[log] Zaizen & Kirihara

[knuckling]

Who: Zaizen Hikaru & Kirihara Akaya
What: 40 pages of Designated Cuddle Hours and obtuse flirting(???). Warning: this is extremely long, fluffy and full of emotions that are resolutely ignored. 40 pages is not an exaggeration.
When: Sometime week before last.
Where: Akaya's apartment.
Rating: S for science snuggles Zaizen's personality stupidity -- uh, PG for Feelings.




As per usual, Zaizen spent his waiting-for-a-practice-room time plunging into the depths of the internet. Except this time was for purely research purposes.

So, positions, Zaizen started his text to Akaya. Apparently the one we were in is called the Nuzzle.

Somewhat questionable and dubious, but rather innocent compared to some of the other bizarre position titles. Some other ones are the Spoon (front to back), the Tangle (front to front), the Leg hug (just legs touching), Back to Back, Shingles (side by side, with arm pillow).

Zaizen wasn’t sure how he felt about losing circulation in his arm, however. They could try that one if Akaya wanted to make the sacrifice.

Any to add?

In a taxi back from a routine gym session, Akaya was not surprised to have his phone buzz. The message contents on the other hand…

He reread Zaizen’s text a few times over as if it would rearrange itself into a different message. When it didn’t magically change its structure, Akaya replied with a Wait you’re actually researching this - only to immediately follow it up with I didn’t know there was names other than spooning, that’s silly.

As he rearranged himself on the hallway bench, Zaizen flicked open the message from Akaya. You challenged my accuracy, he typed, as if that explained everything.

And it was part of it, probably. Beneath that layer and in the quiet of his own mind, he could own up to some element of curiosity. He had often shared a bed with his nephew at home and it had been warm, perhaps enhancing some of the protectiveness that came out in some of his music. That aside, Hirakoba had been poking at him to cuddle, which seemed a bit too much, even as the blond elevated his bribes to tempting levels.

Napping with Akaya had been peaceful. It didn’t bring out the same kind of feelings he had curling up with his nephew, and there was a sort of quiet comfort that he wondered about replicating. Or if not replicating, feeling some kind of clash with the regular drum of his day.

But it seemed most fair to offer Akaya a way out, If you concede to 75% accuracy, no need to experiment.

As for the position names. Well. He very much doubted that Akaya wanted to know what they were usually called.

That’s true. A test IS needed, Akaya replied. It had been a joke, but there wasn’t any denying that he was interested to see what could happen. It could have just been post-tournament stress, since there had been a lot of that at play (which Akaya generally prefered to ignore, but…). He’d felt a lot better waking up after that nap, though. Even with his bank account having a small chip in it.

That said, it was kind of throwing him off hearing this from Zaizen. He knew that his friend was a good emotional sponge, but contact wasn’t usually one of the comforting advantages to talking things through with him. It had been nice. Just… different.

And, well. With that second message, that cemented it. Kirihara Akaya did not concede so easily. Absolutely not, he sent back quickly. You went to the effort of researching and everything.

He checked out the window - about ten minutes from his place. He had time to have a post-workout chill, go shopping and do small chores, assuming the timing was what he assumed. You’re up for practice now, right? Wanna come by after?

Akaya, in typical Akaya fashion, did not back down. He was also the only person who would call a google search ‘research.’

As he typed his reply, he noticed his senpai leave the practice room. They exchanged keys and he scribbled his name on the sign in sheet. Once Zaizen shut the door behind him for blessed, soundproofed quiet, he sent his answer.

Sure. I have the room for an hour. Can come by right after?

Almost home, Akaya had structured a small mental checklist of things to get done that should occupy the waiting time fairly perfectly. He was almost certain this would not include having to change his bedsheets - those were thankfully freshly washed.

That’s fine. The cab pulled up, Akaya fumbled with his credit card for a minute, then fumbled with his bags trying to have everything in hand before taking the stairs through his gate. Well, whatever, he thought. It’ll be interesting and nice to have someone around after a busier day, at the very least.

Zaizen left the message on read. Akaya knew that his practice was a deep dive, especially when it came to the instruments too large and unwieldy to bring home with him. So he took a deep breath, silenced his phone, and crawled smoothly into that all-consuming pool.

An eternity or five minutes later, his hour in the practice room was up. His mind stayed in that hour all the way to Akaya’s sketchy gate. This time, he texted his arrival instead of providing the buzzer-shock.
Having filled his time out with House Stuff and restocking from the combini nearby, Akaya had only been free for about ten minutes before Zaizen’s arrival. Silently thanking him for not using the godawful buzzer, Akaya got up from the arduous task of scrolling aimlessly through TV channels to let his friend in.

“Hey,” he chimed in greeting when Zaizen made it up to his apartment. He’d remembered to move the box of Amazon deliveries to what he hoped were the appropriate places before Zaizen saw them haphazardly shoved under the table as they had been for the past few days.

Zaizen nodded in greeting, removing his earbuds as he shuffled out of his shoes. As usual, Akaya’s place looked reasonably well-kept. He made himself comfortable, putting down his bag and setting his jacket in the usual place. “How was practice?”

Surely, Akaya’s coach and PT were taking it light still after his victory. There was still some time before Rome and Paris.

On his preferred side of the couch, Akaya sat back and pulled his legs up, leaving Zaizen’s place open for him when he was ready to sit. “Alright, just maintenance, really,” he replied, shrugging. “Had some rally drills with one of the new guys.” Which was usual. His coach liked to throw the younger ones in the deep end occasionally.

“How about yours?” Akaya offered, tilting his head. Traditional music on its own was never his preferred genre either, but some of the instruments were interesting. “Getting the hang of what you wanna do?”

“Promising new guys?” Zaizen helped himself to some water from the sink before joining his friend on the couch, perching somewhere just slightly closer to the other side with his feet pulled up to the edge of the cushion.

After a few sips, he said, “Closer. I finally bought new finger picks, still getting used to them.” His old ones from high school had been worn down and slightly too small. “But I always bring tape. The sound is coming along.”

“Mm, alright new guys,” Akaya confirmed. They were a little younger than him, and the one he was rallying with today had been nervous in general and it had shown through his safe shots. He didn’t want to elaborate too much on them - they were developing, and it was hard to tell anything for certain.

Akaya glanced at Zaizen’s hands, as if they would have the picks still attached for some reason. “Have you cut yourself on a string, yet?” He wondered aloud, hardly expecting a serious answer. “Koto’s pretty nice, though, huh. Good sound.” Incorporates well into modern genres, too, Akaya thought.

Zaizen accepted ‘all right’ at face value and hummed thoughtfully, his sharp gaze following Akaya’s line of sight to his perfectly intact fingers. He wiggled them over the curve of his knee.

“Not in awhile,” he said, because he knew to check the shared instruments before playing them and take particular care. That didn’t, however, mean that it would never happen. “And it’s not bad,” Zaizen agreed, eyes flicking back up to Kirihara. “...Want to hear?”

Akaya smiled a little at the movement. No bandaids, then. He couldn’t help but wonder about some of the past string-cutting incidents, but he wasn’t going to ask, especially when the offer to listen was posed.

He blinked once, nodding slowly. Listening to Zaizen’s play wasn’t rare, exactly, but it wasn’t common either - just something that happened occasionally. Koto would be a new one entirely. “Ah,” Akaya started, a thought coming to him. “Do you wanna play now, or…” later was implied but not said, a sort of awkward reminder of Akaya’s earlier initial confusion.

A shrug melted off of Zaizen’s shoulders. “I’m confident in my accuracy either way,” he dropped his cheek to his knee and watched the awkwardness play out on Akaya’s features. “Want to play some Tekken first? Now that we’ve guaranteed I’ll comfort you after and everything.”

Hey, that was a low blow. Akaya stuck his tongue out childishly in reply, shoving Zaizen with his foot, but getting up to retrieve the controllers anyway. “Hey, maybe I’ve been practicing real hard and I’ll actually kick your ass today,” he said. He hadn’t, but that wasn’t the point. “And I’ll have to comfort you in your resounding shock.”

He passed the second controller over and tucked himself back into the couch corner. He wasn’t entirely stupid, he knew Zaizen was trying to dissipate whatever mood had come over him. It was appreciated, but he didn’t need to know that.

In his kernel form, Zaizen swayed easily with the shove and rocked back, unperturbed. He unraveled with the controller and twisted to put his feet up on the couch, folded toward the middle.

“What an interesting fanfiction,” he said, selecting his character. “What account is that one under?”

“This one’s on my main,” Akaya replied, starting up the first round. “Keep up.”

It really was all talk, though. Despite round after round and the occasional chime in of advice from his current adversary, Akaya lost every match like usual. It almost seemed like he was picking up the pace near the end, adapting characters and finding he maybe could consistently do quarter-circles if he really put his mind to it, but it was too little too late and finally he discarded the controller with a clatter to the table, sighing.
“One day,” he said to the air. “Maybe I should write a fanfic and it’ll adapt itself to reality.”

When Akaya dropped his controller in defeat, Zaizen nudged his feet over into his lap. “Or a very compelling stage musical about how you almost got me on that last one,” he suggested. “I could do the music.”

But that would still not make it reality.

He plucked up his phone, searching for his koto recording file from earlier as his feet shifted too and fro on Akaya’s lap, absently with the tekken background still playing. “Should I connect this up to the speaker in your bedroom, or here?”

Akaya huffed out something that was almost a laugh. Almost. “A big show. It’d run at Yokohama, it’d be so popular.” Probably violating some kind of copyright, though.

Trapping Zaizen’s ankles between his knees and propping his elbows up on the armrest behind him, Akaya wondered for a moment about the advantages of staying right here in familiar territory vs the comfort of his Bed (capital B for size and general softness). “Probably in the bedroom,” he ventured slowly, releasing Zaizen’s limbs and drumming his fingers along the side of the couch, hesitating to get up. “It’s a nice bed,” he finished kind of lamely.

“Not exactly how I wanted to sell out a venue,” Zaizen said, lips tilting into something that vaguely resembled an amusement as Akaya described his bed in the least colorful language he could imagine.

Figuring that Akaya needed a bit of prompting, he lifted his now free feet to push lightly at him. “I have seen it,” he reminded Akaya, then withdrew his feet to stand. After rolling his head this way and that for a bit of a stretch, he turned his stare on Akaya as if to say, you coming?

Not wanting to seem hesitant any more, Akaya tipped himself off the couch and flicked the TV off on his way to follow Zaizen. Feeling like he should probably… start somewhere, he nudged his friend with his shoulder as he crossed the short distance to his room. As Zaizen joined him past that doorway, he leaned slightly into the shorter boy’s side.

“So, like,” he said, trying to sound light. “What did you have in mind?”

Zaizen gave a little under the weight, but mostly remained sturdy as he peered up at Akaya. From this close, he could smell that he had used his new shampoo. “I texted you some options,” he said, as he mentally skimmed through them.

“Back to front?” he proposed after a beat, giving Akaya time to cut in if he so chose to. “Or how we were on the couch, but reverse.”

Akaya tried to play off his deep, nervous exhale as a sound of consideration. Which it sort of was - the consideration was what was making him nervous. The flutter started somewhere in his stomach, reminding him that yeah, this is what you technically signed up for.

