watching, waiting, wishing
Title: watching, waiting, wishing
Pairing: Massu/Ryo
Rating: PG
Words: 2835
Summary: “If you’d stay still a while, you’d notice a whole world of different things.” Masuda notices Ryo. AU
Author’s note: Title stolen and morphed from Jack Johnson’s “Sitting Waiting Wishing.” Thanks to indian_monsoon for the title idea, and to bananyphophany for beta and moral support. For the RyoMassu Love-a-thon at dokubuta . Prompt was Tegan and Sara's "Living Room." Dedicated to track_04 and nanyakanya for starting this community. :D And yes, I still suck at summary...
Masuda sat at the table, staring out the window, mindlessly munching on carrot slices. Some bit of architectural creativity had left a space between his apartment and the next and it might have been nice if there had been a garden in the space. But there was nothing but carefully clipped grass and the overhanging branches of a Japanese maple encroaching from where it grew by the road. He imagined the landlord industriously mowing and edging with the same grim determination he accomplished everything else. Then a movement through the window of the other apartment caught his eye and he stalled with a carrot half in his mouth and cocked his head, absently biting down with a crunch.
A large box with a mop of black hair walked itself across the formerly empty apartment and Masuda watched, amused, as it staggered, zigzagging, before dropping to the ground and revealing a thin man with angular features and a scowl. Another man, a little taller with soft brown hair came up behind him, laughing, and ruffled the man’s hair. This apparently earned the taller man a kick to the shin and he doubled over with laughter. When the scowling man stalked out of view, his friend sort of slouched after him, still laughing. Masuda smiled and tapped his chin thoughtfully.
Hours later, when Masuda came back with dinner, the two men had the living room set up. The couch was facing the window but at a funny angle and he wondered what kind of artwork the man would have. Probably abstract, he thought absently and watched the dark-haired man pop a tab on a can and reach for a slice of pizza. The brown-haired man would tease the dark-haired man every now and then, making him laugh, or yell, when he would take a bite of the pizza dark-hair was holding, but Masuda noted the blank face that would slip over dark-hair between times.
It turned out that dark-hair (or Nishikido, which is what his mailbox said) was his neighbor and that he was rarely home evenings. Masuda left a gift basket with various food items, pamphlets from his favorite restaurants in the area, and a short note just saying hello. He was pleased when, in the morning, there was a plate in front of his door with cookies and a scrawled, Please take care of me. He carried the plate to his kitchen and walked to work humming happily around bites.
~~~
The man lay sprawled on his back across his small couch, head hanging back over the arm, one arm thrown across the back and one foot resting on the floor. Masuda couldn’t see his face, but he read the man’s exhaustion in the curve of his shoulder, in the way the leg off the couch listed ever so slightly to the side. He was betting that the man’s brow was furrowed.
“Massu?”
“Hmmm?” he hummed lazily, cheek resting on a propped up fist. He took a bite of his kushiage.
“You do realize you’ve been staring out the window for, like, five minutes, right?” Shige drummed his fingers against the table.
“Probably.” He sat up and smirked at his friend. “What, feeling neglected? I’ve been listening, I swear.” And he quoted back the last words.
Shige snorted and peered out the window. “Is he really that fascinating? He’s just lying there.”
Massu contemplated his friend for a moment. “You move too fast, Shige. If you’d stay still a while, you’d notice a whole world of different things.”
Shige looked at Massu, amused. “If you say so.”
~~~
Nishikido sat with his head bent over his guitar, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he slowly moved his fingers over the frets - the same pattern on repeat and mesmerizing without the sound. Graceful fingers moving intricately through the patterns and picking up speed until suddenly he threw himself back against the cushions, exposing the line of his throat to Masuda’s view and gripping the neck of his guitar until his fingers whitened against the glossy brown, frustration written across his features.
Masuda sat parallel to his table, his legs stretched in front of him and one elbow propped against it, his cheek resting in the uplifted hand. His free hand kept dipping into the bowl of grapes in his lap as he blatantly watched Nishikido with half-focused eyes. Then suddenly Nishikido raised his head and looked straight at him. Despite the distance, Masuda could feel his emotions written in his eyes, frayed, raw, hurt; Masuda had seen heartbreak enough to recognize it. Nishikido looked at him blankly and Masuda couldn’t tell if the man was actually seeing him. He lifted a hand in a half-wave but Nishikido looked away, intent on his guitar and Masuda watched his mouth move, eyes fluttering shut, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to hear the notes pouring out of the man’s mouth. He knew they would be rough, un-worked, desperate, and he swallowed against the sympathetic rawness he felt in his own throat.
