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The first time Satomi faints it scares the shit out of Kyouji. He thinks he's killed him. Panic the natural, predictable side effect of living in a constant state of silent self-recrimination for already having ruined this kid—scrambled his brains, arrested him in time and development. Satomi is the way he is because of things Kyouji did or didn't do that summer. He's probably unconscious at the Korean barbecue place because of things Kyouji did or didn't do, right now. He's a keyhole of fucked up and Kyouji is the forever key. They melted together, like a crayon softening and dripping into the receiving vacancy where you're meant to stick a seat-belt. They weren't designed to go together but one shaped the other and now that little metal gap is full of wax and nothing else can click in there, ever again. Does that make sense? Kyouji doesn't know. He's too freaked out, because Satomi isn't awake like he's supposed to be and there's a fucking open fire on their table he's slumped dangerously close to.
One glass of ice water does the trick. His hair wet, his glasses dripping. "Did you just throw your drink on me?" he sputters as he comes to, wiping his face, blinking, breathing, thank god.
Kyouji's heart is still pounding. They're jammed into the same side of the booth because as soon as Satomi pitched forward and knocked out on the table Kyouji shot over like a greyhound after a rabbit. Shook him, patted his face even though he's always privately vowing to touch Satomi as little as possible so he doesn't mess him up even more. "You're ok," he says, scrubbing a hand over his own hair and sitting back, trying in vain to put distance between their bodies because he knows he shouldn't be so close. "Holy shit. You really passed out! Like a bride ditched at the alter or something. Just swooned. What happened?!"
"Did you. Throw. Your drink on me?" Satomi repeats instead of answering, sitting up straighter and shooting Kyouji the most painfully scathing look. Knives in the chest, needles to the eyeball. "You did," he decides. "And I didn't swoon."
"You gave me no choice!" Kyouji insists. "And you did swoon! You almost fell face-first on the burner! You were out cold! Unresponsive! I thought you'd—"
"It's not a big deal," Satomi grumbles, cheeks very pink as he takes his glasses off, cleans them on the tail of his shirt, and frowns. Kyouji hovers too near, wishing he really was Satomi's uncle or something, so he could hug him and pat him down and feel for his heartbeat and not worry about carnal desire taking over his body and making him bite out his jugular instead. "It's happened to me since I was a kid."
"Fainting?! You should have told me you were a fainter. I was worried! I thought I was going to have to give you mouth to mouth."
Another knife, another needle. Satomi uses a napkin to dab his face dry before putting his glasses back on. "I haven't done it in a long time," he says. "I didn't think it was relevant anymore. I thought I'd grown—" he cuts himself off before he says out of it, turning away from Kyouji abruptly. "Stop looking at me like that," he mumbles.
"Like what?" Kyouji asks evenly, because he very much needs to know how he is looking at Satomi right now. He's usually pretty in control of himself, perfectly locked up behind his mask of professional semi-indifference spritzed in vaguely paternal concern. But he thought Satomi died a minute ago. He's still pretty shaken up. The sick fuck is probably showing through, at least a little.
"Like you care about me," Satomi says, shoulders bunched tightly.
Kyouji doesn't know what to say to that, so he goes very quiet. Satomi labors under the delusion Kyouji doesn't care about him, because Kyouji won't fuck him. Or, more specifically, because he won't leave the yakuza and be his boyfriend (and incidentally, fuck him). This delusion is so very much the delusion of a person too young to ethically fuck, so it only serves to solidify Kyouji's resolve. Not that he wouldn't love to leave the Yakuza and be Satomi's boyfriend (and fuck him, every day, every night, whenever he wanted). He's just old enough to know that's neither possible, nor fair to Satomi, despite what he thinks he wants. He sighs. "Well. Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," he says, poking some kimchi with his chopsticks. "It happens when I'm really hot or overwhelmed, I get dizzy and my vision goes white and sometimes I just. Pass out, for a few seconds. Used to happen at choir performances, my first year. You don't have to throw water at me to wake me up."
In an effort to control the one controllable factor in all of this (the heat) Kyouji gets up and turns the burner in the middle of the table off, then flags a waiter over and requests more water. When the water arrives, he douses a cloth napkin in it and drapes it around Satomi's neck. He's all red and embarrassed about it, but tough. No amount of stop acting olds or that's not necessarys will make Kyouji lay off. He can't leave the yakuza and be Satomi's boyfriend or, sadly, fuck him, but he can do this, so he does. Giving him things to make up for all he can't take.
The second time is no less scary. Enough months passed since the first incident that Kyouj nearly forgot stress-induced fainting is something that Satomi occasionally does. Nearly. He saves it in the back of his mind with other Satomi-Facts he quietly collects— his favorite foods, the songs he once painstakingly put into a list to suggest Kyouji sing, the brand of two in one shitty body wash he buys, every time he manages to surprise Kyouji by acting vicious or brave. But it's not like he's hovering over him, worrying he's about to keel over.
So, when he does, it blindsides him a little. It's not even hot out, is the thing. An unseasonably stormy late spring day, a rain so fine it hangs in the air as unshed mist. They're walking around the park together after an enormous dim sum lunch. Then, without discussing it they stop at a park bench— Kyouji takes off his puffer jacket and lays it down so they don't have to sit on the damp metal. Satomi waits patiently for him, hands in his pockets, sneakers together, breath coming out in steaming billows. They are always doing this sort of thing: moving around each other in silent agreement, trying not to slip or collide, like planets in orbit around a dying sun. It aches, but it's better than nothing.
Kyouji has his arm draped along the back of the bench, but when Satomi sits beside him he moves it, because that's too much like having his arm around him. Something a slick date would do to his girl at the movies. Kyouji's brain misfires, flashes to those long, hazy days at Karaoke Heaven back in Osaka when he would sit as close to Satomi as possible, box his little pubescent body into the booth, trapped like a rat, pinned there because Kyouji would tell himself this isn't flirting because he's just a kid and you wouldn't flirt with a kid, would you? all while he flirted with a kid. He finds his cigarettes in his pocket and squeezes them reflexively, shifting away.
