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The Otori household’s idea of a New Year’s game is to, apparently, cork open a bottle of champagne and play Spin the Bottle. This is proved by Emu pouring a good amount of champagne into fancy little glasses. Rui raises an eyebrow.
“Don’t give me that look, Rui-kun! I promise you, this has ZERO! ALCOHOL! Not like…last year’s…”
He briefly has flashbacks to something very stupid-ly done that involved a Tenma Tsukasa, a lot of screaming, and something else. Nene gags. “Don’t remind me, Emu.” Tsukasa mimics the gag. “Please, no. I do not want to be called by the cops again. It will tarnish my record yet again.” He punctuates this last sentence with a pose. Rui giggles. Oh, how lucky he was to have a crush on someone as stupid and oblivious, enough that the hints dropped got a blind eye turned to them. Heck, even Emu knew at this point. Nene had said that she was half tempted to go out with her just to see Tsukasa’s reaction.
Ah, someday. “Someday.” Rui whispers to himself and swirls the champagne in the glass. Tsukasa looks up from where he’s motioning for Emu to pour him yet another glass. “Eh? Did you say something, dearest director?”
“No…nothing.” He looks down at the frothy liquid and proceeds to chug it down all at once. It burns his throat, which makes him briefly wonder whether Emu was lying about the whole…zero alcohol thing.
The first game they played was Exploding Kittens, which led to Tsukasa drawing the Exploding Kitten card way too many times. After that, they played WII, which led to Nene dominating them all. Along the way, apparently, Rui has drunk eight glasses of champagne, Tsukasa six, Emu three, and Nene, the most sober of them all, at one and a half. Emu takes this opportunity to use the now empty bottle for something else. “Spin the bottle!”
“What?” Truth to be told, Rui’s mind is not working so well right now. There’s like…dozens of flying sheep and sausage rolls on the ceiling…and did Tsukasa grow wings or something? Why did he look so ethereal? Or maybe that’s just his gay brain.
“So, basically…I spin this bottle, whoever the tip points to while have to choose between a dare and a truth!” She spins it without hesitation. The bottle rattles, and eventually lands on Tsukasa. “Ooh, Tsukasa-kun! Uh…”
“Truth.” The star holds up an index finger and jabs it at Emu. “The stars shall foretell our destiny!” Nene blinks. “I don’t think that applies to the situation here.”
“Okiee! Uhh…if you had to date someone in WXS, who would you date?”
“That’s easy. Rui.”
Nene shrieks. Then she slaps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Nothing. Um.”
Rui blinks. Once. Twice. Did Tsukasa just say he would date him?? The mentioned looks away briefly. “I mean…he’s kinda…handsome in his own right…”
“O~h, seems like someone has a crush~” Emu doesn’t wait for Tsukasa to answer before she flicks the bottle again. It spins, clockwise, and lands on Rui this time. “Dare.” He says, without hesitation, but some part in his brain whispers, “Are you sure about that?” Rui kicks that internal monologue to the side.
Emu rubs her hands gleefully, like some eager mastermind ready to commit a thousand felonies in one sitting. “You see that closet over there? Play seven minutes in heaven with…let’s see…Nene, who do you think should go?”
“That’s easy.” Nene raises an eyebrow, and jabs her thumb at Tsukasa. “These two.”
“My thoughts exactly, Nene-chan!” Rui opens his mouth to say something, but Emu hoists him up like he is weightless, and practically chucks him in the closet. “And in you go too, Tsukasa!” Said Tsukasa comes in, shocked too, at being carried by Nene. The door closes behind them, and he can hear the girls giggling behind them.
And then silence comes, and they’re thrown into darkness.
Rui suddenly forgets how to talk. Tsukasa clears his throat. “Any idea why they subjected us to this misery?” By “they”, he assumes it's Nene and Emu. His brain is mush right now. “Don’t know.”
That’s when Rui practically falls into the other, because his legs give up on him in the dark, cramped closet. Tsukasa lets out a small “oofmph” when he crashes into him. And now they’re both probably not really sober anymore, close enough that Rui can feel Tsukasa’s heartbeat and vice versa.
Silence descends like a cloud between them, and he racks his brain for something to say that would make this much less awkward. Seven minutes, Emu called this game, but seven feels like eternity. “I never got the opportunity to apologize.” Tsukasa blinks in surprise.
“For?”
“For saying you’ll never become a star.”
“Rui, that was so long ago.”
“I know. But even now I think about it. Because I never told you I was sorry.” The world swims before him. It’s growing hotter, like he’s in the hole of a volcano and it’s going to erupt at any time. Ok, Emu lied to them about the alcohol content. Rui’s sure he’s drunk. Or high. Either one.
“Did you…really mean what you said just now? That you’d date me. I mean…I’m not even hot…”
Tsukasa bursts out into laughter. “That’s what you’re worried about? Rui, we’ve known each other for a while now. This future star says what he means, and means what he says.”
“But I don’t think I deserve you.”
“Why would you say that?” The blonde’s voice does a complete 360 from his usual loudness, and Rui swallows nervously. “I…I let down everyone that cares about me, don’t I?”
“No.” Tsukasa blinks, and he can glimpse two amber eyes filled with warmth as he tilts his head curiously. “You never let WXS down. Even if sometime in the future you did, we’ll pick up the pieces together, chase our dreams. Make people smile. That’s what we planned for, right?”
“Then this is our ode to the future, to chase stardom with you.”
And the distance between them closes, as simple as that. A kiss can mean a lot of things, but this one has underlying hints of trust beneath it. Tsukasa’s hands are cold where Rui’s are warm. He blames it on the champagne.
A sharp inhalation of breath, but they don’t get to say anything, because the door opens and swings on its hinges to reveal Emu holding her phone with the timer app open. “Ding ding ding, lovebirds! Your seven minutes are up!” Nene chuckles. “It worked out well.”
Tsukasa turns red, while Rui lets his legs dangle out of the closet. Nene turns and gestures for Emu to start the movie, while wordlessly, Tsukasa slips one hand into Rui’s.
A simple act of inanimacy, but Rui lets him hold him, to be his anchor.
He takes the opportunity to trace a finger over Tsukasa’s palm, forming the swirls of a heart and the rough form of a star.
The squeeze he gets back in return is enough for him.