One-shot: Through the open door
Title: Through the open door
Pairing/Group: Ryo/Shige
Rating: NC-17 for sexual situation
Warnings: AU
Summary: Professor Kato Shigeaki is the odd one out, teaching boring electives at a music college. At least his pay is good, and his office has a nice view. Now only if he could build himself decent reputation and finally get the connecting door to Professor Nishikido’s office locked, life would be perfect.
Notes: Written for je_holiday 2102, originally posted here 7478 words.
"So, Professor Kato, will you teach me what happens to bad boys like me when the police finds their secret stash of ilegally downloaded porn?" Ryo asks, smug smile and a batting of eyelashes, and leans in the doorway of the connecting door between his and Shige's office.
"Professor Nishikido, I hate to rain on your parade, but it's not a secret stash when the entire university, the paid prep classes included, knows about it," Shige says dryly.
Often, he wonders why, in the two years he has been teaching at this music school, he didn't force the janitor to finally change the locks on that door. What's the point of having his very own office, if your colleague is constantly barging in anyway?
Shige should have known there was a catch to the offer that his old friend Maruyama gave him when they met soon after Shige finished school. Good pay, office all for himself with a great view, power over just what subjects he would teach and what their substance would be and only interested students, because who else would take an elective law class in music school?
The answer to that is everyone who needs elective credits and didn't fit elsewhere. "Everyone sane just gets the manager the moment they make it big and don't have to deal with that shit anymore," Ryo had said as a way of introduction, right after he had called Shige awkward and told him to cut his hair because "It's not like those overgrown stalks make you look cool."
At that moment, Ryo seems so much more experienced, assured and completely out of Shige’s reach. Shige had a hard time believing he was only a few years older, what with the way he was everything Shige maybe wanted to but never could be.
The promised office is old and cramped and may have before served as a broom closet. It also came with a very annoying and cocky guitar teacher as a fixture to it, but the view is superb, so Shige could say at least two out of those baits he took were real. And then there was the fact that he had always wanted to teach.
"Earth to our genius! Unless you are composing the next number one hit.” Ryo’s snicker causes Shige to twitch, “stop daydreaming and let's go!" Ryo comes closer, spins Shige on his chair and almost topples him off it.
"Where to?" Shige ask as he shakes his head and tries to focus on something else than the laughter in Ryo's eyes, shining from behind his too long bangs. The freckle on his lip is however a terrible alternative.
"I have a victim for you," Ryo announces, and he is dragging Shige out the door before the other can so much as open his mouth to protest.
“Why were you so mean to her? I thought you would be glad if you got a chance to apply your great wisdom to a practical case for once. You know, to show off a little,” Ryo almost whines, sitting down on the nearest bench in the school park and dumping Shige’s freshly bought lunch into his lap.
“You don't have to be so ironic about my field of expertise,” Shige says, still stiff. “And I wasn't mean. I was being professional.”
Ryo laughs. "You were nervous," he says, pulling out two cans of beer.
“I was not. And I don't drink on school premises,” Shige mutters. He rubs his hands togther and wonders how Ryo can drink beer when it’s this cold.
“So boring,” Ryo mocks him then stays silent, staring at Shige’s hands. “But you're going to help her, right?” he asks in the end.
"I'll try," Shige mumbles. Then, "I didn't know you were such a caring teacher."
"Right, uhm, she just broke down after my class, and I figured you could use some practice… I didn't really do it for her."
"I told you I'm okay not practicing law. I'm not really... I mean, I like being teacher.”
Ryo shrugs.
“I can see right through your tough cover, Professor. You are so cute.” Shige laughs because this guy loves to think he is this scary person with terrible reputation among students but really, they wouldn’t be fighting for a place in his classes if that was true.
Ryo huffs then glares from behind his fringe, silently packing his beer and empty bento. “Whatever, you’ll have your classes called useless in the next student survey again and then you will be drunkenly whining at me at the nearest cheap karaoke club. Watch me leave you there, stuck under the coffee table this time.”
Ryo leaves, and Shige still laughs because as far as he knows, it was Ryo whom Shige had to pull out from underneath one the last time they went. Admittedly Ryo fell down there because Shige made an idiot out of himself again when attempting to sing Forever Love, and Ryo laughed so hard he couldn’t keep his balance.
Shige stands in front of his office, swearing underneath his breath as he tries to unlock his door and none of the keys fit, and the one that does fit won’t turn, and he has had enough with this school, screw ideals. He throws the keys to the ground and is about to kick the door down-it’s so old he would probably manage-when the keys are picked up from the ground and Ryo is standing next to him.
“Go away,” Shige barks.
“So I hear you made a student cry again,” Ryo says happily.
“That’s your specialty,” Shige says back, but he stops kicking the doorway. “And I didn’t make her cry. She just felt sorry about the person I used as an example when explaining typical swindling methods. I can’t help it you musicians are so fucking sensitive.” All of it leaves Shige in a rush, and he stares at the still locked door.
“Says the very mature and composed professor who is about to tear down his office door because of his students,” Ryo laughs then continues much calmer, “Shige, it’s not like this is your first semester.”
Shige tries to grab the keys from Ryo. He feels his anger and frustration deflate, but he isn’t in a mood for mocking or consoling or whatever Ryo would attempt in his strange ways right now.
“I have whiskey in my office,” Ryo only says as he jumps out of reach. “And you can get into your office through mine; this lock is probably stuck again.”
“I don’t drink--”
“Yeah, yeah, keep that for Matsumoto when he comes around,” Ryo says, and Shige finds himself pushed into the armchair Ryo has by his window-his view is just as good as Shige’s and that’s just not fair-and soon enough there’s a glass in his hand. Ryo doesn’t say anything, just sits on his desk, legs annoyingly perched on the armchair’s hand rest, toes poking Shige’s elbow, and guitar in hand. It’s enough for him to play the first few chords, and Shige remembers all the wrong reasons why he loves this school. Even if sometimes he really wishes he’d teach people who actually cared about intellectual property rights, basics of civil law, contracting abilities, or-his newest attempt at being creative-history of music and law.
That night Shige comes home kind of pleasantly buzzed and not even caring that he agreed to some experiment involving Professor Aiba Masaki, saxophones and “lung capacity of complete amateurs.”
“You don’t smoke, do you?” Aiba asked, and next to him Ryo giggled like a teenager.
“I’m sure it depends on who’s offering,” he said.
Shige rolled his eyes. Aiba nodded thoughtfully, but recruited Shige anyway.
Shige doesn’t care that he is “doomed,” as Ryo put it. Once he’s home, he still hears Ryo’s music in his ears, the soothing sound of a guitar soaked deep into his pores because he has heard it so many times, secretly opening the connecting door when it was Ryo playing. He’s never really had the urge to play himself before though. But tonight, maybe it’s the taste of forbidden whiskey and bitter aftertaste of the supposedly best teaching methods that always backfire on him, but he doesn’t want to just play the music in his head on repeat. He is daring enough to try himself once again.
Which, of course, is a disaster because Shige hasn’t played in ages, and the guitar is out of tune, and Shige is terribly clumsy. He slumps onto his couch and happily falls asleep there, the view, the music, Ryo and his freckles all in a mess of his dreams.
“Tell me again, why are we running across the school like some high school delinquents?” Shige asks, panting, while Ryo pulls on his sleeve and keeps up the pace even though they ran up several flights of stairs by now.
“Because I like to destroy your reputation,” Ryo says, and gives Shige this creepy smile across his shoulder.
Shige has no breath left to answer, but really no matter how much he has been trying for the past two and a half year to create a reputation of a sensible and respectable professor, all he’s ever been was the awkward one out. So there’s hardly anything to destroy.
When he almost trips on the last couple of stairs, he pulls on Ryo’s leather jacket-typical professor wear around here-hard. “Tell me, or I’m not moving,” he pants.
“Come on, Shige,” Ryo says, almost angry, then glances out the window. When Shige doesn’t budge, he takes a deep breath. “Okay, okay. I heard some girls talking by the main entrance about how the composition studio on the fifth floor has the best sunset view in the school. Apparently it’s legendary. They were talking how it’s a good make out spot or something. How come Yamapi didn’t tell me? I thought he had these things down. Anyway, I checked, and the place is locked today-no classes in the evening, so I stole the key. I want to see, so get moving. You can be an old man out of shape later on,” Ryo finishes at top speed, and he’s pulling Shige along once again.
Soon, Ryo is unlocking the studio and pushing Shige through the door first, checking if the coast is clear.
Only when Shige looks up towards the window, he shrieks like the very composed adult male that he is.
“What the fuck,” Ryo says from next to him.
“That. Exactly,” Shige breathes. Ryo, very helpfully, starts laughing.
“I guess there’s a spare copy of the key to steal,” Ryo says while the girl and the boy who were certainly not watching the sunset, spread on the windowsill, dress up and scramble. Shige is blushing more than they are. They hurry off towards the door, and Shige wants to stop them and say something, but he can’t utter a word. Ryo simply walks after them to the door.