Satomi defiantly scoots closer, undoing all his work. "Are you cold?" Kyouji asks, nonsensically. Like maybe he could put his arm around him and have it not mean anything if he were cold. If it were under the guise of keeping him warm.
"I'm fine," he says, sounding pissed off.
They sit in tense, loaded silence for for a moment, Kyouji's finger tap-tapping away at the plastic coated carton of smokes in his pocket, Satomi frowning beside him. Kyouji wants to light up, but he won't light up. He wants so many things he won't do. That's just what life is like, when you're a dirtbag like him in love with a seat-belt full of wax.
Suddenly, Satomi knocks his shoulder into him like they're two bumper-cars at a theme park, electric, tethered to the ceiling. He's about to say what was that for when he realizes Satomi isn't moving, he's weird and heavy and limp and slumped over and oh, fuck, yeah, the fainting.
Kyouji's hands fly to his shoulder as he peels him up, away from his lap, and holds him upright. Jesus. For a kid he's fucking heavy. Kyouji pats his cheek—clammy, tinted grey. "Satomi-kun," he says urgently, eyes flitting all over his face, sticking in places he usually doesn't allow himself to stick. The corner of his mouth, his black lashes cut out in a pretty black semi-circle against his cheek, the long line of his throat. "Hey—I don't have water so you gotta tell me what to do when this happens, I don't—"
Satomi flickers, eyes twitching and the muscles above one brow drawing it up in a minute lift. Kyouji makes himself breathe. Realizes his hands are all over Satomi, unafraid for once. In his hair, along the column of his neck, flattened out against his pulse where his skin is insanely soft and smooth. He should not be handling him with such intensity, but the alternative is to let him fall off the bench or onto his own body and those both, somehow, seem less ethical than this. "Hey," he says gently, risking a little shake. "Earth to Satomi, are you in there?"
"Mm..?" he murmurs, blinking so shallowly Kyouji sees a flash of wet but not the color of his eyes, which scares him. He creeps a thumb up under the lens of his glasses, and gently tugs the lid up to get a flash of gold ringing the pupil. "Your hands smell like tobacco," Satomi says then, though he doesn't pull away.
"Sorry," Kyouji says, unable to let him go. He's still terrifically pale and boneless, a painted marionette with cut strings. You never know how much you love something until it's looking particularly mortal and fragile in your palm, do you? But hey. At least he's talking.
"It's not bad," Satomi mumbles, managing to slump a little closer, vibrating. Kyouji tenses with the new contact, hands finally slipping away, falling into his lap like moths zapped by a bug zapper. Painstakingly, Satomi sits up straight. Bends at the waist and puts his head between his knees, shaking.
"What do I do?!" Kyouji asks, alarmed.
"It doesn't matter," Satomi tells him through chattering teeth. "I'm fine."
"Why did it happen? It's freezing! It's gonna rain. I get the Korean barbecue place making you woozy, the ventilation is shit in that building, it's amazing they haven't gotten a citation yet, but we're outside. Fresh air for Satomi-kun, and you still—" Kyouji cuts himself off, unable to actually say those words, passed out. Then he'd have to think about touching him again.
Satomi shrugs. "It happens when I'm nervous sometimes."
"Nervous? What's there to be nervous about?" Kyouji asks, thinking, it's not like I'm flirting with you anymore. It's not like you're a kid anymore. All we do is eat together. It's fine, trust me—I ask myself every day if it's fine and have decided it is, I know you have no reason to trust me but you should trust me on this one.
Satomi shakes his head, moves his fingers through his hair. "Don't act stupid."
"I'm not acting stupid, I just don't know everything about your life. Do you have a test coming up? A date with a girl?"
Satomi's glare is so sharp and so sudden it fucking hurts. Kyouji forgets those sad, honey-color eyes can get mean like that. Bug zapper to his moth. Shooting him down, arrow through the chest, spiraling earthward, Icarus wings akimbo. "Just stop talking," Satomi says, scooting to the edge of the bench so his jeans making a shshh sound along Kyouji's jacket.
Kyouji puts his arm along the back of the bench now, since he has room to. His other hand touches his cigarettes. He wants so many things he won't do.
The third event occurs back in Osaka, during summer break. They're walking along the river for the first time since that bag of coins exploded into it, and though neither of them have mentioned that, it's heavy on both of their minds. Or, it is on Kyouji's, anyway. He won't claim to know what Satomi is thinking, only that there's an observable tightness to his shoulders, a wistful tilt to head as he keeps glancing out at the black, faintly sulfuric smelling blanket of water lapping out in the darkness.
Kyouji tries not to wonder too much, keeps his hands in his pocket though part of him wants to touch his own arm under the sleeve of his jacket and rub at Satomi's name, like he can blot it out. He still hasn't removed the tattoo, because he likes it. Removing the tattoo falls into the vast category of things Satomi thinks he wants, but that won't change anything, won't rewrite their history, won't make them possible.
Satomi stops abruptly, braces his hands on the railing, knuckles white. It's not Tokyo—the walkway is dirty and there's trash gathered against the curb. Kyouji absurdly wishes he could take a snapshot—Satomi-kun in his hometown, flanked in filth, head bent against a low buffet of wind with his hair fluttering. But something is wrong. He's wobbling. Pitching like a ship in a squall. "Are you ok?" Kyouji asks, worry spiking in his chest.
"Um dizzy," Satomi grits out. "Sorry."
"Shit, are you going to faint?"
"I don't know," he snaps. "Maybe?"
The love takes over. Kyouji forgets everything he's supposed to do and reaches for Satomi, takes one shoulder in each hand and begins steering him towards the nearest place to sit down, which happens to be a low, dirty cement block next to an overflowing trashcan. Not very glamorous, but if he falls he won't smash his head. "C'mon," he says, ushering him along. "You can sit down until—" he freezes, because Satomi is turning into him and making fists in his shirt-front. He props himself up using Kyouji's body, forehead anchored to his chest right above his now racing heart.
