Chapter Text
Takumi was trembling as he pulled over on the side of the Akina touge, his hazard lights flashing at about half the time as the organ thumping away in his chest. He was covered in sweat and hyper aware of the cotton shirt sticking between him and the seat against his back, the tacky feeling on his palms as he loosed his left hand from the wheel and pulled up the e-break to come to a complete stop. Even during soccer club, the sports he played in as a kid, or clocking Miki and his friends in the locker room, nothing he’d experienced before compared to what he’d just been through, what he just did.
This summer hadn’t been like any other he’d ever had, and maybe ever will have again. It was a series of events that, at the beginning, hadn’t felt all that remarkable. Truthfully, the idea of racing anyone had never even crossed his mind until it was thrust upon him by his gearhead friends, and the backlash from overcoming one specific, hot-blooded bottle blonde in a flashy car one fateful night on his daily tofu run came over his normal, boring life like a torrent. Beating Keisuke Takahashi the first time, which he’d done on a whim, had been flicking over the first domino, or pulling the door on one of those overly complicated machines that shuffled him like a metal marble along a wooden plank, herding him to the next strange spin, whirl, and shoot that would carry him to God knows where.
Sitting in the old man’s eight-six now, he could finally feel it, like the events of something beyond him were being set in motion, and he didn’t know what to make of it or how to feel about it. It was hard to parse how he went from racing multiple people on Akina, all the way to Usui, to Akagi, and then wound up at the bottom of Akina again, the summer book-ended on both sides by a Takahashi brother. Here he was, pulled over with a 7-Eleven just beyond him, the street lights illuminating the shoulder in the dark of night, shaking from the adrenaline and the disbelief of having outrun the fastest person he and the entirety of Gunma had seen in years. He’d overtaken the only person who’d intimidated him just by his presence, by his gaze; Ryousuke Takahashi’s reputation as an accomplished and renowned street racer had been crushing him while he drove ahead for the first half of the race, breathing hot and heavy down his neck. The fear, the exhilaration, pure and chemical, was something he had felt so viscerally it seemed like a miracle that he hadn’t crashed.
He tried to control his body and slow his breathing as he looked up at his rear-view, the glow of the FC’s headlights and its hazards pulling up behind him, the crunch and roll of the gravel under its tires momentarily adding to the din of blinking lights and the hum of his idle engine in the waning September heat. Then it came to a stop and idled, just like him. It didn’t feel like a predator anymore, well, it hadn’t felt like a predator so much at all. It didn’t feel...scary, anymore. He thinks about how his chest had hammered when the challenge had been delivered to him while he was on the clock at the gas station. Somehow the bouquet of red roses that accompanied the challenge at the time had only served to...well, they had stressed him out. Suddenly thinking about it now had him gripping the e-break he hadn’t let go of, his heart thudding in his chest, his body somehow running hotter. His brain was fried, he decided. It was hard to think of anything coherent for more than a few seconds at a time. He was simultaneously keyed up and exhausted. The post-race fatigue was making him feel...feel weird.
There was no. way. he’d actually beaten Ryousuke Takahashi. The White Comet of Akagi. No way!
Feeling something like desperation, he let go of his life line on the e-break lever and pushed the door open, stepping out into the night air. The summer night was still warm, and, beyond the rumblings of their vehicles, the almost constant background chirping of cicadas rang out in the mountain air. He turned back to the FC and watched as its occupant stepped out along with him. The stickers from all the sponsors that have backed him in previous challenges that he bested turned to face him briefly as the door opened, then the door was shut again, hiding them from view. Takumi swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and shut his own door, trying with little success to straighten his posture as he looked at the racer he’d just battled. The racer he’d just…
Ryousuke didn’t really look much worse for wear, despite the tell-tale shimmer of perspiration on his forehead, his bangs a little wet from it. His posture was straight and his dark eyes were sharp as ever. Even just looking at him, Takumi felt even more like passing him had just been a massive hallucination he’d dreamed up. Or that he’d only gotten that pass out of charity. The idea twisted his stomach.
Ryousuke waited, patiently, expectant.
Finally, Takumi managed to untangle his tongue. “Can—I… I’d like to ask you something.”
His opponent blinked and inclined his head slightly, accepting the question.
