FIC FOR SASHJUN

[hyphen_chan]

For: sashjun
From: je_levy

Title: LESBIANS, KAME!
Pairings/ Characters: Nakamaru Yuichi/ Ueda Tatsuya, KAT-TUN and their flamhammery.
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Sex!.. and talk of it, established relationship, romance, silliness, genre-overshadowing, and lesbians of course.
Notes: 7,550 words. The timeline of this occurs sometime this year; I dunno :D. I feel lucky because it’s my first time doing this and I got such an awesome request. I seriously adore this pair and it was wicked fun writing for you, sashjun! I really, really hope you like it. Also thanks to C for the last minute interactive betaing and to S-chan for being my special hope-butterfly.
Summary: Two years and some months is a long time to be with anyone, but it doesn’t matter when you’re still going strong. Strong and so very, very without sex. And Yuichi is more attractive with each day passing.”Not cool,” Ueda thinks.


”Quiet, isn’t it?”

That minimalistic way of saying it, stating observations precisely as they are nothing less and certainly nothing more. Yet Yuichi’s clear, narrow eyes laughed. In his own odd way, he was having fun.

And Ueda does like poetry.

The sky was a naked blue that day; with only the faintest wisps of white, like breathy caricatures sponged across its bare expanse. That day was about the scents: leaves, Spring, heat, and lavender.

“You could hear the clouds move,” Ueda murmurs back. “The way it’s quiet…”

One leg stretched like an eclipse over his own lazily; velvet lips pressed like a special surge of electricity against his; careful hand brushed against his thighs and fingers dug deep, hungry, thumbs overpowering the involuntary thrust of his hips.

His own mouth is a vessel of surprised gasps, yearning.

That again, please, once more.

Yuu’s voice was stern, like it is sometimes. “I’d suggest you keep quieter.” His hard tone is a dichotomous contrast to the tiny petal he drags along Ueda’s throat. “I don’t want anyone else nearby to hear anything but those clouds…”

Ueda wakes up to the sound of their water tap stalling, a sluggish thudding noise and Nakamaru mutters something euphemistic. The sun is hot butter light, five streaks against the empty sheets beside him. The pillow is straightened and end of the coverlet tucked neatly away, army style.

Tatsuya can feel the cold sweat on the back of his neck while heat as burning as daybreak coming in the window makes his breath halt.

As the shower kicks to life, he hears Yuu cough, something deep and tired.

From his spot on the bed, he can see the bathroom door open just a hitch and there’s a whisper shift of fabric going down. Ueda tilts his head a little, pushing his bangs up to look properly. The water must still be cold so Yuichi stands, half naked, waiting and his back is hard lines, an elastic type of thin-- two freckles-- one to the right of the dip of his hip bone, one near his shoulder. He can’t see that from where he squints in the glare of the sun, but Ueda has each contour memorised, could probably trace the lines in his sleep, which, as it is, is all he’s been doing lately. And the dreams are getting more vivid as he guiltily watches like this.

To which it once again occurs to him that he shouldn’t be feeling guilty. All that in there, that’s his. It’s been his for-how long has it been?-a while now.

Still…

Ueda slides out of the covers and pads along the wood floor of their room as he hears the shower curtain scrape back and Yuu’s foot slides on the ceramic cautiously, always checking to make sure Ueda hasn’t left traces of his conditioner, lining an oily death for him at the bottom of the tub. The steam is already clouding up and Ueda goes to the sink. The edges of the mirror’s glass have steam seeping upward and in the reflection Ueda can see him, through the thin blue shower curtain, a painted image dodging between droplets of scalding water, the dark shade of his hair being slicked back with his long, white fingers. The hot shower beats down and when Ueda breathes in, he can practically taste the water.

It takes a few seconds to realise the figure behind the curtain is saying his name.

“Eh, what?”

“I’m not going into rehearsal today. I have some work up near Minato so just head there without me.”

He doesn’t answer, just approaches the shower. “Hey,” he says, just on the other side of the curtain and he can make out more outlines.

“Mm?”

“I’m coming in.” He steps out of his pyjama bottoms, and is just about to toss them on the counter when Maru lets out a rough, heated breath, pushing the curtain aside himself and he steps out, dark narrow eyes centering on Ueda for the briefest of seconds.

“I’ll leave the water on for you,” he murmurs with surprising nonchalance. He grabs a towel, wrapping it around himself, barely brushing against him as he crosses to leave the bathroom, dripping a steamy trail behind him. “I’ll make breakfast, but then I gotta go, OK?” He calls back from the bedroom.

Ueda, now under the shower, has to close his mouth, tight, forehead pressed against the tiled wall, as he closes his fist around himself, shutting his eyes as the touch only jogs images and old motions. And the image in his head is a memory from months ago, but it feels like it’s been ages.

”Eight minutes, ok; just eight--oh god--minutes,” Yuichi’s laughter feathered against his neck as he pushed him into the couch. Already rubbing himself up against Ueda.

