The Adventures of Nowhere Man and Whiskey Boy (as told by No One), 2/??, Reita/Aoi
Title: The Adventures of Nowhere Man and Whiskey Boy (as told by No One)
Author: losseflame
Chapters: 2/??
Genre: Romance, drama, humor, light tinges of angst.
Warnings: language, use (and abuse) of alcohol, sexual innuendo, drugs, het
Rating: R (will possibly go up)
Pairings/Characters: Reita/Aoi, Reita/Uruha (friendship), Reita/OFC
Synopsis: In which Nowhere Man meets Whiskey Boy, and adventures ensue. Or in Layman's terms, the social wavelengths of Akira and Yuu.
Comments: OMG. An update that isn’t three months later! :D Happy Chinese new year, all Chinese people reading this.
1
***
The Second Act, or in Layman’s Terms, Part 2
When the GazettE finally get their first pay check that allows them to pay the rent, buy groceries, and still have leftover money, Takanori announces over dinner (that Yuu paid for, as just because they actually have money now doesn’t mean they’re any less cheap than before) that he’s going to find his own apartment with a respectable amount of closet space and that Akira and Kouyou were going to help him move out.
Kouyou complains that Yuu and Yune weren’t included in Taka’s rallying cry (while the two subjects of this claim look rather smug) and says that he won’t help unless they all help. Taka replies that Yuu and Yune are actually decent human beings unlike some people and therefore shouldn’t be forced into slave labour, so shut the hell up, Kouyou, and unless you want to be castrated you’re going to help so just accept it.
Akira agrees easily, because he has years of experience behind him on dealing with small, insistent people and he’s learned that arguing against any statement they make with finality will only get him clubbed in the face with a messenger bag.
Or, in his mother’s case, a purse.
Which is how he ends up working another job, because Takanori has found an apartment he claims has enough closet space to house three young American children (Akira takes this to mean a lot) but it turns out Taka’s about forty thousand yen short. So Takanori gives up on the apartment and settles down to wait until he’s famous or some shit, which is completely unacceptable.
Akira finds his struggling-artist-poverty truly fucking pathetic when even after Akira gathers his money that he got from the last couple gigs, he still needs two hundred and forty-something dollars.
His (unsurprisingly) small and insistent boss - he’s not quite sure what act against the good of humanity he committed in his last life to be saddled with so many goddamn small and insistent people - starts to inform Akira very fucking loudly that tables 3 and 7 have been vacated and they needed to be cleared for the next set of customers.
Goddamn, being a waiter -for lack of a better description - fucking sucked.
.:.:.:.
The surface of the table is cool and hard and vaguely uncomfortable, but Akira’s determined to pretend that it isn’t because he’s feeling too lazy and tired to drag his fat ass to the couch, which is approximately 5 steps away, so he’s improvising a pillow using said kitchen table.
“How was work?” Yuu’s voice is calm and quiet, a welcome respite from the past few hours, because between his boss at the restaurant, Takanori, Kouyou, his mother’s bi-weekly phone call, Takanori, the radio game show the idiot next to him on the train was playing too loudly on his stupid little mp3-radio, and Takanori, Akira has had quite enough of any loud obnoxious noises, thank you very much and - holy fuck, what’s Yuu doing in Akira’s apartment?
Akira jerks his head up - and goddamn, even Yuu’s smile is quiet, how the hell does he do that? - and arms himself with the first thing he can reach (a spoon) because even though Yuu's probably going to be the nicest to him out of all the people he’s come into contact with the entire day, that doesn’t change the fact that Yuu just sort of turned up in the middle of his kitchen out of nowhere, and that’s kind of creepy.
The whole ‘waiting for and answer and smiling’ thing Yuu’s got going on isn’t helping, either.
“…do you want any tea?” Akira’s voice is rough and somewhat hideous in comparison to Yuu’s, but Akira thinks he deserves a little slack. He’s fucking tired, goddamnit, so he should get brownie points for even remembering the etiquette required when one’s dealing with a housebreaker who happens to be your friend.
Yuu shakes his head and sits in the chair opposite Akira, raising his eyebrow at the spoon clutched in Akira’s hand. Akira drops it with a clatter.
“If you’re wondering, Takanori-san left the door open when he stormed off dramatically to go shopping. And I’m not talking leaving the door unlocked. The door was wide open, so I just walked in.” Akira is still about three steps behind where Yuu’s at, mainly because of the ‘san’ tacked onto the end of Taka’s name, because that implies respect or some shit, and what kind of sick fuck respects Takanori for anything other than his complete and utter lack of anything regarding shame? Or, you know, decency. Either one works.