“The key,” he says, and the boy hands it over. “I see this is where you get your inspiration for love songs, Tegoshi-kun,” Ryo snickers and hurries them both off.
Shige stares out of the window, but the beauties of the sunset are somehow lost on him.
“Damn, too late,” Ryo says when he comes back to stand next to him.
“Uhm,” Shige says, but is at loss for more words.
“So, I guess it’s true about the make out spot,” Ryo says lightly after a moment, and Shige goes to open the window because it still smells like sex in here.
When Ryo says nothing more, only rocks on his heels, Shige feels himself blushing again, and what the hell is going on? It’s not like it’s him who got caught with his pants down and with a girl on his lap.
“This is awkward,” he says at the end.
“Well now that you said it, it is. I thought I was pretty cool back there while you gaped and blushed more than that girl. Did you plan on making out with me too?” Ryo teases, bumping shoulders with Shige.
“I would never make out in a classroom. This might be a music school, but it’s still educational institution,” Shige says, exasperatedly.
“So boring, Shige. Why do I even hang out with you? But at least it’s the place and not me who is turning you off,” Ryo shrugs and turns to leave.
Shige goes pale for a second before turning yet another perfect shade of dark pink.
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, Nishikido, you… you.”
“Maybe another time then,” Ryo says from the doorway, winking and holding the door open for a very flustered Shige to storm out.
“Wait, does this mean you never had sex in the library when you were in law school?” Ryo shouts after him.
A few days later, Shige finally gives up on tuning his own guitar and brings it to work. Ryo notices it right away when he wants to flop into Shige’s old green armchair and finds it occupied.
“What is this?” he asks, cradling the music instrument in his lap like it is so very precious, and Shige feels almost jealous-of his own guitar.
“It’s…” Shige doesn’t really want to be told he sucks how he heard Ryo say to his students through the wall. It might be motivating to some, but to him…
“It’s a gift. I’m giving it to someone. But I think it needs tuning. Maybe, I mean, what would I know? So I was thinking you could. Would you have a look?”
Ryo eyes him and then runs his hand down the strings. “A gift, huh? You are a cheapskate, Kato Shigeaki. It’s so old.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not good,” Shige says defensively. He bought the guitar from his first part time job money-had been saving up for it for months before, and it was a good guitar. He knew that much. “It’s… it’s for a beginner. If the kid likes it and it turns out to be more than just a teenage whim, then I will get him a new one,” Shige lies, telling Ryo what he told himself when he bought a used guitar years ago.
“You have teenage friends?” Ryo raises an eyebrow.
Shige says no more, lips in a tight line.
“Well, at least it’s a good guitar, even if it is old,” Ryo runs his fingers across the strings one more time then gets up. “I’ll give it back when it’s done.”
Shige is seriously disappointed he didn’t get to watch.
Ryo hands Shige his guitar in the morning the next day. His student skipped on a one on one lesson, but Ryo just shrugs it off and excitedly thrusts the guitar into Shige’s lap.
“Play something,” he says, and Shige almost does before he remembers the lie and how Ryo would most likely start shouting about not being good enough to even hold the guitar, the sentence Shige hears him say when someone comes to the lesson completely unprepared.
“I don’t know how to play,” he says simply, and tries to put the guitar down. “Let me take you for dinner to thank-”
“It better be some expensive restaurant because I’m about to give you a free lesson by the master,” Ryo interrupts him and pushes on Shige so he stays sitting with the guitar. “Look, this is how you play C.” Ryo moves behind Shige and grabs for his hand, placing his fingers where they should be. Shige knows how to play more than just a C, but in that moment his fingers feel like they’re made of wood and his skin shrinks when Ryo’s breath tickles his neck.
“As I said,” he says loudly, jumping up and almost knocking Ryo off as he hits his head on his chin. “I don’t play.”
Ryo looks disappointed for just a moment, but then he waves it off.
“The dinner still better be fancy.”
Shige makes sure it is good dinner at a nice place. In return he gets to enjoy Ryo’s flustered behavior when he shows up in a suit and a tie because Shige told him he wouldn’t be let in if he wore casual clothes. Shige knows it’s a bit of a torture for Ryo, and he is just a little sorry because the guitar sounds so good and Shige sounds almost acceptable for such an amateur once he starts playing every night.
But then again, Shige really wants to go all out, if only because Ryo hasn’t given him a hard time about that guitar ever since that day when he gave it back, and he didn’t have to tune it in the first place. Overall, it’s just nice to be with Ryo like this, out of school and away from dusty furniture and their usual role and feeble lights and constant dissonant sounds of several music instruments all at once.
“So this is where Professor Kato Shigeaki feels at home, huh?” Ryo comments when Shige orders drinks for them.
“It’s not like you are out of place or anything,” Shige shrugs. “The suit looks nice on you, and you felt right at home in the drinks section of the menu,” he says, and too late he realizes what he just blurted out.
Ryo preens. “Well, I’m just good at everything,” he says, then proceeds to trip over the French name of his main dish when ordering.
Soon enough they are arguing about who should be the next dean, gossiping like their freshmen students during the history of music class, betting who will hook up with the newest choir professor and predicting the complete failure of the opera act that Professor Sakurai is putting together, all the while drinking too much and eating away Shige’s monthly salary.
Somehow, they end up bar hopping after the dinner, Ryo’s tie pulled loose and crooked, and Shige’s shirt damp from the beer Ryo spills on him when around midnight he asks him: “What do you even do in your free time if you are not playing that old guitar? Because I think you are. You, Shige, are a bad liar.”
Ryo points at him with the hand in which he holds the beer, and the beer flies all over Shige’s shirt. Ryo tries to clean it off with napkins, and Shige swats his hands away, dashing for the bathroom. Ryo comes after him, watching through the mirror while Shige tries to first clean then dry the stain underneath the hand drier.
In the chaos of it all, Shige never tells Ryo about how he writes this cheesy novel that he will never publish but that makes him happy and that possibly has this insufferable character that sounds a lot like Ryo. Only Shige can’t possibly transfer on paper the look Ryo is giving him right now, chilling and seeing completely through him as they wait for the taxi and it feels like everything was said for the night.
“Take me home with you,” Ryo says all of a sudden.
Shige’s tongue gets thick in his mouth, and he freezes.
“Take me home; I want to see how boring your apartment is. I bet that guitar is still somewhere in there.” Ryo keeps jabbing Shige into the middle of his chest and leans in closer and closer, his words whispered. “You could show me everything,” he is saying, and it makes no sense.
Then Shige manages to flag down the taxi and pushes Ryo into it. He almost doesn’t get in, but Ryo pulls at his coat.
“It’s freezing, get in already,” he says and slumps into the seat. Shige gives the cab driver Ryo’s address because his house is closer and on the way to Shige’s. By the time he is done talking, Ryo is asleep. When Shige sits back, Ryo’s head rolls onto his shoulder and Shige lets it go.
Through the haze of his own hangover, Shige doesn’t realize a girl sticking to him throughout the whole of next day, not until she coughs loudly from the doorway of his office when he tries to shut the door on her.
“I’m Riisa. I would like to be your TA. I noticed you don’t have one.”
“I don’t need one,” Shige says dryly, trying to close the door.
“Well, you could really use one then,” she says, pushing in and immediately heading for the pile of coffee cups Shige was planning to wash sometimes this week. He vaguely remembers he was allocated some budget for TAs and that if he doesn’t use it, he’ll have to return it, so he lets it go.
She’s a senior, she apparently took his class and even got a B in it, and she’s a flute major. Shige finds it funny, mostly because it reminds him of how Ryo gets so easily drunk when drinking champagne.
Ryo doesn’t know that, and Shige is not telling. Even if it means that Ryo is not half as amused as Shige is by the green chair now being cleaner but also often occupied.
“Why do you even need her?” Ryo asks, as they are eating lunch in a cafeteria, Ryo taking Shige’s rice because Shige is not eating it again; something Ryo calls a crime against humanity. “Do you get it Shige? You’re committing a crime against yourself! I should punish you.”
“I don’t particularly need her, but she just sticks around, and I don’t feel like going through the bother of sending her away,” Shige replies, glaring at his banana.
“You send me away all the time,” Ryo says.
“But you don’t wash my dishes,” Shige says, and Ryo only huffs into his rice.
“She’s after you,” he says at the end, and Shige laughs really, really hard. Ryo leaves because “there’s no helping to someone who is an idiot.”
As usual, Ryo gets busy around the end of the year, getting students ready for the big annual winter recital, bitching about lousy compositions being included then shutting himself into a studio and at least rearranging his students’ songs or just making them new ones from the start. In the mist of it, he gets an offer to record guitars for some pop album, which he foolishly takes because he loves jobs like that even if he doesn’t admit it, and Shige is reminded yet again, just how in demand and pretty awesome his colleague is. He meanders the halls, volunteers in stage crew where he gets to change the chairs and hand instruments to the students in rehearsals, and sneaks rice balls into Ryo’s bags so he at least eats something. At least, by now he is best friends with the person in charge of lightening, and Koyama does him favors and constantly asks him how Ryo is and is way too nice to tell Shige he might be a little too obsessed with his colleague for it to be healthy by now.
