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Yusuke can’t seem to say what he needs to, so Ryuji will have to make it happen really soon today. The atmosphere for canvas stretching might turn rough, but it’ll be better off against the tension from silent confusion and overly nonverbal communication. Ryuji has his own butterflies to fight from the inside, anyway.
Growing up, he convinced himself that he’d have everything set in place when he finally had a relationship with that smart, beautiful, kind, cool, sexy, charming (ecetera-ecetera, as he vaguely remembers) “special one.” At worst, even if he wasn’t set for life, maybe flying by the seat of his pants wouldn’t be so bad.
He sometimes hates himself for how naive he was, but Ryuji knows that he was just a “stupidly bright-eyed” kid. He’s lucky that nothing has gone completely haywire (as far as he can recall, that is).
As friends, Yusuke and Ryuji were a safe and cozy pair of friendly opposites (though they were never polarizing opposites, especially when they had quickly learned of the shocking commonalities between them). But as weeks evolved into months, life around each other filled with a distinct new atmosphere. There was enough small talk, deep talk, hanging out with each other, seeing the rest of the group (and each other by default), and washing up in the bathhouse together a few too many times. They started to dance around each other, then with each other, again and again, sometimes flirting without thinking much of it.
Sitting down and talking it out became inevitable, but it wasn’t unpleasant or scary. Maybe shocking, only uncomfortable for the whiplash that came with understanding how they talked to—and even thought of—each other. But after jumping into it as quizzical friends, they walked out of it as lovers, their weights pulled off their shoulders.
So forwarding his thoughts back to the present, the part of Ryuji’s life that is shared with Yusuke is almost as cozy as it was when they were just very , truly , oh-so impossibly good friends, snide banter and all.
But the keyword is “almost.”
People would always snark that the third time is always the charm. In groups of three, something good happens or a question is puzzled out. But it’s been a half-hour since Yusuke had his third quiet, flush-skinned, quivering-lipped “episode” for the day.
As much as Ryuji hates dancing around saying something nowadays, he’s not sure how to respond—or confess that he, if his hunch is correct, might perfectly sympathize with Yusuke.
Yusuke was adamant about hammering the frame together. With nothing to fuss about and a breath to catch anyway (both realize too late that beef bowls, video games with Ren and Futaba, and visiting Ueno’s recent museum exhibit was already a lot before canvas stretching), Ryuji rests against the floor of the studio. He listens quietly to Yusuke’s murmurs and the mallet’s clammers—loud and firm, but never harsh or aggressive—against the smooth-wooden stretcher bars.
It seems that Yusuke is calm and collected again. It’s reassuring for Ryuji…though he might still have to cut through the last of the red tape.
The taller man finishes their first chunk of handiwork, and sets the small mallet aside to review it. Sure enough, without nails or excessive hammering, they had smoothly fit into one another, like they had been plucked from Kosei’s supply room or a local crafts store in this state, as opposed to being bought as four separate planks.
From the frame alone, this canvas appears about as tall as most of Yusuke’s other works for an easel, but its width is considerably greater. Or would it be the other way around? Pondering for an extra moment, Ryuji can’t really say for now. He has a few vague ideas for how Yusuke could work his craft on this one, and he can make a whole new world-wonder with any of them.
“Right, then,” the young artist vaguely remarks. He flips the frame upside-down over the flat alabaster-white canvas sheet. “I can assure you, Ryuji, that you’ll be a blessing to have for the true ‘stretching’ of this canvas. Come, situate yourself closer.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n!” Ryuji’s drawl sounded cuter in his head, but at least Yusuke is willing to give a cheeky smirk in response.
The two of them rise to their feet. Whereas Ryuji takes a few sock-footed steps to sit right down in front of the frame, Yusuke saunters back and forth from a cardboard box in the corner of the room, carrying back a heavy-duty stapler and pliers.
“I already filled it with the maximum staples it can carry,” Yusuke says while fidgeting with the stapler. “I’ll bring the remainder over if any more are needed, but you should be perfect with just this.”
Ryuji instinctively scoots closer to Yusuke, who gracefully falls to his knees before the canvas sheet. “Just like the video clips we ran through, right? Fold in, hold down, then staple it?”
Yusuke nods, but first offers Ryuji the yellow and gray pliers.
“Hold down the canvas with these,” he clarifies, “and try to place a considerable amount of your body weight into it. Distribute that pressure equally to every side of the frame.” He gingerly brings up Ryuji’s hand, placing the pliers on his palm.
The gesture feels nicer than it really needs to.
“Let us start in the middle here,” Yusuke continues, gesturing to the closest side of the frame. “Concern yourself with that first step for now. I’ll entrust you with the staples once you’ve accustomed yourself.”
“The middle?” Ryuji checks. “Ain’t that gonna make it uneven unless we start on a corner?”