He swallowed again, taking a step forward. The energy thrumming through his body felt like a trapped circuit, energy building and building with nowhere to go. “Back there… Why did you slow down so I could catch up to you?” he blurted.
Ryousuke’s expression wasn’t impressed, but he relaxed. “You’re asking me if I threw the race for you?” he asked, incredulous, one of his eyebrows quirking.
A little mollified, Takumi’s posture softened.
Ryousuke continued with a shrug, “You just picked up your pace a little bit, there’s nothing else to it. I admit, I started to have problems with my front tires, but I’m not going to use it as an excuse.”
“Tires?” Takumi murmured, a little lost. What would that matter?
“You didn’t abuse your tires like I did, and you increased your pace. I admit defeat,” he said, as if it was as simple as that. As if this legend of a racer who’d never lost a single race in his life would accept his first loss, to a novice, to a nobody, so easily.
It just didn’t…! Takumi squeezed his hands into fists as Ryousuke turned to back track to his door, saying something he wasn’t entirely listening to. No, wait! That didn’t make sense! Just like that, he beat someone like him? The White Comet!?
“But—I’m not as special as everyone says I am!” Takumi retorted, as if it could nullify the outcome of their race, nullify reality.
Ryousuke stopped and turned back while Takumi continued, the desperation he’d felt earlier bleeding into his words. “I just… It’s… I told you, I just know Akina better than everyone else…!”
“And you’re saying that knowledge was all it took to best me?” Ryousuke asked, looking back at Takumi, turning fully to face him again.
Takumi’s brain sputtered as he tried to recover from that conclusion. “N-no, I didn’t mean…!”
Ryousuke chuckled then and somehow, despite it all, it made Takumi feel a little better, a pressure valve finally releasing some of the exhaust building up from his overworked brain.
“You’re a weird guy, and I don’t mean that as an insult,” he said in return, an amused smile on his face. An almost…fond look. “You really are unique and down-to-earth. I like that about you.”
Takumi’s chest squeezed again and he swallowed down the cough in his throat, his face burning. “I… I’m just having a hard time, I guess. Believing that I beat someone like you.”
The corner of Ryousuke’s smile pulled a little bit, almost into a smirk. Takumi could feel his body getting hotter again and he felt the urge to run, or, or something. What was wrong with him?
Ryousuke’s voice cut the direction of his thoughts. “Well, I’m flattered, if I’ve earned your admiration despite it all.”
“Despite…?” Takumi repeated, disbelieving, feeling like he could almost laugh. “Of course I do! That race…it was…” He glanced from Ryousuke to the FC beside him, remembering the hiss and whine of the engine tailing him at such an incredible speed, matching his drifts movement for movement. It had felt less like a competition to best him, more like…a dance, a performance with an accompaniment that briefly took the lead. He’d felt studied, being in front around those bends and straight-aways, like Ryousuke was trying to peel the layers off of him to look at what was inside.
He shuddered at the thought and let out a breath, realizing he’d zoned out. What had he been thinking just then?? And right in front of him!
“You, too, huh?” Ryousuke said, his voice soft, a little breathy. Astonished, maybe, or surprised.
Takumi couldn’t help it. On reflex, he tore his eyes from the FC and met Ryousuke’s. The smirk was gone, and something about his face, maybe his posture, was different. He tipped his chin down a little, his dark eyes pinning Takumi to the spot where he was standing. It felt just like that pressure from the FC, except there weren’t cages of metal and plastic encompassing them, and they weren’t traveling at incredible speeds in the dark.
“‘Too?’” Takumi croaked, feeling incredibly lame.
“I’ve been racing for years, and I’ve never raced anyone like you before. No race was like this, on the circuit or a mountain, in the daylight or night, any weather condition, you--” he began and then hesitated, as if he caught himself about to say something he didn’t want to. The cicadas rang for a deafening second and then he resumed, his voice earnest, “None of them drive like you do. I don’t think anyone drives like you do.”
Takumi almost felt faint and he wasn’t entirely sure why, but with the way his heart kept hitting his sternum, maybe he should be afraid of having a heart attack, or a stroke with how hard he was trying to think and getting absolutely nowhere. The tone in Ryousuke’s voice felt so uncharacteristic of him, and wholly undeserved. The praise did something to him, too, praise from him specifically. He’d never really cared what anyone had thought of him before, but this…
The dark eyes pinning him in place skated over him quickly, briefly stopping at his belt and something immediately changed; Ryousuke’s eyes widened a bit and his body, almost stiff with tension before, had shifted into a new gear. Takumi blinked and those eyes were on his face again, eyes that shined like they’d just learned something new about him.
