Work Text:
The harsh light of a small desk lamp illuminated the otherwise pitch black bedroom of Izumi’s apartment in Florence and the somewhat consistent sounds of a ballpoint pen meeting a workbook were accompanied by the model’s occasional sighs. Next to him, Leo lazily rested his head on the other’s shoulder, inhaling the comforting smell of their laundry detergent while carefully observing the results of his boyfriend's grammar revision attempts.
They were, uhm, something for sure.
“Have you been slacking off? How can you forget the vocabulary I taught you just a few says ago” Leo laughed into Izumi’s shoulder all the while reaching out to playfully pinch his side.
Something he should’ve thought twice before doing and saying as next thing he knew the clatter of the ballpoint pen meeting the hardwood floor echoed through their bedroom and Izumi quickly moved to close the books on his desk with a loud thump.
Italian Grammar for Dummies and Complete Italian Workbook for Adult Beginners they read. Next to those hardbound covers and directly in front of Izumi lay a pile of papers in various shapes that have been neatly stapled together – Leo’s amateur attempt of making his lover a self-made collection of helpful everyday phrases for the model’s line of work. He even included little doodles to help visualize and internalize the words. If you ignore the occasional small compositions and love letters in between the vocabulary, it was pretty much up to publishing standards, Leo thought and Izumi never disagreed.
“I’m done for today. Since you seem to already know everything, how about you do the rest of the exercises.” The model pettily suggested under his breath and tried to push the other away from his shoulder which was only met with Leo scooting even closer and tightening his hold on the other’s waist.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. I specifically picked out these pages because I noticed you were struggling with these topics”
Izumi quickly turned his head away to stubbornly stare at the wall. “Who’s struggling?”
“You are!” Leo chirped without missing a beat.
Another attempt to escape from Leo’s leech-like grip had Izumi shoving his hands into the composer’s face which he quickly retracted after Leo lightheartedly bit one of his fingers.
“Oww?” Izumi inspected the little redish bite mark on his ring finger that was already starting to fade away and wiped his finger on his pajama shirt in disgust upon further examination as he noticed some saliva coating it. "You’re absolutely disgusting. I‘m going to sleep.”
His boyfriend laughed and didn’t even pretend to intend on letting Izumi move away any time soon, happily wiggling his feet in their matching bunny slippers. Instead, Leo leaned in to leave a peck on the downturned corners of his lover’s mouth and happily watched Izumi’s brows furrow in displeasure with a lovestruck smile on his face. Leo started humming to himself, lightly tapping the hands on his boyfriend’s waist to the unfamiliar tune. Completely carefree - like everything was the way it was supposed to be, like there was nothing wrong with this situation, like Izumi hadn’t been stuck at his desk since dinner trying to soak up as much grammar as he could into his already tired brain.
One of them clearly was having too much here and it was starting to really piss Izumi off. In fact, it had been pissing him off for months now.
♡ *:.｡. ☆.｡.:* ♡
Here’s the problem. Izumi had been preparing for life in Italy even when he was still staying in Japan. He might be a little embarrassed to admit it, but Izumi started listening to Italian songs and watching Italian movies in hopes that doing so would teach him everyday phrases, not that he would tell anyone.
He had been living in Italy for a few months now, and of course his hard work had paid off. It always did. Sena Izumi was a perfectionist, after all. He was by no means bad at the new language, considering the little time he had spent in this foreign country and how he has had increasingly less time to study due to jobs piling up. In fact, he used to be somewhat proud of how he was already able to somewhat naturally converse with some of the locals and colleagues in the industry. The model was used to being on the receiving side of praise each time he was able to deliver a sentence with minimal stumbling around the words and the clumsy accent of a beginner.
If only it weren’t for Leo, he would’ve even been a little satisfied with his communication skills.
