Day 23 ★ Fic by r05km 'The Dumb Seasonal Realizations of Shishido Ryou - Part 2' R (NSFW)
23
The Dumb Seasonal Realizations
of Shishido Ryou - Part 2
by r05km
EIGHT
It’s weird seeing his brother in his torn baggy jeans and grungy New York style jacket surrounded by fluff and cutesy pink glitz. He dithers around a stand of pendants looking consternated and lost. It’s sort of pathetic, the way he angsts over this choice or that, clutching his wallet like a security blanket, just about managing tiny monosyllabic responses to the shop attendants earnest attempts to help.
Ryou thinks this is a clear example of how dating makes guys completely loony. He scowls as yet another guy comes slinking out of the lingerie department, trying to hide a bright pink bag in his coat. Another one goes past, looking rather too deliberately casual with a massive fussy bear under his arm. It has a bow around its neck.
It’s sheer madness.
Ryou wrinkles his nose and begs leave to go look at shoes. Thankfully, Dai’s knocked a stand of earrings over in a fluster and apologising distracts his mother enough for him to slip away up the escalator. The faint reek of leather and rubber from the rows of quality sneakers is reassuringly masculine after the perfume of the girls department. He can even tolerate the ones with pink soles.
He wanders for a while, just browsing, until his respite is disturbed even here by a girl. She’s looking at a bunch of sneakers, all men’s and clearly too massive for her tiny feet, biting her lip. She catches him looking and fumbles the sneaker, suddenly shy.
He turns to shuffle off down the next aisle when she says, “S-sorry, excuse me, if you don’t mind, may I ask you something?”
She’s actually not horrible, Ryou discovers, even if she is shopping for her boyfriend; kind of the quiet and traditional type. She holds up the two options she’s been looking at and asks if he knows which are better for running. “He does a lot of marathons,” she explains and as Ryou scrutinises the shoes adds, “I thought these might be better because they have structured cushioning for balance, but he usually buys Puma…”
“Just get the new Puma’s then,” Ryou suggests with a shrug and scribbles down the name of a store where she can find them. She smiles and thanks him wholeheartedly. Ryou doesn’t get it- it’s just an address…
“Yeah, no, it’s fine,” he says, awkward and blushing a little around the back of the neck.
“No, really thank you,” she puts the others back, “You’ve been a great help.”
Ryou shrugs again. “They do good socks too. I get them for tennis.” She chuckles.
“Oh no, he never wears socks. Well, good luck with your shopping, I hope you find what the present you’re looking for too.” She bows slightly and then leaves Ryou slightly baffled. “I’m not shopping for anyone,” he protests to the rows of trainers.
Why not? They seem to say. Everyone else is.
Ryou drifts away from them, feeling strange. Thinking about it, it’s kind of sad not getting a Christmas gift, or having anyone to give one to either. He can be as derogatory as he likes about the other guys and their soppy Christmas sentiments but the fact remains, under the bright cheerful lights it sucks to feel alone and they have something. All he has is a big guilty… something on his best friend.
Ironically, Choutarou totally lame and mushy about Christmas; he likes the whole gift-giving thing and happily buys into Atobe’s foreign habit of English-style Christmas cards. Atobe always gets a number from girls, but probably only one or two from boys, and Ryou is pretty damn certain the girl ones are romantic and Choutarou’s is definitely not.
He thinks about last year. Last year… they didn’t exchange anything. Just New year’s cards and well wishes. No. He thinks about it harder, scowling as he works through the crowded department store, looking for his family. Choutarou bought him some of the sweets and an orange from the Christingle service he played at, and didn’t he buy them a bag of hot chestnuts to share the next day, sat on a bench in the cold in the park? Did that count?
Choutarou was going to another service this year, he’d probably get him another orange. Ryou looks around the store. It’s a bit lame, but maybe something small to give him would be good and not wholly inappropriate after all… He pauses by a stand of girly stuff, trying to think what kind of thing he should get.
“Can I help?”
Ryou stares at the shop assistant like she’s asked him if he likes dropkicking puppies. “Uh…” She doesn’t seem to mind.
“Looking for any particular gift? We have a lovely range. These perfumes are very popular and this bath oil is THE gift for the man who wants to say ‘I care’.”
Where, Ryou wonders, are the gifts for the not-quite-a-man who wanted to say ‘Uh.. Merry Christmas, thinking of you ‘cause you’re a very patient person who puts up with a lot of my crap’ to his very tall male friend without also adding sotto voce, ‘I have a raging homo crush on you’.
Pink bath oil is definitely not it.
“No, no thanks.”
He spends an hour browsing, brows knitted in a permanent frown. Nothing seems right. It’s either too much, or too random or too unlike something he could imagine Choutarou liking or using. Or else too ‘I bought this for the sake of buying you something’.
His phone rings, and he ignores it, still unable to find something, until it becomes so insistent he can’t anymore. “Ryou?! Where have you been, I’ve been calling you!”
“I was shopping, sorry, sorry, didn’t hear it.”
“We’re at the car, hurry up!”
Ryou sends one more despairing glance at the department store and it’s glittering homage to commercialism. He’s not going to find anything that expresses what he feels for Choutarou here. It’s just not as simple as that.
