decent conversation or two when they’d run into each other again during the Samezuka graduation ceremony (Rin had quite predictably dragged him and his patchwork clique from Iwatobi down to their campus for the event), and Sousuke had even saved his number into his mobile after quite a bit of vaguely uncomfortable gesturing and shuffling, he hasn’t spoken with him since. That is, unless Haru had had a profound, cathartic conversation with Rin about his and Sousuke's less-than-amicable encounters in the past.
His eyebrow twitches disbelievingly when he tries to picture that scenario and he dismisses it the very next moment. He's certain that whatever grudges had lay between him and Haru in the span of the past five years or so have been put to rest. Sousuke likes Haru, would go as far as to say that they make a good team together (which is a rare occurence, by Sousuke's books at least), but Haru being anything more than vaguely disinterested in his personal matters (or anything outside of his little clique and large bodies of water really) is still a confounding matter to ponder upon, and he’d do well to drop that line of thought.
Momotarou then? But other than a couple of one-word replies to the kid’s rather rambunctious spewing of texts (constructed with the worst grammar Sousuke has witnessed from a 16 year old), he hasn’t had any out-of-the-ordinary conversations with him either. Maybe it'd been Ai? He had just spoken with him yest-
The renewed vibrations of the contraption in his palm snap him out of his momentary reverie and he re-focuses his attention on the blinking screen. Right. It’d probably be a hell of a lot easier just scrolling down and finding out exactly whom Rin had been talking about, rather than veering into a whirlpool of wild speculation.
When he does click into the eleventh message (he’d skipped the ones in between to get to the crux of the matter), he rubs at his jaw thoughtfully with absent fingers, ignoring the tiny, odd leap in his stomach.
Kisumi sounded weird, though. Like he’s been smoking up or something.
Wouldn’t put it past him, that ridiculously high asshole..
His fingers are on the keypad before he can even really think of a suitably coherent reply.
Kisumi? This better be important or I’m gonna mark your texts as spam and switch off my phone. Trying to get actual work done here..
He taps out his very first reply carefully and not without a considerable amount of concentration (Rin would lay into him again if he were here; he likes to come up with exceedingly exaggerated theories about Sousuke being born in the wrong generation, what with his woeful inaptitude in texting and all). When he’s done with it, he sends it off and waits patiently for a reply.
It comes in what almost seems like a fraction of a second, which is a record, even for Rin.
HA, it says. I KNEW IT.
Sousuke squints at it in utter incomprehension. Then slides his phone onto the desk before padding over to the heater to kick up the temperature a notch. If he’s going to be having baffling and generally pointless conversations with Rin, he needs a little reprieve from the startling chill nipping at the back of his neck and stinging at his dry eyes, at least.
By the time he gets back to his desk and drops into the padded chair, his phone is back to vibrating wildly. He runs a weary hand through his hair, but skims through the messages anyway.
Replied as soon as you saw his name, didn’t ya?
Too obvious, Sousuke, too obvious.
Oh shit.
I owe Gou a thousand yen now.
Thanks asshole. Couldn’t you have warned a guy. I could’ve gotten rich if you’d let me in on this thing with Mr Sparkly.
Wait…
You can still mitigate the damage.
Who tops?
Sousuke’s brows hike up in vague disbelief and for some reason, a sprinkle of embarrassment, at the barrage of progressively stranger text messages, and he fixes the screen with a blank stare as soon as he’s finished reading the last one. Even in his confusion, he vaguely considers the possibility of Rin being inebriated this early in the morning. Wouldn’t put it past him, Sousuke’s seen some of the party photos which Rin has been tagged in on Facebook and he knows the Australians really like their alcohol.
He waits it out for a moment or two, idly twirling the lego keychain hanging from his pencil case round and round until his phone finally falls limp in his grasp and doesn’t seem like it’s going to go off, at least for the next couple of seconds.
Are you done now?
He taps send and waits. The phone vibrates plaintively in his grasp and he sighs and opens the one unread message warily.
Yes?
Sousuke has to smirk at that, because he can sense Rin’s subdued demeanour just through the three measly alphabets. It’s surprisingly easy to throw him off his course, he thinks, as he gets to tapping out his reply in the ridiculously tiny keypad. He really needs a proper keyboard for this, mouse and all, because he’s discovered that too-small touch screens and him just can’t seem to get along.
Why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re going on about then.
This time, he tosses his phone back onto the desk, reveling in the satisfying clatter and then spins himself around in his chair once, before setting determined fingers back onto his application form. He can at least get the first part of it done before dealing with Rin, he thinks.
Just as he bites at the cap and pulls it off his pen though, his phone starts rattling against the desk again, this time in long, drawn out vibrations. The disturbingly cheerful melody of the default ringtone that he’d never bothered to change bleeds into the silence of the room and he groans loudly, slamming his pen back onto the desk and sliding his fingers across the receive button without a glance at the screen.
He’s speaking before he even presses the cool metal to his ear.
“Honestly, Rin. What the hell did Kisumi tell you to get you this excited?”
There’s momentary silence on the other end of the line and Sousuke clicks his tongue irritatedly to urge him on.
But then bites the inside of his cheek and stiffens when he hears a voice that most definitely did not belong to Rin on the other line, tinny and small and ridiculously cheerful even through the receiver.
“My, my, Sousuke, is this how you greet someone who calls to wish you good morning?”
“Kisumi.” He murmurs, and he doesn’t know why he’s feeling so sheepish because it had been an honest slip-up (he usually checks his caller ID before he picks up calls but Rin had had him all keyed up this time) and surely there’s no damage done. Still, his voice is strangely soft-sounding and embarrassed even to his own ears.
“I didn’t realize Rin’d have gotten to you this quickly.” Kisumi says, and he sounds off, almost a little guarded. It’s enough to spike Sousuke’s curiosity. But then Kisumi laughs and continues in an airier tone, and he lets the rather strange moment slide. “But that’s of no matter. Good morning, sunshine!”
The last remnants of unease in Sousuke’s chest fade with Kisumi’s characteristically grating tone and he slides sideways on the chair to lean his back against the adjacent armrest and then slings his legs across the one opposite, resigning himself to a morning of complete unproductivity.
“I thought I told you not to call me any time before 10.” He channels his voice into the flat tone that he uses with Kisumi ninety percent of the time, but honestly, he’s pretty glad that there’s a street and several brick buildings between them, because if Kisumi ever got wind of the tiny, fond smile that’s pulling at Sousuke’s lips right now, he’d never let him live it down.
“Sousuke-kun.” Kisumi teases, “I thought you’d be happy to know that I think about you this early in the morning.”
“Think you’ve gotten me mixed up with Mika and Anko. Or was it Hiromi this week?” He lifts his right hand and ticks off the names on his fingers even though he knows Kisumi won’t be able to see it. It’s perfunctory; he’d need far more than his ten fingers and toes if he wanted to cover the entire crowd of besotted girls (and grown women) trailing after Kisumi after all.
Kisumi chuckles and Sousuke stretches out his legs lazily till his toes brush against the edge of the desk, letting his inexhaustible supply of energy wash over him and warm his insides.
“Don’t think I could get you mixed up with them if I tried.” Kisumi’s voice is low and private then, with the slightest hint of sandpaper raspiness. Sousuke wonders absently if this is his morning voice, and thinks that if it is, it’s almost pleasant. Almost.
When he tips his head back over the plastic of the armrest, he’s smiling again. He really shouldn’t make a habit out of this; entertaining Kisumi in the early hours of the morning when he has pressing issues (and an impatient best friend) to deal with. But Kisumi’s speaking again, and Sousuke closes his eyes, willing away his problems for just a moment longer.
