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Kyo didn’t say anything when Toshiya poked and prodded at that unspoken something hovering just between them.
Never a word to encourage or dissuade when the bassist’s curious fingers found their way to the back of his neck time and time again, tracing lines of ink and stroking the tiny hairs at the very edge of his scalp. Nothing when he snuck back into the bus while the others were out partying, peeking into the cramped bunk to lay his head next to Kyo’s on the pillow and show him pictures he’d taken of the night’s festivities until finally, finally the near-insomniac vocalist fell asleep. Not even when he came up behind the shorter man and put a hand on his shoulder, then leaned down to nudge the tip of his nose against the curve of one pierced ear.
That last one was rarest because it was riskiest, but kept happening because it was a favorite; Kyo almost always shivered, just a bit, and sometimes he was caught far enough off of his guard that a near-inaudible gasp would come out before he could stop himself. Not to mention the fact that he smelled incredible.
And perhaps it was pure folly, teasing himself and the vocalist when they both knew it could never go any further than that. After all, anyone with even the thinnest shred of common sense would know better than to cross that line. So much could go so wrong, and when it all came to light – because he couldn’t imagine a scenario where they weren’t found out eventually – it could go wrong for everyone, not just them. But truth be told, while he acknowledged the risk, his thoughts never did linger as long as they maybe should have on the what-ifs. It simply wasn’t in his nature. The world was a river, and he was just floating along on a raft, trailing his fingers through the water and enjoying the ride with no thought for the destination. If he should get swept away by rapids or teeter at the edge of a waterfall, he would deal with it as best he could, and if he made it through, at least he’d have a story to tell.
Besides, Toshiya certainly wasn’t the only one toeing at that line – though Kyo was characteristically more reserved about it – and he knew the ever-pensive vocalist thought about the moral implications and possible consequences of their games enough for the both of them. And still, he found Kyo watching him with carefully guarded fondness – in a mirror, across a room, from the corner of his eye at the table – almost every day, the tiniest of smiles curling the corners of the shorter man’s lips every time his gaze was caught. When Toshiya was crouched against a wall, smoking, the vocalist would appear within moments to stand leaning next to him, staring off into space to ignore the temptation of a vice he no longer indulged in, but providing amiable company all the same. And when they stood side by side, under any defensible pretense at all, the bassist could count on long fingers slipping under the hem of his shirt to rub lightly at his lower back.
All such small things. Quiet, subtle, sneaking things meant to be easily dismissible by anyone else on the slim chance they were noticed at all; harmless and only just the tiniest bit illicit for the intentions they both knew lay beneath innocent gestures. Toshiya was becoming increasingly addicted to them all the same, now near-constantly seeking out those thin scraps of satiation and thrill in spite of the overwhelming disappointment that came with having to stop so short of what he really wanted every time. Kyo seemed to be reaching out more and more lately as well, now that he thought about it. Frustration wearing at the edges of prudence, perhaps?
The day it all fell apart, at least in the beginning, work was engaging enough for Toshiya that it wasn’t too much of a struggle to keep himself focused on what he was supposed to be doing, with only a few minimal pauses for sending his affection at the blonde on the other side of the room via eye contact alone. Usually he was a little more flirtatious, but Kyo had been looking pretty down all morning, and the bassist’s heart couldn’t help but reach out. It made for a productive, but ultimately unsatisfying couple of hours.
The first break of the day was unofficially announced by Shinya taking off his headphones and heading out into the hall. Kyo looked relieved, scribbling one last note he’d probably never be able to read on the papers propped in front of him before leaving as well. Kaoru and Die were in less of a rush, so Toshiya made sure to set all of his equipment down as calmly and unhurriedly as possible, even stretching out his back before moving out into the hall to seek out his fix. He checked the bathroom first, but only Shinya was there. He used the toilet just so it didn’t seem like he was looking for anybody, washing his hands and thinking to himself that his life had never been so complicated, then heading down to the other end of the hall. The little nook housing the vending machines proved a more fruitful stop.
