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The clock hits seven, and for the first time that Hikaru can remember, Yoshiki is late to something.
Not that Hikaru can blame him. Not with the storm raging outside. Even inside he feels its wrath, as the wind shoves at the walls making the house shake.
So Hikaru waits.
Patiently sitting on the couch, arms folded, watching the TV without really seeing it, since his mind keeps wandering back to this morning and he has to keep forcing himself to focus on the show, or the sound of the rain hitting the windows, anything but what it keeps trying to go back to.
Then the front door slams open hitting the wall loud enough to make Hikaru jump.
He turns around just in time to see Yoshiki stumble inside, soaked in mud, looking like he crawled through a swamp to get here.
A short laugh slips out of Hikaru before he can help it. “What the hell happened to you?”
Yoshiki stands half bent over in the hallway, panting, rainwater dripping off him in steady rivulets. His hair clings to his face, skin pale in the dim light, eyes bloodshot and wide like he hasn’t slept in days.
Then he looks up at Hikaru with those same wide eyes and says, breathless, “I almost got hit by a car.”
Hikaru’s smile falters.
“Oh shit, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Yoshiki mutters, kicking off his shoes. “Just slipped trying to get out of the way.”
“Who was it? Mikasa? Because that blind old man needs to get his license taken away before he kills somebody”
“No it was a newer car I didn’t recognize” Yoshiki mutters, shedding his jacket, hands finding the bottom of his mud soaked shirt, “probably just passing through town and wasn’t paying attention,”
Yoshiki peels off his shirt, the wet fabric clinging to his shoulders before he finally gets it off, letting it fall to the floor with a wet slap. Water beads along his collarbones, trailing down over skin before disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans. Which quickly comes off as well, followed by his socks. All left in a pile by the front door as Yoshiki walks into the house, past the couch to head into Hikaru's room.
Hikaru is just barely able to make out the sound of his closet door being opened, and a minute later Yoshiki comes back into the room wearing a pair of hikaru’s pajamas.
“Any update on your grandpa?” Yoshiki asks, sitting down on the couch next to Hikaru. His hair is still wet, little beads of water rolling down his cheeks and falling onto the fabric of his shirt. One drop hangs off his chin for a little too long and Hikaru can’t help but lift his hand up to wipe it away.
“He‘s good,” Hikaru hums, wiping the water on his shorts “he’s got a pretty bad concussion but he’s shoulder was just dislocated not broken like we thought it was so he should be discharged tomorrow,”
“That’s… good?”
“Yeah, he will be fine,” Hikaru says. Closing his eyes tight when the image of his grandfather from this morning flashes through his mind.
“plus I totally thought he was dead when I found him this morning so just a concussion is great actually,” The words had meant to come out as a joke but his voice cracks as he speaks.
Yoshiki doesn’t say anything to that, clearly not knowing what to say. But Hikaru can feel his eyes on him, and practically hear the cogs turning in Yoshiki's mind as he tries to come up with something to comfort him.
Hikaru doesn’t give him the chance, snatching up the remote that lays between them. “Anyways, the episode is out,”
“Oh, right.” Yoshiki says, stilted, “… so do you think we’ll get the fight this episode?”
“Nah, they’ll cut us off right before,” Hikaru hums, flipping through the shows till he finds master master, “otherwise they’d have to split the fight into two episodes and nobody wants that.”
“Yeah…”
They fall quiet as the opening begins to play, the familiar theme song filling the room. The glow from the screen paints soft light across their faces, flickering as the storm outside presses harder against the walls.
Yoshiki leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the screen, while Hikaru sits back against the couch, one arm draped along the top cushion, watching with the same kind of focus.
The storm rattles the windows, wind howling through the trees beyond the house, but inside it’s warm and close and familiar.
Then, just as the episode title card flashes on screen everything goes black.
The screen dies with a soft click. The hum of the fridge in the kitchen cuts out. The single lamp in the corner goes dark, leaving them in nothing but the sound of rain hammering on the roof.
There’s a long beat of silence as they both sit there, processing what just happened.
“Are you fucken kidding me,” Hikaru mutters into the darkness.
“It’s fine we can just watch it on my phone,” Yoshiki says, pulling out his phone, its light illuminating his face. “…never mind it’s almost dead.”
Hikaru groans, reaching for his own phone, turning it on to see his battery in the red. “Mine too,” he says. And of course it is, nothing is allowed to go his way today.
“Should we… I don’t know… light some candles or something?” Yoshiki asks.