"Wait," he says shakily, voice muffled as he sways on the spot. "Moving is making it worse."
"Okay," Kyouji says, standing there with Satomi leaning against him. He's close enough he can smell his hair, taste his labored breath. He shouldn't be thinking about that right now, but it's impossible not to. His hand twitches down the back of Satomi's neck, and this, this is why he doesn't let himself get too close. It's way too easy to find Satomi's soft parts and pet them. It's way too easy to meet him where he's at (young, crazy), and see the world through his eyes.
"I don't ever know what to do about you," he says eventually. "You scare me to death."
"I know," Satomi huffs out, all exhalation . Kyouji sticks the tip of his tongue out to taste it on the air like a snake. It makes him dizzy. They're both so dizzy, standing there next to the river that swallowed Satomi's savings whole. You should really stop. Countdown—one, two, and on three, you pull your hand away. Just act like a support beam, something for him to lean on. Quit imagining what it would be like to suck his tongue. To break the rules. To say fuck it. One. Two. Three. Come on.
But Kyouji stays put, fingers sifting through Satomi's hair, tucking down into his collar beneath the cotton neck, to the secret top knob of his spine. His own heart is going fucking crazy in his chest, right under Satomi's forehead, giving him away. "How are you feeling?" he asks stupidly.
"Dizzy," Satomi says again. "But that—you touching me. S'nice."
Kyouji coughs out a nervous laugh, feeling spectacularly caught. "I should stop."
"No you shouldn't," Satomi says.
Kyouji says nothing. His hand is moving all on it's own, scooping down to cup the side of Satomi's face. Smooth, how does he get such a close fucking shave? Does he even shave? Why does his breath taste so fucking good? His thumb finds the insanely warm, parted seam of his lips. He feels like a general on the battlefield discovering a fatal gunshot wound, pushing into it, knowing it's too late, it's over.
Satomi opens his mouth and sucks Kyouji's thumb in. Maddeningly molten, the flash of his tongue seeking salt as it flicks out to fit into the crease between joints. There is nothing softer or wetter than this moment right here beside the drifts of Osaka trash. His thumbnail a yen coin, Satomi's mouth the whole dirty river. Kyouji's fucking knees almost buckle as every drop of blood in his body rushes to his dick. "Jesus fucking Christ," he grits out, neck bending, mouth to the crown of Satomi's skull. "You're really pushing your luck."
The gentlest suction, experimental, searing. Satomi nursing in private there, in the charged space between their bodies. It takes everything in Kyouji's meager, dusty arsenal not to fuck his thumb into Satomi's hot little mouth. Then they both might pass out. He tries to pull out, but he doesn't try very hard and Satomi groans about it, digging his teeth in punishingly, making him hiss. "Are you still dizzy?" he asks almost conversationally while the world frays, falls apart like a bag housing a year's worth of saved yen.
Satomi finally slides off in a mess of drool, panting. A string of it drips on the pavement between their notched shoes to stain the cement. Such a wet mouth—he'd drool down his chin were Kyouji to ever fuck him like that. "Yes," Satomi chokes out. "Still feel like fainting."
"You should close your eyes then. And stop doing crazy stuff."
He shakes his head slowly, using the place his brow is pressed to Kyouji's chest as a fulcrum point. "It'll fade." Then: "Thank you for holding me up."
Kyouji lifts his wet hand and puts it back on the base of Satomi's skull. "No problem," he lies, because actually, all of this is a very big problem. He knows his days are numbered—that there's only so many times he can survive Satomi's pushing. Eventually, something will crack under the weight of all this pressure. Split to spit bits of metal, swallowed in the swath of night.
The fourth time is at a Karaoke place. Kyouji surprises Satomi for his twentieth birthday, marches him in with his hand over his eyes, his glasses folded and pocketed. "Tadah!" he says once they're in their private room. It's less grimy than Karaoke Heaven, a disco ball spinning on the ceiling, casting a series of dancing lights onto the floor, which has a dark carpet with swirling multi-colored designs like an American bowling alley. The walls are mirrors, reflecting Kyouji and Satomi in infinite fractals. "For old times sake," he says, handing Satomi back his glasses. "Do you like it?"
"No," Satomi says, which he sort of expected. "I hate karaoke. I never want to hear you sing Crimson again."
"I'll sing something else," Kyouji says, shrugging. "You want your usual? Fried rice and melon soda? Or, you can drink legally now, do you want a beer? Sake?"
He sits, eyes narrowed into unreadable slits as he makes fists at his side, and then releases them. Kyouji wonders if he's crossed a line in acknowledging their past but also offering to pay for and partake in a distinctly (albeit totally legally) adult activity with him. Then he thinks of the wet, perfect suction of Satomi's mouth around his thumb and remembers the line has already been crossed. In Osaka several months ago, but also in Osaka six years ago.
Satomi's eyes harden in every mirror, and also in real life. "You really, really piss me off sometimes" he says.
Unphased, Kyouji laughs. He's been accused of worse. He's done worse. "Only sometimes?"
Satomi tears his gaze away, stares pointedly at the karaoke screen for a few moments before standing, and striding over.
Kyouji thinks he's gonna leave. Make a bee-line for the door and ditch the booth and demand to be taken somewhere better for his birthday, which is also expected. He brought him here half as a joke, anyway—marking Satomi's legal coming of age in the same container as his spiritual coming of age, arriving full circle, feeding a snake it's own tail, writing poetry, making it rhyme. No hard feelings, right, this is sort of our thing, isn't it? Do you forgive me?
But Satomi does not head for the door. He heads right for Kyouji. Just starts walking and keeps coming until he's backed him up against the mirrored wall, cold and solid through the thin layer of his sports coat. "I don't want a beer," Satomi says, eyes flashing, something twitching in his jaw. Then, he reaches up, makes fists in the collar of Kyouji's shirt, and tugs him down into a kiss.
