Archive of Our Own

“Let’s get married,” Kojiro said.

For one wild, mindless moment Kaoru wanted to laugh. More out of shock than anything, if he had made the noise it would have been devoid of derision or any meanspiritedness that peaked out every now and then when it came to their conversations. It would have been because of shock, and because for that singular, arrested moment, he didn’t think that Kojiro was being serious at all. No one could really blame him for presuming as much, they were both lying on Kaoru’s bed and they had been sitting in a comfortable silence as Kaoru settled into the soreness of his body, turned onto his side and returning an email on his laptop. Not the most riveting postcoital activity, but business was business.

Kaoru could feel him toying with the ends of his hair, strands falling between his fingers. The motion of his own hair tickled against Kaoru’s back, an irregular motion that made him shift slightly with each brush,  but Kojiro had always liked playing with his hair when they were idle and alone so it was familiar enough to him that he simply settled against it quietly enough.

The odd thing was that Kojiro had stopped playing with his hair for approximately a minute before he spoke, but Kaoru had dismissed that as him being distracted by something on his phone, whether it be the rhythm games that he secretly liked to play or an incoming email. The odder thing yet was that Kojiro had spoke suddenly, unprompted, entirely out of nowhere, and while Kaoru was rather accustomed to Kojiro and his tendency to shift conversational topics at the drop of a hat, this was —— well. Marginally different than talking about a recipe one second and then the care of certain breeds of dogs the next.

So yes, for a moment Kaoru wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the statement, never mind the fact that Kojiro didn’t sound at all like he was joking. Kaoru turned on the bed, palm braced against his laptop to ensure that it didn’t go anywhere, needing to get a good look at Kojiro’s face, if only to give him a thoroughly unamused look for the joke.

But Kojiro’s expression gave him pause. Kaoru knew that expression.

It was the look that Kojiro got when they were younger and he was trying to master a skateboard trick. It was the look that Kojiro got when an aspect of a recipe he was creating or a particular skill in the kitchen eluded him (he still hadn’t managed to master tempering chocolate, and he had been thoroughly irate when Kaoru got it on his first try). It was the look that Kojiro got when he had made a decision about seducing someone, right before he set out to do it. It was the look that Kojiro got in the seconds before a race.

In short, it was the look Kojiro got when he was especially, stupidly, doggedly determined about something, as if through sheer determination alone he would be able to force something to bend to his will, never mind the fact that there could be dozens of other forces at play.

Something intent, intense, and all-consuming in its decisiveness, a prelude to goading, sometimes subtle, aggression. Normally this expression was relatively fleeting, quickly replaced by something jovial or sly or concentrated. Usually Kojiro’s eyebrows would unfurrow quickly, his mouth would split into a smile rather than remaining in a slight frown, the edges of his face would somehow soften. Most wouldn’t have even noticed the look at all.

Kaoru had simply known him for so long.

But here: the look didn’t leave nor recede nor shift. The seriousness that threatened to become solemn remained stubbornly on his face, even as Kaoru met his gaze, though there was a moment where something like amusement seemed to flit over his expression. Probably because Kaoru felt surprised, and imagined that he looked it, too.

“Do you have rocks for brains?” he said after far too long of a stretch of silence, wherein they simply stared at each other, and Kaoru wondered faintly what the hell he was getting himself into. Or, more appropriately, what the hell he got himself into over a decade ago when they crashed into each other and simply never left. Other than when they did, of course. “Or did you simply get bludgeoned on the head?”

“Nope,” Kojiro popped the p , because of course he did, shoulders rising and falling in a steady, sloping movement. “There’s still something rattling inside of here.”

“I would beg to differ,” Kaoru kept his voice steady, though his fingers twitched, a sign of his agitation. “Given what you just said.”

“What, that?” now Kojiro was smiling, and it was a radiant, absurdly handsome sight, though there was still an ominous seriousness that had apparently settled in his eyes to stay. “I disagree.”

“You always disagree with me,” not strictly true, but true enough.

“Let’s get married,” Kojiro repeated, and it wasn’t any less ridiculous to hear it a second time than it had been the first.

“We ——” Kaoru was aware that he was dangerously close to sputtering or stuttering or whatever the difference was between those two things, and he resented the fact that he could feel himself getting flustered over such a ridiculous, absurd, random thing as Kojiro asking him to get married, of all things. And Kaoru couldn't even convince himself that Kojiro was kidding, because he knew with an unshakeable, terrifying certainty that he wasn’t. “We aren’t even together, what is wrong with you?”

Kojiro blinked, eyebrows raising, “Do we need to be in a relationship before getting married?”

“That’s traditional ,” the statement sounded more like a question than Kaoru intended for it to.

“Since when have we been traditional?” the worst part was that Kojiro sounded genuinely curious.

“That’s not the point .” Kaoru sat up, twisting to shut his laptop.

“See, we’ve never been anything close to traditional,” Kojiro said, as if that solved everything that was wrong with this situation, and Kaoru almost wanted to scream.

Kojiro wasn’t stupid. Kaoru might insult him and liken his intelligence to that of an ape’s, but Kojiro was far from an idiot. Life would be far easier if he was . But instead, Nanjo Kojiro was a thorough, deliberate man, who considered everything and saw everything with an unerring sort of ability that was, at times, wholly uncomfortable. He had the deft ability to read situations and people with startling accuracy, and nearly every choice he made was purposeful in one way or another.

“That’s still not the point, dumbass,” Kaoru pushed his hair out of his face impatiently, sheets pooling around his hips as he looked around for his phone.

He could feel the bed shift. It was an unnecessary warning for Kojiro’s hands settling themselves on his sides, thumbs brushing against his back. Unnecessary only because Kaoru knew what to expect from Kojiro, fully expected that he would reach out to touch him, press his mouth against Kaoru’s shoulder, the warmth of his body felt more like a constant burn than anything.

“You haven’t said no,” Kojiro said against his skin.

