Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ken wasn’t used to that much frenzy.

It never crossed his mind that he would’ve ever said this, but he would’ve rather been participating in a quiz show a day for one entire week and skip the most important lectures in sight of an exam than be drowned by lights flickering scatteredly above him like raindrops and music too loud for him to handle pumping so hard he could feel it in his bones.

Not everyone was made to party and Ken loved to put himself as an example to prove it. He’s never really had any friends to attend the parties of nor usually the time, but ringing in his first year of college meant he had to deal with it somehow. He’d skipped the welcome party for freshmen already, so there was no excuse now.

He just wished the end-of-the-semester party wouldn’t be the night before an important quiz day— maybe he was right not to believe his own words earlier. He’d been defending the weekly title on that show for over four weeks, and nearing the monthly checkpoint meant being entitled to a 20% raise if he won the fifth week in a row. He had to. That way he would’ve not had to worry about his fees for the entire year and could’ve even afforded a weekend out if he wanted to.

Or, he could’ve helped his roommate pay his dorm rent as well. Ken was sure Kazutoshi’s first reaction if he volunteered to do anything like that would’ve been a streak of repetitive ‘no's' and ‘are you crazy’ taking turns with the same few curses over and over. Ken found his cursing habit cute, to be honest. Much as one would find themselves in awe in front of a small, angry, fluffy kitten.

For someone as quiet as Ken Hasegawa, finding himself in a context as social as university life only increased his observance. Even the people he talked to the least were filed down to every detail in his head, to the point attending a fun night with nearly everyone he’d met in those six months at Fujioka University became a source of stress because he had to update the records he hid at the back of his mind.

Ken was a weirdo. He didn’t need anyone’s indecipherable looks or to hear it out loud to claim himself to be one; however, he’d come across enough weirdos in those last few months not to care about himself being one as much as he did before, like Masanari who’d sit at the corner of the party hall chewing on things Ken would’ve bet were totally inedible, Yanagi and his drunk flirting with just about every person in the room, or Manami showing up to any fun event in extravagant, almost cosplay-like clothes which her peers seemed to enjoy either way.

Or Nakamigawa. At least that’s a collectively agreed choice.

If asked and away from his range, Ken would’ve probably called Kazutoshi a weirdo as well, the interesting and fun kind though: that boy had no clue how amusing some of the things he came up with in the middle of normal conversations could be.

Ken wondered if Kazutoshi had ever caught him giggle to himself when something he said felt funnier to him than it should have been to anyone. If Kazutoshi knew, and just pretended not to have seen.

Ken couldn’t pretend like that. It was certainly hard not noticing things about his own roommate, but while Kazutoshi came off as blunt, cold and passive aggressive to most people in his class, Ken would have argued he saw infinity beneath his demise and inside him.

Kazutoshi’s eyes glowed a faint shine whenever he talked about his favorite artists, which Ken knew by heart: he was into some punk rock bands he’d genuinely never heard about once in his history of dozens of music trivia questions, the same could be said for grunge, but he was admittedly less knowledgeable on the genre, but he now could name them like his life was on the line during the final round before the prize.

Of all days, Kazutoshi enjoyed Wednesdays the most. Maybe it was a bold guess, but Ken could tell by the way he would mutter something along the lines of “we’re finally halfway done with this fucking week” every morning on every single Wednesday from the day the two first entered their shared room, as if a mantra. Ken would’ve lied if he said he didn’t eagerly wait for his amusingly annoyed affirmation every week.

When Kazutoshi was stressed, he’d often fidget with his fingers around his sidelocks. Ken would enjoy the way his hair tangled around the edges of his fingertips and then came undone in a twirl before he could repeat the motion with the same accuracy as always. He wondered if the nice smelling shampoo Kazutoshi used had some strengthening factor, or the fact that not a single hair would fall while doing that multiple times a day was a wonder to him.

Kazutoshi also liked makeup, beyond the surface impression most would have of him: Ken figured out he would take long turns in the bathroom before and after classes was because he followed a brief yet careful skincare routine before applying his go-to eyeliner and, at least to his guess, some mascara too.

Ken had once spotted what seemed to be a small tube of rimmel left open near the sink before rushing out for his physics class, and he’s never seen it again ever since. He couldn’t possibly understand how or why Kazutoshi could’ve been embarrassed of something like that, considering people could clearly see he had stunningly long lashes, unless they were as blind as a bat like Takeshi— God, his lenses were so thick it hurt him to even look at their depth.

Perhaps Kazutoshi was just the type to keep his makeup away from anyone’s touch. It’s not like he was fond of other people’s touch to begin with, so messing with his stuff clearly invaded his privacy beyond his tolerance. However, it didn’t require Ken to be any observant to find out Kazutoshi often wore chapstick.

It had gotten to his attention how Kazutoshi’s lips never looked cracked, and that was a remark about him he was quite focused on. As the time passed, Ken would find himself using that excuse to gaze at the pointiness of his mouth’s curve at every chance he had; one day he was lucky enough to witness Kazutoshi fall asleep facing his bed instead of the wall as per habit, and he sinfully relished in the way his thin lips formed a rounder shape when he was sleeping and not knocked out by whatever cause.

They looked soft, much like his moisturized skin and his hair, which was getting fluffier week by week, in Ken’s own opinion. Kazutoshi was a much softer person than he would ever admit, not even three glasses in at the party he complained about not wanting to attend.

Amongst hundreds of correct answers, Ken could’ve never guessed Kazutoshi’s hand could slip so easily around a table covered in the most diverse types of alcohol he’d seen in one place.

Actually, he never imagined a drunk Kazutoshi to be like that: completely unphased by his surroundings, just a bit more careless than he usually is, but his movements were now faster, outbalanced by a much slower speech, which Ken couldn’t help but overhear as he buzzed around the table pretending he wanted to grab something to stick by yet one more side of Kazutoshi unknown to him.

Ken watched as he poured himself a fourth drink, half a glass of lemon vodka (he did know Kazutoshi liked lemonade, but never to that level) that he chugged down very easily in two sips. He watched the way his lips pressed and curved against the glass and then brushed against his hand to be wiped clean, he watched as Kazutoshi laughed in Ruiko’s presence for the first time in six months of witnessing them bicker any time they crossed paths as she grabbed a shot glass Ken could not identify the liquid inside.

Ken watched, watched and watched: if Kazutoshi was going to attend every other party to be hosted in the campus, then Ken had just found his reason to spend the night somewhere else than his room.

But then he also watched as Kazutoshi quietly followed him in the midst of a crowd of students mindlessly dancing with each other while he was trying to get to an empty couch he’d noticed at the back of the room, sat next to him and pressed a short, chaste kiss against his jaw, then one to his lips, and then Ken’s mind went as blank as if drunk.

He directed a blank stare towards the crowd right after, as if nothing, then asked him why he hadn’t taken anything from the table yet and, before Ken could remember he was able to talk, he stood up from the couch and slowly, almost comically slowly walked back to the table, this time not to consume anything but to greet Mai who’d just showed up late.

And that’s how he ended up frozen in bed a few hours later, staring at the ceiling accompanied by Kazutoshi’s soft breathing in the background, as if all his hopes had both come true and shattered within the same moment, his lips still savouring the faint taste of alcohol that mixed with Kazutoshi’s breath as it coated his face whole.

Just as slow as Kazutoshi’s movements in the hall were, Ken could claim those few seconds on the couch replaying in slow motion as if projected on the room’s ceiling lasted eternally in his memory.

And he could now also finally confirm that Kazutoshi's chapstick was very soft. And it tasted like blackberries.

—————

“Hey, Hasegawa! Was everything okay on Sunday?” Miki asked as she bumped into Ken in the hallway, to which Ken must’ve answered with a confused groan, given she had to further explain herself.

His mind was too clouded to care for what came out of his mouth.

“You looked dazed throughout the whole episode! I almost thought you felt sick, right before the most important question of the night too…!” she resumed, watching as Ken’s face just slightly lit up as he recalled how he was fighting not to zone out during the entire quiz show as well as the cause for him to call his classes off the day before. Thankfully he only had one lecture, so he was more or less safe.

“Oh, u-uhm, I was sick” he blabbered in response, still hardly finding the right words for any occasion he’d be caught up in. “That party knocked me out a bit, t-that’s really all”

Miki stared at him from head to toe to make sure he wasn’t hurt anywhere and gave him a bright, reassuring smile. “Then you deserve double the congratulations for winning! You must’ve been under a lot of pressure!”

Ken would have loved to speak his thoughts out loud and retort that the only pressure he cared about was Kazutoshi’s against him, but as soon as the images from that Saturday night flashed before his eyes again he found himself unable to form a coherent sentence, much to the girl’s confusion.

“Yeah, I— t-thanks, Isono” he managed to blurt out before apologising for rushing to another class, and Miki disappeared in the swarm of students behind the two of them shortly after greeting him goodbye.

Except there was no class, not until two hours later at least, and Ken had grown to hate the sluggishness of time he got caught up in a few nights before that he so praised at first.

So he ran off to the end of the hallway and decided the garden area the staircase extending in front of him led to would’ve been his shelter until his quantum physics lecture. Hopefully that’d have been enough of a distraction to let some weight off his shoulders for just one hour.

Ken sat on a lonely bench and closed his eyes, waiting for a voice to float to his ears so he could drown his mind in someone else’s business without explicitly prying. He assumed smokers felt the same rush of forbidden joy as he did when partaking in that guilty pleasure activity of his when they lit a cigarette more than how they’d promised themselves. If he focused hard enough, Ken could feel the scent of tobacco coming from not that away from him.

