[FIC] Jerks Can Be Tender Too (2 of 2)

[leviosa8]

Jerks Can Be Tender Too
Part 2 of 2: BOOK-OFF
Author: leviosa8
Fandom: The Prince of Tennis
Pairing: A x K (pairing 2)
Rating: NC-13 (Not that explicit but not safe for kids either)
Disclaimer: All these characters are property of Takeshi Konomi. This is a work of fan love for fun, not profit.
Notes: See the introductory post. You can read the other side of the story in part 1: Takeoff.
Summary: Friday evening. A store. Two boys.



The sky was getting dark and so was his soul. Arai looked up to the unmerciful heavens and found the first star of the evening. He wished for this Friday to end as safely as possible and for him to return home tonight and to school tomorrow with his reputation intact. However, it was not going to be that easy.

At least, he thought, at least he was not alone in this. However, that was actually not part of the solution but rather part of the problem. He looked at the boy sitting next to him, then at the book in his hands, and sighed deeply.

Kachiro Kato had been there this morning at practice with the other first year whose shaved head would look better in the baseball club (and he would probably do better there too). They had always looked comical to him, the mushroom and the asparagus, until the mushroom stood up to him on the court and made him respect his name, while the asparagus remained that annoying presence always beside him like a mismatched twin.

Of course, Horio was always the most insufferable presence on the face of the Earth or, at least, Seigaku's grounds. But that day he had showed up with a strange story about something he'd heard from a conversation between some girls in his class, all too anxious to share his outrage with his habitual companions. Arai had been about to pick something from the clubhouse, something that was forgotten as soon as he approached the door, ajar, and accidentally caught bits of Horio's rant:

"...Boy on boy, totally explicit, and you can even choose the age you want them to be, you know? They have all sorts. And it is there for everybody to pick and see. Can you believe it? So imagine you are looking for old issues of your favourite comic and you accidentally pick that. AURGH. Yuck!"

"I don't think they are with the normal comics, Horio-kun," the asparagus had said. "I went there once and the adult comics have shelves of their own. People our age are not supposed to take them and they are called hentai for a reason."

"This is not hentai, you idiot! This is for girls!"

"The books must be mixed, Horio-kun, because I've seen both boys and girls looking at the same shelves!" Kachiro had chipped in.

"But... But there is no way a guy would want to even get close to those! There are stories about teachers and students, and locker-room stories and... and people with strange family complexes! Or so the girls were saying. Apparently it is hotter when the two boys have different ages or are somehow related. I think it is all very gross and abnormal, if you ask me. But those girls were talking about returning to BOOK-OFF again to read more because there is so much stuff that..."

"Arai, what the hell are you doing?" Hayashi had yelled impatiently from the courts. He hadn't been able to listen anymore. He had returned to practice, yes, but in his mind he kept hearing the echoes of how apparently it is hotter when the two boys have different ages and how the BOOK-OFF seemed to have all the answers to quite a few questions he'd been asking himself for some time, to his massive distress, perplexity and shame.

This was not about the usual porn normal boys talked about so he had to do this on his own. And he had wanted to move fast.

Now Arai was sitting in front of said store, together with a person who, against all odds, but also along the finest and most subtle lines of karma, seemed to share his curiosity in a timely fashion. And who was still so engrossed in his reading that he seemed to have forgotten that Arai was there too.

This situation was freaking the hell out of him.

Arai could still remember the boy's face of utter shock, probably a mirror of his own, after their hands had accidentally collided on the same book several minutes ago. Or was it years already? Never mind. He kept replaying the scenes in his head as if they had been a dream, one of those you desperately want to wake up from, but can't.

###

Back in the store, his eyes had been too occupied browsing the shelves while throwing stealthy looks left and right to check that nobody was coming, so the kid totally escaped his field of vision. It took his brain five full seconds to acknowledge him.

"Ooops. My bad!" Arai laughed a very fake laugh. He pulled his hand away from the book and the other boy's, as if burned. "I was looking for... this." And he pulled out another gay manga.

He began to sweat.

"No, I mean I wanted this. THIS." This time he managed to grab an incest lolicon hentai anthology. Kachiro's eyes were bulging out and his jaw was at risk of dislocating. Shaking a little, Arai flipped through the very dirty pages with his own shocked eyes, and yet he didn't fail to notice the two books the kid was holding below his armpit. He wanted to take a better look at the covers, but he had yet to cover for himself, so he decided to change his strategy again. "Mmmm, not my type. Here! Huge breasts! Aaah, big is good, but huge is so much better!" He opened the new book and hid his face with it.

He couldn't read, though, because he was hyper aware of the other boy's every movement, or rather, his unnatural paralysis, and he couldn't move, either, because he was feeling so embarrassed he feared to spontaneously combust any moment.

When, after a few seconds, Arai heard some rustle at last, he peered from behind the book and saw Kachiro hastily trying to hide his own books in a shelf at random. Arai tried to do the same with the one that he had been hiding behind his back with his free hand, the book that had taken him half an hour to find and like. But doing so without looking proved to be the silliest thing he had done so far when the book fell to the floor and slid to Kachiro's feet.

Kachiro, who was crouching at the lowest shelf to try and push a way in half an empty space for the remaining volume, and failing, couldn't help seeing the cover and went very red on the face. Arai's, on the other hand, turned white.