“So.” Kisumi clears his throat then, in a strangely awkward gesture and Sousuke’s eyes flutter open following his abrupt change in tone. “What did Rin tell you, then?”
Sousuke hums thoughtfully, trying to place the odd note in his voice. He hasn’t heard Kisumi sound this uncomfortable before, at least not in the past couple of months, and the curiosity that had been abated earlier surges to life within his chest again.
“Well.” He pauses, then holds the silence for a couple of seconds just to hear the rustling on the other of the line as Kisumi rearranges himself in anticipation.
When ten seconds pass without a single word from Sousuke, Kisumi groans, realizing the technique for what it is. Sousuke bites at the cap of the pen that he’d been twirling and smirks around it in an admittedly juvenile victory.
“Sousuke, seriously?” Kisumi’s full-out wheedling now. “Just give me a little hint.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“What’s it matter to you anyway? What did you tell Rin that was so important? Important enough that both of you had to bug me at nine in the damn morning?”
Kisumi falls silent and Sousuke’s eyebrows arch interestedly, because if he didn’t know better, he’d say he could pick up an almost guilty tinge to the silence.
Now this, this is getting interesting, he thinks, and then runs the conversation with Rin from before through the clogged up gears of his mind carefully. It’s of barely any use though, because Rin had been infuriatingly smug and hadn’t had much time to do anything but gloat and then complain about his sudden misfortune.
He does however, remember the puzzling end to Rin’s rant.
“Who tops?” He wonders out loud to himself, eyebrows furrowing in honest confusion.
There’s a sharp intake of breath from the other line, scattering the near radio silence, and Kisumi coughs loudly, startling Sousuke and sending his left foot hurtling towards the edge of the desk where he invariably stubs his big toe.
Gotcha, he thinks, through the momentary haze of blinding pain.
“Sousuke.” Kisumi stumbles over his name almost imperceptibly, and for a second, just a split-second, something vaguely resembling embarrassment creeps into his voice; it's gone in the very next one, but Sousuke’s keen ears catch it all the same.
When Kisumi speaks again, he’s using that aggressively cheerful tone, the one he equips himself with when he’s thrown off his game in the slightest. It’d have worked splendidly with almost anyone else, Sousuke thinks victoriously, but it’s just Kisumi’s luck (or misfortune) that Sousuke has known him for more than half his life and can see right through his bullshit.
“Did Rin really ask you that? My my..” His voice trails off, but Sousuke can pick out the thinly veiled irritation. And that’s what gets him really interested, hook line and sinker, because Kisumi’s feathers are notoriously difficult to ruffle, Sousuke knows that more than anyone.
He rubs at his toe absently, humming speculatively into the phone and then grinning to himself when he hears more uncomfortable rustling from the other end of the line.
“Made a little confession to Father Rin, did you?” He’s almost entirely sure that the aforementioned confession is something relating to him, and it’s strange (and a little vexing if he’s being honest) to be left out of the loop like this.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it, Sousuke.” Kisumi sounds like he’s reassuring himself more than anyone else and Sousuke snickers unrepentantly. “Though Rin didn’t have to report to you two minutes after I hung up the phone.” Sousuke isn’t sure if he’s reluctantly impressed or just plain betrayed.
“Is that Sousuke-onii-chan?” A soft, hesitant voice drifts into the line just as Sousuke swings his feet up onto the desk and prepares to interrogate Kisumi a little more intensively.
“Yeah Hayato, it’s Sousuke-onii-chan. Want to go over and eat Ramen with him? He misses you.”
“I want to eat Ramen with Onii-chan and Sousuke-onii-chan!” Excitement infuses the high-pitched voice and Sousuke smiles despite Kisumi’s obvious attempts to deflect the attention from the conversation from before. He’d probably walked into Hayato’s room deliberately, he thinks amusedly.
“What do you say, Sousuke? Up for some company? If you spend any more time staring at that application form, it’s going to shrivel up and fade away.”
Sousuke drops his feet onto the ground and sits back up in his chair, startled.
“How’d you know I was doing that?”
Kisumi just laughs.
“It was a toss up between push-ups and that. And well, since one is clearly out of the question.. You’re pretty predictable, you know?” There’s rustling on the other line and then a tiny giggle. “Isn’t that right Hayato? Your Sousuke-onii-chan’s hobbies are boring, aren’t they?”
Hayato breathes into the phone, and Sousuke can feel his hesitation from all the way here. Kisumi has probably put him in quite a dilemma; Sousuke knows how much the kid loves and looks up to his big brother but Sousuke’s the one who supplies him with Nerunerunerune, twirls him around in the exact way that he likes and gives the warmest hugs (Hayato had confessed that to him in hushed tones one night).
“N-no, I don’t think Sousuke-onii-chan’s boring.. I want to be like Sousuke-onii-chan.”
Kisumi makes an overtly dramatic sound of betrayal and Sousuke bursts out into triumphant laughter that dispels the airy warmth that’d infused his chest at Hayato’s earnest little injection.
“You’re my favourite, Hayato.” Sousuke tells him. “Let’s have ramen and candy floss and leave none for your big brother, okay?”
He hears the echo of his own voice on loudspeaker and then a long speculative silence.
“Okay.” Hayato pauses. “But Onii-chan can have some too. Otherwise he’ll be hungry and cold.”
Sousuke’s heart squeezes a little at his earnestness; it’s near impossible not to break out into a smile every time he’s around him because honestly, he’s never seen a kid who’s as loyal and sweet as Hayato is. Sousuke privately thinks it’s a lot to do with the way Kisumi’s brought him up (their parents are too often away on business trips) but he’s not going to be admitting that to Kisumi’s face any time soon, because the last thing he wants to do is integrate himself into the harem of admirers who’re dead-set on boosting Kisumi’s already inflated ego.
Kisumi must have been overcome with the same fondness because Sousuke hears Hayato’s yelp and the sound of cloth rustling. He likely has swung Hayato up and locked him into a tight embrace as he’s wont to do whenever Hayato does something particularly endearing.
“Onii-chaaan.” Hayato’s whining now, adorable even in all his indignance. He’s cut off by Kisumi’s sheepish laughter.
“Sorry, Hayato. Onii-chan got a little carried away with how cute you are.”
Sousuke listens with a smile, and when his gaze falls onto the half-completed application form, he pushes it aside with careless fingers. Grumble as he might about Kisumi’s tendency to pop up at his door frequently and at the oddest of times, he genuinely enjoys his and Hayato’s company, and even misses it when they’re away on family trips.
After all, his social life in the past few months (after Rin had left for Australia) has primarily comprised a guy with ridiculous hair and his adorable half-pint of a little brother. Sousuke has known Kisumi since he'd moved into the neighbourhood as a first grader, but he’s never been as acutely aware of his and his little brother’s presence as he is now.
“Sousuke.” Kisumi’s voice startles him out of his momentary dwelling in reminiscence. “We’re coming over now, alright? Wipe away your drool and brush your hair. You don’t wanna scare Hayato off, do you?”
Sousuke would usually be nowhere near tickled at that, but inexplicably, and perhaps because he’d been nursing fonder than usual thoughts about the pink-haired menace in question, he has to muffle reluctant laughter with the back of his hand. He can almost feel Kisumi’s satisfaction from the other line, following that.
“Yeah, yeah. Bring Hayato’s chocolate milk by the way, Ma forgot to stock up this morning. And you know he’s going to want it after the Ramen.” Sousuke sighs a little indolently, stretching out his back and hearing the vertebrae pop with satisfaction.