His fantasies died on the spot when he recognized the voice his ears were being welcomed by as belonging to a familiar face, rather than the stranger he was expecting.

“…then how’s it possible that you never see shit, damn it?! They were doing it in plain sight! Plain motherfucking sight, man!”

Ken’s heartbeat sinked almost instantly. No, no no no, there’s no way he’s talking about— no, he can’t open his eyes. It’d be nasty to peer at a conversation he wasn’t even supposed to be observing right now. Weird and nasty and unacceptable and—

“I don’t know, I… I was s—”

“Shut up with your somewhere else shit!” Hiroaki’s voice ironically softened right on the curse as he likely pulled himself together. Ken assumed the look on his face was the closest thing to sorry as can be. He didn’t want to guess what his own expression looked like, though.

“Alright, uh, whatever, maybe if I say it to your face you’ll magically remember everything.” Hiroaki reprised, much to Ojima’s annoyance.

“Is this about — Jesus Christ those words really did drive Ken on the edge of nausea faster than anything that’s ever disturbed him — Tsuno and those weird guys asking her questions about her outfit…?”

Phew.

“Yo, what the fuck? Manami’s the last of my issues right now”

Ah. Ken should’ve known better not to claim victory so early.

Ojima grows impatient: that’s a first even for Hiroaki. “Can you please just tell me? I have class in ten minutes, please—”

“You seriously haven’t heard anyone anywhere in this fucking university mention it? That Yanagi guy, the figure skating prodigy, he was drunk as fuck, like, completely wasted and flirting with everyone in the room last Saturday, until he saw Hayashi finishing her drink and he literally jumped onto her and she spilled it over her top and— ew, that was the ugliest makeout I’ve been forced to watch!”

There was a remarkable pause before Ojima could respond.

“And… didn’t everyone know he had a thing for Hayashi already?”

Ken wished he had the guts to walk up to him and shake his hand in gratitude for asking what he itched to. Regardless, he couldn’t recall whether that happened before he got to his room or not, as that night stopped as Kazutoshi vanished… right next to Mai at the drink table.

“Dude, you don’t get it. Hayashi was gone, man, no one could see that coming, I seriously thought she was going to slam Yanagi into the ground— fucking hell, I would kill someone for that to happen next time”

Well, it’s not like he wanted to thank Hiroaki for some gossip he hadn’t even really asked to hear. More than that, he silently cursed him for putting the image of Shigeki and Mai entertaining the crowd with some cheesy, sloppy kiss and making him envious of their lame performance in comparison with the peck Kazutoshi had given him.

God. He’s kissed Kazutoshi. It actually happened. It still had to kick in somehow. It probably never would have.

Ojima muttered something in agreement with Hiroaki before suggesting to walk back to the main building together, only for his footsteps’ noise to cease midway to the staircase.

“Hey, Nakamigawa, can I… uh…” he began, soon screwing his intention to ask for whatever permission first and heading straight for his actual question, “Did Yanagi flirt with you too…?”

“You scared me with that tone” Hiroaki asserted back, sighing as he put out his cigarette. “Takeshi. If Hayashi doesn’t wanna smash that guy to the ground, just know I’m the closest thing there is to that concept. He’s so aware he can’t get that confident with me that not even being what, four drinks in, can make him take that much of a risk with me”

If only he knew what four drinks could do in other cases.

“Besides,” Hiroaki reprised, “it’s lowkey hilarious that you don’t remember how I was next to you the whole damn night.”

Ojima let out an embarrassed yet lighthearted laugh. “I don’t need to remember anything to know you’re a bad flirt.”

No reply came on Hiroaki’s end. From the awkward sighs (Takeshi’s was more like a giggle, but alas) that they erupted into shortly after, it was safe for Ken to assume he’d missed out on the two giving each other a kiss most certainly worse than whatever Mai and Shigeki were up to on Saturday.

He tilted his head up and opened his eyes to the vast, cloudless blue sky above him, and when he lowered his gaze, the two had already gotten inside the building.

There was still time to kill, anyways.

—————

What was supposed to be a one hour lecture had turned into a two and a half hours long excruciating torture because of the teacher having received the news she would’ve had to miss her next two classes for the week and deciding she would’ve explained everything she was supposed to go over in those two lectures in one sitting.

For once, Ken was jealous of the students who had more mandatory lectures after that and who had to very unfortunately leave the quantum physics one earlier to attend them instead.

He didn’t have anything to look forward to now that it was over, either: he would usually enjoy coming back to his room and guess if Kazutoshi was sleeping already, chilling out to destress or studying like there was no tomorrow, those three truly being the only outcomes he’d seen with his own eyes for six months straight.

Now, no matter what he was up to, Ken would’ve opened his door to a guy he couldn’t even face without breaking down into a spiral of embarrassment unknown to him.

Maybe, if he’d been drunk too, they would’ve given Mai and Shigeki fair competition. It would have lasted longer, he could have pulled Kazutoshi in, held onto his body as if contrasting something that was about to take him away, tasted each other more.

Regretfully, Ken wished for someone to barge in and inform him about some new party as soon as possible. But he also didn’t. All he really wanted was for Kamimura to—

“Hasegawa! Hold on!” Ruiko’s voice rang loudly in the tighter hallway housing the classroom Ken had just walked out of.

“Hello!” he exclaimed, fairly unconvincing — although he meant it. “Is anything the matter?”

With shaky legs for an athlete, Ruiko looked at him like he was some sort of oracle and asked, “Have you seen Toshi this whole day?”

Ken had never been on a drop tower, let alone any amusement park ride, but the flips his heart had been doing that past week were probably worse than anything he’d feel on any attraction. “W-What do you mean this whole day?!”

Ruiko collected herself, messing with her hair tie and fixing her ponytail. “He was— we were supposed to hang out during lunch, but he didn’t come, then I met one of his classmates from the lecture he always has first on Tuesdays while getting something to eat, and he said he doesn’t think he’s seen him in class” she explained in one breath, her expression matching the worry on Ken’s.

“I couldn’t find you either! I dunno, maybe he’s sick, but is it that hard to shoot me a text and postpone things by a day or two? He would tell you at least, right?”

Ken paled. The stare he gave Ruiko resembled the vacuity of Kazutoshi’s towards the party crowd that night.

“I-I gotta go, I need to— see you, Tamba!”

“What—? Hey, at least answer me! Are you two the same untalkative?” Ruiko yelled at him as he fled the hallway and disappeared behind a corner of it. She might’ve as well had been the unluckiest girl of the world that day, she thought to herself, running after people who won’t do anything but ignore her and leave her unanswered and—

“Taaa~mba” a voice chimed in, and Ruiko turned to her back to the pleasant sight of Hanano, followed by Nishino. That was the first time she’d referred to Hanano’s presence as pleasant over anything else. “You busy tonight?”

When Ruiko didn’t reply, Nishino was glad to grab one of her wrists and join the conversation. “Remember that time we planned a sleepover in Hanano’s room and we had to cancel it last minute because she got assigned a roommate? Well, he’s not in town this week, so I thought we could all hang out there while it lasts!”

Ruiko’s mind was completely elsewhere, having short-circuited the moment Nishino’s fingers, scented with some lotion reminiscent of a blend between vanilla and coffee, wrapped around the wrist that had been hurting and bothering her all day, as if instantly curing her. So she wasn’t surprised at all to have come up with quite the stupid question in response.

“You mean, me, you and Hanano, in her room, for the whole week?”

Nishino got a little flustered. “No, silly, that’s not what I—”

“Deal,” Hanano cut her off, sneering at her (positively) shocked expression and Ruiko’s frown from earlier now turning into a hearty grin. “But you’ll have to bring the snacks”

“Oh, oh! Do you want some of my spicy tortillas? I bought too many thinking Hama would’ve liked to share, but he’s been terribly sick this past week” Nishino suggested, and the other two nodded simultaneously.

There was some note of amusement in her tone at the idea of taking the snacks she’d gotten as a treat for her roommate to a sleepover with her best friends instead.

Ruiko liked it. Ruiko liked everything about her.

“So, what time are we meeting?”

Hanano sneered in response, quiet, eerie— good. It was starting to get too weirdly comfortable. “Right now.”

Instead of giving a sudden and shocked reply, Ruiko found herself raising the arm free from Nishino’s grasp (how come she hadn’t realized her hand was still on her wrist?) to high five Hanano.

“Guess what, Toshi? I’m gonna see you next Monday! Suck it!”

————

When Ken slammed the door open against the wall, the scene unfolding before his eyes was far from the catastrophe he’d envisioned: his room was still untidy and messy, a pile of clothes had fallen to the ground, his bed was undone, but there laid a tired looking Kazutoshi, curled up beneath the sheets, and Ken was unsure whether he was asleep or just unwinding.

He went over that last detail a couple times before realization finally struck.

Kazutoshi was in Ken’s bed. Not his own, not resting his head on the pillow he often complained to be the only one he could fall asleep with but on Ken’s puffier cushion, his cheek brushing against its soft silk case. Growing jealous of a pillow was the last thing Ken would have ever thought to happen.

He locked the door and stood still at the room’s entrance, gazing, enthralled at how tiny Kazutoshi looked in his bed despite its mattress being just a tiny bit larger. Perhaps that was just how Ken saw him sometimes, lovely and tiny in his big world.

Would Kazutoshi have ever guessed how vast his world had gotten since they’d met? How he had expanded his headspace and filled it with enough glimmers into his personality to blend into a beautiful blue gradient on his mind’s canvas?