Before either of them could muster the courage to pick it up, though, a faster hand took care of it.

"Older Brothers Have Fun! Vol. 2," read a deep, deadpan voice they both knew all too well.

"Inui-senpai!!", they exclaimed in sync, thus breaking the panicked standoff and entering a new realm of embarrassment of which there would be, definitely, written record.

Inui had taken both that book and the one Kachiro had failed to hide in time, no matter his last and desperate efforts: Cute Boys Festival Vol.1, and even offered to pay for them as a senpai treat. They were just 105 yens each; after all, it was not as if they would ruin him. But his knowledge about this encounter could very well ruin them. It would certainly ruin Arai for life, and for a second he wished April would come fast enough so that Inui would disappear from school and never tell of what could not possibly be labelled as an unfortunate mistake to any observing person, much less to a data man. Inui had even taken the time to return the Huge breasts anthology to the shelf with a knowing, most unnerving smirk to Arai.

Arai felt that Inui was processing a good deal of information about them at the moment but was refraining from questioning. He probably didn't need to. This was not, after all, about their sporadic doubles combination, which Inui had been so eagerly encouraging from his own experience and data. This was about catching them red-handed at a spontaneous and accidental meeting in the wrong place doing the wrong thing. Together.

Arai now wasn't very sure of what he had been doing in the first place, and Kachiro was currently in some sort of walking coma, so Arai tried to convince Inui that they didn't want those books, that it was all a joke, that he could not possibly buy them, given how he was underage himself. He had reasoned so eloquently in his head, that had his tongue not been tied and had his mind been clear from the cloud of surrealism, he would have told Inui just so.

Instead, it was Inui who explained to him the necessity of being out of the school uniform before visiting certain places, if he wanted to disguise the fact that he was still in junior high. Arai thought that Inui had a point and a good strategy, too.

But he also realized that Inui could use his height and voice to his advantage as well, as the cashier didn't doubt his age for a second. On the contrary, the bitch even had the gall to ask if those were for his younger... brothers. What!? Oh, wait, that was for the other books he already had in the yellow basket before meeting them. Which were... A journal on Kitchen vegetables and how to mix them, some random issue about Introducing mushrooms. OK, that was very Inui-like. But then there was... A bikini-clad idol magazine, collector's special edition? And an illustrated encyclopaedia on reptiles, Elementary School level!?

Now, who was Inui getting those for!?

When Inui replied that no, all of them were for their father, "A young man with a solemn expression that sometimes visits this store pretending to look for books on mountains, you might have seen him last Wednesday, around 7 p.m., dressed in a light-violet shirt," Arai gasped loudly and the cashier turned her lazy, bespectacled eyes to him. Appalled on behalf of their captain, he averted his gaze to the street outside, wanting out and far, far away from there.

But he couldn't go very far at all, as he ended up locking eyes this time with no other than Yamabuki's Akutsu, who had been walking determinedly towards the door and stopped dead on his heels when he saw them. Fucking great! If that jerk was to come into the store, or worse, wait for them outside, his reputation wouldn't be the only thing crushed that evening. Although at that moment Arai was wishing for death to claim him fast so badly, that it didn't sound such a bad idea to have Akutsu do the job for him. But, truth be told, he liked life and he liked his face even better - and intact.

Next to him, Kachiro had spotted the grey-haired beast outside and was trembling like a leaf, but before he could voice his panic, Akutsu had turned around and walked away.

"Jin Akutsu, Yamabuki 3rd year. Quit tennis after being defeated by our Echizen. Lives with his young and beautiful mother and is an old friend of Kawamura. I wonder why he left. I only waved to him..."

Arai and Kachiro both turned to Inui (who was now quickly scribbling down something on a notebook, ignoring the shopping bag the cashier was trying to hand him), and then to each other in joyful understanding. Arai was sure he would have done the same if he'd had the warning. And damned be the books and the offs.

Out in the parking lot, Inui had told them to "Read them in private and use them well. I have, um, things to do now, so I'll excuse myself here", before leaving. Arai wanted to convince himself that their senpai had truly left but something inside him felt uneasy about the conspicuous way Inui had looked at them before disappearing around the corner.

They had sat nearby on a hidden grass patch behind a lamppost behind some bushes, behind a cleaning-shop delivery truck that wouldn't be moving until early in the morning, most likely - or so Arai had hoped. There was enough light to see what they were doing so Arai opened the brown paper bag and silently gave Kachiro his book, placing his own book on his lap.

The cover alone was outrageous, he knew. But a quick glance at Kachiro's confirmed once again that his was safer, if only a bit. The boys in Kachiro's cover looked like Kachiro.

###

After these good five minutes of reflection and reminiscence, all that his patience had allowed, he could not take the silence any longer. He needed to know what the boy was thinking. What he was thinking of him. That was most important. Top priority. Red-alert matter. He desperately wanted for this visit to BOOK-OFF to remain secret. If Kachiro had the good sense to keep it from Horio at least, there would be hope.

For the time being, he might as well take a look at the book. He flipped through the pages: an all-boys school setting, senpai-kohai relationships. Just what he was looking for, he secretly congratulated himself, kicking the shame aside for a minute. Then he glanced sideways at Kachiro for good measure: still engrossed in his reading, good boy. Then back to the book. Hmmm. Interesting. Hmmm. Gross. Hmmm. This couldn't be for girls - it was too... too... Why was he reading this, again? He couldn't focus anyway, not with the other boy there. It was his fault, all of it. And it was getting hot, wasn't it? It wasn't as humid as a few weeks ago but summer was not over yet and he felt he was in dire need of a shower. Maybe he could take the book home and... ummm... use it? After getting rid of the graphic jacket and replacing it with the English book's. Was it the same size? He could try.

