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By the end of the division rap battles, Samatoki and Ichiro had resolved just about all the problems between them. They were friends again. Tight, even. Samatoki had gotten used to seeing Ichiro a few times a month, just to hang out and grab food together.
However, there was now a brand new problem at play.
Ichiro had grown up.
And he'd grown up so damn well.
Somehow, at some point, without Samatoki's noticing, Ichiro had become the most unfathomably sexy motherfucker Samatoki had ever laid eyes on in his life.
Which was fine. It was great. Samatoki was happy for him. Sexy, muscular arms, well-toned calves, and an honest-to-god six pack couldn't have happened to a better guy. It wasn't like Samatoki was jealous or anything.
Well, maybe he was a bit. Who wouldn't be jealous of a body that looked like it had been chiseled by the God of Thirst Traps?
But, no. The problem was much more dire than that.
Because Samatoki wasn't just jealous.
He was pining.
Ichiro wasn't just sexy, after all. He was also a ridiculously good guy. The sort that treasured family and helped little old ladies cross the street. The sort that Samatoki could really respect.
The sort that Samatoki could really fall for.
Therein lay the problem. If Samatoki had just thought Ichiro was sexy, he could've jerked off about it and got on with his life. But he wanted Ichiro as much more than a masturbatory fantasy.
He wanted him, disgustingly enough, as a… a boyfriend. A partner.
He wanted him, all of him.
What he didn't want was to lose the friendship they'd reclaimed from the jaws of women and deceit. What he didn't want was to ruin a good thing just because his dick and, unfortunately, his heart were greedy for more.
But when he went out for a walk with Ichiro and saw Ichiro free a duck that had gotten a length of fishing wire tangled around its bill, he realized he was ready to risk it all.
There was, of course, one thing he would never risk.
And that was Nemu's happiness.
Before he could embark on the mortifying quest of pursuing Yamada Ichiro, he had to make sure the road was free and clear. He knew that Nemu and Ichiro were getting along pretty well these days, since they'd started attending the same university, and he was also pretty sure they were getting along in a purely platonic sort of way—but he had to be certain.
If Nemu had feelings for Ichiro, Samatoki would back the hell off without hesitation. Even if her feelings went unrequited, Samatoki would never hurt her by going after a guy she liked.
Samatoki wasn't totally sure how to go about finding out whether or not she liked Ichiro, though. He didn't want to embarrass her, but subtlety had never been his strongest suit. He would probably only embarrass them both if he tried to tiptoe around the matter.
So, in the end, he decided on a direct approach.
Nemu was currently living on campus, because Samatoki had insisted on making sure she got the full college experience that he'd never had, but she often came and stayed with Samatoki over the weekends.
She was working on a paper at the dining table when Samatoki came over and lightly rapped his knuckles against the wood to get her attention.
"Got a question for you," Samatoki said.
"Hm?"
"Do you have a crush on Ichiro?"
"No," Nemu answered good-naturedly, without looking up from her laptop screen. "Do you?"
Samatoki cleared his throat and looked away.
And at that, Nemu did whip her head up to stare at him with a look of sheer delight dawning on her face.
"Do you?!"
Just like that, Samatoki got not only a green light to pursue Ichiro, but an overenthusiastic wingman as well.
"Do not talk to him about this," Samatoki warned. Nemu seemed so excited about the prospect of him potentially not dying alone that she was all but bouncing off the walls; he wouldn't put it past her to just confess to Ichiro on his behalf, which was absolutely not what he wanted.
Nemu nodded excitedly and mimed zipping her lips. "He won't hear it from me, nii-sama. But I hope he'll hear it from you. Sooner rather than later. You're not getting any younger, you know."
"I'm twenty-eight, not decrepit," he protested.
Still, he knew she had a point. Dawdling wasn't going to do him any good. He wasn't the only guy in Japan with eyes; if he'd noticed how unbelievably hot Ichiro had gotten, other people were sure to have noticed as well.
If he was going to make a move on Ichiro, the sooner the better.