Kaoru could feel a shiver making its way up his spine for far too may reasons, and felt irrationally angry about the entirety of this situation. He could feel his heart beat a handful of times, faster than usual. Carla was vibrating around his wrist. His jaw shifted and set. “Stop talking, you idiot.”

Fingers beneath his chin, a thumb pressed gently against it. Kojiro’s hands were so familiar to him. He had traced the lines of his hands dozens if not hundreds of times when they were teenagers, an absent thing that he had done when they were alone. He had memorized every callous that Kojiro had gained over the years. Knew the width of impossible expanse of them.

Kojiro turned his face and kissed him, open mouthed and deep and as if he had something to prove. Kaoru twisted again, felt Kojiro’s jaw beneath his hand and returned the kiss in spite of the looming haze of confusion that threatened at the edges of his awareness. Where normally their kisses would come to a natural end, or pause, Kojiro held him fast, fingers sifting through his hair as he kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him.

Quite literally breathless.

As if he had something to prove. Kojiro likely thought that he had something to prove, and Kaoru could only guess at what, precisely, it was. That they knew each other well? That they kissed the way that both of them skateboarded in spite of themselves? That they were both so utterly comfortable with each other that Kaoru wasn’t at all concerned that Kojiro had poor intentions, because there was no one in the world that he trusted more than Kojiro? Or was it something else? Something that wasn’t being said, something that, apparently, was meant to remain unsaid, only to be interpreted by the depth of this kiss, by Kojiro pressing back in for a much shorter kiss hardly a moment after they both relented.

Kaoru struggled to catch his breath once Kojiro released him, and it was at least gratifying to see that Kojiro was breathing heavier, as well. Logic demanded that of course he was, considering that he hadn’t come up for air for well over a minute either, but it was gratifying all the same.

“Are you staying over?” Kaoru said after they had simply looked at each other again for a minute, their breathing evening out over that time.

Kojiro tucked Kaoru’s hair behind his ear from where he had tousled it, thumb brushing over his cheek. He smiled, something genuine and warm and close-lipped, expression nearly gentle. “Yeah.”

Kaoru slipped out of bed to go start the bath and prepare the bathroom for both of them to clean up before bed. He was always aware of Kojiro, always aware of when he was watching him, but it seemed as though that awareness had sharpened and he could feel the almost physical weight of his eyes tacking his movements, not even enjoying the fact that there wasn’t a stitch of clothing on him. Just watching him.

There was no way that Kojiro was letting go of this topic, not legitimately or completely. Not because he didn’t respect Kaoru’s ability to say no, but because when Kojiro was set on something he would follow it through to the end. And because, Kaoru suspected, Kojiro had sensed his long moments of hesitation, the heartbeats where he had considered it, after all.

And when Kojiro dumped hot water over his head, their legs tangled because his bath wasn’t technically large enough for two grown men, let alone one of Kojiro’s size and Kaoru, but Kojiro had wedged himself into the bath anyways, laughter echoing along the tiled walls of the room and etched into his face, Kaoru found himself considering it again.

He discarded the thought. For later.

Confusion regarding the entire situation set in not long after, the way that it had been threatening to in the midst of it.

He and Kojiro had been sleeping together for some time. Years and years, since university had started. It was something of an arrangement, though Kaoru thought of it more along the lines of of facet of their friendship. In general, it was an easy extension of intimacy for them, an obvious step for their relationship to take, and while they had both (or perhaps it had just been Kaoru, he had never asked Kojiro directly) toed around the edges of a legitimate romantic relationship earlier in adulthood, their timing had been eternally off and they could never quite meet on the middle on that level.

So, they slept together whenever either of them weren’t in a serious relationship. Those occurrences were overall rare in the grand scheme of things. Kaoru had a boyfriend for a time and then another, Kojiro had a few girlfriends and one partner for an even shorter period of time collectively than Kaoru had been in a relationship, and for all that they could and did snipe at each other for their lack of luck romantically, they always ended up falling back into bed with each other within the week of whatever relationship ending. It was, in the end, the rhythm of their relationship with each other.

And when they weren’t having sex they were talking, or skateboarding, or eating at one restaurant or another, or arguing with each other pointlessly as they had always done. Their friendship was fairly well-rounded, all things considered.

But marriage? The two of them, getting married? The thought was strange and felt almost arbitrary in the grand scheme of things. Kaoru couldn’t imagine what had brought Kojiro to the conclusion that he should literally propose, and not for the first time he wondered what in the world went on in Kojiro’s head, how his thoughts worked, how he came to the conclusions that he did.

He had always wondered what it would be like to peer into Kojiro’s thoughts. Would it be all food, skateboarding, and women? Would it be frenetic, running in overdrive? Were his thoughts concrete or abstract, did they drift to and fro aimlessly or was there a direct way in which he thought about things, a consistent way that he perceived and existed in the world? It was, admittedly, a strange train of thought for him to linger on, but he still found himself wondering.

What was it that inspired Kojiro to say something out of absolutely nowhere? Kaoru was, at least, right that they weren’t even romantically involved beyond the requisite intimacy that came with knowing someone the way that they knew their individual skateboards, never mind the fact that they slept together. And, despite what Kojiro said, a romantic relationship tended to prelude a marriage as, by and large, marriage was meant to be a romantic thing in the modern age, devoid of the transactional nature that it used to have. Sometimes did have, granted.

Of course Kaoru said no, though he hadn't actually said no. He should have said no. There wasn’t a chance that he would’ve said yes —— but that was a lie, wasn’t it? He had thought about it, for a moment. Had considered it.

And damn Kojiro for that, truly.

He had put the idea in Kaoru’s mind and now Kaoru —— had it. Yes, that was a thoroughly ridiculous statement, but it still stood: Kojiro had introduced the concept into Kaoru’s mind, a concept that he had never pondered before because he had, quite literally, no actual reason to ever think about marrying Nanjo Kojiro.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t stop thinking about it, mind you. Kaoru’s mind worked in whatever way it wished and while he could get himself stuck on a thought and replay it over and over and over again in his mind like a broken record, therefore requiring Carla to pull him out of it, this was not one of those things. He simply thought about it, every now and then, on the fact that he had hesitated before telling Kojiro to stop talking. Which wasn't a no.