“...back to front, I think, is okay,” he conceded finally. There was a very slight tremor underneath his airy tone. “Though, uh.” A pause, as he tried to work out how to express himself without sounding any more awkward then he felt. “I guess, if you need to work your phone, your hands should be… uh, free?”

Different hues of awkward and anxious seemed to chase each other across Akaya’s expression. It was both fascinating and annoying, but mostly the former. He watched, quietly staring as the taller man finally managed to articulate.

And Zaizen got it. Although he didn’t have the same nervousness, he had known Akaya long enough to understand it intellectually. So, he put him out of his misery.

“All right,” he said, dark eyes searching Akaya’s before he progressed into the room and sat calmly on the edge of the bed closest to the speaker. “Lay down. I’ll connect to your bluetooth and join in a second.”

It took a moment for Akaya’s muscles to catch up with the instruction. Eventually he sighed again, following suit by sitting on the bed first to spy the phone screen that Zaizen was preparing his music to play on. He shifted himself back, kicking his covers out of the way to lie down first, propping his head up with his hand as he fussed with the pillows to ease the fidgety energy that was creeping through his arms and hands.

His eyes flicked to Zaizen, and Akaya couldn’t help but wonder how he was being so casual about it. Logically he knew it wasn’t really a big deal for himself, but Zaizen usually took a lot of care with where he lent physical contact. Maybe it was just the challenge.

Crossing his arms over his pillow and resting his chin on his forearms, Akaya tried to wait quietly, but a question came to mind. “Do you have lyrics to go along with this?” He asked. That technically WAS the basis of this test, after all.

The circle on his phone loaded when he turned his bluetooth on, offering to connect to everything in range. Zaizen’s phone might be that unselective, but he certainly wasn’t as a person. While removing the earrings from only one ear and setting them neatly on the stand by the speakers, he thought about that selectiveness and he chose the bed speakers. Zaizen reclined into the pulled back sheets, a calm, decisive silhouette in the dim of the room.

“I don’t think I’ll need them,” Zaizen said, selecting some traditional works to play automatically following his own. Fortunately, he did have such a playlist already cultivated. “I’m pretty sure if I started singing enka, you’d be laughing too hard to sleep.”

Although he didn’t scooch back against Akaya, the way he peered over his shoulder cued the taller man to come a little closer.

Akaya waited for the answer to his question, watching Zaizen remove his earrings and having a strange flicker of energy through his fingertips every time the metal clinked together. After a few moments of waiting, his chest did one of its usual jumps it tended to perform when his flight instinct wanted to make itself known. He turned his neck, hiding his face as Zaizen answered him, the telltale rustle of sheets indicating he was finished with setting up.

The response did surprise him enough to get him laughing, though. The mere concept of Zaizen singing enka was so absurd that Akaya couldn’t help it, trying to stifle his giggles in his arms, before lifting his head to reply. “Enka is relaxing to no one,” he agreed, smiling--

...only to have his expression freeze as he saw Zaizen looking at him. There was a silent beat, then two, before Akaya let out a shuddery breath and turned. Even in his current mood, there was something he would not do, and that was concede ground - rather than moving much closer, he shifted only slightly, choosing instead to reach out. With a careful but firm grip, he snaked his arms where he could around Zaizen and pulled him toward his chest.

Akaya’s laughter cut through the intensity like butter. Perhaps it was its sudden absence afterward that jumped Zaizen’s typically steady pulse, staining his ears pink for the emotional exertion. He went cooperatively with Akaya’s arms and settled back against him, as inevitable as gravity at this point.

It was completely novel. This warmth and heartbeat at his back. Akaya breath stirred his hair and, if he could smell the shampoo before, it was surrounding him now.

Not unpleasant. His fingers could only press play, bringing the London Rain over them with his cover of Michio Miyagi’s koto. The music had an effect. The first effervescent descent of notes soothed down his spine, enforcing the kind of quiet serenity and decisiveness he couldn’t speak.

“You’ve never been karaoke with music majors,” Zaizen murmured. Akaya couldn’t possibly be closer to him; there was no point in being loud.

Luckily for Zaizen’s pride, perhaps, the room was too dim and Akaya too distracted to notice the rising colour in his half-bare ears. Adjusting his arms seemed like a titanic effort, even the slight amount he had to shift to find a comforting dip or a softer placing for the both of them. The seconds before the music starts are filled with the echoes of his own heart. There’s no way Zaizen couldn’t feel it. Maybe he couldn’t feel the red flush creeping over his sternum and collar, though. Maybe.

The song started and it was like a thin layer was added to their surroundings - enough to bring some kind of insulation to Akaya’s ringing nerves. Shutting his eyes to absorb the tone and rhythm of the music, he nudged his shoulders a tiny bit higher, bringing his head up enough to rest his chin gently on the crown on Zaizen’s head.

The quiet comment, like everything else at this point, took a second to register. It finds its way in eventually though, coaxing a brief low chuckle that bordered on a barely-restrained twitch. “Maybe not,” Akaya responded, attempting to keep the timbre of his voice even and low to not conflict with the strumming of the strings filling the room. “But I’ve heard enough that even the best-sung enka couldn’t fix that feeling.”

Zaizen chewed his lower lip, recognizing the discordant thrum of Akaya’s stress against his back. He slowed his breathing with intention and shifted closer into their embrace, compelling those arms loose enough to permit his fingers on the forearm curled around him.

“Because of Yanagi-san?” he asked as his practiced fingers arched. His fingertips were as soft as his voice, barely there but weaving the sound into Akaya’s skin with every skilled brush and note.

With a firmer pressure against his chest, Akaya felt himself moulding naturally to the curve of Zaizen’s spine. He untucked his arm from where it was folded over his companion’s waist for the shortest time possible to grab the corner of his quilt and pull it over them as it returned to its original position.

“Mmm,” a barely-vocalised reply. The first taps on his skin leave warm patches in their wake and another skip to his pulse, but when they matched with the rhythm Akaya relaxed another level. Zaizen was pulled just the tiniest bit closer as Akaya bent his knees to meet the back of his friend’s legs. “We’re supposed to go. To karaoke,” he mused. “There’s enka in my future anyway.”

It’s fine, he thinks, watching the glow of the power button on his bedside clock for a moment, trying to focus on anything else. Just to see if that was even possible. But his eyes wander, and close again.

Akaya’s pulse skittered, and then started to settle. Zaizen let another breath go, sinking into the music and position in layers. Beneath the blankets, Zaizen acknowledged Rikkai karaoke with a low, harmonic hum. The corner of his lips perked up, imagining the dataman singing enka into a cheap microphone.

“Will you back him with tambourine?” he murmured all small and velvet. His musical fingers still delicately dancing raindrops of music onto Akaya’s forearms; Zaizen couldn’t help it, not with the memory of the instrument under his hands and the slowly falling lassitude coveting into their intertwined forms like the duvet cover.

“Someone has to do it,” Akaya muttered, some natural humour returning to his hushed tone. The conversation, however mundane, was grounding. A mirrored smile etched its way onto his face. Tipping his chin back very slightly, he managed to find an angle for his neck that fit both the cushioning of the pillow and the presence of Zaizen’s hair in comfortable check.

The plucking of strings reached a series of peaks and falls that were echoed in momentary, barely-there feelings over his wrist. The silence as the koto rang its last and held for a steady pause allowed Akaya to slowly let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d even started holding. Before the playlist clicked over, he blinked, coming up short for compliments and resorting to a soft, “That was really good.”

Zaizen huffed in a way that was almost a laugh, his fingers almost matching the spilling sound. “Take one for the team,” he said. Somehow, it was easy to visualize Akaya acting like a lunatic with the tambourine. It made him smile.

The concluding music drew his fingers to a restful, lingering tap, until Akaya’s nice words came out of nowhere and made them pause for the first time, unsure and twitching lightly with lack of direction from the musician. His iPhone saved him with the next song on the playlist, an equally gentle combination of koto and drum.

“It needs work,” he said, relaxing with returned purpose. With music, Zaizen escaped feeling like a fish trying to breath air. He resumed his tapping, imagining that the music actually came from them. “But the composer is really amazing…it was a song they wrote about London in the rain. I’ll send you the real version sometime.”

The renewed sensation of fingertips drumming a new, unfamiliar rhythm didn’t draw attention to the pause, so Akaya deemed his rather simplistic compliment a success in its own way. Even with Zaizen’s willful interpretation around it. The current song had an added effect with the drum, the occasional strike of the taiko that solidified the hypnotic repetition in the sound.

“It felt like rain,” he said, a response without any real filter to it. “Traditional Japanese music about London… huh. Kinda unexpected.” He wasn’t going to address being provided with the original - Zaizen would do it regardless, but Akaya would have trouble defining the differences having heard the cover first.

The steady tap of the taiko sounded again. Absently, the remaining energy in his digits wanting to work its way out, Akaya’s hand echoed the drum strike with a gentle beat to Zaizen’s chest.

Zaizen’s eyes fluttered closed with the vibrations of Akaya’s voice against the back of his head and breathy syllables stirring his neatly styled hair. His fingers played in complement with the drumbeat pushing lightly against him in absent time with the music. It was a different sort of immersion.

“Inspiration doesn’t discriminate,” he said slowly, weaving his words into a lull. “Place, time, age, medium. There’s no checklist for innovation. Just…”

Feelings. He wanted to say feelings but, even as they were cuddling, it felt mushy. “Experiences. Life.”

Akaya didn’t allow the now-steady drum of his hand to stutter despite Zaizen speaking - he knew Zaizen would be able to talk around the sounds as not to disturb them anyway. He felt like he understood the explanation Zaizen was providing on a surface level - but not the deeper one, the one that made his friend tick, made him lose himself in compositions for days and be able to pick up a tune with no issue.

“Is that what you look for?” Akaya asked. The question doesn’t come out quite the way he wants it to, and he frowned before trying again, missing a beat with his hand. “I mean, as in… man, I dunno how to put it. As in, you look for places and experiences for composing, all the time?”

The question provoked quiet, but not discontent, from the smaller man tucked against Akaya. His hands continued to sketch the music into Akaya’s tennis arm, even as it change to another calm, inward looking song. Having never been asked to articulate it before, he had no ready answer. And even if he did, as a student, it was expected to constantly change.

“No….” he said slowly, thoughtfully forming his words. “I think having experiences only for that reason would strip it of the feelings that I would, hypothetically, be trying to provoke.” Zaizen said, then hummed in agreement with this brand new thought of his. “I can’t. Look for something like that. I’d never find it and end up unhappy.”

His brow furrowed, trying to think of a suitable comparison to make himself understood. “Like if you’re actively trying to come up with a tennis move, and trying too hard to do something that was never meant to fit.”

Listening patiently, feeling the vibration of Zaizen’s hum through his chest, Akaya tried his best to make sense of it. Creative process wasn’t completely foreign to him, but the drive to pursue concepts and objects that provided content through expression with such consistency escaped him completely. However the tennis simile helped something click for him, and Akaya felt himself grin a little in a combination of understanding and appreciation.

“Like being so set on having an answer for everything, but all your practice shots hit the net,” he started. “But then you’ll suddenly be able to execute a move perfectly when the time comes, or you’ll have a moment that makes you realise the twist of the wrist is wrong, or…” Akaya trailed off for a moment, trying to recall the right words. “Aah, that thing, you know? Where you can’t really seek something out, but it hits you anyway, and it makes things fit together even though you didn’t realise you had the pieces in the first place.”