“Yes, Dear.” He frowns when he hears the teasing lilt to Kisumi’s voice, but there’s an odd note of something else too, something warm and surprised that makes him feel unaccountably embarrassed. To veil his momentary spell of diffidence, he clicks his tongue at Kisumi and hangs up the phone unceremoniously.
He calls Rin’s cellphone immediately after, but Rin refuses to divulge any more information and sounds all-too-knowing and smug for his tastes when Sousuke tells him of his plans for today, so he ends the call in two minutes tops and pads over to the kitchen to pull out a carton of eggs from the fridge. The next couple of minutes see him rummaging around the cupboards for the specific brand of Korean Ramyun than Hayato loves.
He’s long since memorized the path to the door that he treads, when ten minutes later, the doorbell rings to announce Kisumi and Hayato’s presence; and when he creaks open the door a tad to take in fluffy pink hair and twin pairs of earnest eyes just shades off from each other, his chest is airy and light for reasons that he doesn’t contemplate too deeply.
He pretends to kick the door shut again when Kisumi reaches out sneaky fingers to grab the apple that Sousuke’s been nibbling on and Kisumi’s mock-indignant face and laughing eyes burn into the growing collage in his mind, especially dedicated to the Shiginos.
-
It’s become so much of a routine; Kisumi coming over every other day with his baby brother in tow, that Sousuke’s gut clenches on a particularly windy Saturday afternoon when his phone lies flat and silent on his desk.
He’s clicked into his inbox thrice, his long-ignored WhatsApp twice, and even walked past the front gate once for good measure, to check if Kisumi had been planning some elaborate prank that involved Sousuke getting blasted with water guns the moment he stepped out of the front door (he distinctly remembers the disgusting feeling of water dripping down the front of his soggy t-shirt the last time Kisumi had orchestrated a similar prank; just with water balloons).
But Kisumi isn’t hovering anywhere near the front door or even the bushes by the garden, where he usually likes to station himself before a surprise attack.
His mother has taken to sending him irritatingly knowing glances whenever he paces to and fro the corridor to sneak a distant peek at the front door, and he pointedly looks the other way, feeling strangely abashed every time and unsure as to why exactly that was.
When he finally pushes aside the neatly sealed envelope containing his application form and toys with his phone speculatively, his mother happens to pass by his room, broom in hand, where he’s left the door ajar.
“About time.” She mutters, and Sousuke slants her an irritated look.
“You don’t even know who I’m calling. If I were even calling someone in the first place.”
His mother just flaps a hand at him, raising a finely-threaded eyebrow in that particular way that she habitually does.
“I know you like to believe that your mother doesn’t understand you because she hasn’t gone to college, hasn’t studied psy-choo-logy and all that nonsense. But give me some credit, Sousuke-chan.”
“Don’t call me that.” Sousuke retorts out of habit, but his cheeks are already warming. His mother flips her hair at him haughtily and continues sweeping her way across the corridor. Sousuke exits out of Contacts and sets his phone back down, purely out of spite.
And then marches over to his bedroom door and shuts it with a pointed thud before making his way back to the desk, where his phone is still lying limp. 3:15. No missed calls from Kisumi as of yet.
He presses dial once he’s scrolled down his list of favourited contacts to Kisumi’s name (Kisumi had embellished it with a distinctive row of stars a couple of months ago, and Sousuke hasn’t bothered to amend it since.)
A couple of rings go through, four if he’s counting, which he most definitely is not, and then Kisumi picks up, sounding harried and a touch surprised.
“Ah, Sousuke.”
There’s not a hint of the usual teasing note or enthusiasm in his voice and Sousuke feels its absence acutely. It’s disconcerting.
“Anything wrong?” He cuts right to the chase before Kisumi can manage to regain his composure and even out his voice with his usual affectations.
“Uh. No, no, not really. Just wasn’t expecting your call.”
Sousuke, for some unfathomable reason, feels a little stung by this. He curls his fingers into a loose fist and lets it rest on the smooth wooden surface of the desk.
“Right. I think this is probably a bad time. I’ll hang up now.” He’s berating himself all the while. Of course Kisumi would be busy. He wasn’t obligated to dedicate the entirety of his living hours to thinking about Sousuke after all.
He probably just has a date, he consoles himself, but somehow, the thought does nothing to placate him. Just invokes a sinking feeling in his stomach that he fidgets restlessly to get rid of.
“No, please don’t.” Kisumi backtracks hastily. “Don’t go yet. I’m just-” He heaves out a tiny sigh, and makes a half-pleading, half-shushing sound when Hayato murmurs something in the background. “That came out all wrong.”
Sousuke pauses with two fingers hovering over the bright red 'End Call' button and hesitantly presses the phone back to his ear.
“I was just wondering if you, if you were well, free this evening.”
His eyebrows hike up in mild surprise, as he marvels at the sudden change in the direction of the conversation. Sousuke's not complaining, the ache in his gut is fading away by the second, but it’s steadily being replaced by confusion.
“Hold on, lemme just check my planner.” He flips through the pages of his notebook to achieve the satisfactory sound effect for good measure, and then smirks when Kisumi grunts in wry acknowledgement of the absurdity of his own question.
“No need to get uppity with me, Sou-suke.” Kisumi drags out the syllables of his name in that infuriating way that no one else ever does, and Sousuke bites his lip.
“Then don’t ask stupid questions, Kis-u-mi.” He tells him. “Tell your brother not to ask stupid questions, Hayato.”
There’s no response from Hayato.
“Sorry to disappoint, but you’re not on loudspeaker this time.”
Which is definitely a bit of a revelation because Kisumi almost always puts him on loudspeaker when they’re on the phone together; it keeps Hayato entertained and Sousuke on his toes, a win-win for Kisumi overall.
Sousuke brushes off a creeping sense of discomfort and continues.
“Right. Yeah, I’m free this evening, as I am every other evening. You and Hayato coming over? Is this a new thing? Asking permission before making yourself at home here and flirting with my mother?”
Kisumi makes an uncomfortable sound at the back of his throat. He doesn’t acknowledge Sousuke’s customary jab at his manners or lack thereof, which is odd even for him.
“About that,” He says slowly, “I was wondering if you wanted to meet at Sakura this evening.”
“Sakura? Isn’t that a little too posh for us?” Sousuke scratches at the side of his face distractedly. Maybe Shigino-san had had a good turn during his last business trip. “Do they even allow kids in there?”
“Of course they allow kids in there, Sousuke. It isn’t a nightclub.” The familiar note of teasing slips back into Kisumi’s voice for a moment, but then his tone mellows down. “But it wouldn’t really matter because well, Hayato isn’t coming. It’ll just be the two of us tonight.”
Something about his choice of words and his pointedly casual tone strikes Sousuke as odd, but he doesn’t dwell upon it too much. After all, Kisumi and him go out often to grab burgers after his rehab sessions and even ice-cream on particularly warm days when Hayato's caught up in school or swimming classes. Just nowhere this expensive or well, classy.
The last time his mum and him had been to Sakura during his birthday, she’d forced him to deck out in a suit jacket and suedes to match, and he’d wrangled himself out of wearing a tie only in the eleventh hour.
“Sounds fine to me.” He tells Kisumi, and then makes out a small sigh of relief on the other end of the line. “Is this some kind of prank? Where you and Hayato hose me down the moment I step out of my house dressed to the nines? With my hair gelled and all? Because I’m just reminding you how much I hate the feeling of cold water and hair gel mixing together.” He makes sure to infuse a subtly threatening note in his voice.