No!! -he repented almost instantly. He must not take that book home, no matter what. He just shouldn't. It was very dangerous. It was shameful enough as it was, with him having those weird thoughts. There was no need to acknowledge it further to himself and, if he ever let his guard down, his family. He had to give it away. He had to...

"I didn't want this anyway," he sighed theatrically, putting it inside his schoolbag. "Now I'll have to get rid of it, somewhere."

"If you don't want it... Would you mind if I... if I kept it?" Kachiro asked him shyly, barely daring to look at him.

"But you already have yours! Em... I mean, you didn't really want this either, now, did you? I thought you too were looking for cute girls going at it..." Head shaking. "Tentacle porn?" More shaking. "Pokèmon hentai?" Outraged expression. "Are you kidding me, kid?" he laughed, nervously. His insides were turning to jelly with every headshake, as his mind produced a languid moan he did not dare to translate.

Kachiro lowered his face even more.

"I'm sorry. I... I know it must be disgusting for you but I just... I was really curious..." he explained clumsily, obviously forgetting the fact that Arai had been there too, doing the same thing. But Arai was quite satisfied with this outcome so he didn't try to contradict him.

"What's yours about anyway?" he asked instead, taking it from Kachiro's hands.

He flipped through the pages quickly. Those men there were older, much older than the boys they petted.

"So, I see, Kato. You like older men don't you? Who is it you fell in love with, huh? Some old man from school? Which teacher? Or do you have a very friendly and harassing neighbour?" He smirked, still flipping through the pages with morbid curiosity. Hah! He liked his own book much better.

Kachiro made an attempt to retrieve it, but Arai had a firm hold of it. He lay down on the grass and continued checking the stories. Boy, those were creepy. Disgusting.

"Gross, gross, gross."

Kachiro emitted a muffled sound and dived again to get it. He failed, but was getting closer to the goal. Arai laughed while keeping him at bay with a hand on his small, flat chest.

"I'll give you mine later. This stuff is not for me. I wanted a good dose of girls' tits and ass."

"Then why... do you... keep reading...?" Kachiro fumed. Arai looked at him, and saw that his face was flaming red. His eyes averted Arai's and focused again on the book.

"Because I am curious as to what my kohai read. So, tell me, do I know the teacher?"

"I don't like any teacher! I didn't want this book! I told you! I wanted... yours."

Reading quickly the last story about a little boy and his father's co-worker, Arai threw it to the side on the grass dismissively, proclaiming, "This is crap", and let go of Kachiro's chest. The boy fell limply on his side and quickly extended an arm to retrieve the book. It was at the other side of Arai's head, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Arai knew he had done it on purpose. This was too much fun and he could rest assured that his reputation was totally safe now.

Until it was Kachiro who rested his whole weight on top of him across his lap and all the air escaped from his lungs. He tried to grab for the book in a last, desperate move, but Kachiro had been faster, so he grabbed the boy's wrist instead. There was some scuffle and somehow Kachiro managed to place himself right on the hard spot between Arai's thighs, and only then did he give it a rest. And a sweet moan.

No, wait, that had been himself.

"Aaan... Arai-sen... pai..." the boy too moaned in a whisper, collapsing on top of his chest, but without easing the pressure on Arai's groin with his own.

Arai would have liked to reply, scold and probably tell him off, but he was busy stifling one hundred moans concentrated in a big howl. He blamed it on porn, on the unlikely situation, and on the kid's hormones. It was not his fault, OK? Now, just don't move, kid.

Too late. Kachiro was already rubbing himself against him with increasing franticness and Arai found his hips responding in earnest.

This is wrong, we are in public, this is going too fast, a distant echo from his conscience warned him. Arai ignored it. The boy seemed to know what he was doing, so he was not really a kid. And what's one year of difference anyway? Nothing. Just a few months earlier to be born and a few seconds earlier to come. And Kachiro came so loudly that Arai had to stifle his mouth against his own chest and then bite his own lips to not scream himself as he released in turn.

Inside his pants.

Perfect. Grand, just grand.

Breathing back the missing air, and coming back to his senses from the momentary bliss, Arai pushed Kachiro up without a word, other than...

"Shit."

"I... I'm sorry, I-"

"What the hell were you thinking!?" he took a hand to his forehead, theatrically. Kachiro looked down at himself, then at Arai, who pointed out to his lower half and said: "I can't go home like this, now, can I?"

Kachiro seemed to exhale in relief.

Arai pulled his school jacket down as much as it stretched and tried not to look at the boy too much. His heart was still pounding madly. He was very confused. Wet dreams don't usually come true all of a sudden, do they?

He spotted the book-that-started-it-all and passed it to Kachiro.

"Here. That's yours. Keep mine too" and he produced it from his bag. "But you owe me some pants. Let's go check if the conbini has some of those disposable ones."

He didn't miss the boy's wide grin.