But of course life wasn’t that well-meaning, it never was to Izumi, and his boyfriend turned out to be some high-flyer in Italian, picking up the language like it’s second nature to him and chatting up every server, cashier, photographer, client like he was born here. Conversations with people flowed naturally for the composer, partly due to his easy-going nature, and party because, oh how could Izumi forget, Leo is a fucking genius. Of course, the composer also had to start somewhere and wasn’t alway this fluent - however even back then he made up the little bits of words he didn’t know with his also scarily impeccable English skills. Izumi had to find out during some high class music event, watching his boyfriend talk to a well-known Italian composer in accent-free English when Leo couldn’t find the right words in Italian. Izumi probably hadn’t been able to properly close his mouth for the rest of the event.
How was this even possible? The model didn’t even question it anymore as Leo’s genius seemed to not only be limited to composing but also language learning and God knew what else.
Setting Izumi’s admittedly really petty jealousy aside, Leo’s skills of course also proved themselves to be useful in various situations. He couldn’t deny how reassuring and comforting it was to know that his partner was fully capable of understanding the intricacies of a new job offer, never leaving Izumi to wonder what he was signing himself up for and speaking up for his boyfriend.
For instance, there was a time the model was already in the studio, posing for a Italian brand which had been slowly rising in popularity. Izumi was dressed in loose pants and a shirt with the first few buttons undone, silver jewelry adorning his everywhere as Izumi felt the delicate pieces of his headdress dangling on his styled hair. Summer in Italy was no joke, especially with multiple lights shining directly onto your face in a poorly ventilated studio. After unbuttoning most of his shirt to cool down, an exhausted Izumi had moved to his belongings during break time. He felt the water droplets drip onto his body as he took a sip out of his comfortingly cool water bottle when suddenly an unnerving silence spread through the room and Izumi felt the sharp eyes of every photographer, make-up artist and stylist on him.
It was during this moment that Izumi felt grateful more than ever that his overly clingy boyfriend had dragged himself to one of his first modeling shoots in Italy.
“Just to make sure everything goes well” Leo had said with a reassuring smile on his face, “I’m going with you.”
Once Izumi stopped drinking to questioningly look up from his water, the room erupted from an alarming silence to heated chatter as if a switch had been turned. The staff around the room were talking to each other in rapid-fire, emotional Italian that Izumi, to put quite frankly, had no way of understanding this early of his stay in another country. Taken aback by the various people sometimes laughing and sometimes shouting at each other, Izumi longed to see a familiar silhouette. His eyes hastily scanned the room for the silhouette of his boyfriend clad in all-black clothing with part of his hair tied in a loose bun and the other half laying down his shoulders. Izumi remembered the conversation they had this morning.
“But Sena..it’s too early..just let me go as I am right now.”
“At least tie your hair up Leo-kun. You look like a bum like this.”
It turns out that Morning-Izumi had been right, as when he finally found Leo amongst the crowd of people, he looked exceedingly intimidating with his arms crossed and his sharp eyes glaring daggers at what seemed to be the back of the main stylist’s head. The middle aged man had carelessly discarded the pieces of clothing he was previously holding for Izumi to change into onto the nearest chair and animatedly conversed with the photographer. Izumi didn’t know what was going on and moved into their direction to ask what the hell was happening when the next thing he heard was Leo’s voice tearing through the staff’s agitated chatter. The composer spoke with the certainty as well as the speed of a native speaker and the authority of some disgustingly important manager – it was quite easy to forget that Leo was neither of those, actually not even meant to be here.
Once again, Izumi had no idea what was being said, only being able to catch pieces of sentences like “doesn’t want to” and “not in the contract”. After a seemingly very emotional back and forth between the stylist and a very displeased looking Leo, the older man seemed to sigh and give in as he clapped and signaled for the photoshoot to go on as usual, picking up the previously discarded clothing for the model to change into.
Izumi so very desperately wanted to know what was going on but was quickly ushered into the changing room and make-up area by the staff while a now much happier looking Leo was screaming “Don’t worry about it, Sena!” into his general direction with a self-satisfied, triumphant grin on his face.
