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Sousuke has precious few secrets these days. He desperately hoards what he has left like a Victorian peasant boy whose only worldly possessions are a soft wood cigar box full of broken trinkets. In this victimized fantasy, Sousuke keeps the box stashed beneath the weathered floorboards of his dilapidated orphanage bedroom, living in fear of it being found by the bullish bunkmates who hate him and want nothing more than to leave him with nothing.
He’s always been a secretive person, a private person. It’s a control thing, a therapist told him once. That is, to place immense value on knowing things about himself no one else does and choosing how to meter out what he decides someone can know. The therapist also alleged he takes some measure of self-destructive pleasure in denying people more of himself if they pry for it. It’s why he struggles with intimacy. It’s why no one sticks around for long once he bores them to death with all he doesn’t say.
Load of shit, in his opinion. Everyone has secrets they want to keep that way, to some degree. No one needs to know everything. And besides, no matter how badly he wished Haru didn’t know he likes watching callus removal videos because he left one up on his laptop one time, Haru knows. No matter how much he lives in constant fear of Rin exposing the year he spent in elementary school more than a normal amount convinced he was a telepath who could move things with his mind and only needed to practice to realize it (and did, which is the crucially condemnable component of this secret), Rin has that and brings it up frequently enough to ensure Sousuke knows it’s still part of his arsenal and that his pacifism is situational.
They all know about every mortifying failure, every struggled victory, every abominable 2 AM depression meal constructed with stale carbs and slathered in sauce and microwaved into a fused unit going all the way back to university, conveniently the same amount of time he has had his chatty roommate. They know everything.
Despite his best efforts, most of his secrets have leaked over time, a cosmic battle of attrition he is destined to lose by nature of his relationship turnover rate approaching zero as time goes on and opportunities to meet new people go down. He simply has known the same people for too long to ever hold onto all of his secrets forever. And despite this, he still struggles with intimacy, and anyone new with an emotional intelligence above that of an unpaired gym sock ghosts him once the novelty of his body wears off. So no, therapist Jun, it isn’t the fucking secrets. It isn’t a control thing, and he refuses to give up what all secrets he has left.
Someone would have to kill him for his cigar box.
Or walk in on him while he has it open.
“All this time I thought your eyebrows just grew that way.”
Another secret, plucked from the box, thrown into the mud ahead of a procession of armored horses and tyrannical soldiers out to steal from the poor. The orphan boy weeps while his worst bully winds up to kick him into the mud, to also be trampled. Sousuke is losing the metaphor. He sets the tweezers down in a loose, defeated fist, and sighs forward into the bathroom mirror until his forehead brushes the cold surface.
“What happened to knocking?”
“I’m sorry,” Makoto says flippantly, not sorry at all, shuffling behind Sousuke to get to his sink on the farther side. He nearly dislodges the towel separating Sousuke from another revealed secret and does not seem to notice it (he believes Makoto has not seen his dick, anyway, but has never asked outright), does not seem to care that his hip brushed Sousuke’s ass like that. There was a time when, if Makoto walked in on Sousuke in the bathroom even fully clothed, he would have squeaked like a stepped on mouse and slammed the door and apologized hourly for the next week. No one knows the good ol’ days are gone until they’re shrinking in the rearview mirror. “The door was open and you’ve been in here a while.”
The door was merely cracked to vent the shower steam, revealing Makoto’s explanation for what it is: impatience. Sousuke rolls his eyes, ensures the towel’s integrity once more, and resumes his task. May as well finish and endure what comes of it since it isn’t a secret anymore.
“I mean,” Makoto continues as he dollops a toothbrush with sparkly spackle, “I thought that because you told us that.”
“Well I lied.” Sousuke pulls his left brow taught and squints in search of any out of bounds hairs he may have missed. “Have to tweeze’m.”
“I did have my suspicions, since you have to shave the rest of your face every day. Didn’t make sense that the eyebrows would be spared.” Makoto runs the sink to wet the brush then starts in on his lower right side, as he does every time. Around the brushing he asks, “So why keep it a secret anyway?”
Sousuke leans back from the mirror, incapable of plucking and holding a conversation the same way Gou can’t put mascara on with her mouth closed. Makoto blinks inquiring green eyes at him in wait of an answer Sousuke doesn’t have as he transitions brushing in the lower right to the lower left. It’s here Sousuke takes the time to notice his hair is nicely arranged and balm-textured and he smells like tobacco-cedar cologne and astringent skin product and his tightly patterned lime button down really works with the skinny black tie and pants.
The good ol’ days were also when Makoto had never heard of hair concrete and considered something fit as long as it covered him up. Where there used to be khakis there are now chinos, the ratty university sweaters succumbed to topcoats and shearlings, he stopped washing his face with dish soap and his leanness is no longer a happy accident, a byproduct of bygone sporting, but purposefully maintained. Sousuke’s painfully young and inexperienced college roommate has mutated into a creature of immense, awful power over the course of a decade. He is absolutely terrifying. Sousuke fears nothing more, not man nor beast nor death itself.
So sure, so self-aware, so incredibly, mind-meltingly hot.
Sousuke glares at him half-heartedly. “If you’re asking about why I tweeze my eyebrows at all, we’ve lived together for too long.”
Makoto laughs around his toothbrush and pivots back to his sink to finish. He bends and spits and Sousuke looks away to quietly clear an abruptly tacky throat as he does it. Makoto reaches for his hand towel to dab at the corners of his softly smiling mouth. “Well. That is the reason you gave me for moving out, I suppose.”
Sousuke grunts for lack of a response he has any confidence in. He returns to his brows and Makoto’s smile lingers out of the corner of his eye until its natural slow release. Makoto turns back to his side of the mirror to pick at insignificant strands of hair and move them mere millimeters this way and that to perfect whatever he’s going for. It’s the same haircut he’s always had but given dignity, given poise. Sometimes, Sousuke misses when it was a little messier. Sometimes, Sousuke misses the khakis.
Of course, calling all that the good ol’ days implies he thinks less of Makoto now when it isn’t the case. Far, far from it. It is only that ten years ago, Sousuke was not terrified of him. Ten years ago, Makoto was not an entire universe out of Sousuke’s league. There was a chance. Meager, but a chance. Sousuke was too up his own ass to take it, a devotee to the church of Not Looking for Anything Serious for way longer than he needed to be. Never considered it beyond a surface level, even, because he was sort of an idiot back then. He is still an idiot, only now granted the gift of insight and fully steeped in the flood of regret.
Sousuke replaces the tweezers into his drawer, not bothering to shove them out of sight into the back now as he has his entire adult life. Makoto is looking at him again when he’s done, despite his state of undress. Makoto hardly blushes anymore. Sousuke also sometimes misses that.
“Are you really sure you don’t want to come with us tonight, Sousuke?”