Even the back of Kyo’s head made him smile, his entire body relaxing just a little. It was often easy to forget just how small the vocalist was physically, when Toshiya had spent his entire adult life watching the man’s mind, voice, heart, and will overfill entire auditoriums and concert halls. But now – in a baggy tee-shirt and jeans, leaning his head against the vending machine and staring down at his cupped palm in blatant dejection – he seemed positively tiny. Moving to peer over Kyo’s shoulder, Toshiya counted the coins he was staring at, then checked the prices on the drinks in the machine.
“You need ten, or twenty?” he wondered.
“Gah!” Kyo hissed, half jumping before he could catch himself and dropping most of his coins.
“Oh, shit, sorry! Sorry!” Toshiya sometimes forgot how easy it was to sneak up on Kyo. He crouched down to help collect the vocalist’s money. “Here, let me-”
“It’s alright, I think I’ve got-”
“There’s one under your shoe-”
It took a minute of shuffling around to find all the coins, a bit of soft laughter and more than a couple completely intentional hands brushing against each other, but they got it sorted out and the bassist was soothed by Kyo’s apparent lightened mood. Maybe he’d been hurting for the contact as well? Toshiya dropped one knee once his side of the floor was cleared, digging a hand into his pocket to see if he had enough for Kyo to get whatever beverage he’d been after. When he found what he was after, his head came up and his hand reached out, the sudden motions making Kyo look up as well, and they both realized in the same instant just how close they’d ended up. Close enough to feel each other’s heat. Close enough to see themselves in one another’s eyes. Far, far closer than they would ever be able to justify as innocent, and it was enough to make both of them freeze, Toshiya’s mouth still partway open in anticipation of speech.
The bassist was suddenly intensely aware of how secluded the nook was, how big Kyo’s eyes got when he was startled, and the fact that if he leaned down or Kyo leaned up even just a little, they would be kissing. It would be so easy, it could almost happen on accident; they could be kissing right that moment and it would only barely be on purpose and no one would ever have to know. Without even thinking to, Toshiya stooped a bare centimeter closer and their noses touched. A look of rebellious intent crossed Kyo’s face and his head started to tilt to one side, and the bassist swore – would swear to his dying breath – that he could feel lips brush over his own.
Then they heard the sound of shoes squeaking on the linoleum in the hall moving towards them, and just like that, Kyo was standing, jamming coins into the machine and looking more resentful than Toshiya had ever seen him. He thought the vocalist might actually be shaking, but it could just as easily have been himself as he rose. Die’s face appeared around the corner with its usual automatic cheer right as Kyo’s beverage dropped into the slot, and the blonde was quick to yank it out and walk out of the nook as casually as he could force himself to be. Toshiya did the only thing he could think of, staring down at the rest of the coins in his hand and trying to quiet the indignant screaming in his head enough to count them. It was the closest he and Kyo had ever been, and part of him knew he should be grateful to Die for stopping them from doing something they probably wouldn’t be able to come back from, but in that moment, he felt nothing but cheated.
Die watched Kyo disappear down the hall before stepping the rest of the way into the nook, looking concerned. “He seems tense today.”
“Yeah…” Toshiya stared blankly at his money. “He, ah… hmm… he probably just didn’t sleep well last night. You know how he is.”
“Mm… you’re probably right. You mind if I grab a drink real quick? I’m dying.”
“Nah, go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Die squeezed past him to get to the machine, “You short or something?”
“Can’t decide what I want.” He wondered whether he could buy the same beverage Kyo had just gotten without everyone somehow knowing it was so he could know what the vocalist’s mouth tasted like. He knew some part of the thought was entirely irrational, but he wasn’t sure which.
“Ah. Hey, I keep meaning to ask you something.”
Toshiya sighed, pushing away his disappointment for the time being. He had work to do and he’d never be able to focus on it if he was busy wallowing. “Yeah?”
“Well, I asked Shinya and Kao already, but they weren’t sure either…”
~*~
The rest of the day had passed far too slowly for comfort. For a while, Toshiya was worried that Kyo was angry with him over the near miss, because the vocalist seemed intent on not looking at him. He wondered if Kyo was thinking that today had been too close of a call, that their game was too dangerous and too painful to continue playing. He wondered if the blonde was thinking about what would have happened if they hadn’t heard Die coming; if they would have kissed, if they would have been able to stop, if Die would have caught them in the act. He wondered if Kyo was thinking that it was time to say something. But when he did finally manage to catch the other man’s gaze, he got soft eyes and a rueful half-smile in return, and figured Kyo was just suffering the same frustration he was.
