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Ichiro boredly leans back. He looks at Kuko for a long second, his hand idly finding its way from the worn leather of the sofa up to Kuko’s ear. He thinks about how the guy’s managed to pierce his own ears this much—seems like it would require steady hands to have done all that, not that Ichiro would know since he has virgin skin like all three of his teammates tease him some sometimes—but here Kuko is anyway, having trouble maneuvering a godforsaken zippo.
It should be easy, of course. All Kuko has to do is flip it open, simple, except that would entail giving up his pride and admitting that he just ain’t as cool as Sasara who can do fun and elaborate zippo tricks on the rare occasion that Samatoki has the patience to wait for Sasara to light his cigarette, so then Samatoki can light his own with it. At the moment, though, Kuko, is not about to give.
But he does go still for all of a second at Ichiro’s touch, as an instinct because like everyone on the planet, Kuko’s sensitive there. He glances up, blinks at Ichiro, and flashes him a cocky though reassuring grin around an unsoiled filter, before going right back to getting his filthy hamburger-greasy fingerprints on the shiny metal of the lighter and attempting all over again to spin it in his fingers the way that clown does.
For all of Kuko’s wisdom that he’s happy to impart on him, Ichiro tries to offer back some of his own now: “Won’t your buddy Buddha say anything?” He moves to take his hand back from Kuko’s person, so he can take the cigarette in his own mouth out while he’s at it and end this nonsense altogether, but Kuko catches his wrist with his free hand and he’s left to mumble the rest of his words instead, “Ain’t bodies like temples or something?”
“Now you ask me that?” Kuko leans his head into Ichiro’s palm, so that the backings of his piercings poke at his skin for emphasis, and so that he looks like he’s seriously putting thought into coming up with an answer. “Put easily: healthy body, healthy mind, vice versa. Harmony and all that jazz.” Kuko smirks and lets up. He plans to get more piercings in other places, but this will be a one-and-done deal. He reminds Ichiro as much: “Smoking once and never again won’t make us unenlightened.”
Ichiro considers arguing that that’s a gross oversimplification, and also Kuko’s the only enlightened one between them, but he’s already come this far. They both have. If Kuko would just get on with it, Samatoki will never have to find out that they stole a couple of cigarettes from the pack in his jacket pocket, and Sasara will never have to find out that they borrowed the zippo he hides in the lining of his blazer, both articles left hanging over the backrest of the couch while they went out for air and a beer run. Cautiously, Ichiro turns his eyes over towards the doorway.
It shouldn’t take too long now. There’s a frigging beer vending machine around the block, and those two aren’t picky with what they drink when they’re worn out from kicking ass all afternoon. Ichiro imagines that they must have gotten sidetracked taking a smoke break by a curb somewhere, this time with Sasara’s lights and Samatoki’s lighter, because those are two halves of a whole, after all, and being with each other solves that.
If Ichiro tries to compare it to him and Kuko, it’s similar to the way Ichiro always has a few sticks of some of Kuko’s favorite bubblegum stashed away in his large pants pockets in case the buster runs out, and Kuko always has coins in all his jacket pockets for cola whenever Ichiro deserves it, or lets himself feel like it. The works. Ichiro’s never really given it much thought, because he didn’t have any reason to give it thought, at least not until now—
“—Did y’see that, Ichiro?!” Kuko suddenly exclaims, kicking a flip-flopped foot into Ichiro’s stomach out of excitement. Kuko looks up from the little flame of the lighter, lit finally from one long-practiced and so long-awaited smooth motion of him flicking it open like he was pulling a mad trigger, but he finds that Ichiro’s eyes are somewhere else. His mind is clearly somewhere else, too. Kuko kicks at him again, deliberately now and harder, to bring him back down to earth with him. “Aw, c’mon, why the hell’re you spacing out?? Damn you for real.”
“My bad, Kuko,” Ichiro says sheepishly, genuinely disappointed that he missed the trick. Kuko groans in response but scoots closer to him anyway, half-cupping his free hand over the flame and bringing it to the end of his cigarette. Ichiro watches the tiny fire reflect in the lavender-gold of Kuko’s eyes, considers counting his eyelashes just because he’s able to. And then Kuko’s even closer, haphazardly tossing the zippo somewhere under the dirty coffee table; he’s the one bringing a hand to Ichiro’s ear this time around, just for good measure to keep him close.