********

They entered together and split ways to find them faster. Every convenience store had its own array of shelves, and it seemed that neither of them had stopped at this Lawson other than for cold drinks and some snacks after practice. Maybe a peek at the weekly magazines. And there, in front of the press stand, they found the supplies for the change of underwear they needed. Fortunately, there were both of their sizes available. Also, luckily, they were the only customers.

However, as they were walking back to the cashier, Kachiro suddenly squeaked:

"Oh, no, it's him again!"

"Who? Where?"

"Yamabuki's Akutsu. Outside," he trembled. "With... Kawamura-senpai!"

Arai followed his gaze through the glass wall behind the DVD sales shelf.

"Shit!" he looked frantically around. He would put up a fight, of course, but he still remembered the pain Akutsu could inflict to his ribs and he didn't want to add blood on his clothes on top of the mess he already had in his underwear. Also, he was rather scared about the simple questions Kawamura-senpai could ask them when he saw what they were holding in their hands. They didn't have time to coordinate a convincing lie. "Come here! Quick!"

Grabbing Kachiro's arm, he pulled him behind the sweets section and down to the floor. There, he covered the boy's mouth with his hand and commanded silence with a finger to his lips.

Arai then braved a peek around the middle shelf. Kawamura almost locked eyes with him on his way in, but Arai managed to hide back quickly, and by the time he risked another peek, Kawamura was already busying himself with the magazines.

So, where was Akutsu?

The door of the milk fridge at the end of the next aisle opened with violence, startling them.

"He's there!" whined Kachiro.

"Ssssh," replied Arai, keeping his cool, eyes closed.

"He'll see us!"

"Sssssssh!" Arai refused to open his eyes.

"HE'LL KILL US!!"

"SSSSH! Dammit! Shut UP!" he whisper-shouted back, taking both the boy's hands in his and opening his eyes to explain, like a prayer, that: "Don't be afraid. He won't do anything to us because I... Kawamura-senpai will protect us."

"Yes, Kawamura-senpai will protect us," came Kachiro's teary, frantic echo.

Their foreheads almost touching now, Arai shut his eyes again, reciting:

"He'll save us; he'll prevent us from any harm." He was getting ready for the fight that he saw coming. He could already feel the adrenaline rush, while Kachiro kept sobbing:

"Please, save us. Please, please, Kawamura-senpai!"

No matter the consequences to his ribs and his face, he would not let that asshole harm Kato again. Arai knew deep inside that he could be as cool as Echizen. Perhaps not in tennis, but--

The door of the fridge closed again with a loud thud, stopping Kachiro's whining at once, and retreating steps confirmed that Akutsu was moving on to another section.

They both relaxed and sighed, but remained sitting on the floor, their backs to the shelves, and still linked by one hand. Arai noticed and promptly let go, pretending to readjust his jacket over his still stained clothes. He also noticed that their shoulders were touching, sharing warmth, but that...was fine.

Soon enough, they heard Akutsu arguing with the cashier about something the latter didn't want to sell him... Something he was too young for... Something like...

"Condoms?" they looked at each other and whispered in unison, each covering his own mouth.

Akutsu wanted condoms!? Were Kawamura and he going to some shady place to...? No, they couldn't. As mature as they looked, they were only in Jr. High, they... Maybe they were on a double date? With reaaally dirty girls. Akutsu, maybe. But Kawamura-senpai!?

"Do you think he wants those for... well, for themselves?" Kachiro asked softly and meaningfully, bringing Arai down from the dirty clouds to the dirtier earth.

"NO! I mean... How...? Could you believe...?" he stopped. He was in a different sort of panic as before. He was not exactly disgusted at the thought. He was... well, still wet after having dry-humped his girliest kohai. But condoms! That was a big word that implied bigger events.

Arai looked at Kachiro sideways, and something warm and embarrassing installed in the pit of his stomach. The boy looked back at him, and before he could speak, they heard Akutsu taking his shopping bag noisily as he finished his threats to the cashier, with his trademark refusal to take orders. Arai only dared looking when he heard the door to the store open, and managed to see them leave.

He waited a couple of minutes before nudging an absentminded and relaxed Kachiro in the ribs.

"Come on, Kato. Go pay so we can go somewhere to change."

"Why...?"

"Because the toilet here is out of order, so we'll have to find another place."

"No, why do I have to pay?"

"Because it was your fault, that's why!" he snapped, but only half-heartedly, half-guiltily.

Kachiro blushed furiously, paid without another protest and even carried the paper-for-discretion bag himself.

********

The station was thankfully free from students at that hour in the evening. There were just the random cram-school goers who didn't have to stay that late yet, the summer break having ended not long ago. Arai was so happy to be still in carefree second year and so relieved to be wearing clean, albeit disposable, briefs.

Kachiro was still inside the men's restroom. There had been only one cubicle free and senpais go first in Arai's books, so he had pushed his way in before the boy could react. Kachiro hadn't argued. He had been still waiting outside when Arai finished. Oddly enough, the other cubicle hadn't emptied in all the time that took Arai to clean himself up with his sweaty towel and replace his sinful underwear. He had shrugged it off as probable constipation, washed his hands and gone out to where the air didn't stink of stale urine.

Now, technically, Arai could just call it a night and leave already, as the kid could find the way home as easy and quickly as himself. But for some reason Arai was studying the train-lines map above the ticket-vending machines, not exactly sure of what he was looking for, but automatically trying to remember who lived where and what schools were near certain stations.

