Love letter: Chapter 4/7
Love letter: Chapter 4/7
Kitayama/Fujigaya, Nikaido/Senga, Yokoo/Fujigaya (onesided)
With heavy eyelids Kitayama reaches for his noisy, vibrating phone, this time turns the alarm off instead of putting it on snooze. He doesn't deserve to sleep any longer; the guilt is still strong inside of him when he recalls his fantasies. Although, he can't pinpoint exactly what is so horrible about it. Probably that he gave in after so long, and that it's completely inappropriate to think about a group member like that. Even if they made out only a couple nights ago.
As the alarm screen fades out, he notices the mail notification. One new mail. Received late last night. Sent from Fujigaya Taisuke. It's short enough that it doesn't have any ellipsis indicating a continuation. Just one single word.
“Sorry.”
Something twists inside Kitayama, his stomach or his heart or whatever he has in there, and it's really, really unpleasant. With slightly shaky hands he slowly, slowly types an answer.
“Don't be. I heard you. You don't have to say sorry, you know.”
He doesn't expect an answer right away. It doesn't change that he wants one, preferably the very moment he sends his own mail off, but he doesn't expect one. And he doesn't receive one, either. Even so, he checks his phone continuously, after having breakfast, after showering, in the car on the way to work. But it doesn't come, and he knows Fujigaya is awake and not busy right now, because he's on the way to the very same studio to record the very same show as Kitayama is.
Fujigaya is stylish as always, even though he's casual between whatever interview he did before arriving at the studio; both his face and his hair looks impeccable, yet there's a stylist with him immediately, hurrying to get him ready because Kitayama is already in the clothes that have been chosen for him, ready to go onto the set. As he has nothing else to do he pretends to play around with his smartphone, although what he really does is watch Fujigaya watch himself as a hairstylist teases the tips of his already perfectly styled hair.
Then their eyes meet in the mirror, for just a split second but it still makes Kitayama look away so fast that it definitely looks suspicious. He supposes it doesn't have to be that weird; after all, Fujigaya still hasn't responded to the mail he sent in the morning. And he has to keep waiting for that answer. They do talk, but just some small talk with no particular depth, and then filming starts. They're performers, do everything like they normally would while the cameras are rolling, and Kitayama is one hundred percent sure that nothing looks out of the ordinary.
Just when Kitayama is starting to suspect that Fujigaya intends to ignore the whole thing, he suddenly speaks up. They're in the dressing room, finally left alone now that they're done with the show and have no need for stylists, or general staff for that matter. There's a tense silence between them as they change into their own clothes, until Fujigaya breaks it.
“Are you really okay with it?” Kitayama turns around at the question, finds that Fujigaya is still facing the wall in front of him.
“It's fine. I don't mind.” He speaks slowly, keeps his voice steady, but it takes an effort to do so. His heart is racing, like it's trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. Hopefully, Fujigaya won't notice.
But Fujigaya turns to look at him. “You don't seem okay. I'm sorry.”
The words sting, and Kitayama bites into his own lower lip until he's calm enough to speak. Relax, he tells himself. Relax.
“Don't say sorry.”
Fujigaya stiffens. “What?”
“Don't say you're sorry,” he repeats, a little faster. “It makes it sound like it was a mistake.” Kitayama has to turn his eyes away, but he still feels Fujigaya's gaze on him. Like he's trying to read him.
“You... don't think it was a mistake?”
Kitayama's self-control snaps, and the following minute is a vibrant mix of emotions, a chaos of shame, of true feelings no longer denied, of both fear and anticipation as the words tumble out of his mouth.
“No, I don't want it to be a mistake, I want to believe that you kissed me because you wanted to, and I don't mind because I'm in love with you and that's all I ever wanted, more than I ever dared to hope for and even if that's all I'll ever get, I don't want it to have been a mistake. Don't make it a mistake.” He doesn't dare look at all anymore, instead squeezes his eyes together and waits for Fujigaya to say something. But there's nothing, except for the sound of slow steps, just a few of them, and once they stop, it takes a couple of just as slow seconds before there's a touch to his shoulder. He looks up.