“There’s a lantern in my grandpa’s workshop,” Hikaru shrugs, flicking on his phone’s flashlight, walking to the front door and slipping his shoes on.
“Okay,” Yoshiki hums, eyes glued to his phone.
Hikaru stands in the doorway for a long second, waiting for Yoshiki to stand up, then realizes that he has no intention of doing so.
“Yoshiki I’m not going out there alone,” Hikaru blurts, a little too fast. He glances at the window, at the black stretch of yard beyond the porch where the rain swallows the light whole. Something about the dark pressing up against the house makes his skin crawl. “Seriously, you’re coming with me.”
Letting out a sigh, Yoshiki turns on his own phone's light and stands up, following after hikaru.
Neither of them bother to put their jackets on, letting themselves get a little wet as they run to the small shed behind the house, throwing the door open as quickly as possible when they reach it so they can escape the rain pounding down on them.
“He usually keeps it in one of the cupboards,” Hikaru says, making his way to one side of the workshop, opening one of the cupboard doors, eyes looking over the junk found inside.
Yoshiki goes to the other side of the room, and begins rummaging around in search of it.
Once Hikaru has made his way through all the ones at eye level he bends down and looks through the ones closer to the floor, opening one to find a couple glass bottles filled with clear liquid laying there.
“Found it,” Yoshiki calls from across the room.
And Hikaru snatches one of the bottles, spinning on his foot, holding it up for Yoshiki to see.
“And look what I found!”
Yoshiki eyes the bottle warily, the beam of his phone’s flashlight catching the pale label. “No way,” he states flatly.
“Please,” Hikaru says, pitching his voice up.
“Hikaru we’re not stealing your grandpa’s liquor, he’s going to notice,"
“No he won’t,” Hikaru smiles playfully, “he’s concussed remember?”
Yoshiki just stares at him, mouth hanging open.
“Look” Hikaru says, the grin fading. “I’ve had a bad day, like a really bad day, and I just want a little drink to cheer me up a bit. That’s all.”
The storm rattles the tin roof above them, as Yoshiki studies him for a long second, expression unreadable in the harsh beam of the flashlight. Then he sighs softly, shoulders slumping in defeat.
“…fine.”
-
They take turns passing the bottle back and forth, the liquid in the bottle swishing around softly each time it changes hands.
They slip into a rhythm without even thinking about it. Where one of them takes a swig, makes a face, while the other snorts like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen before grabbing the bottle for his own turn. Then they both sit there grimacing through the burn together, shaking their heads like idiots before repeating.
They’re loud at first, laughter echoing in the small room, but it doesn’t stay that way for long. The jokes get quieter, the words slur into silence.
The lantern on the table grows weak, flickering light across the floorboards, leaving the corners of the room swallowed in shadow, leaving the two of them in their own small circle of warmth, the rest of the world fading out.
The bottle sits empty on the table before either of them notices.
At some point, they had drifted closer without meaning to. Shoulders pressed together, backs against the couch, the cold floor beneath them grounding the warmth seeping its way into their chests.
It creeps in slowly, almost stealthily.
The brush of Yoshiki’s knee against his. The way his fingers toy absentmindedly with the frayed edges of Hikaru’s shorts. The heat coming off his skin, warmer than it should be, warmer than the alcohol alone can explain.
When Hikaru glances over, Yoshiki’s face is flushed a deep, uneven red. hair sticking damply to his temples, lips parted and raw from how he’s been biting at them all night.
He’s so red.
Hikaru lifts a hand before he can stop himself, palm brushing Yoshiki’s forehead. Heat burns beneath his skin. His fingers trail slowly through damp strands of black hair, sweeping them from Yoshiki’s eyes, then slide down the line of his cheek until they pause at the small mole by his mouth.
Yoshiki exhales, a low, unsteady sound slipping past his lips. His eyes flutter shut like he might drift off right there, leaning into the touch without thinking.
Hikaru jerks his hand back like he’s touched fire, a sudden wave of clarity breaking through the haze of the alcohol.
This is too much.
The weight of Yoshiki slumped against him. The heat of his skin. The way his breath rolls across Hikaru’s face from how close they are.
Way too much.
“We should go to bed,” Hikaru says, then instantly cringes at his choice of words. “I mean… I’m getting tired and we should drink some water so we’re not… you know. Hungover tomorrow. Perfect. Now he’s babbling like an idiot.
“Hikaru?” Yoshiki murmurs, chewing at his bottom lip. His voice is too light, too careless, with eyes unfocused in a way that tells Hikaru he hadn’t heard a single thing he said.
