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“The hell?” Kaoru muttered as he tried again to open the front door of Sia la Luce. It remained stubbornly locked. Kaoru huffed, feeling his cheeks pink both from fury and mild embarrassment; if anyone saw him out here, fussing over the fact that Kojiro had apparently ditched him (not that they’d actually made any plans), he would never live it down.
He had just flipped up the cover of the little hidden doorbell, determined to jab it until Kojiro got his ass out of bed, when he heard his voice. Well, first, an exaggerated gasp.
“Kaoru!!” Kojiro called as if the most consistent person in his life, save his actual mother, was the most exciting surprise he could imagine.
Kaoru didn’t even grant him the effort of turning all the way around, he just looked over his shoulder. Kojiro’s expression matched the delight of his voice and his cheeks were flushed the color of poppy blossoms.
“You’re here,” He said, still grinning like an idiot and walking like every step was at a different height instead of on the very flat pavement it actually was.
“And you’re drunk,” Kaoru said judgmentally.
Kojiro just breathed a laugh, the smile somehow evident in even such a subtle noise. “My gym buddies took me out for drinks,” He said, draping himself over Kaoru’s shoulders to stick his key in the front door, “Every time I looked, there was a new shot in front of me.” He smelled like it, boozy and fruity with a little spice, like the world’s most creative and ill-advised combination of mixers. The scent of his usual cologne still lingered on his skin though, and Kaoru focused on that scent when he breathed him in before pulling the door open.
Kojiro flipped on the lights, humming a little as he swayed over to the chair next to the one Kaoru usually occupied.
“I guess this wine will have to be just for me then,” Kaoru said smugly, pulling a bottle of red (sweeter than Kaoru usually goes for, but, one sip into the bottle a client had given him a while back, he’d known Kojiro would love) out of the bag he’d been carrying.
“Whaaaat?” Kojiro pouted, “I can still drink.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Kaoru replied, trying and failing to keep the note fondness out of his voice. He went to the kitchen and came back with a big glass of water. “Drink this first.”
Kojiro complied, chugging most of the glass like he was newly 20 and it was a shitty beer. A little ran down his chin and dripped onto his soft, green t-shirt. He grinned dopily at Kaoru.
“What?” Kaoru teased, making sure to maintain his bristly composure despite how fun it was seeing Kojiro like this.
“What?” Kojiro tilted his head to the side like a curious puppy.
Kaoru rolled his eyes. “What’re you smiling like that for?”
“‘Cause I’m happy, duh,” Kojiro answered. Then, softer, he said, “You’re here, for my birthday.”
“I was here for your last birthday too, or are you so drunk you’re losing memories that you weren’t even wasted for?”
“Shuddup,” Kojiro slurred. The warmth from all the alcohol was making him look a little glowy. Flushed, sure, but also glazed with a light mist of sweat indicative of rowdy and crowded bar behavior caused by booze flowing through your veins.
Kaoru grinned behind his wine glass. “Have you been this drunk since college?” As far as Kaoru knew, Kojiro had only gotten utterly, ridiculously, black-out drunk once. They were 19 and had already gone their separate ways for university: Kaoru to the mainland to nearly burn himself out with a double major in visual art and computer science, and Kojiro to Italy for culinary school. The legal (and very loosely enforced) drinking age in Italy is 18, so Kojiro and his friends were free to get as legally sloshed as they wanted.
Kojiro and Kaoru didn’t talk much while they were apart. They’re dynamic had been shifted slightly by adding Adam to the equation, then it shifted again when he was taken back out, all before being farther apart than they’d ever been, save a week-long family vacation here and there. They had still been a little fragile, a little fractured, from Adam’s departure. Kaoru was hurt and pissed and Kojiro was hurt and pissed and Kaoru was a little pissed that Kojiro was pissed when Kaoru had been the one unceremoniously dumped. It didn’t help, actually made his indignation worse, when he realized that part of the reason Kojiro was pissed was because of all the shit Adam had done to Kaoru. And Kaoru could be pissed for himself, thank you very much.
But then Kojiro had gotten completely wasted and called Kaoru. Kaoru hadn’t answered, of course, the middle of the fucking night in Italy taking place during Kaoru’s early morning lecture. So Kojiro had left the drunkest, most adorable voicemail Kaoru had ever heard. It made him laugh until there were tears in his eyes and it made his heart ache sweetly in his chest. He still had that voicemail, a fact that Kojiro would absolutely never find out unless Kaoru had to use it for blackmail reasons.
