Gift Fic for pinkpapyrus - Part Two
Part One
When he gets to the studio, Yoko greets everyone there, bowing when he's introduced, before being shuffled off to wardrobe.
"You know, I was just wearing a suit like an hour ago," he jokes when the stylist hands him his outfit. He hears from another stylist that it will be the last day of filming for some of the actors, which just adds another level of potential awkwardness to the situation. Yoko wonders if he'll be able to sneak out before they start in with the speeches and handing out of bouquets; maybe he actually will run and hide in the Zenkai Girl studio like Ohkura had suggested.
There's some time before they'll be ready to shoot his scene, so Yoko stands around on the sidelines watching for a while, before he starts to feel nerves creeping up on him.
Hey, a part of his brain that Yoko wishes he could lobotomize thinks, at least I'm not thinking about Hina!
Of course, that thought is enough to set him off. He thinks about Subaru's comment about the two of them being like a married couple. It's nothing Yoko hasn't heard from Subaru (and the other members, and that palm reader, and the fans...) before, the sort of thing Yoko could usually laugh off, but in light of what happened between them it feels very, very different. He remembers wondering the previous day if he was in love with Hina, the daydream he'd had about the two of them getting married...Yoko shakes his head, as if he could physically jar the memory loose, get his thoughts in order somehow. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. If he's going to react all awkwardly like this every time someone makes a joke about his relationship with Hina from now on, he's in for a whole world of trouble.
Yoko's so absorbed in his own thoughts he almost doesn't notice Aya walking toward him. He tries to pull his face into something resembling a normal expression, something other than "I'm currently busy thinking about how I feel awkward about having slept with one of my closest friends who also happens to be my bandmate," and ducks his head in a bow when she gets close.
"Hi," she says, smile bright, "it's been a while."
"Yeah," Yoko says, fumbling for something else to say. "How have you been?"
"Pretty good, and yourself?"
Yoko shrugs. "Can't complain." Yoko laughs inwardly at the phrase: he's got plenty he'd like to complain about, but he can't exactly share it with her.
A silence stretches out between them, Yoko looking down at his newly-polished shoes, before Aya is called back to the set. She flashes him a smile that's a bit more pitying than Yoko would really like, and dashes off. As he watches her go, Yoko decides he needs to get out of there, if only for a few minutes.
The Zenkai Girl set is easy to find, and Yoko wanders in as Ryo's getting some notes from the director. He waves, and Ryo breaks into a smile and waves back before his expression turns serious again as he listens to the instructions. Yoko likes to see the other members at work like this, doing stuff outside of the bubble of the group. Seeing their hardworking, serious sides always makes Yoko feel like he's got to keep on working hard too, so they don't leave him in the dust.
"Hey," Ryo says, jogging over to greet Yoko. "What's up?"
"I was in the neighborhood," Yoko says. "I just wanted to come see 'The Nishikido Ryo' in action."
Ryo snorts. "Well, you're too late; I've got a break right now."
Yoko follows Ryo to his dressing room, where they sit on the couch, talking and watching TV with Bitaro.
"You two have the same taste," Ryo jokes when Yoko's channel-flipping stops them on an episode of Doraemon.
When the episode finishes and Bitaro has run off to play somewhere, Ryo pulls out his PSP.
"Wanna play a little?" he asks.
"I left mine in my bag on set," Yoko says, getting up. "I should probably get back anyway, I think they'll be shooting my scene soon."
"Good luck," Ryo says, briefly looking up from the screen as Yoko leaves.
They're just finishing up the scene before Yoko's when he comes back into the studio. He says his greetings to the staff before they start. The scene is short, easy enough to film, and they've got it done within a few takes. Yoko's glancing over at the door, wondering how he can make his escape, when several of the ADs appear on the set, their arms full of flowers. At this point, it would be rude to just run off, so Yoko stands around on the sidelines, trying to avoid getting filmed by the rolling cameras. They drag him over for a group shot, but otherwise he manages to stay relatively inconspicuous. He even has another relatively successful conversation with Aya, until Ryo sends over Bitaro to mess with him. He ducks out shortly after that, face red.
It's early evening when Yoko gets home, and he flips through the TV channels for a little while before settling on a variety show to watch while he eats dinner. When Yoko's finished eating he looks down at the way his t-shirt is stretched over his stomach, thinks of the disused gym membership card in his wallet, of the tour coming up. He has the next day off; it seems as good a time as any to start trying to get in shape. Having recently seen Hina naked might be spurring him on just a little bit more, too, but Yoko tries very hard not to think about that part. He sits in front of the TV for a while longer before getting up to run the bath. Normally Yoko would take the opportunity of an early evening and no work the following morning to play games until the wee hours of the morning, but all of the stress of the past few days seems to be taking its toll on him (or maybe he's just getting old), and he feels exhausted, ready for a long night's sleep.
Yoko's plans for a lengthy lie-in before dragging himself to the gym are ruined by the fact that he'd forgotten to pull his curtains fully closed the night before. His bedroom window faces east, and by around eight there's sun streaming through the small crack between the sheets of dark fabric, settling right over Yoko's face. He grumbles, turning over a few times and hiding under the blanket, but he can't fall back asleep. He pushes the blanket down to his stomach, rubbing his knuckles over his forehead, and turns over so he's face down.
He may not be able to go back to sleep, but Yoko decides to stay in bed at least a little while longer. He rocks his hips absently against the futon, his cock half-hard. Yoko hasn't jerked off since waking up with Hina, partly because he's been busy but mostly because he's afraid he'll end up thinking about it, but the need's been building over the past few days and he doesn't really feel like ignoring it anymore. He lifts his hips up, pushing his hand under the waistband of his pajama pants. Yoko's skin is sleep-warm under his palm, and he sighs against the pillow when he wraps his fingers around his cock, hips shifting forward.
He strokes himself to hardness slowly like that, lying on his stomach and thinking about the most recent porn he'd watched, an American DVD he'd borrowed from Subaru; something without mosaics that had left Yoko feeling a mix of turned on and concerned about Subaru's preferences. In Yoko's mind he skips over the twenty minute scene where the man licked the woman's vinyl boots and goes straight to the blowjob. The woman was blonde, with breasts of a size Yoko thought only existed in cartoons, and she'd knelt down after taking off her dress, parting her plump, wet lips to take the man's cock into her mouth. The way it was shot from above made it easy for Yoko to imagine himself in the man's place, slipping his cock between her lips and feeling that sweet suction as her cheeks hollowed out.
Yoko turns over onto his back, breathing hard now, and pushes his pajamas so they're halfway down his thighs. He spits in his palm, thinking of wet, red mouths and tight, hot suction. His strokes get faster, and it's harder to concentrate on the fantasy, to lead it where he wants, and before Yoko realizes what's happening he's thinking about Hina poised over him, straddling Yoko's hips and scraping his teeth against Yoko's neck. Yoko stops abruptly, his cock twitching in protest.
"Fuck," he mutters, and tries to steer his mind back to women, breasts and long hair and soft curves, things that are very much the opposite of Hina. It works for a while, he manages to keep his mind occupied, but the strain of corralling his thoughts means he's distracted from the task at hand; he'd been close to coming before, but now it feels like he's barely gotten started. He groans in frustration, his hand stilling again.
This situation is already messing up almost every other part of his life, Yoko thinks, he's not going to let it ruin one of his favorite pastimes.
He stops fighting it, then, gives his mind license to go over every detail as he strokes himself. He hadn't really allowed himself to remember it before, always trying to hold back even when he did think about it intentionally, so when it comes back it's like a flood of images and sensations. He remembers Hina pinning him to the floor in his living room and kissing him, lips and tongue insistent against Yoko's mouth, and he remembers giving in to it, opening his mouth to suck on Hina's tongue, pushing a hand up the back of his shirt. He remembers being out of breath when Hina finally pulled away to sit up, Yoko following to kiss him again, almost desperate for the feeling of Hina's mouth on his. From there things had moved fast: Hina got up, pulling Yoko up after him and leading the way to his bedroom, where he'd pushed him up against the wall and started undoing Yoko's jeans. Hina was wearing track pants, so Yoko slipped his hand in easily, cupping Hina's cock through his underwear. Yoko remembers how exciting it had been, the feeling of Hina hard against his palm, and he bites his lip.
His breath is coming faster now, and he feels close to coming again, but his hand slows a bit as Yoko tries, almost subconsciously, to prolong the memory. He's not going to think about this again, he tells himself; it's okay just this once. He remembers how Hina had pulled back from the kiss to take off his shirt, Yoko pulling off his own as his pants, unbuttoned and unzipped, slipped down his thighs. Hina had taken off his pants too, then his boxers, and Yoko remembers staring, frozen, until Hina had laughed and told him to get moving.