Confused, Takumi reflexively palmed at the front of his shirt with his right hand. Was he really sweaty or something? Could he tell? He turned his face, glancing down when he didn’t feel anything weird, only to find that the front of his pants were tented.
He had enough time to gasp as the mortification seeped in, settling like sediment under his alarm and confusion, but, before he could even exhale, he both saw and felt a hand, an arm block his view and press against his chest. Surprised, he stumbled and was easily maneuvered, shoved into the side of the eight-six.
On reflex, Takumi’s right hand grabbed the wrist behind the hand holding him in place and he looked up, his brown eyes meeting black ones.
A sharp, cold fear lanced through him. Was Ryousuke going to hit him? Did he hate him? Fuck he didn’t even know why he--!
Every whirling thought in his head screeched to a halt when the body in front of him pressed against his. A leg slotted between his and drew it another gasp out of him, but not just because of the pressure there, but the press of what was clearly arousal against the inside of his right hip.
No way… Holy shit! Ryousuke was…!
The hand on his chest eased a little, fingers barely caressing through his t-shirt, but his own grip didn’t budge yet. He knew for a fact Ryousuke could feel his heart rattling behind his ribs like an animal in a cage, but somehow he didn’t feel all that embarrassed about it anymore.
“You, too,” Ryousuke repeated, but this time his voice was low and Takumi pulled his eyes back to see his face again, not realizing he’d turned away. Ryousuke wasn’t looking at his eyes now, his gaze was lower, and Takumi realized what was going to happen next, the very recent memory of Natsuki leaning over the gearshift still a flicker in the back of his mind.
So, just like back then, he didn’t think. He let his body move by itself.
He eased his grip on Ryousuke’s wrist, his fingertips moving to touch over the back of his hand instead, feeling the tendons running up to his knuckles, the soft bump of his veins. He relaxed his teeth, and then Ryousuke’s mouth was on his.
Takumi had kissed before of course, but dating, relationships, and sex weren’t things he really did. Sure, he’d thought about it sometimes; he liked seeing Natsuki in her bathing suit at the beach, even in her street clothes she was cute, and of course her sailor uniform at school. He didn’t know if he liked her like a girlfriend, but he was attracted to her. He’d liked making out with her in his car. Her lipgloss had rubbed off on his mouth and had made kissing her so easy. Their lips slid together with so little friction and it had been really hot, the sweet fake vanilla flavor notwithstanding.
This was so different from that. Ryousuke’s lips were a little dry, but still soft, and where Natsuki’s kiss was slow and not terribly shy, Takumi could feel the natural control with which Ryousuke did everything pressing against his mouth. He had to angle his head up and shift one of his feet back to help counter the force of it, his free hand pressing back blindly against the side of his car. He felt Ryousuke exhale against his cheek as he moved his mouth against his and Takumi tried to match the movements of his lips. He could smell his cologne and sweat in the night air, with just a little bit of smoke from his last cigarette. It was all...warm. He didn’t dislike it, and compared to the taste of lipgloss…
He’d never even thought of kissing another guy before, let alone doing anything more with one. It wasn’t something people really talked about outside of harsh taboo whispers and derogatory insults meant to make you feel like less of a man. But his body couldn’t be lying to him, and Ryousuke’s wasn’t either. He didn’t even know how to approach going further with a girl, even if kissing made him hard. This was already beyond that.
Ryousuke moved his hand from Takumi’s chest to wrap around his upper back, so Takumi moved the hand that was on it to drag his fingers up over the other man’s clavicle, exposed from his first two buttons being undone, then up his throat and over the back of his neck to better anchor himself. He felt a hum against his mouth and then a little bit of teeth on his lower lip, so he responded in kind and, on impulse, swiped his tongue after it. He felt Ryousuke’s erection move against his hip and he couldn’t help it, he smirked a little, just before Ryousuke tilted his head to slot his mouth over his, pressing his tongue along Takumi’s. His grip on Ryousuke’s neck strengthened and he groaned against the intrusion, reflexively grinding against the leg between his. It shifted harder against him and a shiver went up his spine, like Ryousuke had pressed a button to elicit the reaction specifically.