NINE
He’s always been a firm believer that girls are gross, even if he has been converted to the thinking that boobs and things are Not Bad. They look good, it’s just their personalities he can’t figure out.
He’s not had a girlfriend, and he’s not ever really been interested in lolloping around after one the way some guys do. Trying to figure out their feminine whims seems like a mugs game- he knows he’d just end up making a goon of himself and other than sex he can’t think of a single thing a girl can offer that he doesn’t really already get from his friends in one form or another. So feeling it slightly pointless, he’s never really bothered to engage with any.
What’s more, while the other guys have been busy fussing with their hair and their clothes and this, that and the other, Ryou hacked all his off and buried it under an old cap. He dresses cool enough for the guys and he loathes fashion other than finding good sneakers to wear and that’s about as much as he’s willing to commit.
He’d been proud of his hair, but he has to admit the not having to brush it, wash it, dry it and fight it back into a school-acceptable ponytail is a bonus that equates to almost 20 minutes extra in bed. That and looking back at the photos of himself from that time, yes, he supposes he looks more classically good-looking, but he also thinks now that he looks like a complete knob- cold and stuck-up and trying too hard to be flashy like Atobe.
He might not stick out of the crowd, but he likes himself more like this. He feels more real. It’s the other reason why he never grew it back.
But the girls seem to take it at face value.
Hyoutei girls, Ryou thinks, leaning on his desk and surreptitiously eyeing the backs of their heads, are snobs. It comes with the territory. They all want rich, tall boyfriends with social clout and full heads of perfect shiny hair and good teeth and flawless skin. They aren’t so keen on short scabby-kneed scowlers with scars and a history teacher for a dad. One would approach him now and then, but Ryou was always suspicious he was being singled out as a well-pitched ploy to ruffle daddy’s feathers. Good enough grades and standing to be a safe option, looks and manners enough to unsettle overbearing fathers.
Maybe that was the reason for this entire… thing with Choutarou. Like his brain was so fed up of being single and so hardwired to want a partner yet there wasn’t a girl who Ryou knew that fit the bill, that it had randomly zeroed in on the next best thing. Picked whoever was closest to Ryou’s tastes and affections and forgotten important factors like gender. Over time, Choutarou had ousted even Gakuto from the coveted spot of Ryou’s best friend.
Admittedly that didn’t explain the sexual attraction very well, but he was 18 now right? He could be potentially attracted to anything.
He wonders uncomfortably when it was he realized what he felt was more than that though… seeing Choutarou makes his dick throb, but it does the same thing to his heart too.
The bell rings and it’s going to be his last lunch in high school for this year. It’s the last day of term and everyone’s hyper. People rush around securing addresses for new years cards, showing off their bento boxes or attempting some last ditch flirting for Christmas dates. Ryou looks for Choutarou but he’s nowhere to be found.
Hiyoshi considers when he asks him if he’s seen Choutarou and shrugs. “Music practice I think. They’re doing extra rehearsals for the concert.”
“Ah right.” Choutarou’s playing first violin this year and has a solo; he’s been practicing hard and he needs to do well because he’s thinking of applying to an arts university next year and it would help his application to get as many good performances down as possible. Ryou can’t hold it against him. It still sucks though. Piyo and Kabaji are decent company, but they’re not Choutarou.
Gakuto finds them halfway through, reeking strongly of clove, and thieves one of Ryou’s sandwiches. “You’d have liked chemistry today,” he tells him, ignoring Ryou’s protests. “We were distilling stuff. Mint and clove mostly. Guess which one I had.”
“Considering you stink like potpourri,” Hiyoshi says, wrinkling his nose, “no contest.”
Gakuto gives a happy sigh, “and we’re chopping up thing after lunch.”
“Yeah,” Ryou points out, “Frogs.”
That seems to give Gakuto pause. “Oh…Ew….”
“I feel sorry for the frogs more,” Hiyoshi replies, edging his lunch away from Gakuto’s wandering hands. “No. Get off.”
Ryou leaves them to battle it out, going to see if he can catch Choutarou for a minute or two before the bell rings again.
The auditorium is a hive of activity. The concert is tonight, the decoration committee is still rushing around like idiots putting up lights and streamers and wreaths and all that junk. There’s a heated debate going on about an inflatable snowman as he steps over the debris. It’s quieter in the hall itself, save for the sound of a lone violin. He slips in the back and then freezes as he realizes the music teacher is sat there. Fortunately, he’s busy yelling down over the balcony.
“Ok, better! Remember the timing on the forth bar, and try not to lean into the microphone.”
“Should I do it once more?” Choutarou’s voice drifts up from out of sight, echoing slightly with the acoustics.
“No, pack up. The bell is about to go.”
The teacher leaves, giving Ryou a puzzled look but not stopping to question him. Ryou waits until he hears the door shut and then goes to lean over the balcony. He opens his mouth to shout down to Choutarou, grinning slightly thinking how the other will be surprised and pleased to see him, when someone else beats him to it.
“Choutarou-kun?”
He sees Choutarou look up, startled, and then smile. “Ah, sorry, I’m going now. Let me just put my violin away.” Ryou leans out further. There’s three girls there, one slightly ahead of the other, Ryou assumes she’s the one who called out but she looks a bit shy to be going around shouting at people. Her friends nudge her forward and they way they glance at each other makes his mouth go dry.
