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"Kai~tooo~" his voice warmly whispered onto his forehead.
"Mnnnh~" he whined, nuzzling into his chest, black hair stiff with sweat and... other things. Maki's hand, rough like sandpaper, but equally as warm, trailed up his back. "Hm?" He opened his eyes, vision blurry from both the lack of glasses and his dazed state. "More?"
Maki blushed. It was hard to say no, when Kaito pouted and smushed his cheek against Maki's chest like that, but just a little further down, he was beginning to feel itchy as well as stiff. He took in their mixed scent, treasuring it, but also ready to wash it away. "It's like you have the stamina of an incubus, Kobayashi..."
"Call me Kaito," he huffed.
"Only if you call me Shoyo." Kaito's eyebrows rose and he burrowed his head back into Maki's chest to avoid eye contact. He felt Maki's soft chuckles, which both flustered him and came close to turning him on again. Maki continued. "You said we're home alone the entire night, right? Let's take a shower..."
"Oh, already? But we've only done--"
"Multiple bodily fluids are caking dry on me as we speak."
". . . Honestly, me too..." Kaito sat up with a warning glare that this wouldn't be the last marathon of the night, pulling Maki's arm up to help him sit up as well. He did a cursory scan of Maki's body and smugly smiled to himself.
Maki drank some water and gave Kaito the cup, which he shared without hesitation. Neither of them really understood what the big deal about swapping spit was, anymore. Standing on wobbly legs for the first time in hours, the couple made their way to the bathroom.
Kaito put on his glasses again ('These don't fog up' he said to the confused Maki) and Maki took off the one thing that had stayed on during the act(s). Kaito took notice and realized, for the first time since they'd met, that the bandaid wasn't a part of his face. It was like when a child first saw their parent take off the glasses, or cut their hair; it just made him look uncanny all of a sudden. Kaito, by now fully 'rational' again, bumped his shoulder against Maki's and touched his own nose.
"Is that--"
"Yeah, got cut once." Maki kept his response short, quickly spat with slurred words. Maki forgot he wasn't alone, for a moment. Not that he'd forgotten about Kaito, just that they were two separate people, again. It was like he'd suddenly be caught without underwear, jewels flying through the wind--which was ironic, because now being naked was the furthest from Maki's mind. Kaito leaned in to investigate the nick. Maki resisted the urge to throw his hand over the scar and looked down in shame.
"Mm. I see..." He turned his head and looked at it from the side, like a bird observing an ant hole. Gathering all needed information, Kaito stepped back.
"Yeah, s-so-- let's just shower."
Kaito agreed and turned on the water. They both stepped in. Maki shivered at the coldness and Kaito snickered at him before the heat kicked in. Maki started raving about how good the water pressure was and about how there were almost a dozen different bottles and bars of soap for a family of four. Still, Kaito's mind was stuck on his rudimentary analysis of Maki's scar from earlier. It didn't look like a scar resulting from a fight. It was thin, unraised, like the attacker was afraid to cut too deep. Did Maki give it to himself? Oh... Kaito grimaced, letting the water fall on his bangs and make them hang in front of his eyes. Maki curiously parted them, seeing that all too familiar Kobayashi-concern (a mix of overthinking and guilt, their specialty).
Kaito's eyes flickered up to Maki. "S-sorry, for talking about your scar, earlier..." It was old, probably from a different era of Maki's life. Kaito knew all about not wanting to dredge up the past. Cutting through his thoughts, Maki put his elbows on Kaito's shoulders, smiling faintly.
"It's fine. It was a long time ago, but it's pretty hard not to notice it, y'know..."
"... Right." Kaito was still avoiding his eyes. Maki tried to find a positive, switch the subject, or both.
"Besides, every scar tells a story. Like..." he did a loose scan of Kaito's body, "What about that one, on your right arm?"
"Oh, that? I scratched a mosquito bite and picked off the scab because it was ugly. I think I was ten..." Maki curiously hummed. Kaito met his eyes. He gave a relaxed smile. Kaito glanced around Maki's body, trying not to look too low. "Is there a particular reason your skin is mottled... there?" He pressed a thumb against Maki's upper chest. It felt soft and warmly glowed in the shower steam. Maki blushed, looking down.