If he’s sad about it, Sousuke can’t clock it. Why would he be sad, Sousuke figures, since his night will be spent in luxury with his two best friends traipsing their tipsy way into the new year at a very exclusive penthouse or lounge or whatever it’s called when it’s on the story-spanning 64th floor of a building Sousuke would never be allowed into otherwise, courtesy the highfalutin guy Makoto has been seeing for the last two weeks. Sousuke was invited but Sousuke suddenly thought, with violence and in stunning technicolor, he might throw up into the rabbit-shaped ice sculpture punch bowl on sight if he went. No real justifiable reason, just that he might, if he has to watch Makoto anywhere near that guy’s lap or face or hand or knee or
“Nah. I don’t like to pull out.” Not a good place to leave that statement considering the thoughts swimming behind it. “Of plans.”
“Right. It’s just…” Makoto tilts his head, a conciliatory pout on his lip that is a little delayed, but nice to see all the same. Maybe he is a little sad about it. “It seems strange not to have you. We always spend holidays together… I mean, the four of us.”
Sousuke shrugs. “Something better came along. I get it.” Phrased that way, Makoto even looks a little guilty for not only backing out of their New Year’s ritual, but bringing Rin and Haru with him to boot. It wasn’t Sousuke’s intention to make him feel bad, in fact he’s relieved they’ll be separated. “No, really. We do the same shit every damn year. Shrine and a bar until someone drinks too much. Every time. So it’s fine, go have fun. I’ll catch up with the others and report back. I promise you they’re all doing the exact same as the last time you spoke with any of them like, a week ago.”
Makoto is still guilty though, that much about him hasn’t changed. Something else, too. Maybe disappointed. In himself or in Sousuke, that much is unclear. “Mm. If you say so.”
“In any case,” Sousuke reassures, “you’ll have to get used to doing your own thing. I’m gone in a month.”
“Right,” Makoto repeats with an adjusted smile that fits about as well as his aftermarket rear bumper did on his first car, bungee cord supported and all. “That’s coming up fast, isn’t it? Maybe this will be a good chance for you to meet some people then, without having to worry about us.”
“Yeah. You’re all cockblocks.” He offers a smirk off the end of it, knowing Makoto to take statements like that too seriously. “I need my freedom.”
The smile stops at Makoto’s cheeks and climbs no higher; he took it too seriously regardless. When he speaks again, it’s soft and fond. “I really want this change for you, Sousuke. I’m so happy for you.”
Sousuke isn’t sure Makoto has ever said anything else about his decision to move out. He always says that. It was all he said when Sousuke told him, all he says still when Sousuke reminds him that it’s time for them to go their own ways and call it quits while it’s still good. Too good. Perfect, really. But also not perfect at all. A real disaster, when Sousuke controls for the logistical compatibilities that have made re-signing the lease every year the easiest thing he does.
It is admittedly grating on Sousuke at this point to listen to Makoto speak so tenderly about how happy he is about all this when he clearly isn’t, but it’s better to endure that than explain that he’s doing it because he can’t endure another year of Makoto dating his way through the entirety of eligible Japan. Another year of self-imposed apartment banishment for Sousuke when Makoto brings them home, another year of listening to him talk about them and schedule Sousuke in around them, another year consoling him through break ups because somehow, the most available guy in the country, the best looking one, the kindest one, can’t seem to find anyone who wants to keep him or anyone he wants to keep. Maddening to witness from the sidelines where Sousuke can only do so much without being too much and doing something he would regret more than he regrets doing nothing. Downright demoralizing as a guy in danger of inching past his prime in many ways. If Makoto can’t hack it out there, what hope does Sousuke have once he tries in earnest? Conversely, if those guys aren’t good enough, then Sousuke didn’t stand a chance even ten years ago.
It’s time to get away from it. All of it.
“You planning on staying over at his place then?” Sousuke shifts his weight with the thought and change of subject. “So I know not to wait up.”
“Oh. Well.” Makoto hums and appears to think about it, bobbing his head side to side as he predicts the night ahead of him. “Maybe? I can text you? To be honest, I don’t know if I like him that much? If it isn’t too terrible to say.”
Somehow that feels worse. “Know what? No need. I’ll assume you are unless you show up otherwise. You’re a big boy.”
“Mm, we have to learn to be apart, right?”
“Right.”
The universe decides to make a joke out of that idea, and brings them closer. The towel slips. So does Makoto’s gaze. Sousuke dives for the towel before it hits the ground and holds it up in a bunched haste, and then stares at a stunned Makoto. Sousuke is grim-lipped and purple-necked and incapable of speech, but hey, at least Makoto blushes again.
“Anyway,” he finally manages under duress, “have a great time.”
He then turns and leaves, but not before Makoto informs after him, thinking it will help or perhaps not thinking much at all, “I, ah, um, nothing I haven’t… seen… before…?”
“Answers that,” Sousuke mutters.
Sousuke shuffles back to his room to get dressed, ignoring Makoto’s call to repeat what he said. He takes stock of what’s all left in his little cigar box at this point: He blew a TA for a better grade in his third year at university. Actually, twice. And it was two different TAs. He is ambivalent about pork now but proclaimed it was his favorite meat for so long it became a pillar of his personality and he can’t go back on it anymore. He spent years active in the puppet theater circuit but sort of fell off last year after getting banned from Puppet Prestige Worldwide’s channel for telling someone to take a running leap into the bathtub with a live cattle prod rammed up their ass for bitching about the latest Die Hard performance ending with McClane and Sergeant Powell’s passionate puppet kiss. Fair, though. He might’ve gone too far on that one. He makes cash on the side editing niche fetish videos for content farms. He wrote a book of poems a few years ago to process the whole swimming thing not working out; they’re pretty bad. Jun made him do it. That he still finished the book long after he stopped seeing the therapist is, he supposes, its own secret.
Oh, and, last but not least, but certainly something he wishes was not, and unfortunately is, and why he needs to leave, because it isn’t getting any better at all after ten years and only inexplicably worse on a steep curve, is that he is desperately, hopelessly, pathetically in love with his roommate.
“Will you come with me anyway?”
Sousuke startles at Makoto’s uncharacteristic persistence to follow him into all of these private places and nearly drops the towel again. He repackages the conversation they just had into a single utterance over his shoulder, “Makoto.”
His smile is back on and apologetic as he sidesteps an open moving box of Sousuke’s things. “I know. It’s just not the same without you, Sousuke. I’m sure Gou won’t mind. I’m afraid that… well with you moving out…” He stops and bites his lip, another archaic anxious behavior Sousuke did not figure he’d see Makoto do again. “You know how when you leave a job or you leave school and you promise everyone you’ll keep in touch? But you never do, not really.”
And he’s right, but Sousuke isn’t going to tell him that is sort of the plan here. For his own sake. “You’re a little more important than a coworker. I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Well I appreciate that but you should still come with me. Us.”