The lack of vocabulary coming to him was a bother, but Akaya was sure he was on the right track for once, even if he wasn’t entirely solid on the details. The continuing map of the music being pressed lightly into his skin let him know he wasn’t totally off the mark.

Akaya explored the concept in words, dancing around the heart of something that neither of them could truly articulate. But that was what music was for. What tennis was for. Zaizen’s fingertips were light and skittering, stroking giddy nothings on the delicate bones of Akaya’s wrist as he thought about this feeling he couldn’t label.

“Yeah,” he breathed. Understood was a word. Validated was another. Those weren’t quite right, but feelings really didn’t need a label anyway. “You can’t find what’s already there. Just…understand. Eventually.”

Zaizen exhaled softly with relief with the first breath of the bamboo flute through the speaker. Trickling koto bridged a melody through the sound, airy and transporting.

A chuckle that was more breath than sound was Akaya's first mildly surprised response. "I got it right? That's good." Murmurs, pride mingling with amazement. "Closer than I thought. I don't think I'll ever get it quite the same way you do, but if everyone could, it wouldn't be special."

The fue was harder to follow than the drum. Unsure how to move his hands to mirror the instrument this time, Akaya returned to resting them still against his companion's chest, fingers slightly curled. His heart still felt like it was beating too hard, but had slowed to an average, much calmer pace. Suddenly feeling too high up on the pillows, he tapped his chin in forewarning on top of Zaizen's head before shifting his whole body down a couple of inches, his forehead coming to rest on the back of his friend's skull instead.

Whether it was intended as in indicator that he was done moving or just as a reestablishment of comfort, Akaya's arms tensed for a brief, hesitant moment. A slight squeeze against Zaizen's body.

That huff of a laugh stirred up his hair and rippled into the steady flute, a gentle pulse surrounding Zaizen. His own slow breath, the carefully timed rise and fall of his chest, drew Akaya further into his pace.

Was it special? Or did he just really like music? He had witnessed true, captivating talent and seen others do their best and fail horribly. His spellbound touch slowed over Akaya’s knuckles. “I’m understanding more as I go,” Zaizen admitted, a rush of color returning to his ears with the intimacy and movement. Now, instead of Akaya’s heartbeat at his back, he had quiet breath stirring up the downy hairs at his nape.

He let Akaya pull him close and brought his thumb to a slow, curiously venturing over Akaya’s knuckle. A tennis player’s hands, like a musician’s hands, held so much character. “And so are you. Better that it be yours than the same.”

The noise of acknowledgement Akaya made rang oddly in his ears - it took him a second to realise it was rebounding strangely in the little hollow between his face and the back of Zaizen’s neck. That, and the praise set his shoulders with strung tension yet again. His fingers twitched convulsively at the gentle, exploratory brush over the back of his hand. When he spoke next, it was with stilted care, the reverberation of his words sounding overly loud even with his attempt to be as quiet as he could. “You’ve got the patience for all the understanding,” and there was so much, from what Akaya knew of the musician’s work. “I just, like, run with it.”

His habit was acting on instinctive impulses, running on peaks of energy and emotion. It brought out the worst parts of him, sometimes, but that’s what working through it was for. He’d understand properly, eventually, later, if he had to - that was his thought process. But… “It might be fun to learn an instrument, sometime,” he could play guitar, but it was something he ‘could do’ rather than something he was ‘good at’.

With that, Akaya turned his wrist, unfurling and stretching his fingers. The blunt edges of his nails brushed the pads of Zaizen’s fingertips with equal curiosity. His palm lay open in the restricted space under the covers, some kind of offer, if nothing else.

Zaizen hummed without much thought for how that rumble would hit Akaya. As far as he was concerned, they were different people with different goals. It was all well and good -- expected even -- to not understand the world in the same way. “That’s okay,” he murmured finally, low and sleepy with a bloom of sound from the flute. “It’s working, isn’t it?”

Akaya’s shoulders tightened. Teasing nails over his receptive fingers provoked a shiver and he wiggled a bit, not to signal any discomfort, but rather to nudge his companion into spreading some of that tension over him. Zaizen accompanied the movement with the slow unfurl of his arched fingers over Akaya’s open palm, free license to explore his fingertips even as he took his time mapping out the tennis-formed hands. “I think you would like drums,” he suggested.

Another small humming vibration spread from the contact point of Akaya's forehead, feeling as if someone had tapped him right between the eyes. That tiny amount of energy ran through his nerves, sparking some awake and quieting others. It left him just a bit dazed, cheeks and ears burning for the briefest moment. It almost made him miss the question. "Yeah," he breathed. "It's working."

Akaya wasn't sure if he was answering the same question that had actually been asked.

Then Zaizen's shifting forced his shoulders to adjust and he felt the pressure leak out of them. The rigidity dropped through his veins, filtering out at the tips of his fingers, which curled instinctively and met Zaizen's searching ones on the way. Akaya recoiled them reactively. But a short moment later, almost shyly, they reached out again with a slight pressure to meet at five points. "I've heard a lot of jokes about drummers," he said. His fingers tap in order - one, two, three - "But you're probably right." Four, five.

Completely unseen, a delicate sort of smile edged gradually onto Zaizen’s face. The kind that was without any hint of prickly, porcupine exterior and asked for nothing in return.

He waited patiently, warm and still as Akaya molded to his back and rejoined their hands with a hesitance that matched Zaizen’s expression. “Mmmm,” he hummed again, feeling the beat and intention through Akaya’s long, square fingers. They seemed manlier like this, rather than holding a racket or a controller. “Some of them are probably true,” he said, quiet voice warm with humor as he picked up the pattern where Akaya had left it, pushing back in the opposite direction up to five, at the subdued pace of the song. “I can get you time with one. If you want. A drum set.”

So that was the pattern. A non-vocal call and response, five at a time, along with the tune playing in the background. That was easy to keep up, so Akaya did - one pinpoint of contact at a time, releasing and meeting again. “Hey,” he said with mock offense. “You’re not sellin’ it very well, y’know.” But he could understand the truth in the suggestion and the accompanying implications. Something heavy and active suited him. And since when did he care about stereotypes, anyway?

It was impossible to not pick up on the pauses in Zaizen’s offer when his voice was so close. Akaya’s brows knitted together slightly, considering both the nature of the offer and the viability of such. “Maybe that…” a pause. No, that wasn’t right. “Yeah. Sometime, that’d be cool,” more firm, meant to be reassuring. The current song ended on the last meet of their fingers, leaving five bridges of contact with nowhere to go.

“So sorry,” Zaizen huffed, not meaning it even a little as he gave a light, playful push with a squirm of his shoulders. He ignored how, really, it just tucked him tighter against Kirihara’s chest. Along with the music, he focused on Akaya’s hesitance and considered the perils of distracting the tennis player too much. Between professional play and school, an instrument might be too much.

But. Maybe. A playful session. He could bring his guitar. It would be fun. His fingers stopped their dallying and smoothed out over Akaya’s hands for a tactile confirmation. “I can book it,” he agreed at a mumble, eyes slotting open to watch their hands and wonder what would play next. “Before Gundam building? If you can still come?”

The shove elicited a short laugh as Akaya’s neck dipped further forward with the movement, widening the space between his face and the back of Zaizen’s head slightly. It was barely a reprimand, almost a formality accompanying the huffy reply, but the casual nature of the movement sapped the last of the tension from Akaya’s body. He almost regretted not being able to see the obvious glare he would be getting along with it normally.

Laughter petering out to a lingering amusement, Akaya became aware of the next song starting. He waited until the music had established itself - a violin accompaniment, this time - before his hand shifted clumsily, trying to find surface somewhere on the narrower digits pressed to his own. “Mm, that’s pretty soon too, right… I can still come,” he confirmed. He’d asked for a vague ‘few days off in April’ that had been basically okayed already. “Ain’t going away again ‘til mid-May, so. I have a little time.” And truthfully, he was considering leaving even later than planned. He had no love for clay court season and most chances to avoid the smaller tournaments would be taken.

The curl of Akaya’s motion directed that laugh down his neck, disturbing his comfortable faux sulk with a shuddering inhale. With the trembling violin, he drew his long fingers to the center of Akaya’s palm and then the note lingered, more sure, and he crawled them out again, slotting into the empty spaces formed by capable hands.

“So I’ll tell him, then,” Zaizen murmured, tracing his thumb slowly up from Akaya’s wrist and along the edge of his hand, lingering over the bump of the joint. “That you’re coming. And that you’re avoiding clay court.” He said that last teasingly, words like the light climb of carefully plucked koto notes.

It had seemed smart, after asking Akaya initially, to hold off telling his excitable nephew until things became closer on.

The trails Zaizen’s fingers left following the violin left Akaya unsure how to follow. So he didn’t - just allowed the slow, investigative touch to persist without intervention. He swallowed, colour peaking high on his cheekbones, but nothing tense dared to creep back through his body when it had finally relaxed completely. He closed his eyes, head shifting forward again slightly further than it had been. The bridge of his nose met dark hair, not quite a nuzzle, but a comfortable resting spot where he intended to remain.

“Uh-huh,” practically a whisper at this point. “As long as you tell him why clay is awful.” Inquiring minds should know, after all. It shouldn’t come across as cowardice when it was merely distaste. The violin sung a soft, high note and Akaya’s fingers curled inward. “Don’t go making him think I don’t actually want to be playing.”

Zaizen sounded a low rumble of acceptance with the evening breath against his hair and the tennis-formed fingers sealing their palms close. His own fingers curled over Akaya’s, completing the near perfect mimicry of their spooned forms beneath the covers. Brim with music and melted by trapped body heat, he couldn’t bring himself to consider the sheer human intimacy occupying the moment beyond the feeling.

“Sure, after imparting that bit of wisdom,” he drawled, all slow and kansai. “I’ll say that you heroically gave up training for the clay court to build him a tribute gundam.” Kei was probably too smart to fully go for it, but it would make the kid smile nonetheless.

The koto made another enchanting ascent; Zaizen inhaled deeply and exhaled almost at a mew, dismissing any lingering cobwebs of unnecessary this or that from the corners of his mind. By the times the notes tumbled back down, his breathing was a slow and steady well for calm energy.

“So you’re just going to tell him the truth,” Akaya murmured with a playful tone. “You could exaggerate a little, y’know, I wouldn’t mind.” He let out a tiny laugh, ending it with his own steady exhale that set his next draws of breath at as much of a matching pace as they could be. The loose feeling of lethargy was crawling out of his joints now, replacing any remaining angle or tightness to his muscle with a mirrored melting fluidity.

The lock of their hands was like the turning of a security latch, a solid grounding motion that allowed his mind to relax. The music was so even and quiet, their breathing incorporated into each peal of the strings. Hadn’t there been a point to prove, here? The idea seemed to be chased out by other thoughts. It wasn’t the time to bring that back up. Just resting, content, calm now without nerves singing warnings.

Akaya’s laugh hung on the music, a bell among the sound. In its wake, soft breathing that matched his own encroached down his nape, stirring frisson and prickles of white noise. “...Yeah? What kind of uncle would that make me?” Zaizen asked. Their twined hands looked fuzzy through his out of focus, drooping gaze. His senses had determined to shut down faculties beyond touch and hearing.

