Fic for shirayuki1582
Title: Let Them Eat Cookies
Pairing: Odagiri Ryu/Yabuki Hayato (Gokusen II)
Word count: 6,668
Rating: R
Warnings: Sex, drinks, and the death of a chocolate bunny.
Notes: Dear shirayuki1582, writing this for you was fun! I hope you'll find some fun in it, too. :) Also many, many heartfelt thanks to my awesome beta, whose help and watchful eye kept me going when things got tough.
Summary: As Take is the last to come of age, Hayato is determined to throw him a really, really awesome party. Ryu is just determined not to accidentally crawl into Hayato's lap.
Hayato is taking Take's twentieth birthday very, very seriously.
"Did you know that it's on Easter Saturday?" he asks excitedly, throwing himself onto Ryu's bed in all his just-showered glory.
"Easter?" Ryu pushes Hayato's naked leg aside with his foot before pulling out his now crumpled Pedagogy IV notes. "So what?" He stuffs the nearest pen into his bag, realizes it's Hayato's and grabs another one, just to be on the safe side. Hayato is unable to throw away pens that have run out of ink.
Really, Hayato is unable to throw away anything. It's like a virus that has infested their apartment, letting clutter grow in the nooks and crannies whenever Ryu turns his back.
"Oh god, why am I friends with such an ignorant idiot?" Hayato groans, rolling onto his side. There's a large damp spot on the sheets where he landed. "Easter, Ryu! Doesn't that ring a bell with you?"
"Not really." Hang on. "You mean the special parades they have in Disneyland?"
Hayato's head thumps into Ryu's cushion.
Shrugging, Ryu picks up his shirt from the backrest of his wobbly swivel chair. Hayato is mumbling into the pillow.
The shirt smells like it should've been washed yesterday, so Ryu throws it at Hayato's back. "Get off my bed, I need to leave."
Hayato lifts his head just enough. "I'm not leaving before we've talked about Easter," he declares, and Ryu can see his jaw go tense below the mop of wet curls falling into his face.
He sighs. "Is this one of those American things you found on the internet?"
"It's Easter," Hayato says, as if Ryu has bad hearing and didn't get it the first time around. "And it's very important that we search colored eggs and eat a ton of chocolate bunnies, because it's Take's birthday and Jesus died."
Ryu raises an eyebrow. "Because we're so Christian."
"Aww, come on!" Hayato sits up, the towel around his hips slipping dangerously low.
Up, Ryu tells his eyes, just in time to see Hayato's easy-go-lucky façade crack.
"The strippers are out," he murmurs, staring down at his bare feet as if all the boobs in the worlds just imploded. "Hyuga's washing mashine died yesterday, so now he needs to use his share of the stripper-money for a new one."
Clean laundry or a pair of tits. Ryu wouldn't even have to think twice.
"Ouch," he still says, because Hayato's been researching stripper ads with an enthusiasm for scientific detail that would've made Sawatari cry tears of blood. Yesterday, Ryu found a nipple analysis report on the back of his latest assignment ten minutes before he had to hand it in, "SIZE VERSUS PERKINESS (because we can't afford both)" scrawled over the top in Hayato's sloppy handwriting.
"Who picks laundry over strippers," Hayato mumbles, sitting slumped over on the edge of Ryu's bed. He looks like someone just stole his favorite piece of jewelry.
Ryu checks his watch. He's running late, but then again, this wouldn't be the first time he had to sprint through half the town because of Hayato.
"So what was that Easter stuff again?" he asks, because who gives a shit about missed trains when Hayato's face lights up like that.
---
Hayato is taking Take's twentieth birthday very, very seriously, and whenever he's not at work, or playing pool, or pestering Ryu until he drops his homework and annihilates Hayato in a Tekken tournament, he scours the internet for awesome things to do at awesome coming-of-age parties.
Ryu wordlessly scribbles "ALCOHOL!" all across Hayato's list, praying that it'll knock him out before they've made it past the Easter eggs.
--
"But it's all over the web," Hayato protests, half into a pout already. "It can't be just an urban legend, I swear!"
"Nobody's jerking off on cookies anywhere!" Ryu hisses, slapping Hayato's fingers off the packet of Lotte Kancho. "Especially not ones with faces on them!"
Further down the aisle, a woman gasps and puts her hands over her son's ears, staring at Ryu in indignation.
Ears blazing hot, Ryu turns and hastily heaps four packets of chili-spiced potato chips into their shopping cart. Then reconsiders, and swaps one for matcha-flavored, to save himself the whining.
"I guess she won't be buying the koala cookies now," Hayato fake-whispers.
---
They've all been downloading porn for years, but according to the other three, it's not coming-of-age-y unless you actually buy it.
"Formation L," Hayato orders, pushing his sunglasses a little higher as Tsucchi and Hyuga stroll toward the entrance of the sex shop.
Ryu wonders why the hell they had to choose the busiest time of day. "I still don't get why you need me for this," he says, folding his arms.
"You're moral back-up," Hayato tells him, and lifts his phone to his ear. "Check, check, this is Yabuki One, I see no problematic individuals approaching. Over."
Tsucchi and Hyuga are stalling at the little news stand next door, gazing at the magazine covers with obvious effort. Ryu has no idea why staring at prettily photoshopped guys smoldering above their lipgloss pouts is any less embarrassing than buying porn.
"See," Hayato says with a grin, "I told you this would be a smooth operation."
Only it isn't, because, as far as excited hand-waving goes, the girl at the register happens to know Hyuga, who doesn't seem to find this very unfortunate. Neither does Tsucchi, if the excited elbow he rams into Hyuga's side is any indication.
"I don't believe it!" Hayato whips off his sunglasses, hissing "Mission abort, mission abort!" into his phone, not that Tsucchi is actually listening with all the nice-to-meet-you bowing going on.
Ten minutes later, Ryu marches into the store with a flaming face, because it was either that or another ten minutes of Hayato's pretty puppy eyes.
---
Hayato is an idiot, and I'm going to murder him, Ryu nearly sends to Take before he remembers that Take isn't supposed to know anything. Flicking through his meager contact list doesn't come up with much but three other idiots he would also love to punch right now, so he sends the message to the next most logical choice.
Yankumi only takes two minutes to reply, and Ryu has trouble wrapping his head around what he is seeing.
Is that what they call it these days?
Thirty seconds later his phone rings, and Yankumi is bordering on a nervous embarrassment break-down. "I'm so, so sorry Odagiri-kun, of course I would never-there is a guest at my house right now, and he doesn't know how to behave when one of my precious students sends me a-"
"Aww, Kumiko, I'm your precious student, too," a deep, male voice drawls in the background. "And I don't even know them but come on, it's so obvious from what you told-OUCH!"
"Ahahaha," Yankumi warbles shrilly. "Odagiri-kun? I must apologize, my guest is hallucinating, and of course I wouldn't let former students stay overnight at my house, especially not Sawada Shin, and-whoops, I mean. Odagiri-kun! Just... follow your dreams, listen to your heart, and think twice before you murder Yabuki-kun, all right?"
Ryu can hear the guy chuckling in the background. "Yeah, Yankumi, thank you," he says hastily, and there's rustling that sounds like blankets, and he really should end this call right about now.
---
"Do you really want to murder me?" Hayato asks three days later, and he seems unsure as he stands in the doorway to Ryu's room. Yankumi suddenly scoring a guy obviously hasn't made her any less committed to saving lives and lost puppies.
Hayato's hair is tousled, some of the waves sticking up at weird angles, as if he was in bed but couldn't sleep.
"No," Ryu croaks, because he didn't have trouble sleeping at three in the morning. "Of course I don't, you big dolt."
Hayato shifts, wriggling his toes away from the floor-it's spring, and the nights still get cold. Hayato hates being cold, but he announced they'd stop heating in late February, so Ryu could cut back on his part-time job.
"What is it?" Ryu asks softly.
"The party," Hayato says, trailing a finger down the wood of the doorway. "You think it'll suck, don't you."
"No!" Ryu shifts onto his elbows. "No, really. I mean... you know what I think about the cookies but-the eggs and the bunnies don't suck as much."
"You sure?"
"Take is going to love them," Ryu says, and means it. "Plus, the porn. Can't go wrong with that." It's bound to be horny comments and raucous fun, and Ryu knows he'll sit on the side feeling tremendously stupid.
"Hm." Hayato stretches his neck. Fiddles with the hem of this shirt. Scratches his calf with his toes.
Ryu has known the signs for fourteen years, is halfway resigned already, but he can still give it a try. "Go back to sleep, all right? Big party tomorrow."
It used to be grief, then tests in primary school, confessing to girls in middle school, and fistfights at Kurogin.
Hayato opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then nods. "Yeah," he says, hesitating before he turns halfway. "Yeah, you're right."
And Ryu knows that Hayato isn't going to sleep tonight, that he's going to be tired throughout the party, that he'll be pissed off at himself for days after.
Unless Ryu offers.
"If you fart, I'll kill you," he threatens, scooting back until his shoulder blades hit the wall.
There's a reason he didn't buy the standard-sized bed, and it's there in the relieved slump of Hayato's shoulders, the door that closes on them, plunging the room into darkness. The whisper of Hayato's soles over the floor, and the moment when the mattress dips beside Ryu.