“Mmm, can you finish in time?” Ueda murmured. He was already gripping Yuu through his trousers, and just the sensation of Maru’s fingers running up his thighs is practically searing him through the fabric of his pants. Ueda remembers how he’d tilted his head back, looking at Maru through low lashes and glazed eyes.

“Worry about whether I can finish you in time,” Maru returns. It comes out breathless but the erotic chill shudders up Ueda’s whole torso just from those words. It was like this, on a stopwatch almost, between jobs, when they were busiest last year, months ago. It was when their eyes met, amidst the mess and the hair-raising stress. They were rocking against each other in more ways than one.

Then, as Ueda remembers, only then, was Yuichi quick and harsh in pressing at Ueda’s tightest spots, mouth open and hissing against his throat, wanting only the release Ueda could give him.

That was roughly seven months ago and now he’s at work. Taguchi’s wearing a stupid Castro hat and Kame is experiencing pain in his hip so gratuitous hip rolls have been totally cancelled. Forever, Ueda thinks. Koki is twitching because the hat that Taguchi’s wearing is apparently his, and “how the hell did he get it?” and Ueda is just not in the mood for all this.

After all, he’s staring in the face of a worry he’s not quite sure is right for him to bring to light. It isn’t as though Nakamaru has changed that much. There’s routine to everything now, though work has sped up again, and their relationship is in a still-water state. The cusp of it is that he’d been embarrassed this morning by what happened.

“Make straights arrows with your arms at this last beat,” the choreographer is saying, and Ueda imagines his arms are arrow-y enough. He does a spin and then points his arms, arrows, perfect.

“Ueda!”

“Sorry..” he mutters, though he isn’t clear what he did wrong. From the way Ueda sees it, he’ll only need to smile and wriggle a bit and the girls will still scream.

During break, he slips his brown shades on and shuts his eyes as he sinks into their green room sofa. He wishes Nakamaru were here because, quite honestly, the only one who can actually talk this through with him is Yuu. There is also the vague chance that it isn’t anything and it’s just a topic they haven’t breached in a while and Ueda thinks of stress and nods quietly to himself thinking how unhealthy it is to fret, then he wonders how long it takes before your partner’s habits begin to rub off on you to which where he considers the concept of neuroses as a contagion.

That’s scary. He may start wearing patterned sweater vests.

“Are you keeping it fresh?”

Ueda’s eyes open, pinpointing Taguchi sprawled on the opposite sofa, a magazine with a lot of pastel images and a woman sprawled over the page open in front of him. He is an incomprehensible being to begin with so as to why he’s reading a women’s advice column, and aloud at that, is instantly beyond Ueda.

He’s learnt not to ask because of the high chances of their having to talk about it. Yuichi’s always been better at this sort of thing.

“Oh ho! ‘Freshness is like the element of surprise. If you don’t surprise your partner then there is a chance that things will get...boring.” He reads it like everyone in the room is hanging off his every word. Kame, over by the makeup counter, has his earphones in and Koki is much the same but he keeps sending sharp, suspicious glances at Taguchi and his hat. “Haha~ ‘...it also helps to introduce your partner to an out of the ordinary activity’ Oh my god!”

“Taguchi...” Ueda begins, pretty much hitting his last nerve...

“Lesbians are really cool, aren’t they?” Taguchi muses.

Kame’s earbuds seem to come out at the word ‘lesbians’. “What?” he says.

Taguchi flops on his back, raising the magazine in the air as his legs drop over the back of his sofa. “Lesbians, Kame!” he calls back gleefully.

It’s much worse now that Kame is listening as Taguchi begins to read louder. “Ok, ok! So they’re talking about freshness... ‘avoiding lesbian bed death is a big factor, passionate lesbian love has a life expectancy of two to four years.”

“Why are you saying the word ‘lesbian’ so loudly,” Koki asks, pulling his own earbuds out, eyebrows turned downward.

Now he’s listening, Ueda thinks. He isn’t sure what Nakamaru would usually say to put an end to this.

“Because...” Taguchi murmurs, looking over the article for the good bits. “I’m adding it in. There’s not enough of the word ‘lesbian’ in this article considering it’s a lesbian magazine.”

Ueda knows it bears asking, but he refuses to show interest particularly since it’s not quite the concept of lesbians, kame! that’s got him listening. The word “bed-death” strikes him like any new term, but it makes him frenetic with trepidation.

Kame gets up and leans over the back of Taguchi’s couch. “Is it even a lesbian magazine?” He attempts to grab it.

Taguchi’s eyes widen and his lip curls, a deadly scowl creeping over his features. “Mine.” ”

Kame backs away. His gaze flickers with some panic to Ueda, still in shades; he seems to want to make sure he isn’t the only one who just saw that. Ueda shuts his eyes. Life’s easier when he just pretends he’s sleeping.

Ueda comes home around four-thirty and Maru still isn’t home. He gets lonely easily, especially indoors, so he steps back out another thirty minutes later for a run. He takes the longer route, wanting time to think. Maybe put some clarity to the reason why an advice column for lesbians is making him consider his own love life so deeply.

