je_united gift fic for thesecretdoor
Lovely fic for thesecretdoor
Title: Let me sleep at dawn (between your legs)
Pairing: Yamada Ryosuke/Nakajima Yuto (main), Yamada Ryosuke/Kyomoto Taiga.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Hurt/comfort. Angst. Drug and alcohol abuse. Complicated relationships. Facials. Not enough smut. Unrealistic approach to addictions. Taiga is a bit of a wise sempai… but he is a kouhai? Darkish fic.
Summary: Yuto is a trap Yamada cannot escape from. Then Yamada is casted for a movie along with Taiga, and things get somewhat unprofessional. Sometimes two wrongs make a right.
Notes: Dearest Recipient-sama, I wanted to give you something pretty as a gift because I’ve read your fics and I love them. But. This happened instead. And I am really praying that you can find anything at all to at least like in this, because I could tick almost NONE of the points in your wish list and then this became a //boring// monster of a darkfic. Please forgive me. *Bows*. Eternal kudos to my last-minute beta *-* You rule the world.
Yamada isn’t too sure how he ended up here.
Oh, he knows the facts. The movie offer, the audition, the void in his stomach while waiting for the results. The okay, go. And then, Taiga.
”Please take care of me.” Taiga’s voice, soft as silk.
Taiga sounds different right now. Lower, sultrier. They are off work but, with Taiga, ‘casual’ is a mortal trap. He is as dangerous with ruffled hair and no makeup as he is in the sharp suits and eyeliner Yamada has seen him in for the last two months of filming.
He takes another sip of his iced green tea.
Taiga’s bedroom is as big as the living room at Yamada’s parent’s house, and he has this huge and comfy couch where both of them are seated now. Taiga’s relaxed pose is a stark contrast to Yamada’s clear and present stiffness.
Because Taiga is such a flirt.
Not just now.
Taiga isn’t exactly his co-star, but working in the same movie was reason enough for a zillion of photo shoots to happen. And Taiga was always just a little closer than he should have been, all angles and incoherent warmth, pressing against him and making Yamada know he was there, alive, blood pulsing just as warm as his.
And that subdued smile, like Taiga wasn’t offering, only he was, and Yamada knew it. The way Taiga seems, even now, to be able to see under Yamada’s skin, the way he seems to know...
“Do you want to kiss me?” There’s a bit of spice in Taiga’s blunt words, but when Yamada scrutinizes his face looking for mockery, he finds none.
He’s left gaping, though. The question is sudden, and it might appear out of the blue, but somehow it isn’t. It’s not as if Yamada hasn’t been thinking about it, recently.
And isn’t that sad? Because Yamada doesn’t have a thing for Taiga, not in particular. Sure, he is tall and slender, and maybe Yamada does like tall and slender boys with legs going on for miles. But the fact is that the only reason why he is considering it is that Taiga is there. And it’s been so long.
“I’m sorry? I don’t think I got you right.” Denial. It’s been Yamada’s best defense since forever, and by now, it’s his default response.
But Taiga just chuckles, and his smile turns from inquiring to slightly predatory in sync with the accelerating rhythm of Yamada’s heart.
“I’m sorry if I read the signs wrong, but you’ve been staring at my lips forever...” Soft, silky words again. Yamada wonders if there’s anything else that’s silken inside Taiga, despite all his exterior sharpness, and coolness, and those cheekbones that could cut you if you weren’t careful enough. “And you don’t need to lie. Not to me.”
Yamada is suddenly conscious of Taiga; his overwhelming power, the way he is absolutely in control. He shivers, but it isn’t from cold. His face is burning.
“Say no, and I’ll stop,” Taiga rasps, against Yamada’s lips.
Yamada doesn’t pull back, his lips silent and pressed tight until the moment Taiga breaches them with his tongue.
~
Sometimes Yamada remembers why he used to hate Yuto.
Oh, just sometimes. He has learnt to deal with it. All of Hey! Say! JUMP! are adults now, and the awful times when minimal things, like room sharing during tours, were an issue no matter how they went are blissfully far behind. At least most of the time. But they get individual rooms now, so there’s that.
It was easier back then. Before the spite and the bickering and the silence. When they were both so young that Yamada still didn’t know how Yuto’s hands felt all over his skin.
But they fucked it up. And although it’s useless to look for someone to point fingers at this far along the game, Yamada still feels it wasn’t his fault. Not all of it.
They are civil now. Some days they can even be friends again.
Not today.
Yuto has a way to get under Yamada’s skin. Slowly. Silently. Blistering just below, waiting to bleed.
By now, Yamada is a master of predicting Yuto’s mood swings. The sudden bursts of undying fascination, the months of cold indifference; everything in-between.
And this. Or any version of it. Yuto out of some forty-something years old cutie’s bed and into Yamada’s apartment. His senses so drowned in chemicals and alcohol that he forgets everything but Yamada’s name.
Pointless, as usual. So pointless.
The way Yuto kisses his neck and grabs at his clothes ignites Yamada’s blood to the point Yamada wants to cry out in frustration. But he only manages to moan, to open himself to Yuto’s onslaught. He can’t resist, he was never able to.
Back then, they were fourteen, and at least he could blame it on his budding hormones. What he remembers of it. Yamada has locked the memories so deep in his mind, they almost never arise like live thoughts at random and inconvenient times anymore.
But his body remembers. Every bit of it. And Yuto’s hands rekindle those sparks. Pure touch memory making Yamada burn like he hasn’t been touched in years, millennia, even if it was just last week he lay splayed in Taiga’s bed, his starvation not sated but at least muffled by Taiga’s skillful mouth.
~
He fights the pull for more than two weeks. After Yuto. After another episode of barely disguised guilt and bitterness. Eighteen days. Some hours. His willpower isn’t what it used to be, but he is so tired...