Akaya pulled his arm, and Zaizen’s along with it, closer to the other man’s chest to form a more natural bend in his elbow. His eyelids fluttered, just once, as he smiled. “Mm, a good one,” he said. His voice that was too loud only a short time ago now sounded muted in his own ears. “You’re s’posed to tell stories.” Or, so he assumed. His sister didn’t have any children, so there was no first-hand experience here. “Maybe one day he’ll think I’m as cool as he thinks you are.”

Zaizen sighed, perfectly easy with their hands up against his chest, Akaya’s arm snaked warmly around him. “I tell stories,” he murmured, “About you almost showing up on the court in a bathrobe.” The second comment drew another smile to his close-eyed face, this fleeting one no less real for being weighed down by their blanketed atmosphere.

“Maybe.” That Keisuke thought Zaizen was cool -- he could admit that it was a point of pride for him. With a little huff of a chuckle, he suggested sleepily, “For now, you could write fanfiction about that one.”

Though neither of them could tell, Zaizen’s smile was mirrored on Akaya’s mouth. “Aah, I was kinda looking forward to doing that.” Though the idea has rightfully been shut down, he’d been tempted to rebel and do it regardless - eventually weighing up that the consequences wouldn’t have been worth it. It was amusing to be reminded of it.

The comfort of the covers, the music and Zaizen tucked up against him were combining into a general lull sinking into his bones, mingling with the lethargic status of his joints. Akaya’s mind was the only thing left functioning, just to register and contribute to the hushed conversations that were slowly drawing them both into restfulness.

“Maybe,” he echoed. “‘nstead I think… I can just look forward to actual reality.” It was a veiled thanks for the invitation - one maybe lost in their languid states.

A hitched breath of a laugh was all of Zaizen’s contemplation. Perhaps Akaya could use the bathrobe method to get himself out of clay court next year, if he didn’t want to use Kei as an excuse.

It wouldn’t take much to convince an elementary school kid that a professional tennis player was really cool; especially one who actually showed up for him on his special gundam festival day. “Okay,” he more breathed than said, too languid to vocalize much on the matter beyond transparent acceptance. They had more than enough of it going around, after all.

That tiny amused response from his companion left a hint of a smile that would not vanish on Akaya’s face, even though he couldn’t open his eyes any longer and his ears felt as if they were filled with cotton. The only clarity was the occasional thrum of a koto note, and soon he couldn’t remember nor care how many songs had passed.

“Okay,” he matched, but it could have been minutes later. Sleep was happily taking over at its own pace, eventually winning the battle with consciousness and turning any remaining sensations into fuel for rest.

Akaya’s hushed words went in one ear and out the other. Zaizen had drifted off with the floaty, cloudlike music, following the resonant tune deeper within himself in serene slumber that persisted longer than his naps usually did. He slept through the change in natural light, through the flickering of messages on his phone, through the minutes or hours of time withdrawn from their busy Tokyo lives.

A sound and vibration at odds to the airy music and white noise occurred at his lower back. And then again, until he stirred, sleepy pout lifting as he hummed with it instinctively. It took a few flutters of his bleary eyes to realize that he was in someone else’s bed. Akaya’s bed? The smell of familiar hair product and the tennis hands twined with his smoothed down the note of panic with reassurance that it was Akaya. And that it was actually Akaya’s stomach making that noise.

He peered behind him slowly, chewing his lip as he considered what to do. After a few beats, he made the executive decision that Akaya would want dinner and squeezed his hand, bringing their fists slowly up his chest to force their arms to a little stretch.

Although falling asleep happened to be one of Akaya’s strongest talents, waking up was absolutely not in the same category.

The squeeze on his hand stirred him to the most minor kind of consciousness, his barely functioning brain copying the action without any thought. Then the feeling of muscles being moved outside of his own control made his mind offer a small “hey wait” only to be smothered by the much larger part that was happy to be asleep and would rather remain that way, thank you very much.

The resulting inner battle cumulated eventually in Akaya finally giving the delayed response of a single, sustained note of displeasure, followed by a protective curl of his body and turn of his head. Determined to cling to the source of warmth that had contributed to sleep in the first place, Akaya’s arms tensed and released, eyes fluttering but not opening beyond the tiniest crack. The self-preserving part of him managed to form the simplest kind of query - “Hnnh?”

Pulled closer against Akaya’s chest, Zaizen’s ears went red. It didn’t help when Akaya ducked his head, brushing heated skin against skin. His breath took a moment to even, and when it did, he stilly let Akaya cling to him like a stuffed animal, just a little while longer.

And then Akaya’s stomach sounded again.

He turned his hand to fold into Akaya’s again, this time, palms perpendicular and fingers investigating his knuckles. Drawing a lazy figure eight over a curious bone, Zaizen said quietly, “you’re hungry.”

Akaya waking was a slow process at the best of times, even with a sense of urgency or an accompanying alarm to force him along. The presence of a person-sized heated teddy bear that seemed to be quite happily lulling him with delicate movements did little to assist. But eventually the sheer amount of ringing bells in his head that were trying to alert him to A) hunger and B) confusion won out. His shoulders unclenched like he was trying to spread wings that weren’t there, the resulting stretch running tremors down his limbs where they met… other limbs. Oh.

Unsure if he should move away just yet with Zaizen’s gentle grip on his hand, Akaya look his time opening his eyes blearily and registering the situation. When it finally felt like his brain had caught up, lingering sleep clouding only finer details, he attempted speech.

“Hikaru?” The name came out lower, scratchier than anticipated - throat hadn’t quite finished rebooting yet. A few moments passed before Akaya tried again. “What time’s it?”

It seemed like Zaizen’s options had narrowed to let Akaya wake up slowly or elbow Akaya in the sternum. As he was in a rather good mood for reasons he didn’t want to consider, he went with the former, continuing to play with their hands until the curly blanket lump decided to actually address him.

He gently released Akaya’s hand to check his phone. “Nearly eight-thirty,” he mumbled, making no effort to move otherwise. “We’ve been a few hours…”

“Eight-thirty…” Akaya mouthed, trying to perform the very simple mathematics with his fuzzy mental faculties. They had been asleep for about three hours- nearly three and a half. As his hand was freed, it lifted to almost chase the contact, but fell heavily back onto the mattress instead.

Rolling onto his back with one arm still loosely wrapped around his friend, Akaya took a few deep breaths to jump-start his blood flow. Unfortunately, this started to clear away some of the content sleep-fuzz, leaving a high flush over his neck and cheeks as he remembered the details of their little nap. Slowly and reluctantly withdrawing his arm and breaking contact completely, he sat up and glanced at Zaizen right as his stomach made a sound that was practically a yowl. “Uh… want dinner?” He offered, a mix of expressions from amused to mortified curdling on his visage.

When Akaya retreated completely, Zaizen followed some magnetic compulsion and rolled around onto his other side to face him. He settled just in time to catch the show of red taking over Akaya’s features. It was tempting to take a picture. He almost did, but the sheer Tarzan-scream of Akaya’s stomach had him holding back a laugh instead. Zaizen puffed out his cheeks to catch the sound, then put a hand at his mouth and glared at Akaya, as if this were all his fault.

Dinner. He deserved dinner.

Slowly, as if that pesky giggle might creep back up his throat, Zaizen put his hand down and said, “...Here, or out?”

A knowing grin chased some of the trepidation from Akaya's expression as he watched Zaizen's face mutate into some sort of pouty pufferfish. Waiting for the fairly obvious laugh to be appropriately stifled, Akaya was already running through food options in his mind, though some traitorous part of it was supplying him with a bizarre mix of lingering contentment and rising, preparatory unease.

But the question posed was normal and he breathed out a chuckle of his own in relief. Absently, he reached out to affectionately tug a flattened spike of Zaizen's usually flawless hair back into place. “You don't gotta ask if you really don't wanna go out, y'know? I'll call delivery,” he said, already swapping targets to reach back and find his own phone.

The light pull at his hair provoked a self-conscious pout. In the wake of Akaya’s touch, he murmured something inaudible and started fussing, attempting to preen his thick, choppy bedhead locks back to proper porcupine-ness. Then slowly, as Akaya’s words set in, his fingers slowed to look at him.

“...” Zaizen blinked a few times, as if it might rearrange the words banging around in his head. Although he had meant that he’d be fine running out to the conbini, delivery was a luxury he could never turn down. “...That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Having found his phone somewhere down the edge of the mattress, Zaizen’s comment turned Akaya’s mouth to an amused twist. He glanced up to see the owlish blinking, unable to hold back a snicker before returning to menu scrolling, still having to occasionally rub sleep out of his eyes. “It’s just delivery, man, seriously?”

The thought of calling Kamio crossed his mind for a moment but was decided to be further than practical, even with Kamio’s famed speed. Plus, there was the chance of having to hold a discussion with him about the door (currently almost free of decorations, carefully placed away in the spare bedroom) that Akaya wasn’t in the mood for right now. Instead, he made the executive decision to order burgers and tilted his head as he placed the request. “...wanna get up?” Akaya suggested, arching his back in a long stretch and kicking the remaining covers haphazardly to the floor.

It was kind of an unspeakable luxury, to have someone else pay for a person to bring them stuff because he didn’t feel like going outside. Unable to articulate this emotion, Zaizen scoffed, “Just delivery…” and tossed a pillow lightly at Akaya’s unguarded back.

That expressed, he gave into the urge to flop back down onto the Bed. His futon situation back at Mikiya was at all bad, just, not a bed. Akaya’s prompting earned him an unhappy groan. Still, Zaizen stretched, his toes not even reaching the end of the large mattress when he extended fully. The life. He luxuriated a second longer, then set a more energetic playlist and propelled himself up to start making back up the covers Akaya had carelessly tossed to the floor.

“Or are you going to put on new ones?” Zaizen asked, making his neat corners with the sheets.

It took a very large amount of self-control to fight the overwhelming impulse to just lie back down with Zaizen as he flopped back and starfished on the mattress, even after being assaulted with a pillow. But Akaya just watched him, waiting with a vague grin, flipping his phone over and over in his hand. When Zaizen started up the second playlist and began fussing with the sheets, though, Akaya finally forced himself to stand up, giving is friend a gentle shove to signal 'follow’.

“Don't worry about it. Gonna be back here in a few hours anyway,” he said. The sheets were still perfectly clean in his eyes. “Though I'm glad I don't have anything on 'til later tomorrow, might be difficult to get back to sleep at normal hours.”

Fair. Zaizen had rescued the sheets from where Akaya had kicked them quick enough for him to still consider them clean. At the shove, he stuck out his tongue, “You heathen. It feels better to go to sleep in a made bed.”

It took all of an extra minute for Zaizen to follow, chill indie rock playing from his pocket.

“Yeah, yeah,” Akaya replied, muttering a quiet “priss,” under his breath. There was no vitriol in it at all, though.

The two of them somehow managed to migrate from the bedroom to the couch without incident, food arriving within a few minutes. Akaya hadn’t quite realised how hungry he actually was until he smelled the delivery in his hands, even with the racket his stomach had been making. He was a few bites into his burger (heavy on the vegetables, no mayo) before he decided to voice a question. “So, uh,” even then, it refused to be said confidently. “How did you sleep?”

