Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1750268.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      弱虫ペダル_|_Yowamushi_Pedal
  Relationship:
      Makishima_Yuusuke/Toudou_Jinpachi, Arakita_Yasutomo/Shinkai_Hayato
  Character:
      Toudou_Jinpachi, Makishima_Yuusuke, Shinkai_Hayato, Arakita_Yasutomo
  Additional Tags:
      Slice_of_Life, Humor, Romance, some_drama, Underage_Drinking, Underage
      Sex, Yaoi, Offensive_Jokes, Bad_Humor
  Series:
      Part 1 of Le_Tour
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-06 Completed: 2015-04-29 Chapters: 26/26 Words: 126102
****** Le Tour de la Confusion ******
by Malvapulce
Summary
     Toudou Jinpachi is the last virgin of the cycling world. Soon to turn
     18, he’s starting to feel the pressure on his shoulders. Something
     must be done! But what happens to his plans when Fukutomi announces
     that their team – along with Sohoku – are going for a holiday abroad?
     And to none other destination than Europe and Le Tour de France!
     Meanwhile, Shinkai gets the proposition of his life.
     Russian translation by Isiya can be found here.
Notes
     I’m writing this fic originally in my native language (Finnish) and
     translating it as it progresses. I need to write in Finnish,
     otherwise my language skills can’t keep up with my storytelling. It’s
     a tedious task, so I appreciate everyone who takes time to read my
     silly little fic. :) And many thanks to my beta ladyleopardy who
     makes publishing the translated version possible!
     Disclaimer: Yowamushi Pedal belongs to Wataru Watanabe. I gain no
     financial benefit of this story.
     Warnings: Mature yaoi scenes that will follow later in the fic, some
     underage drinking too, and spoilers up to the anime and the
     scanlations of manga, but not the raws because unfortunately I can’t
     read Japanese.
      
     Please notice that while the summary is mostly about Toumaki, this is
     also a Shinara fic. :)
***** The Last Virgin on Earth *****
Toudou Jinpachi was the last virgin of the cycling world.
This fact was not only a sad one, but also completely incomprehensible, given
that he possessed undeniable charm, eye-caressing looks, an impeccable sense of
fashion and a fan base ready to follow him to the end of the world. Actually,
it was downright unbearable that he had to carry the stigma of a virgin as the
only person of his class and chosen type of sport.
Okay, if spoken truthfully, Toudou was pretty sure that the four-eyed otaku,
Onoda Sakamichi of Sohoku team, was also a virgin. But that was hardly worth
mentioning. Toudou was in a totally different league to Onoda who represented
that small and unlucky group of people that had poor chances to engage
themselves in sexual interaction with a member of their own species. Or a
member of any species, that is.
But that was not the point here. You wouldn’t even mention Toudou Jinpachi and
Onoda the Otaku in the same sentence. Besides, Toudou was a third-year, soon to
turn 18, and after that he could never admit that he hadn’t been with anyone
yet. Not that he had admitted it before, either. He wouldn’t have. If somebody
had asked. Which they hadn’t. Which was pretty strange. Boys tended to brag of
their experiences; exaggerate, naturally, but talk about it all the same. Why
had not one of his teammates ever wanted to know how many girls had Toudou been
with? Were they just not interested? Or did they think that Toudou didn’t have
the nerve to bed his fans? Since Shinkai had started going out with a girl,
guys had bombarded him with questions. Shinkai had refused to answer and stayed
mysterious. That clown, pretending to be soooo mature.
Toudou had stolen glances at his teammates, trying to figure out their level of
experience. Fuku had definitely had girls, he was the ace after all and all-
around popular. Arakita? He’d been a delinquent and part of a gang before
joining the bicycle club, and was always responsible for the wildest stories.
Probably experienced. Izumida? Was it possible to have sex with your own pecs?
Unsure. Manami? Virgin, definitely. So Toudou had at least two inexperienced
acquintances.
A refreshing wave of relief washed over him.
Except that… no. Manami had a childhood friend, that geeky girl who dressed
like a pre-scholar. The girl seemed to like her friend a bit more than
platonically. Besides, Manami was only a first-year, like Onoda, and didn’t
have the same kind of pressure on his shoulders.
Aargh, damn it.
Toudou smashed his head against the headboard of his bed out of sheer
frustration. Oh the golden days when he could concentrate on cycling alone!
He couldn’t really point his finger at the moment when the issue had started to
matter. At what point had something else beside the ecstasy of races, winning,
beating your opponents, beating yourself, begun to snatch his attention? At
first he had ignored those sensations – sports had a nice side-effect of
keeping your mind occupied – but somehow days just passed and the small gnawing
at the back of his mind (and in his pants) became more persistent.
And then there’s a morning when you wake up, realize that you’re soon turning
18, and that you’re still a virgin. And to make it worse, you have never even
dated anyone.
Not that Toudou had actually wanted to; most of the high school girls were
annoying, giggling airheads, and to put up with them one had to be on good
medication, but he could have slept with some of them if he wouldn’t have
needed to look at their useless faces the morning after. Stupid hormones, he
blamed them wholly!
So, he couldn’t pinpoint when the virgin issue had started to matter, but it
was clear that it would never ever mark as unimportant again (only perhaps when
he’d sit in a nursing home, crapping his diapers and his dick wouldn’t move of
its own accord). Toudou couldn’t continue ignoring this slightly disturbing and
yet so interesting thing called sex if he wanted to keep his position amongst
his friends. The other guys were used to him having his say in whatever they
were talking about, be it the autumn fashion or the width of bike tyres. If he
suddenly lost his words, everyone would immediately realize that he had no
clue.
During the first year conversations between his classmates had mostly been
harmless joking. Such as:
“Ohhoho, boobies!”
“Hey look, you can totally see her panties!”
“Let me see that porn magazine!” (Bikini commercials.)
During the second year talks had taken a slightly more serious tone.
“Shinkai, who was that girl you were with at the New Year’s party?”
“Are you going out with her?”
“Which condom brand is the best?”
Then the spring break came, the third school year began, and suddenly everyone
seemed to be a year older, even though only a few weeks had passed.
Conversations didn’t beat around the bush anymore; it was assumed that everyone
had a sex life. After all, who could be such a loser as to not have been
intimate with the opposite sex at the age of 17?
Each day passing, it became harder and harder for Toudou to evade the subject.
For example, today at the lunch break when Arakita had abruptly changed the
conversation from the upcoming math test to Shinkai and his girlfriend and then
to the home run (count an ex-baseball player to use baseball metaphors). This
was what had occurred:
“Shinkai,” Arakita had said. “Does your chick blow you?” Okay, so maybe he was
talking about the third base and not the home run, but that wasn’t the point
here. The point was that only a minute ago he had been complaining about the
calculator ban in math tests.
Shinkai had casually placed a piece of salad in his mouth and chewed it with
all the peace in the world. “Don’t call Ayane a chick.”
“Oh boo hoo! Just answer the question, prude.”
“I don’t see a reason why I should answer that.”
“So she doesn’t,” Arakita had summed up. “That’s a shame. You’re missing out a
lot.” It wasn’t specified if he was referring to his own experiences or the
information acquired from online videos with XXX ratings.
“Some girls find it not so appealing,” Izumida had said.
“And some people think sex should only be had in the dark, under the blankets,
and in the missionary position”, Arakita had noted. “You shouldn’t generalize.
Many chicks like it when they get over the initial surprise.”
“Well, it’s a two-way street in this matter, too,” Shinkai had admitted,
hinting between the lines. That had made Fuku nod in approval.
Toudou had listened silently. And every passing minute the load hanging onto
his back had increased by a few extra pounds. This was the longest time he had
kept silent in the company of his friends. He had to say something. Had to say
something! Anything would go!
“Some people say that anal sex is better than the regular stuff.”
Eh? He was pretty sure that was not what he had intended to say.
Guys had stared at him for a few seconds, somewhat stunned. Then Arakita had
patted his shoulder and said that it was easier to get a girl to blow you than
to get her to allow the back door. That was when the conversation had dried
out, because Fuku had grunted he didn’t want to listen to back door stories
while eating his lunch.
But nobody had asked Toudou about his experiences. Nobody ever asked!
Something just wasn’t right here.
And that was why he was now lying awake on his bed, sweating over the subject.
It was not like he could talk about it directly. Any kind of boasting or
comparing your achievements was fine, but if you wanted to seriously discuss
about starting your sex life and problems surrounding it, you would get laughed
at and possibly left out of the group. Because that was not how guys talked
about stuff.
Toudou didn’t have the nerve to bring it up… unless it was with one certain
person.
He rolled onto his side and grabbed his cell from the nightstand, his fingers
automatically pushing the buttons to type a message.
‘Hey, Maki-chan, are you a virgin?’
Send, before he could think about it twice. Why would he, though? It was just
Maki-chan. Toudou could ask him whatever he wanted to. Maki-chan sometimes
pretended to get annoyed but Toudou knew that his messages actually cheered the
green-haired climber up.
Only then he realized it was past midnight.
Oh well, Maki-chan was hardly asleep yet. And even if he were, he should have
muted his phone. Nothing Toudou could do about it now.
He placed his cell back on the nightstand and rolled on his back, staring at
the ceiling.
He had to get a grip. He had to get rid of this burden. It was clear that the
issue wouldn’t leave him alone before he’d taken care of it. Starting tomorrow,
he would begin looking for a girl to fit his purposes. Shouldn’t be too hard.
After all, he had a school full of admirers, and he knew how to articulate
eloquently. There was often a herd of girls hanging around outside the club
room – and they were definitely not interested in cycling. It would take him a
week, maximum two. After that he wouldn’t have to feel so out of place amongst
the guys, like that 40-year-old virgin, the protagonist of an awkward American
film he’d seen some time ago.
How on Earth had he let it get this far? He had always been aware of his fans,
but not really thought about sleeping with them. Surely there were athletes who
used their fame to get laid. The girls hanging around celebrities were
positively begging to ‘have their clam pounded’, like Arakita had said. Toudou
had no idea where he came up with his awful metaphors.
His eyes wandered in the dark, ending up on a poster on the wall where Arashiro
Yukiya posed in colours of Team Europcar. Arashiro would totally have used his
fame to his advantage. Toudou was sure that the guy had had his share of ladies
even if his face wasn’t taken out of a fashion magazine.
But now he needed to sleep, otherwise he would spend the next day nodding off
in his seat, and that was not something Toudou Jinpachi was famous for. He
reached for his phone to set up the alarm and noticed an envelope blinking on
the screen. Maki-chan had answered him.
Toudou opened the message. Maki-chan was usually quite pithy, and that was the
case this time, too. The message consisted of three words only.
‘You damned freak.’
* * *
The next day Fuku dropped a bomb. A bomb that had Toudou momentarily forget his
plan to get rid of his virginity.
Fuku had summoned Hakogaku’s Inter High team to the club room before lessons
started. He’d informed them that he had an important matter to discuss.
Everyone was present, except for Manami. It wasn’t really a surprise.
”Dear members of Hakogaku cycling club,” Captain began. Those words coming out
of anyone else’s mouth would have made an audience burst into laughter, but
Fuku sounded honourable, whatever he said. “What would you say if I told you
that we’re going for a little excursion?”
”Where? To Chiba?”
”A bit further than that.”
“Hokkaido?”
”Hiroshima?”
“The Sohoku team is coming with us. That was the condition for us to get a
group discount of the flight tickets, and we need a supervisor to come along,
so Sohoku’s Mr. Pierre has promised to take on the job. The thing is just that
everyone must invest a bit of their own money for the trip. The accommodation
is arranged but we must pay for our meals and moving around in the destination
ourselves. I was thinking we could rent a car and…”
“Captain,” Izumida interrupted. “Where exactly are we going?”
Fuku cleared his throat. “I’m going to tell you but you must promise to try to
keep it together. Especially you, Toudou.”
Toudou snorted. “Pfft, I’m always calm and composed.” But the air was already
crackling with excitement. Everyone was alert. Even Arakita who’d been nodding
off against the lockers had straightened his back and turned his sharp gaze on
their ace.
”I have to ask you not to talk about the subject unnecessarily so that the
other clubs won’t start complaining about the school favouring us. And this is
quite exceptional, I must say. We just got an opportunity that couldn’t be
turned down. I need everyone’s confirmation by tomorrow, if you are coming or
not, because the flight tickets must be booked soon. We’ll be leaving in two
weeks.”
“Yeah, but to where?” The captain sure was mysterious today. Even Shinkai and
Izumida were starting to lose their patience.
“To see the greatest event of the cycling world.”
The club room witnessed four simultaneous sharp breaths. “You mean..?”
No. No, it couldn’t be. Because there were still some laws of nature in this
world and one of them was huge distances. Another one was the fact that no one
so early in their cycling career could possibly get to witness the biggest,
most famous cycling tournament on the planet.
”Yes.” Fuku rarely emitted any feelings but now his whole posture was beaming.
His eyes were glowing and lips were spread into a wide grin. “We’re going to
see…”
Four young men started to jump up and down and squeal like little girls.
However, after a few seconds they noticed that the squealing was coming from
the direction of Toudou.
”Are you shitting us, Juichi?” Shinkai asked.
“Are you sure that the school will support us?” Izumida asked.
“Is the whole Sohoku team coming too?” Toudou asked.
“If this is supposed to be a joke, I’ll have you know that we will kick your
ass, captain or not,” Arakita said.
”It’s not a joke. In two weeks we’ll be sitting on a plane, heading towards
Europe and…”
“Tour de France!”
***** Up in the Air *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“What fucking crap is this?”
“Just for your information, Arakita, airplane food has never been awarded
Michelin stars.”
“Is this really French cooking? And they say it’s one of the finest cuisines in
the world!” Arakita was poking his food with a plastic fork. The dish did look
like tasteless crap. Two slices of grey, artificial-looking meat, overcooked
vegetables, watery sauce, and a piece of dry bread. Toudou had not yet dared to
taste his own dish, but after the show that Arakita was putting up, he’d be
sure to praise it, no matter how gross it was.
“Taste it yourself. God damn, que merde!” Just for their trip, Arakita had
memorized some useful phrases, aka swear words.
Toudou tasted.
Hrrgh!
Christ on a stick! Like a piece of cardboard soaked in mud water. Cold and
slimy, and utterly unappealing. Somewhere in the back there lurked a faintly
beef kind of aftertaste which made him hope he was imagining it. He swallowed
quickly and tried some vegetables. Even worse. He probably could have hidden
his disgust if Arakita hadn’t stared at him so intently.
“Told you”, his travelling companion said. “This is not suitable food for
people. I really hope they have something else to serve.”
“Not for free.” Reluctantly, Toudou took another forkful, chewed quickly and
swallowed with a gulp of water. Oh dear lord above. Had the flight been any
shorter, he wouldn’t have touched his plate again.
He managed to down half of his so-called meal, but then his stomach started to
protest this uncommon way of eating (don’t think about it, just swallow, gulp
water and some air with it) or simply the poor quality of food. When a
stewardess came to collect the dishes, he was able to hand over a plate that
looked like at least half of its content had been eaten. Arakita’s meal was
practically untouched.
Toudou asked the stewardess to bring him a cup of tea and leaned back in his
seat, sighing. He was still hungry. Maybe Shinkai had taken along enough
protein bars to share with his teammates.
While sipping his tea, Toudou scanned the papers he’d printed: a map of this
year’s Tour de France route and some general information about the race. It
would start at Corsica. Or actually, it had already started; at the moment
cyclists were on their way from Nice to the Pyrenees. After the mountain stage
they’d be taken to the North-Eastern part of the country to race across the
country all the way to the Alps. Toudou and his travelling mates were meant to
catch the race from the 12th stage called Fougères and then follow it until the
end. A ten day trip. Ten days in France, watching the race of all road races.
Toudou couldn’t think of a better way to spend a holiday.
It wouldn’t have been possible without Sohoku’s dingbat coach. Mr. Pierre had
some acquaintances in France – who knew, maybe he was originally French himself
– and he’d managed to arrange them a half-free car and a couple of
accommodations for along the way. There had been some talking about renting
bikes as well, and keeping that in mind, everyone had packed their training
clothes. The only downside was the fact that there were 15 of them and they had
to squash themselves into a minivan and possible sleep in it or in tents for
the nights that they couldn’t find cheap accommodation. Surprisingly, nobody
was upset about Sohoku coming along. Sure, they were rivals, but on this trip
they shared a common goal. Toudou was only too happy to go on a holiday with
Maki-chan. They really didn’t meet often enough. Besides, if you made the
mistake of listening to Imaizumi and Naruko, it sounded like Sohoku’s team was
perfectly capable of arguing amongst themselves.
The upcoming holiday had made Toudou forget his goal to get rid of his
virginity by the end of summer. The trip to France could be seen as a hitch but
actually, when you thought about it, it was the other way around. A world-
famous sporting event was bound to have tons of cycling fans, and undoubtedly
Toudou’s oriental exoticism would appeal to European girls. Wasn’t there even a
saying about French girls being easy? Or was it ‘dead girls’?
In any case, the holiday could speed up his mission. There was the problem of
finding a suitable place, because really, who’d engage themselves in a sexual
act when there were14 other people sleeping in the same van? He’d have to make
sure to find a girl who could provide them with a suitable place.
In the seat next to him, Arakita was slurping his Bepsi noisily. Toudou turned
to face him.
“Do you know if French girls are easy?”
“Hmh?”
”Well… y’know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I mean–“
“I know what you mean,” Arakita interrupted. When he spoke, a strong aroma of
cola drink wafted into Toudou’s face. A few more minutes and he would start
burping. “I was saying I don’t know what they are like. The hell I’d know about
French chicks?”
Toudou straightened his neck, exhaling. “I was just thinking.”
Arakita was quiet for a minute, seeming to muse over the subject. “Scandinavian
girls are. Easy.”
Toudou got a vision of a tanned blonde Amazon with legs long enough to reach
the sky. Weren’t all Scandinavians two meters tall? He wasn’t sure if he’d have
the guts to try to hit on a girl that huge.
“I can guarantee you no one in France has heard of you,” Arakita offered
helpfully.
“I didn’t say they had.”
“But you thought about it.”
Toudou snorted, deciding to change the subject. After all, Arakita was
completely the wrong person to discuss sexual relationships with. “The 12th and
13th stages are flats. After that it gets hilly, then flat again and then
they’ll reach the Alps.” That was the stage Toudou was looking forward to the
most. He wasn’t called the Mountain God for nothing.
To tell the truth, people called him the Sleeping Beauty. He didn’t completely
understand why. Like, wouldn’t a bit more of a masculine nickname have been
more fitting?
Arakita stared at him for a long while, as if intending to point out that
Toudou had changed the subject too abruptly but he rarely skipped a chance to
talk about cycling.
He jabbed his finger onto Toudou’s print. “Why do they fly to Paris from the
Alps? Are there man-eating bears on the way or is there some other reason why
they can't race it?”
“Maybe they’d exceed the overall time limit?”
“They should have axed from some other part of the competition. It’s called
Tour de France, which means they should race around France, not skip some
stages.”
“Maybe Fuku knows why. Or Mr. Pierre.”
Arakita sneered which could have meant that Toudou was right or that nobody
could be more clueless than Sohoku’s chubby coach.
“Well, we’ll probably find out when we get there.”
* * *
Three hours into the take-off, Toudou was getting bored. And not just normally
bored but extremely, thoroughly, it’s-the-end-of-the-world bored. There was
nothing sensible to do on the plane but it wasn’t yet so late that he’d like to
try sleeping. He had listened to some music, read a book, fiddled with his
phone, played with his PS Vita and exchanged a few words with Arakita, but then
his teammate got so pithy and irritated that Toudou gave up chatting. These
activities took roughly two hours. The third one he’d spent examining his
fingernails and counting minutes.
He was about to suggest that they should play cards even though he was lousy
with them, but Arakita bent down to pull a laptop out of his bag and settled to
watch a movie. Hey, that wasn’t such a bad idea! Why hadn’t Toudou thought
about taking his computer with him? Because it wouldn’t have been able to fit
into his bag and there wasn’t really time to use it in France. He had forgotten
the 13-hour flight.
Toudou watched the movie out of the corner of his eye but after a couple of
minutes it started to look too much like adult entertainment. Uncensored adult
entertainment. Jesus!
”Is that even legal in Japan?” he finally opened his mouth. The actors in the
film were westerners but where had Arakita downloaded his video?
“It’s legal online.” Arakita had the patience to turn his eyes away from the
screen only to fish for earphones in his bag and plug them in.
Are you going to watch that while sitting next to me? Not that Toudou had
anything against porn, but there was a time and place for everything and on a
plane surrounded by people wasn’t either of them.
”You better keep your hands in sight the whole time,” he said but Arakita
probably couldn’t hear him through his plugs.
The next fifteen minutes passed. Getting hungry again, Toudou asked the
stewardess to bring him a sandwich. Shinkai was really stingy with his protein
bars, anyway. Arakita didn’t so much as bat an eye even though the plane staff
saw what he was watching. The film wasn’t as hardcore as Toudou has first
dreaded, it was more of an example of the genre ‘Erotica’, but it still showed
pretty much everything.
After downing his sandwich, he decided that he’d spent too many minutes sitting
next to a half-mute porn addict. He stood up, stretching his muscles, and
walked towards the front of the cabin until he reached the desired row of
seats. For some reason Maki-chan had teamed up with Sohoku’s new climbing
wonder, Onoda Sakamichi.
Toudou rested his arm on the back of the aisle seat and peered down at the boy
occupying it. “Hey Glasses-kun, wanna change seats with me?”
Onoda stared at him, alarmed. But that was how he always looked like, a
hatchling that had fallen out of his nest and found himself in a conversation
with a cat.
“W-why?”
“Yeah, why?” Maki-chan asked too.
“I need to speak with Maki-chan.”
“Well, we’re having a strategy meeting right now.”
“Four-eyes is reading a manga and smiling his happy idiot’s smile at it.”
Maki-chan’s eyes didn’t waver. “It’s a diversion.”
“I’m sure.”
“Oi, Headband, you can sit here if you like,” Naruko Shoukichi offered from the
next row. “Hotshot followed me even though I clearly stated I didn’t want to
sit with him.”
“I followed you and climbed over you to sit in the window seat?” Imaizumi
Shunsuke remarked. He had plugs in his ears too and he was holding a thick book
in his hands. Seemed like an all-around silent and inconspicuous travel mate.
Toudou had heard that Naruko and Imaizumi tended to quarrel a lot. Sure, they
both were competing over the title of Sohoku’s future ace but apparently their
personalities clashed as well.
”Yes, that’s exactly what happened,” Naruko said.
Imaizumi sighed, immersing himself in his book again.
“Thank you, Naruko-kun, but I need to speak with Maki-chan,” Toudou said. “Hey
Onoda-kun, let’s switch just for a while! You’d get to know your opponents a
bit better. The person sitting next to me is really nice. I’m sure you’d have a
lot to talk about. You could show him your manga.” There were cute, half-naked
under-aged girls posing on the book cover. Onoda would have so much in common
with Arakita.
The boy was glancing sideways down the aisle. “Who’s sitting next to you?”
“Um, Arakita.”
Onoda’s mouth formed a silent scream.
“Are you trying to throw an innocent little boy to the wolves?” Maki-chan
asked. “Go back to your seat, Toudou. There’s a lot of turbulence above the
ocean.”
“Then it’s good that we’re not above the ocean anymore.”
“I can go somewhere else for a while if Toudou-san wants to sit here…” Onoda
stammered. “I’ll just go and see what Manami-kun is doing.”
“You don’t have to–“ Maki-chan began, but Four-eyes was already scurrying down
the aisle towards the back where the junior of Hakogaku’s litter was probably
driving Izumida up the wall. Onoda’s appearance would give Izumida an excuse to
move to sit next to Arakita and everyone would be happy. Really, Toudou should
get a medal for his efforts for the air travelling satisfactory.
“And that’s how you get rid of bothersome grubs.” He swung himself over to sit
on the seat Onoda had abandoned and lifted his leg to rest it casually over the
other. Maki-chan had already spread his characteristic scent in the row. Toudou
remembered it well because Maki-chan smelled like freshly cut grass. Grass, and
money. He had no idea how someone could smell like cold, hard cash, but Maki-
chan was from an opulent family after all. Opposite to what one might think,
the smell was not unpleasant. More like fresh and… leafy. “So, what has my
favourite Spidey been doing during the flight?”
“I’ve tried to sleep. I’d like to try it again so I'd prefer it if you kept it
down.”
“Always so polite, Maki-chan. It’s only 3 pm. Come on, let’s chat for a bit!”
The blue eyes turned to look at him, reluctant. “About what?”
“I don’t know, about France?” And the fact that you haven’t answered my
question.
Maki-chan picked up his bag and pulled out a book which he thrust over to
Toudou. “There, read it.”
A travel guide to France. Toudou placed it in his lap, unopened. “What are you
looking forward to on this holiday?”
”Hmh, the Alpine stage.”
“Me too! Man, there’s hardly anything like it in Japan!”
Maki-chan huffed and pretended to look out of the window. Toudou just wasn’t
the person to give up so easily. Maki-chan was an exceptionally unsocial case
but the victory was ever the sweeter when you got him to talk.
“It’s a shame that Arashiro couldn’t keep his position at the Corsica stage
though.”
“Hmph.”
“I really hope we’ll get a chance to cycle in France. How great would it be to
tell everyone at home that we’ve cycled around in the Alps? Maybe we could have
a little race there, too?”
This raised the tiniest spark of interest in Maki-chan, making him quickly peek
at Toudou out of the corner of his eye. But then he turned towards the window
again. The view consisted of clouds only. Maybe Maki-chan was admiring his
reflection on the glass. Toudou wouldn’t have done it, had he looked like that.
Not that Maki-chan was ugly or anything but… well, his features were sharp and
pointy and his eyes along with his inverted eyebrows made him look like he’d
suffered injustice his whole life, lived in a concentration camp or something.
When his forced smile was added into the compilation, it was really like a
grotesque horror movie clown – because Maki-chan only rarely smiled on his own.
He did possess some sense of fashion, but his face ruined the first impression.
Besides, who in the year 2013 wore their hair that long?
Toudou poked Maki-chan in the shoulder. “You sulking cause I beat you in the
Inter High?”
He immediately got the green-haired climber’s attention. “Good god, no! It was
a fair race. Is that how little you think of me?”
Toudou shrugged. No, he didn’t think so little of his opponent, but provocation
was the best way to get people to end their pouting.
“You didn’t even answer my question.”
A silent huff left Makishima’s lips. “Which question?”
Hmm, Toudou couldn’t recall having asked so many questions lately. Naturally
he’d called Maki-chan while packing his stuff, asking what he should bring with
him and what kind of weather there was in France at the moment. Or in general.
Because he had no clue. First Maki-chan told him to check the forecast online,
but after some pressuring he’d succumbed and answered Toudou’s questions.
That’s what Maki-chan was like.
“The one I sent you the other night.”
“Don’t you mean two weeks ago?”
“Heh, I was sure you knew which question I was talking about.”
“Of course I did. I just fail to understand why I should answer it. How is that
your business? And why are you even interested?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Isn’t that a normal question for someone of our age?” If
Maki-chan now remarked that the question would have been normal two years ago,
Toudou would get a tad embarrassed. In that case he’d have to quickly come up
with a good excuse for his curiosity.
“Has somebody asked you that?”
Toudou pretended to think. “No, I suppose not.”
“You see? Normal people don’t ask each other such questions.”
”I disagree. The girls in our class gabble about it all the time.”
“Well, girls maybe but they tend to talk about any kind of stuff.”
“Perhaps boys should too,” Toudou mused. “It would surely reduce the levels of
insecurity and stress if you had someone to talk about it with.”
Makishima sneered something Toudou couldn’t catch. The window appeared to be
amazingly interesting again. Toudou waited for a while and then without warning
prodded his elbow between his reluctant chatting partner’s ribs. This was easy,
since Maki-chan had not one gram of fat in his body.
“Stop poking me!”
“I’ll stop when you answer my question.”
Maki-chan’s jaw tightened. “I’m not going to talk about this on a plane where
everyone can hear us.”
“What are you not going to talk about?” came a voice behind them. Naruko had
squeezed his face between the seats as much as he could and was puffing warm
air onto their side.
The appearance of the little snotnose got Maki-chan to turn in on himself
again, and this time Toudou gave up. He didn’t feel like discussing the matter
either while Naruko was snooping. He couldn’t say that he really knew Sohoku’s
young sprinter but the boy gave away the impression of an uncontrollable
blabbermouth.
Let’s switch the topic then. “Have you ever been abroad, Maki-chan?”
“Yeah, I have.”
“Really? Where?”
”Hawaii, Thailand.”
”What about Europe?”
”When I was a kid, I went to Paris with my family.”
“Ooh, so you do know France then!”
”I have no recollection of the trip, I was three years old.”
“I reckoned you must have travelled some. Your family is insanely rich after
all.”
”We’re not insanely rich, just normally wealthy.”
Two meaningful coughs could be heard from the row in front of them.
Toudou smirked. “See? Bison and Sunglasses agree with me.”
The seat in front of him swayed when Sohoku’s other sprinter sprung to his
feet. The whole plane probably tilted a bit to the right. “Who are you calling
a bison, you Barbie doll?”
Barbie doll?!
And Maki-chan had the nerve to chuckle at the insult. Toudou felt like pouting
but unfortunately that strategy didn’t work with his co-climber.
Ouch, the bull’s bellowing was hurting his ears. Toudou blocked his other ear
with his finger and continued to talk to Maki-chan. Tadokoro ceased his
grumbling only when Kinjou told him to sit down before the staff would start to
suspect an act of terrorism.
”Do you know how to speak French, Maki-chan?”
“No.”
“Are you good at English?”
“Yeah, he is,” came a remark from between the seats. Naruko was still trying to
participate in their conversation. No surprise there, his travelling companion
didn’t seem very talkative.
“But it doesn’t help in France. French people refuse to speak English,” Maki-
chan grunted. “You should know French to communicate with them.”
“Damn! Well, fortunately we have Mr. Pierre with us.” If the old man even knew
French. He seemed to only speak vague Japanese with random English words thrown
into the mix.
Maki-chan mumbled something.
“What was that?”
“Just wondering how I’m going to make it through spending ten days in the same
car with you.”
“Huh, Maki-chan! We’re going to have tons of fun!” There was no doubt about it;
he and Maki-chan were going to have a blast. He was not sure about the rest of
the group, though. Kinjou and Tadokoro for example. Neither one of them
appeared to have any sense of humour, and on top of that Tadokoro sounded like
a rhino with serious gas issues and occupied the same amount of space. But
perhaps those two had enough money to book a hotel room.
No, it was Maki-chan who had a lot of money. Why couldn’t he and Toudou book a
room? That way they would avoid listening to the whining first-years and
groaning savannah animals.
Toudou voiced his idea.
“Yeah, no. Not gonna happen,” was Maki-chan’s harsh reply.
“What, why not?”
“Number one: The hotels are full. Every single one is booked because of the
Tour. Number two: Even if there was a room available, I wouldn’t share it with
you.”
“Hnngh, Maki-chan, that’s so insensitive!”
The green-haired climber huffed, dejected. “Toudou, seriously speaking, I’d
really like to get some sleep. Would you please consider going back to your own
seat?”
”Unfortunately that option is now out of the question.”
“Why?”
“You see, Arakita started watching porn on his computer–“
There was an astounded yelp behind them.
“–and I suspect he has reached in his action the point that requires a
seriously low morale to watch.”
Maki-chan just stared at him.
Toudou leaned closer, whispering not-so-silently. “He’s probably masturbating.”
At that moment Naruko Shoukichi jumped to his feet and craned over the seats to
holler at Kinjou. “Captain! Why in the name of everything that is pure and
righteous did we have to bring this depraved troop of Hakogaku monkeys with
us?”
Chapter End Notes
     I have no idea why I made Arakita such a pervert, but I’m having so
     much fun with him that I’m just going to continue in the same way.
     I’ve changed the order of certain events for this fic. Apparently the
     Inter High was held in August and the Tour de France in July. I don’t
     want there to be a year apart, so let’s just pretend the Inter High
     was held in June.
     All the Tour de France details are based on the year 2013’s race. :)
***** Viva la France... or at least the Hotel Rooms *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Toudou had never been abroad before. The airport of Charles de Gaulle was a
little bit of a shock, to put it mildly. Latin alphabets everywhere and
language he couldn’t understand. The air felt and smelled weird. People were
tall. Broad. Big. Imaizumi Shunsuke looked short compared to them. Tadokoro the
Human Bullet Train looked like a featherweight. Midousuji Akira would have
probably looked like a person of an average height here, that freaking titan.
The next problem was that Toudou couldn’t find his bag.
“Everyone else’s luggage is here.” He waved at the pile of stuff they had
collected from the baggage carousel. “Where’s my bag?” Panic started to creep
into his mind. All of his hygiene products and clothes and headbands were in
that bag. Would he need to buy a new set of everything? He was sure that he
couldn’t find any fitting piece of clothing in this damned city of giants, at
least not from the adult selection. He would have to shop for children’s
clothes! And he had packed his training outfit and his cycling shoes too, and
those weren’t the cheapest things around!
When there weren’t any bags left on the carousel, they had no choice but to
proceed to the Lost and Found where nobody spoke English (and definitely not
Japanese). Luckily it turned out that Mr. Pierre actually knew his French.
“They’re trying to track where your bag might have gone to. For now we can do
nothing but wait.”
Toudou felt like throwing himself to the ground to bawl and pound the floor
with his fists like a little kid. “Why only my bag? Why is everyone else’s
stuff here?”
“It’s an honest mistake.” Mr. Pierre shrugged. The old man looked way too happy
for Toudou’s taste, but then again, his bag was safely in the hands of Sohoku’s
captain. “They have my number and they’ll let us know immediately when they
have tracked your bag and when it can be delivered.”
”They’ll probably find it in the next 24 hours and you’ll get it back before we
leave Paris,” said Manami, trying to make him feel better and not succeeding
very much.
“But what if they can’t find it in time, and we drive to Foug… Fug… to that
12th stage and they can’t deliver my bag there? How are they going to track us
if we switch locations along with the Tour?”
Arakita let out a frustrated huff. “Will you not weep over one single bag?”
“You’d weep too if it was your bag that was missing – and your uncensored
porn!”
“My computer was in my hand luggage for a good reason.”
”It’s the flight company’s duty to deliver luggage to its owner,” Fuku said.
“They’ll ship it to any part of the world if necessary. But like Manami said,
it’s very probable that your bag will be here before we take our leave.”
”Great. Can we finally go to the hotel now? I’m starting to get hungry,”
Sohoku’s human-bull grunted.
Toudou caved in. Not like he had any other choice. Besides, he was hungry too,
tired in a way he’d never experienced, and in serious need of a shower. Except
that all his cosmetics were in the missing bag. He hoped that their hotel was
one of those that provided shower gel and shampoo samples for their customers.
Their bus was driving on the wrong side of the road. Toudou kept turning his
head from side to side, trying to see if anyone else had noticed. Then he
remembered. Right-hand traffic. Man, he was glad he hadn’t opened his mouth.
It was early night in Paris. The Eiffel Tower shone above the city in its
nightly illumination. Everything was yellow, white or golden in the glow of the
street lights. No colourful advertisements or neon lights. Here and there they
could see muddy red or wooden gateways, a couple of coloured awnings, but
mostly the view was like something out of a faded post card. Then their bus
turned to a street where red and blue signs were advertising pizza and kebab
and the façade became somewhat shabbier. It seemed that in Europe colourfulness
indicated an area of not so well-off people. Toudou was relieved that they
didn’t stop on that street.
”Hey Fuku, our hotel is, like, normal quality, right?”
“It’s a three-star hotel. Nothing too luxurious but it should do fine for this
lot.”
That could mean almost anything. Toudou had heard that in Europe accommodations
with fewer stars were in fact suspicious crummy holes that a person living in
Japan couldn’t even begin to imagine. This could be the only chance of the
whole trip to spend a night in a hotel so he certainly hoped it was up to par.
Seriously, if Fuku had booked them in a scabby whore motel, Toudou would
collect his remaining luggage and check himself into another accommodation
immediately. And he’d take Maki-chan with him.
That reminded him of how they’d share the rooms.
It was a widely known fact that after travelling 13 hours and being served
inedible food, and when everyone was sporting a serious case of jet lag,
sorting out the sleeping quarters could easily fire up arguments. Therefore the
captains had decided to devise the sleeping arrangements beforehand in a
written form. This was what they had come up with:
Room 1: Fukutomi, Shinkai and Arakita
Room 2: Toudou, Izumida and Manami
Room 3: Kinjou, Tadokoro and Makishima
Room 4: Teshima and Aoyagi
Room 5: Imaizumi, Naruko and Onoda
Toudou had very little desire to sleep in the same room with a weirdo who
talked to his pecs (Izumida chatted with Andy and Frank in his sleep and
sometimes emitted his abs-related battle cries – it wasn’t something you wanted
to wake up to) and a vaguely human-shaped fairy. Although, Manami did have two
habits that reduced his irksomeness as a roommate: first, he tended to vanish
without any notice, usually to cycle, and second, because of his undiagnosed
narcolepsy the brat slept most of the time he didn’t spend on cycling. But
those times when he was awake and in the close vicinity his babbling was really
incomprehensible and it made listeners want to rip their ears off.
Besides, Toudou wanted to share his room with Maki-chan.
“Fuku, give me those sleeping arrangements,” he urged. “I’ll change them a
bit.”
The answer came from several mouths. “No way!”
“Hey, I can guarantee everyone will be happy!”
Fuku stayed adamant. “I’m not giving that paper to you, Toudou.”
“Okay, I’ll just write my own arrangements on another piece of paper, and if it
gets more votes than your lame ass list, it will become valid.”
Nobody commented on that which Toudou took as a sign of approval. He took a
notebook and a pen out of his bag and started sketching. Oddly enough, his
travelling companions didn’t seem interested or give him suggestions. Maybe the
guys trusted his judgment after all.
After finishing his scribble, he cleared his throat to get everyone’s
attention. “Okay, hear me out. Room 1: Me and Maki-chan. Room 2: Fuku, Arakita
and Hayato. Room 3: Izumida, Manami and Onoda. Room 4: Kinjou, Teshima, the
bul– Tadokoro and Mr. Pierre. Room 5: Imaizumi, Naruko and Aoyagi.”
“Mr. Pierre has got his own room. It’s not part of the arrangements,” Kinjou
told him.
“Me and Hajime are sleeping in the same room,” Teshima said.
“I’m not going to share a room with you,” said Maki-chan.
“What, why not? We’re going to have an extraordinary amount of fun!”
“You will keep that extraordinary fun of yours down so that your next door
neighbours can sleep,” Arakita said.
“Your list is no good, Jinpachi,” Shinkai noted. “Let’s just stick to the one
Juichi and Kinjou made.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re not teamed up with a sleep biker and Prince
Oberon!” Aargh, those ungrateful blockheads! Toudou flipped the paper over,
starting to outline a new plan. Apparently they had booked only one double
room, and that one he was going to pre-empt for himself and Maki-chan. The
other rooms had to have three occupants. Excluding Mr. Pierre made the task
slightly easier.
In the end he shoved his plan in Fuku’s hand. “There. It should be passable
now.”
Fuku’s lips moved silently as he read Toudou’s list. He hmph’d before giving
his verdict. “Looks alright to me, but I’m not sure if Sohoku agrees.”
“Come on, it’s just one night. You should be able to endure it even if you had
to sleep in a bathtub.”
“Exactly. You should be able to endure sharing a room with the sleep bik–
Izumida and Manami.”
”Let me see that paper.” Tadokoro rose to his feet and snatched the paper from
Fuku’s hand. “Hmm, okay, okay… Kinjou, do you mind sharing a room with Imaizumi
and Naruko?”
“No, that’s fine.”
”Then I see no problem here. Onoda, you get to share a room with Manami. For me
this is as good as the first plan.”
Makishima’s defeated voice came from somewhere between the seats. “Toudou has
placed me in the same room with him again, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah, that’s right. But really, maybe you shouldn’t anger your girlfrie–”
“Hey!”
”HEY!”
Arakita laughed way too hard for Toudou’s liking.
”Shut up, you lecher. You watch porn in public!”
Arakita raised his finger, looking very self-important. “Hetero porn.”
The problem with Arakita was that he never got embarrassed. If someone pulled
his pants down in the middle of a busy street, he would only pull them back up
(and kick the trickster’s ass). There wasn’t even the faintest blush on his
face. Huffing in frustration, Toudou sank back into his seat.
“I don’t really mind, we can act according to your list,” Fuku promised. “If
nobody feels like complaining?”
This time Maki-chan didn’t say anything. Toudou felt his mood starting to
elevate again.
* * *
”You truly are one hell of a moron.”
Those weren’t exactly the words Toudou had expected to hear from Maki-chan when
they had finally got to the hotel and their room.
“What, why?”
“Was it really necessary to cause such a scene over a single night?”
“What are you talking about, Maki-chan? Of course it was necessary. First of
all, that original list was a product of utter dictatorship and I was going to
end up…”
“Toudou, shut up.”
Something in his opponent’s voice made Toudou fall silent. Maki-chan was
looking at him through his green bangs, the corners of his mouth twitching
upwards.
”You’re a moron but this was an admissible stunt.” Twitching deepened into a
smile. This time it was genuine and didn’t give Toudou goose bumps. “You
probably noticed that all the other rooms were for three people.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And perhaps you are aware that in hotels there are very rarely rooms that are
actually made for three people. There are usually only rooms for two and four
people. A three-person room stands for...”
“An extra bed!” Toudou lifted his hand and Maki-chan gave him a high five.
“Don’t I always say that I’m blessed with eye-caressing looks and amazing
skills of articulation?”
“You do, but it has nothing to do with this.” Maki-chan dropped his bag on the
floor and sat down on one of the beds. Toudou was about to do the same thing
but then he remembered the state of his luggage. He only had a backpack which
contained some entertainment for the trip, his cell and wallet.
Instead of slumping down onto the bed, he went to check the bathroom. A super
tiny booth but it had towels and shampoo bottles. He would be able to take a
shower. The only problem was that he’d planned to change his clothes too,
because after sitting on a plane for 13 hours nobody was at their freshest.
“Man, I really hope my bag will get here by tomorrow.”
“Those clothes will do for tomorrow, you know.”
Toudou pushed himself off of the bathroom door frame. “Maki-chan, did you just
meet me? No, these will not do for tomorrow. They are wrinkled, worn-out, and…”
Smelly? No, he never smelled. Not even after the hardest, longest, sweatiest
climb.
“Passable?”
”No! I have a reputation to maintain. What would people say if I wandered
around Paris wearing my travelling clothes?” It wouldn’t speed up his Losing My
Virginity project, that’s for sure. Weren’t French people, like, insanely
fixated with their appearance?
”Nobody would say anything?”
Toudou felt like screaming. Just how thick-headed people could be?
“Listen,” Maki-chan said, taking a more serious tone. “If your bag doesn’t make
it here by tomorrow, I’ll lend you some clothes. Not that I have that many sets
of clothes with me but you can have one pair of trousers and a shirt. And
naturally you can buy new clothes here.”
Toudou was almost moved by this generosity. He scurried to the bed, spreading
his arms out to hug his saviour. “Maki-chan!”
Unfortunately, Maki-chan was allergic to any sort of touching apart from a
quick slap of hands. He leaned away and pushed his elbows up in front so that
Toudou couldn’t get in the close vicinity. “I mean, if you accept my clothes. I
don’t know if our tastes are that similar…”
Maki-chan wore colours that Toudou couldn’t picture on himself, but his clothes
weren’t that bad. Toudou could wear them for a day. At least they were clean.
”But we can talk about that in the morning,” Maki-chan added. “Now I’m planning
to eat and go to sleep after that.”
“Hmm.” It was only 7 pm in Paris but everyone was tired from travelling. Toudou
had never experienced jet lag, and he’d heard it was worse when travelling
towards the east but he could already feel the symptoms creeping on him. His
inner clock was ticking the wee hours. Lights seemed a bit too bright, thoughts
took turns in crawling and bouncing around and his stomach hinted some near-
future problems. Tomorrow they’d probably feel like staying in bed even if
travelling guides advised to blend in the local way of living, so that their
bodies would adapt soon.
Still, Toudou had had it in mind to chat before going to bed. Who knew when
he’d get a chance to talk privately with Maki-chan again?
”So, a French sandwich. Let’s have a taste then.” Maki-chan pulled a stuffed
half of baguette out of a plastic bag, biting its end. “Mhm, this is good.”
“It is?” After the plane food Toudou was suspicious when it came to the local
food but Maki-chan’s sandwich looked and smelled appealing. He’d bought himself
an almost similar sandwich but instead of ham it was filled with chicken. He
sat down onto the other bed and grabbed his own snack, unwrapping it and taking
a bite. While chewing, he mused over the taste. Nothing revolutionary but it
was pretty good especially when you were hungry.
They ate in silence, because not even Toudou had a tendency to talk with his
mouth full, at least not that often. After eating, exhaustion attacked him with
a renewed power. He’d have to get in the shower right away if he wished to make
it through without falling asleep.
“Can I take a shower first, Maki-chan?”
“Be my guest.”
He’d have to wear his travelling clothes after the shower, too. There weren’t
even bathrobes in the bathroom. What kind of a three-star hotel was this
supposed to be?
Perhaps Maki-chan sensed his hesitation, perhaps he just happened to think the
same, but he asked whether Toudou already wanted to borrow a shirt from him.
“Yes, please. I have nothing clean with me, Maki-chan.” Not even underwear.
Would he have to sleep buttnaked? He did that sometimes at home, but he was
always alone then. What if he kicked blankets aside in his sleep and Maki-chan
saw him half-naked?
It shouldn’t have mattered, they were both part of a sport team and were used
to seeing naked guys around, but a bare ass peeking out from under a blanket
was in its vulgarity something that Arakita would do – not Toudou.
“Sorry Toudou, but I really don’t feel like lending you my underwear.”
Toudou jerked. Had he thought out loud? “I don’t want your underwear!”
”Okay, good. As long as we agree.” Maki-chan wore a strange expression on him,
something Toudou couldn’t really interpret. The green-haired climber opened the
zipper of his bag and rummaged through it just to pull out a white tee shirt
with an image of a deer in its front. Toudou accepted the offered piece of
clothing and strode in the bathroom to scrub himself clean.
As he returned, Maki-chan was already lying on his bed, looking like he had no
intention of taking a shower. When Toudou mentioned it, Maki-chan said he’d
save it until the morning. It was only one night, who cared about their level
of dirtiness anyway?
”What kind of sleeper are you?” Toudou asked, towelling his hair. “You don’t
snore or talk in your sleep, do you?”
Maki-chan turned to face him slowly. He looked very tired. He’d pulled the
blanket all the way up to his chin, his hair had spread on the pillow like a
green fan, and his heavy eyelids were resting on blue irises. “Toudou, this was
your idea. You will suffer through it, even if I had a tendency to roar in my
sleep.”
“Yeah but… you don’t really do that, right? I’m a very light sleeper.”
“Not that I’m aware of, no.”
“But are you sure?”
“I’m kind of convinced that my parents would have gotten me help if I actually
shouted in my sleep.”
“Your house is so big that sound doesn’t carry to its other end.”
Maki-chan snorted and closed his eyes. “Good night, Toudou. Please turn off the
lights when you’re done.”
“I was thinking we’d chat for a bit.” The shower had refreshed him so that he
still felt like staying awake for a while.
“No, we’re going to sleep now. If you can’t stay quiet, I’ll throw you into the
hallway.”
“Jeez, what a party pooper,” Toudou muttered, but Maki-chan turned his back on
him and pretended to go to sleep. Maybe he should get under the blankets too.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day. First they would go and see as much of
Paris as they could, and then in the afternoon they’d drive to Foug… well, that
place anyway.
Toudou knew that sleeping with wet hair only resulted in a horrible case of bed
head, but he ended up spreading a hand towel over his pillow to protect it from
getting wet and padded across the room to turn off the lights. There was a dim
glow coming from the street, shining through the curtains, so he didn’t trip on
his way back to his bed. The mattress was softer than he was used to, and the
pillow was no more than a bag of fluff. His head sank into it so deep that
there was a serious risk of suffocating. For a long time, he sought a
comfortable position but in the end he just threw the pillow aside and folded a
bedspread underneath his head. It wasn’t very comfortable either but at least
it supported his neck.
“Good night, Maki-chan,” he said, but his roommate didn’t reply.
Chapter End Notes
     Many thanks to everyone who left kudos or bookmarked this fic! If you
     have a moment, kindly leave a comment, too. They make me so happy and
     inspire me to write more. :)
     In the next chapter we'll finally get to Shinkai, yay!
***** Shinkai saves the night *****
Chapter Notes
     Thanks again for everyone who left kudos or bookmarked this fic (and
     I got a new review, yay!). Special thanks to my wonderful beta
     ladyleopardy who so patiently goes through these chapters with me.
     And now it's finally time for some serious Shinkai business.
The hotel rooms were okay. Nothing luxurious, more like a decayed frame covered
with new wallpapers and sheathing. But the sheets looked washed and the room
smelled like someone had cleaned there. That was enough for Shinkai. He lowered
his bag onto the bed closest to the door.
Here was the thing: the hotel had only very few actual three-person rooms and
Sohoku’s captain along with two first-years had snatched the only one that had
been available. Others had to settle for two normal beds and one spare bed, the
quality of which could be anything between a normal bunk and a cot. In this
room it was a camp bed.
The biggest question was who would sleep in the unsteady, squeaky iron monster.
Shinkai wouldn’t have been the first person to jam the captain in it, but if
the other choice was Yasutomo or himself…
Yasutomo had an opinion on the matter already. “Fuck you, Shinkai. Who promised
you that bed?”
“I dropped my bag on it.”
“I’m taking this one.” Yasutomo marched to the other bed and made a big show of
shoving his own bag on it.
“Are you seriously going to force Juichi into that thing?” Shinkai pointed at
the camp bed that was squeezed between the actual beds. Sure, it was covered
with a mattress, blankets and sheets but its true identity shone through loud
and clear. The center had collapsed and its width was only half of that of a
regular bed.
In other words, they had two regular beds and a hole.
“Surely Fuku-chan can fit himself in it.”
Yeah, he probably could fit alright but was it appropriate? No matter how hard
Shinkai tried, he just couldn’t picture their stoic ace sunken in the depths of
a creaking cot.
“Where do I fit?” asked the individual in question. Juichi was the last one to
enter their room.
Yasutomo waved in the direction of their sleeping quarters. “In that middle
bed.”
Juichi walked closer and eyed the arrangement with a deep wrinkle between his
brows.
“I can take it,” Shinkai heard himself say. It was only one night. If the thing
started to hurt his back, he’d just move onto the floor.
“No, I can take it,” Juichi said.
For some reason this was not okay with Yasutomo. “Shinkai will take it.”
Shinkai turned to look at his teammate. “You just said that Juichi would fit in
it.”
“Sure he would but I just can’t picture him in a narrow camp bed. It would
break my world view. You sleep in it.”
Shinkai tilted his head. “You don’t suppose you can picture yourself in it?”
Yasutomo pretended to think. “Hmm, not really.”
And so it was settled. When it was time to go to bed, Shinkai laid down on the
squeaky piece of iron junk that felt like any sudden movement would jerk it
over if it hadn’t been supported on each side by a firm bed frame. It was
really hard to find a comfortable position in it. His back sunk deeper than his
shoulders and his ass was practically lying in a hole. It was totally
impossible to sleep on your side, let alone on your stomach.
“Shall we check what the French TV has to offer?” Yasutomo asked, already
clicking the remote.
“My wild guess is that there’s nothing in Japanese.”
“I can understand English,” Yasutomo claimed. That was probably a lie.
“I don’t think there’s anything in English either,” Juichi said. He just
stepped out of the bathroom and turned off the lights. They were left with a
nightstand lamp lighting the room along with the TV screen. Yasutomo channel
surfed. A talk show, some sports – only the wrong kind (football) – another
talk show, some kind of action movie. Yasutomo left that on. The movie was both
dubbed and subbed in French.
“Don’t they know their own language, or why the hell are they subbing movies?”
he grumbled.
“Maybe there are a lot of people with hearing disabilities in France.”
Shinkai fumbled next to his pillow to find his phone and scanned over his
received messages. The device had found a working connection but using it was
probably outrageously expensive. Keeping that in mind, he had told his folks
back at home as well as Ayane that he’d only send a few texts from his trip.
He’d promised to let them know when he was in France and hadn’t really had a
chance to do it yet.
Ayane, on the other hand, had remembered him with several messages.
‘Hayato, are you in France already?’
‘Oi, your plane should have landed hours ago. Everything alright?’
‘Hayato, call me ASAP!’
‘I’m really starting to get worried here. Call me, will you?’
He wouldn’t have noticed that he had sighed if Yasutomo hadn’t glanced at him
questioningly. He raised his phone to indicate that it was time to give his
family a status report.
He couldn’t call Ayane even if she demanded it. His phone was constantly
picking up new fields, and he had no idea via which operator his calls would be
directed. They were meant to use a borrowed cell that had a French mobile
subscription, but a couple of messages would hardly cause a huge bill.
‘Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to text you sooner. We’ve just arrived at the
hotel. It was a really long day. Jinpachi’s bag got lost and we had to report
it at the airport.’
His phone beeped almost instantly even though according to his calculations it
was already way past midnight in Japan.
‘Is everything OK now? What’s the hotel like? Who are your roommates?’
‘Yeah, everything’s fine. We’re just tired and just going to bed. I’ll to try
text you at some point along the way but it must be expensive as hell. The
hotel’s alright.’
He didn’t mention that he had to sleep in a camp bed because Ayane would have
clung to it. After sending his message he remembered that he had forgotten to
list his roommates. Phew, he needed to send another message.
‘And I’m with Juichi and Yasutomo, as usual.’ When they were on race trips he
always shared a room with these two guys (when they all didn’t sleep in the
same room which also happened surprisingly often). Juichi he knew from middle
school. Yasutomo he’d got to know in the cycling club after he’d joined, and
for some reason they had hit it off pretty soon – insofar as it was possible
with Yasutomo, since he was, at his best, as friendly as a riled up fighting
dog. Jinpachi had once analyzed that the connection arose from the fact that
Shinkai refused to be provoked by almost anything and that he emitted this
sublime aura of serenity, whatever that was supposed to mean.
As his cell beeped again, the crosspatch in question turned to look at Shinkai
through his narrowed lids as to tell him he was making too much noise. Shinkai
opened the message and huffed in relief.
‘Okay, talk to you later. Good night and have a nice holiday!’
Of course Ayane understood that the situation was completely exceptional and he
couldn’t text her all the time. He typed one more message to answer the good
night wish and then moved on to text to his mom. She had promised to take care
of Usakichi and he wanted to hear how the bunny was doing.
Surprisingly Mom was awake too and he got his answer almost instantly.
’Your bunny is fine. Yuuto fed her and let her run around a bit in your room.’
He just hoped that his little bro wouldn’t let the bunny nibble any cords. He
typed a good night wish for his family as well before muting the phone and
placing it next to his head where it immediately slipped underneath his pillow.
On TV there was some kind of car chase going on.
“Nicolas Cage,” Yasutomo muttered. “I’ve seen this.”
“Is it any good?”
“I can’t remember. I doubt it. They’re all the same.”
The movie was quite easy to follow until the action scene ended and characters
started blathering. Hoping to fall asleep, Shinkai turned to his side out of
sheer habit but his spine twisted painfully and he had to return to his back.
Even straightening his leg or lifting his hand to rest on his stomach made the
bed shake. Shit, it was uncomfortable. Why hadn’t the staff simply positioned a
mattress on the floor? Maybe it was a seriously downgrading thing to do in
Europe; after all they didn’t even take their shoes off indoors. The floor was
covered with a wall-to-wall carpet that showed signs of back and forth
traipsing. Shinkai failed to understand. Wouldn’t a stone or wooden floor have
been easier to keep clean? After minutes rustling and adjusting he believed to
have found a position he could sleep in and pulled the blanket up to his chin.
The glow of the screen was flickering on his closed lids but it wasn’t the
first time he’d fall asleep to TV’s sound.
He didn’t recall dozing off – he’d been drifting between sleep and awakeness
for a long while – but suddenly he felt himself yanked to alertness as somebody
poked him in the shoulder. After his senses started working again, he realized
that the room was dark even though he didn’t remember anyone turning off the
TV. He’d probably been asleep then.
The bullying continued. A jab. A poke. And then a hiss. ”Shinkai, god damn it!”
Lifting his chin, he peeked towards the disturbing noise and was met with
Yasutomo’s face. He couldn’t see very well in the dark, but his teammate looked
angry. Shinkai weighed Yasutomo’s state of mind and came to the conclusion that
he wasn’t asleep. “What is it?”
”Could you finally stop that squeaking and creaking? Not even the dead could
sleep here.”
Shinkai shrugged and immediately the bed let out a relevant noise. “What can
you do? I can’t even move a muscle without making the bed shake.”
“But what the bloody hell are you doing? A sleeping person shouldn’t move all
the time. Are you trying to jerk off without us noticing? Because I can tell
you it’s not working!”
“I am trying to sleep. Unfortunately I need to breathe too while sleeping and
if that makes the springs grate, there’s not much I can do about it.”
”Breathe like normal people! You don’t need the full capacity of your lungs to
do it.”
“Shall we switch? Let’s see if you can sleep in this without making noise.”
Yasutomo snorted. “Like hell we’re gonna switch.”
“Then you just have to take it like a man.”
At that point Juichi joined the conversation. “I don’t know what you guys are
going to do, but I suggest you do it soon so that other people can sleep.”
Yasutomo huffed in defeat. “Fucking hell... Just get in here.”
Shinkai blinked, surprised. “Where?”
“This bed can easily hold two people. It’s designed for gaijin giants anyway.”
So… Yasutomo suggested they’d sleep together in the same bed? He’d sleep in the
same bed with his teammate. A teammate who was male too. Wasn’t that a bit..?
Shinkai stopped his train of thoughts. He was tired and he wanted to go to
sleep as soon as possible. Never mind who was sleeping next to him; the most
important thing was to quieten down the room. Besides, on this holiday they
couldn’t afford to be picky about sleeping quarters. Even so, he failed to
picture how 14 almost adult-sized males would be able to bunk in a minivan but
maybe they’d spend some of their nights at places where setting up tents was
allowed.
“Fine by me,” he mumbled, struggling to sit up. He threw his bedclothes onto
Yasutomo’s bed (and hit him in the face with a pillow, purposely), picked his
phone and crawled out of the crater formed in the cot. In the otherwise quiet
hotel, the creaking was piercing.
He took the outer side of the bed, leaving Yasutomo closer to Juichi. It took
them a moment to arrange all the blankets and pillows so that everything would
fit on the mattress but eventually the rustling ceased and peace fell in the
room. Shinkai rolled onto his side his back towards his teammate, sinking his
head into the pillow. The bed felt divine underneath him: firm yet soft, smooth
and supportive. Maybe they would finally get some sleep.
* * *
”Have you ever considered letting someone fuck you?”
Wha–?
What?
For the second time that night, Shinkai snapped into consciousness abruptly.
His heart was beating a little too fast, telling him that the awakening had not
been a natural one; that something external had yanked him out of his dream.
His lids were stuck together, and he had to rub them before he was able to make
some sense of the room. He was greeted by a dark grey wall, an edge of a
nightstand and outlines of a lamp. He must have been in a more superficial
sleep, otherwise he wouldn’t have heard the words, but now he wasn’t sure
whether they had been said in the first place. The room was silent. There was
only the faint breathing of his roommates and the occasional rumbling of the
traffic from the street below.
Maybe he’d just dreamt it. But damn, wouldn’t that be one weird-ass dream!
He rolled onto his back, turning his head towards his sleeping mate.
“Yasutomo?”
Yasutomo was laying his face towards him but absolutely quiet, his eyes closed
and lips slightly parted. His deep breathing made his side rise and fall.
Behind him Shinkai could make out Juichi’s figure. Both were sleeping soundly.
He hadn’t expected anything else with the captain; the voice had sounded like
Yasutomo. But why the hell would Yasutomo ask him something like that?
Maybe he had talked in his sleep. Dreamt about a girl or something. If he
watched porn every spare minute, it wouldn’t be a surprise if part of it
interfered with his dreams, too. Shinkai sighed, turning his back to his
teammate again. He fumbled on the nightstand for his phone which he had already
changed to France time. It was fifteen past three. The morning was still
several hours away. It was already morning in Japan, if he had counted
correctly. He should still sleep to reset his inner clock. Placing the phone
back on the nightstand, he closed his eyes and forced his thoughts to stop
wandering around.
All in all, the night wasn’t very restful. Just when, after trying for god
knows how long, Shinkai was finally drifting back to sleep, Juichi got up to
pop in the toilet. Only a moment after his return Yasutomo did the same thing,
and because he didn’t want to climb over Shinkai, he had to crawl across the
camp bed, filling the room with hellish creaking. Their brain announced that it
was morning but everyone still settled down, not saying a word and trying to
catch some shut-eye, but right after their room quietened down, the bathroom
carousel started behind the wall. Since the soundproofing was close to nothing,
every flushing of the toilet carried through the wall. Someone dropped the
seat’s porcelain lid. A door was closed too hard. Then a siren started to howl
in the street. Shinkai heard Yasutomo swearing under his breath.
They dozed until seven when Shinkai was finally getting sleepy again and could
actually imagine getting back into deep sleep, but his roommates decided they
had weltered in the sheets enough for that night.
Juichi was the first to get up, and judging by the speed that the bed swayed
under Shinkai, Yasutomo had only been waiting for a sign to get out of his dull
trap. Funny, it was usually him who threatened to rip the head off of anyone
daring to wake him up. Their circadian rhythm was a complete mess. The
traipsing into bathroom and back started again. First to go was Yasutomo,
dragging his feet across the floor and pissing like a race horse into the bowl.
Juichi repeated the whole ordeal. Both of them flushed the toilet separately.
Yasutomo came to search for his toothbrush and retreated back to the bathroom.
As he returned, it was Juichi’s turn again. Zippers were pulled and stuff
rummaged through. Yasutomo sat on the edge of the bed and Shinkai had to yank
his toes out of the way. The two early birds got dressed which also needed to
be done extremely noisily, huffing and puffing, as if the clothes had shrunken
in the bag. After that the Hakogaku’s leading duo had apparently woken up
enough to start talking.
“At what time do they serve breakfast?” Yasutomo asked. “Doesn’t it usually
start at seven already?”
“From seven till eleven. We can go in a minute. I’ll just go and check if the
others have woken up.”
“We’re not waiting for Manami.”
Juichi left the room. The door clunked shut. Shinkai was lying with his eyes
closed and the blanket over his ears, hoping that the others would be asleep
and he’d have a chance to doze off for a moment. Yasutomo was still sitting on
the bed, his weight pressing down on the mattress. Then Shinkai both heard and
felt his teammate turn towards him. Goodbye, dozing.
“Shinkai, get up.”
“Mmhm. I’m going to sleep for another hour.”
”No, you are not. We are going to have breakfast and then see the city. We have
a lot of places to visit.”
“No attraction is open at 8 in the morning.”
“You reckon someone’s asking for tickets by the Seine? There’s a ton of sights
that you don’t have to enter to see them.”
”But the other guys were saying that they want…” A yawn ruptured his words.
“..want to visit the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame and Louvre and some kind of
torture museum.”
“Who wants to visit Louvre?”
“Umm… don’t remember, someone said so.”
”Toudou, probably. He can go and gawk at mouldy paintings alone. The rest of us
can go to the Eiffel.”
It sounded like the trip had messed up more than just Yasutomo’s inner clock.
He wasn’t usually that interested in sightseeing. On the other hand, Shinkai
had never been with him in a place with something special to see. He rubbed his
eyes, yawning again. Alright, maybe he should get up then. He was already wide
awake anyway.
He crawled out of the sheets to sit up and realized that he’d sweated like a
pig. It wasn’t exactly hot in the room but the blanket felt like it was filled
with down. What kind of a crazy person used a duvet during summer? He really
needed to shower.
He bent down to dig his bag of toiletries, a new set of clothes and a towel out
of his bag. It had been a bad night, through and through. Constant waking and
blurred, superficial sleep which had zero refreshing effects. And then there
had been that…
He lifted his head to look at his black-haired friend.
“Did you say something to me in the night?”
Yasutomo was quiet for a few seconds, a touch too long, his face frozen. Then
he tossed his head back, snorting. “I probably told you to move closer to the
edge because you were trying to hog the whole bed.”
Huh, Shinkai was pretty sure that he had stayed on his own side the whole
night. He wasn’t generally the type to roll around in his sleep. Perhaps he’d
just imagined it then – sometimes you thought that you heard noises even when
it was only a dream. Or it was also possible that Yasutomo had had a dream and
parts of it had leaked through.
Shinkai shrugged and collected his stuff before pulling himself to his feet.
“I’ll take a quick shower. We can go after that.”
If Yasutomo said something after that, Shinkai couldn’t make it out.
***** Fifteen men and twelve seats *****
Chapter Notes
     So in the comments I said it was going to be Toudou's POV for the
     next two chapters but I kinda lied. It's Makishima's this time, if
     that makes any difference. Toumaki anyway. Thank you everyone who
     left kudos or commented on my story! I hope you enjoy this chapter
     too.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The day became hot and sunny. Hectic. Tiring. Laborious. Someone could have
called it a survival camp. Going around Paris in half a day was a challenge
that left everyone’s feet and nerves begging for mercy. Around half past four
the troop of drained Japanese tourists wandered to their last destination of
the Paris day: a restaurant.
“Shouldn’t holidays be refreshing?” Naruko complained after they had settled at
a table. They had first planned to walk around as one group but the limited
amount of time had scattered them after the Eiffel Tower. Some of them had
visited Notre-Dame, some Arc de Triomphe and some had gone to roam around
Montmartre.
Makishima was glad that he hadn’t been in the same group as Naruko or Arakita,
since they seemed to be the worst travelling mates ever, but Tadokoro had also
protested some of the historical attractions which didn’t obviously have
anything to do with food. At the restaurant everyone was sitting amongst their
own, Sohoku taking the other half of the table and Hakogaku the other. It was
Toudou’s and Manami’s job to act as a bridge between the two teams and, as it
appeared, neither of them seemed to mind. Toudou even inched his chair closer
to Makishima, away from Izumida sitting on his other side.
