Chapter Text
Kaoru is so tired that he claims he cannot possibly walk all the way from the driveway, up the front steps to their front door, and then again through the house to their bedroom.
“Are you serious?” Kojiro asks, glaring at him.
“Carry me!” Kaoru declares imperiously and because Nanjo Kojiro has been a goddamned sucker for Kaoru since that horrible, fated day they had met in kindergarten—when he had been trying to read a book during quiet time and Kaoru had simply sat down next to him, taken the book out of his hands, and started to read it out loud for both of them—he only tries to half-heartedly protest before somehow, Kaoru’s legs are wrapped around Kojiro’s waist and his arms are wrapped around his shoulders, and his head is nestled against Koijro’s neck as Kojiro carries him on his back into their home.
“What about your stupid robot girlfriend?”
“Carla,” Kaoru yawns out loud. “Follow us into the house.”
“Yes, Master.”
The purple C in the middle of the skateboard glows and after a beep, it starts to move by itself.
Kojiro yelps, “What the hell, Kaoru!” but Kaoru just yawns again and snuggles closer to Kojiro’s back.
What Kojiro will never tell Kaoru, of course, is that there is nothing he loves more than dealing with Kaoru’s sleepy, needy, clingy ass. Kaoru is all prickly barbs, sharp elbows and even sharper humor—until he gets sleepy. Or until he’s feeling a little touch-starved. Or sometimes when his anxiety gets the better of him and all he wants is to drape Kojiro’s arm over his shoulders, curl up next to him, and just be quiet together on the couch.
Kaoru is loud and he’s condescending and he’s impulsive and he’s violent and he’s a pain in Kojiro’s goddamned ass, but he’s also the best parts of Kojiro’s day, the best part of his entire life. He had thought this when they were younger, when he was six years old and didn’t know better, and he thinks it now too, when they’re so much older and Kojiro should know better and still doesn’t.
And he loves all Kaorus, all forms of him—loud and reckless and irritating and anxious and sweet and compliant and asshole—but he thinks he loves this kind the most of all, the Kaoru Kojiro gets when he’s so worn out that his walls have all but disappeared and all that’s left of him is the sleepy thing clinging to Kojiro and pressing little kisses behind his ear when Kojiro makes fake huffy sounds about how much effort this is taking him.
He finally gets them through their front door—Carla rolling in at his heels—and closes it behind them. Then it’s only a short matter to get them through the living room and over the threshold to their bedroom.
It’s only here that Kaoru finally lets go of him and slides down off of Kojiro’s back.
“Go wash your face,” Kojiro says and presses a kiss to the crown of Kaoru’s head. “Then I’ll go.”
Kaoru sighs and nods sleepily before plodding over to the bathroom to change out of his Cherry Blossom outfit and wash his face and brush his teeth. In the meantime, Kojiro strips out of his own clothes—which takes approximately two seconds—and folds them and puts them in the laundry hamper. He pulls on a fresh pair of boxers and scrolls through the text messages he’s missed from his family while Kaoru finishes up.
Kaoru comes back out with his face washed and his hair in his nighttime bun, wearing nothing but his own boxers.
Kojiro raises an eyebrow and Kaoru shrugs. “Had to put the tank in the laundry basket.”
Kojiro drops a kiss to Kaoru’s shoulder as he goes and washes up as well.
By the time he’s done and comes back to the room, the lights are off except for the one on his side of the room, and Kaoru is already snuggled under the covers in bed. Kojiro looks at his bare back fondly and resists the urge to crawl in behind him and press more kisses to his moon tattoo.
Instead, he goes over to his side of the bed, turns off the light, and lifts an arm.
“Well, I think that went well,” Kaoru says with a yawn, tucking himself under Kojiro’s arm. “No one cried, at least.”
“Shadow looked like he was about to cry,” Kojiro chuckles. “I wonder what that was about.”
“Oh he’s just as bad as the kids,” Kaoru says. He has his fingers resting on Kojiro’s chest, fingertips splayed out just above Kojiro’s heart. “He just pretends he isn’t because he looks like a fifty year old man.”
“That’s so mean,” Kojiro says, but he’s laughing because it’s true. “I can’t believe Miya likes us so much that he didn’t get his video game out once during dinner.”
Kaoru snorts. He slides his fingers mindlessly up toward Kojiro’s sun tattoo.
“I saw you pull back at the last second,” he says. Then he swats Kojiro’s shoulder. “Don’t do that again! That’s cheating!”
“Ouch! Again with the violence!” Kojiro complains. He growls a little and leans forward to gnaw on Kaoru’s jaw.