Priss earned Akaya a flick in the back of the head. Zaizen otherwise focused on the delivery aspect until the delivery truly came directly to his waiting hands by Akaya express. When Akaya settled on the couch to eat, Zaizen did the same, pulling his knees up to his chest to keep the delivery box under his mouth to catch any falling lettuce.

Halfway through the delectably heavy meal, he stopped to lick the grease from his fingers and looked up at Akaya. The question caught him off guard. “...” he peered back at his burger, determining the most strategic way to pick it back up. “I like your bed,” he said, eventually.

Nodding in agreement, Akaya bit back into his food and actually deigned to finish chewing it before responding. “Uh-huh. It’s a nice bed,” hmm, deja vu. He opened his mouth to say something else, but reconsidered until he’d properly finished his food, happy to eat in companionable silence. Despite that, even though he finished eating before Zaizen, he couldn’t wait for the meticulousness of his friend’s eating speed before speaking again. “You chose good music. The flute one was-” he almost went for pretty, but blinked and reworded at the last second. “-easy to listen to.”

Zaizen absorbed Akaya’s comments in silence. Unless you knew him well, it was difficult to tell whether or not he was actually listening, or much too focused on his food to even notice that a human was perched next to him. Satisfied with his work of the moment, he put his sandwich down for a break and awarded Akaya with four fries, paid directly into his empty takeout box. “I’ll send you the playlist,” he said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin even though he still had a quarter of burger to go. “...” he stared, as if deciding whether or not to say something. As usual, it didn’t take much for him to spit it out. “You make a half decent space heater, too.”

Zaizen took up his burger again, as if he hadn’t said anything peculiar.

“Thanks,” Akaya replied, both for the offer of music and the gift of fries. He chewed thoughtfully as he waited for Zaizen’s eventual comment, half-watching whatever post-primetime drama was on TV even though the sound was muted. When Zaizen finally coughed up a real reply, Akaya rolled his head back, looking up at the ceiling with one fry still in his mouth. “Yup. People tell me I run kinda warm,” he said, sounding nonchalant. Then, after a beat, cheekily - “Can’t say the same for you. What are you, a reptile?” That wasn’t quite true. Warm was warm, even if slightly less so than anticipated.

After swallowing a small bite, Zaizen said, “Yup. People tell me that my heart of ice is energy efficient. In Osaka, they’d keep me under lamps with Kenya-senpai’s iguana.”

Making slow progress with his burger, Zaizen took another bite, finally almost down to the bun.

Akaya snickered, waving the fry in front of his face with his teeth and talking around it. “Is that why you wanted to do this? Runnin’ low on heat supply?” It’s a thoughtless comment, which he just continued to run with. “Careful with ice like that, it tends to melt.”

Snapping up the potato chip finally like a shark after a fish, he glanced at Zaizen to check on his food progress. It was getting late, after all.

Zaizen polished off the last of his burger and glanced sideways at Akaya, eyes narrowing. In lieu of any proper response while he was focused on digesting, he simply stole back the last of the fries he gifted and popped them into his mouth.

Having been mid-reach for those two fries himself, Akaya gave an indignant squawk as they were snatched out from his takeout tray. Affixing Zaizen with the most glowering pout he could muster, he gave the other boy’s leg a sharp poke before crossing his arms huffily. “Rude? Last time I get fries with anything if this is your stingy treatment.” An obvious lie, but it sounded mildly threatening at least.

Zaizen washed down his burger with the sight of Akaya sulking in person, which was much more satisfying than the online icon. He leaned back on the couch, quite weighed down by the almost double meal sitting heavy in his stomach. Somehow, Zaizen didn’t detonate when Akaya poked him.

“It was what you deserved,” he said, not bothering to explain further.

And the sulking continued. “It’s so nice when you’re cryptic,” Akaya muttered, pulling his knees up to complete the look of an irritated twelve-year-old. His huffy mumbling continued for a short time - snippets such as “Tekken doesn’t count” and “‘nicest thing’ and this is how you go about it” might have been caught among overdone sighing.

After a few minutes, though, Akaya directed his (reduced) glower back at Zaizen, a small part of his brain noting the lack of earrings on the side facing him. Ignoring it, he nudged him carefully with a foot. “Oi, are you food coma-ing on my couch? It’s getting late. Salaryman traffic,” he reminded. It was past nine by now though - a little late to start worrying.

Akaya’s somewhat wonderful grumbling was the sound track to his food-induced lethargy. He just noised vaguely in certain places, as if in total agreement that the fit was justified.

When Akaya reached from his self-constructed fortress of solitude to prod him, Zaizen toppled, landing across the side of the couch like a hipster style deconstructed human. “Ngh,” he volunteered. “It’s okay. The salarymen will carry me upstream to Saitama.”

That sounded like a super unpleasant nature special. He frowned sleepily.

“They ain’t salmon, you know,” Akaya said, watching the dramatic drape over the opposite armrest with a mix of concern and amusement. He craned his neck and slid his feet back off the couch to loom slightly over Zaizen, eyebrow raised. “If I knew it was gonna knock you out this bad I’d have sent you to just get miso or something.

And,” he continued. “This is karma for stealing a gift back.” Akaya brought his legs back up to fit in the now partly vacant space between the the couch and Zaizen’s awkwardly curved spine. “Can you even move?”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Zaizen mumbled with his eyes closed, more to the cushion than to Akaya. Miso was more to his taste, but it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the burger; it just sat in his stomach like an anvil, pinning him to the couch.

Moving. Right. He shuffled slightly back against Akaya’s legs and said, “capable, but not yet willing. Give me another five minutes.”

Akaya tilted his head, thinking. “No, I wouldn’t have, but that’s not the point,” he reasoned. “Well, it’s not like you couldn’t use a big meal once in a while anyway.”

With his legs effectively but not uncomfortably trapped, the TV drew Akaya’s attention as he settled to his new sideways position. “Not tryin’ to rush you out the door or anything. It’s late enough that you could just stay,” wouldn’t be the first time they’d lost track of the clock. Akaya wasn’t planning on sleeping for a bit anyway - once recovered, the company might be nice.

“Reptiles need time to digest,” Zaizen said, thinking about how snakes obviously swelled up after consuming a mouse.

And he ate fine. Mostly. When he bothered to pull something together with his meager savings. Clearly piercings were more important.

Akaya went and put the idea of staying right where he was in his head. A fantastic idea. Except. “I don’t have spare earrings,” he complained. Clothes he could probably get away with borrowing from Akaya. “Maybe if I changed the arrangement…”

Clearly he had no further qualms about imposing his company on Akaya.

Piercings clearly were more important. “Priss,” Akaya said again, not even bothering to keep it quiet this time. “It’s not like anyone’s gonna ask about it if you glare at them hard enough.” And it’s not like earrings were clothes where people started to doubt your hygiene or at least fashion sense if you dared wear the same shirt twice in a row.

Akaya frowned, trying to remember the colours Zaizen had been wearing. “Today’s were pretty simple, right? It won’t be hard to switch ‘em around, but… if it’s seriously gonna bother you, brave the salmon salarymen, I guess.” He tried and almost succeeded in not sounding slightly put out.

Zaizen wiggled his shoulders at Akaya’s trapped foot — a very mild revenge for his comment.

He reached up to his ears, surprised for a second to find one bare. After sliding a finger along the unadorned shell, he checked the other for baubles. The studs and hoop that he found matched the ones he took out, and would be simple enough to rearrange.

“...” he really didn’t want to star in Japan’s newest nature special. “Do you have rubbing alcohol? I need to clean the backs at least.”

The earring check was observed with mild interest. Akaya could practically see the gears turning in Zaizen’s head - tomorrow’s way of expressing his mood with limited resources on hand. The sudden question startled him; the answer didn’t come to mind quickly because Akaya honestly had no clue.

“Uh, maybe?” He rubbed his temple as if thinking about it was difficult. There was a box of unused cleaning concoctions from his mother shoved somewhere under his sink. He tugged his legs out from Zaizen’s back, slithered off the couch and traipsed over to the kitchenette. The under-sink cabinet creaked as the door opened. “If I do, I’ve never noticed it,” he called, picking up the first and newest-looking bottle-- “Oh. That was easy. Yeah, I got it.”

Craning his neck along the curve of the armrest, Zaizen struggled to follow Akaya’s progress through the kitchen. The shuffling and bumping noises were helpful enough. He squinted at the bottle, which certainly looked like the nondescript drugstore version. Tonight he would have to go without his special cleaner.

“That’ll work,” Zaizen said, satisfied. “Thanks, Kirihara-san.” He drew a long inhale and stretched, his quivering toes just brushing the other end of the couch. “You mind if I take a quick shower?”

He felt so oily.

“Hey, why do you just immediately assume it’s my mother’s doing,” Akaya said flatly, walking over and tapping the bottle lightly against Zaizen’s forehead. “Maybe I bought it and forgot. You don’t know.” Hardly a convincing argument, but the point was made. Even if Zaizen was actually totally right in his assumption.

The bottle was placed on the table and Akaya considered sitting on Zaizen’s outstretched legs for a moment. However the shower question led him to reconsidering - a brief tilt of his head before offering a hand to pull his friend up in case of further food-related immobility. “Clean towels’re on the shelf,” he stated. That was enough of an affirmation.

Zaizen frowned up at the bottle, very much resembling a flat eared cat until he said, “Because it was your mother.” He could see Akaya buying a first aid kit, but not an entire bottle of the stuff.

Not pissy enough to turn down a free lift, he put a limp hand in Akaya’s. “Can I borrow some sweats, too?”

Akaya muttered “you don’t know” again under his breath as he gripped Zaizen’s hand and hauled him up off the couch. He didn’t let go immediately, listening and blinking down at him before finally dropping his hand and smirking.

“Sure, but you might have t’ roll them up at the ends,” he teased, already loping over to his bedroom. Pausing in the doorway, he stuck his head out to comment, “I can’t believe you slept that long in jeans,” and then leaned back in to rummage through his clean clothes.

But he did know. Although he held back from saying so immediately after Akaya had propelled him up and lingered to peer down at him in a way that became irritating as soon as he opened his mouth. Zaizen frowned, unable to get in a good, solid pinch before the tennis player bounded away.

“I’ll tie them at the ends to keep my feet warm,” Zaizen drawled, showing Akaya a certain finger when he peeked out.

Akaya barked out a laugh, flashing a thumbs-up in response to the much ruder gesture he was receiving. His wardrobe trawl ended a lot sooner than it usually would have - he’d forgotten that the clothes were actually put away in the (relatively) right places for once.

Collecting what he was pretty sure were the smallest pair of sweats he had, he carefully plucked the earrings that looked strange on his bedside table up, exiting the room to dump the pants in Zaizen’s arms and pass him the jewelry. Without thinking, he tugged gently on a spike of Zaizen’s hair again before ushering him to the bathroom. “Take your shower, nerd.”

Zaizen received the sweats and his earrings in addition to the alcohol he was already holding. The light pull at his hair prompted a pout and earned Akaya a rather harmless poke, as if it were some kind of causal lever.

“You say that like I’m not at least six times cooler than you,” Zaizen said, the holed himself up in the bathroom.