Fujigaya is an arm length away, looking at him with eyes that aren't at all disgusted, or particularly confused. He looks concerned, eyes round and wondering, but not in a negative way.
“Then you're not okay with it, are you?” His voice is lower now, soft and gentle, and Kitayama feels the hint of tears burning behind his eyelids.
“I am.” He tries his best to sound strong again. “We're group members. It's not like we could date anyway. Work is more important, isn't it?” His back in the same mindset, that it's not supposed to be. Somehow though, everything feels a little less heavy now that he has told Fujigaya.
“... I guess so.” The warm hand leaves Kitayama's shoulder but the heat lingers, just like the uncertain tone in Fujigaya's voice.
-
They don't talk about it. Kitayama feels Fujigaya's eyes on him occasionally, whenever they're in the same room, but they don't talk about his confession. Knowing that Fujigaya knows makes it a little easier on Kitayama, especially since he also said what he has been thinking all the time; that they can't be, because they shouldn't, and it seems like Fujigaya agrees. Or he just doesn't want to be with Kitayama. Whichever it is, it feels okay. Not good, but okay.
Until the day that Nikaido with a strangely weak voice asks the group to stay after finishing shooting for the monthly idol magazines. The way he looks nervous makes it seem important, and in a heartbeat they all agree, hope that it's not bad news. Kitayama isn't entirely calm himself, there's something worried in his stomach that makes him unable to relax, but at least he doesn't feel as bad as it looks like Senga does. As long as it's not something horrible Nikaido has done, something that would make him leave the group, it's fine. And Nikaido would never do anything like that either, Kitayama tells himself, and he finds himself believing it. It can't be bad.
Yet the worried feeling blossoms out into some kind of strange nervousness inside Kitayama when they finally gather in the dressing room, some of them halfway through changing when Nikaido calls for their attention. He's sitting down, biting into his on lip, but then he makes eye contact with Senga and he seems to calm down a little bit.
“There's something I need to tell you,” he turns to the rest of the members, then corrects himself, “something we need to tell you.” Next Senga is facing them as well, like he's part of what Nikaido is about to admit, and it's like a wave of cold washes right through Kitayama. He feels so upset that at first he doesn't get any words out, he doesn't catch any words that follow, he's just all thoughts and he knows it's because this is wrong. He doesn't even have to hear what they have to say, he knows it, sees it on their nervous blushing faces.
“You're what?” someone asks from his right, probably Miyata; he hears it like he's underwater.
Senga repeats what Kitayama had seen Nikaido say, but not heard. “We're dating.”
“Woah, congrats?” That's Tamamori's voice. “For how long?”
Nikaido looks down at the floor for a second, then up, with an apologetic smile. “Half a year. Didn't want to go out with it until we were sure.”
Kitayama never hears the explanation. He snaps instead.
“Half a year and you didn't let any of us know? You do realize how much of a mistake this is? Do you think you'll stay together forever? Will you be able to keep getting along when you break up?!”
The other members stare at him, because they've never seen him this upset, he has never screamed at someone in the group before.
“Kitayama,” Yokoo warns him, “calm down and be happy for them.”
He spins and glares at Yokoo. “No. They're going to fuck up the group in the end! Everything we worked so fucking hard for, what is finally succeeding after so many years, and we're going to throw that away so that those two can be happy for a shorter period of time? Sorry, no, I can't agree with that, and I'm not going to be fucking happy about it!” Kitayama doesn't even reflect over how rude he's being, not until he turns to glare at Senga and Nikaido again, finds Nikaido speechless and Senga with tear filled eyes. He's surprised to find that he's not affected by it, that he only hears his own pulse beating inside his head and he knows that he's reacting like this because it's everything that he has used as a reason to reject his feelings for years and years, and here they are, going behind his back and doing what he has worked so hard to not even think about. Frankly, he feels betrayed, and he can't stop swearing at everything and everyone, although he knows that all he's doing is insulting his colleagues and friends.