He checked his watch then stood in one smooth motion, moving to the kitchen counter where he pressed a black marker to the clean side of a neon orange flyer and drew something: fat little pig on stick legs, stick arms raised triumphantly, happy eyes crescents above its snout, Ganbatte! arching above it all. He taped it, drawing side out, to the window and left to meet his friends.
~~~
Eventually Masuda was rushing home every day to find a note taped to his neighbor’s window. “Good morning, buta.” “Sweet dreams.” “It’s Ryo, damnit.” “The number four at Mama Rei’s WAS amazing, thanks.” “You weren’t home today, are you all right?” Masuda rarely saw Nishikido when the man wasn’t eating, sleeping, or working (according to one note, he was a musician) and they held entire conversations on blank sheets of paper taped to the window. Today’s was, “No way. Osaka’s okonomiyaki is the ONLY okonimiyaki.” He grinned at it. Its author was sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning over his guitar to write on the sheaf of papers propped up on a music stand in front of him.
“That’s really creepy.” Tegoshi walked over to the table and sank down opposite Masuda.
“Hmmm?” Masuda flicked his eyes to his friend curiously.
“I’m just saying, you’re being creepy right now. I leave the room for a minute and you turn into a creeper.”
“…”
“…Now you’re really being creepy. Stop staring at me. …No really,” Tegoshi whined.
He chuckled at Tegoshi and pushed a pile of cards toward him. “Don’t worry. You’ve got all my attention.”
Tegoshi rearranged his cards and stared thoughtfully at them for a moment. “You should invite him to come play with us, sometime.”
Smiling, he replied, “I don’t think he’d appreciate me interrupting his music. Besides, I need Tego-time,” he said indulgently. “You’ve been busy.”
Tegoshi’s eyes lit up and he bounced a bit. “I have. Massu misses me, right?”
“Sure do.”
They played amiably for a while before Tegoshi stopped and looked at him for a minute.
“What?” Masuda asked cheerfully. “I’m not going to just let you win again. It was a one-time thing.”
Tegoshi smiled cryptically. “No. But if you like him, maybe you should tell him.”
Masuda furrowed his brow and watched Tegoshi hum happily to himself as he rearranged his hand.
~~~
Cold radiated off the window, and he shivered a little, though not unpleasantly, as it sank through his thin t-shirt. Humming a carol under his breath, he carefully tacked the Christmas lights around his window, so intent on getting the nails spaced evenly that he didn’t notice his actions being mirrored across the way until he stepped back and clicked the switch and his neighbor did the same. Multi-colored lights flared to life, framing them for each other and his neighbor looked shyly up through his bangs at Masuda before tilting his head up and offering him a wide grin. Masuda didn’t even hear the box of nails drop from his hand and scatter its contents across the floor when he returned the smile. Then Nishikido was tugged away by his friends and he was left to pick up the pieces.
On Christmas morning, he walked into the living room rubbing his eyes and when he finally opened them to look out the window, he was greeted by a cheery “Merry Christmas” written in block green and red letters on a sheet of blank paper stuck to his neighbor’s window. He couldn’t help grinning like an idiot.
~~~
A few days later, Masuda left his apartment to grab a bite and nearly ran into his slight neighbor.
“Going out?” “Have you had dinner?” They both stopped and Masuda smiled brightly, heart beating inexplicably fast, and Ryo returned it after a beat.
Masuda stuck out his hand, grinning wider, “Masuda Takahisa.”
Ryo started laughing then, wide and open and Masuda cocked his head, still smiling. “I’m sorry. It’s just that …” he trailed off, still laughing, and grasped Masuda’s hand. “Nishikido Ryo. Pleased to meet you. And no, I haven’t had dinner yet.”
Masuda could feel the man’s calluses rubbing along the sensitive skin on the back of his hand as he gripped it tight then let go. “I was just going to get something, if you wanted. Just down the block.”
