Work Text:
"You free now?" Kojiro asked from the door, because he may push on Kaoru's boundaries all the time but he wouldn't do the same to the clients.
"Had a cancelation," his friend grumbled from inside the room and that was all the permission he needed. This area was Kaoru's kingdom and it showed both in the controlled chaos of his workspace and in the decorations, all things he loved. None of this art was his but rather done by the people who'd tattooed him. Kojiro kind of liked that he could point to a piece on the wall and its sibling on Kaoru's skin, recognizing the style in a glance. "Got the next… few hours free, unless we get a walk-in."
"Do my arm," Kojiro said, not really asking, as he pulled up the chair opposite his friend.
Kaoru finally stopped tapping on his phone and looked up at him, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Don't you have work to do?"
Kojiro shrugged, then nodded at the roll of film on the cupboard behind the grumpy idiot. "Finished for the day, unless I get a walk-in."
"More likely to happen with you than with me," commented Kaoru with a dramatic little eyeroll and a sigh, placing his phone on the workstation part of the cupboard - the top of it was constantly littered with the things he needed. He passed the film to Kojiro while quickly spraying the table between them with alcohol. "What's it gonna be this time? A banana for the gorilla, finally?"
"Haha. I want a fish, here," he gestured with the roll to the inside of his left forearm. Then Kojiro frowned as he covered the clean table in plastic, watching Kaoru open one of the drawers to start picking up needles and stuff. "Have I shown you the pictures?"
"Yeah, and I don't get it, but it's your stupid arm."
"Can you like, trace it in black and then follow that with yellow? And paint like some scales in yellow and the fins and shit," Kojiro mused, working the idea out in his mind right then and there.
His best friend stopped rummaging through his equipment to blink at him. "Like a second tracing along the first in yellow?"
"Yeah."
"That sounds weird."
"I like weird."
"Clearly," Kaoru huffed, taking several bottles of ink from one drawer - black, a few yellows, a pair of greens, and the white. From the other drawer, he grabbed a pair of markers, the safety razor, a roll of paper towels, and the box of gloves. "Get me water. Two cups, one cold."
"Why the green?" Kojiro asked while carrying out his task, which took him to the little common room in between their studios where the water fountain was. Since he was already there, he drank some water too, then grabbed the two cups for Kaoru. "Gonna get some ink done," he called out to the front desk and heard a bored 'okay' from Reki in response. The light in the bathroom had been left on, so Kojiro made sure to hit that on his way back.
He found Kaoru fixing his braid, making sure the colorful hair clips were keeping his bangs securely away from his face. It was enough to make Kojiro completely forget what he was doing and just stand there, staring at his ethereal beauty. Even after a long day at work, tired and crankier than usual, Kaoru was so damn pretty. "My water?" his friend asked, shaking him from his dumbfounded musings.
"Here. So, the green?"
"I think it'll look good on your skin tone," Kaoru replied in between sips, placing the other cup on the workstation. "Just a bit for highlights. Same with the white."
Kojiro hummed and sat heavily on the chair across from him, arm stretched out on the table and back against the seat rest. The air conditioning was on, but not that strong because of Kaoru's dainty constitution, so he'd just have to deal with it. "Gonna freehand it?"
"Maybe," his pretty nose scrunched, eyes narrowed critically at Kojiro's arm. "What you want is more tribal style, right? Maybe I should print something to use as a base actually, so it's not so sloppy…"
"There's nothing remotely sloppy about your freehand, dude," Kojiro told him and flicked his ear for good measure. It got him a kick to the shins under the table and a glare, but it worked enough for Kaoru to grab the markers and start scribbling on his skin, so win.
It took a few moments of focused work, but something like his idea started to appear in red and blue on his forearm. Rad. Watching Kaoru in his element was always great because that was when he looked the most comfortable. Well, outside of when he was almost literally inhaling his weight in pasta in Kojiro's kitchen. These days they had dinner together more often than not, in part due to Kaoru's inability to make anything edible if the steps were any more complex than 'stick in the microwave for x minutes', but his own cooking was definitely a factor as well. Kojiro was very confident in his skills, all of his skills, and even if he wasn't there was no doubt about how much Kaoru loved his food - the little satisfied noise he sometimes made…
Now was probably not the time to be thinking about the, uh, suspicious noises his best friend made while chowing down on his carbonara. The downright filthy , delectable little moans that would probably make Kaoru combust out of mortification if he knew that Kojiro had noticed. He had definitely noticed.