In lieu of an intelligent response, Akira grunts and tries to gauge how much energy it would take to walk to the refrigerator to get something to drink.
Too much, he decides, and drops his head back to the table. A moment later he feels cool fingers combing through his hair, working out the knots that always just sort of appear in his hair just to be bitches. Or because it’s as dry as fuck because of the bleach Kouyou jumped him with.
Normally Akira would be as creeped as fuck if someone started to fondle his head, but Yuu seems to have no concept of personal space and Kouyou trained that out of Akira years ago, so it works.
Besides, Akira is never one to pass up on a free scalp massage.
“So, how was work again?” Yuu’s voice has a hint of amusement in it, probably from Akira’s blissful smile.
“Shitty. Magnificently shitty. Epically shitty. Supremely shitty.” Akira’s voice sounds whiny and grating to his own ears, so he can only imagine the amount of rage Yuu can feel building in response to it. Somehow, though, Yuu refrains from punching him out and merely continues to comb through his hair, even though he’s quite sure all of his knots are long gone by now.
“So, it was a shitty day, then?” There’s a laugh hiding between Yuu’s words, and Akira starts to smile in response to it, but seriously, when the hell did his thoughts get so damn poetic?
“Pretty much.”
Yuu hums. “Why are you working, then? You don’t really need the money.” Yuu has this really horrible habit of asking questions whose answers are so obvious but so painfully awkward when worded.
Akira coughs. Lifts up his head and leans his chin on his hand. Yuu’s hand drops to the table, falling open as if expecting something. There are rings on every finger. Akira focuses on this particular quirk as he opens his mouth to answer.
“Well, it’s not like I don’t need the money.” The lie falls flat, and it’s almost as obvious as the answer.
Yuu lets out a breath. Akira cringes, expecting a slap on the head and a sharp ‘tell the truth, Aki!’.
Until he remembers that Yuu is not Kouyou. All he gets is a look of mild disappointment. Which, come to think of it, is worse than the slapping and yelling bit of things.
Akira coughs, to fill the awkward silence that started to reign after his pathetic attempt to defend his manhood.
“So, erm, any particular reason you’re here?” This seems to break the tension, because Yuu smiles again.
“Yeah, actually. Want to go to dinner?”
.:.:.:.
The restaurant that Yuu takes him to is much nicer than the one he works at, and the food smells about seven different kinds of better.
Which, you know, isn’t actually that hard to do, but whatever.
It seems to be some kind of café thing that makes the kind of coffee that has so much sugar and syrup and flavouring it’s more dessert than beverage, and there’s an entire blackboard dedicated to listing off the types of tea they carry.
The sheer amount of hipster in the air is very intimidating, made worse by how well known Yuu seems to be here.
Seriously, Akira considers dinner classy when there are identifiable vegetables within it, how exactly is he suppose to not make a fool of himself in front of Yuu when Yuu could probably carry a conversation on the differences between Earl Grey and Earl Grey Floral with the patchouli-scented gender-neutral waiter with multi-coloured dreadlocks?
No fucking way, that’s how.
Yuu seems to catch onto the whole ‘Akira is having an aneurysm’ situation, because he draws Akira into a booth, looking concerned and slightly sheepish.
“Are you okay? God, if you don’t like it here I could -”
“No, I’m just overwhelmed by the alarming amount of tea this place carries.”
Yuu laughs and Akira is glad that this at least is a lie he can bloody well pull off. It’s more of a half-truth, really, if you replace ‘alarming amount of tea’ with ‘my staggering lack of things generally considered to make a person interesting and likeable (up to and including class, intelligence, attractiveness and the knowledge of strange obscure African teas)’.
The waiter appears next to their table out of seemingly nowhere, interrupting Akira’s inner turmoil brought on by a lack of general self esteem and other useful qualities and introducing themselves as ‘Rei’, which doesn’t really fucking help Akira in his mental quest in deciphering what set of genetilia they posses. Akira is asked for his order, and au lieu of actually figuring out what he wants (at this point he’s just hungry. He could eat half of a bloated dead cow and still find it appealing.) he spits out the first two things he sees on the menu he is handed. Yuu goes with a more ambiguous ‘I’ll have my regular’, and off Rei goes, humming and sashaying to music only they can hear.