Sometimes, that boy just looked too blissfully unaware of Ken not to know already. It was one of Ken’s indulgences to delude himself to believe he really didn’t have a clue, as much as he wanted to, fuck, he wanted him to get whatever signals he’s been trying to send for months.

And before the thought of having truly not sent any could form in Ken’s mind, he got the proof that if he were to give a signal, he wouldn’t even notice.

“Are you gonna fucking stand there all day like an owl?”

Ken snapped out of his trance but kept staring at the way Kazutoshi would try to look like he was sleeping in spite of his mind being sharp and alert, then dropped his bag to the floor and got out of his shoes as he nervously giggled.

“Owls sleep during daytime, so I guess that’s more like you right now.”

“Christ, you can’t be for real,” Kazutoshi snorted, watching as Ken got closer to his bed trying to find the right words — at least that’s what he’d learnt that lost look on his face translated to.

“So, uhm,” Ken bit hard on his tongue, not to visibly do so on his lips. Just as he went on with what he meant to say, the idea of Kazutoshi biting down on his lower lip had his breath hitch in his throat. Were there even any means for him to stop, at that rate? Any remedy that’d have sobered his mind from such dirtiness?

“I’m glad you find my bed comfortable,” he said absent-mindedly, soon realizing it might have sounded sarcastic. Ken hated sarcasm. He was incapable of using it on purpose. But if Kazutoshi were to get pissed, God—, “S-Seriously, I thought you were s-sick— I thought throwing up didn’t do a thing even after two days, so… finding you here like this i-is… really reassuring.”

“It’s not about Saturday, I promise. You can tell from how long I threw up for that my body didn’t fucking like that.”

“And that is what I was mostly worried about! You shouldn’t drink s-so hard, you know it’s dangerous…!”

“Dunno what got to my head, sorry.” Kazutoshi apologized in a genuine tone. However, he quickly caught on to Ken's latter statement from earlier. “…and who the hell told you?”

Ken went pale, hopefully the angle at which Kazutoshi’s head was tilted didn’t make it so obvious to him.

“Unless you got a way to prove you’ve got a magical intuition or some shit,” he added, stealing an embarrassed chuckle from Ken’s lips. It’s not like Ken intended to lie to him, anyways.

“I didn’t actually hear it from anyone, b-but, Tamba was quite upset about not being able to find you earlier.”

But then those words enabled Kazutoshi’s body to jolt awake and face Ken, who had already forgotten about how pathetic the look on his face might’ve been in favour of staring at Kazutoshi’s sudden rush of panic.

“Shit—! Goddamn it, I’m gonna get killed.”

“I don’t think Tamba would be able to get her hands on anyone, to be fair,” Ken joked, giggling at the way Kazutoshi’s expression lit up for a second, likely more because of how he looked than the idea of Ruiko being flipped off in a physical fight— maybe not against Kazutoshi, but she definitely knew better not to lay a finger on him.

It might’ve been both. Or none. What Ken knew, for what it mattered, was that he never laughed that often around anyone but Kazutoshi. He could have gotten used to the softness in his chest from giggling so frequently, maybe.

“That’s because you weren’t there when she was at her fucking worst. Rui broke some girl’s knee in high school because apparently she got picked for the gymnastics team in her place.”

“What?!”

The sigh coming from Kazutoshi shortly after was reminiscent of a snicker. “She got her spot, competed and even won first place, all to absolutely nobody’s suspicion. She’s been a bitch since I’ve met her,” he further explained, and Ken could swear he’d never heard anyone call their friend a bitch in such an affectionate tone before.

“Alright, I take it back,” Ken’s quiet, almost frantic laughter was met by Kazutoshi sighing much more annoyedly than earlier. He would have soon figured out why.

“Rui… wasn’t overthinking it,” Kazutoshi began to say, and Hasegawa sat at the end of the bed to make himself as comfortable as he wished Kazutoshi was right now. “For just one moment I thought my cataplexy was about to act up, but I wasn’t laughing, or scared, or shit like that— I don’t know what caused whatever the fuck went wrong with me, but what I do know is that it happened after my organic chemistry class and that I woke up here with a handwritten note by Manami over the sheets. Apparently whoever found me unconscious called her and she carried me back here, found my key in my bag to get in and… yeah, that’s all.”

On first thought, Ken envied how Manami had the honour of lifting Kazutoshi back to his room— after all those workouts, he was sure his arms could’ve held Kazutoshi’s already fragile body as steady and firm as possible. But on second thought, he owed Manami one for rescuing him, no matter what happened.

As expected of Tsuno Manami, the top student of her nursing major. If she’d left him alone and just tucked him into bed, that…

“…must mean you probably just passed out from a non-worrisome cause.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kazutoshi nodded, noticing how Ken’s expression got less tense after being reassured it was nothing serious. “By the way, don’t get pissed off that I didn’t get out of your bed yet after Manami left me here.”

And there he went, turning from relaxed to flustered. “W-Why would I be pissed? I’m glad you’re okay!”

“Dunno,” Kazutoshi said in a tone that left Ken hopeful that the sentence would be completed, only for the room to fall silent shortly after.

If there was one person that made Ken hate silence, that would have been Kazutoshi Kamimura.

He recalled it all: the silence as he stared at the ceiling, loud enough to make Kazutoshi’s huffed breath pass as background white noise, the silence as he stood up from the couch and left him drifting alone in his thoughts, the silence as he kissed him.

Ken had kissed Kazutoshi— no, Kazutoshi kissed him, fuck, and he was laying under the sheets in front of him like nothing had happened. Had they talked it through, had Kazutoshi any memory of the party, maybe they wouldn’t be sitting that awkwardly far away from each other, maybe Ken would… there was really no antidote to prevent those images from popping up in his mind.

They may have touched for barely three seconds, but it was enough for Ken to know Kazutoshi was the good kisser he imagined him to be. He craved more of those good kisses, more of Kazutoshi’s breath mixing with his and intoxicating him, he wanted to lean in and kiss him back, or even take the initiative first.

He lacked guts in many situations, but Kazutoshi would’ve made him brave. But if that was so, then why was he unable to say a thing? Why was that excruciating silence his fault?

“Ah, I forgot to mention this,” Kazutoshi cut through it first. Ken was very glad. “Before the only lecture I managed to attend, I met Nakamigawa— or better, he met me, ‘cause I was minding my damn business, but either way he mentioned something like wanting to invite some people over to his house, his actual house, this Thursday,”

That Friday would have marked a national holiday. Ken couldn’t hide that he was itching to know how Kazutoshi wanted to spend the extra day off, considering they studied in Tokyo and going out without a goal then of all days would’ve been the most overwhelming choice.

“I’ve got no clue who’s going, I’d guess Takeshi and Masanari would have no better chance, can’t say anything about the girls other than Mai— which probably means Shigeki is also coming along, since Nakamigawa would prioritize being nice to a lady to being his biggest public hater, but that doesn’t matter. There’s rumors going around that his apartment is fucking huge. He’s rich, Ken.”

Carelessly, Ken let his mind speak without thinking first.

“So? Is that an invite?”

“Now here comes the fun part, Nakamigawa hasn’t asked you— not yet, I’m not sure if he wants to, but he better know I’m not going unless you’re there too. It’s not worth it.” Kazutoshi replies, saying that as if it were natural that the two of them always stuck together. It made Ken’s stomach pleasantly twist.

He ached to say he wouldn’t have had any reason to go alone either, but that was too much of a dead giveaway, even if it was exactly what Kazutoshi had just said. He couldn’t afford it after last Saturday, no matter how much of it Kazutoshi remembered.

“Sounds good to me,” Ken replied with a warm smile, one in the place of a hand being held or a hug being given. God, he wished he could’ve felt Kazutoshi’s touch just for a second.

“Great, ‘cause I want someone who’s not boring to take me somewhere else if Takeshi gets Nakamigawa dead drunk and they get disgusting in front of the others again.”

What. “Again…?”

Kazutoshi gave Ken a weird look, probably guessing he didn’t know the two guys were dating.

“I mean— everybody knows that part, but when has it happened before?”

Kazutoshi let out a loud, distressed sigh. Only Ken would’ve been capable of enabling him to talk about them (or Nakamigawa by himself, that was already enough) without losing his temper.

“It’s no secret that Takeshi drinks a lot. By the time I got to the hall last Saturday, Nakamigawa was completely wasted already, then I lost track of them for a while and the next thing I knew was that Takeshi had the brat pinned to a wall and— ugh, his tongue was all over him. Nakamigawa is lucky he knows his thing when it comes to concealer, and Takeshi is one even luckier fucker. I kinda wish that wasn’t the only thing I remembered about the party.”

Just like that, there was no holding back anymore. Ken had to know. “You… don’t remember anything else past that?”

It felt as if he had a wheel spinning inside his stomach.

“Yeah, uh, Christ, this is so embarrassing, don’t laugh. I got so pissed at the way Nakamigawa and Takeshi looked like they had no idea how to kiss each other I ended up drinking a lot more than I had planned— I’m sorry if I wasn’t present to myself or with you, I hope you weren’t as disoriented as I saw you enter the hall all night.”

It spun again, harder.

“I don’t think I even said hi, Jesus, I knew I couldn’t handle it well, I’m sorry Ken. I’m lowkey just as fucked as Nakamigawa except for the fact I didn’t spend the night tongueing another guy in the room.”

Fuck, fuck his head hurt like crazy. Fuck. Ken prayed he was suppressing all his emotions internally and didn’t show a thing on the outside and, before he knew it, the worst joke slipped out of his mouth in the haze of the moment.