When Ryo is nowhere to be found for three days, Shige takes Riisa with him to the recording studio and together they manhandle Ryo to his apartment to shower, shave, and eat, upon which Ryo collapses on his couch and is dead to the world for the next day. Riisa gets mad at Shige afterwards because she is no cook and doesn’t speak to him until the recitals are over.
Eventually, as per usual, Shige cancels his classes preceding the recital, just making his students hand in some silly make up assignments because no one listens to him anyway, even more so than usual. He gets his annual end of the year spleen and writes depressing lyrics to the songs Ryo composes while Shige keeps an eye on him, making sure he eats and at least naps in between rehearsals and additional lessons. The whole process, repeating itself twice a year, is like a ritual by now. No one is really looking at Shige, so he stashes the lyrics away and buys more rice and vegetables, and when he wants to get Ryo really mad, he buys raw fish because the smell always wakes Ryo up and makes him rage, but that puts people into shape and eventually, it’s the right thing to do.
At the end of the recital, Ryo stands slumped backstage, shedding tears for the seniors he teaches, and Shige pretends he doesn’t see it as he stands next to him thinking of soft marshmallows. The entire teaching staff gets drunk that night, and Shige leaves Ryo passed out on his couch. Which is why he almost gets a scare of his life when the next morning at ungodly eight AM, Ryo calls him.
“Come help me clean my office,” Ryo says, and Shige calls him an asshole.
Ryo laughs, and they spend Christmas Eve bumming around that office until they can see the floor again. Ryo takes the guitar and pulls out the whiskey, and Shige doesn’t even protest this time.
“I don’t want to see another rice ball for at least a month,” is all Ryo says. It sounds thankful and relieved and just a little tired, and Shige laughs.
Shige thinks oral exams are easier than written ones. Or maybe they’re just less hassle. He sits down with his students, and they talk until he eventually somehow pulls the answer good enough for him out of them, something unimaginable with definitiveness of written tests. And he dares to hope that maybe this is the one time he actually teaches them something.
It doesn’t please Riisa much; she was hoping to have her go at correcting all the things, but it should not surprise her. She only got a B in Intro to Civil Law because she was able to talk her way out of very disadvantageous inheritance during her exam, and Shige thinks she still has no clue how she did it. She insists on sitting in on the exams anyway, but as long as she doesn’t make too much noise when writing her notes, he doesn’t care.
Three days of constant exams later, Shige is, as usual, regretting his decision. However, he only has one more day to go, so he makes himself a big mug of coffee and goes to let the first student and Riisa in. The day drags until, six students later, Ryo falls out of Shige’s coats closet.
The student pauses mid-sentence, and Riisa looks like she’s going to burst from inside out any minute now. Shige wants to laugh really hard, but he has yet to give up on the small chance of gaining a respectable reputation, so he schools his features and looks Ryo up and down. Ryo rubs his eyes, and it’s clear he has been sleeping in that closet, cheeks red with an imprint of the wood pattern, his gaze unfocused, hair ruffled.
“Professor Nishikido, did you just walk out of my closet?” Shige asks at last, when he trusts his voice.
“More like fell out of it, dude,” the students says.
It seems to finally wake Ryo up, and his eyes widen.
“Ugh, I was just, looking for a spare set of strings,” he says, picking himself up and scooping up the crumpled papers that fell out of the closet along with him. “I’ll go now. Please continue,” he adds, and heads for the connecting door. He’s almost gone when he spins around, peeking back into the room. “Don’t make him cry, Kato!” he says, and grins creepily.
Shige wants to laugh even more, so he lets the student go with an easy pass and tells the other two waiting to go get some lunch. When he shuts the door, he can’t keep it in himself anymore and doubles over in laughter. He barely notices Riisa storming past him with a very resolute, “I quit.”
Then, just as Shige is opening his bento, his mood now much, much better, he realizes just what those papers that Ryo picked up on his way out were. “Shit.”
Shige gets through the rest of the exams with a rather scattered mind and then spends half an hour staring at the connecting door. But there is no Ryo on the other side of it when he finally bursts through it, so he goes home and spends the night not sleeping.
It’s probably nothing. Shige actually knows he tends to overthink things and that he might actually be a drama queen, just a little. Still, it feels kind of unfair that Ryo should see all his lousy depressing raw lyrics and possibly realize they fit his songs perfectly.
In the end, Shige calls Maruyama and they drink together for the night.
“I never should have listened to you. What am I doing? Pretending to be some cool dude, teaching at a music school?”
“But I love you,” Maru says drunkenly, big smile plastered on his face. “And you keep Ryo-chan happy, so Hina loves you too.”
That doesn’t make any sense. Hina is the executive director of the school who likes to slap people upside their head; what does Shige indulging Ryo because he just can’t say no to the man has to do with him?
“Ryo is annoying,” Shige mumbles into the couch.
“Ryo loves you too,” Maru counters, falling to the side and showing no inclination of getting up. “Subaru says so. Well he says it a bit differently, but there’s the translation for you,” Maru giggles. Shige sighs-he has long given up on understanding staff relationships in this school-finishes his last beer and falls asleep on his own couch.
On Monday, Shige goes to work more because he’s used to it than because he has to. He doesn’t feel like facing Ryo, but he already misses the best way to soothe himself-Ryo’s guitar muted by that one not so thick wall. When he opens the door to his office, Ryo is sitting in his chair, spinning around like a little kid. When he spots Shige on his third spin since Shige came in, he stops abruptly. Shige is expecting lots of things, but not for Ryo to look down and up and stay silent.
“Hi,” Shige says.
“Hello?”
This is new. Ryo wasn’t this… quiet even when they first met. He just burst into Shige’s life and has been the constant nagging persona that Shige couldn’t help but look up to until suddenly they were something like friends, something Shige couldn’t imagine being any different. Not silent like this.
“I’m sorry. About the other day. The closet,” Ryo suddenly says, still not looking at Shige.
“Please, at least now I really have reputation; for keeping fellow professors in my closet even!” Shige attempt a smile, but it’s fake because Ryo is so serious. “Seriously, it’s the best! Suddenly students want to come see me, waiting if maybe next time, Ohno-san comes out of there, dancing with a fishing rod in hand!” Shige is starting to blab. “Or maybe Yoko could, you know he is so gloomy. It would be like a ghost appeared.”
Ryo stands up and almost runs into Shige who’s been moving forward all this time, getting really into this closet full of professors tale. Ryo finally looks up and… Shige’s mind goes completely blank, totally shocked by the strong emotions swimming in Ryo’s eyes, things Shige can’t even name.
It takes a while for Shige to take a breath and realize that Ryo is gone.
They only meet a week later, bumping into each other in a cafeteria. Ryo nods his head, and Shige wants to just continue to look for a seat, but then on a whim he ends up sitting next to Ryo. They eat in silence until the moment Ryo reaches for Shige’s rice out of habit and their chopsticks clash and Shige suddenly finds it very funny. As he laughs, he notices how suddenly Ryo deflates, shoulders relaxing a bit. He eats the rest of Shige’s rice, and they walk to their offices together. Shige leaves the door to his office open, and Ryo closes it from the inside.
“So you write some fucked up lyrics for someone like you,” Ryo says out of the blue, and there goes Shige’s hope that they will just act like that never happened.
“Someone like me?” Shige asks. “What kind of lyrics should someone like me write then?”
“Boring?” is Ryo’s answer, his voice slipping into the usual half teasing half condescending banter tone for just a moment. Shige almost kicks him out for it, but then Ryo is shaking his head. “No, I didn’t mean that. What I wanted to say is… I thought you didn’t write lyrics at all. That you don’t care for music more than as something that just happens around you. I thought I knew you. Knew you better, that is.”
“I didn’t want you to see them. They’re stupid.”
“I want someone to sing them,” Ryo blurts out, and he sounds so excited. “They fit perfectly, Shige.”
“Well, I do listen to you all the time,” Shige manages to say before Ryo kisses him.
That is a segue Shige doesn’t get. But he stops thinking about it, because Ryo is pulling at his elbow, bringing him closer and doesn’t stop pressing his lips against Shige’s until Shige takes a step forward all by himself.
“Don’t act so shocked this time, okay?” Ryo whispers against Shige’s lips. Shige gets even more confused, wanting to pull back, but Ryo has a hand in his hair that keeps him close when Ryo kisses him again once, twice, and says, “Take me home with you.”
That’s when Shige kisses Ryo back, and the office spins around them. Suddenly Ryo’s tongue is in Shige’s mouth, and Ryo’s hands are around Shige’s shoulders as they press close to each other. Shige whines when Ryo pulls away abruptly.