Kisumi breaks out into easy laughter, having regained his lost rhythm.
“O ye of little faith.” He tches. “No, Sousuke, this isn’t a prank. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill outing.” He sounds privately amused; it’s not making Sousuke any more inclined to believe him.
Hayato begins to say something again, “Then why can’t I-“ but his voice is quickly muffled, likely by Kisumi’s palm. Sousuke grimaces at the sticky, dubious sounds of what seems to be a lot of licking and a light thwack, followed by Kisumi’s yelp of pain and Hayato’s muffled protests.
“Right.” Sousuke interrupts, because as entertaining it is to hold witness to the rare occasions where the kid actually gets one over his scheming brat of a big brother, he’s intensely wary (from past experiences) of the dogged little sulk that Hayato is prone to fall into when Kisumi invariably pulls the “elder brother” card on him. “I’ll see you around six then? Outside yours.”
The sounds of scuffling die out and Kisumi takes a moment to catch his breath. The contemplative little whoosh of air he lets out soon after is slow and quiet; Sousuke’s lips tug up at the corners with a peculiar fondness at how quickly he manages to go from zero to sixty and then back to zero all within the span of a couple of seconds.
“Make that six forty five. On the dot. I’ll be outside your door so don’t be late, Sousuke.”
Sousuke has a baffling second to wonder why Kisumi would come by his house when Sakura was located at the north end of town, a whole street and a half nearer to Kisumi’s own place, before Kisumi sing-songs a goodbye and cuts the call. He has to add that to the steadily lengthening list of Kisumi’s odd behavioral quirks today, too: Kisumi never hangs up the phone before him, that’s Sousuke job, ending the call exasperatedly in the middle of one of his senseless monologues or cutting off his exaggerated, satirical farewells, modeled after those out of lifetime movies.
In the wake of this particular storm, he brings the phone back down from where it’d been pressed to his ear and stares at it uncomprehendingly for a moment or two. Disappointingly, it provides him with absolutely no answers.
-
Sousuke isn’t apprehensive. He doesn’t do apprehensive, and if his fingers had been steady and his pulse calm even before the national qualifiers during middle school, it follows that he shouldn’t be experiencing any hint of a queasy feeling in his gut now; the skin at the back of his neck most definitely should not be breaking out into a light sweat. But it is.
It’s baffling and completely illogical; even more so when he puts it into perspective. Because this is Kisumi he’s going to be greeting in a minute or two.
The same Kisumi who’d squeezed a tube full of shiny green paint into his hair during Art Class in fourth grade and tittered unapologetically upon meeting Sousuke’s sulky glare; the same one who’d conspired with Hayato and Sousuke’s mother (an unexpected betrayal) to douse him with ice-cold water at seven in the morning a couple of weeks ago.
Even as he adjusts the straining collar of his understated turquoise button-up and reassures himself of all this, his pulse still thrums quick and heavy and his stomach stubbornly remains twisted into a coil of unease.
“Damn that Kisumi.” He mutters to himself, purely for cathartic purposes, and takes a quick survey of his side profile in the full-length mirror, taking a second to pat down his conspicuously gel-free hair into a vague semblance of order (he’s still not excluded the possibility of this being a prank and he’d rather avoid the task of washing out soggy gelled hair tonight; he hadn’t been joking about it to Kisumi earlier, he really does hate the sensation of gel oozing along his scalp when his hair gets wet).
The irony of tying his mind into puny little knots over an issue as trivial as this, over a person as easy-going as Kisumi, isn’t lost on him, and he scoffs at his reflection disgustedly.
His toes are still wiggling nervously in his woolen socks though, when he grabs his winter coat from its hook by the wall and determinedly stalks out of the room. His mum, who’d been standing by the settee, follows his steps with a sly little look in her eyes.
“Well, well, well.” She says thoughtfully, face the picture of innocence; but this is his mother, he’s known her for eighteen years and he can almost immediately pick out the thread of self-satisfaction laced into her voice.
“No.”
“I said absolutely nothing, Sou-chan.”
“No.” He ignores her for a whole of two minutes, tying his shoelaces and then unraveling and re-tying them, refusing to chance a glance at her even from the corner of his eye, until eventually, guilt begins to nag at him.
His mum had probably seen that one coming (she always does) and she opens her arms to him and squeezes him tightly when he walks over to land a messy kiss on her soft cheek. She smells like fresh gardenias, the comforting scent of flour and freshly-baked muffins underneath the light perfume, and he inhales deeply for a moment before stepping out of the circle of her arms.
When his phone vibrates in the back-pocket of his slacks, he fishes it out with an urgency that’s very atypical of him. 1 Text from Matsuoka Rin. He’s already gearing himself up for Rin’s usual slew of trash talk (it’s become their evening routine).
Instead, he gets a: So I was wrong.
He squints at the tiny screen. Quite predictably, his phone vibrates once more in his palm, and then a few more times in rapid succession.
You weren’t dating Kisumi when I spoke to you last. Thanks, you saved me a 1000 yen.
But guess what.
You sure as hell are now, so I’ll just take back that thanks.
Kidding, kidding. I can hear you hyperventilating from all the way here. Have a good one tonight, and you owe me all the details first thing in the morning.
Sousuke clamps his lower lip neatly between his front teeth in an attempt to stay composed, but his fingers betray him and stumble across the screen as he moves to press the green call button sandwiched neatly between Rin’s name and the home tab.
Dating?
He’s determined to keep his breaths even out of some stubborn need to contradict Rin’s rather accurate deduction of his current state, but they come out staggered and uneven anyway.
Traitorous lungs, he thinks faintly, but it’s a lost cause because his mind is spinning wildly, trying to piece together the little puzzles of Kisumi’s odd behaviour and the almost formal distance he’s created between himself and Sousuke just over the course of the past couple of hours. Nothing should have been different, but somehow it is, and he’s not sure why. Not sure if he even wants to understand.
At the worst possible moment, the doorbell chimes.
Sousuke’s eyes snap to the tiny sliver of a gap underneath the front door, where a shadow has now fallen. He cuts the call to Rin before the ring can go through and instead sends him a quick, incredulous text, punctuated with superfluous question and exclamation marks. And then he’s slipping the phone back into his pocket, wiping his palms nervously on his slacks and hurrying for the door.
His mum may or may not be whistling a jaunty tune to the rhythm of his steps, he’s too pre-occupied to really notice. Sousuke deliberately slows his step once he’s a fair distance from the front door and then makes sure to adopt a composed expression (or tries at least) before he swings it open.
It would have worked. Should have. He’d hardly been expecting the sweet-smelling bundle shoved into his arms the moment he steels himself up and steps out into the biting cold of the winter evening. Kisumi has an uncanny habit of throwing a wrench into his most carefully constructed plans after all, and Sousuke really should’ve seen this one coming.
He blinks slowly at the dewy, white petals brushing against his cheek, registering the subtly sweet smell of fresh magnolias wafting into his nose. He’ll cringe later in remembrance of his own gaping mouth and absurd silence, but for now, he just inhales deeply, trying to grab at the straws of the theories and conclusions that he’d derived so carefully just moments ago. They slip away from his mind traitorously, as Kisumi grasps at the stalks of the neatly bundled flowers, fingers brushing against Sousuke’s own and making him flinch minutely.
“You look good, Sousuke. Really good.”
Kisumi scrounges up a tiny, uncertain smile, taking a tentative step closer like Sousuke’s a wild animal that could bolt with a single careless movement. To be fair, his heart is indeed hammering in a distinctly thunderous pattern, and there’s a restless energy swirling up within him that manifests itself in a quivering of his fingertips that he futilely attempts to still.