Two years and some months now. That’s a long time to be with anyone. They’d fallen comfortably into it at the time, like they did with all the things they did together. Dinners after work, long chats and even those sudden seconds of quiet where they’d look at each other and puzzle wordlessly-such an effortless feeling of something simple; they’d watch movies and Yuu would try, with a ravine of patience, to teach Ueda how to play video games. In hindsight, Ueda hadn’t noticed that Nakamaru had been courting him in a sense.

Not that he had to.

On Yuu’s twenty-fifth birthday, Ueda stood just behind their recording studio, waiting, and Yuichi striding toward him-- all sweatered and stress-tousled-- looked like he needed kissing. Ueda’s not all that sure to this day which one of them went for it first.

They still met somewhere in the middle.

Wordless and only some minutes later had Maru adopted an expression that made him look like he was listing thirty-eight numbers into pi before he asked in complete seriousness. “It’s all right, isn’t it? You’re OK with me like this?”

It was probably the only time he’d ever hit Maru. “Please try to keep up,” he’d said, pressing his cold palms to the sides of Maru’s neck, bringing them nose to nose before he’d kissed him once more.

Around six o’clock Yuu comes home while Ueda’s in the shower. He has the TV on, muted, some anime flickering onscreen in the background as he sits-- curled in a blanket in their sofa’s corner-- poring over a textbook.

As Ueda opens the bedroom door, Maru’s smile is sort of sideways as he leans his cinnamon-coloured head back on the sofa’s arm to get a look at him. “Oh!” he says, feigning unnecessary surprise, some kind of dance swimming in his dark irises. He’s so silly.

It’s the type of pleased that makes Ueda think this morning was just a hitch. Six sexless months have passed between them with so much comfort and he hasn’t even noticed because this-- just like it was-- has been fine.

Yuu shifts the blanket and raises it when Ueda comes around to sit on the opposite end. When Ueda slides under, their toes touch and Yuu flips a page in his textbook, a secret smile directed at his black and white text on energy extraction.

“Today it was lesbians,” Ueda mutters, pulling the blanket up to his neck, curling the edges of it in his fingers. He watches the TV screen absently.

“Who started it?”

“Taguchi...”

“That’s new.”

“He was loud.”

“And Kame?”

“I think he has a thing for them,” Ueda grimaces and he feels better when he looks over at him; Yuichi looks just as exasperated and amused.

“Well, everyone has their thing, of course,” Yuichi finally concludes reasonably. He scratches the back of his head comfortably, flashing a glance at Ueda.

And whatever the meaning of that tiny enigma right there, Ueda knows Yuichi’s thinking of the same thing.

”I promise it’s nothing…that kinky” Yuu’s ears were glowing red, but he didn’t ever break his stare, head pillowed on his fist, leaning a little over Ueda.

Ueda remembers, lying half under Maru, smiling, being genuinely amused. “It probably is really weird, isn’t it?” He spent a silent, awe-struck moment considering possible S&M play. He’d never actually taken that route, and it’d just be too many kinds of hilarious if Maru wanted to be tied up and insulted or something. Unless, Ueda thought darkly, he wanted it the other way around...

Yuichi poked him in the side. “Quit glaring like that; I’ll tell you, all right?”

Ueda’s expression smoothed but if words like leather or crops started to drop, he’d consider himself armed with the right- nay- the obligation to disillusion Maru of his designs.

He recalls how he wriggled nervously when Maru reached into his bedside drawer, unearthing a soft-looking strip of black cloth. Their eyes met. “Like I said, it’s not anything...I just want to touch you,” and the last words petered out voicelessly.

“Ah...” he mouthed back, staring at the cloth still in Yuichi’s hand. “And?” His tone shook for the barest moment and it wasn’t embarrassing only due to the way Yuu was looking at him. Fearful, like Ueda might not agree. And that was just...

“Do whatever you want. I trust you.” The words came out quicker and lower than he’d intended, but Ueda remembers how Yuu had let out this groan of something wistful and harsh before crushing his lips against Ueda’s.

It had been his hands and the blindfold, nylon. Yuichi had laid him naked, sprawled sideways on their mattress, and Maru’s palms-ghosts of soft skin-dragged up from his stomach, grazing up his chest, thumbs coming down pressing shapes over his nipples. And in the dark with the nylon tied snugly, he felt like he was getting to know something. Learning of unpredictability when the most unexpected turn of Yuu’s slender index finger traced the waistline of his hips.

“Describe it to me, please, Tatsuya…how am I making you feel?”

He was in a warm dark, a slowly burning core. “That...it makes me want you lower,”

He heard the mattress breathe when he cantered his hips up as Yuu walked his fingers around and down, teasing around his hips, curling around his bare buttocks.

“Do you… like them there?”

“Mmm.” Just being sightless like that…only Yuichi’s hands existed and his whispering hot appeals, fingers, palms, creases between his thumb and index finger pressing so close-- yes--so close to where he was aching. The reassuring, still polite timbre of his voice as he asked again and again. Breathless. “You want that?”