Ryo considered him for a moment. “I don’t know. You spend an awful lot of time watching me. Shouldn’t this be more awkward?” he asked with a laugh.
Masuda shrugged pleasantly.
“But it isn’t.” He paused, probably weighing that revelation. “Why not, right?” He smiled at Masuda and the strange flipflop his heart made at the lopsided expression made him wish that it was as easy to read himself as Ryo. But then the smile dropped right off Nishikido’s face as the man’s eyes slid past him to focus on someone behind him. And there it was again, the heartbreak, flashing across his face as he struggled to cover it.
“Ryo,” the someone said, a man.
Masuda paused, took a step back to look over the new presence, then looked back at Ryo. “Another time, maybe?”
“Yeah,” Ryo muttered, his eyes apologizing. “Sorry, another time.”
By the time Masuda returned, Ryo was sitting alone on his couch in a half-dark room, huddled over his guitar.
He lay awake that night for hours, blinking slowly at the ceiling and recalling Ryo’s face and the way it had crumpled at the face behind Masuda’s shoulder. He moved his hands from behind his head to cradle on his stomach and frowned. Turning a few more times, he finally gave up sleep as a lost cause and went into the living room, choosing to forgo turning on the lights in favor of the strong moonlight, and sitting down in front of his table. Rubbing his face carefully, he stared straight ahead until a movement in his periphery caught his attention and he looked over. Ryo stood in front of the window, hair dark against pale skin made paler by the glow of the moon, looking at him, and Masuda felt himself stand and move to his own window. Nishikido looked so small and vulnerable, face drawn and shoulders hunched in a shirt one size too big for him. And when the man slowly stretched his hand out to press it, palm-down, against the window, Masuda mirrored him, the cold glass turning warmer under his touch until, finally, Ryo smiled bashfully. Masuda felt his heart clench as he mirrored that, too.
He reached for a piece of paper and uncapped the marker, writing his message before pressing it against the window. He watched the man’s eyes scan his question (“Are you ok?”) Ryo met his eyes and quirked one side of his mouth up and shrugged one shoulder. He disappeared but was back quickly enough with a note saying, “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Masuda nodded at him but stayed where he was.
“Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head.
Ryo contemplated him for a moment before disappearing again. A few moments later, Masuda heard a tentative knock on his door and he made his way, confused, to answer it. Ryo stood there, fingers wrapped around the neck of his guitar and a bashful look on his face.
“Ryo?” he started, and scratched his neck.
A blush rose to the shorter man’s face and he pushed past Masuda. “Bed,” he said, and followed Masuda as he bemusedly walked to his futon and lowered himself onto it.
At Ryo’s gestures, he crawled under the covers and Ryo sank down, balancing precariously on the edge of the bed and bringing his guitar into position. He plucked slowly and carefully at the strings, letting one melody melt into another and humming along soothingly. Masuda kept his eyes on the man’s face, a small smile on his lips as he drifted slowly into sleep.
In the morning, there was a note on the edge of his bed and he sort of wished it was the man, instead.
Their paper conversations continued like nothing had happened but Masuda kept hearing chords and a low raspy hum when he hovered halfway to sleep.
~~~
“Friday, 9pm, Rend. Since you like watching so much.”
Shige joined him at his window, cocking his head as he read the note. “What … does that mean?”
Massu pursed his lips and tilted his head. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t think it’s a T.V. show.”
“Must be a place…”
“…Your friend needs to work on his communication skills.”
Masuda couldn’t suppress his laughter.
Rend turned out to be a club in Shinjuku, too cool for Massu, but apparently his name was on the list and he waded through the crowd inside the door to find a small bubble of peace beside the bar. The band finished their set just as the bartender handed him his coke, and he leaned back against the wall, watching them clear the stage. He was far from the stage, but not far enough to not notice Ryo when he walked on, guitar slung low, to take his place in the center.
He made his way closer, nudging against people to find an empty chair around a full table. The opening chords were light and longing and his voice began smoothly, the other guitarist raising his voice in sweet counterpoint, until it broke over the chorus, the music swelling behind him. Ryo’s voice was … passionate, he decided. Just like he imagined the man must be - every note full of expression that was reflected on his face as he unconsciously moved his body behind his guitar. Masuda thought he was gorgeous.