Taiga seems a bit surprised to see him there, even if Yamada did mail him in advance. Last time, when Yamada was still coherent enough to consent to anything, they had agreed on just once, no strings attached. Taiga’s reply read “No problem,” though, and Yamada clings to those words as they go up the stairs and into Taiga’s bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” Yamada says, barely a whisper, when Taiga is done locking the door.
He’d like to think he is above this; he’d like to think that he isn’t the kind of person who uses other people just for comfort or amusement. But these are extraordinary circumstances, or so Yamada chooses to believe.
Taiga smiles, a playful and pondering light playing around his lips and his eyes.
“Don’t be.”
There’s something almost liquid about Taiga’s movements, something hypnotizing in him as he approaches Yamada and takes his hand to guide him to the bed.
It’s easy. The way Taiga lies down and pulls Yamada down to straddle him. The way he arches against Yamada’s slowly rocking hips. No preamble, no games.
“I’m using you,” Yamada confesses after they haphazardly undress, licking a path down Taiga’s neck. He punctuates his sentence with a scrap of his teeth over Taiga’s pulse point.
It feels too good. To be in control for one time, not blindly following someone else’s erratic lead. To feel the quiver of Taiga's moans against his lips, to taste his words as he says, "I don't care. Use me. Just don't stop."
Because maybe Taiga isn’t whom he wants to be doing this with, but at least they both know it.
It doesn’t have the desperation of his encounters with Yuto. And although Taiga is thorough, he can’t be as painstakingly dedicated as Yuto is when he is drunk and can’t get it up. But Taiga’s fingers are long and elegant, sinful in their own right as they explore every inch of Yamada’s skin. It’s more than enough.
His blood is sizzling in no time; all the pent up emotional frustration acting like fuel over the burning coals of Taiga’s lustful eyes, igniting every thought and turning it to ashes.
“I want to fuck you,” Yamada sighs, his fingers tangled in Taiga’s hair, still black for the movie filming in progress. “Would that be alright?”
They didn’t get that far last time. But now Yamada can think of nothing else. And then Taiga hisses, “Yes.” Adds a throaty, “Please.”
Yamada is only human.
Taiga is molten silk inside. Hot. Smooth. Liquefied fire. So tight. He wraps around Yamada as if he wanted to separate him from the rest of his body. And Yamada pushes through, lost in the warmth and the rhythm. Taiga on his hands and knees, crying out in pleasure, shamelessly. Free.
Time becomes some kind of surrealist construct, a blurry reflection of someone else’s universe. So comforting and empty. The void of his mind could be addicting, Yamada realizes in a spark of clarity, but it doesn’t last too much. It never does.
And then he is coming down. Hard. To his own skin and all of its limitations. Pleasure soaring through all his body, making him shake. He thinks about pulling out, then remembers Taiga had condoms on his nightstand and just goes with it, stilling his hips after a deep thrust, a sole instant of pure essence. All the knots inside him come undone. And it tastes a little bit like freedom.
“So...” Taiga begins, sometime later, when they are done catching their breaths and Yamada still hasn’t started dressing himself in a mix of guilt and panic like he did last time. “Wanna talk about it?”
Taiga is lying on his stomach, totally relaxed as he just lazily reaches for a bottle of water and pours some of it into a glass, hands that to Yamada, and then proceeds to gulp the rest down directly from the bottle.
Yamada contemplates this weird reality he suddenly materialized in, where he is naked, still sweaty, with a glass of water in his hand. And he just had sex. With Taiga. Is there really anything left to lose?
“Love is not supposed to hurt, you know?” Taiga says, in a low voice, when Yamada is done talking.
They switched to wine at some point, but Taiga didn’t bother to put clothes back on. Yamada is in his boxers and an open shirt as he ponders, watching the swirling wine in his glass.
“Love, uh?” Is the only sound that he can get past his lips.
It’s funny, but he does feel lighter now that he talked about Yuto with somebody, now that Taiga knows the whole story, at least from his point of view.
“Not love, then. For now?” Taiga takes the last sip of his wineglass and looks at Yamada. His face can be a perfect mask of neutrality, but his eyes spark with too much wisdom for being a year younger than Yamada. Too knowingly. “Anyway, it’s not supposed to be painful. Unless that is what both of you like, of course.”
“You shouldn’t know that much about it, you know?” And maybe Yamada is just trying to change the subject, but he is also very curious. Taiga might not be in the spotlight all the time, but he isn’t just a random Junior either. And being gay in an industry like theirs is difficult enough when you are just another face in the crowd. “How do you manage to get into relationships without being found out?”
There are rumors about every one of them, inside the Agency as much as outside. And there are rumors about Taiga. Of course there are. Fujigaya-san. Tanaka Koki’s brother. Shirota Yuu. Other names that Yamada is unable to recall right now. He never took heed of them before, but now, he wonders.
“I don’t do ‘relationships’ anymore, but when I did… Same way as you, I suppose.” Taiga side-eyes him, and Yamada feels that this isn’t a safe subject. But Yamada never intended to go deeper into it in the first place.
“I haven’t…” Yamada blushes as he speaks. “I mean… there’s this thing with Nakajima-kun, but other than that I haven’t...”
“Never?” Taiga sounds almost scandalized.
“I have to be careful. You know that.”
Taiga seems to consider it, to contrast it with his experience, and to accept it, finally. “So… no one?” he asks anyways, to Yamada’s dismay.
No one meaningful, Yamada thinks, as he shakes his head no.
There were some one-night stands. Just a couple of them, so far between Yamada got to forget everything about them before the next happened. Once there was a girl, when he was younger and didn’t want to be gay. They didn’t get to date number two; his mind couldn’t stand to lie so much to her, and his body didn’t even try to.
Yamada chuckles. “This is too depressing.”
“I can try to cheer you up,” Taiga states, licking his lips. “If you want to.”
Yamada blinks, the shiver down his spine reaching home and spreading sudden heat over his limbs. Taiga smiles as he takes the glass, still half-full of wine, from Yamada’s hands.
The fact that Taiga can have him hard and ready to burst in just seconds is mesmerizing. Yamada closes his eyes, concentrates on feeling. He hears Taiga’s words like some faraway echo.