“Oh—Kojiro! Kojiro, stop!” Kaoru says, breathless with laughter. Kojiro refuses, gnawing at him some more while dragging his fingers down Kaoru’s side, where he knows Kaoru is helplessly ticklish. Kaoru tries to cringe away from him, still laughing, but Kojiro is relentless, until Kaoru is gasping for air and his nails are digging into Kojiro’s shoulders. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! You did the right thing! Tying was the right thing to do!”
Kojiro stops his assault, but now he’s hovering over Kaoru and grinning. He kisses the space under his mouth fondly.
“Stupid punk.”
It takes a few seconds for Kaoru to catch his breath, but then his arms are winding their way around Kojiro’s shoulders again.
“You know what I think is funny,” Kaoru says, looking up at Kojiro.
“Hm?”
Kaoru gets his hand out in between them and Kojiro’s chest feels tight with warmth when he sees the ring glint in the moonlight.
“I mean sure, I wear gloves, but you don’t.”
“I take it off when I cook, I guess,” Kojiro says. He holds his hand up too and the ring on his finger also seems to glow. Kaoru smiles up at him and tangles their fingers together. Koijro brings them to his mouth and kisses their hands.
“Still, you wear it to S,” Kaoru says. “How has no one noticed?”
“Maybe they don’t want to assume?” Kojiro offers.
That makes Kaoru laugh.
“We show up at S together, we leave S together, I’m always at Sia la Luce, you wear a wedding band, and still everyone is like oh those two…they must hate each other.”
“Well you do yell at me a lot,” Kojiro says with a grin. He kisses Kaoru fondly. “My little hellion.”
Kaoru smirks and shoves Kojiro to the side. Then he rolls over so they’re facing each other. Kojiro runs his fingers through Kaoru’s hair, the silky slide as soft and smooth as it always has been. Kojiro has known Kaoru for so long, it’s like he’s a part of him. Where Kojiro ends, Kaoru begins, and the same he knows is true in reverse. After having spent an entire life together with the person he has loved since he was six years old, things like how people see them or what they must think barely register to him anymore. They are who they have always been and that’s what Kojiro loves the most.
“Do you remember when we got married?”
“God,” Kaoru says, wrinkling his nose. “I can’t believe our parents let us do that. Reki and Langa will be nineteen in two years.”
“Who was going to stop us? My parents? Yours?” Kojiro chuckles. “Your parents were scared of you and I think my parents had been planning our wedding since middle school.”
“Still,” Kaoru says, with a scoff. “Two dumbass nineteen year olds without a single clue in the world.”
“We knew we loved each other,” Kojiro says. He’s cupping Kaoru’s face now, his thumb grazing Kaoru’s chin. “I knew I couldn’t live without you.”
“Like I said, two dumbasses without a clue,” Kaoru says, but it’s fond. He leans forward and kisses Kojiro, a sweet, barely there, butterfly kiss of a thing. “But I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“I know you would,” Kojiro says softly. He scratches Kaoru’s head and Kaoru lets out a soft oh of a breath. “Because you’re still the same impulsive, reckless dumbass I married then.”
Kaoru laughs. His face is pink, but his golden eyes are shining.
“Did you think I was crazy?” he says. “When I asked you to marry me?”
“Yeah,” Kojiro admits. But he softens it with a kiss. “Did you think I was crazy when I said yes?”
“I believe you said fuck yes,” Kaoru says and he’s laughing.
“You had a lip ring, Kaoru,” Kojiro says, seriously. “You were so hot, you could have asked me to jump from a bridge and I would have done it.”
“Lip ring, huh?” Kaoru says.
Kojiro grins and his fingers are at Kaoru’s mouth now, brushing against the spot he knows it used to be at. There are a lot of changes they’ve been through over the past twenty-odd years, but Kojiro still remembers every Kaoru he’s ever known. He knows every scar Kaoru’s body has ever held. He has memorized and loved all of them.
“Should we have another one?” Kojiro asks.
“Hm?”
“A wedding,” he says. “We were so young then. Just went to the government office to get married and then your grandparents made us dinner.”
“I loved our wedding,” Kaoru says. “It was small, but it was us.”
“I know that,” Kojiro says, fondly. “But...we could do it again. Something a little bigger. Invite the kids this time.”
Kaoru mulls this over as Kojiro presses a kiss to his temple. Kaoru hums a little and then, suddenly, he laughs. His expression lights up, his mouth curving at the corners, and Kojiro knows that look—nothing good has ever come of it.
“Uh oh.”
“Yes...a bigger wedding, with the kids,” Kaoru says. “But we don’t tell them anything else.”
“What?”