It was only once the rest of the photoshoot ended and Izumi, already changed into his own clothes and, was discussing details of his next shoot with the photographer that Leo started looking scarily displeased again. Not this again, Izumi thought before turning his attention back to the man in front of him again. At this point, he just wanted to finish up quickly and confront his boyfriend about what had happened now. The photographer, however, turned out to be chattier than Izumi initially thought and every effort of Izumi’s to end the conversation as soon as possible was met with the man bringing up another topic which Izumi didn’t even understand half of. Not being able to afford being rude to one of Italy’s most well-known men in the industry, the model couldn’t help but listen impatiently, smiling politely while silently wishing that the sky would open up and drop a rock on this ignorant person chatting away happily.
All of a sudden, the man was stepping closer, inappropriately so, and Izumi was caught off guard by an arm sneaking around his waist and pulling him closer to the other’s body in what seemed to be a hug.
At least he seems to be done talking, Izumi couldn't help but think while awkwardly keeping his arms in the air, not knowing where to rest them. The embrace, however, seemed to be over as soon as it started as next thing the model knew, he was being pulled away from the man by a strong arm, his back harshly meeting the chest of the person behind him. Izumi released a sharp breath before he confusedly turned his head to complain, his eyes widening in recognition upon seeing a familiar shade of green eyes glaring at the man in front of them with what seemed to be a frown on his face. To Izumi, it was a pout, really.
“Leo-ku-” He was rudely interrupted by his boyfriend speaking over him and directly to the photographer. What was he saying? Izumi couldn’t really care about anything else right now but discreetly, so that no one would see unless they were paying special attention, stepping on his boyfriend's foot in anger, who in return only tightened his hold on his waist and acted like nothing had happened.
Needless to say, the model was fuming and when Izumi looked up to meet Leo's eyes, the other was smiling at him although looking somewhat annoyed. Him and the photographer both seemed to be exchanging farewells by now, at least this much Izumi could understand, so when Leo was already starting to move and drag Izumi along with him, Izumi quickly called out his goodbyes over his shoulder in a desperate attempt to not seem rude. The last thing he was able to pick up before they finally left the room, courtesy of Leo pulling him behind him with Izumi’s work bag already on his shoulder, was an enthusiastic "Ciao bella!” from the photographer and the door slamming shut. At these words, Izumi heard his boyfriend exhale loudly through his nose and tighten his grip on Izumi’s wrist, any tighter and Izumi would seriously push Leo down the flight of stairs. For the nth time today, the model was left wondering what was going on with him.
The couple stepped through the parking lot and the composer only let go of his boyfriend’s wrist when they arrived in front of Leo’s stupidly expensive car. Izumi decided to keep quiet for now lest he would completely lash out at the other but it was apparent that he was waiting for an explanation.
It was during the car ride home at a red light that Leo had seemingly calmed down enough to carefully speak up with a sigh.
“First of all I want you to promise to not get angry at me, Sena..” Leo uttered carefully, firmly keeping his eyes on the road. Izumi felt himself involuntarily clutching the phone on his lap.
“I don’t know, Leo-kun. You were making it quite hard for me there.”
“If you knew what they were suggesting, you would be upset too!”
“If I knew? Are you really insinuating that I can’t understand this stupid language right now?” He immediately jumped to conclusions and tightened his hold on his phone, watching the scenery pass from the window with a huff. Hearing that he had somehow managed to make his boyfriend even angrier, Leo reached out to reassuringly lay his right hand on Izumi’s, which was met with the other quickly dodging and forcibly putting his boyfriend’s hand back on the steering wheel.
“Focus on driving, will you?” he muttered while not averting his gaze from the window even once. He’s gonna chew Leo out when they’re at home, he decided - for now he was focusing on not letting his frustration get the best of him and scream at the other man without listening to him. Over the course of living together, they had slowly discovered that arguing while Izumi was still visibly angry would only lead to screaming matches and hurtful jabs at each other, so they both had established a system of waiting to let some of the emotions dissuade. They had learned from their past, after all.
Izumi couldn’t, however, hold back from pinching Leo when he heard him sigh a little too loudly and he grinned to himself when he heard him flinch away.
“What the hell? Who even does this to a driving person?”
“You’re the one who keeps on sighing, stealing all my oxygen.”
Leo bit his lips to encage the next sigh that was threatening to escape his throat.