“You can pretend I’m him. I don’t mind.” Taiga whispers against Yamada’s belly, puffs of air forcing Yamada’s wet skin into goose bumps while Taiga kisses his way down, relentlessly down.
But Yuto wouldn’t be like this. He’d be rougher, harsher. Yuto would break his body so sweetly. Inch by inch. He would tease, and drag it out, and wait. And wait. And wait... Until Yamada begged for his own ultimate destruction, begged Yuto to tear apart his heart and his soul along with his body. Over and over again.
Taiga is quick and enthusiast as he closes his lips around Yamada’s hypersensitive flesh, swallows around him, and hums his approval when Yamada combs his hair with shaking fingers.
“Kyomo-chan…” A whine. A warning.
But Taiga doesn’t pull back, not until the last moment. Yamada catches a glimpse of Taiga’s mischievous expression through his half-closed eyelids, but then the world vanishes and reality is swallowed by pleasure.
He opens his eyes just a heartbeat later, while Taiga is still gently stroking him through the aftershocks. Yamada can’t settle into just one feeling when he sees the streams of white running down Taiga’s right cheek.
He stares, trying to sort out his emotions at Taiga’s features being a little blurred by his seed, but not enough. Not enough to make them into someone else’s face. And that’s too sick, even for him, even right now.
But then Taiga smirks, and Yamada sees only him again. Taiga darts his tongue to the corner of his lips and a bit upwards in a playful gesture to lick a bit of the stuff off his cheek.
“You taste good,” he announces, breaking the tension and Yamada’s embarrassment into a thousand tiny pieces.
Yamada chortles and then reaches for the box of tissue that’s conveniently placed on Taiga’s nightstand.
Taiga is still sleeping, on the couch of his room, when Yamada wakes up on Taiga’s bed. He doesn’t even stir while Yamada is getting dressed.
Yamada waits for some minutes, but there’s only silence and the barely there whisper of Taiga’s breathing.
”Had to go”, Yamada types in his phone. “Thanks a lot. For everything.”
He sends the mail and waits to see if its notice sound wakes up Taiga, but nothing happens.
The bedroom door is unlocked when he opens it to leave.
~
Love is not supposed to hurt.
For some reason, that is what is stuck in Yamada’s head after his whole affair with Taiga.
They don’t meet again, not for sex at least.
The movie wraps up and they even go for drinks when they flee the after-party. But that’s it. Drinks. Laughter. A weird kind of friendship. Enough for both of them.
The invitation is still there, present in Taiga’s openness and his alluring eyes. Yamada knows this. But he also understands the place Taiga is in right now; all that he is capable of offering and, more important, what he isn’t willing to give.
Yamada doesn’t want that. Not from Taiga and not from anyone else.
Maybe Yamada is set on impossible things, but what he really wants is to love without pain. Because Taiga is right, love is not supposed to hurt.
~
It takes longer than Yamada thought it would.
Maybe Yuto is taking to heart their managers ‘suggestion’ of restraint when partying, their version of the Dry Law. Maybe he’s just found another distraction. There’s always work. Plans. Yuto always has an excuse.
But then, there’s winter. As much as Yuto isn’t a man of habits, he does have some patterns. Summer is for friends. Excesses. Girls. When temperature starts to drop, Yamada knows he will have Yuto on his doorstep soon.
Yuto arrives with the first rain of November. He mails Yamada five minutes before he’s knocking on Yamada’s apartment door. Yuto hates the cold.
He tastes like nicotine and vodka, and Yamada kisses him back for a long time before pulling away.
“No,” Yamada hears himself say, and cringes a little. It’s what he wants, but that doesn’t make it easier.
The confused frown on Yuto’s forehead is at least a bit satisfactory. Yamada takes a very, very deep breath.
“We need to talk, Yuto.” Yamada’s voice catches, and he clears his throat, tries to make the sounds get past the gravitational void that has settled in his stomach. “But I need you to remember it, so we will wait.”
Yuto doesn’t look very happy about it. Especially when he gets glass after glass of water, and then a cup of coffee to drink. Yamada knows he is testing his limits, but he needs Yuto as sober as he can get him. It’s his best coffee, though. It has to count for something.
Yuto drinks in silence, eyeing him suspiciously from time to time.
He isn’t high, so he wasn’t with those friends tonight. Maybe Suda, again. He is the type to hand-roll tobacco and indulge in liquors that are more expensive. Yamada tries to focus on Suda’s uncompromising no-drugs policy and be glad that Yuto chose to hang up with him today. He swallows the bubbly rise of jealousy down his throat.
Yamada is considering making a second cup of coffee for Yuto when he gets the look. The Warning. Yuto is about to snap. There’s just a tiny reservoir of patience for Yamada stored in Yuto’s system, more than during their adolescence, but certainly scarce. Yamada often wonders if the “I used to hate you,” slogan is really as far behind for both of them as they like to believe.
“Yama-chan…” And there it is. The reason he keeps putting up with all of Yuto’s crap. The tenderness beneath the landslide of things unsaid. “What is it?”
“I can’t do this anymore.” Saying it makes so real, it physically hurts. “I don’t understand what you want from me, but I can’t keep on giving it to you.”
“Why?” Yuto all but grumbles. There’s a shadow of something that could be pain as well as confusion darkening his furrowed brow.
“Because it hurts,” Yamada sighs. His voice sounds so matter-of-fact, because, really, it is that simple. “And it’s not supposed to.”
Yuto stares at the floor for what feels like centuries. Yamada’s eyes are locked on his hunched back. He didn’t expect this. Screaming, yes. Dismissal, most certainly. But, defeat? Has he ever seen Yuto like this before?
“I’m sorry.” Yuto’s voice cracks, but Yamada knows he is crying way before that. “I never meant to harm you. I just... I never knew how to deal with you.”