“Hey, I meant it. Unless you want to go to the fifth floor, that is,” he whispers right into Shige’s ear then pulls his earlobe between his lips. It’s totally not fair, Shige thinks, that he has to drive.
Ryo isn’t quiet during the ride; it feels like a damn broke loose. Shige is on pins and needles, but Ryo keeps talking about which song he liked the most, which one was the most twisted, and who he wants to sing them, and how Shige should try to be an official lyricist. He asks all these questions about when Shige wrote all of those and how he writes them and what inspires him, and Shige doesn’t know the answer to most of it, only that he heard the songs millions of times, and he imagines Ryo playing them, head tilted back, eyes closed, hair covering them completely, and it just happens.
What eventually comes out of Shige’s mouth is, “Since when have you wanted to have sex with me?”
Ryo pales so much Shige is glad he is not the one driving. “Shige, you’re an idiot,” he says at the end, and that’s when it starts to be really awkward once again, silence hanging between them until the door shuts behind them at Shige’s place. Ryo pushes Shige against it and grips his hips.
“I wanted to fuck you into that old green armchair the moment I saw you two year ago. I wanted to pull at that long hair of yours and make you moan in that deep voice and I wanted to break down that serious façade you put on.” Ryo is mumbling into Shige’s throat, and it tickles, and Ryo’s hands grip too tight.
Shige’s breath hitches when Ryo sucks at the skin where Shige’s shoulder meets his neck. “But then you stuck it out through the first semester, and you were so stupidly nice to me before the recital, and you cut your hair and let me leach off your coffee, and I didn’t want to mess it up. But fuck Shige, what am I supposed to do when you are like this? When you constantly do things that just…”
Shige doesn’t know what he is like, only that right now he would let Ryo do anything to him, that he has wanted Ryo to do something for so long, so he leans forward and pulls Ryo’s bottom lip between his teeth, watching as Ryo’s eyes darken even more, but this time it’s definitely desire Shige reads in them.
“Now, where’s your bed?” Ryo asks, and Shige pushes himself off the door and leads Ryo across the hall and into the bedroom. Ryo follows, and Shige hears the sound of a zipper being pulled down and when he looks back, Ryo is halfway out of his jeans and his shirt is hanging off his neck. He looks up at Shige, so desperate. Shige pulls at him and gets the clothes off him the rest of the way, then runs his hands down Ryo’s chest, feeling the lean muscles tremble under his fingertips. Ryo takes a step closer and fails at unbuckling Shige’s pants, so Shige does it himself, almost tripping on his own feet because Ryo is watching.
“I didn’t imagine this so awkward,” Shige breathes out, and then Ryo is pushing him down on his bed and climbing to lie next to him.
“Of course it is like that, you keep overthinking it,” Ryo whispers, and runs his hand through Shige’s hair, pulling him close like that and kissing him. Shige wants to protest, and he pushes away, and Ryo ends up biting his lip. Shige hisses, and their teeth clash, and then Ryo huffs and pins Shige’s hands over his head, climbing on top of him and squeezing his thighs around him.
“Fuck Shige, just let me do this,” Ryo hisses, and then he’s kissing Shige again, tongue dwelling deeper when Shige leans his head back and just feels for a moment; feels the calloused fingers around his wrists, the heat pooling between them when Ryo starts to roll his hips against Shige, the cold air on the wet stripe of skin that Ryo licks down his throat, the pressure and hot breaths against his nipple, and the thick tongue against his navel. He moans from deep inside when Ryo drops lower, letting go of his hands and sucking at Shige’s hipbone.
“Fuck,” Shige whispers when Ryo pulls his underwear down.
“That’s it,” Ryo mutters, kissing across Shige’s ribs, unexpectedly gentle while Ryo’s hands caress Shige’s inner thighs, and now Shige can’t stop moaning, each sound coming out deeper and more needy as Ryo’s mouth and hands are everywhere, leaving hot trails of desire where they touch Shige’s skin.
Shige hears Ryo murmuring something, but he is so messed up already he has no clue what it is until Ryo suddenly climbs up the length of Shige’s body again, grinding against Shige’s thigh. He moans and takes Shige’s earlobe in between his lips yet again, making beautiful whiny noises right into Shige’s ear.
“Tell me, Shige,” Ryo is saying, and it doesn’t take a genius to know what Ryo wants to hear.
“Fuck me,” Shige mutters, and Ryo groans, his hands gripping Shige’s hips, nails digging into soft skin. Shige reaches to the side and manages to pull the lube out before Ryo sits on his heels and runs his hands down Shige’s torso again, fingertips dipping into the curve of Shige’s hips. For a moment, he only watches as Shige falls back into the pillows and his toes curl.
“Turn around,” Ryo says suddenly, voice deep and full of want, and Shige sees it already, Ryo behind him, pounding into him like that, completely in control of the situation. He is on his hands and knees in the next second. Ryo leans down and kisses Shige at the top of his back before gripping his hair and pulling his head back. Shige groans, back arched, and Ryo kisses him hard before moving behind him, one hand still in his hair, holding Shige like that while he pushes the first finger in, slowly but steadily.
Shige can feel every guitar callous on Ryo’s fingers as they move in and out of him, twisting and pushing deeper until Shige is stretched thin like a guitar string about to snap, shivering, and elbows almost giving up on him. Only Ryo still holds him up by his hair, and everything feels that much stronger where Shige’s back is arched in a sharp curve.
Then, Ryo is pulling his fingers away and pushing in, and Shige’s arms do give away underneath him, and he falls forward. Ryo only leans over him, covers his back and lets him breathe and get used to it. Shige feels him tremble above him, trying so hard not to move, so Shige does it first, rocking them back and forth until Ryo does it by himself, steady strong thrusts that make the bed knock against the wall every time.
“You feel so good,” Ryo whispers into Shige’s hair, nose buried in it. He shifts, just a little, and the next thrust sends Shige into a whole new spiral of pleasure. Only then, Ryo really holds Shige’s hips in place, controlling him completely, and presses forward-fast and messy, moaning and swearing while Shige grips the pillow and tries to not choke on his own moans spilling from him.
Shige feels so close, and he whines, asks for “more, and right there,” trying to push back against Ryo. Then suddenly Ryo grabs a fistful of Shige’s hair again, pulling Shige up and falling back on his heels. He brings Shige into his lap and reaches around him to pull him off. It’s a blur from then on, as Shige leans heavily against Ryo’s chest, Ryo sucking at the spot on Shige’s shoulder and rocking them like this until Shige comes, his head spinning from pleasure and body soon going completely numb. Ryo has to wrap his arms around Shige to hold him close as he thrusts up into him a few more times and comes too, hoarsely whispering Shige’s name over and over again.
After a moment, Shige sighs and Ryo lets them untangle, silently looking around the room and finding something to clean them with just a little. He then curls under the blanket, pulling Shige close by his elbow and soon is asleep without anything else being said.
It’s pretty amazing for Shige how Ryo just falls asleep, but Shige’s mind is racing and his breathing calms down only after a long time. He feels restless, and there’s one thing that always works, so he gets up from the bed, puts on some underwear and goes to find his guitar. He sits in his living room and plays lame versions of songs that Ryo wrote and that Shige stole the music sheets for from his office to copy them.
Shige plays with eyes closed, already knowing the songs by heart, and he focuses just on the sound, on the webs of music weaving around him, so it startles him when suddenly he feels a warm body behind him and palms running down his arms.
“I knew you played,” Ryo says, sounding just a little smug, and immediately Shige falters and messes up and wants to put the guitar down. “Don’t stop,” Ryo whispers into his ear, and kneels better behind Shige, moving his wrists and fingers to the next chord. “Don’t stop,” Ryo repeats.
It’s like that time back in the office, but now when Ryo’s breath tickles Shige’s neck, Shige doesn’t panic. He feels warmth and calm suddenly flooding him, Ryo’s presence adding something more to the music clumsily created under Shige’s fingers. It sounds kind of perfect with Ryo’s chest against Shige’s back.
“I might like you,” Shige says when the song ends, not knowing where that came from, only that it’s true, that he feels just like Ryo might because he has been pushing the attraction for Ryo away to be able to be with him like they were, back in school, weeding their ways under each other’s skin.
Ryo kisses Shige’s shoulder, nuzzles his nose against the crook of Shige’s neck and mumbles a faint “yeah,” then takes a deep breath. “Now play me something,” he says, and it sounds sure, almost an order, but a little playful.
Shige really thinks he should be the one asking that, but he decides that with Ryo it’s okay to be lame and not at all good because Ryo is not the teacher with him, not someone he needs to impress or someone that will look down on him. As long as Ryo’s palms are going to rest against Shige’s sides, calloused fingers running across Shige’s ribs like they were guitar strings, all is fair game.
end
A/N: I unfortunately caught a few typos both me and my beta missed the first time this was posted. I hope I fixed them all, but if you seen any, please poke me.