And not seeing him, Ueda didn’t remember Maru’s voice being that low and rich before. “I’m going to draw a pattern on you...right there”

“Ah!”

“That was a butterfly...what do you want next?”

“Um...mm...something long, so you go higher…leminescate...”

“I’m going to press down, Tatchan... that’s my ring finger-- right under your...”

“Nngh! Mm, yes, Yu...ichi...”

And Ueda had spilled poetry that day, untiring descriptions of what he wanted, where and when-oh god-when it was so good. He remembers he opened his mouth; tongue hot against Yuu’s fingers. Then his own palm, those teasing thumbs circling their center before Yuu’s lips grazed in the daintiest way on each fingertip, like little lances of satin worship. Both of them breathless, he had no more words and it became him resting his own palms up inside Yuichi’s shirt.

“Curl your fingers in,” he remembers Maru had whispered hotly and still unseeing-Yuu’s weight coming in over him-he’d traced his bruised knuckles down an impossibly silk-like stomach. “L-like that.”

“Ah…”

The memory of it, still breath-taking colour vivid. He feels the familiar curl of hot thrill just watching Yuichi slip his index finger between the pages of his book, flipping the glossed paper and curling it under his other hand, delicate wrists flexing. Yuichi had his own “thing” definitely, but it was the thrill he got from giving other people a special need to watch, touch, and react to his beautiful hands.

Which was just typical since Ueda was a very willing convert to those specifics.

He slides his leg, still under the blanket, forward to poke Yuu in the thigh with the tip of his socked foot. Maru’s sends him a flash of a look, brief but charged.

Ueda grips the back of the sofa as he rises, prepared to slip into a crouch over Maru. Yuichi’s eyes are deep, anticipating; he wants it just as much. The textbook shuts.

Ueda thinks he’d like to ride him right there, heels curled over the back of the sofa, arms wrapped around him, sliding on momentum and the firm grasp of Yuu’s fingers, curving around his buttocks.

The image of it strikes him and he presses his forehead to Yuu’s and he smells so good. He wonders if the ache only hurts just a little because it’s been so long.

It’s Yuichi who reaches up, raising his lips, dipping his tongue like a spade between Ueda’s already parted lips. Ueda is still to his left, arm braced on the back of the couch; he likes when Yuu grabs him, but fingers only curl in the v of his t-shirt’s collar. He isn’t given time to breath, open-mouthed, the taste of him and their tongues lap like a wet, muscular friction and it’s just. so...

They break away gasping, eyes meet for this shock and charged moment. He waits for Yuu, waits for him to push the blanket away, drag him on top, start to bite a little, wiry hips rocking and he’s already hard just thinking about it.

Yuu’s breaths still come in pants as he looks, just looks at Ueda, so many things racing until it starts to get long and everything stills when Yuichi’s fingers uncurl from the dip of his v-neck. When Ueda’s eyebrows crush together, Yuu smiles and presses one more peck to his jaw. “We need to eat dinner. I brought home stir-fry ingredients.”

Ueda is speechless as he watches Yuichi slip off the couch, stretching, sliding into his slippers before shuffling off to the kitchen. Ueda falls back on the couch, swallowing, unease quelling his arousal.

Something’s seriously up. And Ueda, in all his experience with the visible symptoms of the chronic asinine, knows this is going to be the mother of all asininity.

He dreams again.

They’re there again, in the lavender, but it’s different than before where the early autumn sky was cool. Maru’s hands only hover above him, the stems of lavender caught between his thumb and index finger . The sun is like something searing, too close in the broad blue sky. Ueda turns, breathless, eyes shut and feels weight and moisture just as the petals brush his stomach, scraping their light touches in teasing ways and it’s just too hot where they are.

Yuichi mouths words, a silhouette in the too-low sunlight. Ueda lies back as each stem drops velvety licks along his hipbone, knees curling in, throat constricting as his eyes glaze over.

He’s bathed in sweat; panting and he can already feel himself tightening below. Yuichi’s eyes are smouldering brown in the morning’s pale light. Lying next to him in the bed, head pillowed on his arm, Yuu stares at him a little greedily. Before Ueda can open his mouth to say anything, Yuu brushes a hand in his own hair. “Music station recording today. Let’s get there early, huh?” before he throws the covers back to get up.

It’s one of those summer specials and with the dance steps including extra leg flails and handwaves, and the lazerlights and fluorescent beams shining in from all corners, rehearsal feels like repetitive spoonfuls of salt, heat with strong traces of crushed light bulb. Taguchi-- recently pulled in as the spokesperson for Red Bull Japan of which the tagline is literally, “Holy Shit!”-- after downing three in the green room, now in promotion mode-- sounds like he has Tourettes. Koki seems to find this type of Taguchi far more entertaining and they’re half backstage echoing the “cool tagline”. Kame is watching with some puzzlement and an expression that Ueda is pretty sure means he sort of wants to join in. Overall, Ueda is just so not in the mood. He passes the time waiting for everyone else to get their shit together by watching Yuichi across the stage from him. The lights seems to love him or something today because he’s glowing and Ueda squints.