When Kisumi tugs down the bouquet and meets Sousuke’s eyes with his own, Sousuke drops his gaze quickly, because words have fled him suddenly and his throat is thick with a peculiar shyness that he has to swallow away.
He ends up fixing his gaze on the shiny magenta tips of Kisumi's dress shoes for a full moment, his mind tripping and staggering over a thousand realizations and indecisions.
“I got it all wrong, didn’t I?” Kisumi sighs casually, too-casually, and Sousuke’s head jerks up the slightest bit by instinct. There’s a half-smile tugging at his lips but Kisumi's eyes are distant; the incongruity makes Sousuke’s fingers curl into his own palms. Why can’t you just show how you really feel for once, he wonders, why do you put up these pretenses when I can see right through them?
He should say something right about now, Sousuke knows he should, but Kisumi has just handed him flowers and that means that this is probably a date, and he knows with a startling certainty that he’s going to screw this up because he hasn’t seemed to be doing much else for the past couple of years.
“Shit.”
Sousuke watches Kisumi’s mouth move to shape the syllable, but he’s still left wondering if it’d really come from him. It’s not uncharacteristic of Kisumi to swear, he does that all the time: loudly, vehemently, when they’re watching live telecasts of the regional inter-high and Kisumi’s favourite team misses a crucial three-pointer and in hushed, guilty tones when he drops his store-bought popsicle in the midst of chasing Hayato around the house. The real aberrant is the distressed, self-depreciating note in his voice – Kisumi never sounds like that, like something has gone terribly wrong and he has only himself to blame (that’s all Sousuke’s forte).
Kisumi recovers quickly though, and Sousuke watches half-irritatedly and half-fascinatedly as he steps back and schools his expression into something neutral and carefully placid. When he chuckles, Sousuke winces at the unnaturalness of the sound, the way it’s jagged at the edges and hangs awkwardly in the air like a broken promise.
“Just kidding.” He continues talking and all Sousuke wants to do is grab him by the collar of his pristinely white dress shirt and shake him about a little. “Yamazaki-san must be feeling lonely, so I got her some flowers.”
Sousuke has a few choice words about Kisumi’s awful saves and a couple of lines about his piss-poor ability to cover up for himself. He doesn’t go through with any of them.
Instead, he pulls Kisumi in with fingers crumpling the front of his shirt. And kisses him hard on the mouth, not giving himself the time to think it over.
When he draws back a second later, shocked at his own audacity, Kisumi’s eyes are closed and his features are frozen into an unattractive (or as unattractive as Kisumi could possibly get, really) expression of disbelief. Despite the gravity of the situation, Sousuke has to struggle to keep spontaneous laughter from bubbling up in his throat.
“There we go.” he says calmly instead, stepping back into the doorway and shutting the door with a gentle finality, just as Kisumi’s eyes begin to flutter open again.
Sousuke lifts up the magnolias to his nose and inhales again before laying them on the coffee table and wonders idly if he’s pushed Kisumi too far this time. He’ll find out soon enough.
He barely has to wait a full thirty seconds before there’s frenzied pounding on his door.
“What the fuck, Sousuke?” Kisumi’s voice is muffled by the wood and as frantic as he's ever heard it.
Sousuke gives in to his amusement then, letting his shoulders tremor with relieved laughter. Kisumi musn’t appreciate that very much, because the very next second, the door is pushed open and Sousuke has to swerve and step back nimbly to avoid getting hit in the face by the solid wooden surface. That’d hardly be a good start to a first date, he thinks, his mind catching and tripping on the words first date, first date giddily, almost disbelievingly.
Kisumi’s breathing hard and his cheeks are flushed with a pink to match his ridiculous hair. He stares wildly at Sousuke’s smile, gaze lifting up to his eyes for a moment and then dropping back down to his mouth. Once he's shrugged out of his already unbuttoned peacoat, he fixes those tempestuous, shining eyes on Sousuke again.
“What was that?” He asks dumbly, and Sousuke ignores him in favour of taking in the crisp lines of his button-up, the way it’s crumpled slightly at the front from where Sousuke’s fingers had bunched it up. He’s effortlessly beautiful, with his legs going on for uncharted miles in his sleek black dress pants and his hair falling over his eyes in gentle waves. A hint of smooth, alabaster chest peeks through where he’d left the first two buttons undone, and Sousuke swallows and looks away, suddenly and intensely aware of Kisumi in the most visceral of ways.
“What do you think that was, moron?” He throws out, refusing to meet his persistent gaze even when Kisumi steps into the threshold, tosses his coat onto the coffee table and closes the door behind him gently, and certainly not when he moves in so close that Sousuke can acutely feel the warmth emanating from his form.
“I don’t know.” Kisumi says, but he sounds more like his usual self now, a hint of playfulness slipping into his voice again. “Were you perhaps kissing my boo-boo? Was there jam on my mouth? Did you feel the need to polish your rusty CPR skills?”
Sousuke kicks at his shin, aiming to do some serious damage but Kisumi deftly dodges his foot, snickering lowly.
“One question, though.” Kisumi’s tone turns serious, and Sousuke’s pulse picks up again because he has no idea why he’d done that, why he'd leaned in and touched his lips to Kisumi's; all he knows is that he’d wanted to at that very moment, had been powerless to do anything else, when he'd been faced with Kisumi’s resigned eyes and brittle smile. “Did you really need to shut the door on my face after that touching confession?”
Sousuke bristles, and takes back every single good thought he’s had about the little shit in the past couple of minutes.
“Who confessed to who? And you need to have a door shut on you every couple of months. There’s no space for you, me and your ego in this house.”
“Aw, Sousuke.” Kisumi whines, and Sousuke has a half-relieved and half-disappointed moment to think that they were falling back into the same routine that they’d gotten so used to in the past couple of months. “Can’t you at least try and maintain the mood.”
“Shut up. And cancel that reservation.” He waits for Kisumi to badger him with incessant questions, but surprisingly, he just scrutinizes him with serious eyes and finally breaks out into a knowing little smirk that Sousuke wants to slap off his face. Or kiss off maybe, now that he’s actually allowed to.
When Kisumi whips out his phone to make the call, Sousuke makes his way over to his bedroom, noting with powerful relief that his Mum’s bedroom door is closed. He’s half-sure that she'd figured out this thing (is it a thing yet? he’s pretty sure it is) between him and Kisumi long before he himself had, but he’s not ready to fill her in on the details just yet. That’d be a conversation for another time.
“Your clothes from Thursday are on the kitchen chair, I washed and folded them.” Sousuke raises his voice to make himself heard in the living room. “Change into them, if you want.” He hears Kisumi make a vague noise of assent.
“No compulsion to, though.” Sousuke mutters in the privacy of his bedroom. Kisumi had made quite a picture in the hallway earlier, eyes intense and pleading in turns, the clean lines of his dress shirt hinting at the firm chest underneath and sleeves pushed up carelessly to reveal the bunched up muscles of his forearms.
His very own Prince Charming, he thinks wryly; just an obnoxiously vivacious one who's often guiltier of ruffling Sousuke’s feathers than sweeping him off of his feet. Sousuke’s pretty damn okay with that though, all things considered.
He hears Kisumi chattering away on the phone in an irritatingly conversational tone (he’s probably chatting up the irate waiting staff), so he shuts the bedroom door with a click and shrugs off his jacket before starting on the buttons of his own dress shirt. It’s liberating to be rid of the stuffy material, and he sighs in relief as the chill of the room nips at his overheated skin.