“What then, would you have liked to?”

“Ken—!” Kazutoshi bursted out, his tone still collectedly low. Ken found that adorable, there, all his panic was now gone, even if there wasn’t really anything he could’ve done against the fact Kazutoshi’s memory went point blank right as the party started. “Do you still want me to take you to Nakamigawa’s place with me or not?”

“Ooo, scary,” Ken whispered, leaving Kazutoshi surprisingly amused by how ridiculous he sounded and thus unable to get further mad, “Of course I want to come with you, as long as you won’t drink like that again.”

Kazutoshi’s face had never looked that genuinely upset at himself. “I won’t, I swear.”

Ken nodded, then allowed himself to not mind his own words one last time. He was too deep into this mess to ultimately care. “Good, I want to talk to you.”

He stood up and headed for the bathroom. The real thing he didn’t want to care about was whatever look there was on Kazutoshi’s face after that. It was for his own good.

—————

That night and the following one, Ken had dreams in which Kazutoshi knew.

In which Kazutoshi’s hair covered Ken’s right hand cupping his cheek as he pulled the boy closer and kissed him while inhaling his scent, and his left hand intertwined with his slender fingers in a slow dance similar to the one their mouths were partaking in.

In which Kazutoshi would nibble at his lips and Ken rejoiced in the way they’d get swollen so quickly, eager to receive more and more. The tip of his tongue skimming ever so softly over where his teeth had pressed, small pecks adorning his job with a final touch.

In which they first were on that same couch, then against the wall, Ken lifting Kazutoshi in his arms and keeping his back pressed against the wall as his legs locked behind his waist, traveling from his lips down to the base of his neck, first with pointy kisses and then by dragging his tongue along the line he’d earlier sketched, and Kazutoshi letting out low, mellow breaths at Ken’s pace.

In which the setting then moved to their room, and Kazutoshi was straddling him as he leaned down into a more passionate kiss, their now bare chests brushing against each other and sending chills down Ken’s spine on the mattress, Kazutoshi sealing sweet yet choked noises away by pressing his lips to every inch of Ken’s face, then his neck, then his torso, tracing that path back up by sucking gently over his skin every now and then, eventually pressing his teeth on his shoulder and drawing a mark hard.

It had only been two days, and Ken felt like he was going to die like that. He’d wake up sweaty and hazy and overall looking like a mess, run to the bathroom for his conditions to go unnoticed, and then he would be forced to go on with his day like the only thing on his mind wasn’t physics or maths, but the idealized vision of his roommate making out with him until the end of dawn.

He had to admit he couldn’t look at Kazutoshi the same way as before, ashamedly so, and it didn’t help that when he got back to his room on Thursday evening, he found him getting changed for Nakamigawa’s party (was it even a party? Nakamigawa’s fun night with “friends” definitely didn’t sound as convincing), wearing a pair of black wide-leg trousers and holding a navy blue shirt and a silver belt in his hands.

Right. He walked in on him shirtless. Which wouldn’t have been an issue at all before that Saturday, because Kazutoshi had changed himself in Ken’s presence many times, and vice versa.

It wasn’t embarrassing for men to undress around each other, right? So, by logic, he wasn’t going to get crucified for staring at Kazutoshi’s chest as he entered the room—

“What, do I have anything weird on me?”

Maybe not so intensely.

“N-No, I promise! You look fine,” Ken could not believe he’d just said that. “I— s-sorry, I’ve just been zoning out like crazy since this morning…”

Kazutoshi dropped the clothes on his bed and faced Ken with a rare tender expression on his face. Ken felt as if he were standing in front of the sun and he was ready to inevitably burn alive.

“Just this morning? Ken, you’ve been acting this weird since yesterday, are you sure you’re not sick or anything? You don’t need to push yourself to come with me tonight.”

Ken hectically shook his head. “I’m not sick, I-I swear! My mind’s just…” the moment he took a small pause to breathe, he prayed Kazutoshi would’ve taken his explanation for granted. “I’m all over the place, I keep thinking a-about too many things, and my next exams are too hard and I should be studying right now but I can’t find the motivation for it and—”

“Ken.” Kazutoshi called out sharply, and the taller boy fell silent as if under a spell. “We’re going to a place where all this stuff will be irrelevant for some hours, it’s been a hard week for us both, so let’s… just relax tonight.”

Right, relax. Ken was unsure if their plans for the night had the right circumstances for him to relax given he was going to be even closer to the same guy plaguing his mind taking advantage of how hard he was to discuss feelings.

If Ken was said to only be good at stating facts, then wasn’t his fondness of Kazutoshi the clearest fact he knew? 

“You’re right, I’m… r-really sorry for being like this, I should go get changed too.” he headed for the chair where he’d left the clothes he picked to wear for the night on earlier that day, consisting of a pair of greyish brown pinstripe trousers, a blazer of the same color that went in pair with it, a white linen shirt and a cute brown vest his sister had gifted him years before which was a little too large for him to wear back then. 

“You’re not being like anything, that’s just how I know you,” Kazutoshi retorted as Ken took his shirt off too, his expression turning a bit more neutral but still withholding the delicacy Ken was met with earlier. “Just, if you need anything, let me know, alright?”

In the midst of folding his shirt and storing it back in his closet, Ken found himself with a different answer on his tongue than reciprocating Kazutoshi’s statement.

“Actually, I… there is s-something right now.”

Kazutoshi slightly cocked his head to the side. “Mh. What is it?”

Ken inevitably started counting his breaths.

One; he was so going to regret that, two; he couldn’t make Kazutoshi wait for so long, that must’ve been so lame of him for such a stupid request.

Three. “I really need a hug right now.”

The loud ringing in his ears was soon quieted down by the reply his panicked brain realistically least expected but which, deep in his heart, he knew for sure was going to be the one.

“Sure. C’mere.”

“A-Are you really su—”

“Ken, I just said I am.” Kazutoshi motioned at him to come closer, Ken’s flustered expression hardly preventing a relieved smile to make room on his face.

So he walked up to him and, with the carefulness of someone who was about to carry the most delicate vase of an expensive collection from one room to another, Ken wrapped Kazutoshi in his arms in the overwhelming heat of their chests pressed against each other.

He nested his head on his soft hair and exhaled, as exasperated as fulfilled, his words coming out in some sort of a hiccup. “I’m sorry.”

“Shut it, I said you’re fine,” Kazutoshi muttered against his chest, and a shiver ran down Ken’s spine like thunder. “We’re fine.”

“Is this not s-selfish of me to ask? Greedy?”

“Ken, shut up, do I look like I’m against this? I like it.”

The room fell dreadfully silent again. Then, he said it one more time, almost as if he knew Ken needed to hear it again, “I like this.”

Ken held him tighter in a hug that yelled I like this too.

—————

“Ugh, seriously? You came all the way here dressed like this?!”

Nakamigawa’s finger pointed at Ken’s chest as he stood in front of the door next to Kazutoshi, his purple shades that he picked for the night revealing shaking, mad eyes behind them. “No one’s graduating, or getting married, or fucking dead! Well, your fashion taste is!”

After a quick look around the living room, he started to partially understand what he was trying to say.

Next to the stove was Mai, intent at supervising Shigeki as he cooked something under her instructions; Takeshi was helping Masanari and Manami setting the table where the drinks would’ve supposedly gone; then Hanano was lighting up candles around the living room, a very large living room with full height windows overlooking Tokyo’s busiest area and what seemed to be a 77 inches TV screen in the middle of it.

There was no reason not to believe those rumors, anyways. Hiroaki Nakamigawa was already a name, the name amongst young fashion lovers in the country, of course he was this wealthy. Ken started to have a flash of an idea of what he wanted to do with all the money he would’ve earned on quiz shows after graduating.

Either way, all of the attendants, Nakamigawa and Kazutoshi included, were brought together by one factor: none of them looked like they were attending a family dinner they were the only young person at.

Before he could reply to Nakamigawa, Ken overheard some steps coming from the long hallway facing the entrance door which led to the other (presumably) insanely large rooms in the apartment, and coming into the room after them was—

“Rui, what the hell are you doing here?” Kazutoshi asked, unsure what he was so shocked about. Perhaps it was a side effect of his best friend having been silent with him for nearly a week.

“And why would you of all people ask? Oh my God, some of you men are stupid as hell!”

“Excuse me?!”

“Taaa~mba, there’s a time and place to be misandric, don’t you think?”

Nakamigawa retracted his finger from where it laid near Ken’s vest and swiftly turned to his left. “Okazaki— no, everyone, what the actual fuck?!”

Ruiko turned in Hanano’s direction as well, shortly followed by the other guys who had to unfortunately witness that nonsense unfold. “I’m not a misandrist, what are you on? I just sometimes happen to hate Toshi!”

“Yeeeah, sometimes, nice one,” Kazutoshi chimed in, then tapping on Nakamigawa’s back, “Are you finally done shitting on Hasegawa’s clothes or can we go back to our dorms?”

Hearing Kazutoshi call him by his last name for the first time in a while singlehandedly made Ken feel more uneasy than anything Nakamigawa had told him or wanted to. He was the first to address people formally and he knew Kazutoshi was used to calling everyone, exceptions being made for Ruiko, by their last names unless he was in a one on one conversation with them, but it still struck a nerve he didn’t even think he had.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever! God, just— Takeshi! Take them to the room everyone left their jackets in!” Nakamigawa shouted at the painter who, as per usual, looked like he’d been hypnotized in a trance until then.

