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The door to the condo smacks loudly against the wall, and two bickering voices echo behind it, already deep in the middle of an argument.
“You started it!” the first voice insists, a thin older man with a reedy face and sharp, pointed chin. Straight pink hair shot through with gray frames his face in a soft bob. Crow’s feet and frown lines score his age, but his eyes are piercing, razor-wire gold under his glasses. Kaoru still has an artist’s hands, though, seemingly delicate and fine even as he throws a tabi at his companion.
“How the heck did I start it?!” the second one protests. The other man is broader, shoulders round and bulky and neck thick. His face is similarly square but worn and softened with time. His eyes are amber red and downturned against tan skin, sparkling with indignation and delight as he dodged. Kojiro’s beard is so gray its original forest green is almost gone. The unruly curls on his head match, like pine needles buried in a bed of ash; they resist the tug of his large, sun-spotted hands as he sighs.
“You called me soft!”
“It was a compliment!”
“Not to me!” Kaoru’s frown draws down further. He knocks away Kojiro’s apologetic hands with a brusque slap before collecting his errant tabi. Aligning them carefully in the genkan gives him a moment to collect his words – a skill he’s long had to perfect in making their marriage work.
“Princess?” Kojiro doesn’t try to touch him again; he’s finally caught on that something is really wrong, rather than a playfight. One of their playfights, at least, which tend to be more spiteful than most. “What’s wrong?”
“You know I hate being called that. You know.”
Soft. Demure. Gentle.
All things Kaoru had been prescribed, back when he was a child with a girl’s name and a skirt that caught awkwardly around his knees. Words he hated, the way they diminished him, pushed him down, until he punched back with venomous words and baseball bats and hormone therapy.
He didn’t normally mind when Kojiro used them – Kojiro who stood by him through it all, who experienced it at his side until he left Japan as a rambunctious, pudgy tomboy and came back from Italy a full-fledged man.
But sitting at a charity event as a guest, making idle small talk with the foreign couple assigned to their table – millionaire real estate “moguls”, he had scoffed behind his fan. He could see it in their eyes when Kojiro said “soft,” the image they concocted about a doting little wife with a penchant for calligraphy and hand-painted kimono. As if Kaoru hadn’t wrestled his manhood from the universe, societal expectations, and the limits of his own biology.
Kojiro’s touch is as gentle as ever; his hands curl over Kaoru’s shoulders, parting his hair to place a kiss on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry,” he sighs kindly. “I forgot about that.”
His apologies slip like sweet wine from his mouth, and Kaoru always laps them up. His head tilts back to catch Kojiro leaning over him. He smiles his forgiveness until his husband bends forward and grants him a silly, upside-down kiss.
He lets Kojiro help him stand. “We should do something about your memory, you old gorilla. You’ll forget how to make carbonara any day now.”
“We can’t have that,” Kojiro chuckles. His hand settles low on Kaoru’s back, and he pulls him into another kiss. “Then what will you eat.”
“Langa’s still working as a chef, unlike someone.”
Kaoru laughs over Kojiro’s lamenting about his husband running off with his former apprentice, the kid they watched fall in love with Reki, skateboarding, and cooking (in that order). They draw together through their cozy little home, past the photos of family and friends and weddings and children, CARLA’s in her docking station glowing idly on the coffee table, the lazy trickle of fading sunlight that catches on his CARLA longboard and Kojiro’s Sole near the balcony doors. The beloved clutter and detritus of a long life spent together, carefully collected and preserved.
Two wine glasses set perpetually on the kitchen counter, always waiting to be filled at the end of the day. It’s an unspoken mutual decision that sees Kojiro plucking Kaoru’s favorite Lafite from the rack. Kaoru savors it in silence – the wine, the setting, the dutiful husband tending to his tastes.
“I’m sorry, too.” His apologies aren’t so easy, not the honeyed treat that Kojiro offers. But Kojiro eats it up just the same, smile dancing as he hands Kaoru a glass.
“For what?”
The wine is velvety and bitter, dark cherry heavy on his tongue. Perfect.
“For saying your dick is soft,” he continues, smirking over his drink.
“Jerk,” Kojiro teases. He bullies into Kaoru’s space, finds his hip and pulls them together. “I’ve spent a lot of money on my cocks, you know. Just to please my spoiled husband with every size, shape, and color that greedy man desires.”
“Spent my money, you mean.”
“Our money.”
Kaoru finishes the wine in his glass in a long, slow draw as he holds Kojiro’s bemused gaze. He snags Kojiro’s glass and clears it as well.
“I was going to drink that!”
“Not anymore,” Kaoru corrects. He slips his hands into the back pockets of Kojiro’s trousers and squeezes. “Now, show me my money’s worth.”
“Our money’s worth.”
What else is there to do but silence his silly, ridiculous, idiot husband with a kiss.