"You're too quiet tonight," Kaoru grumbled, flicking his forehead. When he blinked in response, his friend pointed down to Kojiro's forearm. The drawing was more or less finished, for a sketch. "What d'ya think?"
"It's perfect."
"Don't just say that if I'm gonna ink this--" Kaoru started babbling, the never ending void of his anxiety threatening to swallow him hole at a moment's notice. As usual.
"Dude, shut up. It's perfect," Kojiro cut in before it got too bad. The urge to just go around the table and hug the stupid out of him was very, very intense, but thankfully Kaoru bounced out of it before he succumbed to that need.
"Alright, stay still now, you ape."
That more or less marked the end of discussions. From then on, Kaoru bossed him around through the preparations and the tattoo process, working attentively despite their ongoing conversation. They didn't stay on any given topic for more than a few minutes before it changed, bouncing from whatever shows they were watching that week to their shared school memories with ease. It was a little tradition at this point, catching up during tattoos since piercings didn't take that long. Kojiro had started it by blabbering through his first tat to help with Kaoru's nerves, and now here they were.
Every single one of his tattoos had been done by his best friend. And every single one of Kaoru's piercings had been done by Kojiro. They were… strangely possessive about that stuff. About who got to work on the other's body. Hell, they were like that about a lot of stuff. Some would say it wasn't good to be this deeply attached, but they'd been best friends since fucking kindergarten. There was no one without the other.
Kojiro had been thinking about this a lot recently. Aside from all the regular 'thinking about Kaoru' thing he did, which he should probably stop, actually. In any case, the subject of their friendship had been on his mind and he'd been meaning to broach it with Kaoru, so maybe now was the perfect opportunity to do it naturally. Kaoru was about as relaxed as he could possibly get, all things considered, and he was almost done touching up the tattoo. It was all colored and traced, but he was a damned perfectionist. Dork.
"Hey, we should move in together," Kojiro said, choosing to be direct to avoid unnecessary anxiety.
Kaoru startled so hard at his words that his hand pressed harder than necessary, the hand holding the needle against Kojiro's arm . There was a moment of stillness as the needle dug into his skin, then panic set in and his hand slipped when they both got very frantic about the blood. There was blood now. There shouldn't be that kind of blood showing during a tattoo. Kaoru screeched, Kojiro groaned loudly, the whirring of the machine's motor turned a bit weird and at some point Reki's voice joined theirs amidst the chaos.
It kind of sucked. Hurt like a motherfucker too.
"Are you fucking stupid?" Kaoru screamed at him while shoving a dozen paper towels into his hands. For the blood.
"It's fine, Kaoru," Kojiro tried to reply, pressing some of those to his injury and holding back a wince. Or not, because it didn't seem to land and his friend continued to lose his shit. Reki was just flailing at the door, so he directed his voice at the kid as well. "Seriously, I'm fine."
"No, it's not fine!" Kaoru barked as he tried to collect his things, starting with the still-powered tattoo needle. Shit. "It's ruined and you're bleeding!" he continued, gesturing widely at Kojiro and the blood on his table, and he was definitely shaking. Yeah, shit .
"Hey, hey, stop," Kojiro coaxed, going to him and pulling him into a hug with his good arm. Which kind of made it hard to put pressure on his wound, but this was more important - to him, at least. Kaoru immediately took over that task, avoiding his eyes and sniffling suspiciously like he was trying to hold back tears. "Breathe. Count with me."
"Kojiro, your arm--"
"Count with me," he repeated in a firmer tone, squeezing him closer, Kaoru's back to his chest. Together they counted the seconds in each inhale, working through the breathing exercises that Kaoru liked to pretend didn't work. It was enough to ease him down from the edge of a panic attack, so Kojiro relaxed a bit and switched focus. "Why did you freak out?" he asked into Kaoru's hair since the idiot was still hiding his face.
"You sprung that up on me," a pause to slap his shoulder for a salacious snort that Kojiro couldn't help, "you don't say shit like that during a tattoo."
That only made him more confused. "I didn't think it would make you freak out."
"Stop saying I freaked out! I was just… surprised. Startled."