Just as he’s stepping out of his slacks, he hears feet padding down the corridor towards his room and he panics for just a second because he’d forgotten to lock the door, and it’d have been completely normal before for Kisumi to barge in while he was in various states of undress, but Sousuke’s acutely aware of the difference now.
“Wait, no-” He stumbles to the door, one leg still awkwardly caught in a pant leg, and fumbles with the lock. “I’m not dressed.”
There’s silence for a couple of seconds.
“If I didn’t know you any better, I’d think that was an invitation.” Kisumi’s voice is low and suggestive and Sousuke flushes, turning away from the full-length mirror to avoid his own embarrassed eyes.
“It’s just too bad you know me plenty well, then.” He tosses out casually, only to hear Kisumi’s exaggeratedly put-out sigh.
He slips on a cotton t-shirt and loose sweatpants hastily before tugging the door open in what he hopes is a collected manner. The minute trembling of his fingers probably gives him away, but hey, he’s trying.
Kisumi’s changed out of his get-up too, and he’s dressed similarly to Sousuke, except for the shorts hanging low on his hips. When he pushes the door open wider and steps in, his t-shirt lifts up at the hem for just a second, to reveal a smooth band of muscled abdomen and an expanse of pale skin; Sousuke snaps his gaze away, feeling guilty for no apparent reason.
When Kisumi leans casually against his study desk and crosses his ankles in front of him, Sousuke begins fidgeting restlessly, striding over to pat at his pillows first and then re-arrange them on his bed carefully. He knows his attempts at buying time are painfully awkward, but he’s nowhere near as eloquent or smooth as Kisumi is, and he can’t pretend otherwise.
He doesn’t realize that he’s stilled until he registers Kisumi’s slender wrist in his line of vision and then his palm on the side of his face, warm and calloused from his basketball coaching sessions with the kids down the street.
“Hey there.”
“Hey yourself.” Sousuke isn’t sure why he’s whispering, but Kisumi’s face is so close to his and it just feels appropriate.
Kisumi smiles at him, warm and easy: the one he specially saves for Hayato and increasingly, Sousuke himself. Sousuke wants to memorize the genuine warmth in his eyes, the lopsidedness of that boyish grin, so unlike the dazzling, practiced ones he wears when he greets the neighbours or the elderly aunties who like to coo at him on the streets.
They stay like that for a minute or two, taking in each other in the chilly quiet of the room, until Sousuke notices Kisumi’s gaze slipping down with increasing frequency to the vicinity of his mouth. He wonders why Kisumi doesn’t just do it, take the leap and kiss him, because Sousuke’s already done it once and so Kisumi surely couldn’t be wary of his reaction.
Sousuke’s come to realize though, that as confident and suave as Kisumi comes off as, he’s so very careful when it comes to the things that really matter to him. It’s just a quirk of his, and the little show of hesitation endears him to Sousuke just that much more.
"Kiss me." He can barely recognize his own voice, low and soft as it is.
“Yeah?” Kisumi’s eyes flicker to his own momentarily and he raises an expectant eyebrow.
“I said, kiss me.”
“What is it, Sousuke?” Warm, violet eyes peer into his own curiously and Sousuke doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this specific misfortune. Surely Shigino-san musn’t have expected this turn of events when she’d come up with this particular name for her first-born.
Sousuke sighs and brings his fingers up to ghost against the collar of Kisumi’s t-shirt first, and then curls them around the edges of it gently, stroking his pinky along the column of his neck. He has to dip his head to hide his smile when he hears the resultant tiny intake of breath.
When Sousuke looks up again, he takes his bottom lip between his teeth deliberately, belly leaping in anticipation when Kisumi’s eyes drop to his mouth in a helpless little reaction. His gaze is dark and more serious than it’s ever been and he watches Sousuke's tongue slip over the reddened skin in abject fascination.
“Kisumi.” He tries again, hoping to hell that he’s not going to have to do this once more. “I’m asking you,” He tugs Kisumi closer to him until those impossibly vivid eyes are only inches away from his own. “To kiss me, you fool.”
Kisumi makes a low sound of simultaneous realization and want in the back of his throat and that’s all the warning Sousuke gets before warm palms are on either side of his face, cupping it and tilting his head to the side. His fingers press into the nooks of his jaw and cheekbones, intrusive and urgent and so very much like Kisumi that Sousuke has to bite back fond laughter.
Kisumi’s fingers slide down to cover his own where they’re curled around his collar and he pries them away gently before re-situating them on his shoulder.
Up this close, Sousuke can spot tiny, luminescent pinkish specks scattered across the gleaming violet of his irises and it takes Sousuke’s breath away when they catch the dull, yellow light and shimmer brightly for a fleeting second.
“Should’ve said so sooner.” Kisumi murmurs. Sousuke wants so badly to deliver a scathing riposte, to tell him that Kisumi’s the simpleton who hadn’t gotten it the first two times, but his skin feels hot and too tight stretched around his limbs and words fail him.
Kisumi’s so close now, close enough that his damp breath is warm on Sousuke’s face. It smells like strawberry licorice and Sousuke has only a triumphant second to think that he’d totally called that, before Kisumi angles his head up and touches his lips to Sousuke’s own.
He makes a tiny sound of longing and relief (he’s not sure how long exactly he’d been counting down to this very moment), but it’s cut off midway by the insistent pressure of Kisumi’s mouth against his own, and all he can do is let his eyes flutter closed as Kisumi leans in until he’s pressed in a long, sinuous line against Sousuke’s torso, invading his personal space as thoughtlessly as he had every other aspect of Sousuke’s life.
There’s not a trace of bitterness in his chest as he ponders over how easily and stealthily Kisumi had slipped past every single wall that he’d erected; or perhaps, he thinks, he’d never been outside of those walls in the first place. He can never quite be sure, not when it comes to Kisumi.
The airy feeling in his chest though, Sousuke finally recognizes it for what it really is, the taste of it sweet like candy on his tongue. Relief; relief that Kisumi hadn’t gotten tired of his prickly attitude, of the countless insecurities that he tries to cover up with sarcasm and sullenness, of how helpless and lost he’s been for the past few months.
Relief that he hasn’t had to watch Kisumi leave him behind, like he’s watched countless others do.
He suspects that Kisumi might have known all along (he’s always been the more perceptive one out of the two of them), but it only hits Sousuke now that Kisumi’s been trying to fill the gaping void in his life with his constant visits and his infernal teasing and bubbling enthusiasm.
Kisumi isn’t Rin; he isn’t his first best friend and neither is he his rival.
What Kisumi is though, Sousuke realizes with bated breath, is Sousuke’s anchor. He keeps Sousuke afloat, makes him feel safe, like if he ever takes a wrong step and ends up with his head under the water, Kisumi will be there in a fraction of a second, pulling him back up and away from the riptide, and then sharing his warmth, his life breath, with Sousuke.
His mouth is already wet and slick with Kisumi’s saliva and the sensitive skin stretched across the notches of his ribs is warm with the imprint of Kisumi’s calloused fingers, but inexplicably, heat creeps into his cheeks and tints them pink with the realization that he’s come to.
Kisumi heaves a surprised breath through his nose as he catches on, and he kisses Sousuke swiftly once more before drawing apart from him. He drags a thumb wonderingly, gently over Sousuke’s left cheekbone to chase the hint of warmth there as he watches him for a moment.
