Attraction
Title: Attraction
Pairing/Characters: Sato Shori/Matsumura Hokuto
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4400
Notes: This fic was written for rikikomori in the Wakamono Exchange 2014. :3
Summary: "I dare you to kiss someone in this circle!"
-
They had been celebrating Juri, Hokuto, and Jesse’s combined 56th birthday since the early afternoon and most of the guests had already called it a night, wanting to catch their last trains or having to hold to their curfews. Some, however, were still left.
Jesse whose parents had gladly promised they could have the party in their house; Hokuto and Juri who, as two of the three hosts, were obviously staying over; Fuma who had borrowed his father’s car and wasn’t dependent on trains; Kotaki and Taiga to whom Fuma had promised a ride back to their homes; Yasui who had decided to stay overnight as well; and Shori who lived near enough that he could walk home.
Spin the Bottle was probably the most hilarious and the absolutely worst idea of the night, even after several rounds of the Pocky Game and Never Have I Ever. It wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but rather the people playing it, Shori thought and secretly glanced at the bunch of people sitting on the floor in a circle, an empty plastic bottle in the middle.
Shori himself had somehow managed to avoid the worst dares and questions in every game and he hoped his luck would keep up until the end of the night. He wasn’t very eager to do anything too embarrassing in front of the others.
The bottle had already been spinned for a few times without it stopping in front of Shori, and he sighed in relief every time the answering turn landed on someone else. After answering to Yasui’s question about the nastiest joke he had ever played on someone, Kotaki took the bottle and sent it spinning again.
The bottle stopped in front of Hokuto, and Shori let out a breath he had been holding.
Safe, again.
“Truth or dare?” Kotaki asked.
"Dare," Hokuto chose, and after a moment of thinking Kotaki smiled victoriously.
"I dare you to kiss someone in this circle!"
"What kind of a dare is that?" Juri immediately complained and threw a popcorn towards Kotaki, "It's way too easy and not embarrassing at all! That’s why we agreed to play with these rules instead of the ordinary kiss-the-person-whom-the-bottle-points-at ones!"
"Relax, birthday boy," Taiga sneered, "Not everyone thinks dares should be all about embarrassing things."
"From what perspective public kisses aren’t embarrassing?" Kotaki asked, obviously confused about the topic, and Shori suddenly remembered Kotaki had been in the toilet when they had first started the game and agreed about the rules.
"From his perspective," Taiga said and Hokuto grinned sheepishly. It was a well-known fact, at least among the Tokyo juniors, that Hokuto was not easily intimidated and only found very few things truly embarrassing. Kotaki, however, seemed genuinely surprised. Apparently such pieces of common knowledge didn't automatically reach the Kansai area - even though Kotaki’s group nowadays spent more time in Tokyo than in Osaka.
"Do you want to change the dare?" Hokuto asked with an amused smile but Kotaki simply shook his head, pointing out a dare was a dare. Everyone in the circle settled with that, and Shori had a hard time trying to keep a straight face when he saw Jesse, Juri, Fuma, and Yasui sharing meaningful glances. It was almost as if they were having a wordless bet of which one would get kissed within a few seconds.
Five, Shori counted in his mind with mild amusement. Four, thr--
Soft, warm lips pressed firmly on his, stayed for a moment, and were gone.
Shori blinked a few times, swallowed, and blinked again when he noticed a weird tingling feeling on his lips, as if the ghost of Hokuto’s kiss was still touching them.
Hokuto sat back down on his place next to Shori, somebody said something and everyone laughed before Hokuto spinned the bottle and it landed on Taiga, but Shori hardly noticed the game continuing. He tentatively licked his lower lip and felt something fluttering in his stomach. It was like dull yearning towards something and it felt weird and good and a bit painful at the same time. Shori sighed quietly and forced himself to look down. There were times and places when physical attraction towards another person was acceptable and even desirable, but a friends’ birthday party wasn’t such a place.
Hold your hormones, he told himself firmly, you don’t need to drool after him like that just because he’s nice and good-looking and… hot. And he kissed you, another voice in his mind reminded.
His musings were cut short when he realized Fuma was staring at him from his place on the other side of the circle. Now that he thought about it, he had an uncomfortable feeling that Fuma had been looking like that ever since the kiss. Shori raised his eyebrows in an invisible question. Fuma shook his head and looked away, but Shori had a nasty hunch that they were going to talk about it later.
His premonition became true soon after the end of the game, when he was pouring himself some more soda and Fuma appeared in front of him.
“Come,” Fuma said shortly and grabbed Shori’s wrist, pulling him along so quickly that he barely managed to safely leave his glass and the soda bottle onto the table.
“No, wait,” he tried when he realized where Fuma was taking him, “Don’t… you don’t need to--”
“Hokuto,” Fuma said in a sharp voice once they were in the kitchen where Hokuto was alone, filling the chips bowl.
“Hmm?” Hokuto voiced, hardly looking at them while stuffing the empty chip bag into the already too full garbage can.
“Game or not, I wish you had the decency to ask for permission before stealing people’s firsts just like that!” Fuma hissed, and Shori felt his cheeks flare up. Hokuto might have the nerves of a sloth but Shori definitely didn’t. He mostly felt like a fidgety squirrel instead.
“Fuma, really,” he whined in a pleading voice but he was inevitably late.
“Eh, what?” Hokuto asked, but seemed to immediately catch Fuma’s point since his eyes suddenly turned very wide and very round when his gaze moved from Fuma to Shori who wished he could have miraculously vanished by sheer willpower. “I… oh god, Shori, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know--”
“It’s okay,” Shori pressed, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “Really. I don’t mind.”