And when he did think about it, it consistently fell back into confusion about why Kojiro had said it at all. Kaoru hated being confused, resented not knowing things (it was a remnant from his childhood as a prodigious genius), and it meant that he was overall more irritable.

No one quite picked up on the fact that he was more easily annoyed than usual, however, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he should be offended by that.

“Let’s get ——”

Kaoru didn’t mean to effectively slap Kojiro, but there was a definite slapping noise when he covered Kojiro’s mouth with his hand, using more force than was absolutely necessary. He didn’t mean to, but he thought that it was at least somewhat owed, given the situation, but he realized the error of his actions immediately when his hand made contact with Kojiro’s face. Never mind the fact that onlookers were staring at them strangely, considering that they were in the middle of the street outside of Kaoru’s studio, he could feel Kojiro grinning against his hand. The bastard.

It had, genuinely, been an unconscious action. He had heard Kojiro’s voice say Let’s get again and there was an inkling of something far too similar to anxious panic that bloomed in his chest, and he had wanted to solve the issue. Therefore, he had, and now he was starting to feel the beginnings of bitter regret. Not because he had hit Kojiro, Kojiro definitely deserved it considering the fact that his shoulders were starting to shake with laughter, but because of how thoughtlessly he was acting.

Kaoru’s teeth grinded as he dropped his hand from Kojiro’s mouth, glowering at him. “We’re in public, you buffoon.”

That only made Kojiro’s grin widen, and Kaoru wanted to kick him in the knee like a child. “I was going to say,” he said slowly, amusement clear in every syllable that he said, “let’s get lunch over there, that restaurant around the corner we’ve been watching finally opened.”

Kaoru’s mouth opened and closed several times in succession. He felt like a fish. He also felt like an idiot, with Kojiro looking at him like that —— it had been two and a half weeks since he had suggested that they get married, and he hadn’t said a single thing about it in the interim. Not for lack of a chance to, considering that they still saw each other with regular frequency.

Kojiro was starting to look outright gleeful and triumphant, and Kaoru couldn’t stand for that.

“Get that look off of your face, you gorilla,” Kaoru pushed past him, shouldering him with more force than what was at all necessary, and felt furthermore irritated when Kojiro didn’t even have the respect to budge and, instead, laughed. “You look like more of an idiot than usual.”

Kaoru was already halfway down the street by the time Kojiro jogged to catch up with him. He was still laughing, because of course he was, and Kaoru was far too aware of the fact that much louder laughter had followed him before petering off into the quiet chuckles that he was having fits of now.

“Shut up,” Kaoru’s elbow lashed out, intent on digging itself into Kojiro’s side, and he despised the fact that Kojiro simply dodged him easily, rubbing at one of his eyes. Kaoru was uncomfortably aware of the fact that his face was outright red. He wanted to bite Kojiro’s head off.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kojiro said, even though he clearly wasn’t sorry at all.

“Don’t say a word,” he managed to step on Kojiro’s foot, at least, and felt childishly, petulantly pleased about his pained grunt.

Miraculously, Kojiro didn’t say a word, but Kaoru could see him smiling to himself. There was a definite smugness about him, but that was secondary to the blinding amusement and —— happiness. Happiness bordering on contentedness, the way that he looked when they were simply cruising around on their skateboards, enjoying the wind’s embrace.

Kojiro didn’t say anything even as they sat down at the restaurant, said nothing at all as they looked at the menus, any only spoke to order when the waitress prompted him to. Kaoru stared at him suspiciously, and he knew that his mulishness was wholly irrational. Not to mention entirely his fault.

That didn’t stop him from blaming Kojiro, anyways.

“What?” he snapped after they had sat in silence for several minutes, which were spent with Kaoru typing emails furiously on his phone and Kojiro smiling at him. Asshole.

“Nothing,” Kojiro said innocently, raising his hands as if to say he surrendered. “I just couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been thinking about it.”

“Thinking about what?” it was as ridiculous attempt at denial and they both knew it. Lying to Kojiro was always pointless.

Kojiro’s smile widened again, but not into a grin. Into something lopsided and charming. It was the smile that Kaoru liked best on him, “Getting married to me.”

Suddenly, Kaoru hated that smile. Out of spite and spite alone.

He kicked Kojiro beneath the table for good measure.

“No, I haven’t been thinking about that, you imbecile,” Kaoru’s voice was more hiss than whisper, and he could feel his ears heating up again. Carla beeped on his wrist, a familiar pattern for a heightened heart rate.

Kojiro reached down to rub his shin and hummed noncommittally, the smile still on his face. “You always make everything so difficult.” He sounded impossibly fond.

“You shouldn’t ask foolish questions.”

“Technically it wasn’t a question,” Kojiro said, because he had to be an infuriating man at all times, apparently. “But it can be phrased as one, if you want,” Kaoru didn’t have enough time to stop him and there was a table between them hindering him from physically harming Kojiro as he said, “Will you marry me, Kaoru?”

Kaoru’s face felt warm, now, rather than just his ears. He heard himself make an affronted noise, but choked it off as their waitress returned with their food, setting it down with a sunny smile which Kojiro returned. For a moment, Kaoru simply watched as Kojiro spoke, smooth and flirtatious as always, to the woman, making her flush prettily as Kojiro leaned his head into his hand.

It wasn’t a directed attack or affront or anything like that, Kojiro wasn’t petty enough for that sort of thing, and he wasn’t one to stoop to trying to make Kaoru jealous (not that there was a reason for him to be jealous). This was simply how Kojiro was, how he talked to people. There wasn’t intent behind this sort of flirtation, simply an easy level of friendliness that endeared most people to Kojiro rather quickly, despite his… everything else. Including his moderately terrifying level of intensity.