"Not a word," Hayato mumbles.
"Wuss," Ryu says, sliding his legs forward until Hayato's cold heels bump his shins.
"Shut up." Hayato doesn't flinch. Never has. The only thing that has changed is the line of his shoulders in the dark, broader now than in first grade, when even Ryu's father pitied Hayato enough to let Ryu stay over for a week after Yabuki-san had passed away.
Ryu closes his eyes. "Dickhead," he murmurs.
Breathing.
"Prick." Hayato always wants to have the last word.
And Ryu always lets him. Falling asleep is easy when they are like this.
---
Waking up is hard.
In all the senses of the word.
Ryu blinks, as usual. Sees a mass of wispy hair, which is rare, but also not unusual. Feels really good pressed up against a warm back, snug against firmness where he's hard-not unusual under these circumstances-and in a second he'll pull away, as always, because Hayato sleeps like the dead, and Ryu always, always wakes before him.
Blinks again, and realizes that the room is quiet. That Hayato's shoulders, broad against the morning light, are tense.
He jerks back so fast he hits his head on the wall.
"Fuck!" he hisses against the pain, and Hayato's sitting up, turning around, and suddenly Ryu feels like a string pulled as tight as it can go, waiting for the grip on it to crumble.
Hayato watches him quietly, for a moment that crawls past like a horde of snails.
"That..." Ryu tries to fumble for words, coming up empty. "I..."
Silence.
Then Hayato cracks up laughing. "Your penis works!" he giggles in wonder, flopping back onto the bed. "Oh my god, just wait until I tell the others, this will so shatter their world view!"
Ryu is kind of gaping. He is also kind of wondering if maybe Hayato went into shock from his best friend's erection pressing against his ass.
But that's before his eyes fall onto the alarm clock, and he realizes he is two hours late for university.
---
When Ryu arrives back at home, his heart is going crazy with whatevers. Straight until the door is ripped open, and a very happy Hayato is yelling "Happy Birthday!" right into his face.
"It's not my birthday," Ryu snaps, but Hayato grabs his arm and drags him into the living-room, where the first beer bottles are already empty.
"IS TODAY TAKE'S BIRTHDAY?" Hayato yells, throwing himself onto Ryu's relocated swivel chair.
The others raise their drinks. "YEAAAH!"
"ARE WE ALL OF AGE TODAY?"
"YEAAAH!"
"SO IS THIS OUR JOINT COMING-OF-AGE BIRTHDAY?"
"YEAAAAAH!"
Ryu groans. "Idiots, all of you." Then he wraps Take into a hug, because birthdays should be done properly, no matter what Hayato thinks that is.
---
Two beers down, Hayato brings out the eggs and the chocolate bunnies.
"FOOD!" Hyuga shouts gleefully, and promptly gets his wrist slapped.
"It's Easter Monday! You'll have to search for these, because Jesus died, and then he didn't die," Hayato lectures, puffing his chest importantly. Ryu thinks it looks stupidly cute. He also thinks the sugar would go perfectly well with his beer.
Take is eyeing the eggs with interest. The color is splotchy; Hayato must've tried to color them by himself. "So we hide these? And then search for them, because of Jesus-san?"
"Exactly," Hayato says, and chooses Tsucchi as his first victim.
He hides all the eggs close to the floor, because Tsucchi is a giant and Hayato is secretly jealous.
After Take and Hyuga have also collected their multi-colored clashing eggs, and everyone has bemoaned the tragic loss of one of the bunnies, which died under Hyuga's smelly foot, it's Hayato's turn.
"Hide it, hide it," Take hisses, holding his hands in front of Hayato's eyes.
The whole apartment is free game, but after Tsucchi stashed away the bunny under their dirty underwear in the laundry basket and pushed one egg into their roll of paper towels, they have run out of creativity.
Ryu watches the proceedings with amusement, but tries hard not to look it.
"Where, where, where," Hyuga mumbles, running around frantically like he is a hen trying to lay the egg himself. Then he stops dead in his tracks, eyes fixed on Ryu's neckline, where Ryu has just popped open another button.
"What?" Ryu asks, halfway annoyed, because it has gotten warm with so many people inside.
Hyuga puts a finger to his lips and sneaks closer, waving his arm wildly at Tsucchi in a bid to make some noise. Ryu and Tsucchi share a confused glance, but Tsucchi starts to stomp around behind the couch anyway.
When Hyuga kneels down in front of Ryu and dumps the egg into his neckline, Tsucchi bursts out laughing. Ryu forms a soundless Oi! with his mouth, kicking at Hyuga after the fact, but the egg has already slid down to his breastbone, where the shirt is cut too tight for it to pass.
Ten minutes later, everyone but Ryu and Hayato is doubled over with laughter, and providing not-so-helpful advice where the last poor egg could have rolled away to.
"You suck!" Hayato bitches, on all fours in front of the couch table for the second time. "I've searched everything, it's not there!"
"It's very much there, believe me," Tsucchi cackles, fanning himself with great delight.
Hyuga and Take high-five each other once again, which sets Hayato's pride off enough to get him going for another couple of minutes.
"Okay, I give up," he finally says, and Ryu knows how much that cost him. "Gimme a 'hot', will you?"
"Hot," Take chirps, which turns into a gleeful "cooold" as Hayato moves towards the couch.
On to the television, and now they do it in a choir. "COOOLD."
"Fuck you too."
Kitchen. "COOOLD."
"What did I bring into this world," Hayato groans, heading for the bathroom and another "COOOLD."
Ryu takes another sip of beer. His hand is a bit shaky, so he quickly puts the bottle down again.
"WAAARM," the choir goes, Hayato back in the living-room, right where he started.
"Eh?" he says, and tests each direction with small steps, his jaw clenching on every "COOOLD" from the couch.
As expected, he ends up in front of Ryu.
"WARMER", the choir drawls, and Hayato looks really pissed off right now.
"Ryu, you ass, did you sit down on my egg? Get up, get up!"
There's a shriek of "HOT!", immediately followed by a giggly "COOOOLD" as Hayato squats down to check the empty floor. "What the-"
Then he gets it, slowly standing back up again, his eyes sweeping Ryu's body, and when he carefully reaches into Ryu's shirt to the beat of "HOT HOT HOT", his knuckles grazing the skin on the way down, Ryu can't hold back a shiver.
Hayato's eyes flicker up to his, widening minutely, and Ryu's heart skips a beat.
---
Ryu didn't think they'd do it again, but obviously, his friends have mentally regressed back into kindergarten from all the Easter egg excitement.
"WAAARM," they yell, and Hayato is smirking up at him.
Ryu hasn't gone anywhere near him in the first ten minutes, refusing to accept that Kurogin's Former Finest are this uncreative.
Apparently, they are.
"Again?" he complains, kneeling down in the vee of Hayato's sprawled-out legs, but all he gets for an answer is "WAAAARMER!"
"God, I hate you," he says, and deftly reaches into Hayato's shirt.
Except, there's nothing there.
The couch is howling with laughter, and Hayato's chest is shaking under Ryu's fingers. He rips his hand out as if burned.
"WARM," the couch coos. Ryu wants to punch them. Thoroughly.
Taking a breath, he stretches his hand out again, hovering over Hayato's shoulders-"COOOLD"-pokes the pockets of his zipped-open sweater-"WAAARM"-and whips his hand towards Hayato's feet as fast as possible, where his pants bunch around his ankles.
When it earns him an especially expectant "COOOOLD" just this side of hysteric laughter, he knows where he has to go.
"You're kidding," he says, eyes on Hayato's smirking face, and the couch loses one third of its inhabitants as Take slides to the floor, laughing so hard he's probably crying tears. But Ryu can't check, because there's a challenge right there in the quirk of Hayato's mouth, so he lets his hand move upwards, up Hayato's thigh, without glancing away, Hayato's eyes dark and coy on his, and when he breathes out the air he was holding, his hand has arrived, hovering above Hayato's lap.
"Hot," Hayato purrs.
And all the blood rushes down, down, down.
From the sound of it, the others are too busy peeing their pants to notice.
Ryu swallows. Hayato's hands pause on the buckle of his belt.
Best friends don't stare.
"Jerk!" Ryu manages, and whacks Hayato over the head. "Don't traumatize my egg just because your junk needs compensation!"
"WHAT?" Hayato roars, and it takes both Hyuga and Tsucchi scrambling off the couch with lightning-speed to keep him from whipping out some full-fleshed proof to the contrary.
By the time Hayato's belt is wrestled back into the loops of his jeans, the tails of Ryu's shirt have conveniently draped themselves over his crotch.
---
When Hayato feels generous enough to bring out the porn, they've already moved on to the bottle of tequila Hyuga has sponsored to alleviate his guilt over the nonexistent strippers.
"Bottoms up!" Tsucchi yells, and Ryu follows suit, because he has no clue how this communal porn watching is supposed to go, so if his equipment won't work if and when it has to, he can just blame it on the alcohol.
"Guys, guys, guys," Hayato suddenly shouts excitedly, eyes wide with what seems like a great random thought. "Guess what happened this morning!"