And Yamada gets it. Really. He hurt Yuto first. Unknowingly, but still. He took the limelight away from him, and in doing so, he hurt his pride like no one had done before. That Yamada had no saying in the matter was trivial. At least from Yuto’s point of view.
“I never even hated you,” Yamada realizes at the same time as he speaks. “I just reacted... In a lousy way.”
It feels so unsubstantial. Like it’s Monday night and they’re in a nine o’clock drama. But there’s no background music and the way Yamada’s heart aches is too real.
“I know,” Yuto says. Quiet. Fragile. “I did hate you, though.” Punctuated by a self-deprecating chuckle. “I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I couldn’t help it.” And at last, Yuto can look at him. “I couldn’t let you go, either. Still can’t.”
“Do you even know what you want from me?”
Yuto closes his eyes. Yamada can see them moving restlessly under his eyelids. He’s thinking so hard Yamada can almost see his thoughts as vibrations, coloring the air.
“Right now you are my only connection with reality,” Yuto articulates. There’s still a hint of alcohol in his words, but he is sober enough. Yamada is sure of it. “You’re the only one that can save me.”
Yamada scoffs. He lets out a strangled “Eh?” that gets Yuto’s attention, but he doesn’t utter another word for a whole minute.
He’s floored.
And, unexpectedly, furious.
“I won’t save you,” Yamada almost growls. “I’m not here to save anybody, least of all you!”
Yuto blinks, tries to speak, but Yamada is not done. Not by far.
“I won’t do your job for you, do you understand?” Yamada’s voice keeps rising. Fuck the neighbors. Fuck the whole damn world. “You have to save yourself. Or decide not to.”
“Yama-chan-”
“You can’t keep on hurting me because you can’t choose between those options, Yuto.” Yamada’s eyes are dry. His head is uncanningly clear. “I won't let you keep hurting me.”
Yuto looks betrayed. Bewildered. Suddenly dead sober and not liking it at all.
“I should have known you wouldn’t understand,” Yuto finally bites back. But Yamada is out of reach.
“You have a problem,” Yamada hisses, his jaw clenched as tight as his fists. “And I am not your solution. Don’t make me into it. You need help. Choose me when you’re sober.”
There are blankets and some pillows stowed in the lower compartment of the living room closet. Yamada takes some of them out and leaves them on the couch, besides a dumbfounded and ever angrier Yuto. The last train departed almost half an hour ago.
“You can have the couch. I have an early start tomorrow,” Yamada declares, turning on his heels to lock himself in his room.
Yuto is gone when Yamada gets up the next morning. The blankets are neatly folded on a nearby chair. No note. No mail. Just silence.
~
For a while, it goes like this: They meet for rehearsals and tour discussions. They don’t speak without a buffer. They avoid each other as much as they can. It’s like they are sixteen again. Only worse.
Every time Keito tries to gather Seven for an off-work get-together Yuto can’t make it. So sorry. Work. Plans. Friends. Yuto never runs out of excuses.
~
Taiga calls one day, after the heavy load of their movie promotion is done. They haven’t seen each other in private for months.
They meet, roam Shibuya’s narrow streets, and laugh at their promotional posters.
They end up in an upscale new place that sells low-calorie ice cream in the dead of winter. Taiga chooses green tea as his flavor. Yamada goes for the strawberry one.
They talk about work. They talk about management. They remember their Junior days and cringe at the memory of hideous costumes and failed choreographies. They laugh a lot.
None of them mentions Yuto’s name.
~
It happens in April. Spring. New starts and all that stuff. Suitable. Ironic, maybe; but suitable nonetheless.
Yamada is already on medication for his pollen allergy and sleepy as hell past ten at night when his phone rings. It’s a generic ringtone, but his cell phone screen blasts Yuto’s name.
He could, theoretically, let it ring. They are still not talking with that guy. And Yamada is still mad at him. But...
He is not weak. He pushed Yuto away once, even though it almost ripped him apart. He can do it again.
“You were right,” Yuto says instead of greeting. No pleasantries. His voice sounds jaded, his breath heavy. “I’m sorry. You were right.”
“Yuto, where are you?” Maybe Yamada gets scared easily, but Yuto doesn’t sound good.
“At home. Don’t worry. I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice. Tell you that you were right.”
Yamada is there twenty minutes later. Very awake. He overpays the taxi driver, but he just can’t wait for the change.
Yuto buzzes him in after some insistence. Yamada’s been in this apartment before, but never alone. The lights are off and the curtains are drawn back. The view from the top floor is breathtaking. But Yamada doesn’t notice it.
“I tried to prove you wrong,” Yuto explains. Yamada can tell his pupils are blown wide even at half-light. “Supposed I could quit whenever I wanted.”
One week. And then a relapse so bad Yuto was left shaking. Literally. Cold sweat and clammy skin. But not so high he can’t be scared about it.
“Please stay.”
Yamada sleeps on Yuto’s couch that night. He is worried, and determined to force Yuto into therapy. But, for a change, his heart isn’t damaged.
~~
They go on their first real date months after that. Months, and fights, and so many struggles after that. But somehow, it all seems worth it on days like this.
The upscale ice-cream place Yamada discovered with Taiga is still there. Yamada makes Yuto buy him the green tea one. He prefers the strawberry flavor, he concludes, but at least he knows it now.
Winter is difficult. Summer was difficult too. Yuto is difficult, most of the time. But nobody said it was going to be easy. They love each other, but that’s never enough. Especially not for them.
Maybe they are hard work, both of them. But at least none of them is punishing the other for things they can’t control, not anymore. The rest will come later. They are working on it.
They will always be rivals. They have learnt to be friends over the years. They are aiming to be together as a couple now, and there’s people helping them get there. Maybe growing up is just about learning to ask for help.
Yamada finishes his ice cream. He gives the spoon one appreciative lick goodbye and then places it on the empty bowl.
“What now?” Yuto asks. He finished his black coffee centuries ago. But he’s learning to be patient.
“What now?” Yamada answers with the same question, a playful smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
They look at each other, and smile. Because the answer doesn't really matter.