The audience of girls are being neatly arranged by staff and Maru wanders to the front of the stage and offers an unsmiling wave, dark eyes picking them out at random. They shriek and Kame, who has drifted close to Ueda’s shoulder, mutters, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Nakamaru looks... sultry.”

God and Ueda has been looking, but he says, “What?” anyway. Yuu’s wearing a tapered suit like normal, slim tie and all, but there’s something different and Ueda hasn’t realised that “sultry” was the word for that shy and straight-gazed ride-me look.

“Well, look at him.” Kame murmurs. “He’s eyeing that audience like he’s gonna do each and every one of them.”

Maru beatboxes a little into his mic, darting a swift look at the front row. A great number of those girls are instantly caught in a visible swoon. Ueda takes this in with a quiet, swelling horror and is unfortunate enough that Yuu feels their gaze and turns. His brown hair is caught in a silky fringe, a little tired-looking, and like this morning, his gaze is intent, lazy, but only as he blinks. He shoots that curled up grin, secretive, at the both of them.

“Whoa,” Kame says breathlessly and his hand on Ueda’s shoulder tightens.

Not cool, Ueda thinks and stares Yuichi down, all steel-like, until that aggravating smile just fades to puzzlement and-for fuck’s sake-he still looks so...

“Hory shitto!” Taguchi says from behind them, and the sound of a can being opened echoes in his mic.

Ueda remembers last year, their hardest year, and if he was being honest with himself-- along the lines of people who inspired him to take a deeper breath and ignore the second-hand opinions of people who just didn’t know anything.

”Well... KAT-TUN has always been about change. Maybe we can use this time to refocus on that fact.”

Ueda respects Yuichi. Even if their relationship had never changed; even if he never won this surprising little slice of forever with him, he’d have wanted to follow him around anyway.

It helps that Yuu would look at him, sidelong, to say things like, “You... are like a- like a bonus.” Then it was perfect because Yuichi would roll his eyes self-deprecatingly, look away with this face that is caught between mortification and outright alarm at himself. Then...then Ueda wouldn’t have to duck his head and hope his laughter sounds light enough.

So Ueda doesn’t eavesdrop. He doesn’t creep around people either. That sort of thing is for losers, really. But he does live in the apartment as well and with no more than an excuse that he had to study in the bedroom, Maru had brushed anime afternoon aside.

The way Ueda sees it, they’ve got something to set straight and he doesn’t see any reason why he needs to play dumb. So after he finishes his show, he gets up to go talk to his partner. He thinks rationality may be key, but quite frankly, Ueda wonders if it’d be excusable to overturn principles, just go in there and stimulate something into happening. Still, Ueda’s seduction technique only ranges between looks and these awkward physical cues and…well, Yuichi was the only one who…

Ugh. He rests his hand in his hair irritably as he presses his forehead to the door.

“It feels like…it works. You should’ve seen... but it’s getting harder to keep it up, so I dunno. I can’t just not be at home, but it’s getting to be painful. I just…I kind of look at him a lot, and he’s going to notice sooner or later.”

He hears a laugh and it’s not Yuichi’s but it’s familiar, that smoky-- head-thrown back-- free laughter.

Ueda’s no idiot. And he doesn’t like to fuck around when he’s peeved. He pushes the door open and watches passively as Yuichi, seated on the bed in front of a laptop, shuts it hurriedly.

“Explain,” Ueda says quietly, shutting the door behind him with a sharp and meaningful click. “Start with who you were talking to.”

At the very least Maru looks sorry, and all the more gratifying, he looks scared as he slips off the bed. A long moment passes in which Maru purses his lips, dour and in control again. “Just to set the record straight, I’m not cheating on you.”

“I know that.” Ueda is incredulous. “What I want to know is who you were talking to.”

Yuichi pauses. “You have…that much faith in me?” His usually arched eyebrows look mild with a soft gaze Ueda only sees when he’s talking about a war documentary showing on satellite, but whenever Yuu starts on that stuff, Ueda’s eyes automatically glaze over, and he doesn’t even really see the look so it’s really a moot point…

He may have made some sounds of the feline variety in that second, but that is neither here nor there. “Who. Were. You talking to?”

Maru drops his arms, sighing. “I was speaking with Akanishi on skype…”

Ueda crosses the room to the bed, opening the laptop. He looks at the blank screen for a tense moment. He hesitates and Yuu blinks at him. Ueda chews his lip and lifts up the contraption and turns it over a little inadvertently, searching, not meeting Yuichi’s gaze. He pokes at some potential keys and the machine just whirs.

“What are you…what are you doing?” Maru asks him carefully and Ueda never blushes. No, really.

Ueda shakes it a little, concerned. He pokes his tongue out the corner of his mouth, staring with some challenge at it. It’s not a matter of being slow or techno-savvy, Ueda just likes things to cooperate with him and it has been established by him in the past that computers are deliberate assholes.