“Quite the opposite, actually.” Yusuke’s chuckle reverberates with affection, anyway, and he crawls around to lean over Ryuji’s back. “Now then—”
“Uh, sure,” Ryuji quickly murmurs, leaning over the first side of the frame without much thought put into his hastiness.
That is, he hadn’t put much thought into it until Yusuke effortlessly follows him from behind. The fanned-off chill of his body melds strangely, yet somehow comfortably, against the warmth of Ryuji’s.
There is nothing that implies Yusuke is about to sheepishly waddle away or shut down in a flushed mess. Considering that something sent Yusuke down that path thrice in the same day, it’s promising.
What even happened while Ryuji was blabbering off over beef bowls? Or when Ren and Futaba ran down the attic stairs to grab the group’s cold refreshers from Sojiro (yet to be sold in Leblanc’s menu, but hopefully soon)? Or while “coincidentally” remarking on a considerably sexy painting at the museum?
If any or all of it had stemmed from their “newly-dating jitters,” then Ryuji cannot afford to shut up about it again. After all, the young blond man has no right to think that he has better experience at this.
So he keeps quiet, letting Yusuke stay where he is as he takes his first try at following the video tutorials he reviewed with Yusuke. He folds part of the canvas sheet over the middle of the wooden bar, and only a half-inch of the fabric hangs out as excess.
As soon as he brings the pliers on to hold the sheet in place, Yusuke hums with calm delight. “Keep that still, now. Take the stapler and lean in with it.”
Ryuji has no problems with his open right hand snatching up the maroon heavy-duty stapler, putting it in place under the pliers and his left hand.
“Leanin’ in,” he quietly mumbles, bringing their bodies down and over against the stretcher bar.
It takes some extra effort for the staple to jut into the wood with a click—but when it sounds off and the two of them can pull themselves back, the release is invigorating.
Even Yusuke laughs, softly yet cheerfully. Ryuji turns around to catch his verdict: the curve of Yusuke’s smile is as haughty as ever, but it’s also just as beautiful as ever.
When his butterflies chill out again, Ryuji can say that he got it right on his first try.
“Did you like that?” asks Yusuke, who receives a perky nod as soon as he does.
Ryuji pivots back around. “M’kay, let’s go. Do we go left or right?”
“Either will do.” Yusuke’s torso rests up against Ryuji’s back once more. “Just return to go the other way after completing one half. And be sure that you exert as much weight with each as you did in your initial staple. Not much more, but certainly no less.”
With his lover quite literally having his back, Ryuji moves leftward and delivers an equal effort to an equal press. Thus, his second staple matches his first.
“Good,” Yusuke exhales softly against his ear. “Keep going.”
Ignoring the strange tickle in his ear, Ryuji delivers a third staple. It works just as well, though he may have nearly overdone it if he and Yusuke were on the precipice of falling flat against their work.
“I’ll intervene if your staple is less favorable.” His darling’s eyes are attentive to their handiwork, despite his voice growing breathier and quieter. “You almost overexerted your weight, but its staple remains acceptable. Just provide a little less weight hereon.”
Ryuji continues, and he is spot-on once more by the fourth time. He keeps inching along the left, encouraged by Yusuke’s paradox of a watchful gaze, sleepy hums in consistent approval, and a body that moves eagerly along with his own.
When he finally reaches the corner, Yusuke releases him and leans over into view for Ryuji.
“When we staple this perpendicular side here,” he elaborates, “the last staple there should also be perpendicular to your last staple here. Like so.” He wraps his hands over his lover’s, guiding them and his tools to be parallel with their work thus far.
Yusuke does not return to resting on Ryuji, but the latter has no desire to demand he do so. He presses down, adding extra pressure to compensate for the lack of weight on his back.
Without thinking much about it, he grunts as the staple cleanly sinks its ends into both fabric and wood. The skin of his arms mold themselves along their own muscles, so even Ryuji can tell he needed to deliver that much more pressure to finish off one half of the first side.
He might already know how he had done, but Ryuji turns up to meet Yusuke’s judgment. In the off-chance that he got it wrong, his handsome darling can just make him get it right for real—but Yusuke must not have to do that, either.
Instead the young man’s gaze is trapped on Ryuji’s arms, even as he has already released the flex seconds ago. A lively, yet distant glimmer takes up residence in Yusuke’s pupils.
It’s very familiar, especially for today. Only this time, Yusuke’s visage sparkles before the red, burning flush creeps in.
When he realizes that Ryuji is staring back at him, he starts to shuffle away.
Ah crap, I gotta do something, the blond second-year thinks to himself.
Ryuji maintains zero experience with romance—let alone with a bashful and shy start—but it seems that the easy solution is to gingerly grab Yusuke’s wrist, holding the tall prodigy still while he shuffles around to directly face him.