Yoko had stumbled trying to get out of his pants, the cuff of one leg stuck around his ankle so he pulled the whole leg inside-out, but his underwear had come off easily, tossed to the side, and then Yoko remembers pushing Hina down onto the bed and climbing on top of him, kissing him. Yoko straddled Hina's hips and their cocks rubbed together, making them both moan into the sloppy, haphazard kiss. Then, at some point, Hina rolled them over so he was kneeling between Yoko's spread thighs. Yoko remembers the breathless, heady feeling of Hina pressing a slicked finger into him. It had seemed so natural at the time, Yoko arching with a whine when Hina crooked his finger up.
Yoko remembers the feel of Hina's cock in his hand, thick and heavy as Yoko stroked lube over it, and if he hadn't been drunk, he thinks, it probably would have hurt. Yoko doesn't remember any pain, though, just how good he had felt, stretched open and filled. Yoko rubs his thumb over the head of his cock, eyes squeezed shut as he remembers, and it almost surprises him when he comes, shuddering and curling in on himself with a low groan.
He lies there for a while, hand loosely wrapped around his cock, as his breathing slowly evens out. When the post-orgasmic fog starts to dissipate and Yoko's mind clears a little, he starts to realize just what a horrible idea that had been. He wipes his hand on his pajama pants, wriggling out of them and tossing them towards the hamper on the other side of his room.
"Fuck," he says aloud. The memories, now that Yoko's brought them to the surface, are going to be even more difficult to banish now. He sits up, thinking of his plan to make himself go to the gym today. It's a good idea, he thinks; maybe he can just torture himself physically rather than mentally for a little while.
He gets up, brushing his teeth and washing his face, and comes back into his room to change clothes and throw some things into a bag to take with him.
After a search through his tangled futon, Yoko finds his phone under his pillow and flips it open. After a moment's hesitation, he calls Mitsuru.
"Come to the gym with me," Yoko whines when his brother picks up.
"Nii-chan?" Mitsuru says, sounding harried. "I can't today, sorry."
"You've gotten too old for me, haven't you?" Yoko says, using a joking tone to mask the serious sentiment in what he's saying. "You've grown up and you're going to leave me to die in a ditch..."
Muffled laughter on the other end of the phone. "I've got to work!"
"And you can't even take some time off to be with your dear brother in his time of need?" Yoko's smiling, though; as long as he's not being turned down because Mitsuru has plans with someone else he's not too upset.
"I'm not a rich super idol; I can't afford to go taking time off." Yoko snorts, still unused to thinking of himself as "rich." There's a voice in the background, saying something Yoko can't hear. "I've gotta go now, bye!"
Yoko sighs, resigning himself to making the trip alone. The gym is only a few blocks from Yoko's apartment, which is one of the reasons he'd picked it: if he had to travel very far to get there he'd be even less likely to go.
Once he's gotten to the gym and stowed his stuff in a locker, Yoko finds a treadmill in one of the less-populated corners. He runs for a while, listening to music, and manages to clear his head. After the treadmill, he wanders between the few exercise machines he actually knows how to use. He always feels like an idiot on them, so the part of his brain that isn't counting repetitions is thinking oh god, I hope no one's looking at me.
By the time Yoko's run out of equipment whose purpose he understands, his arms and legs feel like jelly and he's more than ready for a good soak. One of the other reasons Yoko had chosen this gym was the nice bath facilities they had: a variety of spacious tubs, all of differing temperatures and purported benefits. He showers off, already feeling better as he washes away the sweat from the workout, and wanders into the large, tiled bath area. The place is a bit loud, the voices of the groups of old men who hang out in the baths for hours on end bouncing off the walls, amplified. Yoko lowers himself into one of the hot baths, sighing and tipping his head back.
"Ahh," comes a familiar voice from across the bath, "feels good."
Yoko feels like his heart's just stopped. Yoko had heard almost the exact same thing when Hina had first thrust into him, maybe a little deeper and a bit more slurred, but the voice and the words were the same.
Maybe, Yoko thinks, I can just hide under the water until he gets out. He's trying to calculate how long he can hold his breath when he hears the splashing of movement, feels the water shift as someone moves closer to him.
"Hey," Hina says. Yoko slowly opens his eyes, blinking at the brightness, and there's Hina right next to him, baring his fangs in a friendly smile.
"What are you doing here?" Yoko asks, not bothering to try hiding his irritation. Anyway, maybe arguing with Hina will help keep his mind off the fact that they're both naked.
Hina hits him, wet palm slipping against Yoko's forehead. Yoko twitches away from it, grimacing.
"I've been coming here longer than you have, you know," Hina says.
Oh, right. The other reason Yoko had picked this gym: Hina had recommended it (Yoko's pretty sure he'd gotten some kind of cash reward for referring a new member).
"So, you free all day?" Hina asks, forging on with the conversation despite Yoko's lack of response.
"Yeah," Yoko says. He leans his head back against the tile wall of the bath, closing his eyes. Maybe if he keeps giving monosyllabic answers Hina will go away and he won't have to deal with this until the next time they work together.
"Let's go have lunch, then! I know a good place."
"I, um," Yoko begins, opening his eyes. He casts around in his mind for some kind of excuse, but he'd just told Hina he was free all day. He sighs. "What kind of food is it?"
"Soba," Hina says. Yoko's never heard Hina mention going out for soba before, though he himself goes a lot; Hina must be suggesting it because he knows Yoko likes it. Yoko manages to swallow down the grumble of annoyance before responding.
"Alright, I guess I am pretty hungry."
"Sounds good," Hina says, and claps him on the shoulder. It's then that Yoko actually turns and properly looks at him.
Hina's hair is damp, the tips of some of the wetter strands slicked against the skin of his forehead and neck. Yoko's eyes track down seemingly involuntarily and there are Hina's shoulders, relaxed back against the tub's wall. Further down, his stomach, defined muscles visible even through the haze of the water, and then his dick, Hina's dick, something Yoko's seen probably hundreds of times before in his life, something he's talked about on the radio, for fuck's sake, that he now can't so much as think about without blushing and feeling an annoying mix of embarrassed and turned on. He turns away, hoping Hina hadn't noticed him staring, and ducks his head under the water.
Get it together, he tells himself, it's just Hina. He repeats the phrase a few times, but it doesn't do much to calm Yoko's nerves.
"Well," Yoko says eventually, "shall we?" He figures he'll feel at least a little less awkward if they're both wearing clothes.
As Yoko's drying off and getting dressed in the change of clothes he'd brought, he wonders why Hina asked him to lunch. It's not like the two of them make a habit of going out together on their own, even when Yoko's at his most gregarious, and even someone as occasionally dense as Hina can be has to be able to pick up on the fact that Yoko isn't feeling particularly friendly that day.
Maybe Hina is more sadistic than any of them realized, and he's inviting Yoko out because he wants to watch him suffer? Yoko considers the possibility for a minute before dismissing it. Maybe Hina wants to talk about what had happened, Yoko thinks with horror. It seems unlikely, though: if Hina had wanted to talk about it, he had the perfect opportunity when he returned Yoko's underwear, and he hadn't said anything then. Unless Hina had been thinking about it more than Yoko gave him credit for, and maybe it had taken him a while to decide what he wanted to say. Maybe he'd even gone through the same kind of mental crisis Yoko had? Yoko laughs to himself, trying to imagine Hina going through any kind of mental crisis. It's just not something he can picture. Yoko thinks and thinks, but he can't come up with a satisfactory explanation, and soon he finds himself on his way out to Hina's car.
"The place is pretty close," Hina says as he starts up the car. Yoko stares out the window for a while, watching the familiar scenery of his neighborhood go by. Hina fiddles with the radio, eventually leaving it on a news program, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence, leaving Yoko plenty of time to worry about having to share a meal with Hina.
Hina parks the car in a small lot around the block from the small restaurant, which is empty when they go in, since it's a little bit after the usual lunch hour. The old woman behind the counter seems to know Hina, and she greets him enthusiastically, asking how he's been and why it's been so long since he last came in. Yoko stands back, feeling awkward and hoping she doesn't ask Hina--
"And who's your friend?" she asks, gesturing to Yoko, who grimaces.
"He's another one of my group members," Hina says. He nudges Yoko with his elbow. "Introduce yourself."
Yoko mumbles his way through a polite introduction and bows, feeling oddly like he's meeting a date's parents, or something. The woman seems satisfied with this, though, and gestures to a table near the corner.