Ueda has little patience for deliberate assholes.

Yuichi reaches him just before his fist connects with the keyboard. Jumping forward, Yuu catches his arm, weight pushing him backward and the coverlet is slippery and they both connect with the floor. There’s a still pause in which Ueda is caught in a flinch. It hurts a great deal and with the additional weight and elbows and hard knees and Yuichi’s fingers digging into his parted thighs -- wait...

He sits up on his elbows and Yuu, lying between his legs, looks at him and his gaze is doing that thing again, intent like a brand, greedily drinking him in. He runs a hand shakily over the inside of Ueda’s thigh, nails lightly scraping up the fabric of his cotton capris. “Tatsuya,” he groans wistfully. “Why on earth... are you so soft?”

Ueda’s head goes fuzzy for a moment, just a moment, because his skin starts screaming something numb when Yuichi slides up against him, hovering before pressing hard right between his legs, hips circling a halting rhythm that drags a moan from both of them. He’s awestruck, just for that moment, when Maru’s eyes close, whole frame shuddering up against him and it’s so hot.

But then he remembers and even though he’s shaking, he pushes Maru back. “What is up with you?” he demands and his own voice sounds hoarse and good god he can feel it all pooling downwards, but he needs to keep his head.

Yuichi sits back, curling up his knees, head falling back against the side of the bed. He still somehow manages some level of impressive composure and Ueda feels a little at a loss. “I’m so sorry,” he’s saying.

Ueda clears his throat, pushing his bangs up irritably. “Well?” he prompts. “Make it quick, Nakamaru.”

“...Remember last year, after all the changing around and stuff. Somehow when I was...I’ve been pushed to the front.”

“OK? But I asked you about it last June and you said you were all right with it, that-- what did you say-- that it was all about doing your job.”

“I am all right with it, and you’re all supportive and... you especially. OK, I may have started to chicken out a bit especially when you all wanted me to start being more... demonstrative on stage.”

Ueda’s listening and he raises his eyebrows when Yuichi chances an embarrassed glance at him. “All right,” he supplies. “But you did it, and you’re doing it here and there and everyone’s generally impressed. People think you and Kame make an ideal pair and I’m sure they’re all squealing into their pillows at home when you do that thing with your eyes. So what?”

“I... hmm, all right, remember the time we went to Hawaii together and you wanted to try scuba diving, so I--”

“--you wanted to go to the local bookstore and read up on it, but there weren’t any books in Japanese on the subject so you went looking for an Internet cafe. Yes, vividly; we didn’t do anything for the first three days because you needed to be the expert,” Ueda mutters back a little bitterly. “Yes, I do recall.”

Yuichi turns, dour once more. “Exactly but, if you also recall, I was able to adopt some preventative measures. One hundred scuba deaths occur in a year alone; sinus issues too--”

“There was an instructor for that very reason, so we’re not going to argue about your nose issues right now OK?” Ueda cuts in and feels a little validated when Yuu makes an ambivalent and suspicious expression at his word choice. He rarely gets away with those. “What does this have to do with why you’re acting like an asshat?”

“So I like second opinions and- well- there’s no one else I know who’s been in my position except...”

It clicks. “You asked Akanishi for idol advice?!”

Maru looks away and nods.

This is so much ridiculous that Ueda finds himself trying to categorise the very constructs of just oh god why. He shuts his eyes, already exasperated. “And he told you what?”

Yuu clears his throat and his ears are already a perfect tomato colour. “He said... I just have to abruptly stop having sex; I dunno. It sounded more sensible when he was saying it especially when he makes that serious face and his eyes get all small...so I thought I’d give it a try and I was doing so well, but then you were being so...with your....whatever...”

His seductive whatever powers aside, Ueda can almost picture with full clarity Akanishi’s gestures, hands waving and eyes wide and smug explaining to the apparently very impressionable Yuichi, to “Just stop having sex. Just stop.” He can hear Akanishi’s amused impromptu tone and Yuu’s doubtful protests, but this is all familiar stuff and it could easily be three years ago even and it still doesn’t make any sense why Yuichi doesn’t just work it out.

But for all of Ueda’s soft spots for Jin, he feels like this mutual bullying thing that Akanishi and Yuu keep up needs some ground rules. Ueda isn’t controlling, though, and Yuichi can do what he likes with their friends and he feels as though there are not enough words in his vocabulary for this new level of...

Yeah, OK, so he’s angry. Can’t be helped.

He gets up, standing over Yuichi’s bent form. “First of all, Akanishi has never had a special secret to being who he is. Unfortunately for you, that shit he does is natural and you’re being strung along which I’m sure I’d have found hilarious if you were consciously just humouring him like you usually do, but... you just get so dumb when you’re scared and sometimes...” Ueda chews his lip when Yuu looks up at him. “Sometimes it’d be cool if you just told me--” He reaches his tether’s end right then and he’d never actually hit anyone and the laptop is there.