It was nice to put an image to the slurring, smiley words he turned to sometimes when he was really missing his best friend but felt too weird to actually hit call. Kojiro now, freshly 27 and probably 20 kilograms heavier than he was when he was 19, was the image Kaoru would forever attach to that voicemail, pink cheeks and bouncy curls and gravity-defyingly crooked sitting positions.
“I’m not that drunk!” 27 year old Kojiro insisted.
“I worry for your safety if you were ever drunker than that time you called me freshman year.”
“Nope. That was definitely the drunkest.” He hilariously tripped over the word “drunkest,” with his liquored up tongue not quite doing what it was supposed to. “And you didn’t pick up,” He pouted.
“I was in class, dimwit.”
“Ohhhh, right.”
“Idiot.”
“Four eyes,” Kojiro slurred. He finished off the water and then filled the glass back up with the wine Kaoru had brought.
“Drunken heathen,” Kaoru scoffed, but he watched carefully as Kojiro took a sip, warm brown eyes lighting up at the flavor. Kaoru felt a little pride knowing that he’d been right, even if the optimal way of enjoying this not-inexpensive wine was not serving it in a water glass on top of a digestive system brimming with, what Kaoru suspected was, mostly gin and tequila.
But Kojiro flashed him a smile and it seemed that his own glass of wine might have started heating him up from the inside too.
“Should I bother giving you your present now when I’m sure you won’t remember it in the morning?”
Kojiro made grabby hands and Kaoru had to breathe a laugh as he pulled the little, neatly wrapped box from his bag. Kojiro made an effort to unwrap it carefully, though his hands were a little more clumsy than usual. He slid off the ribbon and managed to pull away the paper with only a few small tears.
He grinned softly when he saw what was inside. “New wheels,” He said, lifting one of the chunky orange wheels from the box.
“The wheels you’ve been using are ridiculous,” Kaoru huffed, not looking Kojiro in the eye and feeling a little heat rise up in his cheeks, “It’s been years since the track was bumpy enough to necessitate them. I refuse to race you if you’re going to have a handicap like that.”
“How do you know I’m not off-roading when I’m not at S?” Kojiro argued, not remotely hiding the fact that he was only saying it to be argumentative.
Kaoru took the bait because of course he would. “Because I know your whole schedule. And I know that you almost always go to the spots we used in high school when you practice. And you’d be stupid not to use these because yours are unevenly worn down.”
Kojiro grinned and bit his lip. “How do you know my wheels are worn down?”
“Because you keep drifting to the right on straightaways.”
“Will you put them on for me?”
Kaoru sighed. “I supposed.”
Kojiro carefully set the box on the table as if it held something fragile and not 4 hard rubber wheels intended to scrape against pavement. Then he pulled his chair a little closer to Kaoru’s and held his arms open, hope and a little pleading in his eyes. Kaoru rolled his eyes but accepted his hug.
“Thanks,” He said softly as he wrapped Kaoru up in his muscular arms, resting his head on Kaoru’s shoulder. Kaoru put his arms around his neck and patted his back lightly. Kojiro breathed in and then nuzzled his face into the crook of Kaoru’s neck. “You smell good,” He said, voice still so soft and tender.
Kaoru tensed for a moment before rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “Drunken gorilla,” He teased.
After a very extended hug in which Kaoru briefly worried that the other man had fallen asleep, Kojiro sat up. He pushed up Kaoru’s glasses, which had slid down his nose a little, with his thumb, cupping his cheek with the rest of his hand.
Kojiro had always touched like this, firm but gentle. Even when they would fight, with playful smacks and kicks to the shin or, when they were much younger, full on wrestling on the ground, Kojiro somehow knew exactly how hard he could hit Kaoru before it actually hurt. Even when he got all that ridiculous muscle, it seemed that he always knew his own strength and just how much Kaoru could take. Kaoru had a harder time with that, accidentally hitting Kojiro too hard a couple times when they were kids and then apologizing profusely before he’d accurately gauged what he could get away with.
Kojiro took another sip of wine, seeming not to notice the way Kaoru buffered for a couple sections after that whole interaction. Kaoru swallowed some of his own drink, thinking affectionately about how weird his best friend was.