The cicadas were loud, but it was hard to hear them over the wet sounds of smacking and sucking lips, groans and sighs, and the blood rushing in his ears. He couldn’t deny that he liked this, there was no way he could, even if Ryousuke was a guy. The way he kissed felt almost as honest as his driving, as his praise, as his challenge, and the memory of it made Takumi harder all over again.
Wait...wait, cicadas… Shit!
Takumi loosed his hand from Ryousuke’s neck and gently pressed on his shoulder as he turned his head, breaking the kiss. He took a few breaths, licked at the spit still on his mouth, and took another breath.
“Ryousuke-san…” Takumi managed, his voice kind of embarrassing to his own ears with how winded it was. He turned to look back at him, but Ryousuke’s eyes weren’t on his face. They were closed, his brow furrowed, and his face was as flushed as Takumi’s felt like his was. It made him feel a little more grounded. His lips were darker and shiny, too, and he could just make out the line of his teeth. That made him feel a little less grounded. He tried again, “Ryousuke-san, we--”
“Fujiwara…” Ryousuke rasped and Takumi swallowed, worried for a second that he’d irritated him before the older man rolled his hips against him, dashing away his worry and making his eyes flutter closed. He continued, “God… I want you in my mouth, right now.”
The protest that they were still on the side of the road died somewhere in Takumi’s throat. Wh-what did he just say??
While his conscious brain struggled, his subconscious didn’t, his traitorous animal brain making his body grind back against Ryousuke as he got harder at the thought, not only of getting his dick sucked, but doing it outside. How was this escalating so fast??
“R-right here?” his equally traitorous mouth asked.
“Right here,” he affirmed, opening his eyes and looking down at Takumi. His eyes were so black in the dark, but the nearest streetlight could just cast a glare over them. He hadn’t known until now, but his eyes were a dark, cool gray, not brown. For a second Takumi was distracted, but only a second. Ryousuke was dead serious.
“But...the road…” he tried again, part of him reaching for a reason not to, hoping that he wouldn’t find one that was convincing, because he wasn’t sure that any reason was going to be good enough for his dick anymore.
Ryousuke patted his hand on the roof of the eight-six behind Takumi. “I can get on my knees just fine in the back seat.”
Takumi’s eyes nearly rolled and he shut them, groaning at the mental image. How could he just say something like that??
He felt a firm, but brief kiss press against his mouth. Ryousuke lingered there when he spoke. “You were very fast, Takumi Fujiwara. You bested me, and you impressed me. Let me prove it to you.”
He wasn’t entirely sure that that made sense, but whatever self-control Takumi had been reflexively looking for was gone and the trail was cold. His hand that had been pressed against the car moved toward the handle for the driver’s-side door. “Let me get the door,” he said, and received another firm kiss in response before Ryousuke pulled away from him to walk around the car.
The motions they went through before scrambling into the back together felt like a daze. Even if it didn’t take more than half a minute, he couldn’t recall a single part of it. The moment Ryousuke shifted away from the passenger door further into the seat, Takumi closed the gap, grabbing his face to pull him forward and kiss that mouth again, his legs astride him. Ryousuke’s hands were immediately on him, one skating up the front of his shirt while the other palmed at the front of his jeans. Takumi broke the kiss and gasped, pressing his left foot on the side of the car as Ryousuke ducked his head to kiss his neck, his hand briefly wrapping around his torso as the other pulled at the clasp of his belt.
Oh shit oh shit this was really happening!
“Move back a little,” came Ryousuke’s voice against his throat. He immediately obliged, shifting back to sit up a little more against the interior and, with his movement, Ryousuke pulled his belt completely open and immediately went for the button on his jeans. Takumi didn’t know how he missed that Ryousuke was hard before, the man was wearing white pants, and now that he looked with intent he could see it plain as day, and, despite what they were about to do, it made his face flush. He himself was so hard it was pushing the top of his jeans away from his skin at this point and, as Ryousuke moved back, sliding on to one knee on the floorboard, a self-conscious thought threatened to dunk ice cold water over Takumi’s arousal.