He turns fully around, and probably shouldn’t have. Makoto is not above using his wiles to get what he wants, shown in his pleading gaze and bowed head. “...I’ll think about it.”
Of course, Sousuke was already worn down thirty seconds ago, and that’s sort of the problem, isn’t it?
By the second Manhattan he is feeling pretty all right.
Does the bartender make it correctly? No. It’s not technically a Manhattan at all, pre or post-prohibition. Sousuke watched her smash an orange peel into the bottom of the glass alongside a few blueberries like he was in a medieval apothecary waiting on a poultice for a ruptured abscess. It’s what he deserves for ordering an American cocktail on New Year’s Eve in Japan. At the end of the day, it’s still bourbon, but he does wonder how blueberries got in there. This was supposed to be an upscale bar.
The one secret Sousuke still sort of has possession of is the whole moving out thing. Makoto didn’t accidentally tell everyone that one. Funny how that works. Honestly Sousuke figured telling Makoto was sufficient and everyone else would know within the day. But it’s been two months since then and no one’s brought it up in Sousuke’s company. It is officially past its expiration date for a soft landing, which has made Sousuke procrastinate on telling anyone for even longer, which will make it worse when he does. He is mostly talking about Rin.
Maybe he has subconsciously grown to rely on the clandestine information network Makoto runs among the four of them, taking for granted that anything that needed to be known would get out eventually. But it is also unlike him not to leap at the first possible opportunity for a confrontation, more a fan of getting things over with than dragging them out, prolonged death sentence masquerading as his years-long unspoken love for his roommate notwithstanding. That’s different. That’s just part of who he is. An immutable factor about himself by now like his hair color or how he peels apples before eating them.
There have been others in all these years who Sousuke could approach loving, sure. Fooled himself once or twice into believing that constant truth about himself was finally gone somehow. But it never lasted, no one else is Makoto. So he lives with it, dates casually even by casual’s definition, the truth an unruly passenger that never takes a hint. It is so passé as to be something he barely thinks about anymore offhand like this, a dormant infection only recently agitated out of his bone marrow as the scripted end to it all draws near.
That’s what the new year is for, anyway, leaving it all behind in the past. Sousuke isn’t dramatic, he didn’t plan it this way, it’s just when the lease came up. He can still appreciate fortuitous timing as much as the next person who believes in a fresh start. Does he believe in it? Not really. He’s forcing this one through. Because if he isn’t going to do anything about how he feels, then it’s time to go feel something else and forget about it.
He’s not doing a good job so far of any of it. Sousuke is turned out on his bar stool in wait with his knees split to keep anyone from bothering him, a move he belatedly recognizes as inconducive to meeting new people. He has—he checks his phone— an hour until midnight to get it together. He nurses his drink as he reflects on it all and watches Makoto mingle with Yagami or Hiro or whatever his name is, bandied around the lively party like a trophy to show off to bloodthirsty poachers, manicured hand leading Makoto around by the small of his back. Sousuke’s gaze darts to the ice sculpture punchbowl frequently, ready to rip if it becomes unbearable. Not even a rabbit, which would be appropriate. Just a gaping fish with dead eyes. Haru threatened to knock it over for being so ugly as soon as they got there.
An impressively gaudy red suit blocks out his entire miserable field of view just as Takami or Kyo or Matsuda’s hand starts on a southern path. It sports subtle, decorative vertical stripes woven in a reflective metallic thread, a shimmery lusty curtain of abundance and indulgence brought together by a gold sequined studded tie. Very festive. More than Sousuke tried to match the occasion by a light year, whose most festive piece is the muted yellow button down more or less hidden behind a quarter-zip charcoal pullover.
Sousuke nods up approvingly at its owner. “Matsuoka.”
“Give me your drink.”
Sousuke does, only because he knows Rin will fling it right back at him.
He sips, hikes his narrow nose in disgust, and hands it back. “Disgusting.”
Sousuke chuckles. “What’s the problem, Red?”
Before Sousuke can bring in one knee to give Rin a place to sit, Rin slaps it in for him like he would an open car door and slips onto the stool. “I feel like a call boy.”
“That a bad thing?”
“Usually, no. But something about these creepy rich foreigners makes it feel bad this time.” Rin catches the bartender on her pass, and orders a shot of vodka. “So I tapped out.”
“Weren’t getting lucky, you mean.”
“Fuck you. Maybe I don’t like what any of them have to offer.”
Sousuke regards him wearily. “Maybe not all guys are into guys. Think of that?”
Rin laughs like Sousuke is being intentionally cute. “They all say that.” He whips his head to the right. “Over there Haru’s working some greasy guy over who is in piano manufacturing. He’s very married to a missus.”
Sousuke takes the opportunity to stop looking at Makoto’s ass under siege to watch Haru across the spacious, lazy party batting his eyelashes at a guy who very obviously talks a lot about his retirement investments. “That’s ambitious.”
“He wants a piano,” Rin explains between thanking the bartender and lining up his drink.
“Since when?”
Rin grins behind his shot before he throws it back. “‘Bout an hour ago.”
“Aren’t you two getting a little old for this schtick?” Sousuke wonders even as he twitches a grin of his own, raising an eyebrow to rest between impressed and critical when Haru laughs like he’s Julia Roberts and swats playfully at the man’s upper arm. A face-splitting laugh like that does not look right on him, more believable as a demonic possession. He really wants that piano.
“Hate the game, Sousuke. They still trip over each other for us when we really put it on.” Sousuke sips his drink as he moves his scrutiny to Rin, who rolls his eyes. “Oh come on. It’s just a run for old time’s sake. We’re mature now. More discretionary. Just couldn’t resist fucking around at a hoity-toity party like this, is all. We asked permission, you know. Makoto was very supportive as long as we didn’t outright steal anything.”
“Sure he was.”
“And Haru and I are tied. In gift value. We’ve kept track over the years. Little ongoing sport.”
“That so.” Sousuke orders Rin another shot. “A fucking grand piano is going to put him pretty far ahead of you.”
And Rin smiles in Haru’s direction, too fondly for Sousuke’s liking. “Guess it does.” He clicks his tongue unseriously. “Game over.”
Sousuke has no idea what’s going on with that look, having been too preoccupied with launching his own endings. Maybe he doesn’t want to know. That is usually the case when it comes to whatever Rin and Haru are up to on their own time. He is certain neither are harboring a secret love for the other approaching six years old. They don’t have the chutzpah, the raw, roiling appetite for self-inflicted punishment like Sousuke does. All that is uniquely Sousuke’s problem. All that is six years old in a few hours, actually.
They visit a shrine every year before the bar not because the crowds are fun but because Rin likes to do it and work on that manifesting mindset shit he subscribes to. Most importantly they go because Makoto always makes sure he prepares something to say about what he hopes for them all in the following year and it is infuriatingly touching and the closest Sousuke ever gets to him.