Both Fuma and Hokuto seemed doubtful enough that Shori repeated his words before announcing the topic closed and slipping out of the kitchen. For the rest of the night he stuck to Yasui’s side, the oldest man somehow seeming like the safest companion of the group at the moment. He had chosen well; Shori thought he saw a flash of curiosity on the man’s face once or twice but other than that, Yasui didn’t indicate in any way whether he noticed anything weird in Shori’s behavior or not.
-
The next days were busy with work and Shori had to press everything else into the back of his mind. It helped, kind of, until he had to go to school again and meet Hokuto in the classroom.
“Can I have lunch with you today?” Hokuto asked as the first thing in the morning, a strangely unreadable look in his eyes. Shori suppressed the raising urge to flinch and smiled when accepting Hokuto’s request.
He wasn’t so sure at all if he wanted to have lunch with Hokuto, and felt rather guilty for thinking so. It wasn’t Hokuto’s fault that Shori couldn’t control his feelings. On the other hand, Shori thought bitterly, Hokuto was definitely the one at fault. After all it had been him who had kissed Shori in the birthday party, not the other way around.
The memory of the party night made a light shiver run through Shori’s body. Of course the kiss had been chaste and quick, and Hokuto had only done it because they were playing such a game, but nothing could change the fact that Hokuto had chosen to kiss Shori instead of any of the others.
There we go again, he thought and felt like slapping himself when the familiar pressure of excitement and curiosity tickled his stomach.
“Are you listening to me?” Hokuto asked and raised his eyebrows, “It’s not like I’m going to force you if you don’t want to.”
“No!” Shori said quickly and tried to smile even though the expression probably was closer to a grimace, “I mean, sure. Lunch. Why not? See you after the lesson!”
“We’re on the same lesson Shori,” Hokuto said with a small laugh and shook his head. On the same moment the teacher came into the classroom and Hokuto rushed to his own desk that was a few rows ahead and left from Shori’s.
The lesson was too long and too short at the same time, and Shori couldn’t help glancing at Hokuto’s back every now and then.
“The rooftop or the stairs?” Hokuto asked once they stood at the door of the school cafeteria, bento boxes in their hands.
“Stairs,” Shori decided. There were always people sitting at the big stairs of the courtyard during lunchtime, he thought and hoped sincerely that other people’s presence would help him keep his cool.
They found a nice sunny place at the edge of the stairs and sat down with their lunches.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Hokuto started after a few minutes and Shori closed his eyes for a second, praying for strength. He should have known. “About the birthday evening. I’m really sorry about it.”
“I already told you it’s fine,” Shori reminded him and did his best to concentrate on his cold noodles.
“But it’s not,” Hokuto insisted, “What I did was wrong.”
“We all knew we were playing a game where… such things could happen,” Shori said, finding himself unable to say the word ‘kiss’ aloud and feeling like an elementary school kid because of that. “I was in it just like everyone else. And you had nothing against the dare in the first place. What difference does it make that it was me and not, say, Juri?”
“Because it was your first kiss,” Hokuto said in a low voice, “And I knew it. I lied to you at the kitchen. I’m sorry.”
The noodles on Shori’s chopsticks slipped back into the plastic container.
“You knew? Then why...”
“Because I wanted to have it, no matter what,” Hokuto murmured and Shori felt as if a lightning had zapped through his spine. His eyes widened and he suddenly shivered as if he was cold, despite sitting under the burning midday sun in the beginning of July. He felt like he should say something but he had no idea what it could be so he gave up and stayed silent.
“Look at me, Shori,” Hokuto pleaded and Shori swallowed, slowly turning his head and aiming his gaze at somewhere around Hokuto’s knee.
“My eyes are up here,” Hokuto said and waited patiently until Shori managed to look at him properly, and took a deep, slow breath before continuing again. “I like you.”
It felt like Shori’s brain simply stopped working altogether, trying to process and understand Hokuto’s words even though there was nothing unclear. Hokuto had said he liked Shori, and it was obvious what kind of liking he had meant.
“So… what do you want?” Shori asked, wishing he could have stopped his hands from shaking like they did.
“To be honest, at the moment I’m more interested in what you want,” Hokuto admitted and Shori blinked a few times, surprised when he realized how nervous Hokuto actually was, fiddling with his own chopsticks as if they were suddenly very fascinating.
Hokuto liked him that much?
What did Shori even want? He had always liked Hokuto’s cheerful personality and admired the way Hokuto was so easy-going about everything. Sure, he had also felt rather attracted towards the man lately, and even now there was this strangely painful longing inside him. But even then, could he possibly be able to give Hokuto what he probably wanted?
The school bell rang and forced them to pack up their half-finished lunches, and Shori missed his chance to say anything. He glanced at Hokuto apologetically and stood up.
“Wait,” Hokuto said quickly, “I’ll need to run to work as soon as this lesson ends. Can I copy your notes from the last lessons sometime later?”
“Of course you can,” Shori promised and raised his eyebrows. Why was Hokuto even asking? They did that all the time anyway.
“And, uh,” Hokuto continued, smiling tentatively, “You know, I’ll be free at six. At the west entrance of the Suidobashi station. I mean, if you have nothing else to do tonight. You don’t have to answer right away and it’s okay if you don’t want to, but… I was just thinking.”
