ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, JOO *tag* your turn u___u
Title: VIP
Pairing: NaKame
Rating: G
Word Count: 3k
A/N: Inspired from the recent NEWS x KT SCP episode... I am much too easy
Summary: Kame is a thief and Nakamaru doesn’t like to share.
1.
It starts way back when.
Every day after practice, he and Ueda would hit up their favourite okonomiyaki place and gossip until their bellies were stuffed and their lips smeared with cheese. Occasionally they would sit in the corner, away from prying eyes and Nakamaru's heart would thump in his chest as Ueda pulled a magazine with naked breasts out from his backpack.
They would whisper excitedly, leaving oily fingerprints on the pages.
Sometimes Nakamaru would bring his favourite manga novels and flip the pages over to the epic fight scenes to watch Ueda go ooohh. It was easy to become friends with Ueda; he was a good one too, even though he had lost the volume of One Piece Nakamaru had let him borrow.
They had a routine. Among the hundreds of juniors, they had each other.
"You're late--oh, hey. Hey, Kamenashi."
Nakamaru looked up to find a twist in their routine in the shape of scrawny, grinning guest.
Ueda sidled into the restaurant booth next to him with an excited smile. "Dude, you have to see his goods. How the hell did you get those anyway?"
Kamenashi grinned, mischief lit like a flame in his squinty eyes. "Having older brothers has its perks."
He spilled the magazines from his bag and Nakamaru watched the amazed delight take over Ueda's face. Across from him, Kamenashi gave him a small, nervous smile as Ueda yelped beside him, nudging his elbow into Nakamaru's side and whispering that Kamenashi was a godsend.
Ueda was the first to be taken.
2.
Akanishi was next.
Akanishi had his own set of friends and he was a bit of an airhead but Nakamaru never really had to try with him. Nakamaru didn't quite remember ever not being friends with him. They just met and they were. Akanishi would say something stupid and Nakamaru would reach over, easy and natural, and smack him upside the head and laugh unapologetically at his squawk. Akanishi would forgive him too because he had a rule: what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine.
It was a comforting feeling to know that he was Akanishi's. That he belonged in Akanishi's special little circle.
By extension, it made Nakamaru special too. Akanishi would make fun of his nose or his non-existent wig and whine big and loud right in his face, and suddenly Nakamaru would be welcomed everywhere (or anywhere that mattered among the juniors). Oh, he's with Jin.
Being Akanishi's friend was a status of itself and it wasn't long before Kamenashi came along and completely usurped it.
Akanishi's phone buzzed and Nakamaru could tell who it was by the immediate smile that took over half his face.
"Sorry it's--"
"Kamenashi. Lucky guess."
"Yeah. Kazu's done with baseball practice..." He watched Akanishi chew on his lip in guilt, the conflict apparent in his wide eyes.
Nakamaru sighed. "Go on. I'll whoop your ass at soccer another day."
There was no way Nakamaru could compete with AkaAkame, with the way Kamenashi was able to tug and pull at Akanashi's strings like he was on a leash.
3.
Koki he saw coming.
Or leaving, to put it more accurately.
Koki liked cute things, especially if they looked underfed and needed his care. He would take in a stray animal almost every other week and snap a dozen pictures which he would then send to Nakamaru in the whee hours of the night. Nakamaru had eventually learned to turn off his phone before he went to bed.
Koki would listen to Nakamaru's beatbox closely and earnestly and then come up with words to go along with his beat. He was always the first audience to any new voice percussion technique Nakamaru was brave enough to try. They had a rhythm between them, a unique understanding that made their TaNaka skits dry to everyone else.
Everyone else except Kame who laughed so hard that even Nakamaru thought there was something wrong with him. Come on, they weren't that funny. You couldn't tell though, not with the way Kame clapped and laughed in the way Koki had accurately described as ugly-cute.
Kame was cute. He was always Koki's Kame-chan.
