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I.
When Nakazawa finally stops fussing over them, Kota realises he’s in an empty locker room with someone he shares less than ten words with. Kenny-san in the ring is a concentrated, breakneck flow of energy—Kenny in the dingy locker room took one look at Kota (those blue eyes!) and burst into blubbering tears.
He can’t possibly break the language barrier here, so he rests a daring hand on Kenny’s cheek, which Kenny chases.
Their language is touch and motion, their vocabulary in how they crash against each other. Outside the ring, Kota feels woefully inadequate to decode that handsome face.
II.
Nakazawa had finally petitioned Takagi for them to share a room in the dorms together, because they were going to get up to unscrupulous behaviour whether or not he babysat them. Takagi worried about the appearance of it all.
‘Isn’t it funny how all of our fans are girls?’ Kenny asks, leaning over to where Kota is stretching.
‘It’s sweet. They cheer when we get all lovey.’
‘You love me?’
‘Yes?’ Kota replies, bemused.
‘I-I love you too. Yeah. Yeah!’ and the silly, earnest grin on Kenny’s face makes Kota’s heart flip in ways it only does in the ring.
III .
Kota brings home the IWGP Junior belt, and it sits hung over the back of the sofa for a week. Kenny admires it when Kota can’t see, and runs his fingers across the gold.
Kota drapes it across his belly one night, whispers into Kenny’s hair, ‘I do it all for you. I won it for you, you know.’
Kenny doesn’t want it. How could he possibly pay it back, while he lags in Kota’s wake?
But the moment is too good to lose, so Kenny stretches, showing off, and asks, ‘Am I the greatest prize you ever took home?’
IV.
The match at Budokan Hall feels terrifyingly intimate. Knowing Kenny so deeply feels mortifying in front of a cheering crowd—the teenage girls who Kenny’s scared of are probably wondering if they do this every time they fuck.
The flips and tricks aren’t anything Kota hasn’t thought about before.
He could call how Kenny takes his hits until he can’t stand proof of his domination, but Kota prefers to think about it as Kenny trusting Kota so utterly and deeply with his body. It goes both ways—he falls and understands Kenny will be there below, arms aloft and waiting.
V.
‘I’m leaving,’ Kenny says, ‘to NJPW.’
Kota looks at him, as placid and beautiful as the day they first met. Kota is… He’s Ibushi Kota. Any descriptor would detract from how perfect he is. He’s Kenny’s everything. How stupid.
‘If you think it’s the right thing,’ he replies.
He wishes he could see anything on Kota’s face, any resemblance of how it used to light up around him. Kenny wishes he would have fought him for it. Wishes he would have won, took this decision out of Kenny’s hands so he didn’t have to look Kota in the eye afterwards.
VI.
Where’s the Kenny that he knew?
Kota watches all of Kenny’s NJPW appearances, because of course he does. He doesn’t intend to follow him there, but the road of ambition that stretches before him is all too clear and DDT’s homegrown charm fades into the distance. To overcome God.
New Kenny, Kenny of the dark hair and the dark glasses. A sick, poisonous feeling is bubbling inside of Kota. You used to love me so proudly, Kenny-tan. Do Bullet Club tease you? Do they mock you for what we were or do they just make sure you know your place?
VII.
For his most loyal seconds and subordinates, Kenny needles the Bucks often. It’s just not fair, how close and knee-to-knee in the locker room they’re allowed to be. He keeps them close, regardless. Kenny might very well need them—sharks are about.
‘You watch Ibushi’s match?’ Cody asks him, slyly, in the cab after a show. He catches Kenny off guard, and he must notice, stores it away in his pervy little mind palace.
‘You should. He’s a fine competitor,’ Cody continues, savouring the words like cigar smoke, ‘You think he’ll do it? Hey, are you listening? Kenny-tan? ’ he croons.
VIII.
Cody raises the chair, and Kenny understands. Now or never. He’s going to make a choice. Kota is lying there, knowingly. A glint in his eye.
Is it enough to be so loved in Kota’s shadow? To hold down the jealousy and anguish, the devouring feelings of his sad dumb little heart if Kota kisses him like he does, tags with him, moves with him, fucks him like he does? Will he trade smiling lackeys, cheering crowds, belts held aloft for Kota? He could turn away now and be the same wrestler, in utter self denial. Could he?
He runs.
IX.
Kota had been incandescently furious about Cody’s behaviour, and knocked over four chairs before Kenny could stop him. He’d simply been quietly ashamed, for both him and Kota.
That ruthlessness tiptoes the line between exciting Kenny and scaring him. Of course he’s blown over whenever Kota declares those bouts of stunning violence for him, but his heart twinges at the way his face goes still, as if he’s being taken over by something Kenny can’t quite see the shape of.
After the match they barely talk for days. They still sleep together - the alternative sucks and so does their sofa.
X.
‘Ibutan, Ibutan,’ Kenny mewls, as Kota drags him backstage, clinging together desperately.
Kota feels slightly sick. He felt the strength with which Kenny was fighting against him. And he knocked that strength right out of him.
Kenny looks admiringly. ‘Thank you for beating me,’ he whispers.
‘Why?’
‘It’s—it’s you, Kota.’ He signals for a water bottle, but he understands—this thing they share means more to him than any success. Kenny, who makes himself undefeatable, distant and unpersoned, the Best Bout Machine , will do it all and even lose just and only for his Golden Lover. Kota kisses it better.
XI.
‘Thank you, Matt-san.’
‘I came to talk to you,’ Matt’s Japanese is badly accented, but Kenny spoke badly at first too, ‘but you’re welcome.’
‘You kept Kenny company.’ The Bucks were standoffish when Kota came back - Nick was more quiet, but he was all the time. Matt seethed openly and didn’t hide it.
‘You mean more to him than we ever could.’ Matt replies. ‘Nick says it’s because you’ve always been something to him. I understand that.’
How could Kota know how to untangle the hurt Kenny’s left behind? It’s a bit true, though—next to Kenny, nothing else matters.
XII.
Kenny leaves, because some things have to be cyclical. He leaves his house in order—Jay White leading the Bullet Club, Okada set up as the star, and Ospreay will be dealt with.
He leaves because there’s something that needs to be done, and Kenny will do it. Kota will beat Tanahashi in time. So he leaves his lover behind, but he’ll hold onto the love, held close until the shape of it cuts his hands open.
In the warm afterglow of what became their last night together, Kenny asks, ‘What will I do without you?’
‘Wait for me,’ Kota replies.