Kaoru still felt irrationally tetchy as he started eating, and he glared sullenly when Kojiro gave him a sunny smile after the woman left. “Have you found a new hire yet?” he asked.

Despite the fact that Kaoru was clearly trying to change the topic, Kojiro went along with it easily enough, and they fell into an easy conversation that didn’t at all involve marriage or any adjacent topics. By the time that they were finished eating, Kaoru had relaxed again, reasonably certain that Kojiro wouldn’t bring it up again.

But Kaoru found himself thinking about it later that day while he was working on a commission. Absent and abstract thoughts, but persistent all the same.

Damn you, Nanjo Kojiro.

Kaoru still wasn’t sure why Kojiro was suddenly set on getting married to him or what had prompted it.

No matter how he looked at the situation, regardless of how many permutations he had put the concept in, heedless of the amount of reflection that he had put towards trying to figure out when and why this change had occurred, no answer came to him. No easy or straightforward answer, that is, and while Kojiro was rarely straightforward and never easy by any means, Kaoru was well practiced with translating the majority of his actions into something more easily digestible for anyone who wasn’t proficient in, well. Kojiro-isms, so to speak.

He traced his steps again and again in his downtime, in the times where he wasn’t working or skateboarding or otherwise. When he was working on Carla or squinting at his computer or (poorly) making dinner he found himself trying to construct the scenario over and over and over again. It was never helpful, of course, and he was forced to consider it from an objective stance.

Why did people get married? Dependent on the time period, marriage was for convenience or for monetary gain or for societal standing. Granted, even in modern times marriage was sometimes for those things alone. As far as Kaoru was aware, however, there was no immediate pressure or need for Kojiro to get married, and while Kaoru was well off and his parents were wealthy, Kojiro was hardly destitute and made a frankly absurd amount of money with his restaurant, and they both had similar societal standings, at this point.

People got married for love. Or, that was what romantics said. The reality of it was that people got married and said it was for love, but in the end it was for companionship or selfish reasons or because there was a child that factored into the equation. Kojiro was hardly hurting for companionship, there absolutely wasn’t a child to factor into the situation, and as far as selfish reasons were concerned ——

In the end, Kojiro was selfless at his core. Selfless, with the compulsive desire to take care of the people around him. Kaoru broadly presumed that the wish was born from the fact that Kojiro was the older brother to twin sisters who had adored him in their youth and had clung to his legs to be carted around their home, whining at him to play with them. The Nanjo siblings were close to each other, and Kojiro’s older brother instincts tended to bleed into his other relationships over time: a subconscious sort of thing that he never really tried to embody, but he did all the same.

Kaoru doubted it was for wholly selfish reasons.

Logic demanded, therefore, that Kojiro wanted to marry him because he loved him.

Kojiro getting sidetracked wasn’t unusual. Certainly not when he had been waiting for Kaoru to meet him on the way to S. They didn’t frequently show up at the same time, but when schedules allowed and they had already been eating dinner together it wasn’t out of the norm for them to ride over together on their motorcycles and spectate, if neither of them were skating.

It took only a moment for Kaoru to find Kojiro when he returned from getting changed, still in the process of tying his hair up, considering that Kojiro was rather hard to miss, even at a distance as he peered into what looked to be a storefront window. Kaoru glided closer on his Carla skateboard, finishing the tie in his hair as he did.

He could feel his heartbeat start to rise as he realized that Kojiro was looking at the display cases of a jewelry store.

It was strange, the piercing silence that somehow echoed in his head with the realization.

Anything could’ve caught Kojiro’s eye, really. Something sparkly, something shiny, something bright. Maybe he had seen something with sapphires, his mother’s favorite gem, or pearls, which were the twins’ favorite collectively. Maybe he had seen something for himself, though Kojiro wasn’t especially given to flashy, sparkly things. Maybe he had seen something that he wanted to give to one of the women that he saw with some level of frequency, because while he wasn’t necessarily dating any of them, some of them were his friends and therefore sometimes Kojiro gave them things for their birthdays or other holidays.

But in his gut Kaoru knew that Kojiro was looking at rings. With an unshakable, impossible sort of confidence, the sort that came with knowing someone excessively well for over a decade, the result of spending hours upon hours with each other, learning each other.

“Carla,” he said beneath his breath, and he stepped off gracefully as she continued onward and crashed, painfully, against Kojiro’s ankle.

Kojiro grunted, lifting his foot and starting to hop in place, eyes watering with the impact. “What the hell, Kaoru?” he managed, glaring at him as Carla returned to him and he picked her up.

“Hurry up,” Kaoru aimed for dismissive and thought that he was fairly successful with it, purposefully not acknowledging the store that Kojiro had been peering into and instead turning to find his motorcycle. “We’re going to be late.”

For a moment it looked like Kojiro was going to say something. There was something contemplative in his expression, something considering in the way that his head tipped fractionally, jaw shifting as if his mouth was about to open. Kaoru wasn’t entirely certain what it was that he was about to say, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to hear it.

But Kojiro simply rolled his eyes and grumbled about Kaoru being insufferable and said nothing at all about the brightly lit display cases behind him which cast him in a halo of light. As if they weren’t there at all.

Kaoru was disappointed, and quickly irked by his own disappointment.

The thing was that Kojiro loving him wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Neither was the idea of Kojiro being in love with him, if there was a difference at all between the two, though Kaoru supposed that there was an intrinsic difference between platonic and romantic love. He knew that some platonic relationships became legal partnerships out of necessity but he somehow doubted that was what Kojiro was trying to insinuate, or what he had in mind.

Kaoru could simply ask him but. But .

No, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Kaoru hardly thought that Kojiro was madly in love with him, or had never thought to make that assumption in general. Kojiro was an intrinsic part of his life, he had been part of his life with relative consistency far longer than most could manage to (longer than anyone could ever try to, as well, unless they fractured in the near future), and there had never quite been anything about Kojiro’s behavior that could have hinted that he was in love with Kaoru.