It's terrible, how fast and easy he goes. Folds like a cheap fucking suit, as they say. A muted, startled hng sound trapped between his mouth and Satomi's, which is pinched defiantly shut for a moment before it opens, softens, and just like that, Kyouji falls in. He licks at the battlefield wound, he remembers how it felt to thumb into the slickness by the river. He laps his spit like blood, grabs his face and holds it pinned between his palms, he lets himself be bitten and nipped at and ground into the pane of reflective glass, one hundred versions of him coming apart under one hundred versions of Satomi. Then, he remembers what he's supposed to be doing, or not doing. Comes to his goddamned senses, and pushes Satomi off. "Nope," he says, turning his head so Satomi catches the line of his jaw when he lunges back into him. "Bad idea."
Satomi doesn't stop. He licks down his throat, then bites Kyouji so hard his erection almost shrinks to nothing. That's how fucking hard it is, way past a sexy pleasure-sting and into sheer, blinding pain. Satomi clearly wants to punish him, he wants Kyouji to buckle and hiss, hand flying to the deep indent those teeth left. Only then does it occur to Kyouji what a stupid gimmick the Karaoke thing was. Then, and now. What the hell was he thinking, flirting with a kid? Kissing a kid?
"Why did you stop me? Why are you always—I don't understand," Satomi pants, putting his hands in his hair, pacing in the rain of disco-ball light. "Why would you bring me here, if --? Why do you keep fucking with me?"
Kyouji stands there, frozen, hand slapped to the still throbbing bite, astounded there's not a hot torrent of gore pouring down his neck to stain his shirt. "I'm not fucking, definitely not fucking with you," he says quickly, unsure of what to do, how to remedy this. "I only thought it would be funny if we—"
"Funny? Is this a fucking joke to you?" Satomi spits out, the hair that perpetually hangs across his brow quaking with anger and…something else. Shame? Embarrassment? His eyes well up and he turns away, staring up at the mirrored ceiling like he might will the tears back inside himself, hide them from Kyouji even though they're being reflected in the mirrors again, and again,and again. "I am such a fucking idiot."
"You're not," Kyouji says, taking a careful step closer. "It was a stupid idea, I didn't think—"
"I'm in love with you," Satomi interrupts. Another knife, another needle, another fall from grace. Vicious, and brave. It floors Kyouji, stops him dead in his tracks. "This isn't a joke for me. I want to be with you," he explains, the tears finally falling as he rapidly blinks, forcing them down his cheeks in sticky trails. "I'm tired of waiting for your boss to die or for you to stop being guilty about how we met, I just—" a ragged breath, the rattle of snot and spit. Kyouji wants to grab him and tilt him back and fix his mouth over his nose and suck the fluid right out of his sinuses, swallow it down like cracked egg. Get Salmonella from his raw parts. "I don't want to wait anymore. So I need to know if you're ever. If you're ever going to, or—" then he blinks, staggers. Stumbles backwards to the booth and sits down, head between his knees.
Whatever was cementing Kyouji to the floor disintegrates and suddenly, he can move again. He crosses the rainbow carpet in two strides and drops to his knees right in front of Satomi. "Did I make you pass out?" he asks.
"Yeah," Satomi says faintly. And then he's out like a light. Boneless, pitiful, sliding out of the booth like a very overcooked noodle. Thank god Kyouji is there to catch him and gather him up in his arms, all his limbs floppy as he crushes him to his chest, buries his face in his hair.
"Fuck," he says, squeezing him between long legs, wondering how he can be so compactable, so small, still a teenager even though he's officially twenty now. Beyond his control, hands all over his body, his bones, the softness between them. Kyouji thumbs up Satomi's tears, then he kisses his slack mouth, licks over his cheeks, stealing the salt. He's shaking all over, hating himself. Why is it so much easier to be honest with himself when Satomi's passed out? Satomi makes him do such crazy shit. Flirt with kids. Believe he can be saved. Kiss a sleeping person like a prince in a fairytale. "I already have," he finds himself saying to the mirrored walls, his own reflection in them wan, stricken. "You asked me if I'm ever going to but I—I already did, you don't even know—if there's a line, I crossed it way back when you were fourteen! You're a kid so you don't know I'm the one waiting. Not you. M'waiting for…I don't know. For you you to realize there's no future with a guy like me and you really don't want this. You deserve something normal. Obviously. God, I wish there was some water here, Satomi-kun. I don't like it when I can't wake you up."
They sit there for what feels like a long time. Satomi limp, mouth slack, tears on his cheek as Kyouji pats him and murmurs to him—nothing good, or very creative, just hey, come back please, and Satomi-kun…wake up…between chaste sleeping beauty kisses pressed to whatever he can reach. Finally the spell breaks and Satomi stirs, lashes eventually fluttering to an irritated half-mast.
"Holy shit," Kyouji groans, throwing his head back, knocking it against the mirrored wall. "I was two seconds away from laying you out on the floor and calling an ambulance. Would have really looked bad. Like I roofied you on a date."
Satomi rubs his cheek into Kyouji's shoulder, frowning. "I wish you would roofie me," be says. "You touch me so much more when I'm not awake."
This draws sudden and horrible attention to all the places they are touching, which is basically everywhere. Kyouji is holding Satomi like he's a soldier bleeding out on the battlefield. Like Mary holding Jesus after his body was taken down from the cross. He's holding him like they're a fucking pieta, and what's worse, he can't stop. His tremulous hands flicker up and down Satomi's arms, tucking under his shirt-sleeves, kneading into his shoulders as he laughs weakly. "Yeah, well. I can't let you hit the floor, can I? This is all about trying to protect you, you know, and I think letting you knock your head and get a concussion is objectively less protective then—this," he explains shakily, one hand smoothing down to Satomi's chest to track the flutter of his heart. "Though it's much dicier issue to suss out when you talking and awake. Jesus. Happy fucking birthday, huh?"