Kaoru’s eyes glint in the dark. “Not that we’ve made up. Not that we don’t hate each other or that we’re friends.”
Kojiro groans. “Kaoru!”
“They just think we barely tolerate each other and then one day, we tell them we’re getting married,” Kaoru says. He’s smiling widely.
It’s one of his mischievous, slightly wicked smiles and Kojiro loves all of Kaoru’s smiles, but he loves this one especially. It’s one only he ever gets to see, the reckless, spitfire punk underneath the elegant veneer of respectable Sakurayashiki-san.
Kojiro sighs and nudges Kaoru’s jaw with his nose.
“Is that a yes then?”
“I don’t know...” Kaoru replies. He shifts until his head is resting on Kojiro’s chest. He takes their tangled hands and raises them above their heads, just to see their wedding bands glimmer in the dark. “Are you asking me to marry you, Nanjo-san?”
Kojiro feels sick with how happy he is. He thinks it’s probably unfair, to be able to claim this overwhelming share of happiness in the world, when so many others can’t come close. It’s probably unfair for one person to be able to carry all of the love he carries, and to be so loved in return.
It’s probably unfair that he found the love of his life in elementary school and now, twenty-some years later, he’s still here, tucked against his chest, still making his blood run hot, still making his chest glow with how much he loves him.
“Yes,” Kojiro says quietly. He rubs his thumb against the wedding band on Kaoru’s finger. “Will you marry me, Kaoru? Again?”
Kaoru is quiet, but only for a moment.
He smiles then and even in the dark it’s so bright that Kojiro nearly has to squint. Kaoru might be the moon and Kojiro might be the sun, but that has never meant that either of them shine less than the other. In fact, together, they fill the day and night skies.
“Yes,” Kaoru says. “Of course, I will marry you. Again. I will marry you as many times as you ask.”
Kojiro swallows thickly and Kaoru, smiling, leans over him.
“In that case,” Kojiro whispers, looking up at him, “I just won’t stop asking.”
Kaoru laughs softly. He cups Kojiro’s cheek, says something derogatory and fond, and kisses him.
* * *
Six months later, Reki and Langa are sitting on their skateboards, eating their lunches on the school rooftop. They’re pressed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, and Langa has eaten through his lunch and then Reki’s, and Reki is too busy trying to figure out why his heart is beating so fast, and why he can’t stop watching Langa’s mouth, and what it means when your best friend keeps holding your hand and when you keep letting him.
“Reki,” Langa murmurs in that dreamy way of his and Reki starts to sweat.
It’s sometime in the middle of the seven different mental spirals he immediately experiences at the way Langa’s looking at him, that Reki’s phone beeps.
Reki immediately jerks his attention away, his pulse racing abnormally fast.
“Oh, hey it’s Miya,” he says shakily and accepts the video call.
Langa hooks his chin over Reki’s shoulder and looks at the screen. Reki tries not to pay attention to how warm he feels pressed against his back. Langa waves at Miya.
“What’s up, Miya?” Reki asks and blinks at the figure behind Miya. “And...Shadow?”
“Reki,” Miya says urgently. His face is close to the screen. His eyes are wide and he looks a little shell shocked. “Have you checked your email?”
“What? No?”
“Check it now!” Shadow—or whoever he is when he’s in his flower uniform—bellows behind him.
“What?” Reki blinks rapidly. “What’s going on?”
“Right now!”
“Geez, okay, okay!” Frowning, Reki leans over as Langa pulls up his email on his phone.
“Oh, it’s from Joe,” Langa says.
Reki leans closer.
“What’s it say?”
Langa blinks rapidly, about a hundred confused times, and then tilts the phone screen up toward Reki.
“Maybe I understand Japanese less than I thought I did,” he says slowly.
It takes a full ten seconds for Reki to read the words that are on Langa’s phone screen. Then it takes him another twenty seconds to process it.
“Joe and Cherry are getting married?!” Reki shouts and falls off his skateboard.
“Oh dear,” Miya and Shadow snicker over the phone.
“Oh, I do understand Japanese!” Langa says brightly.
“Maybe I don’t understand Japanese,” Reki complains from where he’s sprawled on the ground.
“So what do you think?” Shadow asks. “Did they lose a bet?”
“They definitely lost a bet,” Miya says.
“If they fall in real love while getting fake married, that’s on them,” Reki grumbles. “I’m staying out of it this time.”
Langa finally helps Reki up and carefully searches him for injuries. When it’s clear that Reki is uninjured but for the knock he’s taken to his sense of reality, Langa pats his shoulder and rests his head against it.
“I love wedding food,” he sighs and closes his eyes, a happy expression on his face.
* * *