Kojiro took care of him, but Kojiro took care of everyone. They spent time together, yes, and they had been attached at the hip during their adolescence and these days were pulled away from each other by the responsibilities of adulthood, but they had always been that way. Kojiro remained by his side through good times and bad, and Kaoru had done the same for him in return, but that was as a result of their friendship.

But… well. There was something.

Kaoru was woken up by the bed moving beneath him. He didn’t know exactly what time it was, but his internal clock and general level of exhaustion informed him that he hadn’t been asleep for long, and the pervasive smell of Kojiro (who smelled like spices and his favorite brand of cologne and wood) reminded him that he was sleeping in Kojiro’s bed, tonight.

He could hear Kojiro in the bathroom and the flush of a toilet and the water running as he washed his hands. He exhaled slowly, quietly, sinking further into the sheets and turning his head, burying himself in the way that Kojiro smelled, and waited to fall asleep again. Normally he’d be more agitated about waking up in the middle of the night and having to wait for unconsciousness to return to him, his anxiety tended to be worse at night and made sleeping difficult if not impossible, but there wasn’t much to be agitated about, tonight.

It was easier to sleep around Kojiro.

But sleep was hardly ever immediate for him and he listened to Kojiro move around the kitchen for several minutes before returning. Heard him walk around to Kaoru’s side of the bed and heard the soft sound of a glass being set on the bedside table. If Kaoru were to open his eyes he would see Kojiro’s knees, maybe his hands, and certainly the glass of water that he had put there for him. Kaoru was always dehydrated in the morning.

Kojiro walked back over to his side of the bed and climbed in. The mattress shifted with it, dipping as he rolled and Kaoru felt his warmth against his back. Kojiro’s hand settled gently on his hip and it would be easy to slide back into the curve of his body, but Kaoru felt too tired to move. Too many nights of poor sleep, only to finally be lying beside Kojiro again.

A mouth against his spine, where his skull met his neck, “Marry me, Kaoru.” Quiet and hushed, lingering in the room.

An answer formed in Kaoru’s mind as unconsciousness welcomed him into its arms again.

The pendant that Kojiro wore at S. It had taken Kaoru some time to recognize it for what it was; it had been a long time since he had seen it and it had been such a fleeting, brief moment that it hadn’t registered as especially significant or memorable to him at all.

They had been seventeen and at a festival. Some of their friends were nearby but they came and went, melting into the crowd at will, or maybe it was Kaoru and Kojiro who did. They skateboarded where they could and laughed when they where yelled at and weaved through the crowds on foot where traffic was too heavy. It was a warm summer night, almost cloyingly hot, and Kaoru complained at length about the heat and how his hair was sticking to the back of his neck, to which Kojiro laughed and said that he could just cut it.

“Never,” Kaoru said primly, even with his hair gathered in one hand to keep it off of the back of his neck, fanning fruitlessly at his skin.

Kojiro, who was standing behind him, didn’t say anything for a moment, before laughing. “You can’t complain about it sticking to the back of your neck, then.”

They gorged themselves on food and kicked at each other’s ankles and when Kaoru had seen a game with glimmering pieces for prizes he had grabbed Kojiro’s elbow and dragged him over, eyeing them like a magpie. Kojiro had watched bemusedly as Kaoru went three rounds with the game before finally winning, stubbornness holding out until the end, and laughed when Kaoru pointed randomly at one of the gleaming pieces presented on the wall: a simple upside down purple triangle.

“Was it worth it?” Kojiro sounded amused as they made their way back through the crowd.

“Of course,” Kaoru said airily, always objectively resentful of wasted time, and he took Kojiro’s wrist in his hand and turned his palm up, depositing the pendant in his hand and closing his fingers around it, “I got it for you, after all,” it was more joking than anything, even when he pressed Kojiro’s first to his chest and grinned up at him, and he felt as though he were glimmering in the sunset, at the way that Kojiro was looking at him with his eyes slightly widened. “Keep it safe, Kojiro.”

And then he had turned and kept walking, skateboard tucked beneath his arm.

That was the pendant that he wore every time they were at S. It could have been insignificant, it could have simply been that Kojiro had thrown the trinket into a drawer and forgotten about it until he was looking for adornments to wear to skateboard, it could’ve been just something that looked similar to what Kaoru had given him that night but was in fact something else, or it could’ve just been sheer, absolute coincidence. Any coincidence at all. It could’ve been.

But it wasn’t. Or, Kaoru didn’t think it was.

Kojiro was sentimental. And foolish. And caring. He cared about everything and put his entire being into everything as a result, pouring himself into things whether it be cooking or skateboarding or whomever required his attention at any given moment. Kaoru wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that he was a special case or carried with him a significant amount of Kojiro’s devotion, but he wasn’t oblivious enough to think that he wasn’t.

He just hadn’t thought about it before. Not truly. When he had toed around the idea of them being romantically and officially involved with each other earlier in adulthood, the idea had occurred to him. Recollections of their friendship, of their time together, how they had always fallen into line. He has considered it but summarily dismissed it because Kojiro had started seriously dating a woman who he had gotten starry eyed over, and Kaoru was amused by him.

But this… wasn’t that. Not precisely.

It was not an absolute truth of the universe the way that the laws of gravity governed physics, but now Kaoru thought that this was at least a truth: Kojiro loved him.

“Let’s race tonight,” Kojiro said suddenly when they were having lunch, sitting cross legged on the floor of Kaoru’s studio, because he was too busy to go out properly, today, and Kojiro had appeared bearing food and his company.

Kaoru swallowed his mouthful of sushi slowly, considering Kojiro’s expression. He was smiling, and watching Kaoru in return, emanating warmth. There was a piece of sushi rice beside his mouth. “Okay. The terms?”

“If I win, we can talk about marriage,” Kojiro grinned briefly at the utter lack of surprise on Kaoru’s face, though Kaoru could feel his ears start to heat again. “If you win, I’ll never bring it up again.”