“What?” Was what he wanted to say. Quick, short, a simple question. But before the word even leaves his mouth, Yoshiki tilts his head up and kisses him.
Hikaru freezes, body going completely still. His mind blanks, every thought drifting away from him like leaves in the wind. All he can feel is the press of Yoshiki’s chapped lips on his, as he kisses him.
If you could even call it that.
It isn’t even a real kiss. More like Yoshiki aiming and missing, lips half on Hikaru’s, half on the skin just above them. It’s messy, and awful, and wrong in every single way.
And Hikaru is drunk enough to kiss him back, tilting his head up to kiss him properly.
It’s still not very good. Their teeth hitting each other a few times before they stumble into some semblance of a rhythm.
Somewhere in the back of Hikaru’s mind there is a pang of guilt for knowing that this is Yoshiki’s first kiss, that he is taking this from him, but it fades away to the faint taste of liquor and sweat, the soft drag of breath between them.
Yoshiki leans in harder like he can’t get close enough, fingers slipping under the fabric of Hikaru’s shorts, sliding up his thigh.
And Hikaru lets him.
Lets him deepen the kiss, because stopping feels impossible now, because the heat pooling low in his stomach drowns out everything else.
Yoshiki pushes him down suddenly, not gracefully like in the movies, but rough, the floor knocking the breath out of him as Yoshiki climbs over him, knees straddling his waist.
The kiss turns hotter. Sloppier. Hikaru’s head spins. Partly from the booze, partly from Yoshiki pressing him down, the heat of him everywhere. His hands find their way to the back of Yoshiki’s shirt clinging to it for dear life.
Yoshiki pushes himself up, hovering a few inches above Hikaru's face. panting as he looks down at Hikaru, eyes filled with something Hikaru doesn’t want to name.
So he looks away, eyes finding the dim ceiling above them, as Yoshiki leans back down, breathing hot against Hikaru’s skin, pressing a kiss into the side of his neck, soft at first then sharper when teeth graze over skin.
A sound escapes Hikaru before he can stop it, low and startled, his hand shooting up to catch at Yoshiki’s shoulder. Half to stop him from leaving marks behind. Half because he just wants his mouth back where it started.
But before he can pull him up, Yoshiki’s entire weight suddenly slumps forward. His head drops into the crook of Hikaru’s neck, heavy and motionless, his body collapsing like a puppet with the strings cut.
No way
Fisting his hand into the back of Yoshiki’s hair he pulls his head back and is met with Yoshiki’s eyes shut, mouth hanging open.
No fucken way
With a hot rush of anger stirring in his chest, Hikaru shoves Yoshiki off of him, letting the other boy's head hit the ground with a loud thwack.
Hikaru scrambles to his feet, chest heaving, the taste of Yoshiki still on his tongue. His legs feel weak from more than just the alcohol as he stares down at the sprawl of limbs on the floor.
“Are you kidding me?” Hikaru hisses, running both hands through his hair before gripping the back of his neck like he might strangle himself.
There’s a red mark blooming across Yoshiki’s cheek where his head smacked the floor, but doesn’t even twitch. Just lays there like some drunk, pretty corpse while Hikaru is left to stand over him like a dumbass.
“Unbelievable,” Hikaru mutters, taking a few steps back, scowling at the soft, slack face on the floorboards. There’s a piece of hair stuck to Yoshiki’s lips, the same lips that had been kissing Hikaru not even a minute ago. and the sight of it twists something low and ugly in Hikaru’s gut.
He wants to shake yoshiki awake, wants to yell at him.
Instead he leaves, turns on his heel and storms out of the room without looking back.
He’s furious. Or embarrassed. Or both. Mostly both. His skin still feels too hot, mouth still tingling, heart still hammering way too fast for someone who’s supposed to be angry.
He throws himself onto the bed, flopping onto his back so hard the mattress squeaks. Staring up into the darkness, he digs his fingers into his hair, dragging them over his scalp until it hurts.
He kissed Yoshiki.
Wait.
No.
Yoshiki kissed him.
Yeah that’s right, Yoshiki had kissed him, had shoved him to the floor, climbed on top of him and dared to look down at him like it meant something.
That’s the part that makes his stomach turn, the way Yoshiki looked at him, the way his hands held on like he didn’t want to let go.
For a second, Hikaru almost believes it.
That maybe Yoshiki likes him. Wants him.
But no. No, that’s stupid.
He was drunk. That’s all. Just a clumsy, sloppy, liquor brained impulse. It didn’t mean anything, it couldn’t mean anything, not when Yoshiki was so drunk that he passed out half way through.