It's why Nakamaru wasn't surprised to see Koki walking into their weekly, super secret creative sessions behind the stairwell with his elbow hooked with Kame's.
Kame was scracthing at his neck sheepishly, apologetic for dropping in but clearly excited to get a sneak peek at a new TaNaka skit. Koki didn't look apologetic at all and Nakamaru knew he should have minded but Kame was folded up on the last stair step, arms wrapped around his knees, and the way he looked at Nakamaru with his watchful, awed gaze made Nakamaru oddly thrilled to have an audience of two.
"Does this make me your VIP guest?" Kame had asked after a vigorous round of applause, his eyes trained on Nakamaru.
Koki answered for him with an affirmative and a request for Kame to keep it a secret lest the other juniors get jealous. Kame's eyes still stuck to him though and Nakamaru finally gave in with a shrug that shouldn't have made Kame beam at him the way he did.
4.
Taguchi had always been no-man's land. A chunk of island without a flag to claim it, drifting and catching boats that docked briefly before sailing away.
It was weird for Nakamaru to find out that they had a lot in common and when he did, they were already grown men, fully debuted and leaving the alcoves of the stair well behind along with any bad feelings that made their lives as juniors into a full-fledged soap opera.
"I'm going to kill you!"
Okay, so things hadn't changed so drastically.
Just when Nakamaru thought he had Taguchi cornered, his gun raised and ready to fire as soon as he turned the corner, he heard a shot and felt himself being pelted from behind.
"I win!" Taguchi shouted as Nakamaru groaned and looked over to see him throw his hands in the air in gleeful victory.
"You got lucky," Nakamaru retorted and walked quickly past Taguchi to change his gear so he didn't have to hear or see anymore of the man's insufferable gloating. Kame and Ueda were just as bad but something about a smug Taguchi rankled him in a way no one else did. Nakamaru liked to think of it as an allergy.
It figured that the one person who shared all his hobbies was the same person he could stand only on certain days of the week.
"So~ You know what this means right," Taguchi sing-songed, bright and sparkly after they had washed up and looking every bit the idol even in sweats and a baggy tee. A part of Nakamaru hated him. "You're treating me to a meal."
"Fine. Name the place and we'll go in my car."
"How 'bout you choose?" Taguchi grinned. "But not today. I'm heading over to Kame's."
Nakamaru snapped his head up from his bag so fast that he wondered if Taguchi noticed.
The tilt of Taguchi's head told him that he did.
"Kame's? Why?" Nakamaru cleared his throat and calmly strapped his bag onto his shoulder. "I mean, I just didn't realise you two hung out often… or ever."
"I read manga at his place sometimes while he cooks for me," Taguchi said with a shrug like them spending time together outside of work was a regular occurrence, like Taguchi could stroll in and out of Kame's apartment as easily as he could shoot Nakamaru in the back. Nakamaru didn't know where the sense of betrayal was coming from but it was thick and strong, sitting on his chest like a sack of frowning potatoes.
"It's a pretty sweet deal," Taguchi went on, "Kame's collection is huge."
The sense of déjà vu made Nakamaru’s lips pucker in distaste.
"If this is one of your stupid uso uso kawauso jokes, I swear to god--"
"Eh? Why would I joke about hanging out with Kazuya--Nakamaru? Hey, wait up!"
Nakamaru didn't; rather, he sped up.
Taguchi was a traitor.
5.
He could see them.
He turned his head away and tried not to but he could still see them. In the corner of his eyes, right under his nose.
Kame and his now ex-best friend Massu getting closer and closer.
It was almost surreal because he had been in Massu's shoes an infinite number of times, with Kame slinking past his boundaries before he could stop him, and now Nakamaru wondered if he and Kame had made the same indecent picture. He wondered if everyone had a gasp caught in their throat, waiting for them to kiss the way he was watching and dreading now.