Shrugging into his winter coat, Toshiya thought to himself that it made sense that getting close to Kyo had complicated his life. Kyo himself was – despite his beliefs to the contrary – complicated by nature, in the same way that Shinya was precise, Kaoru was determined, and Die was cordial. Maybe not their defining traits in all things, but certainly their primary contributions to balancing out one another as a group. But Toshiya was an inherently simple creature, and it occurred to him that after what had happened during the break, maybe it was time he imposed some of his simplicity on the situation. The idea made him smile. Saying his goodbyes, he slung his bag over one shoulder and tucked his hands into his pockets, then made his way down the street to the bus stop.
“Doesn’t your bus pick up on the other side of the street?” Kyo asked when the bassist came to stand next to him, staring out into the distance. He’d arrived only moments earlier himself.
Toshiya shrugged, still smiling. “I like where this one’s going better.”
Kyo didn’t respond to that. They stood in silence for a few minutes before Toshiya glanced to the side and found the vocalist hunched up in visible discomfort, the top half of his face furrowed, the bottom hidden within the high collar of his coat. After a short moment’s contemplation, he turned, unraveling his scarf with one hand then reaching out to unzip Kyo’s coat partway, wrap the scarf around the blonde’s neck, and zip the coat back up. Kyo tensed up at first, eyes darting side to side to check the area for witnesses, but the same cold that troubled him in combination with impending dusk had cleared the streets long since, and he slowly relaxed into the gesture. Just before the bus appeared around the corner two blocks down, Toshiya caught him ducking his head to press his nose into the soft wool, eyelids at half mast. He bit his lip at the sight, but said nothing.
The bus came to a stop in front of them with a depressurizing hiss, and they climbed on, taking a pair of seats towards the back. Kyo stared out the window, and Toshiya read the signs posted along the walls as the vehicle lurched into motion, and if no one bothered to look any closer, they would have appeared perfectly oblivious to one another. The only sign that they were at all aware of each other’s presence was the vocalist’s little finger, reaching out between their thighs to hook around the bassist’s mirroring digit. Toshiya closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the rest, thinking back to the almost kiss he could still almost feel and wondering why he’d never once wished things between them were easier. When he opened them again, he caught Kyo watching him in the window’s reflection. The tattooed finger tightened briefly around his own.
Half an hour passed, during which Toshiya played with his phone and Kyo slipped in his earbuds and watched the world go by, their joined hands never once parting. When the time came, Kyo hit the button to signal their stop, and they finally let go in order to file up and run their passes through the ticket reader one by one on the way out the front door. The walk to Kyo’s house was a few blocks long and punctuated by gusts of biting winter wind. Toshiya couldn’t find it in himself to mind the cold, when every breeze drove the vocalist to press closer to his side for the duration. They passed through the little wooden gate, went up the stone path, shivered on the front step while Kyo unlocked the door, then crossed into the warm entryway that smelled of sandalwood and was lit only by a fishtank off to one side. The lone occupant of the tank – a fat little fish, green-yellow with black spots on the back and white on the belly, with disproportionately tiny fins and a perpetual vacant smile – drifted over to watch them slip out of their shoes and coats.
Kyo seemed a bit restless, moving straight through the living room to the kitchen and turning on the lights. He filled his electric kettle with water, setting it to heat up while he pulled a well-loved glass tea pot, two cups, and a tin of tea from the cupboards. Toshiya followed, watching him brace both hands on the counter to watch the water heat up before coming to stand behind him and slide his own arms around the vocalist’s shoulders. Kyo stood rigid, so on edge he seemed to hardly breathe after the initial sharp inhale, as the bassist’s hands run down the length of his arms, reaching the backs of his hands and stroking them lightly with the pads of his string-hardened fingers.
“Toshiya…”
“You haven’t looked at me since we left work.”
