RP Log-- Kenya & Shinji
Who: Oshitari Kenya & Shinji Ibu
Where: Dawn Dorm- Room 402
When: 4-23
What: Shinji decided to drop in and see Kenya after their last round of comments. His plan was to kick Kenya soundly, but somehow plans went awry and a punch was thrown instead, before Shinji made a confession that shook Kenya badly.
Warnings: Kenya wasn't too watchful of his language or violence.
Rating: PG-13 for some language and Kenya punching Shinji.
Comments: None
Shinji was grumbling to himself as he stormed down the hallway and to the stairwell. He had no idea just why he was so annoyed, but if he were to be honest with himself, it had been building for some time, fed by both of their refusals to give a straight answer to a question. He had just snapped first…and if Kenya had to be kicked in the balls, so be it.And then he can kick me too, and it’ll be back to normal.
Blinking, he realized that he was in front of Keyna’s door, albeit with no recollection of how he had gotten there. Shinji shrugged, though, and banged his fist against it. “I know you’re in there, Kenya!”
“Would you keep it down, damn it!” Kenya answered the door with a scowling glare, casting his friend that had a fondness for weird conversations an annoyed look. He didn’t know where Zaizen was right then, but if the bastard was anywhere close like the bathroom or the room beside them talking to their neighbors, he definitely didn’t want the noise to carry. The jerk would probably bitch and gripe about him causing a disturbance or being a pest for their neighbors.
“I could, but no.” Shinji slid past Kenya into the room, figuring that the open door was invitation enough. “So close the door so I can kick you and no one will hear you make a fuss.” He crossed his arms across his chest, studying Kenya’s face carefully. “I’m still debating where I should kick you.”
“Kick me and I’m doing more than just kicking you back,” Kenya warned his glare hardening as he shut the door and turned to face the friend that had annoyed him in more ways than one over the last few days. If it wasn’t those odd conversations it was the stupid dreams they inspired, so, yeah, if Shinji kicked him he was going to knock a few of his teeth out.
Fair was fair, after all.
Shinji leveled a glare at Kenya. “You sure you would, or would you just say a few words and back out of it?” He knew he was being less than fair, since that was something he also excelled at. He took a step closer to Kenya, just barely invading his personal space, but not touching. Yet. “Oh?” he asked softly, tilting his head to the side. “Just what else would you do?”
“Try me and see,” Kenya taunted. He stood his ground, despite the little voice whispering in his head telling him to take a step back. He was being deliberately crowded and knew it since he had used the tactic himself more than once.
Shinji took another, deliberate step closer. He wasn’t used to being that close to anyone, but considered it for a good cause in this instance, thinking it was only fair if he managed to get under Kenya’s skin as thoroughly as Kenya had gotten under his own. “I think you’re too chicken to do anything,” he taunted, through Kenya’s insult back at him.
Oh but that was it! Nobody called him a chicken and got away with it! Growling softly, Kenya shifted partially, pulling his arm back as he went. He was going to make sure Shinji wouldn’t be able to call anyone a chicken for a couple of days if not longer, just see if he didn’t! “I’m not a fucking chicken!” he snarled as he let his fist fly straight for the mouth that liked to ramble about a whole lot of nothing on the best of days.
Shinji tried to avoid the punch, but at such a close range he couldn’t do too much about it. It caught him by his eye instead of his jaw, and Shinji found himself thankful for small favors as he stumbled back, remaining upright as he carefully touched his face. “That’s going to leave a mark,” he said softly to himself, “and it’s going to be hard to hide, but that’s alright, because I guess I deserved that.”
He straightened slowly. “Maybe I should just go now, Oshitari-kun. I’ll owe you some other time.”
What the hell?
He didn’t have any reason to feel guilty, so why was he?
Kenya pursed his lips, hand falling to his side to dangle there lest he gave into the temptation to rub his knuckles which was a show of weakness in the form that he would visibly show his hand hurt from the wildly thrown punch. “Yes, you did!” he insisted, chin setting at a stubborn angle the moment Shinji slipped into a polite form of speech with him.
“Now who’s the being the chicken?” he taunted, making a note to hit Shinji at least once more before he left for resorting to calling him by his family name when the guy already knew he didn’t like it when he was addressed so formally.
“I am.” Shinji’s eyes were on the ground. “Are you happy? “I admitted it; I’m a chicken. I’m not exactly brave and forthright and honest with my thoughts, and I know I avoid confrontation and openness whenever possible. So yes, I am a coward.” He took a couple more steps back until he could lean against the wall. “I guess I got you to bash my head in after all, right?” he asked, chuckling dryly.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kenya demanded to know, arms lifting to cross over his chest. He hated feeling like he was lacking an important piece of a puzzle, especially when the puzzle was staring him in the face sounding almost depressed or hunted… No, maybe those weren’t even the right words to describe Shinji right then.
Shinji shook his head. “Nothing. Everything.” He rubbed his temple-the one that wasn’t throbbing still from that punch. “It’s been weird between us, hasn’t it?” he asked. “I don’t know. Something about you makes me want to both run at the mouth and clam up at the same time. And then you invade my dreams, you bastard.” Shinji’s head shot up, realizing what he had said. “Shit….”
“I did not!” Kenya promptly and with great loudness denied the accusation the moment that it clicked in his brain that he was being accused of something. It was a defense mechanism that came from years of listening to his parents’ lecturing him over not only the stuff that he had done but some that he hadn’t, so it was a very dazed and confused blonde that stood there with his mouth dropping open and shock on his face when it finally registered just what crime he’d been convicted of.
“Huh? What?” he asked dumbly, dark eyes staring at his friend while he struggled to make sense of what he heard just seconds prior.
Shinji couldn’t help smiling at the almost dumbstruck expression on Kenya’s face. “You weren’t really listening, were you?” he asked, shaking his head and looking back at the floor. “But yeah, that’s what I said. Dreams. You. In mine.”
He hoped he wasn’t turning as red as he thought. “And I know it’s because of the weirdness, and the being sixteen thing, and I know that’s…not your thing. So I was going to never say it.”
Kenya didn’t know which he was more humiliating; Shinji knowing that he hadn’t really been listening or the admission that had him starring in his blushing friend’s dreams.
Oh, hell. Dreams? Goddamn them! He had spent the last two nights dreaming about the weirdest stuff thanks to the teen standing across from him, and the moment his mind delved into the memories of those dreams his embarrassment increased three-fold.
“You better not have had me decked out in something weird like a maid uniform or doing weird shit like kneeling at your feet saying stuff like: Yes, Shinji-sama. Whatever you say, Shinji-sama; while giving you head.” He tossed out, choosing to joke his way through the moment rather than face it seriously. Truth be told, he didn’t know what his thing was.