“I don’t remember having been this tired even after the Inter High,” Naruko
added.
“A city holiday is not a real holiday,” Toudou pointed out. “But next time you
should come to my family’s ryokan to experience what relaxing really means.”
“Maybe I will. You’d give me a discount, right?”
“If you come with Maki-chan.”
Naruko stared at Toudou, flabbergasted as if he was trying to put together two
pieces of a puzzle with no logical solution. Then he shook his head and lifted
the menu in front of his face. After five seconds, he slammed it back down on
the table. “I can’t read this. Why aren’t there any pictures?”
Everyone else was pretty much facing the same problem. Makishima understood a
couple of words from the menu. He hadn’t lied to Toudou: he didn’t know French
but he had memorized some food names back at home. He was able to find chicken
and meat dishes, and the next page contained seafood dishes, but that was where
his French skills ended. Mr. Pierre sat at the end of the table but it wasn’t
really very practical for him to roam around the table and translate the menu
for fourteen clueless souls. A waitress was eyeing their group looking like she
seriously hoped her shift would be over before they’d be ready to order.
Then Shinkai pulled out a pocket dictionary and immediately became the most
popular member of the group, at least amongst those who didn’t sit next to Mr.
Pierre.
“Shinkai, what is… Poêlée... d’escargots?”
”What about Foie gras?”
”Moules à la Mariniere?”
”Which of these are seafood?”
“Hold on, I’m trying to translate one dish at a time!” The pages of the
dictionary were rustling, as Shinkai hunted for words with hats and accent
marks. “Alright, here’s the first one. Escargots means snails.”
“Yuck, I don’t want that,” decided Naruko. “Which one is chicken?”
“Check that Foie-whatever first!” Toudou urged.
“Hmm, that’s goose liver.”
“Really? Shouldn’t that be crazy expensive? Am I converting euros wrong
again..?”
“If you’re not ordering it, just move on to the next dish,” Arakita grunted.
“Does somebody want goose liver? No? Okay, next.”
”Moules means clams.”
”Hmm, I wonder if it’s good.”
”Hey, which one is chicken?”
“Read faster, Shinkai, or give the book to someone who knows how to use it!”
A small-scale riot was about to take place at the table, the target being
Hakogaku’s red-headed sprinter and his brand new dictionary, but then Fukutomi
rose to his feet, clearing his throat. Everyone shut their mouths and fixed
their gazes at the blond man.
“We’ll get our order sooner if we all have the same dish,” he said. “Would
roasted chicken do alright for everyone?”
There was a chorus of approval and the captain of Hakogaku was already sitting
down again but then someone dared to disagree.
“I want seafood.”
Everyone turned to look at the problem child who this time happened to answer
to the name Toudou Jinpachi. Makishima made sure that his gaze was especially
stern since he knew that Toudou was constantly aware of his facial expressions.
At first Toudou seemed to sink down into his seat, embarrassed, but soon his
true nature took over and he started spreading his arms extravagantly. “The
French cuisine is famous for its seafood. Shouldn’t we taste it now when we
have a chance?”
“Just take the chicken,” Arakita huffed. “You can have seafood next time.”
Toudou looked like he wanted to start arguing about the matter but everyone,
including Mr. Pierre, was glaring at him so fiercely that he had to raise his
hands in defeat.
”So, chicken for everyone.”
The waitress summoned up enough courage to approach their table when Mr. Pierre
asked with his fluent French and seemed relieved to scribble such a simple
order into her notebook.
While waiting for their actual meals, they nibbled bread and compared the
results of their sightseeing tours. Onoda had found a shop that sold manga
translated in French and had actually bought a couple of books. At the moment
he was very eager to show them to Manami sitting next to him, which luckily
spared Imaizumi and Makishima from the torture. Manami even seemed to be
politely interested in the babblings of Sohoku’s otaku-child. Imaizumi was
trying to concentrate on his phone but Naruko kept bothering him, wanting to
show off photos that he’d taken which – judging by his flushed cheeks and
glimmering eyes – were all about bicycles.
Toudou had followed Makishima to the tour at Montmartre where they had first
visited the basilica of Sacré-Coeur and after that had intended to proceed to
the near-by cemetery when they had come across a museum of eroticism. No one
had exactly suggested that they should enter it but after a few minutes of
hesitation they had found themselves inside, gawking at art that back at home
would never have been displayed publicly. What made it even funnier, was the
fact that also Kinjou and Tadokoro had been part of their group. Makishima had
to admit he had enjoyed the tour immensely especially because Toudou had been
so thoroughly embarrassed. He had never seen Toudou Jinpachi that quiet and
that was something to mark the day down as a historical milestone. Kinjou had
eyed the items through his glasses, his appearance cool and collected as usual,
but Tadokoro had emitted such loud and rude noises that the staff had thrown
disapproving gazes in their direction.
“So, what is your first impression of Paris?” Izumida asked his teammates. He’d
been a part of the troupe that had visited Arc de Triomphe.
“A lot of tourists and even more to see,” Toudou said. “People don’t seem very
polite, though.”
“You were the one saying merde to salespersons when you were supposed to say
merci,” Makishima remarked, making everyone in the close vicinity laugh.
“I spent my flight listening to Arakita chant merde over and over again, what
else can you expect?” Toudou defended himself, trying to keep any redness from
sneaking up to his face.
“You wanna tell everyone how in the museum of eroticism you first thought those
paintings were illustrations for children’s books?”
”The museum of eroticism?” Suddenly the whole table was alert (apart from Mr.
Pierre who had sunken into his own world and Kinjou who pretended that he
hadn’t heard) even though Makishima thought he hadn’t spoken that loud.
“I wasn’t the only one. The bull thought so too!”
“No, I didn’t! And don’t call me a bull, Barbie!”
In fact, even Makishima had first thought that the paintings had accidentally
been hung up in the wrong museum but another glance had shaken off the
misconception.
Arakita was gaping. “There’s a museum of eroticism here? And we went to some
musty, old church!”
“That ‘musty, old church’ happens to be the most famous cathedral of Europe.
Besides, you’re the one who wanted to go there,” Shinkai pointed out.
“That was before I heard about the museum of eroticism. Fuck, what did they
have in there?”
”Well...” Toudou began, pride seeping through his voice. “This and that.”
“Did you take any pictures?”
“Some.”
“Gimme your phone.” Arakita leaned over Izumida in order to grab Toudou’s cell
but he lifted it out of reach. “Let me see!”
Toudou shook his finger, looking all self-important. “No porn at the dinner
table. I’ll show them to you in the car later.”
Arakita accepted his fate with a couple of swearwords because at that moment
the waitress returned carrying their drinks.
When their dining was reaching its end, Kinjou asked for everyone’s attention.
Makishima was pretty sure that the captain had strategically timed the bad news
at the moment when everyone had their stomachs full and minds relaxed.
“I’d like to say a few words about our transportation,” Kinjou began. “The
thing is that the van is officially designed for 12 people.”
Despite their heavy meal, the group let out a defeated sigh. A car that lacked
three seats meant sitting cramped side by side with the other passengers,
complaining, sweating and irritated travellers. They couldn’t even negotiate
over the passenger’s seat next to the driver since that was automatically
reserved for Kinjou.
“Why can’t we rent a camping car?” Naruko dared to protest.
“Our car is not rented,” Kinjou said. “It belongs to Mr. Pierre’s friend and
that’s why we are allowed to borrow it in exchange of paying for the gas. Would
you like to pay for a camping car?”
Naruko lowered his gaze. “Well, not alone, but I assume that the others would
contribute, too.”
“It’s not safe. A camping car doesn’t have enough seatbelts. If the police
stopped us, we could get a ticket.”
Twelve seats also meant that some of them had to squash themselves in the same
belt with another person, which probably didn’t look that much better in the
eyes of authorities.
“But we could have slept in the car…”
“We have sleeping bags and tents and the seats in the van are detachable, so
the car floor can be used as a well. And there are hotels on the way if someone
wants to splurge. I assume all the cheap accommodations are fully booked
though.”
Naruko shut his mouth. Everything was settled anyway and a search for a camping
car would waste their precious time. They still had to drive to Fougères that
evening.
Kinjou’s shades were scanning over the audience. “Does someone still want to
complain about our transportation?”
Everyone was quiet. A half-free ride was half-free, even if packed in a bit too
tiny space. Besides, the cars were designed for gaijin and none of them could
compare to those measures. Except for Tadokoro, perhaps.
They went back to the hotel to collect their stuff while Mr. Pierre fetched the
vehicle in question. Toudou’s bag had arrived while they had wandered around
the city and his mood lifted 110 percent. He would have immediately changed
into his own clothes but Makishima stopped him.
“Why would you use several sets of clothes when the chances of washing them are
limited? Just wear those for today. It’s not like I need them now.”
“If you say so, Maki-chan!”
At first it had been weird to see Toudou in the clothes that usually faced him
in the mirror – and the others had glanced twice too – but as the day
progressed, his eyes had adjusted. Actually his clothes looked pretty good on
Toudou, at least the trousers. Toudou filled them better than Makishima who,
despite many years of active cycling, still had the legs of a stick man.
“If I’m running short on clothes, I’ll ask to borrow yours,” he added.
“That’s fine! You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, Maki-chan! I’m in
your debt since you saved me from public humiliation. Not in a million years
could I have walked through the streets of Paris wearing my scruffy travelling
clothes.”
Makishima sighed. Where there was Toudou, there was useless drama.
* * *
The car ride turned out to be slightly easier than it had first sounded, but
only because Kinjou gave up his right to the front passenger seat. Onoda had a
tendency to travel sickness so they would most likely have it easier by placing
the boy in the front. Because Onoda was the smallest in size, it would have
been a waste for himto sit alone in a single seat which was wider than the
rest. Therefore, they had decided to team him up with another passenger. The
task fell, without any raffles or polls, to Manami who regarded his duty very
meekly.
The next three-seat row held Teshima and Aoyagi, who had to share both the seat
and the seatbelt, and also Tadokoro and Kinjou. Makishima knew what was waiting
for him and he had already kind of resigned himself to his fate. But he did
bargain over his seat a bit so that Toudou sat next to Naruko, that way he
could rest his legs on the narrow aisle next to his own seat. The position
forced his back against Toudou’s shoulder and they had to share a seatbelt but
that way they got more space in the row and Imaizumi, crammed between Naruko
and the wall, wouldn’t throw a fit.
The last row containing four seats was reserved for the rest of Hakogaku’s
team: Shinkai, Arakita, Fukutomi and Izumida. They had it the easiest, since
everyone got their own seat and seatbelt. The noisiest members of Sohoku
(Naruko and Tadokoro) let the others hear their opinions, and the protesting
ceased only when Kinjou noted that the seating order was not meant to be the
same for the whole Tour.
With every soul and luggage safely packed in the car, Mr. Pierre started the
engine and drove them out of the capital. He tried to pick a quiet route,
taking them to the country side with eye-caressing scenery: cute, little
villages, luxuriant meadows and occasional belts of trees. The journey was
relatively peaceful until the road started to have more and more curves and
potholes which unfortunately did not match well with a fully packed vehicle.
Yet again, the complaining from Naruko started. “Hotshot, stay in your own
seat!”
Imaizumi pulled a plug out of his ear and glared at the redhead murderously. “I
haven’t moved a centimeter. How could I, squeezed between you and the wall?”
“You keep jostling me all the time!”
“The car sways, I can’t help it.” The plug returned to his ear and Imaizumi
turned to look through the window, signalling that he wasn’t going to continue
the argument.
“This is like a can of sardines,” Tadokoro grumbled in front of them. “Kinjou,
please give me my sandwich from my bag.”
”Oi, grandpa, maybe you shouldn’t eat when we’re short on space already!”
Tadokoro turned to peek at Naruko between the headrests. “Zip it, brat.
Shouldn’t be your concern.”
“But Teshima-senpai and Aoyagi-senpai will get squashed.”
“Don’t drag us into your show,” Teshima said.
Against his back, Makishima felt Toudou shift his position and then a warm
breath tickled his neck. “Your team is kinda noisy, Maki-chan.”
“Only two members of the team are noisy, not the whole team.”
“Our team is travelling quietly and contently.”
“Why do I hear you talking constantly then?”
Just then there was an audible crack of a plastic bottle cap in the back row
and immediately after that a whoosh and a patter that could only have come from
an over-pressurized soda.
“Motherfucker! God damned French cock-sucking gas drink and below the par shit-
hole roads!”
“Hey, you spilled it on me!”
“Don’t you start whining now, cry baby! Most of it is in my lap!”
“But it looks like I pissed my pants!”
“You keep those overgrown lips of yours shut and get us some paper towels!”
Makishima sighed inwardly. Did he dare to take a look?
Toudou was already looking on his behalf. And since he couldn’t reach over the
seats, he inched over Makishima’s lap, so that he could peek down the aisle.
Makishima protested under his breath, as Toudou was supporting himself on his
thigh but Toudou didn’t show any signs of noticing his discomfort.
“Tsk tsk, Arakita. You should always open the cap just a little and see if
there’s too much pressure. Besides, if you drank healthier drinks, these kinds
of things wouldn’t happen. The sport drinks don’t contain gas.”
“You can stuff your health advice up your green ass, fucking hippie!”
“Are there any paper towels in this car?” Shinkai asked. He sounded
surprisingly calm for a person who had just had half a bottle of Bepsi thrown
into his lap and who looked like he’d just ‘pissed his pants’.
”Be careful not to stain the interior. It’s not our car,” Fukutomi said.
“We’re trying. Give me that fucking paper already!”
Somebody pulled out a roll of paper towels, and Arakita and Shinkai proceeded
to dry themselves. The seats hadn’t got splattered, thanks to the tight safety
net that their laps had formed, but both Arakita and Shinkai had their clothes
soaked in the front and there were still over 200 kilometers to drive. Toudou
was watching the show somewhat amused until Makishima verbalized again that his
thighs were hurting.
“At least our team members don’t use such language,” Makishima noted over his
shoulder when Toudou was properly seated again.
The other climber flashed him a wide smile. “Nah, Arakita just possesses a tad
more extensive vocabulary than the rest of us. He has just extended it in the
wrong way.”
“Wasn’t he living in a box in the streets and earning his living as a
prostitute before Fukutomi found him?”
Naruko’s remark was too much even for Toudou. His jaw dropped and it took him a
good while to search for a comeback, and even then it wasn’t really worth
mentioning. “No, he wasn’t!”
Naruko shrugged. “Just something I heard.”
“Don’t you think for a second that I can’t hear what you’re saying, you little
can of red garbage!” came a response from the back row. “The moment this car
stops, I’ll give you a demonstration of how I pitched in baseball during my
years in middle school. You will have the honour of serving as a ball!”
Naruko laughed at the threat but his face had paled and he shut up quickly
after that. The back row finished their drying operation and calmed down, but
the sickly sweet smell of warm cola drink started spreading inside the van.
Toudou exhaled and let his head flop against the back of Makishima’s neck.
Makishima had tried to flick through his travel guide but reading in a car gave
him motion sickness too, so he had had to put the book away. For a moment, he
tried to lean forward but Toudou’s head just kept following him. Well, he could
always take advantage of the other boy’s touchy feely nature. He moved his
weight so that he was in turn resting his head on Toudou’s temple. Toudou
pulled back a bit, out of sheer surprise, but then anchored his head in an
angle where they both could lean against each other without tiring their
muscles.
Phew. The fatigue caught them immediately when they stopped moving for a
moment. It wasn’t very comfortable leaning on Toudou’s head, but when Makishima
supported himself on the seat too, he could have dozed off. In fact, that
sounded more appealing than watching the scenery. The atmosphere in the car
grew drowsy; everyone was still more or less suffering from jet lag and the
day’s sightseeing tour had drained their energy levels. In the back row,
Arakita was barking at Shinkai to not spread out in other people’s seats but he
lacked the spirit too.
“Maki-chan?” Toudou asked in a low voice. Makishima could feel his jaw moving
against the back of his head.
“Hmm?”
“If we have to sleep in a tent in that Fou-place, could I and you share one?”
He could have argued just for the heck of it but he was too tired. “I suppose
we could.”
“Good.” Toudou let out a content huff and fell silent again.
In the front, Kinjou turned to look at them. Makishima spotted it out of the
corner of his eye. As their eyes briefly met, it felt like the captain’s gaze
was saying something behind the shades. Like Kinjou wanted to say something but
he was hesitating, thinking if it was appropriate. Or maybe he was just asking
if Makishima had noticed. Was he aware of the actual nature of the situation?
Yeah. Yeah, he believed he was.
For a long while now he had asked himself if there was something else behind
Toudou’s interest than the will to compete on climbing. At first he had ignored
it as one of those lapses his mind occasionally came up with. Why would Toudou
be interested in him? Toudou who wore the crown of Hakogaku’s official
heartbreaker. Who girls drooled after and who would have gotten anyone he
wanted. Toudou who had called him a jewel beetle. Toudou who had said that his
smile outshone those of murder clowns of horror movies.
Makishima had told himself not to be stupid. But then Toudou’s messaging had
started to match the criteria of obsession and harassment, and he had to admit
something was going on. What normal rival called and texted their opponent
several times a day (and sometimes at night, too)? Kinjou wasn’t receiving any
messages, let alone Tadokoro. Hell, Tadokoro didn’t even know his opponent’s
name before the Inter High. And Toudou’s messages were not always about
cycling. Sometimes he talked about the weather, sometimes complained about
homework, sometimes just babbled about unnecessary crap, like what he had done
that day, and sometimes he wanted to know unthinkable stuff about Makishima (of
which the text from two weeks ago was an excellent example). Makishima tried to
regard everything objectively: what he would have thought if he hadn’t been the
one bombarded with texts and phone calls? What if Kinjou had told him that
Hakogaku’s Fukutomi called him almost every day and the rest of the time kept
sending him texts which consisted of everything from holiday plans to Kinjou’s
eating habits?
Naturally, first they would need to rule out any kind of mental condition, but
after that Makishima would have said that Fukutomi had a crush on Kinjou. Yeah.
Definitely a crush.
But Toudou? A crush? On Makishima? That was totally unheard of! Sure, sometimes
Tadokoro joked that Makishima needed to answer his phone in order to keep his
girlfriend satisfied but Makishima had not thought that he was serious.
Tadokoro hardly had any idea that there might be a grain of truth in his words.
Instead, it looked like Kinjou had noticed the same thing as Makishima.
If he had to describe the matter in one sentence, Makishima had no idea how to
go about it. Maybe it was because he had never been in a similar situation.
Maybe it was because they were both guys – and rivals for that matter. Or maybe
it was only because Toudou was Toudou.
He had decided not to act on it and just wait. Wait and see when Toudou would…
take the initiative step or something. Confess to him. If he just waited and
stayed neutral, he wouldn’t find himself in that extremely humiliating
situation of getting turned down. Toudou could deny everything and tell him
that he was imagining things, and that wasn’t something Makishima would be
ready to face.
He wasn’t completely sure but he had a gut feeling. A very strong gut feeling.
But it could very well be that he would still have to wait for a long time.
Because he wasn’t sure if Toudou himself had realized.
Chapter End Notes
     The erotic paintings I referred to were in the Museum of Eroticism in
     the year 2011 and I don’t know about today but I don’t think that’s
     very relevant to the plot. :3
***** Ogling at pretty “girls” *****
Chapter Notes
     Again, thanks for everyone who left kudos and/or commented! :) Here,
     have some more Toumaki before we get back to Shinkai.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Somewhere after green moors, stone fences, endless fields and farms Mr. Pierre
suddenly hit the brakes and turned right. Behind a row of trees they could see
a camping area, fully crowded, as expected. Camping cars and caravans crammed
side by side, tents, grills, families, groups of youngsters and those who were
clearly there only for the Tour.
“We have booked a spot,” Kinjou appeased the tired lot. Nobody felt like
looking for accommodation at that time in the evening.
Toudou swung his back off of the seat, twisting his neck to see what kind of
scene they had arrived to. The camping area was mostly a grass field, but
little rows of trees and bushes offered some privacy and – which was the best
news of the day – the place was founded by a small lake. Cool, they could go
for a night swim!
“How many tents do we have altogether?” he asked Maki-chan who had been nodding
off for half of the ride and had only woken up when the car had slowed down.
“It depends how many tents you guys have. We have three.”
“We brought three as well. Good, maybe no one has to sleep in the car tonight.”
He opened his mouth again, about to make sure that Maki-chan wouldn’t take back
his promise that they’d share a tent, but he restrained his tongue. Maki-chan
had already agreed. Pressing it could make him change his mind.
“How do we decide who takes which tent?”
“We have one small and two bigger ones.”
“Maybe we…” Toudou hesitated. ”Maybe we could take the small one?”
For some reason Maki-chan didn’t start arguing. He’d been amazingly
compromising the whole day. “If that’s okay with the others.”
“Do we need to accommodate Mr. Pierre too, or has he booked a hotel room?”
“Do you see a hotel around here? No, he must sleep in a tent – or in the back
of the van.”
”Maybe Kinjou and Tadokoro will take him?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
The car stopped and everyone started unbuckling their seatbelts. Kinjou pulled
the side door open and the travellers poured out to stretch their limbs in the
fresh air. A two-and-a-half-hour drive in a swaying, fully packed car could be
called an ordeal. Luckily nobody had had motion sickness, though at one point
Onoda had looked ‘suspiciously green’. And luckily the vehicle had air
conditioning; otherwise it would have smelled even more like stale Bepsi.
Shinkai and Arakita both had identical wet spots in their laps. Arakita had
probably shoved his drink over poor Shinkai the minute it had started fizzing
up.
“From now on we shall call you the Bepsi twins,” Toudou said, unable to resist
mocking their rueful state.
“Shut up, primadonna. Where do they have bathrooms here? We’re going to change
immediately,” Arakita announced, already throwing his bag over his shoulder.
“Right next to the entrance there was one.”
After Arakita and Shinkai had disappeared, the others started unpacking their
stuff from the car. It was better to set up the tents right away, so that they
would be ready for them to crawl into when they got tired.
“Is there a grocery store in the camping area?” Sohoku’s sprinter bull asked.
“Only some sort of kiosk.”
“Wait, so we have nothing to eat?”
“You just ate!”
“That was over two hours ago. I’m not gonna make it through the night with one
piece of chicken and a sandwich!” the giant complained, starting to sound
desperate.
“We’re near the center. Some of us can stay here and set up the tents and some
can go and buy some food,” Kinjou said.
Tadokoro volunteered as a food courier because nobody knew how to buy enough
grub for him. Sohoku’s two second-years promised to help him. Toudou waited for
Maki-chan to go as well, but the green-haired climber said nothing. So they’d
stay and help with the tents.
Toudou had never set up a tent. He hoped that the others had more experience.
As it turned out, at least Fuku and Kinjou had mastered the noble skill of
setting up a tent. The others’ job was only to follow orders. After some trial
and error, their sleeping quarters rose on the grass patch. Shinkai and Arakita
were still lingering in the bathrooms, probably on purpose to save themselves
from an unpleasant task.
At around eight, their camp was all set. Toudou was happy that he and Maki-chan
got one tent only for themselves. There had been a condition though: to sleep
next to Tadokoro’s tent. Toudou hadn’t first understood what kind of trouble
would that cause but Maki-chan’s face had constricted in pain. When no one else
was looking, he had sought Toudou’s attention and formed a word with his lips:
‘snores’. Well, you couldn’t always get everything. Toudou reckoned that the
camping area was going to be noisy anyway and snoring would blend in with
surrounding sounds.
Shinkai and Arakita had sauntered back at the camp at right about the moment
that Kinjou had driven the last stake into the ground. Their supper had also
arrived. Baguette, cheese and ham.
Naruko endangered his health again by opening his mouth in the wrong place to
the wrong people. “Couldn’t you find anything more French?”
“You get to go to bed with an empty stomach for that,” Tadokoro grunted.
“Oi, I didn’t mean it like that! I just wanted to comment on how extremely well
you have blended into our environment.”
Toudou hauled himself to his feet from the grass where he had been lying after
setting up the tents. He wasn’t hungry yet, and besides, the evening activity
that he had planned was the sort that shouldn't be done on a full stomach. “Who
wants to go swimming?”
“Ooh, I want to go!” All the first-years excluding Imaizumi were ready
immediately. None of the older guys said a thing. They didn’t even seem to have
heard his words. Crap, would he have to babysit the brats? Manami was bound to
fall asleep in the middle of swimming and Toudou would have to save the life of
that narcoleptic daydreamer.
“Maki-chan, let’s go swimming!”
Again, he was ignored. Seriously, this was so annoying! The first-years were
already gathering their stuff and babbling absurdities. Suddenly Toudou didn’t
feel like swimming anymore.
Then Fuku stood up from the back of the van where he’d been sitting, dusted
down his pants and announced that he was going for a quick dip. As if it were
the first time that anyone had mentioned swimming.
And suddenly half of the group was ready. Izumida, Kinjou, the second-years,
even Maki-chan. Toudou stared, stunned, as his travelling mates started
rummaging through their bags for swimwear.
“What the hell? I just suggested swimming and nobody wanted to go!”
Nobody seemed to hear him talk. Christ, this was beyond infuriating! He felt
like staying in the camp and pouting, but he really wanted to swim. Besides,
there would be a lot of half-naked French girls on the beach.
Maki-chan’s hobby was half-naked girls. Or more specifically, looking at
pictures of them. What would he say when he saw all the attracting girls in
their bikinis?
Toudou wasn’t sure why the thought made him feel uncomfortable. Who cared if
Maki-chan was going to peer at girls? Toudou was going to do it himself, too.
In the end, the people to join the swimming trip were everyone except for
Shinkai and Arakita who said they had drenched themselves enough for that day
and Tadokoro who, according to his own words, sunk like a stone. Toudou could
very well believe it. He just hoped that Sohoku’s giant sprinter would not
stuff his face with their supper while they were away. Even Mr. Pierre was
coming along, though nobody knew if he was going to swim. Sohoku’s team had
kind of hinted that the old man was so clumsy that even if they got him a
swimming ring and floaties, he’d still drown.
The night had cooled off enough for the beach to not be crowded. Families had
already packed away their sand shovels and buckets for that day. There were
still some couples walking across the sand, and a group of young guys were
sitting on the other end of the beach, drinking something out of their cans.
Otherwise it was quiet. No half-naked girls.
“I’m just going to sit here on the beach and guard your stuff,” Mr. Pierre
promised, slumping on the sand in a way that could be described as anything but
graceful. “My body hasn’t been in the right condition for exercise for a few
years now.”
The others locked themselves in changing cubicles to change into their trunks.
It was damn dark in the cubicle after the sunset, and Toudou had to feel out
which way to pull on his trunks. From the cubicle next to him came a flood of
swearwords and rumble as someone reeled against the wooden wall in the
darkness. Funny, he thought that he had seen the mute party of Sohoku’s second-
year twins to enter that box. He hadn’t heard the boy say a word during their
trip – and not on any other occasion, for that matter.
He managed to pull his trunks on right, stepped out of the cubicle and
immediately realized two details.
Number one: He had never seen the Sohoku guys with so few clothes on, which
meant that he hadn’t seen Maki-chan with so few clothes on. Before the trip
they had only met wearing their cycling outfits and, on an occasion, their
school uniforms. He mostly knew about Maki-chan’s taste in clothes because he
happened be his Facebook friend (getting the acceptance had been such a tedious
task that Toudou had considered adding it into his CV with the rest of his work
experience). At the hotel Maki-chan had changed his clothes while Toudou had
been in the bathroom. Maybe he was just shy, as he differed from the regular
beauty standards. He was nothing but white skin, sharp angles and crazily long
limbs. Even though Toudou was the same height, Maki-chan looked taller due to
his slenderness.
Number two: Toudou was suddenly self-conscious about his body. Not because of
Maki-chan but because Sohoku’s captain had a trunk of an action hero. And
because Sohoku’s second-years were more heavily built than him. And because
Imaizumi the first-year looked three years older than his actual age. And what
about his own teammates then? Toudou had gotten used to Izumida’s bulging
muscles, but at what point had Fuku developed such impressive shoulders?
Never before had Toudou been insecure about his looks. He didn’t like the
feeling, didn’t like it at all. Somewhere along the way from the first day of
Hakone Academy to the last year his hormones had decided he wasn’t meant to get
broad shoulders or big biceps.
Luckily their troupe included three scrawny weaklings: Onoda, Naruko and
Manami. Manami at least looked like he had some chances of development, but
Onoda and Naruko were doomed to be stunted for the rest of their lives. Toudou
had maybe taken back his words about Onoda’s appearance – he wasn’t less than
three – but he really didn’t differ that greatly from a ten-year-old boy.
Then the first-years sunk in the waves and Toudou had to cease his evaluation.
He halted at the waterline, allowing a light wave to caress his toes. Uh, it
was much colder than he had expected! He had assumed, based on the air
temperature, that the waters had warmed up too.
There was only one trick for cold water. Quick dipping.
Everyone else had had the same idea and everywhere he could hear splashes, and
icy drops splattered onto his skin before he could sink in up to his neck. The
water wasn’t that cold after all but he reckoned he couldn’t stand to swim for
too long.
In the middle of their splashing, Onoda remembered he didn’t know how to swim
and started floundering towards the beach in a panic, even though the water
only reached his chest. Naruko promised to teach Four-eyes and Manami
immediately played along. Next the others got to witness how Manami held
Onoda’s hands while Naruko supported his stomach. The moment Naruko let go,
Onoda started kicking water vigorously, blinding everyone in a few meters
radius.
There was the sound of laughter on the beach. Toudou turned to look, spotting a
group of four young ladies who had paused to watch the swimming show. They
weren’t even trying to hide their amusement. Onoda, Naruko and Manami hadn’t
noticed but Imaizumi was inching further away from the blundering trio.
Typical. The moment there were French girls present, Toudou was surrounded by
idiots. He was about to lift his index finger – because pointing had quickly
become a trademark and eventually a reflex – but managed to stop himself. They
weren’t in a race or in Japan now. He didn’t know how the girls would react to
the gesture. It could be considered rude in France.
But should he ask the ladies to join them?
His great idea was ruined by the fact that he only knew two words of French and
neither of them worked in this situation.
Besides the girls looked like giants. Seriously, wasn’t there a single normal-
sized person in this darn country?
Eventually, when Onoda’s show didn’t offer anything new to watch, the girls
wandered off. Toudou let out air that he didn’t know he had been holding.
The others were already doing what they had come to the beach for: swimming.
Fuku and Kinjou had taken off to crawl side by side lined with the waterline.
Once rivals, always rivals, that’s how it was. Sohoku’s second-years, Izumida
and Imaizumi were following the captains after apparently coming to the
conclusion that keeping up appearances was worth it in a foreign country too.
Toudou would have been left alone with the moron trio, if at that moment Maki-
chan’s head hadn’t surfaced from the waves.
His unusually coloured hair was falling alongside his neck and shoulders and
forming a fan on the surface. Toudou remembered to have wondered about first
the speed Maki-chan’s hair grew (20 centimeters in a year – just what was he
eating?) and second the growing project itself. Didn’t it bother him while
cycling? Such a flapping cape of hair gathered wind like a sail and was bound
to cause unnecessary resistance.
Toudou had wondered and he’d been sure that Maki-chan would look even more out
of place with long hair. It was bad enough that his hair was green; was it
necessary to have half a meter of it too? Maki-chan didn’t like standing out
but somehow his choice of style made sure that no one else got a grain of
attention.
Toudou had contemplated how he would explain to his opponent that soon he would
be too embarrassed to be seen in public with him, but then they met after a
couple of months break (too long) and something had happened to Maki-chan. He
looked more adult than before. He had grown a little, his shoulders had
broadened, his face had gotten more angular and the indifference in his eyes
didn’t mirror insecurity anymore but instead awareness of his own boundaries.
His long hair made him stand out but, oddly enough, in a positive way.
Previously Makishima Yuusuke had just been an oddball. Now he was an oddball
who had people awe and sometimes even fear him.
And Toudou had noticed that he was thinking that Maki-chan was kind of… pretty.
In a weird, feminine way that he didn’t exactly understand – not to mention
whether or not it was okay for a guy to be pretty in a feminine way – but he
hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from him. Like he wasn’t now, when he
saw his rival straightening up to his full height and the lake water was
weaving his hair into dark-green plaits.
At least not before the person in question raised his eyebrows, signalling that
he had not only caught Toudou staring but was also wondering about it.
Toudou tried to laugh but could only form a noise that sounded like a cat with
a nasty cold.
Maki-chan lowered his other eyebrow, making it look even more like his brows
had a will of their own. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I swallowed some water,” Toudou coughed. ”And possibly a small fish too.”
“Nice. Now you’ll get all the fish’s parasites. We must get you treatment once
we get back home.”
Toudou’s brain stopped at the part ‘we must’. We must. Was Maki-chan going to
help him when they were back home? He wasn’t saying it out of carelessness,
since he knew that Toudou was always listening. Usually Maki-chan paid extra
attention to his choice of words.
“You have never been so concerned about my well-being before.”
The green-haired climber cleared his throat, looking away. “I’m not. The
purpose of my comment was only to emphasize your distress.”
Toudou tilted his head. “Aww, Maki-chan, you wouldn’t really want me to suffer
from parasites, would you?”
Maki-chan looked at him with that quite familiar gaze of his that stated
‘Toudou Jinpachi, this is the time for you to shut your mouth’, making Toudou
snicker to himself.
“Shall we have a little swimming match as well?” he suggested then. It would
him give something more sensible to do than staring at other men or the four-
eyed nerd’s miserable swimming lesson.
Maki-chan wiped wet locks away from his eyes. “Where shall we race to then?”
“That bight?” Toudou pointed at a curve in the water line at ten o’clock from
where they were standing.
“But you must promise not to cry when you lose.”
Toudou smirked. “Haven’t cried before and I’m not about to start now.”
Chapter End Notes
     I've got a fan art of this chapter from Isiya! First time I got a fan
     art so I was very excited. Here's Maki-chan: http://
     isilnara.tumblr.com/image/92716506523
***** Just one beer *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
‘Are you sharing a room with that maniac again?’
Maniac? Shinkai glanced over his phone at his tent mate who had managed to
engage himself in a scuffle with his bag, spewing out completely unprintable
language. Maybe he could be called aggressive on some occasions, though in
Shinkai’s opinion Yasutomo was more about ranting and less about actually
executing his threats. There was a rumour, however, that when they had first
met, Yasutomo had actually attacked Juichi but a good amount of time had
elapsed since then. Age did its job even with snappers like Yasutomo.
Ayane’s choice of words was perplexing, to say the least. Shinkai had already
read between the lines that she wasn’t very fond of all of his teammates but
she had never been this frank before.
‘Yasutomo? Yeah, I am. How come?’ The question came as a reflex and only after
sending the message did he remember he was supposed to pinch in using his cell.
On the other hand it probably would have pestered him, had he not asked. He
didn’t mention that they had to sleep in a tent. Ayane was already worrying too
much.
He tucked his hand under his pillow to lift his head higher. Yasutomo was still
rummaging through his bag. They had taken one of the smaller tents; the
smallest one, some might say. It wasn’t made for one person per se, but maybe
for one and a half? When they had been sharing their sleeping quarters,
Yasutomo had blurted out that he and Shinkai would take the smallest tent.
Unbelievably enough, Jinpachi had tried to argue for a moment – he’d insisted
on having the tiny-ass tent for himself and Makishima – but after Yasutomo had
threatened to shove one of Jinpachi’s headbands up his ass, they had quickly
come to terms. Shinkai didn’t really care where he slept as long as he had his
own sleeping bag. But it was going to be extremely cramped. Luckily the camping
area had a lawn. He had once camped in a place that had patches covered in
macadam. Now that could be called a tribulation.
His phone beeped again.
‘I don’t want you to sleep in the same room as that guy. I don’t like the way
he looks at you.’
Wha..? He had to read the message three times before he was sure he wasn’t
seeing things. Looks at me? What way?
Yasutomo looked at everyone in the same way: like other people only existed to
annoy him. He had probably chosen the tiniest tent only so that he could
rampage and kick Shinkai and accuse him of taking up all the space. A slightly
draining attitude but what could you do? One day Yasutomo would make an
interesting project for some brave shrink.
The young man in question had just finished his scavenging and attached a
charger he’d found into his cell phone. Shinkai watched, somewhat amused, as he
turned his head around, looking for a socket in the green fabric walls. How
long would it take for him to realize?
About four seconds. “Ah fuck!”
“There’s an electrical post outside,” Shinkai told him.
“No way I’m leaving my phone out there for everyone to fondle.”
“You’re not going to use it here anyway.”
“You are using yours.”
“Yeah well… I lack some common sense.”
“You’re right about that”, Yasutomo sneered, lowering his hands and seemingly
pondering his options. “Hey, wanna go to a bar?”
Shinkai dropped his hand that was holding his own phone and got up onto his
elbows. “What?”
“Right outside the entrance there was a bar. Wanna go and have a beer? I could
recharge my phone there.”
“We’re underage. They won’t let us in.”
Yasutomo looked at him, lifting his eyebrow meaningfully. “We’re in Europe now.
In France. They mix wine in breast milk here.”
”Hmm, I suppose. Maybe.” He thought about it for a second. “But we’ve got an
early wake up call tomorrow.”
“We don’t have to stay for long. Let’s just have one beer. I could recharge my
phone so that the battery lasts until the morning and after that I can plug it
in the car’s charger.”
Shinkai pondered it some more. He was tired and his limbs felt like a bag of
bricks, but it was only 9 pm and they still needed to reset their inner clocks.
Maybe if they stayed for just half an hour…
He hauled himself up, tucking his phone into his pocket. Ayane could wait for
his reply. It was too early to be awake in Japan anyway. “Well, if it’s only
one beer.”
Yasutomo crawled out of the tent first. Shinkai followed after grabbing an
energy bar for provision. The night was getting chillier, and he took a moment
to test if his tee shirt and shorts would be enough, but Yasutomo was already
going, sauntering towards the front gate with his hands stuffed in his pockets,
and Shinkai had to rush after him.
“We’ll just pop quickly in a bar just outside the entrance,” he told Tadokoro
who sat in the back of the van, inhaling a baguette. The others had yet to
return from their swimming trip.
”What bar?”
”There’s seems to be a small place next to the gate. We won’t be long.”
Sohoku’s sprinter grunted something, concentrating on his snack again. Shinkai
headed off to catch his teammate.
The camping area didn’t show any signs of going to bed, even though darkness
had already set. Many families were still barbecuing their supper, some people
were walking their dogs, and groups of youngsters were sitting on the lawn
listening to music. Shinkai thought that he could make out some different
languages from the camps but he couldn’t identify them. Oh well, he had never
had a brain for languages anyway.
“It’s funny when you understand absolutely nothing of what people are talking
about around you,” he said after catching up with Yasutomo. He unwrapped his
PowerBar, taking a bite. It was good that he had his own snacks because judging
by the speed Tadokoro that was gobbling at there wouldn’t be a crumb of
baguette left when they returned.
Yasutomo glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Tourists probably feel
the same way in Japan. Not many of them can read kana or kanji.”
“The city plans are also weird here. And have you noticed that every street has
a name?”
“Mm-m, I noticed in Paris.”
“Interesting how differently you can do things,” Shinkai huffed. “Have you been
abroad before?”
”No.”
”Me neither.”
They continued their walking in a companionable silence. Shinkai munched his
energy bar, and Yasutomo peered at the scenery surrounding them, occasionally
sneering at faults that he spotted. Shinkai hadn’t seen the bar when they had
visited the bathrooms to change their clothes but from the gate you couldn’t
really miss it. A small individual building that had a patio lighted with
lanterns and fenced with flower pots and junipers. There was the sound of
French dubstep coming from the open door and tables were occupied by young
customers. Good, for a moment Shinkai had anticipated that Yasutomo was
dragging him to middle-aged truck drivers’ regular location.
“I’m still pretty sure they won’t let us in,” he said.
They were let in. Nobody asked to see their ID’s. Nobody even seemed to care
whether they entered or not. In fact, there wasn’t even a bouncer at the door.
“Do you know how to order a beer in French?” Shinkai asked once they were
standing at the end of a short queue leading to the counter. The place was even
smaller than its exterior had suggested. With a quick glance he counted a dozen
tables sprinkled here and there in the tiny space.
Yasutomo peeked at him over his shoulder. “No. I thought you’d know.”
“I left my dictionary back at the camp.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.”
“We’ll just have to point at what we want. I reckon they understand gestures in
this part of the world too.”
When it was their turn, Shinkai pointed at the previous customers carrying beer
pints and lifted two fingers. The bartender asked something to which Shinkai
smartly answered ‘non’. The guy probably wanted to know if they’d like some ice
in their beer or something as equally weird.
Yasutomo looked at him. “What did he ask?”
“I have no idea. Let’s see what we get.”
The bartender placed two ciders on the counter. With ice.
”So you ordered us pre-teenage girls’ drinks,” Yasutomo remarked.
“But I pointed at those previous customers.”
“The woman had a cider. The bartender must have asked if you wanted beer or
cider. Excellent work, Shinkai.”
The bartender was saying something else to them just now; judging by his tone
he was telling them to bugger off. Shinkai grabbed the pints and made a beeline
to the patio through the people pouring in. “Who knows, maybe French cider is
good?” he said over his shoulder. Yasutomo just grunted something.
They found a free table. It was placed in a corner that everyone came to smoke
in front of and it wiggled horribly every time they laid their arms on it and
on top of that in the table next to them a chubby man was guffawing loudly
every other minute but otherwise it was passable.
Yasutomo voiced his opinion immediately. “This place sucks.”
”You’re the one who wanted to come.”
“It looked a bit classier from afar.”
“Come on, it’s not like we’re moving in here. Besides, the cider is pretty
good,” Shinkai said after tasting his drink.
Yasutomo took a sip but didn’t say anything. That was a sign that he liked his
drink but his pride prevented him from admitting it.
“Isn’t it weird?” Shinkai continued. “We can talk about whatever we want and
nobody can understand us. We could rate all the other customers without them
realizing.”
“You seriously decided to become a chick?”
Shinkai chuckled. “No, just pointing out that we don’t have to be careful with
our words.”
“It sounded like you wanted to gossip.”
Shinkai laughed again and took another mouthful of his drink. “What is this,
apple or pear?”
“Who fucking cares?” Yasutomo was gulping down his drink with a crazy speed. He
probably wanted to get away from the bar soon if he considered it shoddy. “Oi,
Shinkai.”
“Yeah?”
“That chick of yours… Ayane, was it?”
Hmh, Yasutomo definitely knew his girlfriend’s name. “What about her?”
“What did she say when you decided to go to Europe for ten days?”
”Nothing, why would she?” He shrugged. Okay, so maybe she had demanded that he
bring her some French perfume and after the trip he needed to spend a whole
week with her and her only. Under the same roof.
He wasn’t sure what Ayane’s parents would say about that. Because the only
possible arrangement would be Ayane coming over to Shinkai’s. He didn’t want to
leave Usakichi alone right after his return. Yuuto had already demonstrated
that he didn’t have a clue about how to take care of pets. Shinkai was not too
keen to find his little brother feeding his bunny chocolate cake again.
“She keeps texting you all the time.”
“Shouldn’t she?” Shinkai challenged.
“It’s expensive for you to message from here. Is she having a hard time
believing that you can keep your hands off of French chicks?”
“They are not that kind of messages,” he argued. Ayane had never asked him
about other girls. She was only interested in where Shinkai was and what he was
doing. Wasn’t that normal in a relationship?
Yasutomo leaned closer to stare at him with a rare ‘I have valuable information
for you and it might affect the rest of your life, and even if it’s your own
business whether you take my advice or not, I suggest you listen carefully’
gaze of his. Was this the way he was looking at Shinkai that Ayane had
mentioned?
“Shinkai, girls are cunning. They never say it directly. They ask nonchalantly
what you have done during the day and then draw a conclusion about whether or
not you have been sousing your dick in a foreign pond.”
Just what on Earth do you have against Ayane? Shinkai felt like asking. He
didn’t, though, since obviously Ayane had something against Yasutomo too.
“Well, she can draw all the conclusions she wants,” he said. “Like there was
time to check out girls in the middle of a race.”
Yasutomo hmph’d, picking up his pint again. A third of its content disappeared
down his throat.
Shinkai decided to change the subject. “But really, think about it, in fifteen
hours or so we’ll be watching the Tour. Can you believe it?”
“Hopefully we get to see Arashiro.”
“Must be a bit hard in such a big bunch of cyclists. But maybe Mr. Pierre knows
some good spots for watching.”
”The first time I saw the geezer, I thought he was a local nutcase.”
“Same here. But that could be part of his strategy. He pretends to be a nutter
so nobody expects any great plans from him. Many people thought that Sohoku was
a small fry but look what happened.”
“I’d still say that Sohoku owes most of their success to Kinjou,” Yasutomo
remarked.
“That too.”
”That old man can’t even ride anymore.”
“He can still be a good strategist.”
A snort. Yasutomo drank out of his glass. Shinkai glanced at his own pint,
noticing that he was very much behind. Knowing Yasutomo, he’d get up
immediately after swallowing the last drop and head off to the camp, and
Shinkai didn’t want to waste a drink in which he had spent a few coins of his
meagre holiday budget. He took a generous gulp of his cider, so that gas
bubbles rushed up his nose, burning and making his eyes water.
“Careful now, Shinkai,” Yasutomo said. “It’s not a banana milkshake.”
Shinkai wiped the corners of his eyes. “I was just trying to keep up with you.”
”Go ahead then.” Yasutomo tilted his glass for the last time before slamming it
back on the table. “I’m going get us seconds.”
Oh? Oh.
Shinkai was left to stare, stupefied, at his teammate’s receding back. Weren’t
they supposed to have only one beer?
* * *
During the next hour it turned out that ’one beer’ didn’t mean ‘a pint per
person’ in Yasutomo’s vocabulary. Shinkai stared at the cluster of glasses
occupying their table and tried to remember if he had drank three or four of
them. His phone had beeped once during their bar excursion. Jinpachi had wanted
to know if they were lost. ’Everything’s fine. We’ll be back soon,’ Shinkai had
replied. But now he wasn’t so sure that they’d be back soon. Or even before the
early morning.
“Hey, Shinkai,” Yasutomo said. For the whole evening, he’d been starting his
sentences with Shinkai’s name, as if there were other people at the table and
he needed to emphasize that he was directing his words to Shinkai. “Have you
ever thought..?” He trailed off in mid-sentence to take a sip of his beer. How
many was that already? Fourth or fifth? ”..have you ever thought about what it
would be like to have sex with a guy?”
Out of all the questions Shinkai could have expected, this one wasn’t on the
list. Yasutomo tended to use crude language but usually he wasn’t being
serious. And now he seemed to be. Serious. Even if he tried to mask it under a
nascent drunkenness.
Or perhaps he was already pissed. Shinkai didn’t know because he’d only seen
his teammate drunk once. Back then Yasutomo had challenged Izumida to
weightlifting contest – and lost. The evening had ended in Yasutomo dropping a
weight on his toe and he had been taken to ER on quite a questionable ride.
Also a very drunken Jinpachi had thought that nothing would be funnier than
taking the wounded teammate to hospital on the rear rack of a bicycle. Since
none of them had a driving licence, not to mention a car, Yasutomo had
eventually agreed. Still, Shinkai was sure he’d never heard Japanese used as
creatively before that night.
Anyhow, it was quite hard to tell whether Yasutomo was just tipsy or downright
wasted. He didn’t really slur or teeter, simply just swore more and became more
contentious.
“Yes, I have,” he said.
That apparently wasn’t the answer that his drinking buddy had been waiting for.
Yasutomo’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline and his upper lip pulled back to
reveal a row of even, white teeth. “You have?”
”I’m pretty sure everyone has thought about it at some point. I mean, when
musing over their opinion on the matter. ‘How would I feel about it’, you know?
It doesn’t mean that you’d given it a serious thought or actually planned to
try it out.”
His companion was silent for a moment. “Yeah.”
Shinkai waited but when Yasutomo didn’t continue, he lifted his glass to his
lips again. This was absolutely the last beer. He could already feel alcohol
rambling around his system, making his muscles lethargic and his thoughts
sluggish. He had drunk too much in a too short period of time and with an
almost empty stomach. And he didn’t even like the taste of beer. Hngh, he
should have known better.
On the other hand… why not continue until the end since they were already over
halfway?
“What the fuck is Toudou goofing around for?” Yasutomo blurted out next.
Shinkai got a feeling that the previous question had not been an introduction
to this but Yasutomo was using Jinpachi as a diversion.
He had no idea at what point had he learned to profile his teammate so
accurately. But now when he really thought about it, he was actually quite good
at it. Heh.
Wait a minute. What did Yasutomo ask me last night?
Was it even Yasutomo?
”What goofing around?” he asked, though he reckoned he already knew. Just
playing along...
”He’s constantly all over that Sohoku’s third-year climber.”
”He’s been doing it for ages.”
“I know, but it’s getting worse. Yeah, so they don’t see each other all the
time because of the distance but since the flight Toudou has been clinging to
that green-haired creep like a leech.”
“Maybe it’s precisely because they don’t get to see each other that often.”
“So what? I’m not clinging to Imaizumi even though I see him once in two months
or so.”
“You don’t have any kind of emotional bond with Imaizumi. Jinpachi and
Makishima are good friends.”
“Are they?” Yasutomo asked. His tone challenged, and he leaned towards Shinkai.
Alcohol had slightly dulled the sharpness of his eyes but his gaze was still
demanding an answer.
“What? Friends?”
“Only friends?”
”I suppose so.”
A small creature in the back corner of Shinkai’s brain was roaring with
laughter.
”Mark my words; something is not right in that combination.”
“Jinpachi just has a bit of a different view of friendship than us.”
”Yeah, extremely fucking ga–” A bubbling burp interrupted Yasutomo’s words. He
didn’t even try to hold it in which could have been a sign of a deepening state
of inebriation – or then again, not. “I wouldn’t be surprised if after this
holiday he told us that he’s moving to Chiba.”
“Well, Makishima would talk him out of it.”
Yasutomo snorted to himself, turning to look at the camping area over the plant
fence. “Toudou has always been such a chick.”
Shinkai felt a smile tugging at his lips. Not because of what Yasutomo had said
about Jinpachi, but because of the devotion he had said it with. It seemed that
today’s theme had been chicks and guys who could be called chicks. “And yet
he’s the most popular of us amongst girls,” he noted.
“Girls don’t understand what’s best for them. Besides, Toudou might be the most
popular amongst the fans but you’re the only one of us who’s got a girlfriend.
What does it matter to have fangirls if you understand nothing about women?”
“Ayane wasn’t our fan,” Shinkai couldn’t stop himself from clearing that up.
“She still isn’t.” That had been one of the criteria for them to start dating.
Shinkai wanted the girl to be with him for himself, not because he happened to
be part of a successful sports club. Though, sometimes he wished that Ayane
would be a tad more understanding about the devotion that cycling required from
him.
“I’m sure.”
“She really wasn’t.”
Yasutomo looked at him, his brow rising meaningfully. “It wasn’t a sarcastic
comment.”
So the guys had also taken notice that Ayane didn’t exactly love Shinkai’s
hobby. Or not that there was anything wrong with the hobby itself, only the
fact that Shinkai’s intense practise and race schedule snatched a big slice off
of their time together.
”But to return to the previous topic…” Yasutomo stooped closer, lowering his
voice even though nobody understood them anyway. “Is there a price?”
“What price?”
“We just talked about it.” A frustrated eye roll. “Is there a price that would
make you agree to have sex with a guy?”
Chapter End Notes
     After I had already written several chapters, I found out that most
     of the Hakogaku guys are living in dorms, not at home. In this fic I
     hint that at least Shinkai is still living at home and it would be
     kinda pain in the ass to start changing it now, so I’ll just go with
     my original image. Of course you can imagine that he’s staying back
     home just for the summer break. Again a detail that really has no
     significance whatsoever for the plot, I’m just a bit displeased
     because I like to have my facts straight (I’m weird in that way).
***** It’s a matter of… Gackt?? *****
Chapter Notes
     Again, I'd like to thank everyone who commented or left kudos! This
     journey wouldn't be nearly as fun without you. :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“Is there a price that would make you agree to have sex with a guy?”
Oo-kay. Shinkai huffed. He had... kind of expected the question, but it still
stunned him into silence. Because he hadn’t seriously thought that Yasutomo
would ask. Or he had thought that he’d at least form his question differently.
Maybe snort that he’d not be willing to do such things in a million years, but
Shinkai, Shinkai was different. Because he looked semi-gay or something equally
as clever. Hadn’t Yasutomo once said that Shinkai had a woman’s lips?
Yeah, he had. The praise in its entirety had been something along the lines of
Shinkai’s whole face being a paradox (they had just got out from a math lesson
and Yasutomo had yearned to use a new term he’d just learned) because he had
the lips of a female porn star but a guy’s nose and the eyes of a noble
Englishman. Shinkai had replied that some day Yasutomo was bound to be crushed
under his eloquent compliments.
Thinking about it made him smile.
“What are you grinning at, moron? I asked a perfectly valid question. Or is
your price so low that even thinking about it makes you laugh?”
“I wouldn’t want money.”
Yasutomo let out one of his barks of which you couldn’t say with your eyes
closed whether it came out of a human’s or animal’s mouth. He had made the same
sound when Sohoku’s miniature climbing wonder had caught up with them from the
last place in the Inter High. Usually the sound denoted astonishment, this time
too.
Shinkai began to explain. “I could in theory – note, in theory – maybe do it
out of curiosity. I mean if I did it, I think curiosity or the will to
experience something new are better reasons than money. Accepting payment would
make me feel like a prostitute.” He shrugged. No need to make a big deal out of
it. In any case, he was in a relationship with a girl. The guys knew he didn’t
play for the opposite team. “How about you? What would be your price?”
Yasutomo glanced at him. “We’re never going to talk about this in the front of
the others. This conversation stays in this bar.”
Shinkai nodded, laughing. “Deal.”
“I wouldn’t want money either. It is… would be more a question of... whom. Who
I’d do it with.”
“Well yeah, I wouldn’t jump into bed with some old pedobear either. It ought to
be someone close to my own age. Preferably someone with experience because I’ve
got none.”
”So who’d you be willing to do it with?”
”Hm?”
”Say someone you’d do it with if the opportunity presented itself.”
“I’m not going to say any names,” Shinkai refused. There was a limit for gay
talks too. And he couldn’t just name someone out of the blue except maybe…
“Gackt?”
Yasutomo looked at him like you look at idiots who start yelling certain dates
and names of militant groups at an airport. “Gackt?!”
“Yeah. Or I don’t know. It just popped into my head.”
“You’d do it with a forty-year-old dude?! You just said ‘someone close to your
own age’.”
“I told you, it just popped into my head,” Shinkai defended himself. Why the
hell had he blurted out something like that? He didn’t really want to try
horizontal tango with Gackt – or any other man for that matter. He felt his
cheeks starting to gain heat. Jesus Christ, it must have been the booze
talking.
Yasutomo burst into laughter. For the first time in his life, Shinkai felt like
punching him.
“I’ll make sure you’ll never forget that!”
“Didn’t you say these talks will stay in this bar?”
“Nah, this is too juicy!” More guffawing.
Asshole, Shinkai thought. He was on the verge of breaking character and giving
Yasutomo such a good piece of his mind that he wouldn’t talk to him for the
rest of the trip. If Yasutomo ever mentioned it in front of Ayane…
“It’s your turn,” he grunted.
Yasutomo was wiping his eyes. “Oh my god, that was golden, Shinkai! Golden.”
“Your turn,” Shinkai repeated more emphatically.
“I need to think for a bit.” Yasutomo pushed his chair back, scrambling to his
feet. The hem of his shirt got stuck in the corner of the table and he tugged
it free, not caring if it tore. “I’m gonna get us one more drink.”
One more?!
“Um, Yasutomo, I don’t think that’s such a good idea…”
“Shut up. It’s a great idea. I’ll ask the bartender if I can recharge my phone
on the counter.”
Shinkai frowned. ”Sorry if this is a stupid question, but at what point in the
evening did you start speaking French?”
”They’ll understand if I show them my phone and charger.”
Shinkai wasn’t so sure. French people seemed to methodically refuse to
understand any language other than their own. But let Yasutomo try. One of the
bartenders was a 190 centimeters tall gorilla who would definitely chasten any
difficult customer.
When Yasutomo returned, he wasn’t carrying pints but two clear shots and a
small pack of L&M.
Shinkai raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t bother judging me, bunny lover,” Yasutomo spat, unwrapping the pack and
shaking out a cigarette. “We’re not in the middle of a race now. I smoke maybe
two fags a year. It doesn’t affect my physical condition.”
“I didn’t mean that. What’s in them?” Shinkai pointed at the small glasses.
“I have no idea. I said ‘deux shots’ or something at the counter.” Yasutomo
turned to the customers at the table next to them, gesturing to get his
cigarette lit.
“I don’t know about you but I’m nearing the condition where drinking shots is
not really the wisest idea.” They had drunk so fast that not all of the alcohol
had been absorbed into their systems yet. The final impact was yet to come, and
at that point Shinkai would have gladly been on his way back to the camp.
“There’s the same amount of alcohol in a shot as in a pint of beer. We were
going to have one more anyway, so what does it matter what form the alcohol
comes in?”
You were the one wanting to have one more. I wanted to go to sleep. The evening
was turning into night, and the chilliness was gnawing on Shinkai’s bare arms
and legs, making the hair on them stand on end. He was aware of the fact that
without the alcohol swimming around in his blood, he would have shivered.
“These are absolutely the last ones,” he said, picking up one of the glasses.
The clear liquid smelled suffocatingly like booze and mildly like herb.
Yasutomo took a drag of his cigarette, exhaling smoke onto Shinkai’s face. “If
you say so.”
Shinkai took a firmer grip on his glass, knocking it back into his throat. A
searing burn, hellish stinging and disgusting taste exploded inside his head,
threatening to make him gag. This was the reason he didn’t drink hard liquors.
He opened his mouth, panting and blinking tears out of his eyes. Why wasn’t
there any water on their table? He knew that his sense of taste was somewhat
feminine – nobody else in their team liked chocolate, not even Jinpachi, though
it was possible that he just refused to eat it due to his health nerdiness –
but it was still hard to imagine that Yasutomo would be that delighted with the
taste of the shot.
His teammate was preparing to gulp down his drink. Shinkai waited.
He could not help but to gloat when Yasutomo failed to down it in one go. He
stopped mid-way, squeezed his eyes shut as they started to water and stuck his
tongue out, coughing and looking suddenly very nauseous.
“Careful now, Yasutomo. It’s not Bepsi.”
“Zip it.” Yasutomo inhaled deeply, knocking down the rest of his shot. His
reaction wasn’t as strong now that he knew what to expect but he still looked
liked he was trying not to puke.
“What about your phone?”
Yasutomo swallowed a couple of times before glancing at his cell and charger
lying on the table. “Oh yeah, right. I forgot. I’ll just recharge it in the car
tomorrow.”
”Okay then, are you ready to answer your own question?”
Yasutomo cleared his throat, taking a few puffs of his cigarette and tapping it
on the side of the ashtray. “I don’t know. I don’t have anyone in my mind. I
was talking on a general level.”
”Hey, you made me answer, so it’s only fair that you say a name too.”
“I didn’t make you. You blurted Gackt out of your mouth on your own.” A mocking
smile returned to Yasutomo’s lips.
Shinkai decided it was time for a little payback. “It’s Jinpachi, isn’t it?”
He’d never seen anyone sober up so fast. “Huh?”
“That’s why you brought him up. You have been thinking about trying it with
Jinpachi. You’d like to bend him over a table and–“
Yasutomo hauled his hands in the air so harshly that the cigarette flew from
between his fingers. Luckily nobody was sitting behind them. “Stop, stop, stop!
No, I wouldn’t! Jesus fuck, what are you talking about?”
“Well, you did bring him up–“
”Because Toudou is gayer than the gayest member of the Village People! Not
because I wanted to screw him! Tanuki’s scrotum, Shinkai, what is the matter
with you? Why are you even implying such things? I’d puke if we weren’t sitting
in a bar’s patio.”
Shinkai felt a very uncharacteristic giggle bubbling in his throat. Man,
revenge was sometimes sweet!
“If Jinpachi is that gay, wouldn’t he be a good target for your experiment?”
“I don’t wanna screw any bitches. Besides, he’d probably scream Sohoku’s
climber’s name the whole time.”
Shinkai couldn’t hold the bubbling down anymore. A very startling, very unmanly
giggle broke out from between his teeth.
Yasutomo tilted his head. “Are you perhaps a little drunk, Shinkai?”
Shinkai covered his mouth with his hand and kept it there for as long as the
fizzing continued. It was one those giggle fits that you only got when you were
overly tired or buzzed. They were impossible to control. He could only wait
until his muscles grew tired. He had probably never sounded less like himself.
“Yeah, you are. You are fucking smashed,” Yasutomo summed up.
Shinkai continued to chortle for an indefinite amount of time – enough to make
everyone on the patio stare at them – before running out of oxygen booted his
survival instinct, chasing the laughter away. He coughed, wiping the corners of
his eyes before he dared to speak.
“Possibly.” Yeah, he was plastered. He didn’t usually drink that much alcohol
because it didn’t go well with a target-oriented sports hobby, so even small
amounts shot right up to his head. It was that last dose that had pushed him
from being just drunk to being totally shitfaced. “Shall we… go back?” he
suggested. There wasn’t anything to drink on their table anymore and he could
still summon enough willpower to end their boozing.
Yasutomo scanned over their surroundings. People around them were chatting,
drinking and having fun, but he realized their situation. They were already
beyond the point where they’d be feeling alright the following day. Jinpachi
was going to have their asses in the morning.
“Okay, let’s go then.”
They got up. Yasutomo had no trouble but Shinkai, who hadn’t lifted his ass
from the cheap patio chair for the whole evening, felt his legs melting down to
goo the moment that he put his weight on them. He had to support himself on the
table, which would have tipped over and hit him in the face, had Yasutomo not
held it from the opposite side.
“For the love of god, try to stay on your feet!” Yasutomo yelped, but he was
already coming over to support Shinkai. He had to guide him to the entrance
because there was so little room and Shinkai was bumbling into all imaginable
things (and one person which resulted in him digging through his brain for the
only French word he had memorized: merci). The yard had more space and he
stopped to find his balance again. Yasutomo was looking at him, his face
scrunched up in suffering.
Or maybe he would have been looking at him, if Shinkai’s vision had been
working. Which it wasn’t.
He tried moving, told his right leg to take a step. It did. And then the left
one. It was obeying too. Alright, the connection between his legs and brain was
restored.
”You show the way,” he said, though his speech really wasn’t speech anymore,
but incoherent alien mumbling. “That las– drink might ‘ave–“
That last drink had gotten into his head fast. Just moments ago he had
articulated comprehensibly and been aware of his surroundings, and now he was
swaying and teetering like… well, a drunkard.
Yasutomo swore something under his breath, but grabbed his arm nonetheless and
started walking him. Hopefully towards the camp. Shinkai had completely lost
his sense of direction.
* * *
He began to discern something of his surroundings when they made it back to the
camp. He could make out their vehicle and a row of tents. He wouldn’t have
found his own tent but luckily Yasutomo was nowhere near as drunk as him. Which
really could be called a miracle because they had drunk about the same amount
and Yasutomo was slenderer than him. Maybe he was just more experienced.
There was someone sitting on the yard even though it had to be past midnight.
The figure was wearing a yellow shirt and black pants. Shinkai couldn’t
identify it before it opened its mouth.
“Finally. I promised Toudou I’d stay awake and wait for you to come back.”
”Sorry, Juichi,” Shinkai muttered. ”We’re fi– Nggh, oi, Yasutomo, I need… need
to ta– a leak.”
Yasutomo exploded right by his ear. “You just did a minute ago!”
“Oh really?” Shinkai tried to remember. Now that he gave it a second thought,
his bladder didn’t feel full. Alright then. Good that at least one of them had
a working brain. He wished to remember whether he had gone to a bathroom or
just pissed on the side of the road. Knowing Yasutomo he had suggested the
latter and Shinkai might have obeyed in his loosened sense of modesty.
“We’re gonna hit the sack,” Yasutomo said, letting go of him. A sudden lack of
support made him slump on the grass. “You should too, Fuku-chan.”
“I’m already going. Like I said, I was waiting for you.” A short, meaningful
pause. ”I hope you’ll sober up by the morning.”
“What do you think we are, babies?” Yasutomo snarled, squatting next to
Shinkai. He lifted his head with a struggle, blinking in hope to get some
clearly outlined objects in his field of vision. Oh, he was lying right in
front of a tent. Yasutomo had a nice aim, but after all, he had pitched in
baseball before.
His drinking buddy opened the tent zipper and poked him in the ribs. “Get in.”
”Here, have a bottle of water,” Juichi offered. Shinkai could only see his
sandals and ankles, unable to crane his neck further. Yasutomo possessed at
least some manners, muttering a quiet ‘Thanks’ to Juichi.
Shinkai had no idea how they made it inside the tent. His recollection of
memories ended in lying in the grass and continued when he was sprawled on his
sleeping bag, staring at the army green fabric. He could hear rustling beside
him as Yasutomo apparently was opening his own sleeping bag.
“Let me know immediately if you start feeling sick. If you puke in the tent,
I’ll make a jacket out of you for Usakichi.”
“Hehe, she’d get so many jackets out of me…”
“Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m not going to wake up to the sound of
puking, and especially not to the smell.”
”Yeah, I get it...” Shinkai didn’t usually throw up after consuming alcohol.
Except that one time when he’d been fifteen and tried sake for the first and
last time in his life.
Yasutomo changed his clothes and settled down in his sleeping bag. Shinkai had
no chance to change into his nightwear. His muscles were completely flaccid.
Maybe it was better this way, since it was rather cold in the tent. The night
was bound to get chillier and he was sensitive to the cold anyway.
”Yasut– could... you..? He swallowed the acid that was climbing up his throat.
“..help me get… inside my sleep– bag?”
His black-haired friend sneered. “And how do you suppose I’d do that? There’s
about half a centimeter of extra space here.”