When he got up and headed back for the kitchen, Kojiro actually whined, “Where’re you going?”
“To get dishes,” Kaoru deadpanned.
“Why?”
“Take a guess.”
“Food.”
“You really couldn’t think of anything more specific? Moron.”
Kojiro talked at him about a really good udon he’d had the other day while Kaoru got two plates and forks from the Sia la Luce kitchen. It was cute really, how enthusiastic he was whenever he was describing a good meal.
He oohed when Kaoru opened the other box he’d brought to reveal two slices of cake purchased from a bakery they both liked. Kaoru carefully put the slices onto their plates and then stuck a candle in Kojiro’s and lit it.
Kojiro closed his eyes for a moment before he blew out the candle and they each took their first bite. Both of them sighed a little at the delicious flavor, delicate vanilla sponge with rich chocolate cream between the layers and light vanilla frosting on top.
“Wanna know what I wished for?” Kojiro asked, the ‘sh’ in ‘wished’ slipping a little on his tongue, before sucking icing from his fork.
“Doesn’t that mean it won’t come true, then?” Kaoru asked, voice teasing.
Kojiro hummed thoughtfully and nodded.
But he seemed to forget that decision only a few moments later, as he leaned his head in his hand and his eyelids began to droop. There was a wistful smile on his lips and he said, “I wished that you would kiss me.”
“Huh?” Kaoru sat straight up, the rest of his cake forgotten and his gold eyes wide.
“And fall in love with me,” Kojiro continued, “And stay with me forever.”
“What?” Kaoru breathed. It felt like all of his organs forgot what they were supposed to do: his heart had stopped beating, his lungs had stopped working, his brain was certainly frozen in place. It was his heart that unstuck first, stuttering before it took off running.
“Mmmh, being with Kaoru forever,” Kojiro whispered happily as if someone else entirely had proposed the idea, head now resting fully on his arms on the table and nodding sleepily.
“Kojiro?” Kaoru asked once the breath finally came unstuck from his throat. But Kojiro seemed to have fully nodded off, the corners of his lips still upturned.
It was probably a good thing that Kojiro was asleep so he wouldn’t see just how red Kaoru had turned. His heart was pounding. What the hell? He had not been expecting anything like that from Kojiro.
Kaoru leaned forward and, realizing that his hands were shaking slightly, pushed a lock of green away from Kojiro’s face. He found himself thinking—foolishly, he thought—about all the other birthday wishes Kojiro had made in all the years they’d known each other and adamantly refused to tell Kaoru on the grounds that they wouldn’t come true if he voiced them. They’d both done it when they were younger, but even now, as adults, Kaoru had noticed that Kojiro still took a moment before blowing out his candles. Though, he was never truly sure he was making wishes until tonight.
Had he wished these things before? On more than one birthday?
Kaoru felt himself starting to spiral and squeezed his eyes shut, telling his brain to slow the fuck down. Kojiro’s slow breathing in the chair beside him was actually helping with that, providing a calming effect.
“You can’t sleep there, idiot,” He said fondly, looking down at the sleeping man. He gently shook him.
Kojiro grumbled.
“Come on, gorilla, time to go to bed.”
Kojiro made a couple more noises of complaint before standing up, eyes still mostly closed. Sleepy and drunk, he wasn’t the most stable, so Kaoru let him lean on him as they made their way slowly up the stairs to Kojiro’s apartment where Kaoru deposited him in his bed, where he fell right back asleep after tugging the covers up to his chin.
Kaoru just watched him for a little while, trying to convince himself that this night had been real. And trying to figure out whether the idea of climbing into bed with him was so alluring just because he was tired, a little overwhelmed, and used to sleeping in close quarters with the man who’d almost always unconsciously cuddled Kaoru in his sleep whenever they had sleepovers.
Kaoru couldn’t be sure, but it was a safe guess that it was the smell of food that got Kojiro out of bed in the morning. Kaoru heard him groan from the bedroom and laughed to himself.
Kojiro was noisy getting up and dragging his feet. “Ugh, Kaoru,” He groaned, “Why did I drink so much?”
“Don’t ask me.”
And yet, after brushing his teeth and chugging two glasses of water, Kojiro already seemed less hungover. He slid in next to Kaoru in front of the stove and shook some black pepper onto the eggs that were supposed to be a rolled omelet and ended up being scrambled instead.
