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Isami was lost in a sea of amber. The bronze of his lukewarm beer bled into the wooden bartop and the hazy, yellowed lights around him. The cacophony of voices and music was too loud for him to listen to any of it. Dull claustrophobia chewed away at his skin.
He’d been zoned out for a while, and reality only kicked in when an arm landed across his shoulders. “You wanna get out of here?” a familiar voice asked.
He did. Isami looked up into Smith’s bright blue eyes and found the only cool tone in the whole bar as refreshing as a glass of water. He nodded, and let himself be led outside.
That felt even better. The night air was crisp, even for summer, and the parking lot quiet. It gave Isami the space to remember that he had a body. “Where did you want to go?” he asked, once he trusted himself to speak.
Smith shrugged. He craned his head back to look at the stars. “I dunno. Didn’t really think about it that much; you just looked like you wanted to die back there.”
Isami cringed. “Really?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think Rio noticed. She was with Lulu, and Lulu makes it hard to notice anything else, you know?”
Isami did know. He’d tried more than once to get Smith to notice him while Lulu was around, and failed as many times. His empty stomach churned when he realized the opposite had been the case that night. “Yeah,” he said. His voice was faint. “I hope you’re right. I don’t want to ruin her birthday party…” Then he realized something else. “Is it okay for you to leave Lulu with everyone in a bar?”
Smith laughed. “Yeah, Lulu’s fine. She can take care of herself, and she’s been looking forward to this sleepover for weeks.”
Isami hummed. After a few more steps, they made it to Smith’s car, and he wracked his brain for something else to say. Anything he could use to steal a few more moments together.
But Smith saved him, like always. He leaned against his car and frowned at Isami. “You feeling better? We can go back to my place, if you need some more downtime, or—”
“Sure.”
Smith grinned.
Twenty minutes later, Smith ushered Isami into his two-bedroom apartment. “Sorry about the mess…” he apologized. He laughed, but sounded embarrassed. “I keep meaning to clean things up, but…I guess I’m kinda lazy with it.”
Isami looked around. Sure, there was some clutter—notebooks stacked on the kitchen table, action figures standing guard atop the bookshelf, unfolded blankets draped over the couch—but that was to be expected from anyone with a kid. What caught Isami’s eye was the rainbow-striped fabric hung over one of the windows. No wonder he’d always been so comfortable around Smith; they were the same. “It’s not that messy,” he said. Then, “I like your flag.”
“Oh! Uh, thanks.” When Isami looked at him, Smith turned away. His face was blocked from Isami’s sight when he reached an arm up to scratch at the back of his neck. “Lulu actually got it for me, believe it or not. Apparently she caught me staring at Kamen Rider’s butt one too many times, and figured it out before I got the chance to tell her…”
Isami hummed. He slipped off his shoes and took a few more steps into the apartment, leaving Smith behind. “That sounds nice. Mine was a gift from Miyu, when I moved in with her and Hibiki.”
When Smith spoke next, all of the tension that’d previously underlined his words was gone. “That’s cool! She’s really sweet. Makes sense she’d go for something like that.”
“She is.” Isami smiled at the memory. Miyu had been so eager to hang it up on Isami’s wall that she’d made him lift her up to do so. It was crooked—“not straight,” according to Hibiki—but Isami couldn’t bring himself to fix it. It had been hung by the hands of a friend who cared about him, and he would never take that for granted.
Once he’d gotten his face under control, he turned back around to look at Smith. “The military never gave you any shit?”
Smith shrugged. “Some. A few of my COs were old enough to have been around before DADT, and you had to be careful around them, but in general it was an open secret. Most guys didn’t mind unless you gave them reason to. And besides,” he said with a shrug, “sex is great for stress relief.”
Isami blinked. If he didn’t know any better…
Did he know any better?
He phrased it as a challenge. He told himself it was better that way—less desperate—even though he knew full well that neither of them could back down from one of those. “Maybe for you,” Isami said. “I think I’d like to hear from the other guy.”
Smith’s eyebrows shot up, and a smile pulled at his mouth. “Oh? Are you saying that you think it’s stressful to be in bed with me?”