“She’s a girl.”
Akira fiddles with the spoon he found in the sugar bowl placed before him. “Oh.…how did you know I was wondering?”
Yuu snorts. “You were giving her the same look you gave me when we first met. It sort of makes you look like a rapist.”
“Well, it’s nice to know you hold me in such high esteem.” Yuu gets a quiet, serious look at this, and he places his hand over Akira’s where it rests on the table.
“I do.” And his voice is so achingly sincere that any sarcastic retort Akira had prepared sort of shrivels up and dies in his throat, leaving a lump there instead, so Akira nods and slides his hand out from under Yuu’s to prop his chin up.
Yuu smiles at him, and Akira smiles back, swallowing harshly.
.:.:.:.
Conversation, Akira is tickled fucking pink to realize, is easy with Yuu, mainly because Akira doesn’t mind listening to others talk as long as they like what they’re talking about and Yuu has yet to give Akira scathing looks and tell him to shut up when he broaches on subjects Yuu might not be fanatic about. They both comment in the appropriate places, and sometimes argue, but unlike most of Akira’s other arguments, they don’t end with scathing and Technicolour insults being flung at each other and fifteen minutes of stormy silence. It’s more of debating, which Akira isn’t used to because a) he’s friends with Kouyou and Takanori, b) he’s not nearly smart enough for regular debates and c) he’s friends with Kouyou and Takanori.
It’s a nice arrangement.
Akira is watching Yuu’s face light up with enthusiasm as he outlines how exactly to surf (as far as Akira is concerned, standing on an oversized wheel-less skateboard praying for balance while allowing waves to buffet you madly is insane, and only insane people do it, but it’s nice to know he’s not the only one sanity-challenged sitting at the table) when Yuu abruptly stops talking midsentence.
“How much money do you still need?” Akira is mildly bewildered by this sudden change of subjects, and the fact that Yuu knows that Akira even has a goal in mind of the amount of money he wants to
“Why?”
Yuu gives him a look, raising an eyebrow and pressing his lips into a thin line, and it’s so daunting that Akira is easily cowed.
“Ten thousand five thousand three hundred and thirty yen.”
Yuu nods, processing this, before standing up, throwing some bills onto the table, grabbing Akira’s wrist and tugging him out the door.
“Wait, what’s going on?”
“I’m taking you to my place.”
They end up walking to a nice apartment. Not a particularly fancy one, but Akira imagines that the A/C stays off in the winter and the heater doesn’t act up in the summer, unlike his.
Yuu digs through his pockets for about a half an hour, muttering, before yanking out his key with a cry of triumph. He lets them in, and Akira can only marvel at the neatness of it. There’s a distinct lack of dirty clothes thrown across the floor and draped across furniture that is such a distinctive set of decoration in Akira’s own apartment.
Yuu turns to him, smiling slightly. “Wait here.”
And then he’s scurrying between rooms, shoving furniture out of the way and reaching for things that Akira thinks must be cleverly hidden underneath floorboards and such.
After about 10 minutes of this, Yuu returns carrying about three rolls of money tied with rubber bands, and Akira chokes on his spit as Yuu shoves these bundles his way.
“This is one thousand five hundred and forty yen.”
“Wha - no, Yuu, I can’t actually take - this is like stealing only you know about it, no fucking way, not taking this.”
Yuu drops the bundles on the small table near the door and places his fingers over Akira’s lips, adding pressure to emphasise his point of Shut the hell up, Akira. Yuu steps closer and tilts his face upwards to Akira.
“It’s my money; I’ll give it to whoever I damn please and whoever I damn please will take it.” The words are harsh, but the tone is soft and malleable with the kind of hush to it that makes Akira feel like it’s a secret Yuu’s sharing, not a thinly veiled threat and Yuu’s expression matches it perfectly. It’s the kind of voice he’s heard women use when whispering sweet promises and suggestions in his ear, and this with the combination of Yuu’s fingers against his lips sends a funny, flip-flopping sort of nausea through the pit of Akira’s stomach.
He steps back quickly, breaking contact and just like that the moment is over. Yuu returns to his normal calm, dryly observant expression and Akira returns to his vaguely confused one.
“Seriously, Akira, take it. You hate your job, I hate that you hate your job and this is only my ‘just in case I need serious medical attention’ money anyway.”
Akira opens his mouth to say that that’s a very good fucking reason to keep it, but Yuu just gives him a pleading look.