It was strange. It felt strange, this odd energy in the air, the way that Kojiro was looking at him, the stakes that he proposed for the beef. This felt half-joking, whereas every other time Kojiro had mentioned this (which hadn’t been often, despite the fact that Kaoru knew that he was thinking about it, because Kojiro never let something go when he was determined) had been wholeheartedly and terrifyingly serious. In this moment, he couldn’t quite read what was going through Kojiro’s mind.

“Deal,” he said.

“Deal,” Kojiro echoed with a dip of his head.

Kaoru felt the sudden need to kiss Kojiro, so he did, leaning over and pressing their mouths together. Kojiro tasted like soy sauce and ginger and fish and while he seemed surprised for a moment at the sudden affection, he returned the kiss in time, brushing his thumb along Kaoru’s jaw. His spine seemed to shiver at the touch. He brushed the piece of sushi rice off of Kojiro’s face, and felt more than heard him laugh.

They didn’t arrive together, that night, and they were slated for the end of the races, because they had declared theirs at effectively the last possible second. As was standard for them, they stood together commenting on ongoing beefs, criticizing some and remarking on the abilities of others. They spoke to each other and fought per usual, but that oddity that had lingered at lunch remained where it had dissipated after they had made out on the floor of his studio for far too long, as if they were adolescents avoiding schoolwork.

By the time that they were taking their places, Kaoru felt a restless energy itching just beneath the surface of his skin. It was irritating and thoroughly unhelpful, bordering on enraging. He didn’t have to look at Kojiro to know that he was being watched, but he did anyways.

“Good luck, Cherry,” Kojiro said, quiet beneath the muffling din of S.

“See you at the bottom, Joe.”

It occurred to Kaoru halfway down that this beef wasn’t… unnecessary, exactly, but it felt somehow insignificant. There was still the rush of adrenaline and the intrinsic excitement that came with skateboarding down this winding and highly dangerous path, that was something that he could never quite rid himself of even after all of these years, but the exhilaration seemed somehow muted. He hadn’t argued with the terms that Kojiro had set because it was somewhat anxiety inducing to know that Kojiro could ask him about marriage at any given time, and because he had felt as though he were at an impasse with himself for longer than he would like to admit, regarding how to approach the subject. Kaoru preferred a direct approach, to be as blunt as he could feasibly be about things, but when it came to this he hesitated. He didn’t know why he was hesitating. Why he kept hesitating.

So if he lost, they would simply have to talk about it. But if he won, did he truly never want Kojiro to bring up the subject again?

Close to the end. Careening towards it, heart racing and crouched low on and board and he realized two things at once: he didn’t want Kojiro to never bring up marriage again, and Kojiro was planning on losing.

Stupid. Idiot. Dumbass. Bastard.

He acted more on instinct than anything, not quite considering as he lost key momentum just near the finish line and Kojiro rushed past him, unable to stop before crossing that threshold whole seconds before Kaoru did. Kojiro was surprised, he could tell by the tension that suddenly appeared over his shoulders, the way he stopped and didn’t get off of his skateboard immediately, how slowly he turned around to look at Kaoru.

Everyone was talking. It was always so loud at the top and at the bottom, a crush of noise pressing in at all sides, and quiet only in the middle where there was the rush of wind and the bracing sense of isolation. There were cheers and shouts and jeers but Kaoru only had eyes for Kojiro. Always, always. And Kojiro only had eyes for him. With a lurch, Kaoru started forward and grabbed his elbow and started to drag him out of the factory, off to a dark expanse of trees where the noise was muffled, even as people shouted after them, wanting to congratulate Joe or ask Cherry what had went wrong, it looked like he had this one in the bag, where had all that momentum gone?

That was secondary. Not important, for the moment.

When they were alone, or as close to alone as they could get at S, Kaoru didn’t let go of Kojiro’s arm and instead just turned to face him. Kojiro still looked vaguely surprised, but it was intermingled with suspicion and a sense of wariness that Kaoru hated.

“Why do you want to marry me?” he should’ve asked ages ago, should’ve asked the first time that Kojiro had suggested that they get married. It was the logical thing to ask, regardless of how caught off guard he was, regardless of how confused he had been and had continued to be in the aftermath, but there wasn’t any sense in dwelling on the fact that he should’ve asked when he was asking now.

Kojiro stared at him for several long moments before his weight shifted and his free hand lifted to rub the back of his neck. He looked disgruntled for a moment, “Why do you think I want to marry you, genius?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question, idiot,” he returned with venom. They both knew that was one of Kaoru’s pet peeves.

“Why are you asking a stupid question?” Kojiro looked genuinely irritated, now.

“Because I clearly want to know the answer, you gormless gorilla,” Kaoru squeezed Kojiro’s elbow and felt, absurdly, like he was pleading with him.

Kojiro’s face shifted and he looked as though he were gritting his teeth or chewing on his words before he sighed, and the frustration melted into a slight smile that carried such immense sadness and Kaoru never wanted to see that expression on his face for as long as they lived. “I want to be with you for the rest of our lives, of course.”

It felt like a blow to his sternum followed by a swift kick just beneath his diaphragm; he felt breathless with those words. Like when Kojiro had held him and kissed him like he had something to prove. Kaoru found that he was just as confused now as then, and he was suddenly blindingly certain that these weren’t two separate things at all. “And you jumped straight to marriage ?”

Kojiro shrugged and laughed quietly, pulling his elbow from Kaoru’s grip, “Forget it, Kaoru. Let’s forget about the terms.”

“What?” Kaoru didn’t have any right to be quite so perplexed or caught off guard by this turn of events considering he knew that Kojiro was, for once in his entire life, about to lose purposefully. Yet he found that he was, anyways.

“I’ll drop it, promise,” Kojiro stepped back through the trees and Kaoru felt so thoroughly dumbfounded that he didn’t think to stop him until he was already walking and didn’t manage to point out that there wasn’t anything to drop, considering that Kojiro had barely ever brought it up at all. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore,” said over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

Kaoru stood there.