His touch is too soft, eyes too warm and fond, and Sousuke has to close his own to stall the overwhelming surge of gratefulness and affection that overcomes him at the sight. He leans into Kisumi’s fingers and bites the inside of his cheek to hold back a tiny, pleased noise when they stroke over the paper-thin skin under his eye in delighted response.
“I know-“ Kisumi clears his throat almost self-consciously and Sousuke cracks his eyes open to watch him. “I know I’m not Rin.” He leans in to kiss Sousuke reassuringly and laughs into his mouth when Sousuke tries to protest. “Shh, no, I didn’t mean it in that way, you know that.”
He lifts his palm away from where it’d been heavy on Sousuke’s side and rubs at the column of his own neck distractedly, but Sousuke catches it to stall the motion and then turns it over to press a chaste kiss to the back of his hand.
Kisumi’s eyes widen with surprise and he drops his unruly, pink head onto Sousuke’s good shoulder with a resigned sigh and nuzzles into him.
“I can never win with you, Sousuke.” He mutters, voice muffled and fond. “This is why you’re Hayato’s favourite.”
“I know I’m not Rin.” He continues after a moment, mouth moving distractingly against Sousuke’s skin through his thin t-shirt. “But you should know, I don’t want to be another Rin to you. I’ll always be your friend if that’s what you want, but I could be so much more if you'd just let me.”
He lifts his head and nudges his nose into the side of Sousuke’s cheek plaintively and Sousuke is helpless to do anything but loop an arm around his wiry shoulders, to press his body into his own. He has but a surprised moment to process Kisumi’s rather frank admission; it’d left his heart hammering against his ribcage in a mixture of delight and anticipation and he has to grip fistfuls of the back of Kisumi’s shirt to ground himself.
“It’s lame.” Kisumi sighs dramatically. “I woke up one day and just kind of well, realized that I’ve never lost sight of you. Not in Sano, not when you started getting into swimming, not when you moved to Tokyo. And now that you’re back, it scares me Sousuke, how important it is for me to keep you close. Scared me so much that I actually called Rin and told him a whole bunch of nonsense. ”
Kisumi laughs, but the sound is self-depreciating. Sousuke kisses him again, hard and fast, to cut it off.
The gears are turning in his head with a lot more ease now and he inhales deeply, his head clearing just that bit more when he takes in the hint of Kisumi’s familiar strawberry shampoo. It’s been lingering on his pillow and overpowering the chemical smell of Febreeze and window-cleaner in his room for many months now; he’d just gotten too accustomed to it to realize its implications.
The reason for Rin’s smug phone call that morning several weeks ago, it’s suddenly illuminated in his mind. Rin must’ve known all along about how Kisumi had felt, and Sousuke is pretty sure that he’d been aware, even then, of how Sousuke himself had felt about this hopelessly infuriating paradox of a boy.
He hasn’t been sure about anything else in a long time, he realizes. Not the way he’s sure about this thing with Kisumi, how he’s sure that he’d miss Kisumi’s warm, thoughtless touches and his obnoxiously cheerful wake-up calls and the way he looks at Sousuke like he’s something special, like he’s not just something to be fixed. Like Sousuke’s not even broken, not in his eyes at least.
Kisumi shines so bright with a light that everyone is inexorably drawn to, and Sousuke realizes with a sense of finality that he’s hardly an exception. He’s just been fooling himself all this while.
“Dumbass.” Sousuke tells him determinedly, angrily, because Kisumi is solely responsible for colouring his bleak life with the sunset hues of his hair and eyes and he can’t possibly not know. “Do you really think I’d let you hang all over me, kiss me, if I didn’t feel the same way? Rin must’ve told you that day, but you should know by now, I’m not that kind of guy.”
Kisumi blinks at him slowly and Sousuke watches reluctant hope flicker in those pretty eyes. His eyelashes are long and pink and flutter distractingly when Sousuke leans into his space.
“And I sure as hell hope you don’t mean to be another Rin to me, because I’d never dream about doing this with Rin.” He takes a couple of steps back and yanks Kisumi along with him in a split-second decision, with a firm grip on the front of his t-shirt and another on the curve of his slender waist, only stopping when his own back is flush up against the wall behind him.
Kisumi’s chest is pressed to his own, firm with muscle and unyielding, and his thigh is slotted in between both of Sousuke’s from the awkward angle of the movement; Sousuke thinks for a terrified moment that he might have miscalculated terribly, because Kisumi’s head is dipped and the gentle sweep of his bangs hides his eyes from view.
“Uh.” He mutters, stooping in an awkward attempt to catch Kisumi’s gaze. “Sorry, uh, that was a bit quick wasn’t it?”
Kisumi’s head snaps up when Sousuke discreetly attempts to wriggle away and put some distance between them again (or as discreetly as he can when sandwiched between a wall of plaster and another one of unreadable teenage boy). His eyes are hooded and intense when they meet Sousuke’s own and Sousuke watches as his lips twitch into a wondering smile first, and then a tiny, satisfied smirk. It’s a good look on Kisumi, he thinks faintly. Makes him look wild and uncontrolled, like he never quite lets himself be seen as.
“How could you say all that and then try to slip away, Sou-suke?” Kisumi asks, voice pitched low and teasing. He braces his forearm in a straight line on the wall beside Sousuke’s head and presses into him until Sousuke can feel Kisumi’s heat bleeding into his own skin through both layers of fabric, until he can vividly feel the thumping of Kisumi’s heart, in frantic rhythm with his own.
It’s reassuring to realize that beneath the teasing façade, Kisumi is just as nervous as him, that he wants this just as badly as Sousuke does.
When the sharp points of Kisumi’s hipbones press into Sousuke’s own, Sousuke jerks forward, eyes widening.
“Pervert.” He mutters, trying to get a hold of his racing heart because too close, too hot, and he’s going to be in a whole lot of trouble if he doesn’t extricate himself from this position soon.
“Only when it comes to you.” Kisumi demurs easily, and Sousuke snorts.
“Still a pervert.”
Kisumi grins at him, tongue peeking out from between pearly white teeth. “But you like that, don’t you, Sousuke?”
Sousuke’s breath catches when questing fingers move from their spot on his waist to creep under the hem of his t-shirt and brush against the hot skin of his belly.
“Yeah, you like it.” Kisumi confirms, and then grips his bare waist hard, hard enough that Sousuke stumbles forward into his touch. When he moves in to kiss Sousuke again, Sousuke is ready; he catches Kisumi’s soft bottom lip between his teeth and nips at it to hear Kisumi’s groan, startlingly loud in the silence of the room.
Sousuke realizes, in an intensely lucid moment, that basketball has done wonders for Kisumi’s physique. He doesn’t think much else after that; just pulls Kisumi impossibly close, and then some more, until he can barely tell where he begins and Kisumi ends.
He’s kissed exactly two people before this: a senior on the Tokitsu swim team with long glossy braids, and more recently, a barista from the quaint little cafe down the street who’d approached him nervously after closing. Neither of them had kissed like Kisumi is kissing him now, eyes resolutely open and dark, and fingers gripping at his jaw desperately, like he’s afraid Sousuke will bolt any moment now.
His lips are warm and insistent against Sousuke’s chapped ones and when Sousuke licks into his mouth, Kisumi groans and tightens his grip on the points of Sousuke’s hipbones until Sousuke thinks he’ll be able to feel the ache of it tomorrow, for days to come, when he presses tentative fingers to the red skin.
Kisumi’s thigh is a solid, firm line pressed up against the inside of his own and Sousuke has to stifle a shocked little sound when he angles his leg up the slightest bit to put pressure right where Sousuke is wanting and needy. He nudges his own thigh up in retaliation, insinuating it between Kisumi’s own and pressing up against the solid heat of him. Kisumi’s teeth dig into his neck, blunt and wet against where his pulse is thrumming wildly.