He just needed to figure out how to make that move.
A few days later, Nemu was the one who hatched a plan. It was an incredibly unhinged plan, but Samatoki was getting a little desperate since summer was coming on and Ichiro was starting to work a series of very tight and flattering tank tops back into his wardrobe.
"You should buy a house," Nemu said. She passed her phone to Samatoki and added, "This house."
Samatoki frowned at the pictures attached to the listing she'd found. "You want me to buy you this house? It's a piece of shit."
Nemu shook her head. "It's not for me, it's for you and your ulterior motives. And it's perfect precisely because it's a piece of shit."
"Hey, language."
She rolled her eyes and took back her phone. "It's a fixer-upper, one that needs plenty of work before it'll be liveable. Work that can be done yourself, if you have the help of someone handy. You know someone who's pretty handy, don't you?"
Ah.
Samatoki could more or less see where she was going with this now. "You want me to buy this house so that I have an excuse to ask Ichiro around more often?"
"Do you have a better plan?" Nemu shot back.
He did not.
And so, Samatoki bought a house.
It was a rather large house, situated in a wooded area halfway between Yokohama and Ikebukuro. Samatoki was pretty sure Nemu had taken the location into account when choosing a listing to show him.
The property wasn't terribly expensive, at least not by Samatoki's standards, but it was pretty damn significant as far as impulsive purchases went.
When he invited Ichiro over to take a look at it, Ichiro walked through with him before stopping back on the front porch and giving Samatoki an incredulous look.
"Why did you buy such a shithole?" he asked.
Samatoki nearly grimaced. That was a pretty good question, and he hadn't thought to concoct an answer in advance. Ichiro had gotten really good at rendering him incapable of having very many thoughts at all.
"Liked the location," Samatoki said, which wasn't technically a lie. "Figured it'd be a fun project."
Ichiro looked over his shoulder at the house again. "Big project."
Samatoki gave a curt hum of agreement.
"You could probably use some help," Ichiro said.
Samatoki snuck a glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but looked away just as quickly because Ichiro had crossed his arms over his chest, which made both his arms and pecs look far too nice.
After a moment, Ichiro gave a decisive nod. "I'll bring over my tools."
Ichiro refused to accept any payment for his help, but he did let Samatoki feed him and buy any additional tools or materials he needed to work on the house.
"Seriously, it's fine," he said when Samatoki tried to insist on actually compensating him for his time. "I like working with my hands, anyway."
That was his usual answer, and it was always enough to distract Samatoki from the subject of pay. Because Samatoki would look at Ichiro's hands, and that was it—he wouldn't be able to focus on anything else for the next three hours.
Samatoki did, at least, try to help with the repairs. Ichiro was the obvious expert here, but he always managed to find something for Samatoki to do, even if that was just passing him tools while he had his upper body shoved under the kitchen sink.
And what a nice body it was. Samatoki could only say he tried to help with the repairs, because really he spent an egregiously large portion of his time with Ichiro too distracted to do anything productive at all.
"What happens after we finish?" Ichiro asked one day, when they wrapped up their work on the downstairs bathroom and retired to the backyard to have some beers in the hammock Samatoki had strung up between two trees.
Samatoki looked over at him. He got so caught up in admiring the strong line of Ichiro's jaw that he forgot the question. "Huh?"
Ichiro nodded at the house that stood before them. "Are you going to move in or flip it or…?"
"Oh." Samatoki looked over at the house as well. It wouldn't be very practical to live there, with his work being in Yokohama, but he did find himself liking the place more and more. "I hadn't thought that far. Don't plan on selling it, though."
"No?"
Samatoki could feel that Ichiro's gaze had drifted over to him. He shook his head. "Nah. We've put so much work into it. It's ours now."
They fell into a companionable silence for a long while, with only the sound of cicadas filling up the balmy night air.
"Ours, huh?" Ichiro murmured. He quieted for another moment, like he was savoring the taste of the word on his tongue. "Ours."
Samatoki did nothing to deny it.