Isami shrugged. He folded his arms over his chest so Smith couldn’t see his hands shake. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. He tried to keep his voice as aloof as possible.
And then Smith had something to prove. “Guess there’s only one way to find out,” he said as he closed the distance between them.
For the most part, Smith made good on his word. The stress of the party melted away from Isami’s heart as their bodies and the thinning space left between them grew warmer. Isami was beginning to think the night couldn’t get any better.
Until Smith’s alarm went off, and he cursed aloud, jumped off the bed and into his pants, and dashed into the living room to turn on the TV.
It happened too quickly for Isami to process. One minute, Smith was above him, his hands showing love to skin that no one, not even Isami himself, had thought to care for. The next, Isami was alone, stark naked, and feeling vulnerable for the first time that night.
An obvious hero theme song played from the other room, too. What the hell?
Isami blinked, and then got himself out of the bed. He stepped over to the door and poked his head out to find Smith sitting on his sofa, eyes glued to the screen in front of him. “Is…everything okay?” Isami asked.
Surprisingly, Smith looked over to Isami and grinned. “Hey! Yeah, it’s great! The new episode of Blazar is on,” he explained. He gestured towards the screen. “I’m hooked; I can’t miss what happens next. We can finish out here!”
…right.
“I think I’m good,” Isami decided. Smith didn’t seem bothered by that, which did not disappoint Isami. Instead, he picked up his phone and his clothes and carried them to the bathroom to take care of business. When he was ready, he joined Smith on the couch.
Smith threw an arm around him without taking his eyes away from the screen.
“What am I watching?” Isami asked. He tried to be subtle about leaning into Smith’s body. Not that Smith would notice; even if Isami had been loud about it, he still wasn’t wearing a Kamen Rider suit. And apparently that took precedence over anything else in Smith’s mind.
“It’s Blazar,” Smith explained. “The new Ultraman. Have you heard of it?”
“No.”
Isami hadn’t realized it, but that one-word answer had actually been an invitation. Smith immediately launched into a detailed breakdown of everything Blazar had to offer, and quickly expanded into the other recent Ultra series, like Decker and Tiga, which Isami had been equally out of the loop for. His only interruptions were self-inflicted, when the onscreen hero performed a new attack and Smith called its name aloud.
Well, until the episode neared its end, and there was a knock at the door.
Smith glanced over and frowned. “Hm? I’m not expecting anyone…”
“I am,” Isami said. He regretfully ducked out from under Smith’s arm and made his way to the door. Once he’d retrieved the delivery, he walked back to the couch. “I was hungry, so I ordered sushi. I hope you don’t mind. I got enough for us both.”
Isami was lucky. At that exact moment, the end credits started to roll, and he had Smith’s full attention. Appropriately, Smith facepalmed. “Ah, shit, I should’ve offered you something when we got here. Sorry about that…”
Isami shook his head. “It’s fine.” He sat down next to Smith again and handed him half of the meal and a bottle of water. “We were busy with the show, anyway.”
Smith nodded, clearly encouraged. “What did you think?”
“I think you’re a fucking dork.”
He was teasing, mostly, and trying to cover his ass. He had been watching Smith’s enjoyment more than he’d been watching the actual show. But it didn’t land right.
Smith smiled, but his face tinted pink too. “Hah, yeah, I guess that was a lot to hit you with all at once. Sorry; you don’t care about all that.”
Isami watched as Smith took a swig of water and tried very hard to avoid eye contact. “No,” Isami decided. He hadn’t cared about tokusatsu since childhood. But he also hadn’t known Smith since then. “I want to know what happens next. Tell me more.”
Smith looked surprised by what Isami had said, which was a first for them both. Then he smiled for real. “Okay,” he agreed. “And if you want to watch something else, an invite over here’s always open.”
To Isami’s horror, he accepted that invite more than once. It became routine.
Lulu had judo class every Thursday at 6 PM. After dropping her off, Smith would pick up Isami. They’d go to Smith’s place and get each other off once or twice or six times, and then settle onto the couch fully-clothed to watch whatever tokusatsu show Smith chose for them while eating a dinner Isami had prepared ahead of time. Then Isami was dropped off, Lulu was picked up, and the rest of the week would crawl by at the speed of molasses. Isami guessed Smith’s enthusiasm came from how rarely he got to have sex of any kind, as a single father. As for Isami’s enthusiasm…
At least Smith was willing to bust out his old DVDs after the first time. DVDs didn’t interrupt anyone prematurely.