The barely effective retaliation and the sharp reply just earned another laugh, even as the door was closed practically in Akaya’s face. Standing somewhat awkwardly in the short, narrow hallway, Akaya returned to his room. He eyed the made bed, then his open drawers - one advantage to actually having clothes not in a pile was knowing exactly where everything was.

By the time Zaizen had finished his shower, Akaya had returned to the couch, feeling strangely pleased with himself. Three different shirts were slung casually over one armrest - one black, one red and one pale blue - all roughly a good enough shape that someone smaller wouldn’t look too out of place in them.

Aftering cleaning his earrings and setting them aside for tomorrow, Zaizen let the water pound relief into his bones. And not just because he was finally out of his constricting jeans and able to wash his face. There was something comforting about a private shower, no need to wear flip flops or to rush for the next person.

Akaya even had a nice shampoo and conditioner set now, which he swore to himself that he hadn’t ordered with this in mind. Probably. “You’re becoming a genius in your old age,” Zaizen told himself, combing his shampoo thick spikes up into a gravity defying mohawk before rinsing everything out and conditioning the ends efficiently. Once clean, he dried himself off and dug up a spare toothbrush from what was clearly a dentist baggie -- score.

Zaizen left the bathroom happier than he had entered it, humming something he had just contrived in the shower and comfortably padding around into the living room wearing only Akaya’s too long sweatpants. “Oh, thanks,” Zaizen said on seeing the shirts, and examined each one with his fingers. As he pushed his arms into the comfy blue one and pulled it over his head, he asked, “Can I borrow the red for tomorrow?”

The preemptive urge to step on the trailing legs of the borrowed sweatpants was immediately erased from Akaya's mind as he heard an honest-to-god “thanks” in Zaizen's voice. Knitting his eyebrows, he turned and looked up to find his friend surprisingly shirtless and almost unrecognisable with flat damp hair hanging low over his forehead and ears. Blinking as Zaizen pulled the offered clothing on, Akaya muttered “shiny pokemon” under his breath before the other’s cloth-muffled question was met with a louder “Sure.”

As soon as Zaizen's head appeared through the neckhole of the first shirt, the second was draped unceremoniously around his neck. Even with Akaya’s care to pick smaller choices, the fabric hung just a little too loose over narrower shoulders. “You look better,” he commented. The shower seemed to have chased any visible trace of the food coma from him, along with a few other things. Like his hairstyle.

The novelty of his thanks didn’t seem to register with Zaizen. Once his head popped through, Zaizen pulled the shirt down over his slim, pink-tinged chest. It was a little big, but not straight up insulting to his slighter frame. “What?” he asked, having thought that he heard Akaya say something else.

Whatever. If it was that important, hopefully Akaya would have waited until his face wasn’t swimming in fabric. He pushed his fingers from his hair to get it out of his face while he folded both shirts neatly again, setting the black one closer to Akaya and the red atop his backpack. The comment drew Zaizen’s eyes from the folding; he paused, tilting his head and staring for a moment before deciding, “I feel better.”

That said, he poured himself into the couch next to Akaya and looked up at him as if to say, well, now what.

Akaya waved away the question, glad that his comment hadn’t been picked up fully by the musician’s impressive hearing. Crossing his arms over the remaining shirt and leaning his chin on his wrists, he tracked Zaizen’s movement from the sweep of his hair until he was settled in beside him, unbothered by the staring outside of a few curious blinks.

“We could watch something,” he suggested. “Or if there’s something you wanna play, you’re welcome to do that.” The words were accompanied by no movement, though. Instead Akaya just paused with a twist to his mouth, reaching up. “Sorry, but. I really want to ruffle your hair right now.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry. Just hesitant.

Zaizen had interpreted that as free license to do what he wanted while Akaya felt too lazy to strike up any movies or games. Fair enough. He was mentally cataloguing through Akaya’s one player games when the same hand he had been holding earlier approached his innocent wet hair with intent to ruffle.

With a entirely neutral expression, he caught Akaya’s reaching fingers in his and requested clarification, “...Are you asking for forgiveness, or permission?”

And for what felt like the thousandth time that day, Akaya’s hand was caught in a lattice of digits. Even though this time the contact served more as a barrier than anything else, his lips pursed and a beat passed before he slotted their fingers more firmly together. It could have been a push against the obstruction, or not. It was hard to tell from Akaya’s determined expression. “Yes,” he answered. “That’s what I’m asking.”

Although he was surprised by the fingers interlacing with his chiding grip, causing a weird, electric frisson that he fully blamed on the burger, Zaizen was not at all surprised by the all encompassing yes that answered his clearly either/or question. Akaya was like a kid who filled in all the multiple choice bubbles on a test, just in case.

Zaizen rolled his eyes. “The answer you’re looking for is permission.” But, somehow, he was satisfied enough with Akaya’s answer to tilt his head just enough to acquiesce to the hand he led to his own damp locks. Since he hadn’t styled his hair yet, he thought he might indulge Akaya this one time.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Akaya responded without a hint of guilt. He sat forward a little more on the couch to have a comfortable reach as his investigative hand was deposited on top of his friend’s head. Immediately, Akaya smirked and ruffled his raking touch downward, spilling Zaizen’s fringe back into his eyes.

“It looks a lot longer like this,” he observed, seemingly taking instant regret at his first action and sweeping the bangs back again. Then a slow, considered movement over the top of his scalp. Reaching the sparse hairline at the back of Zaizen’s neck, he pushed his palm upward to see if the shorter hair would take to spikes with only lingering damp to hold it.

“Obviously…” Zaizen muttered.

With his bangs flat in his face, Zaizen frowned and glared at Akaya through them. His expression milded somewhat with the strands pushed back from his face. The trail through the thick of his hair and down to his nape provoked a little shiver that was sort of good. While Zaizen remained undecided, so did his hair, which stayed fluffed up from the touch but not quite spiked. “...” his own hands twitched over his borrowed sweatpants, wanting to do something. “Are you going to keep doing that?” Zaizen asked, in a tone more inquiring than forbidding as he followed Akaya from the corner of a sharp eye. “I’ll play something without you.”

The movement through the silkier top and sides of Zaizen’s hair slowed. Rather than stopping, Akaya switched to a motion more accurate to the word ‘ruffle’, flicking out the longer ends with gentle tugs, until Zaizen’s question caused him to pause mid-fluff. Even though the question was more curious than reprimanding, Akaya instinctively began a steady retreat. “I can stop if you want,” he said as neutrally as possible.

Zaizen opened his mouth to respond, then promptly closed it again. The soft tufts of hair Akaya had teased out stayed almost like that, drooping only slightly with Zaizen’s contemplation.

“...that’s not what I said,” he finally reached for the remote and let his as-good-as-permission linger in the air for Akaya to use as he pleased.

Akaya let the strands between his fingers fall away as Zaizen leaned forward, hand hovering unsurely in the air. But he could read between the lines in the way Zaizen spoke by now, and that was about as good a confirmation as he was ever going to get. So Akaya began to pluck softly at different points, attempting to remember where spikes usually sat when they were styled.

When none of the porcupine spines took beyond general fluffiness, he returned to a general sort of tousling motion at the back of Zaizen’s head. “Did you figure out your earrings crisis?” he asked, turning to the TV to see what the other was selecting. “For tomorrow.”

Click. Click. Arrow. Click. Zaizen focused on the remote until the sensation started to stabilize with predictability. His shoulders dropped, guard lowering stroke by stroke. When he understood what direction those hands were coming from and what they were doing, he was able to relax enough to bring up a single player game that didn’t require much in the way of thought.

“Yeah,” Zaizen said. “I cleaned them. Going to do the hoops up here,” he pointed to his cartilage piercing, “and pink in the left ear, green on the right, black closes to the face,” he smoothed his hand to gesture on the currently empty lobe. It was completely different from his previous arrangement, which had pink and green side by side on each ear.

“See, you figured it out,” Akaya punctuated the statement with an actual, proper ruffle of Zaizen’s hair, as if he were praising a kid. “And you avoided the salmony-men. No big deal.”

Now that he’d started fluffing up his friend’s hair, Akaya wasn’t sure when he was supposed to stop. The delicate strands moulded in their own odd ways to various light tugs and shifts through the layers - genuinely fascinating when Akaya had scarcely seen it out of style since the camps of days past. Trying to at least half-keep attention on whatever Zaizen was playing (he’d somehow missed the selection but caught up eventually), he raked his hand through one side to pull it back over an ear in a sort of fashionable asymmetrical “style”.

“The salmony-men sound like a cover band that I would never want to see,” Zaizen said, performing a maneuver with his character that was made somewhat strange in execution for that hair ruffle. Rude. He might have swatted at Akaya, had the tennis player not progressed to a more soothing motion. Akaya could play architect all he wanted — but without product his hair was unlikely to do anything except become more aggressively fluffy.

Turning to Akaya to show him what the odd design looked like from the front, he expressed flatly, “don’t I always figure it out?”

Holding the style in place while Zaizen turned to him, Akaya raised a considering eyebrow and gave a minute nod. “Sure you do,” he agreed, shrugging and letting the strands slip slowly from his light grip. “You were the one complainin’ about it, don’t go getting on my case.” He reached over to copy the brush-back on the other side. A head-tilt, another minute nod, and another drop. “The side that would show off more piercings would look better,” he muttered, not really to Zaizen but sort of generally to himself.

“I wasn’t complaining, just working through the problem aloud,” Zaizen testified at a mutter, but cooperatively tilted his head the other way to model the style. His character didn’t need much help in fighting the lowest level minions anyway. To clarify Akaya’s stylist commentary, Zaizen said, “Not necessarily the side with the most piercings, if I decide to wear a chain, or a larger, winding cuff.”

When the next level bad guy appeared, he turned back toward the game; however, his spot on the couch had shifted just enough for Akaya to have complete ease of access.

Deciding to diplomatically ignore Zaizen’s defensive reply, Akaya settled more comfortably in his couch space now that he found he had a better reach. “Oh yeah,” he agreed quietly. “Like that dragon-y one.” He had almost stopped his hair-playing there, but the shift toward him sort of implied that he didn’t need to. He busied himself patting down a few flyaway strands that had begun flicking out now that they were drying off.

Eventually Akaya became more absorbed in watching Zaizen play through the RPG, pointing out errors or items that he may have missed - backing up any potential protests with “I’ve played this before.” His touch slowed to a general slow massage through the longer layers, occasionally adding an upward ruffle from the base of his friend’s neck.

“Yeah,” Zaizen agreed and, probably because the touch slowly rendered him sleepy and docile, he continued on to quietly list a few more earrings he had like that before Akaya started pointing out things he was perfectly well aware of, thank you very much. The gentle, consistent curl and slide of fingers through his hair layered on the comfort, drawing him steadily closer to Akaya and more inclined to tease; he bypassed bonus points on purpose, just to listen to Akaya tell him to go back and get all huffy when Zaizen pretended to miss it again.

At some point along the road to sleepiness, paved with sighs and grumpy mumblings, he was no longer just pretending not to pay attention. By that time he was a pliant, pouty liquid more supported by Akaya than his own spine. Zaizen held out the controller in a limp hand, “You can play, if you want.”

The steady decline in Zaizen’s quality of play was physically palpable, given that eventually Akaya’s side and shoulder no longer seemed to belong entirely to him. His snide comments petered out along with the musician’s attention span and when the controller is offered to him Akaya took it in his free hand before giving Zaizen one last pat on the crown of his skull.

