Title: Hiding in Plain Sight
Pairing: KokiRyo
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 845 - It was supposed to be a 500 word drabble, but I suck at sticking to word limits!
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything
Summary: Koki dreads the coming year with Ryo as his new dorm room-mate, but he soon learns there's more to Ryo's avoidance of him than he'd expected.
A/N: Written for
lilly0 for the
FUND-RAISING FOR HABAGAT FLOOD VICTIMS $1-for-a-drabble fic event. I hope it's not too far from what you had in mind!
Koki groaned as he looked at the dorm room assignments for his first year in college, it could only happen to him. Throughout high-school there was one person, just one, that had ever been nasty to him, and for seemingly no reason at all, Nishikido Ryo.
He dreaded opening the door, he could hear sounds from inside the room and he knew his room-mate must already be in there. He took a deep breath and stepped inside, but nothing could prepare him for the angry glare he was greeted with.
“First of all, don’t ever touch my stuff” Ryo snapped “in fact, stay off my side of the room, and secondly don’t talk to me…just because I have to live with you it doesn’t mean I have to acknowledge you.”
Koki just sighed and walked over to what must be ‘his side’ of the room as the angry man on the other side flopped down onto his bed with his guitar in his hands.
He’d never had anything against Ryo, they were almost what you would call friends once too, but things somehow changed completely in the break before high-school began. Since high-school started Ryo hadn’t sat with Koki at lunch, he hadn’t asked him to go out to the mall after school and he had barely said two sentences to Koki without some snide comment about his new hairstyle or his clothes. From there it had only gone downhill and these days Koki felt flattered if the other even noticed he was alive.
For the first three weeks of college life, Koki stuck to Ryo’s rules, leaving him alone as much as possible, but he felt incredibly lonely. When he was in his dorm room, Ryo was either studying in silence or plucking at the strings of his guitar, back turned against Koki. He often went to bed early, just so that the silence didn’t have to feel so forced, but he could never sleep until late, instead he would lay with his eyes shut, listening to Ryo’s soft breathing and the gentle scrape of a pencil on paper.
He got to know quite a lot about Ryo in those weeks, that he was studying music, emphasis on classical guitar, and that he liked to write his own music, lyrics sometimes too. He learned that Ryo hated studying, reading in particular made him yawn constantly, and that he always turned to a specific brand of energy drink to keep him awake when he had to do it.
Most importantly he learned that Ryo hadn’t really changed all that much since he’d known him. He still had that sharp tongue and a laugh that sounded terrifying and beautiful all at once, his hobbies hadn’t changed, nor his passions, and Koki felt a pang of hurt that he had to lose Ryo’s friendship. They were alike in many ways and it felt like such a waste not to take advantage of that.
Koki lay awake as usual, pretending to sleep as he listened to the slow deep breaths across the room, he could tell Ryo was deep in thought by his breathing alone.
“Koki?” Ryo whispered suddenly, and Koki almost flinched, but the hammering of his heart in his chest prevented him from answering. “Koki~” Ryo repeated, just a little louder, and when Koki still made no response, Ryo sighed.
He could see the change in light from behind his eyelids as Ryo stood and moved across the room, crouching beside Koki’s bed. There were soft fingertips next, brushing the hair from where it had fallen over Koki’s forehead, and part of him wanted to react to the touch, but the stronger part wanted to know what was going on with Ryo, what he was planning to do.
When Ryo spoke Koki could feel the moisture of his breath against his cheek “What would you say if you knew?” Ryo whispered, and Koki could feel eyes on him, raking over his features, but he remained still, quiet. “What would you think if you knew how I’d felt about you all this time?” and before he could even process Ryo’s words, he felt lips brushing feather light against his own.
He jumped almost out of his skin, pulling away into a half sitting position as their equally wide eyes locked. Ryo fell back onto his butt and made to scramble up but Koki launched at him, landing half on top of Ryo’s legs as he turned him over to look into his face again.
“I’m so sorry Koki…I just couldn’t ignore it anymore…” Ryo pleaded, and then when Koki didn’t speak he continued, hand gripping Koki’s “Please, just say something.”
But Koki had no words, no suitable way to express the surprise or the strange erratic beating of his heart, no explanation for the way his skin was heating up, almost burning where Ryo’s was still clenched in his.
“At least kiss me properly” was as much as he could manage and then he leaned in, breaths coming out in shallow pants as their lips met again.
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Another new pairing for me so I was happy to have a reason to write them, since it's AU I guess it's not 100% important I get the characters exactly right, but I hope they weren't intolerably out of character! I also I hope the story was ok, I find it quite difficult to set the story enough in drabbles while still having room for dialogue and the key scenes. Comments and constructive criticisms are always appreciated!