Pairing/Group: Ryo/Shige
Rating: NC-17 for sexual situation
Warnings: AU
Summary: Professor Kato Shigeaki is the odd one out, teaching boring electives at a music college. At least his pay is good, and his office has a nice view. Now only if he could build himself decent reputation and finally get the connecting door to Professor Nishikido’s office locked, life would be perfect.
Notes: Written for je_holiday 2102, originally posted here 7478 words.
"So, Professor Kato, will you teach me what happens to bad boys like me when the police finds their secret stash of ilegally downloaded porn?" Ryo asks, smug smile and a batting of eyelashes, and leans in the doorway of the connecting door between his and Shige's office.
"Professor Nishikido, I hate to rain on your parade, but it's not a secret stash when the entire university, the paid prep classes included, knows about it," Shige says dryly.
Often, he wonders why, in the two years he has been teaching at this music school, he didn't force the janitor to finally change the locks on that door. What's the point of having his very own office, if your colleague is constantly barging in anyway?
Shige should have known there was a catch to the offer that his old friend Maruyama gave him when they met soon after Shige finished school. Good pay, office all for himself with a great view, power over just what subjects he would teach and what their substance would be and only interested students, because who else would take an elective law class in music school?
The answer to that is everyone who needs elective credits and didn't fit elsewhere. "Everyone sane just gets the manager the moment they make it big and don't have to deal with that shit anymore," Ryo had said as a way of introduction, right after he had called Shige awkward and told him to cut his hair because "It's not like those overgrown stalks make you look cool."
At that moment, Ryo seems so much more experienced, assured and completely out of Shige’s reach. Shige had a hard time believing he was only a few years older, what with the way he was everything Shige maybe wanted to but never could be.
The promised office is old and cramped and may have before served as a broom closet. It also came with a very annoying and cocky guitar teacher as a fixture to it, but the view is superb, so Shige could say at least two out of those baits he took were real. And then there was the fact that he had always wanted to teach.
"Earth to our genius! Unless you are composing the next number one hit.” Ryo’s snicker causes Shige to twitch, “stop daydreaming and let's go!" Ryo comes closer, spins Shige on his chair and almost topples him off it.
"Where to?" Shige ask as he shakes his head and tries to focus on something else than the laughter in Ryo's eyes, shining from behind his too long bangs. The freckle on his lip is however a terrible alternative.
"I have a victim for you," Ryo announces, and he is dragging Shige out the door before the other can so much as open his mouth to protest.
“Why were you so mean to her? I thought you would be glad if you got a chance to apply your great wisdom to a practical case for once. You know, to show off a little,” Ryo almost whines, sitting down on the nearest bench in the school park and dumping Shige’s freshly bought lunch into his lap.
“You don't have to be so ironic about my field of expertise,” Shige says, still stiff. “And I wasn't mean. I was being professional.”
Ryo laughs. "You were nervous," he says, pulling out two cans of beer.
“I was not. And I don't drink on school premises,” Shige mutters. He rubs his hands togther and wonders how Ryo can drink beer when it’s this cold.
“So boring,” Ryo mocks him then stays silent, staring at Shige’s hands. “But you're going to help her, right?” he asks in the end.
"I'll try," Shige mumbles. Then, "I didn't know you were such a caring teacher."
"Right, uhm, she just broke down after my class, and I figured you could use some practice… I didn't really do it for her."
"I told you I'm okay not practicing law. I'm not really... I mean, I like being teacher.”
Ryo shrugs.
“I can see right through your tough cover, Professor. You are so cute.” Shige laughs because this guy loves to think he is this scary person with terrible reputation among students but really, they wouldn’t be fighting for a place in his classes if that was true.
Ryo huffs then glares from behind his fringe, silently packing his beer and empty bento. “Whatever, you’ll have your classes called useless in the next student survey again and then you will be drunkenly whining at me at the nearest cheap karaoke club. Watch me leave you there, stuck under the coffee table this time.”
Ryo leaves, and Shige still laughs because as far as he knows, it was Ryo whom Shige had to pull out from underneath one the last time they went. Admittedly Ryo fell down there because Shige made an idiot out of himself again when attempting to sing Forever Love, and Ryo laughed so hard he couldn’t keep his balance.
Shige stands in front of his office, swearing underneath his breath as he tries to unlock his door and none of the keys fit, and the one that does fit won’t turn, and he has had enough with this school, screw ideals. He throws the keys to the ground and is about to kick the door down-it’s so old he would probably manage-when the keys are picked up from the ground and Ryo is standing next to him.
“Go away,” Shige barks.
“So I hear you made a student cry again,” Ryo says happily.
“That’s your specialty,” Shige says back, but he stops kicking the doorway. “And I didn’t make her cry. She just felt sorry about the person I used as an example when explaining typical swindling methods. I can’t help it you musicians are so fucking sensitive.” All of it leaves Shige in a rush, and he stares at the still locked door.
“Says the very mature and composed professor who is about to tear down his office door because of his students,” Ryo laughs then continues much calmer, “Shige, it’s not like this is your first semester.”
Shige tries to grab the keys from Ryo. He feels his anger and frustration deflate, but he isn’t in a mood for mocking or consoling or whatever Ryo would attempt in his strange ways right now.
“I have whiskey in my office,” Ryo only says as he jumps out of reach. “And you can get into your office through mine; this lock is probably stuck again.”
“I don’t drink--”
“Yeah, yeah, keep that for Matsumoto when he comes around,” Ryo says, and Shige finds himself pushed into the armchair Ryo has by his window-his view is just as good as Shige’s and that’s just not fair-and soon enough there’s a glass in his hand. Ryo doesn’t say anything, just sits on his desk, legs annoyingly perched on the armchair’s hand rest, toes poking Shige’s elbow, and guitar in hand. It’s enough for him to play the first few chords, and Shige remembers all the wrong reasons why he loves this school. Even if sometimes he really wishes he’d teach people who actually cared about intellectual property rights, basics of civil law, contracting abilities, or-his newest attempt at being creative-history of music and law.
That night Shige comes home kind of pleasantly buzzed and not even caring that he agreed to some experiment involving Professor Aiba Masaki, saxophones and “lung capacity of complete amateurs.”
“You don’t smoke, do you?” Aiba asked, and next to him Ryo giggled like a teenager.
“I’m sure it depends on who’s offering,” he said.
Shige rolled his eyes. Aiba nodded thoughtfully, but recruited Shige anyway.
Shige doesn’t care that he is “doomed,” as Ryo put it. Once he’s home, he still hears Ryo’s music in his ears, the soothing sound of a guitar soaked deep into his pores because he has heard it so many times, secretly opening the connecting door when it was Ryo playing. He’s never really had the urge to play himself before though. But tonight, maybe it’s the taste of forbidden whiskey and bitter aftertaste of the supposedly best teaching methods that always backfire on him, but he doesn’t want to just play the music in his head on repeat. He is daring enough to try himself once again.
Which, of course, is a disaster because Shige hasn’t played in ages, and the guitar is out of tune, and Shige is terribly clumsy. He slumps onto his couch and happily falls asleep there, the view, the music, Ryo and his freckles all in a mess of his dreams.
“Tell me again, why are we running across the school like some high school delinquents?” Shige asks, panting, while Ryo pulls on his sleeve and keeps up the pace even though they ran up several flights of stairs by now.
“Because I like to destroy your reputation,” Ryo says, and gives Shige this creepy smile across his shoulder.
Shige has no breath left to answer, but really no matter how much he has been trying for the past two and a half year to create a reputation of a sensible and respectable professor, all he’s ever been was the awkward one out. So there’s hardly anything to destroy.
When he almost trips on the last couple of stairs, he pulls on Ryo’s leather jacket-typical professor wear around here-hard. “Tell me, or I’m not moving,” he pants.
“Come on, Shige,” Ryo says, almost angry, then glances out the window. When Shige doesn’t budge, he takes a deep breath. “Okay, okay. I heard some girls talking by the main entrance about how the composition studio on the fifth floor has the best sunset view in the school. Apparently it’s legendary. They were talking how it’s a good make out spot or something. How come Yamapi didn’t tell me? I thought he had these things down. Anyway, I checked, and the place is locked today-no classes in the evening, so I stole the key. I want to see, so get moving. You can be an old man out of shape later on,” Ryo finishes at top speed, and he’s pulling Shige along once again.
Soon, Ryo is unlocking the studio and pushing Shige through the door first, checking if the coast is clear.
Only when Shige looks up towards the window, he shrieks like the very composed adult male that he is.
“What the fuck,” Ryo says from next to him.
“That. Exactly,” Shige breathes. Ryo, very helpfully, starts laughing.
“I guess there’s a spare copy of the key to steal,” Ryo says while the girl and the boy who were certainly not watching the sunset, spread on the windowsill, dress up and scramble. Shige is blushing more than they are. They hurry off towards the door, and Shige wants to stop them and say something, but he can’t utter a word. Ryo simply walks after them to the door.
