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"It hurt like a bitch."
Kaoru looked up, blankly staring at Kojiro over the top of his glasses. "What?"
"My tattoo. Filling it in. It hurt like a bitch."
Ah. Kaoru blinked, slowly lowering his tablet. "Your idiot ass decided to get a tattoo that was entirely black and takes up half your impossibly large arm. You have no one to blame but yourself."
"I did it for you, you know."
"Excuse me? Don't blame me for your terrible deci-"
"You don't remember, huh?" Kojiro's tone was sweet, jovial even, but some melancholy lingered behind his words. He was disappointed that Kaoru had misplaced a memory he clearly held dear, so Kaoru took a moment, tracing back the lines of their relationship, seeking to remember.
He hummed.
"I remember."
A thousand years ago, two young, dumb teenagers stood on the precipice of what might have been everything or nothing, on the knife-edge that could have ruined them. Their kiss had been sloppy, all teeth and stolen breath, and hands had wandered, shaking and uncertain.
Kojiro was going away. And Kaoru was proud. He was so damned proud. Kojiro had scored a place at the best culinary school in Italy and the light in his eyes could have lit the whole damned world as he opened the letter that revealed the news. Kaoru was proud.
But he was also terrified.
He was terrified that he'd be alone, terrified that he'd lose his best friend, his skate buddy, his heart. Terrified that Kojiro would move on.
Just plain terrified.
But when Kojiro had opened that letter and beamed his megawatt smile, Kaoru had felt so much love and pride that it wrestled away his own selfish thoughts. For now, terror could wait.
And Kojiro had noticed it. The dewy eyes, the rare silence from his otherwise mouthy friend. "What?" he'd asked, laughing. "You're Looking at me like I hung the moon and stars."
Kaoru had taken a breath. "No," he'd said softly, pressing his lips against him. "You hung the whole damned sun."
Kaoru shook his head indignantly. "I say one cheesy line when we were kids and you get a tattoo about it. You really are too sentimental."
Kojiro swept him up like a ragdoll, pulling him back onto the couch and kissing him deeply on the spot of his neck that he knew made Kaoru giggle like a child.
"Stop it, you oaf," Kaoru whined, but he made no move to push Kojiro away. Instead, he sunk further into his embrace.
"You like me sentimental," Kojiro murmured into his neck. "And you like my tattoo."
Kaoru didn't deny it, but he sighed. "Do you know how difficult it is to find an onsen that'll have you now?"
He felt Kojiro smile against him. "Good job we have our own jacuzzi bath then, huh?"
"We? I think you mean to say I have a jacuzzi bath. In my apartment. That you are constantly invading."
Kojiro pulled away, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Is that so? In that case, I'd better go remove my food from your fridge. I wouldn't want to invade your space."
He moved to stand when a firm pale hand grasped his wrist.
"Don't you dare."