He was hungry, for starters, and it was a Friday. There was really no hurry to get home and there was no one he really wanted to see that he would not see tomorrow at practice anyway. Maybe he could just take the kid for a snack somewhere, somewhere not very close to where everybody lived, everybody known at least, and make this freaky Friday a bit longer. Just a little bit longer.

The problem was that all he had was 600 yens in his pockets. He could go as far as 300 hundred yen and back, but then he wouldn't have anything left to eat, so he decided on a 200 margin for the train, and started searching for safe stations at a distance within that price.

OK, he had one. The chances of running into someone there were next to zero.

Satisfied, he turned to check on the toilet's entrance. A man was taking a station attendant in that direction but all Arai could hear from his position was "...doesn't open, only grunts suspiciously when you knock". He worried for about half a second, the time it took for Kachiro to come out at the same time the other two went in. The boy looked frantically around, and then to the floor, abated. Arai whistled and Kachiro looked up, beamed, and almost ran to where he was standing. Arai then realized, with some flutter inside, that Kachiro had believed that he had left him behind. So he turned around pretending to check the trains again to hide a grin.

"Are you going somewhere by train now?" came Kachiro's panting voice from his side.

"Maybe. Say, how much cash do you have on you right now?"

Kachiro blinked.

"I don't know... Maybe two hundred in my pocket... and the one thousand bill I keep for an emergency in my sewing kit?"

"A sewing kit!? Do you plan on becoming the team's manager or what?"

"No! It was my mother who..."

"Never mind. That's enough. That's perfect."

"For what?"

"I... I don't know." He scratched the back of his head, feigning improvisation, although he realized he was doing a poor job of it. "Aren't you hungry? Would you like to go for Mac or Lotteria or something cheap and fast and greasy?" And far, he added to himself, looking at Kachiro, who looked at his feet before replying:

"I... I'd have to call home, but-"

"Call, then."

"Do we need to take a train?" He looked up.

"Errr... Yes. Actually, there's a place I wanted to try right... here," he pointed to the map above their heads. "In this station. See? I've heard it's a cool area and, besides, you don't want to stay around the school on a Friday night, do you?"

"I don't know. I've never really hanged out beyo-"

"Come on, it's time to expand your horizons, boy!" interrupted Arai, clasping a hand on his shoulder. "Let your senpai be your guide. And you can call home and say that you'll be accompanied. I'll speak to your mother if necessary," he shocked himself by saying. But he immediately felt he could do it, after all.

He just didn't know whether there would be any youth-friendly, fast-food restaurants where they were going.

********

The train rattled through the city as they stood in a car packed with commuters, everybody close to each other but barely touching. Arai noticed that the boy had grown over the summer. He was definitely taller and his face didn't look so ridiculously childish anymore but to Arai he still looked kind of... very... cute.

Such thoughts didn't make Arai feel any better, so he distracted himself by looking at the ads hanging from the ceiling, inviting passengers to travel around by JR lines or to attend the latest Takarazuka Theater play. Yet his mind was soon occupied with other things.

Kachiro's mother had sounded very nice on the phone. She seemed happy and thankful that a senpai was taking care of her son and she also passed the phone to the father, the tennis coach, who also thanked him profusely, and who, apparently, had heard a lot about him now that they sometimes played doubles together during practice.

Arai still felt very, very guilty.

They got off at the planned station, which was already unmanned and solitary, and started walking towards the only exit downstairs, where they saw a sign advertising famous establishments nearby. There seemed to be a McDonald's in the basement of a small commercial building two streets from there, at the other side of the station, according to the sketchy map included. All the restaurants and coffee shops seemed to be open until late. Arai asked Kachiro if he was OK with Mac, and the boy merely nodded, looking wary of their surroundings.

They went outside and turned to the right to walk through a short, dark passage that ran below the tracks and the station towards an area with more lights and a few stores.

They crossed the road and started walking up the main avenue. Arai noticed how Kachiro was looking around with evident worry in his eyes, as it looked anything but a hang-out spot for people their age.

However, on the second corner on the right, across the street, there was a game center no larger than one floor. That was something! Arai's hands itched to go there but he was hungry and he was also broke.

Actually, he was so hungry that he was thinking up ways to make the most of his few coins, eventually deciding that he had to get himself a satisfying meal no matter what.

All this plotting on an empty stomach didn't leave much room for his brain to make for conversation. On the other hand, Kachiro just kept walking alongside him eyeing silently and fearfully the random groups of older youths they encountered.

Once they arrived at the street that had been marked on the map, they immediately spotted the entrance to the commercial building with a big McDonald's sign leading them downstairs to B1.

And down they went.

********

"Big Mac set with orange juice and chicken nuggets, please."

"For here?"

"Yes," Arai replied to the girl and then turned to Kachiro. "Go on, Kato, you can order now."

"Huh? Ah, Okay. Errrm... Kit-Kat McFlurry, please."

"Very well. Are you paying together?"

"Yes, please," Arai replied, and to Kachiro he said, "You take care of the tray. I'll go around the corner and start looking for an empty table. You don't smoke, do you? No? Great. See you there."

He promptly disappeared from sight, ignoring the shocked "Arai-senpai!!?" that stabbed his back and rang in his ears all the way to one of the multiple available tables.