“Kitayama Hiromitsu, shut the fuck up already,” Fujigaya roars at him when he's had enough; Kitayama flinches at his rough voice, falls silent when their eyes meet and he can see what Fujigaya is thinking. “If you weren't so blind you'd realize a romantic relationship won't screw up the group, but I guess you're too up in your impossible-to-solve feelings to figure that out. Get out, come back when you're ready to say sorry to them because you are the only one here fucking things up for us right now.”
The words are harsh, but perhaps they are just what Kitayama needed to hear. He stays quiet, feels like he's still fuming but now he's the one getting glares of death from everyone except Nikaido and Senga; Senga has burst into tears and Nikaido is comforting him. What breaks the silence is Tamamori, who seems to have caught what Fujigaya was saying, and is now looking back and forth between them.
“Gaya, is that... Is Kitayama...?”
Kitayama sends Fujigaya a look that tells him not to tell the others, then leaves without a word. He's not happy about it, not at all, not because he doesn't want them to be happy but because they have what he has denied himself even the possibility of having, for so long. But as soon as he steps into the corridor and heads for somewhere, anywhere, a bathroom or whatever, Fujigaya's words echo in his mind. He might be thinking too much about it, but it had sounded like those feelings might not actually be so impossible to solve. And if they aren't, it means that he could finally have what he has been pushing away for reasons that are no longer valid.
-
“I just finished filming.”
That's all the message says. Kitayama assumes it's some variety show that finished, but he doesn't ask. All he sends Fujigaya back is an “okay”, and he knows it's going to get Fujigaya a little bit irritated, but honestly, he doesn't care. The past days he hasn't cared about much at all.
He hasn't been rude to Nikaido or Senga again. He has had an attitude that probably exudes that he isn't happy about it, but he hasn't been rude and they aren't hiding their relationship. The others seem happy about it, but Kitayama cann feel Fujigaya's glances at him. Not worried, but a little tense. Not so unexpected.
“Can I come over to your place?”
Kitayama reads the message once, twice, before he sets the phone down next to himself on his couch. There can't be any reason for Fujigaya to ask that except to talk about Kitayama's feelings. And he's not sure he wants to do that tonight, or any other night at that. It's not like he's ignoring Fujigaya; he does intend to reply, but he needs to think it through, maybe come up with an excuse, and shut up the part of his mind that wants nothing but to have Fujigaya in his apartment.
“Seriously, reply? Or I'll just decide on my own.”
With a sigh Kitayama picks up his phone again, taps his screen eight times before he sends the message off.
“Go ahead”
A dry message, and he knows that it sounds like he doesn't care what Fujigaya does; it probably pisses him off, or at least Kitayama assumes so, as his phone doesn't buzz again. In its stead the doorbell rings, within just five minutes and there's some kind of anxious fluttering inside Kitayama's chest when he heads for the door.
“Hey,” Fujigaya says as soon as the door opens, steps inside without another word, and he looks so determined that Kitayama has to take a step back and just watch while he gets his boots off. There's dark eyes on him as soon as he steps forward from the door; his heart jumps when a hand brushes his shoulder, pushes him lightly towards the living room just meters away. He sits down on his own couch, next to where his phone has been left, hears the sound of Fujigaya's expensive leather jacket being thrown over the armrest farthest away from himself. In front of him Fujigaya is still standing, unbuttoning the cuffs of his just as stylish shirt, and for a moment Kitayama isn't sure exactly what is going on. Is Fujigaya not there to talk?
But then he sits down next to Kitayama, turns himself towards him, and suddenly he almost looks a little bit nervous.
“I think you need to tell me what has been going on.”
Kitayama feels a shiver go down his back. It's not the pleasant kind of shiver. “I already told you?”
“You told me you... feel something other than friendship for me. And that work is more important. You made it sound like it wasn't a big deal.”
“Yeah? And it isn't? I'm not even wishing for us to be something?” Kitayama can feel his own guard go up, cold and nearly impenetrable, but he doesn't fight it.