Well, fucking flaming balls, that demolished the last shreds of his resistance.
“Goddamn puppy eyes and fucking god, seriously, I’m going to hell for this.” Akira mumbles as he reaches out and pockets the money. Yuu smiles, triumphant.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why isn’t this money in like a bank or something?” Akira isn’t about to deny having that much money just sort of chilling in your house is sort of peculiar. But Yuu himself is peculiar, in a quiet, Yuu-ish sort of way, so maybe Akira can just chalk it up to that.
Except he can’t, because an expression flashes over Yuu’s face that Akira is sure isn’t all that positive, but it goes by too fast for him to name. Then Yuu’s face is affixed in a smile again, and he laughs lightly.
“My dad has it ingrained in my head to never trust the bank, because they will swindle your money into the pockets of crooked politicians. It’s just habit, I guess.”
Akira has learned to read people well enough to know that he’s lying, but Akira doesn’t push it. If Yuu wanted to hold hands and host a Show and Tell, he would have done so, and it’s not really Akira’s business unless Yuu allows it to be. So he backs off.
“So…I’ll see you soon?”
Yuu’s expression softens out of its fake smile and into a genuine one, and his voice is equally as soft as he responds. “Yeah.”
And Akira is reminded of the moment and he can almost feel Yuu’s fingers ghosting against his lips again, and holy fuck, no. Just no.
Akira turns and flees, putting The Moment (and goddamnit, he really needs to tell his mind to stop fucking capitalising things unless he gives it permission) on this list of things he will never think about or revisit again.
Ever.
.:.:.:.
When he hands the money to Takanori, Taka remains silent, staring at the pile of assorted bills, cheques and coins without seeming to move. Akira belatedly realizes that he never actually told Takanori he was working to gather money so that Taka could have his American-children- housing apartment (which might explain why Takanori snorted and called him a ‘fucking nerd’ when he mentioned that he got a job), and perhaps this might have been a good idea. Takanori reacts badly (i.e.: violently and angrily) to a lot of things, like criticism, silence, being alone, loss of control and the colour green, mainly having to do with the family life he never informed Akira about.
All he knows is that whatever shit went down in the Matsumoto household, it was serious and left Takanori brittle, strong in all the wrong ways and fragile in the ways that matter with more issues than the stereotypical best-friend-turned-enemy caricature in a bad shonen manga, and he’s pretty sure Taka hasn’t spoken to his family since before they left for Tokyo.
Akira’s not sure if being given money will trigger one of these issues and have Takanori scream at him before shoving the money down his throat, rip out his guts and feed them to the homeless population of the train station.
“Oh, fuck, Taka, have I crossed a line? God, fuck, sorry, just - you know what? If you want I can just I don’t know, give it to Kouyou for a shopping trip or something, if that makes you happier, and shit - Taka, erm, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong but you wanted that fucking apartment, and you know what? We can just pretend the last couple minutes never happen if you want, just don’t kill me and I only want you to be ha -”
Taka cuts through Akira’s babbling and shuts him up with one word. “Thanks.” Only Takanori’s voice is quiet and tight and wavers slightly. He looks up and opens his mouth to say something more, but all that comes out is a breath of air. Taka’s eyes are much brighter that usual and the light is hitting them funny, almost making them look liquid -
And Taka is getting up out of the chair Akira accosted him in, walking away with quick, jerky steps. He runs into his room and closes the door quietly and Akira is left dumbfounded, because -
Fuck, were those tears? It wasn’t supposed to be that way, Taka wasn’t supposed to cry. Akira would have preferred the ‘becoming a cannibalistic delicacy’ over Taka crying.
Akira momentarily thinks about going to hug it out with him or whatever, until he imagines the reaction he’d get to that suggestion so instead he goes to cower in his room and play video games until the world stops being absolutely bloody insane.
Or until Kouyou comes into his room, holds his hand and tells him he did the right thing (even if Kouyou has no idea what he did, because in his mind whatever Akira does is the right thing) before informing him that Taka has exited his room and has bought take out, so Akira can stop hiding and come out to eat and Kouyou will protect him from the monsters, so stop worrying, honestly.
This happens about three hours after he takes refuge, so by this point he’s nearly given himself a heart attack with anxiety and he needs to go pee so badly he thinks he’ll burst, but the smile Takanori gives him when he’s finally done hiding in his room has lost some of its sharp, dangerous, fucking scary edges and he keeps horrible, soul-scarring verbal abuse to a minimum and even gives Akira a couple backhanded compliments.