“W-wait,” he started, Ryousuke immediately freezing when he spoke. Takumi took a steadying breath, “I sweated a lot during the race, won’t it--?”
Ryousuke chuckled and it cut him off, the brief tickle of breath against the exposed skin between his navel and boxer shorts a new sensation for Takumi, one of many so far. Ryousuke turned his head up and the two of them met eyes. Takumi’s gaze was caught by the movement of Ryousuke playfully flicking at the zipper of his jeans, the placement of his arms and hands deliberately away from where his body wanted them.
“Fujiwara, if you want me to stop, tell me now,” he heard him say, his tone serious, but it was undercut a little by the rough edge it had, the hard-on Takumi could still see from his vantage point, and the coy clnk clnk from the zipper’s tongue shifting back and forth.
He willed himself to let go of the breath he’d taken. “I really really don’t want you to stop,” he admitted, mostly to Ryousuke, but also a little bit to himself.
“Good,” came his reply as he pulled the zipper all the way down with one hand, then reached inside his boxers and took hold of his cock with the other.
The breath Takumi had been taking was squeezed out of him in a hiss at the touch, and he struggled to refill his lungs when Ryousuke pulled him out and licked his lips at the sight of him. The young racer felt both flattered and embarrassed at once.
This was it, holy shit, this was it!
Ryousuke rubbed against him, pulling his foreskin behind his glans before turning his eyes to look at Takumi. They looked at each other for a moment, the anticipation in Takumi only ramping up with every millisecond that the next stage in their encounter hung in the moment. Then, Ryousuke broke eye contact, wet his lips again, and took Takumi in his mouth.
Takumi’s right hand shot up and took the grab handle above him in a vice grip as his back stiffened and arched, the searing, wet heat making his brain spark. And when Ryousuke sucked, Takumi’s eyes rolled back and he shut them, a shudder rolling over him. A groan vibrated in his chest as he squeezed his eyelids tight, reveling in the new sensations washing over him. That singular point on his body felt so good, it was nothing like jerking off. It was hard to distinguish any particular move Ryousuke made, it all just felt wet and hot and incredible.
He moaned at a roll of Ryousuke’s tongue. It felt loud in the cabin of the car, but god he didn’t care. The wet, sucking sounds filling the space were already so erotic it almost hurt.
“Holy shit…!” he gasped, opening his eyes, and managed to find the courage to look down. He couldn’t really see any of Ryousuke’s face in his lap, just the line of his brow and the point of his nose through the part in his bangs as he bobbed up and down. Takumi swallowed as he watched, trying to control his breathing as he moved his left hand down, gingerly touching against the collar of Ryousuke’s button down shirt at the back of his neck. It was damp and silk. Of course it was. Only Ryousuke Takahashi would wear a silk shirt to a battle in the middle of the night.
His fingers shifted from the material to the skin underneath, stroking against the equally damp skin at the base of his neck, half trying to distract himself before he blew in Ryousuke’s mouth after only getting head for two minutes at best. Admitting it to himself only made it that much more difficult, unfortunately. He grazed his nails up to Ryousuke’s clean hairline, receiving a groan around his cock in return. Takumi’s back arched and he bit his teeth together, thrusting slightly. That felt so good…!
“Ryousuke-san…” he breathed, moving his hand through Ryousuke’s hair. It was unbelievably soft, feathery and dense against his fingers, damp with sweat at the roots at his scalp.
He watched Ryousuke move, the arm that was holding him up against the seat shifting before his fingers dipped into the V of the seam of Takumi’s zipper and bent underneath, rolling his knuckles against his balls.
An embarrassing, reedy sound erupted from Takumi at the touch even though he saw him do it, and he nearly threw his head back and hit it against the window behind him. Takumi panted as his left leg started to shake with tension, pressing so hard against the plastic interior of the car that he didn’t know if he was going to damage it before this was all done. He could swear he heard it creak.
“Ryousuke-san!” he pleaded, grabbing a fistful of is hair, “Ah--! I’m not gonna last if you—keep doing that!”
At that, Ryousuke pulled almost all the way off of Takumi, angling his head to look up at him. The challenge in his eyes was unmistakable, and Takumi realized that he hadn’t just made a threat, he’d made a bet, and Ryousuke had full intent on seeing it through and winning. Even as it accompanied the obscene picture of Ryousuke crouched down in the back of a car, hard in his own pants, with a cock in his mouth.