“You were the one… wanted…” You were the one who wanted the tiniest tent.
Shinkai felt himself being pushed against the side of the tent. The ground
beneath him started moving. Yasutomo tugged the sleeping bag, making him roll
onto his side his face against the fabric. Then there was an audible crackle of
a zipper.
“There you go,” Yasutomo grunted, arranging the sleeping bag back on the ground
and pulling Shinkai on top of it. “You can get in there by yourself, right?”
Shinkai tried. If he slipped his leg in there… and lifted his ass... and his
other leg would go in there…
”Ready.” He relaxed and looked at Yasutomo – or at least in his general
direction – expectantly until his tent buddy leaned over him to zip up his
sleeping bag.
“You’re such a big baby. Next time remind me that I won’t allow you to get
drunk, if you become like this.”
Shinkai was too sleepy to answer. Instead, he searched for a better position in
the tight bag. Something was pressing on his hip and after fumbling around for
a moment he pulled out his forgotten phone. Okay, now he was warm and had a
pillow under his head. Everything set. Though, on second thought, there was the
tiniest feeling circling around in his stomach.
“Could you please find me an energy bar from my bag?”
”No, I couldn’t!” Yasutomo snarled. ”You’ll do without it until the morning.”
Maybe he would then. But wasn’t there this advice that you should eat and drink
water between alcohol doses so you wouldn’t get hung over that easily? They had
done everything wrong. Shinkai crawled onto his side inside his bag, facing the
fabric wall. His lids were heavy and thoughts were crawling around mindlessly,
the world starting to darken on its edges. He’d probably fall asleep the moment
he closed his eyes.
Then Yasutomo coughed. It wasn’t one of those coughs that clear your throat but
one of those that try to attract others’ attention. Shinkai sighed, trying to
keep his lids open for a few more seconds.
“About that question…” Yasutomo muttered barely audibly. ”Actually there is
someone… I could consider. I mean, if I had to. Or if the curiosity became
overwhelming.”
Excuse me, are we still talking about this? Couldn’t we talk, for instance,
about cycling? Or better yet, couldn’t we just sleep?”
Shinkai hummed to let his tent mate know that he was listening. He waited,
fighting against the approaching twilight, but Yasutomo, that devil in humans’
clothes, couldn’t blurt out his issue after all.
“Mhmh?” Shinkai tried again but his friend stayed quiet. Fine then. He could
hear it tomorrow.
There was a rustle of fabric behind him. Every time one of them moved they
unintentionally touched each other. The tent wasn’t designed for two adult-
sized males. Next time, Shinkai was going to make sure that they’d take a
bigger one. Jinpachi was free to cuddle with Maki-chan in the play tent.
Thinking about Jinpachi made him feel like giggling. Shinkai allowed one
snigger to escape his throat but then he pressed his lips together, swallowing
the bubbles. Time to sleep. His lids slid shut, and he started to float further
into dusk. He would have probably fallen asleep immediately, but then a warm
weight settled against his back. And not just his back but his ass and his
thighs too. A hot puff of air ruffled his hair. It smelled faintly like
cigarettes.
With a great effort he managed to form a full sentence. “Can’t you… move… back…
a little?” Yasutomo had been further away just a minute ago. Their arms had
touched but lying on their sides made more room in the tent, so logically
thinking Yasutomo would be able to leave a few centimeters between them.
”There’s no room to do anything,” Yasutomo mumbled. His voice came from really
close. If Shinkai had turned his head, their noses would probably have touched.
A vague inkling was bothering him. He still felt like he should say something,
but he was beyond the point where he could still have returned to wakefulness.
He could muse over it tomorrow when his mind had rested and thoughts were again
rolling in the right direction.
“Good night,” he said – or at least hoped to say. After that his brain turned
off the lights.
* * *
”What would be your price to let someone fuck you?”
”Mhhm?” Shinkai tried to blink. ”What..?” Then the question pierced the top
layer of understanding, making him remember what they had talked about before.
What freaking nonsense they had talked about. There was a foreign weight, a
foreign presence hovering above him. His limbs were bound by the sleeping bag
but the weight felt heavier than fabric. After he managed to crack his eyes
open, he could make out a human figure. A primitive instinct told him to be
startled – because people got startled if all of a sudden someone climbed over
them – but his body was too numbed by alcohol. Besides, after giving it a
second thought, he realized that the creature above him was just Yasutomo. He
was supporting himself on all fours, balancing over Shinkai like asking for a
confession. Yeah, suppose that was what he actually wanted. “Mm… I wouldn’t
want... money... told ya... it’d depend... on the guy…” Shinkai tried to form a
coherent sentence.
“If it were Gackt?”
“Naah,” Shinkai waved his hand, although probably only in his imagination.
“That was… was a slip of the tongue, told ya so… no Gackt.”
“What if it was… one of us?”
Shinkai was frowning very hard, trying to make his head work at least on half-
speed. “Jinpachi? Dunno… he’s a bit… he only sees… sees that… Makish–“ His
throat suddenly snapped, closing and then opening again, forcing him to swallow
bitter liquid gathering in the back of his mouth.
Yasutomo let his head hang in defeat. “Fuck, you’re slow.”
“Mmm… I’m… drunk off my ass, Yasut– I don’t know… can’t this wait..?”
Yasutomo suddenly shoved his face way too close, almost touching him, his sharp
eyes drilling into Shinkai’s. “What if it was… me?”
“You?” Shinkai felt the world swaying and he was abruptly hit by an urge to
attach a cute clip of music into it. So he did. Only his humming managed to
sound exceptionally drained and drunken.
Yasutomo poked him in the face with his nose. It was quite bizarre, since until
then the only people to have had their faces so close to his were his mom and
Ayane. And Usakichi too, of course. Even if she wasn’t a person.
“Shinkai, stop humming and listen to me, god damn it!”
“What did you ask me again… Oh yeah, if it were you… if I had to… with you? I
dunno… we’re both guys…”
”That was the whole point!” Yasutomo exploded, grabbing Shinkai’s shoulder and
shaking him. ”If you had to do it with a guy!”
Why are we talking about this in a French camp site at three in the morning?
Why are we talking about this when I’m tired and we should be sleeping and
shit, Jinpachi is so going to lecture us tomorrow…
”If I had to do it with a guy…” Shinkai was thinking. Or pretending to think.
In reality, he was just trying to look like half of his brain wasn’t sound
asleep. “You’re my… pal. I don’t know… maybe. At least you’re not... what did
you say again... a chick?” Another burst of giggles erupted from his lips.
“Be quiet, you idiot!” Yasutomo hissed. “You’re gonna wake up the others!”
Hey, you’re the one that started talking to me!
Shinkai squeezed his lips together, but laughter broke through them. He burst
right onto Yasutomo’s face.
His black-haired mate straightened up to sit on Shinkai’s hips, wiping his face
with his sleeve. “Jesus, how can you still be so trashed?”
“I don’t know.” Shinkai kept snorting to himself for a moment, but his laughter
lacked the energy and finally he grew too tired, sobering up a bit. “Can we…
sleep? Now? Are you... happy?”
”I will hold you to that,” Yasutomo said but climbed off of him, settling down
into his own sleeping bag. Shinkai had an urge to ask what he was going to be
held to, but he understood that it was very unlikely that he’d remember
anything about their conversation in the morning. Besides, the more he kept
talking to Yasutomo, the longer he had to stay awake. His tent buddy didn’t say
a word after that – or if he did, Shinkai couldn’t hear it.
Chapter End Notes
     From now on this fic will be one big abuse of Shinkai.
***** Weird conversations and hangovers *****
Chapter Notes
     As always, thanks for everyone who commented, gave kudos and/or
     bookmarked. Sorry I didn't answer all your comments personally, but I
     want you to know that I really appreciate every one of them! :)
     Then on with the show. It's the last day of the Tour in 2014, but not
     the last day of this fic.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
”I’m not a virgin. When I turned sixteen, my grandma got me a prostitute to
take care of the problem.”
”Wha–?” Toudou was blinking and gaping, mute from astonishment. ”Wait, what?”
Maki-chan snorted, his lips stretching into a wide grin. “Not really, but you
should have seen your face.”
“Maki-chan, that was cruel!” Toudou slapped his tent mate on the arm. God damn
it, he had actually believed it for a second. Maki-chan was a really good liar.
He had spoken with a totally serious face and sounded like even remembering the
event was shameful.
”I was telling half of the truth, though”, he said after that.
”What?”
Maki-chan exhaled, reaching behind his head with his hand. His fingers touched
the tent fabric, fiddling with it, as his eyes slid to the ceiling. “Grandma
did offer to get me a prostitute. Mom’s side of the family has always been
quite liberal.”
Toudou raised his upper body up onto his elbows. “But you refused?”
”I refused. I don’t know if she was actually serious in the end.”
Maki-chan laughed a bit and Toudou joined him, because this time it was a
natural laugh. Maybe not relaxed yet but clearly easier than those sarcastic
snorts he let out when somebody was giving him a compliment.
It was around midnight. They had crawled into their tent at the same time as
the rest, around half past ten, because everyone was so tired. Fuku had
promised to stay up and wait for the two lost sheep, aka Shinkai and Arakita,
to return. The day had been quite fun, in Toudou’s opinion. Maki-chan had
mostly been in a good mood the whole day, looking genuinely content after their
swimming trip and late night snack. And after they had wrapped themselves in
the sleeping bags, he had not immediately gone to sleep, but had started to
talk to Toudou. Toudou never missed an opportunity to chat with his climber
friend. And that’s what they were still doing.
They had, in fact, quite a lot to talk about once Maki-chan got past his
initial resistance. They had not only chatted about the trip but also about
their families: Toudou had confessed that he didn’t actually want to inherit
his family’s ryokan, and Maki-chan had told him about his older brother living
in Great Britain. The conversation had stayed in a neutral zone, and therefore
Toudou was absolutely not prepared when Maki-chan suddenly returned to his
question from two weeks back.
Now, when they were finally talking about it, Toudou felt a serious jittering
in the pit of his stomach, as if Maki-chan’s status had especially mattered to
him. Maybe he wanted Maki-chan to be a virgin, because then he wouldn’t be the
only one. The others he could never be sure of; he just didn’t have the nerve
to ask them.
Maki-chan sighed again, lifting his arm from beneath his head to rest over his
eyes. “I am not though.”
Toudou’s heart stopped for ten seconds and then began to pound against his ribs
at an increasing speed. Hotness splashed all over his face at the same time as
his feet sunk into icy water. “What?”
The arm stayed in its place. ”A virgin.”
Huh?
Okay. But... oh? Really? Hmm.
Toudou digested it for a moment. His heart’s unruly hammering had become nausea
in his gut.
It doesn’t matter. He’s still Maki-chan.
But he couldn’t help but look at his friend in a new light. If someone had
asked him, he would have said that it was just a tiny bit wrong that Maki-chan
had got rid of that burdensome stigma and he hadn’t. After all, he was Toudou
Jinpachi, one of the most popular guys in Hakogaku, if not the most popular.
And Maki-chan was… not so popular. Unsocial, reclusive and hard to approach.
How on Earth had he gotten so close to a girl?
“How… When?” he managed to cough out, thankfully sounding almost normal.
“It was almost a year ago and I haven’t been with anyone after that,” Maki-chan
muttered like he was embarrassed about it. A completely opposite attitude
compared to the ones that Toudou’s teammates had. “Almost as if it never
happened.”
“How so? Was it..?”
A laugh, this time a strained one. “No, it wasn’t with a prostitute.”
Toudou had a hunch that Maki-chan wanted to tell the story even if it wasn’t
his favourite. He took a better position, waiting patiently. His tent mate
still rested his arm across his face.
“If I… I’m gonna tell you, Jinpachi, you can’t…”
”I’m not going to tell anyone.”
That made Maki-chan glance at him. Toudou tried to look like he could keep a
state secret. And really, he could. He talked a lot in general but was able to
keep his mouth shut when it was about someone else’s important secret.
Especially when it was about Maki-chan’s secret. Because never before had Maki-
chan confided in him.
Toudou wondered what had changed recently. Why was Maki-chan now so much more
relaxed around him?
The blue eyes moved to the ceiling of the tent, not looking at him, but at
least his arm returned onto the pillow, away from shadowing his face. Toudou
was still waiting. The camping area was noisy around them. Judging by a distant
basso rumble somebody was throwing a party. From the other side they could hear
crickets chirping and birds singing. A faint wind made the fabric walls
flutter. It was getting chilly; soon they’d have to crawl inside their sleeping
bags.
“Like I said, it’s been a year. Last fall…” Maki-chan trailed off to exhale and
maybe to search for words. “Okay, so I and Kinjou and Tadokorocchi… after a
race we went to this one party…”
Toudou kept thinking about why the story was so hard to tell. Couldn’t Maki-
chan just say that he had picked up a girl and spent the night at her place? Or
that they’d just gone to the backroom of the party house. Or in the bushes. Or
where ever they had…
You don’t have to tell me.
He wasn’t stupid enough to blurt his thoughts out loud. He wanted to hear. He
couldn’t recall when he’d last wanted to hear something so badly. But a hint of
nausea was still lurking in his throat. He could only hope that he looked calm.
“And as the night progressed, this… person came to me and… okay, I was a bit
drunk and probably so were they and… or not ‘probably’, they were drunk.” A
shrug. “And then things took a wrong turn.”
“Why a wrong turn?”
“I don’t know, it just didn’t feel right. Maybe I’m more of those guys who want
to know the other person before…”
Toudou had no idea why hearing this made him feel warm inside.
“Who was she?” he asked, trying to sound like he was flooding with empathy. “I
mean, did you know her before that? Was she a cycling club fan?” How did you
manage to lure that girl in bed with you? What did you say? What did you do?
It sounded more like the girl had initiated it. Where could you find such
girls? Like outside of a brothel.
Maki-chan relaxed his neck, making his head roll onto the left cheek, towards
Toudou. “Can you really keep a secret?”
“Of course I can,” Toudou assured, inhaling sharply right after that. “Shit! It
was that Kanzaki’s little sister, wasn’t it? What was she called again? Miki?”
Wasn’t she a first-year? Or last fall she had still been in middle school. No
wonder Maki-chan was a bit embarrassed about the subject.
As a result he got an extremely tight, extremely awkward laugh. “No, it
definitely wasn’t her.”
“Are you sure?”
Maki-chan glared at him long and hard. Alright, so maybe that had been a stupid
question.
“Well, who was it then?”
“You don’t know them. I hadn’t met them before – and not afterwards, for that
matter.”
“Come on, give me something, Maki-chan! Was the girl the same age as us?
Younger, older?”
His friend cleared his throat. “The thing is… that person wasn’t exactly… a
girl.”
Wasn’t a girl? What? What decrepit granny had Maki-chan done the dirty with?
Toudou had sworn to himself that he’d stay compassionate but if Maki-chan
really had slept with some middle-aged hag–
Oh.
Maki-chan was looking at him, trying to figure out from his facial expressions
if he had understood or if he had to spell it out.
He didn’t. Toudou had understood. Or at least he was 99.9 percent sure that he
had understood. But if just one simple, tiny question…
“So that girl was… a guy?”
Hmm, perhaps he could have phrased it more eloquently. His verbal skills had
experienced a lot of headwind lately.
Maki-chan let out yet another laugh, which sounded more like a hyena’s bark
this time. It was full of irony – self-irony – and hearing it made Toudou’s
stomach twitch. Why did Maki-chan always have to think about himself so
negatively?
You thought about him negatively just now. You were musing about how he had
managed to get intimate with someone, given that he is so unpopular. Do you
even know how popular he actually is?
Toudou silenced his inner moralist. At the moment he wanted to concentrate on
the conversation. Later there would be time to think about whether it was
morally right or not to boost your self-confidence at the cost of your friends.
“Do I need to answer that?” Maki-chan asked.
”Well, if you’re not denying it, I almost have to assume…”
“Yes, Toudou, that girl was a guy.”
So they were back on surname terms.
Toudou opened his mouth to say something, but words slipped from his grasp.
What were you even supposed to say in a situation like this? ‘Congratulations’?
‘I’m sorry’? He also wanted to ask if it had been a single slip and a horrible
experience specifically because the other party had been a guy, or just because
of mismatched personalities or such things. Actually, he wanted to ask if Maki-
chan was...
Before he managed to decide which comment would suit the situation best, his
tongue threw away the filter and started firing indiscretions: “What the hell
is that gravure hobby of yours then?”
Maki-chan peeked at him. “It’s a hobby.”
“But I mean, it includes… half-naked girls and if you–“
“Shh, Toudou, we’re in a tent, not in a hotel room.”
Reluctantly, Toudou lowered his voice. “Do you look at half-naked dudes that
way too? Do you have guy catalogues?”
“No, I don’t. And don’t start thinking that I’d want to… grope you or your
teammates or something.”
“I wouldn’t think that,” Toudou said quickly. And it was true. Maki-chan kept
his distance more strictly than any other person that Toudou had come across.
He mused about whether or not the revelation bothered him or not. His body was
recovering from the fall that it had taken after Maki-chan had told him that he
had already left the behind the burden of virginity. And right after that he
dropped a bomb like this. For some reason Toudou wasn’t especially shocked.
Surprised yes, but he was slowly becoming himself again. His heart was still
beating a bit too fast and he was slightly shivering but that could be due to
the chilly air.
Just a moment ago he had thought that Maki-chan was Maki-chan even if he wasn’t
a virgin anymore. But what if he was…interested in guys? Would Toudou still see
his long-time rival in the same way?
Then it suddenly dawned on him how massive the secret that Maki-chan had
revealed to him was, and a spark of pride jolted in his chest. Did this mean
that he was in Maki-chan’s coterie?
“Does anyone else know?” he asked.
“Only Kinjou and Tadokorocchi.”
Wow, okay. Toudou would have imagined that the bull had somewhat old-fashioned
opinions about same-sex relationships, but even if he had prejudices, it didn’t
show in his behaviour towards Maki-chan. In fact, Tadokoro seemed to be the
closest with Sohoku’s ace climber.
“And now me,” Toudou couldn’t resist adding.
“And now you.” Maki-chan flashed him a lopsided smile. He was getting a hold of
himself again. He pushed his arm under the pillow, lifting his head and letting
out the breath he’d been holding. His chest fell what looked like ten
centimeters.
“Then how come the experience was… so bad?”
“Because I didn’t know the guy and it was a drunken experiment. Didn’t really
get much out of it.”
Toudou had read about it. First times were often full of wavering, insecurity,
fumbling and all kinds of embarrassing occurrences, such as premature
ejaculations, losing of erection, using a condom incorrectly, forgetting a
condom and god knows what.
Maybe he shouldn’t rush his project after all. Maybe it would be better if he
got to know the girl a bit before jumping into bed with her. It would be
utterly unbearable if he lost his erection right in the middle of action. What
would that do to his reputation?
He wanted to pry for details, such as what exactly Maki-chan had done with the
other guy, but he reckoned that he wouldn’t get an answer. Maki-chan had
already stretched his limits by trusting Toudou with such a heavy secret. He
felt like touching his friend, maybe patting him on the shoulder encouragingly
but that would probably make Maki-chan turn in on himself. He only tolerated
touching when he was the one to initiate it.
But had he tolerated it back then when that… that guy had approached him?
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Toudou assured him once more. “And it doesn’t
bother me. If that’s what you’re thinking.”
Maki-chan peeked at him out of the corner of his eye. “I was pretty sure it
wouldn’t bother you.”
Toudou didn’t know whether to be even more proud or to wonder what Maki-chan
actually meant with his comment. Did he think that Toudou was fashionably
liberal? Or that his morale was so loose that even a certain marquis back in
the 18th century couldn’t match him?
Why was he even thinking about it?
Instead, he should have been thinking of what to say to his friend when he
would inevitably ask about Toudou’s experiences. Should he tell the truth or
babble vague crap about overly-affectionate fans who tried to jump his bones
immediately after he got off his bike?
“Well, that’s about it,” Maki-chan said, yawning. It looked faked. “Should we
get some sleep now? It’s been quite a long day again.”
In Toudou’s gut, relief intertwined with disappointment. Didn’t even Maki-chan
want to know what his status was?
”Unless you have...” Maki-chan suddenly continued. ”..something you want to
share?”
“Umm… I suppose that can wait. I’m pretty tired too,” Toudou heard himself say.
Sometimes he felt like a walking paradox.
“Alright then.” There was a rustle of fabric as Maki-chan tugged his arms
inside the sleeping bag, to shelter them from the cold. “I should warn you
though: if you’re a light sleeper, it could become a burden on this trip.”
His words were echoed by a piercing, abrasive, thorough nose-completely-
stuffed-up-and-the-other-airways-full-of-glue rattling. His face was probably
mirroring his shock as Maki-chan chuckled.
“Kinjou manages to shut him up. Sometimes.”
“What about Mr. Pierre? How can he sleep with so much noise?” Toudou suspected
that the thin tent fabric didn’t muffle the snoring at all.
“Nah, the old man has selective hearing. He can block out any disturbing
noise.”
“That’s an enviable talent.” Toudou wrote himself a mental note to purchase
earplugs, otherwise sleeping could become a challenge.
“Besides, I’m under the impression that he snores too.”
“Poor Kinjou.”
“These kinds of obstacles only help him with his mind controlling practises.”
“You don’t say.” But what about the rest of us?
They were quiet for a while. The silence wasn’t awkward like Toudou would have
anticipated after their discussions. Perhaps they were just too tired. Maki-
chan had chosen a perfect time for his revelation.
The person in question just turned onto his side inside his sleeping bag, his
back towards Toudou, like he always seemed to lie, taking a deep breath. “Now
go to sleep, Toudou.”
“Aye aye, captain.” Toudou laid down on his back, arranging his pillow properly
under his head and zipping up his sleeping bag. The air was still full of
noise, animal sounds, basso thumping and most piercingly, Tadokoro’s ground
shattering snore. And steps as someone walked across the grass patch just
outside their tent. Fuku who had to wait for Shinkai and Arakita.
Toudou closed his eyes, trying to block out the noise. In fact, it was easier
now when there was a full cacophony of them; they blended in with each other. A
lonely sound in the middle of the silence would have been more disturbing. Even
so, he hoped that Tadokoro would snore just a few decibels lower.
“Maki-chan, wasn’t the bull at least a bit judgemental when you told him you
had been swapping gravies with a rump ranger?”
“Oh my god, Toudou, shut up!”
Toudou smirked to himself before closing his eyes and resuming his hunt for
sleep again.
* * *
The dawning day threw at least one peculiar detail in front of them.
Shinkai and Arakita had a hangover.
“How is that possible?” Toudou asked. He had just returned from the bathrooms
along with seven other members of their troupe and was ready to jump into the
car. It would have been nice to get a bite to eat before that, but Mr. Pierre
had suggested that they buy breakfast on their way to the watching spot, as now
it was important to take off soon. Everyone else was pretty much ready to
leave, but then two squinty-eyed zombies crawled (after Fuku’s command) out of
the last tent. “It’s the first day of the Tour and you’re hung over. Well,
Arakita doesn’t really surprise me, but I expected more from you, Hayato.”
Arakita rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Shut the fuck up, Toudou. Your bleating
hurts my brain.”
Shinkai was in a much worse condition than his pal. His red hair was sweaty and
ruffled, his face was ash grey and his eyes that were usually so big had
narrowed into knife slits. The gaze showing from between his lids was turned
in, towards the nausea bubbling beneath his skin. His clothes, the same as
yesterday, were hanging on his frame, wrinkled. He held his head in his hands,
breathing deeply in order to balance the swaying of his stomach. A resilient
trail of drool was sneaking down his lower lip; one of those that anticipated
vomiting. Soon he’d start to hang his tongue out like in his infamous straight-
line demon mode.
In the middle of all the astonishment, Manami stepped in front of the duo and
snapped a picture of them with his phone. Arakita let out a roar, leaping
towards the punk, but Manami had slept better than him and was quick to escape.
He even laughed while running, that insufferable imp. Onoda looked like he was
about to wet his pants out of terror. Arakita’s rage had that kind of impact on
older people too, let alone a first-year otaku who’d probably grown up in the
back room of his house.
“Don’t worry, Four-eyes,” Toudou said, laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Manami is fast.”
Arakita soon gave up because running around apparently made his head pound
twice as hard and Manami simply had the ability to defy gravity. He had already
leaped over the hedgerow to delight the occupants of their neighbouring camp.
“Why the hell did you decide to go and drink your asses off even though you
knew that we have an early wake up call?” Toudou couldn’t resist asking.
“Because I don’t get hung over if I go to bed early enough,” Arakita huffed,
wiping black hair out of his face. “But this time Shinkai laughed through the
night so I couldn’t get any sleep.”
“I reckon it was that grandpa who snored,” Naruko pointed out.
“Are you tired of living, midget?!” Tadokoro bellowed. Naruko retreated
quickly, lifting his hands in submission.
”I didn’t laugh,” Shinkai managed to groan. “You were the one clinging onto my
ba– mmphh!”
Toudou had never seen Arakita move so quickly, not even on a bike, when he
attacked Shinkai and slammed his hand over his mouth. First Shinkai struggled
out of sheer surprise but gave in soon after realizing he had been attacked by
a teammate and not a bandit looking for hostages.
Waving his free hand, Arakita began pushing Shinkai towards the path. “Cheers,
suckers! We’re gonna go and throw up now.” After that, the duo started
staggering towards the bathrooms, Arakita determined and Shinkai hanging half-
limp in his grasp.
The others were left to stand on the camping spot, blinking, stupefied. What
exactly had happened just now?
“Come back as soon as you can,” Fuku recovered enough to shout after the two
problem children. “We need to get going if we hope to get a good spot.”
Both the camping area and the road passing in front of it had been busy the
whole morning. People were packing their stuff and climbing into their cars.
Everything foreshadowed the arrival of the Tour.
“We’re not staying in the city,” Mr. Pierre said. “The streets have been
crowded since sunrise and we can’t get in the close vicinity. We’ll drive to
the countryside to wait there. But we have to leave now before they close down
some of the streets and the traffic gets jammed.”
However much of a nutcase Mr. Pierre was, bringing him along had been the best
idea of the year. They would have been completely lost without a person who
knew the language and the customs of the country – and apparently even the
geography, too. The old man gave away an impression that this wasn’t his first
Tour.
“Let’s pack the tents and get in the car,” Kinjou ordered, and everyone went to
carry out the actions. Everyone else except Mr. Barfly 1 and 2, who had once
again escaped the camp site tasks.
They ended up sitting in almost the same places as before. The only difference
was that because it would be hard for Shinkai and Arakita to squeeze themselves
to the back of the car in a narrow, fully packed aisle and anyway it was
sensible to place them next to a door, Teshima and Aoyagi moved to the back row
and the booze duo would be seated closest to the door, next to Tadokoro and
Kinjou. Toudou and Maki-chan were on the same row as Naruko and Imaizumi again.
The redhead was really too much of a morning person, on a scale that even
Toudou couldn’t match, so thankfully they wouldn’t have to drive for longer
than half an hour.
The car was packed and ready to go. They drove up to the bathrooms and Fuku
hopped out, marching off to fetch their two missing members.
“Seriously,” Toudou sighed as he leaned against Maki-chan’s side. “Arakita is
usually the first person to complain about delays. If we miss a good spot
because of them…” He couldn’t even come up with a proper punishment. Not even a
month’s cleaning duty in the club room sounded like it was justified enough.
The atmosphere in the car was strained, as everyone was upset about the delay
to some extent (even if the delay wasn’t yet worth mentioning, maybe five
minutes or so) but nobody complained. Not even Naruko but probably only because
he had once again engaged himself in argument with Imaizumi.
“Let’s just leave them a note and go. We can come back to get them after we’ve
seen the Tour once the roads are again open,” Tadokoro said from in front of
Toudou. This time he agreed with the bull. That would teach them a lesson. What
the hell had they been thinking? Arakita had a bad influence on Shinkai.
”Hayato is not usually like that,” he said, feeling a need to defend his
teammate that he liked a lot more than the other one. Maki-chan peeked at him
over his shoulder, shaking his head slightly as if to say that if this had been
the first impression of the whiskey crusaders, it would have taken a couple of
years to repair it. Although, with Arakita, the first impression had probably
been quite bad from the start.
Maki-chan had been surprisingly normal the whole morning. And so had Toudou.
They had woken up at seven, gotten dressed, gone to the bathrooms to wash up,
packed their tent and collected their stuff. One time Maki-chan had looked at
him for a second too long through his green bangs, as if to ask if they were
okay. Toudou had nodded and they had resumed their packing. That was all.
And that was how Toudou wanted it to be. He wanted Maki-chan to know that he
could be trusted with secrets and that they wouldn’t change the way he regarded
his friends.
“Finally,” he huffed, spotting Fuku walk towards the car with the hangover
twins at his heels. Even if Shinkai had been able to walk on his own, he wasn’t
given a chance to try, as Arakita had thrown his arm over his own shoulders and
was practically dragging his teammate along. The trio hopped in the car and Mr.
Pierre drove them out of the camping area.
If the car had reeked like stale cola yesterday, now it smelled like old booze.
Toudou would have preferred the former. He was pinching his nose and waving his
hand in front of his face. “Dear lord above, do not breathe this way.”
“Zip it, bitch,” Arakita said politely.
There were cars on the streets, even a couple of small traffic jams too, but
they were able to drive at a decent speed. Although at the moment when there
started to be less buildings and more of field scenery, it was made clear that
a few other people had come to see the Tour, too. But then Mr. Pierre turned to
a sideway and they could increase their speed remarkably.
“Along this road there’s a nice small coffee kiosk,” the man explained. “We can
buy our snacks there – and coffee for those who need it. We can take the small
roads to get very close to our destination, and even if we have to stop there,
we can leave the car and just walk to the route of the Tour.”
So it was settled. They weren’t even in a hurry anymore, so once they reached
the kiosk, they had a generous amount of time to decide what to buy. Mr. Pierre
and Kinjou sat on the patio to drink coffee. Nobody helped poor Shinkai out of
the car; Arakita only asked him harshly what he wanted to eat and jumped out
before Shinkai could form a proper sentence. Hmph, if Arakita didn’t buy
anything to eat for Shinkai, Toudou would.
Inside, Arakita hogged himself half a litre of coffee and a bottle of Bepsi.
”Is that your breakfast?” Toudou asked.
Arakita threw him a glance that could roughly be translated as: ‘You have three
seconds to close your trap, you whining biddy, before I rip your favourite
shirt and sew your lips together with its thread.’ Toudou sneered, moving
further away, but he still made sure that Arakita bought some grub to Shinkai
as well.
They returned to the car with piles of snacks and bottles and the journey
continued. Though it continued for only three minutes before they heard the
first sign of discord, oddly enough, not from Naruko this time.
“I’m hungry,” Shinkai groaned. As nobody reacted, he repeated his lament after
a couple of minutes. And then again. And then again. Toudou had never seen
Shinkai so... un-Shinkai-like.
”Somebody give the starving whiner some food,” ordered Tadokoro.
“Don’t give him anything,” Arakita forbade them, nudging Shinkai to straighten
up his form. “He’ll fucking puke all over the seats if he eats something. He
can wait until the watching spot.”
Shinkai wiped his sweaty, deathly-pale face. “Jesus Christ…”
”You should drink a lot if you have a hangover,” Toudou said, and picked up a
bottle of mineral water which he passed to into Shinkai’s limply hanging hand.
Perhaps carbonic acids would calm the carousel in his stomach. “I solely blame
you for this, Arakita.”
“I didn’t drink that booze for him.”
“But you incited him to.”
”It was his own fault.”
Shinkai fumbled with the cap before he managed to open it, and took several
small sips out of the bottle. For a moment, he looked better and seemed to
continue his dehydration but Arakita snatched the bottle from him and for some
reason named himself as his teammate’s drink keeper.
“You should have done that yesterday,” Toudou muttered. The atmosphere calmed
down though because the hangover duo leaned against the seats, planning to get
some more sleep.
After fifteen minutes of driving in some periphery, Mr. Pierre slowed down,
turned the car to a narrow sand road and stopped. There were other cars parked
on the side of the road too, so it was probably a good place to leave the car.
“We’re here!” the old man announced. “Take your stuff so we can go and find
ourselves a spot by the racing route. The racers will ride past sometime after
the noon. There will be more people coming but it shouldn’t be crowded like in
the city.”
They gathered their stuff and started walking towards the crossing road. The
view mostly consisted of fields and meadows against distant rows of trees, but
here and there they could see cars and caravans, and some people were already
arranging camping chairs on the side of the road. It was only nine o’clock.
They had a several-hours wait ahead of them before the racers would pass their
spot. But they had a lot of food and drinks and the day seemed to become sunny.
Some sort of sunshade would have been nice to have too.
Toudou pointed at a big oak, the only one in the close vicinity. It was just by
the road, so close that it would serve as a perfect watching spot if other
people didn’t line up in front of them. “Let’s go and sit under that tree so
we’ll have some shade.”
They spread out on their chosen place, attacking their breakfast. Toudou had
brought his sleeping bag pad and he laid it on the ground in the shadow of the
tree. Maki-chan sat next to him before he even had time to ask, but
unfortunately he wasn’t the only one. Fuku and Izumida sat on his other side.
Toudou hoped that Arakita would keep some distance, because, in all honesty, he
reeked like a pirate that had gone deep diving in a barrel of rum. He didn’t
need to worry though, as Arakita dropped his own pad two meters away and began
arranging his drinking buddy on it. Commands accompanied by swearing were
flying in the air; it sounded like he was trying to give orders to a very
obstinate dog. Toudou knew that Arakita’s family had a dog. Was this how he
talked to the poor animal too? Although, now it looked more like as he was
trying to make a rag doll obey his commands. Shinkai was still in pretty bad
shape. Next time he’d probably think twice before downing such amount of booze.
After some long and hard labour, Arakita had apparently gotten Shinkai into a
desired position, because the swearing ceased and their little camp became
peacefully quiet.
They managed to sit under the tree and enjoy the warm morning with their snacks
only for a few minutes, before Shinkai scrambled to his feet, staggered further
away from the road and noisily threw up all over the grass field.
Chapter End Notes
     Shinkai can’t handle a hangover that well. Could someone maybe draw
     the picture Manami took? :D
     Edit: Emsandman did draw a fan art of this scene and omg, it's so
     accurate I can't believe! You can check it out here: http://
     emsandman.tumblr.com/post/93200582980/lelymypiilo-emsandman-manamis-
     photo-of-a Thank you so much! :)
     Damn, Maki-chan’s revelation was hard to write! In Finnish we don’t
     have gender specific pronouns, just one for both male and female, so
     Maki’s talking didn’t originally sound at all suspicious but now it
     just sounds like Toudou is really slow.
***** Solidarity between guys *****
Chapter Notes
     There will be quite a lot of Shinara in the near future. It’s because
     in this fic Shinkai’s and Arakita’s relationship works so differently
     from Toudou and Maki that I have to get the boys going soon. But
     Toumaki fans, don’t worry, they will get their screen time and have
     time to develop their relationship. :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
One of the best features of road racing was the intensity of it. The speed, the
effort, the pain, sweat and strategies, giving it your everything. And from the
watchers’ point of view the moment when after a long wait the first racers
appeared in the horizon – and how they just zipped past and disappeared. It
hardly lasted a minute even if you were standing by a long, straight road. But
then the next bunch emerged and you could relive the moment. That was the
spirit of road racing.
They had gotten excellent spots. Even though more people had showed up, they
had managed to keep their patch beside the tree and it wasn’t even crowded yet.
The weather was sunny and clear, not too hot, and a faint breeze was making the
dry hay swish. All in all, it was an ideal way to start watching the Tour.
Shinkai just hoped that he’d feel a bit better at the moment that the cars
leading the race came into view.
The worst storm had passed after he had thrown up for the third time (at that
moment there had already been a lot of people around and most evidently he had
provided the opening act of the day) but his head was still hurting like
someone had pounded it with a hammer. Rays of sunlight drilled straight into
his brain. He had arranged a pair of sunglasses on his nose but they hadn’t
helped him enough, so to his utter shame he had been forced to borrow one of
Mr. Pierre’s coffee filter hats. He reckoned that the rest of his life would be
spent listening to Yasutomo’s mocking.
Although, Shinkai would rather that Yasutomo mocked him for the hat and not for
what he had blurted out yesterday. With Gackt?! Just what had been going on
inside his head?
Well, a fair amount of alcohol, to start with.
His recollection of memories had been cracked from the moment that they had
left the bar. Somehow they had made it back to the camp, and he had slept in
the tent instead of on the side of the road. But there was a nagging feeling,
hinting that he’d said yet something else, something that he really should
remember. And sometimes, when he looked at Yasutomo, that something tried to
crawl onto stage from the back corner of his brain. Yasutomo kept glancing at
him in a weird way but maybe only because he caught Shinkai staring at him with
a deep frown.
He managed to push his hangover aside when the excitement rose amongst the
audience and people started cheering. The enthusiasm of the crowd was
engrossing – he had expected their group to cheer, wave, jump and clap – but,
as it turned out, every one of them was quiet, stunned into silence. The air
was thick with emotions. Next to Shinkai, Yasutomo was breathing heavily, and
on his other side he could sense Juichi’s muscles tensing up. He could see
Jinpachi hanging onto Makishima’s arm like his life depended on it, but
Sohoku’s climber was so absorbed with the race that he failed to notice the
abuse of his limb.
It was almost ironic that the freshmen were the first ones to recover.
“That bike! Look at it! I want one just like that! Ooh, what a babe! Give it to
me!”
Tadokoro had to hold Sohoku’s younger sprinter as he was about to bolt into the
road. If someone had lived until that day believing that there was a greater
love in Naruko Shoukichi’s life than bicycles, this was the moment that the
illusion crumbled down.
“Try to keep your pants on, you wacky midget, you’re embarrassing us!” Tadokoro
ordered but his voice was also wavering with emotion.
As the peloton had ridden past, more than one member of their troop had tears
on their cheeks. With Jinpachi it had been inevitable, but Juichi wasn’t the
first person that Shinkai would have bet on to weep. And he didn’t weep per se,
but secretly wiped the corners of his eyes.
The next burst of emotions followed, as Arashiro rode past. One would have
thought that there wouldn’t have been a crumb of control left after the first
wave, but they still found themselves hanging right beside the road. And at
that point the cheering gear kicked in, too.
Maybe Arashiro heard his countrymen shout – because it wasn’t the most
intensive phase of the stage and it was possible for racers to take a look at
their surroundings – or maybe he just happened to glance to his right but he
lifted his hand, waving at them.
”Someone catch Toudou! He’s passing out!” Yasutomo hollered.
”Shut up, you just creamed your pants!” Jinpachi hissed, but his balance did
seem a little off and he was still hanging onto Makishima for support.
“Oh, I thought that was Naruko.”
The person in question was so dazed that he let the insult slide. In fact, he
was so dazed that Shinkai wouldn’t have been surprised to see a wet spot in the
front of his pants.
Okay, so every one of them loved cycling and amazing road racers, there was no
doubt about it. But none of them loved bicycles quite as much as Naruko
Shoukichi. That had become clear during those few days that they had spent in
the close vicinity of Sohoku’s little sprinter.
“Do you see Andy or Frank?”
“Hah, imagine if Izumida had a chance to meet the guys,” Yasutomo said. “And he
told them he’d named his pecs after them.”
“You could ask them to sign your pecs,” Jinpachi added.
Izumida’s face got somewhat red and he stayed quiet. Unfortunately they didn’t
spot the Schleck brothers. But maybe in the next stage.
Seeing Arashiro was probably the finest moment of the first day, after all he
was one of the few Japanese cyclists to have ever finished the Tour. To Shinkai
it felt like he couldn’t see anything for a moment after Arashiro had
disappeared from view.
Eventually the road quietened and the cars driving behind the last racers
passed them. People started to scatter around. Their troupe walked slowly back
to the car to eat what was left of their snacks. The plan was to have a light
lunch and then drive to Tours. The next day’s stage would start there.
They unpacked the snacks from the car, spreading out a couple of picnic
blankets for their lunch. It was moments like this when you noticed the
dynamics and friendships of the group. In Sohoku’s camp, the third-years
settled down to eat amongst themselves, while the second-years formed their own
little group as did the first-years. Mr. Pierre had slumped down into a camp
chair, his filter hat over his eyes and seemed to have dozed off in a record of
time. Amongst Hakogaku, the third-years were usually inseparable but that had
been before there was anyone from Sohoku present. Therefore everyone was a bit
surprised when Jinpachi suddenly joined them. As did Izumida, but somewhere
between the last batch of cyclists and setting up a picnic their youngest
member had disappeared.
“Where’s that cursed gnome now?” Yasutomo asked.
“I don’t know, the last time I saw him was when Arashiro rode past,” Jinpachi
said.
Yasutomo clicked his tongue in disapproval. ”Maybe we should leave him here.
That would teach him to stay with the group.”
”Mhm, we were going to do the same thing to you back at the camping area.”
“What?!”
”It took you so long.”
”Dude was barfing!” Yasutomo pointed at Shinkai. ”Should I have ripped him off
the toilet in the middle of it?”
“You shouldn’t have been drinking yesterday!”
“Sorry, Jinpachi,” Shinkai muttered. His teammate was right. Their timing had
been utterly lowsy. It was incredible how thoroughly his self-control had
failed him.
“If you’re just gonna lecture us, you can move to Sohoku’s camp,” Yasutomo
growled.
“Well, everything worked out in the end,” Izumida tried to calm them down.
“Shinkai-san and Arakita-san got out in time and we found a good spot to
watch.”
Jinpachi huffed to himself, crossing his arms. “Barely.”
“No, it wasn’t ‘barely’. We got here hours before the Tour,” Yasutomo remarked.
After that, Juichi cleared his throat and the arguing ceased.
It wasn’t much of a lunch, because they were meant to eat better at their next
stop but Shinkai downed every piece of food that he got out of the picnic bag.
Hunger had been mauling at him the whole morning but nausea had prevented him
from eating and this was probably the first time in ten years that he had
skipped breakfast. He gobbled two sandwiches filled with ham, cheese and salad,
a croissant, two oranges, a banana and three energy bars and would have eaten
even more if the others had not hogged their share of the bag. Yasutomo had
borrowed (or perhaps snatched) a thermos from Mr. Pierre and he poured Shinkai
some strong, black coffee. His headache started to slowly dissipate.
“After the 15th stage, it’s a resting day,” Jinpachi said, his tone relented.
”It’s on the 15th, your birthday, Hayato. Shouldn’t we celebrate it?”
“Hmm, yeah.” Shinkai hadn’t forgotten his birthday – after all, it wasn’t every
day that a person turned eighteen – but the excitement from the Tour had forced
his birthday to take a backseat.
“Let’s just stick a candle in a choco-banana PowerBar. That’d make a suitable
cake.”
”Arakita, you’re so rude that I keep wondering how Hayato still has the
patience to look at your impolite face. We’ll definitely come up with something
better than an energy bar cake. Let’s see where we will be then…” Jinpachi
fished a folded map of the Tour out of his pocket, opening it with a very self-
important look on his face. “A place called Mont Ventoux. Maybe there’ll be
some nice restaurants or other places we could visit. I wonder if it has an
amusement park.”
“Mont Ventoux is a mountain,” Izumida said. “It’s completely bare. There’s
nothing there, hardly even plants.”
“Oh yeah, right. Damn. Well, maybe there’s a village or something close by.
Isn’t France quite a populous country? Hey, maybe on that resting day we could
rent bikes and go for a ride!” Jinpachi turned to look at Shinkai and Yasutomo,
his gaze stern. “Barring that on the night of the 14th you won’t disappear to
get yourselves shitfaced.”
Seriously, the world lost a great mother hen in Jinpachi.
* * *
Their next accommodation was a tiny camping area about twenty kilometers from
Tours. In fact, it was so tiny that it was a miracle that they had managed to
book a spot. Maybe Mr. Pierre knew the owners. The old man stopped the car in
the shadow of trees. Patches weren’t outlined clearly but on both of their
sides there were caravans so it was easy to make out their spot.
Some of them started to set up the tents right away, because they were still
planning to go and have dinner somewhere close. Shinkai sat down in the shadow
of a tree to enjoy the day’s third cup of coffee. He wasn’t really a coffee
drinker but for a hangover the bitter drink worked wonders. While sitting
there, he fished his phone out of his pocket, where it had been lying the whole
day. He just hadn’t remembered to check it since yesterday.
Whoops. There was a collection of new messages waiting for him again.
’Hayato, where are you now? Did you get to see the Tour yet?’
‘Did you see the Tour? What was it like?’
‘Huh, it’s actually really weird to not hear from you for a long time. Sure
there’s the time difference but shouldn’t it be almost noon in France now? Text
me when you have a moment.’
They had been messaging last night and even though it seemed to have been a
forever ago, in reality only 20 hours had past, most of them spent sleeping.
What was Ayane’s problem? She had always been very eager to text and call him,
but Shinkai had clearly stated that he couldn’t use his phone constantly during
his trip. He was almost scared to open the last message.
’Hayato, where the hell are you? I’m getting worried!’
“Hey, dude.” Yasutomo halted next to him and poked him lightly in the shoulder.
“What’s up? Feeling better?”
“Sort of. Still tired though,” he said. He felt immensely better, having eaten,
downed a couple of litres of water and some coffee on top of it, but he’d need
a good night sleep to feel properly alive again. Luckily he’d been able to
remove his ridiculous headwear.
“Mhm, same here.” Yasutomo pulled a scrunched L&M pack out of his pocket,
shaking a cigarette onto his palm. “Wanna bet on for how many seconds I can
manage to smoke this before Toudou comes to lecture me?”
Shinkai chuckled. “Jinpachi seems to be quite busy elsewhere at the moment.”
Apparently their climber princess had decided that he had fulfilled his duties
towards his own team and had glued himself to Makishima again. Sohoku’s climber
was trying to set up their tent, and instead of helping out, Jinpachi was
tugging his sleeve and babbling about something Shinkai luckily couldn’t hear
to his spot. Makishima listened, looking more or less suffering. And people
said about Shinkai that he had the nerves of a cow!
“Just watch.” Yasutomo clicked the lighter under his cigarette, taking a first
drag. Smoke enveloped them in the windless evening. “Well, what do you think
about the first day of the Tour?”
Shinkai answered with a wide smile. Words felt insufficient, too light to
describe the feeling that seeing the Tour had left them with. Everyone seemed
to suffer from the same problem. Throughout the day, they had talked about it
and every now and then someone had brought up a new detail about the race.
Remarks about how someone had ridden, what kind of bike he’d had, how the rest
of the audience had reacted. ‘Fucking amazing,’ Yasutomo had said and it was
pretty much to come from him, but it – like all the other comments – still
sounded like… like someone had ordered a small ball of vanilla in the world’s
most luxurious ice cream café.
“If you wait for a couple of hours, I’ll compose a symphony of this day.”
His teammate smirked. “What are you going to name it? Cycling symphonies in a
hangover falsetto?”
“Perhaps. Would you agree to sing in them?”
“If you’re looking for some horror elements.”
”Come on, your voice is not that bad.”
Yasutomo snorted. “You should recruit Fuku-chan. You’d get some opera in your
symphony.”
Shinkai let out a laugh. The only time they had actually lured Juichi into
singing, the results had been quite memorable, mostly because Juichi sung as he
lived. Honourably. And because judging by his singing style he had only
listened to opera until that day.
“Yeah, Juichi would undeniably fit in it.”
They chuckled in companionable understanding.
“Maybe we’ll get there some day,” Yasutomo said. “Y’know, the Tour.”
“Maybe.” Shinkai wondered if he’d have time to train at a university. He should
definitely pick a school that provided the chance to continue his hobby. “By
the way, where’s Manami? Did we leave him back at the watching spot?”
”Nah, Toudou reached him with his phone. He’s probably sleeping in the back of
the van right now.”
“Okay.” Shinkai really had no relationship with Manami whatsoever and the boy
caused his troubles all by himself, but they shouldn’t just leave him somewhere
in France’s periphery.
He ate his last energy bar, rinsing it down with coffee. After that, he got his
phone out again, starting to type his reply to Ayane. She would literally climb
the walls and maybe call Shinkai’s parents if she didn’t hear from him soon.
‘Sorry, I haven’t had time to answer because we’ve been on the road the whole
day. It’s that sort of a trip. Can’t really call it a holiday. We saw the Tour,
it was really great. Now we’re in a camping area again near Tours and tomorrow
we’ll go to the city early to get a good spot for watching. Please don’t get
worried even if you don’t hear from me every day.’
The last sentence was useless. Ayane was the worrying kind.
He almost felt like shutting off his phone to avoid making an extra bill but
that would make Ayane totally freak out. Besides, it was good to be available
in case his folks needed something.
Yasutomo sat with his knees bent, leaning his arms onto them, taking a drag out
of his cigarette now and then and watching Shinkai type out of the corner of
his eye. Shinkai had a feeling that he wanted to say something, but he had the
patience to wait until Shinkai had sent his message and stuffed his phone back
into his pocket.
“So… have you had a chance to consider my suggestion?”
Shinkai turned to look at his black-haired mate. What frigging suggestion?
Aargh, he knew that he had been left in the dark about something from
yesterday!
“You practically already agreed,” Yasutomo added, and to Shinkai it seemed that
he was trying to pretend to be more careless than he actually was: the
cigarette on the lips, a slight inhale, puffing out the smoke, a casual glance
from between his half-closed lids.
It was getting better yet. He had promised to do something that he had no
recollection of.
He tried to rummage through his mind. They had sat on the patio, downed some
cider, beer and finally the shots, talked bullshit about women and Jinpachi and
his relationship with Makishima. But he couldn’t remember having promised
anything.
“Remind me,” he said.
Yasutomo shook his head. ”Let’s talk about it later.”
”Why later?”
Yasutomo nodded towards the tents. ”Toudou is coming this way.”
Oh yeah, he was, actually. And he was stamping his feet while marching up to
them, making the grass fall like it was cut with a trimmer. His hands were
clenched in fists, his brows pressing heavily down onto his eyes.
He stopped in front of them, crossing his arms.
”Arakita, what are you doing?”
“I’m sitting in a French camp site and enjoying the warm evening.”
“You. Are. Smoking!”
Yasutomo lifted the cigarette to eye level, raising his brows as if he’d only
now noticed it for the first time. “Lo and behold! So it seems.”
“Do you have any idea what that stick of cancer is doing to your body? To your
cycling condition?”
“I do. That’s why I’m just going to finish this pack and not buy a new one.
What happens in France, stays in France.”
Jinpachi didn’t look convinced. ”How many are there left in the pack?”
“Mm, seven.”
”It’s seven too many. Your lungs will turn into chimneys. Give that pack to
me!” Jinpachi, who had never understood the concept of personal space, tried to
sneak his fingers inside Yasutomo’s breast pocket. Yasutomo just slapped the
hand away and resumed his smoking.
Jinpachi’s face got flushed with anger. “Give me those cigarettes!”
“No. I’ll smoke them during the trip.”
“I will tell Fuku.”
“Be my guest.”
Jinpachi stomped away at least as theatrically as he had arrived, with
determination and huffing and puffing to himself. Shinkai felt a smile tug his
lips, though on the other hand, he actually understood Jinpachi. Competitive
sports wasn’t just a hobby, it was a way of life. Your daily choices had to be
taken into account, whether it was about how many hours you slept or what you
put into your mouth. But their all had their weaknesses: Juichi had apple pies,
Shinkai had choco-banana bars, Manami was a slob to the core. Probably even
Jinpachi sometimes hogged fast food when he was alone. Izumida was the only one
of them with a samurai’s self-discipline.
Yasutomo had his Bepsi. And he was a bit lazy, though it was nothing in
comparison to Manami. He was right too; a few cigarettes wouldn’t ruin his
condition, as long as smoking didn’t become a habit.
Yasutomo didn’t bring up his suggestion anymore, but it looked like it was
still bugging him. Hell, it was bugging Shinkai too. Because he saw himself as
a man who kept his promise. That is, if he had promised something. It sounded
more like Yasutomo had come up a crazy idea, for example, he had suggested that
they would dress up as sheep for the graduation party, and Shinkai had agreed
in his drunken state.
He brought it up himself when they had retreated into their tent (which was
made for two people this time – they had swapped with Jinpachi and Makishima)
soon after their dinner trip, planning to get more sleep than the previous
night.
“So what have you suggested?”
Yasutomo was in the middle of changing his shirt and Shinkai’s question caused
him to freeze with his head inside the piece of clothing. Even time seemed to
stop, he was so still.
Was it that huge of an issue?
Then Yasutomo continued getting dressed, meaning that he tried to violently
yank his shirt on. Shinkai watched for a moment as his tent mate wrestled with
the cloth before clearing his throat. “That’s a sleeve.”
Yasutomo swore and tugged his shirt off to look at it properly before pulling
it on in the right way. His black hair was tousled from the operation and his
black eyes were staring at the tent wall.
“You seriously don’t remember?”
“Nope.”
Yasutomo turned to look at him. ”Do you remember what you said about Gackt?”
Heh. “Yeah, I do. But that wasn’t a promise.” Or was it?
Had he promised to try to get in Gackt’s bed?
No, he could never be drunk enough to promise that.
“Yeah well…” Yasutomo arranged – wrenched – the hem of his shirt over his
pyjama pants. Usually he wore nothing more than underpants in bed. Shinkai knew
it from the numerous training and race trips. He himself didn’t usually wear
more than underpants in bed. But in France it became surprisingly cold during
nights and the sleeping bag wasn’t enough to keep him warm. Yasutomo tugged the
zipper of his sleeping bag, opening it and lying down. His movements were still
a little too fast, nervous-like. Was he upset because Shinkai didn’t remember?
Shinkai waited, but his tent buddy didn’t say anything, he was just lying on
his back, snuffling to himself. Alright, he’d talk when he was ready. Shinkai
pulled out a pocket size detective novel that he’d bought just for the trip,
intending to read it until he fell asleep. Which wouldn’t take long.
“We talked about who you’d do it with if you had to screw a guy.”
Yes, he remembered this subject. It had presented itself a few times during
their trip (‘a few’ had to be pronounced very emphatically and with sarcasm).
Apparently Yasutomo was having some kind of identity crisis since he was
constantly musing over it.
Shinkai lowered his book. What kind of friend would he be if he didn’t listen
to a guy in need? “Yep, that we did.”
“And if we forget those Gackts and other celebrities because it would be kinda
unlikely that you’d get a chance to try it out with him, even if he had a
fetish for high school boys… The real option however would be to experiment
with someone close to you – so you wouldn’t need to go and hang around some gay
bars – and…” Yasutomo trailed off, taking a deep breath. He was searching for a
more careless tone. Shinkai could have pointed out that that ship had sailed
long ago.
“And I asked who’d you be with if you had to choose one of us.”
Had he really asked something like that? Shinkai couldn’t reach the memory but
he had a feeling that something of the sort they had jabbered about. This was
what had been nagging him earlier when his eyes had brushed over Yasutomo.
He hmm’d to indicate that his friend could continue.
“So and then…” Yasutomo cut his explanation off once more, rolling onto his
side to support himself on his elbow, facing Shinkai. “You really, honest to
God, don’t remember?”
”I don’t! I wouldn’t lie about something like this. I was so fucking wasted or
more likely half asleep when you started talking about it. I just remember that
you tried to mol–“
Molest me?
Shinkai stared at Yasutomo. Yasutomo stared at him. Seconds passed, becoming a
minute, then another and then yet another. Then the time stopped altogether.
The wind was rustling the tent fabric. Somewhere in the outside world a baby
was crying.
Hmm, there were grey-brown specks in Yasutomo’s seemingly black eyes once you
got a closer look. Shinkai hadn’t noticed before.
“You want to fuck me?” he finally said, stated like in the morning when you
look out the window and state that it had been raining during the night.
Because that was all he was capable of.
Yasutomo threw his head aside, breaking their eye contact. The muscles in his
jaw were tensing up, Shinkai could see them outlined on his skin. “Not exactly…
I mean, I don’t specifically want to fuck you. I was just thinking when we
talked about how it would be interesting to try and... maybe it would be most
convenient with a teammate.”
Shinkai failed to see any logic in that.
“If you really want to screw a teammate, how about Juichi?”
Yasutomo looked at him all too meaningfully. “Do you have any idea what you
just said?”
Yeah, suppose it wasn’t up for discussion, not even on a theoretical level.
“If I remember correctly, Jinpachi was excluded, but maybe Touichirou would be
up for it?” he suggested.
“No, not gonna happen.”
”Manami?”
”Christ, Shinkai! Can you hear yourself talking? Can you hear the absurdities
flying out of your mouth?”
Can you?
Not that Shinkai could (nor wanted to) imagine Yasutomo going at it with a
freshman. Manami’s sexuality was a mystery in any case. Shinkai didn’t spend
his time thinking about his teammate’s orientations but Manami was one of those
cases where it wouldn’t be surprising even if his libido was directed towards
tree trunks.
“In other words, you wanna fuck me,” he repeated.
”Argh, I said it’s not specifically…”
“But if you don’t accept anyon–“
“I would, if there were other people in our team besides the least loony elite
of an outpatient care – that wasn’t a compliment – and one iron-masked piece of
wood!”
“And I’m not part of that outpatient care lot?”
Yasutomo lowered his gaze, and Shinkai thought he saw a hint of pink on his
cheeks. Arakita Yasutomo embarrassed? They must be nearing the greatest plot
twist of all times. “Um, you’re not so… You have some sense in your head and…”
he muttered.
Shinkai wiped his face, taking a deep inhale. This was by far one of the
strangest situations he’d come across during his relatively short life. “You
know what, Yasutomo? Can I just say that I’m flattered? For the fact that you
could consider... um, fucking me.” I salute thee, sentence I never thought I
would say. “But I’ve got a girlfriend and actually I consider myself quite
straight and…”
“I’m not asking you to marry me, damn it!” Yasutomo barked, remembering only
afterwards where they were and lowering his volume considerably. “You’re making
the whole thing bigger than it is. I only said it would be interesting to try
it… to find out what it would be like with a guy. And it would be safest to try
it with someone you already know.” He trailed off, his jaw moving, as he
searched for words. “I don’t see it as cheating. If I had a girlfriend, I
wouldn’t think that. It’s more like… solidarity between guys. It wouldn’t
involve feelings. It’s a bit like when you jerk off with other guys in a locker
room.”
In Shinkai’s opinion, it wasn’t the same at all.
On the other hand, Yasutomo was right about the detail that excluding feelings
changed the act. There wouldn’t be anything romantic involved. It would be
purely mechanical performance, without any unnecessary touching, kissing or
anything that would indicate passion or two people caring about each other.
Shinkai didn’t think of himself as flawless person. However, he did think of
himself as a peace-loving, generally nice guy. Sometimes being a nice guy
became a burden. He could step into other person’s shoes, see things from their
point of view too easily. He gave in too easily when persuaded. The quality had
gotten him in trouble before.
But this was… this was in a league of its own.
”I think I can see your point,” he began, probing, because he was afraid of
giving Yasutomo the wrong impression. “About it not being cheating mentally, if
there are no feelings involved. But there’s, like, this minor rule about being
a boyfriend and a girlfriend and that’s no touching other people below the
waistline. Unless you happen to be a doctor, which I’m not.”
Yasutomo stayed quiet for a moment, digesting his words. Probably coming up
with a counterargument.
“You genuinely like that chick?”
“Hmh?” The question caught Shinkai off guard. “Ayane?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure, yeah. I like her. I mean, we haven’t been dating for that long but...”
”So you’re not with her just to get laid regularly?”
“No, I’m not.”
Yasutomo huffed, looking like he’d still want to say something but then he
decided otherwise. Good. Shinkai tolerated many things but criticizing his
girlfriend wasn’t one of them.
Yasutomo rolled onto his back, sighing again. The tent quietened down. Shinkai
lay staring at the ceiling for a moment but then picked up his book again.
He couldn’t really decide how to feel about his teammate at the moment. It
wasn’t that Yasutomo had confessed to have a crush on him or something equally
weird, he was only curious (anyone would be if they watched that much porn) and
Shinkai was conveniently available. But he was totally the wrong person. He had
a girlfriend and had, while musing over the subject of having sex with a man,
come to the conclusion that it really wasn’t his thing. Girls were soft and
cute and tender and clean and everything boys weren’t. Those were the qualities
that he valued in girls; that made him attracted to them. Instead, if he’d have
to stick his face close to other guy’s equipment… hrrgh!
Although. He had heard... or he was under the impression that the sex act
itself with another guy wasn’t all that bad. Like, if you forgot that men were
hairy, noisy and dirty. He had also heard that anal sex was quite a memorable
experience for a receiving party too, and specifically in a positive manner
when done right. If he didn’t have to fondle the guy or kiss him or touch his
dick, he maybe could have…
Dear lord, was he actually thinking about it now?
“So you’d be putting me in the chick’s role?” he checked.
Yasutomo practically jumped at his question. He had probably already thought
that they wouldn’t discuss the matter anymore that night.
“Er… you mean like…”
Because you asked me that one night if I have ever considered letting someone
fuck me. That’s how you phrased it. That I would be the one to take it up the
ass.
”Because if we now, in theory, pictured that I could see myself agreeing to
something like that – just out of curiosity. Hypothetically,” he emphasized.
“The partner should be of a very active kind because I’m really not sure if I’d
be willing to touch another guy’s dick.”
He knew that he was an exception. In some cultures to be gay was only to be on
the receiving end, the bottom, and the active party was still considered
straight. According to that, he should have wanted to be the one topping. But…
if he’d ever get involved in that sort of craziness, he felt like it would be
easier to just lie down and let the other guy do the job rather than try to
make himself get excited over flat chests, narrow hips or hairy asses. Not that
Yasutomo had a particularly hairy ass but naturally he had more wool than
girls.
Oi oi, you shouldn’t be thinking that! You’ve got a girlfriend! You’re
straight!
Fucking hell, what was the matter with him?
Yasutomo’s jaw was hanging open and his eyes had moved to the far right, as he
stared at Shinkai. He felt a small jolt of twisted pleasure for being able
catch Yasutomo off guard for a change. And it gave him back some of his
composure, bringing a grain of humour to the whole ordeal. Because, cross his
heart, he really couldn’t take this conversation seriously anymore.
Yasutomo pulled himself together. “Sure, you could be the bitch. If you wanted
to.”
“Okay.” Shinkai nodded to himself, getting back to his book. “Just checking.”
“What are y–?”
”Shh, Yasutomo, I’m reading my book now.”
A snort. And then another. Finally, as Shinkai refused to react, Yasutomo
pulled the zipper up to his chin, rolling onto his side with his back towards
Shinkai. His side rose high and then collapsed, as he let the air out his
lungs. Shinkai was chuckling inwardly.
“I still think,” he said. “That you should get yourself a girlfriend too.”
Chapter End Notes
     Could someone maybe draw a hungover Shinkai wearing sunglasses and
     Mr. Pierre’s filter hat? :D
     //Edit: Emsandman did fan art and portraited him so well!
     http://emsandman.tumblr.com/post/94148544595/hungover-and-ashamed-
     shinkai-is-forced-to-borrow
     Thanks again, I'm so happy to get these arts!
     The remark about Andy and Frank (or it’s Fränk actually) was inspired
     by this post: http://yowa-pedal.tumblr.com/post/91797987836/ok-but-
     can-you-imagine-if-izumida-ever-goes-pro
     Unfortunately I can't take the credits for "coffee filter hats"
     either, it was someone on Tumblr, but I can't find them. :P
***** Eating competitions and useless tents *****
Chapter Notes
     Warning! Some mild mature stuff ahead. From now on I'd like to not
     warn about mature stuff because I see warnings as spoilers. This is E
     rated fic anyway, so I think my readers are prepared for some gay
     hotness. :3
See the end of the chapter for more notes
It was hot. It was absolutely too hot.
And it wasn’t hot as in a warm July morning in a sleeping bag but hot as in the
acceleration of blood circulation that was caused by hormones that made your
skin burn and get oversensitive. It also made certain body parts ache. Hotness
that came from within.
The moment that the sweating started to billow overboard, Shinkai was startled
awake.
The tent was dim and the environment quiet apart from occasional chirps from
birds and crickets. Shinkai grabbed his phone from where it was lying beside
his head, checking the time. Four. The morning wasn’t even close.
He ripped his sleeping bag’s zipper open, freeing his upper body. Cool air
breezed across his shirt-covered chest, drying the sweat. It wasn’t that hot in
the tent after all. Without his sleeping bag he would have been shivering
through the nights, but it still felt like his legs were on fire. He unwrapped
himself from the sweaty sausage skin, lying down on top of it with his limbs
spread out as wide as he could in the crowded space. His fingers brushed
against Yasutomo’s lower back. He was still sleeping with his face towards the
wall after their nightly conversation. And that was good, since Shinkai really
wasn’t sure if he’d been able to look at his friend’s face because…
Okay. Alright.
So he had had a dream. An erotic dream. The type that was very typical for a
guy of his age. He had them a couple of times a week, though he usually
couldn’t remember details. They only left a throbbing pressure in his lower
body – in those cases when they didn’t proceed until the end, which happened
quite rarely nowadays. Because he had a girlfriend, and even besides that he
had learned to take care of himself and not let the pressure build up.
He had had an erotic dream. But instead of having it of his girlfriend or even
some faceless woman…
..he had had it of his friend.
God damn Yasutomo. God damn him and his ‘Hey Shinkai, by the way, I wanna screw
you in the ass’ revelations just before bedtime.
God damn Yasutomo, because he had made Shinkai actually think about it.
He couldn’t remember details of his dream but he remembered Yasutomo’s
presence. His unique scent (lawn after rain – was it even possible to smell
anything in your sleep?) and his slightly calloused fingers somewhere on his
body. He remembered a strong sexual pressure – and even if he hadn’t, he’d have
felt the results in his lower body.
Shinkai lifted his hands to his face, wiping it. He let the air escape from his
lungs before inhaling deeply again, held his breath and then relaxed, trying to
wake up properly to clear his thoughts, because the world has a tendency to
seem twisted and the problems seem to increase when it is four at the morning.
Phew. Oh boy.