Or not so random. "Nothing happened!" Ryu says, annoyed, and lets his glass slide across the table for a refill.
But the others look interested. "Hush, drink up," Tsucchi says, and pours a fresh slosh of tequila into his glass.
Ryu glares.
Hayato leans forward, lowering his voice to a dramatic whisper. "Odagiri Ryu had a hard-on!"
Gasps.
"It's called morning wood," Ryu snaps. "And oh my God, it wasn't the first time."
"Yeah," Hayato drawls, "but it twitched."
"TOO MUCH INFORMATION," Hyuga roars, and Take giggles so intensely he misses the opening of the bag of chips.
"I think," Hayato plunges on, rolling his own empty shot glass between his fingers, "I think he had a really good dream, and when he woke up, he thought I was the girl!"
Hyuga is singing loudly with his fingers in his ears. Ryu wonders if Hayato would look better with a glass-shaped bump on his forehead.
Tsucchi is intrigued. "What, you slept in the same bed?"
"Doesn't matter, doesn't matter!" Hayato waves the question away with quick flicks of his wrist. "What matters is, what awesome stuff did he dream about?"
"Yeah Ryu," Tsucchi says, grinning, "what did you dream about?"
They all look at him-Tsucchi, Hyuga and Take expectant, Hayato like the suspense is killing him.
"Boobs," Ryu deadpans, and takes another shot.
Hayato frowns. Maybe Ryu should have gone for more enthusiasm.
"To boobs and Ryu-chan!" Tsucchi yells, clinking his glass against Hyuga's before jumping straight into a tale of his sex marathon with Angelina Jolie.
"I once dreamed of Yankumi," Hyuga blurts out to groans of horror, "but I swear it was an accident!"
Hayato participates in the general mocking, but his eyes keep flickering back to Ryu.
Ryu flips him off and pretends to be engrossed in Take's tale of a samurai-mermaid orgy in a whirlpool on top of Mount Fuji.
---
Ryu drinks.
Hayato watches.
So Ryu drinks some more.
---
They're still debating which scene of the porn DVD they're going to watch when Hayato vanishes into the kitchen, and reappears with a serious look on his face and a plate with a single cookie on it.
"To jerk off on and then eat, but I vetoed that," Ryu happily tells Take after they've both bit into the lemon, then narrows his eyes. Hayato must have sneaked the cookies into the apartment behind his back, all... sneakily. "Hey, I vetoed that!"
"You want us to what?" Hyuga says, and though half of it is horror, the other half sounds a terrifying lot like fascination.
Fascination is bad.
Fascination will lead to sperm on cookies.
Ryu will not stand for sperm on cookies in his house!
He dives for the cookie just as Hayato kneels down, and they tumble to the carpet, Ryu fishing for the cookie with grabby hands. It crunches nicely when he stuffs it into his mouth.
He feels like Superman. Superman would understand about cookies.
"There," he tells Hayato, chewing with his mouth open, crunch crunch crunch. "No jerking off on cookies with faces, or I'll kick your ass!" Except he kind of doesn't know how he's supposed to get up from Hayato again.
Saving cookies is strenuous business. Or maybe Hayato is his kryptonite.
Did he say that out loud?
"You're so drunk," Hayato tells him, strangely soft, and then the world is tilting, and Ryu is sliding, and then there's a cushion below his head, and the carpet feels really cozy.
---
People are moaning.
"Shuddup ," Ryu tells them, but it continues without pause. Someone giggles.
"Shhh." A hand on his head, threading through strands of his hair. "Quiet, Ryu."
Ryu squints, but when the first thing he sees is a giant vagina, he presses them shut again. "I thought this was porn," he slurs.
Giggling, again. Takeda. "Ryu-chan, you just sounded like a hardcore hentai dude."
Huh? Ryu wants to raise his head and protest, but the hand on his head slips down to the nape of his neck, stroking his hairline comfortingly.
"I can't focus on the porn with Hayato being so touchy-feely," Hyuga whines, somewhere further up and back.
"Shut up," Hayato tells him. He sounds pretty relaxed.
The bag of chips rustles. "I think it's kind of cute," Take whispers.
"Urgh, guys, can we NOT have this conversation while there's fucking going on?" Tsucchi.
Ryu opens his eyes again.
Fucking, indeed. "That's a cock," he tells the others.
More laughing, and then he can't see anything anymore, because there's a hand in front of his eyes.
"That's mean, just let him watch," Tsucchi says.
"Na," Hayato says, "I think he'll get sick if he looks at the TV for too long. Plus, going from asexual to watching porn within twenty-four hours might traumatize his brain."
Is that... a joke? "Not asexual, asshole," Ryu mumbles, just in case.
"Yeah," Hayato says softly, and the hand is brushing some hair out of his face, which is really nice. "I kind of figured."
It's a bit cold on the carpet. Next to the cushion, there's warmth. Ryu nudges his head towards it, and his nose bumps into the seam of a jeans.
A lap. Hayato's lap, all things considered.
"That's a really weird cock," Take says.
Laps are there for lying on, Ryu decides, and pulls himself on top of the warmth.
"Whoa." Hyuga sounds shocked. Weird cocks and all that, probably. Ryu is too tired to check. He cuddles into the lap, sliding his check against a warm, warm thigh. Hayato's thigh.
Much better than the cushion. Still. "I'm cold," he whines, except Ryu doesn't whine. Totally. Not.
"Pass me the blanket, will ya?" Hayato drawls, and that's his badass voice there, the one where he's prone to punching people. "And will you stop gaping already?"
"Sheesh," Tsucchi says, "it's not like we're even saying anything."
"Yeah, but you're thinking it."
Warmth spreads over Ryu, and he's tucked into it. When the hand is back on his head-Hayato's hand-he turns his head into it, the fingertips sliding over his temple, down his check.
"Actually," Take pipes up, "I've been thinking it for a while now. And I think it's a really good thought, so I don't feel bad thinking it."
Quiet, except for some shrill moaning.
"Tsucchi?" Ryu knows that tone. It's dark and hard, and it means will you beat people up alongside me, and fall alongside me, or will you run away.
"If I tell you I ain't got no problem with anything, will you let me watch this in peace?"
Hayato chuckles, and Ryu can feel it against his back, under his head. A light rumble.
"Hyuga," Take hisses, "it's your turn now!"
Liquid flowing, and then a glass smacks down against the table. Hyuga coughs, clears his throat. "For what it's worth, I think you deserve each other. As long as you spare me the details."
And then it's decided they'll swap the porn for Iron Man once Tsucchi has finished admiring the scenery on screen.
Ryu doesn't care. He's really comfortable. There's an arm lying warm across his shoulders. The back of a hand, caressing his jaw, right below his ear. And it's Hayato's.
This has been an awesome coming-of-age party. He can go to sleep now.
---
Four hours later, Ryu forms an intimate friendship with the fissures in their toilet bowl, because the cookie did not appreciate its heroic rescue after all.
From what he can tell, at least it's not smiling anymore.
The others are still sprawled across the couch in a slobbering pile when he stumbles back into the living-room. On the floor, Hayato has hogged both the blanket and the cushion in Ryu's absence, happily snoring as if he's been drinking orange-juice and milk all night.
Ryu feels his temple twitch with annoyance and a pounding headache, but before he can kick Hayato for being a hangover-less egotist, it becomes clear that thinking of milk is Not Recommended unless he wants to set a new five-meter sprinting record.
The bathroom is spinning all around him, and as he hugs the toilet in between bouts of Easter-egg-heaving, Ryu has to admit that glomping warm, hair-stroking Hayato felt universes better than hugging soiled porcelain.
---
He dreams of bunnies flashing their saber-teeth, of grim-faced cookies wearing neoprene-suits in their kingdom of asexuality.
But mostly, he dreams of Hayato, Hayato, Hayato, and of slipping his hand down Hayato's belly to a chorus of "WAAAARMER!", when all the heat he could possibly wish for is already there, burning straight into him from the goosebumps on Hayato's skin.
---
The others still sleep like the dead.
It's one o' clock in the afternoon, and Ryu's nausea has shrunk to the size of a small, irritating pull, curled away deep in his chest. Nothing he can't ignore until it goes away, like bruises throbbing a dull beat.
No movement from the couch faction, now reduced to two. Tsucchi must have crawled off sometime this morning, ending up under the couch table, with one of his hands stuck inside a crumpled bag of chips. A zombie in search of food.
Ryu's chuckle dies a sudden death when there's rustling from Hayato's side of the couch table.
"Hnnnn," Hayato sighs, and folds himself around the blanket, rubbing his cheek against the cushion.
His shirt has ridden up high on his back, and it's a sight Ryu has seen a thousand times before, always careful of not staring too long, not lingering where he shouldn't.
Now, he wants to lick down Hayato's spine, all the way down to the waistband of his jeans, where they have slipped just a few centimeters, revealing a firm swell of muscle. He would push them lower and-
The dryness in Ryu's throat has nothing to do with nausea. When Hayato stirs in his sleep, he bolts.
---
"Oi, Ryuuuu!" someone yells over the noise of the running water, hammering against the door.
Ryu stills, his hand frozen on his dick. "OCCUPIED," he yells, squeezing his eyes shut.