“Oh, uhm, sure. Follow me down the hallway, you two.”

“I’m staying like this, I literally have nothing to take off,” Kazutoshi said, watching as Ken quietly followed Takeshi’s steps down the hallway, relieved that he was free from Nakamigawa’s wrath for a little while.

About that, Nakamigawa seemed to have calmed down the very moment the two guys left the living room, turning to Ruiko who’d been standing in her position right outside the corridor, her face stuck in an unconvincing frown since she’d seen Kazutoshi in the room.

“So, do we have everyone?”

“Yeah, Isono informed us she wouldn’t be able to make it yesterday, Keizou is away until the end of the month, Airi has been shooting for a show nonstop all week, Hitomi turned your offer down personally… and Nishi texted me she isn’t coming,” Ruiko replied with a sigh. “Her roommate has been stuck in bed for, like, a week because he’s sick or something, so she went back to her room tonight to keep him company… ugh, could she not do it any other day?”

Kazutoshi walked closer, inevitably determined to pry into her business for the first time in a while. “The fuck you mean, any other day?”

In that single moment, Ruiko lit up in childish excitement. “Hanano’s roommate is gone until next Monday, so we’ve been sleeping in her room since Tuesday!”

Hanano then yelled from the farthest corner of the room, making sure it was louder than her previous comment. “In truth, they’ve been hanging out with me all day. We have a little alliance going on!”

Kazutoshi’s eyes moved back and forth between the two of them, not sure whether to be mad, upset, none or both at once. “Is that why you didn’t respond to my texts asking you to reschedule our lunch together to Wednesday? And then today?!”

For a fraction of a second, Ruiko looked like she felt genuine surprise at his words. “Did I forget to reply? Aw man, next Monday it is then.”

“Aww, did I forget chu repwy?” he mocked the blonde, who crossed her arms back with a louder grunt. “I felt sick on Tuesday! I didn’t mean to dump you like that!”

“But did you shoot me a text to let me know? Let me guess, no! I was worried as hell! I ran through the whole building twice looking for you, then a third time trying to find Hasegawa hoping he knew something about you! And he didn’t tell me a thing about how you were doing until Wednesday afternoon!”

“I’m sorry for not being able to control when I faint? What do you want me to tell you?” Kazutoshi decided to ignore Ruiko until things would’ve calmed down between them, which, he could say for sure, meant five minutes at most if he stopped giving credit to her right now.

The hardest part, however, was for Ruiko not to mind.

“If only Tsuno hadn’t told me she cared to take you back to your room and that it was nothing serious, which clearly meant you could’ve texted me once you woke up! Right, Tsuno?!”

Manami, for her part, had been teaching Masanari how to fold napkins in a lily shape for as long as the two were done setting up the bottles, snacks and glasses on the table.

Speaking of bottles, it seemed like Nakamigawa had been keeping some champagne and more fancy packaged alcohol aside for the first fun occasion he could’ve caught to organize something at his place. Kazutoshi would’ve lied if he said there was no voice at the back of his head telling him he should’ve mixed a bit of everything for fun.

“I mean, yes! That’s what happened, but…” Manami told Ruiko and, by extension, Kazutoshi. And everyone else. “You two are together now, so does it really matter anymore?”

And just like that, the open space went silent, only once interrupted by Nakamigawa wondering whatever the hell Manami and Masanari were up to, to which the latter insisted he should’ve learnt how to make napkin lilies too.

It was Kazutoshi’s turn at sighing, except his tone now came off sincere and somewhat sorry. “Yeah, Rui, let’s call this off until Monday. You’re good.”

Ruiko gave him an asserted nod (he could’ve argued she held herself from smiling, too) and Kazutoshi returned to his former intention of checking up on the food Mai and Shigeki were cooking: he was well aware Mai knew what he could and couldn’t consume, but with Yanagi Shigeki as the head chef instead of her, no matter all the supervision, he had to be careful.

However, as he turned to the two cooks who had enjoyed listening to the debate that had just occurred, Kazutoshi’s eyes met Ken’s — and Takeshi’s, but he couldn’t care less.

Just how long had he been at the hallway’s threshold?

“Have we picked a good time to come back or do you guys need five more minutes?” Ken asked, a chuckle escaping his lips when he noticed Kazutoshi mordaciously rolling his eyes, a hint of a smile painting his face as well. That joy made room for another, far more important question.

“So… what are we exactly doing tonight?”

Nakamigawa smirked in the way one would do as they ruined a little kid’s hopes and dreams. Ken didn’t have a clue where that comparison came from, but it felt as fit as a glove.

Accurate enough that even Mai let out a hearty laugh. “S’unreal, the way you talk like you’ve never gone out before.”

“Easy on him, Mai,” Shigeki chimed in, taking a short break from cutting tofu over a tall pot — was he making miso? Was it for Kazutoshi? — to join the conversation. “So many things are happening at once, of course he would be a little distressed about the plans for tonight.”

As the skater spoke, Nakamigawa took one step ahead, then two, then on the third he grabbed his phone and turned on the camera.

“Guys, I’m gonna say something so wild I need to keep it for the record, but Yanagi’s right: we’re doing everything tonight.”

And so they did. Starting by eating the meals Mai and Shigeki had offered to provide, mostly consisting of finger food for everyone and miso soup to accommodate Kazutoshi’s needs, then improvising a round of cheers opening the sparkly bottle of champagne that towered over the drinks and snacks table.

It kicked off with Nakamigawa celebrating the first time he managed to invite a whole group of friends over to his place after getting into college and vowing to change himself for the better, something none of them knew about — save from Takeshi, probably — nor they could believe so easily, although every person in the person could swear they had genuine hopes about him.

The cheers proceeded all the way to the end of the circle they’d formed around the dining room’s table, which only Kazutoshi and Masanari were sitting at, requiring Shigeki to pour everyone more champagne after not having even reached half of the rotation.

Manami gave a heartfelt short speech on how proud she was of everyone who managed to be there that day as well as those who couldn’t attend, only for it to be followed by a nervous Masanari vaguely wishing for everyone to “just have fun until it lasted”, which earned him a roaring applause much louder than the congratulations the nursing student received. And Manami was the loudest voice amongst the shouts.

Sooner than they’d expect, Nakamigawa’s living room looked like a battlefield: the scent of alcohol mixed with a persistent sweat smell after Ruiko spotted a full collection of Just Dance games for the Nintendo Switch on one of the shelves — much to Nakamigawa’s embarrassment — and suggested they’d all play together, which only Kazutoshi was allowed not to agree to.

On her first dance, Mai’s controller, unsecured without its armband, slipped from her hand and flung to the large window leading to the balcony. Nakamigawa prayed he wouldn’t only notice eventual damage days later, but it did look like nothing had been broken. He’d made sure the glass was resistant enough.

The guys had organized an impromptu tournament and, to everyone’s surprise, Ken constantly scored the highest after Ruiko, only lacking during the final round when the randomly picked expert difficulty choreography favored the girl the second it included a split drop to the floor. 

Nothing to be awkward about anyways, after Nakamigawa and Hanano were matched against each other to dance as a twerking reindeer for four minutes straight. Kazutoshi and Ruiko made sure they’d caught that on camera for future use, or whatever Ken had heard them whisper to each other as he recovered from the song he’d just beaten Masanari to.

The floor was a valley of rotten — or better, torn apart — paper lilies, wet with champagne, cola, and at least five different liquids nobody wanted to hear the smell of for at least a week after that night.

Popcorn spread on the parquet like mushrooms growing amidst the flowers, Shigeki’s fault: after celebrating Ruiko’s totally-not-rigged victory with some more drinks, the blond and Takeshi insisted the group should have watched a cheesy movie to have a good laugh.

A movie which only Shigeki and Mai ended up following from start to end: Ruiko had gotten out on the balcony where Hanano had sneaked to roughly fifteen minutes after the romcom began, the two of them discussing something that clearly was making the shorter girl either extremely emotional or distressed; Manami had noticed Masanari getting bored and volunteered to clean the dining area that the group had left seemingly beyond repair while the cook and his sous chef huddled on the couch.

That was a Mai nobody had ever seen before, hyperfocused on the screen as Shigeki sobbed some incomprehensible words whenever the two main characters would kiss or even just hug.

Ken couldn’t help but notice how, every five minutes or so, Shigeki would place a knightly kiss on Mai’s hand that he’d been holding throughout the entire movie. He wasn’t shocked nobody else had seen them like that, considering Manami and Masanari were chatting in the kitchen, Ruiko was having a sort of breakdown in front of a very amused yet comprehensive looking Hanano on the balcony, and Nakamigawa sat on Takeshi’s lap, pushing him onto the long couch’s armrest as he kissed him heavy, breathless (as opposite to Takeshi, who was panting unexpectedly loud against his mouth), their bodies frequently shuffling only to always end up in the same position.

Ken wasn’t really minding it until Nakamigawa lowered his mouth to the crook Takeshi’s neck formed with his shoulder and he felt like he was going to explode on the spot. Not much because he felt like he was invading something private— okay, that was the general consensus, but it seemed like it was inevitable with the two of them; Ken was rather hypnotized by the way they looked at and for each other like that was going to be their last day on earth and they had to seal their love for eternity. When had Ken even gotten so unconvincingly poetic? Must’ve been the glass of rhum he took from Manami earlier.

He watched as they acted out one of the many fantasies he dreamed of for two nights in a row nonstop, as Takeshi’s skin already showed faint marks that would’ve darkened by daylight, as Nakamigawa was blatantly fighting the urge to be even more obvious and take up nearly the whole room on the couch, which would’ve squeezed Ken between his legs — or his feet, God, was Nakamigawa wearing shoes on the couch? — and Mai and Shigeki, who were already close on their own.