The car ride stretched on and so did the silence which was starting to make Leo exceedingly uncomfortable. When he decided to pull over at the nearest parking lot, Izumi finally teared his gaze away from the window and expectantly mustered his boyfriend who had now turned to him.
“So? Care to explain what was wrong with you there? And you better get straight to the point this time.”
Leo inhaled deeply.
“They were talking about how they should hire you for a beach brand shooting.” Leo answered to rip the band-aid off quickly and earnestly looked into the other’s eyes like an idiot.
It was at this exact moment that Izumi had to physically hold himself back from smashing the car door open and leaving in the middle of nowhere.
“Which is a bad thing, why? I already told you that I can’t be picky with job offers in the beginning. This would’ve been an ideal outcome for me”
“Ah, I knew you wouldn’t get it!” Leo hid his face in his hands in frustration and leaned back in his car seat. Izumi followed his every movement with a frown on his face.
“You’re right, I really don’t. So tell me quickly before I decide that you will never be allowed to accompany me to work again.” Izumi huffed and it might as well mean death to the clingiest person alive sitting next to him, so Leo was quick to answer.
"It’s just.. the way they said it, okay? They kept calling you praising you and calling you beautiful and-” Izumi raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.
“Which you are!” Leo hastily and needlessly added, having misunderstood his lover’s actions, while reaching out to cup Izumi’s face in his hands, “You’re the most beautiful! the prettiest! No one compares! They just used a lot of words that I didn‘t like to describe it while staring at you weirdly…..Don’t look at me like that, Sena!”
“If this really is the only reason you behaved like that, you might have to invent in a comfier couch because I’m not letting you sleep on my bed any longer."
“Wow, you’re not kicking me out of the apartment..?” The composer tried to lighten the mood but reluctantly straightened up again upon seeing the other‘s stern gaze. It seemed that he could no longer hide what was the real issue.
“Ughh okay then.. Tell me, Sena. Would you have been totally comfortable during this this shoot?”, Leo suddenly very grimly inquired, his sharp eyes looking straight into Izumi’s. Taken aback, the other lowered his shoulders and pushed a stray lock of hair away from his face, not being able to keep eye contact anymore. The model hesitated before answering truthfully, “I mean.. if I have to, I’ll do it.”
Leo started looking increasingly displeased. "See, I knew it! You wouldn’t have been able to refuse so I did it for you! You can do every job you want. Just don’t force yourself to do things that make you feel uncomfortable.. Especially not when I could easily help you out of the situation.” The composer leaned forward and his startlingly serious eyes met his lover’s. Leo couldn’t help but feel conflicted, carefully reaching out to take Izumi’s face into his hands. He hoped the other would understand the seriousness of his words.
Izumi felt understanding rush through his body and his expression softened slowly. It was almost absurd how quickly the feelings of anger in Izumi washed away and were replaced with such an overbearing love for the man in front of him, his heart threatening to tear a hole through his chest.
“Thank you, Leo-kun.” At a loss for words, Izumi put his hands on top of the other’s and smiled almost shyly, leaning in to leave a peck on Leo’s cheek, taking in the sight of his soft features.
“Also, the photographer guy was starting to really piss me off..! ♪”
Izumi lightly pulled at Leo’s hair and leaned in once again to bite his lover’s stupidly cute nose.
”Ow Ow Ow..! Psycho!”
♡ *:.｡. ☆.｡.:* ♡
Apart from the convenience Leo’s language skills brought into Izumi’s life, there was one more significant world-changing, life-altering, important aspect to them. An aspect so grave that it was almost ridiculous to acknowledge it only now.
Did Izumi mention that Leo’s Italian was like, uhm, really fucking attractive?
Because, oh, now he was.
It’s little moments like Leo nonchalantly answering phone calls in flawless Italian that got to Izumi the most. Yeah, Leo was smart, ridiculously so, Izumi already knew that. However the model didn’t know that Leo's genius out of all of his boyfriend’s charming facets would be the one thing that would get to him the most. To add to Izumi’s misery - Leo didn’t hold back from showing off in front of Izumi in the slightest.