Yoko wonders who else Hina has brought here, since he'd said Yoko was "another one" of his group members.
"So you come here a lot, huh?" Yoko asks as he flips through the menu.
Hina shrugs. "No, I've actually only been three or four times! Yoshimoto-san is just friendly."
"Sure," Yoko says. He has a hard time imagining himself becoming such fast friends with a shopkeeper in any span of time, let alone three or four visits, but Hina lives in a different world.
They both order, and Yoko sips slowly at his tiny glass of water. Thinking about food has made him realize just how hungry he is, after not eating breakfast and then going to the gym. The restaurant is quiet, apart from the sounds of Yoshimoto-san bustling about in the kitchen. Yoko watches the droplets of condensation drip down the side of his water glass, collecting in a ring on the scarred wood of the tabletop. There's a rustling sound from the other end of the table, and Yoko lifts his eyes to see Hina fidgeting with the plastic wrapper that had come around his hand towel, folding it back into its original shape.
With just a glance, it's easy for Yoko to tell that Hina's uncharacteristically nervous. It's one thing for Hina to have noticed Yoko being uncomfortable, but it's entirely another for Hina himself to be affected by it. Yoko takes a breath, trying to force himself to act normal, but thinking about it only makes it more difficult, and he just focuses even more intently on the water glass that he's now holding in an unnecessarily tight grip.
Yoko's in the middle of wishing he could melt through the floor when Yoshimoto-san comes out with two trays of soba.
"Not very talkative today, huh boys?" she says, and Yoko just barely suppresses a laugh. If only she knew.
Hina laughs and smiles, thanking her for the food, and Yoko watches him break apart his chopsticks, two perfect straight lines. Yoko splits his own pair, and there's a giant chunk of one hanging onto the other. He narrows his eyes, frowning.
"Still haven't gotten the hang of that, huh?" Hina asks, laughing.
"Shut up and eat," Yoko mutters.
Yoko has to admit that the food, at least, is good, and a welcome distraction from sitting silently across the table from Hina. He's hungry, so he eats fast, and Hina must be hungry too because he's done around the same time. He calls for the check, obviously not wanting to wait around much longer than he has to.
"Should I drop you off at home?" Hina asks as they walk back to the car. Yoko almost says no, that he'll walk home, or that he has somewhere exciting to be and Hina should take him there, but it seems like too much trouble and he assents, resigning himself to an afternoon of playing video games in hopes of keeping his mind from replaying the unpleasant parts of the day over and over again.
On the way to Yoko's apartment, there are a few times when Hina seems like he's about to say something, but changes his mind at the last minute, and Yoko, of course, doesn't press him. From the few glances he takes at Hina, he looks frustrated, mouth set in a line, jaw tight. Yoko figures he wants to say something about the way he's acting, but maybe doesn't know how to phrase it. It's strange for Yoko to think of Hina being at a loss for words, or feeling shy about expressing what he's thinking, but he supposes their current situation is different enough from anything the two of them have dealt with that it might change even Hina's behavior.
There's a part of Yoko, he finds as he thinks about it, climbing the stairs to his floor, that's almost happy about Hina seeming off-kilter. He'd felt so annoyed when Hina had been unaffected about the whole thing, so seeing that that wasn't the case was, in a way, satisfying. Of course, another part of Yoko is screaming that this only shows how the situation is even worse than he'd thought, if it's affecting even Hina. If it's that big of a deal, it's probably not just going to resolve itself, or go away, as Yoko had been secretly hoping it would.
Yoko spends the rest of his weekend being as antisocial as possible. He goes to the gym again because he feels like that will absolve him of spending the rest of his time sitting around playing video games, and, thankfully, he doesn't run into Hina again.
On Monday, Yoko wakes up, yet again, with a distinct feeling of dread. This time, it's not only brought on by the fact that he'll be seeing Hina today, it's also what they'll be doing: all of the members are meeting together to learn the choreography for a few of their new songs. Yoko may not like recording, but learning choreography is even worse.
When Yoko gets to the dance studio, Subaru and Yasu are already there, sitting a lot closer to each other on the couch than is strictly necessary. It leaves plenty of room for Yoko, though, so he flops down next to them, sighing heavily.
"I hate choreography days," he says.
Subaru disentangles himself from where he'd been tucked under Yasu's arm to commiserate.
"It sucks," he says, wrinkling his nose. "I wish we could just stand around and sing instead of having to dance all the time."
Yoko can hear Yasu trying to suppress his laughter from behind Subaru's shoulder. "You two make such great idols," he says. Subaru turns around, steals the fluffy blue knit cap from Yasu's head, and pouts at him. Yoko rolls his eyes.
The other members arrive in ones and twos, Ryo showing up out of breath, just before the rehearsal's set to start. He starts in on one of his apology speeches, but Hina cuts him off.
"You're on time, it's fine, shut up!"
When they're given a fifteen minute break after the first hour of practice, Yoko collapses on the floor, holding a water bottle to his forehead.
"I'm too old for this," he whines.
"I take it the exercise hasn't been helping," Hina says. He's somewhere out of Yoko's field of vision, and Yoko debates using precious energy to sit up or turn over so he can glare at him, then decides it's not worth it.
"Yokocho's been exercising?" Yasu asks, an offensive amount of incredulity in his tone.
"I ran into him at the gym the other day," Hina answers.
Yoko turns over, then, leveling a glare at the two of them.
"Stop discussing me like I'm not right here," he says. Yasu laughs, but Hina narrows his eyes at Yoko before looking away.
What was that about? Yoko thinks. He's pretty sure he'd been acting normal, just then; Hina should have no reason to be giving him weird looks like that. He tries to put it out of his mind and relax for the rest of their short break, but he finds himself watching Hina as he flips through a newspaper. Luckily, Yoko catches himself before Hina notices, and he crosses his arms, shoving his face into the crook of his elbow and groaning. He hears the scuffing sound of feet in front of him, and looks up to find Yasu kneeling down, looking concerned.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Fine," Yoko says, dragging a palm across his face. "Just...you know. Hate dancing."
Yasu gives Yoko a look that suggests he doesn't believe that's the source of the problem, but thankfully doesn't press him for details.
"Well," he says after a moment, "you know you can talk to me if anything else is wrong."
Yoko rolls his eyes, shooing Yasu away, but the offer sounds oddly tempting. Having someone to listen to the constant monologue of anxiety going on in his head would be nice, but of course there's no way Yoko could talk about this with anyone, much less one of the members. There's just no way.
He wonders if Hina's told anyone. Yoko wouldn't be surprised if he had, but he wouldn't really be surprised if he hadn't, either. Hina's got so many friends, he's probably got someone he'd feel totally comfortable talking about it with. Hina's interpersonal relationships have always been a bit of a mystery to Yoko, one of those things he's annoyed by but also kind of jealous of, if he's honest with himself. He looks over at Hina again: he's laughing at something Maru's just said, mouth wide open, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world.
Then, the choreographer calls that the break is over, and Yoko picks himself up off the floor with a sigh. At least concentrating on learning the steps will keep his mind off of Hina.
Of course, the steps they're learning put Yoko right next to Hina, and in his effort to ignore him as much as possible he ends up bumping into Ohkura on his other side.
"You're too close," Ohkura says. "You should be halfway between me and Murakami-kun."
Yoko takes a step closer to Hina, looking at their feet in the mirror to align himself properly.
"Come on," Hina says, "I won't bite."
Yoko feels a prickling on the back of his neck as he blushes, unable to keep himself from remembering Hina's teeth closing over his lower lip.
"Let's just try it again," he mumbles, staring resolutely at the floor.
The rest of the rehearsal passes mostly without incident, although the choreographer insists that Yoko stay a bit later to practice some of the parts he hadn't gotten quite right. By the time he's finished his muscles are aching and he just wants to go to bed. He flops down on the sofa to rest for a few minutes before leaving. The only other people left in the room by then are Yasu and Hina. Hina had taken a shower in the locker room because he had somewhere to be later, and Yasu just seemed to be taking a really long time to get his stuff together and leave.
Hina's half-dressed, his belt unbuckled and no shirt on, when he turns to where Yoko's sprawled listlessly on the sofa. He crosses the room, standing close and looking like he's trying to decide what to do before finally saying,
"Uh...my shirt."
Yoko raises his eyebrows. He doesn't want to twist around to look up at Hina's face, but if he stares straight ahead he'd be looking directly at his crotch, so he settles for turning his head in a general upward direction.
"What about it?" he asks.
Hina gestures vaguely to Yoko's lap. "You're sitting on it."