Shinkai was one of those people who was said to be comfortable in their own
skin. He had no self-esteem problems with his appearance (though his lips could
have been a bit thinner and less ladylike) and he was okay with his
personality. Yes, he too had his demons (no pun intended) and he didn’t always
like himself but it wasn’t very often that he got confused with the little
quirks of his mind or body. He knew that it was perfectly normal to have erotic
dreams of your friends. Somebody, he couldn’t remember who but it definitely
wasn’t Juichi, had said that he’d gone through all of his friend in his sleep.
The human mind wasn’t always logical, and especially not the subconscious.
But this… like he had already said, this was in a league of its own.
If he had had a random dream of Yasutomo without the recent discussions, he’d
have just shrugged and laughed it off. Maybe mentioned it to the person himself
so that they could have laughed at it together and Yasutomo could have called
him a closet fag.
Ugh, better to not try to analyze it too much and just let the whole thing fade
away on its own. He’d go to sleep again, and in the morning the world would be
rotating in the right direction again.
He just had a minor problem. His erection, left by the dream, was of the
calibre that getting rid of it would require either a shock (an ice-cold
shower, getting caught by a friend or having a bear show up at the tent’s door)
or five hours worth of an extremely boring activity (like mathematics or
politicians’ jargon). Given that he didn’t want to take care of it. Which
actually sounded like the most appealing option. A stubborn pulse was throbbing
in his groin and in his dick so hard that it would only take for him to lightly
graze over it. If he just went back to sleep, he might wet his pants and he was
already short on clothes.
There was just a minor detail. Yasutomo was sleeping next to him.
Jerking off next to your sleeping mates wasn’t that uncommon. Shinkai was
pretty sure that almost every one of them, maybe excluding Juichi, had done it
sometimes during a training or race trip, but then they hadn’t slept this
tightly. Then they hadn’t dreamt about their friends lying next to them. Or who
knew if Yasutomo had. Dreamt about Shinkai.
The thought made shivers run through his body. He couldn’t even identify them
correctly – were they out of disgust? – but they made his erection twitch
against the fabric of his pants.
How far was that bathroom again?
He hauled himself up, planning to head straight to the bathroom to take care of
his problem but the new position made his pants rub against the sensitive head
of his dick and a new wave of pleasure washed over him, his breath getting
stuck in his throat.
Okay then. Let’s forget those washing facilities. Tissue. Where had he hidden
his tissues?
He found a couple of wrinkled tissues in the side pocket of his bag and after
grabbing them, he lay down once more. His breathing was becoming laborious, and
he tried to calm it down while listening for any sounds from Yasutomo. He was
breathing in a way that people breathe when they are sound asleep, not silently
but letting out little snores. Yasutomo would never fake snoring. The coast was
clear as long as Shinkai kept quiet.
He dug himself back in the half-open sleeping bag, pushed his pants down in
order to not wet them and grabbed himself. The touch of fingers sent a new
tremor through him, and he felt blood packing in his aching shaft with a whole
new power. A few strokes would do the trick.
It took him about ten seconds to arch his back and wet the tissue. He clenched
his teeth to keep himself from making any sounds as the orgasm washed over him,
making his groin convulse and his toes curl. It was quick and sharp, a moment’s
pleasure and then relaxation, the only purpose being just to relieve pressure.
He kept quiet, but if Yasutomo had been awake, he would have figured from the
rhythm of his breathing what he was up to.
He was left to lie on his back, boneless, waiting for his breath to even before
he wrapped the wet tissue inside of another, crunched it into a ball and placed
it next to his sleeping back (on the wall’s side).
“Yasutomo, you asshole. I hope you’re happy now,” he whispered to the tent
ceiling before tucking himself inside his sleeping bag again and closing his
eyes.
* * *
”Shinkai, Shinkai, Shinkai!”
”Go, Tadokoro!”
”Tadokorocchi!”
”You can do it, grandpa! Show them what you’re made of!”
“Just a little more, Shinkai! Show them that Hakogaku are champions in other
things besides cycling!”
”We have faith in you, Tadokoro-san!”
“Eat faster, ass-face! Let them see there’s more to you than bunny farming!”
Jinpachi’s face was emitting shock as he glanced at Yasutomo and returned to
Shinkai. “Hayato, you want me to slap Arakita for you?”
Yasutomo threw a contemptuous look at Jinpachi. “Like you could do it,
featherweight.”
“Shut up, I’ve got more muscle than you.”
“It’s all fat.”
“It’s definitely not fat!” Jinpachi was practically screaming. “You’re the one
who gets wiped out to the sky like a dry blade of grass immediately when the
wind speed exceeds 5 meters per second!”
Arakita leaned over the table. Poorly disguised rage was dancing in his eyes as
he drilled his gaze into Jinpachi. “You wanna arm wrestle?”
”No. I want to see how this turns out.”
“But after that.”
For a moment, Jinpachi looked like he was looking for a way out of the
challenge, but he apparently had something to prove. “Deal.”
”Shit, this is getting better yet!” Naruko exclaimed. ”Hey, old man, beat that
upstart quickly so we’ll get to see the next match!”
“Hmm-mh!” Tadokoro was chuffing with his mouth full. He chewed and swallowed
laboriously. “Someone go and tell the staff to bring more food to the buffet!”
”Mr. Pierre is already on it.”
“Excellent.” A choked burp. ”How’re you doing, skinny pants? Feel like giving
up already?”
Shinkai flashed him a wide smile even though he knew that his teeth were
covered in food mash. “Definitely not. What is it, toothpick, you getting
worried there?”
For a passing second, it looked like Tadokoro was about to frown, but he fixed
his appearance quickly. “For you, yes.”
“No need to worry about me,” Shinkai said. If he was speaking truthfully, he
actually hoped that Sohoku’s giant sprinter would get a full stomach soon.
Because he was starting to be. Utterly. Completely. Stuffed. He had already had
to open the button of his shorts to get more room for his bloating and soon
he’d have to do the same thing to the zipper too.
They had seen the start of the Tour’s 13th stage, and after that it had again
been time to change their location, but by the decision of majority they had
stayed in the city of Tours to have lunch before driving to the next place
called Lyon, where they’d get to watch the 14th stage’s home stretch. First
they had been planning to look for a French bistro to have a taste of local
cuisine, but then they had walked past an Indian restaurant that was serving a
lunch buffet. Seven euros to eat all you want. And at that point things had
gotten out of hand.
Nobody had suggested an eating competition; somehow they had just drifted into
it. Naruko, who ate like a starving elephant himself, had pointed out – noticed
– that Shinkai was gorging almost as much food as Tadokoro.
Almost. That had been the key word.
Shinkai had a competitive drive, but technically it only went off when cycling.
Usually he just did what he wanted and let the other people fuss. It consumed
energy needlessly and elevated the stress levels to compete over unnecessary
things. But when Jinpachi and Yasutomo and Izumida had started to argue with
the Sohoku guys about which team’s senior sprinter ate more, a tiny spark had
lit up in Shinkai’s gut.
And why not? The buffet was full of chicken tikka masala, lamb korma, shrimp
vindaloo, paneer cheese in tomato curry sauce and naan bread. Shinkai had eaten
Indian food maybe only once before. He hadn’t remembered it was this tasty. At
the point when they had started to compete with Tadokoro, he’d decided to stick
with the milder curries. The spiciest dish of the buffet had already made him
sweat so that his fringe had turned into curls. He strategically chose chicken
and vegetable curries because they weren’t as heavy as lamb.
But now, after the fourth dish, he was beginning to understand what it meant to
be literally ‘fed up with something’.
“In middle school Shinkai was the one to arrange eating performances during
breaks. Other students even brought him food for it. One time he tried to eat
eighty takoyaki balls. He got up until seventy-one when the bell rang,” Manami
told them.
For a passing second, embarrassment tried to mess up Shinkai’s rhythm. “Juichi,
didn’t you promise that you weren’t going to tell that to anyone!”
Juichi kept his posture. “I can’t recall there was any discussion on the
matter.”
“That’s nothing, really,” Teshima said. “One time we went to a restaurant with
Tadokoro after a race and the next day the restaurant had to keep their doors
closed because they ran out of everything.” Aoyagi nodded enthusiastically to
his teammate’s words.
“Near our school there’s a buffet restaurant that doesn’t even let Shinkai in
anymore,” Manami said.
“But one morning at a training camp Tadokoro emptied the fridge before we were
even awake and that camp was kilometres away from the nearest shop…”
The original purpose of the competition was turning from eating to embarrassing
the competitors. Instead of oohing in amazement, the supporters of the opposite
side burst into laughter. Shinkai tried to ignore his environment and
concentrate only on how he could swallow the contents of his plate. He took a
short break, hoping that his stomach would work faster.
A chef came to pour more chicken and lamb into the buffet and Tadokoro jumped
onto his feet, marching to fetch his fifth serving. Damn it. Shinkai let out a
bubbling burp that felt more like a small puke and lifted his fork again. He
was good at approximately two things in his life. The other one was cycling,
the other was eating. How could he look at himself in the mirror if he lost one
of his merits?
But after downing the last of his curry he realized that he simply couldn’t eat
any more. The mere thought made him nauseous and he was afraid to stand up as
he’d probably tear at the seams. And that blasted Tadokoro was already munching
his latest fill of plate.
The fork dropped from his hand with a clang. “I can’t. I can’t anymore.”
“What the fuck!” Yasutomo yelled. ”Fucking eat!”
”Can’t. Gonna puke soon.” He leaned back on his seat, holding his stomach. ”I
give up. You win, Tadokoro.”
Tadokoro let out a roar that sounded more like a bear preparing to fight than
human and slammed his hands on the table. The other customers and the staff
probably jumped half a meter into the air out of fright.
Yasutomo didn’t take losing too well. “Congratulations. You just became
completely useless.”
“It would be interesting to see you eat that amount of food,” Jinpachi
remarked. “Hayato, are you okay? You look a little sick.”
Shinkai wiped his forehead. He was still sweating and his cheeks were burning.
Maybe he should have stopped with the previous serving. ”Ungh, sure. I’ll be
fine. I just need to... sit for a while before we get going.”
Tadokoro ate one more forkful as if to affirm his victory, but then pushed away
his plate and grunted painfully. He had kept his posture neutral throughout the
competition, Shinkai had to give him that.
“What will your digestion say about that?” Yasutomo asked him. “I have to sleep
in the same tent as you.”
“There isn’t a food that my digestion couldn’t handle.” Though at the moment
there was a bitter taste of lamb korma lurking in his throat, making him
swallow repeatedly. His stomach was full up to his esophagus. “Besides, you
don’t ‘have to’ sleep in the same tent with me. Until now you’ve wanted to
yourself. We can switch if you’re afraid of my digestion. You go with Juichi
and Manami, and I can share my tent with Izumida.”
“Nope. Not gonna happen.”
Shinkai waited for an explanation. It never came.
Instead, he started to feel his stomach convulse. And then cramp. And then
cramp a bit more. Maybe he shouldn’t have spoken so quickly. Indian food used
spices that his stomach wasn’t used to.
”I could pop in the bathroom for a minute, though.”
”After that gorging I bet you’re going to push out a five-kilo dump!” Naruko
exclaimed. “I always have to sit for at least half an hour on the toilet after
a spicy meal. There’s probably going to be some serious tumbling in your gut
soon!”
Onoda tried to hush his friend. “Naruko-kun, I’m not sure if the others want to
hear…”
“Pfft, we all have to shit, don’t we?”
“If someone needs to go, I recommend that you get in line soon. There’s only
one booth for each sex,” said Izumida who had gone to the restaurant’s bathroom
before they started eating.
“I’m going to go first then.” Shinkai climbed to his feet. All the blood
suddenly left his head, making him almost reel. He had to support himself on
the back of the chairs. Luckily his balance returned soon. He really didn’t
want to ask for an escort for a bathroom visit.
“Leave some toilet paper for the others too!” Naruko hollered after him. Thank
god, the other customers didn’t understand Japanese.
When Shinkai returned, Jinpachi and Yasutomo were already beginning their arm-
wrestling. Okay… he had thought that they had only been blustering.
“I think the staff might have something to say about that,” Izumida mused as
Jinpachi grabbed Yasutomo’s offered hand.
“They’re not gonna say anything if they can’t see,” Naruko said. “Hey, grandpa,
move to the front!”
Tadokoro moved to cover the visibility of the counter and didn’t even react to
the name that Naruko used.
Manami claimed the role of the setter for himself. “Ready… set… GO!”
First it looked like Jinpachi was going to slam Yasutomo’s hand on the table
right away but Yasutomo pulled himself together quickly, straightening their
forearms. If Shinkai had bet on the winner, he would have invested his money in
Yasutomo. Jinpachi wasn’t weak by any means, but Yasutomo was driven by the
rage of a wild animal. There was the same fire burning in his eyes as during
races. And Shinkai already knew what he was thinking: Hell, if he lost to
Jinpachi, who he had called a bitch, he would never be able to look at his
teammates in the eyes again.
Contrary to Shinkai and Tadokoro, nobody dared (or had the energy) to cheer at
the wrestling duo. Everyone was just staring, afraid to even touch the table.
After half a minute their arms were shaking and Yasutomo dominated the match
for a while. But then Jinpachi corrected his posture and their arms returned to
the neutral zone.
And that continued for so long that the audience started to get bored. It
seemed that Jinpachi and Yasutomo were equally strong. When the staff started
to throw glances at their direction, Juichi decided to break it off.
“Okay, that’s enough. Stop! It’s a draw!”
”Wha– no, it’s not!” Yasutomo burst out, and at the same time his concentration
wavered so that Jinpachi was able to slam his hand down on the table.
“Hah, I won! What did you say about fat again, stick man?”
”It doesn’t count! Fuku-chan called it off!”
“Of course it counts!”
”No, it doesn’t! I stopped pushing against you!”
”Yeah, yeah. You just don’t want to admit that you have two threads in your
arms instead of biceps.”
Shinkai and Izumida had to grab Yasutomo under his arms, as he was storming
across the table to strangle Jinpachi.
“Toudou,” Makishima said. “Fukutomi did cut off the match before you managed to
slam Arakita’s hand on the table.”
“But if we had continued for even one more second, I’d have won!”
“Maybe, maybe not. Yasutomo got distracted when Juichi told you to stop,”
Shinkai said.
”Shut up, don’t you try to defend me!” Yasutomo snarled. “And you, you god damn
bag of peas, we’re gonna have a rematch tonight!”
Jinpachi crossed his arms, leaning back in his seat with an extremely self-
satisfied smile on his lips. “Fine by me.”
“And then nobody is gonna cut us off. The match ends only when your hand hits
the table.”
“Don’t you mean yours?”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Juichi told them. “We need to collect our stuff and
change the location. We have a couple of hours drive ahead of us.”
* * *
They had to stop twice during their drive due to the side effects caused by
Indian food. Shinkai didn’t have to go anymore – he’d been right about his
digestion – but practically everyone else had to. Their next location was a
camping area near Lyon, in a small medieval village with a name that sounded
like something a pig would say (Shinkai couldn’t remember it more precisely).
They set up their tent with a routine, and they even had several hours to go
and take a look around. Jinpachi got it into his head that he wanted to see a
local clay pot museum and dragged Makishima along with him. They didn’t return
before ten o’clock. Yasutomo said to Shinkai that he really didn’t want to know
what the duo had been doing, to which Shinkai answered that at least neither
one of them was drunk. But he too suspected that they had done something else
during their trip other than just ogling at ancient clay pots.
Around half past ten, everyone was ready to call it a night and get into their
tents. And that was good, because at the same moment a heavy downpour hit the
campsite.
Shinkai was amongst the last ones to return from the bathrooms, and he had to
run to the camp to avoid getting another shower.
Yasutomo was already lounging on his sleeping back, playing with his cell, as
Shinkai pulled the tent door open and dived inside.
“Don’t touch the ceiling, water will soak through,” he said over his phone.
“It shouldn’t do that so easily.”
“I’m not so sure. This is the tent that Fuku-chan got from the birdwatching
club.”
Shinkai who was just arranging his toiletries back into his bag stopped. “The
one that can’t hold water?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“What the fuck? Why have we brought such a crappy tent with us?”
“You can go and ask Fuku-chan that.”
“We can’t sleep here if the rain continues.” As to confirm his words, a wet
spot started forming in the ceiling. “It will become a pond!”
“Mm-m.”
Yasutomo took the whole thing very lightly, considering that he had a tendency
to catch all the spring and autumn colds. He’d been strangely quiet the whole
afternoon and evening, hadn’t even reminded Jinpachi about the arm-wrestling
match (though Jinpachi hadn’t reminded him either, but he had won after all).
Shinkai didn’t know what kind of mood swing his tent mate was having and at the
moment he didn’t care either. Priorities first. Sleeping in a wet tent would
give them the cold of the century. Humid air and wet hair were already making
him shiver.
“This isn’t working. We have to change our accommodation.”
“How? Are you gonna go and cuddle with Izumida in his sleeping bag?” There was
more sarcasm in Yasutomo’s voice than Shinkai thought necessary.
“If I must. You can stay here if you like, but I don’t wish to sleep in a
puddle. Besides, our stuff will get wet too.”
Yasutomo huffed and pulled himself upright, tucking his phone into his pocket.
“Okay then, do you think we could make a bed in the back of the van?”
”Kinjou said the seats are detachable, so it should be possible.” Hopefully the
mechanism was simple.
Shinkai pulled on his coat that held water the best and covered his head with
its hood. For a moment, it looked like Yasutomo was not going to lift a finger
to rearrange their sleeping quarters, but then he let out another huff and
grabbed his coat too.
”The car is locked and Mr. Pierre has the key,” Shinkai said as they stepped
outside in the pouring rain. Christ, the water was falling down with such a
force that it would test the other tents too. “Which one is theirs?”
“It’s the big blue one.” Yasutomo pointed at the tent set up right beside the
car. Since his coat didn’t have a hood, he had to pull the neck part over his
head to prevent his hair from getting soaked but that resulted in his lower
back getting a good whipping from the rain.
Shinkai lifted his hand to knock, remembering then that knocking didn’t really
work with tents and instead calling out. “Kinjou-san? Excuse me! Could you open
up, please?”
A rustle came from inside and then the zipper was pulled up. Kinjou’s eternally
serious face peeked out from the opening.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but our tent can’t hold water,” Shinkai explained.
“Could we maybe get the key to the car? We’d spend the night in it.”
“Yes, of course.” Kinjou vanished back inside. Shinkai heard him asking for the
key from Mr. Pierre. He pulled his hood over his head better. He hadn’t been
outside for half a minute and he was already like a drowned rat. Then Kinjou
reappeared, handing him the key. ”Do you know how to detach the seats?”
“I don’t know the system really.”
“There are grooves in the floor in which the seats are pushed in and locked
into place,” came Mr. Pierre’s voice from inside. “It should be pretty easy,
but come and tell me if you don’t know how to do it.”
”Alright, thanks.”
Kinjou looked at him for a moment, his face thoughtful, before turning back
inside the tent. “Tadokoro, go and help them out.”
Surprisingly, Sohoku’s giant sprinter didn’t protest his fate. He crawled out
with a grunt but only cursed the weather. He was only wearing a tee shirt and
boxers with bears printed on them (how appropriate), and the sky flood hit his
light clothing with remarkable force.
“You go and fetch your stuff. I’ll go and remove the seats.”
Shinkai dropped the key into his open palm. “But wouldn’t it be quicker if we
helped you?”
”It’s not gonna take long.” Tadokoro smirked at him before opening the middle
door and slipping inside.
Shinkai didn’t waste time arguing. He wanted to get into his warm sleeping bag
soon. Yasutomo was already collecting their stuff and Shinkai waited outside,
grabbing the items that were handed over to him. They had to empty the whole
tent.
Tadokoro was efficient. As Shinkai went to throw the first bag in the car, he
had already removed two seats.
“It’s gonna be pretty cramped. I had to pile the removed seats behind the front
seat row because there isn’t any other place for them. Why the hell did you
take such a lousy tent with you?”
Shinkai sighed. “I’d tell you if I knew.”
Yasutomo followed with the rest of their stuff, dropping them onto the front
traveller’s seat. Shinkai still felt like they should help Tadokoro but the guy
seemed to have a good momentum going so he didn’t want to interfere. Shame
though, that he hadn’t clocked it. Roughly estimated, it had taken Tadokoro
only five minutes to remove all the necessary seats.
“It fast when you know what you’re doing,” he said as Tadokoro straightened
himself as far as he could in the car, wiping his hands. “Thank you, Tadokoro-
san.”
“You’re welcome. The floor’s pretty hard but maybe it’ll do for one night.”
”Better that than a puddle.”
Tadokoro left, leaving them to arrange their stuff on the car’s not-so-clean
floor. They had the pads to keep the sleeping bags from getting dirty, but they
weren’t much of a mattress.
“Fucking hell, how uncomfortable,” Yasutomo complained as they had lain down.
Because of the removed seats they weren’t able to lie properly in line with the
van’s walls so they had settled with their heads in the one corner of the space
and their feet in the opposite corner. One person would have been able to lie
there without touching anything, but because there were two of them, their feet
brushed against the car walls. Their soaked clothes had been hung over the
seats and the windows were already starting to fog up from humidity. But it was
still drier than outside or in the tent. Drier and warmer.
“Would you have preferred to wallow in a pond?” Shinkai asked. “Or I suppose
that Izumida’s sleeping bag is still available.”
“Shut your mouth,” Yasutomo grumbled, rolling onto his side to face Shinkai.
His eyes were squeezed shut and the lower part of his face was buried in the
sleeping bag. “Hey, Shinkai.”
Shinkai had just gotten out his detective novel and was very much planning to
read it for a bit – for what he could see in the dimly lit car, which wasn’t
much – but Yasutomo’s tone told him that he was about say something that would
steal Shinkai’s attention completely. Something that would involve him.
Something that would most probably be connected to their earlier questionable
conversations.
He stifled a sigh. “Yeah?”
”What do you say if we open our sleeping bags and use them as blankets?”
“Why’d you want to do that?”
“Because it’s so suffocating to sleep in this sausage skin. We’d get more room
for our limbs.”
”You can do that if you want, but there will be even less padding under your
back.”
”No, I meant that we’d open both of them, put the other one under our backs and
use the other one as a blanket.”
”So we’d share a blanket?”
He got a reticent affirmation. Yasutomo still had his eyes closed and was
clearly trying to look like it didn’t matter that much. And Shinkai wouldn’t
have thought anything of the suggestion, had there not been certain
conversation lurking in the recent history. The sleeping bags weren’t that
wide; they would have to sleep really close to each other.
“We can use mine as a mattress if you’re afraid of yours getting dirty.”
Shinkai was about to decline, but some twisted curiosity in the back corner of
his mind stopped him. Maybe he wanted to see what Yasutomo would do. How far
would he dare to take his experiments without Shinkai’s approval?
I wonder what Ayane would say if she heard about me sharing a blanket with that
‘maniac’?
He waited for a pinch of guilt from his conscience, and it came after a little
while. But it was subdued and easily pushed aside. Curiosity brushed it away
without effort.
With Yasutomo, it was wrong to talk about curiosity anymore. It sounded more
like an obsession.
“Okay then,” he said. He had waited for a reaction and didn’t have to be
disappointed. Yasutomo’s eyes flew open and he yanked his chin out of the
sleeping bag. Shinkai sat up and started to unzip his sleeping bag. “I’ll open
this up. You take care of yours.”
Yasutomo crawled out to sit up too, and a very weird, but in its own way also
very endearing, confusion was painted all over his face. One of those
expressions many people didn’t even know that he was capable of.
“What are you ogling at there?” Shinkai asked. “Get to work so we’ll have a
chance to catch some sleep tonight.”
Yasutomo mumbled something that sounded like swear words, but he began opening
his own sleeping bag. He avoided looking at Shinkai, pretending to concentrate
on the task at hand, but Shinkai could see a small smile on his lips.
There was a faint fluttering in his stomach that absolutely shouldn’t have been
there. Not in this situation.
He might regret his curiosity in the end.
Chapter End Notes
     Pointless eating competition is pointless. I actually saw a fan art
     of Shinkai and Tadokoro having an eating competition, and my first
     thought was that somebody was a mind reader. :D
     For some reason they spend a lot of time in the tents / sleeping bags
     in this fic. And yay, I managed to squeeze in some poop talks à
     Naruko!
     I don’t have any specific fan art requests for this chapter but if
     Emsandman or someone else wants to draw any scene that inspires them,
     please feel free! I’m always so happy to get fan art. :)
***** Amazing clay pots, so ahead of their time *****
Chapter Notes
     After this I need to take a bit time to write ahead as I've published
     all the chapters that I had ready in Finnish. I hope it doesn't take
     me too long though. Please send me a lot of inspiration to make me
     work faster! :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“Ice cream.”
“What?”
“Ice cream,” Toudou repeated. “Let’s go and test what French ice cream is
like!”
“What happened to your health hype?” Maki-chan asked. A small smile was tugging
at the corners of his mouth.
“Nah, it’s okay to eat ice cream once in the summer.” The day had been hot and
after the spicy Indian meal Toudou was craving something refreshing. Their
current camping location didn’t even have any swimming opportunities. “Besides,
you can think of it as cultural exploration.”
“Maybe so.”
Toudou jumped to his feet, swatting dry grass off of his backside. They had set
up their tent, it was only six pm and they had nothing planned for that
evening. The others had also talked about a small sightseeing tour, and Toudou
wanted to get going before the whole other gang would try to join them. “Shall
we go then?”
Maki-chan huffed before also climbing to his feet and packing a water bottle
into his colourful shoulder bag that he always brought with him to city tours.
“But we should keep quiet so that the kids don’t get it in their heads to
follow us,” Toudou warned. Someone might have said that he was already spending
enough time alone with Maki-chan because they shared a tent but it wasn’t the
same as going for a sightseeing tour together. The more people, the more
interruptions, and Toudou wasn’t up for negotiating his plans.
Maki-chan didn’t protest. Toudou had already guessed that he wouldn’t, since he
wasn’t the most social butterfly in town.
One would have thought that it would be hard to avoid others in such a small
camp, but everyone seemed to have something to do. Kinjou and Tadokoro, along
with the second-years, had gone to walk around the camping area, Izumida had
immersed himself in telling Mr. Pierre, who was snoozing in his camp chair,
about his gardening hobby (for once the poor guy had an audience that didn’t
immediately silence him) and Sohoku’s first-years were playing something with
cards that seemed to amuse Naruko and irritate Imaizumi. Manami had once again
disappeared, probably fallen asleep on a toilet or something equally charming.
They walked past Shinkai who was lounging on the grass and asked where they
were going. He looked like he only asked out of curiosity, not because he
actually wanted to join them, but you could never be sure.
“A clay pot museum. I heard they had one in this town,” Toudou told him. He
sensed surprise from Maki-chan but luckily his green-haired friend kept his
mouth shut.
“Oh, okay. Well, have fun then.”
They weren’t able to leave yet because at that moment Arakita returned from the
washing facilities and wanted to know the same thing as Shinkai. “Where are you
two lovebirds heading?”
His words made an intense wave of heat spread over Toudou’s cheeks. Why the
hell was Arakita asking that with such a questionable choice of words? He most
definitely wasn’t interested in tagging along, Toudou knew that without asking.
He probably just wanted them to bring him something unhealthy, such as Bepsi or
cigarettes. Which Toudou wasn’t going to do.
He straightened his posture, lifting his chin defiantly. He had beaten Arakita
in an arm-wrestling match, after all. “We’re going to a clay pot museum.”
Arakita raised his brows, letting out a stunned snort. “Oh my fucking god.”
”Well, sorry. Some of us happen to be interested in culture. It shouldn’t
bother you even if we educate ourselves in the old local livelihood. Tourist
travel here from afar only to see those pots. Some of them are so fantastic
it’s been said that they were centuries ahead of their time.” Damn, if he
continued his lie, he’d soon start to believe it himself.
Arakita waved them off. “By all means, go.”
“Let’s go then, Maki-chan,” Toudou said, swinging his bag over his shoulder
better. “Don’t expect us to return too early.”
“Just remember to take a lot of photos of those god damn amazing clay pots,”
Arakita called after them, once they moved to walk on the sand path and headed
for the main gate.
“I had no idea you were so interested in clay pots,” Maki-chan said once they
were out of hearing range. Toudou could hear in his voice that he wasn’t being
serious. “I was waiting to get to taste French ice cream but naturally clay
pots that are so ahead of their time will make up for it tenfold.”
“I just didn’t want them to follow us.”
Maki-chan smiled with the corner of his mouth. “I noticed.”
Once they reached the info, Toudou picked up a map from a rack placed on the
desk. Oingt was a small country town, known for its medieval architecture.
According to Mr. Pierre, it offered some sightseeing opportunities, at least if
you were interested in old castles. Toudou would have been ready to see old
castles, but some other time. Now, he only wished to sit in a shadow and enjoy
some ice cream while watching the local way of life and the sunset.
Pretty soon it became clear that they wouldn’t need the map. Very identifiable
medieval buildings showed them the way. They walked in already cooling evening
air, surrounded by vineyards, towards the buildings until the asphalt turned
into uneven flagstones.
“What’s the population of this village? Ten people?” Toudou guessed as they
took in their surroundings.
Maki-chan scratched his chin, looking thoughtful. “A bit over 500, if I
remember correctly.”
“Really? Where do they all fit?” The center was practically one street,
shadowed by ancient looking stone houses. It was beautiful though. Beautiful
and idyllic, but Toudou could never picture himself living in such an ascetic
place.
“People probably wonder the same thing about Tokyo.”
“Mhm, but everything looks so small.” Toudou fished out his camera and snapped
a couple of pictures of the buildings. “Hey, Maki-chan, go stand in front of
that house, beside that flower bush. I’ll take your picture.”
Maki-chan seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then moved to stand in the spot
that Toudou had told him to.
“Smile,” Toudou urged him. “I mean properly. Not that terrible clown grimace.”
“I don’t know how.”
”Sure you do. You have a beautiful smile when it’s genuine.”
Only after seeing Maki-chan’s face and the faint pink blossoming on his cheeks,
Toudou realized what he had just blurted out. It didn’t sound like something a
straight guy would say to another.
Well, it was out now. He just had to keep his cool.
“Think about something funny. Something that always makes you laugh,” he added.
“I don’t know how,” his reluctant model repeated.
“Yes, you do,” Toudou insisted. And he knew what he was talking about. He had
seen it.
Had that guy seen Maki-chan’s real smile too? Probably, if he’d been brave
enough to approach him. Surely he must have seen something attractive in his
target.
Unless, of course, he had had a fetish for killer clowns.
Toudou raised his camera to his face, peeking through the viewfinder. “Come on,
smile now.”
Maki-chan stretched his lips. The sight was like directly out of the movie It.
“What if I tell you something funny?” Toudou suggested.
“Just take the damn picture.”
“I want it to be presentable. Wait a sec… okay, do you remember when yesterday
Manami said about Hayato getting a ban from a buffet restaurant?”
“Yes.”
”Well, that wasn’t all, you see. Manami wasn’t even with us back then, he was
probably still lingering in middle school, but in its entirety the thing went
like this. We went there together, me, Fuku and Hayato. Arakita hadn’t joined
the cycling club yet.”
Maki-chan stared at him, looking a tad bored (but also confused).
”Anyway, the owner noticed how much Hayato ate and ended up making a bet with
him. If we could eat all the food that was available in the buffet, we wouldn’t
have to pay the bill. We were the only customers there at the moment.”
Maki-chan’s lips were already twisting as he guessed where the story was
heading for. “And you ate?”
”Yeah well, me and Fuku, we helped, but Hayato ate almost four times as much as
us. And the trays emptied. One by one.”
“So the owner told him not to come back?” Maki-chan clearly thought it was very
bad business.
“Not because he ate so much but because during the last serving he threw up. On
the plate, the table, the chair, even on the floor. And at that time we weren’t
the only customers there anymore.”
Maki-chan’s face was about to scrunch up in disgust, but then his mood took a U
turn as he apparently pictured the setting that Toudou and Fuku had gotten into
against their will.
There was the smile. Toudou snapped the picture and raised his thumb to
indicate a nice shot. Maki-chan exhaled, leaving his posing spot. His hand was
automatically lifting to cover his smile.
Don’t, Toudou wanted to say. He restrained himself.
”The funny part here is the fact that I’ve seen Hayato throw up only twice – or
in general heard about him throwing up – and now in your eyes it probably looks
like that’s the only thing he does.”
“Mm-m… but it would be kinda hard to race if you’re puking constantly.”
“That’s right. But don’t tell him I told you.”
Maki-chan was still smiling. His hands were hanging by his side, relaxed. “I
won’t.”
“Good. Now you take my picture!”
Toudou took a step towards Maki-chan, who approached with his arm extended,
ready to get the camera from him. There, during that very short walk, Toudou
happened to glance at his side and his eyes spotted a figure that was
disappointingly familiar.
Manami.
Shit. Double shit.
Toudou didn’t have the slightest intention of socializing with the fairy
prince. Instead of the camera, he grabbed Maki-chan’s arm, planning to drag him
to some dark side alley before they would be spotted. Unfortunately at that
part of the street there weren’t any side alleys, only a door to some house.
Toudou bumped into the hard wood with his shoulder. It hurt. And there was more
pain to follow as Maki-chan lost his balance from the force of his yank and
reeled against him, squishing him into the wood. The camera hit the door with a
thud.
Once they had regained their balance, Maki-chan threw a very questioning look
at him. “What are you doing?” His tone gave away what he left unsaid: ‘Did you
throw us into a door just for the heck of it?’
Toudou brought his finger to his lips. “Shht, it’s–“
But it was too late. Manami had already seen them. On such a narrow street he
had probably seen their bungling too.
He waved his hand at them, grinning like the idiot he was. “Hey, Toudou-san,
Makishima-san!”
Maki-chan looked at Toudou again, as if to tell him that now he understood what
he’d been trying to do but anyway wanted to remark that the situation had been
handled very badly anyway.
Manami caught them. There were sweat drops on his forehead and in his hand he
was carrying a plastic bag that indicated that he’d been shopping. “Hey there,
where are you guys going?”
”Just sightseeing,” Toudou muttered. ”I heard there’s a medieval castle around
here somewhere.”
“Yeah? I’m coming from there. Pretty handsome attraction, if not a little
humdrum.” To boost his words, Manami opened his mouth to yawn.
“In that case, you need to go back to the camp and sleep.”
“Mm, that’s what I was planning to do.”
They probably would have gotten rid of him with that if the door they had just
manhandled had not opened and a grey-haired man in an apron hadn’t stuck his
nose out of it – and into their business.
”Monsieurs?” he began, continuing with a train of thick, cheerful French.
Toudou understood from the tone that the guy wasn’t angry even though they had
bumped into his door.
“Sorry, we don’t speak French,” Maki-chan told the guy in English. Toudou
expected the guy to apologise and leave them alone, but he changed the language
smoothly.
Or maybe not that smoothly. The guy’s accent was so thick that Toudou could
only pick out a familiar word here and there. Amazingly, Maki-chan understood
what the man was babbling about.
“We’re from Japan, Monsieur. We’re here to watch the Tour,” he answered the
guy.
The man seemed very delighted about this piece of information and continued his
gibbering some more. Then he took a step back, moving to the darker side of the
doorstep, and waved inside.
“What does he want?” Toudou asked.
“This is a restaurant. He says we’re welcome to dine here.”
Only now did Toudou notice a restaurant sign hanging above the doorway.
“Well…” he hesitated. They had come to the village to eat ice cream and ice
cream was what he still wanted to have, but the delicious smell wafting from
inside made his stomach wake up. It had been several hours since that Indian
meal, after all. Maybe just something small…
“Do you want to eat?” he asked.
“Are you hungry?” Maki-chan asked at the same time.
Toudou laughed, pointing at the restaurant. “Do you want to have dinner here?”
“We could at least take a look at what kind of place it is.”
“Yeah, we could.” Though Toudou already knew that after stepping inside he
wouldn’t have the nerve to just leave without ordering anything. “I hope this
is not a five-star restaurant.”
“I’ll come too,” Manami said.
What?
”You... too?” Toudou looked at his young teammate.
“I’m hungry.”
”Then go back to the camp and eat.”
Manami had a couple of other faults too but what bothered Toudou the most was
the fact that he didn’t know how to (or didn’t want to) take a hint.
He maybe could have been able to blackmail the brat into leaving them alone but
the old man wanted them all to go to his restaurant. “The young mister too,
please.”
Maybe Manami would eat quickly and take his leave then. At least, if Toudou and
Maki-chan claimed to go and see an attraction he had already seen. Toudou
sighed and stepped inside with Maki-chan on his heels.
“It doesn’t look like very expensive,” Maki-chan said after taking a look at
the day’s specials scribbled on a chalkboard.
The old guy was tattling in English with his accent again. Maki-chan listened
and then turned to Toudou and Manami. “Do you wish to eat outside? They have a
small inner yard.”
”Sure, why not?” The building would probably offer some shadow even if they sat
outside.
They were guided to a cosy small yard surrounded by stone walls. It had only
three tables, a tiny fountain in the corner and ivy climbing on the walls. A
marquise was pulled over it halfway, but the building itself created some
shadow as the sun wasn’t directly above them anymore.
”Wow, this is quite stylish,” Toudou said after they had sat down. He felt like
they were underdressed in their sandals, shorts and tee shirts, but the waiter
didn’t seem bothered. They were the only customers in the inner yard. It was a
bit too early for dinner but that was fine. Toudou preferred to sit in their
own company. Or would have preferred, if a certain narcoleptic pest hadn’t
invited himself to dinner with them.
The waiter brought them menus along with a water carafe and asked if they
wanted to hear the recommendations. Toudou still couldn’t understand but Maki-
chan translated. It was fortunate that he knew English so well, since Mr.
Pierre wasn’t with them. Actually, he knew English better than anyone else
Toudou knew. And his pronunciation sounded really accurate.
“He recommends smoked salmon and potato gratin on the side.”
Toudou shrugged. “Sounds good.” After all, he hadn’t really begun his excursion
for French seafood yet.
“I’ll have that too,” Manami added.
“So everyone will have the salmon,” Maki-chan told the waiter, who burst in a
new fit of babbles. Maki-chan listened for a moment, his brows furrowed, before
he nodded, and the waiter handed them a new list. A drinks menu. “Now he
recommends a local white wine with the dish.”
“For us?” Toudou asked. They were underaged. Or what was the legal age to drink
alcohol in France? It couldn’t have been as low as fifteen, right? Surely the
waiter saw that Manami was still a baby. “You and me? Or Manami too?”
“I don’t think they’re so strict here,” Maki-chan reckoned. “Well, what do you
say?”
”I could have a taste of it,” Manami said.
“Yeah, me too,” Maki-chan nodded. “Toudou, how about you?”
Hnngh! Toudou felt he was being pulled in two directions. On one hand, he
wanted to be as cultivated and mature as the rest and have some wine with the
meal, but his tolerance for alcohol was beyond bad. No matter what, he couldn’t
get drunk now, not after lecturing Shinkai and Arakita so enthusiastically.
“Well… if it is one glass,” he finally muttered. It would have time to fade
from his blood before they returned to the camp. He would just have to make
sure that he only drank one glass of wine and a lot of water to balance it.
The waiter scribbled down their order and left to take it to the kitchen.
Toudou fished his camera out of his bag again, snapping a couple of pictures of
their dinner setting. He included Maki-chan in one; he hadn’t noticed that
Toudou was photographing and he was saved on the memory card looking thoughtful
and staring into the distance. Toudou also took a picture of Manami who pulled
an idiotic grin onto his face and lifted his fingers into a peace sign.
”Okay, somebody take my picture too.”
Manami offered and took the camera from him. Maki-chan got up and told them
that he’d pop in the bathroom. Toudou’s eyes followed him automatically, taking
in the green hair brushing against the back of a light blue shirt and the
chinos that were hanging a bit from the butt. The same that he had borrowed in
Paris. Then Manami urged him to look into the camera and Toudou turned his
head, reluctant.
“Hey, could you send me the picture you took of Hayato and Arakita yesterday
morning?” he asked after Manami had photographed him and he had checked that
the picture was passable. The snap included a metallic sign on the wall behind
him with French text and the fountain. Manami had outlined the photo so that
Toudou could easily have posted it on Facebook or found use for it in his fan
club. Manami wasn’t that bad at photographing, he had to give the brat that.
“Sure. Do you need it for something?” Manami dug out his cell and started
typing. “Like, for blackmailing purposes, perhaps?”
“Wha– No! I was just thinking it would be a fun memory of the trip.” His phone
beeped as it received Manami’s delivery. Toudou took a quick glance at the
picture, chuckling at it, before placing his phone back into his bag.
“So, Toudou-san…” Manami began. ”Are you and Makishima-san an item?”
”Huh?”
”I’m not judging. Just curious.” Manami stared at him with those enormous blue
eyes that’s specious innocence had misled so many. Toudou too, before he had
learned that even though Manami was a hopeless klutz, he was also an
insufferable, cunning little bastard. Innocent? No, not Manami Sangaku. There
were lawyers in Hell that were more upright than Hakogaku’s younger climber.
Toudou was on the verge of losing his temper, but then he realized that it
would only boost Manami’s suspicions (the origin of which he had no clue of).
He collected his patience, looking down at the little airhead from under his
lids. Or he would have, had they not been sitting and had Manami not been
taller than him. Damn. “No, we’re not. What makes you think that?”
For a passing, horrifying moment he suspected that Manami might have heard of
Maki-chan’s secret. That the thin tent fabric hadn’t blocked sound at all and
now their whole troop knew.
No, they had spoken with a quiet voice and Toudou hadn’t heard anything from
the other tents besides Tadokoro’s snoring. But it could have been that the
others had gone straight to sleep.
The imp shrugged. “You spend so much time together.”
Didn’t Manami have friends who he spent his time with? At least that tiny nerd
girl with glasses. Why would you label everyone gay immediately?
“You sleep in the same tent, sit next to each other in the car – really close
to each other, by the way – and go everywhere together.”
Did I ask you to list things that me and Maki-chan do together?
”We’re just good friends.”
”Hmm, okay. For now.”
Toudou’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re good friends now but what about when Makishima-san finds himself a
girlfriend and starts to spend all of his time with her? He won’t have the time
or the interest to ramble with you on the phone or online.”
Boyfriend, Toudou corrected in his mind. He’d spend his time with a boy.
”Why would it be Maki-chan who finds a partner? It could very well be me who
starts dating first,” he remarked.
“Yeah, that could happen too,” Manami admitted. “I only meant that if you start
dating, it changes friendships. You and Makishima-san don’t even go to the same
school and you live far away from each other, so you don’t just meet
accidentally.”
Toudou couldn’t picture himself stopping keeping in touch with Maki-chan even
if he had had a harem of girlfriends. He couldn’t say about Maki-chan, but he
was really hopeless with his phone anyway and contact had been on Toudou’s
shoulders. Sometimes he felt like Maki-chan was missing a necessary gene to
keep in touch with his friends.
An image of Maki-chan hanging around with a boyfriend (or a girlfriend, what
did Toudou know, maybe Maki-chan was okay with both) brought a strange,
unidentifiable feeling to his chest. It felt a bit like someone or something
had sat on his chest, preventing it from moving to its full extent. It made him
inhale deeply a few times. He hoped that Manami was too absorbed in his own
world to notice.
“Yeah well, then we’d adjust according to the situation. Dating doesn’t mean
that you abandon your friends. Hayato is still hanging around with us.”
Although, Toudou remembered the time when the relationship had still been new,
and Shinkai had been absent from every voluntary happening or meeting. Later
the situation had evened up, but he still didn’t have as much time for his
friends as before. On top of that he had that damned bunny that apparently
required 24/7 babysitting.
But it didn’t mean that Maki-chan would be the same. Or Toudou.
Manami took a sip out of his glass. “If you and Makishima-san have nothing
going on, I suppose you wouldn’t mind if someone else asked him on a date?”
“Who’d do that?” Toudou blurted out. Wow, he really sounded like nobody in
their right mind would ever want to ask Maki-chan out. Which he didn’t really
mean, even if he had thought that Maki-chan wasn’t that popular. He’d received
some information suggesting the opposite only recently. “You?”
Manami smiled. “For example.”
“Why the bloody hell would you ask Maki-chan on a date?”
“Why not? We have quite a lot in common, actually. We both love climbing and
value our own space and…”
“You forgot the tiny detail that Maki-chan is a human being and you’re a freak
of nature fallen from an unknown planet that the government just hasn’t spotted
yet.”
Manami laughed his annoyingly bright little alien laugh. Toudou felt like
slapping him on the mouth. He was about to add a few extra arguments – because
if Manami even tried to lay his finger on Maki-chan, his Maki-chan, because he
had found him first and Manami could never understand Maki-chan like Toudou did
and Toudou was already in Maki-chan’s coterie because he had trusted him with
his secret and Manami didn’t even fucking know that Maki-chan could actually
like boys and…
“But ‘Maki-chan’ is also a bit eccentric. Who knows, we might be a good match.”
“Don’t call him Maki-chan!” That name is exclusively reserved for my use only!
Manami observed him from the shadow of his ridiculous ahoge. “Uh-oh, Toudou-
san, you look like you want to kill me.”
You’re right about that, you cursed gremlin. I’m so going to…
His inner turmoil halted with the creak of a chair. The topic of their
discussion had just returned and was just pulling a chair underneath him.
Manami was still smiling like a lobotomy patient who’d just discovered the joys
of weed. Seriously, Toudou had thought before that Arakita should have his head
checked but those thoughts had vanished after he’d met Manami Sangaku.
Arakita’s brain was in good order in comparison to Manami’s.
Maki-chan didn’t ask what they had talked about even though Toudou’s face was
probably flaming from anger. Maki-chan never asked such things. At the same
time, their dinner arrived, so Toudou had something else to think about, but he
made sure to glance at Manami warningly over his plate.
The smoked salmon was good and so was the potato gratin, however, it was a lot
heavier than what Toudou was used to. Including the Indian lunch, today’s
eating could be called gluttony. If he had had similar meals daily, he’d soon
develop a mentionable spare tyre over his waist. His metabolism was quite fast
but nothing compared to Shinkai’s. The waiter had been right with his
recommendations of wine, since it fit extremely well with the dish, even if
Toudou didn’t like wines in general. It had been poured in a big glass, and
swallowing the last drops Toudou felt a heat on his cheeks that wasn’t due to
his anger.
As they had paid and it was time to stand up, his head felt a bit light but
nothing that could be called intoxication. He was still planning to find that
ice cream café so the effect would have time to wear off before they’d return
to the camp.
After stepping back to the street the evening was turning into a night. The sun
was hanging low, painting the surrounding vineyards with red. The sight was so
rousing that Toudou snatched a picture of it too.
“I don’t know if you’d still get inside that castle,” Manami said. “It’s
probably closed for today.”
“Well, we could always admire it from outside,” Toudou said defiantly. “Isn’t
it time for you to head back to the camp? Onoda was asking for you and all.”
Maki-chan let out a faint cough that could mean something, or then again, not.
“Sure, I’m already going.” Manami flashed them one more annoying smile before
he began walking down the road, whistling to himself.
Toudou wiped his forehead. “Finally we got rid of him.”
Maki-chan looked at him from the corner of his eye. “You don’t like Manami?”
“Manami is one of those people who are very hard to like if you don’t happen to
be the same kind of space cadet. Shall we go and find that ice cream now?”
“Sure, we can go, but I really hope it’s not behind the next corner because I’m
so full that I have to digest for a bit.”
“We could walk for a while even if we found a suitable café right away. We can
always come back to it,” Toudou suggested. He really didn’t mind even if he
could spend a few extra moments in the village with Maki-chan.
They went to walk slowly up the road. The locals were amazingly friendly
compared to what Toudou had experienced thus far. Many greeted them and some
even stopped to try to chat with them but the attempt dried up due to the lack
of a common language. Toudou was actually glad about it. He didn’t feel that
sociable. Manami had ruined his good mood; had got him to think about things
that he hadn’t considered possible until now. Perhaps he had been a bit naïve.
Things couldn’t stay the same forever.
”Is something wrong?” Maki-chan asked after they had idly walked for ten
minutes and were running out of street, which meant that they’d have to turn
back and look for an ice cream café elsewhere. They had passed some kind of
coffee shop though. It might serve the treat they yearned.
”How so?”
”You’re oddly quiet.”
Toudou couldn’t even properly rejoice about the fact that Maki-chan was so
interested in his state of mind. Manami’s words were rolling around in his
head, repeatedly. The brat couldn’t really consider asking Maki-chan out, could
he? They had such a big age difference! And Manami was so weird. He didn’t even
seem to like human company but spent his time alone and seemed to be very
content with his life. Why would he suddenly want to change it? Besides, Manami
wasn’t one of… those boys, was he? Toudou had always thought that it would
somehow show, like, you could tell by the looks – there was a guy in their
school that everybody just knew about, because he always gestured exaggeratedly
and talked in a high-pitched voice – but on the other hand, Toudou couldn’t
have told about Maki-chan either.
Okay, maybe there wasn’t any certainty of Manami’s plans but he could always
ask what Maki-chan thought about it. Even if Manami had a huge crush on him, he
couldn’t really force Maki-chan to go out with him.
But what if… what if Maki-chan was interested? Maybe it was hard to find
partner candidates that shared his interests. Unfortunately, Manami wasn’t even
that ugly and his climbing style was very close to Toudou’s (making it
automatically elegant). Who knew if Maki-chan would agree for the lack of
better options and notice that he got along well with Manami
(better than with Toudou)
and Manami would give him the space he needed and…
”Well?” Maki-chan urged him, as Toudou didn’t answer and just kept staring at
the road.
Toudou lifted his chin, making eye contact. “Maki-chan, would you go out with
Manami if he asked you?”
Chapter End Notes
     Hnngh, another cliffhanger! What am I doing? And take those Maki x
     Manami glasses off your head right now. :D Manami is not interested
     in Makishima. Manami is just a cunning little imp who wants to mess
     with Toudou.
     Edit: More fanart! Isiya drew the photo Toudou took of Maki-chan,
     staring at the distance. Thank you again, I think the expression is
     really close to the one I had in my mind! :)
     http://isilnara.tumblr.com/post/97411249613/illustration-for-chapter-
     12-the-wonderful-fanfic
***** The Charms of French ice cream *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Toudou couldn’t recall when the last time Maki-chan had looked at him so
flabbergasted had been. Maki-chan didn’t usually react to even his most
surprising questions with astonishment, only with irritation. Like that time
when Toudou had asked his famous virginity question. He might not have seen or
heard Maki-chan’s reaction but his state of mind had been visible in the reply.
“Would I what?” Maki-chan finally coughed out.
“If, in theory, we assumed that Manami was going to ask you to go out with him…
would you go?”
“Why the hell would Manami ask me out?” Toudou could see in Maki-chan’s eyes
the thoughts that were tumbling around inside his head. Maki-chan was
belittling himself again, thinking that nobody wanted to ask him out.
“Yeah well, I mean if he was… you know. And if he imagined that you two shared
some interests.”
“You mean Manami Manami?” Maki-chan checked. “Your younger climber?”
“That’s the guy.”
”That Manami who just had dinner with us?”
“Yup.”
”I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t ask me out.”
Nggh! Toudou was sweating out of sheer frustration. Why couldn’t Maki-chan just
answer his question without unnecessary detours? “Yes, but what if?”
Maki-chan trailed off, thinking about it. Toudou waited for a moment but it
took longer than what was needed to not raise his suspicions. Was Maki-chan
actually considering it? Going on a date with Manami? Toudou would have dated
any other guy in their team before Manami. Yes, even Arakita.
“I don’t know,” Maki-chan said in the end. ”Probably not, but it’s hard to say
like out of the blue.”
“Probably not?”
“Yes. I mean, I hardly know him. He could be a generally nice guy.”
He’s not. It’s all diversion. A devious scheme.
”You’d actually go out with a first-year?”
“Why not? It’s not like he’s a little kid.”
“Yeah but…” Toudou gritted his teeth. ”Would you go or would you not?”
“Hard to say. I’d have to see what kind of conditions this miracle would happen
in.” Maki-chan wiped hair back from his forehead. The gesture was radiating
insecurity. “I’m sorry, but when I agreed to have ice cream with you, I wasn’t
expecting this kind of interrogation.”
Toudou growled to himself. The whole thing was nagging at him more than he
would have liked to admit. It felt like he wouldn’t be able to enjoy ice cream
before he had gotten a firm answer from Maki-chan. A firm, negative answer.
Because he would tear his skin inside out if Maki-chan actually started dating
Manami.
Why?
Why what?
Why would you tear your skin if Maki-chan started dating Manami? He has every
right to do it.
Because Manami is the worst calamity that humankind has experienced since the
Black Death.
Are you sure that is the real reason?
Why wouldn’t it be? Toudou was a good friend and wanted Maki-chan to date
someone in his own league and not a first-year hermit. Maybe he should become
Maki-chan’s cupid so that he could be sure of a successful choice of partner.
He was pondering the issue when Maki-chan suddenly threw him a counter
question. “Would you go out with Manami if he asked you?”
”No, I wouldn’t, but it has nothing to do with this.”
“Why not? If you ask me that, I think it’s only fair that I ask you the same
thing.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not… y’know.”
“Gay?”
Toudou felt heat climbing up to his face. He was suddenly very interested in a
pebble rolling around at his feet. “Yeah. Or bi. Whatever.”
Maki-chan was quiet again. For absolutely too long. In fact, he was quiet for
so long that Toudou started to feel very awkward. A very demanding need to say
something was swelling inside him. Maybe he had been oddly quiet just a minute
ago, but silence was still a difficult element for him. At least, when you were
in the middle of a conversation. After half a minute, at the latest, he usually
started to feel that the quietness had already lasted two hours and if either
of them didn’t say something soon, their friendship would be cancelled and they
would be total strangers to each other.
“Listen…” he began, but Maki-chan decided to open his mouth at the same time
again. Toudou squeezed his lips together, pointing at his friend.
“I don’t think I would go out with Manami,” Maki-chan said. “Are you happy now?
Can we go and find that ice cream café?”
Toudou nodded even though he wasn’t happy. His chest was constricting and he
felt somehow… incomplete. Like he still should have said something, found a
closure. But he didn’t know what kind of solution would satisfy him so he tried
to push the whole thing out of his mind.
”I think we’ve seen the village,” Maki-chan said then. “Shall we go back to
that coffee shop and see if they serve ice cream?”
Toudou nodded again. “Okay.” It seemed that there wasn’t a café that
specialized in ice creams in this village. He had peeked at the side alleys,
but they seemed to only consist of private apartments.
They turned and headed back. Toudou forced himself to speak, make remarks about
their surroundings but his usual energy and cheeriness had abandoned him.
They soon found the coffee shop again. There really weren’t streets to walk
around in the village for hours. The place actually served ice cream. While the
selection wasn’t that huge, at least you could have a lot of decorations on
your ice cream, such as waffles or cookies, different kind of sauces, berries
and chocolate chips. Toudou didn’t order as big portion as he had planned when
the whole ice cream idea had popped into his head. His appetite had experienced
a face plant.
Hmph, he was actually starting to get a little annoyed with his mood. Why did
he have to take it so seriously? Maki-chan had said that he probably wouldn’t
go out with Manami. Shouldn’t that have been enough?
After they had gotten their ice creams and sat down on the small patio in front
of the coffee shop, Toudou opened his mouth again – not about the previous
subject but about something that was quite close to it. Because it really
seemed like he hadn’t had his closure yet.
“Do you have some kind of ideal type of a guy?”
Maki-chan’s spoon that had been on its way to his mouth stopped mid-air.
”I mean, what kind of guys do you like?” Toudou clarified. If he was to become
Maki-chan’s cupid, he needed to know what his preferred type of boys was.
“What way?”
“You know… the type you could go out with and stuff.” Toudou said, sticking his
spoon into his mouth and having the taste of lemon sorbet explode on his
tongue. Wow. He took another spoonful, this time picking some strawberry
flavour too. Good god. At the first taste, French ice cream was totally worth
it. He immediately forgot that his stomach was full and that just minutes ago,
he had suffered from a loss of appetite.
“Why do you ask?” Maki-chan asked as Toudou was still licking his spoon.
”Out of curiosity. I can reveal my own tastes after that. I mean, what kind of
girls I like and stuff.”
Maki-chan was quiet for a long while. His gaze was hanging on Toudou,
calculating whether or not he had some ulterior motives. Toudou felt it on his
temple as they were both sitting on the same side of the table, placed in the
corner of the patio.
What ulterior motives could he possible have? He just sincerely wanted to know
what kind of guys his friend liked.
“I don’t really know.”
Toudou raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t know?”
“They haven’t really had that much in common. It’s hard to define what makes a
person interesting. It depends on a lot of things.”
”But like ’tall’, ’athletic’, ’slim’. Or do you like them chubby?”
“Like I said, it depends.”
Toudou huffed to himself. He first thought to keep his own tastes to himself,
but a little bit of openness might get Maki-chan to talk too. Or at least let
out some tiny detail.
“For example,” he began. ”I like girls with short hair. And the ones that are
brisk but not too much. Shouldn’t be too intrusive.” Like some of his fans.
Maki-chan hmph’d to indicate that he was listening as he leisurely spooned ice
cream into his mouth.
“And it would be nice if the girl had a sports hobby or was at least interested
in sports.”
”Mm-m.”
Toudou waited, but his chatting partner didn’t open up. Damn it. Okay, fine.
Let him take his secrets to his grave then. He concentrated on his ice cream.
For a while, there was only the chinking of spoons on the sides of the glass
bowl. Toudou finished his treat. He actually felt like having some more but the
gluttony had already gotten out of hand. He promised himself that he would have
ice cream one more time during their stay in France though.
He lowered his spoon onto the table. Right. Awkward silence. Though Maki-chan
didn’t seem bothered by it, he was just a little absent-minded. That couldn’t
be called uncommon, but this time Toudou felt like he had contributed to it.
His bad mood was probably contagious.
Ungh. This was not how he had pictured their evening together in a medieval
village. Cursed Manami, he had totally ruined it.
”Toudou,” Maki-chan began. He had finished his ice cream too, but he kept his
eyes on the spoon that was resting against the side of the bowl. “Have you
ever..?” He trailed off.
“Have I what?”
“Nothing.”
“Go ahead. What were you saying?” Toudou urged. Maybe Maki-chan finally wanted
to know about his level of experience; after all it was connected to their
previous topic. He was already thinking about his answer. He was pretty sure
that Maki-chan wouldn’t make fun of him even if he told the truth. On the other
hand, he had a serious need to give the impression that he wasn’t totally
inexperienced – because he was going to turn 18 in the next month and all the
others were experienced and… yeah, the usual reasons – but how would he phrase
it so that it wouldn’t just be lying? He could always say that he had fooled
around with some girls and that would be almost true. He had hugged several of
his fans and those hugs had sometimes been quite intimate. One of the braver
girls had groped his ass too. And Toudou’s fingers had sometimes brushed
against a girl’s breast.
Then he saw himself placing his own experiences on a scale with Maki-chan’s
experiences and got discouraged. What was small groping compared to the fact
that the other person had actually gotten to rub naked bodies with someone?
He wondered if Maki-chan had let the other guy top, or had he taken the more
active role? Or had they even gone that far? Maybe they had only used their
hands or mouths. What was even considered losing your virginity in a male-only
relationship? Seriously, shouldn’t there have been some guide books on the
matter? Something that clearly explained what was losing your virginity and
what wasn’t.
He was pretty sure that touching a breast wasn’t considered as such.
“You seem to be dwelling in your own world again,” Maki-chan remarked.
You too.
Oh well, it was more typical of Maki-chan than it was of him.
”Sorry.” He shook his head so that he could pay better attention. “So, what
were you going to say?”
Now Maki-chan didn’t say anything. Instead, he was staring at the ribbons of
ice cream, trickling to the bottom of the bowl.
Toudou was about to open his mouth again – about to turn everything into a joke
and start talking about cycling again, because nobody could handle this kind of
quietness – when Maki-chan suddenly spun towards him. The movement was so fast
that Toudou was almost startled, and then Maki-chan’s face was way too close
and his forehead was pressing against Toudou’s, and his eyes, those down-
turned, always so melancholic eyes, overlapped in his line of vision, and he
sensed a warm, mildly wine and lemon scented breath ghost over his face.
Oh my god! What is happening?!
Somebody help me! Waiter! Fuku! Mom!
He realized that he was only screaming inside his head. In reality, he was
completely stunned into silence. His mouth was slightly agape but there was a
lock straining his jaws, preventing him from letting out a sound. Every muscle
in his body was tense. His blood was thundering in his ears and his heart was
pounding in his chest like an uncontrolled earthmover. He was pretty sure that
Maki-chan could hear it too. Surely he had to, as Toudou felt like he couldn’t
hear anything over the rampaging pumping. Also, he had to feel his pulse on his
forehead, as the vein was flattened between two bones. Or was it Maki-chan’s?
Toudou couldn’t say for sure.
He swallowed. The sound was hollow inside his head. ”Is that your vein or
mine?”
Wow. Tonight live on our ‘The stupidest things you can say in an intimate or
almost intimate situation’ show. Had they been in the middle of a soap opera
shooting, Toudou would have gotten fired immediately.
Maki-chan blinked, but didn’t break the skin contact. “I’m not sure. Maybe
yours.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s pulsing so hard.”
Isn’t yours then?
How unfair that Maki-chan was completely relaxed when Toudou was in the middle
of ruining his shirt with sweat. It was fortunate that his sweat didn’t smell
because his deodorant was about to betray him. He wasn’t worried about that.
Instead, he was worried about the things like his blood circulation, which was
dabbling at a certain part of his body, about 20 centimeters south from his
belly button.
Oh shit. This was bad. He was even wearing stupid loose and light shorts that
couldn’t hide anything. How the hell would he get out of this jam?
Maki-chan, what are you doing?
His tongue refused to co-operate with him once again. Seriously, what the hell?
“I was just…” Maki-chan was talking in a soft voice, softer than Toudou
remembered ever hearing, and how could Maki-chan not blink for that long, when
his own lids seemed to flutter ten times a second and water despite it, because
he was staring at another person from a couple of centimeters away? “Have you
really thought this through?”
Thought what? What? Christ on a fake pony, what?!
He could have actually used some kind of divine entity in a situation in which
he was about to get an erection from touching his best friend. Toudou tried
with his sheer willpower to keep the blood away from his crotch, but the guy
downstairs hadn’t really respected his wishes for a few years now.
How was it possible to get a boner and be this nervous at the same time?
“Wh-what?” he finally managed to cough out. He wished that Maki-chan would have
backed off even a little bit. He was finding it so hard to concentrate; his
thoughts were staggering around in his head and he couldn’t arrange them in the
forms of proper sentences. Only then did he start to realize that Maki-chan
wasn’t holding on to him. Nobody was holding on to him. He could have, at any
time, leaned back and detached himself from the touch. He hadn’t done it.
“Why are you so concerned about whether or not I would go out with Manami?”
“I’m not… I mean… Manami is… Manami is, like, the most annoying person on this
planet.”
“But it wouldn’t be you dating him. It would be me.”
“Yeah but… if you were dating Manami…” What would happen to our friendship?
Maki-chan didn’t say anything anymore, only waited. Toudou waited too, for the
words to find him again. For him to find an explanation that would sound
reasonable, if only in his own ears. It wasn’t looking that good.
When the silence had lasted for about fifty years, Maki-chan sighed,
withdrawing to his own side. The touch left a burning spot on Toudou’s
forehead. His eyes were still blinking too much, as he tried to get some sense
back into the world.
”Shall we go back? It’s almost nine,” Maki-chan said then, and was already
climbing to his feet.
“W-wait,” Toudou spluttered. He really couldn’t get up now. Oh, how he hoped
that he had worn tight underwear today, but no, under his loose shorts he had
even looser silk boxers. He had to wait for a while for his boner to vanish.
Actually, it should have vanished from the shock; from the thought that it had
had the nerve to actually appear in such situation.
Maki-chan stopped to stand behind his chair with his other hand resting on the
back of it. Toudou was sitting rigid as a statue, his hand squeezed to cover
his lap, and suspecting that his face was going through several shades of red
at varying speeds. Maki-chan didn’t ask why he needed to wait. Perhaps he
thought that Toudou had finally come up with an explanation.
Toudou, like the rest of the guys, had his tricks of getting rid of an unwanted
erection, because sometimes that damned appendage just decided to jump on stage
in the middle of a class, usually at the moment when the teacher asked you to
come and write on the board. The best trick was to start ruminating over an
unsolved problem, for example, how to explain to a teacher that an assignment
from a week before still wasn’t finished or to think about someone very
repulsive, like one of the older teachers dancing in bikinis and wiggling their
old, saggy meat.
“Well?” Maki-chan asked eventually, when Toudou didn’t say anything.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” he grunted.
”Go on then. You don’t need my permission.”
“Yes but…” Think, idiot, think! ”My stomach feels weird and I really don’t want
to stand up yet.”
Maki-chan looked at him carefully, but this time there was a touch of concern
on his face. “Are you lactose intolerant? That strawberry ice cream probably
had milk in it.”
“Not that I know of, but maybe French milk is different. It could still be the
Indian food too.” Toudou exhaled and rocked back and forth a few times as if to
indicate that he really had stomach problems and he wasn’t trying to hide an
even more normal function of his body. His digestion had been on a
rollercoaster ride after the spicy lunch but those effects had passed hours
ago.
The situation was quickly becoming embarrassing, finally making his pole drop
the flag and enabling him to stand up.
”It passed,” he said. “I think I can make it to the camp.”
“Are you sure?”
”Yup. I’m fine now.”
“Alright then.” Behind Maki-chan’s complying there lurked a hidden hope that
Toudou wouldn’t crap his pants in the middle of their walk back.
As they approached the camping area, Toudou got hit by a feeling that he
absolutely needed to talk to someone right now. Someone trustworthy. Someone
who wouldn’t judge. Someone who could give him their unbiased (or biased,
whatever) advice.
Someone like Maki-chan.
Damn. Now that he really needed his friend, he couldn’t actually rely on him.
Maki-chan had trusted him with his secret and now when he had something he
could share in return, he had to find someone else. But who then? Shinkai? No,
he was too straight. Fuku? Too... too everything. Arakita he couldn’t even
think about, let alone Manami who had caused the whole episode. That left only
Izumida, who probably would have listened but Toudou didn’t know him well
enough.