Especially not once he found out why exactly his boyfriend would stubbornly hide behind the menu when Leo had finished ordering for both of them in restaurants. Or why Izumi’s heart had started beating faster the time they were lounging together on the couch, Leo’s head lazily resting on his boyfriend’s chest while answering a phone call and discussing the details of a new song with another composer. In Italian. It was a miracle that Izumi didn’t at least attempt to suffocate himself in between Leo’s hair and the couch pillows. Because, what the fuck? Why did he suddenly find every single normal thing that Leo did attractive just because he was doing it in another language.
To top it off, it gets worse, because, of course, Leo had to be really cute about it — like sickeningly so. For instance, he would sleep talk in the mornings while Izumi was getting ready for work and mix Japanese with little bits of Italian between his sentences, calling out Izumi’s name in a tired whisper.
It was needless to say that Leo caught on to his lover’s infatuation relatively quickly. Leo knew he was a genius, but he could confidently say that realizing the effect hin speaking another language had on Izumi was one of his greatest discoveries and accomplishments. Izumi wishes his bearded face was printed black and white in some eighth grader's physics book for inventing the first ever time machine, so he could travel back in time and ensure Leo never ever found out. The composer would get so unbelievably smug and straight up shameless about it, leaving his boyfriend incredibly flustered.
“Did I look, hmm, what did you say to Naru over the phone again yesterday..., ah! Did I look really cute right now, Sena?” Outside of a boutique after bidding goodbye to the cashier.
“I bet that made your heart flutter!” After politely telling the server that they had accidentally messed up Izumi’s order.
All these little moments piling up made Izumi feel like a pot about to burst. One last drop and he might seriously lose it. Oh, would someone please have the mercy to kill Izumi already.
♡ *:.｡. ☆.｡.:* ♡
At least Leo tripping over words served as some sort of consolation to Izumi. It felt way too good when Leo mispronounced or forgot a word and got so terribly upset about it. It seemed that the composer was so ridiculously confident that when he did mess up in front of Izumi, the love of his life, the person whose praise he sought like a starving man, it made him feel even more mortified and embarrassed. So embarrassed that he would sometimes refuse to talk in the foreign language or even leave the house for the rest of the day.
Was it pathetic? Yes, actually. Kind of.
He thought of Leo's slumped form underneath their bedsheets, not even crawling out to eat, instead accepting whatever crumbs Izumi threw his way in some Gregor Samsa-esque obedience.
Scratch that - he was ridiculously pathetic.
But who was Izumi to judge? As long as Leo listened to Izumi and kept working hard, Izumi didn’t mind a little patheticness, in fact, he embraced it.
“Exactly the three qualities Secchan seeks in a man” Ritsu joked when the rest of Knights were visiting them in Florence.
Leo had left the apartment to buy some more groceries for dinner so they had all the time to talk behind the composer’s back and, to Izumi’s dismay, question him about their love life. The rest of Knights were sprawled out on the couch in a way that was not exactly befitting of idols. Arashi, Tsukasa and Izumi sharing the big one while Ritsu occupied the armchair opposite them. Izumi didn’t say anything as Ritsu was not entirely wrong and instead chose to wordlessly look away, neither denying nor agreeing which made Ritsu chuckle. Seeing Arashi’s “I can’t believe this person” expression, something specifically reserved for Izumi, the model tried to change the topic.
“Instead of flying all the way to Italy to harass me about my relationship, how about learning what you look for in a man and leaving me alone, Kuma-kun.”
“That was such a bad comeback, even for you, Secchan.” Ritsu couldn‘t help but comment.
A pillow to Ritsu’s face later, Izumi turned to Tsukasa who was sitting on his left. So far, he had been diligently keeping quiet in order to not become the target of his senpais’ nagging and bickering. Especially since he was sandwiched between Arashi and Izumi. Yeah, he definitely did not want to get dragged in.
It seemed that his tactic of silence would no longer work when Izumi scooted even closer to him, having chosen his next target. “How about Kasa-kun? Are you properly taking care of Knights or are you fooling around with someone behind your our backs?” Izumi couldn’t hold himself back from teasing upon seeing the younger’s slightly chubby cheeks and pulling one of them lightly.