Seriously, there had only been one girl that he had crushed on back home and that hadn’t ended too well. Hell, he had felt so damn disillusioned and let down when the sweet innocent girl he thought was the greatest thing ever had turned out to be not so innocent. And it wasn’t even her sexual activities that put him off but the personality she had kept hidden from everyone, including him.
“A…maid’s uniform?” Shinji blinked, having honestly never even considered the option before. “Kenya…don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you’d look good in a skirt like that. My brain is cracking trying to process that.” Seriously. Of all the ways Shinji had ever thought of Kenya, feminizing him had never been on the list. He blushed at the second part of the comment. “And no, I don’t think you ever called me Shinji-sama, either.” As for anything else, he wasn’t saying, though his face was probably giving it away.
“You’ve…never been different than you are in reality in the dreams, Kenya, and in a way, I think that’s scarier than maid’s uniforms, or penguins, or anything else.”
“Well, that last part’s a lie.” Kenya pointed out, his cheeks heating to a brilliant red as he rushed headlong into spilling his best kept secret. “I’m fairly certain I ain’t never done any of the things you dreamt me doing in your dreams in real life, ever!”
He cast a sulky look toward Shinji placing the blame for their newest weird conversation solely in his friend’s court. “So I was definitely different than I am in reality.”
Shinji raised an eyebrow. “Yeah…” he said slowly. “I figured out that much when you said you were straight. By not different, I meant…you were never anyone other than you, in terms of personality. Sure, actions were weird, but that’s dreams for you, but you were still, well, you and…..”
He groaned, shaking his head. “Forget it, just forget it,” he said flatly. “This is they I try not to talk about anything serious, because it never comes out right.” He glanced at Kenya then away again, pushing away from the desk and moving to the door.
“You haven’t figured out anything!” he denied with a harsh snarl, annoyed by the whole conversation, though his greatest annoyance probably came from how easily Shinji took to walking away. If he was smart he would probably keep his mouth shut and let him go, but when did he ever do the smart thing?
“When I said I was different in your dreams I meant because I hadn’t done any of the stuff you probably dreamed me doing with a girl or a guy, you idiot!” Kenya attempted to shrug it off like the announcement he’d just made wasn’t that big of a deal when they both knew guys that admitted to being inexperienced were normally ragged to death about it.
That was fine. If Shinji said one word to tease him, he was going to push his fist down his throat! “There was this girl once that I thought was really cute, but that was all.” He stated as the raven-haired teen brushed passed him on the way to the door.
“So how can you know what my thing is when I don’t even know?”
Shinji paused, not turning to look at Kenya, but not moving any further away, either. “You think I’m an expert?” he asked. “How much do you think I’ve done, with anyone, when I’ve told you that it’s a person that interests me, not anything else?” Shinji clenched a fist, cursing himself silently for almost giving too much away. “It’s not like I’ve, I don’t know, sucked a lot of cocks, or even really kissed anyone to know anything anyway, so I think you may have a bit of an advantage over me.”
“Kenya.” Shinji sighed. “You told me what was and wasn’t your thing. Guys weren’t on the list.” He sounded a little confused.
“I don’t remember giving you a detailed list of anything, since the list is pretty much empty.” Kenya grumbled. He refused to turn around and face his friend. If he was going to be embarrassed at least he could keep Shinji from witnessing the visual symptoms of it by keeping his back to him.
“Unless you want a detailed list of the porn that I watch,” shrugging while still trying to pretend the conversation wasn’t yet another odd one that took place whenever his friend was involved, he went on. “It’s not like I’ve kissed a girl or a guy to know which I like more, either.”
Again, why were they having this conversation? It wasn’t like Shinji really had anything to be upset about, even if he’d been dreaming about him. Not like his friend really liked him like that, right? It was just a bunch of dreams spawned by being sixteen year old horny boys with a vivid imagination that went to work after they had spent so much time online talking about the subject of blow jobs, fucking, and threesomes. Yeah, it was just that and nothing else, right?
Shinji turned and looked at Kenya’s back, biting his lower lip as he thought about how to say what he was thinking. “Porn really has nothing to do with this,” he settled on, “because porn, well, isn’t real life. If life imitated porn we’re be over on your bed trying to drive it through the wall right now.” And no, his face wasn’t on fire…but either way, Shinji was glad that Kenya wasn’t actually looking at him. “Not to mention I’d never be able to get pizza delivered again.”
Slowly, carefully, he reached out to rest a hand on Kenya’s shoulder. “Look, I know it’s probably way too late to be saying this, considering all this crap, but I really don’t want to freak you out, Kenya. I don’t want to do or say or hell, even think anything that will make you uncomfortable.”
“What? Why couldn’t you get pizza delivered again?” Kenya honestly didn’t know how Shinji went from babbling about imitating a porn flick to having food delivered- or rather the inability to have it delivered- in just seconds.
He did know, however, that it felt very odd to have that hand close over his shoulder after hearing he had starred in Shinji’s wet dreams. God, he was going to never be a normal color again. His skin was going to stay a beet red for the rest of his fucking life!
“And you don’t freak me out, just our conversations get really odd sometimes but that isn’t enough to freak me out.” Which was the truth! Shinji didn’t have a thing to do with what his mind decided to conjure up when he went to sleep, so it really wasn’t the guy’s fault. At least, he wasn’t going to say it was or admit to having any sort of dreams about anyone, especially not the teen touching his shoulder or the roommate that would probably laugh his ass off if he knew he had starred in Kenya’s orgy-filled dreams.
“What, you’ve never seen the porn that starts with the guy coming to deliver pizza, then staying to deliver, well, something else?” Shinji frowned, feeling the way Kenya tensed, and he fought a private war in his mind about whether he should pull his hand away or not, then blinked to find that his body had made the choice for him, his other hand reaching for Kenya and trying to rub the stiffness out of his shoulders. “It’s a porn classic from what I’ve heard, even if it is a bit contrived for me, and I know I wouldn’t want to have sex with some random person that turned up at my door, and…I think this is the conversation running away again.”
Shinji took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Sometimes I wonder if I freak you out. And it’s okay, because sometimes you freak me out, too, or I freak myself out, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that it happens, I just…don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“No, I haven’t, and our conversations always run away.” Kenya helpfully pointed out. He tensed under his friend’s hands even further when they started rubbing over his shoulders. If he put those massaging hands together with Shinji’s insistence that he didn’t want to freak him out then he could only assume that the guy was trying to get him to relax and not be so tense around him, right? It wasn’t like he was doing any sort of inappropriate touching.
Hell, having his back treated after getting his tattoo had earned far more intimate touches than this, since hands had been touching his bare skin, so there wasn’t anything to be alarmed about, right?
Right!
Now if only his body would listen to reason, he thought as he shrugged beneath those hands trying once more to make light of the conversation. “I don’t know how the hell I freak you out, but I do know that you don’t freak me out. I already told you that! Sure, the stuff we talk about is embarrassing as hell, sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I’m freaked out.”