A strained laugh left Takumi, at the picture in front of him, as if he’d forgotten the person he was dealing with. “I think you’re a sore loser after all,” he said, and he has no idea at all where he got the balls to say that. Though, maybe saying that to the man with teeth around his dick wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
Ryousuke’s eyes seemed to glint as Takumi’s stupid comment upped the ante before immediately redoubling his efforts.
Any tension that eased from the brief interlude or laughing instantly came back and it took Takumi’s breath away. The roll of knuckles and fingers against his sack made him jerk a little and he was so impossibly hard, harder than he ever remembered being in his entire life.
He realized vaguely that he hadn’t let go of Ryousuke’s hair, so he does, grabbing at the fabric of his shoulder instead, wrinkling the no doubt expensive material in his tight grip, not able to do anything but endure the fast suction moving up and down his cock.
“I--Ryousuke-san…! Ah—I...shit! I’m gonna come!” he cried out, bucking against the weight of Ryousuke on his hips, and it somehow didn’t budge him at all. He pushed at Ryousuke’s shoulder, because he wasn’t letting up or backing off, and it would be rude to just shoot his load right in his mouth, right??
The other man simply rolled his shoulder away from the pressure and shrugged him off. The knuckles against Takumi’s sack moved and Ryousuke was grabbing him then, putting the perfect amount of pressure right there, and it was fantastic. It dragged a gasp into Takumi’s lungs and he tried to thrust again to no avail. It’s like his body was rigid and weighed down. Fuck he was so close he was so close! Come on come on come on!!
A groan vibrated around him again and Takumi choked on his breath, pulling hard on the grab handle above the window, except it felt like there was no force at all when he did. Everything felt sluggish for some reason and the frustration was killing him. He wanted to come! He wanted to flood Ryousuke’s mouth with his cum and watch him swallow it. He wanted Ryousuke to be so turned on by it that he came in his expensive white pants and ruined them without even jerking off. He wanted to meet up later and do it again. He wanted to get his mouth on him again, his hands. Ryousuke’s mouth, Ryousuke’s hands, his eyes, his hair, his neck, his legs, his--!
He gasped again, louder, and snapped his eyes open. The ceiling of his bedroom stared back at him.
He held his breath a moment as he blinked his wide, round eyes and stared up at the flat light fixture on the ceiling, the light from the streetlamp outside coming in stripes through the mostly closed blinds and the not-so-thick curtains. He could barely hear the cicadas, coming in through the cracked window to let in the cooler night air before the sun came up. He let the breath go.
The first feeling he registered was that his cock was still achingly hard. It was blaring in his brain, pleading touch me touch me touch me! and he didn’t remember anything else before he dove his hand under his waistband and grabbed hold, sighing immediately at the pressure. He didn’t think about anything as he stroked, hard and fast, pulling the elastic down with his other hand to free himself; nothing was happening in his brain except for a desperate, ravenous need to come.
So, of course, his brain, ever the helper, flicked an image of the dream he had just had to the forefront of his mind’s eye and he gasped as he squeezed over his glans, timed with the false memory of Ryousuke pressing his tongue over the same spot in a hard swipe, and that was it. He groaned behind his teeth as his body went taught and he came hard all over the t-shirt he was wearing, his whole body shaking with the force of it. The chemicals in his brain swam and he almost felt like he might pass out from relief, gingerly continuing to stroke himself as he softened, catching his breath, until the orgasm faded and he let his hand drop.
As the bliss receded, the realization of what happened seeped over his body in its wake, like a gooey membrane over his sweaty skin, and he gripped his hands into fists. He shivered, feeling almost sick to his stomach, and he opened his eyes to look at the ceiling again, the one he’d seen almost every night ever since he could remember. The same ceiling he came back to after his dad took him driving down Akina with his actual skill for the first time, and Takumi finally, genuinely, admired him for something. The same ceiling he came back to after he’d gotten suspended from school for punching Miki in the face, and his dad hadn’t even bothered to scold him for it because he wasn’t that full of shit about being the “right kind” of parent. The same ceiling he came back to after Natsuki kissed him in his car and he’d fantasized about reaching up to the neckline of her shirt and slipping his fingers under the front there to touch her breasts. The same ceiling after that first unintentional race with Keisuke Takahashi and every other race until now, feeling more excited and confused as to what his life was turning into, who he was, what he was doing. The same ceiling when he’d beaten Ryousuke Takahashi and he felt like maybe he really could go wherever he wanted to go, that maybe he could imagine a future where he did something he was good at, something he enjoyed, if someone like Ryousuke-san believed in him. And now...