“The key,” he says, and the boy hands it over. “I see this is where you get your inspiration for love songs, Tegoshi-kun,” Ryo snickers and hurries them both off.
Shige stares out of the window, but the beauties of the sunset are somehow lost on him.
“Damn, too late,” Ryo says when he comes back to stand next to him.
“Uhm,” Shige says, but is at loss for more words.
“So, I guess it’s true about the make out spot,” Ryo says lightly after a moment, and Shige goes to open the window because it still smells like sex in here.
When Ryo says nothing more, only rocks on his heels, Shige feels himself blushing again, and what the hell is going on? It’s not like it’s him who got caught with his pants down and with a girl on his lap.
“This is awkward,” he says at the end.
“Well now that you said it, it is. I thought I was pretty cool back there while you gaped and blushed more than that girl. Did you plan on making out with me too?” Ryo teases, bumping shoulders with Shige.
“I would never make out in a classroom. This might be a music school, but it’s still educational institution,” Shige says, exasperatedly.
“So boring, Shige. Why do I even hang out with you? But at least it’s the place and not me who is turning you off,” Ryo shrugs and turns to leave.
Shige goes pale for a second before turning yet another perfect shade of dark pink.
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, Nishikido, you… you.”
“Maybe another time then,” Ryo says from the doorway, winking and holding the door open for a very flustered Shige to storm out.
“Wait, does this mean you never had sex in the library when you were in law school?” Ryo shouts after him.
A few days later, Shige finally gives up on tuning his own guitar and brings it to work. Ryo notices it right away when he wants to flop into Shige’s old green armchair and finds it occupied.
“What is this?” he asks, cradling the music instrument in his lap like it is so very precious, and Shige feels almost jealous-of his own guitar.
“It’s…” Shige doesn’t really want to be told he sucks how he heard Ryo say to his students through the wall. It might be motivating to some, but to him…
“It’s a gift. I’m giving it to someone. But I think it needs tuning. Maybe, I mean, what would I know? So I was thinking you could. Would you have a look?”
Ryo eyes him and then runs his hand down the strings. “A gift, huh? You are a cheapskate, Kato Shigeaki. It’s so old.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not good,” Shige says defensively. He bought the guitar from his first part time job money-had been saving up for it for months before, and it was a good guitar. He knew that much. “It’s… it’s for a beginner. If the kid likes it and it turns out to be more than just a teenage whim, then I will get him a new one,” Shige lies, telling Ryo what he told himself when he bought a used guitar years ago.
“You have teenage friends?” Ryo raises an eyebrow.
Shige says no more, lips in a tight line.
“Well, at least it’s a good guitar, even if it is old,” Ryo runs his fingers across the strings one more time then gets up. “I’ll give it back when it’s done.”
Shige is seriously disappointed he didn’t get to watch.
Ryo hands Shige his guitar in the morning the next day. His student skipped on a one on one lesson, but Ryo just shrugs it off and excitedly thrusts the guitar into Shige’s lap.
“Play something,” he says, and Shige almost does before he remembers the lie and how Ryo would most likely start shouting about not being good enough to even hold the guitar, the sentence Shige hears him say when someone comes to the lesson completely unprepared.
“I don’t know how to play,” he says simply, and tries to put the guitar down. “Let me take you for dinner to thank-”
“It better be some expensive restaurant because I’m about to give you a free lesson by the master,” Ryo interrupts him and pushes on Shige so he stays sitting with the guitar. “Look, this is how you play C.” Ryo moves behind Shige and grabs for his hand, placing his fingers where they should be. Shige knows how to play more than just a C, but in that moment his fingers feel like they’re made of wood and his skin shrinks when Ryo’s breath tickles his neck.
“As I said,” he says loudly, jumping up and almost knocking Ryo off as he hits his head on his chin. “I don’t play.”
Ryo looks disappointed for just a moment, but then he waves it off.
“The dinner still better be fancy.”
Shige makes sure it is good dinner at a nice place. In return he gets to enjoy Ryo’s flustered behavior when he shows up in a suit and a tie because Shige told him he wouldn’t be let in if he wore casual clothes. Shige knows it’s a bit of a torture for Ryo, and he is just a little sorry because the guitar sounds so good and Shige sounds almost acceptable for such an amateur once he starts playing every night.
But then again, Shige really wants to go all out, if only because Ryo hasn’t given him a hard time about that guitar ever since that day when he gave it back, and he didn’t have to tune it in the first place. Overall, it’s just nice to be with Ryo like this, out of school and away from dusty furniture and their usual role and feeble lights and constant dissonant sounds of several music instruments all at once.
“So this is where Professor Kato Shigeaki feels at home, huh?” Ryo comments when Shige orders drinks for them.
“It’s not like you are out of place or anything,” Shige shrugs. “The suit looks nice on you, and you felt right at home in the drinks section of the menu,” he says, and too late he realizes what he just blurted out.
Ryo preens. “Well, I’m just good at everything,” he says, then proceeds to trip over the French name of his main dish when ordering.
Soon enough they are arguing about who should be the next dean, gossiping like their freshmen students during the history of music class, betting who will hook up with the newest choir professor and predicting the complete failure of the opera act that Professor Sakurai is putting together, all the while drinking too much and eating away Shige’s monthly salary.
Somehow, they end up bar hopping after the dinner, Ryo’s tie pulled loose and crooked, and Shige’s shirt damp from the beer Ryo spills on him when around midnight he asks him: “What do you even do in your free time if you are not playing that old guitar? Because I think you are. You, Shige, are a bad liar.”
Ryo points at him with the hand in which he holds the beer, and the beer flies all over Shige’s shirt. Ryo tries to clean it off with napkins, and Shige swats his hands away, dashing for the bathroom. Ryo comes after him, watching through the mirror while Shige tries to first clean then dry the stain underneath the hand drier.
In the chaos of it all, Shige never tells Ryo about how he writes this cheesy novel that he will never publish but that makes him happy and that possibly has this insufferable character that sounds a lot like Ryo. Only Shige can’t possibly transfer on paper the look Ryo is giving him right now, chilling and seeing completely through him as they wait for the taxi and it feels like everything was said for the night.
“Take me home with you,” Ryo says all of a sudden.
Shige’s tongue gets thick in his mouth, and he freezes.
“Take me home; I want to see how boring your apartment is. I bet that guitar is still somewhere in there.” Ryo keeps jabbing Shige into the middle of his chest and leans in closer and closer, his words whispered. “You could show me everything,” he is saying, and it makes no sense.
Then Shige manages to flag down the taxi and pushes Ryo into it. He almost doesn’t get in, but Ryo pulls at his coat.
“It’s freezing, get in already,” he says and slumps into the seat. Shige gives the cab driver Ryo’s address because his house is closer and on the way to Shige’s. By the time he is done talking, Ryo is asleep. When Shige sits back, Ryo’s head rolls onto his shoulder and Shige lets it go.
Through the haze of his own hangover, Shige doesn’t realize a girl sticking to him throughout the whole of next day, not until she coughs loudly from the doorway of his office when he tries to shut the door on her.
“I’m Riisa. I would like to be your TA. I noticed you don’t have one.”
“I don’t need one,” Shige says dryly, trying to close the door.
“Well, you could really use one then,” she says, pushing in and immediately heading for the pile of coffee cups Shige was planning to wash sometimes this week. He vaguely remembers he was allocated some budget for TAs and that if he doesn’t use it, he’ll have to return it, so he lets it go.
She’s a senior, she apparently took his class and even got a B in it, and she’s a flute major. Shige finds it funny, mostly because it reminds him of how Ryo gets so easily drunk when drinking champagne.
Ryo doesn’t know that, and Shige is not telling. Even if it means that Ryo is not half as amused as Shige is by the green chair now being cleaner but also often occupied.
“Why do you even need her?” Ryo asks, as they are eating lunch in a cafeteria, Ryo taking Shige’s rice because Shige is not eating it again; something Ryo calls a crime against humanity. “Do you get it Shige? You’re committing a crime against yourself! I should punish you.”
“I don’t particularly need her, but she just sticks around, and I don’t feel like going through the bother of sending her away,” Shige replies, glaring at his banana.
“You send me away all the time,” Ryo says.
“But you don’t wash my dishes,” Shige says, and Ryo only huffs into his rice.
“She’s after you,” he says at the end, and Shige laughs really, really hard. Ryo leaves because “there’s no helping to someone who is an idiot.”
As usual, Ryo gets busy around the end of the year, getting students ready for the big annual winter recital, bitching about lousy compositions being included then shutting himself into a studio and at least rearranging his students’ songs or just making them new ones from the start. In the mist of it, he gets an offer to record guitars for some pop album, which he foolishly takes because he loves jobs like that even if he doesn’t admit it, and Shige is reminded yet again, just how in demand and pretty awesome his colleague is. He meanders the halls, volunteers in stage crew where he gets to change the chairs and hand instruments to the students in rehearsals, and sneaks rice balls into Ryo’s bags so he at least eats something. At least, by now he is best friends with the person in charge of lightening, and Koyama does him favors and constantly asks him how Ryo is and is way too nice to tell Shige he might be a little too obsessed with his colleague for it to be healthy by now.