Hikaru stares into the darkness above him, mind racing between a thousand different thoughts before landing on one that makes him shoot upright in the bed.
He left Yoshiki on the floor.
It’s not like Yoshiki doesn't deserve it. Not after that mess. But the image of him sprawled out on the hard floor, head tipped at some awful angle, mouth slack and hair in his face made something twist sharp in Hikaru’s chest.
“Goddammit,” he mutters, pushing himself off the bed, struggling to gain his balance now that the alcohol is really hitting him. He stumbles his way back out into the living room. Finding Yoshiki exactly where he left him, laying flat on the ground without a care in the world.
“You’re the worst,” Hikaru tells him flatly, then hooks his hands under Yoshiki’s arms and starts dragging him with all the grace of someone lugging a sack of potatoes.
By the time he wrestles Yoshiki onto the bed—something that had taken much more effort than Hikaru had expected—His arms ache, and lungs burn, and there’s a faint throbbing behind his eyes that promises a brutal headache tomorrow.
Yoshiki still doesn’t wake. Just curls into the pillow like a cat, hair falling over his face.
Hikaru glares at him for a long second before yanking the blanket over him anyway.
“Idiot,” he mutters, climbing in on the other side, lying as far away as the mattress will let him.
Then the mattress shifts. And Yoshiki rolls over in his sleep, body curling instinctively toward the nearest source of warmth, pressing his body up against Hikaru's, his hand coming up to rest lightly on the other boy's side.
Hikaru freezes, breath caught in his throat, waiting for the arm to fully wrap around him and pull him close, his heart aching in anticipation.
But it never happens.
Yoshiki shifts and his hand falls back down to the mattress, as he settles into place, close enough that Hikaru can feel his breath rolling across the back of his neck, his knees brushing lightly against the back of Hikaru’s legs. Completely unaware.
And for some reason, that just makes the ache worse.
-
Hikaru wakes to the sound of retching.
He tries to ignore it at first, tries to drift back to sleep so he doesn’t have to deal with the pain pounding in his head. But then it comes again, violent, miserable. Making him lift his head from the pillow and look around the room.
The blanket on the other side of the bed is thrown back, twisted and laying halfway on the floor. The air smells of sweat and alcohol, with the unmistakable sound of Yoshiki’s stomach trying to turn itself inside out echoing through the room.
Hikaru pushes himself up, and stumbles his way towards the bathroom.
The door’s half open. With Yoshiki kneeling on the floor, face pale and damp with sweat as he grips onto the toilet like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.
Hikaru goes to him, bending over to half heartedly rub his hand over Yoshiki's back.
A little bit more comes out, then seemingly done Yoshiki groans and slumps back against the wall, eyes squeezed shut for a long moment before he turns his head to look up at Hikaru, bleary eyed and confused.
“What… what happened last night?” Yoshiki croaks, voice shredded and weak.
Hikaru just stares at him. Because the way Yoshiki asks it, so flat, so clueless. Hikaru knows instantly.
He doesn’t remember.
Hikaru feels his jaw tighten, the words sticking somewhere behind his teeth. Because what the hell is he supposed to say to that?
Yoshiki's eyes grow wide in the silence, like he’s scared of what Hikaru will say when he eventually speaks.
Hikaru lets out a sharp breath through his nose, and says flatly, “we got drunk. That’s what happened.”
“I know that,” Yoshiki mutters, voice rough, like even talking makes him want to throw up again. “But like… I didn’t do anything weird right?”
Weird? yeah you could call it that.
“Nah,” Hikaru says instead, voice coming out light, unreadable. “You were fine.” He hates how easy the lie leaves his mouth.
Yoshiki lets out a shaky breath, shoulders slumping in relief. “Oh, good,” he mutters, half to himself, eyes closing as his head tips back against the wall.
Hikaru watches Yoshiki press the heel of his hand to his temple, trying to dull the pain in his skull.
Yeah. This is better.
Better that Yoshiki doesn’t remember.
Because what would Hikaru even do if he did remember? If he looked at him with eyes that said he regretted it? Or worse that he didn’t? Would they talk about it? Laugh it off? Or let it wedge a hole between them?
Hikaru pushes himself up from the floor, the small room suddenly feeling too cramped for him, leaving without another word.
No.
This is easier, Yoshiki forgot about it and so will he, let last night fade into a drunken haze in the back of his mind. That’s what Hikaru tells himself, that he will forget it, over and over, until it starts to sound true.