The dread continued to surmount, his heartbeat hard in his chest as he remembered the dream, a twisted, weird, erotic version of the conversation he’d just had. After the race he just drove a few hours ago, all with a real person who actually knew. Okay, he didn’t really “know” him, but the man left a strong impression, between the flowers and the race, and even just the brief exchange before and after felt like he’d gotten to know him a lot better, even if he’d been baffling with what he’d said. That didn’t take away from the fact that this dream featured a flesh and blood person, not a figment of his imagination. And it was a real person that he’d come to respect on a whole new level after tonight. He couldn’t explain it, but it was hard to imagine feeling the same stress at being chased by anyone else in a race.
The adrenaline during the battle had been so high that he actually had gotten half hard at one point, but it had gone away when he thought there was no way he was going to win. He knew adrenaline could do that, he’d played competitive sports. It wasn’t exactly an unexpected thing to happen. Sure, it hadn’t happened to him on any of the other races, or really during soccer matches or anything, but this race hadn’t been like any of those at all.
He took a frustrated breath through his nose and sat up a little bit, pulling his shirt off, rubbing it at the remnants of semen on his stomach, then throwing the shirt on the floor. With one layer of discomfort discarded, he lay back down and tucked his penis back in his boxers. The breath he’d taken expelled from him then, some of the stress leaving with it, but not nearly enough to ease him. Both hands came up to rub harshly over his face and sit there.
God it had felt so real! Maybe that was because it mirrored the conversation that he’d just been in earlier that night, but it still didn’t take away from the fact that the stuff they said, even the parts he knew were invented, had felt so genuine!
How could his dream self just go along with it?? With a guy! With Ryousuke! Why was his brain so damn detailed about it, too?? The tongue kiss, his dick against his hip, the blowjob?? He didn’t even know what any of that felt like in real life! And it was...it was…! His fingers curled against his face as he felt his cheeks burn, his lips forming into a grimace. This sucks! This sucks!
Takumi pushed his hands over his face and into his hair, gripping there for a minute before letting go and rolling onto his side. He pressed his face into his pillow and tried to fight the panic welling up inside him. He took a big breath, his chest expanding and pushing his back up as his lungs filled with air and the smell of his own pillow, and then he let it out in another frustrated groan, his body deflating as it slumped down into the mattress.
He didn’t know what time it was, but he was pretty sure he probably had another hour before he had to go make deliveries. He’d barely slept at all.
The shame started to make its presence known then, and he was about frayed to his last nerve. He was too tired for this. He felt too many things right now, too many reasons to feel them, too many implications, too many consequences. Even if he tried to ignore the dream, it would just pop up in the back of his mind whenever it felt like it, and heaven forbid he ever saw Ryousuke again and the first thing he thinks of when he sees his face is what he looked like between his legs! He wasn’t stupid; he knew that he couldn’t just pretend the dream didn’t happen, not something this intense, not something that turned him on when he was lucid.
Well, how lucid are you when you just wake up with a raging hard on, anyway?
He shook his head as much as he could, which really just ground his face into his pillow.
He’d never had to question if he liked girls. He’d been a bit of a late bloomer, he guessed, compared to other guys his age. His old man had said as much. He didn’t really care about girls or dating all that much in general, but that didn’t really have much of an influence on whether he found girls hot or not. Itsuki had brought a porno magazine over one time, shoved into a car magazine, covered in a plastic bag and carried in another like he was sneaking contraband into the house. It took some coaxing and convincing from his enthusiastic friend, but eventually they looked through it together. He hadn’t needed to think very hard about whether he liked what he saw; he just figured out then that he didn’t really have the same aesthetic tastes as Itsuki. Or maybe it was that he was a little more picky than Itsuki was. Itsuki had gawked over every single pin-up and centerfold in the issue while Takumi had only interrupted his page turning or taken the magazine away from him to look at a couple of them, and that was at least slightly motivated by wanting to irritate his best friend. If he had to find something in common with most of them, it was that they had nice legs and soft, pale skin.