Shinji worried his lower lip between his teeth again, and he forced himself to still his hands. “Have I ever told you why I tend to ramble so much? No, I probably haven’t, because I usually don’t tell people anything that’s really important, and yeah, sometimes it just slips out, because I really want to get close to people, but….” He took a deep breath. “I go off on tangents and just…babble, because it’s easier to hide in plain sight. Eventually, I get tuned out, and I can hide.” Even though Shinji hadn’t figured out what he was hiding from, yet. “And I get abuse for it, yeah, but I see things, too. Like, the fact that you’ve been tenser since I touched you than at any other time.”
He let his hands fall away. “I think you are freaked out. You may not know it, but I think you are.” He circled around so he could look at Kenya. “Why?”
Kenya snorted softly; visibly relaxing the minute those hands fell away from his shoulders. “I already figured that out with the way you use words to try to direct conversations toward weird stuff when the topics get close to resembling important shit, Shin.” Ha! Take that, Shinji Ibu! He had finally found a pet name for the guy whose name seemed almost impossible to shorten or change around.
“And if I’m tensing it’s because I’m not used to being touched by people while talking about stuff like this, so sue me.” He sulkily grumbled, peeved expression settling over his features.
“You haven’t figured everything out.” Shinji reached out, briefly tilting Kenya’s chin up, meeting his eyes, then pulling his hand away. He looked around, shrugged, then sat on the edge of Kenya’s bed. “But that’s okay, too, because if you did, I’d be very impressed.” He barely registered the shortened name, or if he did, it was certainly no worse than being called ‘dumpling’ and the like.
“Are you used to being touched at all?” Shinji looked down at his hands. “Because I know I’m not, and that’s part of what’s freaking me out, that I kind of want to touch, now.”
He knew that he wasn’t saying anything right, that everything in his head was coming out wrong, but he wasn’t going to keep sitting on it.
“Didn’t say I had, just that I’d figured out that you ramble to avoid stuff.” He huffed. His mouth was in the process of opening again to say more, but a hand was suddenly curling fingers around his chin and tilting it upward. For the briefest of moments he swore his heart stopped in his chest and his lungs refused to work, because damned if it wasn’t almost like he was about to be kissed which couldn’t be right.
Damn it, his was not the sort of personality to invite random kisses from random guys much less a friend. He was abrasive, crude, and often lewd with the way he talked so there was no way in hel… whoa, back up there!
“Me?” he squeaked out, shocked all the way down to his toes. “You want to touch me?” Na, it wasn’t possible and in a few seconds Shinji would verify that he was thinking stupid things, and then they could both laugh off his idiotic assumption.
Shinji’s eyes narrowed, though he winced a little when the action pulled at the forming bruise. “Did I stutter? Because of all the things I’ve been accused of, stuttering has never been one of them, so I’m pretty sure that I clearly said that I do want to touch you. You feel….” Shinji shrugged. “Warm. Safe. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the music, or that you don’t judge me for my words, but it’s something. And yeah, I’m expecting you to laugh now. Go ahead.”
He looked up at Kenya. “You didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out.
“Well, whoop-de-doo, you don’t stutter. Good for you!” Kenya peevishly mumbled, shooting Shinji a small glare as he sat there on his bed. The very same bed he had lain in having weird dreams about getting head from three separate people, one of which was even now admitting he wanted to touch him.
Kenya had a theory about the cause of those dreams and the people that starred in them. First, Shinji because he started the crazy conversations that spawned the dreams, second Zaizen because he was the one person he spent massive amounts of time around and if he was honest he’d admit his roommate could be called sexy. Not to mention he spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about a hundred ways to annoy the guy, so it was no wonder he was on his mind when he drifted off and somehow had ended up in his dream. And then there was Saeki who had already been very clear about the fact that he enjoyed touching him, but then again Kenya imagined the vampire might enjoy touching a lot of people since he seemed like the type to revel in adoring attention from many directions.
Fuck, he was starting to ramble in his mind as badly as Shinji rambled in reality!
“Okay, I guess I can get that.” He finally spoke, this time his words a lot softer than his harsh snarl of before. “I feel safe and warm? I reckon being a walking heater isn’t that bad of a thing to be.” He laughed; unaware of how he shifted nervous sending bare feet shuffling over the floor as he stood there, before he actually took to pacing in a small line.
“Though, I’m not too sure about that safe part, considering I just punched you. Maybe you ought to rethink that part, Shin.” Running an agitated hand through tousled blonde hair, he shot an aggrieved look over to his friend. “And what question?”
“Well, I’m going to assume that the punching isn’t something you normally do. In fact, since you never punched me when we were playing with our instruments, or when we had lunch the other day, I’m going to just think that the punching is an anger or stress thing, and leave it at that, since I don’t really want to think that you’d want a punching bag around instead of a friend or whatever.” Shinji took a deep breath. “And it’s more of a mental thing than a physical thing. I think.” The only way Shinji could think of to see if Kenya was really warm would be to hug him or something, and yeah. Not something Shinji was willing to try yet.
“The question I asked, Kenya. You’re getting as bad as me. Am I rubbing off on you?” Shinji turned bright red at the implications of that statement, but pressed on anyway. “Are you used to being touched? Hell, do you even want someone touching you?” His eyes followed Kenya’s pacing, but he wasn’t feeling a rush to stop it. Yet.
“Well, I don’t get it, then!” Kenya stopped right where he stood, chest puffing up as he took a deep breath and exhaled it and his rush of words in one go. “I’m rude and obnoxious and sometimes even mean as fuck, so I don’t get it!”
He was doing so good in maintaining his almost annoyed façade until Shinji mentioned rubbing off on him, so that his mouth nearly opened to admit no he wasn’t, but if his dreams counted then Shinji had done an awful lot of rubbing of a sort. So had Zaizen and Saeki, and damn the other teen for mentioning threesomes in that conversation!
“No, okay! No, I’m not used to being touched. I mean get real; there’s not one thing about me that invites people to touch me. I ain’t that kind of person. You know, those kinds of people like Saeki or even Z... shit, even you.” The three were so totally different from him and actually gave off the friendly vibe, unlike him.
“You don’t have to get it, Kenya.” Shinji stood and entered into Kenya’s personal space again, a move that, for Shinji, had taken a lot of courage, considering what had happened last time he had done that. “All you really have to do right now is accept that I get it, and that’s as good as it’s getting right now, since I seem to be suffering a disconnect between my brain and my mouth at the moment.”
Shinji met Kenya’s eyes, trying to hold his gaze, and he couldn’t help the way his voice got soft. “I don’t know…to me, you seem to invite touch, but I’m a freak.” He shrugged one shoulder. “And I don’t know…well, either of the other people you mentioned, so I can’t say that I’m like them, and I don’t think I am, since no one ever seems to want to touch me.”
