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Opening his window, Daichi slipped the flute Suga had given him out of his pocket. He still wasn't used to having someone in his life whom he couldn't call on a cell phone, but he had to admit this worked. He played a few fluttery notes into the alley behind his parents' house, and three breaths later, a fluffy gray bird with a cowlick on his head and a beauty spot under his eye landed on his windowsill. The simaenaga pecked lightly at the back of his hand until Daichi petted its feathers (in one direction only, or his birdie might get cross), then chirped a sound that Daichi had learned meant, "What's up?"
He felt a little odd talking to a bird who didn't answer in Japanese, but rather in chirps. Still, he didn't ask Suga to change just for a conversation. Suga had promised he'd get over the weirdness eventually, and he was determined to stick it out. After all, his boyfriend was a bird, and there was no reason to pretend he wasn't. He'd make his parents understand someday.
"I hope you weren't busy, Suga."
Mocking chirps.
"Yeah, well. I've got this assignment for my English class... I have to watch an English language movie and write a report."
Adorably cocked head, asking him to get to the point.
"Well, I thought... maybe... if you wanted to come over, we could make it a date. It's no fun watching movies alone."
Suga stretched up on his bird toes, puffed out his chest and shook his fluffy butt, flapping his wings in an awfully preening way. He glowed smiles even if bird beaks didn't work like mouths for that. The simaenaga bounced onto his hand and up his arm, flapping up the last foot or so to land on Daichi's shoulder, where happy pecks and nuzzles behind his ear pulled a laugh out of Daichi's very human throat.
"Hey, that tickles! So is that a yes?"
Chirping directly into his ear canal so it was extra loud, Suga fluttered himself one more time, then flew out the window to do a few loops.
"Great! I've got to get to school, so, see you after practice?"
The chirps before Suga flew off were distinctly sassy. That seemed like a good sign. He'd the the hang of this 'dating a bird youkai' thing yet.
~//~
"Hello again, Suga-kun," his mother said as his human-form boyfriend took off his shoes. "Can I take your coat?"
Daichi rushed over as fast as he could, not quite ready to have the "my boyfriend has wings" conversation. "It's okay, Mom, I've got it. You and dad have a nice time at the office party!" And then he forgot what he was doing for a second while he held on to Suga's lapels like a dork and got lost in his liquid brown eyes.
His mother cleared her throat to bring him back to reality. Whoops.
"All right, you two. Don't get into too much trouble."
"I'll keep an eye on him, Mrs. Sawamura," Suga answered with the utterly and completely fake face of an angel.
"Thank you, Suga-kun. Next time, you should come over for family dinner. I'd love to hear more about where you go to school!"
"Absolutely, Mrs. Sawamura! Have a good night!"
Suga had his mother charmed. Good thing, too. She left without even reciting a list of things he had to remember to--
"Daichi," she said, opening the door again to lean in with a smile. "If you have sex, remember to use a condom, okay?"
He wasn't sure which left him coughing and sputtering more, that comment, or Suga answering, "We always do, Mrs. Sawamura!" in his brightest, sweetest tone. He was pretty sure he'd just lost ten years off of his life, but what could you do?
The right jab directly to his breastbone told him what he could do: pay attention to Suga before he got punched again.
"So what movie are we watching?" his boyfriend asked, hanging his coat in the closet and stretching the wings off his shoulders after being cramped those last few minutes.
"I figured you'd help me pick. The teacher gave us a list of things we could find on Netflix that he'd give us credit for."
"Are there any with birds? No offense, but human problems are boring."
"No, that's... that's fine. I... um, I think there are some with birds..." He flipped to the 'Fantasy' section of the list, which was second most likely after cartoons to have actual bird protagonists, and this seemed like a situation where live action birds would be better than anthropomorphic bird cartoons. He hoped. "Oh, here's one. The lady turns into a hawk. Is that okay?"
"Probably the best I can hope for," the youkai laughed. Suga was already on the couch with the popcorn and the loaf of nice raisin bread Daichi had picked up at the bakery. He had pizza on the way, but Suga wasn't really much for cheese. So far so good!
The mood turned far less light as soon as Daichi called the summary up on Netflix.
"Daichi! She's cursed to turn into a hawk? Really? What kind of nonsense is that? Hawks can be perfectly nice once you get to know them. No one should be calling that a curse! I bet she has a lot of fun being a hawk... I know I would."
"No, no, see, the curse is that she's a hawk when her lover is human, and she's human when her lover is a wolf! See? So they can't ever actually be together! That's the curse part!"
His boyfriend's gorgeous face pinched into the cutest pout the world had ever seen. "Okay. But she'd better be a good hawk, or I'm picking a different movie."
~// LADYHAWKE //~
"She got shot? But that man is terrible with a crossbow! There's no way any hawk would...! Oh no..." The instant Suga started covering his eyes and shaking his head at the sight of the two men carrying the wounded hawk, Daichi dropped his fourth slice of pizza, wiped his fingers, turned off the movie and held out his hand for his boyfriend to take, all in the space of about half a second or maybe less.
"I'm sorry, Suga. Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine. Part of the problem is that it's not realistic, so..."
"Let's watch a movie where birds don't get hurt, okay?" Daichi reached for the list with his other hand to see if there was something else he could recommend.
Before he could even flip the first page, Suga grabbed it with a vengeance. "Let's watch something where birds fuck people up, really really a lot. You know, if that's all right with you. I understand, you're probably sensitive to seeing humans hurt, too."