Fujigaya's fists his hands, stares straight into Kitayama's eyes. “You are, though. Or you wouldn't have blown up like that.”
It's obvious that he's talking about Nikaido and Senga, he doesn't need to mention them because Kitayama has it just as fresh in his memory. And it sounds like Fujigaya has thought about this enough that there is no chance for Kitayama to deny it anymore.
“For how long?” Fujigaya asks after a moment of silence.
“What?”
“For how long have you felt the way you do?”
Kitayama shakes his head, but hears himself answer, like his tongue works without his own consent. “For way too long. Years, Gaya.”
“After debut?”
“Before.” They fall silent again.
Only within Kitayama, there is nothing that is the slightest comparable to calm and quiet; he can't make up his mind, doesn't know if he has to defend himself, or say nothing at all, or to give in and spill it all, let Fujigaya know. All the signs so far have pointed in one direction only, according to what Kitayama can remember. The love letter. The messages late at night. The kiss. The fact that he didn't regret the kiss. And that he doesn't consider Kitayama feelings impossible. And now that Nikaido and Senga have broken the ice, there is no longer any reason for Kitayama to turn down a relationship, members of the same group or not.
“Would you give me a chance?” he whispers, almost hopes that Fujigaya doesn't hear him because if everything Kitayama has been thinking is wrong, then he will only fall further, hit the ground harder.
“Yeah.” It's just barely more than a breath, but Kitayama hears it louder than the audience of a sold out Tokyo Dome, yet he can't believe it. “If you let me.”
Fujigaya stays at Kitayama's place that night. When he first suggests it, Kitayama starts worrying that he's only out to have sex with him, but he still lets him, because he figures that sex once can't be worse than never. But Fujigaya doesn't touch him, just crawls into bed next to him, turns off the lights and whispers a goodnight. Kitayama's mind is still a mess, a confused tangle of feelings and thoughts, worries and relief, but the slow, deep breaths coming from the opposite side of his 120 centimetre bed soothe him, and the tangle fades along with his own consciousness.
Next chapter
Kitayama/Fujigaya, Nikaido/Senga, Yokoo/Fujigaya (onesided)
With heavy eyelids Kitayama reaches for his noisy, vibrating phone, this time turns the alarm off instead of putting it on snooze. He doesn't deserve to sleep any longer; the guilt is still strong inside of him when he recalls his fantasies. Although, he can't pinpoint exactly what is so horrible about it. Probably that he gave in after so long, and that it's completely inappropriate to think about a group member like that. Even if they made out only a couple nights ago.
As the alarm screen fades out, he notices the mail notification. One new mail. Received late last night. Sent from Fujigaya Taisuke. It's short enough that it doesn't have any ellipsis indicating a continuation. Just one single word.
“Sorry.”
Something twists inside Kitayama, his stomach or his heart or whatever he has in there, and it's really, really unpleasant. With slightly shaky hands he slowly, slowly types an answer.
“Don't be. I heard you. You don't have to say sorry, you know.”
He doesn't expect an answer right away. It doesn't change that he wants one, preferably the very moment he sends his own mail off, but he doesn't expect one. And he doesn't receive one, either. Even so, he checks his phone continuously, after having breakfast, after showering, in the car on the way to work. But it doesn't come, and he knows Fujigaya is awake and not busy right now, because he's on the way to the very same studio to record the very same show as Kitayama is.
Fujigaya is stylish as always, even though he's casual between whatever interview he did before arriving at the studio; both his face and his hair looks impeccable, yet there's a stylist with him immediately, hurrying to get him ready because Kitayama is already in the clothes that have been chosen for him, ready to go onto the set. As he has nothing else to do he pretends to play around with his smartphone, although what he really does is watch Fujigaya watch himself as a hairstylist teases the tips of his already perfectly styled hair.