Shori’s eyes went round and wide when he heard Hokuto’s words. Was Hokuto asking him for a date? Shori didn’t ask for a confirmation, and they needed to run already so they wouldn’t be late from the lesson.
As Hokuto had said, he rushed out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang again, and when looking from the corridor window Shori saw a van that stood by the school gates, waiting until Hokuto stepped in and closing the sliding door after him.
The rest of the school day felt like a weird dream. Shori sat through the last lessons, making notes and looking at the teachers talk, but in the afternoon he didn’t even know what the main topics of the last two lessons had been. He couldn’t help it. Whatever he tried to think about, eventually it all came back to Hokuto.
The feeling of attraction towards other men wasn’t a completely foreign thing to Shori, and he had never been very bothered about it. He had always just looked across a distance, never having to actually face the targets of his admiration. None of them had ever come to confess to him, Shori thought and sighed when he grabbed his phone and sent a message to his mother, telling her he was going to do his homework at the library and hang around with Hokuto after that.
Despite all the hesitating, there was no way he was going to say refuse Hokuto’s invitation.
The trains were more packed than Shori would have expected, and it was already ten past six when he got through the ticket gates at the Suidobashi station. As promised, Hokuto was already there. He leaned against the side of a vending machine by the entrance and looked slightly tired but - as always - good at the same time. Shori stopped in the middle of the hallway, just to watch him for a moment.
Hokuto was still wearing his school uniform. He had loosened his tie a bit and carried his beige cardigan on his bag. His gaze was locked on his iphone so that his front hair covered his eyes almost completely. From Hokuto’s hands Shori’s eyes wandered into his slightly tanned arms that looked strong in a way that made Shori shiver when he thought about them.
There it was again, the same frustrated ache he had felt earlier. It was as if he was already having a crush on Hokuto. Was he? Shori suddenly felt a bit breathless and he brushed his sweaty palms against his thighs.
It’s psychological, he thought firmly, mere reciprocal liking. People tend to like those who like them and Hokuto had been very clear about his interest. It was understandable that Shori was starting to feel the same thing. (Never mind that he had been feeling such things for a while already.)
Just then Hokuto glanced up from his phone and saw Shori in the hall, and the genuine surprise and relief that spread on his face along with the wide smile confirmed that Shori had done the right thing.
“You came after all!” Hokuto said and dropped his phone into his bag.
“I did,” Shori admitted when he couldn’t come up with anything better. There was a short moment of silence before Hokuto scratched his hair and let out an awkward chuckle.
“You know… about what I said today-”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Shori said quickly, not quite ready to discuss that at the moment. “So, where are we going?”
“Have you ever tried roller skating?” Hokuto answered with a question as they walked under a big, colorful road sign of Tokyo Dome City.
“Hasn’t every junior? But it was four years ago and I wasn’t good at it. Why?”
“Good or not, you’ll get to try now,” Hokuto said and lead them to a high building that also advertised for bowling and sports centers.
“Here we are,” Hokuto said with a wide smile when they stepped into a brightly lighted hall with a skate rink and a small shop for roller skate supplies. “What’s your shoe size?”
They chose fitting skates and pads, and stepped down to the preparation area to change their shoes into the skates. After stuffing their bags into small lockers they were ready to move to the actual skate rink.
At the rink Shori took a couple of tentative steps, let go of the board and slipped, falling gracefully on his butt.
“Careful!” Hokuto laughed, “You can’t lean back at all with these skates!”
“I forgot,” Shori murmured and crawled onto his knees.
“Here,” Hokuto said and offered his hand. “I won’t bite,” he continued when Shori hesitated for a second.
Shori took the hand and let himself be pulled onto his feet again. Hokuto’s hand was warm and exactly as strong as it had looked like.
“Are you afraid of me?” Hokuto asked quietly enough that so no-one could possibly hear them.
“I’m not,” Shori said, and he knew it was the truth. He couldn’t help the waves of confusing feelings that flooded through him whenever Hokuto looked at him or touched him, but he really wasn’t afraid at all.
“Good,” Hokuto said and a warm smile spread on his face as he offered another hand to Shori. “Come on, I’ll help you in the beginning.”
“What if someone recognizes us?” Shori asked and glanced around to see if any of the other people in the rink were looking at them at the moment, but Hokuto just shrugged as he started to slowly slide backwards, pulling Shori along.
“Relax. We’re doing nothing wrong, right?”
Shori didn’t hesitate anymore.
The statement about Shori’s nonexistent skills on skates proved true as he quickly found himself very well acquainted with the floor. Hokuto laughed at him every time he helped Shori up, but somehow it didn’t feel that bad after all. If it had been anyone else laughing at him, Shori would probably have felt embarrassed to the bones, but the soft ring of Hokuto’s laughter only made him feel warm all over.
In the beginning he tried to keep in his mind the simple facts of people tending to like those who like them, and starting to like others more as they hang around with them more, but in the end he somehow realized he didn’t care anymore. It didn’t matter if it was mere psychological logic or actual feelings that made his heart beat a bit faster whenever Hokuto smiled at him.
Hokuto smiled at him a lot.
“Do you want to learn some tricks?” Hokuto asked after some time, making Shori roll his eyes.
“I can hardly stand on my skates,” he pointed out and accidentally demonstrated his statement by stumbling a bit. Miraculously, he managed to keep his balance this time.
“It doesn’t matter!” Hokuto insisted, “Doing different things will help you to make your balance better so you won’t fall down so easily. Let’s see… try to lift your other foot up for a moment?”