There’s a hint of happiness Taka desperately tries to smother when he glances around the kitchen, and that makes all the deeply scarring emotional and physical turmoil of the past three hours so fucking worth it Akira can’t even describe.
.:.:.:.
Akira doesn’t ask to be paid back and Takanori doesn’t offer, because Akira’s pretty damn sure Taka knows Akira would just refuse it anyway.
His donation to the apartment, however, doesn’t get him off helping Takanori actually move into the place.
He ends up hauling most of Takanori’s shit into the place, and then rearranging Taka’s furniture about seven different times under Takanori’s direction because that man cannot just make up his goddamn mind already.
When the furniture has finally been arranged to His Highness’s satisfaction, Akira grabs his shit and prepares to run, before Takanori decides that having the couch on the other side of the room would be better Feng Shui or some shit.
As he’s walking out the door, however, Takanori grabs his arm and thrusts something into his hand. Akira opens his hand, and it’s a purple key bedazzled with rhinestones that Akira’s quite sure someone would have to glue on.
“That room’s yours.” Takanori waves his hand in the direction of a room overlooking the city’s skyline, and Akira realizes what the key is for. He opens his mouth to protest, but Taka silences him with a lethal look.
“Don’t argue.” So Akira closes his mouth and tries to think of something to say. “And don’t say a word, you’ll ruin the chick flick moment we’re having.”
Akira laughs at the sarcasm that’s fucking dripping from Taka’s tone, and turns to go.
“Oh, yeah.” Akira looks over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “I specifically got you the purple key and bedazzled it to make it harder to lose, so please, Aki, try to keep track of it, will you?”
Akira’s pretty sure this is the closest to an ‘I love you’ from Takanori he’s ever going to get.
“Sure, Taka.”
.:.:.:.
“How about let’s go get something to eat?”
It is 12:00, and Akira is on Yuu’s front step, asking him out to dinner but not really, because he didn’t actually ask anything and he doesn’t have money to pay for it anyway.
Yuu is, understandably, looking at Akira like he’s absolutely insane.
Akira concludes that he might be. However, the fact remains that Kouyou didn’t come home (not that it’s the first time), and that earlier today he was in a mood (not that it’s the first time) and that he’s probably out drinking himself into a coma (not that it’s the first time), taking powdery drugs for no other reason than they make him feel alive in ways that Akira can’t (not that it’s the first time) and having sex with some random stranger who doesn’t know his name and won’t bother asking (not that it’s the first time).
Which means that Akira is worried nauseous and can’t possibly sleep for the knots his stomach is in, because even though this has all happened before he can’t help fearing that this time Kouyou will overdose or go into fucking toxic shock or choose to fuck the one person in the club with a kink for killing people. There are just so many things that can go wrong with being an idiot and Akira is fucking terrified that this is the time where Kouyou doesn’t come home at eight in the morning with smeared makeup, a hangover and a bad mood.
It’s even worse than it usually is, because Akira can start to feel that he’s changing, and Kouyou’s growing, and if they don’t have a chance to re-learn how to fit together than there’ll be no one who’ll be there no matter what, for either of them, and the thought of being alone is the scariest.
How going out to eat with Yuu is supposed to help with this, Akira doesn’t know, but his other choice was to ask Takanori and Akira doesn’t much feel like getting buckshot to the face.
Yuu is still standing at the open front door, seemingly trying to process exactly what the fuck is going on. Apparently it’s hard to filter through outside stimuli and make something useful out of it right after being asleep, if Yuu’s dazed expression, plain undershirt and raggedy sweatpants are any indication.
“…what?”
Akira twitches. “Let’s go out to eat. Please.” Yuu must either be a genius or he sees something in Akira’s expression, because all he does is nod.
“Wait for a minute.” He closes the door, and Akira goes to sit at the front step again. Akira is counting how many stars he can see in the Tokyo sky through all the light pollution and smog (surprise: not a lot) when Yuu walks out fully dressed.
“Where do you want to go?”
Akira shrugs helplessly. “I don’t even know if there are any places open.”
“Then let’s just walk around until we find something.”
.:.:.:.
They find a small 24 hour convenience store and buy (or, more accurately, Yuu buys) two bento boxes of dubious quality and eat them in silence sitting on a park bench under a street light.
The light spills out and pools beneath them, and Akira wishes it would rain. He says so, and Yuu is quiet for a moment before speaking.