The top of Kyo’s head dropped a bit, and Toshiya knew why. Conversations about “you” and “me” had always been implicitly forbidden in their games. So had being alone together in either of their homes, for that matter. “Why are you here?”
“What happened today-”
“Shouldn’t have happened. Didn’t happen.”
“-would have been fucking incredible if we hadn’t been interrupted, don’t you think?”
Kyo’s voice came out in a low hiss. “I think it would have been a fucking disaster.”
“Why?” Toshiya wondered airily.
Kyo twisted around in the limited space between the counter and the looming bassist’s chest, his face caught somewhere between desperate want and seething rage. “Damn it, you know why! If Die had seen-”
Toshiya leaned in close, one hand sliding up to brush his fingers delicately over Kyo’s heated cheek. “Die’s not here now.”
The shorter man’s eyes narrowed and he turned his face away from the touch, “Don’t.”
“Kyo…” The other hand came up, cradling the other cheek and drawing it back, and Toshiya stooped down to rub his nose against Kyo’s for the second time that day.
Kyo put both palms flat against the bassist’s chest, looking almost pained. “Don’t do this to me, Totchi.”
“Why?”
“We can’t. We’d never be able to stop, we’d never be able to go back, and if anyone-”
“Fuck it.”
Kyo’s head jerked back at that, his eyes widening slightly. “…what?”
Toshiya couldn’t – even if he’d tried – hold back a smile at just how uncomplicated the whole thing seemed to him now. He closed the final distance between them, eyes drifting shut just as his lips made contact with Kyo’s, lingering there with only light pressure. It was simple, short-lived, and almost comically chaste, but after having spent so long having to hold back so much, the unfamiliar feeling of the vocalist’s mouth against his own sent sparks throughout his entire body. When he pulled back, fighting down every instinct that screamed at him to press deeper, he found Kyo staring up at him with so much more than simple shock written across his face. He could almost see the tempest of conflicting thoughts running behind burnt gold eyes; all the things that could go wrong warring with all the things that could be so damn good, the deep need that had been burning so long set against the frustration of never once being able to give in, every possible scenario playing out into a thousand thousand branching lines of cause and consequence.
All Toshiya thought was that even that simple little kiss had been a handful of seconds of pure rapture, and from where he was standing, Kyo had never looked more perfect.
Then a tattooed hand had a fistful of the bassist’s hair, dragging him back down into a kiss that was all messy tongue, teeth, and desperation. He met the onslaught with equal fervor, dropping his arms to wrap around the smaller man’s shoulders and waist, digging his fingers into a solid back and crushing Kyo against himself. The blonde seemed to suck all the air out of him and he panted through his nose in an effort to fight off the feeling that he might just pass out on the kitchen floor. Hands were grabbing at his shirt, jerking and yanking until fabric ripped and buttons snapped, and all Toshiya could care about was that Kyo was trying to touch him somewhere new and intimate and not even remotely subtle or secretive and his goddamned undershirt was getting in the way of it.
Pulling, turning, and pushing none too delicately, he backed the vocalist out into the living room and had to break the frantic kiss when he grabbed Kyo by the hips and lifted him just enough to throw him onto the couch. They both gasped for air in the time it took Toshiya to climb on top of his bandmate and yank off first Kyo’s shirt, then both of his own, and the second the fabric barriers were cleared, Kyo was surging up off the cushions even as Toshiya swooped down to reengage their efforts to completely consume one another orally. Hands were everywhere, touching everything, exploring and mapping out every formerly-forbidden bit of flesh until it almost seemed like they’d grown more hands by the sheer force of their need. Toshiya couldn’t get enough of the smooth, heated skin wrapped so tight over hard curves and planes and the shivers coursing over the expanse of Kyo’s belly went straight to his groin. He reached lower, brushed across the firm column straining for contact through thick denim, causing the vocalist to buck up off the cushions with a grunt the taller man swallowed whole.