He paused. “So you’re rude and obnoxious and mean. Name me one person who’s never been one of those things. And I’ve seen you be none of those things, too. I’m not…I mean, I don’t…fuck!” Shinji hung his head. “None of this is sounding right at all!”
“Huh?” Kenya struggled against the urge to take a step back. His personal space was being invaded and not in a random daily type of invasion like a friend stepping close to greet him or to give him a teasing nudge. And while Shinji wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, he still felt on edge. “Thought I already said I get it and sort of accept it. Not like you can help how you feel or the type of urges you have, right? I mean, you really can’t tell yourself to stop wanting to touch someone if you want to touch someone, it doesn’t work that way, right?”
He didn’t get what Shinji meant about none of it sounding right. How was it supposed to sound? Maybe he ought to ask, but Kenya found his tongue tied in knots. He suddenly felt very out of his depth and wasn’t anywhere close to figuring out what he should be saying, but he did know for sure that he had been a master at distracting Shinji from at least one of the questions he had asked, so he deserved a damn cookie for that.
“And I don’t know how you want it to sound, or how it should be sounding.” He halfway complained, annoyed over how very out of his depth he was.
Shinji huffed out an annoyed breath. “I can help it if the person I’m staring at doesn’t like it, right? If you don’t like someone…well, me, in this case, being near you, or….” Slowly, Shinji reached a cautious hand to just barely touch Kenya’s cheek. “Or if you don’t like being touched, being close at all, I for one know I’d rather know that right up front than not.”
Unconsciously, Shinji swayed a little closer to Kenya, his voice lowering. “I don’t know the answer to that, either. I just know then when it’s right, I may even realize it, but, right now, it’s just…ummm….”
While groping for a word, Shinji realized just how…close he was to Kenya. How he could feel Kenya’s breath against his face, and, yes, Kenya was warm, and Shinji was suddenly reminded that at least three of his dreams had started with them in a very similar position to their current one.
“I’m sorry….” Hastily, Shinji pulled away Kenya, stumbling back several steps, the back of his knees hitting the edge of Kenya’s bed, sending him off balance and sprawling over it. “I’m sorry, Kenya.”
“I don’t dislike you being near me,” Kenya said on a rush, taking a few steps forward and offering his hand to the raven-haired teen that seemed to gravitate toward his bed an awful lot. “But,” he took a deep breath as he stood there, feet shifting nervously along the floor while he waited for Shinji to take his hand, so he could help him up. “I don’t know if I like being touched or if I’d like you touching me.”
And here came the really tricky part, because this was one of the first real friends he had made since coming to school that had been up front and honest with him from the start, even though he used so many words to try to hide behind. Kenya knew it was a contradiction, and that a person that used words to hide behind really couldn’t be honest, but Shinji hadn’t made any sort of pretense about his habits or hidden them. “I don’t think I want to find out right now. Or yet. Maybe not ever.”
“Hell, I like our friendship the way it is!” He didn’t want that to change and how many people had he seen start hating each other when things went sour between them? Almost all the couples he knew, that’s how many!
Shinji brushed aside Kenya’s hand and stood, careful to keep some space between them. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said carefully, trying his best to make sure he wasn’t going to say or do the wrong thing. “It’s better that you know how you feel about this, better that we both know.”
And now Shinji was feeling the need to just…just go, to get away before Kenya could change his mind and realize that Shinji wasn’t someone he wanted to be around, and in his haste, he could feel himself tripping over his words. “I mean, it’s not like it’s an insult, or even that you want to snap my neck and dump me off a cliff, and I like our friendship, too, and I’d rather not lose you, so, yeah, I think that maybe we should call it a day and just pretend those conversations never happened, what do you think?”
“I ain’t going anywhere, I promise.” Kenya stated vehemently. It stung that his hand had been brushed aside like Shinji was afraid to touch him now, but maybe his friend was right and it was better to forget about their conversations before he broke something important like the brand new friendship he didn’t want to break any more than he’d already broken it.
“And I really didn’t mean it as an insult. I just… don’t know.” He didn’t know if his tenseness came from never having been touched all that often, or if it came from disliking being touched by a guy, or if it was something else. He didn’t know, but he did know that experimenting to find out with someone as important as a friend wasn’t the right thing to do, because if he really couldn’t tolerate it then wouldn’t Shinji be really hurt by any disgust he showed?
Shinji nodded, not sure what else to say at that point. It was rare that the words left him, but when they did, it wasn’t usually a good thing, and he was clearly fighting to stay verbal and not retreat into himself. “I know you didn’t. Look, I’m just going to….” He gestured vaguely. “Ummm…find ice. Or something like that. For the, umm, yeah. The eye. Because it’s umm, swelling, and kinda…sore-ish, so…ummm…maybe painkillers, too?”
He was edging towards the door, just looking for an escape route.
“Shin,” Kenya cried alarmed by the spiral toward incoherency Shinji displayed. Taking a step forward, he reached for his friend hoping to stay his flight long enough to mumble a husky, “I’m sorry.”
“For, uh, punching you and the other… I’m really sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. I earned the eye.” Shinji bit his lip. “Besides, I probably deserved worse, and it could’ve been worse if I hadn’t ducked, so there’s really no sense in worrying about it, and there’s no permanent damage, I’m sure, because who hasn’t had a black eye?”
“And don’t you dare apologize about the other.” Shinji tried to smile; it probably wasn’t his best ever, but it was an attempt. “I wanted you to be honest, remember?”
He had never felt so helpless or out of his depth in his life. Kenya stood there staring at his friend, his heart sinking over the sad excuse for a smile knowing that Shinji was trying to his best to pull off a he-was-okay act, because it was exactly what he would do if the shoe was on the other foot. “Yeah, I remember.” He said with the smallest of grins, which did count for a grin even if it wasn’t too steady when his lips tried to curl upward.
“I just, ugh, never mind. Just be sure to put something on it!” Boy did he suck at this, or what?
Shinji looked at Kenya, then away, not really wanting eye contact. He didn’t even know what he was feeling, so he didn’t want anyone else getting insights before he had them himself. “I’ll try to find something, but, ummm, maybe just some cold, or, hell, I’ll wet a towel, just…it’ll be fine, and…yeah.” His hand closed around the doorknob, so close to away. “Have a good weekend?”
Ugh, God! He felt like he had just kicked an incredibly cute puppy, Kenya thought miserable and sick at heart over hurting his friend. “Uh, yeah. You too.” He answered as Shinji reached for the door handle, voice laden and so low he barely heard it above the thundering in his ears.
Shinji couldn’t even bring himself to respond; he wasn’t even mad at Kenya, but he was so disgusted with himself that all he could manage to do was escape, and now. He yanked open the door, tossing a wave over his shoulder to Kenya, and probably broke a few speed records himself, getting to the stairwell.
The least he could do for his friend was stay away from him for a few days. Then maybe they could both forget this entire episode ever happened.