Now where was he again?
"Let me in, or I'll piss into the kitchen sink!"
Ryu sticks his head out behind the shower curtain, scowling at the door. "I'm WET! Be a man and suck it up for two minutes!"
"There's eight hours worth of pee in my bladder, and they want out NOW!"
"Fucking-" Ryu turns off the water, whipping a towel around his hips. Two steps to the door, and he snaps the lock open, stomping back into the bathtub with the towel still in place.
"About time!" Hayato growls, rushing in as Ryu pulls the curtain shut. The toilet lid slams against the water tank, followed immediately by loud splashing.
"Are you standing?"
"Well, yeah, guess what-there was no time to sit, because some dickhead didn't open the door!"
Ryu sticks his head out of the shower, keeping the rest of his body firmly out of view. "I'm not cleaning up after you! The agreement was seated pissing!"
Hayato turns his head, and their eyes meet. "Yeah?" he says, dangerously low over the gurgling of the toilet bowl. "So how about you come and make me?"
"Fuck you," Ryu hisses, whips the curtain fully shut again. "And you are cleaning the toilet next!"
"Aren't we lovely this morning," Hayato drawls, and Ryu bumps his head against the tiles, just a bit. When he looks down, his towel is even more tented than before, the tip of his dick peeking out.
He presses his hand down against it, closing his eyes in mortification.
The toilet flushes. "The whole floor is wet," Hayato complains, washing his hands.
When he wants to, Hayato never fails to push Ryu's buttons. "You made me LEAVE the shower!"
"You took ages! What were you doing in there, taking a nap?"
"God," Ryu presses through clenched teeth, leaning his forehead back against the wall. "What is it with you today?"
"Me?" Their bathroom cabinet clangs shut, and then Hayato, with unfailing ignorance of what would be The Wise Choice, begins to brush his teeth. "You're the bitchy one," he garbles, and it would be funny if Ryu weren't so furious and his cock wasn't so hard.
He rips off his towel, knots it up, and throws it over the curtain rail.
Hayato snorts. "Now that made me feel really threatened."
"You want me to throw the shower gel instead?"
"Feel free to try," Hayato says, spitting into the basin. "But if you touch my shampoo, you're dead."
It's the only brand that'll work with Hayato's hairstyle, and it costs a fortune. Ryu considers the bottle, contemplates evilly.
His dick twitches.
"The towel landed in the toilet, by the way," Hayato warbles gleefully. "And this means you're the one who'll-" The rasping of the toothbrush stops. "Hang on. Weren't you going to shower?"
The shower is still off. Fuck.
Ryu snaps the water on, cursing when it comes out too cold. "I was," he shouts. "But someone couldn't stop pissing me off."
He fumbles with the controls.
"Yeah, but why would you need a towel for-"
Silence.
The rings clatter along the curtain rail as Hayato rips it open, ignoring Ryu's indignant yowl. "Are you actually-"
Ryu balls his hands into fists. His face is flaming with heat.
"Indeed, another one," Hayato says.
And Ryu whirls around. "Fuck you," he hisses, grabbing the curtain and trying to tug it back. "Can't I even jerk off anymore without you commenting on everything?!"
Hayato doesn't let go of the curtain, and Ryu's feet squeak dangerously along the slippery floor of the tub.
"Is it for me?" Hayato asks.
Ryu goes still. "What," he stutters, and it's a split-second decision. "No, why would you-"
"Cut the crap," Hayato says, and then he steps into the bathtub, clothes and all. "I know you might be a bit fuzzy on yesterday, but I'm not."
He advances, and Ryu steps back, into the wall, his back stinging with the cold of the tiles. Hayato looks fierce.
Ryu shivers.
"I know I'm kind of slow on the uptake sometimes, but this?" Hayato presses his hips forward, jeans rough against Ryu's bare skin, and Ryu can't stifle a gasp."This is for me, and I think it's time you admitted that."
He grinds himself against Ryu, once, twice. "Come on, Ryu," he taunts. "Go for it."
Fuck it all. Ryu surges against him, presses his mouth against Hayato's lips, pushing forward until Hayato stumbles back, into the spray of the shower, and they're kissing, angry and hard, Hayato's hands grabbing onto Ryu's naked ass, his fingers digging into the skin.
"Is this you being a jerk?" Ryu pants between smashing his lips against Hayato's, sucking and pushing his way into his mouth.
"Stupid," Hayato hisses, fumbling for Ryu's cock, and then he's staring down where his hand slides up and down, his mouth opened slightly.
"Valid question," Ryu says, out of breath, and bites down on Hayato's throat. The fingers around him squeeze tighter.
"I don't let just anyone be drunk all over my lap, all right!?" Hayato growls, and Ryu's hands fly down to his jeans, wrangling the buttons out of soaked denim.
"Idiot," Ryu says, ripping feverishly at the pants until he remembers to go for the zipper first, "why didn't you fucking say something!"
Hayato's hands join his but Ryu slaps them away, he's doing this, and then Hayato's cock springs free, hardness that's not Ryu's own hot under his fingers for the first time ever.
"Because I needed to take a fucking piss!" Hayato gasps, trying to grab Ryu's cock again, but Ryu is faster, meaner, and Hayato's moan sends a spike of heat to his gut.
He brings him off right there, flicks of his wrist making Hayato cling and pant, Ryu's blood thundering in his ears with this, this, this, and when Hayato's breath hitches, his nails dig sharply into Ryu's skin, urging him on, and the kiss that started out hard turns into shaky, shaky moans spilling sweetly into Ryu's mouth.
The shower washes the come away. Hayato is still gulping for breath, a beautiful mess with swollen lips, but Ryu's hard, so hard, and he doesn't stop to wait for the shuddering to end, wraps Hayato's hand back around his own dick, forcing it up and down.
"I'm not incompetent," Hayato hisses, grabbing his wrists, and then Ryu is pushed back into the wall, his hands slammed against the tiles, and Hayato's thigh is firm and hot between Ryu's, the cloth rough against his skin.
"Not this," Ryu manages, bucking up, "not this, just-"
Hayato's hand on him, and Ryu lets his head thump back against the wall, his mouth falling open, and those can't be his noises echoing off the tiles, but Hayato stares at him, slip-slide up down, stares and stares and Ryu is gone.
When he comes down again, Hayato is right there, still there, and he doesn't look like he is about to jump out of the bathroom window.
"I'm wet," he says, flicking a thumb over the skin on Ryu's hip.
"We're in the shower," Ryu tells him, and maybe he should've thought up something more meaningful, because the next second, someone is drumming their fist against the door.
"Yo fuckbunnies, I hope to god you two just came," Tsucchi yells, "because we've waiting for a while and Take has just walked up to your kitchen sink!"
---
"I know I said I didn't mind," Hyuga bitches in the hallway, putting on his other shoe. "But that didn't mean I wanted to, you know, witness the whole soundtrack!"
"Well then, next time don't listen," Hayato says, all off-handed bravado like gay sex with your best friend is the new badass.
Tsucchi snaps his fan closed. "Next time, we're recording the audio and selling it to the porn industry as compensation for pain and suffering! No matter how hilarious Ryu looks when his face goes tomato."
"Shut it," Ryu says, and helps him into his jacket, because Tsucchi can't move too fast or vomiting will ensue. "Besides, why do you think we want the three of you out of here?"
Having problems with his blood circulation doesn't mean he can't be the Mr. Super Chill Hayato is pretending to be.
Take snorts, puts the remaining chocolate bunny into his bag. "That is so thoughtful of you," he says. "It might even convince me the weird cock yesterday was more traumatizing."
They all break into cackles. Except Ryu, who has another cock on his mind, attached to a guy he fell for when he was thirteen.
Hyuga half-heartedly freaks some more, and then they're down to manly hugs and goodbyes, and finally the door closing behind their smelly, hung-over friends.
Except just before it falls shut, Tsucchi sticks his head back in and yells "Use a condom!" so loud that even the hearing-impaired grandmother next door can't have missed it.
Then the lock clicks, and they're alone.
Hayato looks like he is about to pounce, but still figuring out logistics.
"So...was that bullshitting, or do you really want to do it again?" he asks, eyes firm on Ryu's, though this time, he doesn't succeed in keeping the embarrassment completely at bay.
"I'm not you," Ryu says, leaning back against the dresser with a smirk. "I don't do bullshit."
For once, Hayato doesn't even argue.
A blink, and Hayato is on him like a freight train, bending him back with a kiss that makes his feet want to leave the floor and wrap around Hayato's waist.
When they run out of oxygen, Hayato pulls back a bit, just enough to be out of reach of Ryu's teeth and tongue. "Is it weird to want this so much again?" he asks, and Ryu has trouble keeping his eyes from dropping to Hayato's lips.
Up, he tells his gaze, and finds awe and lust and feelings he'd die naming out loud, right there in Hayato's half-lidded eyes. "It's not weird," Ryu says, his heart thudding madly, "as long as we're okay."
Hayato thinks.
Slips a hand below Ryu's shirt, resting it over his chest.
"Jerk," he tries, then grins and adds, "who doesn't need to jerk off anymore."
Ryu breathes, trails a finger down Hayato's spine. "Dickhead," he murmurs, and Hayato lights up like the sun.