Slowly, carefully, Shori lifted his left foot an inch apart from the floor.
“Good! It’s not that bad, right?” Hokuto immediately praised him.
“It’s easy now that you’re holding on me,” Shori chuckled, not really feeling like he had achieved anything special, “I couldn’t do this if you weren’t supporting me all the time!”
“Do you want to try on your own? I can--” Hokuto asked, and Shori quickly shook his head.
“Don’t.”
“Okay. I won’t let you go.”
The tone of Hokuto’s voice gave away nothing special but somehow the look in his eyes made Shori think they weren’t talking about skating only. The notion made his chest swell a bit, and he hoped Hokuto wouldn’t notice how his hands were lightly shaking.
“So, how did you like it?” Hokuto asked once their time was up and they were changing back into their shoes outside the rink.
“I still suck at it,” Shori answered truthfully, “but I had fun!”
“Oh, good!” Hokuto sighed in relief and the radiance of his smile was probably contagious since Shori couldn’t help smiling as well. It really had been fun once he had gotten the grasp of it, and to his surprise Shori realized he wouldn’t have minded coming again. During his junior times Shori had always managed to avoid skating, never volunteering to do it. After the debut no-one had ever offered him a pair of skates anymore, and he had been perfectly happy with that. He still didn’t want to do it at work but the thought of coming to the Skate Park again didn’t feel bad at all.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Hokuto said once they were walking towards the train station again.
“Thank you for asking me,” Shori said and bit his lip as his eyes wandered to Hokuto’s hands. His own palms were still tingling a bit from the memory of Hokuto’s tight hold on them, and Shori realized there was only one way to fix that. He glanced around to make sure there weren’t other people close enough to see, and then pushed his own hand into Hokuto’s, afraid of chickening back if he didn’t do it quickly enough.
“Shori?” Hokuto gasped in a quiet voice, “What are you doing?”
“Do you want me to let go?” Shori asked, carefully choosing his words.
“No,” Hokuto immediately answered, a hopeful disbelief spreading on his face. Shori looked up into his eyes and gave him a shy smile.
“Then I won’t let go.”
The bright lights and amount of people at the train station forced them to separate for a moment but as soon as they got into their train Hokuto, in the shelter of their bags, laced their fingers together again.
They didn’t talk much during the rest of the way before they were already standing at the road in front of Shori’s home.
“So,” Hokuto said and took a careful step closer to Shori, “I had a nice evening. I hope you had, too.”
“I did,” Shori said and felt how his heartbeat got slightly faster again, with how close Hokuto was.
“Good,” Hokuto said and Shori swallowed when Hokuto broke their eye contact and dropped his eyes a bit lower, somewhere around Shori’s mouth.
“I really want to kiss you now,” he murmured and raised his hand to brush his fingers from Shori’s cheek to his jaw.
“I want you to,” Shori breathed. He really did; more than anything else at the moment. Hokuto’s fingers froze for a second, but he collected himself quickly and leaned down until his lips were only an inch away from Shori’s.
A slam of a door somewhere near made them jump apart and Shori cursed in a low voice.
“Quick, here!” he hissed and pulled Hokuto into his family’s doorless garage, the both of them squeezing into the narrow space between Shori’s father’s car and the garage wall.
“Why do we need to hide?” Hokuto’s whisper was quiet enough that Shori could only barely hear it.
“It’s the lady from the next door. She’s an awful gossip; we’ll never get rid of her if she notices us. She’ll definitely want to hear how it’s going at school and work, and if my mother has already bought those curtains she mentioned last week, and if my sister is doing fine in her job.”
“Oh,” Hokuto chuckled, “I understand.”
They waited for a while, careful not to make the smallest sound, until they heard a door slam again.
“I guess she just left out the trash,” Shori murmured and grinned. He found it rather silly to hide like some mischievous brats, but also somehow exciting at the same time. Hokuto looked at him. There was a wide smile on his face too, and Shori was suddenly very aware of his closeness.
On the next moment Hokuto leaned in without a word. The first touch was light and tentative, as if Hokuto wanted to make sure he still had Shori’s consent to what he was about to do.
Feeling slightly dizzy, Shori inched closer to Hokuto, and that seemed to be enough to convince him. His other hand moved to Shori’s neck while the other pressed firmly on the small of Shori’s back to pull their bodies together. Hokuto’s lips were gentle and demanding at the same time when moving on Shori’s, and suddenly everything felt much warmer around them.
“Say,” Hokuto murmured in a low voice and leaned his forehead against Shori’s. Shori felt rather proud about how breathless the other man seemed to be. He nodded slowly, encouraging Hokuto to continue.
“Today at school, when I told you about… you know, about how I feel. You never answered my question.”
Shori definitely remembered their very short conversation. He also remembered the way he had completely frozen after Hokuto’s quick confession. He still felt nervous and awkward but Hokuto had been really honest and brave with him the whole day. It was time for Shori to swallow his insecurities and be brave as well, once in a while.
“You never asked me anything,” he pointed out and smiled. “But you might want to.”
Hokuto opened and closed his mouth a few times before laughing softly.
“Would you like to go out with me?” he asked, and Shori was already nodding before Hokuto had finished the question.
“Although I think it’s fair to warn you; I’m shy and complicated, and awkward in all possible ways,” he said with a sheepish grin, “But if you think you can handle me, I’m yours.”
“I’ll try my best,” Hokuto whispered, and there was a soft, delighted smile on his face, “I promise.”