Where: Dawn Dorm- Room 402
When: 4-23
What: Shinji decided to drop in and see Kenya after their last round of comments. His plan was to kick Kenya soundly, but somehow plans went awry and a punch was thrown instead, before Shinji made a confession that shook Kenya badly.
Warnings: Kenya wasn't too watchful of his language or violence.
Rating: PG-13 for some language and Kenya punching Shinji.
Comments: None
Shinji was grumbling to himself as he stormed down the hallway and to the stairwell. He had no idea just why he was so annoyed, but if he were to be honest with himself, it had been building for some time, fed by both of their refusals to give a straight answer to a question. He had just snapped first…and if Kenya had to be kicked in the balls, so be it.And then he can kick me too, and it’ll be back to normal.
Blinking, he realized that he was in front of Keyna’s door, albeit with no recollection of how he had gotten there. Shinji shrugged, though, and banged his fist against it. “I know you’re in there, Kenya!”
“Would you keep it down, damn it!” Kenya answered the door with a scowling glare, casting his friend that had a fondness for weird conversations an annoyed look. He didn’t know where Zaizen was right then, but if the bastard was anywhere close like the bathroom or the room beside them talking to their neighbors, he definitely didn’t want the noise to carry. The jerk would probably bitch and gripe about him causing a disturbance or being a pest for their neighbors.
“I could, but no.” Shinji slid past Kenya into the room, figuring that the open door was invitation enough. “So close the door so I can kick you and no one will hear you make a fuss.” He crossed his arms across his chest, studying Kenya’s face carefully. “I’m still debating where I should kick you.”
“Kick me and I’m doing more than just kicking you back,” Kenya warned his glare hardening as he shut the door and turned to face the friend that had annoyed him in more ways than one over the last few days. If it wasn’t those odd conversations it was the stupid dreams they inspired, so, yeah, if Shinji kicked him he was going to knock a few of his teeth out.
Fair was fair, after all.
Shinji leveled a glare at Kenya. “You sure you would, or would you just say a few words and back out of it?” He knew he was being less than fair, since that was something he also excelled at. He took a step closer to Kenya, just barely invading his personal space, but not touching. Yet. “Oh?” he asked softly, tilting his head to the side. “Just what else would you do?”
“Try me and see,” Kenya taunted. He stood his ground, despite the little voice whispering in his head telling him to take a step back. He was being deliberately crowded and knew it since he had used the tactic himself more than once.
Shinji took another, deliberate step closer. He wasn’t used to being that close to anyone, but considered it for a good cause in this instance, thinking it was only fair if he managed to get under Kenya’s skin as thoroughly as Kenya had gotten under his own. “I think you’re too chicken to do anything,” he taunted, through Kenya’s insult back at him.
Oh but that was it! Nobody called him a chicken and got away with it! Growling softly, Kenya shifted partially, pulling his arm back as he went. He was going to make sure Shinji wouldn’t be able to call anyone a chicken for a couple of days if not longer, just see if he didn’t! “I’m not a fucking chicken!” he snarled as he let his fist fly straight for the mouth that liked to ramble about a whole lot of nothing on the best of days.
Shinji tried to avoid the punch, but at such a close range he couldn’t do too much about it. It caught him by his eye instead of his jaw, and Shinji found himself thankful for small favors as he stumbled back, remaining upright as he carefully touched his face. “That’s going to leave a mark,” he said softly to himself, “and it’s going to be hard to hide, but that’s alright, because I guess I deserved that.”
He straightened slowly. “Maybe I should just go now, Oshitari-kun. I’ll owe you some other time.”
What the hell?
He didn’t have any reason to feel guilty, so why was he?
Kenya pursed his lips, hand falling to his side to dangle there lest he gave into the temptation to rub his knuckles which was a show of weakness in the form that he would visibly show his hand hurt from the wildly thrown punch. “Yes, you did!” he insisted, chin setting at a stubborn angle the moment Shinji slipped into a polite form of speech with him.
“Now who’s the being the chicken?” he taunted, making a note to hit Shinji at least once more before he left for resorting to calling him by his family name when the guy already knew he didn’t like it when he was addressed so formally.
“I am.” Shinji’s eyes were on the ground. “Are you happy? “I admitted it; I’m a chicken. I’m not exactly brave and forthright and honest with my thoughts, and I know I avoid confrontation and openness whenever possible. So yes, I am a coward.” He took a couple more steps back until he could lean against the wall. “I guess I got you to bash my head in after all, right?” he asked, chuckling dryly.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kenya demanded to know, arms lifting to cross over his chest. He hated feeling like he was lacking an important piece of a puzzle, especially when the puzzle was staring him in the face sounding almost depressed or hunted… No, maybe those weren’t even the right words to describe Shinji right then.
Shinji shook his head. “Nothing. Everything.” He rubbed his temple-the one that wasn’t throbbing still from that punch. “It’s been weird between us, hasn’t it?” he asked. “I don’t know. Something about you makes me want to both run at the mouth and clam up at the same time. And then you invade my dreams, you bastard.” Shinji’s head shot up, realizing what he had said. “Shit….”
“I did not!” Kenya promptly and with great loudness denied the accusation the moment that it clicked in his brain that he was being accused of something. It was a defense mechanism that came from years of listening to his parents’ lecturing him over not only the stuff that he had done but some that he hadn’t, so it was a very dazed and confused blonde that stood there with his mouth dropping open and shock on his face when it finally registered just what crime he’d been convicted of.
“Huh? What?” he asked dumbly, dark eyes staring at his friend while he struggled to make sense of what he heard just seconds prior.
Shinji couldn’t help smiling at the almost dumbstruck expression on Kenya’s face. “You weren’t really listening, were you?” he asked, shaking his head and looking back at the floor. “But yeah, that’s what I said. Dreams. You. In mine.”
He hoped he wasn’t turning as red as he thought. “And I know it’s because of the weirdness, and the being sixteen thing, and I know that’s…not your thing. So I was going to never say it.”
Kenya didn’t know which he was more humiliating; Shinji knowing that he hadn’t really been listening or the admission that had him starring in his blushing friend’s dreams.
Oh, hell. Dreams? Goddamn them! He had spent the last two nights dreaming about the weirdest stuff thanks to the teen standing across from him, and the moment his mind delved into the memories of those dreams his embarrassment increased three-fold.
“You better not have had me decked out in something weird like a maid uniform or doing weird shit like kneeling at your feet saying stuff like: Yes, Shinji-sama. Whatever you say, Shinji-sama; while giving you head.” He tossed out, choosing to joke his way through the moment rather than face it seriously. Truth be told, he didn’t know what his thing was.
Seriously, there had only been one girl that he had crushed on back home and that hadn’t ended too well. Hell, he had felt so damn disillusioned and let down when the sweet innocent girl he thought was the greatest thing ever had turned out to be not so innocent. And it wasn’t even her sexual activities that put him off but the personality she had kept hidden from everyone, including him.