It was six years ago tonight that Makoto delivered his earnest hopes for Sousuke’s recovery following a second surgery and Sousuke wrote it down in a journal he definitely does not keep every day as he had all the other years at a breezy post-drunk 1 AM thinking it was a nice sentiment and then something abruptly shattered in his chest somewhere deep and he sat back and said ah fuck ah shit that’s not good i’m so fucked i’m so fucked and has been as he said he was ever since.
Maybe that’s why he’s been so torn up about it all today. He won’t be getting another one of Makoto’s fortunes tonight and probably never again.
Rin has his second shot, giving Sousuke ground to soft launch the move. “Speaking of.” He lowers his gaze and stares into the amber wishing well of his drink. “What would you uh… think about me looking for somewhere else to live?”
The shot glass bears the brunt of Rin’s reaction, clattering to the bar top when Rin slams it down empty. “That’s hilarious.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re not gonna do that.”
“I did.”
The ensuing silence sort of sucks, because it allows Sousuke to check in on Makoto and Ito or Kitase or Nomura in the middle of a little flirtatious aside. Once his date’s attention is pulled back to the other wealthy partygoers, Makoto looks right at Sousuke like he knew Sousuke was there the whole time despite Sousuke having moved around a lot before settling here, and narrows his eyes in an unrealized but admirable smile. He’d be downright jaw-droppingly glamorous amidst all the celebratory sparkle and sequins and tinsel décor, were it not for the guy’s sport coat hanging off his shoulders.
“Undo it.”
Makoto waves and follows up with an inscrutable gesture that might say he’ll be right there, or thank you for waiting, or this is going really well so good luck you lovesick moron. Sousuke tips his nearly empty glass back in return.
“It’s been my whole life, Rin.”
“Yeah. We are each other’s whole lives. We put a lot of work into getting it here and it fucking rocks.” He commands Sousuke’s eye contact when he turns in his seat to face him. “Did something happen?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Then why?” Rin frowns. “You and Makoto have been incredible for each other. You’re so patient and easygoing now.”
“I was always patient and easygoing.”
Rin shakes his head. “But now it’s got a Makoto essence to it which is indescribably better. I’m talking name brand over store brand here. And look at him over there. He’s fuckin’ braver than me and Haru and you combined, always putting himself out there, so comfortable in his own skin. You did that.”
Sousuke pointedly does not look at him over there. The idea that he helped make Makoto so confident he escaped Sousuke’s orbit and landed far outside his grasp is worth ordering another drink for. “I didn’t do that.”
“He says as much.”
“He never takes credit for anything.”
Rin sighs in mild defeat. “You don’t either. What I think about it is it’s a stupid idea, to answer your question.”
“Noted.”
Haru approaches then, seemingly from the opposite direction he just was and without a married stockholder in a grand piano company horndogging after him. He slaps in Sousuke’s other knee much as Rin did and takes up the other open seat, already set up with a glass of champagne he plucked off one of the roaming trays. He sports a glittery blue suit to match Rin’s red, way too well-tailored to have actually been purchased by him. Rin must’ve insisted he class it up and Haru must’ve insisted he pay for the privilege of seeing him that way.
“And?” Rin inquires.
“Can’t get it delivered and set up until after the holiday,” Haru sighs, inconvenienced. “But I guess that’s worth letting him grope me while he whacks a drunk half-chub in the elevator later.”
“You absolutely do not have space for that,” Sousuke points out.
“Mind your own business, Yamazaki.”
“That’s a record if we’re talking retail value per minute invested,” Rin marvels in temporary suspension of his malaise. “Good work, Haru.”
Haru is already visibly bored by his conquest. “Thanks. Now why does it look so sad over here?”
Rin leans past Sousuke to better address Haru. “Sousuke’s moving out.”
Sousuke drops his face into his free hand and sets his empty glass behind him on the bar. “Goddammit, Rin.”
“What? Were you just not going to tell him?”
Seen from the corner of Sousuke’s eye, Haru tilts his unbothered head. “But you’re in love with him.”
“Nanase,” Sousuke growls, a little incensed, a little existentially wrung out. The whole fucking cigar box, gone, destroyed, now tossed carelessly into a well-fed fireplace.
Rin swats at Haru across Sousuke’s lap, who dodges it easily. “We weren’t going to tell him we knew that, Haru.”
“How do you think you know that, Rin?” Sousuke charges.
“How dare you. I am your best friend. I know everything about you. Things that haven’t even happened yet.”
“Look at Makoto,” Haru responds over Rin’s self-aggrandizing. Sousuke lifts his face from his hand and looks at Haru instead to try and kill him with his scowl. Not like it has a chance of affecting him. “Do it you big baby.”
Sousuke grunts and drags his eyes off Haru and across the glittery penthouse floor as a laborer moves a massive stone block up a ramp. His gaze climbs Makoto from the feet up only to witness that man kissing Makoto’s neck to Makoto’s apparent demure delight. Lovely.
“There,” Haru leans over to curl near Sousuke’s ear with a menacing edge. “Whenever you look at him you look like you want to die.” Sousuke shrugs him away, crunching his ear down to his shoulder to stifle the unsolicited tickle. Haru sits back, shrugs, and downs his champagne flute. “That’s how we know.”
The third Manhattan shows up. Sousuke finds the thinnest silver lining imaginable in knowing they haven’t been reading the journal he does not keep every day. Just vibes. He’s just been sloughing off horrible, wretched vibes for years.
“Then you also know why I’m moving out. Now leave me alone. Go give someone a lapdance for something useful. Like a Playstation.”
“I just can’t take it seriously at all,” Haru muses.
“It is serious,” Rin counters. “He’s throwing it away!”
“No he won’t.”
A third drink is a good idea. “I’m right here.”
“You should just tell him, probably,” Haru continues, looking at him now. “Instead of moving out. He really likes living with you. Besides, if you move out, when you do eventually tell him, and he realizes he loves you too, you’ll have to spend all that money and time moving back in. It sounds like a lot of work to me.”
When he looks back to the corner of evil, Makoto and Daisuke or Kyo or Kenji are gone. He catches a flash of lime green sleeve turning a corner at the back of the room, towards the elevators. “I don’t owe either of you an explanation.”
Rin rubs at the back of his neck, approaching sympathy but not without a scolding edge in his tone. “You make us all go for it but then you always hold back on yourself, man. It’s so frustrating.”
“What—”
“Don’t,” Haru warns.
“I’m not gonna.” Under his breath, “Even though you just did.”
“Gonna what?” Sousuke mutters.
“Meddle. Haru said I’m not allowed.”