Title: Let me sleep at dawn (between your legs)
Pairing: Yamada Ryosuke/Nakajima Yuto (main), Yamada Ryosuke/Kyomoto Taiga.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Hurt/comfort. Angst. Drug and alcohol abuse. Complicated relationships. Facials. Not enough smut. Unrealistic approach to addictions. Taiga is a bit of a wise sempai… but he is a kouhai? Darkish fic.
Summary: Yuto is a trap Yamada cannot escape from. Then Yamada is casted for a movie along with Taiga, and things get somewhat unprofessional. Sometimes two wrongs make a right.
Notes: Dearest Recipient-sama, I wanted to give you something pretty as a gift because I’ve read your fics and I love them. But. This happened instead. And I am really praying that you can find anything at all to at least like in this, because I could tick almost NONE of the points in your wish list and then this became a //boring// monster of a darkfic. Please forgive me. *Bows*. Eternal kudos to my last-minute beta *-* You rule the world.
Yamada isn’t too sure how he ended up here.
Oh, he knows the facts. The movie offer, the audition, the void in his stomach while waiting for the results. The okay, go. And then, Taiga.
”Please take care of me.” Taiga’s voice, soft as silk.
Taiga sounds different right now. Lower, sultrier. They are off work but, with Taiga, ‘casual’ is a mortal trap. He is as dangerous with ruffled hair and no makeup as he is in the sharp suits and eyeliner Yamada has seen him in for the last two months of filming.
He takes another sip of his iced green tea.
Taiga’s bedroom is as big as the living room at Yamada’s parent’s house, and he has this huge and comfy couch where both of them are seated now. Taiga’s relaxed pose is a stark contrast to Yamada’s clear and present stiffness.
Because Taiga is such a flirt.
Not just now.
Taiga isn’t exactly his co-star, but working in the same movie was reason enough for a zillion of photo shoots to happen. And Taiga was always just a little closer than he should have been, all angles and incoherent warmth, pressing against him and making Yamada know he was there, alive, blood pulsing just as warm as his.
And that subdued smile, like Taiga wasn’t offering, only he was, and Yamada knew it. The way Taiga seems, even now, to be able to see under Yamada’s skin, the way he seems to know...
“Do you want to kiss me?” There’s a bit of spice in Taiga’s blunt words, but when Yamada scrutinizes his face looking for mockery, he finds none.
He’s left gaping, though. The question is sudden, and it might appear out of the blue, but somehow it isn’t. It’s not as if Yamada hasn’t been thinking about it, recently.
And isn’t that sad? Because Yamada doesn’t have a thing for Taiga, not in particular. Sure, he is tall and slender, and maybe Yamada does like tall and slender boys with legs going on for miles. But the fact is that the only reason why he is considering it is that Taiga is there. And it’s been so long.
“I’m sorry? I don’t think I got you right.” Denial. It’s been Yamada’s best defense since forever, and by now, it’s his default response.
But Taiga just chuckles, and his smile turns from inquiring to slightly predatory in sync with the accelerating rhythm of Yamada’s heart.
“I’m sorry if I read the signs wrong, but you’ve been staring at my lips forever...” Soft, silky words again. Yamada wonders if there’s anything else that’s silken inside Taiga, despite all his exterior sharpness, and coolness, and those cheekbones that could cut you if you weren’t careful enough. “And you don’t need to lie. Not to me.”
Yamada is suddenly conscious of Taiga; his overwhelming power, the way he is absolutely in control. He shivers, but it isn’t from cold. His face is burning.
“Say no, and I’ll stop,” Taiga rasps, against Yamada’s lips.
Yamada doesn’t pull back, his lips silent and pressed tight until the moment Taiga breaches them with his tongue.
~
Sometimes Yamada remembers why he used to hate Yuto.
Oh, just sometimes. He has learnt to deal with it. All of Hey! Say! JUMP! are adults now, and the awful times when minimal things, like room sharing during tours, were an issue no matter how they went are blissfully far behind. At least most of the time. But they get individual rooms now, so there’s that.
It was easier back then. Before the spite and the bickering and the silence. When they were both so young that Yamada still didn’t know how Yuto’s hands felt all over his skin.
But they fucked it up. And although it’s useless to look for someone to point fingers at this far along the game, Yamada still feels it wasn’t his fault. Not all of it.
They are civil now. Some days they can even be friends again.
Not today.
Yuto has a way to get under Yamada’s skin. Slowly. Silently. Blistering just below, waiting to bleed.
By now, Yamada is a master of predicting Yuto’s mood swings. The sudden bursts of undying fascination, the months of cold indifference; everything in-between.
And this. Or any version of it. Yuto out of some forty-something years old cutie’s bed and into Yamada’s apartment. His senses so drowned in chemicals and alcohol that he forgets everything but Yamada’s name.
Pointless, as usual. So pointless.
The way Yuto kisses his neck and grabs at his clothes ignites Yamada’s blood to the point Yamada wants to cry out in frustration. But he only manages to moan, to open himself to Yuto’s onslaught. He can’t resist, he was never able to.
Back then, they were fourteen, and at least he could blame it on his budding hormones. What he remembers of it. Yamada has locked the memories so deep in his mind, they almost never arise like live thoughts at random and inconvenient times anymore.
But his body remembers. Every bit of it. And Yuto’s hands rekindle those sparks. Pure touch memory making Yamada burn like he hasn’t been touched in years, millennia, even if it was just last week he lay splayed in Taiga’s bed, his starvation not sated but at least muffled by Taiga’s skillful mouth.
~
He fights the pull for more than two weeks. After Yuto. After another episode of barely disguised guilt and bitterness. Eighteen days. Some hours. His willpower isn’t what it used to be, but he is so tired...
Taiga seems a bit surprised to see him there, even if Yamada did mail him in advance. Last time, when Yamada was still coherent enough to consent to anything, they had agreed on just once, no strings attached. Taiga’s reply read “No problem,” though, and Yamada clings to those words as they go up the stairs and into Taiga’s bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” Yamada says, barely a whisper, when Taiga is done locking the door.