Arashi and Ritsu, the assholes, quickly joined in, never missing an opportunity to jokingly poke fun at and gang up on their youngest.
“That’s right. Suu-chan is at that age, isn‘t he?” Ritsu snickered when the redhead groaned and buried his face in his hands.
“He can’t leave us yet. I won’t allow it” Arashi sniffled into Tsukasa’s hair before rubbing her cheek against his in an overbearing fashion.
“Ughh Narukami-senpai, Ritsu-senpai..Knights is my priority right now, so you do not have to worry…At all, actually.” Tsukasa was afraid of where this conversation could head.
But of course, once the others started targeting him, nothing he said could get him out of the situation. “Right now, you say? Wowww Suu-chan, so you plan on leaving us behind later on” Ritsu had to chime in once again while lazily draping himself over the modern armchair, legs dangling over the armrest.
“So who is our Kasa-kun crushing on?”
“No one.” The boy sternly replied in that earnest and honest tone of his which meant he was absolutely telling the truth. Not that he would attempt lying in front of his senpais, the world’s greatest and most shameless liars. They would look right through him.
“You asking our dear Kasa-kun that question is really foul, Izumi-chan. If you had asked a few years ago, his answer would’ve been shockingly different.” Arashi giggled while grinning at Ritsu and both of them proceeded to look at Izumi like they knew something he didn’t.
“What are you talking about?” Izumi bristly replied, not being able to take their stupid grimaces. Arashi smile sinisterly and Ritsu was not so stealthily pointing at a framed picture of Izumi and Leo on the living room dresser while winking really obnoxiously at Izumi. Judging by their leader’s red cheeks and the way he was absolutely refusing to look in Izumi’s general direction, Izumi could honestly take a guess by now. However the model wanted to be sure before he assumed anything ridiculous. Before Izumi could strangle an answer out of both of them, Arashi crossed her legs and rested her face on her hand, finally replying somewhat seriously.
“Hmm..I don't know..? Probably about first year Tsukasa-chan's crush on you?” Arashi decided to rip the band-aid off and couldn’t suppress a devilish smile upon seeing Izumi‘s incredulous expression, all the while reaching out to affectionately pet the red-haired boy‘s head.
Tsukasa reacted by taking the nearest pillow and muffling his groans into its fluffy case, refusing to acknowledge what was being said or his existence right now. Izumi confusedly looked at the boy sitting next to him. ”What?”
“Oh, come on, you can’t be serious..” Ritsu yawned a little, excessively smacking his lips to annoy Izumi. “It’s a well-known fact in Knights by now, you could almost call it a Knights tradition.. The sky is blue, dinosaurs became extinct, and part of puberty is having a crush on Secchan. You know how it is.”
Izumi felt his mouth drop open. “No, I, in fact, don't know,” Izumi paused mid-sentence to properly imitate Ritsu’s lazy way of speaking “how it is.”
To say that Izumi was shocked would be an understatement. He had thought that baby Tsukasa had been crushing on Leo of all people, the guy he was looking up to, the guy who he couldn't stop talking about (complaining, really) - not him. What the hell.
“Now you do.” Ritsu shrugged before popping a grape into his mouth and when Izumi turned to look at Arashi, she was already nonchalantly peeling an apple while nodding slowly like this was the most normal thing to admit. “You really are dense, Izumi-chan. I thought you’d known by the way I was clinging to you at every given opportunity during shoots. Looking back, that was really embarrassing. Or when we, you know, kissed.”
Izumi pretended to not hear the last sentence and it seemed that no one in the room was surprised anymore, Ritsu even chuckling light-heartedly. “I had you as my wallpaper for almost a year, Secchan” Ritsu let himself be fed by Arashi, “Good times”
Izumi was confused, but it weirdly didn’t shock him as much as he thought it would. Once it sank in, it was actually somewhat funny and not that weird as Izumi himself couldn’t deny having had thoughts about his unit members that definitely weren’t just platonic during high school. Alright, maybe he did find it a little weird, especially coming from Arashi who he hadn’t really seen in that light for a while now and Ritsu who he knew had the most obsessive crush on his childhood friend.