Yoko looks, and sure enough, Hina's shirt is under his legs. He sits up quickly, grabbing the shirt and holding it out without looking at Hina, who takes it wordlessly. He pulls the shirt over his head, buckles his belt, and is out of the room in less than a minute. Yoko mashes his face against the arm of the sofa and breathes, slowly, for about a minute and a half before the sound of Yasu's voice makes him raise his head.
"Kimi-kun..." Yasu sounds tentative, "is everything okay?"
Yoko turns back to face the couch's arm. He considers not responding, or trying to brush Yasu off, but part of him is screaming to let it out, to say something to someone, and really it's not his fault: he's exhausted, and Yasu's using that sweet tone that makes Yoko feel like Yasu's his caring girlfriend or something, so after a moment he answers, voice muffled against the fabric.
"Not really." Yoko hears a rustling, and then the couch dips as Yasu sits down at the other end. Yoko lifts his head a little, but doesn't look over at him.
"Do you want to..." Yasu starts, then trails off, apparently deciding to dive right in rather than ask. "Why don't you tell me about it?"
"It's..." Yoko begins, trying to think of a way to unburden himself without actually telling Yasu what happened between them. He may have decided to talk about the problem, but there's still a line that he has absolutely no intention of crossing. "Things are...weird. Now."
There's a pause, as Yasu presumably waits for Yoko to elaborate, though Yoko doesn't have any intention to do so yet.
"Did something happen?" Yasu asks, and Yoko can tell from his tone what "something" means. Is he seriously that transparent? Yoko hums noncommittally, not wanting to acknowledge the question. Yasu, mercifully, doesn't press that line of inquiry any further. Instead, he asks the question Yoko's been asking himself, with little to no success, for the past week.
"What do you want, now?" He pauses, then goes on a bit. "What do you want to happen? Like...what would be the best thing?"
"I want a time machine," Yoko mumbles. Yasu laughs under his breath, but doesn't say more. Yoko starts talking without really thinking about it, just letting his inner monologue spill out. "I really do, though. I just want to go back to normal. Everything's so weird now and I can't stop thinking about it and I'm sure it's mostly my fault, and...what if we can't? What if everything's weird and messed up forever?"
Putting his worst fear into words is simultaneously freeing and terrifying. Yoko balls his hands into fists, letting his nails dig into his palms, and his stomach churns as he waits for Yasu to say something.
"I don't think that'll happen," Yasu says eventually. He's speaking slowly, like he's thinking hard about what to say, and in that moment Yoko is amazingly thankful to have a friend like Yasu. "I think...there's not a lot that your friendship can't survive, you know? This is just a small thing, in the long run."
Yoko's not quite sure Yasu's grasped the gravity of the situation, but he feels encouraged nonetheless. He sighs heavily, turning to look at Yasu for the first time since the conversation started. He smiles weakly, and Yasu smiles back.
"Have you talked about it at all?" he says eventually. His tone suggests that he knows the answer is going to be no.
Yoko shakes his head. He feels embarrassed, finally letting someone see how poorly he's dealing with this situation.
"You're going to have to, you know," Yasu says. His tone is gentle, but that almost makes Yoko feel worse, like a little kid being lectured by his mother, or something.
If I were talking to Hina about this, he finds himself thinking, he'd just tell me to suck it up and talk about it. Yoko laughs to himself, rubbing a hand over his face.
"I know," he says.
Yasu puts a hand on his shoulder, palm warm and firm. "It's gonna be fine."
Yoko shrugs Yasu's hand off, coloring. "Thanks," he mumbles.
"Anytime," Yasu says. There's a moment of silence, and then Yasu gets up. He grabs his bag, pulling on his hat, and says goodbye to Yoko before walking out the door.
Yoko sits on the couch for a little while after Yasu leaves, thinking about the conversation they had, and about the one he's going to have to have with Hina. He tries to imagine how he can bring it up, going through a series of openers and rejecting them all, before getting frustrated and giving up. Maybe if he waits long enough, a delusional optimistic part of him thinks, they won't have to talk about it.
Yoko's gathering up his things to leave when he lifts his bag and finds Hina's cell phone sitting on the table underneath it.
"Fuck," he says aloud. He tries to remember if Hina had said where he was going, but either he hadn't said, or Yoko had been more successful than he realized in his attempts to ignore him, because he can't come up with anything. He considers opening the phone to see if Hina has his schedule in there, but that feels too much like snooping. Yoko's just scrolling through the contacts of his own phone to call their manager about it when he hears footsteps in the doorway. He knows, without turning around, that it's Hina: that's just how Yoko's luck works.
"Hey," Hina says, sounding surprised. Yoko turns, offering him an attempt at a smile. The conversation with Yasu is still fresh in his mind, all of his confused feelings roiling right at the surface, and he's not sure he can open his mouth without something embarrassing coming out.
"Have you seen my phone?" Hina asks, not returning Yoko's smile (which possibly looks like more of a grimace).
Yoko picks up the phone from the table behind him, holding it out at arm's length. Hina reaches out to take it, but when his fingers slip over Yoko's, Yoko jerks his hand away and the phone clatters loudly to the floor. Hina looks at the phone, then at Yoko, makes a noise of annoyance in the back of his throat and walks over to the door, pulling it shut. Yoko swallows hard, backing up against the table.
"What is wrong with you?" Hina says, the irritation in his voice obvious. He sounds exasperated, confused, frustrated: he sounds pretty much how Yoko feels.
"I don't know," Yoko says. He's surprised at the way his voice sounds, like he's about fifteen seconds away from crying. He takes a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair.
"Do you..." Hina starts, his tone considerably softer. "Are you..."
Yoko can see the end of that question coming, and he interrupts. "No," he says. "It's not...like that."
"Then," Hina says, sounding confused now, "what is it like?"
"I just want everything to be normal," Yoko begins, staring intently at Hina's cell phone on the floor between them, "but I can't. I'm not like you, I can't just pretend like nothing has changed after...after what happened, you know? I wish I could, but I can't." Yoko takes another breath before continuing, "I've messed everything up and I don't know how to fix it."
There's a pause, and Yoko opens his mouth to speak again but he's cut off by Hina's arms wrapping around his shoulders, and then he's standing there with his face pressed against the side of Hina's neck. Yoko feels totally drained, and he slumps against Hina, putting his arms around him and squeezing, silently.
The touch is kind of a shock to Yoko's system. Other than the usual tsukkomi, they haven't really touched since they slept together, and Yoko feels suddenly like he's totally enveloped by Hina's presence. He can smell Hina's shampoo from the shower he'd taken earlier, and his hair's still just a little damp against Yoko's forehead. His jacket smells like his laundry soap, and it makes Yoko think of the way he'd felt lying on his back on Hina's sheets. Somehow, it doesn't make him feel anxious or embarrassed, though; it's reassuring. Hina's arms are tight around Yoko's shoulders, his chest rising and falling with each deep, even breath.
Hina's not the type to hug very often, and whenever he's hugged Yoko it's always been in conjunction with some kind of monumental occurrence. It always makes Yoko feel the same way: safe, secure, and comforted. It's like he can feel Hina's stability in the sure way his arms wrap around Yoko, and more than anything that anyone could say, this is what makes Yoko feel certain that things will be okay. Hina's hugged him at some of the worst times in Yoko's life because Hina's always been there, and Yoko realizes now that Hina always will be there. Yoko breathes shakily against Hina's skin, clutching the soft fabric of his jacket briefly before pulling away.
He smiles at Hina, and for the first time in a week, it doesn't feel forced. Hina grins back.
"You're an idiot, you know," he says, but the tone he's using makes it sound like a term of endearment.
Less than a week later, all of the members have the evening free after PV filming, and they decide to go out for dinner, which, of course, turns into drinking.
In a private room of an izakaya somewhere in Shinjuku, as Maru and Yasu cheer and Subaru pulls out his phone to take a video, a very drunk Hina puts his hands on the shoulders of a similarly drunk Yoko and leans in, lips puckered. Yoko struggles, giggling as he tries weakly to fight Hina off, but Hina just grabs his hands instead, lacing their fingers together. He has the advantage in strength, and within moments he's got Yoko's hands forced down by his sides and his mouth pressed sloppily against Yoko's. Yoko tilts his head back and Hina leans in closer, his lips parting slightly, then abruptly pulls back after a few seconds.
They're both breathing a little hard, and there's a moment where they just look at each other, frozen, before Yoko wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, laughing.
"Go pick on someone else for a change," he says, and Hina smiles, giving him an exaggerated wink before turning to smack a cackling Subaru.