He'd done it. He had got himself free dinner. He was so hungry he didn't really have a choice. Well, he'd talk the boy into forgetting it this once. He had a senpai reputation to keep so he'd make sure the boy understood it was just that he hadn't planned ahead today and he hadn't thought he'd need money. Heck, he could have told him so on the way but he just didn't want Kachiro to think he was a broke loser.

Anyway, the boy seemed to have some sort of respect and admiration for him, so maybe he'd be only too happy to do him the favor, just this once. Arai would probably offer to pay him only to find the boy smiling at him and saying: "Kohai treat!", and they'd both laugh and eat bubbly-happily. And Arai's stomach wouldn't roar like a lion, nor would his mouth water like the Niagara Falls as he stared shamelessly at the hamburgers that the couple sitting on one corner, and the man in a camouflage cap and sunglasses in another were avidly devouring.

And yet, when Arai saw him coming with the tray in his hands, a fuming red expression and watery eyes, he felt his heart sink and a heavy load place itself in that empty spot in his stomach.

Kachiro left the tray on the table with justified violence, sat on the chair in front of Arai's fixed, cushioned seat, and grabbed his McFlurry with a shaking hand and a sulky expression. He said nothing - just stared at the spoon as he started digging into the ice cream, fighting back tears in such an obvious way that Arai had to look at his own food in search for a happy thought that relieved him of the misery creeping up his whole being.

As he grabbed a handful of fries in one hand, and the hamburger in the other, Arai remembered the first and last time he had dated a girl - not only did he not pay for her meal, but he also helped himself to a good half of her fries. She hadn't been as mad as Kachiro but she had called him stingy and cheeky and heartless and stupid and... she broke up with him at the beginning of the third date. Apparently, he had no idea how dates worked.

And it was true. It was so much easier with his friends because they were also of the opinion that as long as there was food on the table, nobody could really be miserable.

But as much as he wanted to focus on his burger, he couldn't ignore Kachiro's trembling lip. When the boy spoke at last, he did so in such a grave voice that made Arai stop mid-chew.

"You don't even see me as a team mate. To you, I'm still a first year you have to take advantage of, to teach a lesson, aren't I?" He wasn't looking at Arai and he hadn't stopped eating his ice cream.

Arai swallowed, took a sip of his drink, and then looked at him intently.

"I thought tonight we were friends."

"Friends don't do that. You wouldn't do that to Hayashi-senpai."

"Oh yes, I have! And then he came after me and forced me to pay. And Momo has taken advantage of us many, many times." Actually, he'd learnt the trick from him on their first year. "You could have just asked me..."

"I can't, can I?"

"Why not!?"

"Because I know you don't have the money!"

Arai frowned.

"How do you-"

"Because you asked me how much I had on me."

"But that's because I didn't know if you could com-"

"You wanted me to pay for your dinner, that's why you brought me here, didn't you? You never wanted my company in the first place," he was practically sobbing, but he held his ground. He was doing his best not to cry and, considering how much of a waterfall Kachiro could become when scared or upset, Arai had to give him that.

"You got it wrong! I-"

"It's fine. Don't worry. That's just how things are, aren't they? I knew I shouldn't think... I shouldn't hope... Lesson learnt." He closed his eyes and ate another spoonful of ice, bitterness dripping from his every gesture. When Arai saw a lonely tear tracing a path on Kachiro's cheek, he felt so horrible he could throw up.

But he was still hungry so, instead, he finished the hamburger in two bites, ate the fries in a rush, and gulped the juice down. Now he could think of an adequate reply.

And he thought hard for a couple of minutes. The problem was that he didn't really understand why Kachiro was so worked up about it. It had been just a joke; he could pay him back tomorrow. Arai just didn't think it was about the money - that was what puzzled him the most.

You never wanted my company in the first place.

Yeah, as if he wouldn't have just gone home to have a decent dinner, had it been about the food in the first place. And Momo never paid for Echizen's meals, according to what Ikeda had heard. All of the second year gang but Momo avoided hanging out with kohais, not only because they found the brats uncool, but because they didn't want to pay for them. But apparently Momo, in tandem with Echizen, often managed to trick at least one third year into going out with them and taking care of the bill. Among their senpais, Kikumaru and Kawamura were their favorite victims.

Momo had something that attracted people, didn't he? He was smart and knew how to look good in front of others. Sometimes Arai admired his guts. Most often, Arai was very jealous of him.

He suspected that, were he in Arai's place, Kachiro would be far more cheerful and relaxed.

"Momo would have done the same to you," he blurted out, disgruntled at the thought of Momoshiro and bubbly-happy Kachiro, so realistic in his mind.

But the real Kachiro seemed taken aback with this change of subject and senpai.

"Momo-chan-senpai would've never done something like that... to a kohai!" he glared, but turned his eyes down almost immediately.

"He's not your knight in white armour! He just knows how to save face and be the hero to the weak. He's only an expert faker!"

Kachiro's brow twitched.

"Momo-chan-senpai is a decent senpai."

"Heh. Then it must have been hard for you that he chose Echizen. That brat truly takes it all, doesn't he? Although now that he has returned to America, you might have your chance. But only if you make a move before that girl from Fudômine claims him for herself."

Arai observed his reaction carefully but Kachiro merely shrugged.

"So, Kato," he tried again, adding a little cough. "You never told me why you wanted those books," he insisted, and noticed the boy go pale. "Who's your type?"

Kachiro put both hands on his McFlurry cup and said nothing.