Isami would never admit it, but he would’ve been just as hungry for Thursdays even without the DVDs.
“Okay, here’s one I think you’ll like,” Smith said, one of those Thursdays. He popped some disk Isami didn’t recognize into the player, then joined Isami on the couch and slung an arm around his shoulders. It made Isami’s attempt to button up his shirt more difficult, but Isami didn’t shrug him off.
The show kicked off in the usual manner: an image of the Earth with a heroic narration playing atop it. And it lasted for all of thirty seconds before another voice took over, refuting the original narration and even making fun of it.
Isami’s hands froze on the third button. “Eh? What the hell is this?”
Smith laughed. “Just keep watching!”
Isami shot him a suspicious look. “This isn’t going to get weird, is it?”
“No more than usual.”
It was half true. While not weird in the way Isami had feared—mainly, that Smith had put on a henshin-lion-themed porno—it was still a bizarre show, even by Smith’s standards. Isami had said as much, about five minutes in, and the light shoving match that followed had led to Smith laying down flat on the couch with Isami stretched on top of him.
Isami’s viewing experience was more enjoyable with his head resting on Smith’s chest, rising and falling as the other man breathed beneath him. He couldn’t deny that.
Still, he had his self-respect to protect. So when the first episode of Lion Maru G came to a close, and Smith asked for Isami’s opinions, he didn’t take the accommodations into consideration. “I think the tonal whiplash hurt my neck.”
“Awww,” Smith whined. But he smiled despite his obvious disappointment, and ran his hand up Isami’s back so he could massage the aforementioned sore neck. If his intent was to give Isami incentive to be kinder to the show, he was failing miserably at it. “Really? You didn’t find it funny at all?”
“Not really.”
Smith pouted. A touch of redness lingered on his lips from earlier in the night. It was damn near irresistible. “So you won’t watch any more with me? We’ve got time for one more episode…”
“You’re unbelievable, Smith,” Isami said. “You think I want to get up just so you can change the disk?”
That brought a smile back to Smith’s face. “Episode 2 it is!” As the recap sequence started to play, he hugged Isami close. “By the way, you can call me Lewis, if you want. I know you’re big on family names, but…” He shrugged.
Isami swallowed, and tested out the name. It rolled off his tongue easier than “Smith” ever had. “Lewis…”
Smith—Lewis—hummed contentedly.
It was probably for the best that they only had time for one more episode. Otherwise, it would’ve been impossible to pry Isami away from Lewis’s embrace.
They were halfway through an episode of Andro Melos when Isami noticed something was wrong. Lewis hadn’t been calling out attack names.
He’d seemed fine otherwise; he’d smiled when he’d picked Isami up and been as enthusiastic as ever in bed. Maybe he wasn’t as big a fan of this hero?
But…no. Lewis only showed Isami the shows he loved, so this was weird.
Onscreen, Melos attacked again. Lewis kept his mouth shut. Again.
Isami felt like he was about to crawl out of his skin. Instead, he picked his head up from Lewis’s chest and frowned at him. “Lewis,” he said. “What happened?”
Lewis turned his head to face Isami with a frown of his own. “Hm? In the show?”
“No. What happened to you? What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean, what’s—”
“You haven’t called out a single attack this whole episode. What’s wrong?”
Lewis blinked and broke into a grin. “Wow. I hadn’t even noticed. Guess I really am out of it.” He let go of Isami to rub his palms against his eyes. “It’s…nothing, though, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Bullshit,” Isami spat. Lewis peeked out from behind his hands. “It’s depressing, seeing you like this. Clearly it’s important.”
Lewis sighed. He let go of his face and rested his hands on Isami’s hip bones as his head fell back over the armrest. “It’s Lulu,” he admitted. “She’s having trouble keeping food down again.”
“…oh.” Isami hadn’t expected that. “Medically?”
Lewis shook his head. “No. The doctors think it’s a mental thing again. And that’s even scarier…I can get her whatever medicine she needs, but I think it’s clear I’m pretty shit at talking her through an ED.”