"Tomato, tomato . It just makes sense, we already work together and if we ever open our own place…" Kojiro trailed off, watching Kaoru fuss over his injury. The pain had nothing on his worry about his favorite idiot, really.
"If I can stand dealing with your ass every fucking day, you mean," he grumbled, gently pulling Kojiro to make him sit at his own chair. Kaoru never let him sit on his chair, and yet now he was carefully cleaning the blood and checking the extent of the damage as if he'd never yelled at Kojiro for so much as joking about this.
The retort was at the tip of his tongue, it was inevitable. "You already do."
"Not at work as well as at home."
Kojiro scratched his head, idly wondering how they'd ended up here, with Kaoru holding his arm up above his head to stop the bleeding while they argued about living together of all things. This should be a given. "Besides, we've already talked about it before."
The glare he received for that was phenomenal. One of the best Kaoru had ever managed, worthy of being framed. "We were eight ."
"So?"
"So you're a dimwit!"
"And you're a pest," Kojiro retorted with a grin because he loved this. It shouldn't make him so happy, but trading insults with his best friend was a sign of normalcy - Kaoru was fine now. As fine as he would be for a while, at least.
"Asshole."
"Jerk."
"And you still wanna… share a living space," Kaoru sort of mumbled, eyes fixated on his arm. "Become roommates."
"Yeah, it would be fun," Kojiro argued and shrugged without thinking.
Kaoru smacked him over the head with his free hand. "It would be a nightmare."
"I'm sure we can manage," he retorted without missing a beat, poking the idiot's ribs just to make him laugh a little.
"You're hellbent on this," Kaoru poked back, trying not to give in to the giggle clearly bubbling out of him and also to keep Kojiro's arm up. It wasn't working very well for him.
"Kind of."
"Why?"
"Just 'cause," Kojiro shrugged again, pulling his arm free. "Bleeding's stopped, just wrap it."
At least he didn't argue about that, still focused on the current argument. "Tell me. Now," Kaoru demanded, grabbing an ointment from his backpack, which he always left by his workstation. He slathered some of the stuff on the entire tattoo before wrapping it in plastic film, being way softer with his touches than he usually was with Kojiro.
"Why do you have to look for ulterior motives in everything?"
"I'm gonna stab you."
"Okay, fine," Kojiro relented, ignoring the urge to point out that he'd already done that a few minutes ago. Sort of. It wouldn't help anything and he didn't want to upset Kaoru, who was glaring down at him with those perfect golden eyes and very slightly smudged mascara. "'Cause I already rented this two bedroom place and if you bail I'll be out of the deposit. I got it last week."
There was a long pause during which they just stared at each other, gears clearly turning under pink hair, then before Kaoru could show him any real reaction, he turned and started packing his stuff. "I hate you," he said, which didn't sound like a 'no', so, win.
"Nah, you don't," Kojiro grinned. His eyes drifted down to his new tattoo and it looked angrier than usual, which probably warranted the extra care. It was a bit more painful too, but Kojiro liked that shit and the finished thing was so pretty anyway that it didn't matter one bit.
"It better be a really good place," Kaoru told him in a very threatening tone, walking out of his studio in a huff with his bag slung on his shoulder. "I'm grabbing your shit and you're paying for pizza."
"Sure, princess. Whatever you gotta tell yourself to feel better," Kojiro replied as he followed, stupidly giddy and already planning on buying a tub of ice cream for his best friend on their way to his (soon to be former) place. His prickly demeanor would fool anyone else, but that idiot was definitely blaming himself for the tattoo mishap and feeling like shit on the inside, so he needed some sweets.
"I'm gonna start looking into laser correction for that," Kaoru informed him, throwing Kojiro's stuff into his backpack so they could leave. Just like he'd said about the very first one, which had turned out a bit splotchy and absolutely perfect. It was Kojiro's favorite tattoo, for obvious reasons. Obvious only to him, apparently.
Yep, there it was. "Nah. Leave it," Kojiro replied and made himself into a barrier at the door, smiling down at his best friend's glaring and sputtering. Kaoru would never understand what this moment meant for him, what a fond memory he'd have attached to this tattoo, but that was okay. "It was worth it."
He just sighed and pushed Kojiro out of the way, barely hiding his little smile. Barely.