Pairing: Odagiri Ryu/Yabuki Hayato (Gokusen II)
Word count: 6,668
Rating: R
Warnings: Sex, drinks, and the death of a chocolate bunny.
Notes: Dear shirayuki1582, writing this for you was fun! I hope you'll find some fun in it, too. :) Also many, many heartfelt thanks to my awesome beta, whose help and watchful eye kept me going when things got tough.
Summary: As Take is the last to come of age, Hayato is determined to throw him a really, really awesome party. Ryu is just determined not to accidentally crawl into Hayato's lap.
Hayato is taking Take's twentieth birthday very, very seriously.
"Did you know that it's on Easter Saturday?" he asks excitedly, throwing himself onto Ryu's bed in all his just-showered glory.
"Easter?" Ryu pushes Hayato's naked leg aside with his foot before pulling out his now crumpled Pedagogy IV notes. "So what?" He stuffs the nearest pen into his bag, realizes it's Hayato's and grabs another one, just to be on the safe side. Hayato is unable to throw away pens that have run out of ink.
Really, Hayato is unable to throw away anything. It's like a virus that has infested their apartment, letting clutter grow in the nooks and crannies whenever Ryu turns his back.
"Oh god, why am I friends with such an ignorant idiot?" Hayato groans, rolling onto his side. There's a large damp spot on the sheets where he landed. "Easter, Ryu! Doesn't that ring a bell with you?"
"Not really." Hang on. "You mean the special parades they have in Disneyland?"
Hayato's head thumps into Ryu's cushion.
Shrugging, Ryu picks up his shirt from the backrest of his wobbly swivel chair. Hayato is mumbling into the pillow.
The shirt smells like it should've been washed yesterday, so Ryu throws it at Hayato's back. "Get off my bed, I need to leave."
Hayato lifts his head just enough. "I'm not leaving before we've talked about Easter," he declares, and Ryu can see his jaw go tense below the mop of wet curls falling into his face.
He sighs. "Is this one of those American things you found on the internet?"
"It's Easter," Hayato says, as if Ryu has bad hearing and didn't get it the first time around. "And it's very important that we search colored eggs and eat a ton of chocolate bunnies, because it's Take's birthday and Jesus died."
Ryu raises an eyebrow. "Because we're so Christian."
"Aww, come on!" Hayato sits up, the towel around his hips slipping dangerously low.
Up, Ryu tells his eyes, just in time to see Hayato's easy-go-lucky façade crack.
"The strippers are out," he murmurs, staring down at his bare feet as if all the boobs in the worlds just imploded. "Hyuga's washing mashine died yesterday, so now he needs to use his share of the stripper-money for a new one."
Clean laundry or a pair of tits. Ryu wouldn't even have to think twice.
"Ouch," he still says, because Hayato's been researching stripper ads with an enthusiasm for scientific detail that would've made Sawatari cry tears of blood. Yesterday, Ryu found a nipple analysis report on the back of his latest assignment ten minutes before he had to hand it in, "SIZE VERSUS PERKINESS (because we can't afford both)" scrawled over the top in Hayato's sloppy handwriting.
"Who picks laundry over strippers," Hayato mumbles, sitting slumped over on the edge of Ryu's bed. He looks like someone just stole his favorite piece of jewelry.
Ryu checks his watch. He's running late, but then again, this wouldn't be the first time he had to sprint through half the town because of Hayato.
"So what was that Easter stuff again?" he asks, because who gives a shit about missed trains when Hayato's face lights up like that.
---
Hayato is taking Take's twentieth birthday very, very seriously, and whenever he's not at work, or playing pool, or pestering Ryu until he drops his homework and annihilates Hayato in a Tekken tournament, he scours the internet for awesome things to do at awesome coming-of-age parties.
Ryu wordlessly scribbles "ALCOHOL!" all across Hayato's list, praying that it'll knock him out before they've made it past the Easter eggs.
--
"But it's all over the web," Hayato protests, half into a pout already. "It can't be just an urban legend, I swear!"
"Nobody's jerking off on cookies anywhere!" Ryu hisses, slapping Hayato's fingers off the packet of Lotte Kancho. "Especially not ones with faces on them!"
Further down the aisle, a woman gasps and puts her hands over her son's ears, staring at Ryu in indignation.
Ears blazing hot, Ryu turns and hastily heaps four packets of chili-spiced potato chips into their shopping cart. Then reconsiders, and swaps one for matcha-flavored, to save himself the whining.
"I guess she won't be buying the koala cookies now," Hayato fake-whispers.
---
They've all been downloading porn for years, but according to the other three, it's not coming-of-age-y unless you actually buy it.
"Formation L," Hayato orders, pushing his sunglasses a little higher as Tsucchi and Hyuga stroll toward the entrance of the sex shop.
Ryu wonders why the hell they had to choose the busiest time of day. "I still don't get why you need me for this," he says, folding his arms.
"You're moral back-up," Hayato tells him, and lifts his phone to his ear. "Check, check, this is Yabuki One, I see no problematic individuals approaching. Over."
Tsucchi and Hyuga are stalling at the little news stand next door, gazing at the magazine covers with obvious effort. Ryu has no idea why staring at prettily photoshopped guys smoldering above their lipgloss pouts is any less embarrassing than buying porn.
"See," Hayato says with a grin, "I told you this would be a smooth operation."
Only it isn't, because, as far as excited hand-waving goes, the girl at the register happens to know Hyuga, who doesn't seem to find this very unfortunate. Neither does Tsucchi, if the excited elbow he rams into Hyuga's side is any indication.
"I don't believe it!" Hayato whips off his sunglasses, hissing "Mission abort, mission abort!" into his phone, not that Tsucchi is actually listening with all the nice-to-meet-you bowing going on.
Ten minutes later, Ryu marches into the store with a flaming face, because it was either that or another ten minutes of Hayato's pretty puppy eyes.
---
Hayato is an idiot, and I'm going to murder him, Ryu nearly sends to Take before he remembers that Take isn't supposed to know anything. Flicking through his meager contact list doesn't come up with much but three other idiots he would also love to punch right now, so he sends the message to the next most logical choice.
Yankumi only takes two minutes to reply, and Ryu has trouble wrapping his head around what he is seeing.
Is that what they call it these days?
Thirty seconds later his phone rings, and Yankumi is bordering on a nervous embarrassment break-down. "I'm so, so sorry Odagiri-kun, of course I would never-there is a guest at my house right now, and he doesn't know how to behave when one of my precious students sends me a-"
"Aww, Kumiko, I'm your precious student, too," a deep, male voice drawls in the background. "And I don't even know them but come on, it's so obvious from what you told-OUCH!"
"Ahahaha," Yankumi warbles shrilly. "Odagiri-kun? I must apologize, my guest is hallucinating, and of course I wouldn't let former students stay overnight at my house, especially not Sawada Shin, and-whoops, I mean. Odagiri-kun! Just... follow your dreams, listen to your heart, and think twice before you murder Yabuki-kun, all right?"
Ryu can hear the guy chuckling in the background. "Yeah, Yankumi, thank you," he says hastily, and there's rustling that sounds like blankets, and he really should end this call right about now.
---
"Do you really want to murder me?" Hayato asks three days later, and he seems unsure as he stands in the doorway to Ryu's room. Yankumi suddenly scoring a guy obviously hasn't made her any less committed to saving lives and lost puppies.
Hayato's hair is tousled, some of the waves sticking up at weird angles, as if he was in bed but couldn't sleep.
"No," Ryu croaks, because he didn't have trouble sleeping at three in the morning. "Of course I don't, you big dolt."
Hayato shifts, wriggling his toes away from the floor-it's spring, and the nights still get cold. Hayato hates being cold, but he announced they'd stop heating in late February, so Ryu could cut back on his part-time job.
"What is it?" Ryu asks softly.
"The party," Hayato says, trailing a finger down the wood of the doorway. "You think it'll suck, don't you."
"No!" Ryu shifts onto his elbows. "No, really. I mean... you know what I think about the cookies but-the eggs and the bunnies don't suck as much."
"You sure?"
"Take is going to love them," Ryu says, and means it. "Plus, the porn. Can't go wrong with that." It's bound to be horny comments and raucous fun, and Ryu knows he'll sit on the side feeling tremendously stupid.
"Hm." Hayato stretches his neck. Fiddles with the hem of this shirt. Scratches his calf with his toes.
Ryu has known the signs for fourteen years, is halfway resigned already, but he can still give it a try. "Go back to sleep, all right? Big party tomorrow."
It used to be grief, then tests in primary school, confessing to girls in middle school, and fistfights at Kurogin.
Hayato opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then nods. "Yeah," he says, hesitating before he turns halfway. "Yeah, you're right."
And Ryu knows that Hayato isn't going to sleep tonight, that he's going to be tired throughout the party, that he'll be pissed off at himself for days after.
Unless Ryu offers.
"If you fart, I'll kill you," he threatens, scooting back until his shoulder blades hit the wall.
There's a reason he didn't buy the standard-sized bed, and it's there in the relieved slump of Hayato's shoulders, the door that closes on them, plunging the room into darkness. The whisper of Hayato's soles over the floor, and the moment when the mattress dips beside Ryu.