Isami swallowed. “Do you want me to talk to her?”
Lewis frowned, and then picked up his head to look at Isami. “Huh? You?”
Fair point. “She had Hirschsprung’s, right? When she was younger?” Lewis nodded. “So did I.”
That clearly surprised Lewis. “Really? I had no idea…”
“Why would you? I’m fine now.” Isami shrugged. “But it gave me trouble eating as a kid, too. I probably know how she feels.”
Lewis blinked. “You’d…be okay with doing that?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to.”
“You don’t have to say yes, either,” Isami said. “I get it. You’re her dad; it’s fine if you don’t trust me with it.”
“No!” Lewis’s grip on Isami tightened. Isami would never admit how much he needed that. “No, I trust you completely. But you’re sure it wouldn’t be a burden for me to ask?”
“I wouldn’t have offered if it was,” Isami said.
And even if that was a lie, the journey Lewis’s face went on made up for it in full. With an inhale, his smile grew and his eyebrows pulled up, before they rounded around the edges and relief bubbled up in his laughter. “Oh my god,” he said in English. He wrapped his arms around Isami and held him tight, pulling him up his chest so that he could bury his face in Isami’s collarbone. “That would be great. Thank you. You’re the best.”
Isami slipped a hand behind Lewis’s head and held him close. “Mhm,” he hummed. If he tried to say anything else, words he could never take back would escape. And he might regret that more than offering to talk to Lewis’s kid.
He sure did regret offering to talk to Lewis’s kid, though.
Lewis had thought it’d be best to make the whole ordeal seem casual. Not having a kid of his own, Isami hadn’t argued, which led to him sitting in the passenger seat of Lewis’s car with a ready-for-judo Lulu in the back seat and five minutes to kill while Lewis “ran errands.”
“So,” Isami started, unsure of how else to go about it, “how have you been, Lulu?”
He twisted around in his seat. Lulu was practicing her judo moves, her white hair in two long braids and a frown at some invisible enemy on her face. “Great!” she said.
“Your dad told me that you’ll be making rokudan soon?” Isami prompted.
“Yeah! I just need to kick Sensei’s butt!”
Isami nodded. “And eat all your fruits and veggies so you can get strong, right?”
“I’m already strong!” Lulu protested. And she proved it by socking Isami in the face.
Lewis winced when Isami told him what went down. “Oh god, I’m sorry. I thought putting her in judo would make her less likely to hit people out of the blue like that…”
“It’s fine,” Isami said. He rubbed his cheek. It stung, but wouldn’t bruise. Probably. “I wish I could’ve helped more. I get why you have a hard time with it.”
“Thank you for trying anyway,” Lewis said. At the next stoplight, he leaned over and kissed Isami’s bruising cheek.
But evidently he wasn’t that sorry, because when they made it back to his apartment, he made sure to suck a dozen more bruises into Isami’s skin.
Isami should’ve canceled when rain popped up in the forecast. That would’ve been the smart thing to do. Then he could’ve stayed home, where his safety was guaranteed and Lewis would’ve been left unbothered.
Unfortunately for everyone, Isami was not great at thinking with his brain when it came to Lewis.
Lewis drove confidently, completely unfazed by the weather. On the way to his apartment, they passed four motorcycles. One of them had a pillion without a helmet. Isami watched them until he couldn’t, and then he swallowed down the bile crawling up his throat.
He’d be fine. They’d get to Lewis’s apartment safely, and then Isami would be completely and utterly distracted, and he’d be fine.
He’d be with Lewis. He’d be fine.
He wasn’t fine.
By the time they made it to the bedroom, Isami’s hands were shaking violently. He pulled his own shirt off, this time, just so he had something to do with them, and then started in on his pants. Once they were off, he moved over to Lewis and started stripping him, too.
“Whoa!” Lewis said with a laugh as Isami tore off his blue shirt. “What’s gotten into you today?” Then his face morphed into one of concern.
Isami’s stomach finally dropped out, and he froze. He couldn’t move, and he couldn’t breathe. Every breath he tried to take just made him feel like he was drowning. He was gulping down water instead of air, and his chest tightened when he realized what that meant.