Nothing guaranteed it wouldn’t happen soon, to be honest. Besides, Ken already meant to leave when Kazutoshi mentioned to him that he’d have gone to the bathroom, promising himself that as soon as he returned he would’ve found an excuse to at least get up from the couch, maybe joining Ruiko and Hanano on the balcony.

Except Kazutoshi hadn’t come back. Ken’s inner voice started cursing to himself with the same frequency as the blue haired boy would, trying to piece back everything that happened since he left. He had to remember, he wasn’t fucking drunk unlike nearly everyone else in the apartment.

How long had it been, twenty minutes? Ken recalled hearing an alarm go off from Ruiko’s phone just as Kazutoshi disappeared in the corridor, after which Masanari rushed to the balcony reminding her to take her pills. If Ken was correct about the alarm having gone off as an exact hour struck, then it made sense for the time he read on the clock above the TV to read sometime near twenty past midnight.

That didn’t take away the fear Kazutoshi had suddenly felt sick, though. His phone was next to Ken’s on the table in front of the couch, so there was no way he could’ve been updated where he was. Shit.

He stood up muttering some sickness related excuse made on the spot and ventured into the hallway, fuck, that was longer than he remembered it to be when he went to lay down his blazer. He looked into every room down to the messy laundry — which looked unopened since Nakamigawa first left for college — until he figured out the bathroom was behind the door at the very end of the corridor. Truly some goddamn sick joke.

Ken only didn’t kick the door open because it looked crazy expensive and the last thing he wanted — after finding Kazutoshi unconscious, of course, but he was putting all his patience and hope into believing that was not the case — was for Nakamigawa to beat him up like the time he threw hands at Shigeki for spilling lemonade on his new designer clothes at lunch. Even if he came out of it more battered than the skater, who knew his thing when it came to physical contrast.

On the spacious bathroom’s floor, covered in tiles like its walls, sat Kazutoshi, looking quite unphased and twirling his hair in his fingers the way Ken often admired. “Oh, thank goodness,” he thought out loud, sighing even more evidently at the sight before him.

Kazutoshi sighed back with an annoyed, definitely ironic but still annoyed pout on his face. “Took you long enough, huh?”

It only made Ken further feel like he was imagining everything. “Wh… excuse me?”

“I was waiting, man, did you seriously think I would’ve come back to that shitshow?” explained Kazutoshi, Ken’s expression answering his question. “Are Nakamigawa and Takeshi still—”

“Loud as hell,” Ken nodded with a nervous cackle. “I don’t know how Hayashi and Yanagi are managing to watch that movie like they’re the only ones in the room.”

“What a fucking awful movie.”

“Agreed. Who picked it, Tamba?”

Kazutoshi raised an eyebrow and smiled a little. Ken’s heart made a much larger leap. “I know Rui’s a menace, but would she really insist on being the one to pick a movie for the group to watch and then leave first? I’m starting to understand why Nakamigawa hates Shigeki.”

“Well,” Ken’s words were constantly broken by a quiet, soft giggle as he shut the door behind him and walked up to Kazutoshi, “It doesn’t look like his priority is knocking Yanagi down for putting on a cheap romcom, right now.”

“That means I can hate Shigeki harder.” Kazutoshi asserted, patting the floor next to him and motioning Ken to sit down by his side. Ken instantly complied.

“You’d never really hate him.”

“Yes the fuck I would, after tonight it’s the bare minimum.”

“Don’t lie to me, Kazutoshi” Ken remarked as a sweet joke, but his breath inevitably caught up in his throat when he saw Kazutoshi’s nerves suddenly loosen at those words.

When he next spoke, face to face with Ken, his breath had a familiar hint of lemon vodka, although noticeably way less strong than on that Saturday night. “Can’t even joke anymore, damn it.”

Ken didn’t respond and tenderly smiled at him, to which Kazutoshi replied with a fainter, but similarly loving grin.

Oh, he liked that. Whatever game Kazutoshi was playing, he loved it and it worked on him. His smile was attractive. Kazutoshi was attractive. Ken wished the little alcohol in his body would’ve made him brave enough to admit that to his face, or to just kiss him out of nowhere like Shigeki first did with Mai — he was never told what Nakamigawa and Takeshi’s first kiss was like, but the designer often took the initiative abruptly, and Takeshi liked it, so he guessed that worked, too.

“So, what was that whole thing about wanting to talk to me tonight about, anyways?” Kazutoshi then broke the brief silence, and had Ken the chance to kill himself on the spot, he couldn’t deny he would’ve at least considered it. He can’t even question why he said that, because he knows. Ken knows that feeling too well.

“Uh, I— it’s been a while s-since we had some time f-for ourselves outside of university…” he blabbered in distress, in awe at how Kazutoshi wasn’t sweetly mocking him like he usually would have.

“Yeah, it’s partially my fault too,” he replied, hoping Ken would’ve read an unspoken apology in the lines, “S’there anything on your mind you wanted to tell me?”

Ken panicked and his mind went places unknown to him, far enough to be uncontrollable in his next reply after an initial palpable silence. “I’ve never seen you wear this shirt b-before, where’d you get it?”

If he was surprised at Kazutoshi not making fun of him earlier, the deadpan look on his face following his question was golden, one Ken would’ve tried sneakingly taking a picture of, hadn’t he left his and Kazutoshi’s phones in the living room and wasn’t he mortified of himself in that moment.

“Woooow, is that really the most interesting thing we can discuss right now?”

“I mean, y-ye—” Ken choked the words in his throat before it was irreparably too late, though he could hardly convince himself Kazutoshi wasn’t able to pick up on what he meant to say. “What then, d-do you have any better topics?”

“Who knows, huh.” Kazutoshi shrugged, then hinted at a smile. “My aunt got it for me as a gift for getting into uni. She told me to wear it on the first fun day I would’ve had there, so I guess this is it.”

Ken was never subjected to that many questions at once. What did Kazutoshi consider a fun day or night? How special was that shirt to him? Why tonight of all occasions, if he’d already attended some parties on campus before? Why was Saturday not special? Was tonight special because Ken had agreed to come with him instead of showing up without notice? 

Eventually, there was a better question Ken could answer on the spot. Why couldn’t he just be bold, even if it was a pretense to hide the way his heart beat so loud in his ears they felt like they were about to burst?

“Then I’m glad you’re having fun, it really fits you. You should wear this more o-often.”

Jeez, he had almost gone a full sentence without stuttering.

Kazutoshi looked flattered, which is both what Ken wanted and least expected. He couldn’t tell whether his pale cheeks turning just a tiny, unnoticeable bit rosy was his imagination or not, but he really liked it. Ken liked him.

“Hm. I’d rather wear hoodies every day for the rest of my life, but thank you. This is fine, I guess.”

“Yeah, you’re fine.”

Pause. Christ.

“You too.”

What.

“T-Thanks?” What the fuck. Nothing Ken was saying and hearing made sense any longer. Maybe that was the key, maybe he should’ve embraced nonsense like every single other person in that apartment tonight.

“You shouldn’t have taken off yer jacket, it makes yer shoulders wider,” Kazutoshi slurred his words. Ken had only heard a slight accent from him a couple times before, and the fact it was starting to slip away now that he was somewhat drunk drove him insane.

Ken had been to his hometown, Osaka, many times because of quiz shows. It was well known trivia that the city had a big beer and overall drinking culture; he’d walked through countless streets filled with people of all ages — even slightly below legal — clinking glasses while laughing in a dialect Ken couldn’t grasp every single word of, when spoken too strongly and fast.

For Kazutoshi, he would’ve learnt.

“What about it?”

“It fits ya well,” Kazutoshi punctuates, “Very well.”

Ken’s chest was burning; if untreated it would’ve probably left inner scars he knew no cure to, but he felt alive. Not just being towed by life, but taking it head on. He’d have found a remedy, just eventually. “W-Would you like me to… go and get it then?”

“Nah, s’better if you stay like this right now.”

“Didn’t you say it made my shoulders look better?”

“I said wider, not better, goodness, they’re huge nonetheless,” with each of Kazutoshi’s words, Ken felt as if his heart was growing in dimensions until his ribcage wouldn’t have been able to hold it any longer. It worsened when he held his face with a hand, laughing in resignation as if he were hiding himself. “Dunno why I sound like I’m a freak. Ya can leave if y’feel like it.”

“You’re not a freak? And I don’t want to leave you?” Ken retorted, not sure what he was questioning him about. “There’s bigger freaks out there, like Okazaki— that’s a different kind of freak, but uhm, take Hiroaki, or Ojima, or—”

“Or you,” Kazutoshi cut him off, ironically and without the accent he’d been showing, but perhaps also reading his mind, because who was Ken to deny the absolute truth and lose all his ridiculous prize pool?

“I plead guilty,” he joked as he raised his wrists, earning a soft laugh from Kazutoshi and hoping he’d die hearing nothing other than that.

And if Kazutoshi was already as aware as Ken suspected him to be, there wasn’t any point in speaking the thoughts he could only see his dream self could voice.

“You should laugh more, Kazutoshi, that’s… really nice to hear.”

“Yer fun,” Kazutoshi replied sharply, like it was any shocking news that he enjoyed his presence. He then put more emphasis, “That’s what ya get for bein’ fun.”

Ken really wanted to add that his laugh wasn’t only nice but also cute to hear, but a glimmer of a chance he couldn’t miss at that very moment had just been served to him on a silver platter.