"Not a word," Hayato mumbles.
"Wuss," Ryu says, sliding his legs forward until Hayato's cold heels bump his shins.
"Shut up." Hayato doesn't flinch. Never has. The only thing that has changed is the line of his shoulders in the dark, broader now than in first grade, when even Ryu's father pitied Hayato enough to let Ryu stay over for a week after Yabuki-san had passed away.
Ryu closes his eyes. "Dickhead," he murmurs.
Breathing.
"Prick." Hayato always wants to have the last word.
And Ryu always lets him. Falling asleep is easy when they are like this.
---
Waking up is hard.
In all the senses of the word.
Ryu blinks, as usual. Sees a mass of wispy hair, which is rare, but also not unusual. Feels really good pressed up against a warm back, snug against firmness where he's hard-not unusual under these circumstances-and in a second he'll pull away, as always, because Hayato sleeps like the dead, and Ryu always, always wakes before him.
Blinks again, and realizes that the room is quiet. That Hayato's shoulders, broad against the morning light, are tense.
He jerks back so fast he hits his head on the wall.
"Fuck!" he hisses against the pain, and Hayato's sitting up, turning around, and suddenly Ryu feels like a string pulled as tight as it can go, waiting for the grip on it to crumble.
Hayato watches him quietly, for a moment that crawls past like a horde of snails.
"That..." Ryu tries to fumble for words, coming up empty. "I..."
Silence.
Then Hayato cracks up laughing. "Your penis works!" he giggles in wonder, flopping back onto the bed. "Oh my god, just wait until I tell the others, this will so shatter their world view!"
Ryu is kind of gaping. He is also kind of wondering if maybe Hayato went into shock from his best friend's erection pressing against his ass.
But that's before his eyes fall onto the alarm clock, and he realizes he is two hours late for university.
---
When Ryu arrives back at home, his heart is going crazy with whatevers. Straight until the door is ripped open, and a very happy Hayato is yelling "Happy Birthday!" right into his face.
"It's not my birthday," Ryu snaps, but Hayato grabs his arm and drags him into the living-room, where the first beer bottles are already empty.
"IS TODAY TAKE'S BIRTHDAY?" Hayato yells, throwing himself onto Ryu's relocated swivel chair.
The others raise their drinks. "YEAAAH!"
"ARE WE ALL OF AGE TODAY?"
"YEAAAH!"
"SO IS THIS OUR JOINT COMING-OF-AGE BIRTHDAY?"
"YEAAAAAH!"
Ryu groans. "Idiots, all of you." Then he wraps Take into a hug, because birthdays should be done properly, no matter what Hayato thinks that is.
---
Two beers down, Hayato brings out the eggs and the chocolate bunnies.
"FOOD!" Hyuga shouts gleefully, and promptly gets his wrist slapped.
"It's Easter Monday! You'll have to search for these, because Jesus died, and then he didn't die," Hayato lectures, puffing his chest importantly. Ryu thinks it looks stupidly cute. He also thinks the sugar would go perfectly well with his beer.
Take is eyeing the eggs with interest. The color is splotchy; Hayato must've tried to color them by himself. "So we hide these? And then search for them, because of Jesus-san?"
"Exactly," Hayato says, and chooses Tsucchi as his first victim.
He hides all the eggs close to the floor, because Tsucchi is a giant and Hayato is secretly jealous.
After Take and Hyuga have also collected their multi-colored clashing eggs, and everyone has bemoaned the tragic loss of one of the bunnies, which died under Hyuga's smelly foot, it's Hayato's turn.
"Hide it, hide it," Take hisses, holding his hands in front of Hayato's eyes.
The whole apartment is free game, but after Tsucchi stashed away the bunny under their dirty underwear in the laundry basket and pushed one egg into their roll of paper towels, they have run out of creativity.
Ryu watches the proceedings with amusement, but tries hard not to look it.
"Where, where, where," Hyuga mumbles, running around frantically like he is a hen trying to lay the egg himself. Then he stops dead in his tracks, eyes fixed on Ryu's neckline, where Ryu has just popped open another button.
"What?" Ryu asks, halfway annoyed, because it has gotten warm with so many people inside.
Hyuga puts a finger to his lips and sneaks closer, waving his arm wildly at Tsucchi in a bid to make some noise. Ryu and Tsucchi share a confused glance, but Tsucchi starts to stomp around behind the couch anyway.
When Hyuga kneels down in front of Ryu and dumps the egg into his neckline, Tsucchi bursts out laughing. Ryu forms a soundless Oi! with his mouth, kicking at Hyuga after the fact, but the egg has already slid down to his breastbone, where the shirt is cut too tight for it to pass.
Ten minutes later, everyone but Ryu and Hayato is doubled over with laughter, and providing not-so-helpful advice where the last poor egg could have rolled away to.
"You suck!" Hayato bitches, on all fours in front of the couch table for the second time. "I've searched everything, it's not there!"
"It's very much there, believe me," Tsucchi cackles, fanning himself with great delight.
Hyuga and Take high-five each other once again, which sets Hayato's pride off enough to get him going for another couple of minutes.
"Okay, I give up," he finally says, and Ryu knows how much that cost him. "Gimme a 'hot', will you?"
"Hot," Take chirps, which turns into a gleeful "cooold" as Hayato moves towards the couch.
On to the television, and now they do it in a choir. "COOOLD."
"Fuck you too."
Kitchen. "COOOLD."
"What did I bring into this world," Hayato groans, heading for the bathroom and another "COOOLD."
Ryu takes another sip of beer. His hand is a bit shaky, so he quickly puts the bottle down again.
"WAAARM," the choir goes, Hayato back in the living-room, right where he started.
"Eh?" he says, and tests each direction with small steps, his jaw clenching on every "COOOLD" from the couch.
As expected, he ends up in front of Ryu.
"WARMER", the choir drawls, and Hayato looks really pissed off right now.
"Ryu, you ass, did you sit down on my egg? Get up, get up!"
There's a shriek of "HOT!", immediately followed by a giggly "COOOOLD" as Hayato squats down to check the empty floor. "What the-"
Then he gets it, slowly standing back up again, his eyes sweeping Ryu's body, and when he carefully reaches into Ryu's shirt to the beat of "HOT HOT HOT", his knuckles grazing the skin on the way down, Ryu can't hold back a shiver.
Hayato's eyes flicker up to his, widening minutely, and Ryu's heart skips a beat.
---
Ryu didn't think they'd do it again, but obviously, his friends have mentally regressed back into kindergarten from all the Easter egg excitement.
"WAAARM," they yell, and Hayato is smirking up at him.
Ryu hasn't gone anywhere near him in the first ten minutes, refusing to accept that Kurogin's Former Finest are this uncreative.
Apparently, they are.
"Again?" he complains, kneeling down in the vee of Hayato's sprawled-out legs, but all he gets for an answer is "WAAAARMER!"
"God, I hate you," he says, and deftly reaches into Hayato's shirt.
Except, there's nothing there.
The couch is howling with laughter, and Hayato's chest is shaking under Ryu's fingers. He rips his hand out as if burned.
"WARM," the couch coos. Ryu wants to punch them. Thoroughly.
Taking a breath, he stretches his hand out again, hovering over Hayato's shoulders-"COOOLD"-pokes the pockets of his zipped-open sweater-"WAAARM"-and whips his hand towards Hayato's feet as fast as possible, where his pants bunch around his ankles.
When it earns him an especially expectant "COOOOLD" just this side of hysteric laughter, he knows where he has to go.
"You're kidding," he says, eyes on Hayato's smirking face, and the couch loses one third of its inhabitants as Take slides to the floor, laughing so hard he's probably crying tears. But Ryu can't check, because there's a challenge right there in the quirk of Hayato's mouth, so he lets his hand move upwards, up Hayato's thigh, without glancing away, Hayato's eyes dark and coy on his, and when he breathes out the air he was holding, his hand has arrived, hovering above Hayato's lap.
"Hot," Hayato purrs.
And all the blood rushes down, down, down.
From the sound of it, the others are too busy peeing their pants to notice.
Ryu swallows. Hayato's hands pause on the buckle of his belt.
Best friends don't stare.
"Jerk!" Ryu manages, and whacks Hayato over the head. "Don't traumatize my egg just because your junk needs compensation!"
"WHAT?" Hayato roars, and it takes both Hyuga and Tsucchi scrambling off the couch with lightning-speed to keep him from whipping out some full-fleshed proof to the contrary.
By the time Hayato's belt is wrestled back into the loops of his jeans, the tails of Ryu's shirt have conveniently draped themselves over his crotch.
---
When Hayato feels generous enough to bring out the porn, they've already moved on to the bottle of tequila Hyuga has sponsored to alleviate his guilt over the nonexistent strippers.
"Bottoms up!" Tsucchi yells, and Ryu follows suit, because he has no clue how this communal porn watching is supposed to go, so if his equipment won't work if and when it has to, he can just blame it on the alcohol.
"Guys, guys, guys," Hayato suddenly shouts excitedly, eyes wide with what seems like a great random thought. "Guess what happened this morning!"
Or not so random. "Nothing happened!" Ryu says, annoyed, and lets his glass slide across the table for a refill.