Sousuke briefly looks up at the ceiling of criss-crossing golden streamers and chic paper lanterns. “Cool. So it’s an ongoing thing for you guys to talk about. Wasn’t enough my whole ass was out there this whole time, you’re placing bets or something on it apparently, too.”
“Nnnno,” Rin draws out too long to be believed. “We are not doing that— wait just how long have you… y’know…”
“At least two years, that’s when I noticed,” Haru answers unhelpfully.
“That is path— ow, Haru— that’s a long time.”
“Okay.” Sousuke slides off the bar stool, lifting Haru’s outstretched pinching arm like a toll road barrier. “If you’re not leaving, I am.”
“Rin,” Haru sighs behind Sousuke’s back as he walks towards the balcony, drink in hand.
“Haru,” Rin mimics in mockery.
“You look like a Happy Meal.”
Out on the balcony of the 64th floor penthouse, it is criminally cold, even with an overcoat and two and a half poorly made cocktails in him. Ensures he’ll be left alone, though. Sousuke can’t answer himself when he asks why he doesn’t just leave and go home. The partial answer sneaking in at his periphery is that he has—he checks his phone— ten minutes until he needs to start thinking of it as his former home and he may as well get a head start on his fresh start.
Also the city looks nice from up here, too high up to see the traffic hussle that makes it exhausting day to day.
Floor to ceiling windows stretched behind him inform him Haru and Rin joined the throng of partygoers coalescing near the center as midnight prepares to flip over. They know better than to chase him when he’s moody and they also know he’ll get over being annoyed with them within a few hours despite how strangely conned Sousuke feels over losing his secret like that. It does fucking rock to have them, as Rin said, and Sousuke feels the first pang of doubt about his scorched earth approach to fixing his heartsick. He knows it would change the dynamic to put some distance between himself and Makoto, but now he’s not sure he won’t totally break the whole thing by accident, something he doesn’t want, something no secret is worth holding onto for.
“There you are.”
Sousuke doesn’t startle this time, but he’s definitely been imagining Makoto’s voice working around some different vowel combinations to ring in the new year, so he does turn to him in mild surprise of his unaccompanied presence after two long and agonizing hours watching him stay warm under the arm of a stranger.
“Oh.”
“You blend in a little in that dark coat out here, took me a few passes.” Makoto slides up next to him to match his lean on the balcony rail. He also shares Sousuke’s view of the city. “Good choice. It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. Felt stuffy in there.”
“Thank you for coming anyway,” Makoto smiles. “This isn’t really anyone’s scene.”
“It’s Rin’s.”
“Well, true. Rin’s.”
“Yours too now, I guess.”
Makoto wrinkles his nose. “No.”
“You seemed to really enjoy it.” And if there’s jealousy spiking his tone, he can blame it on the alcohol.
“I told you I didn’t think I liked him. And I don’t. He’s nice, but…” He shakes his head of it. “I just thought…” He eyes Sousuke’s glass. “May I?”
“Uh, sure.” Sousuke’s too annoyed thinking about how nice that guy really was and too buzzed to question the request and slides it across the flat rail trim. Makoto finishes his drink for him, which is likely for the best.
“Thank you. I just thought well, maybe it wasn’t right to do what we always do if that’s what you’re trying to get away from. We should do something less personal. Then this offer came up and I invited Rin and Haru so you wouldn’t feel weird if I only invited you, but… anyway, I think you still feel weird? I’m sorry. I should’ve put more thought into it. Ironically I think only Rin and Haru ended up having a good time.”
Sousuke wets his lips and decides if it’s worth pursuing, but a tipsy answer escapes his hastily erected thought prison through the crack in the wall that represents his bruised ego. “I uh… yeah I mean maybe I felt a little weird watching you with him… it was… yeah.”
Makoto sighs. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“And I want to give you the space you want, Sousuke, but I can’t pretend to not feel sad about it or understand what I did wrong.”
Sousuke briefly closes his eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
If there was ever a time to just fucking tell him, this would be it, and Sousuke watches it pass him by as he has every other time it would’ve been just as good to tell him, times it would’ve been easier say, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, years ago, even. No, six. It’s been six years in—he checks his phone—seven minutes. Definitely six, and not longer than that, because that would be… pathetic.
“Well then, for the sake of tradition, since something new didn’t work…” Sousuke turns to him so naturally whenever his voice softens like that, Makoto has to know. He has no secrets left at all, really. He doubts even Makoto has no idea how derangedly in love he is with him now. He has to have some idea, Sousuke must be just short of broadcasting it across a marquee in the sky in his current state. “For you, next year, I hope you use your strength for yourself. You’ve used it on our behalf for too long. Please don’t worry about us, wherever you go. I have you to thank, for always supporting me and encouraging me to live a little… brighter. You never made me feel like I had to be anyone else to be accepted and I don’t settle for less than that anymore. I cherish you.”
“...Makoto.” Ah shit. Ah fuck.
“I had a long one for you this year. I’m glad I got to tell you.” He smiles again. “Now come inside and be with us. Whatever Rin and Haru said to annoy you, it certainly isn’t worth spending the night out here alone.”
Even if Sousuke insisted it were, Makoto would never allow it now that he has him, or worse, stay out here with him. He follows Makoto back into the glittery, champagne soaked room and takes one of the two flutes Makoto grabs seamlessly off an offered tray and hands back to him as they hone in on the only two guys in the room pulling off full-glitter suits, though others are really convinced they’re doing something in their cheaper facsimiles if their unearned swagger is anything to go by.
They still argue all the time, so Rin isn’t especially surprised to see him get over it and come back inside, but he’s happy to see him just the same. They carve out their own circle on the edge of the other faceless people, and already Sousuke is glad he came back inside, knowing this to be right.
“Welcome back,” Haru says, and somehow it’s as patronizing as it is genuine.
“Haru,” Makoto scolds.
But even Haru’s attempt to bring Sousuke back into the fold doesn’t do much to penetrate the rising anxiety, the noxious mix of lightheadedness and that deep shattering in his chest rupturing apart in slow motion all over again, and the sober determination to cross the finish line of this year and never experience this horrible feeling ever again. Six years is too many years. Eight. Whatever.
They’re talking, jostling, playful, and Sousuke is participating, but he can’t hear himself. He is supposed to save the champagne for the countdown, but finds half is already gone when he locates the flute he lost track of in his hand. Makoto’s as well is down to a sip, noticeable only because the arm holding it is slung across Sousuke’s shoulders, holding him unfairly close to its owner.
The high chatter sharpens into a coordinated countdown; someone somewhere is keeping track. Around the perimeter of panel glass, parties across the city erupt into polite light shows on the ground and out of apartment windows down low and up high in other penthouse suites in the distance, where presumably, no one is standing next to the most important thing in their life, contemplating how best to cut themself out of it as Sousuke is. He makes the mistake of turning his head off Rin sniping a kiss on Haru’s cheek across from him, and locks eyes with Makoto who’s done the same as he counts down through his laughter at Haru’s wide-eyed reaction.