"No reason, really. I'm part Okinawan-- 't's why I tan so much in the Summer. I used to wanna get rid of it, but, now..." Maki's face went slack, eyes looking beyond the floor, "Stuff like that doesn't really matter, anymore."
"I think your speckles are beautiful as is--" Kaito started stammering when Maki gave him a cute, wide-eyed look-- "n-n-not that something like that matters, a-as you said..!" Maki leaned even closer, pressing their foreheads together. He pulled them so they were both in the water's path. Kaito closed his eyes and breathed in. Their mixed scent was gaining a humid, clean tone. The rhythmic sound of water lulled him. Maki felt the same, listlessly let the water fall through his eyelashes, memorizing every sensation against his skin.
Eventually they parted to start washing up. Kaito saw Maki stretch his arm and noticed an uneven pattern on his lower arm and bicep that didn't match his other. "Hm, what about your lower forearm?"
"Hm?" Maki turned his arm around, then he rinsed the soap off the other arm and compared the two. "Huh. Weird..." He thought for a moment, absentmindedly cleaning his arm pits. "I guess it must be from the weird way it healed when I broke it as a kid." Kaito was surprised he'd never noticed his appearance change like that, in all those years. Seeing his surprise, Maki smiled. The story behind the one he'd gotten nine years before wasn't all that happy, but maybe he had another from the time he'd broken his leg, and now he wanted to check. He bent over. "Aha! I also have one on my calf-- see, Kobayashi~!"
Kaito looked down. There was indeed one on his calf. He giggled at Maki's eagerness, like he'd discovered buried treasure. Kaito's voice was like a preschool teacher's, equally entertained and happy for him. "And I see you broke that one, too~?"
"Mm!" Maki's voice was just as excited. He looked up at his expression, and, seeing that Kaito was more-or-less impressed, continued on. "I was learning to ride a bike for the first time, and I fell the wrong way! Hehe!"
"I didn't know you ride bikes, we should go out sometime~!"
"Wh-- no, I mean my motorbike, dude." Kaito's expression fell as he realized how young Maki must've started to be proficient at riding by high school. Trying to switch the subject, Maki chuckled awkwardly and scanned his upper body. Other than an assortment of moles in random places, he saw a slight disturbance in Kaito's unrealistically clear skin across his belly. "Huh, your skin seems pinker on certain areas of your abs."
Trying not to verbally keyboard smash at being referred to as having abs, he looked down. It was true: his left wrist and stomach were more respondent to heat stimuli. "Oh, that's probably just from the burn."
"Burn--?!" Maki stood up again, surprised.
"I was trying to cook when I was twelve and spilled hot grease on myself. Karin took me to the ER as a nine-year-old." If their parents had been home, the wound probably would have been healed up just fine, but neither Kaito nor Karin had enough first aid knowledge to go further than putting ice on it (at least until the boils started bursting and scaring the shit outta them).
Maki hummed noncommittally. Kaito used the shampoo, then handed the bottle to Maki. Both of them stepped out of the water for a second as they massaged it into their scalps. Maki nervously watched Kaito to make sure he was washing his own hair right (using enough shampoo, getting it in the right places, etc.). Kaito noticed and moved to washing Maki's hair, instead, leaving the shampoo in his own.
"T-thanks..."
"Mhm." Kaito was content with running his hands through Maki's hair. After rinsing and putting in the conditioner, Kaito rubbed his heel against Maki's outer calf. "I'm also a bit curious about that scar going down your leg..." Kaito smiled shyly with a sultry tone of voice. Was it a knife fight? Did he win?
Maki blushed at Kaito's anticipatory tone. "Ahaha, I got that one tryna shave my legs for the first time."
Kaito went silent for a moment as he thought. Maki looked at his perplexed face. "...Why would you ever shave? That's a solid fifteen percent of your sex appeal." On cue, he broke out into laughter. Maki laughed too, but both of them knew he wasn't really joking.