Toshiya wasn’t entirely sure when his mouth moved away from Kyo’s, but he did notice that when he latched onto the blonde’s throat, the body underneath his arched and writhed, trapping his hand between grinding hips. The sound that rose up out of his chest was probably not in any way dignified, but Kyo’s neck just tasted too good, smelled too good, felt too good under his tongue for him to even bother trying hold it back. He yanked clumsily at the leather belt blocking access to his target, and managed to get it undone and the fly half unbuttoned before shockingly strong hands got grip on his shoulders and pushed him off. Kyo was a powerful man when the mood struck him. Toshiya was not the skinny, delicate-looking boy he’d once been, but he nonetheless found himself being flipped off the couch like he weighed nothing, barely missing the coffee table and landing on his back with a dull thud.
Kyo stood over him then, staring down with eyes gone wild and dark with want, a sheen of sweat throwing every muscle on his body into high relief as he finished undoing his pants. The intensity of his figure was such that if that was all there had been, Toshiya may have actually been a little bit afraid, but behind the heat in the other’s eyes ran something so much deeper and sweeter – something almost akin to worship, if he took the time to try to classify it – that all he felt was utter astonishment that he’d ever even for a moment
thought of this man as small.
The notion was replaced by entirely baser thoughts the instant Kyo’s jeans hit the floor, bare in all his glory to the bassist’s voracious gaze. An overwhelming resurgence of frenzied lust washed over him and he jerked back into motion, undoing his own pants and struggling to squirm out of them until his bandmate knelt down to help pull them clear. Then they were both naked and Kyo was crawling up the length of his body, hooking one hand under his knee and hitching his leg up and out to fit himself tight against him and the feeling of the vocalist’s cock against his own – pressing, rubbing, rocking against him with almost too much force to be pleasure alone – was so incredible that for a moment, Toshiya completely forgot to breathe. Their hips worked against one another, beating out an imperfect, primal rhythm of shuddering thrusts formed by instinct and need alone. It wasn’t enough, wasn’t as much as either of them really wanted, but after so long holding everything back, it was still almost blindingly good. Toshiya couldn’t even imagine the sight he made, laid out, leg up, with his mouth hanging open in utter ecstasy.
Without thinking, he reached up and grabbed a handful of pale yellow hair, pulling at it in an effort to get Kyo and Kyo’s mouth back where he continue trying to climb inside of them. The vocalist let out a noise that ended high but was entirely too guttural to be tied to pain, his eyes rolling back and lashes fluttering in a moment’s indulgence before he pressed himself down to oblige the younger man’s whim. With the height difference, he had to stretch, and Toshiya had to fold himself in and hitch his leg around the hips driving into his own, pulling them down ever harder, but it was all worth it when Kyo was kissing him again. Kyo’s rutting got stronger, slower, deeper even as Toshiya’s answering thrusts quickened to a shuddering up and out, down and in rotation. Toshiya was still yanking on Kyo’s hair, and Kyo’s fingers promised to leave bruises everywhere they landed along Toshiya’s arms, both mindless in their efforts to pull one another closer.
Had circumstances been different, Toshiya might have been embarrassed at just how quickly he was ramping up with just this. He might have tried to reign himself back and slow down to draw the whole thing out. But circumstances had never been like this for him; he’d never wanted anything in his life as badly as he’d wanted Kyo, and maybe it was just because of how long the other man had been dangling just out of reach, but now that he had him, every little touch was overwhelming. Kyo’s dick grinding into his own was so much on its own, but the vocalist’s sweat-slicked chest sliding over him, the full, firm lips and eager tongue sucking at his mouth, the strong thighs and ass he could feel under his leg working to propel him forward, his scent and the fierce, frenzied noises he made deep in the back of his throat were all sharp, distinct pleasures in their own rights.
He might have been embarrassed about his lack of control, too, had Kyo not been just as far gone. They broke apart, for air and because it was too hard to keep their mouths connected when everything else was moving so much – Toshiya was pretty sure he’d bitten Kyo more than once, and knew for certain he’d been bitten back, though neither of them exactly minded that – but Kyo couldn’t seem to pull himself back up. He stayed bent over the lanky bassist, breath hot across the younger man’s cheek as his rhythm grew more and more uneven.
“Kyo,” Toshiya gasped out, part of him still in awe of it all.