He can’t hear what she says, but he hears Choutarou say ‘Sorry?’ and knows enough of his body language to know that he is surprised. He says something more quietly and the other two girls retreat. Ryou, unnoticed, remains. He watches Choutarou sit down on the edge of the stage and her beside him. So… someone Choutarou knows then. He wouldn’t do that otherwise. It sends a flush of anger through Ryou; anger or jealousy, he’s not sure which, and then she asks him out.
He doesn’t have to hear it to know that’s what she’s doing. He doesn’t have to even see Choutarou’s face to know he’s awkwardly but kindly turning her down. He’s not sure what to make of that. Partly he’s glad, but it bothers him too. One day Choutarou will probably say yes, and god knows it’s not going to be to a confession from him. Ryou doesn’t have the guts- he’d die of embarrassment before he even got one word out, let alone a blushing ‘I like you’. He sits down on the floor, not wanting to see more until he hears the door bang twice at intervals and everyone has left.
It more or less ruins his day. Even flicking frog guts at Taki and watching him freak out and Gakuto trying to dissect a frog without touching it isn’t as funny as it should be. He’s gloomy enough that Gakuto exchanges glances with Taki over his head and, unnoticed, whips off a quick mail on his phone. He drags through history, bored and disconsolate. By spring he’ll have to retire from the tennis club. There’ll be exams and stress and then… that’ll be it. No more Hyoutei. He’ll be gone and off to some university somewhere and leading a new Choutarou-less existence. It’s depressing.
There’s nothing he can do about it. By the time the bell rings for the end of the day, he’s worked himself into a full-on sulk. He snaps at Gakuto when he mentions it outright, and stomps off, leaving the other to roll his eyes and mutter something about PMS. Ryou doesn’t care- he hates everything. He hates the decorations and the cold and the stupid girls with their skirts and blushes and appropriate gender. He hates his own stupid mood and that he couldn’t find anything at the department store and that he will never be easily able to let Choutarou go and never be able to have him either.
He hates the smell of dead frog that still lingers on his hands and concerts and fairy lights and growing up and being attracted to boys.
And then, like a punch to the gut, he doesn’t, because he’s there at the school gate, waiting for him.
“Your ears have gone red,” Choutarou comments, idly swinging his violin case and smiling his big dopey happy-dog smile of his. It’s dark already, and the street lamp makes his hair glow orangey. “It’s the cold,” Ryou mumbles, embarrassed, tugging his scarf up, “What are you doing?”
Choutarou nudges him. It’s as good as saying ‘cheer up’. “Cheese curry?” he suggests. Ryou shrugs noncommittally although his stomach gurgles. “Go on, my treat.” Choutarou wheedles. He’s good at it. He knows Ryou can’t really resist.
Ryou gives a ‘I’m happy but trying not to show it; I want to but, go on, work for my acquiescence’ squirm and fails to hide a lopsided smile. “Yeah?”
“You did take me for billiards.”
“Yeah. Point. Alright then,” Ryou caves, grudging but so honestly and obviously willing he’s about to face-palm at his own lameness. Choutarou grins.
It’s like the sun’s shining.
TEN
“Heeeeey- HEE-EYY BAYBEE! I bah-buh-BUH buh-buh-buuuh de-derr is you be my girl!”
Ryou rolls over and shoves his fingers in his ears with a groan. His brother is in the bathroom (still) getting ready for his hot Christmas date with Rina-chan, singing the same crap old English pop song over and over. He can’t even remember all the words.
It’s both a bit sickening and utterly too lame for words.
He throws his shoe at the wall but his brother ignores it. Ryou can just picture him, bopping about on the bathroom mat in his underpants, messing about with his hair gel.
“You SUCK!” he shouts, feeling his sentiments need to be heard. “I hate you!” he doesn’t really. His words don’t even have any bite to them. He’s jealous, if he’s honest. There’s no reaction to his words from the bathroom but his mother responds instead. “Shishido Ryou, we do not say ‘hate’ in this household!” she scolds. “Dai, get out the bathroom!”
Ryou considers this. “I dislike you intensely!” he amends. Dai emerges, hair looking the kind of cool that is automatically ridiculous. Shishido snorts. “Lame.”
“Don’t care, ‘cos -I- have a date. And what do you have? Oh yeah, a sausage-fest sleepover. Have fun!” And he bops off to his bedroom, still humming. Ryou scowls at his back.
Asshole.
He rescues his toothbrush from the bathroom and goes back to his own room to pack. They’re leaving in an hour but he’s not making any rush. He’s already showered. His suit is hung up waiting for him to change into, but he puts it off. He doesn’t like wearing formal clothing as its always uncomfortable. Still, it’s an obligatory evil, and at least before the end of the night he’ll be allowed to change when they escape the main party to muck around in Atobe’s suite watching DVD’s and things.
Everyone’s going to be there. Piyo and Jirou skipped out last time on account of having girlfriends they wanted to schmoose with, and Kabaji had a bad cold, but as it’s turned out this year, everyone’s single again.
His parents are going too, invited by proxy although it has to be said that his mother and Gakuto’s mother get on like a house on fire. It’s a friendship that is frankly terrifying to both boys and also both husbands. Ryou thinks that if Atobe’s mother ever joins in cahoots with them too, the world won’t know what hit it.