As for their youngest, Izumi couldn’t help but find it oddly cute. If he was being absolutely honest, it was more than just cute - it was so ridiculously sweet that Izumi had to physically resist squeezing the other in a sudden fit of cute aggression. Izumi smiled fondly at the boy next to him who, by now, was hiding his entire upper body and face underneath the couch’s expensive designer throw blanket.
“That was years ago! And only for a few months..! Forget about it.” A muffled voice hesitantly spoke up.
“Why are you giving up on me so quickly, Kasa-kun” Izumi wrapped his arms around the other boy who was still refusing to come out of his blanket-made cocoon, now struggling against the model’s hold.
“Be careful about going after other men, Izumi-chan Don’t you have a hot Italian speaking boyfriend to moan about?” Arashi finally decided to have some mercy on their youngest and shamelessly stared right into her fellow model’s eyes as if she hadn’t just publicly spilled one of Izumi’s most embarrassing secrets while smiling merrily.
“Naru-kun..!” Izumi whisper-shouted, feeling genuinely betrayed. There was no way Arashi had just said that out loud. Their private chat was strictly confidential - Izumi would fight the FBI over its contents. He was hallucinating. Clearly. She had gotten way too comfortable in the last few minutes, carelessly leaking the contents of their chat and with it the deepest and darkest corners of Izumi’s brain.
“Huh..?” Tsukasa slowly emerged from his nest upon feeling the sudden shift of the atmosphere, confusedly blinking between Arashi and Izumi, ready to deescalate the situation in case it got ugly. He really didn't want to get caught between them, he couldn’t think that often enough.
“This is news to me. Are you and Nacchan keeping secrets again?” Ritsu, as always not caring about reading the room, stood up and dragged himself to the bigger couch before he nonchalantly dropped himself on Izumi’s lap and cuddled up to him like a lazy cat.
“Tell me everything about that sexy boyfriend of yours. This is exactly what I’m in Florence for.”
“No. Forget that you ever hear anything.” Izumi insisted.
“Huh? No way. Now I’m invested.”
“Anyone would give up on you after hearing the way he seeing you burn holes into our Ou-sama..” Arashi exhaled dully.
Izumi now turned his attention to their again, disbelievingly staring at her, “I do not not do that”
“Uh-huh.” Arashi nibbled on her apple, now disinterestedly scrolling through Instagram, only stopping to watch a ASMR video of a cat eating watermelon.
“Certainly did not sound like that last time you texted me, and I quote,” Arashi paused to replicate Izumi’s voice with a ridiculously high pitch which Izumi frankly couldn’t recognize as his own voice, “Leo-kun is sooo considerate~ just because he got your ass out of a shoot you didn’t want to do.”
“There are shoots that even a person like Secchan wouldn’t want to do?“ Ritsu curiously chimed in. The model decided to not think about what that sentence might imply.
“Yeah, the photographer of his latest shoot invited him to model for something revealing and Ou-sama started going nuts for whatever reason. And somehow Izumi-chan thought that he was soo cute for doing that. I will never understand crazy people”
“That's surprising. I thought you and Secchan loved gravure shoots? Especially him.” Izumi did not know exactly what Ritsu wanted to imply by that again, but it was probably something negative.
“You are sitting on my couch, eating my food and using my wifi.” Izumi pettily retorted, already having given up on stopping his friend from carelessly gossiping. About him. Who was in the very room with them.
“No need to feel excluded, I’ll send you the screenshots later, Ritsu-chan” Arashi spoke up carefully - like Izumi was some monster, like Izumi couldn’t hear her and end her entire career with pictures of her in seventh grade.
“No, yo won-” Izumi immediately retorted, trying to remove Ritsu from his lap and slap Arashi’s phone away from her hands - however he was interrupted by a familiar voice calling out his name through the hallway.
“Sena, the rest of my knights! I’m back!”