He was out of choices. He couldn’t even call his sister, not from this far. He
was alone with his problems.
Back at the camp they met Shinkai and Arakita, and naturally the black-haired
teammate remembered to ask how incredibly amazing those clay pots had been.
Toudou answered that the pots had undeniably been rather interesting,
especially because of the erotic images carved in them. That wiped the smirk
off of Arakita’s face. They didn’t see Manami, and that was good, because
Toudou would probably have thrown him face-first into the nearest trash can.
They headed straight to the bathrooms to take an evening shower. Toudou made
sure that he took his clothes off without Maki-chan seeing him – in this
bathroom that was arranged well in the form of big, private booths. Maybe it
looked a bit like Toudou thought Maki-chan was a pervert or something, though
yesterday evening in the shower he had acted normally. If Maki-chan noticed his
unusual behaviour, he didn’t mention it. They showered, got dressed and headed
back to the camp.
The sky had darkened during the last half an hour, and as they had reached
their tent, the air smelled like rain and there were faint drops dappling their
skin. Until now, the weather had, amazingly, been on their side. Luckily, they
got hit by a full downpour only after they had managed to crawl inside their
tiny-ass sleeping quarters (yes, Toudou had agreed to switch with Shinkai and
Arakita but the tent was designed for ants. Fortunately, neither he nor Maki-
chan had a tendency to roll around in their sleep).
Toudou closed the zipper and stopped to listen to the rain splashing against
the fabric. The sky was really giving its best shot. Hopefully it would be a
quick shower. A couple of hours and their camp would flood.
Sitting in a tent that was being drummed upon by rain was sort of atmospheric.
Almost all of the light had disappeared, leaving them in the dim. There were
light poles here and there around the camping area and also by their spot, but
it didn’t really help. If you wanted to read, you’d have to hold the book a few
centimeters from your face.
Toudou wasn’t planning to read. He wormed his way inside his sleeping bag,
trying to settle down comfortably in the cramped space. Maki-chan was already
lying on his back, his arm underneath the pillow to lift his head a bit higher.
The tiny space hadn’t bothered Toudou before, but now he was aware of Maki-
chan’s every breath and movement. He felt them against his side and heard every
rustle.
“It’s raining quite hard,” he said, trying to sound more like himself.
“Yep. I hope the tent can hold it.”
“It should.”
They heard voices from outside. Shinkai was saying something, to which Arakita
answered. Toudou listened carefully and could make out bits that indicated that
their tent hadn’t been designed to handle heavy downpours. Weird. Weren’t tents
usually made to take any kind of weather? Why did tents even exist if they
weren’t any better than a sheet stretched between two poles?
“I hope they’re not planning to squeeze themselves in here,” he muttered.
Maki-chan was quiet first, looking like he was still listening to the outside
voices. “I don’t think so. It sounds like they went to ask for the car keys
from Kinjou.”
“If another tent fails, it will be quite crowded in the back of the van.”
Voices continued. Apparently Tadokoro went to help Shinkai and Arakita detach
the seats; Toudou could make out his gruff voice. The ado continued for some
minutes, then the car door slammed and Tadokoro returned to his tent. Toudou
could tell because the tent in question was right next to them. But he couldn’t
make out the words from inside it. Not over the rain.
The camp quietened down. There was the sound of pouring water but nobody was
talking. Toudou considered whether he should just go to sleep and hope that the
world would look like before in the morning, but then he heard Maki-chan inhale
in a way that usually preceded talking.
“Sorry if I scared you,” he muttered. “I mean, before.”
“You didn’t… you didn’t scare me,” Toudou answered. I scared myself on my own.
Besides, it had been him who had asked stupid questions.
He wanted to ask what Maki-chan had meant with his gesture. Had he aimed for
something? Of course he had, you didn’t do such things on a whim. And his eyes
had been so… demanding. Like he had been trying to make Toudou understand
something, read between the lines.
What if… what if Maki-chan hadn’t..?
What if it hadn’t been their foreheads that had been pressed together but..?
Already familiar wave of heat was flushing over his face again. And not just
that, but his body too. How on Earth was it possible to create such hot flashes
with only the power of your mind? He was like a freaking middle-aged bag with
menopause. He was thankful that it was so dark in the tent. Maki-chan would
probably have wondered why he was suddenly turning into a boiled lobster.
Toudou prayed for an invisible fan to materialize on the ceiling to cool off
his burning face. Naturally it didn’t happen.
“It was just a bit unexpected, is all,” he continued. His voice was muffled in
the edge of the sleeping bag, coming out as a subdued mumble.
His words were followed by yet another silence. He hoped that Maki-chan would
just spit out what was in his mind. Because he could sense it. His friend was
brooding over something.
“What did you want to say to me back there in the village?” he finally asked.
“Nothing special.”
Yes, you did. It was most definitely something special.
“You can talk to me,” Toudou promised. “What did you mean by that question,
have I thought this through?” Thought what?
Maki-chan sighed. ”Toudou...”
”Sorry, but this is really bugging me. You were so mysterious before… and that
thing in the coffee shop and…”
“You are sometimes so slow that I suspect your other hemisphere is permanently
hibernating.”
What? What?!
”That is so rude, Maki-chan! I’m not slow and my hemisphere is not hibernating!
It’s just that to understand your train of thought a person would require a
super computer that humankind hasn’t just managed to inve–“
His mouth was closed.
In fact, it was closed quite effectively.
With another mouth.
He felt his eyes bulge in his head as Maki-chan was suddenly so close that he
could smell the shampoo in his hair – even though he hadn’t washed his hair
since last night – that green, leafy scent that seemed to always follow him.
He wasn’t sure if he should have been able to identify the scent of Maki-chan’s
shampoo. He wasn’t sure if he should have remembered that Maki-chan had washed
his hair last night.
He was so close that Toudou couldn’t see the blue irises anymore – no, it could
be due to the fact that his eyes were closed – and he was still lying on his
back, but there was something heavy and breathing and alive resting over the
right side of his body, and that too smelled like leafy meadows and it made the
hot flashes return with the force of a tsunami. For a moment, he couldn’t
comprehend why he was paying attention to everything else when his attention
should have been in the lower part of his face, since that was the spot… the
spot that he should have paid attention to. Because there was another mouth
there. Warm, slightly moist lips that were pressing against his, hesitant and
at the same time determined.
Maki-chan was wrong. Toudou wasn’t slow. He was rapidly taking notes from his
surroundings. Like the fact that he was just being kissed. And that it was his
first real kiss, even if the lips were closed. He could also infer that the
kisser was Maki-chan, which didn’t actually require that sharp of a brain,
since there was nobody in the tent besides them and it was pretty hard for a
person to kiss themselves. And the fact that he…
..that he was kissing back. And that wasn’t even all, but his hand was groping
Maki-chan’s green hair and pulling him closer to crush their lips firmly
together, and when Maki-chan parted his lips, Toudou’s tongue tried to sneak
inside from between them and he tasted hints of the lemon sorbet and a touch of
something that was all Maki-chan and…
And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Toudou tore himself away
when understanding pierced his consciousness, alarmed him of what he was doing.
That he was doing something he didn’t usually do. What he had never done
before, ever.
(Hopefully Maki-chan didn’t think he was a bad kisser.)
He was breathing hard like after the hardest mountain stage, staring through
the darkness into the eyes of his rival, friend and travelling companion, and
voiced the only question that could break away from the obscure mass that was
his scattered thoughts.
“Maki-chan, what are we doing?”
Chapter End Notes
     A/N: “That’s the guy.” Why do I hear Toudou saying this in Tommy
     Wiseau’s voice? “Oh, hi Johnny, I didn’t know it was you.” “That’s
     me.” Go and see The Room if you haven't. :D
     Edit: Megane-ushi drew some fanart for that Toumaki scene. You can
     see it here: http://megane-ushi.tumblr.com/post/98452878664/oh-my-
     god-what-is-happening-somebody-help-me
     Thank you so much! You guys are so precious for making fanart for my
     silly little story. :3
***** The Things you do for your friends *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
In the back of the van, things were getting a bit too intense for Shinkai’s
tastes.
Sure, he had slept next to Yasutomo before and practically side by side (or
back against chest, like the other night) but then they had been inside their
sleeping bags. There had been several layers of fabric between them. Now there
was only some air and, in some spots, nothing.
Yes, he had agreed to this. Because he had been curious. The whole thing just
had been a bit more hilarious on a theoretical level, rather than when it had
been put into action, as Yasutomo’s every inhale of breath pressed him against
Shinkai and his fingers were resting just beside his hip. They were cold; he
could sense it through the thin fabric of his boxers. His pyjama pants had
gotten soaked in the rain so he had had to hang them over the seats along with
other wet clothes. Why had he thought that it would be a good idea to wear them
on his way from bathrooms to the camp instead of putting them on in the tent?
He didn’t have other pants suitable for sleeping with him. All the others had
zippers and metal buttons and buckles and all kinds of uncomfortable stuff.
“Are you cold?” he asked finally, only seconds before the situation turned so
awkward that they couldn’t have looked each other in the eye ever again.
“Not really. It’s just a bit chilly here.”
And you wanted to make this kind of arrangement despite of that? The sleeping
bags would have kept them warm if used correctly. Now, the edges of their
makeshift blanket could hardly reach the floor to cover their sides. Shinkai
felt a draft by his outer arm.
When Yasutomo didn’t continue, Shinkai picked up his book again and tried to
concentrate on it, which was extremely difficult, not only because of the
sleeping arrangements but also because there was a serious lack of lighting.
His eyes kept running over the rows but he couldn’t remember anything that he’d
read. He turned the page once and had to return to the previous one after
realizing that he had no clue what had happened there. Maybe it would be better
to just go to sleep, but he suspected that the sandman would be late tonight.
Yasutomo had closed his eyes and was lying still, the blanket pulled up to his
chin.
Nothing happened for several minutes. Shinkai was beginning to feel normal and
the words in his book started to make sense again. It was a shame, though, that
Yasutomo was a champion when it came to opening his mouth in the situations
where Shinkai wanted to sleep or had immersed himself in an interesting task.
So it was this time too.
“Fuck, I’m getting horny.”
Shinkai glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. He felt like inching
further away. Yasutomo was lying on his back so nothing questionable touched
him. But what should he answer to that? Did Yasutomo even want an answer?
“Okay,” he muttered.
“This is the longest time I haven’t touched myself.”
”Four days?”
“Why are you assuming that I jerked off right before we got to the airport?
Maybe I was busy packing.”
“I didn’t assume, I was only thinking that it was one of the last chances.”
“Come on, even I don’t spend every free moment with my hand below the
waistline.”
“Good to know.” Shinkai allowed his eyes to drift back to his book. Although,
four days actually was quite a long time. Sometimes the need hit him several
times a day, thanks to those blasted hormones, though he felt that things had
calmed down a little during the last year. “If I may ask, please go to the tent
or the bathrooms to take care of it.” Somewhat hypocritical considering what he
had done last night, but at least Yasutomo hadn’t been awake. “Or wait for me
to fall asleep,” he added. And don’t touch me.
Yasutomo grunted something incomprehensible but didn’t move a finger to get up.
A new silence dawned in the car. Shinkai guessed that it wouldn’t last longer
than a minute. He was right about that.
“So have you made your decision yet?”
“What decision?”
“You know.”
Yes, he knew precisely what Yasutomo was talking about. He was just a bit irked
by the way that his camping partner started the conversation. Like he had
already agreed. Like he had agreed to even consider it.
Sighing, he lowered his book to rest it on his chest. “I don’t think there are
any decisions to be made. All this time I’ve spoken hypothetically. If I
happened to be single. If I was actually interested in trying it.”
Yasutomo was quiet for a while. “You’re actually interested.”
Shinkai shrugged. “I’d still be in a relationship.”
“Would you see it as cheating?”
“Of course.”
“You’d try once with a pal to see what it’s like. No feelings involved. I’m not
going to tell Ayane – or anyone else for that matter. Nobody would ever know.”
“That’s not the problem here,” Shinkai said. “It is rather the fact that I
would know.”
“I promise it wouldn’t feel like cheating,” Yasutomo said. Damn, he was
persistent. Shinkai wondered if they really should swap places for the next
night. It would only do Yasutomo good to sleep in the same tent with someone
who could shut his piehole with one command. Shinkai himself would soon prefer
Izumida’s abs screams over this.
He didn’t answer, merely stared at the ceiling. What could he even say to that?
Yasutomo had decided that there was some rock hard basis for the experiment –
something that would be valid in a relationship court, so arguing would only
make him come up with more reasons.
“Hear me out for a sec,” the pest continued. “If we were lying like this, side
by side, and jerked off together, would you consider it cheating?”
“No, not really.”
“What if we did it to each other?”
“Hmm, that would depend… I think it would be close to it already.”
“If you gave me a handjob, would that be too?”
“Well, yes.”
“And if I did it to you?”
“I don’t know. It would depend on how you did it.”
“Alright, let’s continue picturing it some more. What if Ayane decided to help
out her friend? A female friend. If they touched each other and maybe kissed a
bit… Would you be jealous?”
Shinkai pondered it. “I’d like to be there to see it.”
That made Yasutomo grin and nod eagerly. “Sure, me too, but would that be
cheating?”
“Not necessarily, if it didn’t involve feelings. If she just wanted to try it
out of curiosity. I don’t know, it wouldn’t bother me nearly as much as it
would if she touched another guy.”
“Yes, fuck, that’s what I mean! What if it wouldn’t bother Ayane either? What
if she’s secretly a fujoshi?”
”She’s not.”
”How do you know? She’d hardly tell you, would she?”
“I’m pretty sure.” Ayane wasn’t really the type. She didn’t watch anime or read
manga or do anything of the sort. Besides, there had been that one text… ‘I
don’t like the way he looks at you.’
Yasutomo trailed off once again, but Shinkai didn’t pick up his book. The
conversation wasn’t over yet, and even if he was kind of disturbed by it, there
was a part of him that was still interested. His heart was beating a bit too
fast, so that he could feel it, and he had to concentrate on breathing evenly
and keeping his appearance relaxed. The fact that he didn’t continue his
reading but had his eyes open told Yasutomo that he was still willing to
participate in the conversation.
Raindrops were hitting the car roof and windows, creating loud background
noise. The sky was still rampant. Shinkai suspected that the ground wouldn’t be
able to absorb all the water if the rain continued. Their camping mates
sleeping in tents might be in trouble. He was lying still and listened to the
rain for so long that it started to form rhythms, making him hum a new hit
song, which he didn’t know the name of but had heard on the radio.
Somewhere after half a song, Yasutomo tried a new tactic. A very crappy tactic,
if you asked Shinkai.
“Are you afraid that I’ve got a bigger dick than you?”
Shinkai snorted. “Not really.”
Yasutomo hauled himself up to his elbows, looking at him. “What’s that supposed
to mean?”
”That I’m not afraid of it.”
“Are you saying I’ve got a small dick?”
”Jesus Christ. No. I said I’m not afraid even if you had a bigger dick than I.”
Shinkai knew that he shouldn’t have laughed but the whole thing was becoming so
absurd that he just couldn’t keep a straight face anymore.
“Do you want to compare?”
“Not particularly at the moment. No thanks.”
Yasutomo was clearly irritated by Shinkai’s amusement. He sneered to himself,
lowering his head back onto the pillow. The car quietened down again for a few
divine minutes.
“After tomorrow’s stage there’ll be a resting day,” Shinkai said then.
“Jinpachi suggested that we do something fun then, since it’s my birthday and
all.”
Yasutomo let out a weird sound that Shinkai couldn’t really make out before he
spoke. “He probably just wants to go to another fucking clay pot museum.”
“Maybe we could go cycling.”
”Mhm.”
Apparently Yasutomo wasn’t interested in talking about anything else other than
his questionable ideas. Shinkai wondered at what point it would actually start
to piss him off. Jokes had a tendency to grow old really fast.
“I read somewhere that if you cycle a lot it can give you erectile
dysfunction,” Yasutomo said.
Holy hell. Now there’s a way to change the subject.
Shinkai stole a quick glance at him. “I’ve heard about it too. Maybe there’s
some truth in it if you have the wrong kind of saddle or something’s
misadjusted.”
“I haven’t had any problems thus far.”
“Me neither, though I have to admit that it’s not all up and ready for action
after a race. But of course, you’re always so thoroughly exhausted that sex
isn’t the first thing on your mind. I’m under the impression that there may be
problems when you get older, not at our age. And you’d need to cycle a lot,
like be a professional or something.”
“We should ask Arashiro if he has noticed some troubles with his equipment
functions.”
Shinkai chuckled. “Are you gonna send him fan mail about it?”
“Maybe I will. We should know about these things beforehand.”
“Which one would you give up if you had to: sex or cycling?”
Yasutomo thought about it. “Cycling. I mean, I have already changed my choice
of sports once. I could do it again, if I had to. But giving up sex is a bit…
What would people call me then? A road racing monk?”
Shinkai laughed again. “What about cycling or porn?”
“Porn. I’ve got a working imagination to use, after all. Besides, to hell with
porn if there’s some real stuff available.”
That was true. Both had their pros and cons.
“What about you?” Yasutomo asked.
“Cycling versus sex or cycling versus porn?”
”Do you even watch porn since you’re such a prude?”
Shinkai snorted. “Sometimes.”
“What does your chick say about that?”
“You think I’ve told her?”
“No, not if you have some sense in your head.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, I meant, which one you’d give up, cycling or sex.”
A good question. Shinkai’s immediate answer would have been cycling, but
something – maybe that small part of his brain that was called morale –
prevented him from blurting it out. But he couldn’t really imagine that he
would never do anything else with his dick than piss.
“Am I allowed to use my own hands?”
“No.”
“Come on, nobody can do that!”
“Monks can, I guess.”
“Pfft. I’m sure they jack off like everyone else when nobody can see them.”
“And then pray for forgiveness,” Yasutomo added.
“Yep.”
“So you’d give up cycling?”
“Yes. Luckily I don’t have to choose.”
“Yeah, it would be quite hard.”
They were left in another silence, but this time it wasn’t awkward. Shinkai
caught himself smiling and he could sense amusement radiating from Yasutomo
too.
Sometimes he wondered why so many people considered Yasutomo to be such a
difficult person. Sure, he wasn’t the easiest to be around, but all those
descriptions of a raving mad troublemaker and rumours about Hakogaku using one
of their members as guard dog for their clubroom and equipment… Shinkai
couldn’t brag that he had immediately seen through Yasutomo’s aggressive
exterior, but once they had gotten to know each other better he had realized
that it was more of a defence mechanism that had developed somewhere along the
first steps of puberty, during those moments when Yasutomo’s future in the
baseball field had been crushed, and later it had become a role that just
wasn’t easy to turn off. That he couldn’t get rid of, since everybody expected
a certain kind of behaviour from him.
Likewise, people expected a certain kind of behaviour from Shinkai. Quite the
opposite than from Yasutomo. Therefore it was sometimes very amusing to see the
reactions of his friends when he actually lost his temper. Which didn’t really
happen that often.
“Have you ever watched…” Shinkai began. “Well, those things that you’d like to
try?”
“Hmm… you mean gay porn?”
“Yes.”
Yasutomo coughed, taking a moment. “I’ve taken a look, yeah.”
“What was it like?”
“What do you think it’s like? Hairy as fuck giants banging each other. It’s not
the most beautiful sight to see.”
“What freaking Yeti porn did you watch?”
“I don’t know which country it was made in. I couldn’t understand the language
at all. However…” Yasutomo’s tone changed. “I watched one with younger guys in
it. That was American.”
”Well, what did you think of it?”
“I don’t know. The guys seemed to be having fun.”
“It’s kinda part of the job. You must look like you’re enjoying it.”
“Yeah, but this company is famous for using young guys who actually like to
suck cock while being filmed.”
“There probably are people like that too.” Shinkai couldn’t picture himself
doing anything intimate in front of a camera. How could you ever get used to
it?
Their conversation had made his blood circulate a bit faster. There was a faint
throb in his groin that was leading to a half-boner. He had never watched gay
porn but couldn’t have completely avoided it, after all he used the internet
daily. It hadn’t really grossed him out. Rather it had awoken the same
curiosity in him that had been bugging him last night. Once he had really
thought about it – like he had said, everybody had probably thought about it
sometime in their life – and taken a closer look at the guys during practise,
trying to picture himself with them. At that point he had hit a wall. He had
inwardly laughed at the thought of caressing Juichi’s cheek and leaning towards
him and feeling his breath on his face and… oh dear lord, stop!
But what if it was Yasutomo?
He couldn’t really picture himself leaning towards him either with the
intention of touching his face or his lips. Instead, he could almost see
himself lying on his side so that he couldn’t see Yasutomo’s face, succumbing
to his will. In other words, letting his teammate stick it up his ass.
He awoke from his thoughts to the feeling of a row of fingers on his hipbone.
They didn’t do anything per se, just rested there, hesitant and tentative and
so damn alien.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice took a warning tone, which Yasutomo
registered immediately and snatched his hand back.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Shinkai sighed. ”You don’t give up, do you?”
Yasutomo whispered another apology from the depths of the sleeping bag. It was
actually quite confusing to see him that humble for once.
“How were you planning to actually do it?” Shinkai asked. “To my knowledge, it
doesn’t work as smoothly as between a guy and a girl. You need all kinds of
preparations and utilities and stuff.”
“You make it sound like gay men would prepare for it for days. First you have
to order an energy-saving vacuum cleaner and the next year’s wall calendar and
a couple of packs of Pocky sticks. It’s not that fucking complicated, really. I
have some lotion in my bag. Oil based,” Yasutomo added like it was highly
relevant. Maybe it was; the hell did Shinkai know about this stuff?
“What about condoms?”
Yasutomo let out a small cough. It sounded embarrassed. “I have those too.”
“Why did you bring condoms with you to France?” Had he planned this at home or
had he imagined that he would get in close contact with French girls?
“I didn’t bring them. I bought them yesterday.”
When did you have the chance to do that? “Gaijin’s condoms could be too big for
us,” Shinkai tried. Gaijin were so big, tall and broad-shouldered and they had
big hands and feet, so it was probable that their equipment was of the same
calibre.
“Nah, it’s not that big of a difference. Naturally, guys here are different
sizes too.” Yasutomo trailed off, scratching himself at some part of his body,
before continuing with a barely audible voice. “They’ll fit just fine. I tried
one on.”
I repeat: When did you have the chance to do that?!
Shinkai lay quiet, processing the things he’d just heard. Okay. So now it could
work, in theory. Yasutomo was prepared, and if he had in fact watched some gay
porn, he probably knew what to do. Shinkai already felt like he might regret it
if he didn’t try it now while he had a safe chance. Yasutomo wouldn’t blab
about it, he was sure of that. He had his own reputation on the line here too.
These weren’t that kind of stories that you told by a camp fire.
“But god help you if you try to kiss me or touch me in the way you touch
girls!”
Yasutomo jerked so abruptly that Shinkai could feel it. The blanket moved to
the other side and let some chilly air touch his arm. “What?”
“I’m letting you do it,” Shinkai said. As the words left his lips, an enormous
flash of heat hit him. The mother of all heat flashes. The type that wet his
forehead in seconds and didn’t only paint his face red but his upper body too.
Luckily you couldn’t see colours in the dark of the night.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, but no groping.”
“But I can’t just not touch you…”
“I know, but… I mean, we’re just going to try. It’s an empirical test, we’re
not… making love or something like that. So we’ll leave out everything related
to it.”
”I wasn’t going to. Kiss you or anything.”
“Good.” Shinkai tried to sound like his heart wasn’t beating in his throat and
that his fingers weren’t shaking and definitely not that his half-pole was
developing into a full-blown hard-on. “Let’s get to it then so we’d get to
sleep sometime. It must be past midnight already.”
”It’s not, yet,” Yasutomo said. He crawled to sit up in their so-called bed,
scrunching the lower sleeping bag. “You’re seriously agreeing now?”
“Can’t get you to shut up otherwise.”
Yasutomo stopped and peeked at him from the shadow of his fringe. A faint
embarrassment was lurking on his face. “I don’t wanna force you into anything.”
Oh, so now you’re suddenly worried about it?
Shinkai shook his head, dropping his defence that had suddenly built huge walls
around him. “You’re not forcing me.”
“I don’t wanna hear any whining later that I forced you to do some gay shit
against your will.”
“You’re not forcing me,” Shinkai repeated. “Not that you could even do it,
anyway,” he added with a more playful tone. “Maybe you could beat Jinpachi in
arm-wrestling but you couldn’t beat me, I can guarantee that.”
Yasutomo said nothing to that, didn’t challenge him. An idiot could see that
Shinkai was the physically stronger one of the two of them.
“So, where are these utilities of yours?” he asked. He noticed that his voice
was bit too high and strained. Something in the back corner of his mind was
trying to elbow its way onto the stage. He suspected that it was his
conscience, screaming that he was about to do something morally very dubious.
But he was already past the point of return. Besides, he had said it: this was
an empirical test. Yasutomo was his friend and they’d just do a small
experiment in a completely platonic environment. Never mind that the nature of
the experiment sounded very non-platonic.
“In my bag.” Yasutomo stretched his arm towards his bag lying on the
passenger’s seat. He couldn’t reach it so he had to get up and fish for it over
the detached seats. Shinkai was glancing out of the corner of his eye and
noticed that the front of Yasutomo’s pyjama pants was tenting meaningfully.
How is your dick up after all this talk? Shinkai felt like asking. He didn’t.
Not when his own dick had already reached the half-way. He was sure that it
would flop immediately when he felt something in his ass though. His mind was
constantly trying to make him take back his words, screaming in an alarmingly
loud voice ‘What the hell are you doing, you hopeless fool?’ but even if he
couldn’t totally ignore it, he still didn’t give in to it.
Yasutomo returned to sit on their bed, lowering the stuff that he’d bought onto
the blanket for Shinkai to see. A pack of condoms and a bottle of lotion.
“If you bought condoms, why not lube too?” Shinkai heard himself asking.
“I had no fucking clue which one of all those tubes and bottles was lube!”
Yasutomo snarled a bit too loudly. “I don’t know any French. I could have
bought toothpaste, for all I know!”
“Alright, alright,” Shinkai soothed him. “But that lotion’s gonna work, right?”
“I believe so.”
Shinkai took a deep breath, trying to calm down his fluttering stomach. Was
Yasutomo as nervous as he was? “What next?”
“I suppose we have to… take off our clothes.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Neither of them moved. Yasutomo stared into his lap, fumbling with the cap of
the lotion bottle.
“Okay, I’ll go first. This won’t be the first time you’ve seen my ass, will
it?” Shinkai tried to joke. At least not from this close. He reckoned he could
leave his shirt on, since it was still quite chilly in the car, and the fact
that they wouldn’t be fully naked could help him feel that it was only an
experiment, not an act of blooming passion. He snaked his fingers into the
waistband of his boxers, pushing them down his legs but staying under the
blanket at the same time.
Yasutomo swallowed hard, so that Shinkai could hear it, lay down next to him
and peeled off his own pants.
“Then what?” Shinkai continued talking. He felt like he needed to talk,
otherwise the situation would grow too awkward, and Yasutomo wasn’t being the
most talkative person at the moment. He didn’t dare to look at his friend apart
from a quick glance, as his face suddenly appeared so foreign. He wasn’t sure
about the expression lingering on Yasutomo’s face. A mix of insecurity,
excitement and confusion about what they were engaging themselves in. Yasutomo
didn’t touch him beneath the blanket, but the warmth radiating from his body
had gone up by several degrees now that when there weren’t clothes between
them.
”Are there any, like, preferable positions? What would be the best one to start
with?”
“I guess you can do it in any position you like,” Yasutomo muttered.
”Then I’d prefer to lie on my side, if that’s okay with you?”
“Sure. It’s not like there are any rules in this.”
Except the one that you are not to kiss me or grope unnecessarily.
Shinkai rolled onto his side, facing the wall. His heart was having a fit,
raging in his chest so forcefully that his whole upper body seemed to jump
along with it.
Yasutomo coughed. “I need to… um, like… prepare you.”
“Oh yeah, right.” Butts didn’t produce their own lubrication and the muscles
were tight for a reason. “Go ahead then.”
“That means I have to stick my fingers into your ass.”
Oh, the joy.
“This must be what the poor guys suspected for drug smuggling feel like when at
an airport they are taken to the backroom for interrogation.”
Yasutomo snickered at his words. Thank god. They really needed to get rid of
this tension and humour was a great way to do it. “Do you wish for me to create
a more authentic atmosphere by snapping rubber gloves?” he asked.
Shinkai peeked over his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you bought rubber gloves too?”
“I didn’t. But I can snap condoms for the same effect.”
“Don’t bother. I’m already in the mood. You may get to business.” He
straightened his neck, tucking his hand under his head for support and trying
to concentrate on breathing calmly.
Yasutomo lay down behind him. This time he couldn’t avoid touching Shinkai,
making him jolt a little, but he forced himself to stay still. This wouldn’t
work if he kept jumping for every little touch. He heard the lotion bottle cap
snap, and then a squish.
“This stuff is a bit cold,” Yasutomo told him.
“Not expecting anything else,” Shinkai said, but he still flinched when wet and
cold fingers were planted on his skin. Yasutomo had to use his touch to locate
the correct place.
”Shit, this is weird,” Shinkai informed him as he felt the fingers sneaking
between his buttocks. “Shit, shit, shit… IIIIYAAAH! What are you doing?!” His
pelvis snapped forward as a reflex, and he turned to look at Yasutomo.
“Sticking my fingers into your ass. That’s what we talked about.”
“Yeah, but…” Shinkai shook his head. ”That felt really freakish.”
“It’s supposed to feel that in the beginning. Weird feeling is okay. But if it
starts to hurt a lot, you’re doing something wrong.”
“What if it hurts a little?”
Yasutomo’s eyes were wandering around the car. “It might happen. But it
shouldn’t hurt so much that you lose your mood.”
Shinkai sighed, returning to lie on his side. “How do you know all this?”
“I read about it.”
“Christ. Alright, alright, try again.”
“Remember what I said. Weird feeling…”
“Weird feeling okay, hurting a lot no.”
“Yes.”
Yasutomo’s fingers returned. This time they weren’t immediately trying to go
in, but glided back and forth between his buttocks. Shinkai realized that
Yasutomo’s intention was to get him used to the feeling and in a way it worked,
at least as long as he wasn’t thinking about what he was about to do and with
whom. His body was slowly accepting the new sensation and wasn’t strained as a
wire anymore, but it took a U turn as Yasutomo changed the direction of his
fingers’ movement and tried to inch past his sphincter. It actually worked for
half a second that Shinkai lasted without yelping.
Yasutomo stopped immediately. “Does it hurt?”
“No, but… fuck! How can this be so..? Nothing can fit in there!”
“Sure it can. If it doesn’t hurt, I’ll just continue. I’ve only managed to get
a fingertip in. Of one finger.”
“Hnnngh!” Shinkai was grinding his teeth. His butt muscles were threatening to
cramp and push the intruder out. He had sweat drops on his forehead and at the
same time he was shivering from cold. His heart was still beating like crazy.
This experiment was going to be the death of him.
”You’re being a big baby again.”
“Oi, no finger in the anus, no opinion!”
“I think you should try to relax a bit. If you’re so fucking tensed up, you’ll
end up hurting easily.”
“I’m trying, but I have this feeling that the hole wasn’t designed for this
purpose.”
Yasutomo snorted. “It isn’t.”
Shinkai exhaled, trying to lose some tension again. He imagined what he would
be like if all the bones vanished from his body. A perfect pile of goo. He
painted a picture on his retinas of Usakichi slumping on the ground with her
body stretched as far as it would go. Relaxing was a luxury for bunnies. As
prey animals they rarely got a chance to do it, but living with Shinkai
Usakichi had little by little learned to lower her guard.
Thinking about Usakichi made him let go of the worst of the tension and for a
while it was working more smoothly. Yasutomo managed to push his finger deeper,
starting to shallowly move it back and forth. The feeling was still alien as
hell, but now when Shinkai knew what to expect, he didn’t get startled anymore.
However, he couldn’t really imagine Yasutomo squeezing anything bigger than a
finger inside him, as he was already having so much trouble.
Two times his partner withdrew his finger to add more lotion and then brought
it back in. Each time it went in easier, and Shinkai relaxed some more. Maybe
he’d get out of this alive. He couldn’t really praise how good it felt though.
Because it didn’t. It wasn’t painful but there wasn’t any spark of pleasure
either. It just… was. His dick had gone flaccid amazingly fast, as if to
protest that it had been expecting some exciting action which then hadn’t
appeared.
Then Yasutomo withdrew his finger and when it returned, it had become two.
Shinkai tensed up immediately, anticipating a new freaking fit, but two fingers
didn’t feel as unpleasant as he had feared. Tight yes, but his muscles were
giving in a lot faster than in the beginning.
“You okay?” Yasutomo asked. He was lying so close to Shinkai that his warm
breath made the hair on the back of Shinkai’s neck stand.
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Can I try with three fingers?”
“Go ahead.”
But before Yasutomo had the third finger inside him, Shinkai burst into
laughter. It was more of an unravelling of tension, but there was a grain of
amusement in it too. Because immediately when he stepped outside the situation
and observed it from a bystander’s point of view, it looked extremely silly.
Yasutomo ceased his ministrations. “What’s wrong now?”
“My god!” Shinkai giggled. ”This is like the blind leading the blind! Or two
morons reinventing the wheel.”
”Hey, I know what I’m doing!” Yasutomo growled but amusement was audible in his
voice too.
“But this whole situation is so… clinical! Like some sort of doctor play.”
Yasutomo began snickering. “I haven’t even found your prostate yet.”
“You’re a really crappy doctor!” The laughter grew so uncontrollable that tears
were streaming down Shinkai’s face and his chest was jumping so violently that
he was bound to get the hiccups.
He wasn’t sure how long he howled for, but eventually the outburst died,
leaving him gasping for breath on the hard car floor.
“Oh my god, that was something,” he panted. “You know…”
He was about to suggest that they should go to sleep and maybe continue
tomorrow, but while he’d been laughing, Yasutomo had positioned himself right
behind his back and suddenly Shinkai felt something new against his ass.
Something that was remarkably bigger than fingers.
He froze, laughter dying in his throat. “What are you doing?”
“Moving to the last phase of our experiment. If that much laughing didn’t relax
you, then nothing will.”
Shinkai was quiet for a moment. “Do you have a condom on?”
“Yeah. And lube – or lotion.”
“When did you..?” That was the question he had been repeating a lot that night.
“Just now. You were too busy guffawing your ass off.”
Shinkai huffed, letting the air escape his lungs. Admittedly, he felt quite
relaxed now. He didn’t have the energy to jump even though Yasutomo lowered his
hand on his hip to hold on to him. He was pressing against Shinkai’s ass only
very lightly, waiting for his permission.
Oh well then. Why not continue when they were already halfway there?
Shinkai nodded and then realized that Yasutomo probably didn’t see it. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
”Okay, okay. But be careful.”
“Of course.”
Yasutomo grabbed him more tightly, pushing against him. His breath was slightly
laboured. Shinkai still failed to understand how his partner had managed to
keep his erection during all this preparation and laughing, but…
Aaargh! Fuuuuuck! God damn it!
Apparently he had sworn out loud as Yasutomo stopped. Shinkai fought against
the will to yank himself free. His ass felt like it was being ripped apart.
Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt as much as he could have imagined. It was more
like an uncomfortable and extremely alien feeling. He was sure that Ayane
hadn’t felt like this during their first time. Even though she had complained
that it hurt, Shinkai had slid in easily. It hadn’t been this arduous.
Thinking about Ayane made him feel kind of miserable. So he stopped it.
“You know, you’re making so much noise that it’s useless to demand that I keep
this a secret. The others are sleeping a few meters away. This is a car, not a
bunker,” Yasutomo remarked.
“Sorry,” Shinkai muttered. ”Are you sure this is how it works? Shouldn’t this
be easier?”
“The hell should I know? I’ve never done this before.”
The pressure on Shinkai’s sphincter increased. Oww, fuck! He took deep breaths,
trying to submit to the intruder. It’s the same as a finger, only a little
thicker. If I can take three fingers in, of course I can take a cock too. It’s
not like Yasutomo has the hammer of a porn star.
He didn’t really have any evidence of that. He’d seen his teammate in the
shower sometimes but never with a hard-on. But Yasutomo was slim and bony; it
would have been quite ironic if he had had equipment like the actors in his
favourite movies.
Shinkai was happy that he hadn’t seen Yasutomo’s dick. He’d have probably
freaked out because it would have made this more concrete, forced him to
comprehend what he was doing. Now, when he couldn’t see what was being pushed
inside him, he could imagine it being anything… like a log, for example. Never
mind, he couldn’t immediately think of any reason why someone would want a log
stuffed up their ass.
Suddenly his muscles gave in. Shinkai grunted, feeling the intruder inch
further inside. Yasutomo let out a hiss, inhaling sharply. He didn’t give
Shinkai time to adjust but pushed yet a bit deeper – and then there was pain.
“Ouch! Stop! It hurts!”
”Does it hurt a lot?” Yasutomo’s voice was strained from struggling.
“It hurts quite enough. Don’t move.”
Yasutomo’s fingers were squeezing his hips, and Shinkai felt him shiver and he
totally understood what it was like when your instincts told you to thrust
deeper, but he really needed a break. Because it wasn’t a place that was
designed for something being pushed in it. Not in a million years did he want
to tear something in there.
He kept breathing, closed his eyes and tried to relax again. Little by little
the tension dissolved, his muscles adjusting. Yasutomo felt it too because he
pulled out a little and thrust in again. Shinkai’s jaw tightened, making him
groan and grind his teeth.
“Does it still hurt?”
“I don’t know, I suppose not… not that much… nghhh! But this is really...
fucking… weird,” he spoke between the thrusts as Yasutomo had begun to move in
a rhythm. Slowly and shallowly, but he was moving all the same, and Shinkai had
to summon all his willpower in order not to cramp again and pull himself off.
And at that moment it really sunk in.
I’m having sex with my teammate. My teammate who is not only a teammate but
also a friend and on top of that a guy. That’s fact number 1: I have my
friend’s dick up my ass. Fact number 2 is that I have a girlfriend. How the
hell have I managed to end up in a situation like this? What fucking twist in
the universe made me think that this would work as an empirical test?
He was on the verge of telling Yasutomo to stop – because he had made a huge
mistake, Yasutomo’s persistence had clouded his judgment – but then he spotted
a hint of something new in the pressure inside him. A hint of something… that
wasn’t so unpleasant.
His eyes blinked open as he stopped tensing up and just waited. There it was
again. An insinuation that maybe this wasn’t such an abominable thing to do.
That there was a reason why some people did this for fun.
When Yasutomo next time pushed deeper and withdrew again, Shinkai heard a moan
leave his lips. There was a throb building up in his groin and he was getting
hard again, as the blood started circulating faster in his lower body.
“What did that sound mean?” Yasutomo asked from behind him.
Shinkai wiped hair away from his forehead. Now he was only feeling hot. “I
don’t know, I’m not sure yet. Keep going.”
“Roger that.” Yasutomo pushed in deeper than before, and for a moment it hurt
again, but at the same time the pressure was massaging something inside of him,
something that clearly had a direct connection with his dick, because it made
his erection ache every time that Yasutomo slid past it. Maybe it was that
famous prostate.
After that, it was all uphill from there.
After Shinkai had noticed how this whole thing worked, the pleasure kept
growing alarmingly fast. His crotch was filled with lava and his dick twitched
against his stomach. The feeling was familiar, because he had had sex before,
the same growing, pulsing, overwhelming pleasure, but there was something new
to it, because it was building up in a place where he hadn’t felt it before. He
wanted to squirm but didn’t dare to, as he was afraid of breaking the spell.
Instead, he collected the edge of the sleeping bag in his hands, hardening his
grip every time that Yasutomo hit that certain spot, forcing a new wave of
bliss to wash over him, and he was squeezing his eyes shut so hard that he
could see stars twinkling all over his lids. Good god, what kind of sorcery was
this? According to the laws of physics and common sense, it shouldn’t have felt
this good and yet it did.
Shinkai realized that he had lost it when he couldn’t form a coherent sentence
or even a single word anymore, he was drooling all over his pillow and his
erection was flooding overboard and on top of that he heard himself wailing
like a dying dog and could do nothing to help it.
“Shinkai, shut the fuck up!” Yasutomo hissed, pressing his palm over Shinkai’s
mouth. “The others are gonna hear us!”
Easy for you to say. Fucking… sweet jesus...
He slapped Yasutomo’s hand away, gritting his teeth and burying his face in the
pillow to muffle down the sounds that kept escaping his throat. His partner had
understood that they were sounds of pleasure and not pain, and sped up. At the
same time he was cursing Shinkai with all the power of his vocabulary, letting
him know that he had never had a noisier partner. It didn’t sound like a
compliment, but Shinkai could spot pride in his voice. It really boosted a
guy’s confidence to get someone to drool and whimper with their face in a
pillow.
When the pressure inside him grew too unbearable, Shinkai grabbed himself and
realized he was already hovering on the edge. “I’m gonna… come… just now.”
”Okay…” Yasutomo panted. “Okay, good. Let it go... let it all out... come on...
nnghgh! Fuuuck! Ah, fucking... fuck, Shinkai!”
All that it took for Shinkai to push himself over the edge was to rub the head
of his cock a couple of times. He was aware of pushing shamelessly against
Yasutomo but maybe his partner didn’t notice it as he was pulling him closer at
the same time. His orgasm bolted him up to the skies like a crazy rollercoaster
ride and dropped him so hard that it felt like a freefall. He wetted his
fingers and even in the middle of the greatest bliss he realized he would have
needed some paper towels. Right after that, he felt Yasutomo twitching inside
him and he just had to concentrate on it because it was the weirdest feeling
since the beginning of their act.
Thank god that Yasutomo had had condoms. Shinkai didn’t know how badly he would
have flipped if he had gotten his friend’s spunk in his ass.
His partner went limp behind him. Shinkai felt a few more tweaks and he allowed
Yasutomo to ride out his orgasm, but after that he pushed him lightly, asking
silently to pull out. Yasutomo obeyed without saying a word, moving back so
that he slipped out of Shinkai, but slumping down right after and breathing
hard against Shinkai’s neck again. The air smelled like sweat and sex, and the
car windows were still fogged up. They lay there for an eternity, maybe another
one too, letting the sweat dry and turn into shivers, catching their breaths
and, most of all, processing what the hell had just happened and how they had
ended up in a situation like this. Shinkai reckoned that Yasutomo was as
confused as he was. Yes, he had been the one wanting to try it out but now when
it was over, his worldview was probably crackling as badly as his. Shinkai had
switched from the friend category to something new.
As their second eternity was turning into a third one, Yasutomo cleared his
throat and asked in a quiet voice: “You still alive?”
“Yeah, I am.” He was, the air was still moving in and out of his lungs, his
heart was beating. He wasn’t sure about his worldview though. “You?”
”Mhm, yeah.” Shinkai heard Yasutomo move as he peeled off the condom and
hopefully stuck it in a place where nobody could find it in the morning. “You
want some paper?”
”Yes please.”
Yasutomo offered him a tissue. Shinkai accepted it over his shoulder. He was
still lying on his side, fearing that something would break if he moved. After
wiping his hands of cum and his ass of lotion he got up onto his other elbow,
trying to spot the results of his climax. It would cause mayhem if someone saw
cum stains on the car floor. He wiped some spots that looked wet and noted that
luckily he had hit the sleeping bag instead of the car.
“Here, I can take that,” Yasutomo said. His voice sounded strange. Reserved and
probing. Like he wasn’t sure of what to say, or of how Shinkai saw the
situation. Shinkai wasn’t sure either. He handed over the tissue to his
teammate (who had suddenly become his sex partner) and rolled onto his back,
paying attention to how he felt. His hip was stiff from grinding against the
hard floor and his ass felt a bit sore but it didn’t really hurt.
Physically, he was fine. The same could not be said about his mind. His self-
image was turning a somersault so thoroughly that he felt alien in his own
skin.
Yasutomo lay down next to him again, but was careful not to touch him. He
exhaled, lifting his hand behind his head, but didn’t say anything. Neither did
Shinkai. After a while he closed his eyes, hoping that sleep would claim him
soon.
Perhaps the morning would bring some clarity to the situation.
Chapter End Notes
     Wow, this was definitely the weirdest sex scene I have ever written –
     and I have written quite a few!
     Edit: Someone pointed out in the comments that you shouldn't use oil-
     based lubricant with condoms since there's a chance they'll break.
     This is very true! I was aware of that, but the boys aren't. However,
     with what Arakita said (and what Shinkai thought) it kinda emphasized
     that there's some benefit to using oil-based lotion - but it's
     definitely not its compatibility with rubber. :D Oil-based lotions
     just don't get absorbed as quickly as water-based lotions, therefore
     they IMO make a better lube. If you need to use lotion. The best
     option is naturally a proper lubricant. So from here on out I advice
     everyone not to follow the example of the clueless boys in this fic.
     ;)
***** An invasion of invertebrates *****
Chapter Notes
     I received so many nice comments for the previous chapter. Thank you
     all and sorry for the delay! I've been too tired because of work. :-
     / Anyway, tormenting Shinkai continues.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
When Shinkai woke up to a vague banging noise, he couldn’t immediately
understand why he was feeling so under the weather. First he suspected that he
had gotten lured into another bar trip last night and was now suffering from a
hangover again. Damn it. Jinpachi would grill his ass so thoroughly that he
wouldn’t be able to sit for a week.
Ass… Couldn’t sit for a week…
The flashback hit with a crushing force.
He jumped to sit up, realizing that there was nothing wrong with him
physically, apart from maybe the slight stiffness of his back muscles from
sleeping on the hard floor. His ass didn’t feel different; he was able to sit
on it just fine. But how he wished he would be able to change this… this inner
torment into a physical pain.
He could hear some muted swearing as the person next to him crawled to sit up
and threatened to strangle the sleep disturber with a flat bike tyre. Shinkai
felt his gaze being pulled towards his black-haired camping buddy.
Dear god, please tell me it was all a bad dream!
One glance at Yasutomo’s dark, tired eyes and he got his confirmation. Not a
dream.
This was worse than the worst hangover of the century.
They stared at each other in their shared shock, eyes bulging and every muscle
tensed up. Yasutomo even had his mouth hanging open. Shinkai’s heart began yet
another race and at the same time his stomach cramped, letting him know that
his body strongly disapproved of such horrors immediately after waking up. He
had a strong urge to say something but every word he knew felt insufficient.
Besides, they had to forget the aftermath for a moment, since someone was
trying to break through the car door.
”There nothing on the floor... is there?” Shinkai asked, his voice hoarse from
sleeping.
Yasutomo glanced around himself. “No, I picked up everything yesterday.”
“Okay,” Shinkai huffed, adding a small: “Good.” He grasped his phone from the
floor, checking the screen. Huh, it was already nine! They had slept for at
least eight hours – if Yasutomo hadn’t lied about the time at night – and he
was still tired as hell. The sleep had been quite superficial for the first
part of the night. Judging by Yasutomo’s squinting eyes, he had had the same
problem. Maybe they were still a bit jet-lagged too.
“Hayato! Arakita!” came Jinpachi’s voice from outside the car, accompanied by a
couple of loud knocks. “Time to get up!”
Shinkai began to yawn but it ended up as more of a sigh. He made sure that he
was wearing boxers before scrambling to his feet and heading for the door.
“We’re awake,” he told Jinpachi who was standing right behind the door with his
hand raised to knock again.
Jinpachi flashed him a smile. “Good morning, Hayato! We’re going to be on our
way soon so it’s time for you to crawl out of your nest. The other guys are
almost ready.”
“Mmhm. Wait a minute, we’ll get dressed.” He slammed the door shut right in
front of Jinpachi’s nose and dragged himself back to his bed. Yasutomo was
still sitting on the sleeping bag, rubbing his eyes and looking very tired.
“Can’t really call this a holiday,” he grunted. “Every fucking day we have to
get up with an alarm or a crazy fake rooster crowing at our door.”
”Yeah, but it’s worth it when we get to see the Tour.”
“But today we could have left for that Mont-whatever only after the noon.”
“The others want to go and see Lyon a bit better.” On any other occasion
Shinkai would have wanted to too, but now he only wished to pull a blanket over
his head and sleep for as long as it would take to dissolve this suffocating
lump from his throat. It just wasn’t an option on an intensive road trip where
you had to take fourteen other people into account.
He collected his clothes in the small chaos of the van. Beside him, Yasutomo
was doing the same thing. Second by second, the silence grew more excruciating,
and right after getting his clothes on, Shinkai opened the door and hopped out.
The grass was still a bit damp, but apparently it hadn’t rained hard enough for
the other tents to give in. Their tent instead… it had collapsed into sad
little pile of wet fabric. There was an actual pond in the middle, with a pair
of sparrows bathing in it. At night, when it had been raining like mad it
hadn’t really crossed their mind that they should have saved their tent as
well. Shinkai didn’t even know how they would get it dry. They should spread it
in their next location but it probably wouldn’t be usable for the next night.
They’d have to sleep in the back of the van again.
If he didn’t finally ask if Izumida’s sleeping bag had some room in it, that
was.
The others were finishing their packing or having breakfast. Shinkai’s stomach
growled after he saw the fresh bread rolls and croissants but the few that were
still left were quickly disappearing into Naruko’s and Tadokoro’s throats.
Maybe the camping area served breakfast.
”Shinkai-san, Arakita-san, what was all that noise last night?” Manami suddenly
asked.
Shinkai felt all the blood leave his body. “Wha–?”
“I heard you shout too, Hayato,” Jinpachi said, his brows furrowed. “Did
something happen?”
Oh shit. Fucking shit shit shit.
“There was a huge-ass spider in the car,” Yasutomo said. His face was blank.
“Shinkai cried and wailed like a little girl.”
”What? No, I di–” Shinkai shut his mouth after seeing Yasutomo’s warning
glance.
“That little bastard snooped under those detached seats and I had to haul them
around in order to find it. Then it scurried into Shinkai’s sleeping bag.
That’s when the screaming really started.”
“Is it still there?” Imaizumi asked. He had gone noticeably pale.
Naruko burst into laughter. “What’s this? Is Hotshot afraid of spiders?!”
His words made Imaizumi’s cheeks turn nicely crimson and with his pale
complexion he looked like a male version of Snow White. “I’m not afraid, but
what if it’s venomous?”
“There aren’t any really venomous spiders in France,” Mr. Pierre said.
“I caught it and threw it out,” Yasutomo said. “The coast is clear.”
Naruko was still howling. “That’s good. Maybe Hotshot will now have the courage
to enter the car.”
Imaizumi glowered at his teammate with pure hatred, but didn’t say anything.
“We have to attach the seats again,” Kinjou said. “Shinkai and Arakita, would
you mind collecting your stuff from the car so we can get to it?”
Or more precisely, Tadokoro could get to it. Shinkai nodded. “No, of course
we’ll do it.”
His clothes hanging over the seats were still a bit damp. He tucked them in a
plastic bag so they wouldn’t wet his other stuff and started wrapping up his
sleeping bag.
“I’m not afraid of spiders,” he muttered while squeezing the fabric roll into
its sack.
Yasutomo didn’t look at him while trying to dust off his own sleeping bag. It
had collected a fair amount of garbage from the floor after serving as their
mattress. “Now you are.”
You could at least have said that I had a nightmare. It would have been almost
true. It wasn’t that manly either, screaming because of a bad dream, but if
they encountered spiders in the near future, he would have to act like he was
afraid of them. If he forgot, the others could become suspicious. If someone
actually remembered it after a few hours.
Jinpachi had a bad tendency to remember this kind of things.
They didn’t exchange any other words during their short packing task. The air
hung between them, heavy and brooding. Shinkai was angry at himself. He should
have turned Yasutomo’s stupid ideas down right at the beginning. Now he was
doomed to carry around the excruciating load of guilt, and on top of that, they
had probably ruined their friendship for good. Why couldn’t he at least have
been drunk so he could point his finger at alcohol? That would have counted as
extenuating circumstance.
He was feeling filthy. His fingers and lower body had dried spunk on them. He
really wanted to shower. Undoubtedly there was also the need of mental
purification too.
“We are going to leave right after the seats are reattached,” Toudou ‘the so-
called group leader’ Jinpachi announced as Shinkai and Yasutomo jumped out of
the car with their bags.
“I’m gonna take a shower first,” Shinkai told him.
“Me too,” Yasutomo agreed.
“But you already took shower last night. You don’t have time to do it now! You
should have woken up an hour ago.”
“Yes, we have time,” Shinkai said with as much authority as he could. “Lyon is
right there. Nobody cares if we’ll be ten minutes late from a sightseeing
tour.”
That made Jinpachi shut his mouth. He was left to blink confusedly at Shinkai’s
absoluteness; wasn’t used to him arguing. Shinkai couldn’t understand what
fussing fit Jinpachi was having this time. Sure, every now and then he had
those energy spikes, and during those it was very wise to stay as far away from
him as you could, but this time there was a slightly panicky tone in his
commands.
Shinkai didn’t say a word after that; only started walking towards the bathroom
with his bag hanging over his shoulder. It would have been more convenient just
to grab the change of clothes and toiletries from the bag but the situation had
called for a dramatic exit. He heard footsteps from behind and knew that
Yasutomo was following him. Well, as long as he wouldn’t try to intrude into
the same booth as him…
He didn’t. In the bathroom Yasutomo shut himself in his own booth before
Shinkai. Phew. He was annoyed and anxious at the same time. So this was what
their relationship was going to be like now: awkward and heavy with their
shared secret?
He didn’t dare to talk about it in the bathroom even though the other guests
probably didn’t understand Japanese. There was always the risk that someone of
their own troop would pop in and hear their words.
Yasutomo was right about the fact that last night didn’t feel like… sex. In a
certain way it did, naturally, because many things had happened that couldn’t
be called by any other name, but at the same time it was lacking feelings,
gestures, touches, words, everything that he usually associated with sex.
However, it hadn’t just been a clinical performance either.
Had he cheated on his girlfriend or not?
He could still feel Yasutomo’s fingers on his hips, squeezing, holding him in
place. And now and then he could almost feel Yasutomo inside him, the weird
pressure from the beginning, the stretching and the unprecedented wave of
pleasure. He would have probably come without touching his dick, and that in
itself represented a phenomenon that he hadn’t believed had existed.
He wasn’t surprised to notice that he was getting hard again. He was a bit
displeased though.
Oh well, it was still practically morning and their dramatic wake up call
hadn’t left any chance for a morning wood. It would go down on its own if he
paid no mind to it.
It was a quick shower. After all, he had showered last night too. He wiped
himself on a towel hastily and pulled the clothes over his still slightly damp
skin, staying in the safety of the booth. He reckoned that Yasutomo was doing
the same thing as he didn’t hear the door. They stepped out of the booths
exactly at the same time and for a moment it looked like Yasutomo was going to
flash him a grin out of habit but he restrained himself. Instead, he finally
talked to Shinkai again.
“Are you… um, I mean… okay?”
Mentally or physically?
He guessed that Yasutomo meant the latter. Anal sex had kind of a wild
reputation. Besides, Yasutomo must have noticed that he wasn’t okay mentally.
As he himself wasn’t either. “Yeah, I’m alright,” he said. That seemed to relax
Yasutomo a little.
Shinkai wondered if he still should have said something, tried to turn the
whole thing into a joke, but Yasutomo walked past him with his chin lowered,
avoiding his eyes, and slipped outside. Shinkai could only follow him.
The car was packed when they got back. Shinkai would have preferred to sit next
to someone else other than Yasutomo – just to get a break from the whole thing
– but naturally, they had adjacent seats again. The positive side to it was
that they were in the last row where you could travel almost comfortably. He
buckled himself up next to Izumida and Yasutomo took the window seat. Juichi
had the last seat of the row. Manami had been squeezed in the front seat with
Onoda and Jinpachi shared his seatbelt with Makishima again. Everything was the
same as before. Seemingly.
What would the others have said, had they known what had happened exactly in
this spot just nine hours ago?
”Okay, our target is Lyon and a quick city tour before driving to Mont Ventoux.
At twelve everyone must be ready at the meeting spot,” Mr. Pierre announced
before turning the key in the lock and starting the engine.
The next five minutes were spent in silence that was quite atypical for this
lot. Even Jinpachi was quiet. Shinkai noticed himself slipping into
catastrophic ways of thinking as he watched the reactions of his companions.
Had somebody heard what they had talked about at night? Had somebody managed to
infer from their voices (okay, his voice) what they had been up to? If they had
heard him scream in the end of the act, that sound was quite distinctive and
not likely to be confused with anything else.
He suddenly felt hot and cold at the same time. His Adam’s apple jumped in his
throat.
For the passing second, he felt like everyone was staring at him, judging him,
asking him if those noises really had indicated what they had sounded like, but
after blinking and taking deep breaths he could see everything a bit more
objectively. Every passenger in front of him was facing the road. Yasutomo was
leaning his head on the window, staring into the distance with glassy eyes.
Juichi was looking out of the opposite window. The only person whose eyes were
on Shinkai was Izumida.
“Everything alright?” he asked. Apparently Shinkai had been huffing a bit too
loudly.
“Yes, everything is brilliant.” He cleared his throat and forced a smile from
his lips before fumbling in his pocket to find his phone and pretending to
engage himself with it. Actually, he should finally check his messages and
answer them. He had neglected his phone for too long again.
Ayane hadn’t sent him any more texts. Shinkai’s first reaction was relief, and
right after that, guilt. It was as if Ayane had known.
No, he hadn’t answered her previous message. Maybe she was finally fed up with
his silence and was now sulking. Maybe it was best to text something neutral.
‘Hi, we’re on our way to Lyon for a quick sightseeing tour and after that to
Mont Ventoux to see the greatest mountain stage of the whole race. How’s it
going in there?”
Ah fuck, even his writing sounded faked.
He flipped the phone in his hand while waiting for a reply, remembering then
that he had received a message earlier that he had accidentally marked as read.
It was from Yuuto. His brother whined that his ‘possessed wretch of a rabbit’
kept thumping and gnawing at the bars of her cage at night. Yeah, well, in
Hakogaku Usakichi was used to a big enclosure and back at home she had to live
in a much smaller cage that they had gotten from a pet store so naturally she
would protest. Yuuto also wanted to know what command he could use to silence
the bunny.
Shinkai felt a smile creep up to his lips. It wasn’t wide but it was a smile
all the same. Usakichi had such effect on him.
He typed out the reply. ’She’s a bunny. You can’t order her to be quiet. Just
place her in a room where you can’t hear her.’
He received another message. That was from Ayane.
‘Everything’s fine. I’m going to that new karaoke bar with the girls later
today. Do you have any days off from the Tour? Could you maybe send a picture
of what’s it like there?’
Hmm, maybe sending one picture wouldn’t make him bankrupt.
‘Yeah, tomorrow’s a resting day in the Tour. We might go cycling if we find a
place to rent bikes. The scenery here is amazing. I’ll try to take some nice
pictures.’
After sending the message, he waited for a while to see if he would receive
more replies but this time the phone stayed silent. He inched it back into his
pocket, leaning back on his seat and letting the air out of his lungs. The back
row was quiet. Instead, in front of them, Jinpachi had finally opened his mouth
and was having a monologue about the local kitchen which he had apparently
gotten to know yesterday during his village tour. For some reason, this time
the target for his blabbering wasn’t Makishima, but Naruko, who looked as
confused about the unexpected attention as Imaizumi sitting next to him.
Shinkai could see the glances that they exchanged between the seats. Makishima
was leaning on Jinpachi’s shoulder and had closed his eyes. Shinkai reckoned
that all of them had their methods of handling Jinpachi’s fits, but Makishima
had actually made an art form of tolerating him.
“What are you going to do at the city?” Izumida woke Shinkai from his thoughts.
“First I’d like have breakfast but I haven’t planned further than that. I think
it would be nice to check out the old Lyon and maybe look for some souvenirs.”
“Right. Who’s coming with you?”
“I am,” Yasutomo grunted from the seat beside him. He wasn’t even looking at
them but kept staring stubbornly out of the window.
Shinkai shrugged. “Yasutomo, apparently.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t actually talked about it yet with the others. I don’t
think anyone has. Let’s just go to that old Lyon, us who want to see it. If you
can wait for me and Yasutomo to have something to eat first.”
Izumida nodded. “Sure.”
The car quietened down after that, apart from Jinpachi’s chattering. It was
probably the silence that allowed them to pick up noises that weren’t usually
part of a car’s soundscape, such as an insect buzzing.
Shinkai wasn’t the only one to take notice of it. Yasutomo removed his elbow
from the windowsill and began looking for the origin of the sound with his
eyes. On Shinkai’s other side, Izumida seemed to sit up straighter, as did
Juichi.
You could immediately hear from the drone that it wasn’t caused by a fly. Or if
it was, the fly had to be the size of a hamster. It sounded like a miniature
helicopter had found its way inside the car. In a cramped space, it sounded
very menacing.
“Okay, I think we have a bee or a wasp in here somewhere,” Izumida remarked.
“Yes, but where is it?”
They peered around them, looking for the source of the noise, and then Yasutomo
pointed at the window beside Imaizumi. “There.”
Imaizumi became aware of the insect’s presence at the same time and naturally
his first reaction was to flail at it and jump against Naruko.
“Oi, what the hell?! Hotshot, what are you doing?”
The wasp got startled by the flailing and moved to buzz against the next
window, which happened to be Yasutomo’s. And of course, he reacted the same way
as Imaizumi. Shinkai felt the air escape his lungs as his teammate bounced
against him, making his side hit Izumida who luckily took it like a wall and
saved Juichi from a chain reaction.
“Where’s that wasp?!” Imaizumi was fussing and turning right and left on his
seat, looking for the bug. Apparently, besides spiders, he was also afraid of
wasps.
Jinpachi ceased his food lecture and raised his head high like a deer
prospecting the source of a suspicious sound. “Wasp? Is there a wasp in here?”
Yasutomo was still leaning as far into Shinkai’s side as he could. Only twenty
centimeters from his face, a black and yellow insect the size of an AA battery
was floundering against the glass. “That’s not a wasp, that’s a hornet!”
“A killer hornet!” Naruko shrieked.
“There aren’t such bugs in this country,” Imaizumi said, but he didn’t sound
very convinced.
After that, everyone had become aware of their stowaway and started offering
advice.
“Come on, don’t scare it! Open all the windows!”
They managed to open a few windows, but every time the wasp-hornet decided to
change its preferred buzzing target to a closed one or the rear window which
they couldn’t open. Little by little the good advice became screams of horror
and – since human beings are herd animals – the fear spread like wildfire.
“It’s not going out. Fuuuck, it’s coming this way!”
“Stop flailing, idiot! It’ll sting you!”
“EEAAAH!! Stop the car!”
”Shut the fuck up, all of you! One small bug and such a circus!”
“Just open those fucking windows wide enough so it can get out!”
“Stop the car, Mr. Pierre! I’m allergic to stings!”
The whole interior of the car reeled from one side to another, as Mr. Pierre
cranked the wheel onto the right and the car leaped to a bus stop. A sudden
halt threw the passengers against the seatbelts so hard that it knocked the air
out them, and yet Jinpachi was out of the car in a matter of seconds. He tore
off his headband, threw it onto the ground and started performing quite a
memorable rain dance that even an experienced shaman would have envied.
“Aaargh, it’s in my hair! Get it off! Get it off! Maki-chan, help me!”
Izumida cleared his throat. “Should we tell him that the wasp is still in the
car?”
Tadokoro snorted. “Nah, what the hell? Let the boy dance.”
Amused, they watched Jinpachi’s stupidity that was of the calibre that it made
them forget the bug for a minute. At least until Shinkai felt something tickle
the back of his hand and as he was about to turn his eyes…
“Oww, fuck!”
Everyone turned to look at him. Shinkai swatted the wasp off of his hand and as
it hit the floor he tried to step on it, but the little devil was faster and
finally whished out of the open door.
“Did it sting you?” Izumida asked, his eyes wide.
“Yeah, it did. Damn it.” He examined the back of his hand where a red bump was
already forming. His skin burned and a pulsating pain was spreading from the
sting. He hadn’t even flailed at the bug and still it had stung him. Okay,
maybe his sleeve might have brushed against his skin and the wasp had thought
it was in danger.
“Are you allergic?” Juichi asked.
“Not that I know of.” He had no clear memory of previous stings. His mom had
told him about one though; he had been a little kid and had screamed his throat
sore. They hadn’t needed to visit a doctor, however.
“What should we do now?” Naruko asked. “Drive straight to a hospital?”
Shinkai was waiting for an answer either from Kinjou or Mr. Pierre before
realizing that everyone’s eyes were still on him. He had to make the decision.
“Let’s just stick to the plan. I’ll let you know if I have trouble breathing.”
”Has anyone got ice?”
”No, of course not.”
”Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?” Mr. Pierre checked.
“I’m sure. I don’t think it’ll become serious.” They would probably laugh in
his face at the hospital if he went there to show his little insect sting.
“We can find a pharmacy in Lyon and ask if they have something for a wasp
sting,” Yasutomo said, speaking to him normally for the first time that day,
actually.
“Alright, let’s do that.”
They were supposed to go straight to a pharmacy but for some reason they
happened to pass a small café that was serving cheap breakfast. After pondering
about it for a couple of minutes, Shinkai came to the conclusion that it was
more important to fill his stomach than to get medicine for his hand, and they
sat at the patio, with some croissants, orange juice and cups of coffee.
Izumida had joined them. Shinkai was happy about it since after last night he
really needed some normality in his life – and it was refreshing to talk to
someone whose dick hadn’t visited his ass. Yasutomo was sulking though. It was
unclear whether it was because of Izumida tagging along or the things that had
happened between him and Shinkai. Luckily, Yasutomo sulked so often that
Izumida probably didn’t think it had something to do with him.
“So first we’ll find that pharmacy, and after that head for that old city,
right?” Izumida chatted as he opened the city map. “It’s across the river but
still near enough to go by foot.”
“Our meeting spot is on this side of the river so we have to get back in time,”
Shinkai said, munching his croissant. He didn’t know if it was because of last
night or the wasp sting but he had next to zero appetite – never mind that
croissants were absolutely a food of the gods. He ate because he was getting
the jitters and he had heard that it could be a sign of low blood sugar.