When he gets to the studio, Yoko greets everyone there, bowing when he's introduced, before being shuffled off to wardrobe.
"You know, I was just wearing a suit like an hour ago," he jokes when the stylist hands him his outfit. He hears from another stylist that it will be the last day of filming for some of the actors, which just adds another level of potential awkwardness to the situation. Yoko wonders if he'll be able to sneak out before they start in with the speeches and handing out of bouquets; maybe he actually will run and hide in the Zenkai Girl studio like Ohkura had suggested.
There's some time before they'll be ready to shoot his scene, so Yoko stands around on the sidelines watching for a while, before he starts to feel nerves creeping up on him.
Hey, a part of his brain that Yoko wishes he could lobotomize thinks, at least I'm not thinking about Hina!
Of course, that thought is enough to set him off. He thinks about Subaru's comment about the two of them being like a married couple. It's nothing Yoko hasn't heard from Subaru (and the other members, and that palm reader, and the fans...) before, the sort of thing Yoko could usually laugh off, but in light of what happened between them it feels very, very different. He remembers wondering the previous day if he was in love with Hina, the daydream he'd had about the two of them getting married...Yoko shakes his head, as if he could physically jar the memory loose, get his thoughts in order somehow. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. If he's going to react all awkwardly like this every time someone makes a joke about his relationship with Hina from now on, he's in for a whole world of trouble.
Yoko's so absorbed in his own thoughts he almost doesn't notice Aya walking toward him. He tries to pull his face into something resembling a normal expression, something other than "I'm currently busy thinking about how I feel awkward about having slept with one of my closest friends who also happens to be my bandmate," and ducks his head in a bow when she gets close.
"Hi," she says, smile bright, "it's been a while."
"Yeah," Yoko says, fumbling for something else to say. "How have you been?"
"Pretty good, and yourself?"
Yoko shrugs. "Can't complain." Yoko laughs inwardly at the phrase: he's got plenty he'd like to complain about, but he can't exactly share it with her.
A silence stretches out between them, Yoko looking down at his newly-polished shoes, before Aya is called back to the set. She flashes him a smile that's a bit more pitying than Yoko would really like, and dashes off. As he watches her go, Yoko decides he needs to get out of there, if only for a few minutes.
The Zenkai Girl set is easy to find, and Yoko wanders in as Ryo's getting some notes from the director. He waves, and Ryo breaks into a smile and waves back before his expression turns serious again as he listens to the instructions. Yoko likes to see the other members at work like this, doing stuff outside of the bubble of the group. Seeing their hardworking, serious sides always makes Yoko feel like he's got to keep on working hard too, so they don't leave him in the dust.
"Hey," Ryo says, jogging over to greet Yoko. "What's up?"
"I was in the neighborhood," Yoko says. "I just wanted to come see 'The Nishikido Ryo' in action."
Ryo snorts. "Well, you're too late; I've got a break right now."
Yoko follows Ryo to his dressing room, where they sit on the couch, talking and watching TV with Bitaro.
"You two have the same taste," Ryo jokes when Yoko's channel-flipping stops them on an episode of Doraemon.
When the episode finishes and Bitaro has run off to play somewhere, Ryo pulls out his PSP.
"Wanna play a little?" he asks.
"I left mine in my bag on set," Yoko says, getting up. "I should probably get back anyway, I think they'll be shooting my scene soon."
"Good luck," Ryo says, briefly looking up from the screen as Yoko leaves.
They're just finishing up the scene before Yoko's when he comes back into the studio. He says his greetings to the staff before they start. The scene is short, easy enough to film, and they've got it done within a few takes. Yoko's glancing over at the door, wondering how he can make his escape, when several of the ADs appear on the set, their arms full of flowers. At this point, it would be rude to just run off, so Yoko stands around on the sidelines, trying to avoid getting filmed by the rolling cameras. They drag him over for a group shot, but otherwise he manages to stay relatively inconspicuous. He even has another relatively successful conversation with Aya, until Ryo sends over Bitaro to mess with him. He ducks out shortly after that, face red.
It's early evening when Yoko gets home, and he flips through the TV channels for a little while before settling on a variety show to watch while he eats dinner. When Yoko's finished eating he looks down at the way his t-shirt is stretched over his stomach, thinks of the disused gym membership card in his wallet, of the tour coming up. He has the next day off; it seems as good a time as any to start trying to get in shape. Having recently seen Hina naked might be spurring him on just a little bit more, too, but Yoko tries very hard not to think about that part. He sits in front of the TV for a while longer before getting up to run the bath. Normally Yoko would take the opportunity of an early evening and no work the following morning to play games until the wee hours of the morning, but all of the stress of the past few days seems to be taking its toll on him (or maybe he's just getting old), and he feels exhausted, ready for a long night's sleep.
Yoko's plans for a lengthy lie-in before dragging himself to the gym are ruined by the fact that he'd forgotten to pull his curtains fully closed the night before. His bedroom window faces east, and by around eight there's sun streaming through the small crack between the sheets of dark fabric, settling right over Yoko's face. He grumbles, turning over a few times and hiding under the blanket, but he can't fall back asleep. He pushes the blanket down to his stomach, rubbing his knuckles over his forehead, and turns over so he's face down.
He may not be able to go back to sleep, but Yoko decides to stay in bed at least a little while longer. He rocks his hips absently against the futon, his cock half-hard. Yoko hasn't jerked off since waking up with Hina, partly because he's been busy but mostly because he's afraid he'll end up thinking about it, but the need's been building over the past few days and he doesn't really feel like ignoring it anymore. He lifts his hips up, pushing his hand under the waistband of his pajama pants. Yoko's skin is sleep-warm under his palm, and he sighs against the pillow when he wraps his fingers around his cock, hips shifting forward.
He strokes himself to hardness slowly like that, lying on his stomach and thinking about the most recent porn he'd watched, an American DVD he'd borrowed from Subaru; something without mosaics that had left Yoko feeling a mix of turned on and concerned about Subaru's preferences. In Yoko's mind he skips over the twenty minute scene where the man licked the woman's vinyl boots and goes straight to the blowjob. The woman was blonde, with breasts of a size Yoko thought only existed in cartoons, and she'd knelt down after taking off her dress, parting her plump, wet lips to take the man's cock into her mouth. The way it was shot from above made it easy for Yoko to imagine himself in the man's place, slipping his cock between her lips and feeling that sweet suction as her cheeks hollowed out.
Yoko turns over onto his back, breathing hard now, and pushes his pajamas so they're halfway down his thighs. He spits in his palm, thinking of wet, red mouths and tight, hot suction. His strokes get faster, and it's harder to concentrate on the fantasy, to lead it where he wants, and before Yoko realizes what's happening he's thinking about Hina poised over him, straddling Yoko's hips and scraping his teeth against Yoko's neck. Yoko stops abruptly, his cock twitching in protest.
"Fuck," he mutters, and tries to steer his mind back to women, breasts and long hair and soft curves, things that are very much the opposite of Hina. It works for a while, he manages to keep his mind occupied, but the strain of corralling his thoughts means he's distracted from the task at hand; he'd been close to coming before, but now it feels like he's barely gotten started. He groans in frustration, his hand stilling again.
This situation is already messing up almost every other part of his life, Yoko thinks, he's not going to let it ruin one of his favorite pastimes.
He stops fighting it, then, gives his mind license to go over every detail as he strokes himself. He hadn't really allowed himself to remember it before, always trying to hold back even when he did think about it intentionally, so when it comes back it's like a flood of images and sensations. He remembers Hina pinning him to the floor in his living room and kissing him, lips and tongue insistent against Yoko's mouth, and he remembers giving in to it, opening his mouth to suck on Hina's tongue, pushing a hand up the back of his shirt. He remembers being out of breath when Hina finally pulled away to sit up, Yoko following to kiss him again, almost desperate for the feeling of Hina's mouth on his. From there things had moved fast: Hina got up, pulling Yoko up after him and leading the way to his bedroom, where he'd pushed him up against the wall and started undoing Yoko's jeans. Hina was wearing track pants, so Yoko slipped his hand in easily, cupping Hina's cock through his underwear. Yoko remembers how exciting it had been, the feeling of Hina hard against his palm, and he bites his lip.
His breath is coming faster now, and he feels close to coming again, but his hand slows a bit as Yoko tries, almost subconsciously, to prolong the memory. He's not going to think about this again, he tells himself; it's okay just this once. He remembers how Hina had pulled back from the kiss to take off his shirt, Yoko pulling off his own as his pants, unbuttoned and unzipped, slipped down his thighs. Hina had taken off his pants too, then his boxers, and Yoko remembers staring, frozen, until Hina had laughed and told him to get moving.