Then their eyes meet in the mirror, for just a split second but it still makes Kitayama look away so fast that it definitely looks suspicious. He supposes it doesn't have to be that weird; after all, Fujigaya still hasn't responded to the mail he sent in the morning. And he has to keep waiting for that answer. They do talk, but just some small talk with no particular depth, and then filming starts. They're performers, do everything like they normally would while the cameras are rolling, and Kitayama is one hundred percent sure that nothing looks out of the ordinary.
Just when Kitayama is starting to suspect that Fujigaya intends to ignore the whole thing, he suddenly speaks up. They're in the dressing room, finally left alone now that they're done with the show and have no need for stylists, or general staff for that matter. There's a tense silence between them as they change into their own clothes, until Fujigaya breaks it.
“Are you really okay with it?” Kitayama turns around at the question, finds that Fujigaya is still facing the wall in front of him.
“It's fine. I don't mind.” He speaks slowly, keeps his voice steady, but it takes an effort to do so. His heart is racing, like it's trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. Hopefully, Fujigaya won't notice.
But Fujigaya turns to look at him. “You don't seem okay. I'm sorry.”
The words sting, and Kitayama bites into his own lower lip until he's calm enough to speak. Relax, he tells himself. Relax.
“Don't say sorry.”
Fujigaya stiffens. “What?”
“Don't say you're sorry,” he repeats, a little faster. “It makes it sound like it was a mistake.” Kitayama has to turn his eyes away, but he still feels Fujigaya's gaze on him. Like he's trying to read him.
“You... don't think it was a mistake?”
Kitayama's self-control snaps, and the following minute is a vibrant mix of emotions, a chaos of shame, of true feelings no longer denied, of both fear and anticipation as the words tumble out of his mouth.
“No, I don't want it to be a mistake, I want to believe that you kissed me because you wanted to, and I don't mind because I'm in love with you and that's all I ever wanted, more than I ever dared to hope for and even if that's all I'll ever get, I don't want it to have been a mistake. Don't make it a mistake.” He doesn't dare look at all anymore, instead squeezes his eyes together and waits for Fujigaya to say something. But there's nothing, except for the sound of slow steps, just a few of them, and once they stop, it takes a couple of just as slow seconds before there's a touch to his shoulder. He looks up.
Fujigaya is an arm length away, looking at him with eyes that aren't at all disgusted, or particularly confused. He looks concerned, eyes round and wondering, but not in a negative way.
“Then you're not okay with it, are you?” His voice is lower now, soft and gentle, and Kitayama feels the hint of tears burning behind his eyelids.
“I am.” He tries his best to sound strong again. “We're group members. It's not like we could date anyway. Work is more important, isn't it?” His back in the same mindset, that it's not supposed to be. Somehow though, everything feels a little less heavy now that he has told Fujigaya.
“... I guess so.” The warm hand leaves Kitayama's shoulder but the heat lingers, just like the uncertain tone in Fujigaya's voice.
-
They don't talk about it. Kitayama feels Fujigaya's eyes on him occasionally, whenever they're in the same room, but they don't talk about his confession. Knowing that Fujigaya knows makes it a little easier on Kitayama, especially since he also said what he has been thinking all the time; that they can't be, because they shouldn't, and it seems like Fujigaya agrees. Or he just doesn't want to be with Kitayama. Whichever it is, it feels okay. Not good, but okay.
Until the day that Nikaido with a strangely weak voice asks the group to stay after finishing shooting for the monthly idol magazines. The way he looks nervous makes it seem important, and in a heartbeat they all agree, hope that it's not bad news. Kitayama isn't entirely calm himself, there's something worried in his stomach that makes him unable to relax, but at least he doesn't feel as bad as it looks like Senga does. As long as it's not something horrible Nikaido has done, something that would make him leave the group, it's fine. And Nikaido would never do anything like that either, Kitayama tells himself, and he finds himself believing it. It can't be bad.
Yet the worried feeling blossoms out into some kind of strange nervousness inside Kitayama when they finally gather in the dressing room, some of them halfway through changing when Nikaido calls for their attention. He's sitting down, biting into his on lip, but then he makes eye contact with Senga and he seems to calm down a little bit.