He’d like to think he is above this; he’d like to think that he isn’t the kind of person who uses other people just for comfort or amusement. But these are extraordinary circumstances, or so Yamada chooses to believe.
Taiga smiles, a playful and pondering light playing around his lips and his eyes.
“Don’t be.”
There’s something almost liquid about Taiga’s movements, something hypnotizing in him as he approaches Yamada and takes his hand to guide him to the bed.
It’s easy. The way Taiga lies down and pulls Yamada down to straddle him. The way he arches against Yamada’s slowly rocking hips. No preamble, no games.
“I’m using you,” Yamada confesses after they haphazardly undress, licking a path down Taiga’s neck. He punctuates his sentence with a scrap of his teeth over Taiga’s pulse point.
It feels too good. To be in control for one time, not blindly following someone else’s erratic lead. To feel the quiver of Taiga's moans against his lips, to taste his words as he says, "I don't care. Use me. Just don't stop."
Because maybe Taiga isn’t whom he wants to be doing this with, but at least they both know it.
It doesn’t have the desperation of his encounters with Yuto. And although Taiga is thorough, he can’t be as painstakingly dedicated as Yuto is when he is drunk and can’t get it up. But Taiga’s fingers are long and elegant, sinful in their own right as they explore every inch of Yamada’s skin. It’s more than enough.
His blood is sizzling in no time; all the pent up emotional frustration acting like fuel over the burning coals of Taiga’s lustful eyes, igniting every thought and turning it to ashes.
“I want to fuck you,” Yamada sighs, his fingers tangled in Taiga’s hair, still black for the movie filming in progress. “Would that be alright?”
They didn’t get that far last time. But now Yamada can think of nothing else. And then Taiga hisses, “Yes.” Adds a throaty, “Please.”
Yamada is only human.
Taiga is molten silk inside. Hot. Smooth. Liquefied fire. So tight. He wraps around Yamada as if he wanted to separate him from the rest of his body. And Yamada pushes through, lost in the warmth and the rhythm. Taiga on his hands and knees, crying out in pleasure, shamelessly. Free.
Time becomes some kind of surrealist construct, a blurry reflection of someone else’s universe. So comforting and empty. The void of his mind could be addicting, Yamada realizes in a spark of clarity, but it doesn’t last too much. It never does.
And then he is coming down. Hard. To his own skin and all of its limitations. Pleasure soaring through all his body, making him shake. He thinks about pulling out, then remembers Taiga had condoms on his nightstand and just goes with it, stilling his hips after a deep thrust, a sole instant of pure essence. All the knots inside him come undone. And it tastes a little bit like freedom.
“So...” Taiga begins, sometime later, when they are done catching their breaths and Yamada still hasn’t started dressing himself in a mix of guilt and panic like he did last time. “Wanna talk about it?”
Taiga is lying on his stomach, totally relaxed as he just lazily reaches for a bottle of water and pours some of it into a glass, hands that to Yamada, and then proceeds to gulp the rest down directly from the bottle.
Yamada contemplates this weird reality he suddenly materialized in, where he is naked, still sweaty, with a glass of water in his hand. And he just had sex. With Taiga. Is there really anything left to lose?
“Love is not supposed to hurt, you know?” Taiga says, in a low voice, when Yamada is done talking.
They switched to wine at some point, but Taiga didn’t bother to put clothes back on. Yamada is in his boxers and an open shirt as he ponders, watching the swirling wine in his glass.
“Love, uh?” Is the only sound that he can get past his lips.
It’s funny, but he does feel lighter now that he talked about Yuto with somebody, now that Taiga knows the whole story, at least from his point of view.
“Not love, then. For now?” Taiga takes the last sip of his wineglass and looks at Yamada. His face can be a perfect mask of neutrality, but his eyes spark with too much wisdom for being a year younger than Yamada. Too knowingly. “Anyway, it’s not supposed to be painful. Unless that is what both of you like, of course.”
“You shouldn’t know that much about it, you know?” And maybe Yamada is just trying to change the subject, but he is also very curious. Taiga might not be in the spotlight all the time, but he isn’t just a random Junior either. And being gay in an industry like theirs is difficult enough when you are just another face in the crowd. “How do you manage to get into relationships without being found out?”
There are rumors about every one of them, inside the Agency as much as outside. And there are rumors about Taiga. Of course there are. Fujigaya-san. Tanaka Koki’s brother. Shirota Yuu. Other names that Yamada is unable to recall right now. He never took heed of them before, but now, he wonders.
“I don’t do ‘relationships’ anymore, but when I did… Same way as you, I suppose.” Taiga side-eyes him, and Yamada feels that this isn’t a safe subject. But Yamada never intended to go deeper into it in the first place.
“I haven’t…” Yamada blushes as he speaks. “I mean… there’s this thing with Nakajima-kun, but other than that I haven’t...”
“Never?” Taiga sounds almost scandalized.
“I have to be careful. You know that.”
Taiga seems to consider it, to contrast it with his experience, and to accept it, finally. “So… no one?” he asks anyways, to Yamada’s dismay.
No one meaningful, Yamada thinks, as he shakes his head no.
There were some one-night stands. Just a couple of them, so far between Yamada got to forget everything about them before the next happened. Once there was a girl, when he was younger and didn’t want to be gay. They didn’t get to date number two; his mind couldn’t stand to lie so much to her, and his body didn’t even try to.
Yamada chuckles. “This is too depressing.”
“I can try to cheer you up,” Taiga states, licking his lips. “If you want to.”
Yamada blinks, the shiver down his spine reaching home and spreading sudden heat over his limbs. Taiga smiles as he takes the glass, still half-full of wine, from Yamada’s hands.
The fact that Taiga can have him hard and ready to burst in just seconds is mesmerizing. Yamada closes his eyes, concentrates on feeling. He hears Taiga’s words like some faraway echo.