Pairing/Characters: Sato Shori/Matsumura Hokuto
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4400
Notes: This fic was written for rikikomori in the Wakamono Exchange 2014. :3
Summary: "I dare you to kiss someone in this circle!"
-
They had been celebrating Juri, Hokuto, and Jesse’s combined 56th birthday since the early afternoon and most of the guests had already called it a night, wanting to catch their last trains or having to hold to their curfews. Some, however, were still left.
Jesse whose parents had gladly promised they could have the party in their house; Hokuto and Juri who, as two of the three hosts, were obviously staying over; Fuma who had borrowed his father’s car and wasn’t dependent on trains; Kotaki and Taiga to whom Fuma had promised a ride back to their homes; Yasui who had decided to stay overnight as well; and Shori who lived near enough that he could walk home.
Spin the Bottle was probably the most hilarious and the absolutely worst idea of the night, even after several rounds of the Pocky Game and Never Have I Ever. It wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but rather the people playing it, Shori thought and secretly glanced at the bunch of people sitting on the floor in a circle, an empty plastic bottle in the middle.
Shori himself had somehow managed to avoid the worst dares and questions in every game and he hoped his luck would keep up until the end of the night. He wasn’t very eager to do anything too embarrassing in front of the others.
The bottle had already been spinned for a few times without it stopping in front of Shori, and he sighed in relief every time the answering turn landed on someone else. After answering to Yasui’s question about the nastiest joke he had ever played on someone, Kotaki took the bottle and sent it spinning again.
The bottle stopped in front of Hokuto, and Shori let out a breath he had been holding.
Safe, again.
“Truth or dare?” Kotaki asked.
"Dare," Hokuto chose, and after a moment of thinking Kotaki smiled victoriously.
"I dare you to kiss someone in this circle!"
"What kind of a dare is that?" Juri immediately complained and threw a popcorn towards Kotaki, "It's way too easy and not embarrassing at all! That’s why we agreed to play with these rules instead of the ordinary kiss-the-person-whom-the-bottle-points-at ones!"
"Relax, birthday boy," Taiga sneered, "Not everyone thinks dares should be all about embarrassing things."
"From what perspective public kisses aren’t embarrassing?" Kotaki asked, obviously confused about the topic, and Shori suddenly remembered Kotaki had been in the toilet when they had first started the game and agreed about the rules.
"From his perspective," Taiga said and Hokuto grinned sheepishly. It was a well-known fact, at least among the Tokyo juniors, that Hokuto was not easily intimidated and only found very few things truly embarrassing. Kotaki, however, seemed genuinely surprised. Apparently such pieces of common knowledge didn't automatically reach the Kansai area - even though Kotaki’s group nowadays spent more time in Tokyo than in Osaka.
"Do you want to change the dare?" Hokuto asked with an amused smile but Kotaki simply shook his head, pointing out a dare was a dare. Everyone in the circle settled with that, and Shori had a hard time trying to keep a straight face when he saw Jesse, Juri, Fuma, and Yasui sharing meaningful glances. It was almost as if they were having a wordless bet of which one would get kissed within a few seconds.
Five, Shori counted in his mind with mild amusement. Four, thr--
Soft, warm lips pressed firmly on his, stayed for a moment, and were gone.
Shori blinked a few times, swallowed, and blinked again when he noticed a weird tingling feeling on his lips, as if the ghost of Hokuto’s kiss was still touching them.
Hokuto sat back down on his place next to Shori, somebody said something and everyone laughed before Hokuto spinned the bottle and it landed on Taiga, but Shori hardly noticed the game continuing. He tentatively licked his lower lip and felt something fluttering in his stomach. It was like dull yearning towards something and it felt weird and good and a bit painful at the same time. Shori sighed quietly and forced himself to look down. There were times and places when physical attraction towards another person was acceptable and even desirable, but a friends’ birthday party wasn’t such a place.
Hold your hormones, he told himself firmly, you don’t need to drool after him like that just because he’s nice and good-looking and… hot. And he kissed you, another voice in his mind reminded.
His musings were cut short when he realized Fuma was staring at him from his place on the other side of the circle. Now that he thought about it, he had an uncomfortable feeling that Fuma had been looking like that ever since the kiss. Shori raised his eyebrows in an invisible question. Fuma shook his head and looked away, but Shori had a nasty hunch that they were going to talk about it later.
His premonition became true soon after the end of the game, when he was pouring himself some more soda and Fuma appeared in front of him.
“Come,” Fuma said shortly and grabbed Shori’s wrist, pulling him along so quickly that he barely managed to safely leave his glass and the soda bottle onto the table.
“No, wait,” he tried when he realized where Fuma was taking him, “Don’t… you don’t need to--”
“Hokuto,” Fuma said in a sharp voice once they were in the kitchen where Hokuto was alone, filling the chips bowl.
“Hmm?” Hokuto voiced, hardly looking at them while stuffing the empty chip bag into the already too full garbage can.
“Game or not, I wish you had the decency to ask for permission before stealing people’s firsts just like that!” Fuma hissed, and Shori felt his cheeks flare up. Hokuto might have the nerves of a sloth but Shori definitely didn’t. He mostly felt like a fidgety squirrel instead.
“Fuma, really,” he whined in a pleading voice but he was inevitably late.
“Eh, what?” Hokuto asked, but seemed to immediately catch Fuma’s point since his eyes suddenly turned very wide and very round when his gaze moved from Fuma to Shori who wished he could have miraculously vanished by sheer willpower. “I… oh god, Shori, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know--”
“It’s okay,” Shori pressed, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “Really. I don’t mind.”