This was something that he hadn’t expected. Something that he hadn’t foreseen, something that even Carla wouldn’t have been able to decode for him. This was Kojiro giving up, something that he quite literally never did, and it was inspiring such immense confusion in Kaoru because he had never, in all of their years of friendship, seen Kojiro simply… surrender. Give up. Whatever it was that you wanted to call it. When he set his mind to something he pursued it, unless given an absolute and unabiding no .

Kaoru hadn’t quite said no, but was a lack of answer a rejection, as well? Well. Certainly, it could be.

Had Kojiro come to accept that no? Or had he simply decided to drop it because he wanted to focus his attentions on other things? Why had he jumped straight to marriage, if he was in love with Kaoru, rather than suggesting that they simply try to be together properly?

Though, if Kaoru really thought about it, being together romantically wouldn’t be at all different from how they already existed with each other and around each other and even independent of each other. They saw each other several times per week, talked to each other almost daily, ate lunch or dinner or both together more often than not, shared the same hobby and thus spent even more time together, knew each other’s families, and had enthusiastic sex on a highly regular basis. In all technicality and by all logical rules of interhuman relationships, he and Kojiro were already in a relationship.

… Oh.

Was that why Kojiro had jumped straight to marriage? Or, rather, to proposing? Likely because he was aware that Kaoru preferred for things to be straightforward, for topics to be breached without prelude or hesitation. It was, absurdly, logical for them to skip straight to marrying each other, if they simply wanted to remain together for the rest of their lives. Uncomplicated and blunt. It was just that when it had come to Kojiro, Kaoru had hesitated, strangely, unable to quite get his footing or fully conceptualize of the pair of them in a romantic relationship when the chance had been presented, and then it had fallen away. That had been perfectly alright for Kaoru, all things considered, but his hesitance had been unusual.

Was it because Kojiro had hoped? Had wondered if Kaoru had seen the signs, had known and acknowledge him and their relationship and the undoubtedly intertwined and absolute nature of it? Kaoru supposed that he had, in a way, in shades and by degrees. The problem was, or maybe it was less a problem and more secondary to how they existed with each other, so much of their relationship had remained unchanged throughout their adult lives, beyond physical intimacy. And, when he was an adolescent, Kaoru hadn’t been stupid nor oblivious (he had, at least, known that Kojiro was attracted to him) but he certainly hadn’t noticed that Kojiro had fallen in love with him.

Strange, how years removed and looking back in hindsight, he could pinpoint the exact moment that Kojiro had fallen in love with him with unerring accuracy, and see that he had loved him all along. How strange, indeed, time and distance was.

(It was the phenomenon of being so close to something that you lose the details, or knowing something so well and so confidently that you don’t bother to look twice. There was no discernable change, no absolute difference, nothing which indicated that there had been a shift, because there hadn’t been a shift at all. Kaoru wasn’t nearly as adept at reading Kojiro as Kojiro was at reading him, but he had known him for so long and so well that there wasn’t room for doubt and he had never bothered to adjust his gaze accordingly for how close they were. There wasn’t a reason to, after all, was there?

Kaoru wondered how Kojiro looked at him when he wasn’t looking. Wondered if it carried the same gentleness and affection that he sometimes had on his face when he caught the tailend of a stare, turning in the midst of talking aimlessly about something or other only to see Kojiro and meet his gaze and watch, transfixed, as one expression melted into another. He had caught it only a handful of times and had attributed it to the long worn affection that they held for each other, but.

It was the sort of look that could cause someone to fall madly in love.)

Things remained the same. They still ate lunch together, occasionally bombarded by the gaggle of teenagers (and one fully grown adult) that seemed to have attached themselves to their side, rather like an overgrown piece of moss, and they ate dinner together. They commented on happenings at S and talked to each other about their days, their careers, their families. They continued to fall into bed with each other, and Kaoru still slept most soundly when he was falling asleep beside Kojiro.

Life settled as if it weren’t unsettled at all, and maybe the truth of it was that it hadn’t been unsettled at any point in time, precisely, but it was as though nothing had happened and Kojiro had never (again, literally) proposed. The ease with which Kojiro continued onward, and Kaoru simply followed suit, less because Kaoru had always followed suit and more because in this, he felt it was only appropriate to follow Kojiro’s lead for now, because he had started it and seemed intent to finish it. I’ll drop it, promise.

And he had. Marriage wasn’t brought up.

But Kaoru wondered.

He wondered and wondered and wondered, he thought about it intermittently throughout his day and abstractly while he was around Kojiro and definitively when he kissed him, hands in his hair, because Kojiro had always liked his hair and Kaoru had always liked the attention. They were together but not and did the fact that they weren’t together matter, in the end? What would change about their lives, beyond a vow and a promise and maybe, perhaps, living together? They could make promises to each other and live together, regardless.

Kaoru supposed that he wasn’t against the idea of marriage. It hadn’t necessarily been part of his concrete plans for his future (not the way that it had been for his parents), but he didn’t think himself wholly against it. In fact, the only person he could imagine himself marrying was Kojiro. He wondered if that was because they had been so close for most of their lives by this point or if it was because Kaoru was in love with him.

It was probably both.

So when a gleaming display case caught his eye while he was walking down the street, he walked inside.

Sleeping was easier when he was with Kojiro, but it wasn’t seamless. Usually he woke up first, just before the sun rose, which was hell on his body when it was a morning after S, but it was what his body and mind demanded. Extricating himself from Kojiro’s grip always proved to be difficult, but the man hated waking up early, citing that was the reason why he refused to open a bakery despite highly enjoying making sweets (inability to temper chocolate aside), therefore it wasn’t impossible and while Kojiro generally grumbled and complained, he always fell back asleep immediately after Kaoru climbed out of bed and put on his glasses.

Regardless of if they were at his own place or Kojiro’s, there was his favorite brand of both coffee and tea waiting for him. This morning they were at Kojiro’s, and while Kaoru was a terrible cook he could manage to make good coffee, and he watched the sun rise from the kitchen as he waited for it to brew. It was quiet and beautiful and he could see that his Carla skateboard was fully charged by the front door, propped on the wall beside Kojiro’s.