Lewis said something, but Isami couldn’t make it out. He couldn’t see him either.
Isami squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted so badly to breathe, to feel air in his lungs, to know that he was still alive. His heart was racing, begging him for air, but he couldn’t get anything past his closed throat. He felt like a membrane had closed around him, cutting him off from everything except his own panicked self.
He had no idea how long he lasted like that.
Then there was pressure on both sides of his face. He still couldn’t breathe, but he was alive. That was something.
With that revelation came his sense of hearing. Sort of. There was someone speaking, but it sounded like they were underwater. Their words were muffled. Isami couldn’t make them out. They were still locked outside the membrane that separated Isami from the rest of the world.
Maybe it was thinning, though.
Isami tried again to take an uneven, shaky breath. Some air made it to his lungs, this time, and they greedily soaked it all up.
He inhaled again, and the membrane popped.
“—ith me now, Isami. That’s good, yeah, just breathe in like that. You can let it out now. I’ll do it too, alright? I’m here, I promise. Yeah, just like that. Good job.”
He kept talking. Lewis kept talking. His words guided Isami through a few more cautious breaths, until Isami didn’t have to put all his effort into keeping them regular. Isami could hear Lewis’s breathing, too, and tried to match it.
When he had enough air in his lungs to see, Isami flicked his eyes up to Lewis’s face. It was close. Held close by the pressure on both sides of Isami’s face, which Isami slowly realized were Lewis’s hands. He forced himself to breathe again.
Lewis smiled nervously. “Hey, Isami. You with me again?”
Isami blinked. He wasn’t sure.
“Do you know my name?”
“Lewis,” Isami whined. His brain offered up other responses, too. Sappier ones that he didn’t have the energy to say.
Lewis’s smile grew. “That’s good. Do you know your name?”
“Isami.”
“What color is my hair?”
Isami frowned. “…yellow? Blond? Is blond a color?”
Lewis chuckled. “I don’t know,” he admitted. His hands dropped away from Isami’s face, though they quickly found Isami’s own and held on tight. “Glad you’re back. You had me worried there.”
Isami blinked. He then realized that he was naked and sitting in the middle of Lewis’s bedroom floor. His whole body flushed with mortification. He really should’ve canceled. “Sorry,” he muttered as he looked away.
But Lewis shook his head. He seemed genuinely unbothered, which was somehow worse. “Don’t worry about it.” Then his voice dropped a bit. “Your accident, was it…?”
Isami nodded. Lewis hadn’t been around when Isami had crashed his motorcycle head-on into a mechanical beast of a truck, but he’d heard about it. And the way it still ruled Isami’s life, in moments like the present. “I don’t like driving in the rain.”
Lewis was quiet for a moment. Then he leaned in and kissed Isami’s forehead. “I’ll remember that,” he promised.
Isami wanted to ask him to forget the whole thing instead. That would’ve made him feel better.
“Do you want me to get you anything? A glass of water, or…?”
Isami snapped his eyes back to Lewis’s without thinking. “No,” he said. As much as he wanted Lewis to have not seen any of what he had, he also couldn’t bear the thought of being left alone.
“Okay.” Lewis squeezed Isami’s hands. “Let’s go eat, then? I’m getting hungry.”
That was better. Isami nodded, and they began the process of getting off the floor and into the kitchen. Isami found his shorts on the other side of the room, and Lewis handed him his shirt. It felt nice to be clothed again. The tightness of the fabric grounded Isami, and made him feel much less vulnerable.
He felt even better once he was chewing on the dinner he’d prepared. They ate in silence, but having something to do with his mouth and his hands brought Isami back to reality.
It was only once he’d arrived there that he realized why his damn shirt was so tight. It was bright blue, with faded yellow katakana across the chest, a red collar, and white cuffs.
It was Lewis’s shirt.
Isami would never buy anything like it for himself. But he kind of wanted to wear it forever.
Once they’d finished their meal, Lewis leaned his chair back on its hind legs. “What now?” he asked. “I’d offer to drive you home, but I think it’s still raining. We don’t have to have sex, though, if you’re tired or—”
“Lewis,” Isami said.
Lewis looked at him and laughed. “Alright, I get it.”