But damn, how his hand was hurting. How could one small insect’s sting hurt
this much? He fished out ice cubes from his orange juice and melted them onto
the injury. Cold made the pain more bearable, but as soon as he stopped, the
burning and aching returned. The customers at the table next to them were
watching his chore questioningly.
“Who do you think will win today?” Izumida asked.
”That British guy has been quite strong throughout the whole race,” Yasutomo
grunted.
“Who do you mean? Froome? Cavendish?”
”The guy who won the other day. I can’t remember those English names.”
“Cavendish. Yeah, he’s been on top condition this year. Froome is leading the
whole Tour but anything can happen. Maybe Cavendish will renew his victory
today.”
Izumida possessed a phenomenal ability to remember all kinds of details and
even the hardest foreign names. Yasutomo took notice of it too and began,
clearly just to amuse himself, asking Izumida the names of the racers and more
and more demanding trivia. Poor Izumida didn’t detect that his teammate was
only playing games with him and answered Yasutomo’s questions with delight.
Shinkai listened for a while, but after they had finished their breakfast and
still kept lingering at the café, he had to open his mouth.
“Um, sorry, I don’t want to sound like a whiner but my hand hurts quite a lot.”
Yasutomo and Izumida turned to look at him. “Shit, it’s kinda swollen already.”
”Thank you, I’ve noticed that.” His skin was constricting, burning and tingling
a great deal more than an hour ago, not to mention the different shades of dark
red that it was turning. “Could we now go and find that pharmacy?”
“Okay, sure. You’d think there are a lot of them at the center.”
Yes, you would have thought that, but actually they had to wander around in the
increasing heat for good ten minutes before they finally spotted one. For the
whole walk Shinkai was pressing a water bottle against his hand but it got warm
quickly and didn’t offer that much help anymore.
“Do any of us know how to say ‘wasp’ in French?” Izumida asked once they had
entered the small store.
“I’ve got my dictionary.” Shinkai rummaged around in his bag until he found the
book and handed it over to Izumida, who searched for the correct word.
Meanwhile, a brisk looking pharmacist had appeared next to them.
”Um, how do you pronounce this..? Guêpe?”
Apparently Izumida had said it totally wrong, since the pharmacist didn’t seem
to understand. Izumida shoved the book under her nose, pointing at the word and
then at Shinkai who raised his hand. At the back of it there was a purple bump
the size of a ping pong ball and the swelling was spreading into his wrist. It
was already hard to bend and he didn’t even want to try, as it hurt like hell.
The woman let out a sharp gasp. “Mon Dieu!” That much Shinkai understood, after
hearing the interjection on the streets and in French movies. Then the
pharmacist suddenly placed her hand on his forehead, a deep frown between her
brows.
“What’s she doing now? Why’s she pawing at you?” Yasutomo asked.
“She’s probably feeling if Shinkai-san has a fever. Do you have a fever?”
“I don’t know. I’m shivering a bit.”
The pharmacist dropped her hand and waved for them to follow her to the
counter, where she began scribbling something down on a piece of paper.
“Couldn’t she just give us a pack of some medicine?” Yasutomo grunted.
The lady gave the paper at Izumida, pointed at Shinkai and said something which
might have been clear in her mind but they could only make out one
comprehensible word. ‘Docteur.’
”Non docteur. Medicin,” Izumida tried.
”Médecin is also a doctor in French,” Shinkai remarked. That much he could
remember from his quick self-study during the flight.
“What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with this language?” Yasutomo snapped.
“Come on, find a word for medicine!”
“I’m trying, hang on… okay, there. Médicament?”
The lady shook her head. ”Non, non! Docteur. Hôpital.”
Izumida sighed. ”Apparently we have to go to a hospital after all.” He checked
the paper he had just gotten. It had an address written in it, probably the one
of the nearest hospital. The pharmacist jabbed her finger on it, repeating her
words with enthusiasm.
Yasutomo wasn’t exactly happy about the change of plans. “God damn it, Shinkai,
was it really necessary to let that wasp sting you?”
Sure, I did it on purpose. Enjoyed it, actually.
“You could have at least delayed it until tomorrow when the Tour is taking a
day off!”
“Well, sorry, I probably should have asked the wasp to come back tomorrow.”
“It seems they’re not going to call an ambulance for us,” Izumida interrupted
them.
“What about a taxi?”
”We speak so little French that even if we managed to get to the hospital, we
probably wouldn’t understand anything the doctors said. I’m calling Mr.
Pierre.” Izumida dug out his phone and dialled Mr. Pierre’s number. At that
point, they had to move aside, since there were other customers lining up to
the counter, but as they were about to step outside, the pharmacist caught up
with them and most likely wanted to check if they were heading for the
hospital.
”Oui, oui. Hopital," Izumida said. ”Um, telephoner un auto de un ami.”
“Dude’s speaking some decent French!” Yasutomo pointed out as the pharmacist
was satisfied with Izumida’s answer and returned behind the counter. She still
kept glancing at them and would probably have run after them if she saw them
only continuing their roaming in the street.
Izumida quickly explained to Mr. Pierre what was happening and what their
current location was. Mr. Pierre promised to be there as soon as possible.
Yasutomo was clearly frustrated and strolled around in circles in the walkway.
“What’s going to happen to the Tour now?”
At the moment, Shinkai didn’t know, and didn’t really care for that matter. The
scorching pain in his hand made everything else feel inessential. “I don’t
know. Maybe it won’t take that long at the hospital.”
*
The hope was in vain. Even though Shinkai was guided past the queue and he got
cortisone and painkillers, his doctor didn’t want to let him go. Mr. Pierre
listened to the doctor’s explanation with his brows furrowed beneath the filter
hat.
“What did he say?” Yasutomo wanted to know immediately when the doctor closed
his mouth.
“They want to monitor him for a while, a couple of hours at least.”
“What? But I feel fine now,” Shinkai protested. He had indeed gotten a fever
during the drive to the hospital – at that point he hadn’t confused the jitters
with a low blood sugar anymore – but his temperature was already almost back to
normal, thanks to the medicines.
“Perhaps, but allergic reactions are tricky. You may be fine now, but in a few
hours your throat might start swelling.”
Shinkai huffed, his shoulders sagging. “Okay, what now? Mont Ventoux and its
homestretch are waiting. Everyone is dying to get there and I don’t want to be
the reason the others are going to miss the most awaited climbing stage of the
race.”
“Please don’t think about it now,” Izumida said, trying to sound encouraging.
“Health comes first. There’s a lot of race still to see.”
“I still wouldn’t want to stop you guys from seeing today’s stage.”
Mr. Pierre pondered it over. “I can’t leave you here alone. You don’t
understand the language and for the next 24 hours you’re still considered
underage in this time zone.”
“I do understand some English. Sure there must be at least one employee in this
hospital who knows English!”
“Possibly, yes, but you’d still be underage and alone and I’m kind of
responsible for all of you during this trip…”
“What if I stay with him?” Yasutomo butted in. “I’m already 18 if that’s the
issue here. The rest of you can go and see that climb.”
“Hmm, yes…” Mr. Pierre hesitated. ”But don’t you want to see the famous
mountain stage of Mont Ventoux?”
“Of course I do, but we can’t leave this imbecile alone.”
Izumida straightened his back. “I’ll stay here with him too!”
“No, you won’t! You’ll go with the rest. I’m staying,” Yasutomo ordered.
”Yeah, but...”
”It’s not necessary for the whole troop to hover over his bed!” Yasutomo’s tone
was so commanding that Izumida didn’t dare to argue anymore.
“I think I’ll do just fine by myself,” Shinkai said. “You can go with them,
Yasutomo.” He wasn’t sure how audible it was in his voice that he really didn’t
want to be left alone in the hospital, but neither did he want to deprive the
others of one of the most interesting stages. Taking into account the latest
events, he would actually have preferred Izumida’s company over Yasutomo, but
Yasutomo had qualities that might help him get released sooner.
“Shut up, douchelord. You need someone to guard your sorry ass. It’s settled
now. I’m staying. Mr. Pierre and the rest can go to Mont... what-the-fuck-
ever.”
Shinkai almost smiled. Almost.
Mr. Pierre thought about it for a while before nodding. “Well, if you are
absolutely sure. I’ll ask the doctor to find someone who speaks English. You
can follow us once Shinkai is released. There should be a fairly active bus
connection between Lyon and the city of Avignon. I’ll come to pick you up
there. I’ll look up some bus lines for you.”
Chapter End Notes
     This fic is becoming Le Tour de la Torture for poor Shinkai. And they
     are eating almost as much as the Famous Five in Enid Blyton’s books.
     :D
***** The Country of Opposites *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Toudou was confused.
No. That was putting it mildly. In reality, he was befuddled. He was… um…
Aaaaargh!
What the fuck was happening here? Did totally different rules and laws apply in
France to the ones back at home?
Apparently, yes.
So. In France, Maki-chan was gay and had had a one night stand with a guy. And
that was not all. In France, Manami was also gay and wanted to date Maki-chan.
And even that wasn’t all! In France, Toudou and Maki-chan were kissing. In
France, Toudou liked kissing Maki-chan, so apparently he was gay too. France
was a strange country. Did they put something in the water here?
All in all, things had been quite strange in the last sixteen hours. Before
bedtime, the sky had begun to hammer them with rain so hard that Shinkai and
Arakita had had to change their sleeping quarters. In the morning, Shinkai had
been tense as a bowstring, which, in itself, was totally unheard of. Then, on
the way to Lyon, a wasp had popped into their car and stung Shinkai, and the
outcome was that he and Arakita were now at a hospital in Lyon while the rest
of the party was standing on top of Mont Ventoux, ogling at the most demanding
stage of the whole tour. Mr. Pierre had assured them that he would go and pick
up their missing members as soon as Shinkai was discharged from the hospital,
but Toudou still felt a bit restless with two teammates missing.
Shinkai really should have arranged for that allergic reaction of his to happen
on a day when Toudou had fewer things on his mind.
Mont Ventoux occupied his thoughts for a while, but he wished that Maki-chan
had rescheduled his stunt for tonight, because then Toudou would have been able
to enjoy the climb more. He did enjoy it now too, but he felt like he couldn’t
talk to Maki-chan naturally, even though Maki-chan was the person he’d hoped to
share the highlights of the race with.
God damn all the lousy timings.
However, Chris Froome’s timing wasn’t a second off. The Brit claimed the
victory and became the second cyclist in the history of the Tour to have won in
the yellow jersey. They had been lucky to see the homestretch, since due to a
brisk tailwind the race saw its conclusion an hour early.
Getting away from the mountain turned out to be quite problematic. After the
celebration, the audience began to disperse and the roads were immediately
blocked. But there was momentarily more space in the car as Toudou and Maki-
chan moved to the backseat and Manami got in the same row with Naruko and
Imaizumi, so driving slowly to their next location didn’t sound too bad.
It was a shame though, that they weren’t driving slowly. They were crawling
along.
”We’d get there faster by foot,” Naruko grumbled.
“Maybe we would but we can’t leave the car here,” Imaizumi remarked.
“I’m getting hungry.”
“Shut your mouth and watch the beautiful scenery.”
“You can’t eat scenery.”
Well, you almost could, it was that breathtaking. Geographically, they weren’t
on the Alps yet, but the land was hilly all the same. Toudou had seen pictures
of southern France and naturally videos too, after all, the Tour had raced in
this area before, but it was so different seeing it with your own eyes. Verdant
valleys, small villages, purple lavender fields, and the row of mountains
outlining in the horizon. Everything looked so fresh and clean and idyllic.
But naturally, their group included members who didn’t care for eye candy.
“Do you want to have an apple, Naruko-kun?” Onoda asked, peeking from between
the seats.
“One apple won’t fill my stomach.”
”Then take a protein bar and block your mouth with it,” Imaizumi commanded,
shoving a snack towards his travelling companion. That shut him up for the
three minutes it took for him to down the protein bar, and after that the
whining continued.
“Where are we going now? Is there still a long way to go?”
“It probably isn’t that long but it might take time as there are a few other
people wanting to get there too.”
“Nggh, my ass is getting numb.”
“Stop whining. You sound like a little child.”
“Oh yeah? Well, you sound like an old spinster with her hair bun pulled too
tight.”
Undeniably, constant sitting in the car was beginning to take its toll. As
amazing as it was to follow the Tour, they all were in a need of a day off.
After listening to the whining for a while, Mr. Pierre pulled out his phone,
lifting it to his ear. Toudou reckoned he was calling for help.
They couldn’t understand a word, as Mr. Pierre was speaking French, but
something gave them the impression that a change was about to occur. Based on
that, the passengers that hadn’t yet started to complain were left to stare at
Sohoku’s coach curiously. Luckily it wasn’t a long call.
“Okay, hear me out, everyone!” Mr. Pierre announced after lowering his phone.
“I’ve got good news, hopefully.”
The grumbling and whining stopped and everyone was left to stare at the old
man. You could almost touch the hope lingering in the air.
“My first plan was to drive near Gap, since the next stage begins there but
considering Shinkai’s situation, it would be wiser to stay closer to Avignon.
I’ve got an old friend in Venasque and he owns a hotel. They are renovating it
at the moment but he could put us up for one night if we’re okay with half-
finished rooms. He’ll give us a friend discount and a free breakfast on top of
that.”
Everyone was holding their breath. A hotel meant a welcome break from tents and
the dark and dirty bathrooms of camping areas. It meant a real roof over their
heads and solid walls around them.
“Well?” Mr Pierre asked when nobody gave any response. ”Will that do? Or do you
wish to stay in the tents?”
“No, no! Let’s go to that hotel!”
“Yay, a hotel! Civilization!”
“Not all the rooms have a working shower yet, but my friend promised a couple
of those that do. In addition, some rooms only have double beds but that will
hardly be a problem after you’ve slept side by side in the tents for the whole
trip.”
A double bed. For some reason, that made Toudou’s face heat up. Maybe because
it included the assumption that the two people sleeping in it were a couple.
Did Maki-chan still want to share a room with him?
Toudou turned to him, about to ask. He didn’t get the chance to open his mouth
when Maki-chan glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and already spoke:
“Fine by me.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll share a room again,” Maki-chan added.
Toudou nodded, taken aback. ”Okay. Okay good.” He couldn’t resist glancing at
Manami. Had the little imp heard them? No, he seemed to have fallen asleep once
again.
Toudou’s first plan for the following days was to keep Manami away from Maki-
chan; to prevent them from getting any time alone together. His second plan was
to arrange time alone for himself with Maki-chan as much as possible. He and
Maki-chan had a lot to talk about, and he was waiting for a moment when they
wouldn’t be disturbed by the others.
Last night had ended as unfinished as it ever was possible. Toudou had torn
himself off of Maki-chan and voiced his confusion about what they had been
doing. Because – surprise, surprise – during the few years that they had known
each other, they had done nothing of the sort, but Maki-chan had only rolled
onto his sleeping bag and looked at him from under his half-closed lids like...
like... Toudou was a monkey that was trying to break a coconut by smashing it
against his head.
“That’s something for you to think about,” he had said and turned his back on
Toudou. And Toudou had been left to stare with his mouth agape, his lips still
moist and his other hand half numb under Maki-chan’s neck where it had ended up
with their quick change of positions. He had tried to voice his friend’s name,
but the situation had seemed too fragile. In the end, he had just pulled his
limb back onto his own side and lain down. Neither of them had spoken or moved
after that, but Toudou knew that Maki-chan had been lying awake for a long time
too.
And in the morning he had acted like nothing had happened. Infuriating!
So, Toudou was waiting for a perfect moment. It seemed like it wouldn’t appear
before the evening if he didn’t manage to steal them some time alone once they
got in Venasque.
* * *
Mr. Pierre’s friend, Jean-Paul Boudier, was a chubby middle-aged man with some
grey streaks in his hair and a friendly smile. His wife, Josette, seemed even
friendlier and wished them a warm welcome to their home and livelihood. Of
course, none of the passengers understood what the couple was saying to them
until Mr. Pierre translated it. Their hosts did speak a few words of English,
but since it was usually their staff that served the foreign guests, the
Boudiers didn’t really need to maintain their language skills. And naturally,
those few words they spoke, they spoke with an incomprehensible accent.
However, the hosts weren’t the detail that caught the troop’s attention,
because at the same time they realized that they weren’t only staying in a
hotel, but that the hotel was actually a castle.
Four round towers were reaching up to the skies, ivy was climbing on the stony
walls and light was reflected from countless little window panes. The garden
had gotten a bit out of hand, and here and there were scattered tools, ladders,
paint cans and plastic tarps, but it didn’t take away from the first
impression. Several kinds of castles existed: modern, mansion-like, gloomy
gothic palaces, but this one reminded Toudou of a fairy tale. Apparently it
reminded the others of the same.
“Well, well, this is certainly a place for Sleeping Beauty to catch some Z’s or
what do you say, Toudou?”
Toudou turned to glare at Tadokoro. The bull had said his nickname with way too
much irony.
“Hopefully the beds have been replaced to match today’s standards, because it’s
quite unlikely that a centuries old bed would support your weight.”
For some reason, Tadokoro didn’t get mad, but merely chuckled. “People were
like straws before.” He paused for a second or two. “Pretty much like you.”
Toudou decided to leave it at that.
“This is, like, the coolest place I have ever spent a night in!” Naruko
proclaimed. “A real castle. Damn, it’s huge! When was it built?”
Mr. Pierre didn’t need to ask his friend to give him an answer. “In the 16th
century. Even though it’s been renovated many times, you can still see some of
the original stone walls here and there.”
Their hosts waved for them to go inside. Their footsteps echoed on the marble
floor as they stepped to the lobby. There were old paintings and tapestries
hanging on the walls, and right under them a dark wood panelling which added
some coziness to the space. The signs of the renovation could be seen in the
rooms that had been completely stripped of their interiors but the majority of
the castle was still magnificent. Every now and then Jean-Paul stopped,
pointing at a detail or a door and giving them some information about it.
“The public toilets are there. And breakfast will be served in that room from
seven to eleven,” Mr. Pierre translated. “The staff has been given a holiday
until the renovation is completed and Jean-Paul and Josette are taking care of
the place just by themselves, so any large-scale room service is out of the
question. I’m pretty sure we’ll do just fine without.”
Only now did they notice the absence of staff. But of course they’d do fine
without. Who even would have the nerve to demand room service in such a
gorgeous place?
“They can offer us five rooms. They are all here on the second floor. I’ll be
staying with Jean-Paul and Josette in the staff wing so you can share the rooms
amongst yourselves. Kinjou will be responsible for this floor,” Mr Pierre
announced. His normally so laid back voice had gotten a tighter tone and there
was a warning glimmering in his blue eyes: ‘God forbid, punks, if you decide to
throw a crazy party here and embarrass me in front of my friend, the punishment
shall be abysmal.’
No need to worry. After all, they had two humourless chaperons in their troop.
Besides Kinjou, Fuku was very capable of maintaining order. And none of them
really were of the sort that would go running around and yelling in the
hallways throughout the night. Except perhaps Naruko. And there wasn’t any
guarantee of Manami really, but Toudou trusted for him to fall asleep
immediately when given the chance.
Sharing the rooms was quite easy. Everyone was used to Toudou and Maki-chan
sleeping in the same quarters, so nobody even suggested joining them.
Previously, Toudou hadn’t really paid attention to it, but now he caught
himself wondering why. Why did nobody want to share their room? Were there
other people besides Manami who thought he and Maki-chan had something going
on?
As a matter of fact… they might have had something going on.
Kinjou and Tadokoro claimed the biggest room with Aoyagi and Teshima. Onoda,
Naruko and Imaizumi took one for themselves, Izumida and Fuku shared a smaller
room and the last one was left for Shinkai and Arakita. Three of the rooms had
a functioning toilet and two a shower so they had to take turns. Toudou’s and
Maki-chan’s room had no shower but luckily there was a toilet. Because there
were public bathrooms in the hallway, their room probably wouldn’t have any
traffic. Shinkai’s and Arakita’s room had neither a functioning toilet nor a
shower. Toudou almost felt sorry for them, but then again, they should have
been present when the plunder was being shared.
Jean-Paul stopped at the end of the tour and spoke to Mr. Pierre. Something in
his voice caught everyone’s attention. It sounded knowing and wily.
“What did he say?” Toudou asked.
“He hopes that we like ghosts. The hotel is apparently haunted,” Mr. Pierre
said. “I added that ‘apparently’. Jean-Paul and his wife seem to be sure of
it.”
It was no surprise that Naruko was getting excited about this piece of
information.
“Ooh, what kind of ghost do they have?”
Mr. Pierre asked. Jean-Paul shook his head with a small, knowing smile on his
lips.
“He’s not going to tell us. He wants us to find out ourselves.”
”Okay, that’s creepy.”
“It’s only because he wants some objective statements about their ghost. If it
chooses to appear, that is.”
“Oh man, I really wanna see a ghost!”
“Aren’t you scared at all, Naruko-kun?” Onoda asked. He was looking somewhat
nervous. “I wouldn’t want to wake up to a ghost standing beside my bed.”
“Hah, I would just throw a pillow at it to see if it goes through!”
“Just don’t go chasing it in the middle of the night,” Imaizumi warned. “If you
leave the room after bedtime, I’ll lock the door and won’t let you in.”
“What if I need to take a shower?”
“Then take it in the evening like normal people. No need to go bathing when
everyone else is sleeping.”
Naruko huffed to himself, crossing his arms, but said nothing.
They settled down in their rooms. Toudou’s and Maki-chan’s room had funny
reddish wallpaper, antique looking furniture such as a drawer and a small table
accompanied by a chair with a velvet cushion. With a wooden ceiling the overall
impression was quite dark, especially when the only window in the room was
probably a meter and a half in diameter. It wasn’t bothersome at all; on the
contrary, it reminded them of how old the place they were staying in was. The
Boudiers had done great job maintaining the spirit of the castle. There wasn’t
even a TV.
Despite several details, the one thing that immediately stole their attention
was the bed. A massive, wooden, four-poster bed.
“Oh wow, you don’t see these kinds of things in every hotel,” Toudou said,
knocking on one of the ornate posters. It also had curtains tied to each
poster. A guest could certainly sleep like a royal if they wished so.
They returned to the hallway one more time to hear what the others had planned
for the afternoon. Everyone else was already present. Mr. Pierre had his phone
to his ear again, this time talking in Japanese. He finished the call just as
Toudou and Maki-chan reached them.
“That was Arakita,” the old man said. “They have gotten out of the hospital and
are on a bus on their way to Avignon. It’ll take them about two hours to reach
the city. I’ll be leaving in an hour to go and meet them at the station.
Meanwhile, I’d like to have some late lunch, or early dinner, whatever you want
to call it, so if someone wants to join me..?”
Half of the group raised their hands, Naruko and Tadokoro the most eager.
Toudou kept an eye on Maki-chan. He didn’t raise his hand, nor did he look like
he was in the mood to participate in the food quest. So Toudou didn’t show any
sign that he wanted to join the lot, either. He was a bit hungry but they could
go and grab a bite later with Maki-chan. And this time Toudou would make sure
that a certain air-headed angel-demon wouldn’t tag along.
When the others had left, Toudou turned to Maki-chan. “Do you wish to go to see
the village or..?”
Maki-chan brushed green strands away from his face, huffing. ”To tell you the
truth, I just want to flop down on the bed.”
“Okay, that’s fine by me.”
“You can go and see the town with the rest if you like. You don’t need to wait
for me.”
But what if I want to wait for you?
“I really have no energy to go further than the lobby,” Toudou said,
exaggerating his tiredness. Now, when he gave it a thought, he felt kind of
worn out. After all, there had been a lot happening already that day. While
sitting in a car didn’t actually consume energy, the constant change of
location was tiring. But for some reason he didn’t want Maki-chan to think that
he was staying behind just because of him. ”I mean, I was ready to come with
you for a sightseeing tour but I’d really rather stay in the hotel for a couple
of hours.”
“Okay. So we’ll stay.”
Back in the room, Toudou sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress was
surprisingly firm. The cover and cushions had red and golden embroidery in them
and the fabric felt old as he touched it. It didn’t smell old or stale though.
Maki-chan parked his butt on the other side of the bed, closer to the window,
taking off his shoes before slumping down on the mattress. “I sort of feel like
taking a nap.”
”Be my guest,” Toudou said. To tell the truth, he was hoping that Maki-chan
would stay awake at least long enough for them to talk about last night. But he
was still acting like nothing had happened – even to the extent that Toudou had
caught himself wondering if he had imagined the whole thing.
How embarrassing it would be if he started to talk about it and Maki-chan had
no idea what he was blabbering about!
No, it had happened. He could still feel the other lips touching his own, taste
the lemon sorbet and the distinct taste of Maki-chan himself (you couldn’t
imagine that, could you?) and remember his sarcastic tone when he had voiced
that last thought of his.
Toudou had hoped that Maki-chan would have brought it up. He wanted to ask so
many things but he didn’t want Maki-chan to tell him that the inside of his
skull needed dusting or something of the sort. Lately, Maki-chan had been
suggesting quite often that Toudou was as slow as some senile grandpa, that his
other hemisphere was hibernating. Maybe that hibernating hemisphere had stored
all the missing pieces and with some digging he could find the recollection of
past events that he could use to build a logical continuum. Or maybe Maki-chan
just was too mysterious and hard to read and he expressed himself too vaguely.
What sort of a frigging riddler had he suddenly become? Toudou could not be
blamed if the other one was speaking in riddles like goddamn Jesus.
You couldn’t just kiss someone and not explain it, damn it!
Toudou pulled off his shoes and flopped down on the bed next to Maki-chan. Not
too close but not too far away either. The bed felt divine under his back after
several nights spent in a tent. A ghost or not, Toudou was sure that tonight he
was going to sleep like a log.
For a while, they lay quietly, listening to the sounds coming from other parts
of the castle and birds singing outside the window. Then Toudou searched for
his phone and checked his messages. In his fan club there was this one very
cunning girl who a month back had started giving away his phone number
(apparently in exchange for a small amount of money) and it wasn’t uncommon for
him to receive dozens of fan texts every day. In the beginning, he had read
them, but little by little the love confessions from girls he didn’t even know
became boring and nowadays he just deleted them straight away.
There were a few of those, which he skipped, but also his mom had sent him a
text, asking how he was doing. He typed a quick response, telling her that they
had seen Mont Ventoux and tonight they were staying in a real castle. Mom
wouldn’t probably answer him right away, since it was already midnight in
Japan.
After placing his phone back on the night stand, Toudou gave Maki-chan a
sidelong glance, just to check his mood, and noticed that he had closed his
eyes. It gave him a chance to stare at his travelling companion a little longer
– a luxury he hadn’t had the whole day as Maki-chan seemed to be constantly
aware of his gaze.
People looked different after you had kissed them.
Sure, Maki-chan still looked like Maki-chan. The same green waves of hair, the
same sharp features and pale skin, the same old mole under his left eye and
another one beside his lower lip. Apparently it was the question of how Toudou
was looking at him. Remembering how Maki-chan’s face had looked like when their
lips had been connected, and wondering if he had touched that pale skin and
what it had felt like beneath his fingers.
Maki-chan didn’t look nearly as stressed and suffering with his eyes closed. It
hid the melancholy shape of his eyes.
Then those eyes blinked, opening slowly. Toudou pretended to have been staring
at the fabric that had been stretched between the poles to cover the bed.
“It’s like we’re still in a tent,” he said, pointing at the ceiling. “Once
again, we have some fabric above us.”
“There’s just noticeably more space in here.”
“Yeah. Though I didn’t really mind, sleeping that close together. You don’t
roll around or writhe in your sleep like Manami. Or eat like Hayato.”
Maki-chan snorted. “Say what now?”
“Yes, Hayato is so obsessed with those energy bars of his that he has actually
munched them in his sleep a few times. Mind you, I thought he was awake at
first, because he had his eyes open, but once I asked what he was doing, he was
muttering some class A nonsense. Something like: ‘must eat these bars and hide
the wrappers in grandma’s plant pot quickly before Yuuto comes out of the
shower tomorrow and finds them’. Yuuto is his little brother. In the morning he
remembered none of it.”
“Well, Naruko shouts, laughs and pedals in his sleep. Like, while lying on his
back, he moves his legs like he’s riding a bike.”
“Izumida barks out those abs screams and talks to his pecs.”
“Tadokorocchi snores over at 80 decibels.”
Toudou stared at the other, blinking. “Did you just pull some number out of
your head or have you actually measured it?”
“Kinjou brought a meter to a camp once. It’s not that loud all the time, but
occasionally it peaked over those 80 decibels.”
“Isn’t that dangerous to the poor listeners?”
“At least when considering their mental health, if not physically. I feel sorry
for his family though.”
“But isn’t it good that you’re sharing the sleeping quarters with me? I don’t
eat, shout or snore in my sleep.”
“You sniffle.”
Toudou jumped up to his elbows. ”What? No, I don’t!”
“Not all the time, but occasionally. You sound like a little dog with flu.”
“I most definitely don’t sound like that!”
“Come on now, fluish little dogs are cute,” Maki-chan remarked. That shut
Toudou’s mouth.
Did that mean that Maki-chan thought he was cute?
Naturally, Maki-chan couldn’t deny Toudou’s knockout looks, but until now he
had given the impression that they hadn’t affected him the slightest bit. Had
he suddenly changed his mind?
‘Cute’ wasn’t necessarily a word that Toudou wanted to be described with.
‘Elegant’, ‘stylish’, ‘good-looking’, ‘handsome’, even ‘beautiful’. But ‘cute’
sounded exactly like something Maki-chan had compared him with. A dog. A small
animal.
Toudou hated how insecure Maki-chan made him feel. His self-confidence had
suffered a serious downfall lately. He hardly recognized himself anymore.
When he didn’t answer, Maki-chan straightened his neck and turned his gaze to
the ceiling, looking like he was sinking deep into his thoughts. Toudou lay
down again. His headband was bothering him. As convenient as headbands usually
were, they didn’t work so well when lying down, if the pillow wasn’t really
firm and even then the band was digging into his temples. Toudou pulled off his
trademark accessory and placed it onto a nightstand. His bangs started
immediately inching their way over his forehead. Or actually, first they were
inching until they got past a certain point and then they’d leap forward and
poke him in the eye. He tried to rake the strands away, but those bastards had
a will of their own and the best he could do was to bind them behind his ears.
“Have I ever asked you…” Maki-chan began and for a passing second Toudou held
his breath. “..why haven’t you cut your bangs short if you don’t want them to
hang over your eyes? Aren’t headbands quite uncomfortable?”
Blah. Still nothing. ”Maki-chan, do you have any idea what that would look
like?”
“Err, a normal hairstyle?”
“No, it would look like Midousuji. Before he cut his hair, I mean.”
Maki-chan opened his mouth, but Toudou wasn’t finished yet.
“Not that I would any time, anywhere, on any occasion resemble Midousuji even
if I had his hairstyle and wore a Kyofushi jersey, but that kind of hair is
just out of the question. Mullet is so 80’s.”
“Says a guy who wears headbands.”
“They’re timeless!”
“In my opinion, their golden era was back in the 90’s. But I didn’t mean you
should have it cut like Midousuji’s previous style. You could just shorten your
hair a bit.”
”No way, this is my style and that’s that. Besides, you are the one to talk
about long hair, carrying that two-kilogram sail around with you.”
“Alright, alright, I was just asking.”
Toudou sighed. His breath had become laborious for some reason. His pulse was
nagging his temples, making him inhale another portion of oxygen before he
began explaining. “I started wearing headbands, because I didn’t want to cut my
hair short but the helmet was flattening my hair and the result was horrible.
So I had to switch into a style that’s more compatible with cycling.”
Maki-chan hmph’d at that, so Toudou didn’t continue. They fell into silence.
..during which Toudou went through at least 150 different kinds of starters for
his desired topic. How should he naturally guide the conversation to the
happenings of last night? After drawing a blank countless times, he came to the
conclusion that there wasn’t a natural way to start it. He just had to blurt it
out.
“Maki-chan…”
“Hm?” His companion had closed his eyes again, lifted his arm behind his head
and seemed to be falling asleep any minute now. Damn.
“Listen…”
”I’m listening.”
”Maki-chan,” Toudou forced from his lips. “What do you..?” And yet again the
words died in his throat.
“Do I what?”
“Do you..? I mean... do you want to go to the center to get something to eat
later?”
“I suppose I have to. After all, the restaurant of the hotel is not serving
dinner.”
“Yes. Right. Well, shall we go together then? I mean… when do you want to go?”
“Not yet. Maybe in an hour or two.”
Toudou nodded. There was a lump stuck in his throat and his stomach was clearly
planning a somersault. He was sure that his friend could sense that he still
had something to say – he glanced at him and definitely saw his sweating – but
Maki-chan stayed quiet about it and just closed his eyes again, that
inquisitor.
Toudou gathered the remains of his courage and cleared his throat. Now or
never.
“Listen, Maki-chan… about yesterday…”
He still didn’t say anything, but Toudou could see him nod.
“I don’t know if you were thinking that we should bring it up again… or I
should bring it up. Maybe you were waiting for the right moment, but I think
this is the best there will be. Or maybe in the evening… I don’t know… sorry,
you’re probably just going to say again that I’m an idiot who doesn’t use his
brain but I honestly have no idea what I should do. Just pretend nothing
happened? I’ve held my tongue the whole day and it’s starting to take its toll.
My head is so messed up. Christ, I think I babbled to Naruko about our
restaurant trip. I can’t remember it properly. Did I do that or not? Never
mind, that quicksilver won’t remember it tomorrow. But I still think we should
exchange a few words about it, so that we both would know what the thing here
is and…”
“Toudou,” Maki-chan said softly. “Toudou. Toudou. Jinpachi.”
Toudou ceased his monologue. ”Hmh?”
”Jinpachi, do you want to kiss me?”
The question was like a slap in the face; so hard that Toudou couldn’t
recognize if it was good or bad at first. “Erm…”
Say that you want to. Say that you want to!
But I don’t know… I’m not sure.
Stop your bullshit. Of course you’re sure. Just answer him. Say yes!
“Erm…” Toudou repeated. “Okay?”
A faint smile ghosted over Maki-chan’s lips. “Then do it.”
Yeah, but…
He couldn’t just kiss his friend like that!
Maki-chan was observing him from the shadow of his half-closed lids, one arm
still behind his head and the other resting lazily over his stomach. “Do you
need help?”
Since when had Maki-chan been so confident? Where was that self-denigrating,
unsocial freak that Toudou had met a couple of years ago? Besides, how did
Maki-chan even know that Toudou wanted to kiss him?
He just asked you.
Oh yeah. Hmm…
Toudou was sure that his gulp could be heard in the hallway and hoped that no
one stood there listening, not even that ghost. Especially, if the ghost was
very conservative, it might freak out hearing two guys engaging themselves in a
romantic action. Slowly, with stiff limbs, Toudou pulled himself onto his side,
supporting his upper body on his elbow as he faced his roommate. He was highly
aware of his heart pounding in his chest, his blood bustling in his veins and a
hot wave surging through his body that could, any minute now, blossom all over
his face – if it hadn’t done yet. Not to mention the effect it could induce
below his waistline.
What if Maki-chan laughed at him? What if this was a stupid joke?
Aargh, he was already suspecting that they had somehow changed personalities.
He wasn’t supposed to be worried or insecure. After all, he was Toudou
Jinpachi, and every girl in Hakogaku (and some boys too) would have given
anything to get to kiss him! He had nothing to worry about. Maki-chan would
hardly have suggested an encore if Toudou had turned out to be a lousy kisser.
He just hoped that as his last drink he had drunk some water instead of that
sugary sports drink.
Okay, now he was thinking way too much. He should have just acted. He had
probably been in this same position for good ten minutes now, frozen with an
empty look on his face. It was a miracle that Maki-chan hadn’t fallen asleep
yet.
Toudou summoned the last of his courage, leaning towards his friend. Midway, he
realized that his upper body no longer had support and he was losing his
balance, so he hastily threw his hand towards the mattress. Unfortunately, in
that spot happened to be Maki-chan’s chest and he would hardly appreciate
Toudou slamming the air out of him. Therefore he had to change the course to
Maki-chan’s other side and instead of a graceful landing he half-slumped
against the other guy.
Dear god. Where was all that elegance and agility that he was famous for?
France was really becoming a country of opposites.
Luckily he had supported his head enough for it to not collide it with Maki-
chan’s. But this was humiliating enough. For lack of a better idea – and
because it just happened to be there – he buried his face in Maki-chan’s neck,
mumbling something into his skin, something that could be a curse or an
apology.
Maki-chan lay there unmoving for a good while, probably wondering what the hell
Toudou was doing, but then his hand landed on Toudou’s back, slowly petting
him. Toudou didn’t dare to raise his head. Maki-chan felt so warm against him,
so alive and breathing and soothing that he was afraid that he’d break the
spell. His breath was heating up the little cave where he had tucked his face
in, burning his already sweaty face. Maki-chan smelled good. Couldn’t they just
lie like this for a moment?
They did. The sounds of the environment became clearer. Faint rustling from
downstairs, birds still warbling outside, a noisy clock ticking somewhere. On
Toudou’s back a foreign hand continued its ministrations and his body rose
simultaneously with Maki-chan’s chest. Little by little he started letting go
of the panic, his pulse slowed down and his lungs stopped hoarding air. He
could have even fallen asleep. Though, one part of his body was very much
awake, and he was thankful that his lower body was lying on the bed and not on
Maki-chan.
Then, probably after sensing him relax, Maki-chan sneaked his fingers under his
chin and slowly, lightly turned it so that their faces were on the same level.
So that their mouths were in line with each other. And really, there was only
one natural step after that.
Toudou kept his eyes closed, because, first, it eased his nervousness, and
secondly, it seemed to fit better in the situation. But he forgot to breathe
when Maki-chan’s lips brushed against his own. He waited for a longer, more
demanding kiss, just like last night, but the touch disappeared as quickly as
it had come. He held still, waiting, but it never came back. The incompleteness
hanging in the air made him finally lean forward until his lips reached a solid
surface. And then they were kissing again.
Maki-chan tilted his chin so that their noses didn’t bump against each other,
and his lips were moving lazily against Toudou’s, and maybe it was clumsy
fumbling at first, but he got the hang of it pretty soon. He dared to suck
Maki-chan’s lower lip in his mouth and slide his tongue over it. Maki-chan
answered by nibbling his upper lip and when Toudou let go, slightly confused,
Maki-chan’s tongue slipped inside his mouth. He wasn’t sure whether he should
touch it with his own or not. He decided to act how his body told him to,
probing it tentatively. And then again. And again. Until he somehow ended up
entwining their tongues. That made Maki-chan suck in sharp breath and the hand
holding Toudou’s chin moved behind his neck, asking him to stay there and
making him shiver. Not that Toudou had any thoughts of escaping. Their
ministrations roused a strange bubbling inside him that would have erupted as a
purr if he had had a suitable vocal system for it, but since he didn’t, he
settled for humming approvingly against Maki-chan’s lips.
It was different to last night. This was much more leisurely, exploring and
tentative. And at the same time, while there was a bunch of questions herding
in Toudou’s head, he felt like this, this moment right here, answered all of
them.
I don’t think Maki-chan wants to go out with Manami. If he did, why would he
kiss me?
Apparently in France I’m gay too. Or at least Maki-chan-sexual.
And I’ve been so slow to not have realized it before.
Chapter End Notes
     Before arranging a lynch battalion, please take into account that the
     author doesn’t think Midousuji had a mullet. It’s just Toudou. ;)
     ”You can’t eat scenery.” Here you can imagine Nagisa Hazuki’s voice:
     ”You can’t eat a pool.”
     There won’t be a change of scene. The happenings of this night will
     probably stretch out to two more chapters, including Shinara. Sorry
     for writing so slow-progressing stories.
***** Oh, come on! *****
Chapter Notes
     In this chapter I’m shamelessly using it to my advantage that I
     forgot to mention where Manami sleeps. :D
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Toudou was even more confused.
Puberty was a tricky phase in life in that way; it confused people. Puberty was
also a pain in the ass because everything was sexual. Everything. Handlebars,
drinking bottles, pencils, chewing gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, dried
up rice in a cooker.
Toudou felt like he was past the worst years; the years when his body would
have reacted, would have flashed green light, even if he had fooled around with
a dead tuna. And even though nowadays it took him about one and a half seconds
from a stimulus to a full boner (okay, from a visual stimulus it would maybe
take him a full two) he already understood that his hormone-raging body didn’t
just act robotically according to its programming. It mattered who he was
kissing. He suspected that his lower body wouldn’t have been all that excited
if he had kissed for example… Shinkai (Hnngh, why was he even thinking about
that?).
He was simultaneously utterly embarrassed and turned-on like that frigging
stray cat that sometimes followed Arakita to the club room had been during the
spring. God help that wauling and rubbing and ass offering! The cat had behaved
so obscenely that it had received a ban from the room for a week, because there
were still people with pure hearts in their club (no, not Manami. Izumida. And
Ashikiba, but that was a different story).
It helped him to see that Maki-chan was also reacting to their ministrations.
His pale complexion was turning shades of red, his breath was laborious and he
was blinking a bit too quickly. His long fingers lingered at the back of
Toudou’s neck, fiddling his hair. Toudou didn’t dare to look down, but if he
had looked, he would probably have seen a very tell-tale bulge in front of
Maki-chan’s very light fabric pants. It was clearly visible in his own pants.
Or it would have been, had he not lain partly on his stomach. During these
moments he felt like it would have been easier to be a girl.
Though he wasn’t completely sure whether or not girls had it easier. At least
the media, teachers and the public opinion gave away that impression. And at
least girls didn’t have that visible signs of arousal in their bodies so they
could always pretend to be decent and uninterested.
But was it embarrassing if he and Maki-chan were in it together?
Only when he stared into Maki-chan’s blue eyes, trying to decide which one of
his feelings – embarrassment, confusion or arousal – was winning, did he
register where his other hand, the one that wasn’t supporting his weight, had
sneaked into.
It was resting on Maki-chan’s lower belly where the hem of his shirt and the
waistband of his pants met, although now the shirt had inched upwards and
revealed a strip of skin, and somehow Toudou’s hand had ended up in that spot
and its direction was clearly under the waistband, not the shirt which would
have been quite a bad move too.
Toudou yanked his hand back hastily as if he had touched a red-hot stove.
“Aagh, where’s my hand? Sorry, Maki-chan, I didn’t mean to… I didn’t realize
what my hand was doing!”
“Jinpachi, it’s fine. If you want to keep your hand there, you can.”
His remark had forced him to glance downwards, and now as Maki-chan gave his
permission, he looked again, lowering his hand back onto the other guy’s belly
but this time way higher than before. It was hardly appropriate to stick your
hand into your partner’s pants after a couple of minutes of kissing. That made
another chapter into his book of Great Surprises. He hadn’t known that he would
be this bold. Would it have been a different case, had Maki-chan been a girl?
Or a stranger? Anyhow, he looked down to see where he had placed his hand but
at the same time he couldn’t avoid taking a glimpse of Maki-chan’s crotch.
Hmm. There wasn’t any visible bulge. Wasn’t Maki-chan as eager about this as
Toudou? Like, he had gotten hard the second his partner had asked if he wanted
to kiss, and it felt kind of funny – and somewhat discouraging – if their
ministrations didn’t stir up anything in his partner. Maybe Maki-chan was
superhuman after all.
“Why don’t you take an even closer look?”
Heat rushed through Toudou when he realized that he had leaned back and was
practically staring Maki-chan’s crotch incontinently.
“Sorry, Maki-chan, I…”
“Do you want us to take off our pants?”
Yes!
“No!” Toudou exclaimed. ”That’s not what I… I mean, um… does this do nothing to
you?”
Maki-chan let out a laugh, one of those filled with self-irony. “The fabric of
my boxers has somehow gotten stuck under my ass and is holding on quite
tightly. In fact…” He lifted his butt, tugging at his pants. “This is better.”
Oo-kay, so now Toudou could see. The burning of his face deepened by a few
degrees and his own erection twitched in response. If someone had told him two
days ago that he would get horny from seeing another guy’s boner, he would have
probably laughed in their face. A couple of details had changed after that.
Maki-chan gave him a moment to stare but then his hand sneaked back behind
Toudou’s neck, pulling lightly. “I’m flattered that you’re so interested in the
content of my pants, but right now you’re needed at this end.”
Toudou allowed him to be guided to lie down on the bed and against Maki-chan’s
lips. Because that’s where they were again, soft, moist and this time a bit
demanding too. And as he parted his own lips, Maki-chan’s tongue sneaked in
between them and found his and the next moment there was a series of tremors
cascading through him, so powerful that he visibly shivered. He could feel
Maki-chan’s lips pulling into a grin but then he was again concentrating on
what they were doing, and okay, wow, not that Toudou had that many experiences
to compare with, but Maki-chan seemed to actually know what he was doing. Like,
there was stuff related to kissing that wasn’t mentioned in romantic
literature, for example, the tiny detail that when their lips parted, there was
an oh-not-so-romantic string of saliva left to hang between them and sometimes
their lips made funny smacking noises (because of which, he hoped nobody was
pressing their ear against their room door) but dear lord, was it addicting or
not!
Then he became aware that his hand was once again on its way under Maki-chan’s
waistband.
“God damn it!” He yanked his disobedient limb back. Maki-chan’s other hand was
in his hair and the other was caressing his arm but as Toudou needed to support
himself, only his other hand was left free. And then he was repeatedly sneaking
it into his partner’s pants.
“Jinpachi,” Maki-chan murmured against his cheek where his lips were lingering
after Toudou’s abrupt switch of position. “It’s fine, really.”
“Yeah, but…” Toudou began and trailed off to think about what he actually
wanted to say. “Okay, Maki-chan. Could I… or could we… talk for a bit?”
Maki-chan huffed (or maybe sighed), letting himself fall limp on the mattress.
In Toudou’s opinion it looked too much like frustration. But… like, it was so
necessary for them to talk about this! A day ago they had been only friends and
now they were making out like two… well, horny teenagers.
“I’m kind of curious to know…” ..what the fucking hell? “..what are we, ehm,
doing here?”
He swore that if Maki-chan answered ‘kissing’, he would smack him with a
pillow.
He didn’t. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know, this was sort of a surprise. I wasn’t aware that we… were doing
this kind of stuff together.”
“I don’t see you protesting.”
“I’m not,” Toudou admitted. “I don’t mean this is a bad thing. I’m just like...
all at sea.”
“Do you want to kiss me again? I don’t mean right now but…” Maki-chan waved his
hand as much as he could without hitting Toudou. “Like in general?”
“Hmm, yeah. I guess. I mean, yes. I do,” Toudou stammered. ”But Maki-chan,
since when... like, is there something going on between us?”
Maki-chan let out another sigh, moving his arm over to rest across his
forehead. It didn’t cover his eyes, only shadowed them. “What do you think?”
“Well, I guess so. Yeah.”
“Then there is something going on between us.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“Remember that I was the one to take the first step. You didn’t seem to get
your head together.”
Toudou was about to argue but Maki-chan was right. He already felt like no
matter how long they talked about it for, he would only come up with more and
more questions. Such as, for how long this thing had been hanging in the air.
From the beginning? Did Maki-chan have a crush on him? Why had he always
avoided Toudou and refused to answer his messages then? At what point had his
own interest towards Sohoku’s oddball taken a romantic turn?
His quite unprompted mind was already creating some future visions. Would Maki-
chan want to date him? What would he say about that? What would their friends
say? What would his family say? Or Maki-chan’s family?
What if he actually did lose his virginity on this vacation, not to some easy
French chick but to his best friend?
Fuck, he might have come in his pants a little.
He cleared his throat, brushing a lonely strand of hair away from his lips. His
bangs were getting a bit too long, actually. “Um, well, it kind of sounds like…
we share the same interest here.”
“Mhm-m.”
“But Maki-chan, if this has been going on for a while, why haven’t you said
anything before?”
Maki-chan looked like he was about to throw in another sarcastic comment but
changed his mind. “I wasn’t sure.”
“But you were suspecting?”
“Yes, I was.”
“For how long?”
”I can’t remember. It was a while ago when the thought first occurred to me.
Several months ago, maybe five or six?”
“And you said nothing!” Toudou heard his voice rise and turn high-pitched.
“Because I wasn’t sure,” Maki-chan repeated. “What if I had been mistaken? It
would have been so awkward for both of us and possibly ruined our friendship.
Maybe you would have wanted to stay away from me.”
”I would never–!”
“Never say never. These kinds of things change friendships.”
Toudou pondered it over. Maybe Maki-chan was right. He was pretty sure it
wouldn’t have ruined their friendship even if Maki-chan had confessed to have a
crush on him, but if the thought would have been totally alien to him, he
really couldn’t realistically evaluate its effect.
“Why are you always avoiding me and letting out the impression that..?”
“Because sometimes, Jinpachi, you are just… too much. Deep down, I’m still an
introvert.”
Alright. Alright, maybe he could understand that, but Maki-chan’s behaviour was
contradictory all the same. Toudou huffed, sitting on his legs. His still quite
hard dick was squeezed between his thighs and for a moment it was very hard to
concentrate on anything else.
Did Maki-chan... still have the same problem?
Eyes had a bad tendency to leap to their target before they had been given
permission to. His gaze was on Maki-chan’s pants before he had finished his
thought about looking.
Yup. The same.
Toudou had never thought about touching other guy’s dick. He had been under the
impression that he would never get into such situation. He hadn’t even formed
an opinion of it. At first it just felt really, really alien. But if it were
Maki-chan’s…
“Maki-chan, do you... want to do stuff other than kissing and..?”
“Do you?”
Toudou thought about it. Not about the answer, that was already clear. He
thought about how he wouldn’t sound too eager. Not on the first date and so
forth. Though they weren’t exactly on a date.
“We don’t have to. Like, right away. It’s okay to proceed slowly.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“But do you want to… eventually?”
Maki-chan stared at him. At first Toudou deemed that he was looking at a young
man deep in his thought, but then he located a message behind the eyes. ‘Is
that really a necessary question?’
He wasn’t sure. He had never been in this kind of situation before, damn it,
and Maki-chan was a walking riddle on top of that. But if he had kissed Toudou
eagerly and allowed him to touch himself and had touched Toudou in return… he
supposed there he had his answer. He didn’t know if he wanted to proceed
slowly. His body definitely didn’t. It expressed in clear ways that hot,
licentious sex was the number one on the list and romantic candlelight suppers
only at second place.
Then his stomach growled.
Okay, maybe some refuelling would be in order, no matter how low it was on his
list. They had the whole night to continue their ministrations. Though, Toudou
dreaded that it would be hard for them to get back in the mood if they stopped
now. He dreaded a new awkward phase.
“Would you like to go and have something to eat now?” Maki-chan asked. “I’m
getting kinda hungry too.”
Toudou exhaled. “Sure, let’s go.”
He walked to the tiny toilet to check his face. His erection was still pulsing
in his groin, heavy and hard, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
Or he could, but no, not with Maki-chan just behind the door. He would totally
guess what Toudou was up to. But seriously, he so badly needed to empty his
sacks in the near future. This constant teasing without a chance to come was
beginning to interfere with concentrating on other things.
As he peeked into the mirror, he noted that his hair was a mess even though
they had done nothing but kiss and touch each other a bit. Christ, he had heard
that sex was messy, but did it come with an immediate threat of looking unkempt
and scruffy? Like, right when you exchanged some saliva with somebody, your
hair exploded into sweaty tangles and your clothes became wrinkled!
He smoothed his hair as well as he could without his headband, which he had
forgotten in the other room, and straightened his clothes. The front of his
pants was still tenting, but his boner was already going down. The pants would
fit normally before they left the room.
When he stepped out, Maki-chan had hauled himself up, corrected his state of
clothing and looked about ready to go.
“Shall we then?”
Unfortunately, they only managed to get to the stairs when an annoyingly
familiar face appeared in front of them. Toudou immediately got a bad feeling.
Manami waved his hand, a wide smile painted over his face. “Hi guys, where are
you heading?”
“Somewhere you’re not.”
“Probably not if it’s a different place to where Sakamichi-kun and the others
are. Do you know where they have gone?”
“If they’re not in their room, I have no idea.”
“Oh yeah, I needed to ask about that. Which room do I sleep in?”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, I was checking the garden while you apparently shared the rooms.”
That was true. Now that Toudou thought about it, Manami hadn’t been in sight
when they had sorted out the sleeping arrangements. The castle had stolen his
attention so thoroughly that he hadn’t noticed that their younger climber had
been missing.
“You can go with Fuku and Izumida.”
”Which room is theirs?”
“I think it was the third door over there.”
Manami nodded, still smiling, and hopped over to the hallway with his bag
hanging over his shoulder. Toudou tugged Maki-chan’s sleeve and they hurried to
the stairs. Even though Maki-chan had nothing against Manami, this time he
apparently didn’t want anyone else join their food quest, as he quickly
followed Toudou.
But right when Toudou thought they had made it, Manami’s overly bright voice
echoed in the stony stairway. “Toudou-san, wait!”
“Fuck, what does he want now?” Toudou growled, turning to shout towards the
second floor. “What?!”
”Fuku-san’s room is locked and they’re not here. All the other doors are locked
as well! Could you please come and unlock your room, so I could leave my stuff
there?”
“Fucking hell.” Toudou rolled his eyes and switched his direction back
upstairs. Maki-chan waited by the stairs.
“Remember to lock the door when you leave,” he ordered Manami as he pushed the
door open. Turning on his heel, he returned to Maki-chan. And now they’d need
to run before the little nuisance decided he wanted to follow them after all.
Out in the daylight the recent intimate scene felt unreal. At least until
Toudou happened to glance at Maki-chan and their eyes met. Something flashed on
his face. Something knowing. A shared secret. Something fluttered in his
stomach and the corners of his mouth twitched.
He wasn’t sure how he should act towards his friend so he chose a neutral path.
Maki-chan had been the one to lead this thing, anyway. And if he wanted to…
hold Toudou’s hand or something, he’d probably take the initiative.
He wasn’t sure if he was ready to walk hand in hand with another guy in public.
At least not yet.
Maki-chan didn’t offer him his hand but tucked it inside his pocket with the
other. “I heard that this village is bigger than Oingt but you can still walk
through it in one day. I don’t think I’m in the mood to go on a sightseeing
tour now if we’re anyway meant to stay here tomorrow.”
Toudou nodded. He didn’t have any urges to tire his legs more that day. “Let’s
just go to the first decent looking restaurant.”
* *
A few hours later, they returned to the hotel. The sky was slowly turning dark
and some lanterns had been lit in front of the castle, probably only for them
if the place was otherwise closed. The lights flickered spookily on the stony
walls, reminding them of what Mr. Boudier had said about the extra souls
occupying his livelihood.
At the moment Toudou had more urgent concerns than ghosts. “Ugh, Maki-chan, I
don’t know if there was anything else in that pizza than fat. Should I sleep on
the toilet floor? I feel so plugged that I might start uncontrollably sweating
grease at night. How do I explain a mysterious human-shaped oil stain in the
mattress to Mr. Pierre’s friend?"
“You can always blame the ghost. Besides, you’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that
bad.”
“Your eating habits are horribly unhealthy if that was normal to you. The pizza
was swimming in fat!”
Maki-chan raised his eyebrows. ”Do I look like I eat greasy pizzas every day?”
”No, but your body stores nothing, you’ve said it yourself.”
“But a constant stuffing of fat would probably begin to show eventually. And at
least we got our stomachs full.”
“I think I won’t be needing any food tomorrow.”
Despite feeling stuffed, Toudou was more than content. He had dreaded awkward
silence, but their dinner had passed harmoniously. Maki-chan had not tried to
hold his hand or otherwise touch him, nor had he brought up the previous scene
in their room, but it still felt like he wasn’t pretending that nothing had
happened. Toudou planned for them to retreat back to their room and spend a
calm night there (doing what… well, that was yet to be seen). Tomorrow they
would have time to see the village and look for a place that rented bikes.
His good mood only lasted until they managed to climb to the second floor where
they got face to face with Fuku and Manami. It was bound to bring some bad
news.
“Toudou and Makishima,” Fuku began with such dignity that he almost bowed. “You
had apparently advised Manami to go into our room. This shouldn’t be a problem
otherwise, but our room happens to be very small. Couldn’t he stay with you for
tonight?”
“Hrrrgh!” Toudou felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Tonight
was the night that he didn’t want any extra pair of ears or eyes in their room!
“There’s only one double bed. Manami can’t fit in it with us.”
”Mr. Boudier already promised us a spare bed.”
“And you can’t fit it into your room?” What kind of closet was it?
“Why can’t he stay with you?”
Manami stood beside them with an omnipotent smile on his lips and didn’t seem
to disapprove of the fact that people were discussing him like he wasn’t
standing there. Toudou hardly cared whether or not Manami heard it, but he was
having a hard time explaining to Fuku why the young climber couldn’t share a
room with them. At least, as long as he wanted to hide the truth.
Listen, Fuku, old chap, here’s the thing. Me and Maki-chan, we’re planning to
roll around in the sheets. Yes, exactly like that. Who knows, something not
suitable for underage eyes might happen, so you’ll probably understand why
having Manami in the same room would be a problem…
If Toudou had stopped to think, actually think, what he was diving into
headfirst with ultimate speed and, on top of that, with his best friend, he
might have panicked and called it off, but he didn’t stop. Thinking was
overrated anyway.
Then Manami opened his mouth.
“I don’t mind if you two want to smooch and cuddle,” the imp announced,
grinning like a split potato. “I’m fine as long as you don’t start downright
banging each other. I’m not sure if I want to witness that.”
Heat, that old friend, attacked Toudou’s face once again. Maki-chan looked
shocked too, like someone had slapped him.
“Would you finally keep your mouth shut, you lecherous protist?!” Toudou
hissed.
Judging by the empty look on Fuku’s face, he had no idea what they were talking
about. In fact, they could have discussed space physics – in a foreign
language. That was the only positive thing.
”You can sleep in Hayato’s and Arakita’s room,” Toudou added.
Manami considered it. “Hmm, yeah. But I heard there’s no functioning toilet or
bathroom.”
“Does it matter? You can visit your four-eyed friend’s room if you need to use
them.”
“If it’s okay with Shinkai-san and Arakita-san.”
”Of course it’s okay.” Shinkai was always everyone’s buddy and patient enough
to handle even Manami. Arakita on the other hand… well, some verbal spanking
would only do Manami good. Besides, they were not here right now. Toudou could
say that Fuku had made the decision, so even Arakita wouldn’t dare to argue.
“I’ll go with them then,” Manami decided. “Who has the key?”
“I do,” Fuku woke up from his trance and went to show Manami the correct room.
Toudou waited for a moment to see if the captain still had something to say to
him, but they were already forgotten. He nodded at Maki-chan and they slipped
into their room.
Toudou’s only let out his breath on the inside, his shoulders slumping. “Shit,
that was close.”
Maki-chan looked thoughtful. “Was I imagining things or did it sound like
Manami has figured something out?”
Toudou raised his hands. “I swear I haven’t told him anything. He came up with
the idea himself when we were in that restaurant in Oingt. I denied everything,
but he refused to understand.”
“Was that the reason why you were so eager to know if I would go out with
Manami?”
“It might have had something to do with that,” Toudou said in a small voice.
Judging by his expression, Maki-chan wanted to ask why Toudou was concerned
whether or not he would go out with Manami, as it appeared that Manami was
totally okay with the fact that Maki-chan and Toudou had something going on. He
didn’t ask though. Thank god.
“I think I’m going to take a shower before Fuku leaves again and we can’t get
to a room with a shower,” he muttered.
“Okay,” Maki-chan said and added as more of a side remark. “I’m coming too.”
“What? At the same time?”
”Why not?”
”Maki-cha–”
”No need to panic. I’ll wait in the room while you take a shower.”
A sudden rush of disappointment caught Toudou off guard. Maybe he would have
wanted to take a shower together after all. But… no, a shower felt like the
wrong place to see each other naked for the first time, even if it was the most
natural situation. In his head they would take off their clothes slowly, reveal
their skin garment by garment.
There was an abrupt twitch in his crotch. Damn, he was walking on thin ice
today. Maybe he should take care of it in the shower, so that he wouldn’t
explode in his pants when… if… when they continued their experiments in bed.
Even if they had been planning a hot shower scene, it would have been
impossible. Fuku was in his room and didn’t seem to be leaving right away.
“Are you going out tonight?” he asked.
“Nah, we’ll spend a quiet evening at the hotel. We’ll go on a sightseeing tour
tomorrow.”
“Alright. I was thinking about going with the others to see how the town looks
in night lighting, but I have to wait for Shinkai and Arakita to get here.”
“Oh yeah. When were they coming again?” Hopefully Fuku wasn’t expecting Toudou
and Maki-chan to keep him company while waiting.
“In half an hour or so.”
There would probably be some sort of protest coming from Arakita when he found
out that there wasn’t a toilet or shower in their room but a sloppy numbskull
instead.
“We’re going to take a shower then. Do you want to go first, Maki-chan?” Toudou
reckoned that it would be awkward for him to be left alone with Fuku. Neither
of them were the small-talk type. It would be easier if Maki-chan went first.
“Sure.”
When his own turn came, Toudou didn’t dare to get rid of any extra pressure, as
useful as it would have been. If he stayed in the shower for too long, Maki-
chan would immediately guess what he was doing. Or even worse. Fuku would guess
what he was doing.
So in the end he returned to their room with loaded guns, so to speak.
Maki-chan sat down on the edge of the bed, drying his hair. He had changed into
a loose t-shirt and pyjama pants. Toudou wondered if he was trying to say
something with his choice of clothing. Possibly. At least that they wouldn’t
step out of their room that evening, but also that it would soon be time to go
to bed. Even though it was only seven pm.
Toudou parked himself down on the other side of the bed. The dipping of the
mattress made Maki-chan glance over his shoulder.
“So…” Toudou fiddled with his towel. ”Do you want to… continue from where we
were left of?”
“Do you?”
Why do you always throw me a counterquestion? Why can’t you just answer on your
behalf?
“Well, it’s not like we have much other stuff to do here,” Toudou mumbled,
trying to sound nonchalant. “There’s not even a TV here.”
”True. And we don’t have any games with us.”
“I don’t know if I want to read my book now. Then it won’t last until the end
of our trip.”
“My phone’s almost out of battery.”
“I’m afraid to use mine because it can be crazy expensive.”
Maki-chan looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “It appears we have no
other choice then if we don’t wish to bore ourselves to death.”
Toudou’s poor heart, which had thus far been beating a bit too hard, binked
like a cheerful rabbit and began hammering like mad. That resulted in two
immediate effects: his cheeks turned ember and his trousers became too tight.
Seriously, his body had been on sailing on such a storm for the last 24 hours
that it would be a miracle if it didn’t have any negative results to his
health.
He waited for a moment, but when Maki-chan did nothing but look at him, he
inched further on the bed. His wet towel fell from his fingers and slipped onto
the floor. Maki-chan stopped drying his hair, lowering his hands into his lap.
There was this notable quality in kissing that initiating it became easier
every time. Touching his partner too. And now Toudou knew that he had
permission. His fingers caressed Maki-chan’s jaw before inching behind his neck
and pulling him closer until his eyes closed and Toudou felt his warm (and
still pizza-flavoured) breath on his face, and then he closed his own eyes too
as their lips met.
He registered Maki-chan’s lips moving against his own, could sense his already
familiar unique taste, trembling as Maki-chan’s hands found his shoulders, and
he could read his partner’s eagerness in his movements.
However, he didn’t know at what point they had ended up lying on the bed, so
that he was on top and his other leg was between Maki-chan’s thighs, and how
had they managed to keep their lips locked for the whole time? His dick was
pressed against Maki-chan’s lower belly and he could feel the other hard
against himself and fuck, now it really was the time to discard some clothing.
Toudou detached himself from Maki-chan and straightened up to pull his shirt
over his head. Maki-chan was watching him with half-closed lids, unmoving at
first, but as Toudou threw his shirt over his shoulder, his fingers found the
bare skin, brushing lightly over the muscles outlining in it. They were a
little cold, making Toudou’s skin break out with goosebumps.
“You too,” he muttered, grabbing the hem of Maki-chan’s shirt and pushing it up
to expose his white stomach. Besides the fact that Maki-chan’s body didn’t
store fat, his skin didn’t catch any colour in the sun.
After getting Maki-chan’s upper body bare (with a little bit of his help
because he had to lift himself) Toudou came to the conclusion that they weren’t
naked enough yet. Okay, so maybe he was being too eager – and he had sworn he
shouldn’t give out the impression of being too eager – but lord above, he was
beginning to feel so painful that something had to happen and soon.
Maki-chan didn’t resist when Toudou took hold of his pyjama pants waistband and
pulled tentatively. Toudou lifted his eyes to check his partner and Maki-chan
nodded at him, just enough for it to be visible, so he peeled off the garment.
Maki-chan had nothing underneath his pyjama pants.
Had Toudou been a clichéd anime character, a gush of blood would have burst out
of his nose right that second. But since he wasn’t, his nose stayed dry, but
instead a wet spot started forming in the front of his pants.
Wow. A couple of days ago I couldn’t even have imagined that I would almost
jizz my pants from seeing another guy’s dick, I would have… I don’t even know
what I’d have done, because this whole ordeal is just... asfasdasdfasdf!
Sure, he had known that Maki-chan wasn’t a natural green head because there
just wasn’t such thing as naturally green hair, but on some level he still had
expected to see the carpet match the drapes, not some plain dark brown hair.
Maki-chan opened his mouth, perhaps to remark that of course he didn’t dye his
pubic hair, but he decided against it and was just lying still, observing what
Toudou would do.
Toudou didn’t do anything immediately. His eyes were glued on the hard member
resting against the pale stomach. Was it bigger than his? No, pretty much the
same, maybe a little longer but not dramatically so. Did it matter? Would he
dare to touch it? What would Maki-chan say?
When he didn’t move, Maki-chan’s hands sneaked to his waist, tugging
meaningfully as if to ask why he was still wearing his trousers. Toudou shook
himself out of his trance and began undressing with a small uncertainty
tickling his brain. He wasn’t really uncertain that Maki-chan would… find him
unattractive, but his inexperience had to shine through his every movement.
Maybe it would be best to say something.
He got off from Maki-chan to remove his pants. Brr, it was surprisingly chilly
in the room. His skin got more goosebumps and he wormed against his partner’s
warm side.