“Then if I’m fun, why do you feel like a freak?” a laugh then fled his mouth, “Am I illegal to have fun with?”

Kazutoshi exhaled once, then twice, as if he were about to admit to a crime just like Ken was saying. “Y’know what people say about bein’ more honest when yer drinkin’?”

Ken nodded, vigorous, confident, begging Kazutoshi to tell him more.

“If I speak my mind, I’m gonna be a freak. An’ I don’t want ya to hate me ‘cuz the more I drink, the more I feel like doin’ all this— I’m not even that drunk! I had two glasses, an’ Rui finished my second drink, so it ain’t even two!”

Unconsciously, Ken leaned closer. It was subtle, but their shoulders now touched and Kazutoshi stared down at them like he was about to say Ken had huge fuckin’ shoulders once again. Just thinking about it was enough for Ken to urge him further. “I would never hate you, Kazutoshi. You can tell me anything.”

“Nah, I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” the two got closer again. Now their shoulders were fully against each other, and the worst part of it was that Ken was sure it was Kazutoshi who leaned into his touch and his words. He was about to die, but at least he’d have died a happy man. “Just… how conscious are you right now?”

“I know my thing, Ken,” Kazutoshi scrunched his nose. Ken didn’t need to stand up and look into a mirror to figure out his face had flushed pink just from that. “I’m just tipsy as fuck an’ it’s gettin’ to my head, but it’s not as bad as on Saturday.”

“Same for me,” Ken admitted, scratching his head which began itching the second Kazutoshi mentioned he’d been feeling a little sickness there. “But either way, I’m dead serious: I love talking to you, Kazutoshi. If there’s anything you w-want to tell me, and you’re conscious you’re saying it because of the alcohol b-but you also mean it—” Ken bit onto his tongue hard enough to shut his eyes in pain. “Ow, sorry, as I was saying, I have a bit of a h-headache, too…”

He didn’t care whether Kazutoshi believed him or not. Ken grabbed his wrist, gently, caging it in his slender fingers as a vow not to ever let that boy go. Kazutoshi reciprocated by slightly intertwining his pinky finger with Ken’s. He would’ve died a happy, messed up man.

“If that makes you feel better, I— feel like a freak about you all the time, but I’m still here, and you’re still here, so…”

Ken meant to close the sentence by once more telling him he could’ve opened about anything and everything, but then Kazutoshi grabbed his whole hand like he had only done when he felt physically weak and Ken would escort him back to their room, and now Ken felt weak, and before he knew it he was kissing his hand like he’d seen fucking Shigeki of all people do. Holy shit.

Kazutoshi’s skin was cold to his mouth, like kissing a statue made of marble, which perfectly summarized everything Ken felt in that moment: there before him sat the masterpiece that most moved his heart, and he was allowed the privilege to trespass the barriers around him to take a closer look.

But then Kazutoshi flinched, although slightly, minimally, and Ken feared he’d just seen terror flash in his eyes.

“I— last Saturday—” Kazutoshi hiccuped, flashing vague memories from that night clouding his mind. Ken could tell from the way his stare was genuinely confused rather than shocked by clear facts, but if he could’ve given all his revenue from quiz wins in exchange for knowing what he was exactly thinking about, in that very moment he would have. “We… did see each other.”

“Yeah.”

“And you… sat next to me too.”

“Yeah.”

“Did we?” no hesitation on the question.

“Yeah.” none on the answer either.

Ken didn’t instantly receive an answer — no floating “oh”s, no gasps, no surprised expression came from Kazutoshi or his face. Instead, he leaned close enough to smell rhum in Ken’s breath and mix it with the citron scent of his own.

Now Ken was practically two glasses in. It was at the tip of his tongue, he knew he only needed to say one word to make sure Kazutoshi wasn’t on the wrong track about all of that, he knew he was losing it over a courtesy, a confirmation. Ken knew, out of all words that weren’t outright a confession, he couldn’t say one.

And as a matter of fact, Kazutoshi was great at seeing through his millstone gaze.

“Ken. Please.”

He held Ken’s hand tighter. Kazutoshi’s heartbeat was loud, an intensity he’d never felt on its own, separated from sickness.

In the last few seconds of silence between them, Ken’s ears were blessed with the greatest ensemble of emotions he believed humankind to be able to compose, directed by him and Kazutoshi inhaling and exhaling in unison until he slowly leaned in, making sure Kazutoshi really wanted that, that he wasn’t playing around, he really wanted him.

For a man who’d never kissed anybody, Ken was met with the smoothest touch he could’ve ever wished for; Kazutoshi’s lips enveloped his in an even warmer hug than the one they’d shared while getting ready to go out, much softer compared to the little taste of them Ken had gotten nearly a week before, nervous but determined, as if they had to get to know each other all over again.

Ken’s free hand found its home on Kazutoshi’s shoulder, and he soon felt Kazutoshi’s left hand brush against his hip, tugging at his trousers and shifting closer into the kiss, inclining his head at a better angle for Ken to be able to savor every inch of him.

Their foreheads touched just slightly before Ken’s hand traveled up to Kazutoshi’s hair and his fingertips started drawing slow circles at the back of his head. Kazutoshi suffocated a hum in Ken’s touch, then another one, until all he could do was part just slightly from him for a second.

“Ken, what the fuck— Ken.” he panted. Ken was breathless too. Eager, desperate. “Ken,” Kazutoshi called out again, so close to him that his lips nearly glossed over Ken’s as he spoke, quiet in volume but loud in his ears. “I don’t know what the fuck exactly happened on Saturday, but— yer not against this, right—?”

Kazutoshi’s wet lips were soon coated by Ken’s pungent breath against them, the breeze after the storm to finally welcome spring. “I want you now,” he exhaled, helpless against his feelings, “Kazutoshi, I don’t fucking care, I want this now and always so,” is what he could last huff before Kazutoshi plunged forward after his mouth.

He kissed him hard, needy, hungry to the point he didn’t even notice how, but he found himself moved out of his previous position, still holding Ken’s hand although straddling over his hips, locked steady in place.

It was nothing like in Ken’s imagination. Whatever was beyond the perfection of Kazutoshi’s affection in his dreams, Ken knew he was experiencing it at that very moment.

He let go of Kazutoshi’s hand, placing it at his back while the other one nested at the end of his head, pulling him closer in a safe hold. For what mattered to him, he had just finally understood what having the whole world in his hands felt like.

Kazutoshi parted from him again, debating whether to slowly drag his tongue over Ken’s lips or not and only taking action about it when Ken’s mouth lightly opened as he intended to kiss him back, causing their tongues to touch briefly, stinging almost.

“Ew.” Kazutoshi commented, a soft giggle from Ken following shortly after, which the shorter boy didn’t lose his chance to mimic. “Eeeww. Yer gross.”

Ken laughed again. “You too, and I don’t think you aren’t about to get even grosser.”

A glimpse of a struggle shone in Kazutoshi’s eyes as he held himself back from kissing Ken again. Then he closed his eyes and aimed for his chin, nibbed at it, and Ken could hardly control the sighs that trailed after that.

“Kazutoshi—”

“Can I?”

He opened his eyes, and Ken nodded lovingly.

“You can do whatever you like.” he reassured him, Kazutoshi’s lips soon covering his jaw in gentle pecks on its whole length, making Ken inhale and exhale at the rhythm he dictated.

One, two. “Kazutoshi, seriously,”

One, two. “Don’t stop this, okay?”

One, two, three. “You’re so— I don’t even know where to begin from,”

One. Two. “I like you, Kazutoshi, I like this and I like you, so don’t—”

Kazutoshi lowered himself and pressed his whole face against his neck, mouth just above his Adam's apple, and Ken whined, never so happy to feel pathetic.

“I’m sorry if I’m just saying bullshit right now, I’m—”

“Will ya shut up for once?” Kazutoshi interrupted him, laughing tenderly over the damp spot on his neck. “I like you too,” his accent came and went, “If that’s bullshit then I love yer fuckin’ nonsense.”

Ken’s mind went places. Who or whatever was speaking for him, it wasn’t rational anymore. “Say it again.”

In the blank moment between his last words and Kazutoshi’s answer, the latter planted a kiss below his chin, trailing pecks up to his lower lip. “I love you Ken.” His accent was slowly softening and his voice was no longer cadenced by laughter but firm, low and mellifluous as it shut Ken’s ears and sealed them with its sound.

Kazutoshi attempted initiating their next kiss, already breathless seconds later. He gasped for air, “Fuck, Ken—,” even their slightest touch made Kazutoshi huff, and he hated that he loved it, “The fuck did I do on Saturday—?”

Ken smiled childishly as he pressed a playful peck over Kazutoshi’s lips, pulling away as quickly as he’d done the previous week. “This,” he replied, watching as his ivory skin now fully blended with radiant pink hues around his cheeks, then he lowered his head to kiss Kazutoshi’s jaw, like his actual first kiss had been, and couldn’t hold in a laugh. “Exactly like this.”

“Damn.” Kazutoshi replied sarcastically before he replicated the gesture on Ken’s jaw, down to the details in accuracy compared to Saturday. The pace of Ken’s sharp breathing got interrupted by a light smooch on his lips, taking him back to the lonely couch that became the epicenter of his world on that random Saturday, but then Kazutoshi closed the gap between them again in a much deeper and hungrier kiss and Saturday was no more.

There wasn’t last Saturday any longer, there wasn’t that Thursday, or Friday because it was past midnight, or any other day: there was Kazutoshi Kamimura fawning over him, and nothing else mattered to Ken for the time being.

