Chapter Text
HITOSHI
“These are Christmas movies.” With that announced, Hitoshi watched as his boyfriend held out a laptop already open on a Netflix tab under the genre Christmas. “They’re festive, jolly, merry, and whimsical. And we’re going to watch one.”
“I know what Christmas movies are, Denki,” Hitoshi muttered. He was apprehensively scrolling through the selection, no title really catching his attention. Hitoshi would have been spoilt for choice if Denki had pulled up a tab of things like Don’t Fuck With Cats and My Cat From Hell and Kiki’s Delivery Service, but instead he was left floundering for an answer he wasn’t particularly sold on.
“Ahh,” Denki said wisely, “but do you know what Christmas is?”
Hitoshi looked up at his boyfriend—in his dorky red jumper and, despite it only being the middle of December, a Santa hat with a bell on the end—and stared blankly. “‘Do I know what Christmas is?’”
“Do you know what Christmas is!”
“I believe I have an idea.”
“It’s a time for couples!” Denki proclaimed, throwing up his hands wide enough for Hitoshi to flinch just a smidge. “And we, Toshi, are a couple.”
At that, Hitoshi could feel his cheeks and ears growing hot. “Are you saying you want me to ask you out for Christmas?”
“Ah, enough of that, man! We’re getting way ahead of ourselves! We have to prove that we can do festive things together, first! Pick a movie and let our journey begin.”
Hitoshi returned his attention to the laptop balanced on his forearm. “Can’t you pick something? I’m not seeing anything particularly noteworthy.”
“That’s because they’re all the same story, Toshi! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Denki lamented. He snatched the laptop back with a disastrously long sigh. “But if you insist! Tip, tap, tip, toe... ah, here. See? Was that so hard?” he asked triumphantly as he sat down against the headboard on his bed, nearest to the wall. He patted the space beside him for Hitoshi to join him.
“What are we watching?”
“Just wait and see!”
“Oh, a Netflix original,” he commented sarcastically. “I can see we’re in for a real treat.”
“Sh!” Denki flapped. “Don’t be so miserable!”
“Is that the girl from Vampire Diaries?”
“Think so. Now shush! It’s starting.”
“It was said that according to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. But fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning humans to spend the rest of their lives searching for their other half. Their soul’s equal.”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Denki gasped elatedly. “Pause it!” he shouted, leaving a surprised Hitoshi to tap the space bar as he leapt over him, off the bed, and across the room to his overtaxed bookshelf of books that Denki himself had admitted to never reading. “I know this one! It’s... here, I think!”
Okay, so Hitoshi had known his boyfriend long enough to witness him being a lot cleverer than what he was often given credit for. That being said, Denki was not book-smart at all, so it was significantly astonishing when he tottered back over to the bed and clambered over Hitoshi’s legs with a copy of Plato’s Symposium in his hands, his fingertips already flicking through the pages with an air of familiarity to them.
“Duh-duh-duhhh, blah-blah-blah... ah! Here, here, look—Aristo-phain’s speech! He talks about ‘androgynous people’ being, like, the third gender and stuff, but it died out after Zeus threw his tantrum about humans being too strong with their souls whole, or whatever.”
Hitoshi watched silently as Denki traced his finger down the page, trying to find the next line he wanted to quote.
“Yeah. And the androgynous person is when there was a man and woman, like soulmates, fused together. Like Vampire Diaries Girl just said in the movie.”
Hitoshi hardly considered what she had just said to be ‘in the movie’, seeing as the red bar of their pause-screen indicated they were less than ninety seconds in, title card included.
“And it’s not really clear—at least not to me, ’cause all the translated stuff always makes things so wordy and really hard to follow—but I think they were just walking around fucking. You know, at least the ones that were facing each other.”
“Let me have a look,” Hitoshi offered, gently taking the book off of him.
“I think it’s a page or two after this one where it says that.”
Hitoshi found something close to it on the page after. “I think that’s to do with after they were cut in half, and Zeus put their genitals on the front.”
“The male and female genders back when soulmates still existed are why gay people exist,” Denki explained. Hitoshi did not have the heart to correct his wording. “Anyway, after a bit he just starts talking about why men like to have sex with little boys and that’s sort of when I lost interest and never picked it back up. Maybe I should though.”
Hitoshi made a noncommittal noise as he continued to scan the pages ahead.