“Fuck,” Kyo snarled back, husky in Toshiya’s ear, “Toshi-”
It all fell apart, then, as if all either of them had needed was a reminder of just who they were with. Toshiya broke first, his head falling back, his motions growing jerky and stilted until he finally went completely rigid, spurts of hot fluid splashing up between, and Kyo followed only moments after, pressing his face hard into the crook of Toshiya’s neck as his back pulled up into a straining arch and he spilled out his own seed to add to the mess streaking across their twitching bellies. They stayed that way for a long moment, frozen taut, before their bodies loosened enough that they could move and breathe again. Kyo settled himself down slowly, all-but melting against the larger body beneath him, and Toshiya lowered his shaking leg back to the floor after carefully detangling his fingers from blonde hair.
Much more gently this time, he drew the vocalist’s face up for another kiss, languid and tender and speaking volumes of his contentment. Sweat cooled and dried, pulses slowed to a resting beat, and the eager flush of desperate arousal faded from both of their skin as they laid there, just tasting one another and reveling in their closeness. When Kyo finally disengaged, holding himself up with one arm to look down at Toshiya, he looked utterly miserable, and Toshiya smiled softly, knowing exactly why.
“It would have been easier if that had sucked,” the blonde said dryly.
“Yeah? I don’t see what’s so hard about it.”
“Ugh.” Kyo dropped his forehead onto Toshiya’s chest, clearly exasperated. “Toshiya, stop. Fucking stop pretending you don’t know why we can’t do this.”
“Why can’t we?”
“Things are hard enough without everyone knowing you and I are-”
“‘Everyone’ who? The fans? How would they know? They don’t even know about the tattoos on your thighs, how can they know whose junk ends up between them?”
“No, I mean… that’s whatever, they’d deal or they wouldn’t, but management, the label, the others, they’d find out eventually and they matter, what they think about us matters. We have to work with them every day; they couldn’t not figure it out at some point.”
Toshiya grinned, shaking his head. “Yeah, about that… I think they kind of suspect already. You know what Die asked me today, after he walked in on us?”
Kyo groaned into the bassist’s sternum. “Fuck… What?”
“He asked when our anniversary was.”
Kyo’s head came up then, confusion written all over his face. “…Our what?”
“Our anniversary. Yours and mine. He said he asked Kao and Shin, but they didn’t know the date, only that we’ve been together forever. He said since we’re finally starting to be open with it around them, he wanted to buy us a nice dinner at the swanky new restaurant by his place.”
Kyo only stared, his mouth falling open a bit as his mind struggled to process the new information.
Toshiya wrinkled his nose, remembering how dumbstruck he’d been when Die had asked him earlier that afternoon, so easily, like it was such a trivial thing. He’d felt like laughing and crying all at once. “It kind of stupid, isn’t it? We spent all this time trying to hide that we wanted something they thought we already had. And nothing changed; no one hates us, nothing caught fire. It was only complicated and shitty because we made it be.” He propped himself up on his elbows then, smiling down at Kyo. “So, why can’t we?”
Burnt gold eyes darted to one side, then the other. Kyo was trying to reconcile everything he’d believed this morning with a reality he’d never even been able to imagine before, and Toshiya knew how hard that was for him. The vocalist always did have difficulty accepting that sometimes, things just went right, and people could get what they wanted. He stretched his neck up to kiss the furrow between Kyo’s eyebrows, pouring all of his affection into the gesture.
“Stop thinking about it so much. Just let it be easy,” he advised warmly.
Kyo’s face softened at that, still stunned, but now tinged with an uncertain hope. “Just… ‘fuck it’? Just like that?”
Toshiya nodded, eyes bright. “Just like that. The others think we’ve been dating for years, I have rugburn on my ass, and your goddamn fish has been watching us this whole time. Fuck it.”
Kyo looked up and saw the familiar piscine face grinning at them through the glass like a fat little voyeur. When he looked back down, baffled, Toshiya only laughed at him and pulled him in for another round of open-mouthed, soul-searching kisses. As far as he was concerned, Kyo would come to accept their newfound freedom at his own pace, when he could look around and see the line gone from the sand between them with his own eyes. Meanwhile, they had a lot of lost time that Toshiya fully intended to make up for.