Ichiro doesn’t flinch, Kuko notices; so much for assuming it’s a universal sensitivity. Though he wouldn’t put it past Ichiro to just be distracted again, because when he tears his gaze from the first ashes forming, Ichiro is staring, hard. Kuko can’t really care about this oddly solemn atmosphere or spoiling it, it’s not candles for a service or ceremony or anything; he could go ahead and ask, if Ichiro’s wondering. About Samatoki and Sasara always seeing each other this closely. Because honestly Kuko is realizing that this close, up close, the red and green of Ichiro’s eyes are… well, pretty as all hell. And then some.
Kuko mentally debates if it’d be out of place to ask if Ichiro really is thinking the same thing, about Sasara and Samatoki always getting in this proximity, and so readily at that. Him and Ichiro are breathing the same air at this point, not that Kuko picks up on the fact that they’re both forgetting to actually breathe. It just feels way too intimate. And it’s not that it’s unwelcome, it’s just… unfamiliar. Either way, there’s little Kuko wouldn’t share with Ichiro, and somehow, this does feel overdue—trying smoking together, he means, not the cigarette-kiss(?) or the other strange feelings.
The end of Ichiro’s cigarette catches fire at the touch of Kuko’s, and Ichiro thinks he feels the spark of it somewhere in his chest, too. He’d say something, anything, if it were something he felt like he was allowed to do, but the silence seems extremely fragile; Kuko is blinking slowly and Ichiro thinks he hears the flutter of his eyelashes, in time to something with wings in his stomach or some bullshit like that. In a nonchalant attempt at grounding himself, ironically, he lets his mind wander, though unknowingly, to the same place as Kuko’s: he pictures what must come to mind for Sasara when he does this with Samatoki, when Samatoki’s eyelashes go on for days.
“…Like I friggin’ said,” comes Samatoki’s voice from the hallway then, soft but stern, “You didn’t have to buy cola for the brats, Kuko’s got change on him all the time for Ichi—What the…” his voice cuts off and jumps to a shout, when he arrives at the doorway with Sasara and spots the two of them: “Fuckin’ hey!” It’s punctuated by a thoughtless shove at Sasara and loud, angry stomps, and then Samatoki is past the couch, grabbing aforementioned brats by their collars. “The hell do you two think you’re doing, huh??! We were gone for one second—!”
Sasara leans over to one side to peek at the scene, watching as Samatoki snatches the lit cigarette out of Ichiro’s mouth with dexterity more impressive than any zippo trick he’s practiced at. Ichiro bows his head, apologetic for the fact that they were doing this at all or embarrassed that they got caught, Sasara can’t tell from where he’s standing. When he and Samatoki came back, Sasara saw the tops of their head, and while he was ready to tell Samatoki to put a sock in it, grab him away for another cigarette break, Samatoki was dense, saw shit for what it was, and maybe for once, Sasara thinks that’s a good thing.
Hell, catching these two making out wouldn’t get a single reaction out of either of them–Sasara and Samatoki are in no position to speak on things like that to start withto begin with. And even if they’re in an even worse position to speak on smoking when Samatoki hasn’t declared any intention or desire to ever kick the habit and Sasara has failed every single time he tried, he wouldn’t dare get in the way of Samatoki scolding them for trying it at all. Because they may be dumbass delinquents, but even they should be aware of how hard it is to stop once they start; there’s lines they can’t ever, ever come back from once they cross, intentionally or not–they can take it from Samatoki and Sasara, no, they ought to.
Samatoki is crushing Ichiro’s cigarette into an ashtray, forcibly rubbing it down even once the tiny bit of ash has disintegrated and the filter’s completely squashed. To Sasara, it’s clear he’s doing his damnest to smother the urge to voice the exact same sentiment that’s just crossed his mind, for everyone’s dignities’ sakes. To Kuko, though, Sasara couldn’t guess what it actually looks like, and he’s interested in how much of that glare at Samatoki is for being a hypocrite of a stickler about smoking, or for maybe ruining whatever epiphanies about each other he and Ichiro felt like they were on the verge of having–or even for swiping Kuko’s cigarette next and, instead of getting rid of it like he did Ichiro’s, putting it to his own lips to take in a suddenly much, much needed drag.