Sousuke has two seconds until his life turns over to his fresh start and he leaves this part behind. Enough time, in the end, to fuck it up. Possessed of another self, maybe Julia Roberts changing hosts as Haru appears to expire, he kisses Makoto as midnight breaks, and drags his heartsick kicking and screaming into another fucking year of really going through it. He botches it, twisting a frustrated fist into Makoto’s nice expensive shirt, lips hard against Makoto’s lightly parted shock. Makoto never grabs him back, never kisses him back, and three seconds into the new year, he stands agape and speechless amidst the hooting and noisemakers and kazoos and popping balloons as Sousuke pulls back and realizes what he’s done in totality.
Apparently he wasn’t broadcasting his secret as strongly as he thought he was.
“I… I am so sorry.”
Makoto shakes his head to dismiss it like it’s nothing, and Rin laughs and points to have witnessed it, and Haru scrubs at his cheek with his glitter sleeve, leaving a bedazzled, reddened rash next to his barely there but impish smile.
“I was the closest person,” Makoto offers to him privately as a precious way out. “Isn’t that how it works?”
Sousuke takes it as tendered, recovering seamlessly because he is excellent at keeping it all in by now, and nods smoothly to agree. He clinks his glass to Makoto’s even as the rest of him pitches into cyclical thoughts once more of yacking up two and a half Manhattans into the ice sculpture fish fountain.
“Happy new year, Makoto.”
By the time they’re home, Sousuke knows Makoto’s entire schedule for the next two weeks, his planned meals, his thoughts on an election in Europe, and his concern over the direction an esoteric book series has taken with its latest entry.
He talks and talks and talks and thinks he says nothing at all. Sousuke says little, listening all the way through their front door. Makoto sighs contented, stopping his deluge mid-sentence, and turns to face Sousuke near the split for their rooms as he always does after a night out to wish him a good night. His expensive shirt is untucked and wrinkled from the ride home because he doesn’t really care about it, his cheeks are flush with cold and champagne, his eyes are tired and hazy. Sousuke thinks Makoto might not have many secrets left himself with the way he talks himself ragged and the way he wears his intervening silences. He maybe assumes Sousuke isn’t listening, oblivious to just how intently Sousuke has held onto every word for as long as he can remember.
While Sousuke waits for Makoto’s parting wishes he realizes he’s never going to be able to leave the feeling behind, not entirely. If he wanted this feeling gone, it would be gone already, if the conviction for it was there. And it isn’t there for Sousuke, and never has been, in six years. Or eight. And tonight, he lit a fuse he always knew he wouldn’t be able to put out. Sousuke only holds back on himself because once he has even some of what he wants, he must always see it through. Even if he is convinced it is something he can’t have.
“Maybe in the morning we can talk about—”
“I’m moving out because I am miserably in love with you.”
“...what happened.”
It is so devastatingly loud at this hour, the admission practically given three dimensions in the smoky dark of their low lit hallway. The unspoken wish cast poised on Makoto’s lips flattens between them, his loose outline tightens. It is exceedingly tedious to suddenly wish this was the secret that got out first, ahead of all the secrets Sousuke’s lost over the years. His psyche is wildly inconsistent today.
Makoto responds quietly, hardly above a whisper, that grows as he goes on. “You never asked me. You laughed it off when I suggested it.”
“I know.”
“You always told me to put myself out there. You’d buy them drinks for me. Introduce me to them.”
“Yeah.”
“You always said you liked whoever I brought home.”
“I didn’t,” Sousuke admits. “Tsuda was nice. I guess.”
“For years.”
“Six.” He sighs. “Maybe eight.”
“And all this time I could’ve let myself love you back.” Sousuke flinches as it strikes him in all its forlorn, bittersweet pivot back to a quiet volume. “I crushed the very idea down to nothing because you convinced me it could never occur to you. I truly had no idea, Sousuke.”
Sousuke swallows some deserved guilt and supposes it’s fair that it lodges and refuses to budge. “You always feel like the one who got away. By the time I noticed I felt that way you were larger than life. I felt like I fell behind somehow. I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you sooner.”
Sousuke allows him his prolonged silence, his blank stare. Hearing it out loud now, Sousuke would react the same way in his position. What would anyone say to that, as they stand right there, within arm’s reach?
Ultimately Makoto doesn’t address it directly. “I always would’ve wondered if it was just me or something else that made me feel like I couldn’t see all of you even though I was desperately looking for it. Then you wanted to leave and I just didn’t know what to do about it anymore other than blame myself.”
“I hid it. And it wasn’t worth hiding from you. I don’t know what else to say about it except at some point, it was too late. I was wrong about that too, it wasn’t too late then. But now it is.”
Makoto appreciates the honesty, at least, and nods. Just as Sousuke is about to say good night and leave for bed, Makoto finds something to say about it.
“I think I’m going to kiss you back now,” he warns in disbelief of perhaps himself, a real courtesy in comparison to Sousuke’s earlier theft, and he does it before his intention can fully leave his tongue, aided by Sousuke stepping forward to receive it.
It’s a lot better than Sousuke thought he'd be satisfied with imagining for the rest of his life. It’s a boozy buzz where their lips touch and a fierce warmth in his chest in the outline of Makoto’s splayed hand that not even the most enriched imagination can replicate, and Sousuke was always more of a numbers guy if his poetry is anything to go by but then again this is making him reconsider his preferences.
They probably do need to have a better talk about it, without all the feelings making the words obtuse, but Sousuke is too weakened from nearly a decade of shouldering his desires in silence to stop him. Halfway into his bedroom, Makoto pulls back, scowling. Sousuke taught him that too.
“I’m not done.”
“Okay.”
“I could’ve stopped looking for you in another person. One after another after another. Never felt right, not once, but I couldn’t stop looking for the closest I could get.” He’s indignant about it now, an energy Sousuke didn’t expect no matter how he tried to anticipate this situation. The force in the realization is cosmically weighty. “It always could’ve been you.”
“But you scare the shit out of me, so I didn’t think so.”
Makoto then studies him with a furrowed brow before he renders his verdict: “That’s stupid. You’re Sousuke.”
“Oh.” Maybe Sousuke rubbed off on him too much, actually. “Okay.”
“Stop saying okay it isn’t okay.”
Sousuke’s lips twitch, just enough to be noticed. It’s the champagne, he swears. “O—”
Makoto won’t let him be a shit. There isn’t much bedroom left for him to back Sousuke across as he kisses him silent. The edge of his bed against the back of his thighs spooks him, and Sousuke regains some sense of his place in time. He leans over to turn on his bedside lamp and holds Makoto in front of him to level him with as much severity as he can muster onto his face. There can’t be much of that to spare, though, with all the surrealism spinning the room.