Yoko had stumbled trying to get out of his pants, the cuff of one leg stuck around his ankle so he pulled the whole leg inside-out, but his underwear had come off easily, tossed to the side, and then Yoko remembers pushing Hina down onto the bed and climbing on top of him, kissing him. Yoko straddled Hina's hips and their cocks rubbed together, making them both moan into the sloppy, haphazard kiss. Then, at some point, Hina rolled them over so he was kneeling between Yoko's spread thighs. Yoko remembers the breathless, heady feeling of Hina pressing a slicked finger into him. It had seemed so natural at the time, Yoko arching with a whine when Hina crooked his finger up.
Yoko remembers the feel of Hina's cock in his hand, thick and heavy as Yoko stroked lube over it, and if he hadn't been drunk, he thinks, it probably would have hurt. Yoko doesn't remember any pain, though, just how good he had felt, stretched open and filled. Yoko rubs his thumb over the head of his cock, eyes squeezed shut as he remembers, and it almost surprises him when he comes, shuddering and curling in on himself with a low groan.
He lies there for a while, hand loosely wrapped around his cock, as his breathing slowly evens out. When the post-orgasmic fog starts to dissipate and Yoko's mind clears a little, he starts to realize just what a horrible idea that had been. He wipes his hand on his pajama pants, wriggling out of them and tossing them towards the hamper on the other side of his room.
"Fuck," he says aloud. The memories, now that Yoko's brought them to the surface, are going to be even more difficult to banish now. He sits up, thinking of his plan to make himself go to the gym today. It's a good idea, he thinks; maybe he can just torture himself physically rather than mentally for a little while.
He gets up, brushing his teeth and washing his face, and comes back into his room to change clothes and throw some things into a bag to take with him.
After a search through his tangled futon, Yoko finds his phone under his pillow and flips it open. After a moment's hesitation, he calls Mitsuru.
"Come to the gym with me," Yoko whines when his brother picks up.
"Nii-chan?" Mitsuru says, sounding harried. "I can't today, sorry."
"You've gotten too old for me, haven't you?" Yoko says, using a joking tone to mask the serious sentiment in what he's saying. "You've grown up and you're going to leave me to die in a ditch..."
Muffled laughter on the other end of the phone. "I've got to work!"
"And you can't even take some time off to be with your dear brother in his time of need?" Yoko's smiling, though; as long as he's not being turned down because Mitsuru has plans with someone else he's not too upset.
"I'm not a rich super idol; I can't afford to go taking time off." Yoko snorts, still unused to thinking of himself as "rich." There's a voice in the background, saying something Yoko can't hear. "I've gotta go now, bye!"
Yoko sighs, resigning himself to making the trip alone. The gym is only a few blocks from Yoko's apartment, which is one of the reasons he'd picked it: if he had to travel very far to get there he'd be even less likely to go.
Once he's gotten to the gym and stowed his stuff in a locker, Yoko finds a treadmill in one of the less-populated corners. He runs for a while, listening to music, and manages to clear his head. After the treadmill, he wanders between the few exercise machines he actually knows how to use. He always feels like an idiot on them, so the part of his brain that isn't counting repetitions is thinking oh god, I hope no one's looking at me.
By the time Yoko's run out of equipment whose purpose he understands, his arms and legs feel like jelly and he's more than ready for a good soak. One of the other reasons Yoko had chosen this gym was the nice bath facilities they had: a variety of spacious tubs, all of differing temperatures and purported benefits. He showers off, already feeling better as he washes away the sweat from the workout, and wanders into the large, tiled bath area. The place is a bit loud, the voices of the groups of old men who hang out in the baths for hours on end bouncing off the walls, amplified. Yoko lowers himself into one of the hot baths, sighing and tipping his head back.
"Ahh," comes a familiar voice from across the bath, "feels good."
Yoko feels like his heart's just stopped. Yoko had heard almost the exact same thing when Hina had first thrust into him, maybe a little deeper and a bit more slurred, but the voice and the words were the same.
Maybe, Yoko thinks, I can just hide under the water until he gets out. He's trying to calculate how long he can hold his breath when he hears the splashing of movement, feels the water shift as someone moves closer to him.
"Hey," Hina says. Yoko slowly opens his eyes, blinking at the brightness, and there's Hina right next to him, baring his fangs in a friendly smile.
"What are you doing here?" Yoko asks, not bothering to try hiding his irritation. Anyway, maybe arguing with Hina will help keep his mind off the fact that they're both naked.
Hina hits him, wet palm slipping against Yoko's forehead. Yoko twitches away from it, grimacing.
"I've been coming here longer than you have, you know," Hina says.
Oh, right. The other reason Yoko had picked this gym: Hina had recommended it (Yoko's pretty sure he'd gotten some kind of cash reward for referring a new member).
"So, you free all day?" Hina asks, forging on with the conversation despite Yoko's lack of response.
"Yeah," Yoko says. He leans his head back against the tile wall of the bath, closing his eyes. Maybe if he keeps giving monosyllabic answers Hina will go away and he won't have to deal with this until the next time they work together.
"Let's go have lunch, then! I know a good place."
"I, um," Yoko begins, opening his eyes. He casts around in his mind for some kind of excuse, but he'd just told Hina he was free all day. He sighs. "What kind of food is it?"
"Soba," Hina says. Yoko's never heard Hina mention going out for soba before, though he himself goes a lot; Hina must be suggesting it because he knows Yoko likes it. Yoko manages to swallow down the grumble of annoyance before responding.
"Alright, I guess I am pretty hungry."
"Sounds good," Hina says, and claps him on the shoulder. It's then that Yoko actually turns and properly looks at him.
Hina's hair is damp, the tips of some of the wetter strands slicked against the skin of his forehead and neck. Yoko's eyes track down seemingly involuntarily and there are Hina's shoulders, relaxed back against the tub's wall. Further down, his stomach, defined muscles visible even through the haze of the water, and then his dick, Hina's dick, something Yoko's seen probably hundreds of times before in his life, something he's talked about on the radio, for fuck's sake, that he now can't so much as think about without blushing and feeling an annoying mix of embarrassed and turned on. He turns away, hoping Hina hadn't noticed him staring, and ducks his head under the water.
Get it together, he tells himself, it's just Hina. He repeats the phrase a few times, but it doesn't do much to calm Yoko's nerves.
"Well," Yoko says eventually, "shall we?" He figures he'll feel at least a little less awkward if they're both wearing clothes.
As Yoko's drying off and getting dressed in the change of clothes he'd brought, he wonders why Hina asked him to lunch. It's not like the two of them make a habit of going out together on their own, even when Yoko's at his most gregarious, and even someone as occasionally dense as Hina can be has to be able to pick up on the fact that Yoko isn't feeling particularly friendly that day.
Maybe Hina is more sadistic than any of them realized, and he's inviting Yoko out because he wants to watch him suffer? Yoko considers the possibility for a minute before dismissing it. Maybe Hina wants to talk about what had happened, Yoko thinks with horror. It seems unlikely, though: if Hina had wanted to talk about it, he had the perfect opportunity when he returned Yoko's underwear, and he hadn't said anything then. Unless Hina had been thinking about it more than Yoko gave him credit for, and maybe it had taken him a while to decide what he wanted to say. Maybe he'd even gone through the same kind of mental crisis Yoko had? Yoko laughs to himself, trying to imagine Hina going through any kind of mental crisis. It's just not something he can picture. Yoko thinks and thinks, but he can't come up with a satisfactory explanation, and soon he finds himself on his way out to Hina's car.
"The place is pretty close," Hina says as he starts up the car. Yoko stares out the window for a while, watching the familiar scenery of his neighborhood go by. Hina fiddles with the radio, eventually leaving it on a news program, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence, leaving Yoko plenty of time to worry about having to share a meal with Hina.
Hina parks the car in a small lot around the block from the small restaurant, which is empty when they go in, since it's a little bit after the usual lunch hour. The old woman behind the counter seems to know Hina, and she greets him enthusiastically, asking how he's been and why it's been so long since he last came in. Yoko stands back, feeling awkward and hoping she doesn't ask Hina--
"And who's your friend?" she asks, gesturing to Yoko, who grimaces.
"He's another one of my group members," Hina says. He nudges Yoko with his elbow. "Introduce yourself."
Yoko mumbles his way through a polite introduction and bows, feeling oddly like he's meeting a date's parents, or something. The woman seems satisfied with this, though, and gestures to a table near the corner.