Hours later, they walked home slowly from the station, Ryo’s guitar between them, nudging into his legs sometimes when Ryo shifted toward him.
“It’s nice to be able to fit your voice and music to what I see,” Massu said, breaking the silence.
Ryo snorted. “Creeper,” he muttered, but bumped his leg playfully with his guitar case. “Thanks for coming.”
“My pleasure. I probably wouldn’t have if Shige hadn’t thought to google ‘Rend’ though,” he said with a laugh. “You could have been a little more informative.” Masuda knew the man was flushing in the silence.
Ryo switched his guitar to his other hand, shaking his now-free hand a bit. “Who’s Shige?”
“Ah. One of my friends. He was there when I saw your note.”
“Tell him I said thanks,” Ryo said with a small smile.
They walked home in a comfortable silence and Masuda stood with Ryo as he unlocked his door and opened it.
“I feel like I should kiss you good night,” Ryo joked, leaning back against his doorframe and smiling up at Masuda, letting his guitar rest against the wall inside the door without relinquishing his hold. He looked so inviting standing there with his arms opened and relaxed and Masuda couldn’t help himself when he took a step forward and leaned in to kiss Ryo. A soft press held against soft lips for the barest moment before he pulled back and looked into contemplative brown eyes. Then he took a step back and smiled.
“Good night.”
Ryo didn’t move an inch until Masuda disappeared inside his own apartment.
In the morning the note read: “Tonight, 8pm, my place.” He smiled.
~~~
These days Masuda does his watching at point-blank range. Ryo’s lashes coming to rest gently against his cheeks as he dozed off to Masuda combing his fingers through his hair, the emotions across his face as Ryo lulled him to sleep, a million other little things Ryo did that maybe everyone else saw, but no one else noticed.
Sometimes, though, he likes to be nostalgic. He looks up from his reminiscing to see Ryo pressing a sheet of paper to the window, eyebrows raised: “You’re on the wrong side, dumbass.”
Masuda laughs to himself as he stands up, writing his own message and taping it to the window before leaving his apartment:
“ ♥ ”
Pairing: Massu/Ryo
Rating: PG
Words: 2835
Summary: “If you’d stay still a while, you’d notice a whole world of different things.” Masuda notices Ryo. AU
Author’s note: Title stolen and morphed from Jack Johnson’s “Sitting Waiting Wishing.” Thanks to indian_monsoon for the title idea, and to bananyphophany for beta and moral support. For the RyoMassu Love-a-thon at dokubuta . Prompt was Tegan and Sara's "Living Room." Dedicated to track_04 and nanyakanya for starting this community. :D And yes, I still suck at summary...
Masuda sat at the table, staring out the window, mindlessly munching on carrot slices. Some bit of architectural creativity had left a space between his apartment and the next and it might have been nice if there had been a garden in the space. But there was nothing but carefully clipped grass and the overhanging branches of a Japanese maple encroaching from where it grew by the road. He imagined the landlord industriously mowing and edging with the same grim determination he accomplished everything else. Then a movement through the window of the other apartment caught his eye and he stalled with a carrot half in his mouth and cocked his head, absently biting down with a crunch.
A large box with a mop of black hair walked itself across the formerly empty apartment and Masuda watched, amused, as it staggered, zigzagging, before dropping to the ground and revealing a thin man with angular features and a scowl. Another man, a little taller with soft brown hair came up behind him, laughing, and ruffled the man’s hair. This apparently earned the taller man a kick to the shin and he doubled over with laughter. When the scowling man stalked out of view, his friend sort of slouched after him, still laughing. Masuda smiled and tapped his chin thoughtfully.
Hours later, when Masuda came back with dinner, the two men had the living room set up. The couch was facing the window but at a funny angle and he wondered what kind of artwork the man would have. Probably abstract, he thought absently and watched the dark-haired man pop a tab on a can and reach for a slice of pizza. The brown-haired man would tease the dark-haired man every now and then, making him laugh, or yell, when he would take a bite of the pizza dark-hair was holding, but Masuda noted the blank face that would slip over dark-hair between times.