The sound it makes when it hits their floor is gratifying. He hopes computers are a little sentient so this one knows it died for being an asshole earlier.

“Tatsuya...” Yuu begins, shifting to get up.

Ueda side-steps him. “I love you, but you’re a moron right now. Let me know when you’ve grown a backbone.”

He heads for the kitchen to grab a drink and thinks how he really doesn’t quite know what he wants Maru to do. At this rate, they’ll still be as comfortable when he feels less angry about it, but...

His thoughts still when he turns from the fridge and Yuichi is standing in the doorway. They look at each other and Yuu folds his arms. “I should’ve told you. That was unfair.” He states, all minimalistic as always, bare phrase structure signifying a blanching raw state of how he thinks of him. Ueda looks away.

“OK,” he says, nodding.

“I feel the same as you do, about my being a moron over this... and that I l-love you,” Yuichi then says.

Ueda has to glare or he won’t be able to control his expression. “OK,” he says again and this time his voice comes out a little stonier than he means it to and he can feel Yuu gazing at him. He is holding a water bottle and it creaks as he squeezes it a little helplessly. Finally he looks Yuichi dead in the eye and like this, it’s their familiar stare, puzzling and wondering why it’s always been so intuitive with them, and he doesn’t even bother to think whether it makes him weak that he caves and he feels better anyway.

Yuichi doesn’t smile but his eyes soften.

“Good then,” he replies a little plainly and he’s just going to sit in their sofa and watch Bakuman or something and try not to look at Maru too much. They’ll work through his little challenge; it’s what they do.

He passes Yuichi, bumping him in the shoulder on purpose and Yuu finally smiles, but it’s a second too late for Ueda to spot the difference between a Maru sideways smile and a Maru smirk. The doorjamb hurts a little, but he’s distracted by the fact that Yuu’s fisting the sides of his shirt, chest pressed to his, breath catching.

Ueda’s water bottle drops, rolling toward a table leg. It’s the only sound for seconds as Ueda tries to focus, his head swimming. Yuu lets out a shaking breath against his jaw when Ueda shifts and right there-- he feels him-- hard against his hip. He doesn’t breathe for seconds and he’s a little hesitant, but raises his leg a little and he can feel his own ache grazing up and then--oh -- the brush of them together is as jolting as speaker feedback. He only knows Yuichi makes any noise because he feels the vibration in his chest when he finally exhales. Shaking, he brings his arms up around Yuu and clutches his shoulders.

To an observer from afar, they could have been hugging, except that they’re both trembling and Ueda brings his thigh up slowly, higher and higher to mesh them so deliciously together while Yuu presses him into the doorjamb with these liquid-like rolls. Ueda’s eyes flutter shut and he still hesitates.

Finally. Gasping. “What about...” Between these two words Ueda snaps his hips forward without thinking and Yuichi makes this sound and with surprising strength he hooks his hands behind Ueda’s thighs and hikes him up, wrapping him in desperately. They entangle and Yuichi only looks up to seek out Ueda’s mouth.

“I...” Yuu murmurs, kissing him, mouth open, half-mad as he thrusts against him once and Ueda slides up the doorjamb. “I don’t care...oh please.”

Ueda’s tongue lances out over Maru’s bottom lip roughly, his hands sliding up his back, reaching for a handful of hair, clutching for balance and so much more of that something delicious. Their lips crush together as Yuichi bucks again and the groans become something deeper, growls and Ueda accidentally bites when the jutting wood of the doorjamb hits his back harder this time.

“Ouch,” he hisses, but Yuu persists, devouring him, tongue sliding against the corner of Ueda’s mouth as they both rise with Yuichi bearing his weight on shaking arms and then Ueda, caught in vertigo, slides down and they pound back together.

It isn’t enough and Ueda crooks his knees back when Yuichi thrusts up again. He’s about to fall, so he grabs ahold of the top part of the kitchen doorway, curling his nails into the lintel. Maru keeps thrusting and he’s soon doing pull-ups to make the friction just right. His arm muscles are taut and he could probably hold out if Yuu up against him weren’t turning him to jelly. “You can’t carry me the whole time,” he gasps finally.

Yuichi steps back, but only a little as Ueda drops to the floor. He isn’t given a breather before Yuu grabs for him again and-- yes, the way he likes it-- fingers clutching at his sweater. dragging it apart, ignoring the buttons and it’s off and he doesn’t care where they are. Ueda pushes at the empty belt loops on Maru’s jeans as he drags the zipper down. Maru’s own fingers are tearing at the buttons on his capris, dragging them down to his thighs. Clothes are so annoying suddenly and he savours the feeling of the bareness of Yuichi’s chest with his tongue. Dragging quick desperate patterns, tasting him as he feels his senses scream just from the simple feel of Maru tugging his underwear down.

Then he’s finally undressed and Yuichi smells so amazing and it bathes him like he can taste hints of it in the air around him, days when he has to be home alone, and it’s been way too fucking long so that when Yuu pushes him against the bare wall just missing one of Ueda’s bookshelves, Ueda starts to sob with naked need. Yuu’s clawing fingers snake up, curling around the back of Tat-chan’s neck as his tongue darts out, opening his mouth over him.