He had had his arm around Massu's shoulders just minutes ago and now the backstabber was leaning his face in too close. There had to be some bro-code about this, about not flirting with said best friend's group member.
A panicky voice in the back of his head told him to call for Tegoshi but it abated when the moment past and Kame and Massu were at a safe distance from each other once again.
The performance now over, Nakamaru gave Massu a pointed cold shoulder and stalked to the dressing room where he knew he would find Kame sipping from his fancy water bottle. Nakamaru closed the door behind him as he entered.
"Okay. You have got to stop doing this."
Kame wiped at his lips. "Eh? But hydrogen-rich water is good for you. You should give it a try."
Nakamaru frowned. "Not that. Massu. He's my friend. You know that."
Kame blinked and waited for him to expand. When Nakamaru refused to, Kame pinched his face at him. "You're being weird. Of course I know he's your friend." A sideways glance and a mutter of, you always talk about your friends; how could I not know.
"You don't pretend to kiss a friend's friend," Nakamaru finally blurted before he realised how dumb it sounded. The following silence only made it sound dumber.
Kame put down his bottle and looked up at him slowly, speaking slowly to match his movements. Nakamaru felt his back straighten reflexively.
"Okay, for one, I wasn't pretending to kiss anyone and two, even if I were, shouldn't Masuda be the one complaining if he had a problem with it?"
Nakamaru recalled how Massu had looked like he had been enjoying it very much actually. Nakamaru frowned harder.
"This isn't about him. It's about..." Nakamaru hunted for a suitable word and came up dry with, "territory."
Kame had his arms crossed now which didn't bode well. "Territory."
"Yes. You've been stealing my friends from day one.” There could have been a more tactful way to say it but that had never been Nakamaru’s forte. It didn’t matter anyway because Nakamaru knew he was in the right and had a dozen eye-witnesses and matching footage to prove it.
Still, he found it very difficult not to walk over and place a placating hand on Kame’s elbow when his lips twisted downwards.
“All this time and you think I’ve been after your friends,” Kame said with a touch of incredulity before he laughed one of those forced, I’d rather curse you into oblivion but that wouldn’t be polite laughs. “You’re a fool, Nakamaru.”
Kame grabbed his water bottle and made to leave.
Nakamaru kept his eyes trained to his shoes and asked before Kame reached the door, “Do you like Massu then? Is that what I’m missing here.”
“Since you chose the word territory… there’s only one person I’ve been trying to stake claim to. I can’t be more obvious than I already am, Yucchi.” There was a deep sigh. “And by the way…”
Nakamaru looked up to see Kame standing in the doorway.
“…they’re my friends too. We can share.”
5.5
We can share.
Nakamaru blinked up at the shadows playing across his bedroom ceiling, willing his thoughts to quiet down enough to let him sleep. He turned to lay on his left side and then ten minutes later, switched to lay on his right. When neither strategies brought him closer to the land of the sleeping, Nakamaru rolled over and pulled out his hand-held game console from the nightstand.
We can share.
The unbidden vision of Kame and Massu steadily coming closer bloomed fresh in his mind and suddenly, Nakamaru found that imagining his opponents in Metal Gear Solid with the likeness of his ex-best friend made the game all the more satisfying.
Kame wanted to share and Massu would be glad to take his place, that evil little poacher. He would let Kame play with his hands, sit snug and cosy along his side. Maybe they would go shopping together and buy matching watches. There would be more pretend-kisses.
Nakamaru mercilessly shot down one opponent after the other, watching his score climb.
Massu didn’t stand a chance. He was out of his depth. Sure he had years of Tegoshi to fall back on but Kame was a separate handful altogether, a ticking time bomb that only Nakamaru knew how to defuse. Massu would cut the red wire when it should have been the white.
Let him try, Nakamaru thought viciously as he completed the level, taking down two opponents at once with a flare.
The realisation struck him when he lay back in bed, the break of dawn just a few hours away.
If it was his friend that he was so desperate to keep, then why had he spent all night envisioning his death?