“Why?”
Akira shuffles, because his stomach is still in knots and his hands are still shaking and Kouyou still hasn’t called, and his answer sounds stupid and he really doesn’t want Yuu to regret eating the fucking bento with him at 12:45 in a freezing cold park.
Yuu moves closer until the air between them is burning from their shared body heat, and Akira relaxes, because if Yuu hasn’t gotten tired of him yet he figures that he’d probably be okay spouting his stupid reasons for liking rain.
“It’s just…always been the most comforting kind of weather for me. I used to really hate silence, and rain isn’t, you know, quiet, but it’s not a bad noise - because I hated hearing those more - like fighting or anything.” Akira thinks he might have given just a bit of himself away with that, so he covers it up quickly. “Plus one of my sisters used to say rain was the way that angels talked to us. Through the sound of it.”
Akira feels of a flash of guilt then, because he can’t even remember the last time he called any of his sisters. His mother still called, but Akira doesn’t know the last time he dialled the numbers himself. He was so desperate to get out of Kanagawa he never thought about what he was leaving there, and never once thought about missing it. Now, probably because it’s one in the morning and it’s fucking freezing and Kouyou is missing and Yuu is so damn nice and probably calls each of his family members every Saturday it’s all catching up with him.
He sighs and rests his head in his hands, because all of a sudden he’s so tired. He’s tired because it’s the middle of the night and he hasn’t slept at all, he’s tired because he just realized exactly how far he had drifted from his family, he’s tired because every truly tiring action, reaction, and thought he’s had in the past couple months has stemmed from Kouyou and he doesn’t know how to fix something he doesn’t want to admit might be broken.
“You can keep it to yourself if you want, but why are we out here?” Yuu’s voice is softer than it should be, closer than comfortable, but Akira can’t even muster up enough energy to freak out about it. He can ponder the deeper meanings of sexuality once he’s reassured that Kouyou is alive and hasn’t contracted a deadly STD.
“Kouyou.” The answer is short and hardly descriptive, but it seems enough to Yuu.
“He’s killing you.” Yuu places the pads of his fingers beneath Akira’s eyes, where he knows there are dark circles. He wants to mention that those are mostly because of video game marathons, but he can imagine the angle that Yuu is looking at things with. “Why don’t you go your own way?”
Akira jerks his head back; as Yuu might have implied breaking contact with Kouyou would somehow be okay, fucking beneficial, and on no level of reality is that alright. Yuu tunes into the reaction he gets and moves just a bit closer, cupping Akira’s face in his palm.
“I’m not talking about cutting contact or anything, you dumbass, I’m not an idiot. I’m talking about getting your own apartment, hanging out with other people, exploring your interests instead of studying his.”
Akira opens his mouth, but Yuu cuts him off.
“Listen to me. I’ve never once seen you live for yourself since I met you. Not once. You bust your ass working a job to get money for an apartment that isn’t even yours and I bet you never even considered using the money for, um, I don’t know, yourself? And look at what lead you here. You don’t even much enjoy music. I mean, you don’t mind it, but you don’t love it like the rest of us. God, you’d be so much happier working in a garage with cars or motorcycles, but you never looked. And I know there’s no way you’re going to change that, and that half of what I’m saying isn’t even registering, but you can stop living for others and still be there for them. That’s all I’m saying. Your bond with Kouyou, it’s not going to break if you stop walking the trail he’s blazing. It’ll stretch a bit, and you’ll have to reach for each other a bit more, but it’ll still be there. Just…God, Akira, live for you.”
Yuu’s voice was rising through his tirade, but it fell impossibly quiet on the last line. The silence following is deafening and Akira can’t seem to find his voice. Because everything Yuu said hit hard in the way that only truth can. Akira can’t find anything to argue against, any chink in the argument to defend himself with.
“...I can’t, Yuu.” Akira’s voice is quiet, resigned. Maybe a little bit desperate, but he’s going to ignore that. “I don’t know how.”
Yuu laughs tiredly, like he’s the one worn out from worrying and sleeplessness.
“Living’s a lot like everything else. You need to practice to do it well.”
.:.:.:.
When Akira wakes up, he is still on a park bench. Only now the bento boxes are on the ground, the streetlight is off, his legs are bent and horribly uncomfortable in a way that lets him know they’ve been like that for a couple hours, his cell phone is ringing and his head is being pillowed by Yuu’s arm and his shoulders are resting against Yuu’s chest...