“You can pretend I’m him. I don’t mind.” Taiga whispers against Yamada’s belly, puffs of air forcing Yamada’s wet skin into goose bumps while Taiga kisses his way down, relentlessly down.
But Yuto wouldn’t be like this. He’d be rougher, harsher. Yuto would break his body so sweetly. Inch by inch. He would tease, and drag it out, and wait. And wait. And wait... Until Yamada begged for his own ultimate destruction, begged Yuto to tear apart his heart and his soul along with his body. Over and over again.
Taiga is quick and enthusiast as he closes his lips around Yamada’s hypersensitive flesh, swallows around him, and hums his approval when Yamada combs his hair with shaking fingers.
“Kyomo-chan…” A whine. A warning.
But Taiga doesn’t pull back, not until the last moment. Yamada catches a glimpse of Taiga’s mischievous expression through his half-closed eyelids, but then the world vanishes and reality is swallowed by pleasure.
He opens his eyes just a heartbeat later, while Taiga is still gently stroking him through the aftershocks. Yamada can’t settle into just one feeling when he sees the streams of white running down Taiga’s right cheek.
He stares, trying to sort out his emotions at Taiga’s features being a little blurred by his seed, but not enough. Not enough to make them into someone else’s face. And that’s too sick, even for him, even right now.
But then Taiga smirks, and Yamada sees only him again. Taiga darts his tongue to the corner of his lips and a bit upwards in a playful gesture to lick a bit of the stuff off his cheek.
“You taste good,” he announces, breaking the tension and Yamada’s embarrassment into a thousand tiny pieces.
Yamada chortles and then reaches for the box of tissue that’s conveniently placed on Taiga’s nightstand.
Taiga is still sleeping, on the couch of his room, when Yamada wakes up on Taiga’s bed. He doesn’t even stir while Yamada is getting dressed.
Yamada waits for some minutes, but there’s only silence and the barely there whisper of Taiga’s breathing.
”Had to go”, Yamada types in his phone. “Thanks a lot. For everything.”
He sends the mail and waits to see if its notice sound wakes up Taiga, but nothing happens.
The bedroom door is unlocked when he opens it to leave.
~
Love is not supposed to hurt.
For some reason, that is what is stuck in Yamada’s head after his whole affair with Taiga.
They don’t meet again, not for sex at least.
The movie wraps up and they even go for drinks when they flee the after-party. But that’s it. Drinks. Laughter. A weird kind of friendship. Enough for both of them.
The invitation is still there, present in Taiga’s openness and his alluring eyes. Yamada knows this. But he also understands the place Taiga is in right now; all that he is capable of offering and, more important, what he isn’t willing to give.
Yamada doesn’t want that. Not from Taiga and not from anyone else.
Maybe Yamada is set on impossible things, but what he really wants is to love without pain. Because Taiga is right, love is not supposed to hurt.
~
It takes longer than Yamada thought it would.
Maybe Yuto is taking to heart their managers ‘suggestion’ of restraint when partying, their version of the Dry Law. Maybe he’s just found another distraction. There’s always work. Plans. Yuto always has an excuse.
But then, there’s winter. As much as Yuto isn’t a man of habits, he does have some patterns. Summer is for friends. Excesses. Girls. When temperature starts to drop, Yamada knows he will have Yuto on his doorstep soon.
Yuto arrives with the first rain of November. He mails Yamada five minutes before he’s knocking on Yamada’s apartment door. Yuto hates the cold.
He tastes like nicotine and vodka, and Yamada kisses him back for a long time before pulling away.
“No,” Yamada hears himself say, and cringes a little. It’s what he wants, but that doesn’t make it easier.
The confused frown on Yuto’s forehead is at least a bit satisfactory. Yamada takes a very, very deep breath.
“We need to talk, Yuto.” Yamada’s voice catches, and he clears his throat, tries to make the sounds get past the gravitational void that has settled in his stomach. “But I need you to remember it, so we will wait.”
Yuto doesn’t look very happy about it. Especially when he gets glass after glass of water, and then a cup of coffee to drink. Yamada knows he is testing his limits, but he needs Yuto as sober as he can get him. It’s his best coffee, though. It has to count for something.
Yuto drinks in silence, eyeing him suspiciously from time to time.
He isn’t high, so he wasn’t with those friends tonight. Maybe Suda, again. He is the type to hand-roll tobacco and indulge in liquors that are more expensive. Yamada tries to focus on Suda’s uncompromising no-drugs policy and be glad that Yuto chose to hang up with him today. He swallows the bubbly rise of jealousy down his throat.
Yamada is considering making a second cup of coffee for Yuto when he gets the look. The Warning. Yuto is about to snap. There’s just a tiny reservoir of patience for Yamada stored in Yuto’s system, more than during their adolescence, but certainly scarce. Yamada often wonders if the “I used to hate you,” slogan is really as far behind for both of them as they like to believe.
“Yama-chan…” And there it is. The reason he keeps putting up with all of Yuto’s crap. The tenderness beneath the landslide of things unsaid. “What is it?”
“I can’t do this anymore.” Saying it makes so real, it physically hurts. “I don’t understand what you want from me, but I can’t keep on giving it to you.”
“Why?” Yuto all but grumbles. There’s a shadow of something that could be pain as well as confusion darkening his furrowed brow.
“Because it hurts,” Yamada sighs. His voice sounds so matter-of-fact, because, really, it is that simple. “And it’s not supposed to.”
Yuto stares at the floor for what feels like centuries. Yamada’s eyes are locked on his hunched back. He didn’t expect this. Screaming, yes. Dismissal, most certainly. But, defeat? Has he ever seen Yuto like this before?
“I’m sorry.” Yuto’s voice cracks, but Yamada knows he is crying way before that. “I never meant to harm you. I just... I never knew how to deal with you.”
And Yamada gets it. Really. He hurt Yuto first. Unknowingly, but still. He took the limelight away from him, and in doing so, he hurt his pride like no one had done before. That Yamada had no saying in the matter was trivial. At least from Yuto’s point of view.