His lips must’ve been agape, because sooner than he could process it Ken found his tongue interwoven with Kazutoshi’s, messy and panicky from the lack of experience on both ends. But Ken didn’t mind the mess, he didn’t mind the roughness and cluelessness as long as it was Kazutoshi he was sharing it with.

Taking advantage of Ken slightly tilting his head upwards, Kazutoshi dragged his mouth down to his neck again, only then realizing how little space he had because of the collar of Ken’s shirt, blocked for its part by the vest.

Ken couldn’t really tell if his breaking point was the kittenlike lick Kazutoshi gave the flap of skin beneath his lips and how desperately he’d dreamed of that long before the college party, or the fact his head rested against the curve his neck made with his shoulder so graciously he wanted him to stay there forever, but he didn’t hesitate in pushing him just a tiny bit away, his hands both on the sides of Kazutoshi’s neck, fingertips brushing against his hair before he slid them away and swiftly took his vest off, folding it unevenly next to him on the floor.

Kazutoshi latched onto his neck again before he could do anything about his shirt, which left Ken with no choice but unbutton just the very top of it, so that he could loosen it around his neck and let Kazutoshi do the rest.

He couldn’t help but think about how dreadfully attractive it was to be doing that while Kazutoshi’s mouth pressed softly against his skin, waiting for the okay signal to kiss its whole length on each side a few times, morphing time into a slow and agonizing interlude just like a couple nights before.

But Ken would’ve undergone any pain, were Kazutoshi to be the reward.

There was no doubt Kazutoshi’s fierce pretense hid a little anxiety once he’d ran over the same spots enough times, but the moment he grabbed the collar of Ken’s shirt with both hands, delicately sucked the skin in the angle his neck made with the jaw and Ken let go of a quiet but high pitched whimper, his hesitation vanished almost instantly.

Which didn’t exclude the care he reserved for and put into Ken and Ken only. “D’ya like this…?” he pulled away just for an instant, his lips brushing over that same spot both as he spoke and as he rested.

“I love it,” Ken said, voice breathy and shameless. “Keep going unless I stop you myself, okay?”

Kazutoshi muttered a ‘mmh’ against his neck before he returned to his intention, this time sucking harder, Ken’s breath getting heavier by consequence. He repeated that same motion over all the spots Ken’s neck was sensitive in — to a degree, anywhere on it would’ve gotten him to react the same, his hands still on his shirt while Ken’s right one went back into his hair, holding his head like there was any more closeness to his body he could’ve achieved, and his left one traveled down his back, only held back in sliding beneath his shirt because of the belt keeping it into Kazutoshi’s trousers.

But that was enough, he admitted to himself. As much as Ken would’ve wanted his everything and beyond, that moment alone made up for his entire solitary existence and all the unspoken I love you’s both of them locked away for the six months they’d known each other.

Kazutoshi then pulled away, looked at his once blank canvas with fond eyes and gave Ken the faintest smirk. “I’ll just steal some of Nakamigawa’s makeup,” he thought out loud, glancing at the large beauty case next to the sink.

Ken laughed, awkward yet serious, and most of all amused. “Or, I can button my shirt up to its max and wear my jacket again.”

“What if I don’t let ya?” Kazutoshi replied strictly, almost like a threat, and aimed for the central hollow of Ken’s neck instead. No matter how quiet the noises erupting from Ken following that actually were, he was sure they were somehow echoing in the wide bathroom or, at the bare least, in his own ears mixing with his heart pounding deafeningly.

The loudness of the next one, however, wasn’t because of the cause either of them hoped for.

“I swear, if Okazaki hid my phone here…” opening the unfortunately unlocked door to their entangled bodies was Masanari, his eyes inadvertently bugging out. “Oh. Oh, I’m— s-sorry if I—”

“Wada.” Kazutoshi pulled away from a devastatingly flushed Ken and turned to the short boy in one sharp, precise movement. “Not. One. Word.”

Masanari simply nodded and shied away, shutting the door in a loud thump. The next stare between the two was unmistakably tense, albeit Kazutoshi was too charming when he was embarrassed. Ken was about to die, the tenth emergency just that night.

“W-We really should come back to the l-living room soon.”

“Five more minutes.” Kazutoshi ordained, relishing in the heaviness of his panting. He traced over one of the marks he’d adorned his neck in with a thumb, then looked up eager to lose himself in the depths of his hazel eyes. “Please?”

Ken didn’t reply, and went for his neck instead.

————

“You talk soooo big for someone who does his make-up daily, and yet you show up like this?” Ruiko teased, looking for a brush in the emergency pouch she always brought with her while she opened her foundation compact. “You’re lucky I got powder on me, or this wouldn’t even match!”

“Rui, I missed it one time,” Kazutoshi replied, munching into a boiled potato the girl couldn’t even look at without feeling disgusted. “Did you notice anything when we came back? No. So shut up. I know my shit.”

“Ohhh, you know, huh?” Ruiko couldn’t hold a laugh in as she began mixing white powder with foundation, risking for the whole cafeteria to hear her. Kazutoshi had to gather the patience he’d collected over the course of his whole life not to slap a hand over her mouth and shut her up by force. “At least Hiroaki doesn’t give it away this easily!”

“Ruiko, enough.” Kazutoshi hissed, holding his hoodie with a hand to give her enough room to work her magic. “Let’s get this done soon and go back to lunch.”

The blonde saw having to concentrate on fixing her best friend’s skin while mocking him as an olympic level challenge. “Only if you tell me what happened between you and Hasegawa.”

“It gets to a point.” Kazutoshi firmly retorted, rolling his eyes.

“Not even on the weekend? You two had an extra day to spend together and you can’t tell me anything about it?”

“It’s not your business, we could’ve spent three days studying together and you wouldn’t need to know anyways.”

Ruiko applied an extra layer of powder and frowned ironically.

“Not one thing?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“You hate me!”

“I do, yes.”

The two met eyes and suppressed a cackle each as Ruiko put her tools back in the pouch. “You gotta pay me to do this next time,” she joked as she took her phone and snapped a picture of Kazutoshi’s neck, showing him the result.

Kazutoshi hated to admit he’d let just out a light gasp. “Okay, no shit. This is crazy.” he commented, recalling how violaceous the mark looked in spite of its relatively small dimensions. “Thanks, Rui.”

“Anytime!” she chirped — unusually so, given her stinging irony even when she was positive around him, as proven by the sarcasm heavy tone she next spoke in, though low in volume not to violate Kazutoshi’s privacy. “Are you planning to make out with Hasegawa all night today as well, though? I’m afraid you’d have to deal with the foundation alone…! I have a date tomorrow.”

“What episode do you shut the fuck up…?” Kazutoshi replied, slowing down as he processed the full thing. “Dude. The hell you mean a date?”

Ruiko giggled to herself, but much also in Kazutoshi’s face. “With Nishi~!”

“…at lunchtime?”

“So you do want to get nasty with Hasegawa and use me for coverage help!” she commented with a choked laugh, her bothered facade instantly falling off.

“Nasty?! You got the wrong fucking idea.” Kazutoshi exhaled heavily, taking account of the public space they were in, unlike Ruiko who only had to raise her voice to ruin everything, but whose tone had gotten annoying right to the point very quickly. “But seriously— seriously? You and Watari? When did this even happen?”

“I’ll cut it short for you, but she said she wanted to have lunch with me first thing after I came back from Hiroaki’s party— well, when I woke up from it, ‘cause I came back to her already sleeping, duuuude you just had to see her. She was all sprawled out!”

Kazutoshi rolled his eyes again, this time making sure she’d see. “And?”

“And, if that’s the first thing she wanted to tell me — not Hanano! — when she woke up, that must mean this is between us! And I don’t want your gay business to get in my way just for tomorrow.”

Kazutoshi choked a cackle in. “If they had a Guinness World Record for the most oblivious lesbian in the world, it’d get delivered to you together with the certificate for the stupidest friend award.”

“You’re just a hater,” she swayed a hand in front of his face, using the other one to grab her fork and finally begin to eat her salad. “Not even one good luck Rui after I’ve told you all of this while you’ve stayed silent about last Saturday?”

“You know damn fucking well what happened on Saturday.”

“Not down to the details!”

“Who cares?!” Kazutoshi was one bite of his own lunch away from snapping. “Besides, you’re treating an invitation to eat together like Watari gave you a marriage proposal.”

“A date is a date no matter what!” Ruiko replied, her words muffled by the food she’d put in her mouth.

“And that’s not a fucking date. You’re eating lunch with me right now, do I look like I want you?”

“That’s beyond the point,” Ruiko insisted as she cleared her throat with some water. “She asked me with the enthusiasm of someone who does! We only ever ate lunch together with Hanano! Save for the only day she fell sick… but that doesn’t count! Can’t a girl manifest her crush to want her?”

“At least you admit it,” Kazutoshi sighed, a terrible move, because Ruiko smirked at him in a way he’d only seen her do the few times she was objectively, exactly right about something.

She took her fair time to let a quiet laugh out into his face, then sighed out too in amusement. “Yeah, unlike Mr. Hasegawa-and-I-are-best-friends who totally wasn’t so afraid that he kissed the guy he liked for the first time while dead fucking drunk and even forgot about it for a week.”

Kazutoshi stopped in his tracks, looked at Ruiko’s winning expression, then at his food, then at her again. And then he sighed loud enough for the whole cafeteria to hear.

“Good luck for tomorrow, Rui. Now enjoy your fucking meal.”