She pokes her head in the door a little while later, looking pretty in her evening gown. Oshitari makes cougar noises when he sees her at Atobe’s do’s- Ryou has had to threaten his manhood on more than one occasion because of it but he’s secretly smug about it. She can hold her own with the socialites the Atobe’s rub elbows with and what’s more she looks better than some of them. Better than Oshitari’s mother anyway, which is the main thing.
“Almost ready?”
He’s huffing and wrestling with his tie, hating it. He should have bought a clip-on, even if it is cheating. She chucks and comes to do it for him, batting away his feebly protesting hands. “Muuuumm… I can do it.”
“I know you can,” she says consolingly, but that doesn’t stop her tying it anyway.
---
There are ten foot tall Christmas trees lining the driveway up to Atobe’s house, each and every one of them trimmed with twinkling pastel lights and crowned with a star. Every year Ryou swears the Atobe’s won’t be able to top their own extravagance and he almost thinks this year might be the first year he’s actually right- Last year’s ice sculptures had more impact. A moment later he realizes that the cart’s entry through the gate has triggered a light show that plays across the dark comes of the trees, Snowmen glide, fairies flutter, an angel spreads her wings and plays on her harp.
“Must have cost a fortune,” Ryou’s dad says, awkwardly tugging at his collar. Ryou loves and respects his dad; he’s just kind of embarrassing in this kind of situation. They’re alike in that they both hate wearing suits, (Ryou’s already sabotaged his bow tie) and neither of them feels at ease at the kind of big show-offish parties the Atobe’s always throw. The less said a out small talk the better, especially when his father resorts to his usual coping method of drinking too much of the free Champagne.
Ryou knows his father, a history teacher by trade, has used hard work and connections to keep his sons in private education and he’s thankful. Sometimes though he wishes his dad wouldn’t be so intimidated by people with money. Ryou’s lived with them at school for years. He knows from experience that they’re totally human. He can cite an occasion where Atobe drank too much of his fancy stupid grape juice and regretted it in the exact same way anyone else would.
They draw up to the front and Atobe’s super efficient staff, dare he say it, servants, have the doors opened, the keys passed over, invitations checked and marked on the guest list and Ryou’s overnight bag whisked away out of the boot before Ryou’s even managed to get his seatbelt undone.
Inside it’s just as spectacular. People wafting around in gowns and suits that cost more than Ryou liked to think about, and the whole place decked out like a winter wonderland. It was tasteful and modern; all glassy ornaments and pale shimmering colours. Entering the main hall, Ryou could pick Atobe’s mother out at once, in a long slinky white gown that was absolutely dripping with tiny glittering beads. Or maybe actual diamonds, Ryou couldn’t tell. Somehow he wouldn’t put it past her. Tall and blond and beautiful on the arm of her husband, they hardly needed the raised dais to put them above the crowd.
Atobe was there too, gleefully lording it about; Kabaji a stalwart figure at his shoulder, although Ryou notices that as the guests drift to and from the dais Atobe is carrying on a more genuine, private conversation with the other boy in low tones over his shoulder.
At any rate, it’s no good bothering him yet. Atobe will send someone to find him when he’s ready to stop playing host and actually join the party. One of the waiters brings him punch and he holds the steaming glass, still looking around for familiar faces. He turns in a slow circle, scanning the crowd and then at about the 180 degree mark finds himself face to face with a chest.
“Choutarou,” he gulps.
“Shishido!” Choutarou is virtually blinding the way he smiles. He matches, Ryou hopes by coincidence, the décor, his pale blue suit blending in with the snowy scenes around him. He’s opted for a proper tie as well; it’s cooler than Ryou’s lame bowtie, already crumpled in his pocket.
His heart skips when Choutarou squeezes his shoulder, even though Choutarou’s done that dozens of times before and it’s never affected him so. “You’re late!”
“Uh, sorry, there was, you know, my brother and stuff,” Ryou bumbles an excuse but Choutarou doesn’t seem to mind at all. “That’s ok, you didn’t miss much; they haven’t really bought out much of the food yet either, just canapés and stuff, but they have some cheese you might like.”
Trust Choutarou to think of that. He knows the food is probably the only reason Shishido bothers to come. That and, he decides right there and then as the fabric shifts across Choutarou’s chest, seeing the other in a suit. It looks good on him. He looks comfortable wearing it. He opens his mouth to say something and then spots the man sidling up to them smiling and holding a camera.
“How about a picture?” he says, flashing a discreet badge at them that says clearly he has been employed to be there. “Oh no,” Ryou groans, moving to turn away, but Choutarou nudges him and says, “Go on, it’s just for fun. The two of us.”
Ryou has an image of the thing in his minds eye; Choutarou tall and graceful and smiling and looking a million dollars and then some, yet the vision is marred by the disgruntled troll in a tuxedo he has tucked under his elbow for no good reason at all. He attempts a smile for it. Troll baring his teeth, he thinks. Growl.
“And a couple of single shots?” The photographer adds hopefully, once he’s finished snapping. He has Choutarou posed against the impressive backdrop of the chandelier before Ryou can even blink and then it’s his turn, shuffling awkwardly. “Just relaaax~ ok, nice!” Ryou looks at him like he’s sprouted a second head.
“I’ll be printing them if you’d like to take one home, my colleague’s over by the blue Christmas tree.”