While Ichiro still looks too mortified to think about having been found in the position they were in for whatever reason no one including him could clarify, Kuko is cringing in full at the smoke Samatoki blows down in his face as if to spite him since he was that curious about nicotine, perfunctory smoker-to-nonsmoker manners aside. Kuko, then, involuntarily drops the scowl when he looks off and catches sight of Sasara, and something that’s a cross of pathetic sympathy and plain understanding washes over him–because suddenly, he gets what it’s like, sharing an indirect kiss with Samatoki. Not that that shit was on his bingo card.
And not that that shit matters to Samatoki. The more pressing matter at hand is making up his mind–this was something he hadn’t thought he’d have to ever worry about because whatever was between Kuko and Ichiro was their business and strictly their own business, nothing he or Sasara would step in to do anything about. This other type of dependence, though? they’re better off not ever getting acquainted with, thanks very much. He ponders all that while taking another long drag then blowing out another large puff of smoke–not in Ichiro’s face though. He points his cigarette back and forth between the two of them after tapping the ash away and flatly, bluntly ordering: “No rap battles for you brats for the next couple of days.”
“What?? You’re fuckin’ grounding us??!” Kuko barks, cutting eye contact with Sasara to go back to glaring at Samatoki and step up to him. The bastard wears his heart on his sleeve and this time this much is clear as day to someone like Kuko, so something about the mismatch between his intentions of looking out for him and Ichiro and the placing of a trivial punishment like that was pissing him off just a little. “You think having pretty eyelashes makes you the boss of us or something??”
Ichiro impulsively grabs Kuko by the arm and yanks him to his side–he gets exactly why he’s pissed but just for the record no one’s said a single fucking thing about his pretty eyelashes; that was just the both of them going and thinking about them on their own, Ichiro’s both horrified and somehow happy to learn, but something tells Ichiro that Kuko isn’t getting how weird it is to say out loud just to argue. “Give it a rest, Kuko–” he grumbles pleadingly, “At this point Samatoki-san is the boss of us…”
Kuko glowers at Ichiro for that, displeased by the prospect of deferring (being tethered) to Samatoki of all people, but he doesn’t reject the contact and stays put in Ichiro’s hold. Then he looks to Sasara again, since it’s too late for him to think anything of attachment to Samatoki anyway, and that prompts Sasara to finally speak up: “Hey…!” His theatrics instantaneously relieves the tension, so he gladly works with the implications of Samatoki being their ragtag group’s leader: “He is not! Hello?? It’s Sasa-Sama, you know, Sasa-Sama!”
He jumps over and takes Kuko’s cigarette out of Samatoki’s mouth, meeting no resistance, to absolutely no one’s surprise. Sasara considers putting it out on the ashtray along with Ichiro’s, because it might really very well be his and Samatoki’s fault for possibly influencing them to want to try this–the cigarettes, not the proximity–and he’s the one who left his zippo behind after all, content with, or even reliant on, Samatoki lighting him up. Either way, Samatoki is completely oblivious to all the turmoil, simply crouching down to Ichiro’s other side and throwing an arm over his shoulders. “You’re a good kid, Ichiro.”
Kuko rolls his eyes at the obvious remark, though he can’t disregard Ichiro’s inclination to relax at the reassurance. He simply moves off, dusts off wherever Samatoki accidentally touched and groans. “Ugh, should we coup Samatoki’s ass?” Yet the statement is overall nonchalant and it just proves that, in spite of how he was acting and for better or worse or what it was worth, he does concede that Samatoki has been their leader this entire time, watching over them even when he wasn’t, guiding them in their heads with his annoying eyelashes.
Sasara can tell Kuko also said it as a comeback to his stupid, ultimately unhelpful gag comment, because he catches him kick his lighter even farther under the coffee table. So he plops down on the couch with their unneeded cola, defeated, but determined to get the last word in still: “That would make me in charge then, just so y’know.” He remembers the cigarette in his hand and thoughtlessly puts it to his mouth to take a drag at the outlook of that much responsibility–Ichiro’s innocence, Kuko’s kookiness, Samatoki’s… spirit. Just the mental image of it was giving him goosebumps, and no number of cigarette-kisses between any of them felt like a fair trade-off.
“Hyaha~” Kuko chuckles, glancing over at Samatoki who’s giving Ichiro a good knuckle-sandwich for all that just so he can say he isn’t letting Ichiro off without any consequences. He also hates that he’s just sure he’s next. He settles next to Sasara and looks at the cigarette, his cigarette, in Sasara’s lips, and it makes him smirk. If this clown was in charge, everything among the four of them could either fall apart, or fall right into place. Anything as long as it was the four of them. “I think I can handle that.”