But the others look interested. "Hush, drink up," Tsucchi says, and pours a fresh slosh of tequila into his glass.
Ryu glares.
Hayato leans forward, lowering his voice to a dramatic whisper. "Odagiri Ryu had a hard-on!"
Gasps.
"It's called morning wood," Ryu snaps. "And oh my God, it wasn't the first time."
"Yeah," Hayato drawls, "but it twitched."
"TOO MUCH INFORMATION," Hyuga roars, and Take giggles so intensely he misses the opening of the bag of chips.
"I think," Hayato plunges on, rolling his own empty shot glass between his fingers, "I think he had a really good dream, and when he woke up, he thought I was the girl!"
Hyuga is singing loudly with his fingers in his ears. Ryu wonders if Hayato would look better with a glass-shaped bump on his forehead.
Tsucchi is intrigued. "What, you slept in the same bed?"
"Doesn't matter, doesn't matter!" Hayato waves the question away with quick flicks of his wrist. "What matters is, what awesome stuff did he dream about?"
"Yeah Ryu," Tsucchi says, grinning, "what did you dream about?"
They all look at him-Tsucchi, Hyuga and Take expectant, Hayato like the suspense is killing him.
"Boobs," Ryu deadpans, and takes another shot.
Hayato frowns. Maybe Ryu should have gone for more enthusiasm.
"To boobs and Ryu-chan!" Tsucchi yells, clinking his glass against Hyuga's before jumping straight into a tale of his sex marathon with Angelina Jolie.
"I once dreamed of Yankumi," Hyuga blurts out to groans of horror, "but I swear it was an accident!"
Hayato participates in the general mocking, but his eyes keep flickering back to Ryu.
Ryu flips him off and pretends to be engrossed in Take's tale of a samurai-mermaid orgy in a whirlpool on top of Mount Fuji.
---
Ryu drinks.
Hayato watches.
So Ryu drinks some more.
---
They're still debating which scene of the porn DVD they're going to watch when Hayato vanishes into the kitchen, and reappears with a serious look on his face and a plate with a single cookie on it.
"To jerk off on and then eat, but I vetoed that," Ryu happily tells Take after they've both bit into the lemon, then narrows his eyes. Hayato must have sneaked the cookies into the apartment behind his back, all... sneakily. "Hey, I vetoed that!"
"You want us to what?" Hyuga says, and though half of it is horror, the other half sounds a terrifying lot like fascination.
Fascination is bad.
Fascination will lead to sperm on cookies.
Ryu will not stand for sperm on cookies in his house!
He dives for the cookie just as Hayato kneels down, and they tumble to the carpet, Ryu fishing for the cookie with grabby hands. It crunches nicely when he stuffs it into his mouth.
He feels like Superman. Superman would understand about cookies.
"There," he tells Hayato, chewing with his mouth open, crunch crunch crunch. "No jerking off on cookies with faces, or I'll kick your ass!" Except he kind of doesn't know how he's supposed to get up from Hayato again.
Saving cookies is strenuous business. Or maybe Hayato is his kryptonite.
Did he say that out loud?
"You're so drunk," Hayato tells him, strangely soft, and then the world is tilting, and Ryu is sliding, and then there's a cushion below his head, and the carpet feels really cozy.
---
People are moaning.
"Shuddup ," Ryu tells them, but it continues without pause. Someone giggles.
"Shhh." A hand on his head, threading through strands of his hair. "Quiet, Ryu."
Ryu squints, but when the first thing he sees is a giant vagina, he presses them shut again. "I thought this was porn," he slurs.
Giggling, again. Takeda. "Ryu-chan, you just sounded like a hardcore hentai dude."
Huh? Ryu wants to raise his head and protest, but the hand on his head slips down to the nape of his neck, stroking his hairline comfortingly.
"I can't focus on the porn with Hayato being so touchy-feely," Hyuga whines, somewhere further up and back.
"Shut up," Hayato tells him. He sounds pretty relaxed.
The bag of chips rustles. "I think it's kind of cute," Take whispers.
"Urgh, guys, can we NOT have this conversation while there's fucking going on?" Tsucchi.
Ryu opens his eyes again.
Fucking, indeed. "That's a cock," he tells the others.
More laughing, and then he can't see anything anymore, because there's a hand in front of his eyes.
"That's mean, just let him watch," Tsucchi says.
"Na," Hayato says, "I think he'll get sick if he looks at the TV for too long. Plus, going from asexual to watching porn within twenty-four hours might traumatize his brain."
Is that... a joke? "Not asexual, asshole," Ryu mumbles, just in case.
"Yeah," Hayato says softly, and the hand is brushing some hair out of his face, which is really nice. "I kind of figured."
It's a bit cold on the carpet. Next to the cushion, there's warmth. Ryu nudges his head towards it, and his nose bumps into the seam of a jeans.
A lap. Hayato's lap, all things considered.
"That's a really weird cock," Take says.
Laps are there for lying on, Ryu decides, and pulls himself on top of the warmth.
"Whoa." Hyuga sounds shocked. Weird cocks and all that, probably. Ryu is too tired to check. He cuddles into the lap, sliding his check against a warm, warm thigh. Hayato's thigh.
Much better than the cushion. Still. "I'm cold," he whines, except Ryu doesn't whine. Totally. Not.
"Pass me the blanket, will ya?" Hayato drawls, and that's his badass voice there, the one where he's prone to punching people. "And will you stop gaping already?"
"Sheesh," Tsucchi says, "it's not like we're even saying anything."
"Yeah, but you're thinking it."
Warmth spreads over Ryu, and he's tucked into it. When the hand is back on his head-Hayato's hand-he turns his head into it, the fingertips sliding over his temple, down his check.
"Actually," Take pipes up, "I've been thinking it for a while now. And I think it's a really good thought, so I don't feel bad thinking it."
Quiet, except for some shrill moaning.
"Tsucchi?" Ryu knows that tone. It's dark and hard, and it means will you beat people up alongside me, and fall alongside me, or will you run away.
"If I tell you I ain't got no problem with anything, will you let me watch this in peace?"
Hayato chuckles, and Ryu can feel it against his back, under his head. A light rumble.
"Hyuga," Take hisses, "it's your turn now!"
Liquid flowing, and then a glass smacks down against the table. Hyuga coughs, clears his throat. "For what it's worth, I think you deserve each other. As long as you spare me the details."
And then it's decided they'll swap the porn for Iron Man once Tsucchi has finished admiring the scenery on screen.
Ryu doesn't care. He's really comfortable. There's an arm lying warm across his shoulders. The back of a hand, caressing his jaw, right below his ear. And it's Hayato's.
This has been an awesome coming-of-age party. He can go to sleep now.
---
Four hours later, Ryu forms an intimate friendship with the fissures in their toilet bowl, because the cookie did not appreciate its heroic rescue after all.
From what he can tell, at least it's not smiling anymore.
The others are still sprawled across the couch in a slobbering pile when he stumbles back into the living-room. On the floor, Hayato has hogged both the blanket and the cushion in Ryu's absence, happily snoring as if he's been drinking orange-juice and milk all night.
Ryu feels his temple twitch with annoyance and a pounding headache, but before he can kick Hayato for being a hangover-less egotist, it becomes clear that thinking of milk is Not Recommended unless he wants to set a new five-meter sprinting record.
The bathroom is spinning all around him, and as he hugs the toilet in between bouts of Easter-egg-heaving, Ryu has to admit that glomping warm, hair-stroking Hayato felt universes better than hugging soiled porcelain.
---
He dreams of bunnies flashing their saber-teeth, of grim-faced cookies wearing neoprene-suits in their kingdom of asexuality.
But mostly, he dreams of Hayato, Hayato, Hayato, and of slipping his hand down Hayato's belly to a chorus of "WAAAARMER!", when all the heat he could possibly wish for is already there, burning straight into him from the goosebumps on Hayato's skin.
---
The others still sleep like the dead.
It's one o' clock in the afternoon, and Ryu's nausea has shrunk to the size of a small, irritating pull, curled away deep in his chest. Nothing he can't ignore until it goes away, like bruises throbbing a dull beat.
No movement from the couch faction, now reduced to two. Tsucchi must have crawled off sometime this morning, ending up under the couch table, with one of his hands stuck inside a crumpled bag of chips. A zombie in search of food.
Ryu's chuckle dies a sudden death when there's rustling from Hayato's side of the couch table.
"Hnnnn," Hayato sighs, and folds himself around the blanket, rubbing his cheek against the cushion.
His shirt has ridden up high on his back, and it's a sight Ryu has seen a thousand times before, always careful of not staring too long, not lingering where he shouldn't.
Now, he wants to lick down Hayato's spine, all the way down to the waistband of his jeans, where they have slipped just a few centimeters, revealing a firm swell of muscle. He would push them lower and-
The dryness in Ryu's throat has nothing to do with nausea. When Hayato stirs in his sleep, he bolts.
---
"Oi, Ryuuuu!" someone yells over the noise of the running water, hammering against the door.
Ryu stills, his hand frozen on his dick. "OCCUPIED," he yells, squeezing his eyes shut.
Now where was he again?
