[oneshot] The Story of Us
Title: The Story of Us
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx )
Pairing: Kyomoto Taiga x Anderson Casey
Genre: Fluff
Summary: He doesn't know when he began falling for his best friend.
Notes: Minor references to Fahrenheit 451 and Taylor Swift.
Beta-read by Saki (shiroikazex ).
~
In retrospect, Taiga realises he doesn’t know exactly when it began.
They were never that close when they first met, that was for certain. But the transition from fellow junior to fellow friend to best friend was extremely gradual, and as such he is unable to accurately pinpoint the point in time where he began falling.
Falling for him.
~
But perhaps his first epiphany was on that one day during lunch break at Shokura rehearsals when Casey suddenly sprouts an obsession for his new literature book.
Taiga is nibbling on his home-made bento, attempting to hold a civil (and rather one-sided) conversation with Sanada. However, Sanada is evidently more interested in slurping his instant ramen and making goo-goo eyes at Nozawa than listening to Taiga discuss the outcome of the previous month’s Colosseum. Eventually, Taiga gives up, and opts for locating Myuto instead.
Casey ambushes him just as he gets up from his spot on the floor next to Sanada, stretching cramped limbs.
“Kyomo-chan!” he cries, “can I borrow you for a minute?”
Taiga blinks, and sees an equally-hyper Noeru bouncing up to them with a wicker basket clutched in his right hand, and a slightly out-of-breath Yasui lagging behind.
“He’s gotten this weird idea from his new literature book,” Yasui explains dryly, “and now he wants to test it out on everyone.”
“But it works!” chirps Noeru, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, “on everybody we’ve tried it on so far.”
Taiga waves his hands to draw attention, and asks Casey to explain what exactly they’re rambling about.
“Well,” begins Casey, grinning, “in my new literature book there’s this one scene where Clarisse rubs a dandelion flower onto Montag’s chin to see whether he’s in love. So I figured I’d try to see if it works here!”
“…And…just who have you tried this on?”
Casey’s face screws up in thought.
“We~ll…Tamamori-kun and Miyata-kun, Fujigaya-kun and Kitayama-kun, Kento-kun and Hokuto-kun, Takaki-kun and Arioka-kun, and Koyama-kun. Oh, and Nakamaru-kun too. We also tried all of A.B.C - Z, but it seems that they’re not in love at the moment.”
Taiga splutters.
“Okay, most of them I can understand, but Nakamaru-kun?”
“Apparently he’s got a thing for Ueda-kun,” Noeru snickers, and Taiga sighs.
“Fine, fine, let’s get this over and done with.”
Reaching into the wicker basket, Noeru pulls out a dandelion flower, which he hands to Casey. With a flourish, Casey reaches out, and rubs the dandelion flower on Taiga’s chin.
“Hm,” he says, peering closely at the pale chin, “…I think I see some yellow!”
“That means you’re in love!” Noeru and Yasui chorus together, while Casey flashes a peace sign.
They stay in a ridiculous pose for all of five seconds, before Casey dashes off to terrorise more juniors with dandelion flowers before lunch break is over.
Taiga stays rooted to his spot, fingers resting on his chin.
I’m…in love?
“But with who?” he murmurs to himself.
He’s watched enough dramas and anime to know that when you love someone you feel weird around them. He doesn’t trust what the anime show though - it is clearly impossible for roses to appear in the background suddenly when you see someone you love - and resolves to seek out Kawai to ask.
He’d ask Fujigaya, but he would probably be busy doing weird stuff with Kitayama since it was break, and Taiga knows better than to interrupt.
~
“In love?” Kawai asks, blinking at Taiga as he ignores Hasshi in the background attempting rather noisily to get Tottsu to hug him back.
Taiga nods, and Kawai frowns as he thinks.
“When you’re around them,” he says at last, “your heart begins to beat faster than normal, and if they look into your eyes it may skip a beat, even. You like everything about them, if they ask you for a favor you’ll agree no matter what it is, and you’ll always want to look good in their eyes.”
“…Oh.”
Kawai gives Taiga a knowing grin.
“Aww, Kyomoto-kun’s growing up! I still remember when you were an adorable little junior, and now you’re falling in love!”
“I’m not even sure if I am yet,” Taiga tells him, but Kawai’s grin doesn’t get any less crazed, and he gives up.
“Thanks,” he says at the door of the A.B.C - Z dressing room, before walking out into the corridor.
~
Noeru’s birthday comes soon enough, and the lunch-break-party they throw for him soon turns into a huge game of Three Minutes in the Closet (the safer version of Seven Minutes in Heaven) involving more than half the juniors.
“Yasui!” Taiga protests, “this is just wrong!”
Yasui grins.
“The youngest here is Hokuto-kun, don’t worry.”
“But doesn’t this feel seriously gay?”
“We’re Johnnys. It’s in our nature to be gay. It’s called fanservice.”
“B-b-”
Casey rolls his eyes and drags Taiga down to sit in the circle, as Noeru reaches for the empty mineral water bottle and spins it hard. Perhaps a little too hard, because it practically flies off the floor and thunks Hokuto in the head.