“Maki-chan,” he began, tucking his face into the safety of Maki-chan’s neck.
“I’m… well… I have never… with a guy.”
Maki-chan hmmh’d. The sound was surprisingly soothing. “Don’t worry, it’s not
like I have a ton of experiences.”
But you do have one more than I.
“I don’t know if I’m doing it right…”
“It’s okay. We have time to learn.” Maki-chan’s hand found his back and began
drawing lazy circles on it. “We don’t have to do more now if you don’t want
to.”
“I do,” Toudou mumbled. His voice sounded like it was coming from under the
ground even in his own ears. I do. My balls will literally turn blue if I don’t
get to come now.
Maki-chan’s touch travelled down his body, stopping at the point where his
lower back turned into his buttocks. Toudou shivered even more. His laboured
breath was creating hot puffs over his own face and, for a moment, he felt
paralyzed from all the tension, but when Maki-chan’s hand climbed over his ass,
his body reawakened. He lifted his chin, immediately having Maki-chan’s lips
cover his.
He hadn’t known that it was possible to be so excited about something else
other than road racing. His every nerve was super sensitive to touch, there was
hot lava circulating in his groin and his body acted on its own, guiding him to
touch his partner and push shamelessly against him and climb on top of him
because there just wasn’t enough skin contact. And his instincts told him to
thrust something into somewhere and soon before he exploded all over the bed.
But Maki-chan wasn’t a girl and he didn’t really have a suitable place and
Toudou didn’t really know how he was supposed to…
Oh, right.
In the blur of hormones he thrust downwards between Maki-chan’s legs, feeling
his thighs, firm from years of cycling, create some glorious friction, and yes,
he had heard of this, he was just being slow (once again) and two guys could
have sex and there was a place that could be used…
Then a bucketful of cold water was splashed over his plans.
Maki-chan tore his mouth off of Toudou’s, pushing him away. “Jinpachi, stop.”
He managed to stop, but fuck, was that hard! Maki-chan had sounded frustrated
and nervous. Toudou raised his heated face, focusing his eyes on Maki-chan’s
face. His blood was pulsing in his veins and he had to summon all of his
willpower in order to prevent his hips from continuing their thrusting.
“Not there,” Maki-chan said. “Sorry, but…”
Toudou took a deep breath. His body wanted to continue but he ordered it to
behave.
”You don’t have to… explain,” he said. “If you don’t want to… that’s enough for
me.”
They had been proceeding pretty fast. Weren’t they supposed to go on a few
dates at least before jumping into bed?
Fuck the dates. Can’t we just have hot, sweaty, animalistic sex now?
If Maki-chan doesn’t want to, we will respect that.
But after this he absolutely needed to lock himself in the toilet.
Exhaling again, Toudou rolled off of his partner. His still rock-hard dick left
a moist trail on Maki-chan’s skin. He was about to retreat further away, but
Maki-chan’s hand, still resting on his back, stopped him.
“Wait, don’t run away yet. I’ll show you something.”
Toudou halted. He was still getting tremors, partly because of the chilliness
of the room and partly because of the tension. He literally jumped when Maki-
chan suddenly touched him below the belt, wrapping his hands around their
dicks, pressing them together and beginning to slowly rub them. Up and down,
with a teasing, circular motion.
That was when Toudou exploded. After about three strokes.
Right after he could feel something else besides incapacitating pleasure, shame
attacked him. They had had a chance to do so much more, but he’d gone and done
exactly what he had feared. A little bit of touching and he had come
immediately. Then he realized that there was too much spunk and also Maki-chan
was breathing hard and his body was still jerking.
“Did you too..?”
He received a sheepish smile. “What were you thinking, idiot? I’m not made of
stone, you know.” Maki-chan leaned forward to peck him on the lips.
Toudou was relieved, but at the same time he couldn’t shake the feeling that
the whole thing had gone sub par. He’d had fun (okay, more than fun) but
towards the end things had collapsed like a flan. He was extremely embarrassed
that he had lost control so thoroughly. He hadn’t even remembered to think
about condoms or other stuff.
Maki-chan didn’t seem to have minded his inexperience and maybe his flush could
be interpreted as the aftermath of his orgasm. Maki-chan was handing him a
tissue to wipe his skin, before he got up and went to the toilet to wash his
hands. In other words, he walked naked across the room. Toudou’s eyes followed
the swaying of that little firm ass and the green hair brushing against his
back.
Just before closing the door, Maki-chan turned to glance at him over his
shoulder. “No need to get dressed yet. In half an hour, you’ll be taking your
clothes off again.”
Toudou’s heart jumped at that.
Chapter End Notes
     In the words of Yagami Light and an unknown translator: “Not
     according to keikaku.”
***** Unwanted Nightly Visitors *****
Chapter Notes
     A Christmas surprise to all my readers: the long-awaited POV of
     Arakita Yasutomo!
     About the content of this chapter… I’m deeply sorry.
     WARNING: If you get scared easily, I can't recommend reading this at
     night or in the dark.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Arakita had barely closed his eyes and was about to fall asleep when his co-
passenger yanked him back awake.
“Yasutomo.” Shinkai was staring at him, his blue eyes round as plates and full
of demand. “Tell Manami to stop kicking me.”
“Eh?”
“He’s been doing it for the whole journey. I can’t take it anymore.”
”The fuck are you babbling about? Manami’s not within a hundred kilometers
radius.”
Shinkai blinked, clearly not understanding. “Sure he is. He’s kicking the back
of my seat.”
Arakita peeked between the seats. “There’s a fragile looking granny sitting
behind you. I really don’t think she’s capable of kicking your seat.”
He received some more astonished staring. Something in Shinkai’s gaze (and in
the way he spoke) made him suspect that he wasn’t wide awake. His eyes seemed
to wander here and there and his mouth was hanging agape like on a little kid
who didn’t have any social control yet.
”Where’s Juichi?” he asked next.
“With the rest of them, in some unknown French village.”
“Tell Juichi that Manami must be punished.”
Arakita felt a grin tug his lips. This could be fun. “Okay, sure. What kind of
punishment were you thinking?”
”Mhm?”
”How do you want to punish Manami?”
“Why do we need to punish Manami?”
“For fuck’s sake, you just said that he must be punished!”
“Emm… I forgot to change the balls on the Christmas tree. Juichi will be so
mad.”
“It’s summer now.”
“But will you tell him?”
“About the Christmas tree or Manami?”
“I need to deworm Usakichi if it’s summer now. I have forgotten.”
“Oi, Shinkai,” Arakita said with all the seriousness. Things were getting a bit
too crazy. “Go back to sleep. It’s still over an hour’s drive to our next
location.”
“Oh? Okay then.” Shinkai leaned against his seat, closing his eyes.
Shit, he was actually obeying! Arakita waited for a moment before jabbing his
buddy in the shoulder. No reaction. Except after five minutes he jumped up
again. ”Juichi?!”
”Fuku-chan is not here. Go back to sleep.”
Things calmed after that. Across the aisle there were a bunch of teenagers
staring at them and giggling annoyingly. Even if you couldn’t understand the
words, you could immediately see that Shinkai was totally out of it. Arakita
threw the brats his best ‘You seriously wanna mess with a guy who looks like
this?’ look and they suddenly pretended to be very interested in their phones.
Okay, so this was how things had gone.
After a five-hour torment of dullness, the doctor in charge had finally come
into the conclusion that Shinkai’s allergic reaction wasn’t going to get worse
and they had been dismissed. At the time even Shinkai had been seriously
pissed, because he had been treated as a temporary patient and therefore hadn’t
been offered any meals. When Arakita had suggested that he should go and fetch
his companion a sandwich from the hospital’s cafeteria, the doctor had denied
it, because apparently – from what he could understand behind the thick accent
– food could contain some allergens and worsen Shinkai’s condition. And
everybody knew that almost the only way in the world to get Shinkai cranky was
to deny him food when he was hungry.
So after they had been discharged, they had headed directly to a nearby pasta
restaurant to wolf down one hell of a portion of spaghetti. Shinkai had also
swallowed one of the allergy medicines given to him and thankfully they had
already been on the bus when the pill had kicked in, since in half an hour he
was totally out, only waking up occasionally to babble insanities.
“What kind of fucking sedatives did they give you?” Arakita had been under the
impression that modern allergy medicines didn’t have any tiresome side effects.
But that reaction in itself had been so dramatic that after it had subsided,
the body probably wanted to take a break. And that big portion of carbs might
also have something to do with the sudden drowsiness.
Not that Shinkai hadn’t previously acted strangely in his sleep. There had been
that time when he had jumped up from a deep sleep and told Fuku-chan to pedal
faster because ‘if the tailwind takes the opponent, that ramen restaurant must
close their doors for midnight’. Not to mention those times when he had been
petting an invisible bunny in his lap. Seriously, Arakita had sometimes
considered setting a camera rolling for the night. This troop’s nightly
adventures could make them a fortune if the tape was sent into TV’s funny home
videos.
They drove some time in silence, Arakita watching the scenery pass by. He was
still a bit upset that they hadn’t seen the mountain stage but he was also
eagerly waiting for the day off. Mr. Pierre had texted him that the other guys
were tarrying somewhere in France periphery and that he would be in time to
pick them up from the bus station of Avignon. Arakita was pretty sure that once
they had reached their next location, he would be too tired to go out anymore
and the same seemed to apply for Shinkai.
“Toudou will blame me for not guarding you better again. As if it was my fault
that local doctors use ancient medications,” he huffed.
Shinkai didn’t answer. His mouth was slightly ajar, his chest was moving to the
rhythm of his breathing and his eyes were moving under the closed lids; Arakita
could see them flutter slightly. Who knew what kind of weird ass dreams he was
having again? His hand seemed to be hurting still since every time he
involuntary moved it, his face constricted in pain and a small whine left his
lips. No wonder really, that wasp had been like a bodybuilder. The Tadokoro of
all wasps. Heh.
Arakita leaned down to reach his Bepsi bottle and took a few sips. It was hot
in the bus despite the air conditioning. His back and ass were practically
cooking in sweat. He’d take a shower right after they had reached their
destination. Ah, a hotel shower. A divine luxury after the camping areas’ dark
and dirty booths.
He drank a bit more of his bottle and was about to stuff it back into his bag
when Shinkai’s head slumped down on his shoulder.
“Hey asshole, what are you doing?” he asked, shaking his shoulder. Shinkai’s
head moved along with it but he didn’t answer. On a second glance he still
seemed to be out cold, breathing like a sleeping person would, deep and evenly.
His neck seemed to be totally limp.
Okay then, let him lean. But if he started drooling, Arakita would dump him
onto the aisle.
He huffed, straightening his back and resting his head against the seat.
Stupid Shinkai. Stupid mega-lips. Stupid happy idiot. Stupid Mr. I-can-eat-
anything-even-chocobanana-puddings-every-day-and-still-only-grow-muscle.
It was so unfair.
..not the fact that Shinkai didn’t get fat even though he hogged cakes and
chocolate and greasy food like a truck driver. Arakita himself didn’t get fat
even though he consumed Bepsi daily.
It was unfair that he had fallen for that blasted bunny lover.
He had admitted it to himself already. What was the use in denying it? He
wasn’t sure when it had begun or what had sparkled it, but as long as people
didn’t know how to read minds, it didn’t matter what thoughts were stewing in
his head.
As long as Shinkai didn’t find out. Or Fuku-chan. Or, god forbid, Toudou.
Or anyone. As long as anyone didn’t find out.
Unless… unless Shinkai happened to take an interest in him. On that condition
he was allowed to find out. But that wasn’t likely to happen, because stupid
Shinkai had that stupid chick. Like, what did he even see in her? Sure, the
chick had a round ass and passable boobs and supposedly her face wasn’t too bad
but she was incredibly clingy. Always there demanding to know where Shinkai
was, hanging around by the club room and trying to worm her way into their race
trips. How was it possible that Shinkai hadn’t noticed it?
Shinkai had his stupid girlfriend, Shinkai claimed to be straight (despite
certain slip ups about Gackt) and on top of that there was that tiny detail of
Shinkai being popular and good-looking – neither of which Arakita was – so it
sounded quite improbable that Shinkai would fall for him. He had hoped that
after taking care of the issue, in other words after coaxing Shinkai into to do
some horizontal tango in the sheets – or in a sleeping bag – his feelings would
cool off.
Hah, how wrong had he been!
Arakita sighed, wiping his face. He was so fucked. It was nothing short of a
miracle that at the moment there wasn’t too much awkwardness lingering between
them. That wasp sting had actually come in at the perfect moment and taken
their thoughts away from the happenings of last night.
Shinkai found his neck muscles and lifted the extra weight from Arakita’s
shoulder. He straightened his back, turning his head from side to side as he
tried to make out his surroundings. His eyes caught Arakita and understanding
lit up his face.
“Hey, Yasutomo.”
Arakita tried to look like he had only been interested in his Bepsi. He glanced
at Shinkai from the corner of his eyes, talking with the bottle on his lips.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you want to fuck me?”
He almost choked on his Bepsi.
Shinkai waited for him to cough his lungs clean. Ugh, some of the soda had gone
up his nose and water was dripping from his eyes. He was sure that everyone in
the bus was staring at him.
What the hell? Now you want to talk about it? Here in the middle of a crowd?
He didn’t think anyone else in the bus understood Japanese but wasn’t willing
to take the risk. Shinkai seemed to be awake and sober; he wasn’t drivelling in
his sleep anymore.
Somehow, he managed to restore a nonchalant façade. “I thought we’d been
through this already.” He shrugged. “Out of curiosity.”
Shinkai hmm’d. ”Sure, but is that all?”
Arakita felt his heart beat a little faster. “What do you mean?”
“You still want to fuck me, right? Tonight when we’re alone again.”
God damn it! That time he almost choked on his saliva. He nearly began coughing
again. But what the actual fuck..?!
He looked at Shinkai again, more closely, and noted that his eyes were shining
a bit too brightly. Manically. He was awake, but not necessarily in his right
mind.
“Shinkai…”
“Because naturally one time is not enough. You’re already thinking about how to
coax me into it again.”
“Well, does it matter since it’s up to your agreement?” Arakita remarked. “I
mean, you’d hardly agree to do it again.”
Shinkai frowned in a way that would have been comical under other
circumstances. “Hmh, whatever.”
“What do you mean, ‘whatever’?”
“You’re just trying to shoulder the responsibility on me. It doesn’t matter
what I want. You’re the one who started it. And the one who wants to continue.”
“The hell are y–?”
“You wish to press me into a mattress and pound me so hard that the neighbours
will hear us. So that the bed creaks and you’ll make me whine and drool and beg
for more…”
“Oi, dude, seriously! You really need to shut your mouth!” he barked. The
inside of the bus would soon turn crimson out of sheer embarrassment. Fuck, if
he hadn’t been so shocked and if Shinkai had not broken his character so
thoroughly, he would have gotten a boner.
Shinkai was blinking those huge eyes of his. He looked like he had just woken
from hypnosis. One thing was for certain: those pills that he had received from
the doctor were forbidden from now on.
Then Shinkai exhaled, slumping against his seat and crossing his arms. “You
still want it.”
“Whatever. Just be quiet and go to sleep now.”
*
As if the situation hadn’t been humiliating enough, Shinkai had to continue his
lecherous talk after they were seated in the car with Mr. Pierre. This time he
luckily didn’t babble about the things that had happened between him and
Arakita, but it was still utterly embarrassing.
Arakita didn’t consider himself sensitive but even a snowman’s cheeks would
have been flaming when usually very kind and well-spoken Shinkai explained to
him about dicks and boning and some famous pornographic videos that could be
watched online while Sohoku’s middle-aged coach was hearing it all.
“That’s because of those pills he got from the hospital,” Arakita explained.
“It started in the bus. Luckily, nobody seemed to understand Japanese.”
Mr. Pierre had a blank expression on his face. “Interesting… side effect.”
Arakita was poked in the shoulder. “Hey, Yasutomo! Do you think Manami is still
a virgin?”
”I sincerely hope he is.”
“Should we get him some cheap hooker?”
“I think he can find his own hookers without our help.”
”Occasionally I wonder when Yuuto is going to begin his sex life. At least he
has some adult magazines in his room – he thinks nobody knows about them but
hiding them under the mattress is suuuch an old trick. What do you think?
Should I help my lil’ bro out? How old were your sisters again?”
”My sisters will not be pimped to your little brother!”
“Why not? Yuuto’s a good guy.”
“I don’t fucking care. My sisters are not some pimping trophies! Your perverted
brother can find a chick on his own.”
“Yuuto’s not perverted. He’s a normal, healthy young man.”
Arakita gritted his teeth. ”Shinkai. I swear, if you don’t shut up, I’ll punch
your lights out.”
Shinkai was left to stare at him, his mouth hanging open and hurt shining in
his eyes. But after that, a divine silence dawned in the car.
 
The latest drop of hardship was experienced when they arrived at the hotel.
Their joy of spending the night at a real castle soon turned into frustration
and anger once they found out that their room had no functioning shower or
toilet, but despite that they would have to share the room with Manami.
And since Shinkai’s lights had been once again turned off, Arakita had to
handle the situation alone.
“Have you now checked multiple times that there’s no place for you in the other
rooms?” Arakita demanded to the idiotically grinning menace that had made
himself at home in their room and was now lying on the luxurious double bed
like he owned the whole hotel. His own bed, a shaky looking spare cot, which
reminded Arakita of their first night in Paris, was waiting beside it,
untouched.
“Fuku-san said that I can sleep here. Their room is too small.”
Hrrst! No room could be so small that a pocket mascot like Manami couldn’t fit
in it! But if Fuku-chan had said so, Arakita really had no energy to start
arguing.
It was just that this wasn’t a good night. Not now, when he and Shinkai…
You and Shinkai what?
I don’t know, damn it. Something!
”Have you asked the others?” he checked once more. “How about Toudou?”
“Their room has no extra space either. Besides, I’m not sure if I want to
listen to those two smooching and molesting each other. The last time I saw
them today, Toudou-san looked like he was about to bounce on Makishima-san at
any given moment.”
Arakita snorted. “Fair enough.”
“What’s wrong with Shinkai-san?” Manami hauled himself up, his eyes turning to
the third soul of the room who had actually walked in by himself but had
slumped down into the nearest chair and was now dozing with his head tilted
back, his chin pointing at the ceiling and with his hands spread over the
armrests like he was sitting in an airplane seat. He had never looked more
stupid.
“Stoned on the medicine he got from the hospital. Now get off the bed so that
the patient gets to sleep properly.”
“I’m not taking up that much room,” Manami said, but he was already sliding
down of the bed and hopping over to his bag. “I’m going to go and see what
Sakamichi-kun and the others are doing. Do you want to tag along?”
”Over my dead body.”
“Okay then. I’ll be back in a few hours. I don’t have the key, so someone has
to be here to open the door for me.”
Hah! Didn’t have the key. So Arakita could just pretend that he didn’t hear the
brat knocking.
“While you’re at it, you can ask the Sohoku guys if you can sleep in their
room.”
“Wouldn’t that be a bit intrusive?”
”Since when have you cared about that? Now bugger off!”
Manami slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. Arakita waited for
a good ten seconds before checking that the door had been locked. Manami was
outside, they were inside and there was a solid lock between them. At least
they’d have a moment of peace.
He slapped Shinkai in the shoulder. “Hey, lazy ass! Shouldn’t you drag your
limp body into the bed?”
His companion lifted his head, looking around with squinting eyes. “Erm..?”
“The bed.” Arakita pointed.
“Nah.” Shinkai’s head lolled back against the seat.
Arakita huffed to himself. Alright then, Shinkai could sleep wherever he
wished. He walked to the bed, wondering if he should lie down himself. On the
other hand, he could try to predict the future events and buy them some food
while Shinkai was sleeping. That way they wouldn’t have to leave their room for
that evening. He could smoke one of his remaining cigarettes; after all that
had happened, he needed it.
If he had stopped to think about why he didn’t want to leave the room anymore
that evening, some questionable thoughts might have intruded his brain. Better
to keep his mind blank.
He snatched the key from the nightstand and left the room.
 
After half an hour, as he returned to their room, Shinkai woke up to the slam
and seemed to be sober for a change, albeit he was still visibly tired.
“What time is it?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Almost eight.”
“Evening or morning?”
“Evening.” Arakita dropped his purchases on a small dresser; sandwiches and
energy bars. Shinkai was running out of them. He lifted one bar for the other
guy to see. “You want?”
Shinkai held out his hand. “Sure.”
He caught it midair, so apparently his body was beginning to obey him again.
Arakita sat down on the bed, unwrapping one of the sandwiches. “Do you remember
anything of the past four hours?”
“Mhm, I’m not sure…” Shinkai spoke between bites. ”I remember us eating
spaghetti and hopping into a bus. After that it’s a bit blurry. Mr. Pierre came
to pick us up, right? What happened?”
“I don’t know what kind of pills they gave you at the hospital, but I recommend
that you don’t take them anymore.”
Shinkai frowned. “That’s what it was? Fuck, I’m having these flashbacks... did
we talk about Yuuto?”
“Amongst other things. About how we should pimp Yuuto to my sisters.”
“Eeh?”
“Yep. You said it, not me. You also spent a good five minutes or so describing
a fetish video you had seen online. With a woman shoving a furry-tailed plug
into her ass. Mr. Pierre heard it all.”
“Oh my god,” Shinkai groaned, burying his face into his hands. “What did he
say?”
”Nothing, really. It was clear that you were not in your right mind.”
“But still… aargh.” Shinkai rubbed cheeks, trying to get rid of the
embarrassment.
“It was hardly the first time the old man has heard youngsters use some dirty
language, so try to get over it.”
Shinkai muttered something incoherent and swallowed the rest of his energy bar.
“I think I’ll go to bed already. I’m still tired as hell.”
“Be my guest. By the way, Manami is sharing the room with us.”
Was he imagining it or was there a shadow of relief on Shinkai’s face. “Okay,
he’ll sleep in that spare bed, I suppose?”
“Yeah,” Arakita said, and then added meaningfully: ”Unless you want to sleep in
it.”
“No thanks. That one cot in Paris was enough for me.”
“Thought so. Let’s hope that one doesn’t squeak as much.”
“Where’s Manami now?”
”Somewhere with Sohoku’s first-years.”
“Okay.” Shinkai pushed himself to his feet. ”I need to go and take a leak
first.”
“You have to go to the hallway. We don’t have a bathroom here.”
Shinkai halted. “What, why?”
“They’re renovating the hotel. Those cunning bastards left us the shittiest
room.”
“Why are we in a hotel that’s being renovated?”
“Because Mr. Pierre knows the owner and we get a major discount. It’s better
than a tent, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Arakita got to his feet too. “Take the key with you. I’m gonna find a room with
a shower.”
Shinkai walked – staggered – out of the room and Arakita was left to rummage
through his bag for his towel and a change of clothes.
*
Around midnight, they had all settled down in their beds. Yes, all three of
them, including Manami. Arakita had pretended to not have heard the knocking,
but stupid Shinkai had stirred awake from his sleep and asked if Arakita could
go and open the door. So he had done it. Manami had hopped in ever so joyfully,
explaining how he had been playing some childish card game with Sohoku’s
sophomore idiots. Interesting as hell. Arakita had told him to shut up and go
to his bed. Manami had taken his time to change into his pyjamas and climb
between the sheets. Luckily, the bed didn’t creak nearly as badly as its
Parisian cousin. But that didn’t change the fact that there was an extra person
in their room.
Damn that Manami.
Seriously though, if Arakita really thought about it, he should have been
thankful that Shinkai still wanted to share the room and bed with him. The
decision had been made for them, but Shinkai could have insisted that someone
switch with him. After returning from the toilet, he had done nothing besides
eating the other sandwich, changing into a loose tee shirt and boxers (which he
had done in the bathroom that was out of use, away from Arakita’s eyes) and
tucking himself in the sheets. And slept soundly until Manami had started being
noisy behind the door.
But now he was still awake. At least, judging by the rhythm of his breathing he
was.
Arakita became aware of feeling too hot. His bangs had curled from all the
sweating. The blanket was probably designed for the winter season. He didn’t
want to sleep without it, so he ended up removing his clothes. He preferred
sleeping naked anyway, since clothes had a tendency to tangle with his limbs
and wrinkle under his back. Manami was in his own bed, Shinkai was on his own
side and there was a good twenty centimeters between them. Nobody would care if
he slept commando – at least as long as they didn’t know about it.
He wriggled out of his clothes, balling them up next to his pillow. Neither of
his roommates reacted to the faint rustling. Yes, this was much better, less
suffocating. He lay down again, letting his head roll onto the other cheek.
Shinkai had turned his back on him. The sight was awkwardly familiar from the
previous night. So familiar that it created the most urgent need to touch.
Because he could still feel Shinkai’s hips against his fingers and his firm
buttocks against his groin. Most of all, he could feel Shinkai around him, hot
and alive and so incredibly tight.
Shinkai had enjoyed it too. Wasn’t it possible that he would want to do it
again then?
His hand was sneaking underneath the other blanket. Just a little further and
his fingertips would find their target. Damn, he shouldn’t have but…
“Yasutomo,” Shinkai’s voice slashed like a whip in the darkness. “Stop groping
me.”
Jesus! Arakita snatched his hand back quickly. Freaking idiot, what if Manami
had heard? Besides, what did he mean ‘groping’; his fingers had barely brushed
against the skin. It could have happened accidentally.
He sneered, throwing himself onto his other side, his back at Shinkai. He knew
that Shinkai had enjoyed last night. And he had almost said in the bus that he
wanted to do it again. He was just having an identity crisis. The need would
eventually grow too big to resist. Arakita only had to wait.
 
He had fallen asleep and had probably spent a good amount of time in slumber
when he was suddenly yanked back to awareness in quite an unpleasant way.
“Shinkai-san, Arakita-san! Can I sleep with you guys?”
Arakita blinked, his eyes dry from sleep. “What the fu– No, you most definitely
can’t!”
But Manami was already climbing onto the bed, worming his way between them.
Under the blanket and all. Since it was Arakita’s blanket that was on top,
Manami slipped into the same space with him, bringing a breeze of cool air.
“What the fuck are you doing? Get out of here!”
“Can’t I sleep with you?”
“Are you a fucking baby? Go back to your own bed!”
Manami settled down comfortably under the blanket and in the crammed space his
hand happened to brush near Arakita’s lower belly. Like, really low. The sudden
touch made him jerk.
Manami looked at him, surprised. “Arakita-san, are you not wearing pants? Are
you naked? Why are you naked?”
His face might have changed colour at that moment. Luckily it was dark in the
room. Manami didn’t really control the volume of his voice, so if Shinkai was
awake, he most definitely had heard it. And if he wasn’t, he’d probably wake up
soon.
“Shut it, you monkey! I like to sleep... airily and this blanket is hot as
hell.”
“Do you always sleep naked? Gross.” The words did not match the tone of
Manami’s voice, which sounded only delighted and bright. Maybe he smelled a
scandal that he could spread around.
“You’re gross.”
Manami didn’t even seem to hear the insult. ”Doesn’t it bother Shinkai-san?”
“We’re not under the same blanket, jeez!”
”I think I’m going to switch under his blanket. I don’t want to accidentally
touch your private parts.” Manami inched away from him, lifting Shinkai’s
blanket and crawling under it.
“How about going back to your own bed?”
“I can’t.”
”What do you mean? You have a pair of functioning legs.”
“Okay, I could, but I don’t want to.”
“Why not? You’re acting like a three-year-old, sneaking into mommy and daddy’s
bed in the middle of the night.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want to sleep there.”
”And why is that? You were doing just fine until now.”
At that point the tone of Manami’s voice changed. Lightness melted into
seriousness, something Arakita had never heard from him before. A visible
shiver surged through the boy; he could feel it as the bed shook slightly.
“Somebody sat down on the edge of my bed just now.”
“What do you mean ‘sat down’?”
”They just did. I felt the mattress dip. It made a faint sound too. But I
couldn’t see anyone. Before that I heard someone walk across the floor.”
“It was just a dream.”
“No, it wasn’t. I first thought that one of you was going to the bathroom but
then I remembered it’s not working. However, the steps went to the door.”
”Alright, what are you on about?”
Manami’s huge eyes stared at him across the darkness. Behind him, the shoulder
of Shinkai was rising and falling along with his breath. How had that dork not
woken up to their conversation?
“The owner said the hotel is haunted.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Arakita snorted. “Your head is haunted. And this is the last time
you sleep in the same room with me.”
“Shht, listen!” Manami hissed.
“What–?”
Then he heard it too. A faint rustling and chinking, like someone had fiddled
with small metallic items, jewellery or coins, against a wooden surface. The
sound came from behind the spare bed, near the dresser that stood there.
Arakita’s heart froze before it leaped into a full gallop. For half a minute,
they were holding their breaths and listening. The chinking stopped and it was
quiet for a moment, but then an old chair by the window creaked.
Arakita felt every hair of his body rising to stand on end. “What the fuck is
going on here?”
“It’s the ghost,” Manami mumbled from inside the blanket. He sounded a bit
frightened but there was also some audible delight. That little scourge, he was
excited to encounter a ghost.
“Come on, there has to be an explanation for this,” Arakita reasoned. “It’s an
old castle and old structures creak and crack all the time.”
The chair made another sound.
God fucking damn it. To tell the truth, he wanted to dash out of the room but
he couldn’t turn into a coward in front of Manami (and Shinkai). Summoning his
courage, he pulled himself up and turned on the nightstand lamp. Manami let out
a small yelp.
“See? There’s nothing in here,” Arakita said, pointing at the empty room. There
were no coins or jewellery on the dresser and the chair stood still in its
spot. “It’s just our imagination playing tricks with us.”
”Both of us, simultaneously?”
“Like I said, it’s an old building and they make sounds all the time. Wood
reacts to changes in temperature.”
There was a faint creak behind the chair. It sounded like someone had stepped
on a loose floorboard.
Despite the fact that his heart was beating against his ribs like it was trying
break them, Arakita threw away his blanket, lowering his feet onto the floor.
They wouldn’t get to sleep a wink before he had shown Manami (and himself) that
there weren’t any restless souls lingering in the room.
”What are you doing?” Manami asked as he walked briskly to the noisy chair.
Halfway across the room, he realized that he was butt-naked. Maybe he should
have pulled his pants on but oh well, they seemed to have more urgent problems
at hand.
“See, there isn’t anything unusual,” he said, spreading his arms and lowering
his other hand on the back rest of the chair. He was getting goosebumps as the
air by the window was colder than elsewhere in the room. Fucking lousy old
windows and stone walls. He felt like standing in front of an open fridge.
“I didn’t see anything before either,” Manami remarked. “I just heard and felt
it.”
“I don’t care. The room is empty. Can we go back to sleep now?”
That was when Shinkai decided to wake up.
“What’s going on?” came a sleepy voice and red, messy hair appeared from under
the blanket. “What are you guys doing? What time is it?” His eyes sailed around
the room. ”Yasutomo, why are you standing there naked?”
On some other occasion Arakita might have been more embarrassed. He wasn’t
exactly shy about standing naked in front of other guys but lately some things
had happened between him and Shinkai that were solidly linked to nudeness. He
shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “Manami had a bad dream about some
boogiemen so I needed to show him there’s nothing to fear.”
Shinkai’s head turned a few degrees.
“Who’s that?”
“Who’s who?” Manami asked, clearly alert. ”You mean Arakita-san?”
“No, I mean that lady in the corner behind Yasutomo.”
Never in his life had Arakita run so fast.
His feet touched the ground only once as he leaped towards the bed and dived
under the sheets. Manami let out a startled cry – it was unclear whether or not
he was scared of what Shinkai had said or naked Arakita attacking the bed – and
pulled the blanket over his head.
“What the freaking..?” Shinkai sat up. His gaze bounced between them and the
corner. “Where did she go?”
“That lady? Did she vanish? What did she look like?” Manami inquired from the
depths of the blanket. Arakita had taken cover under his own blanket and
instinctively pressed against the young climber. He couldn’t have cared less
what it did to his reputation. If Shinkai saw some strange ladies in the room,
ladies that Arakita didn’t see, hardly anyone would be paying any attention to
what he was doing. Manami didn’t protest even though his naked body touched
him, but instead convulsively grabbed his arm.
“She was wearing some old-fashioned clothes, a long frilly dress, and her hair
was up in a bun. She looked pretty young, maybe a little older than us.”
Shinkai seemed to be totally confused about the things happening in the room.
He scratched his head and yawned, looking around him with tired eyes.
“Oh man, Shinkai-san, you saw her! We just heard when she was moving around in
the room!”
“Shinkai got those pills earlier and was stoned like a Jamaican hippie. Maybe
hallucinations are one of the side effects,” Arakita muttered.
”The effects wore off ages ago, I’m not stoned anymore,” Shinkai answered. “But
could somebody explain what is happening here? Why is Manami in our bed? Why
was Yasutomo wandering around the room naked? Isn’t it still night time?”
Manami dared to finally lift the blanket off his face. “Don’t you understand,
Shinkai-san? You saw a ghost.”
“What ghost?”
“The hotel is haunted. Mr. Pierre’s friend said so.”
”Fucking hell!” Arakita growled. ”Last night I had to listen to Shinkai’s
spider whining and in the morning Toudou’s one man and one headband hurricane
came to bang on our door. Tonight we’re chasing ghosts. Can’t a guy get to
sleep even one night in peace?”
Shinkai looked at him pointedly. “You might have had something to do with that
‘spider whining’.”
“Shut up! We’re going back to sleep now.” Never mind that he wasn’t the
slightest bit tired anymore.
“But what if that lady is still here?” Manami pointed out.
”She disappeared. Shinkai said so.” Christ on a stick, if he suddenly saw some
lady standing in a corner, he’d probably piss himself. He reckoned that he had
felt the ghost before. They always said that before a ghost manifested there
was a major drop in the temperature, and by the chair the air had been so
chilly that his balls had probably shrunken into raisins. He wanted to change
the room but the others would hardly agree. Except, perhaps, Naruko Shoukichi.
Somehow, he had to be reasonable about the situation. “We don’t hear any
creaking anymore. You can go back to your own bed.”
“No, I’m not going,” Manami’s voice was surprisingly adamant. “Who knows if
that lady decides to sit on it again? No way. I’m sleeping with you guys.”
Shinkai lowered himself onto his back again and flopped his arm behind Manami’s
head. “Come here, Sangaku.”
Thankful, Manami snuggled up against Shinkai. Arakita waited for a moment, but
he clearly wasn’t going to be invited. During the second moment he swallowed
his pride and moved to press against Manami. And then they were lying there
like a bunch of cowards,
(or a mismatched family)
staring at the dark corners of the room. Shinkai fell asleep soon after that,
but Arakita and Manami stayed awake for a good while.
Chapter End Notes
     The author knows that modern allergy medicines don’t have strong side
     effects (unless you get prescribed Atarax – which is not usually used
     when there are newer medicines available). I just couldn’t resist. :)
     The moral of the story: Don’t give Shinkai anything stronger than a
     power bar.
***** A Tragic Love Story *****
Chapter Notes
     Toudou, you little sex-monkey!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The reality hit in the morning and it hit hard.
Oh my fucking god, I’m gay!
Toudou jumped up from sleep, startled.
Christ, what are mom and dad going to say? What is Shiori going to say? Or
Fuku?
Arakita will laugh his way to the hospital, that uncivilized demon.
What the hell am I going to do now?
Road racing wise it didn’t concern him. The Inter High was over, and he and
Maki-chan weren’t exactly rivals anymore. Unless they ended up in rivaling
schools in the future.
Hey, maybe they could apply for the same university! That way they would see
each other every day.
“What’s the matter?” came Maki-chan’s sleepy voice from next to him. Toudou
realized that he’d been pressing his hands against his mouth and letting out a
weird hissing noise that might have sounded a bit hysterical. He peeked at
Maki-chan out of the corner of his eye. He was lying on his stomach, head
turned towards Toudou and green hair spread over the pillow like a fan, his
eyes still closed. Toudou was about to ask if Maki-chan had the same kind of
recollection of yesterday as he did, but then his roommate’s hand sneaked onto
his lower back – or actually onto his ass, since he was sitting up and Maki-
chan’s hand was inching along the mattress – and he would have never done that
if yesterday hadn’t happened.
“Is something wrong?” he asked again, his fingers moving slightly, brushing
against Toudou’s skin just above his tailbone.
Toudou failed to arrange his thoughts in order to produce a coherent sentence.
He opened his mouth, but closed it again. Maki-chan cracked his eyes open to
look at him. His lips curved into a knowing smile.
”Don’t worry. That’s a normal reaction.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Just forget the panic for a moment and come here.”
“But…” And then the words found him. ”But Maki-chan, what are we going to do if
the others find out? What are our teammates going to say? What are your parents
going to say? Or my parents? They are more conservative than catholic priests!
They will send me to some monastery for ‘healing’. And Shiori is going to tell
everyone in the school that her brother is a fag and then her fujoshi friends
will conceive yaoi fantasies about me! And then my fan club will find out and
then I’ve got no–!”
Maki-chan patted his butt. “Listen, could you be a little less Toudou Jinpachi
this morning?”
Oh? Well, okay then. Toudou shut his mouth and lay down with stiff limbs. Maki-
chan pulled his hand out of the way but right after Toudou was lying down, he
placed it on his chest, snuggling against his side so that Toudou could feel
his breath warm on skin. The hand didn’t do anything per se, it was just
resting there. After a few minutes, Toudou lifted his own hand on top of it. He
could feel his heart’s heavy beating even through Maki-chan’s hand.
They lay together in silence. Toudou listened to Maki-chan’s peaceful breathing
and little by little his own breath began to align with it. He concentrated on
how their hands rose and fell along with his chest and how his pulse was
slowing down. It didn’t return to normal because the situation wasn’t the most
common – Maki-chan was touching him intimately – but at least he didn’t feel
like all his intestines were trying to squeeze their way out of his throat at
the same time.
Nobody knew yet. He didn’t have to tell.
Then Maki-chan spoke. “It happened to me too – many times. In the end I got too
tired to jump about it.”
Toudou looked at him. “Many times? But didn’t you… I mean, you’ve only been
with one person?”
“I might have still had feelings towards other people”, Maki-chan remarked. “To
tell you the truth, some weeks after that certain night I was having anxiety
attacks – especially in the mornings when I woke up and remembered what had
happened. But at some point it became ordinary.”
How could this kind of thing become ordinary? Toudou couldn’t understand. ”You
said that only Tadokoro and Kinjou know?” he checked. “So you haven’t told
anyone else?”
“Yes, I said that and no, I haven’t told anyone else, apart from you. Though, I
suspect that Teshima and Aoyagi might have a hunch about it, but as long as I’m
not dating anyone I don’t see a reason to advertise it. Kinjou and Tadokorocchi
don’t babble about their hook ups. Why should I?”
“The bull has girls?” Toudou blurted out and immediately regretted his
bluntness. Tadokoro was Maki-chan’s good friend after all.
The blue eyes glanced at him, slightly disapproving. “You wouldn’t believe how
many girls like the strong teddy bear type.”
Uh, okay, he could have lived without the image of Tadokoro fooling around with
girls. Why had he brought it up?
“But to put it shortly: trust me, I know how you’re feeling – unless…” Maki-
chan’s voice grew wary. “…you are having a ‘Help, I don’t want this’ fit and
you are wondering how to tell me.”
“No!” Toudou cried out. ”Not at all. I’m… I suppose this is only that ‘Damn,
what am I getting myself into’ initial scare.”
Maki-chan hummed in approval against his neck but said nothing. Toudou exhaled,
shutting his mouth again. After a moment he felt something warm and moist on
his neck. Maki-chan’s lips. And his head turned automatically towards his
partner, even though… aargh, the morning breath, and his mouth was like a
desert and his lips were like two dry lumps of meat and…
..and fuck it.
They kissed leisurely, light brushing and nipping of lips, Toudou turning onto
his side against Maki-chan’s, his hand reaching his side, caressing it slowly.
Fuck, had he known how intoxicating it was to get intimate with someone, he
would have gotten into it sooner. Though, perhaps it wouldn’t be the same with
just anyone, but he had known Maki-chan for a long time and they could have…
Toudou pulled his head back to lean his nose on Maki-chan’s. “Why haven’t we
done this before?” he asked to himself as much as to Maki-chan.
“Because you were being a dimwit.”
“Argh, Maki-chan, you could at least admit that you are a little hard to read.”
“Alright, I suppose I can admit that,” Maki-chan said, stealing his lips again
as if to say that they were done with talking.
There was only one downside to kissing that Toudou didn’t know how to do it
without heating up like a teakettle over an open fire. Maybe it was a personal
trait, maybe just his inexperience, but when morning wood hit with its full
power, he realized that he was pushing against Maki-chan like it was somehow
possible to snake inside his skin. If his body got its way, he would soon be on
top of Maki-chan again and his hand was already fumbling down his friend’s
body…
“We have to go and have breakfast soon,” Maki-chan muttered against his lips.
Toudou grunted in frustration. “Hngh, you started it, Maki-chan!” Besides, his
partner’s condition wasn’t any better; Toudou could feel his hardness against
his lower belly. His fingertips grazed over Maki-chan’s erection, making him
shiver. Then a hand grabbed his wrist, pushing it away.
“Turn around for a moment.”
Toudou let out another frustrated sound – he would have wanted to continue his
exploring – but obeyed, rolling onto his other side, turning his back to the
other climber. Maki-chan pressed against his back and lowered his arm to rest
over his side. He lay quietly, but naturally Toudou could feel his breath on
the back of his neck and his boner against his ass. Yet there was something
soothing in their position, and he was slowly regaining his self-control. His
bladder announced that it needed emptying soon. That wouldn’t work as long as
the downstairs mood indicator was pointing to the skies like a freaking Nazi
salute.
“Your hair smells good,” Maki-chan muttered behind his back.
”Of course it smells good. I use a quality shampoo from a professional
hairdresser. Costs like unicorn’s milk but it’s worth it.”
”Jinpachi. Just say ’thanks’.”
Toudou huffed but his lips were already pulling into a smile. “Thanks.” Then he
added as a sort of side remark. ”Your hair smells like leaves of the spring.”
“Really now? To think that even though I only use a cheap market shampoo.”
Toudou snorted. “Yuusuke. Just say ’thanks’.”
”Thanks.”
They fell silent again, Maki-chan breathing into Toudou’s hair and holding onto
him lazily, Toudou fiddling with Maki-chan’s long, bony fingers. Then the
warmth disappeared as Maki-chan sat up.
“We seriously have to go now. It’s past nine already, and the others will
become suspicious that you’re not crowing at their door about being late from
location X.”
“Tch! First of all, I don’t ‘crow’, my voice is quite melodious. Secondly, I
sleep in sometimes too, it’s not unheard of.”
“Weren’t we supposed to find a place to rent bikes and have a climb battle?”
Yeah, yeah, they were. And, undeniably, the idea still sounded extremely
tempting. Toudou nodded before pressing his hands on the mattress and pushing
himself up. Maybe they could continue their ministrations between the sheets in
the evening.
They were the last ones at the breakfast table. In fact, it looked like the
others had been there for a while, judging by the chaos of dishes lying around.
“Well, well, finally!” Tadokoro bellowed, spitting bread crumbs all over the
table. “We were already wondering if you had somehow managed to get trapped in
your room.”
More like in the bed.
“We were just catching up on sleep,” Maki-chan answered, sitting down next to
his bulky friend. Unfortunately, there weren’t other seats available on that
side of the table and Toudou didn’t want to start moving chairs so he ended up
sitting between Arakita and Kinjou. Maybe it was better not to sit next to
Maki-chan, since he would have probably wanted to touch him under the table.
Besides, he had noticed that once you got intimate with someone, touching them
became almost a reflex and you began doing it subconsciously. God forbid, if he
suddenly groped Maki-chan’s ass in front of everyone!
He poured some hot tea into his mug and began to make himself a sandwich. Even
though he didn’t usually eat bread for breakfast back at home, he felt like he
could get use to it, especially if the bread was as delicious as it was in
France.
“We had a great night!” Manami announced, looking excited. “I’m so glad I got
to stay with Arakita-san and Shinkai-san. You see, Arakita-san bounced around
the room naked and then we saw a ghost.”
Across the table, Sohoku’s four-eyed dork let out a horrified shriek. It was
unclear whether he was afraid of the ghost story or the thought of naked
Arakita.
Toudou raised his brows. “Why did Arakita bounce around the room naked?”
The person in question sneered. “First of all, I didn’t ‘bounce around the
room’; I just went to show that coward Manami that there weren’t any uninvited
souls.”
“But then there was! A ghost!” Manami chirped. ”And you did bounce a bit.
Naked. At least from that back corner to the bed.”
”Shut up, you nightmare!”
Toudou sighed, lifting his tea mug to his lips. “Well, thank god I wasn’t there
to witness that.”
“Did you really see a ghost?” Naruko asked. He sounded very disappointed, so
apparently it had been quiet in their room.
”I was just saying that, secondly, we didn’t all see the ghost,” Arakita
pointed out. “Just Shinkai.”
Everyone’s eyes bore into Shinkai who had thus far pretended to be interested
only in the offerings of the table.
“Hayato, is that true?”
“Oi, Hakogaku’s sprinter, did you really see a ghost?” Naruko inquired.
“He did see it,” Manami said helpfully.
“I saw a woman. I don’t know if she was a ghost.”
“But it vanished in the blink of an eye,” Manami continued. “Therefore it must
have been a ghost.”
“Shinkai had taken some pills with side effects that might include
hallucinations,” Arakita said.
“But we have a good way to find out,” Manami mused. “Mr. Pierre -san, could you
please ask the owner what kind of ghost they have?”
“Of course.”
When Mr. Boudier came back to their table, Mr. Pierre talked to him. The
Frenchman’s expression turned knowing and he let out a short laugh.
“Okay, so they have, in fact, more than one ghost. A man wearing a soldier
uniform and a young lady, then they have a kid – a boy presumably – who they
haven’t seen but whose laughter can sometimes be heard on the third floor.”
Manami got visibly excited. “We… I mean Shinkai saw that lady. He even
described her. A long, frilly dress and hair up in a bun.”
Mr. Pierre translated. Jean-Paul nodded with a small smile on his lips before
he began explaining something.
“Yep, it’s the same lady,” Mr. Pierre confirmed. “They call her Giselle.
There’s a tragic love story pertaining to her. Giselle had just got engaged
when World War I broke out and her fiancé had to join the army. He fell in the
war, and Giselle was so grief-stricken that she starved herself to death. But
she’s still wandering around the hallways looking for her loved one. They
reckon that the outfit she wears was supposed to be her wedding dress.”
Naruko inhaled sharply. “Ooh! Is that soldier her fiancé then?”
“No, the man is from an earlier period. Maybe from Napoleon’s era.”
Mr. Boudier added something, making Mr. Pierre laugh.
“Maybe because of her fate, Giselle usually appears to young men.”
“Hah, Arakita-san, do you think that woman took you as her fiancé?” Manami
suggested.
Arakita gritted his teeth. “Remember whose bed she sat on first.”
“She’s harmless – as are their other ghosts too. That kid usually gives people
the biggest scare, as he can suddenly let out this bright laughter but he’s
never hurt anybody either.”
Toudou couldn’t help the chills that ran down his spine. When he had heard
about the ghost for the first time he had taken it as a frivolous nonsense, but
Shinkai would hardly come up with a lie like that, it wasn’t like him. It was
easy to be brave in broad daylight, but Toudou wasn’t sure how he would have
reacted if a lady in an old-fashioned dress had suddenly materialized in his
bedroom.
“Was she transparent?” he asked.
Shinkai shook his head. “She looked like a regular person. I thought we had a
guest in our room.”
“But then she just vanished,” Manami explained. “Damn, now I’m disappointed I
didn’t see her.”
“This is so unfair. I would have wanted to see a ghost,” Naruko complained.
”Our room was so boringly quiet for the whole night even though I woke up a few
times. If we stayed for another night, I’d like to switch rooms.”
“You’re the ones that left us with the crappiest room,” Arakita muttered,
stuffing his face with bread droll. “It was only fair that something exciting
happened there.”
Toudou picked up his phone, checking his messages. Mom had replied during the
night. She was twaddling something about fixing up their garden once Toudou got
back. Shit, that meant that he would be married to a shovel for the rest of his
holiday. While at it, he happened to glance at the date on the top corner of
the screen and noticed something.
He cleared his throat to get the others’ attention. “Excuse me, but does anyone
remember that it’s Hayato’s birthday?”
“I do,” Izumida said. “I remember.” But no one paid attention to him.
“Oh yeah, damn! Happy birthday, Shinkai!”
”Congratulations, Shinkai-san!”
Birthday wishes raining upon him, Shinkai sat on his seat, smiling a bit
awkwardly and muttering thanks.
“Should we go out and celebrate it? In a restaurant?”
“Yeah, we should!”
“Actually…” Shinkai coughed. ”Would it be okay to celebrate only in the
evening? I’d like to spend today sightseeing, preferably riding a bike if
there’s a possibility for renting one. The trip has been a bit rough lately.”
The others looked confused. Shinkai was usually not one to turn down social
events.
“Of course it’s okay,” Toudou said finally. “But aren’t we driving to Gap in
the evening?”
“That was the plan,” Mr. Pierre said. “It’s a good two-hour drive, so either we
take off early enough to go to a restaurant there or celebrate here and then
drive to Gap.”
“Well, Shinkai can decide, it’s his day after all.”
”Maybe it would be better if we drove there later,” Shinkai said. “The stage
only starts after noon, so we wouldn’t have to get up that early.” He looked
pointedly at Toudou. “But I think we should ask Mr. Pierre, after all he’s the
one who has to drive there in the darkness while we’re snoozing in our seats.”
Mr. Pierre just nodded. “It’s okay.”
“Um, excuse me,” the tiniest peep came from the farthest corner of the table.
Onoda had raised his hand and began sweating nervously right after the others’
eyes had turned to him. “Naturally it’s up to Shinkai-san to decide but maybe…
I was just thinking that… um, it would be nice to maybe sit down, like, all of
us, and maybe… um, play a game? We could do that when we have gotten to a
camping area in Gap. I mean, um, if we’re not too tired then…” His voice
trailed off and for a moment it was completely silent at the table. Then
Shinkai made an approving sound.
“That’s not a bad idea at all,” he said, making Onoda blush. “What if we
skipped the restaurant and instead bought something to eat and drink and just
celebrated at the camping area? Maybe there’s a chance for barbeque. We’re
going to a camping area in Gap, right, Mr. Pierre?”
“Yes, we are.”
“I’m voting for a party in the camping area. It will be so much more relaxed!”
The idea evoked unanimous support in the group. Onoda looked like as if he
didn’t know whether to bathe in the others’ approval or sink through his chair
from embarrassment.
“What about before leaving for Gap? I heard there’s a decent bike rental here.
Shall we all go and ride together?” Toudou asked.
Shinkai coughed again, keeping his eyes on his plate and poking the remains of
his omelette with his fork. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel like being with a big
group today, I mean before the party. I’d like to go alone with Touichirou. If
that’s okay with him, that is.”
Izumida looked like he had just won the Inter High. On his birthday. Which
happened to be on Christmas. ”A-absolutely, Shinkai-san! Of course it’s okay!”
Arakita let out a snort, so faint that Toudou might not have heard it if he
hadn’t been sitting next to him. The others looked surprised about Shinkai’s
decision but didn’t interfere.
Instead, Toudou pulled Shinkai to the side after the breakfast. “Is something
wrong?”
Shinkai immediately masked his face with his typical worry-free smile. “No, why
do you ask?”
“Did you and Arakita have a fight or something?”
“No, but I’ve spent the whole trip with him and exchanged like two words with
Touichirou – which were about the wasp sting. Besides, it looks like Yasutomo
and Juichi are having an Ace and Assistant Bonding Day.”
Arakita had practically glued himself to Fuku right after Shinkai had announced
that he would spend the day with Izumida, but Toudou reckoned it was more about
Arakita wanting to slight Shinkai.
It was practically impossible to fight with Shinkai apart from a short
argument, so Toudou couldn’t help but feel a bit curious about it. But he
couldn’t really blame Shinkai if he wanted some variation to his companions.
Who actually wanted to look at Arakita’s sour face day in day out? Maybe
Shinkai had finally had it and needed a break.
* * * * * * * * *
Yasutomo was probably offended.
Shinkai decided that he was too worn out to care. He had spent almost every
second of the trip with Yasutomo and where had that led to?
He yearned for some time to himself. He didn’t want to look at Yasutomo now,
because seeing him – and smelling him, since he hadn’t actually looked at him
during… well, that – stirred a jumble of feelings inside him of which he could
only name two: frustration and anger.
And anxiety.
Dear god, sometimes when he remembered it, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Mostly it was because of Ayane. Shinkai had never thought himself as the type,
but no matter how he looked at it, he had cheated on his girlfriend.
He was an asshole.
What made it worse was the fact that he wasn’t sure whether he was feeling
sorry for Ayane or himself – because he just wasn’t a cheater – and that
worried him more than anything else related to the subject. What had happened
to him; wasn’t he capable of feeling empathy anymore?
Maybe it was only because the whole thing was so exceptional. He would probably
have been anxious even without Ayane, because the incident was cracking his
self-image so badly. He hadn’t thought himself gay and he didn’t think that
even now, but what had happened had made him see Yasutomo in a new light.
Wasn’t that only natural? If you had sex with… ehm, for example, a trashcan,
wasn’t it possible to see that trashcan in a sexual light afterwards?
Okay, so he wasn’t really comparing Yasutomo to a trashcan, but the principle
was the same. It was about association. About conditioning. Like those Pavlov’s
dog experiments.
He wasn’t entirely sure if it was possible for conditioning to occur after one
single time.
What he was fairly sure about was that it was only a chemical reaction of his
body that would probably follow him around for a while, until Yasutomo became a
regular guy again, like he had been before the incident. At least, he hoped so,
because he didn’t want Yasutomo to alienate himself from him, but that was what
they were heading for if they didn’t manage to restore their friendship.
Shinkai couldn’t even begin to imagine how awkward it would be to stay in the
same room as Yasutomo and Ayane.
They were speaking to each other about regular stuff, yes, but despite what he
said, that night was constantly haunting him. If he didn’t concentrate on what
he was saying and instead let his subconscious do the talking, who knew what
crap would come out? ‘Hey, Yasutomo, could you pass me the salt and do you
remember how you fucked me the other night?’ or ‘Such nice weather today, so
different from when your dick was up my ass’ or ‘Which bike do you want, black
or red – or perhaps my ass?’
Shinkai rubbed his face. He needed to get his act together before he blurted
out his thoughts to Izumida who was walking beside him, babbling happily about
the attractions he had seen yesterday with the rest of the group.
“How far is that bike rental again?” he asked. He only meant to say something
to indicate he was still taking part of the conversation but instead he ended
up sounding impatient. Luckily Izumida didn’t seem to mind.
“It shouldn’t be that far anymore. Maybe 500 meters or so.”
Since the village was so small and Shinkai hadn’t seen it yet, they had ended
up walking through it to the bike rental, which the hotel owner had helpfully
pointed out for them. In fact, their whole troop had decided to go by foot, and
even Mr. Pierre was striding behind them, humming some unknown tune to himself.
But even though they were moving as a big herd, they had divided into their own
small groups. Shinkai and Izumida were leading the troop, with Jinpachi and
Makishima right behind them. The rest of Sohoku and Manami were the next ones,
Yasutomo and Juichi following them with Mr. Pierre. Shinkai suspected that
Yasutomo was keeping his distance on purpose.
The shop only had mountain bikes; Shinkai hadn’t expected anything else. The
owner looked a bit startled when a herd of fifteen tourists suddenly billowed
into his shop but in the end he found a bike for everyone. There was one even
for Mr. Pierre but he politely declined, telling them that he would walk back
to the hotel and wait there.
Shinkai’s goal to be left alone with Izumida turned out to be a bit challenging
to achieve, since there was practically only one biking route starting from the
shop. It would bifurcate later and bikers could choose either easier flat trail
or climb to the hills. Though it was quite hard to find a long flat trail in
these areas.
“We’re heading for that climbing trail with Maki-chan,” Jinpachi announced, as
expected. “Are Manami and Four-eyes coming with us?”
“Are we heading for the flats?” Izumida checked with Shinkai.
”Sure.”
Yasutomo and Juichi were the first ones to mount their bikes and Shinkai
carefully observed where they were planning to go. Apparently to the flats as
well. They vanished from the sight before the others had even adjusted their
saddles. Shinkai lingered on purpose, tying his shoelaces, checking his water
bottle and energy bars, pretending his saddle was a little loose. He and
Izumida were the last ones to leave the shop. As they coasted down the first
slope, the road was already empty apart from a local old man walking with a
cane on the shoulder of the road. They waved at him as they whisked past.
Riding a bike after a break was extremely refreshing. Even though the mountain
bike felt clumsy and heavy after a road racer, the whirring of the wheels and
zooming downhill with hair blowing and the hem of the shirt flapping in the
wind brought the soothing sense of familiarity. Maybe the rest of the world was
fucked, but you could always rely on bikes; they moved forward when you turned
the pedals. Besides, Shinkai felt his brain function the best when his body was
working.
“Look!” Izumida pointed to their right. ”A magnificent lavender field.”
Shinkai looked. Part of the field had already been harvested and there were
lavender bundles lying on top of cut beds. The wind blew a stunning scent
towards them.
“And there are sunflowers!” Izumida exclaimed, delighted. ”Wait, Shinkai-san! I
have to take a picture.”
Shinkai braked and they stopped mid-slope as Izumida fished for his phone and
snapped a photo of the view. Actually, it was so gorgeous – purple lavender
side by side with a yellow sunflower sea and behind the fields an old stony
house – that Shinkai pulled out his own phone, taking a photo too.
Izumida was leaning on the handlebar, sighing as he observed the view. “Think
about what it would be like to wake up to this scenery every day.”
”Maybe it would eventually become mundane.”
”Yeah, maybe. On the other hand, lavender doesn’t bloom all the time and
neither do sunflowers. To my knowledge, their blooming seasons only meet for
couple of weeks, so you wouldn’t get use to seeing it. We are lucky that these
fields have not been harvested yet, since lavender and sunflowers are usually
cropped in the beginning of August.”
Shinkai listened to Izumida’s narrative with a smile on his lips. He himself
was too lazy to study the subject that carefully, but Izumida was in his
element. His burning passion for plants might one day lead to him studying the
field.
Remounting their bikes, they continued their ride. For a while they only
listened to the wind whizzing in their ears and admired the sceneries passing
by. Still no sight of Yasutomo or Juichi. Those two had ridden like in a race.
”Hey, Touichirou,” Shinkai began. ”Have you ever looked at someone that you’ve
known for a while and then suddenly seen them a different way?”
“Mm-m,” Izumida nodded. “I’ve been there. I suppose it happens to the majority
of us at some point.”
“But I mean like... a really big change.”
“Well, for example… um, this is a bit embarrassing, I hope you don’t mind,”
Izumida hung his head to hide the pink on his cheeks. “In the beginning I
really admired you. I practically saw you as a superhuman, but as the time
passed… I noticed that you’re just a regular guy. Don’t get me wrong, I still
consider you to be best sprinter of our generation and I admire you as much as
it’s ever possible to admire someone, but… maybe the biggest hero worship has
dropped off.”
Shinkai laughed. “That’s better. It’s quite hard to talk with someone you see
as a demigod. I mean, I don’t say that you ever thought I was a demigod, I’m
just exaggerating.”
Izumida let out an embarrassed cough. “That’s almost how I saw you.”
“Well, I’m happy that you got over it.”
“Yep.” Izumida was quiet for a moment. “But I just wanted to say that I think I
understand what you mean.”
“Hmm, yeah.” Shinkai couldn’t give out more details, because Izumida might have
guessed what he was on about. Not necessarily the target, but he didn’t want
anyone to find out about his inner turmoil.
“I think it has happened to Toudou-san,” Izumida added. When Shinkai glanced at
him, he had lowered his head once again.
”What do you mean?”
”Like, it’s none of my business and I can’t really know for sure what kind of
relationship they had previously but...”
”Are you talking about Jinpachi and Makishima?”
”Yes.”
Shinkai wasn’t sure if it was okay to say something like that out loud but…
What did Yasutomo say again? ‘Toudou is gayer than the gayest member of the
Village People.’ “Do you think something has happened between them?”
“The chemistry between them has changed during the trip. During the past few
days, to be specific.” Izumida huffed, a small smile grazing his lips. “But I
think it can only be good if Toudou-san is finally at peace with hims– with the
thing.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
Izumida shrugged. “Why would it bother me? Everyone can do behind closed doors
what they want. What a guy does with his stick blender is his own business. As
long as Toudou-san doesn’t give away any Hakogaku strategies to our opponents,
I don’t care what he does in his free time and with whom.”
A giggle escaped Shinkai’s throat. Only then did Izumida realize what he had
just said, his face heating up again. “I apologize for my vulgar words.”
”Don’t worry, it wasn’t vulgar. Remember that Yasutomo is in the same team as
us.”
Izumida nodded, pointing down the slope. “It looks like there’s a long flat
trail beginning over there. Shall we have a little sprint race?”
”Sure, let’s go.”
Shinkai gave Izumida a handicap, rolling down the slope behind him. He felt
quite torn. On some level, he was relieved that at least Izumida seemed to be
okay with homosexuals. But there was a seed of horror growing inside him,
because Izumida had noticed something that Shinkai had had no clue of (well,
now that Izumida had mentioned Jinpachi and Makishima, it was pretty obvious
that something had changed; Shinkai just hadn’t paid attention to it while
wallowing in his own problems) and he might pick up some other details of his
environment. Izumida was much sharper and more perceptive than people gave him
credit for.
And Shinkai needed to be very, very careful if he wanted to keep the incident
secret.
Chapter End Notes
     I was so tempted to add a direct quote from Friends:
     ”Have you ever looked at someone that you’ve known for a while and
     then suddenly seen them a different way?”
     “You mean like from behind?”
     But I couldn’t do it to Izumida. :D
     Toudou’s sister’s name hasn’t been mentioned (to my knowledge) so I
     just call her Shiori in this fic.
***** Like a bad Adam Sandler movie *****
Chapter Notes
     The Famous Fifteen eat again!
     There are several versions of the Never have I ever… game. In this
     chapter the boys are playing the version where you have to drink if
     you HAVE done.
     I finally corrected the pronouns for Usakichi, as she’s apparently a
     she. :)
     Warning! Some spoilers for the movie Jack and Jill!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“Who wants some more?”
”Me!”
”Me too!”
”I want a lot!”
”But you already ate three portions.”
“So what? A growing young man needs a lot of protein.”
”What ’growing’?” Imaizumi muttered but so quietly that Naruko didn’t catch it.
Sohoku’s redheaded firecracker had already joined the queue to get another
portion of grilled chicken, shrimps and vegetables.
”Leave some for Shinkai-san, will you?” Izumida pointed out. “It’s his
birthday.”
Shinkai waved it off. “No worries, you can have as much as you like. There’s
enough for everyone.”
“Don’t forget that we also have cake!” Jinpachi called out. He had found a
chocolate banana cake in some small bakery and couldn’t have resisted buying it
even though he was usually the first one to lecture the others about consuming
too much sugary food. Transporting the cake to the camping area by foot had
apparently been such a challenging operation that Jinpachi was going to
supervise that it would get eaten. That was hardly going to be a problem, as
Shinkai had already seen several eyes wandering towards the treat. Maybe people
were waiting for him to take first.
He pulled his legs under him, crawling up from the lawn where he had been
sitting on a sleeping bag pad. “I think I’m just gonna start the cake.”
”Now?” Jinpachi got alarmed. ”Wait a second. Wait, we have to stick candles in
it and light them… damn, we don’t have candles! Well, at least we’re going to
sing first. Hey, everyone, come sit here around the cake and let’s sing for the
birthday guy!”
“You don’t have to sing,” Shinkai muttered.
“Bullshit. Of course we’re going to sing. Oi, people!” Jinpachi’s piercing cry
broke through the chattering and the grill’s sizzling. ”Let’s cut the cake and
sing for Hayato!”
“The chicken will burn if I leave my spot,” Tadokoro said, waving grill tongs
in his hand. “But you guys sing. I’m sure that Shinkai’s day won’t be ruined
even if he doesn’t hear my bleating.”
The others gathered around the cake. Toudou guided Shinkai over to sit at the
end of the table. “Alright, let’s start on three. One… two… three!”
A cheerful, yet out of tune in places, song echoed in the summer evening. Some
by-passers stopped to watch and even sing along in their own mother tongue.
Shinkai, though used to attention as Hakogaku’s ace sprinter, felt slightly
abashed being the center of such a large crowd. As the day had already changed
in Japan, he had already received all the possible birthday wishes from home:
from his family, friends and Ayane. He had answered them politely, to Ayane in
more detail that the rest. He had told her about spending the night at a
haunted castle and had gotten an answer that had been a mixture of excitement
and fright. And with every innocent word the lump in his throat had grown a
bit. Izumida who had been sitting next to him had almost noticed that something
was wrong, but then Yuuto had saved his ass with his message about Usakichi.
‘That cursed hare of yours has chewed my PS cord in two. Guess who’s gonna pay
for a new one? On top of that she has made my armchair her personal toilet. The
whole room reeks of rabbit piss. I can’t invite friends to stay over anymore. I
hold you responsible for my social isolation.’
Shinkai had burst out laughing and guffawed for so long that Jinpachi had asked
if he was having some sort of fit. He had shaken his head, reading the message
out loud. Yasutomo might have let out a sound between a snort and an annoyed
sneer. But he hadn’t said a word to Shinkai. And that had continued throughout
the day.
Shinkai wasn’t sure if he was singing along. Yasutomo wasn’t one to take part
in group singing in the first place. Shinkai didn’t look at him, pretending to
be indifferent, but he was constantly aware of his teammate’s movements. And
dear lord above, did that piss him off.
He really needed to talk with Yasutomo, otherwise the rest of the trip would
pass in extreme awkwardness and the others were bound to notice it at some
point. Only it was him who had to be the one to take the first step, because he
knew Yasutomo well enough to understand that his pride wouldn’t allow him to.
And not necessarily only his pride; maybe he was thinking that Shinkai wanted
to keep his distance.