"You said it's not a teacher. Then it must be a classmate. That aspar... Mizuno?"

Kachiro seemed to consider the answer for a few seconds, wondering perhaps if he should bother replying at all. But eventually he shook his head slowly, and Arai felt encouraged.

"Not Mizuno. Hmmm. It isn't Echizen, is it? Or worse, Horio?"

Kachiro shook his head frantically this time.

"Is it a senpai?"

Kachiro bit his lower lip.

"From the team?"

Kachiro shut his eyes tight.

Arai noticed his own heart was pounding now. How stupid.

It could very well be Momo. The boy had always been part of his fan-club. Or Kawamura. Yes, Kachiro had also a particular affection for their kind and powerful senpai. Arai didn't think Kachiro could feel anything but fear for the Viper; which might be nothing compared to the terror of being alone with Inui-senpai. You never knew what he could put in your drink. And although the boy had been very distraught and sensitive when Tezuka had to retire temporarily from the team, he doubted there was anything beyond deep respect for their cap... former captain and best player, like he himself felt. As an open, fervent fan of the Golden Pair, Kachiro must support that they were with one another, and Fuji-senpai was out of the question because Kachiro evidently liked boys. Manly boys, he assumed. So it had to be one of those two.

All he needed was a name.

"Come on, Kato, I gave you my book. Tell me at least what made you search for them." And lowering the head so that his face was inches from the boy's, he asked in a tone close to a whisper: "Tell Arai-chan-senpai who you think of when you jerk off."

"Do you really want to know?" He tested him.

"Yes." And he hoped his face showed just how much he meant it.

Kachiro's hands trembled on the paper cup as he replied, with unrestrained anger and eyes full of accusation:

"You, senpai. It's you!"

And he quickly returned his eyes to his Kit-Kat McFlurry, his face blazing red.

Arai was frozen on the spot, a lopsided smile on his face.

That was not a name. It was a pronoun. Second person singular and it referred to himself.

Of course, he would have thought Kachiro was just pulling his leg in revenge, had he not learnt long ago to take that boy's determined look very seriously.

Now it was Arai who needed a Kit-Kat.

He relaxed on his seat and put the hands on his head, sighing loudly. Kachiro threatened with a sob, but kept control of himself.

And, since the Earth didn't open to swallow either of them, after a minute, Arai guessed it was up to him to take the next step. To choose between fight and flight. Or just... say something.

Right...

One good look at the boy and...

His brain...

...was not responding.

Shit, this was just too much.

Arai stood up with a jump, grabbed Kachiro by the wrist, and pulled him out of his chair, taking both their bags onto one shoulder.

"Come on."

"Wha... Where? Wait! The tray!"

Damned kid and his manners!

Arai put everything back on the tray with his free hand, picked it up, and threw the contents away on their way to the entrance, ignoring the "Thank you very much!" from the girl sweeping the floor next to the garbage. He was still pulling Kachiro behind him. He couldn't say if the boy was talking. Actually, he could barely hear anything at all, because everything inside him was tingling and ringing.

Out in the main hall, he looked quickly around, spotted the sign and followed the directions to a white corridor, then another corridor, then the men's restroom; past an "out of order", broken and sealed stall, into one of the central ones. He locked the door behind them, dropped the bags, lowered the toilet seat, sat down and pulled Kachiro down on his lap. Then he put his arms around the boy, the forehead on his neck and the nose inside the opening of his shirt. And breathed.

He was trembling so badly. He couldn't control it.

After a few seconds, he realized the boy wasn't moving, wasn't breathing, and seemed to be in quite a shock. Arai feared he had gone too far. That he had lost it. There was no cover for him anymore, so if it had been just his misunderstanding, he was sooo screwed...

But then he felt the boy exhale and grab his forearms with steady hands, his body trembling too as he moved his hands to hold Arai to himself possessively.

"Kato," Arai whispered at last. "Kato," he said again. "Kato..." he almost smiled.

"Senpai..."

Arai increased the pressure of his embrace. Kachiro responded in turn. They were both breathing hard, and looking for contact desperately, and unable to let go even at the cost of their blood flow.

Arai started massaging the boy's back with his fingers, hard and unsteady. Kachiro's fingers were now in his hair. Then, without a second thought, Arai's hands went to Kachiro's buttocks and placed him there, hard. No games and no pretending this time. Kachiro moved his hips forward in a reflex, and Arai tilted his head backwards, unable to stifle a moan.

"Senpai..."

"Don't move..."

"Your hands..."

"Sssh, it's OK. Just don't move... We've just changed our clothes..."

"Iiih..." whined the boy, frustrated, burying his face in Arai's hair. And Arai knew it would happen, sooner or later. There was just only so much self-control left and they both seemed to have little to start with.

"I know!" said Arai at last. "Just lift yourself a bit... There..."

He pulled Kachiro up and his pants down quite eagerly. While the boy was standing precariously to take it all off from waist below, Arai spread his school jacket on the toilet lid, pulled down his own pants and his conbini underwear and sat back. Half a second later Kachiro was back on his lap, flesh on flesh, taking him to a new dimension of brainless madness.

Arai wanted to touch his soft, milky skin everywhere and then some more. He had barely managed to get his hands up the front of the boy's shirt when Kachiro started rocking his hips, obviously unable to stand the naked friction without contributing to alleviating the itch. The boy's raw voice on his ear was mind-numbing.