“Nah,” he said, closing the game and system down and carefully discarding the controller to the safety of the table in a way that would not disturb Zaizen’s leaning support. A check of his phone showed that midnight was encroaching soon enough. The heavy-lidded, pouting expression on the smaller man’s face was barely visible from this angle, but it amused Akaya anyway. “You look like you’re about to pass out. Do you wanna sleep? I can get you the spare futon,” he offered, not moving just yet.

Zaizen’s frown deepened with the suggestion. “No,” he muttered, sounding cross when he was really just hazy with sleep. “Here is fine.”

Whether here meant Akaya’s shoulder or the couch was quite up for interpretation.

“Here?” Akaya repeated. It was very uncommon for Zaizen to feel sleepy before he was. “If you sleep on the couch you're gonna wake up with a sore neck and blame me,” he said with a sort of exasperated fondness in his tone. “I gotta get up anyway so you're gonna have to move, I can just get the futon.”

Rather than doing that, though, he opted to turn his own head so his cheek rested gently on top of Zaizen's hair. Going elsewhere wasn't high on his list of priorities, either.

“I’ll think of something to blame you for either way, might as well be prepared,” Zaizen sighed, lashes fluttering heavily down as Akaya’s head rested atop his own.

Right about now, the couch suited him just fine.

Akaya huffed, knowing that even though the comment wasn’t serious, there was a good chance it could end up reality regardless. “C’mon,” he prompted. “If you’re gonna be useless about it I’ll just tip you off the couch onto the futon.” His tone was low and a little whiny - an attempt at communicating that he had no intention of doing so. It was a guilt-trip that might work on other people, but no sooner was it out of Akaya’s mouth that he realised Zaizen probably wouldn’t fall for it. “Or carry you, but neither of us wants that.”

The complaining earned no sympathy from Zaizen, only annoyance that his pillow was getting much too vocal with empty threats. He pressed his grumpy words into Akaya’s shoulder, “Like you would,” he huffed to the first, and for the second ultimatum, “or even could.”

“Hah.” A flat sound of consideration. Akaya lifted his head, rolled his neck, tensed his forearms - a set of movements that wouldn’t dislodge Zaizen, but would still hint towards the intent to meet the challenge that had (possibly inadvertently) been posed to him. “You sure? You don’t wanna reconsider that statement before I do something really stupid?” If nothing else, at least it would jolt his friend slightly more awake enough to make a real choice about the sleeping arrangements.

With a discontented, nearly inaudible noise, Zaizen poked Akaya in the side once, and then again. There. That ought to show a certain disobedient Kakuna who was boss.

“Do I get to reconsider your actions for you every time you’re about to do something stupid?” Zaizen sighed. “That seems like a lot of work.”

The first jab to his side made Akaya jump, the second caused him to wriggle in place and pout - surprisingly effective disciplinary action. “No! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he grumbled back. “Man, whatever, we both know I could do it if I wanted.”

He settled again for a moment. A spare blanket and proper pillow would be needed if Zaizen insisted on staying put, and wasn’t planning on using him as a couch pillow all night. It was pretty late. “I’m gonna go to bed,” he said quietly, still with a bit of a grumpy tone to his voice. He wasn’t even that tired - which led him to think carefully for a moment. “...hey, can you put that playlist back on…?”

“We also both know you won’t,” Zaizen murmured, somewhat stirred by all the wriggling and sulking Akaya had put on. Too bad he couldn’t take a picture for an icon.

He vaguely noise of acknowledgement, as he wasn’t horrible enough to stop Akaya from going to bed himself. Lashes fluttering more open, he sat up enough to frown at Akaya instead of against him. “Yeah…” his frown deepened. “But. Can it connect to your room from here? Don’t want to sleep without my phone.”

If Akaya really wanted it, Zaizen would consent to sleep on the futon in the bedroom.

“It does, but not super well,” Akaya shrugged now this his shoulder was once again free. “And again, you shouldn’t be sleeping on the couch.”

Then, sighing, one more suggestion. “Look, you made the bed, right. You can sleep there. If you want,” it’s said neutrally, without a trace of embarrassment.

“Nn,” Zaizen protested, dropping his head against the cushions. “The couch is warmer.”

Bed, however, was warmer than both of those things. He rolled his fluffed up head along the cushions to peer searchingly at Akaya. “....I did make it,” Zaizen agreed. “And...I do like your speaker.”

Akaya looked back at him with an arched eyebrow and a barely-restrained smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “And you flat said you liked the bed,” he reminded helpfully. “And you can't whine about neck cramps in the morning.”

And Akaya had he creeping suspicion they would both sleep better, considering how easily their nap had knocked them out before.

Zaizen’s exhale was a shadow of an laugh, framed by his lips tipping slightly up at the corners. “Don’t get too excited,” he nudged Akaya’s calf with his toe. “I can come up with new and exciting whining material.”

But, for the present, he looked content. “Come on, then. Before I lose the will to exist entirely and dissipate into smoke.”

So they both sat there almost-but-not-quite smiling, easy banter occupying their conversation, blissfully not at all awkward. “'Course you will,” Akaya agreed. “But new and exciting is better than same old predictable.”

He stood, then, still sure on his feet since sleep hadn't really returned to him yet. Once again, he offered Zaizen a hand up. “Just don't collapse in the hall, alright.”

Since Zaizen couldn’t exactly argue that point, he took the hand Akaya offered for the second time that night. “I don’t collapse,” Zaizen said, looking straight up at him, “I take a break.”

Probably if he tried that shit now, Akaya would drag him into the bedroom by the ankle. At least he didn’t feel so tired after extracting himself from Akaya’s body heat and wandering hands.

And for the second time that night, Akaya hauled Zaizen to his feet. “Well if you take a break between here and my room, you can sleep on the floor,” he said. “Go on, I’m gonna brush my teeth.”

He relinquished his friend’s hand and gave his shoulder a light shove in the right direction. He went ahead to the bathroom, noticing the slightly lingering damp from Zaizen’s earlier shower.

The motion drew the reluctant Zaizen to standing. He followed the direction of Akaya’s prompting over to the bedroom, murmuring as he went, “Those would be some inventive complaints, but…”

But not better than a warm bed and sweet speakers. While Akaya was in the bathroom, Zaizen hooked up the playlist and pried open the sheets just enough to wriggle into the tightly tucked folds. The sound of Zaizen’s koto drifted through the hallway and into the bathroom, informing Akaya that he had managed to complete his task.

The song is half-over by the time Akaya leaves the bathroom, teeth appropriately freshened. He eyed his closet for a moment when he entered the bedroom, considering getting changed, but shrugged and left it be. He’d already slept once in these ones today. Zaizen catches his eye and he nods at the speakers in a vague sort of thanks.

Wordlessly, Akaya stretched one last time (his shoulder made an audible pop as he pulled at his arm) and slipped into the opposite side of the bed. He could feel Zaizen’s presence next to him. Staring resolutely at the ceiling with his arms tucked behind his head on the pillow and the made covers pulled comfortably over him, he conceded - “Yeah, alright, it is nicer to have a made bed.”

Zaizen frowned at the sound of Akaya’s shoulder; his PT would surely tell him off for going around and cracking things. It wasn’t the right place in the song to complain at his companion. The covers were more arched around him than tucked now, but otherwise, Zaizen’s current peace went undisturbed for Akaya’s presence beside him.

And, because he was always right about these things, his leg slid sideways to give Akaya a little kick that punctuated his drawled, “Obviously.”

Ow, unfair. Surely this was an abuse of Bed privileges. Akaya’s leg shifted away, but like a pendulum, it swung back to mirror the kick with no real force. “You're always right,” he said with a sarcastic lilt to his voice.

Akaya rolled onto his side, hands moving round to sit half-curled in front of his face. He blinked at Zaizen with a slight crease to his brow. “What time have you got class tomorrow?” He asked. It was more small talk than anything, though waking hours differing could be a small problem.

Zaizen huffed with the boot and rolled onto his side to face Akaya. With both ears naked, he had more position options. “You’re finally starting to learn,” he said, ignoring the sarcastic tone as he pleased. “I was beginning to believe that you could not be trained.”

After that return, his eyes found Akaya’s in the dark. “Not until one,” Zaizen answered quietly, waiting for a break in the spidery koto crawl to reply. “But private piano consult around ten.” And the yawning gap between those two things could be easily filled in the practice rooms. “You?”

“I’m not a puppy,” Akaya whined, aiming another nudge of a kick at Zaizen's shin. “You should know better by now.” He’d had six years to learn; Akaya decided to ignore all the times he had already admitted that Zaizen was, in fact, always right.

Face softening, he hummed along affirmatively with the now-familiar tune for a moment. “Private consult, huh. High pressure?” Zaizen was nigh-unflappable, so it probably would go fine either way, but he was still curious. “I have gym at ten, too. And a class at two.”

Zaizen wriggled closer to retaliate and tap his knee against Akaya’s thigh. “Is puppy better than Kakuna?” he asked at a mutter, adding a poke to his fearsome revenge as he considered the question.

“More of an opportunity,” Zaizen said, wearing a ‘meh’ sort of expression. “They work on with me what I want to work on. It’s not an eval.” If he was having trouble with a particular series of notes, or interpreting an area, of was valuable to work through them with a professional. “What class?”

A knock of knees in response - a foot comes up to tangle around Zaizen’s ankle and work to push it back. “Both are banned,” Akaya said simply. Not that his disagreement would deter Zaizen at all.

“So… like a workshop,” he ventured, eyeing Zaizen’s carefully-held neutrality with a tiny smirk. “That’s pretty handy. Don’t get too worked up over it.” Ha ha, as if that could be a concern - though, possibly, if the conflict of passion and difficulty met too harshly. Hmm. “-oh, Geography and Environmental Studies.” A one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t hate it.”

No sooner than his foot was captured, Zaizen engaged his other in the tussle. He prodded around with his free toes, being more annoying than actually aggressive. His sneaky fingers, however, went right for Akaya’s chest.

“Worked up,” he huffed, as if those were the most ridiculous set of words in order he had ever heard. “And I would hope that you don’t take stuff that you hate.”

All the pokes and shifting made Akaya laugh, his other leg looking for an opportunity to lock their limbs like the first. It takes some time, but he finds it, pressing their shins together only to be met with narrow digits on his chest. His cheeks heated in surprise - he was silently glad that blushing wasn't as luminous as it was in cartoons. Unsure how to respond, he waited to just observe.

An exhale before he spoke allowed the words to still flow freely. “Just… sayin’” he replied quietly. “One-on-one like that, it's easy to get frustrated.” His mouth twisted wryly. “'N you know sometimes you gotta take stuff you hate. No avoiding it.”

Legs quite trapped, Zaizen pitted his patience against Akaya’s confusion and drummed his fingers one by one on his chest. Even in the dark, Akaya was just so obvious. He couldn’t decide if it was annoying or endearing, so he continue to study him.

“If you’re suffering to an end, sure,” Zaizen qualified. “Suffering for no reason when you have a choice in the matter is just idiocy.”

“Yeah but- yeah,” Akaya tried to respond, but with the fingers on his chest his breathing had instinctively shallowed. Even in the dark, he could see Zaizen watching him - Akaya looked away but somehow found himself unable to move. “M‘not gonna do anything I don’t want to.”