“But isn’t it sort of cool, though? I mean, having someone who is just like you. Who completes you fully. It’s so dope, right?” Denki wondered aloud. Hitoshi wondered if he was going to say something overtly corny about them being soulmates, and Hitoshi would then be blushing and avoiding eye contact as Denki laughed. Denki grinned: “Hey—maybe that means you and Jirou are actually soulmates!”
Hitoshi scowled and closed the book with a snap to which Denki laughed.
Hitoshi held the copy up, giving it a wondrous once-over. “Why do you have this?” he asked, letting his incredulousness show just a bit.
“Oh, dude! Greek myths are trending all online right now. Because of this guy making this epic soundtrack for all of it. I forget what it’s called, though. I’ve got a bunch of Greek mythology books up on the top shelf somewhere. If you wanna borrow anything, you don’t even needa ask, man. At least they’ll all get used.”
Hitoshi studied the shelves from across the room. “Do you always buy books for things that trend online?”
“Only the things that include books. Like see? Up there,” Denki explained, pointing to the other end of the shelf from where he’d retrieved Plato’s Symposium, “is where all the bad BookTok books are, like The Midnight Library. And then there’s a bunch of Pokémon stuff over there because Bakugou started calling me ‘Pikachu’ in our first year, and then Jirou started debating whether or not my quirk was more like Pichu or Pikachu so I wanted to figure it out for myself and googling it gave me different answers, so I needed the source material!”
“Of course,” Hitoshi threw in plainly.
“The Music Theory for Dummies is what Jirou bought me last Christmas, and there’s the first volume of Ouran High School Host Club that I think either Ashido or Hagakure lent me which I’ve totally forgotten to read and give back! Shit. Oh, and uh, nevermind on that one...” Denki’s cheeks pinkened as he skipped over the place on the shelf he’d reached by following along with his finger from afar. (It was BL. Hitoshi could see it as clear as day.) “Uh—then there’s the All Might comic Midoriya got me for my birthday because Sero told him he shares all his manga with me and Todoroki.”
“You read manga?” Hitoshi asked, wanting to forget the burning presence of the BL as much as Denki evidently did.
“Sometimes. It was mostly Fruits Basket. We all read Fruits Basket together.[🕭]”
“You read shoujo? And so do Sero and Todoroki?” Hitoshi asked, eyebrows far up his forehead.
“Hey, man, take it up with Sero. He’s the true owner of them, not me. Besides, A: Fruits Basket was good, dude, I dunno what to say. Maybe you should try it, there was a cat-guy and everything. And B: shoujo is for girls, and girls eat it up most of the time, anyway. So it was always good to have on hand whenever we wanted to ask girls out!”
There was rarely ever an instance where Hitoshi believed that he might have hated his boyfriend. But those instances did exist, even if they were all second-long flashes, like now, where he had to shut his eyes and breathe in deeply through his nose.
Girls. Right. What an idiot.
“Did you ever just try talking to them?” Hitoshi inquired.
“Who? Todoroki and Sero?”
“No. The girls.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. And that never worked – so – enter the shoujo.”
Hitoshi could confess to himself that his reaction could have been a bit petulant, with the way he dumped the book down onto the bedside table and swiftly hit the space bar on Denki’s laptop. He crossed his arms. Vampire Diaries Girl was in a bar now, comparing a guy’s Tinder profile with his real-life appe—
Denki hit pause. “I used shoujo tactics on you too, you know,” he stated, as quick as a whip.
“You did not,” was the reply.
“Did too!”
“Denki, I think I’d remember if you used ‘shoujo tactics’ on me.”
“Mm, okay, man,” Denki answered with a sly grin. “If you say so.”
Hitoshi stared at him.
“Oh! And that book up there!” Denki pointed to the highest shelf, very suddenly. “That’s The Guest Cat! I bought it with you in mind when I was still trying to impress you and knew you liked cats. But I never brought it up because it was super boring and there wasn’t really a point to it other than the author waxing poetic at the end about how this neighbourhood cat changed his life forever when really, it was just a cat. Or he didn’t do a good job really describing why that was. Anyway—uh,” Denki was blushing now, tucking some hair behind his ear, “let’s just, um, watch the Christmas movie.”
Hitoshi stopped Denki’s hand from tapping the space bar again. Heart skipping in his chest, he asked, “Denki, are you saying the only book in here that you’ve actually gotten the whole way through is because of me?”
“Shoujo tactics,” Denki mumbled, eyes on the blankets beneath them.