They didn't meet at the house every day. Ichiro had other jobs, and Samatoki had his family to run. But they met up at least once a week, often more, to do a bit of work on the house. Though, really, sometimes it was just twenty minutes of work followed by a whole night of hanging out, watching movies or anime on the nice new couch Samatoki had bought for the place.
It was only after two months of this that Samatoki realized he no longer knew what the next step of the plan was meant to be.
Maybe he'd never known.
He bought a house. A rundown house. One that he and Ichiro could work on together.
Then what?
He thought about asking Nemu, but talking to his little sister even once about a crush he had on a boy had already been enough of an ordeal. He wasn't all that keen on going through it again.
He was going to have to ask Ichiro out. Or, at the very least, he was going to have to ask Ichiro if he maybe wanted to make out.
But how?
When?
To start answering those questions, Samatoki had to figure out what the hell he was waiting for first. Was he hoping some perfect, grossly romantic moment would come by? Maybe. Was he looking for Ichiro to give him some sign that the attraction he felt was mutual? Possibly.
Or was he just being a little bitch about this?
If he were to be perfectly honest with himself, that was the most likely answer. In which case, he just had to get over himself and quit being such a coward.
And he would.
Really, he would.
He just needed one more push.
It was only another week before he got that push.
And it came in the form of Ichiro taking off his shirt.
Samatoki had seen Ichiro shirtless plenty of times before. They'd gone to the beach a few times just that summer, usually with their younger siblings, and it wasn't uncommon for Ichiro to shower at the house after working up a sweat while fixing something or the other.
So Samatoki was very well-acquainted with the sight of Ichiro's bare chest. He knew the exact shape and color of Ichiro's nipples, and he could describe Ichiro's criminally nice abs to a police sketch artist in such perfect detail that the result would be an astoundingly accurate depiction of said abs.
But he'd never actually seen Ichiro take off his shirt before.
It was a goddamn spectacle.
The whole thing couldn't have taken more than two seconds, but it seemed to unfold before Samatoki in slow motion.
They'd just finished work for the day. Samatoki had been on his way back from the kitchen, with a bottle of water for each of them, when it happened.
Ichiro lifted both arms and fisted his hands in the back of his shirt, low enough that it immediately made Samatoki wonder if he'd severely underestimated Ichiro's flexibility in his nightly fantasies.
Then Ichiro tugged his shirt up over his head, mussing up his hair along the way. He let the shirt hang from the crooks of his elbows for a moment while slicking back his hair, before turning to Samatoki.
"Oh, thanks." He flashed Samatoki that lopsided, puppy-dog grin of his as he held out a hand for the water. "I'm gonna grab a shower. Unless you wanted to go first?"
Samatoki was so gone that he couldn't even remember what a shower was. The image of Ichiro pulling off his shirt replayed in his mind on an infinite loop. He wanted to see Ichiro do that again. He wanted to see Ichiro get out of the rest of his clothes. He wanted to finally touch and taste that sweat-slicked skin that had been taunting him for so, so long.
"Samatoki?" Ichiro walked a few steps closer and waved a hand in his face. "You okay? You're really red."
Much later, after the fog in his head cleared away, Samatoki would come to regret what he did next. Because it wasn't sexy, it wasn't suave. It was even a little bit mean.
But that last push he'd been waiting for had finally come, and it had sent him hurtling so far away from rationality that nothing could have stopped him from dropping the two bottles of water he held, grabbing hold of Ichiro's hand, and dragging it even closer to his own face.
Then he just…
He just tilted his head and bit down, hard, on the inside of Ichiro's wrist.
Samatoki would never be able to explain why he did that, not to Ichiro and not even to himself. Of all the countless ways he'd considered confronting Ichiro about his preposterous hotness, Samatoki hadn't ever consciously thought biting him would be the right move.
It just happened.
Seeing Ichiro take off his shirt in such a casually sensual way had sent all the blood in Samatoki's body shooting straight into his cock. There was nothing left to power the part of his brain that was in charge of making good decisions.