“A…maid’s uniform?” Shinji blinked, having honestly never even considered the option before. “Kenya…don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you’d look good in a skirt like that. My brain is cracking trying to process that.” Seriously. Of all the ways Shinji had ever thought of Kenya, feminizing him had never been on the list. He blushed at the second part of the comment. “And no, I don’t think you ever called me Shinji-sama, either.” As for anything else, he wasn’t saying, though his face was probably giving it away.
“You’ve…never been different than you are in reality in the dreams, Kenya, and in a way, I think that’s scarier than maid’s uniforms, or penguins, or anything else.”
“Well, that last part’s a lie.” Kenya pointed out, his cheeks heating to a brilliant red as he rushed headlong into spilling his best kept secret. “I’m fairly certain I ain’t never done any of the things you dreamt me doing in your dreams in real life, ever!”
He cast a sulky look toward Shinji placing the blame for their newest weird conversation solely in his friend’s court. “So I was definitely different than I am in reality.”
Shinji raised an eyebrow. “Yeah…” he said slowly. “I figured out that much when you said you were straight. By not different, I meant…you were never anyone other than you, in terms of personality. Sure, actions were weird, but that’s dreams for you, but you were still, well, you and…..”
He groaned, shaking his head. “Forget it, just forget it,” he said flatly. “This is they I try not to talk about anything serious, because it never comes out right.” He glanced at Kenya then away again, pushing away from the desk and moving to the door.
“You haven’t figured out anything!” he denied with a harsh snarl, annoyed by the whole conversation, though his greatest annoyance probably came from how easily Shinji took to walking away. If he was smart he would probably keep his mouth shut and let him go, but when did he ever do the smart thing?
“When I said I was different in your dreams I meant because I hadn’t done any of the stuff you probably dreamed me doing with a girl or a guy, you idiot!” Kenya attempted to shrug it off like the announcement he’d just made wasn’t that big of a deal when they both knew guys that admitted to being inexperienced were normally ragged to death about it.
That was fine. If Shinji said one word to tease him, he was going to push his fist down his throat! “There was this girl once that I thought was really cute, but that was all.” He stated as the raven-haired teen brushed passed him on the way to the door.
“So how can you know what my thing is when I don’t even know?”
Shinji paused, not turning to look at Kenya, but not moving any further away, either. “You think I’m an expert?” he asked. “How much do you think I’ve done, with anyone, when I’ve told you that it’s a person that interests me, not anything else?” Shinji clenched a fist, cursing himself silently for almost giving too much away. “It’s not like I’ve, I don’t know, sucked a lot of cocks, or even really kissed anyone to know anything anyway, so I think you may have a bit of an advantage over me.”
“Kenya.” Shinji sighed. “You told me what was and wasn’t your thing. Guys weren’t on the list.” He sounded a little confused.
“I don’t remember giving you a detailed list of anything, since the list is pretty much empty.” Kenya grumbled. He refused to turn around and face his friend. If he was going to be embarrassed at least he could keep Shinji from witnessing the visual symptoms of it by keeping his back to him.
“Unless you want a detailed list of the porn that I watch,” shrugging while still trying to pretend the conversation wasn’t yet another odd one that took place whenever his friend was involved, he went on. “It’s not like I’ve kissed a girl or a guy to know which I like more, either.”
Again, why were they having this conversation? It wasn’t like Shinji really had anything to be upset about, even if he’d been dreaming about him. Not like his friend really liked him like that, right? It was just a bunch of dreams spawned by being sixteen year old horny boys with a vivid imagination that went to work after they had spent so much time online talking about the subject of blow jobs, fucking, and threesomes. Yeah, it was just that and nothing else, right?
Shinji turned and looked at Kenya’s back, biting his lower lip as he thought about how to say what he was thinking. “Porn really has nothing to do with this,” he settled on, “because porn, well, isn’t real life. If life imitated porn we’re be over on your bed trying to drive it through the wall right now.” And no, his face wasn’t on fire…but either way, Shinji was glad that Kenya wasn’t actually looking at him. “Not to mention I’d never be able to get pizza delivered again.”
Slowly, carefully, he reached out to rest a hand on Kenya’s shoulder. “Look, I know it’s probably way too late to be saying this, considering all this crap, but I really don’t want to freak you out, Kenya. I don’t want to do or say or hell, even think anything that will make you uncomfortable.”
“What? Why couldn’t you get pizza delivered again?” Kenya honestly didn’t know how Shinji went from babbling about imitating a porn flick to having food delivered- or rather the inability to have it delivered- in just seconds.
He did know, however, that it felt very odd to have that hand close over his shoulder after hearing he had starred in Shinji’s wet dreams. God, he was going to never be a normal color again. His skin was going to stay a beet red for the rest of his fucking life!
“And you don’t freak me out, just our conversations get really odd sometimes but that isn’t enough to freak me out.” Which was the truth! Shinji didn’t have a thing to do with what his mind decided to conjure up when he went to sleep, so it really wasn’t the guy’s fault. At least, he wasn’t going to say it was or admit to having any sort of dreams about anyone, especially not the teen touching his shoulder or the roommate that would probably laugh his ass off if he knew he had starred in Kenya’s orgy-filled dreams.
“What, you’ve never seen the porn that starts with the guy coming to deliver pizza, then staying to deliver, well, something else?” Shinji frowned, feeling the way Kenya tensed, and he fought a private war in his mind about whether he should pull his hand away or not, then blinked to find that his body had made the choice for him, his other hand reaching for Kenya and trying to rub the stiffness out of his shoulders. “It’s a porn classic from what I’ve heard, even if it is a bit contrived for me, and I know I wouldn’t want to have sex with some random person that turned up at my door, and…I think this is the conversation running away again.”
Shinji took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Sometimes I wonder if I freak you out. And it’s okay, because sometimes you freak me out, too, or I freak myself out, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that it happens, I just…don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“No, I haven’t, and our conversations always run away.” Kenya helpfully pointed out. He tensed under his friend’s hands even further when they started rubbing over his shoulders. If he put those massaging hands together with Shinji’s insistence that he didn’t want to freak him out then he could only assume that the guy was trying to get him to relax and not be so tense around him, right? It wasn’t like he was doing any sort of inappropriate touching.
Hell, having his back treated after getting his tattoo had earned far more intimate touches than this, since hands had been touching his bare skin, so there wasn’t anything to be alarmed about, right?
Right!
Now if only his body would listen to reason, he thought as he shrugged beneath those hands trying once more to make light of the conversation. “I don’t know how the hell I freak you out, but I do know that you don’t freak me out. I already told you that! Sure, the stuff we talk about is embarrassing as hell, sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I’m freaked out.”