“I wasted your fucking time. Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want to, and you want to, and we should. Does it matter past that? How many more years would you like to wait?”
“I mean we can talk about it. It doesn’t have to be this right now, that’s not what I’m after. I don’t expect anything.”
“I want to,” Makoto repeats as he gives him a gentle push, then closes that distance too, until Sousuke has to make a decision quickly if he’s falling back onto his bed willingly or really convincing himself to go on denying the only thing he’s really wanted in his adult life as it is being offered to him without reservation. “But if you need more convincing, this is the only thing I feel like I don’t know about you. I want to know it, now that you’ll let me. I’ll really only stop if you tell me to.”
So naturally Sousuke shrugs, helpless before a well-structured argument. “I kissed you first. Why would I tell you to stop?”
Makoto takes his implicit permission as it is and pushes Sousuke onto his bed the rest of the way, quick to pull up over him and frown down spectacularly. “That didn’t count.”
Sousuke thinks it very much did or he wouldn’t be pinned beneath the last person on Earth he figured would pin him to his bed within two hours of committing to walking away from the remote chance forever, but he doesn’t get an opportunity to say any of that. Makoto peels him out of his pull over and dives for the buttons of his shirt. Sousuke attempts to match his pace, but the lime green shirt is much more expensive, and its buttons and thick fabric do not yield as easily. Especially not with his hands so unsteady, his senses overwhelmed and not totally sober.
Makoto has him bare chested before Sousuke’s halfway down, and sits back to admire him. The shift in weight on Sousuke’s hips makes him grind his teeth together to keep him seem as unbothered as Makoto appears, not quite ready to expose just how easily it undoes him. Makoto has seen him without his shirt probably every day for their entire relationship, but he looks and makes sure Sousuke knows he’s looking. Sousuke places his still unsteady hands on top of Makoto’s thighs to calm himself further.
“I like that your hair is a little longer,” Makoto says.
“Thank you. I like—” He swallows hard when Makoto tends to his own shirt and raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Fuck it. Too hard. Everything.”
Makoto hums, amused. He undoes two tough buttons then looks down at what’s left, and opts to yank the two sides apart to do away with the rest. Sousuke startles in surprise, flinching away from a rogue pelt to his forehead. “...It was a gift for tonight I’m not particularly interested in wearing again.”
Sousuke moves his hands up Makoto’s thighs, emboldened by the implication, a little less unsteady. Makoto responds in kind, arching into the slow crawl of his grasp. Sousuke’s shortened breath is obvious through his parted teeth. Makoto tilts his head in piquing interest, and rolls down a little harder. Once Sousuke’s hands are stopped by Makoto’s hip creases, even his shortened breaths stop coming.
Makoto reaches for his cheek, reminding him to breathe, and lingering his touch reverently. “Everything all right?”
The gesture quiets what’s left of Sousuke’s nerves, and replaces their shared space with unexpected tranquility. Whatever unobtainable version of Makoto he built up in his head all these years, in reality he really was always right there. Sousuke doesn't find it in him to mourn any lost time because in truth, no time was lost. None of it was wasted. Every day they’ve been friends is a day he doesn’t take for granted. This is just something new to do together, like moving in was, like buying a deep fryer was, like picking out paint for the living room was, like the various last minute weekends in new places. They’ve always been together, and that’s a secret even Sousuke didn’t know about himself.
“Yeah. Kiss me again.”
Makoto senses the shift in his demeanor, from out of his element to realizing he never left it, and does as he’s told. Deeper this time, slower and unbothered despite the aging hour. Sousuke too has seen Makoto without his shirt countless times, and takes the opportunity to finally feel what he’s lingered his stare over whenever he got a chance, finally putting touch memory to every curve and plane. Makoto responds to his touch the way Sousuke always hoped he would should he get this far, leaning into the curve of Sousuke’s hands on his meandering path downward and humming contented tones. There’s a belt to stop his progress, and Makoto leans on one forearm bracing the side of Sousuke’s head and reaches down to help Sousuke get the buckle. He hardly needs pause from his lips and tongue to coordinate it, and such deftness betrays the idea it is an accident when he brushes the back of his hand over Sousuke’s half-hard cock.
Sousuke feels the smile on his own lips before Makoto reveals it. “Already?”
“Shut up,” Sousuke sighs. “You have no goddamn idea how many times I’ve thought about this.”
“We’ve lived together a long time,” is all Makoto says in lilted response, leaving Sousuke to work it out as he so generously handles his clasp and fly. He delivers the other side of it as he cups Sousuke through his jeans, “I have some idea now.”
“You did try to tell me the walls were thin,” Sousuke replies in hitch and comprehension.
“I liked it.” Makoto squeezes him and Sousuke looks away, embarrassed at the idea, and embarrassed it so obviously and instantly turns him on. “I’m only human, Sousuke.”
“Starting to wonder.”
Their next kiss isn’t quite; Makoto keeps it light to the corners of his mouth and the tip of his nose and otherwise frustratingly out of reach while he works Sousuke to hardness. He surely didn’t forget about the jeans after tending to his own clothes going by the lusty amusement in his eyes, openly enjoying and rewarding Sousuke for every little breach in decorum he can wrest from him. That quickly becomes too easy a task, as Sousuke grinds into his far away touch and huffs with little restraint within moments, and Makoto slows his assault before he ends it all too early.
“Maybe demonstrate one of your favorites?” Makoto asks while moving from down low to feel up his pec. “I was always very curious about what on Earth could make you make those sounds. Never heard it with anyone you brought home.”
Sousuke clears his throat and also appreciates the vote of confidence, but knows he would not make it two minutes into any of his top three favorite Makoto Fantasies to Bang One Out in the Shower To in his condition. Luckily, the ranking is arbitrary, and what’s within reach is suddenly his favorite idea. He angles up to kiss Makoto in silent warning and as a parting sentiment, then encourages him off his forearm and onto his back as he switches their positions.
Any fantasy he has regardless of the arrangement involves a lot of Makoto’s cock, and there is some catching up to do. Makoto looks on in interest, Sousuke’s initiative finally breaking an aroused flush across his chest. Makoto lifts the thigh that ended up between Sousuke’s legs to keep him humble, to resounding success. Sousuke takes his lips to Makoto’s jaw and works his way down his throat, staying just this side of too precarious, worrying Makoto to stillness that he will leave marks on his skin and exciting more heat to his surface with the prospect all the same.
Makoto’s breath comes in pretty sighs when Sousuke eases his mouth and slips his hand past the waistband of his briefs. He then laughs when Sousuke looks up at him nervously, stalled out for a moment by the thought that he is actually, literally, touching Makoto, feeling him hot on his hand.