“There's something I need to tell you,” he turns to the rest of the members, then corrects himself, “something we need to tell you.” Next Senga is facing them as well, like he's part of what Nikaido is about to admit, and it's like a wave of cold washes right through Kitayama. He feels so upset that at first he doesn't get any words out, he doesn't catch any words that follow, he's just all thoughts and he knows it's because this is wrong. He doesn't even have to hear what they have to say, he knows it, sees it on their nervous blushing faces.
“You're what?” someone asks from his right, probably Miyata; he hears it like he's underwater.
Senga repeats what Kitayama had seen Nikaido say, but not heard. “We're dating.”
“Woah, congrats?” That's Tamamori's voice. “For how long?”
Nikaido looks down at the floor for a second, then up, with an apologetic smile. “Half a year. Didn't want to go out with it until we were sure.”
Kitayama never hears the explanation. He snaps instead.
“Half a year and you didn't let any of us know? You do realize how much of a mistake this is? Do you think you'll stay together forever? Will you be able to keep getting along when you break up?!”
The other members stare at him, because they've never seen him this upset, he has never screamed at someone in the group before.
“Kitayama,” Yokoo warns him, “calm down and be happy for them.”
He spins and glares at Yokoo. “No. They're going to fuck up the group in the end! Everything we worked so fucking hard for, what is finally succeeding after so many years, and we're going to throw that away so that those two can be happy for a shorter period of time? Sorry, no, I can't agree with that, and I'm not going to be fucking happy about it!” Kitayama doesn't even reflect over how rude he's being, not until he turns to glare at Senga and Nikaido again, finds Nikaido speechless and Senga with tear filled eyes. He's surprised to find that he's not affected by it, that he only hears his own pulse beating inside his head and he knows that he's reacting like this because it's everything that he has used as a reason to reject his feelings for years and years, and here they are, going behind his back and doing what he has worked so hard to not even think about. Frankly, he feels betrayed, and he can't stop swearing at everything and everyone, although he knows that all he's doing is insulting his colleagues and friends.
“Kitayama Hiromitsu, shut the fuck up already,” Fujigaya roars at him when he's had enough; Kitayama flinches at his rough voice, falls silent when their eyes meet and he can see what Fujigaya is thinking. “If you weren't so blind you'd realize a romantic relationship won't screw up the group, but I guess you're too up in your impossible-to-solve feelings to figure that out. Get out, come back when you're ready to say sorry to them because you are the only one here fucking things up for us right now.”
The words are harsh, but perhaps they are just what Kitayama needed to hear. He stays quiet, feels like he's still fuming but now he's the one getting glares of death from everyone except Nikaido and Senga; Senga has burst into tears and Nikaido is comforting him. What breaks the silence is Tamamori, who seems to have caught what Fujigaya was saying, and is now looking back and forth between them.
“Gaya, is that... Is Kitayama...?”
Kitayama sends Fujigaya a look that tells him not to tell the others, then leaves without a word. He's not happy about it, not at all, not because he doesn't want them to be happy but because they have what he has denied himself even the possibility of having, for so long. But as soon as he steps into the corridor and heads for somewhere, anywhere, a bathroom or whatever, Fujigaya's words echo in his mind. He might be thinking too much about it, but it had sounded like those feelings might not actually be so impossible to solve. And if they aren't, it means that he could finally have what he has been pushing away for reasons that are no longer valid.
-
“I just finished filming.”
That's all the message says. Kitayama assumes it's some variety show that finished, but he doesn't ask. All he sends Fujigaya back is an “okay”, and he knows it's going to get Fujigaya a little bit irritated, but honestly, he doesn't care. The past days he hasn't cared about much at all.
He hasn't been rude to Nikaido or Senga again. He has had an attitude that probably exudes that he isn't happy about it, but he hasn't been rude and they aren't hiding their relationship. The others seem happy about it, but Kitayama cann feel Fujigaya's glances at him. Not worried, but a little tense. Not so unexpected.
“Can I come over to your place?”