“Ow,” mumbles Hokuto, but dutifully picks up the bottle and spins it. The cap ends up pointing at Nakaken, and everybody spends three minutes eating birthday cake while occasionally shooting glances at the broom closet in the corner. Three minutes later, somebody’s keitai alarm rings, and the closet door is mercilessly flung open, allowing a flushed Hokuto and a grinning Nakaken to stumble out.
The bottle points at Casey next, and everybody watches it as Casey sends it spinning in circles on the smooth tiles. Gradually, it begins to slow down more and more…
And suddenly the blue bottle cap is pointing at Taiga, and everybody’s cheering and whooping as he and Casey get pushed towards the closet.
The wooden door slams shut, and Taiga’s left in the darkness with another warm body - Casey’s - pressed against his. He can feel a mop digging into his back, and as he attempts to move his foot he ends up kicking a bottle of floor cleaner instead.
“I think it’s better if we just stay still,” murmurs Casey somewhere near his ear, and he feels arms encircle him as he wobbles after kicking the floor cleaner.
“M’kay,” Taiga whispers, and he can feel Casey exhale, warm breath tickling his neck and making the hair there flutter gently.
He thinks his heart may have fluttered slightly as well, but he’s more preoccupied with his sudden increase in heartbeat rate and sudden heightened awareness of Casey’s warm arms wrapped around his waist. It’s only then when he realizes Casey’s head is essentially nestled in the crook of his neck - because after all he is still taller than Casey - and it makes him feel tingly somewhere inside.
Slowly, he begins to relax, getting used to the nice feeling of warm and strong arms around his slender frame. At that precise moment, the closet doors are flung open, and Casey and Taiga spring apart. Ignoring wolf-whistles from the watching juniors, Taiga blinks rapidly at the sudden influx of bright light to clear the spots from his vision.
He can see Myuto and Kanda getting up to pester him about what happened in the closet, and is saved from an intense grilling by an irate Nakamaru.
“What are all of you doing? Lunch break’s over.”
~
Taiga walks home with Yasui two days after that, and ends up spilling everything over a banana split with vanilla and chocolate ice cream and hot fudge topping with sprinkles.
Yasui smiles as he eats his own sundae.
“You’re in love with Anderson-kun.”
Taiga nods, eating another spoonful of vanilla ice cream.
“I guess I am,” he says, “but I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Tell him?” Yasui suggests, and Taiga chokes on his mouthful of banana.
“…But,” Taiga mumbles, “it feels kind of embarrassing to walk up to him and go ‘I love you’ when I’m not even sure if he likes me back.”
Reaching across the table, Yasui pats Taiga’s hand comfortingly.
“You’ll never know,” he says gently, “maybe Anderson-kun likes you back.”
~
For Taiga’s birthday Casey presents him with a small and slim black box.
With Casey’s prompting, Taiga gently opens up the box, and lifts out a keitai strap. It’s a thin black leather loop with TAIGA spelled in sparkly purple beads threaded on it, and a tomato-shaped charm hanging at the end. It looks like a watered-down version of what he’s seen the girls in his school carry - it has less sparkles and no pink - and he falls in love with it almost instantly.
Taiga takes out his keitai from the pocket of his jeans, and attaches the strap. It looks good, and now nobody will confuse his keitai with anybody who owns the same model.
Fishing out his own keitai, Casey shows Taiga his keitai strap.
“See?” he says, grinning, “now we match.”
Casey’s black leather strap says CASEY instead, and the charm is a pair of poker cards and not a tomato, but other than that it is pretty much obvious that they have matching keitai straps now.
Almost like a couple, a little voice in Taiga’s head whispers, and Taiga’s cheeks briefly burn pale pink before cooling again.
He isn’t the only one to notice this, and when he and Casey put their phones next to each other on the lunch table, Kawai grins and winks pointedly at Taiga, and Nozawa coos at ‘how cute’ they are.
Casey grins and takes it all in his stride, patting Taiga’s hand under the table.
The tingly feeling comes back again as Taiga’s heart seems to skip a bit, but he forces back the burning in his cheeks and concentrates on lunch.
~
When Christmas rolls around the snow has covered Tokyo in a blanket of white crystalline flakes. Taiga presses his nose to the frosted glass of the window and watches the snowflakes drift down.
The four of them are at Yasui’s house, watching old Shokura and random game shows, waiting for the clock to hit midnight so they can go crazy and yell “Merry Christmas!” while eating cookies and generally being a nuisance to the neighbours.
But it’s Christmas Eve. Everybody’s partying on Christmas Eve, so they figure it probably doesn’t matter.
Noeru laughs himself silly on the couch as they watch Kawai (on-screen) own everybody else at Intro Don! for the third time. Casey is perched on the armrest of the sofa, drinking Coke and smirking, while Yasui is cross-legged on the floor eating chips.
Finally, the clock strikes twelve long chimes as midnight falls, and suddenly the entire living room erupts into cheers and random bits of flying popcorn.
Their high dies down soon enough, and by twelve-thirty Noeru is already out cold on the couch and Yasui is already nodding off to sleep. Casey joins Taiga at the window, breath misting up the glass.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks, voice low, and Taiga nods.