“That was lame,” Ryou comments. Choutarou laughs. “Don’t be so grumpy it’s only one night, come on let’s go find Piyo and Gakuto-sempai. The food must be out by now.” And without even a token protest, Ryou lets himself be dragged off to enjoy the party. After all, he might as well enjoy it while he has it.
ELEVEN
“I dare you… to streak past all the ground floor rooms in the house.” Yuushi smirks, he’s clearly been sat cooking up this one for a while. Ryou twitches. It’s not even that imaginative. They’re collected up in Atobe’s room and it’s encroaching on 11pm. He dashes vodka into Gakuto’s glass with abandon thinking that if Atobe’s father knew that his son had pilfered booze from the kitchens and was getting his friends drunk on it, he’d have his guts for garters. Well… tipsy anyway. No one’s actually drunk. Yet. Just mellowed enough for stupid juvenile games that they should have grown out of already seemed like an excellent idea. Due to the lack of girls, they’re playing in teams. So far, a number of disgusting things have been forcibly consumed, and Taki is managing to look uncannily dignified in a woman’s nightgown.
“No! My parents are in the drawing room,” Atobe says, horrified, “You are categorically not flashing my mother!”
“Oh alright, “ Yuushi drawls, looking disappointed. “Run across the lawn to the greenhouses and back then. No one sees that bit of the lawn.”
“Oh come on, that’s ridiculous, it’s freezing out,” Ryou protests, glancing at Choutarou who hasn’t said anything yet. Gakuto cackles and rolls on his stomach. “Chiickkkennn, bwaaak-bawwwk-baawwwk!” He crows. Ryou hisses at him.
“Shut up, you used to eat dirt.”
“I did not! And that’s got nothing to do with the dare. You chickens.”
“Potato licker,” Ryou growls, still glancing at Choutarou sidelong. He’d like to back out, if he can, but he doesn’t want to loose face either.
Choutarou gets a glint in his eye and Ryou has to swallow a lump in his throat. He knows that look. He’s seen it in most competitions they’ve played. Say all you like about Choutarou being oh so terribly nice, Ryou knows that when push comes to shove, Choutarou is competitive, and he doesn’t like to lose any more than anyone else in Hyoutei.
“We’re not cowards. Shishido-san’s right, it’s snowing out.”
“You can keep your booties on,” Yuushi offers generously, leering. “Unless, of course, you’d rather forfeit.”
Choutarou gives him such a detached, unreadable look that Ryou starts to wonder if he hasn’t been hanging out with Hiyoshi too much. It’s a look that despite it’s utter blankness, somehow manages to convey ‘you are an idiot, and an immature one at that’. It’s a little terrifying. Ryou can only gape as Choutarou sighs and stands up.
“H-holy shit,” Jirou laughs with delighted disbelief. “They’re gonna do it.” Taki gives a wolf-whistle. “Come on, boys.”
Ryou gives a snarl, embarrassed. “Oh hell no, no cat-calls while you’re wearing that. That’s fucking wrong, Taki.”
“Ohtori’s going to do it anyway,” Oshitari corrects Jirou smoothly as Choutarou heads for the door. “Ryou’s too much of a delicate flower.”
“Oh fuck you,” Ryou gives in, getting up. He’s got something to prove now anyway, and he stalks after Choutarou and gives him a dirty look. “It’s cold out.”
“I know,” Choutarou says mildly. The man has a core of steel or else he’s secretly evil. Ryou somehow finds it utterly endearing.
They cut down the back stairs, en mass, to the quiet part of the house. It’s servant quarters mostly, but they’re all busy tidying up further in and running around after Atobe’s parents and the guests invited to linger stay over. Atobe says it’s his father’s business partners who’ve come a long way to be there. Yuushi says they’re swinging.
The look Atobe gave him, Yuushi almost ended up swinging himself.
They come to an eventual halt in a little scullery come garden room which is so practical and small and mundane it hardly seems like it should belong to the house at all. Still, Ryou figures as he reluctantly shucks his nice warm sweater, even the emperor’s palace must have sewers.
It’s cold. Freezing. His nipples are like goddamn bullets, as Gakuto gleefully points out, scampering out of reach as Ryou tries to smack him and call him a pervert. Choutarou typically maintains more dignity, easing off layers and dropping them in Jirou’s lap where he’s sat on a draining board by a sink. He pauses, trouser button undone. “…Hold on, I need my shoes…”
“They’re way back wherever, just go without.”
“I don’t want to run on frozen gravel.”
“Here,” Hiyoshi, voice of sanity, has found something better than trying to go back for shoes. Ryou turns gratefully, only to find him holding a pair of rubber gardening boots with daisies all over them. Karma must hate him, because the pair is exactly his size, but it’s better than ruining his slippers. Choutarou’s, just to rub salt in, are green.
The lawn is dark away from the glittering Christmas trees. There’s the gravel, four steps down and about 150 yards of grass between the door and the greenhouses. About 400 yards all in. Not too far to dash, Ryou thinks. Ominously there’s a thermometer hung by the door and he makes a mental note to look at it on the way back in. He can’t face looking at it before hand. There’s a flump of fabric and he glances up from where he’s wriggling out of his pants (accompanied by a lot of sniggering) to find Choutarou is already naked and trying not to shiver humbly cupping himself and giving Ryou a look that says ‘Please, if you don’t mind, hurry the fuck up’. Ryou hurries the fuck up.