“And you’re not allowed to go easy on me.”
Isami could’ve melted when he saw relief in Lewis’s smile. “Like I’d even try. You’d kick my ass.”
Isami snorted. “Yeah, I would.”
An hour later, Isami laid alone in Lewis’s bed wearing nothing but a tricolor t-shirt he refused to take off and listening to the sound of rain against the windows. He’d taken Lewis up on his offer to stay the night, and Lewis had gone to pick up Lulu alone.
Even after Isami had broken down. Even after Lewis had had to deal with that.
They hadn’t even watched any of Lewis’s shows.
Isami rolled over and started a countdown in his head for when Lewis would get back. There was something he couldn’t put off any longer.
Isami put it off for one week. He slept in Lewis’s shirt every night and gave himself one week to savor that feeling before he potentially destroyed it forever. If he could never rest his head on Lewis’s chest while watching cheap special effects again, at least he had given himself seven nights of dreaming about it.
He sighed, and smoothed out the bottom hem of his button-up to keep his hands from shaking. Lewis seemed none the wiser; he led them into his apartment as he always did, and made for the bedroom immediately. “Wait,” Isami called out. “There’s something I want to do first.”
Lewis turned around, puzzled. “Hm? What, like eat dinner?”
Isami shook his head. “No, I want to…tell you something.”
“Is everything alright? Do you want to sit?”
Isami nodded, then shook his head. It didn’t feel right to do this sitting down.
But Lewis took it the wrong way, and came to stand in front of Isami. His brow was furrowed, and Isami couldn’t stand the idea that he was the cause of that.
“It’s nothing bad,” Isami said quickly.
He swallowed. His heart tried to escape anyway.
He forced himself to look up into Lewis’s eyes. They were kind, and patient. Isami swallowed again.
“Lewis,” he said.
He could do this.
“I wanted to tell you that…I really enjoy what we have. I look forward to it every time.” His face warmed. Why did he feel like he was going to die? He’d told Lewis far dirtier things in bed.
…okay. Note to Isami: do not think about that right now. That had just left him warm all over.
He couldn’t do it all anymore. He looked to the side, but forced the rest of the words out. Even though he’d practiced, he stumbled on them. “In fact, I like it so much that I’d…I want to make it—you—a bigger part of my life.”
Lewis’s face was the same as it always was. He showed no reaction to what Isami had said. He had the same pleasant smile on his face that Isami…that Isami had…
Isami shut his eyes. “I love you, Lewis. I want to be your partner. If you’d have me.”
The next three seconds that passed were the longest of Isami’s life.
Then strong arms—Lewis’s arms—wrapped around Isami and held him tight. Lewis pressed a long kiss to Isami’s temple. “I would,” he said. “I love you too, Isami.”
Whatever burst open in Isami at that moment put all his past orgasms to shame. He jerked his eyes open and his head back to look at Lewis. It was a good thing Lewis was holding him so tight; without that stability, Isami would’ve careened back and fallen on his ass. “Wait, what?” he asked. “Really?”
Which was probably not the best way to follow up a love confession, he realized too late.
But Lewis grinned. “Yes, really.”
“Just…like that?” Isami blinked. “That was easier than I thought.”
“Hey!” Lewis frowned. “Easy?”
Isami cringed. “Not like that…”
But Lewis was laughing, so it was probably alright. Isami let out a deep sigh of relief and finally hugged him back. “Thank you.”
“The hell are you thanking me for?”
“I don’t know,” Isami admitted. “I just didn’t…expect you to agree so quickly. You seemed happy with what we had.”
Lewis hummed. He ran a hand up and down Isami’s spine. Isami thought it was maybe the most intimate way he’d ever been touched. “I was,” Lewis said. “And if that’s all you were ever comfortable with, I would’ve been happy forever. I didn’t want to scare you off.” He hugged Isami tighter. “But I’m excited for this.”
Why had Isami ever been scared? Of anything, after he met Lewis? “I really do love you,” he said. “I hope you know that.”
“You watched two episodes of Lion Maru G with me,” Lewis said. “I know.”
Isami chuckled. “I’m not watching the rest unless you ask nicely.”
“I love you too.”