Satomi reaches up and laces their fingers to keep Kyouji's hand in place. "I'm not staying here and drinking sake with you" he says. Then, his cheeks get pink, and he rolls his face into Kyouji's shoulder, hiding the blush. "Take me home and kiss me again. If we're talking birthday presents."
Kyouji sighs, stomach plummeting. Satomi hot in his lap, slumped against him, burning like a bug zapper. His hands electrocuted, singed as they keep touching, and keep touching. "Fine," he says, because he's a gambling man and long ago learned when to cut his losses. "You're the boss. And the birthday boy."
So they get up, and they leave, and just like that, he's lost it all.
Up the stairs, haunted by the usual frying oil and wallpaper paste smell of Satomi's awful apartment complex. It was crazy when he moved in here, right above the business Kyouji had been surveying for his boss for years. So hard to convince himself he wasn't supposed to have this kid he was so in love when with fate or God or whatever kept shoving them together over and over again. Messily, but insistently. So obviously not meant to be but also meant to fucking be.
He's had a million moments to turn away. To say, listen, that was a mistake back there. I didn't mean to kiss you back. I didn't mean to bring you to a karaoke joint. I didn't mean to scramble your brains. All of it was totally on accident, you've got to forgive me, I have this problem where I know I gotta quit smoking but I just keep lighting up.
Instead, he follows Satomi in and lets him lock the door behind them both. Stands there while Satomi looks up at him expectantly, licking his lips, sizing him up. Kyouji rubs a hand over his brow, takes a deep breath. "Do you still think you want this?" he asks, putting his hands in his pocket, squeezing his carton. It's all bent out of shape from how many times he shoves his hand in there to compress it out of shape when he's around Satomi.
Flashing eyes, mouth set in the same stubborn downturn as when he Kyouji acts like an old man and Satomi says die. "I know I want it."
Kyouji nods. "You're compromising, though. What you actually want is for me to quit. To not be what I am."
"I'd prefer that," Satomi says with a shrug. Then he's turning away, taking his hoodie off and carelessly tossing it aside, where it lands on pile of similarly discarded clothes. The intense, near-painful charge between their bodies is temporarily severed, and Kyouji sucks in a ragged breath, lets his shoulders slump ever so slightly as he watches Satomi kick off his shoes. He feels like he's buying time before facing a firing squad. He's already so hard it hurts. "But I know you won't do it. And I don't know when your boss will die, or if that will even change anything—and I've tried to stop wanting you, obviously. But I can't. So, yeah. It's a compromise. Is that a problem? People compromise all the time." He stands up straight, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose before shrugging. "It's sort of what you do in relationships."
Kyouji nods. "Is that what you thi—what you want? A relationship?"
"We already have a relationship," Satomi says, abruptly and unceremoniously tugging his shirt over his head, revealing a sudden flash of blinding skin. "What I want is to touch you. For you to fuck me."
Kyouji stares at him, mouth quite literally flooding with saliva he has to swallow. Satomi looks so out of place there in his own apartment, half naked, fucking beautiful, shivering as he crosses his arms awkwardly around himself and walks to his bed. He lies down like a fucking virgin sacrifice draping herself across the ceremonial killing stone of the altar to some old, hungry, sick fuck God. Kyouji scrubs his hands over his face. "Jesus," he says.
"I know I look ridiculous. I don't care," Satomi announces, voice small but vicious and brave, god, he is so crazy, what the fucking hell. "Just come here, if you want to."
"You don't look ridiculous," Kyouji scoffs, kicking off his own shoes before walking very slowly to Satomi's bed on the floor, circling it like a vulture might circle carrion.
"What do I look like, then?" he asks, letting himself go and lifting one arm over his head to expose the pit, soft wisps of black Kyouji wants to mat down with his tongue, jack off onto, bathe in white. He's not thinking clearly. He shakes his head, sucks down spit, moves on terrifying, magnetized auto-pilot.
"Like a twenty year old boy who's never been touched," Kyouji says very softly as he lowers himself onto the bed, straddling Satomi's narrow hips. He reaches for his waist, smooths his hands over the heaving, concave plane of his stomach, thumbs dimpling too-soft flesh. Satomi is so warm. He inhales, fits himself to Kyouji's palms. "Who I've wanted to touch like this for six years. So. Like a fucking fantasy from my head."
Satomi blushes very hard, mouth twisting into an expression of vindication. "Really? Since then?"
Kyouji keeps touching him, rubbing up and down his ribcage, thumbing up to his nipples, twisting them into hard points and watching the way Satomi's breath changes and his hips surge and his body twists and writhes on the sheets. "Yeah, obviously. You didn't know that?"
"Not for sure," Satomi says, chasing touch so desperately it makes Kyouji twitch in his slacks. "I wondered."
"Well, you can stop wondering," Kyouji says. Then, just in case this changes things, makes Satomi reconsider and want to back out: "wasn't joking all the times I told you I'm no good."
Satomi's hands flit to Kyouji's thighs, nails dug in, grabby and greedy as he rubs at the working planes. Kyouji's quadriceps are straining against his trousers, hard from the exertion of holding himself upright, not quite giving Satomi his full weight just yet. But Satomi hooks fingers in his belt loops, tugs him down, makes him sit. They shift together for a second, breathless, Kyouji's mouth falling open as he feels Satomi under him—hard, burning hot. "I love you," Satomi says again, just as point blank and vicious and brave and knifey and needly as he said it in the karaoke booth. "I don't care if you're good or not." Then, his hand moves to Kyouji's erection, feeling it experimentally through his pants. "I still turn you on? Even though I'm not fourteen anymore?"
Kyouji laughs, pitches forward, grinds his cock into Satomi's hand, pushing him a few inches up his bed, rug-burning him against the sheets. "What do you think? Satomi-kun— you drive me fucking crazy."