“I never even hated you,” Yamada realizes at the same time as he speaks. “I just reacted... In a lousy way.”
It feels so unsubstantial. Like it’s Monday night and they’re in a nine o’clock drama. But there’s no background music and the way Yamada’s heart aches is too real.
“I know,” Yuto says. Quiet. Fragile. “I did hate you, though.” Punctuated by a self-deprecating chuckle. “I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I couldn’t help it.” And at last, Yuto can look at him. “I couldn’t let you go, either. Still can’t.”
“Do you even know what you want from me?”
Yuto closes his eyes. Yamada can see them moving restlessly under his eyelids. He’s thinking so hard Yamada can almost see his thoughts as vibrations, coloring the air.
“Right now you are my only connection with reality,” Yuto articulates. There’s still a hint of alcohol in his words, but he is sober enough. Yamada is sure of it. “You’re the only one that can save me.”
Yamada scoffs. He lets out a strangled “Eh?” that gets Yuto’s attention, but he doesn’t utter another word for a whole minute.
He’s floored.
And, unexpectedly, furious.
“I won’t save you,” Yamada almost growls. “I’m not here to save anybody, least of all you!”
Yuto blinks, tries to speak, but Yamada is not done. Not by far.
“I won’t do your job for you, do you understand?” Yamada’s voice keeps rising. Fuck the neighbors. Fuck the whole damn world. “You have to save yourself. Or decide not to.”
“Yama-chan-”
“You can’t keep on hurting me because you can’t choose between those options, Yuto.” Yamada’s eyes are dry. His head is uncanningly clear. “I won't let you keep hurting me.”
Yuto looks betrayed. Bewildered. Suddenly dead sober and not liking it at all.
“I should have known you wouldn’t understand,” Yuto finally bites back. But Yamada is out of reach.
“You have a problem,” Yamada hisses, his jaw clenched as tight as his fists. “And I am not your solution. Don’t make me into it. You need help. Choose me when you’re sober.”
There are blankets and some pillows stowed in the lower compartment of the living room closet. Yamada takes some of them out and leaves them on the couch, besides a dumbfounded and ever angrier Yuto. The last train departed almost half an hour ago.
“You can have the couch. I have an early start tomorrow,” Yamada declares, turning on his heels to lock himself in his room.
Yuto is gone when Yamada gets up the next morning. The blankets are neatly folded on a nearby chair. No note. No mail. Just silence.
~
For a while, it goes like this: They meet for rehearsals and tour discussions. They don’t speak without a buffer. They avoid each other as much as they can. It’s like they are sixteen again. Only worse.
Every time Keito tries to gather Seven for an off-work get-together Yuto can’t make it. So sorry. Work. Plans. Friends. Yuto never runs out of excuses.
~
Taiga calls one day, after the heavy load of their movie promotion is done. They haven’t seen each other in private for months.
They meet, roam Shibuya’s narrow streets, and laugh at their promotional posters.
They end up in an upscale new place that sells low-calorie ice cream in the dead of winter. Taiga chooses green tea as his flavor. Yamada goes for the strawberry one.
They talk about work. They talk about management. They remember their Junior days and cringe at the memory of hideous costumes and failed choreographies. They laugh a lot.
None of them mentions Yuto’s name.
~
It happens in April. Spring. New starts and all that stuff. Suitable. Ironic, maybe; but suitable nonetheless.
Yamada is already on medication for his pollen allergy and sleepy as hell past ten at night when his phone rings. It’s a generic ringtone, but his cell phone screen blasts Yuto’s name.
He could, theoretically, let it ring. They are still not talking with that guy. And Yamada is still mad at him. But...
He is not weak. He pushed Yuto away once, even though it almost ripped him apart. He can do it again.
“You were right,” Yuto says instead of greeting. No pleasantries. His voice sounds jaded, his breath heavy. “I’m sorry. You were right.”
“Yuto, where are you?” Maybe Yamada gets scared easily, but Yuto doesn’t sound good.
“At home. Don’t worry. I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice. Tell you that you were right.”
Yamada is there twenty minutes later. Very awake. He overpays the taxi driver, but he just can’t wait for the change.
Yuto buzzes him in after some insistence. Yamada’s been in this apartment before, but never alone. The lights are off and the curtains are drawn back. The view from the top floor is breathtaking. But Yamada doesn’t notice it.
“I tried to prove you wrong,” Yuto explains. Yamada can tell his pupils are blown wide even at half-light. “Supposed I could quit whenever I wanted.”
One week. And then a relapse so bad Yuto was left shaking. Literally. Cold sweat and clammy skin. But not so high he can’t be scared about it.
“Please stay.”
Yamada sleeps on Yuto’s couch that night. He is worried, and determined to force Yuto into therapy. But, for a change, his heart isn’t damaged.
~~
They go on their first real date months after that. Months, and fights, and so many struggles after that. But somehow, it all seems worth it on days like this.
The upscale ice-cream place Yamada discovered with Taiga is still there. Yamada makes Yuto buy him the green tea one. He prefers the strawberry flavor, he concludes, but at least he knows it now.
Winter is difficult. Summer was difficult too. Yuto is difficult, most of the time. But nobody said it was going to be easy. They love each other, but that’s never enough. Especially not for them.
Maybe they are hard work, both of them. But at least none of them is punishing the other for things they can’t control, not anymore. The rest will come later. They are working on it.
They will always be rivals. They have learnt to be friends over the years. They are aiming to be together as a couple now, and there’s people helping them get there. Maybe growing up is just about learning to ask for help.
Yamada finishes his ice cream. He gives the spoon one appreciative lick goodbye and then places it on the empty bowl.
“What now?” Yuto asks. He finished his black coffee centuries ago. But he’s learning to be patient.
“What now?” Yamada answers with the same question, a playful smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
They look at each other, and smile. Because the answer doesn't really matter.