Ichiro yelped when Samatoki's teeth clamped down on his wrist. Samatoki hadn't bitten him hard enough to break skin, but his teeth would certainly leave a livid red mark. As though to apologize, he (still unthinkingly) laved his tongue over the spot he'd bitten.
Then (finally thinking again) he jolted back and dropped Ichiro's hand like it had burned him. HIs own eyes were a little wild when he lifted his gaze to find Ichiro looking back at him, dazed and confused.
Which was fair.
Samatoki was pretty damn confused too.
What the hell had he just done?
"Samatoki," Ichiro began haltingly. "Did I… do something to make you mad?"
"You're really hot," Samatoki blurted out. "You know that, right?"
Ichiro blinked, then looked down at himself like he had to check. "I mean, I'm not one to brag, but…"
"You're so hot it would be stupid if you didn't admit it," Samatoki went on, unable to stop himself now. "It wouldn't even be modesty, just idiocy."
Ichiro blinked once more. "I can't tell if you're complimenting me or insulting me right now."
"I'm—"
Samatoki's head was swimming. He felt like he was about to combust. So maybe it was no wonder that what spilled past his lips was far grander than anything he'd planned to say.
"I'm in love with you."
Then, because that felt like far too much, he coughed and looked away and added, "Asshole."
Ichiro was still staring at him; Samatoki could feel it even as he bent down to pick up the bottles of water he'd dropped. He felt Ichiro's eyes follow him as he turned to set those bottles down on a nearby windowsill, and he knew Ichiro would still be looking at him, probably with utter bafflement, when he turned back around.
But he was only half-right on that count.
When Samatoki turned back around, he found Ichiro looking at him with what could only be described as the light of the sun in his eyes. There was unbridled joy and relief there, warmth and affection. And there was also a lower, hotter flame that burned the way Samatoki did whenever he stared at Ichiro a little too long.
"Does that mean…" A coy, alluring smile touched Ichiro's lips. Combined with the fact that he still wasn't wearing a shirt, it was enough to make Samatoki take a step towards him, as though drawn in by an invisible hand.
Ichiro made that pull visible and real when he reached out and drew Samatoki closer by the hips. "Does that mean I can ask you to shower with me?"
Samatoki suddenly found himself in direct contact with Ichiro's chest, which was every bit as nice and solid as it looked. So it took him a moment to even process Ichiro's words, much less respond to them.
"God," he groaned, shivering as he finally, finally got his hands on Ichiro's stupidly broad shoulders. "Yeah. Ask me. Right now."
They pushed and pulled each other into the bathroom and stumbled under the spray of the shower before the water even had time to warm up. They left their clothes littered all over the floor along the way; by the time Samatoki shoved Ichiro up against the cold, tiled wall, they were wearing nothing but the reddened imprints of each other's teeth on their skin.
They kissed and touched each other like it was their last day on earth, with need and urgency that only seemed to grow with every passing minute. Once the hot water ran out again, leaving cold trails sluicing down their skin, Ichiro lifted Samatoki into his arms and carried him back out to the couch where they stayed plastered to each other, until they were messed up enough to need another shower.
The sun set and started to rise again before they'd had enough.
Samatoki panted, chest heaving. He was lying flat on his back on the couch and feeling like he might never be able to move again. Ichiro was still straddling his lap, from where he'd ridden Samatoki to his fifth… or sixth orgasm of the night.
"Finally," Ichiro whispered against Samatoki's lips as he leaned down to kiss him again. They'd kissed so much that Samatoki's jaw was aching. "I thought you were just going to ogle me until we died."
Samatoki huffed a laugh that Ichiro drank up. "Oh, you noticed? Then, if you're so smart, why the hell didn't you say anything?"
Ichiro hummed and finally rolled off Samatoki with a wince. The couch wasn't nearly large enough for two grown men to cuddle comfortably on it, but it was long, so Ichiro slid down a little and settled between Samatoki's legs, resting his head against Samatoki's thigh and not seeming to care that Samatoki's cock (which was too thoroughly spent to get any funny ideas by now) was all but nestled in his hair.