Hitoshi grumbled and turned away, a hand rubbing his flushed neck. “Whatever.”
In the movie, Vampire Diaries continued to monologue about the difficulties of modern dating which made Denki pause again. It had barely been a minute since they’d paused last.
“She should just go out with a girl.”
Hitoshi pursed his lips. “What.”
“Well, I was always rejected by girls for years and couldn’t get a date. Then I tried it with a guy and now look at me! Date secured, long-lasting relationship, nice kisses to give and cuddles to receive. I’m living the life right about now,” he boasted, leaning back against the pillows and settling his arms behind his head.
“Mm.” Hitoshi turned his attention back to the screen. “Are we pressing play?”
“Hey, hey, hey, man. What’s wrong? What’d I say?” Denki sat up and held both of Hitoshi’s hands. Despite the fact that Hitoshi’s were the pair that were much larger, the gesture made him feel awfully small.
Hitoshi inhaled deeply, trying to find the words, trying not to shrug it off, in fear of these roused feelings being left to fester. Communication, he reminded himself, was important.
“It’s just,” he started, slowly, “that you never shamelessly flirted with me or repeatedly asked me out before we started- er, how to word it... actually dating I suppose. Don’t you think that has something more to do with it than me being a guy?” He rubbed the back of his neck with a bashful grin. “I mean, I doubt you’d call a girl you were seeing ‘man’ or ‘bro’. I don’t know – sometimes it’s like I’m just one of the guys instead of your actual boyfriend.”
“Huh. You know, ma- uh, Toshi, that usually the complaint about disaster bisexuals is that they end up treating their boyfriends too much like girls, not too much like guys,” Denki replied lightly.
“Ugh, don’t. It’s already bad enough you call my pecs ‘tits,” Hitoshi groused.
“Incredible tits,” Denki corrected, like it was an important fact of the universe. “And please, now you’re just finding things to complain about!”
Denki knew him too well. Hitoshi shrugged. “Whatever. I doubt that it’s much of an issue currently, but I suppose it could turn into one down the road. Though, for the record, I’ve always found you calling me ‘dude’ and ‘man’ and ‘bro’ a little annoying.” Despite his own grin, Hitoshi sighed through his teeth. “I guess I just always figured it’d die out after we went out.”
Denki stared at him, very perplexedly, for some time. Just as Hitoshi started to regret communicating at all, he was pushed back by his boyfriend and given a sappy but brutish kiss, arms around his neck. “Are you saying I’m making you feel unloved?” his boyfriend questioned earnestly, eyes almost like puddles.
Damnit.
“That’s not what I said at all,” he stated, a hand on Denki’s chest ready to make some space if needed. Denki got the hint anyway and sat back up, allowing Hitoshi to do the same. “I know you love me. I just think it’s a little annoying that you refer to me more like some guy rather than your boyfriend.”
“Ah, I see,” Denki smirked cleverly. “So you want me to call you things like ‘babe’.”
Hitoshi’s bravado went out like a candle. “You’ve never called me ‘babe’ before. Unless you were joking.” It came out hushed, like a confession.
Denki stuck out his lower lip and took hold of Hitoshi by the cheeks. His hands, as always, were so warm. “Babe –” he kissed him – “sweetheart –” again – “lover –” again – “angel – my love – my life – my everything – my rock – baby – songbird – birdie – pidge – wife – husband – the wind beneath my wings –” eleven more times, between every word, all over his face, until the twelfth had Hitoshi squirming out of his hold and fighting back a laugh to keep up the farce of displeasure.
“Denki, agh, that’s enough,” he complained, but Denki was already back on him like a parasite: arms woven around his chest, pulling against him tight.
“I’m going to show you the best Christmas ever, babe,” he vowed. “You’re going to feel the love so bad that you’ll be like the physical embodiment of a little fluffy sushi roll wrapped in a blanket, with little pink stains over your little, ricey face to show how much I’ve kissed you.”
“You don’t wear lipstick,” was all Hitoshi could say, more than a little dumbfounded as he tried wrapping his head around such an image.
“I could buy some. Just to keep your face and neck all stained with it. You’d look like you have the craziest case of chicken pox ever, but are really pleased about it for some reason.”
Hitoshi swallowed, cheeks more than warm. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“As I said: we are going to have the best Christmas ever. And that starts...” Denki smiled smugly as he pulled the laptop back onto his lap and let his finger hover over the space bar, “with a Christmas movie.”
He pressed play.