"Let me in, or I'll piss into the kitchen sink!"
Ryu sticks his head out behind the shower curtain, scowling at the door. "I'm WET! Be a man and suck it up for two minutes!"
"There's eight hours worth of pee in my bladder, and they want out NOW!"
"Fucking-" Ryu turns off the water, whipping a towel around his hips. Two steps to the door, and he snaps the lock open, stomping back into the bathtub with the towel still in place.
"About time!" Hayato growls, rushing in as Ryu pulls the curtain shut. The toilet lid slams against the water tank, followed immediately by loud splashing.
"Are you standing?"
"Well, yeah, guess what-there was no time to sit, because some dickhead didn't open the door!"
Ryu sticks his head out of the shower, keeping the rest of his body firmly out of view. "I'm not cleaning up after you! The agreement was seated pissing!"
Hayato turns his head, and their eyes meet. "Yeah?" he says, dangerously low over the gurgling of the toilet bowl. "So how about you come and make me?"
"Fuck you," Ryu hisses, whips the curtain fully shut again. "And you are cleaning the toilet next!"
"Aren't we lovely this morning," Hayato drawls, and Ryu bumps his head against the tiles, just a bit. When he looks down, his towel is even more tented than before, the tip of his dick peeking out.
He presses his hand down against it, closing his eyes in mortification.
The toilet flushes. "The whole floor is wet," Hayato complains, washing his hands.
When he wants to, Hayato never fails to push Ryu's buttons. "You made me LEAVE the shower!"
"You took ages! What were you doing in there, taking a nap?"
"God," Ryu presses through clenched teeth, leaning his forehead back against the wall. "What is it with you today?"
"Me?" Their bathroom cabinet clangs shut, and then Hayato, with unfailing ignorance of what would be The Wise Choice, begins to brush his teeth. "You're the bitchy one," he garbles, and it would be funny if Ryu weren't so furious and his cock wasn't so hard.
He rips off his towel, knots it up, and throws it over the curtain rail.
Hayato snorts. "Now that made me feel really threatened."
"You want me to throw the shower gel instead?"
"Feel free to try," Hayato says, spitting into the basin. "But if you touch my shampoo, you're dead."
It's the only brand that'll work with Hayato's hairstyle, and it costs a fortune. Ryu considers the bottle, contemplates evilly.
His dick twitches.
"The towel landed in the toilet, by the way," Hayato warbles gleefully. "And this means you're the one who'll-" The rasping of the toothbrush stops. "Hang on. Weren't you going to shower?"
The shower is still off. Fuck.
Ryu snaps the water on, cursing when it comes out too cold. "I was," he shouts. "But someone couldn't stop pissing me off."
He fumbles with the controls.
"Yeah, but why would you need a towel for-"
Silence.
The rings clatter along the curtain rail as Hayato rips it open, ignoring Ryu's indignant yowl. "Are you actually-"
Ryu balls his hands into fists. His face is flaming with heat.
"Indeed, another one," Hayato says.
And Ryu whirls around. "Fuck you," he hisses, grabbing the curtain and trying to tug it back. "Can't I even jerk off anymore without you commenting on everything?!"
Hayato doesn't let go of the curtain, and Ryu's feet squeak dangerously along the slippery floor of the tub.
"Is it for me?" Hayato asks.
Ryu goes still. "What," he stutters, and it's a split-second decision. "No, why would you-"
"Cut the crap," Hayato says, and then he steps into the bathtub, clothes and all. "I know you might be a bit fuzzy on yesterday, but I'm not."
He advances, and Ryu steps back, into the wall, his back stinging with the cold of the tiles. Hayato looks fierce.
Ryu shivers.
"I know I'm kind of slow on the uptake sometimes, but this?" Hayato presses his hips forward, jeans rough against Ryu's bare skin, and Ryu can't stifle a gasp."This is for me, and I think it's time you admitted that."
He grinds himself against Ryu, once, twice. "Come on, Ryu," he taunts. "Go for it."
Fuck it all. Ryu surges against him, presses his mouth against Hayato's lips, pushing forward until Hayato stumbles back, into the spray of the shower, and they're kissing, angry and hard, Hayato's hands grabbing onto Ryu's naked ass, his fingers digging into the skin.
"Is this you being a jerk?" Ryu pants between smashing his lips against Hayato's, sucking and pushing his way into his mouth.
"Stupid," Hayato hisses, fumbling for Ryu's cock, and then he's staring down where his hand slides up and down, his mouth opened slightly.
"Valid question," Ryu says, out of breath, and bites down on Hayato's throat. The fingers around him squeeze tighter.
"I don't let just anyone be drunk all over my lap, all right!?" Hayato growls, and Ryu's hands fly down to his jeans, wrangling the buttons out of soaked denim.
"Idiot," Ryu says, ripping feverishly at the pants until he remembers to go for the zipper first, "why didn't you fucking say something!"
Hayato's hands join his but Ryu slaps them away, he's doing this, and then Hayato's cock springs free, hardness that's not Ryu's own hot under his fingers for the first time ever.
"Because I needed to take a fucking piss!" Hayato gasps, trying to grab Ryu's cock again, but Ryu is faster, meaner, and Hayato's moan sends a spike of heat to his gut.
He brings him off right there, flicks of his wrist making Hayato cling and pant, Ryu's blood thundering in his ears with this, this, this, and when Hayato's breath hitches, his nails dig sharply into Ryu's skin, urging him on, and the kiss that started out hard turns into shaky, shaky moans spilling sweetly into Ryu's mouth.
The shower washes the come away. Hayato is still gulping for breath, a beautiful mess with swollen lips, but Ryu's hard, so hard, and he doesn't stop to wait for the shuddering to end, wraps Hayato's hand back around his own dick, forcing it up and down.
"I'm not incompetent," Hayato hisses, grabbing his wrists, and then Ryu is pushed back into the wall, his hands slammed against the tiles, and Hayato's thigh is firm and hot between Ryu's, the cloth rough against his skin.
"Not this," Ryu manages, bucking up, "not this, just-"
Hayato's hand on him, and Ryu lets his head thump back against the wall, his mouth falling open, and those can't be his noises echoing off the tiles, but Hayato stares at him, slip-slide up down, stares and stares and Ryu is gone.
When he comes down again, Hayato is right there, still there, and he doesn't look like he is about to jump out of the bathroom window.
"I'm wet," he says, flicking a thumb over the skin on Ryu's hip.
"We're in the shower," Ryu tells him, and maybe he should've thought up something more meaningful, because the next second, someone is drumming their fist against the door.
"Yo fuckbunnies, I hope to god you two just came," Tsucchi yells, "because we've waiting for a while and Take has just walked up to your kitchen sink!"
---
"I know I said I didn't mind," Hyuga bitches in the hallway, putting on his other shoe. "But that didn't mean I wanted to, you know, witness the whole soundtrack!"
"Well then, next time don't listen," Hayato says, all off-handed bravado like gay sex with your best friend is the new badass.
Tsucchi snaps his fan closed. "Next time, we're recording the audio and selling it to the porn industry as compensation for pain and suffering! No matter how hilarious Ryu looks when his face goes tomato."
"Shut it," Ryu says, and helps him into his jacket, because Tsucchi can't move too fast or vomiting will ensue. "Besides, why do you think we want the three of you out of here?"
Having problems with his blood circulation doesn't mean he can't be the Mr. Super Chill Hayato is pretending to be.
Take snorts, puts the remaining chocolate bunny into his bag. "That is so thoughtful of you," he says. "It might even convince me the weird cock yesterday was more traumatizing."
They all break into cackles. Except Ryu, who has another cock on his mind, attached to a guy he fell for when he was thirteen.
Hyuga half-heartedly freaks some more, and then they're down to manly hugs and goodbyes, and finally the door closing behind their smelly, hung-over friends.
Except just before it falls shut, Tsucchi sticks his head back in and yells "Use a condom!" so loud that even the hearing-impaired grandmother next door can't have missed it.
Then the lock clicks, and they're alone.
Hayato looks like he is about to pounce, but still figuring out logistics.
"So...was that bullshitting, or do you really want to do it again?" he asks, eyes firm on Ryu's, though this time, he doesn't succeed in keeping the embarrassment completely at bay.
"I'm not you," Ryu says, leaning back against the dresser with a smirk. "I don't do bullshit."
For once, Hayato doesn't even argue.
A blink, and Hayato is on him like a freight train, bending him back with a kiss that makes his feet want to leave the floor and wrap around Hayato's waist.
When they run out of oxygen, Hayato pulls back a bit, just enough to be out of reach of Ryu's teeth and tongue. "Is it weird to want this so much again?" he asks, and Ryu has trouble keeping his eyes from dropping to Hayato's lips.
Up, he tells his gaze, and finds awe and lust and feelings he'd die naming out loud, right there in Hayato's half-lidded eyes. "It's not weird," Ryu says, his heart thudding madly, "as long as we're okay."
Hayato thinks.
Slips a hand below Ryu's shirt, resting it over his chest.
"Jerk," he tries, then grins and adds, "who doesn't need to jerk off anymore."
Ryu breathes, trails a finger down Hayato's spine. "Dickhead," he murmurs, and Hayato lights up like the sun.