Yoko wonders who else Hina has brought here, since he'd said Yoko was "another one" of his group members.
"So you come here a lot, huh?" Yoko asks as he flips through the menu.
Hina shrugs. "No, I've actually only been three or four times! Yoshimoto-san is just friendly."
"Sure," Yoko says. He has a hard time imagining himself becoming such fast friends with a shopkeeper in any span of time, let alone three or four visits, but Hina lives in a different world.
They both order, and Yoko sips slowly at his tiny glass of water. Thinking about food has made him realize just how hungry he is, after not eating breakfast and then going to the gym. The restaurant is quiet, apart from the sounds of Yoshimoto-san bustling about in the kitchen. Yoko watches the droplets of condensation drip down the side of his water glass, collecting in a ring on the scarred wood of the tabletop. There's a rustling sound from the other end of the table, and Yoko lifts his eyes to see Hina fidgeting with the plastic wrapper that had come around his hand towel, folding it back into its original shape.
With just a glance, it's easy for Yoko to tell that Hina's uncharacteristically nervous. It's one thing for Hina to have noticed Yoko being uncomfortable, but it's entirely another for Hina himself to be affected by it. Yoko takes a breath, trying to force himself to act normal, but thinking about it only makes it more difficult, and he just focuses even more intently on the water glass that he's now holding in an unnecessarily tight grip.
Yoko's in the middle of wishing he could melt through the floor when Yoshimoto-san comes out with two trays of soba.
"Not very talkative today, huh boys?" she says, and Yoko just barely suppresses a laugh. If only she knew.
Hina laughs and smiles, thanking her for the food, and Yoko watches him break apart his chopsticks, two perfect straight lines. Yoko splits his own pair, and there's a giant chunk of one hanging onto the other. He narrows his eyes, frowning.
"Still haven't gotten the hang of that, huh?" Hina asks, laughing.
"Shut up and eat," Yoko mutters.
Yoko has to admit that the food, at least, is good, and a welcome distraction from sitting silently across the table from Hina. He's hungry, so he eats fast, and Hina must be hungry too because he's done around the same time. He calls for the check, obviously not wanting to wait around much longer than he has to.
"Should I drop you off at home?" Hina asks as they walk back to the car. Yoko almost says no, that he'll walk home, or that he has somewhere exciting to be and Hina should take him there, but it seems like too much trouble and he assents, resigning himself to an afternoon of playing video games in hopes of keeping his mind from replaying the unpleasant parts of the day over and over again.
On the way to Yoko's apartment, there are a few times when Hina seems like he's about to say something, but changes his mind at the last minute, and Yoko, of course, doesn't press him. From the few glances he takes at Hina, he looks frustrated, mouth set in a line, jaw tight. Yoko figures he wants to say something about the way he's acting, but maybe doesn't know how to phrase it. It's strange for Yoko to think of Hina being at a loss for words, or feeling shy about expressing what he's thinking, but he supposes their current situation is different enough from anything the two of them have dealt with that it might change even Hina's behavior.
There's a part of Yoko, he finds as he thinks about it, climbing the stairs to his floor, that's almost happy about Hina seeming off-kilter. He'd felt so annoyed when Hina had been unaffected about the whole thing, so seeing that that wasn't the case was, in a way, satisfying. Of course, another part of Yoko is screaming that this only shows how the situation is even worse than he'd thought, if it's affecting even Hina. If it's that big of a deal, it's probably not just going to resolve itself, or go away, as Yoko had been secretly hoping it would.
Yoko spends the rest of his weekend being as antisocial as possible. He goes to the gym again because he feels like that will absolve him of spending the rest of his time sitting around playing video games, and, thankfully, he doesn't run into Hina again.
On Monday, Yoko wakes up, yet again, with a distinct feeling of dread. This time, it's not only brought on by the fact that he'll be seeing Hina today, it's also what they'll be doing: all of the members are meeting together to learn the choreography for a few of their new songs. Yoko may not like recording, but learning choreography is even worse.
When Yoko gets to the dance studio, Subaru and Yasu are already there, sitting a lot closer to each other on the couch than is strictly necessary. It leaves plenty of room for Yoko, though, so he flops down next to them, sighing heavily.
"I hate choreography days," he says.
Subaru disentangles himself from where he'd been tucked under Yasu's arm to commiserate.
"It sucks," he says, wrinkling his nose. "I wish we could just stand around and sing instead of having to dance all the time."
Yoko can hear Yasu trying to suppress his laughter from behind Subaru's shoulder. "You two make such great idols," he says. Subaru turns around, steals the fluffy blue knit cap from Yasu's head, and pouts at him. Yoko rolls his eyes.
The other members arrive in ones and twos, Ryo showing up out of breath, just before the rehearsal's set to start. He starts in on one of his apology speeches, but Hina cuts him off.
"You're on time, it's fine, shut up!"
When they're given a fifteen minute break after the first hour of practice, Yoko collapses on the floor, holding a water bottle to his forehead.
"I'm too old for this," he whines.
"I take it the exercise hasn't been helping," Hina says. He's somewhere out of Yoko's field of vision, and Yoko debates using precious energy to sit up or turn over so he can glare at him, then decides it's not worth it.
"Yokocho's been exercising?" Yasu asks, an offensive amount of incredulity in his tone.
"I ran into him at the gym the other day," Hina answers.
Yoko turns over, then, leveling a glare at the two of them.
"Stop discussing me like I'm not right here," he says. Yasu laughs, but Hina narrows his eyes at Yoko before looking away.
What was that about? Yoko thinks. He's pretty sure he'd been acting normal, just then; Hina should have no reason to be giving him weird looks like that. He tries to put it out of his mind and relax for the rest of their short break, but he finds himself watching Hina as he flips through a newspaper. Luckily, Yoko catches himself before Hina notices, and he crosses his arms, shoving his face into the crook of his elbow and groaning. He hears the scuffing sound of feet in front of him, and looks up to find Yasu kneeling down, looking concerned.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Fine," Yoko says, dragging a palm across his face. "Just...you know. Hate dancing."
Yasu gives Yoko a look that suggests he doesn't believe that's the source of the problem, but thankfully doesn't press him for details.
"Well," he says after a moment, "you know you can talk to me if anything else is wrong."
Yoko rolls his eyes, shooing Yasu away, but the offer sounds oddly tempting. Having someone to listen to the constant monologue of anxiety going on in his head would be nice, but of course there's no way Yoko could talk about this with anyone, much less one of the members. There's just no way.
He wonders if Hina's told anyone. Yoko wouldn't be surprised if he had, but he wouldn't really be surprised if he hadn't, either. Hina's got so many friends, he's probably got someone he'd feel totally comfortable talking about it with. Hina's interpersonal relationships have always been a bit of a mystery to Yoko, one of those things he's annoyed by but also kind of jealous of, if he's honest with himself. He looks over at Hina again: he's laughing at something Maru's just said, mouth wide open, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world.
Then, the choreographer calls that the break is over, and Yoko picks himself up off the floor with a sigh. At least concentrating on learning the steps will keep his mind off of Hina.
Of course, the steps they're learning put Yoko right next to Hina, and in his effort to ignore him as much as possible he ends up bumping into Ohkura on his other side.
"You're too close," Ohkura says. "You should be halfway between me and Murakami-kun."
Yoko takes a step closer to Hina, looking at their feet in the mirror to align himself properly.
"Come on," Hina says, "I won't bite."
Yoko feels a prickling on the back of his neck as he blushes, unable to keep himself from remembering Hina's teeth closing over his lower lip.
"Let's just try it again," he mumbles, staring resolutely at the floor.
The rest of the rehearsal passes mostly without incident, although the choreographer insists that Yoko stay a bit later to practice some of the parts he hadn't gotten quite right. By the time he's finished his muscles are aching and he just wants to go to bed. He flops down on the sofa to rest for a few minutes before leaving. The only other people left in the room by then are Yasu and Hina. Hina had taken a shower in the locker room because he had somewhere to be later, and Yasu just seemed to be taking a really long time to get his stuff together and leave.
Hina's half-dressed, his belt unbuckled and no shirt on, when he turns to where Yoko's sprawled listlessly on the sofa. He crosses the room, standing close and looking like he's trying to decide what to do before finally saying,
"Uh...my shirt."
Yoko raises his eyebrows. He doesn't want to twist around to look up at Hina's face, but if he stares straight ahead he'd be looking directly at his crotch, so he settles for turning his head in a general upward direction.
"What about it?" he asks.
Hina gestures vaguely to Yoko's lap. "You're sitting on it."