Satomi nods, grabs a fistful of Kyouji's tie, and yanks him down. Their mouths are open when they meet. Smear together, rent apart, tongues swirling. Kyouji had so much spit locked up behind his teeth just from sitting there frothing and feeling up Satomi's stomach, he releases it and Satomi moans, licks it up, swallows it down. It feels so fucking good to kiss him and hump him Kyouji keeps forgetting why he's not supposed to be doing this, why he held out for so long. He just keeps grabbing Satomi's waist, fucking him up the bed, grinding their cocks together, chewing off bites of those pathetic moans. His virgin sacrifice, his six year hunger. Better than the fantasy because he's warm and alive and his heart is pounding and he doesn't know how to kiss but is throwing himself into it anyway, teeth and tongue, like if he doesn't devour Kyouji as hard as he can, he'll dissapear. He's totally not breathing enough.
"Ok? You're not going to faint, are you?" Kyouji murmurs at some point, kissing his way to the shell of Satomi's ear, cracking his long willowy legs back to his chest so he can grind against his ass. "It's pretty hot in here. I imagine you're nervous."
"Shut up," Satomi hisses back, hands all over Kyouji's shoulders, under his half-unbuttoned shirt. They're stuck in partial states of undress, because they keep getting distracted and not finishing the job. Kyouji's belt unbuckled and tugged out, Satomi's jeans shoved down and wadded up around one ankle. "I'm not nervous at all. Only nervous you'll get in your head and stop."
"Very much out of my head," Kyouji promises, nipping down to Satomi's shoulder, sucking a hungry little mark there, loving how it blooms red and shines in spit. "I'll only stop if you ask me to."
"Don't stop," Satomi demands, making fists in Kyouji's back skin and clawing his tattoos punishingly. "Fuck me."
"Like, fuck you fuck you? Do you have stuff for that?" Kyouji asks, shoving his hands up into Satomi's hair and holding him in place to rock against, their hips driving together in desperate, needy pulses. "Maybe you don't know, but it's easier with like condom and lube and—"
"I know what stuff. In the drawer of the bedside table," Satomi pants. "Do you think I don't fuck myself thinking about you?"
Shit. Kyouji is dangerously close, just from friction and Satomi's dirty mouth and his complete, utter devotion to doing this thing he knows nothing about. His body moves with inexperienced hunger, driven by pleasure and want rather than skill or forethought, and it's insanely, maddeningly hot. To just be ground against, licked and chewed, felt up and squeezed with unabashed, youthful curiosity. Kyouji wants to give him everything. He cannot fucking remember why he thought this wasn't his life's purpose or whatever. "Satomi-kun!" he gasps, mind flooding with images of Satomi clumsily fingering his hole. "Do you really?"
"Yes," he grits out, letting go of Kyouji just long enough to reach down and wriggle out of his boxer shorts, exposing himself at long last. Kyouji pins him down to stare at for a minute, gaze locked on his cock, red and dripping and so goddamned pretty and perfect and shaped for his mouth. "All the time. Especially after you come over, and then you leave, and the apartment still—ah—smells like you."
"Jesus," Kyouji murmurs into his ear, reaching between their bodies and stroking him, thumbing through the bubbling precum leaking at the satin-slick tip. "And here I was, thinking I'd have to explain how it worked to you. I thought you were innocent."
"I know you thought that," Satomi grits out, mouth wet and open as he fucks Kyouji's palm. "You're wrong about a lot of stuff."
Yeah, maybe, he'll admit that. Kyouji lets go and feeds Satomi his own fingers, shoving two in past his teeth, petting his tongue, collecting his drool. "Almost came in my fucking pants when you sucked my thumb in Osaka," he says as he withdraws, moving those two spit wet fingers down to feel out the hot, sticky crack of Satomi's ass. He's burning and responsive, his hole clings and sucks at his fingertips, so needy.
"Good," Satomi mumbles. "That's what I wanted. Wanted you thinking about my mouth."
"Congrats, m'always thinking about your mouth—fuck, unless I'm thinking about this. God, Satomi-kun, you're so hot and tight inside," Kyouji huffs as he breaches his body with an index finger, astounded by how effortlessly he opens up and swallows him down with just spit, no lube. "That ok?"
"Uh huh," Satomi pants, bearing down, breathless and perfect and fuck, Kyouji tilts him just right to kiss him deep, tonguefuck his mouth while he fingerfucks his asshole. He gets lost to it for a few minutes—the mechanics of working the muscle, stretching it, memorizing the roof of his mouth, the surface of his teeth. Then before he gets carried away rutting against him and comes to early, he pulls out and levers up to his knees to find the lube. "In the drawer," Satomi says, looking up through his hair, reaching down to idly stroke his cock, mouth so swollen and messy Kyouji doesn't even want to look away for the time it will take to root around in his stuff. Necessary fucking evil, he guesses. While he searches Satomi gets bold and shoves a hand down the rucked open front of his pants, finding his aching hard cock and tugging it out.
"Careful with that," Kyouji warns as he pulls away and sits back, uncapping the lube. "If you want it to last long enough to get inside you." Satomi ignores him entirely, eyes half-lidded and glued to Kyouji's erection as he continues to feel it out, stroking experimentally. "Live up to the expectation?" Kyouji asks, coating his fingers in lube.
"It's smaller than I imagined," Satomi says, pupils dilated, totally transfixed. "Which is actually a relief."
"Yeah, I'm just a guy, not a pornstar," Kyouji says, holding up a condom and grinning. "Wrap it up nice for me?"
Satomi makes a face, shifting under him. "Do we have to?"
"It's safer," Kyouji says, reaching up with his free hand and thumbing over Satomi's swollen lower lip, so fucking in love he doesn't even know what he looks like right now, how bad he's mooning. And he always knows what he looks like—he's made a career of it. Building a mask and wearing it all the time. It's crazy, how quickly Satomi undid those decades of careful composure.
"Do we need to be safe? " Satomi asks. "Like, do you have anything I can catch?"
"No," Kyouji says. "But it's not just that—it goes in smoother."