Nakamaru spent what little was left of the night trying not to read too much into Kame’s words.
6.
“You’re right. I am a fool.”
Nakamaru had expected Kame to be alone in the dressing room and didn’t account for an earlier-than-usual Ueda snort-laughing at him from the corner.
“Are we doing confessions again? Because that shouldn’t count,” Ueda said with a wide grin. “It’s too obvious.”
Kame wore a matching grin that was just a little smaller, like he knew what Nakamaru was getting at. He looked at Nakamaru with a touch of unease, their gazes meeting warmly before Kame turned away.
“I need to talk to Kame.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“…Ueda.” Nakamaru gave him a pressing look before Ueda finally got the message and released a series of coughs as he got up to leave.
He stopped briefly to send them both a reproachful look over his shoulder. “Just so you know, if you two end up fighting, I’m choosing the side that offers me most. I’m a simple man with simple needs and I love yakiniku.”
When he left, he found Kame giving him a bemused look that read, where did we go wrong with him? A moment later and it became apprehensive.
“We’re not going to fight… are we?”
Nakamaru shook his head vigorously, watching Kame’s shoulders settle in relief.
“I think I just. Got it all wrong.”
“The territory thing you mean?” Kame gave him a soft smile and the way Nakamaru’s heart jumped at it confirmed everything he had come to realise the previous night.
“No. That part I got right.” Nakamaru swallowed nervously. “I just needed to swap some things.”
“Oh?” Wisps of hair fell out from Kame’s pony tail as he quirked his head, his eyes fixed and curious and making Nakamaru’s palms sweat.
“I think-I think I mind it more when someone tries to steal you than the other way around.” There. That had to count as a confession. A heavy, hit-by-a-truck one from the way Kame wasn’t making a sound. When the silence stretched, Nakamaru added: “A lot more.”
That seemed to do it. Kame unfolded and moved towards him with an urgency that opposed the caution in his scrunched eyebrows and probing eyes.
“Does that mean,” he paused to lick his lips in a way that Nakamaru suspected was designed to make him go weak in the brain, “does that mean I’m yours?”
Does this make me your VIP?
The fact of Kame even wanting that blew Nakamaru’s mind. Kame who wriggled and squeezed and somehow wormed his way into everyone’s heart before they knew it-and Nakamaru who had not only given him the key but left his wide open for the taking.
It was as if Kame was standing there with his all too intense eyes, wiping his feet on the doormat and asking to be let in after he had already wreaked havoc inside, upturning secrets and treading in feelings and scrawling them on the walls.
It was all backwards. It was all true. Nakamaru didn’t realise how much he wanted Kame until he said it just then, with a finality that made the restless clawing in his chest calm at last.
“You’re mine.”
Kame’s smile wobbled at first before it blinded him and Nakamaru could only think that this was his, this shining, beautiful person. All his.
Kame’s hands slid up his arms slowly, savouring and testing. “I hope you know this territory thing goes both ways.”
Nakamaru could tell him right then that there was no competition, no one who could take an inch of Kame’s place, but he kept it to himself. Kame already had too much power over him. His arms hung over his shoulders now, his breath grazing his cheek, and Nakamaru was spell-bound.
It wasn’t until he tugged Kame closer that he realised he’d already wrapped his arms around Kame’s waist in a tight grip.
Kame’s eyes had gone dark and hooded. “I didn’t know you were the possessive type.”
“Neither did I.”
Their first not-pretend kiss made Nakamaru’s toes curl in his shoes, his eyes fluttering shut as his heart beat a staccato of mine, mine, mine. He broke away feeling light-headed and weak, but with a new power that kept his arms locked around Kame-because he was allowed to, because he could, because he was his.
“No sharing,” he whispered, forehead plastered to Kame’s, his eyes still shut.
“Mmm,” Kame hummed, “all yours” and Nakamaru didn’t have to search for the lips that were exclusively his for the taking.