“It’s just—”
“Shh.” Makoto moves his thigh gently to reassure him, cants his hips to press more of himself into Sousuke’s hand. “Keep going. You feel good.”
Sousuke bites on a groan on his way back to Makoto’s collarbones, enjoying and hating the restriction of his remaining clothes in equal measure. As Makoto hardens and moans in response to Sousuke’s strokes and his kisses down Makoto’s chest, Sousuke begins to melt into the act and care a lot less about how he got there. Makoto sounds too incredible to be nervous about it, and it is something else Sousuke can take credit for. He teases a nipple with his teeth and delights in Makoto’s gasp, he rubs his thumb over the head of his cock and is tempted by its slickness. Makoto is enjoying himself just as is, but Sousuke’s late night appetite is always a bit unruly. He withdraws and comes up off Makoto’s chest, slinks down his body until his feet are back on the floor, and pulls off Makoto’s undone pants and briefs with the help of Makoto’s gracious knee tuck.
Then Sousuke takes a moment to appreciate all of Makoto in the soft glow of the lamp. His flush, his needy gaze, his arousal on his hip. Like seeing him for the first time, and in a sense it is. Not only new parts of his body, but a new idea of all of him, brave and vulnerable for Sousuke alone.
“You’re gorgeous.”
It cuts right through ten years of cumulative social armor and for a brief moment, Makoto is that cute khaki-wearing dork with the bluster and the mess. He comes up on his elbows, “Sousuke. Please.”
“It’s just what I see.”
But Makoto does soon smile ever so slightly, guilty and shy, relishing in the compliment as a sort of indulgence. “Well. At least make it fair.”
Sousuke gets his smirk off uninterrupted at this distance. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, right?” he teases as he obliges, relieved to be released and kicking his clothes to the side.
“Haven’t seen it quite like this.” He tilts his head, and may not offer any verbal competing compliment, but his eyes say enough. “Come back.”
Sousuke instead drops to his knees. “Mm. How about come here.”
Makoto does, moving down the bed with one of Sousuke pillows while he questions with some incredulity, “This is a favorite?”
“I’m a simple guy.” He places his hands back on Makoto’s thighs once Makoto is sitting in repose with the pillow at the edge of the bed, and gives his bare skin an affectionate squeeze. “But you knew that about me.”
Makoto couldn’t possibly argue about it, and turns a knee in towards Sousuke for his convenience. Sousuke kisses the bunched up skin behind his squeezing thumb in agreement that it’s a good leg to start with. He does his best to nip and kiss his mouth slowly up Makoto’s sensitive inner thigh, but as he gets nearer to Makoto’s cock, his patience for it all tapers. Likely because Makoto’s patience ran out halfway through the task, and his fingers now stoke through the longer hair that Makoto likes, coaxing Sousuke up to him quicker alongside his sweet voice.
Sousuke regains some control once he moves his lips to Makoto’s cock, slowing again and taking his time to explore all of him from top to bottom for both their enjoyment. Makoto smells so nice still from the shower and the balms and the cologne, and the addition of his soft skin on Sousuke’s tongue, the headiness of him, is a thing to savor at least as long as he savored the Manhattan that got him here. He keeps one hand at Makoto’s base and uses the other for himself, more than a little taken with Makoto’s hand in his hair and the taste of him and the sounds he abandons filtering by the time Sousuke takes him all into his mouth.
Never having been one to feel shame for enjoying himself during sex, Sousuke moans around him before Makoto can beat him to it. He’s always enjoyed putting his mouth to use, a chatty trait of a different sort. Makoto sighs his name and slips bit by bit more to the edge of the bed, coming to sit, planting his feet flat for leverage. Makoto’s second hand then joins his first in Sousuke’s hair and it's his palpable restraint at odds with his loosening hips more than anything that begins to work Sousuke up to his own release and narrows his being down to this one overwhelming thing.
Makoto repeats himself while saying something entirely different, “Sousuke, please,” seeking permission for something he doesn’t specify apart from singular, peaking neediness. Sousuke hums his consent, for whatever it is because it’s Makoto, and has little warning beyond the release of restraint in his hair before Makoto thrusts himself in, down to Sousuke’s hand. It is another vote of confidence but one Sousuke can deliver on and adjust to with little pause, having done away with his gag reflex at some point between blowing the first and second TAs. And maybe he is a little bit shy about it when it goes this far, just how much he enjoys handing himself over to someone else to use, all those weighty expectations of control and independence he usually manages briefly suspended.
Sousuke allows Makoto his pace and direction, releasing both hands and reaching around instead to finally (finally) grab his ass as he thrusts off the bed. He was so achingly close to his own orgasm but he hardly thinks twice about it, finding it is objectively better to invest his focus in listening to Makoto sing and descend while he loses himself and repeats Sousuke’s name every time his cock slides into the rippling hum of Sousuke’s throat. When he comes, Sousuke swallows him down to keep the pressure tight, and releases him in tandem with the slackening of Makoto’s hands in his hair, careful not to overstimulate him.
Sousuke kisses Makoto’s hips as he comes down, bringing his hands to the sides of his thighs. When Makoto sits back on the bed, Sousuke rises to meet him only to immediately be pulled in at his neck and drawn down over Makoto, for maybe the most openly lush and horny kiss he’s ever received by a country mile and one he therefore enjoys thoroughly. Makoto murmurs words to him when he breathes that Sousuke did not think him capable of producing, and Makoto finishes him with little effort. The fist at his very wet cock, a bonus, because Makoto’s mouth could’ve done the job on its own in his ear.
All in all, a good way to start a new year. Considerably better than he planned.
Makoto looks up at him in the wake of it with sleepy eyes that really could be mistaken for adoring if Sousuke is not careful. It would be impossible, of course, for Makoto to fall in love with him as easily as Sousuke fell. All that is uniquely Sousuke’s problem. But now that Sousuke has given him permission, well, who knows? Other than Haru.
Sousuke gleefully embodies some unchecked masculine hubris in using Makoto’s discarded gifted shirt to clean up, throwing it somewhere in the vicinity of a moving box he is rather on the fence now about filling, if he’s honest. Makoto watches it all in silent amusement while he takes an offered pair of shorts and peels back Sousuke’s comforter. He doesn’t appear to want to get up any time soon.
“It wouldn’t have been too late even ten years from now,” Makoto says into a yawn as Sousuke redresses himself, never one to let something off the hook Sousuke almost entirely forgot about. “But I’m still relieved you didn’t wait that long.”
Sousuke rejoins him and somewhat brazenly kisses him again as his own answer. Now that the excuse of lust and insobriety fades behind them, it’s just his own uncomplicated desires made clear. “Are you staying?”
Makoto shrugs down into the plush of the pillow, content, stubborn, and yes, not going anywhere. “...Are you?”
“Considering it.” Sousuke leans over to get the lamp. “On second thought, it sounds like a lot of work.”