“I already added pepper,” Kaoru scolded, shoving Kojiro with his hip.
“Not enough,” He retorted, bumping Kaoru back.
“How would you even know that, you high and mighty ape? You haven’t tasted it!”
Kojiro laughed and tapped his nose.
“Bullshit!”
Kojiro pinched Kaoru’s nose tauntingly. “At least you didn’t burn anything this time.”
Kaoru smacked him on the forehead with the chopsticks he was using to stir the eggs. “I’ll eat this by myself then, you ungrateful asshole!”
Kojiro just laughed harder but retreated to the little round dining table in surender.
Kaoru tried his best to plate the eggs, rice, and veggies in a way that made them look less like they were prepared by a child and then brought them to the table. Kojiro ate gluttonously while Kaoru’s appetite shrank. All he could focus on was Kojiro’s mouth as he chewed. Had his lips always been that pink?
It was very possible that Kojiro didn’t remember what he’d said last night. Even while he remembered most of the night, he’d fallen asleep practically as he was telling Kaoru that he wanted to be with him forever. Pretending like nothing happened was incredibly tempting. But everything was different now either way.
Kaoru had been sure last night that he would get no sleep, that he’d lie awake contemplating what to say to Kojiro when he woke up. But, predictably, Kojiro had grabbed onto him in his sleep, pressing his face into Kaoru’s hair. And the warmth of their shared body heat had lulled Kaoru to sleep more quickly than even Carla’s lullaby.
As Kojiro finished his breakfast, Kaoru abandoned his and walked over to his friend. Kojiro grinned at him and began, “Thank—”
But Kaoru cut him off before he could chicken out and leaned down to press their lips together. Kojiro gasped a little in surprise but then pulled Kaoru closer by the waist as if trying to keep him from running away.
The kiss wasn’t long, but it sent Kaoru’s heart racing like he’d just won a particularly exciting beef. Kojiro didn’t let him go even as Kaoru stood back up to his full height, looking down at Kojiro for once. His red-brown eyes were shining and his lips were parted in an astonished O.
“Quit looking at me like that,” Kaoru insisted, pushing a hand into Kojiro’s face and turning his own blushing face away.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro whispered, “Why—why’d you…?”
Kaoru could only bring himself to look at him out of the corner of his eye. “It was your wish,” He grumbled.
“Huh?” Now it was Kojiro’s turn to turn red, “I said…” He covered his mouth.
“Yep,” Kaoru confirmed smugly, “Told me everything.”
“Everything?” He hid his face in Kaoru’s chest.
“Your whole wish.” Kojiro’s embarrassment was making him bolder. He combed a hand through Kojiro’s hair. It didn’t feel particularly clean after the whole previous day’s escapades, but he found he didn’t mind much. “Idiot said your birthday wish out loud,” He tsked and shook his head, “So I figured I’d have to help it come true.”
Kojiro looked back up at him, the hope in his expression utterly palpable. “What about the rest of my wish?”
Kaoru’s chest squeezed. The fact that Kojiro knew there was more to his wish than just a kiss without remembering telling it to Kaoru meant it definitely wasn’t just a one-off thing. He combed Kojiro’s curls back again and grinned warmly. “I think I can make that happen.”
“Really?” Kojiro’s whole face lit up.
Kaoru nodded. Kojiro shot out of his chair and kissed him excitedly. The kiss was dizzying, with their breaths mingling and Kojiro’s hand on his chin, tilting his head so he could deepen the kiss even more. Kaoru clutched at Kojiro’s bare shoulders. He hadn’t even realized that he’d stood up on his toes until they parted slowly, Kojiro pressing another smooch to the corner of his mouth for good measure.
Luckily, Kojiro looked just as dazed as Kaoru felt. Kaoru used his thumb to wipe his own spit from Kojiro’s lower lip. The corner of Kaoru’s mouth pulled up into a smirk. “How long have you been wishing that?”
“Long time,” Kojiro answered earnestly, stroking his finger through long pink locks.
“Idiot,” He teased affectionately. “I should get you drunk more often,” He said thoughtfully, “You’re much cuter like that.”
“Hey!” Kojiro argued, “I’m cute all the time.” He winked and Kaoru rolled his eyes so hard it would make teenagers around the globe proud.