“Fuck, let’s go, race you!” he says hopping to and fro on the spot before yanking the door open to a cheer from the rest and bolting off over the gravel. The air outside is like a slap to his whole body and enough to make him gasp and swear until his halfway down the lawn.
Choutarou catches him up, shins making flopping noises inside the rubber boots. They’re hard to run in as they’re so heavy on Ryou’s feet and for once he doesn’t quite win the race.
“In, in!” Choutarou says slightly desperately as they clatter to a halt by the greenhouse door. His cheeks are red and his breath puffs out like dragon smoke, arms at once crossing his chest. Ryou doesn’t need telling twice. He yanks the door open and they fall in amongst the frondy green things Atobe’s mother is so fond of and close the door.
It’s dark, and their panting breaths shatter the quiet and best of all, it’s warm. High on adrenaline they grope and flail around the nearest heater.
“Oh god, fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m COLD,” Ryou chatters, dancing to try and warm up more quickly.
“This is insane! My hands are frozen. Feel them.”
“My everything is frozen,” Ryou says and then yelps when Choutarou presses icy knuckles to his face. “Bastard!”
“Sorry!”
They bump shoulder to hip by accident; Ryou’s skin seeming to burn with both cold and heat where they touch. He looks at Choutarou discreetly as he can, thinking this is the most surreal experience they are ever likely to share.
“Ready?” Choutarou asks, slightly breathless. His eyes shine in the dark. Ryou thinks ‘never stop looking like that’ and his heart pumps in a strange and wild exhilaration. “Yeah, come on.”
They blast out the greenhouse door, whooping, and run back stumbling in their boots and gritting their teeth in the cold. He’s freezing and he wants to smack Oshitari for his stupid dare but with how his feet smack into the frozen ground and the tingling of his skin, he feels truly alive.
The others clap them on, as they give up running to tackle the steps and then there’s a flash of a camera and the spell is broken.
“Oh you DID NOT!” Ryou howls in outrage, looking for the perpetrator. He’s nudged out the way by Choutarou’s anger.
It’s minus a billion degrees yet watching Choutarou stalk back to the group butt-naked save for a pair of wellington boots he’s on the verge of a boner. The other moves with power. He’s using his height for once, because he’s pissed off (and to be fair, so is Ryou. Photo taking is not cool.) and his shoulders and hips move like…Ryou doesn’t know what. A big cat of some sort. He can see the muscle moving under Choutarou’s skin as he strides up to Taki and takes the camera off him in a swift authoritative movement.
“No,” he says simply, glaring, and deletes the pictures.
‘How is this even possible?’ Ryou silently screams at his crotch as his dick throbs with sudden fierce arousal. ‘This should be better than a cold shower!’
He’s saved from humiliation when Kabaji drops a blanket on him that’s big enough to hang to his knees and together they all hustle back inside.
The game is wordlessly declared over, if only because there’s not much they can do to top that without being mean and Choutarou is still annoyed about the camera. By the time they’ve redressed and returned to the rooms, Ryou too has recovered his spirits and he demonstrates it by diving for Atobe’s massive warm comfy bed.
“Excuse me?” Atobe says. “You don’t sleep there.”
“Oh yeah I do,” Ryou says smugly, suddenly going with a whim. “We’re swapping, I streaked; you ate a measly mini tube of toothpaste. My dare beats everyone else’s, so I get a winner’s reward, and,” he adds, getting into a roll, “I get to pick the film.”
“We weren’t competing!” Atobe huffs, going over to boss Piyo off the couch and take over that instead. Choutarou flops on the mattress beside him. “What?” he asks, raising an eyebrow as Ryou stares at him. “Winner’s reward.”
“Fair cop…” Ryou mutters.
They scramble and argue as a group over the film in the end, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings both being vetoed as having been watched to death already. Yuushi typically wants something gushy, Choutarou refuses the film with the eye gouging scene, which Taki and Ryou both huff over, and eventually Hiyoshi throws up his hands in frustration and says ‘Alien?’ and it’s settled.
They bunk in, occasional rustling of snacks and thrown out comments like, “You know she’s 62 now right?” and “Shut up! Don’t ruin it for me,” and “Those boobs are not 62, so it doesn’t matter,” and “who do you think has the best death?”
“Pass the popcorn,” Choutarou says, leaning across slightly to whisper it near his ear. Ryou gropes around in the dark for the packet, Atobe fortunately too engrossed to notice they were eating in his bed and start shrieking. Ryou finds the popcorn and hands it to Choutarou who pounces on it gleefully and opens it.
The film rolls on and Ryou relaxes, helps himself to snacks when Choutarou waggles the packet at him in a friendly sort of way. He squirms slightly when their fingers knock but it’s not awkward. Instead it’s close and warm and comfortable. They sit closer; it’s easier to share like that, sharing the blankets like they’ve done several times before, and Ryou doesn’t even notice at first when their ankles touch. He doesn’t notice until their sat hip-to-hip, knees and thighs brushing one another and he’s reaching into Choutarou’s lap for the popcorn. He draws back, a little awkward, but luckily Choutarou doesn’t notice, eyes glued on the screen. Instead he’s licking the fake popcorn cheese off of his fingers one after another.