He smells like lavender and spring come anew; Sousuke doesn’t think he can ever quite get enough of him.
When the hinges of the door creak faintly, Sousuke ignores it, owing it to the particularly insistent night breeze. But it sounds again, louder and Sousuke’s head whips up just in time for him to catch his bedroom door being pushed open unceremoniously. He’s already preparing for the worst when he shifts his gaze over to where his mother’s wide eyes and open mouth are turned in his direction.
“Oh.” She says.
-
Rin is in stitches by the time he finishes his recounting of last night’s tale and Sousuke wants to begrudge him for his ready amusement at Sousuke’s pain, but he can hardly bring himself to do so; not when Rin’s snorting and snuffling into the phone with all the poise of a walrus beached on a deserted island.
“Stay classy, Rin.” He mutters wearily. “Stay classy.”
“B-but.” Rin succumbs to a fresh peal of laughter and Sousuke just sighs and adjusts his phone where it’s a warm, solid point flattening the curve of his ear. He props his elbow up onto the left side of the mattress and cards idle fingers through soft, pink hair as he waits for Rin to finish with his obnoxious little episode.
Kisumi sighs at the touch and Sousuke’s lips quirk at the familiar, soft whoosh of breath warming his neck. When he curls into Sousuke and presses his lips lethargically to the dip between his collarbones, Sousuke tries not to shiver.
Kisumi’s silent and warm and still now, an utter anti-thesis to what he’s usually like in his hours of full consciousness, and Sousuke wants to savour it because even though charming, hyper-active Kisumi had been the one to worm his way into the recesses of his heart, Sousuke has a special place there nonetheless, for this snuffling, clinging side of him.
“I still can’t believe your mum walked in on you. What are you, a walking cliché?” Rin seems to have gotten over the most part of his giggles, but his voice still quivers mildly in amusement when he speaks, much to Sousuke’s annoyance.
“No, that’s all you.” He retorts, wincing almost immediately at how lame that'd been. He’s too warm and his mind too slow at the moment, to think of a wittier one.
“Wow, yeah, you’ve really lost your edge. That big fluff of cotton candy has done his damage.”
Kisumi’s nose twitches and he snuffles again, as if in unconscious response to Rin’s dubious use of epithets in relation to him, but he settles when Sousuke passes gentle fingers through his hair.
“Cotton candy, huh.” He mutters to himself, wondering absently if the mess of pink peeking out from in between his fingers and sticking up wildly would taste sweet too. He doesn’t even realize that his eyes have crinkled fondly until Rin scoffs.
“Tone it down, buddy. I can feel your sappiness from all the way here and it’s making me queasy.”
He has to laugh at that, after making sure not to jostle Kisumi too much from where he’s plastered himself firmly to Sousuke’s front. Despite himself, an overwhelming wave of fondness for Rin in all his ridiculous teasing and feigned disgust and masked encouragement, washes over him.
“Thanks, Rin.” He says, before he has the chance to think over it too much.
Rin splutters at his sudden deflection.
“Thanks? For making myself queasy or..?”
“No, you idiot. For y’know. For sticking by me.” He coughs to hide his discomfort. It’s not every day that he lays his feelings out bare for Rin, and he feels exceedingly awkward in all his hesitation.
“Don’t thank me.” Rin mutters. “I did absolutely nothing. Except maybe lose a thousand yen.” He sighs exasperatedly and continues. “And I saw it coming from a mile away anyway, c’mon Sousuke. It was always Kisumi this, Kisumi that, Kisumi slipped on the gym mat last week, Kisumi ate four bowls of Ramen in one go, Kisumi sparkled in the sun today like a Disney Prince.“
Sousuke makes an indignant sound at the back of his throat. Had he really been that transparent? It’s no wonder his mum had been giving him knowing looks over her coffee mug for the past couple of months whenever he’d recounted some tale or the other about the Shiginos.
“When the fuck did I tell you that he sparkles?”
“You don’t have to tell me that, I’ve seen it for myself.”
“He doesn’t sparkle.” He insists sulkily.
“You sound very troubled by that. Should I step up my game? Buy some glitter maybe?” Kisumi’s warm breath tickles his ear and Sousuke startles. When he holds the phone away from his ear and peers down, mischievous violet eyes glimmer back at him.
“When did you wake up? Also, I’m just letting you know that I’m not stepping out anywhere with you if you choose to make that decision.”
“Mean.” Kisumi mumbles, but he lands a loud, wet kiss on the edge of Sousuke’s jaw anyway, and Sousuke’s cheeks heat up instantly at the casual move. He’s accustomed to Kisumi’s easy tactility; it’s part and parcel of being friends with him, but his uncomplicated displays of affection still make Sousuke unaccountably embarrassed.
“Holy shit. He’s there with you?” Rin’s voice is loud and tinny when Sousuke belatedly remembers to switch the call to loudspeaker. “You put out on the first date?”
Sousuke makes a garbled noise of protest and tries to cut in, feeling betrayed because Rin should know him better than that, but he quiets when Kisumi winks at him conspiratorially and pries the phone away from his grasp.
“If you want a play-by-play, I’m more than willing to cooperate, Rin-chan.” He teases, voice rough with sleep.
“Fuck no!” Rin exclaims, and he sounds so affronted that Sousuke has to drop his face to Kisumi’s shoulder to muffle his laughter. “You dirty bastard.”
He finally takes pity on Rin when Kisumi clears his throat dramatically, as if preparing for an intense and lengthy monologue. When he catches hold of Kisumi’s forearm and tugs on it till the receiver is close to his own mouth, he tries to placate an annoyed Rin.
“There’s nothing to tell. He just slept over last night s’all, so you can stop picturing weird shit now.”
Rin huffs out a haughty little breath.
“Remember our pact, Sousuke.” He says somberly. “We gotta do it at the same time, man, don’t you dare break it.” Sousuke does remember; he also recollects the grave little pinky promise and the last-minute decision to impose severe punishment on the party who violated the terms of agreement. Losing one’s virginity had seemed like a distant and fantastical thing when they’d been twelve after all.
It no longer is though, not with Kisumi’s slender fingers tracing over the ridges of his ribs teasingly and then cupping the subtle curve of his waist. His mind goes hazy when Kisumi pushes carefully at Sousuke’s side until he manages to re-arrange him onto his back on the mattress. When the damned menace hovers over him triumphantly, flashes a suggestive little smile, and murmurs that he’ll help him along with that pact (with quite an imaginative use of his vocabulary), Sousuke makes an involuntary, desperate noise at the back of his throat.
He meets Kisumi's dark, dark eyes with wide, dazed ones of his own.
“Oh god.” He vaguely hears Rin saying through the loudspeaker. He sounds horrified. “Kisumi, you nasty little fuck, I heard everything yo-” Kisumi cuts him off by blowing a loud parting kiss into the receiver and then ends the call with a casual flick of his fingers.
Sousuke bites at his lower lip distractedly when Kisumi props himself up on his forearms above him, eyes half-lidded and hair hanging loose and effortlessly debonair across his forehead. He thinks hazily that he can finally understand why girls would feel compelled to trail behind him.
“So, about that pact. Where were we?” Kisumi asks him innocently.
“What pact?” Sousuke mutters and then pulls those devious lips down to his own with an arm hooked around his neck. When Kisumi laughs breathily into his mouth and his lips form something that feels vaguely like a smug “I thought so”, Sousuke kisses him silent.