Pairing: NaKame
Rating: G
Word Count: 3k
A/N: Inspired from the recent NEWS x KT SCP episode... I am much too easy
Summary: Kame is a thief and Nakamaru doesn’t like to share.
1.
It starts way back when.
Every day after practice, he and Ueda would hit up their favourite okonomiyaki place and gossip until their bellies were stuffed and their lips smeared with cheese. Occasionally they would sit in the corner, away from prying eyes and Nakamaru's heart would thump in his chest as Ueda pulled a magazine with naked breasts out from his backpack.
They would whisper excitedly, leaving oily fingerprints on the pages.
Sometimes Nakamaru would bring his favourite manga novels and flip the pages over to the epic fight scenes to watch Ueda go ooohh. It was easy to become friends with Ueda; he was a good one too, even though he had lost the volume of One Piece Nakamaru had let him borrow.
They had a routine. Among the hundreds of juniors, they had each other.
"You're late--oh, hey. Hey, Kamenashi."
Nakamaru looked up to find a twist in their routine in the shape of scrawny, grinning guest.
Ueda sidled into the restaurant booth next to him with an excited smile. "Dude, you have to see his goods. How the hell did you get those anyway?"
Kamenashi grinned, mischief lit like a flame in his squinty eyes. "Having older brothers has its perks."
He spilled the magazines from his bag and Nakamaru watched the amazed delight take over Ueda's face. Across from him, Kamenashi gave him a small, nervous smile as Ueda yelped beside him, nudging his elbow into Nakamaru's side and whispering that Kamenashi was a godsend.
Ueda was the first to be taken.
2.
Akanishi was next.
Akanishi had his own set of friends and he was a bit of an airhead but Nakamaru never really had to try with him. Nakamaru didn't quite remember ever not being friends with him. They just met and they were. Akanishi would say something stupid and Nakamaru would reach over, easy and natural, and smack him upside the head and laugh unapologetically at his squawk. Akanishi would forgive him too because he had a rule: what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine.
It was a comforting feeling to know that he was Akanishi's. That he belonged in Akanishi's special little circle.
By extension, it made Nakamaru special too. Akanishi would make fun of his nose or his non-existent wig and whine big and loud right in his face, and suddenly Nakamaru would be welcomed everywhere (or anywhere that mattered among the juniors). Oh, he's with Jin.
Being Akanishi's friend was a status of itself and it wasn't long before Kamenashi came along and completely usurped it.
Akanishi's phone buzzed and Nakamaru could tell who it was by the immediate smile that took over half his face.
"Sorry it's--"
"Kamenashi. Lucky guess."
"Yeah. Kazu's done with baseball practice..." He watched Akanishi chew on his lip in guilt, the conflict apparent in his wide eyes.
Nakamaru sighed. "Go on. I'll whoop your ass at soccer another day."
There was no way Nakamaru could compete with AkaAkame, with the way Kamenashi was able to tug and pull at Akanashi's strings like he was on a leash.
3.
Koki he saw coming.
Or leaving, to put it more accurately.
Koki liked cute things, especially if they looked underfed and needed his care. He would take in a stray animal almost every other week and snap a dozen pictures which he would then send to Nakamaru in the whee hours of the night. Nakamaru had eventually learned to turn off his phone before he went to bed.
Koki would listen to Nakamaru's beatbox closely and earnestly and then come up with words to go along with his beat. He was always the first audience to any new voice percussion technique Nakamaru was brave enough to try. They had a rhythm between them, a unique understanding that made their TaNaka skits dry to everyone else.
Everyone else except Kame who laughed so hard that even Nakamaru thought there was something wrong with him. Come on, they weren't that funny. You couldn't tell though, not with the way Kame clapped and laughed in the way Koki had accurately described as ugly-cute.
Kame was cute. He was always Koki's Kame-chan.