"Well, in some circumstances, but most movies... kind of have humans getting hurt... I guess."
Wow. He'd never thought of it that way.
Meanwhile, Suga shrugged. "I guess that makes sense. You people have that weird mutant healing factor where you can even break a limb and not die." Which also went on the list of things Daichi had never thought about. Huh. "Where are the horror movies?"
"Horror? But, I mean... Are you sure you want to watch something where birds are the bad guys? I mean, I guess I'm okay with that if you are, but humans are going to be the heroes, and they're probably going to survive, so..."
"Villainy is a point of view. I'm sure that any bird demons in the films have perfectly good reasons for what they're doing, and maybe it'll help your paper if we can discuss their motivations from both perspectives! Anyway, as long as the birds fight well, I'll be fine, and honestly horror movies tend to be better for that. They don't try to dumb the birds down to make them some kind of a palatable caricature for cross-cultural understanding." Suga clicked his tongue as he pulled up the next option. "Bird hero archetypes in human fiction can be so speciesist, you know. But human representation in youkai fiction is just as bad, I've found. Ooh, I like the graphics on this!"
The promo shot on the summary page, naturally, showed a woman cowering in fear from a swooping flock of crows.
"Murder of crows, Daichi, dear. The name for a group of crows is a 'murder'."
Getting used to a boyfriend who could read his mind was harder than getting used to wings. Which weren't actually that hard to get used to, and he liked them very much because they were pretty and wonderful, he thought pointedly as a pout started to form on Suga's face. Turning his pout to a satisfied smile, Suga cuddled onto his shoulder, enveloping Daichi in one of said wings. It meant that Daichi couldn't wrap his arms around Suga's shoulder, but that was fine. He slipped it around his boyfriend's waist instead, earning a slap and a nip on the ear when he tried to tuck his hand into Suga's back pocket.
"You're watching for school. Pay attention to the movie."
Right. School. And he probably couldn't expect a normal date night horror movie experience anyway, not when Suga was going to be rooting for the flocks of possessed birds.
~// THE BIRDS //~
"Daichi, this is not okay."
Everything had seemed to be going so well, Suga brightening up with glee at the sight of birds strafing townspeople in a little seaside village. He figured he had to be absolutely gone on his pretty youkai if seeing him squirm in delight while watching a horror movie about birds gone murderous made him lose track of the plot because he was too busy thinking about how cute Suga's excited face was.
But now, looking at the crowds of birds hovering outside one of the buildings in the town, Suga had gone stiff. His stare had more outrage in it than fun.
"What happened?" Daichi gasped.
"Those birds! They're not possessed at all! Someone fed them alcohol!" The gray-haired youkai bolted to the front of the couch seat, fuming at the screen. "Just look at how they're moving! What kind of a jerk would get birds drunk to film a movie?! All Hitchcock had to do is ask properly! I'm sure his actors would have been perfectly cooperative!"
"Maybe I should--"
Before he could stop the film, a loud screeching came up while the birds attacked in droves, and Suga jumping up knocked the remote out of his reach. "What kind of crappy dialogue is this?! Did you even get a real bird to record your--"
Daichi didn't understand the details of the rest of the diatribe. In the middle of his first step toward the TV, Suga poofed into his simaenaga form, and it all came out in chirps and twitters. Very, very upset chirps and twitters, which nearly drowned out the screeching from the television. With a very upset bird flying around the room, taking strafing runs at the picture on the screen that were too close to the ones actually in the movie for comfort, Daichi left the remote for a second. The instant Suga wanted to stop the movie, he was perfectly capable of stopping it himself, and Daichi had a more important thing to do.
Text Asahi immediately to see if he knew any good movies where birds didn't get shafted by either the plot or the production methods, because he was completely out of ideas.
...
Daichi: pls help
Asahi: Wait, what? Why?
Daichi: can't explain pls hlep me
Asahi: Is this for class? What do you mean "bird representation"?
Daichi: ASAHI YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE
Asahi: Um, try a documentary?
Daichi: GENIUS THANK YOU
He flipped to the end of the movie list, chanting, "Come on, come on, come on..." under his breath, and finally thought he'd found something when Suga sat back down, clicking the horror movie off with a righteous huff.
"I can't believe that's what passes for cinema."
"I think I have a better movie, Suga. Let's try this one..."
~// MARCH OF THE PENGUINS //~
As much as he didn't want to cry, as much as he told himself he'd be strong, the tears kept running down his face while the credits rolled. "They made it, Suga..."
"I know, Daichi," his boyfriend cooed. Dabbing at Daichi's face with a handkerchief he'd pulled out of nowhere, Suga planted a tiny kiss on his hairline. "They made it."
"All they wanted was to live... and... and..."
"Here, blow your nose. It'll be okay."
"... Thank you." He wiped his face, and blew his nose, and took giant gulps of water until his throat mostly stopped hurting. "I never thought I'd feel this way about penguins."
"I know, right?! Flightless isn't usually my type, but the lead was a total hunk!"
He narrowed his eyes at his boyfriend's impish smile, although he couldn't help smiling himself. "Okay, now you're just being a jerk."
"You love me anyway," Suga answered, straddling his lap and nipping at his nose before closing in for a kiss.
"Or something."
He did his best to keep his hands on Suga's face and neck while one kiss turned into five, and five turned into making out, given that he had to keep an ear out for when his mother and father came home. He definitely tried. But in the end, he was only human.