He’s already disappointed he hadn’t thought of something as easy as that before. But then again, he already feels faintly woozy, too.
“Hey, hey,” he soothes. “What’s up?”
He looks up into Yusuke’s flushed face—all things considered, he is as pretty as ever—and it seems to break through that they just need to talk.
His eyes flitter down to the floor. Ryuji remembers how soft and angelic his eyelashes look when they’re close like this.
“My apologies,” Yusuke murmurs, his tremble ample enough without sounding like he’s ready to burst into tears. “It seems that my thoughts of you today are prone to…indecency.”
Ryuji struggles to not move or even fidget when he hears this. Besides, when it’s Yusuke Kitagawa, “indecency” is a box that opens up to either empty space and nothing more, or an assortment of fine chocolates with a pipe bomb decorated in raunchy stickers. It almost always ends with a fifty-fifty gamble when weighing how “filthy” it gets for him.
So, Ryuji cranes his head down and looks up, cramming themselves into each other’s line of sight again. “Uh-huh?” He recoils when Yusuke turns the other way.
“You can talk to me,” Ryuji soothes, his hand sliding down Yusuke’s wrist to entwine their fingers through firm and even slots. “I ain’t gonna judge.”
Yusuke’s fingers clench up around Ryuji’s. His head slowly pivots back to study their intricate formation. An enamored light finally breaks through his eyes again.
“I must confess,” he whimpers, “that I am not well-versed in reciprocating physical…intimacies.”
Ryuji hums methodically. I can’t say I’m not the same, he realizes.
“Well,” he gulps, “I mean, you and I bein’ a couple means that we’re both doing something new at the same time.”
Yusuke’s lips quiver as they draw into a smile. For the first time since Ryuji even knew about him, there’s no lovable pompousness to be seen in its curve. He’s still beautiful, especially when he tightens the lacing of their fingers and studies them as meticulously as before.
“But this,” he finally whispers, “is comforting.”
At last, it’s Ryuji’s turn to endure the intense heat wave that washes over his face. He can make a good estimate for how rosy it leaves his tan, sun-kissed complexion.
“I-I guess,” he struggles to assert, “we’ll figure this part out as we go. Um—g-go at our pace ‘bout it, right?”
Yusuke’s stare flits back to Ryuji’s. His lips gently part, eyes wide and twinkling with the pinnacle of his awestruck fugue.
“Is it really that easy?” he breathily ponders.
“Well,” Ryuji loudly and sharply stammers, “I-I mean, it ain’t like it’s easy, I guess! Just, uh—um, y’know—”
He hangs onto the ends of his train of thought before forcing himself to let go and forget.
But even so, he realizes that he is as “flush-skinned and quivering-lipped” as Yusuke has been here and there today. His reasoning for it lands in the same ballpark, too.
His taller darling catches on.
“You seem rather overwrought,” Yusuke timidly observes.
“Exactly,” says Ryuji, his wavering pitch resting his case. “So like, don’t worry if you’re nervous. I am, too.” He gingerly unhooks their hands, collapsing into Yusuke’s chest before turning to the side to breathe while against him. “So we’ll figure it out together.”
Yusuke only has one grunt for Ryuji, but he still wraps his arms around his back. It feels like more of a trap, but Ryuji surmises that his own fluster did himself in.
“If I am not too graceless of a lover,” Yusuke whimpers, “then I will accept your kindness.”
Ryuji can’t help but wheeze in response, pushing the side of his face deeper against his boyfriend.
“The hell makes you the ‘graceless lover’?!” he still exasperates quietly. “You’re the ‘bonafide’ pretty boy between us!”
Yusuke softly snorts. “Aside from your more beastly or overly-slacked traits, I would think the muscular jocks were the more conventional ‘hunks.’”
Ryuji…can’t think of anything to say back. But neither can Yusuke follow up, it seems. Instead of filling the silence with something, Ryuji carefully swivels his legs in front of him and pulls Yusuke down with him to lie against the floor, for his darling to listen to his own heart in exchange for the previous arrangement.
All of it is colored in by wordless breathing. His dear art prodigy gladly drinks in his pulse, his ear pressed gently yet fully against his breast.
It’s still foreign to them both, but it’s still just as heavenly. Though it’s only the first of many gestures and cuddles, and it hasn’t quite become so organic yet, it makes for a lovely start.
Cocky or not, Ryuji knows that this romance is just the way to do it without everything set in place for him or Yusuke.
“Well then,” Yusuke rouses after immeasurable time, “shall we continue with our canvas stretching? You’ve proven to be a godsend for the task, Ryuji.”
With a sigh, Ryuji recalibrates himself to their present world. “Oh-kie d’oh-kie, Baby,” he yawns as he sits them both upright. “Gotta get my arm reps in, somehow, anyway…”