Ryou can’t help but stare and swallow. He’s not being especially erotic about it, he doesn’t think, or well… he’s not sure. It seems erotic, the flashing lights from the big screen TV playing over his face and hand, the stiff jaunt of his fingers in contrast to the way his lips play softly over them. Ryou’s mouth goes dry and his dick twitches and then he catches Choutarou glancing at him sidelong from the corner of his eye and their gaze locks.
Choutarou blushes suddenly, quite red, and with a force of thought that knocks the wind out of him Ryou thinks, ‘he’s doing it on purpose’ and then just as quickly doubts it again. Still, it unnerves him. If he’s being played with, he doesn’t like it, but Choutarou’s not a manipulative person. He doesn’t dare think the other option- not sure if he hopes for it with all his being or dreads it, scared of the uncertainty. He doesn’t dare stay there either, not with his arousal growing. Atobe’s massive bed suddenly feels too small and he needs a moment to think.
“Back in a moment, bathroom,” he mumbles, getting up out the bed and shoving his feet in his slippers. He crosses and opens the door, even as Jirou complains sleepily, “There’s one behind you, Ryou,” as he steps over him.
He turns out of Atobe’s bedroom door and ducks down the side corridor, needing some space and some privacy. Instead he walks smack into a ball of foliage and flails, swearing. Mistletoe. He should have expected it- it’s hung at every junction between the hallways all over the house because Atobe’s mother thinks it’s a quaint tradition and is just foreign enough to get away with it.
He bats past it, even more irked and stomps to the dead end by the big window. He leans on the armoire that’s placed there and looks out at the night. It’s huge and dark and silent. It doesn’t have any more answers than he does. Still, it echoes back the soft footsteps that approach him slowly, stopping just behind him.
“Shishido, are you alright?” Choutarou asks.
“Sorry, ignore me, I’m being an idiot. I’m fucking lame,” Ryou groans, rubbing his neck with exasperation. Something lightly brushes his face, casting a shadow across his eyes and he turns towards it frowning slightly, only to find Choutarou touching his cheek with the barest tips of his fingers.
“No you’re not. I think you’re amazing,” Choutarou breathes, altogether too earnest, and it would be enough to make Ryou blush but he doesn’t because of the surprise at the look on the taller boy’s face. Choutarou’s expression is serious when he leans in, but he kisses Ryou with warmth and a delicacy that turns Ryou’s knees to water.
It’s sweet and gentle as Choutarou always is, and it seems to wash Ryou away as he thinks to himself stunned that even if the other boy wasn’t teasing him on purpose, he’s wanted to do this for who knew how long.
Choutarou pulls back and looks at him and if there aren’t really stars in his eyes, Ryou can see them anyway. “Wow,” Choutarou mouths, like he can’t believe he just did that. He’s smiling in a dopey, bedazzled kind of way.
Ryou doesn’t say anything lame like ‘I love you’ or ‘I like you,’ or ‘I want you,’ or ‘I need you’. He doesn’t even think them in the privacy of his own head, but he feels it terribly. He’s aroused a little, but his heart aches far worse than anything else, overwhelmed by a flood of hot and sudden joy, a longing and a terror that in the space of mere seconds he could so easily pull the wrong face or say the wrong thing and potentially screw this up royally, and then it will be all over and his world will come crashing to an end.
He doesn’t know what kind of expression he has, he’s too muddled, but the stars fade and Choutarou’s brow falls into a worried frown as the silence drags out. His gaze skitters over Ryou’s face anxiously, searching for something, or else trying desperately to read his thoughts.
Ryou is a person of few words- he doesn’t express feelings very well, he hates talking about it. He can’t even begin to find the words but they’ve been friends and doubles partners long enough that when Choutarou opens his mouth and Ryou grabs his wrist and blurts ‘No, don’t”, Choutarou understands what he means.
“I wasn’t, I’m not sorry,” Choutarou whispers back, voice choked and rushed, “I’m never apologising for that. Even if you think it’s disgusting t-that's- I just wanted one kiss…”
Ryou looks at him; swallows. His heart is pounding so hard it feels like his whole body is reverberating. “We’re not even under the mistletoe,” he mumbles, finally. Choutarou glances at it with such a brief smile that it’s like a grimace.
“Don’t be lame. Do it properly.”
He kind of expects Choutarou to hesitate, or look at him in disbelief or need to be told twice, but he doesn’t. His mega-watt smile practically blinds Ryou and even though it is he who is gripping Choutarou’s wrist, it’s him who’s pulled swiftly back along the hall, until the back of Choutarou’s head is practically IN the ball of mistletoe. It’s Choutarou who stumbles and leans back against the wall for support, but it’s Ryou who is tugged forward by firm arms. It’s Choutarou who kisses him and there’s no mistaking it, Choutarou’s doing it properly. It’s not as elegant; they bump noses, whack into the mistletoe again and squish the falling berries into the carpet with their uncoordinated stumbling. It’s about the most amazing thing Ryou has ever done with his mouth. Not even eating that nine-cheese sandwich last autumn surpasses getting snogged for the first time by Choutarou.
“Animal,” Ryou accuses weakly when they break apart, another mistletoe berries bouncing off his head and shoulder. It’s supposed to be one for each kiss, if you follow tradition. The berries are getting ahead of them.