It's why Nakamaru wasn't surprised to see Koki walking into their weekly, super secret creative sessions behind the stairwell with his elbow hooked with Kame's.
Kame was scracthing at his neck sheepishly, apologetic for dropping in but clearly excited to get a sneak peek at a new TaNaka skit. Koki didn't look apologetic at all and Nakamaru knew he should have minded but Kame was folded up on the last stair step, arms wrapped around his knees, and the way he looked at Nakamaru with his watchful, awed gaze made Nakamaru oddly thrilled to have an audience of two.
"Does this make me your VIP guest?" Kame had asked after a vigorous round of applause, his eyes trained on Nakamaru.
Koki answered for him with an affirmative and a request for Kame to keep it a secret lest the other juniors get jealous. Kame's eyes still stuck to him though and Nakamaru finally gave in with a shrug that shouldn't have made Kame beam at him the way he did.
4.
Taguchi had always been no-man's land. A chunk of island without a flag to claim it, drifting and catching boats that docked briefly before sailing away.
It was weird for Nakamaru to find out that they had a lot in common and when he did, they were already grown men, fully debuted and leaving the alcoves of the stair well behind along with any bad feelings that made their lives as juniors into a full-fledged soap opera.
"I'm going to kill you!"
Okay, so things hadn't changed so drastically.
Just when Nakamaru thought he had Taguchi cornered, his gun raised and ready to fire as soon as he turned the corner, he heard a shot and felt himself being pelted from behind.
"I win!" Taguchi shouted as Nakamaru groaned and looked over to see him throw his hands in the air in gleeful victory.
"You got lucky," Nakamaru retorted and walked quickly past Taguchi to change his gear so he didn't have to hear or see anymore of the man's insufferable gloating. Kame and Ueda were just as bad but something about a smug Taguchi rankled him in a way no one else did. Nakamaru liked to think of it as an allergy.
It figured that the one person who shared all his hobbies was the same person he could stand only on certain days of the week.
"So~ You know what this means right," Taguchi sing-songed, bright and sparkly after they had washed up and looking every bit the idol even in sweats and a baggy tee. A part of Nakamaru hated him. "You're treating me to a meal."
"Fine. Name the place and we'll go in my car."
"How 'bout you choose?" Taguchi grinned. "But not today. I'm heading over to Kame's."
Nakamaru snapped his head up from his bag so fast that he wondered if Taguchi noticed.
The tilt of Taguchi's head told him that he did.
"Kame's? Why?" Nakamaru cleared his throat and calmly strapped his bag onto his shoulder. "I mean, I just didn't realise you two hung out often… or ever."
"I read manga at his place sometimes while he cooks for me," Taguchi said with a shrug like them spending time together outside of work was a regular occurrence, like Taguchi could stroll in and out of Kame's apartment as easily as he could shoot Nakamaru in the back. Nakamaru didn't know where the sense of betrayal was coming from but it was thick and strong, sitting on his chest like a sack of frowning potatoes.
"It's a pretty sweet deal," Taguchi went on, "Kame's collection is huge."
The sense of déjà vu made Nakamaru’s lips pucker in distaste.
"If this is one of your stupid uso uso kawauso jokes, I swear to god--"
"Eh? Why would I joke about hanging out with Kazuya--Nakamaru? Hey, wait up!"
Nakamaru didn't; rather, he sped up.
Taguchi was a traitor.
5.
He could see them.
He turned his head away and tried not to but he could still see them. In the corner of his eyes, right under his nose.
Kame and his now ex-best friend Massu getting closer and closer.
It was almost surreal because he had been in Massu's shoes an infinite number of times, with Kame slinking past his boundaries before he could stop him, and now Nakamaru wondered if he and Kame had made the same indecent picture. He wondered if everyone had a gasp caught in their throat, waiting for them to kiss the way he was watching and dreading now.
He had had his arm around Massu's shoulders just minutes ago and now the backstabber was leaning his face in too close. There had to be some bro-code about this, about not flirting with said best friend's group member.