Holy Mother of Fuck.
He’s being spooned.
On a fucking park bench.
Akira jerks and flails slightly before remembering too late how damn small park benches are and falls off.
By a fluke of physics, he manages to land in a semi-upright position and yanks his cell phone out, flipping it open and jamming it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Aki?” Kouyou’s voice is scratchy and rough, but it doesn’t sound like he’s dying so at the sound of it Akira damn near faints from relief. Except he doesn’t, because he’s a man and men don’t faint unless possessed by a demon.
“Where the fuck are you?” And now there’s a hint of anger, which is a first because Akira is never mad at Kouyou. But sometime during his lack of consciousness, Yuu’s words had managed to furrow their way into his grey matter and started to make sense.
If his first act of living for himself is to be pissed as fuck at Kouyou for being an imbecilic sex fiend, so be it.
“…I don’t know. Could you come and pick me up?” Kouyou’s voice sounds a little lost, a lot ‘small child looking for comfort’, and all of Akira’s anger melts away.
“Yeah, of course. Describe where you are.” After about five minutes of vague descriptions on Kouyou’s part, including ‘a hedge that sort of looks like a dog’, and wild guesses on Akira’s part, they determine Kouyou’s general location and Akira promises to there in a half an hour- ish.
He hangs up and turns towards Yuu, utterly unsure as to what he to do. Does Akira wake him up or just cover him with his jacket and go to Kouyou?
Akira stares for a minute, trying to decide what would garner the least amount of anger (because being woken up is less than awesome, but so is being left there to fend for yourself), when Yuu wakes up, sparing Akira a decision.
He breathes in and his eyelids flutter before they open, and Akira can rightfully say that it’s the most graceful way he’s ever seen anybody wake up. Yuu yawns, tongue curling, and it is inexplicably similar to a kitten.
Which is a really creepy thought, and Akira sort of feels like a rapist now.
“Why are you on the ground?” Yuu’s voice is still sleep rough as he drags a hand through his hair and moves to sit up.
“I fell.”
“Oh.” Yuu pauses. “What time is it?”
Akira rips his phone out of his pocket again and checks the retarded little front screen (seriously, what the fuck is the point of them aside from time-telling?).
“7:23.”
Yuu hums, stretching. He pats the spot beside him on the bench and Akira gets up and sits next to him, shuffling awkwardly. Should he mention the spooning thing? Was spooning a big thing to Yuu? Or was it just a casual ‘oh, hey there, friend, I’m just going to wrap my arm around you because you’re warm-ish and it’s a little cold’ thing?
Fuck.
You know what, fuck it, his mind cannot handle it, no. Screw it. He’s not acknowledging it.
“Kouyou called. I’m going to go pick him up.” Yuu nodded and looked slightly uncomfortable.
“Sorry if anything I said - God, just, I didn’t mean to insult you, I just…”
Akira hold his hands up. “No, it’s okay, really. It was…it was stuff I needed to hear.” And that’s the hardest part, he thinks, admitting to needing something.
Yuu visibly relaxes. “Okay.” They sit in silence for a little, Akira attempting to gather enough energy to get Kouyou.
“We should do this again.” Yuu speaks out suddenly. Akira frowns.
“If you mean sleep on a park bench, you’re going to get a big ‘fuck no’ from me. My ass is so cold there’s probably frost on my - well, you know.”
Yuu laughs loudly. “Great imagery. No, I mean this.” He waves his hand between them, perhaps encompassing themselves or their conversation or the space they’re occupying together or all three.
Akira smiles. “I agree.”
.:.:.:.
Kouyou’s hair is mussed and his makeup is smeared and he is missing a shoe.
He does not look chipper.
Au lieu of a verbal greeting, Akira just passes Kouyou the coffee he bought for him in hopes of placating him and avoiding a violent outburst.
Kouyou sips at it as Akira sits next to him on the curb.
“…what happen to your shoe?”
Kouyou looks down at his single bare, dirty foot and pouts. “I lost it.”
Akira sighs.
.:.:.:.
Piggybacking Kouyou is not a particularly easy, nor amusing, mainly because he’s skinny and tall and jabs his heels into Akira’s thighs every time he wants them to go faster.
He also spills coffee on Akira’s shoulder when he waves his arms around to describe something.
Akira allows him to, though, to find the right words to say ‘I’m moving out to learn how to not be everybody’s bitch’. Akira has, of course, already accepted the fact that he’ll always be Kouyou’s bitch, but that doesn’t mean he has to be everyone elses.