Kitayama reads the message once, twice, before he sets the phone down next to himself on his couch. There can't be any reason for Fujigaya to ask that except to talk about Kitayama's feelings. And he's not sure he wants to do that tonight, or any other night at that. It's not like he's ignoring Fujigaya; he does intend to reply, but he needs to think it through, maybe come up with an excuse, and shut up the part of his mind that wants nothing but to have Fujigaya in his apartment.
“Seriously, reply? Or I'll just decide on my own.”
With a sigh Kitayama picks up his phone again, taps his screen eight times before he sends the message off.
“Go ahead”
A dry message, and he knows that it sounds like he doesn't care what Fujigaya does; it probably pisses him off, or at least Kitayama assumes so, as his phone doesn't buzz again. In its stead the doorbell rings, within just five minutes and there's some kind of anxious fluttering inside Kitayama's chest when he heads for the door.
“Hey,” Fujigaya says as soon as the door opens, steps inside without another word, and he looks so determined that Kitayama has to take a step back and just watch while he gets his boots off. There's dark eyes on him as soon as he steps forward from the door; his heart jumps when a hand brushes his shoulder, pushes him lightly towards the living room just meters away. He sits down on his own couch, next to where his phone has been left, hears the sound of Fujigaya's expensive leather jacket being thrown over the armrest farthest away from himself. In front of him Fujigaya is still standing, unbuttoning the cuffs of his just as stylish shirt, and for a moment Kitayama isn't sure exactly what is going on. Is Fujigaya not there to talk?
But then he sits down next to Kitayama, turns himself towards him, and suddenly he almost looks a little bit nervous.
“I think you need to tell me what has been going on.”
Kitayama feels a shiver go down his back. It's not the pleasant kind of shiver. “I already told you?”
“You told me you... feel something other than friendship for me. And that work is more important. You made it sound like it wasn't a big deal.”
“Yeah? And it isn't? I'm not even wishing for us to be something?” Kitayama can feel his own guard go up, cold and nearly impenetrable, but he doesn't fight it.
Fujigaya's fists his hands, stares straight into Kitayama's eyes. “You are, though. Or you wouldn't have blown up like that.”
It's obvious that he's talking about Nikaido and Senga, he doesn't need to mention them because Kitayama has it just as fresh in his memory. And it sounds like Fujigaya has thought about this enough that there is no chance for Kitayama to deny it anymore.
“For how long?” Fujigaya asks after a moment of silence.
“What?”
“For how long have you felt the way you do?”
Kitayama shakes his head, but hears himself answer, like his tongue works without his own consent. “For way too long. Years, Gaya.”
“After debut?”
“Before.” They fall silent again.
Only within Kitayama, there is nothing that is the slightest comparable to calm and quiet; he can't make up his mind, doesn't know if he has to defend himself, or say nothing at all, or to give in and spill it all, let Fujigaya know. All the signs so far have pointed in one direction only, according to what Kitayama can remember. The love letter. The messages late at night. The kiss. The fact that he didn't regret the kiss. And that he doesn't consider Kitayama feelings impossible. And now that Nikaido and Senga have broken the ice, there is no longer any reason for Kitayama to turn down a relationship, members of the same group or not.
“Would you give me a chance?” he whispers, almost hopes that Fujigaya doesn't hear him because if everything Kitayama has been thinking is wrong, then he will only fall further, hit the ground harder.
“Yeah.” It's just barely more than a breath, but Kitayama hears it louder than the audience of a sold out Tokyo Dome, yet he can't believe it. “If you let me.”
Fujigaya stays at Kitayama's place that night. When he first suggests it, Kitayama starts worrying that he's only out to have sex with him, but he still lets him, because he figures that sex once can't be worse than never. But Fujigaya doesn't touch him, just crawls into bed next to him, turns off the lights and whispers a goodnight. Kitayama's mind is still a mess, a confused tangle of feelings and thoughts, worries and relief, but the slow, deep breaths coming from the opposite side of his 120 centimetre bed soothe him, and the tangle fades along with his own consciousness.
Next chapter