A panicky voice in the back of his head told him to call for Tegoshi but it abated when the moment past and Kame and Massu were at a safe distance from each other once again.
The performance now over, Nakamaru gave Massu a pointed cold shoulder and stalked to the dressing room where he knew he would find Kame sipping from his fancy water bottle. Nakamaru closed the door behind him as he entered.
"Okay. You have got to stop doing this."
Kame wiped at his lips. "Eh? But hydrogen-rich water is good for you. You should give it a try."
Nakamaru frowned. "Not that. Massu. He's my friend. You know that."
Kame blinked and waited for him to expand. When Nakamaru refused to, Kame pinched his face at him. "You're being weird. Of course I know he's your friend." A sideways glance and a mutter of, you always talk about your friends; how could I not know.
"You don't pretend to kiss a friend's friend," Nakamaru finally blurted before he realised how dumb it sounded. The following silence only made it sound dumber.
Kame put down his bottle and looked up at him slowly, speaking slowly to match his movements. Nakamaru felt his back straighten reflexively.
"Okay, for one, I wasn't pretending to kiss anyone and two, even if I were, shouldn't Masuda be the one complaining if he had a problem with it?"
Nakamaru recalled how Massu had looked like he had been enjoying it very much actually. Nakamaru frowned harder.
"This isn't about him. It's about..." Nakamaru hunted for a suitable word and came up dry with, "territory."
Kame had his arms crossed now which didn't bode well. "Territory."
"Yes. You've been stealing my friends from day one.” There could have been a more tactful way to say it but that had never been Nakamaru’s forte. It didn’t matter anyway because Nakamaru knew he was in the right and had a dozen eye-witnesses and matching footage to prove it.
Still, he found it very difficult not to walk over and place a placating hand on Kame’s elbow when his lips twisted downwards.
“All this time and you think I’ve been after your friends,” Kame said with a touch of incredulity before he laughed one of those forced, I’d rather curse you into oblivion but that wouldn’t be polite laughs. “You’re a fool, Nakamaru.”
Kame grabbed his water bottle and made to leave.
Nakamaru kept his eyes trained to his shoes and asked before Kame reached the door, “Do you like Massu then? Is that what I’m missing here.”
“Since you chose the word territory… there’s only one person I’ve been trying to stake claim to. I can’t be more obvious than I already am, Yucchi.” There was a deep sigh. “And by the way…”
Nakamaru looked up to see Kame standing in the doorway.
“…they’re my friends too. We can share.”
5.5
We can share.
Nakamaru blinked up at the shadows playing across his bedroom ceiling, willing his thoughts to quiet down enough to let him sleep. He turned to lay on his left side and then ten minutes later, switched to lay on his right. When neither strategies brought him closer to the land of the sleeping, Nakamaru rolled over and pulled out his hand-held game console from the nightstand.
We can share.
The unbidden vision of Kame and Massu steadily coming closer bloomed fresh in his mind and suddenly, Nakamaru found that imagining his opponents in Metal Gear Solid with the likeness of his ex-best friend made the game all the more satisfying.
Kame wanted to share and Massu would be glad to take his place, that evil little poacher. He would let Kame play with his hands, sit snug and cosy along his side. Maybe they would go shopping together and buy matching watches. There would be more pretend-kisses.
Nakamaru mercilessly shot down one opponent after the other, watching his score climb.
Massu didn’t stand a chance. He was out of his depth. Sure he had years of Tegoshi to fall back on but Kame was a separate handful altogether, a ticking time bomb that only Nakamaru knew how to defuse. Massu would cut the red wire when it should have been the white.
Let him try, Nakamaru thought viciously as he completed the level, taking down two opponents at once with a flare.
The realisation struck him when he lay back in bed, the break of dawn just a few hours away.
If it was his friend that he was so desperate to keep, then why had he spent all night envisioning his death?