Both Fuma and Hokuto seemed doubtful enough that Shori repeated his words before announcing the topic closed and slipping out of the kitchen. For the rest of the night he stuck to Yasui’s side, the oldest man somehow seeming like the safest companion of the group at the moment. He had chosen well; Shori thought he saw a flash of curiosity on the man’s face once or twice but other than that, Yasui didn’t indicate in any way whether he noticed anything weird in Shori’s behavior or not.
-
The next days were busy with work and Shori had to press everything else into the back of his mind. It helped, kind of, until he had to go to school again and meet Hokuto in the classroom.
“Can I have lunch with you today?” Hokuto asked as the first thing in the morning, a strangely unreadable look in his eyes. Shori suppressed the raising urge to flinch and smiled when accepting Hokuto’s request.
He wasn’t so sure at all if he wanted to have lunch with Hokuto, and felt rather guilty for thinking so. It wasn’t Hokuto’s fault that Shori couldn’t control his feelings. On the other hand, Shori thought bitterly, Hokuto was definitely the one at fault. After all it had been him who had kissed Shori in the birthday party, not the other way around.
The memory of the party night made a light shiver run through Shori’s body. Of course the kiss had been chaste and quick, and Hokuto had only done it because they were playing such a game, but nothing could change the fact that Hokuto had chosen to kiss Shori instead of any of the others.
There we go again, he thought and felt like slapping himself when the familiar pressure of excitement and curiosity tickled his stomach.
“Are you listening to me?” Hokuto asked and raised his eyebrows, “It’s not like I’m going to force you if you don’t want to.”
“No!” Shori said quickly and tried to smile even though the expression probably was closer to a grimace, “I mean, sure. Lunch. Why not? See you after the lesson!”
“We’re on the same lesson Shori,” Hokuto said with a small laugh and shook his head. On the same moment the teacher came into the classroom and Hokuto rushed to his own desk that was a few rows ahead and left from Shori’s.
The lesson was too long and too short at the same time, and Shori couldn’t help glancing at Hokuto’s back every now and then.
“The rooftop or the stairs?” Hokuto asked once they stood at the door of the school cafeteria, bento boxes in their hands.
“Stairs,” Shori decided. There were always people sitting at the big stairs of the courtyard during lunchtime, he thought and hoped sincerely that other people’s presence would help him keep his cool.
They found a nice sunny place at the edge of the stairs and sat down with their lunches.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Hokuto started after a few minutes and Shori closed his eyes for a second, praying for strength. He should have known. “About the birthday evening. I’m really sorry about it.”
“I already told you it’s fine,” Shori reminded him and did his best to concentrate on his cold noodles.
“But it’s not,” Hokuto insisted, “What I did was wrong.”
“We all knew we were playing a game where… such things could happen,” Shori said, finding himself unable to say the word ‘kiss’ aloud and feeling like an elementary school kid because of that. “I was in it just like everyone else. And you had nothing against the dare in the first place. What difference does it make that it was me and not, say, Juri?”
“Because it was your first kiss,” Hokuto said in a low voice, “And I knew it. I lied to you at the kitchen. I’m sorry.”
The noodles on Shori’s chopsticks slipped back into the plastic container.
“You knew? Then why...”
“Because I wanted to have it, no matter what,” Hokuto murmured and Shori felt as if a lightning had zapped through his spine. His eyes widened and he suddenly shivered as if he was cold, despite sitting under the burning midday sun in the beginning of July. He felt like he should say something but he had no idea what it could be so he gave up and stayed silent.
“Look at me, Shori,” Hokuto pleaded and Shori swallowed, slowly turning his head and aiming his gaze at somewhere around Hokuto’s knee.
“My eyes are up here,” Hokuto said and waited patiently until Shori managed to look at him properly, and took a deep, slow breath before continuing again. “I like you.”
It felt like Shori’s brain simply stopped working altogether, trying to process and understand Hokuto’s words even though there was nothing unclear. Hokuto had said he liked Shori, and it was obvious what kind of liking he had meant.
“So… what do you want?” Shori asked, wishing he could have stopped his hands from shaking like they did.
“To be honest, at the moment I’m more interested in what you want,” Hokuto admitted and Shori blinked a few times, surprised when he realized how nervous Hokuto actually was, fiddling with his own chopsticks as if they were suddenly very fascinating.
Hokuto liked him that much?
What did Shori even want? He had always liked Hokuto’s cheerful personality and admired the way Hokuto was so easy-going about everything. Sure, he had also felt rather attracted towards the man lately, and even now there was this strangely painful longing inside him. But even then, could he possibly be able to give Hokuto what he probably wanted?
The school bell rang and forced them to pack up their half-finished lunches, and Shori missed his chance to say anything. He glanced at Hokuto apologetically and stood up.
“Wait,” Hokuto said quickly, “I’ll need to run to work as soon as this lesson ends. Can I copy your notes from the last lessons sometime later?”
“Of course you can,” Shori promised and raised his eyebrows. Why was Hokuto even asking? They did that all the time anyway.
“And, uh,” Hokuto continued, smiling tentatively, “You know, I’ll be free at six. At the west entrance of the Suidobashi station. I mean, if you have nothing else to do tonight. You don’t have to answer right away and it’s okay if you don’t want to, but… I was just thinking.”