Laughing, Casey places his hands on the windowsill, and leans his head gently on Taiga’s shoulder.
“It’s a good thing we get the next few days off,” Casey says quietly, “we’re probably never going to wake up until past lunchtime tomorrow.”
Taiga snorts, and Casey’s shoulders shake in silent laughter.
Finally, Casey pulls away.
“We should get some sleep,” he says, tugging at Taiga’s sleeve. He turns to walk off in search of futons, when suddenly he pauses and looks up.
Taiga blinks, and follows his gaze, only to see a familiar bunch of leaves tied to the top of the window.
“Mistletoe,” Casey breathes, and Taiga’s breath catches in his throat.
“Oh,” Taiga says, and is abruptly cut off from saying more.
It only lasts for a second, yet to Taiga the pair of soft warm lips against his own seems to last an eternity. Casey’s the one who pulls away, cheeks turning to flaming red in record time.
Stuttering, he manages an apology before dashing away, leaving Taiga with a hammering heart and his fingers on his lips, hardly daring to believe what had just happened.
~
Casey doesn’t look him straight in the eye after that, and Shokura rehearsals grow strange and awkward. The choreographer has given up, and Taiga is moved to stand next to Yasui on the right of the stage rather than on the left next to Casey.
“What happened?” asks Yasui curiously one day after rehearsals. They are walking home together again, after watching with wide eyes as Casey just throws everything haphazardly into his sports bag and dashes out the dressing room door.
Taiga turns pink and bites his lip.
He also makes the mistake of glancing at Yasui, who has turned on the Pout of Doom 2.0, and he gives in, describing the Christmas mini-fiasco in its entirety.
“See,” Yasui says sensibly, “he does like you after all.”
“Even so,” Taiga groans, “he thinks I don’t, and so he’s avoiding me! What do I do now?”
“Why, show him that you love him back, of course.”
“…How?”
A grin crosses Yasui’s face.
“I have a plan.”
~
Yasui’s plans, Taiga decides, are completely designed for the wrong person. Casey’s the one who can play guitar and speak decent English, not him.
Yasui doesn’t listen to his protests.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he says, and somehow wheedles Yokoo into giving Taiga a week-long crash-course on how to play the guitar. Keito is roped in to help with English (Jesse is too amused by the reason behind Yasui’s plea to agree to help) and a week and a half later Taiga thinks he’s ready to carry out the Plan.
It is a Wednesday, the day Yasui and Taiga decide to execute the Plan.
Noeru’s help is employed for Stage One, and between him and Yasui, a kicking and protesting Casey is dragged by the arms and thrown into the dressing room, before the door is slammed shut and locked from the outside.
Casey blinks in shock at the door, before a sudden strum of guitar strings startles him.
Taiga is sitting on the table with a guitar propped up against his knee, desperately trying to remember the guitar chords Yokoo had drilled into him during the one-week crash course.
“…Kyomo-chan?” Casey asks, bewildered, and completely forgetting to feel awkward in the shock of seeing Taiga with a guitar.
Taiga begins to strum, face still screwed up trying to remember the chords, and ends up playing dissonant notes instead.
“…Oops. Sorry,” he says embarrassedly, and starts again.
His expression suddenly clears as the chords flood into his memory, and he strums, and begins to sing in painstakingly perfected English.
Romeo take me
Somewhere we can be alone
I’ll be waiting
All there’s left to do is run
You’ll be the prince and
I’ll be the princess (here Taiga cringes a little)
It’s a love story
Baby just say Yes
Casey’s mouth has dropped open as the song - the love song - echoes throughout the entire room.
“Wait-what-eh?”
Taiga smiles, setting aside the guitar.
“You like me, don’t you?”
The crimson blush on Casey’s face is a more-than-adequate answer.
“Well…I…Well,” Taiga stutters, suddenly floundering, “I…like you too!”
There is a moment of stunned silence, before Casey breaks out into a huge smile.
“For real?”
“Yeah.”
Casey’s eyes grow impossibly wide, before he flings himself at Taiga in a tight and brief hug, laughing in relief.
“…But seriously, Kyomo-chan. Taylor Swift?” he asks after a while.
“The lyrics are meaningful,” Taiga says defensively, “and pertain to this situation.”
Casey snickers.
“Yeah, I guess it does. After all, you are girly enough to be a princess.”
“Hey!” Taiga pouts, crossing his arms huffily.
Casey laughs, and reaches out to poke Taiga’s nose affectionately.
“It’s okay,” he says, smiling, “because you’re my princess.”
Before Taiga can voice any more protests, Casey tiptoes a little and plants his lips on Taiga’s.
So perhaps those shoujo anime were wrong when they implied that roses bloomed in the background when you kissed someone you liked, but the tingling from his head to his toes and the fireworks going off behind his eyelids was enough for Taiga.
His arms unconsciously come up and wrap themselves around Casey, and stay there even as they pull away.
“I guess you’re right,” Taiga admits, leaning his head on Casey’s shoulder, “I guess I don’t mind being a princess.”
As long as you’re my prince.