It turned out that dark-hair (or Nishikido, which is what his mailbox said) was his neighbor and that he was rarely home evenings. Masuda left a gift basket with various food items, pamphlets from his favorite restaurants in the area, and a short note just saying hello. He was pleased when, in the morning, there was a plate in front of his door with cookies and a scrawled, Please take care of me. He carried the plate to his kitchen and walked to work humming happily around bites.
~~~
The man lay sprawled on his back across his small couch, head hanging back over the arm, one arm thrown across the back and one foot resting on the floor. Masuda couldn’t see his face, but he read the man’s exhaustion in the curve of his shoulder, in the way the leg off the couch listed ever so slightly to the side. He was betting that the man’s brow was furrowed.
“Massu?”
“Hmmm?” he hummed lazily, cheek resting on a propped up fist. He took a bite of his kushiage.
“You do realize you’ve been staring out the window for, like, five minutes, right?” Shige drummed his fingers against the table.
“Probably.” He sat up and smirked at his friend. “What, feeling neglected? I’ve been listening, I swear.” And he quoted back the last words.
Shige snorted and peered out the window. “Is he really that fascinating? He’s just lying there.”
Massu contemplated his friend for a moment. “You move too fast, Shige. If you’d stay still a while, you’d notice a whole world of different things.”
Shige looked at Massu, amused. “If you say so.”
~~~
Nishikido sat with his head bent over his guitar, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he slowly moved his fingers over the frets - the same pattern on repeat and mesmerizing without the sound. Graceful fingers moving intricately through the patterns and picking up speed until suddenly he threw himself back against the cushions, exposing the line of his throat to Masuda’s view and gripping the neck of his guitar until his fingers whitened against the glossy brown, frustration written across his features.
Masuda sat parallel to his table, his legs stretched in front of him and one elbow propped against it, his cheek resting in the uplifted hand. His free hand kept dipping into the bowl of grapes in his lap as he blatantly watched Nishikido with half-focused eyes. Then suddenly Nishikido raised his head and looked straight at him. Despite the distance, Masuda could feel his emotions written in his eyes, frayed, raw, hurt; Masuda had seen heartbreak enough to recognize it. Nishikido looked at him blankly and Masuda couldn’t tell if the man was actually seeing him. He lifted a hand in a half-wave but Nishikido looked away, intent on his guitar and Masuda watched his mouth move, eyes fluttering shut, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to hear the notes pouring out of the man’s mouth. He knew they would be rough, un-worked, desperate, and he swallowed against the sympathetic rawness he felt in his own throat.
He checked his watch then stood in one smooth motion, moving to the kitchen counter where he pressed a black marker to the clean side of a neon orange flyer and drew something: fat little pig on stick legs, stick arms raised triumphantly, happy eyes crescents above its snout, Ganbatte! arching above it all. He taped it, drawing side out, to the window and left to meet his friends.
~~~
Eventually Masuda was rushing home every day to find a note taped to his neighbor’s window. “Good morning, buta.” “Sweet dreams.” “It’s Ryo, damnit.” “The number four at Mama Rei’s WAS amazing, thanks.” “You weren’t home today, are you all right?” Masuda rarely saw Nishikido when the man wasn’t eating, sleeping, or working (according to one note, he was a musician) and they held entire conversations on blank sheets of paper taped to the window. Today’s was, “No way. Osaka’s okonomiyaki is the ONLY okonimiyaki.” He grinned at it. Its author was sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning over his guitar to write on the sheaf of papers propped up on a music stand in front of him.
“That’s really creepy.” Tegoshi walked over to the table and sank down opposite Masuda.
“Hmmm?” Masuda flicked his eyes to his friend curiously.
“I’m just saying, you’re being creepy right now. I leave the room for a minute and you turn into a creeper.”
“…”
“…Now you’re really being creepy. Stop staring at me. …No really,” Tegoshi whined.
He chuckled at Tegoshi and pushed a pile of cards toward him. “Don’t worry. You’ve got all my attention.”
Tegoshi rearranged his cards and stared thoughtfully at them for a moment. “You should invite him to come play with us, sometime.”
Smiling, he replied, “I don’t think he’d appreciate me interrupting his music. Besides, I need Tego-time,” he said indulgently. “You’ve been busy.”