"I wasn't sure," he admitted. "I had a feeling you thought I was hot, but I didn't know if that was all. And I didn't want us to be just sex."
Samatoki shifted a little to stuff a throw pillow under his head, so that he could better look at Ichiro with his brows raised. "You couldn't tell I liked your dumb, sexy ass?"
"I knew you liked me," Ichiro said. "As a friend. But you're… you're really cool! I couldn't tell if I was just your hot friend, who would only ever be your hot friend, or if you saw any boyfriend potential in me."
"You're getting really comfortable with calling yourself hot," Samatoki pointed out.
Ichiro grinned and grazed his teeth over a hickey he'd left on Samatoki's inner thigh. "Well, I am. A guy I know who has really good taste told me so."
Samatoki snorted, but in a way that did nothing to hide how fond he was of the little brat who seemed determined to mark up every last inch of his skin. "I feel kind of bad, then," he said softly, reaching down and running a hand through Ichiro's hair. "I do think you're hot, and I wanna have sex with you five times a day, every day, for the rest of our lives."
Ichiro laughed as he tipped his head up to nose at the inside of Samatoki's wrist. "Ambitious."
"But I'm not looking for just sex either," Samatoki continued. "That's kinda been all we've done, though. Feel like I should've at least taken you out to dinner first."
"You've taken me out to plenty of dinners," Ichiro said. "Besides, it hasn't been just sex."
Samatoki made an inquisitive noise.
"You're in love with me," Ichiro said, grinning up at Samatoki. "You said so yourself."
Samatoki groaned and threw an arm over his eyes. "Yeah, well. You're in love with me too."
Ichiro hadn't said it. They hadn't actually talked much that night after Samatoki's spontaneous confession, with how busy they were using their mouths for other… activities. But Samatoki knew he was right about this; the only thing he didn't know was how he ever could have doubted it before.
"Yeah," Ichiro murmured. He shifted to lean over Samatoki, kissing a trail up Samatoki's neck, over his jaw, and to his lips. "Yeah, I am. I have been. For a pretty long time."
Samatoki cupped Ichiro's face with his hands. He could tell from the depth of emotion in Ichiro's eyes, and the gravity in his tone of voice, that when Ichiro spoke of a long time, he meant it. Maybe it had been a year or two, or maybe it had all five years that they'd known each other.
It didn't matter.
Samatoki wouldn't make him wait any more.
Once they finished all the major repairs on the house, Samatoki did end up moving in. With Ichiro.
They had a little housewarming party where Jiro and Saburo both separately pulled Samatoki aside and threatened to end him if he ever hurt Ichiro again. Jyuto, in true Jyuto fashion, very publicly told Ichiro he could do better, which led to him and Samatoki hurling insults at each other for the better part of fifteen minutes until their respective boyfriends picked them up and carried them to opposite sides of the room.
Nemu stayed back to help clean up after the party, even though Samatoki told her she didn't have to. But since she insisted, Samatoki took the opportunity to ask, "What exactly was the plan, anyway?"
"Hm?" Nemu blinked up at him, her eyes big and pretty and innocent.
"I buy this house," Samatoki said. "It's a fixer-upper. Ichiro comes over to help with the fixing-up. What was supposed to happen after that? I get that it's kinda late to be asking now, but the plan was for me to do… what, exactly?"
"Oh." Nemu smiled serenely and shook her head. "It wasn't a plan for you, it was a plan on you."
Samatoki furrowed his brow. "What?"
"I just figured," Nemu began, "if you saw a lot of Ichiro-kun and his muscles at work, you would eventually give in to your… primal instincts, let's say. You were the only thing holding yourself back, nii-sama."
Samatoki was equal parts horrified and impressed. "You set me up?"
Nemu reached up and patted him on the head. "You're welcome."
And later, when Samatoki fell asleep and woke up with Ichiro in his arms, he found he really couldn't be mad about that.