Yoko looks, and sure enough, Hina's shirt is under his legs. He sits up quickly, grabbing the shirt and holding it out without looking at Hina, who takes it wordlessly. He pulls the shirt over his head, buckles his belt, and is out of the room in less than a minute. Yoko mashes his face against the arm of the sofa and breathes, slowly, for about a minute and a half before the sound of Yasu's voice makes him raise his head.
"Kimi-kun..." Yasu sounds tentative, "is everything okay?"
Yoko turns back to face the couch's arm. He considers not responding, or trying to brush Yasu off, but part of him is screaming to let it out, to say something to someone, and really it's not his fault: he's exhausted, and Yasu's using that sweet tone that makes Yoko feel like Yasu's his caring girlfriend or something, so after a moment he answers, voice muffled against the fabric.
"Not really." Yoko hears a rustling, and then the couch dips as Yasu sits down at the other end. Yoko lifts his head a little, but doesn't look over at him.
"Do you want to..." Yasu starts, then trails off, apparently deciding to dive right in rather than ask. "Why don't you tell me about it?"
"It's..." Yoko begins, trying to think of a way to unburden himself without actually telling Yasu what happened between them. He may have decided to talk about the problem, but there's still a line that he has absolutely no intention of crossing. "Things are...weird. Now."
There's a pause, as Yasu presumably waits for Yoko to elaborate, though Yoko doesn't have any intention to do so yet.
"Did something happen?" Yasu asks, and Yoko can tell from his tone what "something" means. Is he seriously that transparent? Yoko hums noncommittally, not wanting to acknowledge the question. Yasu, mercifully, doesn't press that line of inquiry any further. Instead, he asks the question Yoko's been asking himself, with little to no success, for the past week.
"What do you want, now?" He pauses, then goes on a bit. "What do you want to happen? Like...what would be the best thing?"
"I want a time machine," Yoko mumbles. Yasu laughs under his breath, but doesn't say more. Yoko starts talking without really thinking about it, just letting his inner monologue spill out. "I really do, though. I just want to go back to normal. Everything's so weird now and I can't stop thinking about it and I'm sure it's mostly my fault, and...what if we can't? What if everything's weird and messed up forever?"
Putting his worst fear into words is simultaneously freeing and terrifying. Yoko balls his hands into fists, letting his nails dig into his palms, and his stomach churns as he waits for Yasu to say something.
"I don't think that'll happen," Yasu says eventually. He's speaking slowly, like he's thinking hard about what to say, and in that moment Yoko is amazingly thankful to have a friend like Yasu. "I think...there's not a lot that your friendship can't survive, you know? This is just a small thing, in the long run."
Yoko's not quite sure Yasu's grasped the gravity of the situation, but he feels encouraged nonetheless. He sighs heavily, turning to look at Yasu for the first time since the conversation started. He smiles weakly, and Yasu smiles back.
"Have you talked about it at all?" he says eventually. His tone suggests that he knows the answer is going to be no.
Yoko shakes his head. He feels embarrassed, finally letting someone see how poorly he's dealing with this situation.
"You're going to have to, you know," Yasu says. His tone is gentle, but that almost makes Yoko feel worse, like a little kid being lectured by his mother, or something.
If I were talking to Hina about this, he finds himself thinking, he'd just tell me to suck it up and talk about it. Yoko laughs to himself, rubbing a hand over his face.
"I know," he says.
Yasu puts a hand on his shoulder, palm warm and firm. "It's gonna be fine."
Yoko shrugs Yasu's hand off, coloring. "Thanks," he mumbles.
"Anytime," Yasu says. There's a moment of silence, and then Yasu gets up. He grabs his bag, pulling on his hat, and says goodbye to Yoko before walking out the door.
Yoko sits on the couch for a little while after Yasu leaves, thinking about the conversation they had, and about the one he's going to have to have with Hina. He tries to imagine how he can bring it up, going through a series of openers and rejecting them all, before getting frustrated and giving up. Maybe if he waits long enough, a delusional optimistic part of him thinks, they won't have to talk about it.
Yoko's gathering up his things to leave when he lifts his bag and finds Hina's cell phone sitting on the table underneath it.
"Fuck," he says aloud. He tries to remember if Hina had said where he was going, but either he hadn't said, or Yoko had been more successful than he realized in his attempts to ignore him, because he can't come up with anything. He considers opening the phone to see if Hina has his schedule in there, but that feels too much like snooping. Yoko's just scrolling through the contacts of his own phone to call their manager about it when he hears footsteps in the doorway. He knows, without turning around, that it's Hina: that's just how Yoko's luck works.
"Hey," Hina says, sounding surprised. Yoko turns, offering him an attempt at a smile. The conversation with Yasu is still fresh in his mind, all of his confused feelings roiling right at the surface, and he's not sure he can open his mouth without something embarrassing coming out.
"Have you seen my phone?" Hina asks, not returning Yoko's smile (which possibly looks like more of a grimace).
Yoko picks up the phone from the table behind him, holding it out at arm's length. Hina reaches out to take it, but when his fingers slip over Yoko's, Yoko jerks his hand away and the phone clatters loudly to the floor. Hina looks at the phone, then at Yoko, makes a noise of annoyance in the back of his throat and walks over to the door, pulling it shut. Yoko swallows hard, backing up against the table.
"What is wrong with you?" Hina says, the irritation in his voice obvious. He sounds exasperated, confused, frustrated: he sounds pretty much how Yoko feels.
"I don't know," Yoko says. He's surprised at the way his voice sounds, like he's about fifteen seconds away from crying. He takes a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair.
"Do you..." Hina starts, his tone considerably softer. "Are you..."
Yoko can see the end of that question coming, and he interrupts. "No," he says. "It's not...like that."
"Then," Hina says, sounding confused now, "what is it like?"
"I just want everything to be normal," Yoko begins, staring intently at Hina's cell phone on the floor between them, "but I can't. I'm not like you, I can't just pretend like nothing has changed after...after what happened, you know? I wish I could, but I can't." Yoko takes another breath before continuing, "I've messed everything up and I don't know how to fix it."
There's a pause, and Yoko opens his mouth to speak again but he's cut off by Hina's arms wrapping around his shoulders, and then he's standing there with his face pressed against the side of Hina's neck. Yoko feels totally drained, and he slumps against Hina, putting his arms around him and squeezing, silently.
The touch is kind of a shock to Yoko's system. Other than the usual tsukkomi, they haven't really touched since they slept together, and Yoko feels suddenly like he's totally enveloped by Hina's presence. He can smell Hina's shampoo from the shower he'd taken earlier, and his hair's still just a little damp against Yoko's forehead. His jacket smells like his laundry soap, and it makes Yoko think of the way he'd felt lying on his back on Hina's sheets. Somehow, it doesn't make him feel anxious or embarrassed, though; it's reassuring. Hina's arms are tight around Yoko's shoulders, his chest rising and falling with each deep, even breath.
Hina's not the type to hug very often, and whenever he's hugged Yoko it's always been in conjunction with some kind of monumental occurrence. It always makes Yoko feel the same way: safe, secure, and comforted. It's like he can feel Hina's stability in the sure way his arms wrap around Yoko, and more than anything that anyone could say, this is what makes Yoko feel certain that things will be okay. Hina's hugged him at some of the worst times in Yoko's life because Hina's always been there, and Yoko realizes now that Hina always will be there. Yoko breathes shakily against Hina's skin, clutching the soft fabric of his jacket briefly before pulling away.
He smiles at Hina, and for the first time in a week, it doesn't feel forced. Hina grins back.
"You're an idiot, you know," he says, but the tone he's using makes it sound like a term of endearment.
Less than a week later, all of the members have the evening free after PV filming, and they decide to go out for dinner, which, of course, turns into drinking.
In a private room of an izakaya somewhere in Shinjuku, as Maru and Yasu cheer and Subaru pulls out his phone to take a video, a very drunk Hina puts his hands on the shoulders of a similarly drunk Yoko and leans in, lips puckered. Yoko struggles, giggling as he tries weakly to fight Hina off, but Hina just grabs his hands instead, lacing their fingers together. He has the advantage in strength, and within moments he's got Yoko's hands forced down by his sides and his mouth pressed sloppily against Yoko's. Yoko tilts his head back and Hina leans in closer, his lips parting slightly, then abruptly pulls back after a few seconds.
They're both breathing a little hard, and there's a moment where they just look at each other, frozen, before Yoko wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, laughing.
"Go pick on someone else for a change," he says, and Hina smiles, giving him an exaggerated wink before turning to smack a cackling Subaru.