Shori’s eyes went round and wide when he heard Hokuto’s words. Was Hokuto asking him for a date? Shori didn’t ask for a confirmation, and they needed to run already so they wouldn’t be late from the lesson.
As Hokuto had said, he rushed out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang again, and when looking from the corridor window Shori saw a van that stood by the school gates, waiting until Hokuto stepped in and closing the sliding door after him.
The rest of the school day felt like a weird dream. Shori sat through the last lessons, making notes and looking at the teachers talk, but in the afternoon he didn’t even know what the main topics of the last two lessons had been. He couldn’t help it. Whatever he tried to think about, eventually it all came back to Hokuto.
The feeling of attraction towards other men wasn’t a completely foreign thing to Shori, and he had never been very bothered about it. He had always just looked across a distance, never having to actually face the targets of his admiration. None of them had ever come to confess to him, Shori thought and sighed when he grabbed his phone and sent a message to his mother, telling her he was going to do his homework at the library and hang around with Hokuto after that.
Despite all the hesitating, there was no way he was going to say refuse Hokuto’s invitation.
The trains were more packed than Shori would have expected, and it was already ten past six when he got through the ticket gates at the Suidobashi station. As promised, Hokuto was already there. He leaned against the side of a vending machine by the entrance and looked slightly tired but - as always - good at the same time. Shori stopped in the middle of the hallway, just to watch him for a moment.
Hokuto was still wearing his school uniform. He had loosened his tie a bit and carried his beige cardigan on his bag. His gaze was locked on his iphone so that his front hair covered his eyes almost completely. From Hokuto’s hands Shori’s eyes wandered into his slightly tanned arms that looked strong in a way that made Shori shiver when he thought about them.
There it was again, the same frustrated ache he had felt earlier. It was as if he was already having a crush on Hokuto. Was he? Shori suddenly felt a bit breathless and he brushed his sweaty palms against his thighs.
It’s psychological, he thought firmly, mere reciprocal liking. People tend to like those who like them and Hokuto had been very clear about his interest. It was understandable that Shori was starting to feel the same thing. (Never mind that he had been feeling such things for a while already.)
Just then Hokuto glanced up from his phone and saw Shori in the hall, and the genuine surprise and relief that spread on his face along with the wide smile confirmed that Shori had done the right thing.
“You came after all!” Hokuto said and dropped his phone into his bag.
“I did,” Shori admitted when he couldn’t come up with anything better. There was a short moment of silence before Hokuto scratched his hair and let out an awkward chuckle.
“You know… about what I said today-”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Shori said quickly, not quite ready to discuss that at the moment. “So, where are we going?”
“Have you ever tried roller skating?” Hokuto answered with a question as they walked under a big, colorful road sign of Tokyo Dome City.
“Hasn’t every junior? But it was four years ago and I wasn’t good at it. Why?”
“Good or not, you’ll get to try now,” Hokuto said and lead them to a high building that also advertised for bowling and sports centers.
“Here we are,” Hokuto said with a wide smile when they stepped into a brightly lighted hall with a skate rink and a small shop for roller skate supplies. “What’s your shoe size?”
They chose fitting skates and pads, and stepped down to the preparation area to change their shoes into the skates. After stuffing their bags into small lockers they were ready to move to the actual skate rink.
At the rink Shori took a couple of tentative steps, let go of the board and slipped, falling gracefully on his butt.
“Careful!” Hokuto laughed, “You can’t lean back at all with these skates!”
“I forgot,” Shori murmured and crawled onto his knees.
“Here,” Hokuto said and offered his hand. “I won’t bite,” he continued when Shori hesitated for a second.
Shori took the hand and let himself be pulled onto his feet again. Hokuto’s hand was warm and exactly as strong as it had looked like.
“Are you afraid of me?” Hokuto asked quietly enough that so no-one could possibly hear them.
“I’m not,” Shori said, and he knew it was the truth. He couldn’t help the waves of confusing feelings that flooded through him whenever Hokuto looked at him or touched him, but he really wasn’t afraid at all.
“Good,” Hokuto said and a warm smile spread on his face as he offered another hand to Shori. “Come on, I’ll help you in the beginning.”
“What if someone recognizes us?” Shori asked and glanced around to see if any of the other people in the rink were looking at them at the moment, but Hokuto just shrugged as he started to slowly slide backwards, pulling Shori along.
“Relax. We’re doing nothing wrong, right?”
Shori didn’t hesitate anymore.
The statement about Shori’s nonexistent skills on skates proved true as he quickly found himself very well acquainted with the floor. Hokuto laughed at him every time he helped Shori up, but somehow it didn’t feel that bad after all. If it had been anyone else laughing at him, Shori would probably have felt embarrassed to the bones, but the soft ring of Hokuto’s laughter only made him feel warm all over.
In the beginning he tried to keep in his mind the simple facts of people tending to like those who like them, and starting to like others more as they hang around with them more, but in the end he somehow realized he didn’t care anymore. It didn’t matter if it was mere psychological logic or actual feelings that made his heart beat a bit faster whenever Hokuto smiled at him.
Hokuto smiled at him a lot.
“Do you want to learn some tricks?” Hokuto asked after some time, making Shori roll his eyes.
“I can hardly stand on my skates,” he pointed out and accidentally demonstrated his statement by stumbling a bit. Miraculously, he managed to keep his balance this time.
“It doesn’t matter!” Hokuto insisted, “Doing different things will help you to make your balance better so you won’t fall down so easily. Let’s see… try to lift your other foot up for a moment?”