"I don't want it smooth, I want you. Your skin. I want you to come inside me," Satomi says, curling his fingers around the length and holding Kyouji tight in a fist, their gazes locking. It is not a request, and Kyouji has been holding back for so long he doesn't have an ounce of energy left to fight against Satomi's demands. He's too tired. This is what happens when you tread water for six years—eventually, you drown.
"Anything for Satomi-kun," he murmurs, leaning down to catch his mouth, kiss it hard. "The birthday boy."
Satomi goes quiet as Kyouji fucks him open on his fingers again, crooking them, kneading the silken stretch and give of his walls. He can feel his heartbeat in here—racing against his knuckles, precious and perfect. He's just digging around in him for the pleasure of invasion and the logistics of prep, but it must feel good because Satomi's cock is leaking and twitching onto the plane of his stomach, dripping each time Kyouji presses deep. "I'm sorry," he huffs out at some point between sharp, biting kisses. "But this isn't going to be a long fuck. I like you too much. You feel too good."
"I don't care. Just—do it. Please," Satomi whimpers, clawing down his back. "Come in me."
Kyouji nods into his neck, hair ungelled and hanging in his face, damp with sweat as he pulls his fingers out and grabs his cock, lining it up. Even just the crown kissing Satomi's flexing rim is nearly too much. His stomach lurches in pleasure, balls gathering tight as he eases in, teeth grit. "Ok?"
Satomi nods, scooting down, spearing himself open as Kyouji sinks deeper. Fuck. He is so hot, it's like feeding himself to lava, fucking the center of the earth. He licks the sweat from the cords of Satomi's neck and bottoms out, swallowed whole. He wants to run his mouth—you fucking kill me or what did you do to me? but some things are beyond words. Instead he uses his mouth for kissing, hips stuttering as he pulls out, pushes back in, pulls out, drives deep. Hammers Satomi into the bed like he is a nail disappearing a 2×4. Hot, smooth, buried, flush.
For a quiet kid, he sure moans. Kyouji swallows every sound, pistons harder to fuck the sounds right out of his throat. Already his guts are doing things— he's dripping sweat and his half-on trousers are chaffing the backs of his thighs and he's close, so fucking close. "Touch yourself," he chokes out. "Want you to come on my cock before I finish." Giving him things to make up for all he's taken.
Satomi does as he's told, works his hand between their bodies to tug on his pretty cock. God it's so sexy to see how he touches himself, to know what it must have looked like all the times he jacked off thinking of Kyouji. Thinking of this—being split open, ground down into his bed, drooled on, sweat on, filled up, fucked raw.
It happens fast: icarus falling, the bug zapper catching fire. He's loud when he comes. Insides clenching vice tight and pushing Kyouji right over the edge in a fierce undertow, wrenching it out of him. "Fuck, yeah, Satomi-kun, milk me, that's it," he murmurs, hips stuttering to mind-melting decay as he spills inside, no barriers, right into his guts. "Fuck," Kyouji hisses, arms quaking with the effort it takes to stay upright while the rest of him falls apart. Collapses on Satomi, fucks him through the last waves of orgasm with hungry, graceless abandon.
When his vision finally returns, he peels away from Satomi. "Ok?" he asks again, but this time he gets no answer. Kyouji pulls back, panicking—Satomi is definitely breathing, but he's out fucking cold. Of course he is. He passed out earlier today for no goddamned reason save for a bad birthday gift, and then Kyouji fucked his brains out without even feeding him dinner first. He really is such a bad person. He pulls out, sits on his haunches, pats Satomi's very flushed cheek. "Satomi-kun." Then, more urgently, "Hey hey hey. I need you to wake up."
Nothing. Chest rising and falling, cock soft and sticky and so pretty on his still heaving stomach. Kyouji groans and laboriously lies down next to him, nuzzles into his ear, sucks him in. He looks so peaceful like this—fucked, ruined, asleep. If it wasn't so terrifying, Kyouji's spent cock would be twitching over the vulnerability. Overwhelm surges inside him, a feeling to knotted up and deep buried and shameful to name: "while you're knocked out and can't hear me, I need to tell you how goddamned beautiful you are and how good you feel inside and how fucking much I love you," he whispers, palming gently up Satomi's side. "If I tell you when you're awake you'll hold it against me later, when you leave for someone better. Say I manipulated you. Maybe I did, I don't know." He thumbs up to a nipple, kisses his temple, takes off his glasses, amazed they stayed on through that remarkably sweaty, drooly sex. One miracle after another.
Finally, the tail of Satomi's eye scrunches up under Kyouji's lips. "There he is," he says, drunk on the subsequent wave of relief. "You know, you really need to go to the doctor and get that checked out."
"Maybe," Satomi grumbles, rolling over and pressing his face into Kyouji's chest. Then he reaches back to tenatively feel out his own hole. He winces, making a face.
"Sore?" Kyouji asks.
"A little. It's good. Mostly just wanted to make sure you really did come in me."
"Happy birthday," Kyouji says. "I'mma man of my word. Were you already out when I did it? Did you miss the big finale?"
"Sort of?" Satomi says, eyes fluttering closed. "I was sort of floating in and out of consciousness the whole time." Then he pulls back, studies Kyouji with something unreadable in his eyes. "Guess you'll have to do it again."
We'll see Kyouji thinks, but what comes out is: "anything for Satomi-kun." Like he's exhausted every last reserve, every denial and refusal all wasted ammunition, fired blanks. He's out on the battlefield and he's bleeding out, and it feels so fucking good, to give up. So he stops treading water, and drowns.
The sixth time is on a sweltering day at Satomi's apartment. It comes on suddenly— he makes a face, then folds his arms next to his still steaming take out ramen before pillowing his head on them. "I've gotten lax about your elbows on the table," Kyouji says, chewing. "But this is next level.
"Dizzy," he says. "Headrush—augh." Then he lies down on the floor.