The nerves in his sternum were buzzing from the unusual sensation of rhythmic contact. Knowing his face may as well be glowing at this point from both the touch and the scrutiny of Zaizen surveying his reaction, Akaya reached up with both hands. One covered his own face in some attempt to drain the colour from it. The other went to his friend’s forehead, lightly pushing on it to turn his head just a bit away. “You’re staring, weirdo,” he murmured.

His fingers clutched, blunt fingertips arching inadvertently with the push away. Zaizen made a disgruntled little noise, turned his face as forced, and wiggled his trapped feet in protest. “You’re giving me an interesting face to stare at, weirdo,” his frown was well and obscured from view by Akaya’s hand.

The slight tug on his shirt as Zaizen complained only surprised Akaya further. He waited silently for a short moment, trying to settle the redness he could feel radiating off his cheekbones. “It’s dark, dumbass, you can barely see me. Even with your reptile eyes,” he hissed through a weird set to his jaw. That wasn’t quite true, anyway. There was enough dim light to be able to make out facial features.

His nerves refused to still at the speed he needed them to, so Akaya removed his hand from keeping Zaizen at bay to cover his face fully, squinting accusatorily through the gaps in his fingers.

When Akaya removed his hand to cover himself even more dramatically, he bit his lip to stifle a smile. Endearing, he was able to decide. The flustered blush was endearing. Unfortunately for Akaya, it only made him want to torment him more.

“Fine, Fine,” Zaizen soothed the rapid heartbeat beneath his fingertips and lied. “My reptile eyes are closed. You can relax.”

“I am relaxed,” Akaya insisted instantly. The song had since switched to the track with the added drum, and he tried to focus on that sound instead of the digits still strumming against his chest. But even those slowed to a smoother beat. The reassurance from Zaizen brought his hands down past his eyes, still leaving them resting against his cheeks, a rather inefficient scowl in place considering that fact.

He had basically known he was walking (or rather, resting) into a trap, but it wasn’t like he was going to back down so easily anyway. Akaya met Zaizen’s reptile eyes with his own steely (barely) stare. “Liar.”

Akaya had yet to release his feet, so Zaizen stayed exactly where he was, long musical fingers crawling in time with the song over his captor’s chest. “Sure you are.” Quite unperturbed, he took in this new contrast of expression with a lopsided smirk.

“Some reptiles have two eyelids,” he drawled, pairing the words with a lingering tap. Akaya could consider himself lucky that Zaizen wasn’t taking pictures, just continuing to peer up at him in the dark.

It wasn’t the actual touching that was the problem. That was fine - kind of nice, even, if a little strange. But the combination of the initial surprise had mingled so far with the agitation accompanying the careful, considered stare Zaizen continued to give him made it difficult for Akaya to do much more than glower. He tried to keep his nerve long enough to engage in some kind of staring contest to regain the upper hand in… whatever was happening here, but Zaizen’s comment actually made him stifle a giggle and his eyes ended up shut.

Somehow, that actually helped. His eyes opened again slowly, hands finally being dragged down off his face entirely. “Is this you tryin’ to get extra koto practice in by, uh, playing me instead?” Akaya asked, still red but with a curious smile.

In trading cute embarrassment for annoyance and mild anger, Akaya only became more and more expressive the longer Zaizen stared at him. Bad behavior was rewarded, even more so with bubbling laughter and warm, exposed features.

Zaizen tilted his head closer, an effort to coax gravity to push back the long, thick locks sweeping across his forehead into his eyeline. “Maybe,” his fingers climbed effortlessly onto the music, dancing where they both could see. Slowly, he admitted, “You’re some success as an instrument.”

The staring was still weirding Akaya out, even more so when Zaizen's face ended up even closer somehow. But it was difficult to keep up the irritation when the other was so calm. Instead, his own eyes closed, head tilting back just a little to bring him less directly in Zaizen's line of sight - watching the movement over his front was not helping his flush fade.

“I’d hum, or something,” he said with a small shrug. “But I don't know what notes I'm s’posed to be hitting.” Hearing that he was still 'some success’ was, for some reason, encouraging. Even though he was certain his sounds or moods didn't match the music at all.

Although he felt somewhat deprived of Akaya’s embarrassed face, he didn’t mind the more relaxed mood either. He tapped through the song and hummed easily when Akaya spoke the word.

“The instrument is the instrument. What notes is for the musician to determine,” he reminded with a little rap against his chest. Since he had no blush to examine anymore, Zaizen dropped his head back down to observe at an easier angle. “Just do what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing, other than giving you interesting faces?” Akaya asked. He felt that Zaizen was now distracted enough that he could release his ankles. The lock was starting to cause his own to ache, but he kept their knees pressed together. Shifting a little closer, Akaya let his arm come to rest over Zaizen's waist. The hands against his sternum were sending an odd mix of signals at this point - partly electric, partly relaxing.

Sighing softly, Zaizen took a moment to settle more comfortably on his side, legs brushing Akaya’s as he extended them to full reach. Victory.

The hand at his waist was more unexpected. And unexpected still that he didn’t really mind. He flicked his eyes up to explore the lines of Akaya’s face, as his companion could hardly fault him for doing so with his eyes closed. “Who says I want you to do anything else?”

In the wake of the quiet words, his fingers made tactile music of the last bit of koto. The start of the flute gave his hands pause, until they decided to draw small circle after circle, lasting the duration of the lingering note.

Akaya’s head was still tilted upward, avoiding providing a complete view for Zaizen's clear gaze. The shifting was mirrored as Akaya fell into pose, letting his joints go slack. His companion’s words make his eyelashes flutter, unsure what the exact meaning of that was - was it a confirmation? A hidden request? Or just simply information?

His pondering was cut off by the change in movement. The little rings being drawn through the fabric of his shirt sent a twitch of a shiver down his back. “H-hey,” he stuttered, uncharacteristically stumbling over his word. “That's… kinda ticklish.”

For a second he was silent, just taking in Akaya’s changing features and ticklish face. Then, just as uncharacteristically, Zaizen’s fingers drew to a casual halt.

“I can stop,” he offered at a murmur, then tapped lightly. “Or as before.”

The lack of touch was sudden and Akaya made a soft noise of something close to disappointment. Immediately his jaw clicked shut, lips pursing and eyes resolutely staying closed. He was not going to acknowledge that any more than he had to.

Of course, that 'had to’ included a muttered reply of “Like before,” after a beat or two of silence. Then, even more quietly - “Wasn’t a problem, just ticklish.”

Akaya made a show of his discontent, which Zaizen watched with all of the open fascination it deserved. It was tempting to take out his phone to capture the tense wrinkles around his mouth and eyes, but for that he would have to move.

So Zaizen sought another method. His hands poised against Akaya’s chest once more and resumed a melody; this koto, completely contrived to complement the soft waves of the flute settling into their bones, existed only in Zaizen’s mind and the quietly rhapsodic motions pressed one by one into Akaya’s chest.

The new tune being played against him made Akaya’s shallow breathing even out, a slow loose of breath accompanying the lines disappearing from his expression. It took some time for him to realise that Zaizen’s hands were sketching something different from what his ears were picking up - the harmony between them disguising the change. It didn’t make him smile, even though the realisation was definitely a good one, rather leading him to concentrate further.

“You were so tired before but I think that’s turned around,” he said. It was difficult to find spaces to speak that wouldn’t interrupt either rhythm. “What are you playing?”

“You kicked me,” Zaizen accused through pursed lips, although it was more the migration from the couch and distance from Akaya pushing his fingers through his hair that had him feeling more aware. He had always been a light sleeper.

Fingers tapping in place on Akaya’s heart like a cursor blinking in the middle of the paragraph, Zaizen waited for the chance to murmur, “Nothing really, just…” as if it would explain the things he could not say, his hand wandered into the next piece as his other twitched lightly on the bed with the imagined piece.

“I only retaliated,” Akaya chided. He had not been the one to launch the first kick, after all. Despite his own earlier alertness, the music and warmth and touch had Akaya feeling not far from sleep once again.

The steady thrum against his heart sent an unidentifiable feeling to the core of it, a tightness that wasn’t uncomfortable - just there, mild but enough to make itself aware. As Zaizen’s fingers began their next dance, Akaya curved his back, curling slightly more inward while leaving enough space between them for the movement to continue. “Play whatever you like,” he sighed. “I don’t mind.” Even if he wasn’t sure how to react or reciprocate.

At a grumble, Zaizen said, “The result is the same.” But his grouchiness was really just for the sake of it, and went no farther than the surface of his words. Everything else, from muted tone to the liquid movements curled fingers, was swallowed up the calm fugue of the music.

“Okay,” he shifted, taking up some of the space Akaya created to do just that. Zaizen stared for a moment, looking for something he couldn’t say. But he knew when he found it, because his hands knew right then how to jump in all soft, slow, and intentional, the space between his touches just as important as that point of contact. And then, whether or not it was a conscious decision to give Akaya direct access, the humming he took up revealed the color of these private notes.

With a tiny, momentary smile, Akaya let their not-quite-argument die out. If Zaizen wasn’t bothered by ending up more awake, then it wasn’t actually a problem. It’s not like the reversal of drowsiness was bad for him, either.

Like the rest of Zaizen’s more recent gazes, keeping his eyes closed was Akaya’s way of ignoring them, even though the pause in movement somehow gave way to the feeling of his eyes on him anyway. That thought was swiftly spirited away by the smooth, subdued pace now being played out on his torso. Then the humming joined it and his concentration fell from trying to mould it together with the existing song in the speakers to only the combination being performed closest to him. There’s no way he could interrupt it with his voice. Instead, Akaya shifted carefully, the arm over Zaizen’s waist tensing a little tighter, his head curving a little closer, to just listen.

Zaizen inhaled fully, waiting for the tell-tale hitch of Akaya’s to match and quietly weave into the breath song. The minutes drew together, clouds on a hazy day, eclipsing the world beyond the shared pillow in Akaya’s bedroom. When the song changed, so did Zaizen’s, stitching the change of tune easily into the thick blanket of comfort cast over them, heavy and warm like the arm at his waist. It was different than composing alone, this uninhibited space and possibility.

Noticing Akaya’s flicker of a smile, he hummed deep and satisfied, then closed his own eyes, trusting that the otherwise lively person at his side would stay quite still for his continued exploration.

And still Akaya did stay. His breathing regulated to a matching consistent midpoint, though he stayed unaware that it had merged with the sounds. He didn't dare let the heaviness of sleep breathing interrupt the cadence of touch through his sternum with its deeper inhalation. Staying awake to just listen wasn't as hard as he would have thought - relaxation was enough, and while sleep encroached on his consciousness, it took some time to settle in.

When he couldn't refuse it any longer, Akaya waited for a downtime in the song to murmur. “Thanks,” and then, after a beat, “goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Zaizen whispered back, voice soft and transported by the long moments spent with the drifting music and the steadily pace of Akaya’s breathing. His tapping slowed with the gentling inhale and exhale, seconds stretching into minutes between the barely there impact of his fingers until, finally, they opted to curl against Akaya’s shirt and stay there. By that time, Zaizen was too close to sleep to wonder what Akaya was thanking him for.

Comments

[gtl_yukimura]

So
Fucking
Adorable
I
Can't
Even
With
You
Two