Shinji worried his lower lip between his teeth again, and he forced himself to still his hands. “Have I ever told you why I tend to ramble so much? No, I probably haven’t, because I usually don’t tell people anything that’s really important, and yeah, sometimes it just slips out, because I really want to get close to people, but….” He took a deep breath. “I go off on tangents and just…babble, because it’s easier to hide in plain sight. Eventually, I get tuned out, and I can hide.” Even though Shinji hadn’t figured out what he was hiding from, yet. “And I get abuse for it, yeah, but I see things, too. Like, the fact that you’ve been tenser since I touched you than at any other time.”
He let his hands fall away. “I think you are freaked out. You may not know it, but I think you are.” He circled around so he could look at Kenya. “Why?”
Kenya snorted softly; visibly relaxing the minute those hands fell away from his shoulders. “I already figured that out with the way you use words to try to direct conversations toward weird stuff when the topics get close to resembling important shit, Shin.” Ha! Take that, Shinji Ibu! He had finally found a pet name for the guy whose name seemed almost impossible to shorten or change around.
“And if I’m tensing it’s because I’m not used to being touched by people while talking about stuff like this, so sue me.” He sulkily grumbled, peeved expression settling over his features.
“You haven’t figured everything out.” Shinji reached out, briefly tilting Kenya’s chin up, meeting his eyes, then pulling his hand away. He looked around, shrugged, then sat on the edge of Kenya’s bed. “But that’s okay, too, because if you did, I’d be very impressed.” He barely registered the shortened name, or if he did, it was certainly no worse than being called ‘dumpling’ and the like.
“Are you used to being touched at all?” Shinji looked down at his hands. “Because I know I’m not, and that’s part of what’s freaking me out, that I kind of want to touch, now.”
He knew that he wasn’t saying anything right, that everything in his head was coming out wrong, but he wasn’t going to keep sitting on it.
“Didn’t say I had, just that I’d figured out that you ramble to avoid stuff.” He huffed. His mouth was in the process of opening again to say more, but a hand was suddenly curling fingers around his chin and tilting it upward. For the briefest of moments he swore his heart stopped in his chest and his lungs refused to work, because damned if it wasn’t almost like he was about to be kissed which couldn’t be right.
Damn it, his was not the sort of personality to invite random kisses from random guys much less a friend. He was abrasive, crude, and often lewd with the way he talked so there was no way in hel… whoa, back up there!
“Me?” he squeaked out, shocked all the way down to his toes. “You want to touch me?” Na, it wasn’t possible and in a few seconds Shinji would verify that he was thinking stupid things, and then they could both laugh off his idiotic assumption.
Shinji’s eyes narrowed, though he winced a little when the action pulled at the forming bruise. “Did I stutter? Because of all the things I’ve been accused of, stuttering has never been one of them, so I’m pretty sure that I clearly said that I do want to touch you. You feel….” Shinji shrugged. “Warm. Safe. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the music, or that you don’t judge me for my words, but it’s something. And yeah, I’m expecting you to laugh now. Go ahead.”
He looked up at Kenya. “You didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out.
“Well, whoop-de-doo, you don’t stutter. Good for you!” Kenya peevishly mumbled, shooting Shinji a small glare as he sat there on his bed. The very same bed he had lain in having weird dreams about getting head from three separate people, one of which was even now admitting he wanted to touch him.
Kenya had a theory about the cause of those dreams and the people that starred in them. First, Shinji because he started the crazy conversations that spawned the dreams, second Zaizen because he was the one person he spent massive amounts of time around and if he was honest he’d admit his roommate could be called sexy. Not to mention he spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about a hundred ways to annoy the guy, so it was no wonder he was on his mind when he drifted off and somehow had ended up in his dream. And then there was Saeki who had already been very clear about the fact that he enjoyed touching him, but then again Kenya imagined the vampire might enjoy touching a lot of people since he seemed like the type to revel in adoring attention from many directions.
Fuck, he was starting to ramble in his mind as badly as Shinji rambled in reality!
“Okay, I guess I can get that.” He finally spoke, this time his words a lot softer than his harsh snarl of before. “I feel safe and warm? I reckon being a walking heater isn’t that bad of a thing to be.” He laughed; unaware of how he shifted nervous sending bare feet shuffling over the floor as he stood there, before he actually took to pacing in a small line.
“Though, I’m not too sure about that safe part, considering I just punched you. Maybe you ought to rethink that part, Shin.” Running an agitated hand through tousled blonde hair, he shot an aggrieved look over to his friend. “And what question?”
“Well, I’m going to assume that the punching isn’t something you normally do. In fact, since you never punched me when we were playing with our instruments, or when we had lunch the other day, I’m going to just think that the punching is an anger or stress thing, and leave it at that, since I don’t really want to think that you’d want a punching bag around instead of a friend or whatever.” Shinji took a deep breath. “And it’s more of a mental thing than a physical thing. I think.” The only way Shinji could think of to see if Kenya was really warm would be to hug him or something, and yeah. Not something Shinji was willing to try yet.
“The question I asked, Kenya. You’re getting as bad as me. Am I rubbing off on you?” Shinji turned bright red at the implications of that statement, but pressed on anyway. “Are you used to being touched? Hell, do you even want someone touching you?” His eyes followed Kenya’s pacing, but he wasn’t feeling a rush to stop it. Yet.
“Well, I don’t get it, then!” Kenya stopped right where he stood, chest puffing up as he took a deep breath and exhaled it and his rush of words in one go. “I’m rude and obnoxious and sometimes even mean as fuck, so I don’t get it!”
He was doing so good in maintaining his almost annoyed façade until Shinji mentioned rubbing off on him, so that his mouth nearly opened to admit no he wasn’t, but if his dreams counted then Shinji had done an awful lot of rubbing of a sort. So had Zaizen and Saeki, and damn the other teen for mentioning threesomes in that conversation!
“No, okay! No, I’m not used to being touched. I mean get real; there’s not one thing about me that invites people to touch me. I ain’t that kind of person. You know, those kinds of people like Saeki or even Z... shit, even you.” The three were so totally different from him and actually gave off the friendly vibe, unlike him.
“You don’t have to get it, Kenya.” Shinji stood and entered into Kenya’s personal space again, a move that, for Shinji, had taken a lot of courage, considering what had happened last time he had done that. “All you really have to do right now is accept that I get it, and that’s as good as it’s getting right now, since I seem to be suffering a disconnect between my brain and my mouth at the moment.”
Shinji met Kenya’s eyes, trying to hold his gaze, and he couldn’t help the way his voice got soft. “I don’t know…to me, you seem to invite touch, but I’m a freak.” He shrugged one shoulder. “And I don’t know…well, either of the other people you mentioned, so I can’t say that I’m like them, and I don’t think I am, since no one ever seems to want to touch me.”