Kyouji uncrosses his legs and arrives in a flash, laying a hand on Satomi's sweat-damp, clammy brow. To his surprise, Satomi twitches away. "Don't touch me—I might throw up."
"Sorry," he says, at a loss because Satomi always wants to be touched. It works out fine because Koyuji always wants to touch him. Turns out he touching thing was only a problem when he wasn't letting himself do it, but now that he's caved it's fine unless they're at a restaurant and have to keep shit under wraps. Or, now, apparently. "Last time you got all woozy, touching you helped," he reminds him.
Satomi takes off his glasses, hands visibly quaking. "Well. That's because I was faking it the last four times," he says, lashes fluttering as he closes his eyes with a deep, audibly nauseated sigh.
Kyouji stares at him for a minute, brain fritzing. "You—wait. At the karaoke place?"
"And the river and the park and after the karaoke place," he says, sweat beading at his brow. His eyes flicker back open for one gut-wrenching moment before he offers a wobbly half smile. "Surprise."
"Tricky Satomi-kun!" Kyouji scolds, delighted and confused and horrified all at once. "You lied to me! You let me think I fucked you so hard you passed out! "
"Yeah, well, you wanted to molest me before my voice even dropped," he says. "So I think we're even."
Kyouji scoffs. "As you tell it, your voice was already on its way out."
"Technicality," Satomi mumbles, looking really pretty in a sick person way, which subsequently makes the delight part of the emotional cocktail dry up abruptly in Kyouji's chest.
"Ok, well what do? Should I call a doctor?"
"No—can you bring me some water? Do not throw it on me, it's for drinking."
Kyouji does as he's told, heart thudding as he fills one of the many mismatched mugs up at Satomi's sink. He doesn't really know what to do with the information he's just been presented with—on the one hand, he's relieved Satomi hasn't been passing out quite as frequently as he initially thought, but on the other hand, he's definitely said things to Passed Out Satomi he might not have said to Awake and Alert Satomi. Which might have been Satomi's whole entire reason for pretending to be passed out in the first place. It was a strategic gambit—a Trojan horse to sneak past guarded gates. Jesus. Smart kid, playing the long game.
He returns and hands Satomi his water. Satomi has managed to roll over onto his side and sit up a little bit, but he's still visibly shaky and white, in a way that is distinctly and observably different than it's been the last few time he feigned wooziness. Kyouji is bamboozled, and also a fool. "You're a pretty good actor," he says, sitting down next to Satomi without touching him, though his hands are aching to.
"No, you're just really gullible. I told you it only happened super rarely and when it was hot. But you bought it every time I closed my eyes and went limp."
"Well yeah! I was worried!" Because I love you remains unsaid, but it occurs to him how much that particularly drive piloted him every time he thought Satomi was in danger. The powerful, illogical force of adoration drowning out his logic, his caution, his retraint. It then occurs to him there's no point in withholding any of this anymore— the first time he said it, Satomi wasn't actually unconscious. So the cat is officially out of the bag. Or, it's been out of the bag this whole time. There never even was a fucking bag. " So…was this all a ploy to get me to confess how I felt about you?"
Satomi shrugs, taking a measured sip of water. "At first it was just about touch. Before, even if I asked you to touch me, you wouldn't. But the time I passed out at the Korean BBQ, when I came to you were all over me. I realized I could like—break down your reservations about physical contact if you thought you were trying to wake me up. If I fell, you'd catch me." He downs the rest of the water with a gulp, then sets the glass down on the floor, blinking. "But you did talk more freely, too. Helped me understand what was going on in your head."
"Helped you play me," Kyouji says, rubbing his mouth. "Wow," he adds. "Now, anyone would look at me and know I'm a liar and a cheat. But you pull off the innocent schoolboy thing so well, Satomi-kun. You'd make a great criminal." Then, he cocks his head. "Forget I said that."
"In retrospect, ramen on a hot day wasn't such a good idea," Satomi says, decidedly ignoring all references to his potential for crime or deceptive air of innocence. "I'm feeling well enough to get up but not to walk on my own or eat more. Help me to bed?"
Kyouji nods before painstakingly hauling Satomi to his feet, letting him use his body as a crutch to hobble to the unmade bed. Then he holds both his hands as he lowers himself back down onto the mattress, still so alarmingly pale. Kyouji insists he drink more water, watches the grey flicker of his mouth slowly flood with color again as he sips it. Finally, Satomi holds an arm out. "I'm not gonna puke anymore. Lie with me?"
Gladly. Kyouji climbs into bed, loops his arm around Satomi and drags him close, repeatedly kissing the top of his head to make up for the shitty minutes he wasn't allowed to. "So you're ok?"
"Ok for now," Satomi murmurs, disentangling an arm from Kyouji's grip to thread their fingers. "You really do care."
"Of course I care," Kyouji huffs. "You're the best thing in my life."
"Yeah, see, I didn't know that for a long time. But I could see it in your eyes, when you looked at me and thought I'd been passed out. I used to convince myself I was crazy for holding out for a guy who didn't give a shit. But the way you acted when you thought I couldn't see or hear you proved I wasn't crazy."
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Fake-fainting to get felt up is definitely crazy. You're a madman. You could have smashed your head. What if I hadn't caught you?! What if I'd dropped you? Let you fall?"
Another shrug, a squeeze to Kyouji's hand before Satomi brings it up to his lips and brushes them across his knuckles. "You didn't." Then he squirms closer, their ankles crossing. "Just like you wanted to touch me six years ago, but didn't. You're so sure you're a bad person, but you're not. I know you."
"Huh," Kyouji says, closing his eyes and settling closer. Satomi's spine fits to his breastbone so perfect, like two fragments of the same skeleton once separated before being reassembled for a museum display. Wax in a seat belt, a moth to a flame. Shit that just—goes together, or doesn't, but chooses to figure it out, anyway. "How are you feeling now?" he asks.
Satomi licks the back of his hand in a long swipe, wet and sweet. "Better," he says.