“What are you thinking about, Aki?”
Akira jumps. “I think that - um, I think I’m going to find my own apartment.” He’s whispering by the end of it.
Kouyou goes still, because he’s always had a nasty habit of knowing when something means more than it seems. Akira is waiting for a slap on the head or some screeching to start or something, but instead he gets a silence filled with something he can’t even begin to decipher so he doesn’t even try. He waits.
“Why?” Kouyou’s voice is calmer than Akira thought it would be.
“I - Kouyou, I need to be able to…I love you but I need to try to, God. Just. I’ve never actually done much because I wanted to do it, you know? And I need to be able to not always follow someone. It’s a finding-myself crisis, okay?”
They stop in front of their building, and Akira congratulates himself on making even less sense than usual.
Kouyou slides off his back and walks around to face Akira. Akira is once again expecting a sense of betrayal, anger, irritation, something.
Kouyou just looks at him and there’s something like understanding there. “Okay. I’ll help you look for one later.” He turns and heads upstairs, leaving Akira to wonder when Kouyou had changed, and how much they don’t know about each other anymore.
But he doesn’t have time to dwell on it, since Kouyou started screaming down the stairs for Akira to get his ass up here and cook some goddamn greasy breakfast.
.:.:.:.
The apartment they find that is cheap enough for Akira to keep is equally as shitty as the one he just left, but when he announces the move over the weekly Gazette dinner, the smile Yuu sends him makes up for it. By tenfold.
.:.:.:.
So Akira falls into something that could be called almost a routine. He practices with the band four times a week, has dinner with the entire band once a week, meals with Yuu at least twice, any other meal with either Taka or Kouyou the rest of the time, and deals with his housebreaking friends daily.
There’s always at least one of them turning up to deal with him. It’s happened so often he doesn’t even react, which probably means he’s screwed should a burglar actually break in. Not that he has anything worth stealing, but the point remains.
Kouyou has started to alternate his nights between his apartment, Akira’s, Takanori’s, and sometimes, a disturbed Yune told him, forgetting their animosity to bond over shared experience with Kouyou’s creepiness, he shows up at his and Yuu’s place, throws himself onto Yune’s bed (with Yune still on it) and falls asleep.
Because Kouyou is Kouyou and he does whatever he goddamn pleases, even if it creeps you right the fuck out.
So Akira is neither surprised nor resistant when Kouyou shows up at his apartment, dragging him out to some club for no other reason than to get smashed.
.:.:.:.
The girl introduces herself as Jenna after Akira’s third beer and 8th shot with accented Japanese and a cocked hip. She has long black hair, curved hips, long legs and an apparent penchant for low cut tops, and the first thing she does after introductions is toss back a shot and smile like lightning.
Akira can’t quite get his mouth around the rounded syllables of her name, and when he apologizes (tracing the kanji for forgiveness on the skin showing between the hem of her shirt and the top of her jeans, but that’s only a detail) she waves it away and says mouths have more uses than just talking.
He likes her immensely.
Her voice is quieter than you would expect and breathy, and when he starts to babble she presses her fingers to his mouth and looks up at him and there’s almost a sense of déjà vu.
She leads him to the dance floor, cupping his face in her palm as she whispers quiet suggestions with a soft voice, and the sense of familiarity is almost overwhelming, but he pushes to the back of his mind because it’s not nearly as important as the warmth of her hips as they grind against his and the way the curve of her ass fits against Akira’s hand. He sighs happily before kissing her neck, and she moans as she laces her fingers through his hair.
Her scent is better than alcohol for getting him drunk, and they only dance for one more song before she’s leading him from the club to her rented flat.
Akira is kissing her and placing his hands over a specific, impossibly warm section and she wriggles happily as she frees her keys, drags him inside her flat and pushes him onto her bed. Clothes are disposes of quickly, and Akira marvels over her beauty, running his hands over her thighs, her hips, her sides and over her shoulders. He slides his hands down her back and she shivers as he presses her closer.
“I’d forgotten how much fun sex is.” The husk of her voice is whispered against his shoulder before she bites it, and all Akira can do is agree before all thought is obliviated by heat, warmth, and the feel of skin against skin.
***
A/N: I raped the word ‘because’ in this. And abused the comma. How silly of me. And this was longer than the longest thing I’ve ever written. O___O Holy fuck.