He paused. “So you’re rude and obnoxious and mean. Name me one person who’s never been one of those things. And I’ve seen you be none of those things, too. I’m not…I mean, I don’t…fuck!” Shinji hung his head. “None of this is sounding right at all!”
“Huh?” Kenya struggled against the urge to take a step back. His personal space was being invaded and not in a random daily type of invasion like a friend stepping close to greet him or to give him a teasing nudge. And while Shinji wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, he still felt on edge. “Thought I already said I get it and sort of accept it. Not like you can help how you feel or the type of urges you have, right? I mean, you really can’t tell yourself to stop wanting to touch someone if you want to touch someone, it doesn’t work that way, right?”
He didn’t get what Shinji meant about none of it sounding right. How was it supposed to sound? Maybe he ought to ask, but Kenya found his tongue tied in knots. He suddenly felt very out of his depth and wasn’t anywhere close to figuring out what he should be saying, but he did know for sure that he had been a master at distracting Shinji from at least one of the questions he had asked, so he deserved a damn cookie for that.
“And I don’t know how you want it to sound, or how it should be sounding.” He halfway complained, annoyed over how very out of his depth he was.
Shinji huffed out an annoyed breath. “I can help it if the person I’m staring at doesn’t like it, right? If you don’t like someone…well, me, in this case, being near you, or….” Slowly, Shinji reached a cautious hand to just barely touch Kenya’s cheek. “Or if you don’t like being touched, being close at all, I for one know I’d rather know that right up front than not.”
Unconsciously, Shinji swayed a little closer to Kenya, his voice lowering. “I don’t know the answer to that, either. I just know then when it’s right, I may even realize it, but, right now, it’s just…ummm….”
While groping for a word, Shinji realized just how…close he was to Kenya. How he could feel Kenya’s breath against his face, and, yes, Kenya was warm, and Shinji was suddenly reminded that at least three of his dreams had started with them in a very similar position to their current one.
“I’m sorry….” Hastily, Shinji pulled away Kenya, stumbling back several steps, the back of his knees hitting the edge of Kenya’s bed, sending him off balance and sprawling over it. “I’m sorry, Kenya.”
“I don’t dislike you being near me,” Kenya said on a rush, taking a few steps forward and offering his hand to the raven-haired teen that seemed to gravitate toward his bed an awful lot. “But,” he took a deep breath as he stood there, feet shifting nervously along the floor while he waited for Shinji to take his hand, so he could help him up. “I don’t know if I like being touched or if I’d like you touching me.”
And here came the really tricky part, because this was one of the first real friends he had made since coming to school that had been up front and honest with him from the start, even though he used so many words to try to hide behind. Kenya knew it was a contradiction, and that a person that used words to hide behind really couldn’t be honest, but Shinji hadn’t made any sort of pretense about his habits or hidden them. “I don’t think I want to find out right now. Or yet. Maybe not ever.”
“Hell, I like our friendship the way it is!” He didn’t want that to change and how many people had he seen start hating each other when things went sour between them? Almost all the couples he knew, that’s how many!
Shinji brushed aside Kenya’s hand and stood, careful to keep some space between them. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said carefully, trying his best to make sure he wasn’t going to say or do the wrong thing. “It’s better that you know how you feel about this, better that we both know.”
And now Shinji was feeling the need to just…just go, to get away before Kenya could change his mind and realize that Shinji wasn’t someone he wanted to be around, and in his haste, he could feel himself tripping over his words. “I mean, it’s not like it’s an insult, or even that you want to snap my neck and dump me off a cliff, and I like our friendship, too, and I’d rather not lose you, so, yeah, I think that maybe we should call it a day and just pretend those conversations never happened, what do you think?”
“I ain’t going anywhere, I promise.” Kenya stated vehemently. It stung that his hand had been brushed aside like Shinji was afraid to touch him now, but maybe his friend was right and it was better to forget about their conversations before he broke something important like the brand new friendship he didn’t want to break any more than he’d already broken it.
“And I really didn’t mean it as an insult. I just… don’t know.” He didn’t know if his tenseness came from never having been touched all that often, or if it came from disliking being touched by a guy, or if it was something else. He didn’t know, but he did know that experimenting to find out with someone as important as a friend wasn’t the right thing to do, because if he really couldn’t tolerate it then wouldn’t Shinji be really hurt by any disgust he showed?
Shinji nodded, not sure what else to say at that point. It was rare that the words left him, but when they did, it wasn’t usually a good thing, and he was clearly fighting to stay verbal and not retreat into himself. “I know you didn’t. Look, I’m just going to….” He gestured vaguely. “Ummm…find ice. Or something like that. For the, umm, yeah. The eye. Because it’s umm, swelling, and kinda…sore-ish, so…ummm…maybe painkillers, too?”
He was edging towards the door, just looking for an escape route.
“Shin,” Kenya cried alarmed by the spiral toward incoherency Shinji displayed. Taking a step forward, he reached for his friend hoping to stay his flight long enough to mumble a husky, “I’m sorry.”
“For, uh, punching you and the other… I’m really sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. I earned the eye.” Shinji bit his lip. “Besides, I probably deserved worse, and it could’ve been worse if I hadn’t ducked, so there’s really no sense in worrying about it, and there’s no permanent damage, I’m sure, because who hasn’t had a black eye?”
“And don’t you dare apologize about the other.” Shinji tried to smile; it probably wasn’t his best ever, but it was an attempt. “I wanted you to be honest, remember?”
He had never felt so helpless or out of his depth in his life. Kenya stood there staring at his friend, his heart sinking over the sad excuse for a smile knowing that Shinji was trying to his best to pull off a he-was-okay act, because it was exactly what he would do if the shoe was on the other foot. “Yeah, I remember.” He said with the smallest of grins, which did count for a grin even if it wasn’t too steady when his lips tried to curl upward.
“I just, ugh, never mind. Just be sure to put something on it!” Boy did he suck at this, or what?
Shinji looked at Kenya, then away, not really wanting eye contact. He didn’t even know what he was feeling, so he didn’t want anyone else getting insights before he had them himself. “I’ll try to find something, but, ummm, maybe just some cold, or, hell, I’ll wet a towel, just…it’ll be fine, and…yeah.” His hand closed around the doorknob, so close to away. “Have a good weekend?”
Ugh, God! He felt like he had just kicked an incredibly cute puppy, Kenya thought miserable and sick at heart over hurting his friend. “Uh, yeah. You too.” He answered as Shinji reached for the door handle, voice laden and so low he barely heard it above the thundering in his ears.
Shinji couldn’t even bring himself to respond; he wasn’t even mad at Kenya, but he was so disgusted with himself that all he could manage to do was escape, and now. He yanked open the door, tossing a wave over his shoulder to Kenya, and probably broke a few speed records himself, getting to the stairwell.
The least he could do for his friend was stay away from him for a few days. Then maybe they could both forget this entire episode ever happened.