Ueda rocks toward him and there, like that, once more Yuichi gasps and reaches down, sliding tense fingers along his hips until he’s reaching between them, slipping his fist around both of them, cradling, then squeezing and then loosening. With each squeeze, Ueda cries and he starts to say Yuichi’s name, but it comes out voiceless. Maru’s fingers drift away to dance between them and Ueda’s fingers rake up his back when they shudder together.

Their eyes meet because they’re both teasing and it’s amazing and Ueda doesn’t want to move when they’re tucked back against the wall like this, the friction hurting so good.

“I...” Yuichi buries himself in Ueda’s neck and whispers. “Can we just...I don’t want to let go...”

“Me neither,” Ueda replies, nipping at Yuu’s ear, tonguing it lovingly. “I like the way we are right now.”

“I do like it like this...” Maru breathes, eyes dancing with something that isn’t lucid, but still intent and everything Ueda feels himself. “But I want to fuck you, Tat-chan.”

Ueda shivers, wets his lips and reaches down, feeling Maru, hard and pressed into his thigh. Yeah, he wants that, but he just doesn’t want to let go. He’s too busy savouring the hitched breaths as he takes Maru’s earlobe in his mouth entirely.

“Ah,” Maru hisses. “I could...probably... come just thinking about it at this point.”

Ueda bites down and the sound that erupts from his partner makes his insides sizzle. “Don’t you dare,” Ueda says. And it’s a little funny, but he figures it’s them and they’ve had it more ridiculous in the past. “All right,” he says finally, still nipping at Maru’s ear between words. “let’s see how strong you are. There’s lube in the bedroom, but there’s also...olive oil in the kitchen which is just over there...either way, you’re gonna be carrying me.”

“Eh?” Yuichi moans a little laughingly. Just to offer some more encouragement, Ueda slides his hand downward, stroking Maru with a maddeningly loose grip.

“Nnngh, god... all right, let’s do this.”

To Ueda’s pleasant surprise, Maru manages to pull him upward, bringing his thighs up-- and even more surprising--he turns for the kitchen and Ueda clutches him tight, shaking with laughter. Maru winces, but sets him down on the counter and leans back, massaging his arms. “That was hard,” he sighs forlornly.

SIlent, eyes still fixed on Yuichi, he points at the cupboard by the oven. “Get the oil then; hurry up and you can make it hard for me.”

For all intents and purposes, he realises that it’s not really cool to make puns when they’re in the middle of something like this, but Yuu is looking at him the way he looks at military gear and that’s just... well, it makes him wonder if its possible for a heart to just explode the way it’s doing things to his ribs. So he shuts his eyes and leans back, thinking of that expression, memorising it as Yuichi’s slicked fingers start to pull him open, sliding in with care and only the type of glancing, bright-eyed need that can come from a person that...

He moans when Yuichi brings his knee on the counter, and his calves rest on his shoulders. They haven’t done this before and it’s so much more of a thrill, feeling the slide of the granite counter under him as Yuu presses in, and it’s hurtful good, being slid into, opened again and again, harder like it’s an infinity current. He clutches the counter as Yuichi’s hand curls over his cock at the same time.

Writhing, they may have knocked some things over, but they clutch one another for balance, drinking in each new moan and the salty, wet sounds in the air as Yuu slides languidly, savouring Ueda’s ability to tighten teasingly. Amazing and yes, dream-worthy, but so much more tangible and gorgeous. So Ueda comes on that thought, crying out at several tones because Yuichi squeezes into him, ramming forward because it’s been just that long and the pain and ache drags it out of him with some stern, levelled, and desperate vengeance. When Yuichi finally tips forward, shaking, cinnamon hair sliding against Ueda’s cheek, he wraps his arms around him because as much as the feeling of Maru’s beating and heaving chest slicked against his is familiar, they’ve made a sensation so raw and radiantly new.

At work the next week, Ueda sits, shades on, as he leans against the mirror of their rehearsal room taking a break with Kame. Taguchi is at a table at the back, typing away at his laptop smugly, excused because he’d been given a column OTAKU LOVE: INFLATE YOUR WOMAN WITH PLEASURE in some magazine. Ueda was sort of proud of him, though Koki was acting all forlorn, glancing at their tallest with various torn expressions, jaw working dangerously. Maru explained it was because Koki had obviously hoped to be the first one to get his own writing job; Ueda nods sympathetically.

Kame, on the other hand, grimaces from where they sit watching Yuichi get caught up with their choreography. “Look at him. It’s like he’s on fire; what do you two do nowadays that’s got him so energetic?”

Ueda is caught up in a second where Maru’s eyes slide to his, secret and militant the way that he can be. “Lesbians, Kame...” he murmurs breathlessly. When Kame’s eyes narrow and his gasp is sharp, Ueda leans back on the heels of his hands and he’s all smiles. “Just keeping it fresh like lesbians.”