After Leo had entered the room, a silent agreement to forget what they had been talking about formed, initiated by Izumi’s slow and venomous glances at each person in the room.
As they were preparing for dinner together, Tsukasa was desperately trying to recover from what had to be one of the most confusing and embarrassing 20 minutes of his life. And this meant something, considering he was a member of Knights, a unit full of the weirdest and most embarrassing people he had ever met.
♡ *:.｡. ☆.｡.:* ♡
Over the course of a few months Izumi‘s Italian had suddenly started improving exponentially, his boyfriend‘s involvement in his studying sessions playing no small role in this development. Be it on the plane, the dining table or even during lazy conversations before going to sleep, Leo always encouraged his lover to converse in the foreign language with him - something Izumi was really hesitant and embarrassed about doing in front of Leo in the beginning. Realistically speaking, he knew that the other would never judge or look down at him for picking up the language slower than he did, but the walls of Izumi’s ridiculously high ego were hard to crush. With the help of the gentleness of his boyfriend‘s teaching methods, Izumi was slowly ushered out of his shell and before he knew it the two of them would even use, abuse, the language just to gossip about other people while they were in Japan.
For everyone else this proved itself to be an incredibly annoying by-product of their joint studying efforts but Izumi could honestly admit that this had to be one of the best and funniest things that came out of learning Italian. Izumi had to find out when the piercer in Japan couldn’t properly tear through Leo’s upper ear cartilage for his industrial piercing and the composer proceeded to let out one of the most vile combinations of curses he had ever heard in Italian, refusing to hurt the manicured hand Izumi had offered for him to squeeze, even while sucking in his breath through his teeth. Izumi was glad he had it on video in the private “Leo-kun♡” folder on his phone, right next to the public “Yuu-kun♡♡♡♡” one (which he kept strictly out of Leo’s reach as the composer would stubbornly insist on deleting the hearts each time he saw them only for Izumi to stubbornly add even more hearts than before).
The model wasn’t one to stop working on himself just because he’d reached a certain level of proficiency but it seemed that some of his boyfriend‘s laziness had started rubbing off on him as Izumi was gradually spending less time learning the language. Leo didn’t exactly care about this development, instead welcoming the newfound time they had to themselves. However, in order to keep his boyfriend somewhat motivated on studying Italian even deeper, Leo started leaving little encouraging notes on his boyfriend’s notes and Izumi really wished he could say it didn’t work. Ever since the yellow star-shaped stickers with different variations of "You did it!☆“, "you are the smartest” or "As expected, my Sena looks pretty in glasses too..” started appearing on the pages of the chapter Izumi was currently working on, he had been more than eager to properly study again.
He even set his phone language to Italian, like that would somehow make a serious life-altering difference, but to say that Izumi was desperate was an understatement at this point — he needed that stupid yellow star sticker. Even when Izumi was still making mistakes, Leo never held back from verbally praising his boyfriend to the heavens each time he learned something new, so Izumi was already somewhat immune to hushed words of adoration and little pecks between grammar revisions. The stickers, however, were foreign territory for Izumi as Leo was uncharacteristically stingy with distributing them, only sticking them on a page when his lover had absolutely zero mistakes.
Izumi didn’t know the entire psychological background on how this happened, but over the course of the last few weeks he had developed a severe emotional attachment to seeing that stupid smiling star sticker on his workbooks. Not that he would admit this to anyone, of course.
Having said this, Izumi moved to slide open his phone in order to text Arashi in scary detail about the exact way these stickers and, by extension, Leo made him feel, because "anyone” had never included Arashi.
Maybe dumping all of his feelings onto her via text messages wasn’t the best coping mechanism, but she was doing it too, so there’s no way the girl would complain. Heck, he had even seen multiple grocery lists being dumped into their chat - at this point they were using each other as something between a notes app and a complaint box. By the time his thumbs started to ache from typing and he had calmed down a little, Izumi finally pressed send and was almost immediately hit with a response.
Naru-kun (..♡)
i see therapy places seem to be scarce
in florence as well, izumi-chan ^_^
He should’ve kept quiet.