Nakamaru spent what little was left of the night trying not to read too much into Kame’s words.
6.
“You’re right. I am a fool.”
Nakamaru had expected Kame to be alone in the dressing room and didn’t account for an earlier-than-usual Ueda snort-laughing at him from the corner.
“Are we doing confessions again? Because that shouldn’t count,” Ueda said with a wide grin. “It’s too obvious.”
Kame wore a matching grin that was just a little smaller, like he knew what Nakamaru was getting at. He looked at Nakamaru with a touch of unease, their gazes meeting warmly before Kame turned away.
“I need to talk to Kame.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“…Ueda.” Nakamaru gave him a pressing look before Ueda finally got the message and released a series of coughs as he got up to leave.
He stopped briefly to send them both a reproachful look over his shoulder. “Just so you know, if you two end up fighting, I’m choosing the side that offers me most. I’m a simple man with simple needs and I love yakiniku.”
When he left, he found Kame giving him a bemused look that read, where did we go wrong with him? A moment later and it became apprehensive.
“We’re not going to fight… are we?”
Nakamaru shook his head vigorously, watching Kame’s shoulders settle in relief.
“I think I just. Got it all wrong.”
“The territory thing you mean?” Kame gave him a soft smile and the way Nakamaru’s heart jumped at it confirmed everything he had come to realise the previous night.
“No. That part I got right.” Nakamaru swallowed nervously. “I just needed to swap some things.”
“Oh?” Wisps of hair fell out from Kame’s pony tail as he quirked his head, his eyes fixed and curious and making Nakamaru’s palms sweat.
“I think-I think I mind it more when someone tries to steal you than the other way around.” There. That had to count as a confession. A heavy, hit-by-a-truck one from the way Kame wasn’t making a sound. When the silence stretched, Nakamaru added: “A lot more.”
That seemed to do it. Kame unfolded and moved towards him with an urgency that opposed the caution in his scrunched eyebrows and probing eyes.
“Does that mean,” he paused to lick his lips in a way that Nakamaru suspected was designed to make him go weak in the brain, “does that mean I’m yours?”
Does this make me your VIP?
The fact of Kame even wanting that blew Nakamaru’s mind. Kame who wriggled and squeezed and somehow wormed his way into everyone’s heart before they knew it-and Nakamaru who had not only given him the key but left his wide open for the taking.
It was as if Kame was standing there with his all too intense eyes, wiping his feet on the doormat and asking to be let in after he had already wreaked havoc inside, upturning secrets and treading in feelings and scrawling them on the walls.
It was all backwards. It was all true. Nakamaru didn’t realise how much he wanted Kame until he said it just then, with a finality that made the restless clawing in his chest calm at last.
“You’re mine.”
Kame’s smile wobbled at first before it blinded him and Nakamaru could only think that this was his, this shining, beautiful person. All his.
Kame’s hands slid up his arms slowly, savouring and testing. “I hope you know this territory thing goes both ways.”
Nakamaru could tell him right then that there was no competition, no one who could take an inch of Kame’s place, but he kept it to himself. Kame already had too much power over him. His arms hung over his shoulders now, his breath grazing his cheek, and Nakamaru was spell-bound.
It wasn’t until he tugged Kame closer that he realised he’d already wrapped his arms around Kame’s waist in a tight grip.
Kame’s eyes had gone dark and hooded. “I didn’t know you were the possessive type.”
“Neither did I.”
Their first not-pretend kiss made Nakamaru’s toes curl in his shoes, his eyes fluttering shut as his heart beat a staccato of mine, mine, mine. He broke away feeling light-headed and weak, but with a new power that kept his arms locked around Kame-because he was allowed to, because he could, because he was his.
“No sharing,” he whispered, forehead plastered to Kame’s, his eyes still shut.
“Mmm,” Kame hummed, “all yours” and Nakamaru didn’t have to search for the lips that were exclusively his for the taking.