This definitely has to be a dream, he thought, just a sweet dream. One of those you don't want to wake up from, but must.

Before that happened, Arai wanted to enjoy this thoroughly, so he put one hand back on Kachiro's bare buttocks and grabbed both their half-hard cocks with the other, rocking them on, whispering his name again and again...

...Until he felt Kachiro come all over his already wet hand. It had taken Arai half as long as the boy this time. He just couldn't help it.

Breathing ragged and in mismatched pants, they held on to each other for a couple of minutes. Arai was in heaven and Kachiro seemed to be far gone from planet Earth as well. He was still holding to Arai as if his life depended on it. Arai realized he was caressing the boy's back with one hand. His other hand was still in place, sticky and gross, so he wiped it a bit on Kachiro's stomach -well, a bit more wouldn't hurt him- then used it to draw Kachiro's hips closer, his body closer, the boy closer. It never felt close enough.

And who the hell would stick a band-aid on the wall? He had just noticed. Were peeping-toms that aggressive on men's toilets in this area? ...Whatever. He shut his eyes and hummed, satisfied. Life was so good right now.

After a long few minutes Kachiro asked lazily, "What time is it?" Arai sighed and replied "Time to get clean and out again". He was starting to lose the feeling of his thighs and it was getting cold. The boy didn't seem too eager to disentangle himself from him. Arai had to push him apart with as much care as he could manage, which wasn't that much, and make him stand on his feet in the confined space between the door and the toilet seat that their bags were not already occupying.

Also, a quick look confirmed this stall had run out of toilet paper. Double shit...

...Oh!

"Good thing this is a washlet" Arai observed, relieved, looking at the control panel on the wall. "I'll wash first and then we can switch positions, okay?"

Kachiro nodded, holding his shirt away from the mess on his tummy. Arai pressed the button for the water to come out and rinse his intimate parts, taking in the enticing view in front of him for a long moment before deciding against licking him clean. He wasn't quite ready yet.

He was tempted, though, and that made him a bit nervous. He really, truly wanted more of this, but he feared it was going to be oh so complicated...

...Like using the jet of water coming from the back of the toilet seat to get his hands wet enough to rub his groin. That required acrobatic skills and those were Kikumaru-senpai's specialty, not Arai's. Nevertheless, he stood up just enough to keep his balance, made the water rebound in one hand, and wiped all the accessible areas of skin with the other. In the process, he bumped his head a bit on Kachiro's chest, and the boy took the opportunity that his mane was falling down to his shoulders, to bring his hands to Arai's head and brush his mouth against the back of his Arai's neck. Arai moaned, startling them both.

Kachiro rubbed his lips some more, tentatively. Arai choked a gasp and placed a hand on the door, for better balance, avoiding any further contact with the boy.

"Senpai... Arai-senpai..." the boy was... crying?

He waited for a sob. But...

No, it was just Kachiro's underdeveloped, whiny voice.

Arai smiled.

"If you stop strangling me, I'll clean you up too. I just wish I had some toilet paper to dry... OUCH!" he protested, as a roll dropped from... heaven, apparently, onto his head. "Wow... Thanks! But you didn't need to hit m-"

"I didn't do it!" Kachiro said quickly, with a scared hint in his voice. Arai was annoyed that the kid had probably just ducked in time. But then who had...? He eyed the band-aid on the wall suspiciously. But that wall connected with the restroom, not with...

"Let's finish already and get the hell out of here," he whispered.

He didn't want to stay long enough to learn if someone was using the next stall.

Because, if there was really somebody inside, he didn't want to imagine how much they must have heard.

********

Ducking some yellow signs on the way out to the corridors, and making a beeline to the stairs that lead to the entrance, upstairs, they left the building faking innocence with rosy cheeks and conspicuous expressions that, to Arai, told everyone what they had just been up to. Kachiro was looking at the floor, flustered and smiling tensely. Arai was looking everywhere, making sure they were not followed, they were not stared at, they were not pointed at, and they were on their way down the street faster than you can say "hakugei".

They kept on walking in silence towards the station but more closely together than before as Kachiro made more of an effort to catch up with Arai's longer strides. Arai realized he shouldn't have touched the boy as he did back inside and he shouldn't have helped him clean up. Because now that didn't feel like enough and there wouldn't probably be another chance to have a tiny, dim, stinky piece of the world for themselves alone without raising suspicions. And this would be bad, bad news if their team-mates ever discovered about it. Arai wouldn't live that down until graduation, he was sure of it, and there was one year and a half more at school with Kachiro.

Yet, this night didn't feel long enough.

"How about a game?" Arai blurted out. They were waiting for the traffic light to change right in front of the game center on the corner. Kachiro looked at his watch. Arai didn't look at him as he insisted: "Come on, it will be just one, two top. There's still time."

"But not money..."

Arai coughed and threw him a guilty look.

"I'm sorry, OK? I'll give it back to you tomorrow." And he'd have to find the way to repay him discreetly. Still, now that he thought about it, Kachiro couldn't have much left either, and they had yet to take the train home. "Aaah, never mind. I forgot I've made you broke too."

"I had two thousand."

"What?"

"I had two bills in the sewing kit. I just didn't remember." Kachiro grinned sheepishly. "So, how about I treat you to a game, senpai?"

Arai's mortification was only exceeded by his glee.

********

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