When Ryo is nowhere to be found for three days, Shige takes Riisa with him to the recording studio and together they manhandle Ryo to his apartment to shower, shave, and eat, upon which Ryo collapses on his couch and is dead to the world for the next day. Riisa gets mad at Shige afterwards because she is no cook and doesn’t speak to him until the recitals are over.
Eventually, as per usual, Shige cancels his classes preceding the recital, just making his students hand in some silly make up assignments because no one listens to him anyway, even more so than usual. He gets his annual end of the year spleen and writes depressing lyrics to the songs Ryo composes while Shige keeps an eye on him, making sure he eats and at least naps in between rehearsals and additional lessons. The whole process, repeating itself twice a year, is like a ritual by now. No one is really looking at Shige, so he stashes the lyrics away and buys more rice and vegetables, and when he wants to get Ryo really mad, he buys raw fish because the smell always wakes Ryo up and makes him rage, but that puts people into shape and eventually, it’s the right thing to do.
At the end of the recital, Ryo stands slumped backstage, shedding tears for the seniors he teaches, and Shige pretends he doesn’t see it as he stands next to him thinking of soft marshmallows. The entire teaching staff gets drunk that night, and Shige leaves Ryo passed out on his couch. Which is why he almost gets a scare of his life when the next morning at ungodly eight AM, Ryo calls him.
“Come help me clean my office,” Ryo says, and Shige calls him an asshole.
Ryo laughs, and they spend Christmas Eve bumming around that office until they can see the floor again. Ryo takes the guitar and pulls out the whiskey, and Shige doesn’t even protest this time.
“I don’t want to see another rice ball for at least a month,” is all Ryo says. It sounds thankful and relieved and just a little tired, and Shige laughs.
Shige thinks oral exams are easier than written ones. Or maybe they’re just less hassle. He sits down with his students, and they talk until he eventually somehow pulls the answer good enough for him out of them, something unimaginable with definitiveness of written tests. And he dares to hope that maybe this is the one time he actually teaches them something.
It doesn’t please Riisa much; she was hoping to have her go at correcting all the things, but it should not surprise her. She only got a B in Intro to Civil Law because she was able to talk her way out of very disadvantageous inheritance during her exam, and Shige thinks she still has no clue how she did it. She insists on sitting in on the exams anyway, but as long as she doesn’t make too much noise when writing her notes, he doesn’t care.
Three days of constant exams later, Shige is, as usual, regretting his decision. However, he only has one more day to go, so he makes himself a big mug of coffee and goes to let the first student and Riisa in. The day drags until, six students later, Ryo falls out of Shige’s coats closet.
The student pauses mid-sentence, and Riisa looks like she’s going to burst from inside out any minute now. Shige wants to laugh really hard, but he has yet to give up on the small chance of gaining a respectable reputation, so he schools his features and looks Ryo up and down. Ryo rubs his eyes, and it’s clear he has been sleeping in that closet, cheeks red with an imprint of the wood pattern, his gaze unfocused, hair ruffled.
“Professor Nishikido, did you just walk out of my closet?” Shige asks at last, when he trusts his voice.
“More like fell out of it, dude,” the students says.
It seems to finally wake Ryo up, and his eyes widen.
“Ugh, I was just, looking for a spare set of strings,” he says, picking himself up and scooping up the crumpled papers that fell out of the closet along with him. “I’ll go now. Please continue,” he adds, and heads for the connecting door. He’s almost gone when he spins around, peeking back into the room. “Don’t make him cry, Kato!” he says, and grins creepily.
Shige wants to laugh even more, so he lets the student go with an easy pass and tells the other two waiting to go get some lunch. When he shuts the door, he can’t keep it in himself anymore and doubles over in laughter. He barely notices Riisa storming past him with a very resolute, “I quit.”
Then, just as Shige is opening his bento, his mood now much, much better, he realizes just what those papers that Ryo picked up on his way out were. “Shit.”
Shige gets through the rest of the exams with a rather scattered mind and then spends half an hour staring at the connecting door. But there is no Ryo on the other side of it when he finally bursts through it, so he goes home and spends the night not sleeping.
It’s probably nothing. Shige actually knows he tends to overthink things and that he might actually be a drama queen, just a little. Still, it feels kind of unfair that Ryo should see all his lousy depressing raw lyrics and possibly realize they fit his songs perfectly.
In the end, Shige calls Maruyama and they drink together for the night.
“I never should have listened to you. What am I doing? Pretending to be some cool dude, teaching at a music school?”
“But I love you,” Maru says drunkenly, big smile plastered on his face. “And you keep Ryo-chan happy, so Hina loves you too.”
That doesn’t make any sense. Hina is the executive director of the school who likes to slap people upside their head; what does Shige indulging Ryo because he just can’t say no to the man has to do with him?
“Ryo is annoying,” Shige mumbles into the couch.
“Ryo loves you too,” Maru counters, falling to the side and showing no inclination of getting up. “Subaru says so. Well he says it a bit differently, but there’s the translation for you,” Maru giggles. Shige sighs-he has long given up on understanding staff relationships in this school-finishes his last beer and falls asleep on his own couch.
On Monday, Shige goes to work more because he’s used to it than because he has to. He doesn’t feel like facing Ryo, but he already misses the best way to soothe himself-Ryo’s guitar muted by that one not so thick wall. When he opens the door to his office, Ryo is sitting in his chair, spinning around like a little kid. When he spots Shige on his third spin since Shige came in, he stops abruptly. Shige is expecting lots of things, but not for Ryo to look down and up and stay silent.
“Hi,” Shige says.
“Hello?”
This is new. Ryo wasn’t this… quiet even when they first met. He just burst into Shige’s life and has been the constant nagging persona that Shige couldn’t help but look up to until suddenly they were something like friends, something Shige couldn’t imagine being any different. Not silent like this.
“I’m sorry. About the other day. The closet,” Ryo suddenly says, still not looking at Shige.
“Please, at least now I really have reputation; for keeping fellow professors in my closet even!” Shige attempt a smile, but it’s fake because Ryo is so serious. “Seriously, it’s the best! Suddenly students want to come see me, waiting if maybe next time, Ohno-san comes out of there, dancing with a fishing rod in hand!” Shige is starting to blab. “Or maybe Yoko could, you know he is so gloomy. It would be like a ghost appeared.”
Ryo stands up and almost runs into Shige who’s been moving forward all this time, getting really into this closet full of professors tale. Ryo finally looks up and… Shige’s mind goes completely blank, totally shocked by the strong emotions swimming in Ryo’s eyes, things Shige can’t even name.
It takes a while for Shige to take a breath and realize that Ryo is gone.
They only meet a week later, bumping into each other in a cafeteria. Ryo nods his head, and Shige wants to just continue to look for a seat, but then on a whim he ends up sitting next to Ryo. They eat in silence until the moment Ryo reaches for Shige’s rice out of habit and their chopsticks clash and Shige suddenly finds it very funny. As he laughs, he notices how suddenly Ryo deflates, shoulders relaxing a bit. He eats the rest of Shige’s rice, and they walk to their offices together. Shige leaves the door to his office open, and Ryo closes it from the inside.
“So you write some fucked up lyrics for someone like you,” Ryo says out of the blue, and there goes Shige’s hope that they will just act like that never happened.
“Someone like me?” Shige asks. “What kind of lyrics should someone like me write then?”
“Boring?” is Ryo’s answer, his voice slipping into the usual half teasing half condescending banter tone for just a moment. Shige almost kicks him out for it, but then Ryo is shaking his head. “No, I didn’t mean that. What I wanted to say is… I thought you didn’t write lyrics at all. That you don’t care for music more than as something that just happens around you. I thought I knew you. Knew you better, that is.”
“I didn’t want you to see them. They’re stupid.”
“I want someone to sing them,” Ryo blurts out, and he sounds so excited. “They fit perfectly, Shige.”
“Well, I do listen to you all the time,” Shige manages to say before Ryo kisses him.
That is a segue Shige doesn’t get. But he stops thinking about it, because Ryo is pulling at his elbow, bringing him closer and doesn’t stop pressing his lips against Shige’s until Shige takes a step forward all by himself.
“Don’t act so shocked this time, okay?” Ryo whispers against Shige’s lips. Shige gets even more confused, wanting to pull back, but Ryo has a hand in his hair that keeps him close when Ryo kisses him again once, twice, and says, “Take me home with you.”
That’s when Shige kisses Ryo back, and the office spins around them. Suddenly Ryo’s tongue is in Shige’s mouth, and Ryo’s hands are around Shige’s shoulders as they press close to each other. Shige whines when Ryo pulls away abruptly.