Tegoshi’s eyes lit up and he bounced a bit. “I have. Massu misses me, right?”
“Sure do.”
They played amiably for a while before Tegoshi stopped and looked at him for a minute.
“What?” Masuda asked cheerfully. “I’m not going to just let you win again. It was a one-time thing.”
Tegoshi smiled cryptically. “No. But if you like him, maybe you should tell him.”
Masuda furrowed his brow and watched Tegoshi hum happily to himself as he rearranged his hand.
~~~
Cold radiated off the window, and he shivered a little, though not unpleasantly, as it sank through his thin t-shirt. Humming a carol under his breath, he carefully tacked the Christmas lights around his window, so intent on getting the nails spaced evenly that he didn’t notice his actions being mirrored across the way until he stepped back and clicked the switch and his neighbor did the same. Multi-colored lights flared to life, framing them for each other and his neighbor looked shyly up through his bangs at Masuda before tilting his head up and offering him a wide grin. Masuda didn’t even hear the box of nails drop from his hand and scatter its contents across the floor when he returned the smile. Then Nishikido was tugged away by his friends and he was left to pick up the pieces.
On Christmas morning, he walked into the living room rubbing his eyes and when he finally opened them to look out the window, he was greeted by a cheery “Merry Christmas” written in block green and red letters on a sheet of blank paper stuck to his neighbor’s window. He couldn’t help grinning like an idiot.
~~~
A few days later, Masuda left his apartment to grab a bite and nearly ran into his slight neighbor.
“Going out?” “Have you had dinner?” They both stopped and Masuda smiled brightly, heart beating inexplicably fast, and Ryo returned it after a beat.
Masuda stuck out his hand, grinning wider, “Masuda Takahisa.”
Ryo started laughing then, wide and open and Masuda cocked his head, still smiling. “I’m sorry. It’s just that …” he trailed off, still laughing, and grasped Masuda’s hand. “Nishikido Ryo. Pleased to meet you. And no, I haven’t had dinner yet.”
Masuda could feel the man’s calluses rubbing along the sensitive skin on the back of his hand as he gripped it tight then let go. “I was just going to get something, if you wanted. Just down the block.”
Ryo considered him for a moment. “I don’t know. You spend an awful lot of time watching me. Shouldn’t this be more awkward?” he asked with a laugh.
Masuda shrugged pleasantly.
“But it isn’t.” He paused, probably weighing that revelation. “Why not, right?” He smiled at Masuda and the strange flipflop his heart made at the lopsided expression made him wish that it was as easy to read himself as Ryo. But then the smile dropped right off Nishikido’s face as the man’s eyes slid past him to focus on someone behind him. And there it was again, the heartbreak, flashing across his face as he struggled to cover it.
“Ryo,” the someone said, a man.
Masuda paused, took a step back to look over the new presence, then looked back at Ryo. “Another time, maybe?”
“Yeah,” Ryo muttered, his eyes apologizing. “Sorry, another time.”
By the time Masuda returned, Ryo was sitting alone on his couch in a half-dark room, huddled over his guitar.
He lay awake that night for hours, blinking slowly at the ceiling and recalling Ryo’s face and the way it had crumpled at the face behind Masuda’s shoulder. He moved his hands from behind his head to cradle on his stomach and frowned. Turning a few more times, he finally gave up sleep as a lost cause and went into the living room, choosing to forgo turning on the lights in favor of the strong moonlight, and sitting down in front of his table. Rubbing his face carefully, he stared straight ahead until a movement in his periphery caught his attention and he looked over. Ryo stood in front of the window, hair dark against pale skin made paler by the glow of the moon, looking at him, and Masuda felt himself stand and move to his own window. Nishikido looked so small and vulnerable, face drawn and shoulders hunched in a shirt one size too big for him. And when the man slowly stretched his hand out to press it, palm-down, against the window, Masuda mirrored him, the cold glass turning warmer under his touch until, finally, Ryo smiled bashfully. Masuda felt his heart clench as he mirrored that, too.
He reached for a piece of paper and uncapped the marker, writing his message before pressing it against the window. He watched the man’s eyes scan his question (“Are you ok?”) Ryo met his eyes and quirked one side of his mouth up and shrugged one shoulder. He disappeared but was back quickly enough with a note saying, “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Masuda nodded at him but stayed where he was.
“Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head.
Ryo contemplated him for a moment before disappearing again. A few moments later, Masuda heard a tentative knock on his door and he made his way, confused, to answer it. Ryo stood there, fingers wrapped around the neck of his guitar and a bashful look on his face.
“Ryo?” he started, and scratched his neck.
A blush rose to the shorter man’s face and he pushed past Masuda. “Bed,” he said, and followed Masuda as he bemusedly walked to his futon and lowered himself onto it.
At Ryo’s gestures, he crawled under the covers and Ryo sank down, balancing precariously on the edge of the bed and bringing his guitar into position. He plucked slowly and carefully at the strings, letting one melody melt into another and humming along soothingly. Masuda kept his eyes on the man’s face, a small smile on his lips as he drifted slowly into sleep.
In the morning, there was a note on the edge of his bed and he sort of wished it was the man, instead.
Their paper conversations continued like nothing had happened but Masuda kept hearing chords and a low raspy hum when he hovered halfway to sleep.
~~~
“Friday, 9pm, Rend. Since you like watching so much.”
Shige joined him at his window, cocking his head as he read the note. “What … does that mean?”
Massu pursed his lips and tilted his head. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t think it’s a T.V. show.”
“Must be a place…”
“…Your friend needs to work on his communication skills.”
Masuda couldn’t suppress his laughter.
Rend turned out to be a club in Shinjuku, too cool for Massu, but apparently his name was on the list and he waded through the crowd inside the door to find a small bubble of peace beside the bar. The band finished their set just as the bartender handed him his coke, and he leaned back against the wall, watching them clear the stage. He was far from the stage, but not far enough to not notice Ryo when he walked on, guitar slung low, to take his place in the center.
He made his way closer, nudging against people to find an empty chair around a full table. The opening chords were light and longing and his voice began smoothly, the other guitarist raising his voice in sweet counterpoint, until it broke over the chorus, the music swelling behind him. Ryo’s voice was … passionate, he decided. Just like he imagined the man must be - every note full of expression that was reflected on his face as he unconsciously moved his body behind his guitar. Masuda thought he was gorgeous.
Hours later, they walked home slowly from the station, Ryo’s guitar between them, nudging into his legs sometimes when Ryo shifted toward him.
“It’s nice to be able to fit your voice and music to what I see,” Massu said, breaking the silence.
Ryo snorted. “Creeper,” he muttered, but bumped his leg playfully with his guitar case. “Thanks for coming.”
“My pleasure. I probably wouldn’t have if Shige hadn’t thought to google ‘Rend’ though,” he said with a laugh. “You could have been a little more informative.” Masuda knew the man was flushing in the silence.
Ryo switched his guitar to his other hand, shaking his now-free hand a bit. “Who’s Shige?”
“Ah. One of my friends. He was there when I saw your note.”
“Tell him I said thanks,” Ryo said with a small smile.
They walked home in a comfortable silence and Masuda stood with Ryo as he unlocked his door and opened it.
“I feel like I should kiss you good night,” Ryo joked, leaning back against his doorframe and smiling up at Masuda, letting his guitar rest against the wall inside the door without relinquishing his hold. He looked so inviting standing there with his arms opened and relaxed and Masuda couldn’t help himself when he took a step forward and leaned in to kiss Ryo. A soft press held against soft lips for the barest moment before he pulled back and looked into contemplative brown eyes. Then he took a step back and smiled.
“Good night.”
Ryo didn’t move an inch until Masuda disappeared inside his own apartment.
In the morning the note read: “Tonight, 8pm, my place.” He smiled.
~~~
These days Masuda does his watching at point-blank range. Ryo’s lashes coming to rest gently against his cheeks as he dozed off to Masuda combing his fingers through his hair, the emotions across his face as Ryo lulled him to sleep, a million other little things Ryo did that maybe everyone else saw, but no one else noticed.
Sometimes, though, he likes to be nostalgic. He looks up from his reminiscing to see Ryo pressing a sheet of paper to the window, eyebrows raised: “You’re on the wrong side, dumbass.”
Masuda laughs to himself as he stands up, writing his own message and taping it to the window before leaving his apartment:
“ ♥ ”