It had actually happened a couple of times, Itsuki wanting to hang out and eventually showing him something like that. It was always at the tofu shop, something about being afraid his parents would waltz in and catch them. The shop was safer. Both of them knew that, even if Takumi’s dad did come into his room, which was not at all likely, it was more probable that he’d pretend to scold them and take it from them just to keep it for himself. Better to be down a magazine and slightly embarrassed than down a magazine and grounded. Takumi had wondered at the time what it was like to actually have a parent that grounded as punishment.
He huffed, trying to think of what the girls in those magazines looked like, his impressions of them. Which models did he not particularly like? What girls in general did he not particularly like? Body types, faces, even voices flashed through his mind. Gyaru girls… Harajuku… He didn’t get it and it was too busy, it put him off. But those were styles, fashion, even if it was an outward impression. If they didn’t have all that stuff on, they’d probably be just fine. Itsuki had somehow gotten hold of an American magazine once, and he didn’t care for most of those women, either. The cultural taste was so different. Tits you can’t even hold in two hands were just too big. And the makeup, ugh. And the deep, fake tans, like gyaru girls. And tall girls! Well…actually if a girl were taller than him, just a little, that’s not bad. If she has nice legs and she’s tall, that’s even more to admire…
Ugh this was stupid! He ground his forehead hard into his pillow. He liked girls! Why did it matter what kind or what traits?!
And, fuck…fuck that meant he didn’t like guys, right?? You can’t do both, can you?? Having a dream…or fantasizing wasn’t the same as the real thing, he knew that. He could think about fingering Natsuki in her skirt all day long if he wanted but that had nothing to do with doing that to her in real life. Well, but not like he didn’t…want to, but…
He sighed and relaxed his neck to stop punishing his forehead, and his brain by proxy. He wasn’t making any sense anymore. This was too hard to parse.
He rolled back over to lie on his back again and looked at the clock this time, reaching over and angling it so a stripe of light coming through the blinds illuminated the face. 3:23 AM. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes with the thumb and pointer finger of his right hand. Okay…well… So much for that.
He turned the alarm off and rolled out of bed, looking down at the shirt on the ground like it was evidence of a crime he’d committed. He leaned down and grabbed it, moving to toss it in the hamper before he thought of the smell and sighed in resignation. He had time, and maybe the old man wouldn’t bother him.
After throwing the thin blanket he’d kicked off at some point back on the bed and pulling on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, he grabbed the offending article of clothing and balled it up, gross side in, and left his room, walking to the bathroom and shutting the door.
He turned the faucet on full throttle and waited for the hot water, rubbing at his eyes again. Waiting meant he had time to think, and his mind wandered the second he wasn’t doing something that required concentration, or something he could force himself to concentrate on. Even then, sometimes he could get lost in his own head despite everything else.
For some reason, he thought about the roses. He’d kept them in his room, and he still had them now, stuck in a pilfered glass pitcher he couldn’t ever remember his dad even using. They weren’t fresh anymore, but they weren’t even a week old either, so they still smelled nice. He’d been entertaining finding out how to preserve flowers, something about drying them out, but now he wasn’t sure he wanted to even look at them. Sure, this race was significant, to him and the Akina street racing scene, and that’s only partly why he’d kept them. It’s…it would be a shame to throw them out.
He noticed the steam from the blistering hot water fogging up the mirror behind it and stood up straight, adjusting the temperature down, and quickly rinsed the spunk from his shirt.
Once he was satisfied he’d done enough, he turned the faucet off and rung the water out in the sink. A sharp knock came at the door and he jumped, cursing under his breath.
“You fall in or something?” came his dad’s voice.
Shitty old man…
He wiped his hands off on the shirt and pulled the door open, looking up at his dad on the other side. His old man gave him a once over, briefly snagging on the shirt, before he turned and headed toward the stairs without a word. Probably thinking of some clever jab to make before he pulled out for the delivery, Takumi suspected. Well, whatever. At least driving would take his mind off of everything, and maybe blowing off some steam would let him get back to sleep afterward.