While Kaito was preoccupied with massaging the conditioner through his hair, Maki got back to exploring Kaito's body, which really meant teasing him.
"Ngh! Do you really have to pinch me there?" Kaito growled as he started to rinse.
"Rather someplace higher, princess~, like here?"
"Eheheh--" Kaito cut himself off mid-thought. His choked laugh echoed in the shower. He peeped around the corner of Maki's head. His eyes were still closed from the soap running down his face, but he was smirking.
"Don't worry," he said in short, sweet, Karin-like sentences. "I won't tickle you... Now."
Kaito spluttered a laugh and brushed some of the water out of Maki's face. He confidently chuckled, but then his eyes were drawn to a mottled slit running along Kaito's bicep that he somehow hadn't seen before. He hummed in curiosity. Kaito nodded, very willing to change the subject.
"That one looks pretty old, on your inner arm."
"Pfft, yeah, I got that one six years ago in a fight with Karin." He rotated his arm. The scar shone in the light, becoming more prominent, where with any other lighting it would only look like a minor blemish. "Split my lip, too."
"Woah, Li'l Sis can do that..?"
"Heh, what is it you always say about fights being about how you use the environment more than anything else? Yeah, I got knocked into a tree stump." Maki looked closer, wrapping his arms around him. Kaito giggled bashfully. "I bled so much, Karin thought I was about to die. When she realized I had a permanent scar, she wouldn't stop crying and making okonomiyaki for weeks." Kaito's gut twisted in anxiety. He rolled his eyes and reflexively pushed up his glasses. "The parents even stayed home for awhile to keep an eye on her; they were FURIOUS."
Maki ran his finger along it, massaging the area. It almost made the small knot in Kaito's stomach loosen. "It really is kinda small..." he hummed in awe at how the nerdy Kaito had gotten battle scars in a fight with the toughest cookie he knew.
"Yeah, but she never was quite the same, after that... Granted, there were some hijinks with burst arteries and stitches involved..."
"...G-Geez-- man."
"I mean-- I've concussed her, before plenty of times. The time I slammed my fist against the wall wasn't just an empty threat: it was an empty threat among a precedent of fulfilled threats."
"..."
"D-don't give me a look like that~ w-we just rough-housed a lot as young kids..." Maki breathed laughs through his nose and laid several kisses on his cheek and neck.
Maki could tell that Kaito had likely been changed by that, too. He wouldn't bring it up again. Besides, Maki was starting on discovering the other stories, behind every other scar on Kaito's body, from the mosquito bites he scratched to the area on his knee he mercilessly picked at before he started managing it his compulsive tendencies. Kaito, in turn, was discovering more instances of clumsiness than knife wounds on Maki's body and felt a mixture of relief, disappointment, and kinship. They managed to wash themselves in the midst of the story sharing, squeezed in between affectionate kisses and laughing/consoling each other depending on the sliding scale of trauma and humor behind each.
"W-wait--" Maki wheezed, "you really still have a mark from something like that?! Pwahahaa~!" Kaito brushed his wet hair out of his eyes to properly glare at Maki's incredulous laughter.
"Yes, for the umpteenth time... I... wasn't planning on it, but just check for yourself if it's there." Kaito blushed and pouted in a way that signaled that he was fine with it, however annoyed.
Maki knelt. "Don't mind if I do~" Kaito turned around in defeat.
Kaito blushed as Maki put his hands on him. He could feel each bated breath, his gaze, the way Maki turned him to get a better look. His heart began (annoyingly) racing again.
~chu~
Kaito flinched. "Y-you... kissed it?" Maki anxiously leaned back, letting go.
"Oh, sorry.... Did it feel bad? I guess it is kinda gross..."
"What, no. Not at all. It's just--" Kaito put a perpetually cold hand over the heat rising to his cheek, "kissing me there is just asking for round five (or whatever number counts now)."
Maki, reassured, repeated the action. Thus their activities continued with much less heartfelt conversation. Neither of them knew if they'd seen all of the scars of the other yet, but they intuitively knew it didn't matter, because they'd probably be learning about each other for the rest of time (or the night), and they looked forward to whatever was next to find.