He took the hot mugs back to the bedroom as the sky was transitioning from yellow to blue and he set one on the beside table, keeping the other in his hand as he tucked his legs beneath the covers again, leaning back against the headboard with his tablet in hand to continue reading the book that he was nearly done with. Kojiro snuffled in his sleep and shifted closer to Kaoru, slinging his left arm over him and pressing his face against his hip.

It was a thoroughly domestic scene. Domestic enough that it toed the line of frank absurdity, but Kaoru kept drinking his coffee slowly as he read and the sun kept rising.

Kojiro started to wake up properly some twenty minutes later when Kaoru had nearly finished his coffee and he was reaching the end of the chapter. Kojro was mumbling something against his skin and Kaoru glanced down at him, before finishing the cup entirely and setting it and his tablet aside. Instead, he took Kojiro’s hand in his, tangling their fingers together as his free hand traced along Kojiro’s musculature, the veins that were clear against his skin.

“Morning,” Kojiro managed after a while, jaw cracking around a yawn as he bumped his forehead against Kaoru’s hip before peering up at him tiredly. There was that look, changed only slightly by lethargy: his softened eyes and his gentle mouth and affection brimming. Anyone would fall in love seeing it.

“Morning,” Kaoru said, thumb pressing against Kojiro’s pulse as he tilted their hands.

Sunlight glinted, and it took a minute for Kojiro’s sleep fogged mind to catch it, though Kaoru could see the precise moment when he noticed. It would have been hard for anyone to miss if they were looking as intently at him as Kaoru was, considering that his eyes focused and then quickly widened as his mind processed that he was seeing a simple band on Kojiro’s left hand. In almost any other situation it would have been hilarious to watch Kojiro sit up quickly, nearly getting tangled in the sheet as Kaoru tightened his grip on Kojiro’s left hand, and saw his gaze drop to an identical band on Kojiro’s hand.

Utter silence.

Kaoru supposed that he should feel some sense of panic or perhaps anxiety about it, but he didn’t. Instead, he felt an absolute and implacable calm, pressing their palms together and waiting.

“Kaoru?” Kojiro said quietly, wondrously, eyes wide and expression caught between confusion and cautious joy, squeezing Kaoru’s hand in his. It was something tender and breakable, something awe-inspiring and terrible, something that Kaoru felt abruptly and intimately possessive of. That look. The raise of his brows, the gentle part of his mouth. Kojiro.

“Kojiro,” Kaoru smiled, and felt a strange, misplaced sense of embarrassment creep up on him. But he was here and they were here and there was no sense in trying to avoid it anymore, given the fact that he had made the decision that he couldn’t and therefore wouldn’t. “Let’s get married.”

It was so easy to say. Had it been this easy for Kojiro to say?

The smile that stretched across Kojiro’s face was more beautiful than dawn breaking over the horizon, lovelier than a sunset on the beach. He untangled their hands and took Kaoru’s face in his and kissed him, a slow and lingering and chaste kiss, one followed by another followed by another followed by another. “Kaoru,” Kojiro said against his mouth before leaning back, and for a moment he looked concerned, “are you sure?”

Kaoru’s heart felt heavy. His chest felt impossibly full.

“Of course,” there were few things that Kaoru had been more sure of in his life, in truth. Skateboarding and technology and calligraphy and Kojiro. “I love you, Kojiro.”

Kojiro grinned and then laughed and then kissed him again, taking Kaoru tightly into his arms and twisting them so that they fell into the sheets, and Kaoru couldn’t help but laugh into the kiss, too, wrapping his legs around Kojiro’s waist and kissing him again and again and again, feeling impossibly, utterly content as Kojiro whispered those words against his skin in repetition, as if he were pressing them into him, as if he were leaving a tattoo, so that Kaoru would never forget.

As if he ever would.

coda:

“When should we get married?” Kojiro said against his jaw.

Immediately: “Next spring,” Kaoru traced his fingers down Kojiro’s spine, taking occasional detours to trace where he had dragged deep pink lines with his nails. Accidental markings, were anyone to ask, but they both knew the truth. “It will be difficult to get married during cherry blossom season, but I have some connections.”

Kojiro laughed again, sweet and soft. “So soon?”

He pinched his side none too gently. “Why wait?”

“Ow, geez you maniac —— alright, I see your point,” he set his teeth into Kaoru’s neck as retribution and got a small smack for his troubles. “Small wedding, right?”

“Just your family, probably the other idiots since they’ll show up anyways,” Kaoru sighed as Kojiro laughed again, body shaking against his. “Inviting my parents would only be polite,” Kojiro made an aborted irate noise, arms tightening around him and Kaoru squeezed him in return. “Several of our other friends… and that’s all.”

“Sounds good,” it was more of a sigh than anything, but Kaoru knew that it was a contented noise from Kojiro, rather than a disappointed one. “Traditional dress?”

“For the ceremony. You can wear what you wish, after. Within reason.”

A laugh. “How kind of you, Kaoru..”

They were quiet again, simply enjoying each other’s company and presence, and Kaoru stared at the ring on his own finger and how it caught the early morning sunlight. He took Kojiro’s hand that he knew so well and pressed his mouth against his palm, and then the base of his ring finger feeling the smooth metal beneath his lips, and watched Kojiro watch him with an intent, hungry gaze. Their fingers tangled again. “Whose last name are we taking?”

“Nanjo-Sakurayashiki?” because of course Kojiro would suggest that first. It sounded ridiculous.

“Sakurayashiki-Nanjo.” That sounded equally as ridiculous, if not more.

“Nanjo Kaoru sounds good.”

“Sakurayashiki Kojiro sounds better.”

Silence.

“We are not settling this with a beef, idiot,” Kaoru kicked Kojiro’s calf, or rather bumped his heel against it with slightly more force than a bump.

“I wasn’t thinking that, you raging lunatic!”

(Nanjo Kaoru did sound good, not that he was going to admit it easily or quickly.)