“Shush,” Choutarou says, and Ryou doesn’t complain when he does it all over again, slower and more wonderful. On the landing the minute hand twitches forward and the clock begins to chime, without notice from anyone, announcing Christmas Day.
TWELVE
Christmas morning. They got up late, Ryou feeling like he’s not slept at all and yet he feels refreshed. Tired, admittedly, but the tension that’s been bothering him has faded into the background. Rolling in Atobe’s bed to see Choutarou (or his back humped up under the covers at least; he’s still fast asleep) still gives him a sudden throb of arousal mixed with anxiety, but it comes with a rush of happiness that makes it more of a thrill than anything. The situation still scares him- one night’s kiss isn’t going to cure him of that. The only thing is that now he knows he doesn’t have to be alone with his fears.
He might be gay but he’s not sure, but he’s not sure and the label makes him uncomfortable. Yet… it seems he’s not alone in that particular identity struggle and the knowledge of that helps so much more than he’d ever thought it would. ‘Perhaps,’ he thinks, staring at the ceiling, ‘we both are,’ but whether that means that they’ll now become a couple or not he thinks is something of a crapshoot. Maybe it’s just a phase for him but the real deal for Choutarou, or visa versa. Or (and he hopes this will be included somehow whatever the outcome) maybe they’ll end up just friends.
Either way it pans out, it makes his heart swell to think that there’s one person in the world at any rate, who’ll accept him whatever.
He lies there, trying to hold back a grin until his bladder kicks in and he has no option but to get up and pee right now or else risk making Atobe exceptionally furious. He wriggles out of the bed and pads to the en-suite, stepping over Jirou who has vanished inside a pile of what might just be every spare cushion in the room. On his return he spots something lying on the carpet half under the bed; a twist of pale blue silk which on bleary eyed inspection reveals itself to be Choutarou’s tie
He looks around but Choutarou’s bag is somewhere he can’t immediately see and it’s too much bother to look. The other’s jacket though is carefully hung up on the bed post, unlike his own which he definitely recalls balling up and shoving in his bag without a second thought. He reaches over to shove the tie in the pocket. His fingers slide against something glossy in there, and curious, he pulls it out to see what it is.
Ryou blinks and stares at it dumbly for a moment. It’s him.
Not the photo he remembers the photographer taking, which Ryou feels safe to assume was beyond awful, but another one. The man clearly earned his commission because he can’t even think when the picture was snapped. It’s an exceptional shot- his head in three-quarters profile in the foreground, the background professional blurred out into a soft fuzz of Christmas lights. He’s smiling in it- a real tiny lop-sided sort of smile rather than his usual grimace for the camera and it makes him look soft and personable. His glass is raised and he’s clearly in the middle of a conversation that interests him as his eyes are full of life.
With the dark of his suit and the gape at his collar showing his throat, Ryou is surprised to think that he looks really quite attractive. It’s a thought that makes him blush. He doesn’t consider himself ugly by a long shot, but it’s rare for him to explicitly consider himself sexy.
The covers shift and all at once Choutarou is peering at him sleepily over his own shoulder and it’s his turn to blush.
“You bought this?” Ryou mouths, holding up the photo, and Choutarou looks away self-consciously and nods. Then he looks back and whispers. “I don’t have a good photo of you. You always pull faces,” mildly accusingly.
Ryou pulls a face, and then kicks himself for proving him right. Choutarou sits up, oddly defiant. “It was a Christmas present anyway. To myself. Please don’t ruin it.”
Ryou holds his hands up in defeat, and a little alarm. “I wasn’t going to…. I didn’t know you wanted one.” It certainly made his exploits in the shopping malls of Tokyo seem dumb as heck. Choutarou looks down, sheepish and mumbles something.
“What?” Ryou says, slightly too loudly. Choutarou shushes him, panicked. “University,” he mumbles again. Ryou’s shoulders sag. He sits on the edge of the bed, just within arms reach and passes Choutarou the photograph. “It sucks,” he whispers back in agreement.
Choutarou goes quiet for a long moment and then he leans over the side of the bed and rummages in his bag for a moment. “I was too chicken to give you this sooner,” he says apologetically, holding out a small flat package. Ryou takes it in surprise. “What’s this?”
“It's a Christmas present. Well… yes… Merry Christmas. It’s nothing too amazing, but please listen to it.”
Ryou tears off the wrapper to find a CD, something Choutarou has clearly burnt at home off of his laptop, and he raises an eyebrow. “You made me a mix-tape?”
“No! I uh… recorded some things,” Choutarou says, pulling a face like he’s not sure if that’s not actually lamer than making a mix-tape. Ryou grins slightly. “Thanks. I’ll listen to it,” he bumps his knuckles against Choutarou’s jaw shoulder so that he knows that’s a promise.
Choutarou’s answering smile is slow but warm and truly happy and it spreads wider than ever when Ryou leans in to kiss him, unable to resist.
“Urgh, finally,” Hiyoshi says, scaring the living daylights out of them. Choutarou passes Ryou a pillow. They look at each other. Hiyoshi growls at the challenge.
It’s Christmas morning and dawning bright with endless possibilities for what the coming year might hold, but first, Ryou thinks, he’s going to have one hell of a pillow fight.
Choutarou has his back.