“Hey, I meant it. Unless you want to go to the fifth floor, that is,” he whispers right into Shige’s ear then pulls his earlobe between his lips. It’s totally not fair, Shige thinks, that he has to drive.
Ryo isn’t quiet during the ride; it feels like a damn broke loose. Shige is on pins and needles, but Ryo keeps talking about which song he liked the most, which one was the most twisted, and who he wants to sing them, and how Shige should try to be an official lyricist. He asks all these questions about when Shige wrote all of those and how he writes them and what inspires him, and Shige doesn’t know the answer to most of it, only that he heard the songs millions of times, and he imagines Ryo playing them, head tilted back, eyes closed, hair covering them completely, and it just happens.
What eventually comes out of Shige’s mouth is, “Since when have you wanted to have sex with me?”
Ryo pales so much Shige is glad he is not the one driving. “Shige, you’re an idiot,” he says at the end, and that’s when it starts to be really awkward once again, silence hanging between them until the door shuts behind them at Shige’s place. Ryo pushes Shige against it and grips his hips.
“I wanted to fuck you into that old green armchair the moment I saw you two year ago. I wanted to pull at that long hair of yours and make you moan in that deep voice and I wanted to break down that serious façade you put on.” Ryo is mumbling into Shige’s throat, and it tickles, and Ryo’s hands grip too tight.
Shige’s breath hitches when Ryo sucks at the skin where Shige’s shoulder meets his neck. “But then you stuck it out through the first semester, and you were so stupidly nice to me before the recital, and you cut your hair and let me leach off your coffee, and I didn’t want to mess it up. But fuck Shige, what am I supposed to do when you are like this? When you constantly do things that just…”
Shige doesn’t know what he is like, only that right now he would let Ryo do anything to him, that he has wanted Ryo to do something for so long, so he leans forward and pulls Ryo’s bottom lip between his teeth, watching as Ryo’s eyes darken even more, but this time it’s definitely desire Shige reads in them.
“Now, where’s your bed?” Ryo asks, and Shige pushes himself off the door and leads Ryo across the hall and into the bedroom. Ryo follows, and Shige hears the sound of a zipper being pulled down and when he looks back, Ryo is halfway out of his jeans and his shirt is hanging off his neck. He looks up at Shige, so desperate. Shige pulls at him and gets the clothes off him the rest of the way, then runs his hands down Ryo’s chest, feeling the lean muscles tremble under his fingertips. Ryo takes a step closer and fails at unbuckling Shige’s pants, so Shige does it himself, almost tripping on his own feet because Ryo is watching.
“I didn’t imagine this so awkward,” Shige breathes out, and then Ryo is pushing him down on his bed and climbing to lie next to him.
“Of course it is like that, you keep overthinking it,” Ryo whispers, and runs his hand through Shige’s hair, pulling him close like that and kissing him. Shige wants to protest, and he pushes away, and Ryo ends up biting his lip. Shige hisses, and their teeth clash, and then Ryo huffs and pins Shige’s hands over his head, climbing on top of him and squeezing his thighs around him.
“Fuck Shige, just let me do this,” Ryo hisses, and then he’s kissing Shige again, tongue dwelling deeper when Shige leans his head back and just feels for a moment; feels the calloused fingers around his wrists, the heat pooling between them when Ryo starts to roll his hips against Shige, the cold air on the wet stripe of skin that Ryo licks down his throat, the pressure and hot breaths against his nipple, and the thick tongue against his navel. He moans from deep inside when Ryo drops lower, letting go of his hands and sucking at Shige’s hipbone.
“Fuck,” Shige whispers when Ryo pulls his underwear down.
“That’s it,” Ryo mutters, kissing across Shige’s ribs, unexpectedly gentle while Ryo’s hands caress Shige’s inner thighs, and now Shige can’t stop moaning, each sound coming out deeper and more needy as Ryo’s mouth and hands are everywhere, leaving hot trails of desire where they touch Shige’s skin.
Shige hears Ryo murmuring something, but he is so messed up already he has no clue what it is until Ryo suddenly climbs up the length of Shige’s body again, grinding against Shige’s thigh. He moans and takes Shige’s earlobe in between his lips yet again, making beautiful whiny noises right into Shige’s ear.
“Tell me, Shige,” Ryo is saying, and it doesn’t take a genius to know what Ryo wants to hear.
“Fuck me,” Shige mutters, and Ryo groans, his hands gripping Shige’s hips, nails digging into soft skin. Shige reaches to the side and manages to pull the lube out before Ryo sits on his heels and runs his hands down Shige’s torso again, fingertips dipping into the curve of Shige’s hips. For a moment, he only watches as Shige falls back into the pillows and his toes curl.
“Turn around,” Ryo says suddenly, voice deep and full of want, and Shige sees it already, Ryo behind him, pounding into him like that, completely in control of the situation. He is on his hands and knees in the next second. Ryo leans down and kisses Shige at the top of his back before gripping his hair and pulling his head back. Shige groans, back arched, and Ryo kisses him hard before moving behind him, one hand still in his hair, holding Shige like that while he pushes the first finger in, slowly but steadily.
Shige can feel every guitar callous on Ryo’s fingers as they move in and out of him, twisting and pushing deeper until Shige is stretched thin like a guitar string about to snap, shivering, and elbows almost giving up on him. Only Ryo still holds him up by his hair, and everything feels that much stronger where Shige’s back is arched in a sharp curve.
Then, Ryo is pulling his fingers away and pushing in, and Shige’s arms do give away underneath him, and he falls forward. Ryo only leans over him, covers his back and lets him breathe and get used to it. Shige feels him tremble above him, trying so hard not to move, so Shige does it first, rocking them back and forth until Ryo does it by himself, steady strong thrusts that make the bed knock against the wall every time.
“You feel so good,” Ryo whispers into Shige’s hair, nose buried in it. He shifts, just a little, and the next thrust sends Shige into a whole new spiral of pleasure. Only then, Ryo really holds Shige’s hips in place, controlling him completely, and presses forward-fast and messy, moaning and swearing while Shige grips the pillow and tries to not choke on his own moans spilling from him.
Shige feels so close, and he whines, asks for “more, and right there,” trying to push back against Ryo. Then suddenly Ryo grabs a fistful of Shige’s hair again, pulling Shige up and falling back on his heels. He brings Shige into his lap and reaches around him to pull him off. It’s a blur from then on, as Shige leans heavily against Ryo’s chest, Ryo sucking at the spot on Shige’s shoulder and rocking them like this until Shige comes, his head spinning from pleasure and body soon going completely numb. Ryo has to wrap his arms around Shige to hold him close as he thrusts up into him a few more times and comes too, hoarsely whispering Shige’s name over and over again.
After a moment, Shige sighs and Ryo lets them untangle, silently looking around the room and finding something to clean them with just a little. He then curls under the blanket, pulling Shige close by his elbow and soon is asleep without anything else being said.
It’s pretty amazing for Shige how Ryo just falls asleep, but Shige’s mind is racing and his breathing calms down only after a long time. He feels restless, and there’s one thing that always works, so he gets up from the bed, puts on some underwear and goes to find his guitar. He sits in his living room and plays lame versions of songs that Ryo wrote and that Shige stole the music sheets for from his office to copy them.
Shige plays with eyes closed, already knowing the songs by heart, and he focuses just on the sound, on the webs of music weaving around him, so it startles him when suddenly he feels a warm body behind him and palms running down his arms.
“I knew you played,” Ryo says, sounding just a little smug, and immediately Shige falters and messes up and wants to put the guitar down. “Don’t stop,” Ryo whispers into his ear, and kneels better behind Shige, moving his wrists and fingers to the next chord. “Don’t stop,” Ryo repeats.
It’s like that time back in the office, but now when Ryo’s breath tickles Shige’s neck, Shige doesn’t panic. He feels warmth and calm suddenly flooding him, Ryo’s presence adding something more to the music clumsily created under Shige’s fingers. It sounds kind of perfect with Ryo’s chest against Shige’s back.
“I might like you,” Shige says when the song ends, not knowing where that came from, only that it’s true, that he feels just like Ryo might because he has been pushing the attraction for Ryo away to be able to be with him like they were, back in school, weeding their ways under each other’s skin.
Ryo kisses Shige’s shoulder, nuzzles his nose against the crook of Shige’s neck and mumbles a faint “yeah,” then takes a deep breath. “Now play me something,” he says, and it sounds sure, almost an order, but a little playful.
Shige really thinks he should be the one asking that, but he decides that with Ryo it’s okay to be lame and not at all good because Ryo is not the teacher with him, not someone he needs to impress or someone that will look down on him. As long as Ryo’s palms are going to rest against Shige’s sides, calloused fingers running across Shige’s ribs like they were guitar strings, all is fair game.
end
A/N: I unfortunately caught a few typos both me and my beta missed the first time this was posted. I hope I fixed them all, but if you seen any, please poke me.