Slowly, carefully, Shori lifted his left foot an inch apart from the floor.
“Good! It’s not that bad, right?” Hokuto immediately praised him.
“It’s easy now that you’re holding on me,” Shori chuckled, not really feeling like he had achieved anything special, “I couldn’t do this if you weren’t supporting me all the time!”
“Do you want to try on your own? I can--” Hokuto asked, and Shori quickly shook his head.
“Don’t.”
“Okay. I won’t let you go.”
The tone of Hokuto’s voice gave away nothing special but somehow the look in his eyes made Shori think they weren’t talking about skating only. The notion made his chest swell a bit, and he hoped Hokuto wouldn’t notice how his hands were lightly shaking.
“So, how did you like it?” Hokuto asked once their time was up and they were changing back into their shoes outside the rink.
“I still suck at it,” Shori answered truthfully, “but I had fun!”
“Oh, good!” Hokuto sighed in relief and the radiance of his smile was probably contagious since Shori couldn’t help smiling as well. It really had been fun once he had gotten the grasp of it, and to his surprise Shori realized he wouldn’t have minded coming again. During his junior times Shori had always managed to avoid skating, never volunteering to do it. After the debut no-one had ever offered him a pair of skates anymore, and he had been perfectly happy with that. He still didn’t want to do it at work but the thought of coming to the Skate Park again didn’t feel bad at all.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Hokuto said once they were walking towards the train station again.
“Thank you for asking me,” Shori said and bit his lip as his eyes wandered to Hokuto’s hands. His own palms were still tingling a bit from the memory of Hokuto’s tight hold on them, and Shori realized there was only one way to fix that. He glanced around to make sure there weren’t other people close enough to see, and then pushed his own hand into Hokuto’s, afraid of chickening back if he didn’t do it quickly enough.
“Shori?” Hokuto gasped in a quiet voice, “What are you doing?”
“Do you want me to let go?” Shori asked, carefully choosing his words.
“No,” Hokuto immediately answered, a hopeful disbelief spreading on his face. Shori looked up into his eyes and gave him a shy smile.
“Then I won’t let go.”
The bright lights and amount of people at the train station forced them to separate for a moment but as soon as they got into their train Hokuto, in the shelter of their bags, laced their fingers together again.
They didn’t talk much during the rest of the way before they were already standing at the road in front of Shori’s home.
“So,” Hokuto said and took a careful step closer to Shori, “I had a nice evening. I hope you had, too.”
“I did,” Shori said and felt how his heartbeat got slightly faster again, with how close Hokuto was.
“Good,” Hokuto said and Shori swallowed when Hokuto broke their eye contact and dropped his eyes a bit lower, somewhere around Shori’s mouth.
“I really want to kiss you now,” he murmured and raised his hand to brush his fingers from Shori’s cheek to his jaw.
“I want you to,” Shori breathed. He really did; more than anything else at the moment. Hokuto’s fingers froze for a second, but he collected himself quickly and leaned down until his lips were only an inch away from Shori’s.
A slam of a door somewhere near made them jump apart and Shori cursed in a low voice.
“Quick, here!” he hissed and pulled Hokuto into his family’s doorless garage, the both of them squeezing into the narrow space between Shori’s father’s car and the garage wall.
“Why do we need to hide?” Hokuto’s whisper was quiet enough that Shori could only barely hear it.
“It’s the lady from the next door. She’s an awful gossip; we’ll never get rid of her if she notices us. She’ll definitely want to hear how it’s going at school and work, and if my mother has already bought those curtains she mentioned last week, and if my sister is doing fine in her job.”
“Oh,” Hokuto chuckled, “I understand.”
They waited for a while, careful not to make the smallest sound, until they heard a door slam again.
“I guess she just left out the trash,” Shori murmured and grinned. He found it rather silly to hide like some mischievous brats, but also somehow exciting at the same time. Hokuto looked at him. There was a wide smile on his face too, and Shori was suddenly very aware of his closeness.
On the next moment Hokuto leaned in without a word. The first touch was light and tentative, as if Hokuto wanted to make sure he still had Shori’s consent to what he was about to do.
Feeling slightly dizzy, Shori inched closer to Hokuto, and that seemed to be enough to convince him. His other hand moved to Shori’s neck while the other pressed firmly on the small of Shori’s back to pull their bodies together. Hokuto’s lips were gentle and demanding at the same time when moving on Shori’s, and suddenly everything felt much warmer around them.
“Say,” Hokuto murmured in a low voice and leaned his forehead against Shori’s. Shori felt rather proud about how breathless the other man seemed to be. He nodded slowly, encouraging Hokuto to continue.
“Today at school, when I told you about… you know, about how I feel. You never answered my question.”
Shori definitely remembered their very short conversation. He also remembered the way he had completely frozen after Hokuto’s quick confession. He still felt nervous and awkward but Hokuto had been really honest and brave with him the whole day. It was time for Shori to swallow his insecurities and be brave as well, once in a while.
“You never asked me anything,” he pointed out and smiled. “But you might want to.”
Hokuto opened and closed his mouth a few times before laughing softly.
“Would you like to go out with me?” he asked, and Shori was already nodding before Hokuto had finished the question.
“Although I think it’s fair to warn you; I’m shy and complicated, and awkward in all possible ways,” he said with a sheepish grin, “But if you think you can handle me, I’m yours.”
“I’ll try my best,” Hokuto whispered, and there was a soft, delighted smile on his face, “I promise.”