“Congratulations to an adult!” Mr. Pierre bellowed and slammed a bottle on the
table. A bottle that no one had seen before and that had a label of Pinot
Chardonnay occupying its side. “At least in France you’re now considered a
legal adult, Shinkai. Let’s drink to that!”
For a moment, Jinpachi looked like he was about to protest about giving alcohol
to the first-years but in the end he didn’t dare to say anything as it was Mr.
Pierre who was offering. One glass of champagne would hardly do anything to
even Sohoku’s young climbing wonder who definitely had not tasted anything
stronger than milk in his life. Mr. Pierre popped the cork, pouring some
sparkling liquid into cheap plastic cups.
“Here’s to Shinkai! Happy birthday!”
Everyone raised their glass and after that Shinkai cut the cake. And it sure
was good. Toudou looked like he’d been crowned as a real god when Shinkai
complimented the treat.
After the meal, the majority of the group began playing the Never have I ever…
game. Maybe the most absurd thing was that Mr. Pierre placed two more bottles
on the table, thus expressing his approval of the drinking game. Shinkai played
for a couple of rounds, but he didn’t want to get drunk – nor answer all the
questions – so when the statements started to drift towards ‘Never have I ever
screwed a guy’ he reckoned it was best to drop out. Besides, for a while now,
he had had his eye on Yasutomo who had retreated to near the barbeque and was
now smoking his remaining cigarettes, staring in front of him with glassy eyes.
Shinkai made sure the others were busy with their game before trudging over to
Yasutomo. He was sitting on a broken bench with all of his guard up and only
glanced at Shinkai when he just couldn’t keep ignoring him anymore. The
expression on his face Shinkai knew from his early days on Hakogaku biking club
when Yasutomo had still been a newcomer and thought that everyone hated his
guts. When Shinkai sat next to him, he shook yet another cigarette onto his
palm, lighting it.
Shinkai didn’t talk to him immediately but instead gave him a moment to get
used to his presence. He straightened his legs, shaking his head to get his
bangs away from his eyes and leaning back to stretch his abdominal muscles. The
night was warm but not hot anymore. A faint breeze travelled across the camping
are, blowing smoke to his face and catching the sleeves of his tee shirt,
making them flutter.
“Thanks for staying with me in the hospital,” he said eventually.
Yasutomo cast him a brief look under his brows. “Mhm, someone had to stay.”
No, it wasn’t necessary, yet you stayed. Izumida offered to stay too, but you
cast him aside.
“It wouldn’t have been so nice to stay alone in a hospital in a foreign
country. Besides, you seem to know English better than I do. Or at least
understand French accents better.”
Yasutomo merely shrugged and resumed smoking.
“Did you go far with Juichi today?” Shinkai continued.
“I don’t know how far it was.”
“Did you have a race?”
“Yeah, a little.”
Well, at least Yasutomo was talking to him and clearly tried to sound like
nothing weird was going on, but his voice held a cold edge. He wasn’t
necessarily angry with Shinkai, probably just a bit lost – as was Shinkai.
Yasutomo had tried to act normally and maybe he had felt rejected when Shinkai
had wanted to spend the day in other company. Even though the awkwardness was
still lingering tangibly in the air, Shinkai was already feeling better. The
break, even a small one, had only done him good.
“Did Juichi win?”
Yasutomo sneered. ”The first race. The other one I won. Those mountain bikes
were really not made for racing. They weren’t in the best shape either.”
“Yes, always blame the equipment when you lose.”
His companion glared at him. “I heard you lost to Izumida.”
”The chain came off on my bike.”
“Yeah, always blame the equipment.”
Shinkai laughed, turning his head away for a while to see how the game was
going. At the moment it looked like Makishima had been the one to drink the
most but he was still bravely sitting at the table.
“Did you hear what Naruko said?” he asked, continuing before Yasutomo answered.
“’Never have I ever kissed a guy’. I’m still shocked about how many drank. Of
course they counted prank kisses too but still...” He scratched his chin.
”Jinpachi drank.”
”That’s not a surprise,” Yasutomo said. But his lips were quivering.
”I’m also a bit shocked about the fact that both Sohoku’s second-years drank.
The mute one too.”
Yasutomo hmm’d. “Did Onoda-chan drink?”
“No, he didn’t. Thank god for that. I might have gotten a little broken if he
had.”
Yasutomo turned to look at him properly for the first time, clearly weighing
his condition. “Are you drunk?”
Shinkai shook his head. “No, I’m not.” And he really wasn’t. A bit buzzed at
most, enough that he felt time move differently from usual, but he was in full
control of himself. And he wasn’t going to drink anymore. Lately, he’d spend
too much time under the influence of various intoxicants.
“You can go to Izumida’s tent for the night if you want to,” Yasutomo muttered.
“I’m going with Fuku-chan.”
“As you wish, but…” Shinkai trailed off to pick a sliver of chicken from
between his molars. As carelessly and unconcernedly as possible. ”..it looks a
bit like it’s going to rain later and you how well that other tent can hold
water. I’m willing to spread some sleeping bags in the back of the van again,
but…” A shrug. “..I can ask if Izumida would like to switch. It’s not that nice
to sleep on a car floor.” He wiped his fingers on his shorts. Yasutomo’s
suspicious gaze was burning his temple.
“You want to sleep in the back of the van again?” he finally asked.
Shinkai brushed some imaginary dirt off of his lap. “Well, it is more
comfortable than wallowing in a soaked tent.”
Yasutomo clearly wasn’t convinced yet. He scratched furiously at the back of
his head, letting out frustrated huffs before forcing the words out of his
mouth. “But do you want to sleep there with Izumida?”
”I don’t care either way. You do have some experience of the back of the
car...” Shinkai almost stopped there because his words sounded unintentionally
lewd, but he managed to keep a neutral façade. “..and I think Izumida prefers
the tent.”
Yasutomo stared at the lawn in front of him. The bridge of his nose was
wrinkled like an angry wolf’s. Then he took the last drag of his cigarette
before stumping it on the side of the bench and getting to his feet.
“Whatever.” As he walked away, Shinkai heard words that he muttered under his
breath. “I’m gonna go and ask the human bear if he can pull those seats out
again.”
 
The camping area quietened down eventually. Shinkai assumed that he would need
to stay awake for the longest; after all, he was the birthday guy. He didn’t
really have too much trouble with it after the previous day’s sleep marathon.
However, already around midnight everybody was crawling into their tents. The
last ones to continue partying were Naruko and Imaizumi of which the first one
had drunk a bit too much champagne, become twice as loud and tried to get
Imaizumi to compete with him over something. After Kinjou’s meaningful cough
(when they started to get irritated scowls from the neighbouring camps)
Imaizumi suggested that they’d compete over of who would dive into his sleeping
bag faster and unbelievably enough, Naruko complied.
Shinkai popped in the bathroom to rinse off the sweat from cycling and partying
and brush his teeth before heading for his own sleeping quarters. Tadokoro had
detached the seats from the back of the van, and at some point of the evening –
Shinkai hadn’t noticed when – Yasutomo had carried their stuff there. He hadn’t
seen his black-haired teammate for half an hour. He wasn’t sure if Yasutomo had
told the others that he was going to bed. If he had, Shinkai hadn’t heard it.
But there Yasutomo was, lying on the spread sleeping bags in a tee shirt and
pyjama pants, fiddling with his laptop, the existence of which Shinkai had
already forgotten. Hearing the car door open, Yasutomo glanced up briefly but
turned back to his computer.
Shinkai stuffed his toiletries away and sat down on the sleeping bags next to
Yasutomo. His first thought was to comment on the arrangement of the bags
because it was exactly the same as last time, but he controlled himself. “What
are you doing?”
“Just checking what has happened in the rest of the world.”
Shinkai leaned closer to see the screen. “On Facebook?”
“It’s as good information source as anything.”
“What is that?” he pointed at the symbol of the MPC player on the taskbar.
“I watched a movie for a while.”
“What movie?”
Yasutomo shrugged. “Some comedy.”
Shinkai rolled onto his back. Ungh, he had managed to forget how hard the car
floor was. He tucked his hand behind his head, bending his leg and moving the
other leg to rest on top of it. “Did you get far with it?”
“Twenty minutes or something.”
”Okay,” he trailed off. Tadokoro’s gruff voice carried from outside as he
ordered Imaizumi and Naruko to shut their mouths immediately. After that it
became quiet. Yasutomo busied himself with his laptop, and Shinkai waited for a
few minutes until it started to seem that Yasutomo’s neck muscles were cramping
from keeping his head straight, so he opened his mouth. “Do you want to finish
watching it?”
Finally, the other turned to look at him properly. “Why do you ask?”
“Just thinking. I’m sort of interested.”
”It wasn’t a very good movie.”
“How do you know if you only watched it for twenty minutes?”
“If it was crap based on twenty first minutes, I’m pretty sure it’s crap until
the end.”
Shinkai sighed. ”Alright then.”
Yasutomo continued with his computer, his fingers dancing over the keyboard.
Then, after another silence, he peeked at Shinkai, turning the machine towards
him. “Well, do you want to take a look?”
“Sure.” Shinkai rolled onto his stomach, inching closer to Yasutomo. “What’s
the title?”
“Jack and Jill. It has Adam Sandler in a double role. He plays twins, a man and
a woman.”
Shinkai laughed. “Come on, Adam Sandler has some good films too.”
“Yeah maybe, but this is not one of them. I just wanted to see if it lives up
to its bad reputation.”
“Apparently it does.”
”I wouldn’t be surprised if people wanted to have their brain bleached after
watching this.” Yasutomo clicked play and started the movie again from the
beginning.
“Now you have to watch the beginning twice.”
“Nah, I’m playing until that part,” he announced, picking up his phone.
The movie was incredibly bad, but its crappiness actually made it entertaining.
Shinkai caught himself chuckling at it several times. Eventually Yasutomo set
his cell aside, first watching quietly apart from disapproving sounds, but
apparently Shinkai’s laughter was contagious, since after some deranged scenes
he began snorting too.
When they had watched about half of the movie, Shinkai felt a touch, a graze of
foreign skin, on his ankle. He had bent his knees so that his feet were up in
the air and maybe he had been swinging them but he had also been careful not to
touch Yasutomo who also had lifted his feet up. Well, maybe Yasutomo wasn’t as
careful; after all they were lying right next to each other.
Then the touch returned. Toes poked at his ankle. Once. Then twice, and when he
didn’t react, they ended up leaning on him so that he had to strain his leg in
order to keep it from thudding onto the floor.
Shinkai still kept a blank face, actually curious to see what Yasutomo would do
if he didn’t resist. A tiny voice in the back corner of his mind was demanding
why he wanted to see it, what he would gain from it, but he silenced it.
Yasutomo had tried to touch him last night too. He was sure of it. It hadn’t
been an innocent brush of fingers. Maybe he wanted to know just how far
Yasutomo would go if he didn’t stop him.
And then what? Are you going to call it off when he’s on top of you and his
dick is up your ass again and you remember that you have a girlfriend?
He didn’t want think that far ahead. He just had this nagging feeling that
Yasutomo hadn’t told him everything – not even close – and by giving him a bit
of a loose rein, maybe he would be able to vent his thoughts. And hopefully
that awkwardness between them would dissolve. He wouldn’t necessarily have done
it like this, by pawing at his friend, but Yasutomo was Yasutomo.
The toes leaned on his ankle, not moving, and after a while Shinkai started to
get used to them enough that he could concentrate on the movie again, but
naturally, at that point they moved. First he thought that Yasutomo was only
shifting his position, but then the toes began moving up and down, slowly,
lightly caressing his Achilles tendon. A small tremor swam through him, but he
hid it by rubbing his chin. Beside him, Yasutomo had lowered his head on top of
his crossed arms and tried very much to look like he wasn’t aware of what his
foot was doing.
On the screen Adam Sandler continued his shenanigans. The most incomprehensible
thing in the movie was the fact that Al Pacino was in it. Shinkai had always
thought him to be an actor that wouldn’t meddle with B grade comedies. On the
other hand, he made the film more interesting.
Yasutomo switched his position, supporting his head with his other hand. His
toes withdrew. Instead, Shinkai felt fingers brush his side, the spot where his
shirt had inched upwards, revealing a strip of skin. He jumped involuntarily,
but quickly resumed his blank exterior. Yasutomo might have only wanted to
scratch himself and since they were lying so close to each other, his fingers
could have touched Shinkai accidentally…
Okay, or then again, not.
The fingers didn’t leave his skin. No, on the contrary, they climbed
tentatively from his side onto his back, beginning to graze back and forth in
lazy way that could have never ever been considered platonic. The touch was
cool and horribly alien, making Shinkai shiver. In order to keep his composure,
he was forced to exhale slowly and rest his head on top of his arms.
His passivity seemed to only encourage his companion. Every now and then the
hand stopped as Yasutomo concentrated on something that happened in the movie
but then it continued its journey, and at some point along the way Shinkai
understood that Yasutomo wasn’t only happy to get to grope him – no, he was
waiting to see if he would retaliate. Shinkai concentrated on breathing deeply
and evenly, letting his head loll to one side, so that he didn’t have to strain
his muscles. This could very well have been the strangest battle of wills he
had ever engaged in.
The touch wasn’t that unpleasant, if he didn’t really start to think about. It
sent faint tremors through him and he became aware of blood circulating more
rapidly in his groin. Not enough to get him hard, but enough for him to notice
it.
It’s just reacting to a mechanical stimulus, he reminded himself. It doesn’t
mean anything. It would probably react even if it was Yuuto who was touching
me.
The thought pierced him with a shudder so strong that any action below his
waist died and Yasutomo stopped, thinking that he had finally realized that he
was being touched intimately. But Shinkai merely stretched his body, brushed
his hair away from his eyes and relaxed again against the thin fabric of the
sleeping bag, enjoying immensely when he was able to throw Yasutomo off.
He held his ground until the fingers changed their course, dipping under the
waistband of his shorts. Only a few centimeters, but they crossed the invisible
line where his lower back turned into the curve of his ass. And that was too
much for him.
He slammed his hands onto the floor, hauled his upper body off the ground and
turned rapidly, warningly, ending up face to face with Yasutomo who had
immediately answered his mood swing and floundered up.
The dark eyes were staring at him unblinking, challenging him. ‘Go ahead. Punch
me if you want to.’
Shinkai didn’t punch him. Instead he kept staring at him. He stared at
Yasutomo’s narrow eyes that at the first glance gave a wily impression, those
long lower lashes that softened the image but were also reminiscent of that
creepy cult movie A Clockwork Orange. His thin lips that were pressed together.
The bridge of his nose that had grown a prominent wrinkle again. His nostrils
that were flaring, as the air surged through them.
Shinkai was the first one to blink. “You still want to fuck me?”
”So?” Yasutomo’s voice was full of the same defiance as his eyes.
Couldn’t you honestly find someone else? Someone who is, for example, gay. And
single.
He said nothing. He had allowed the situation go too far. They glared at each
other for so long that Shinkai’s eyes began watering and he was forced to turn
his head.
”You knew it would lead to this,” Yasutomo murmured.
Shinkai laughed to himself, his voice full of self-irony. How untruthful would
it have been to claim otherwise? And yet, had he looked at the situation with
the eyes of an outsider, he could have hit Yasutomo with a counter-argument.
Excuse me, but since when did sleeping in the same space with a teammate lead
to gay sex?
But he remained silent, and his head lolled to other side, exposing his neck
like a submissive wolf exposes their neck to a dominant fellow creature and the
next thing he knew, Yasutomo was on top of him. Pushing Shinkai onto his back
and his hands were pressing his shoulders against the hard surface and his eyes
were staring at him beneath his black bangs and the same defiance was still
haunting them but it had been accompanied by – Shinkai hesitated to even think
about that – lust.
They both knew that he could have thrown Yasutomo off of him if he wanted to.
Yasutomo was pretending to hold Shinkai down, but his hold left a clear exit
even if Shinkai hadn’t been the physically stronger one of the two of them. But
Shinkai wasn’t resisting, god knew why. He didn’t resist even when Yasutomo
brought his hand to his chin, turning his head straight. He didn’t resist even
when his teammate’s weight lowered fully on top of him and he could feel a
foreign hardness pressing against his stomach and saw the eyes, painted black
by the darkness, staring at him from only a few centimeters away.
“Last chance to stop,” Yasutomo whispered.
Something jumped in Shinkai’s throat. His heart was racing in his chest and he
was sure that Yasutomo felt it too. And then his lips stretched into a small
smile.
Maybe he was the physically stronger one, but Yasutomo’s mental strength was
pre-eminent. After all, he had climbed from a moped-riding delinquent with a
poor physical condition to a top-levelled cyclist in less than two years. If I
Shinkai had wanted to stop, he would have already hauled Yasutomo off of
himself. Maybe there was a part of him that... enjoyed this battle of wills.
Maybe there was a part of him that enjoyed when he let go of the control,
handing it over to someone else.
“If you had been there playing with us when Manami said that… would you have
drunk?” he asked.
“No,” Yasutomo said before leaning down. Shinkai closed his eyes only half a
second before he felt warm lips brush against his own. They caught his lower
lip, pulling it lightly, let go off it, only to return to touch his upper lip,
nibbling it. Then Yasutomo pulled back, and Shinkai peeled his eyes open in
time to see the flushed cheeks and the turmoil of feelings haunting the eyes.
“I would have now.”
Shinkai let out a joyless laugh. Christ.
There was the tiniest crack in Yasutomo’s determination. He suspected that
Shinkai wasn’t in his right mind. That he was drunk after all or doped again or
fucking half asleep, since he wasn’t resisting. Not that he actually
participated either. Even the kiss had been completely one-sided.
Yasutomo let air escape his lungs. His breath smelt faintly of cigarettes and
toothpaste. He patted Shinkai on the cheek. “Hey, idiot, you do realize that if
you don’t tell me to stop now, I’m gonna fucking bang you.”
“Go ahead. Fucking bang me then.”
The vague promise made Yasutomo grab Shinkai’s shorts, rip the button open and
pull the zipper down with such force that it let out an unhealthy grating
sound. Shinkai barely had time to anchor his hands onto the floor to prevent
himself from sliding forward. The shorts slipped from under his ass, as
Yasutomo pulled them off his legs and tossed them against the back window. Only
then did he become aware that it had started to rain like he had anticipated.
Swift little streams were decorating the glass. Better that way, they were less
likely to be disturbed.
“Lock the doors,” he said, making Yasutomo snap out that questionable parallel
reality that he had sunken into. That they had both sunken into. Yasutomo got
to his feet to push down the door knobs and rummage through his bag for
something (utilities), then returned to Shinkai, to continue where he had left
off. The next item to fly was his underpants. Shinkai waited for Yasutomo to
react to his nudity and for a moment he did slow down, lowering his hand shyly
on Shinkai’s lower belly, on that very sensitive are that was left between his
navel and pubes, caressing it. Shinkai’s abdominal muscles constricted, making
a suffocated wheeze escape his throat. Something was happening in his groin.
But then Yasutomo was already peeling off his own pants in such a hurry that
you’d think the world was going to end within the next five minutes. Maybe that
was the nature of the game. Maybe he was thinking that if he gave Shinkai time
to think, he would back off. And he wasn’t all that sure it couldn’t happen.
The speed didn’t give him a chance to analyze how he felt in the end. He could
only concentrate on Yasutomo’s rough handling and submit to it. His
determination wavered only when he saw his teammate’s vigorous erection
pointing towards himself.
He wasn’t sure if that log image would have been easier to handle.
He stared for a second too long before his eyes swung upwards, meeting with
Yasutomo’s daring gaze. ‘Your chance to call this off just passed.’
Shinkai’s grasp on the floor slipped as Yasutomo grabbed his hips and pulled
him towards himself. His dick brushed against Shinkai’s inner thigh. It felt
warm, a lot warmer than his hands.
Yasutomo huffed in frustration, loosening his grip on Shinkai’s hips. “Shit,
this doesn’t actually work as a quickie, if I don’t want you to hurt like
hell.”
“After that you’d hurt like hell too,” Shinkai pointed out.
Yasutomo sneered, picking up the lotion bottle and opening it. It let out a
squirt. “Lift your hips.”
Shinkai obeyed and a cool, slippery tip of a finger sneaked between his
buttocks. This was already familiar, he remembered this. This was the part
where it felt really weird but… gyaaaah!
Alright, so he hadn’t remembered. At least not immediately. Then Yasutomo’s
finger inched deeper and Shinkai realized that his muscles weren’t cramping
nearly as much as they had the first time. Either he had learned to control
them or he was looser now because only a short amount of time had passed. Maybe
both. Yasutomo also seemed to notice it, because he added a second finger
almost immediately after the first one. That pinched a little, and Shinkai made
it known with a grunt that now they were pushing his boundaries. Yasutomo
slowed down but kept both fingers inside. Shinkai allowed his body to go limp
and tried to summon some images that could possibly help him relax.
He jumped when Yasutomo touched his dick without warning, wrapping his fingers
around his one-third erection. He almost kicked his partner – because the line
was again crossed like nobody’s business – but then he reckoned that the other
was probably trying to make the preparations more bearable for him. Yasutomo’s
hand was slick from lotion and, honestly, it wasn’t often that his cock felt
any kind of touch unpleasant. Thin threads of arousal climbed up from his groin
and he felt himself harden a bit more. Not to his full size, not in this kind
of a situation, even though in some dark corner of his mind he had to admit
that seeing the intensity in Yasutomo’s eyes turned him on.
He inhaled sharply between his teeth as a third finger entered him. His ass was
burning and stinging, but at the same time he didn’t want to stop because then
Yasutomo would have won
(Won? Won what?)
and he remembered what it had felt like to take someone inside him, especially
the last part when he had just been drooling and wailing with his face buried
in a pillow.
“Fuck, that’s enough,” he huffed when three fingers were sliding inside him
effortlessly. Honestly, this was some incredible bungling. There really seemed
to be no place for quickies in gay sex.
Yasutomo withdrew his fingers, tearing a condom wrapper open. The snapping of
rubber could be heard even over Jill-Adam-Sandler’s throat-aching howls.
Seriously, where had they got the idea that dressing a comedy actor up as a
woman would provide enough humour for a full-length movie?
Well, at least they had an excuse if, again, someone asked in the morning what
they had been doing during the dark hours. ‘It was Adam Sandler. Oh yeah, never
watch a movie called Jack and Jill.’
Yasutomo grabbed his hips, pushing the tip of his erection against Shinkai’s
ass. Shinkai grunted when his muscles didn’t seem to budge one bit. Despite the
preparations it still felt like trying to squeeze a sponge into a piggy bank.
He really had to wrestle with himself in order to hold still when Yasutomo
rammed past his sphincter. Gaah, god fucking damn it, did that hurt!
Shinkai seized Yasutomo’s forearms, squeezing them. Apparently too hard because
Yasutomo stopped. He had got the head in, Shinkai could feel it, his muscles
could feel it and they immediately launched an operation Throw the Intruder
Out. “Wait, wait…” he muttered between his teeth. Breathe. Breathe deeply. In.
Out. In. Out. Yasutomo’s arms were shaking, his jaw was tensing up and his
upper lips bared his teeth as he tried to keep himself from moving. Quite
unsuccessfully.
“Oww, fuck, don’t push deeper yet!” Shinkai snapped.
“I have to,” Yasutomo answered with the same frustrated tone. “Your muscles are
fucking attacking me! I was about to slip out. Relax, damn it!”
I’d like to see how you’d react to a cock up your ass.
Shinkai slowly loosened his grip on the other’s arms, lettings his hands fall
down onto Yasutomo’s thighs. For a while, he tried to concentrate on something
else than the pain mauling his lower body. He remembered from the other day
that it was possible to get rid of the initial cramp quite quickly but it
required some iron concentration.
“You can move,” he promised when the tightness eased up a bit. “Slowly.”
Yasutomo’s hips ground deeper, making Shinkai’s muscles wail in agony, but the
next thrust was already less painful. And the next one almost painless.
Apparently it was easier to get used to a tiny movement than to an intruder
that was staying still. That was good to know for the next time.
What next time?
There was a prominent crease between Yasutomo’s brows and his mouth was
slightly agape, his breath laborious and shallow. Even in the poor lighting,
Shinkai could make out darker spots on his cheeks and the glazed, yet
concentrated look in his eyes.
The sex face of Arakita Yasutomo. This is a sight I thought I’d never see.
His partner’s hand found his cock, beginning to rub it in the rhythm of his
thrusts, and Shinkai shivered as the first hint of pleasure sneaked through
him, making his lower body tense when two impulses from opposite directions
collided. Yasutomo’s grip was tightening around him, not because he was
squeezing but because blood was packing into the tissues.
When the intruder began moving freely, the first proper spark of pleasure
exploded in his groin, forcing a moan from his lips. What the hell was that
spot inside him that made him curl his toes and arch his back and push against
Yasutomo so he could reach it better and why hadn’t he known about it before?
“Haa-agh, Yasutomo… hey, could you...” He was pushing his partner back from the
stomach. “Sit up.”
Yasutomo obeyed, straightening his back to sit on his legs so that their bodies
met in a 90-degree angle. In that position every thrust rubbed the front of
Shinkai’s passage so gloriously that he felt like losing his mind. Pleasure
sneaked on him in pinches, a flash here and there. Yasutomo touching his cock
help immensely but he needed just a little bit more… a bit more… more.
“Faster. Faster!”
There was an amused snort from Yasutomo as he began to move properly, long,
deep thrusts, and Shinkai threw his head back, grinding his teeth as his eyes
rolled back in his head. He could feel his partner’s pelvis against him as he
slid fully inside him. And stopped there. Fingers were fiddling the sensitive
skin just below the head of his cock. At least now it was standing fully at
attention. It felt like his skin was about to tear.
Yasutomo let out a low whistle. “Okay, dude, wow. Impressive. How many
centimeters? Twenty?”
That was the amount that he felt like were inside him. Cursed Yasutomo, was it
really necessary to push all the way up to his stomach? “Nnghh, seven…teen.”
“And you were worried that gaijin’s condoms would be too big for us.”
Shinkai lifted his head to look at the other. “Hey, I couldn’t know what kinds
of monstrous bratwursts gaijin have.”
“You were just thinking that I have a small dick.”
“Nnh, no… I wasn’t…” Shinkai huffed. ”Doesn’t exactly feel like it.”
“Heh.” A shameless smirk stretched Yasutomo’s lips. He rocked against Shinkai,
pressing his knees towards the ground and making him almost double over – and
sliding even deeper if that was possible. And then he began to move slowly,
leisurely, as if he was about to continue until the morning. His fingers let go
of Shinkai’s erection, leaving it to lie against his stomach, hot and
throbbing. Only the head brushed against his skin when Yasutomo pushed his
pelvis towards his chest.
“Aaargh, damn… hnnh, come on, fuck me properly like you boasted!”
The grin on Yasutomo’s face could have been planted in a dictionary next to the
word ‘smug’. “You’re starting to sound like me.” But thank god, he increased
his speed. At some point Shinkai felt pain, when Yasutomo slammed hard into
him, but the pleasure swept it away.
“Aaa… Yasutomo, harder… nnngghh, fuuuuck! Jesus Christ... faster, faster!”
”You’re being... insanely loud again,” Yasutomo grunted.
“Haah… I don’t care… we can… blame it on… aa-aah-Aa-dam Sandler!”
“I really don’t think that…” Yasutomo moaned deep in his throat. “..they’re
gonna buy that spider excuse twice. Aargh, god damn it, Shinkai, why do you
have to be so..?”
Shinkai never found out what he was, because at that moment Yasutomo fell
silent, ground his teeth together, squeezed his eyes shut and for a few divine
seconds kept banging him like some sort of blow up doll. Even the car was
rocking. Shinkai grabbed himself and with a few swift strokes brought himself
to the top at the same time as Yasutomo first froze, and then helplessly bucked
against him.
”Aa-ah, fuck!” The orgasm began from the depth of his groin, pulling him along,
fogging over his mind and making his whole body convulse, as hot liquid spurted
onto his chest and even to his chin. His ass cramped around Yasutomo and for a
moment it almost hurt, but then the next wave shook him and made him shoot
another load – though not as impressive as the first one – onto his tensed
abdomen.
Yasutomo collapsed against his bent legs, supporting himself on them and trying
to catch his breath, his hair hanging over his eyes and aftershocks running
through his body. Carefully, Shinkai allowed his legs to open so that his
partner could slump onto him, sweaty skin against sweaty skin and laboured
breath heating up his neck.
In some in bizarre error in his cerebral circulation that might have had
something to do with the aftermath of his orgasm, Shinkai lowered his hands
onto Yasutomo’s back, holding onto him. Because that was what you were supposed
to do after sex. You were supposed to enjoy the warmth and musky smell and the
feeling that you had just shared something very intimate. It only lasted for
half a minute though, because Yasutomo began to soften and he needed to pull
back so that the condom wouldn’t slip off.
He crawled to knees, peeling off the rubber and tying the end. Shinkai noticed
that he wasn’t looking at him, but kept his eyes on the floor. He went to his
bag, pulling out a pile of tissues and wrapping the condom inside one of them.
Shinkai’s arm flopped onto the floor, towards Yasutomo. “Hand me one, will
you?”
”That’s what I was doing,” Yasutomo muttered, placing a couple of tissues onto
his palm. Shinkai wiped his chest and chin of the spunk and his ass of the
lotion. Ugh, his butt was aching and burning. No wonder, after that kind of
ride. He balled the tissues up, throwing them somewhere and lay on his back
with his other leg bent from the knee and other one stretched on the floor,
hands spread to his sides, staring at the ceiling.
Okay, so he had screwed his teammate again. This was really a whole new level
of stupid. And he wasn’t exactly… regretting it. At least, not much. He more
felt a some sort of triumph that he had been able to take up Yasutomo’s
challenge. Although maybe it would have been wiser to compete in cycling. As
the silence continued, he turned his head, glancing at his partner, and noticed
that he was turning in on himself once again.
Anger flamed inside Shinkai so fiercely that it almost startled him.
No. No! He wouldn’t accept this. No more awkward phases. He couldn’t handle
them anymore.
He understood that he wasn’t angry at Yasutomo but at the awkwardness itself,
as if it was a person, trying to sneak its way between them to ruin their
friendship.
He pulled himself up, locating his shirt and underwear. The shorts he was going
to leave off, it was time to go to sleep anyway. Yasutomo had already pulled
his shirt and pants on and pretended to suddenly be very busy with his phone.
Hmm, what was the right thing to say in this kind of situation? ‘Dude, we were
going at it like some horny beasts!’ Okay, no.
Shinkai peeked at the laptop and noticed that the credits were rolling. That
could make up a decent topic of conversation. “Now we missed the end of the
movie. Should we continue where we left of?”
Yasutomo let out a sound that could have been a sneer but also a chuckle. “You
really want to watch it til the end?”
“Sure I do. Don’t you?”
Finally Yasutomo was looking at him. “Hey man, that’s really one hell of a bad
movie.”
”I don’t care. I want to see if Al Pacino and Jill end up together.”
A new sound came from Yasutomo; this time Shinkai could make out clear
amusement. “Okay, let’s watch it.” He edged up in front of his computer,
clicking the timeline to the part where they had been when their concentration
had been broken. Shinkai lay down onto his stomach again, the same position in
which he had been before, adjusting his pillow comfortably under his chin.
Fatigue was sneaking its way up to his bones, it always happened to him after
an orgasm, but he reckoned that he would stay awake until the end of the movie.
He at least wanted to make sure that they were okay with Yasutomo.
Said person was hesitating at first, but in the end he settled down next to
Shinkai and there they lay as if nothing out of ordinary had happened.
Yasutomo’s arm touched his own but there was no challenge in it anymore, no,
this time it touched only because of the lack of space.
As the credits rolled onto the screen once more, Shinkai’s lids were drooping
and he closed his eyes while Yasutomo shut down his laptop and packed it away
into his bag. He was almost falling asleep but his teammate yanked him back
awake by jabbing his shoulder.
”Hey, move a little. You’re lying on the blanket.”
“Mhm, oh?” Shinkai sat up with a struggle and crawled off of the sleeping bag
that acted as their blanket. “Ow, my ass hurts.”
Yasutomo halted, looking at him with sudden worry. “Does it hurt a lot?”
”Nah. It’s just sort of stinging. It will probably be fine in the morning.”
Yasutomo kept glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, clearly thinking
whether or not it was appropriate to voice his thoughts. He ended up arranging
the sleeping bags first, patting at the fabric. “You can now move your royal
aching booty into the bed.”
Shinkai snorted, probably just out of sheer tiredness, lying down once more.
Yasutomo followed his example and pulled the cover over them. After a few
minutes awkward shuffling he finally turned to face Shinkai, so close that his
fingers were brushing against Shinkai’s arm and his breath was warming up his
ear.
“You have a great ass,” he mumbled.
“Eh… thanks?”
“On the inside, too.”
“Wow, that was probably the most flattering compliment I’ve ever heard. If you
don’t watch it, soon you might be competing with Jinpachi in smooth talking.”
Shinkai trailed off, scratching his hairline. The rain was still hammering down
on the car. With a little luck, it had drowned out the sounds of their
ministrations. “You have a pretty good pelvic technique.”
Yasutomo covered the lower part of his face with the blanket, probably to hide
his smile. “Even though you kept telling me to go harder and faster.”
“Well, yeah, but it did work out in the end.” Shinkai felt a smile tug his own
lips too. He should have probably felt like the lousiest, most disgusting
bastard that had ever set their foot on the planet, but for some reason the
feeling didn’t really catch on. It was almost as if it was trying to worm its
way on stage but tripped over the curtains on the way and rolled to the side.
He decided to give it a thought once it had grown too big to ignore.
Yasutomo yawned, and Shinkai could feel him relax beside him. Yasutomo’s eyes
were closed and his nose still buried under the blanket. Shinkai couldn’t sense
any tension between them anymore, only some sort of brotherly feeling caused by
sharing a foolish action. Something that kids experienced after filching apples
from the neighbour’s garden. ‘Teeheehee, we just did something naughty.’ It was
a pleasant sort of feeling. The yawn was contagious and Shinkai’s mouth opened
so wide that a few tears escaped his eyes. Time to catch some Zs.
Then Yasutomo spoke again. “I always thought you’d do that that straight-line
demon face of yours during sex.”
Shinkai smacked him with a pillow. “Shut up, Yasutomo!”
His partner only laughed, pushing the pillow back at him. “Happy birthday,
Shinkai.”
Chapter End Notes
     No underage cyclists were harmed during the drinking game.
     I can hear you Toumaki fans rolling around in frustration. “Why have
     Shinara frick fracked two times already and Toumaki just keep playing
     monks??!” So here’s to all of you:
     [http://cdn.meme.am/instances/57214198.jpg/]
***** EXTRA - Never have I ever... *****
Chapter Notes
     I promised to write that drinking game scene and since there’s really
     no place for it in my so-called plot, I just post it as a separate
     mini chapter. I also wanted to write a bit in present tense so here
     it comes.
     I should warn you though. This chapter contains jokes/scenes that
     some people might find offensive. Please bear that in mind before
     proceeding.
“Weren’t we planning to play something?” Toudou asks when the last crumbs of
the cake have vanished from the plates.
“Yeah, let’s play something – unless it’s Spin the bottle.”
“Ugh, no. Not that.”
”How about ’Never have I ever...’?” Tadokorocchi suggests.
“That’s a good idea, but we don’t have… well… anything to drink,” Izumida
points out. His casts a quick side-way glance at Mr. Pierre. “Of course, we can
play without alcohol too...”
“Wrong. We have something to drink.” Mr. Pierre pulls out two more champagne
bottles, making the audience cheer. At that point, Makishima knows he’s
screwed. Because he can already predict what kind of questions will be featured
in the game and how many freaking times he will have to drink. Luckily there
are only two bottles.
“Is it appropriate for our under-aged participants to play this?” Toudou asks a
bit timidly, glancing at Makishima. He shrugs. It’s not really his job to
control the kids’ drinking when even their official guardian is not doing it.
Mr. Pierre’s smile doesn’t waver. “Let’s just agree that those under 16 drink
only one-third of the amount of what the others do.”
“Well, um… Maybe it’s okay then,” Toudou gives in.
Everyone sits down at the table apart from Arakita who is apparently in a very
sour mood and wants to be alone for a while. Toudou tries half-heartedly to
lure him over to join them but gives up when he gets the finger. “God, let him
rot on that bench. Who cares for that cranky-ass anyway?”
Even Mr. Pierre stays at the table with a cup of champagne in his hand, but
he’s not going to participate in the game. Makishima wonders who has the
courage to admit anything with their coach listening to ever word. To them in
Sohoku, experience has taught that Mr. Pierre’s observing skills are not the
sharpest and, as a father figure, he’s really sub-par.
Everyone pours a little champagne into their cups. Poor Onoda doesn’t even know
what the game is about, so Naruko has to explain the rules to him, and after
that he goes visibly pale. His take on a fun party game is probably some sort
of quiz or a three-legged race.
“Right,” Toudou says, his eyes wandering over the group. “Who wants to start?”
“It was Onoda’s idea to play a game so Onoda may start.”
“Um, I’m not sure if I can come up with anything fun…” the boy mutters.
“That’s okay. The claims don’t need to be anything major in the beginning.
Preferably something mild to get the game properly started.”
”Hmm, well, in that case... um… never have I ever… been drunk.”
Half of the table lets out a knowing sound and then they raise their cups.
Everyone else except Naruko.
“Oi, Hotshot!” he immediately cries out. “Have you actually been drunk at some
point?”
“I have, a little,” Imaizumi defends himself. “A bigger question is why you
haven’t.”
“I just haven’t come across a situation that required drinking,” Naruko huffs,
crossing his arms, but he’s the next one to state something. “Never have I
ever… crapped my pants during a race.”
“But you have on some other occasion?” Imaizumi asks.
Naruko turns the colour of his hair. ”Of course not, I was just specifying that
I haven’t even during an intense physical performance.”
Nor has anyone else. The cups stay at the table and the turn rolls on to
Imaizumi.
“Never have I ever thought anything positive about Midousuji.”
“Um, does it count if you’ve thought him to be a fierce competitor and a good
cyclist?” Onoda asks.
“I suppose it counts,” Imaizumi mutters, clearly not happy about it. As a
result, everyone else drinks apart from Aoyagi and Teshima who have not had a
chance to witness Midousuji’s abilities from close up.
Kinjou adjusts his glasses when it’s his turn. “Never have I ever given up.”
”Oh my god, Kinjou!” Makishima and Tadokorocchi sigh in sync, picking up their
cups and drinking. As do the others, even Fukutomi.
The turn moves on to Makishima. ”Never have I ever answered Toudou’s first
text.”
Toudou lets out a wounded yelp. “Maki-chan, that is just mean!”
“But it’s convenient. You never manage to say everything in one message. I
always wait to get more of them before answering. It saves time and energy.”
On that round, the only one to drink is Fukutomi. The other guys from Sohoku
don’t even receive messages from Toudou so they are automatically safe. But
Makishima can’t help but smile at the angry flush blooming on Toudou’s cheeks.
He has to admit that Toudou is kind of cute when he’s all flustered.
I’ll make this up to you once we’re back in our tent, he silently promises.
Tadokorocchi coughs. “Never have I ever refused free food.” Everyone else
besides Shinkai and Naruko has to drink.
It’s Shinkai’s turn. He thinks for a moment before opening his mouth. “Never
have I ever dyed my hair. Highlights don’t count.”
“What do you mean, you haven’t?” Tadokorocchi grunts. “Are you saying that’s
your natural colour?”
“It really is,” Toudou confirms. “What’s even weirder is that Hayato’s little
brother has jet black hair. Occasionally in club meetings we speculate which
one is a postman’s kid.”
Judging by his jovial smile, Shinkai has heard the joke before. “We each just
take after a different parent. Mom has red hair and dad has black.”
“Hey, my hair is all natural too,” Naruko points out.
“No, it’s not,” Imaizumi says immediately.
“Sure it is! Do you want to see..?” Naruko jumps to his feet and is already
fiddling with his belt. Luckily Imaizumi is there to stop him and press him
back into his seat.
”Nobody wants to see the contents of your pants,” he assures him. “Besides,
I’ve seen you using shampoo and conditioner for dyed hair.”
“What if I just want to keep my natural colour as bright as possible?” Naruko
snarls but sits down. And then those who have sometimes dyed their hair gulp
down the next portion of champagne. Makishima, Fukutomi and Aoyagi. And in the
end, Naruko, with a lot of huffing and grumbling.
Toudou is the next one to make a statement. “Never have I ever gotten a zero on
a test.”
Onoda, Tadokorocchi, Shinkai and Manami have to drink, the first two with a
more ashamed face than the last two.
Fukutomi is next in turn. “Never have I ever slept in.”
“That’s true,” Shinkai says and drinks. And so does everyone else – apart from
Kinjou.
So it continues, with relatively tame tosses, until Manami turns the tables.
“Never have I ever had a wet dream about a teammate.”
“Seriously?” Naruko asks, his voice genuinely surprised. ”I thought everyone
has them at least once in their life.”
“Well, I don’t remember, at least. Maybe my teammates are too unattractive.”
“Do you understand what kind of insults fly out of your mouth?” Toudou grits
his teeth.
”Does it have to be a current teammate or could it be someone from the past?”
Kinjou asks.
”Any teammate is fine.”
”Hmm, well then.” Kinjou picks up his cup and drinks.
Makishima is happy that Onoda is not drinking. The thing is that there are
several assumptions surrounding their youngest member and breaking them might
shock people to their cores. Everyone else drinks and after that they began to
look around as if to figure out who has dreamed about whom. Lately, the
protagonist of Makishima’s dreams has been Toudou and he has never had a crush
on his teammates, but the subconscious just happens to be a sneaky little
bastard that likes to confuse its host with weird dreamscapes. Such as that
awkward slideshow about Tadokorocchi from a couple of years back.
“Okay, if we’re going down that road…” Naruko says, cracking his knuckles.
“Never have I ever–“
”It’s not your turn, idiot!” Imaizumi hisses.
“Who cares? I have a good one.”
”Still, wait for your turn.”
Naruko shuts his mouth, allowing Fukutomi to make another claim. “Ehem, never
have I ever skipped practise.”
”Of course not, you’re the captain, Fuku!” Toudou complains, taking a swig –
along with everyone else. Even Kinjou has to drink.
They get from Izumida’s and Onoda’s rather mild claims (‘Never have I ever swam
in an icy lake or gotten a tattoo’) to Naruko who has been chewing on his
bottom lip and shifting impatiently on his seat waiting for his turn. He rubs
his hands eagerly, chuckling to himself. “Ohoho, here we go! Never have I ever…
kissed a guy!”
“Gaah, I knew this was coming," Imaizumi huffs. He doesn’t lift his drink
though. And for a long while nobody does, but the atmosphere is oozing with
incompleteness. Eyes flicker right and left, looking for the brave soul who
dares to pick up their drink first.
Then Teshima coughs somewhat nervously. “Does it count if it was a prank kiss?”
Naruko shrugs. “Sure.”
Teshima’s fingers curl around the cup and, glancing sideways at Aoyagi, he
lifts his cup. When it touches his lips, Aoyagi picks up his own drink and they
swallow simultaneously.
Makishima shifts his weight, his fingers restless, sparing a quick glance at
Toudou. He sort of knew in the beginning that he might have to lie in the game
in order to avoid awkward questions, but this one… it isn’t too bad, right? If
prank kisses count too? They just have to make sure to not drink right after
another. Though that might be hard, as he doesn’t know if there are still other
people wrestling with themselves about whether to drink or not.
He can feel Toudou’s eyes on him, maybe looking for permission. He can feel
Tadokorocchi’s eyes on him, almost piercing his skin. Damn, he knew it had been
a mistake to tell his friend about the party episode. But eventually he
straightens his back and with a swift movement, definitely not hesitating one
bit, brings his cup to his lips and pours the sparkling liquid down his throat.
And he sees across the table Toudou grab his own drink and okay, is everyone
looking at them? But then Manami shrugs and empties his cup too. Toudou is the
last one to drink, and even though there’s a faint rose tint lingering on his
cheeks, nobody seems to pay that much attention to him. Nor to Makishima.
Phew. Cleared that one. But there might be much worse stuff to come.
Naruko blinks, clearly taken aback. “Wow, so... that was a lot.”
“You said even non-serious kisses count.”
”Well yeah. But still.”
They move on. Imaizumi’s and Kinjou’s statements are nothing to start sweating
over but Makishima has to drink anyway. He’s beginning to feel his head buzz.
Due to his skinny form, he usually gets drunk pretty easily. He doesn’t usually
get very bad hangovers so he’s not concerned about that, but… the past has
taught him that he might lose control over himself when drinking too much. Not
that it would be such a disaster tonight, because he would direct his actions
towards Toudou, but he’s not sure how quiet he remembers to be when
intoxicated.
When they get to Teshima, there’s something in the air. Something menacing in
his usually very calm eyes, as if he’s planning payback. ”Never have I ever had
a dick up my ass.”
More than one person at the table gapes at that. Makishima hides his smile.
People usually take Teshima for someone as innocent as Onoda, and this was not
the first time that he had managed to throw people off.
“Kakaka! Bold, Perm-senpai!” Naruko cackles and is about to pick up his drink
as a reflex. He freezes when he realizes what he’s doing. “Shit, no! No, I
haven’t had... what the hell am I doing?!” Alcohol is clearly getting to his
head, making him even louder and more hyper. “Hotshot, stop me if I try to
drink when I’m not supposed to!”
”How the hell should I know when you’re not supposed to?” Imaizumi demands.
“Well, that one was pretty obvious!”
”You could have been a child prostitute in middle school for all I know.”
“I was not a child prostitute!” Naruko cries out and is about to grab his drink
again. “Fuck, somebody take this cup away from me!” He only calms down when
Onoda takes the cup to his own side.
An awkward moment passes. Nobody picks up their drink. Not even Makishima. This
is the part where he’s just going to keep quiet and cross his fingers behind
his back. Tadokorocchi is not looking at him. Toudou is not looking at him. In
fact, nobody is looking at anyone except for Mr. Pierre who is watching all of
them with a good-natured smile on his face.
“Oh my god, let’s just move on,” Toudou waves his hand when too many minutes
have passed. “Mute guy, it’s your turn.”
Aoyagi’s eyes linger in his lap. “Hmm, never have I ever…” The next words are
not audible, but Teshima is quick to catch them.
“’Never have I ever been to a gay party’.”
”Well, this game is certainly turning out to be one,” Naruko mutters.
”Do gay clubs count?” Kinjou asks.
“I suppose they do but… what?” Tadokorocchi is flabbergasted and so is
Makishima.
Kinjou cracks a smirk. “Got you.”
“Fuck, don’t scare me like that!” Tadokorocchi exhales, grabbing his chest.
“This game is not good for our health, I swear to god!”
Apparently nobody has been to a gay party or club, since all the cups stayed at
the table. The turn passes on to Shinkai who pulls out an energy bar and takes
a bite of it before speaking. “Never have I ever watched gay porn. I mean an
actual film, not some vines on the net.”
“What if you have watched half of it?” Manami asks.
”It counts.”
”One-third?”
“Still counts.”
Manami yields. “I haven’t.”
”Why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut then, idiot?” Toudou comments. ”Oh,
it’s my turn. Well… never have I ever…” His gaze brushes over Makishima in a
way that tells him to expect trouble. “Never have I ever had anything up my
butt.”
”Wasn’t that already asked?” Naruko wonders, getting more and more drunk by the
second.
“No, your Perm-kun said he’s never a dick up his butt.”
”What’s the difference? Are there certain things you cram into your ass
regularly?”
Toudou’s hair bristles like an angry peacock’s. “Not me! I said ‘Never have I
ever’!”
“For example, you have to stick your finger in if you have internal
haemorrhoids and need to, like, put some ointment on them,” Izumida remarks. “I
don’t have them, but my grandfather did, so I know. He also had a colonoscopy
done on him, so that kind of procedure would count, I suppose.”
Toudou is blinking. “He told you all that?”
“Well, he was quite open about his health issues…”
”Ungh, I don’t want to know,” Naruko announces and receives a smack to the back
of his head from Imaizumi. “Oww, what the fuck, Hotshot?!”
“Show some manners, will you! You’re the one talking about poop day in day
out.”
“That’s different! That’s like, an everyday thing, and haemorrhoids are like, a
nasty health issue.”
“A very common one, though,” Izumida says, not swaying from Naruko’s
indiscretion.
“Okay, sorry. Sorry if I insulted your haemorrhoidal grandfather, Abs-san,”
Naruko mutters. “Still, I’m not gonna drink on this. Wait, poop doesn’t count,
right?”
”No, it doesn’t. Okay, so who drinks?” Toudou asks.
Silence follows. Everyone stares at their drinks, not wanting to pick them up,
especially now that they could be suspected of awkward health problems.
Slowly, Makishima lifts his cup. He can give Toudou this much at least. He can
feel all eyes on him but nobody says anything. When his cup returns onto the
table, Aoyagi picks up his own. And then Shinkai drinks. And Fukutomi. Izumida.
Even Teshima. And in the end, Imaizumi.
“Hey, it’s my turn again!” Manami chirps cheerfully. “I guess you guys already
saw this coming but… never have I ever had sex with a guy.”
Toudou leans his head on his hand, looking much more relaxed than a few rounds
ago. Must be the champagne. “Define ‘sex with a guy’.”
”More than kissing and mild groping. Something that involves touching dicks.”
Manami’s face lights up. “You must have done something, Toudou-san, if you’re
asking for a definition!”
“I could be asking for someone else,” Toudou just says, looking somewhat
disinterested. Makishima makes a note that at some point he absolutely must get
Toudou drunk if that’s what he becomes like. He was sure that Toudou would be
one of those obnoxiously loud and over-emotional drunks, given that he’s almost
like that when sober, but apparently he becomes calm and collected when given
alcohol.
Shinkai pushes his seat back. “Sorry guys, but I’m gonna go and check on
Yasutomo. You can continue without me.”
“Hey, answer the question first!”
”I wouldn’t have to drink,” Shinkai offers them with a small smile, turning
around and heading over to his teammate who hasn’t glanced in their direction
even once, from what Makishima has seen.
“Hmm, seems like we’ll be stopping soon too,” Kinjou says, picking up the last
champagne bottle, shaking it and sloshing the remains of liquid inside. “We’re
almost out of drinks.”
Mr. Pierre lets out a merry laugh and bends down to pick up something from a
plastic shopping bag that’s been lying on the lawn beside him. Another bottle
of champagne hits the table. “No, you’re not.”
Makishima sighs. This is going to be one long, drunk night.
***** Do they really need to glow in the dark? *****
Chapter Notes
     Ollie, here's to you! ;)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Toudou was lost.
When he had decided to march bravely into a shop and buy condoms, he hadn’t
expected to be spending actual minutes in front of the shelf that contained the
contraceptives in question. In his mind he had just picked a packet without a
second thought, dropped it in his basket and covered it with some everyday
products, such as tissues or cosmetics. He hadn’t been prepared for the fact
that there would be such a huge selection.
Alright, he had looked at condoms in the shops before and read about them
online, but now when using them had become topical, he found himself clueless.
He couldn’t make much out of the packets as he didn’t understand half of the
text printed on them and he really had no desire to stand in front of the shelf
and stumble through the English print for eternity.
Maybe he should have asked Maki-chan for advice. But he really wanted to
surprise him and…
Well, actually… actually, Toudou had a hunch that Maki-chan didn’t want them to
proceed further from handjobs. And it was not that Toudou didn’t like them and
it hadn’t been even a week since their first kiss, but he felt like something
was missing, and they had already done so many things that the next natural
step would have been, ehem, intercourse (he made sure that even his
subconscious whispered the word) and…
Okay. Alright. It was mostly about the fact that Toudou wanted to. His toes
curled and his stomach did back flips and his body’s temperature control got
out of hand when he even thought about it. How great would it be to tell years
later that he had lost his virginity in France while following Tour de France?
But Maki-chan kept pushing him away every time he tried to take things to the
next level and he was starting to get a bit frustrated, not because he was an
insatiable sex-monkey but because Maki-chan hadn’t given him any explanation.
Toudou suspected that one explanation could be that they didn’t have condoms so
he had decided to fix it. Maybe Maki-chan was expecting it from him. At least
if Maki-chan had been a girl, Toudou would have felt like purchasing condoms
was his responsibility.
After hanging around in front the shelf for an indefinite amount of time, he
noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. That wasn’t anything out of the
ordinary, there were other customers wandering through the aisles all the time,
but there was something familiar in the glimpse that he got. Toudou took a
better look and his heart froze in the middle of a beat.
Crap, Shinkai!
What the hell was he doing in the same shop as Toudou? Weren’t there other
stores in this city–?
Oh yeah. There really weren’t. The village of Alpe d’Huez looked even smaller
than Oingt – which it wasn’t based on the population, but everything revolved
around skiing and winter sports. Though now, in the summer, every little
boutique remembered to sell cycling souvenirs, as the Tour passed through the
village. The streets were full of tiny specialized shops, but there was only
one grocery store. That was probably why Shinkai had found his way to it too.
Wait a minute. Actually: Yay, Shinkai!
Toudou had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t talk about it to a soul, and he
wasn’t going to, but maybe Shinkai could… maybe Toudou could somehow coax the
necessary information out of him.
At that moment, the red-headed sprinter located him, waving his hand.
“Jinpachi.” He turned to walk towards him and Toudou inched a step or two
further so that he wouldn’t be standing right in front of the condoms. “Are you
looking for something?”
“Um,” Toudou peeked at the shelf. “Cotton swabs. My ear is sort of clogged.”
Aargh, that sounded like an old geezer’s trouble!
“I’m not sure if cotton swabs are a good treatment for it,” Shinkai mused,
stopping next to Toudou and taking a look at the shelf. “To my knowledge, the
swabs only push the clog deeper in the ear. Maybe you should see a doctor about
it.”
”Well, I think I can wait until we’re back at home.”
“What happened to it?”
”I… I don’t know, maybe it’s because of differences in altitude.” To emphasize
his words, Toudou rubbed his ear. “What are you doing here? I thought you were
going to have dinner.”
”We decided to eat back at the camp, so we came here to buy some food.”
A lonely drop of sweat materialized on Toudou’s forehead. “Are the others here
too?”
“Just Juichi and Yasutomo. They went to check the bakery section. Yasutomo also
wanted to buy some beer and Juichi said the alcohol quota of the trip is full.”
“We’ll all become stuffed geese on this trip. Don’t they eat anything else here
besides white grains?” Toudou muttered under his breath. He picked a packet of
cotton swabs from the shelf, turning it around in his fingers. For some reason
Shinkai just kept lingering next to him and made no move to leave.
“Where’s Makishima?” he asked then.
“He went to see a museum with the rest of Sohoku.”
“You didn’t want to go?”
Toudou shrugged. “Nah, not this time. I was thinking about buying something for
the folks.”
“Ah. Yeah, there was a nice looking side alley just around the corner with a
lot of small boutiques. They seemed to sell a lot of souvenirs.”
“Right. I think I’m going to head there next.”
Toudou was rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet, nervousness nagging
his mind. Problem A: if he asked directly what condoms were good, he would also
reveal that he was inexperienced. Problem B: Shinkai would wonder why he needed
condoms in France when there wasn’t a single girl in the close vicinity.
Problem A didn’t concern him that much, since Shinkai would have hardly made
fun of him, but B was all the more cogent.
While Toudou was still weighing his options, Shinkai stepped closer to the
shelf and took a packet. Just like that. Like it was nothing out of ordinary.
As if condoms were an everyday or at least every-week purchase. Maybe they
were. After all, Shinkai was in a steady relationship. Maybe buying condoms
eventually became an ordinary thing.
“Condoms that glow in the dark,” Shinkai said, laughing to himself. “I must buy
these. You know, for Ayane.”
”Aren’t those available at home?” Toudou asked.
”Yeah, they are, but in order to buy them you probably need to go to some kind
of special store as I haven’t seen them in regular shops.”
“Do you think..?” Toudou hesitated. ”Do you think they are… okay? I mean…”
“Because gaijin are so big?” Shinkai guessed. “That’s fine, they have different
sizes here too. A standard size usually fits almost everyone.”
“Standard?” Toudou checked. “Are these standard-sized?”
“Yep.”
Toudou was under the impression that Shinkai was hung a bit more than average –
he couldn’t remember where the image had come from since he most definitely
hadn’t seen his friend naked with a boner – so if the standard size was
suitable for him, maybe he should have picked a smaller one? But there weren’t
sizes written in the selection of the shelf. Apart from that one Durex packet
with the letters XL. And he didn’t really know what size was counted as big and
what not. He had read online that the average length was something between 12
and 15 centimeters and he was within those limits, so based on that the
standard size should have been suitable for him.
“I think I’m going to take some too, as a souvenir,” he said, snatching a
packet and dropping it into his basket.
Right. Condoms that glow in the dark, Maki-chan.
Hopefully they didn’t glow enough to be visible through tent fabric.
Shinkai glanced at him in a way that looked like he was going to ask something,
but then he just placed his own condom packet in his basket. “I’m gonna go and
see where the others are.”
“Okay,” Toudou cleared his throat. “I’m going to… check shampoos.” Never ever
in the million years would he go to the counter at the same time with Arakita
carrying condoms in his shopping basket.
“They’re right there behind you,” Shinkai pointed.
Toudou turned around. “Oh yeah, so it seems. Mhm, thanks. Then I’m just gonna…”
But Shinkai was already walking away down the aisle, waving his hand at Toudou.
“See you later, Jinpachi.”
“Yeah. See you.”
Toudou was left alone between the shelves. He noted that his heart was pounding
hard, not only in his chest but his whole body had turned into a giant pulse,
and his sweaty fingers were squeezing the basket handle. His heart rate only
began to calm down when he picked a packet of tissues and a bottle of some
cheap shampoo (which he would never put in his hair), covered the condoms with
them and moved on to the next aisle to stare at baby food jars.
* * *
Nobody had the energy to socialize with a big group that night. They were at
the phase of the trip when their travelling companions’ faces began to look
annoying and you were almost ready to pay for have some peace and quiet.
Travelling in the hot and cramped car had turned from adventure into misery and
several souls had mentioned missing Japanese food (Toudou was among that lot,
because extensive eating of wheat made him feel like a human-shaped balloon).
Sohoku’s Imaizumi and Naruko were at each other’s throats constantly, and their
four-eyed friend intervening wasn’t doing much anymore so Kinjou and Tadokoro
had to command the two idiots to behave. They had rearranged the tents too:
Kinjou had ordered Imaizumi to share the sleeping quarters with him and
Tadokoro, and Manami had moved in with Onoda and Naruko. Mr. Pierre had taken
the tent that didn’t hold water, as Shinkai and Arakita were sleeping in the
back of the van anyway and it wasn’t supposed to rain in the next couple of
days. Just a few more days and then they would fly back home.
Toudou regarded it a bit differently. He only had a few days left if he wanted
to brag that he had lost his virginity in France. Unfortunately, he couldn’t
decide it alone, and he didn’t want to pressure Maki-chan, on top of which
their ‘thing’ was still at the very early stages, but they probably wouldn’t
see each other for weeks back at home. There was still some of summer break
left, so he was kind of hoping that he could get Maki-chan to visit him for a
couple of days. Or maybe he could go to Chiba (if mom would allow him to take a
break from gardening). He was under the impression that Maki-chan’s parents
were not often at home.
“You know what?” Maki-chan began after they had retreated into their tent and
the camp was quietening down. He was lying on his back on his sleeping bag,
wearing pyjamas with a colour scale that was probably borrowed from some drug
addict artist’s LSD period. Sometimes Toudou found himself wondering if Maki-
chan was colour blind.
He pulled his tee shirt on – a bit useless since he reckoned that he was going
to take it off soon – before answering his tent mate. “Mhm, what then?”
”If I didn’t know any better, I might imagine that two of your teammates are
frickfracking.”
“What, who? And what was that word? Frickfrack?”
Maki-chan was quiet for a moment, perhaps wondering if it had been appropriate
to voice his thoughts, before he answered. “Shinkai and Arakita.”
Toudou’s mouth fell open. Before he managed to shut it again, uncontrollable
laughter poured out of it. “Jesus! No! Shinkai has a girlfriend. And Arakita
has had several one-night stands with girls and all in all he’s as homophobic
as you can get. Where did that thought come from?”
“For the past nights, I’ve heard noise from the car that could be interpreted
as such. You have heard it too.”
“Like… when?”
“Especially the other night.”
Toudou thought about it. “Well, on the other night they were quite noisy. They
claimed to have watched a comedy but maybe they were watching porn.”
“I’ve never heard anyone watch a movie so loudly.”
“But wouldn’t you think that if they were doing… that, they would try to keep
it down?” Like he and Maki-chan. Nobody suspected them – apart from Manami,
that threat to societal peace and order.
“Yeah, you’d think that. And I said ’if I didn’t know better’, didn’t I? I’ve
mostly heard Shinkai’s voice.”
Toudou nodded. ”Hayato has a tendency to blab in his sleep, like I told you.”
“Last night I heard Arakita order him to shut his mouth.”
“Maybe Hayato has been shouting in his sleep and Arakita finally had enough.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Maki-chan trailed off, thinking. ”When Manami asked about the
noise in the morning, Arakita got really riled up.”
“That’s nothing out of ordinary, Arakita has always had some anger management
issues,” Toudou remarked. “But seriously, even the thought of Hayato and
Arakita doing something like that is as alien as… Fuku and Kinjou doing it. And
not only because Fuku probably doesn’t have any sex drive whatsoever.” Even
though Fuku had his fair share of fan girls, lately Toudou had begun to suspect
that he actually had zero interest towards them. “Or think about Kinjou and
Tadokoro going at it.”
Maki-chan laughed, shaking his head. “That couldn’t happen.”
“Exactly. Hayato and Arakita are the same. Some things simply don’t happen. By
the way, speaking of them, if Hayato asks something, my ear is clogged.”
Maki-chan blinked. “What?”
“Don’t worry about it. If he asks about my ear, just say it’s fine.”
“Wasn’t it supposed to be clogged? Besides, why would Shinkai ask something
like that?”
“I might have lied a bit when I was buying these,” Toudou muttered, pulling the
packet of condoms out of his bag. It dropped onto the sleeping bag with a
surprisingly loud thud – and the silence that followed was surprisingly loud
too. Even the time stopped. After a long, long while, the first snore of
Tadokoro echoed from the tent next to them.
When Toudou was still wondering how he could make time roll backwards because
clearly buying condoms had been a huge mistake, Maki-chan rose up to his elbows
and picked the packet up from the sleeping bag. “They glow in the dark?”
“Yes, um… there weren’t other kinds.”
Maki-chan raised his brow. “There weren’t any condoms other than the ones that
glow in the dark? What kind of freaking ghost shop did you go to?”
“Okay, they had other kinds too, but certain events led to a situation where I
was forced to buy these.” Toudou twisted the bedding between his fingers,
keeping his gaze on the ground. “And I mean, they will work too, right? Glowing
in the dark is only an extra feature.”
Maki-chan let out a laugh. It was tense, a bit forced, and it made Toudou’s
stomach convulse. No, this really didn’t feel like a good idea anymore.
“You thought that we would need these?” Maki-chan half stated, half asked.
Don’t you think so then?
“Well, yeah… I mean, aren’t they usually used if… if you want to… have… sex,”
Toudou whispered so quietly that even he didn’t hear the last words. “We don’t
have to, Maki-chan. I only bought them just in case. If things happened to
move… in that direction.”
Maki-chan sighed, handing the packet over to Toudou. “I think we need to talk a
bit.”
“Oh?” Toudou swallowed, trying to force the heart hammering his throat back to
its regular place. He had heard (and read) that when your partner said those
words it meant trouble. And the way Maki-chan had said it was somewhat glum.
Maybe he was upset and wanted to end… whatever they had. Toudou didn’t know if
it had a name. He had assumed that they both wanted more than sex since the
interest towards each other had been lingering in the air for a longer while
now, but he couldn’t really tell what was going on in Maki-chan’s head.
His companion was looking at him from between his green bangs. “You look like I
was marching you up to your execution.”
“Hm? Do I? Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I… I was just…”
”Jinpachi.”
Toudou jerked at the seriousness of the voice so thoroughly that it took him
about 30 seconds to recognize another, underlying tone in it. A softer,
soothing one. “Yes, Maki-chan?”
”I wasn’t going to talk about where we are heading – okay, maybe I was a little
but I meant, like, between the sheets – but now when you look like that I think
we need to talk about other stuff too. If you want, I mean. It’s barely been a
week.”
“It feels like a lot longer.”
”It does. I think it’s because we’ve been together the whole time, literally,
day and night. And because we already knew each other beforehand.”
Toudou dropped his gaze. He would have wanted to be brave and look Maki-chan in
the eyes but his body refused to comply.
Maki-chan huffed, slumping down onto his back. “I always thought that if we
ever got into this situation, you would be the one to lead it.”
“I’m sorry, Maki-chan, maybe… maybe I should take a more active role or
something.”
“It’s fine. It sort of came out of the blue for you, so I guess it’s only
natural that I’m the one holding the reins for the time being. But yeah, if you
want… we could talk about where we’re going to.”
“Y-you mean..?” Toudou blushed when his voice cracked like a teenager’s and he
had to clear his throat. “You mean like, um, dating stuff? Going out? Whatever
you want to call it?”
Maki-chan nodded. His eyes had suddenly started wandering over the tent walls
and his cheeks had absorbed a nice pink colour. “The trip will be over in a few
days and after that we probably won’t participate in races anymore and maybe
there’s no reason to see each other…”
“We’re friends, Maki-chan!” Toudou cried out. ”Of course I want to see you even
if there aren’t any races! We don’t live that far apart. There’s a good train
connection.”
“I was just thinking that do you want to be only… friends? Or would you like to
be more?”
Toudou glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Something was tickling at
his lips, something that could be a hint of a smile. “I don’t think we’re only
friends anymore, Maki-chan. At least we’ve done stuff that I don’t do with my
other friends.”
“Neither do I.”
“Would you then… like to go out with me? Be my boyfriend?” Damn, was it weird
to say something like that out loud! Right after saying it, Toudou felt a wave
of volcanic heat attack him, but at the same time something soft and calming
settled in the pit of his stomach.
What if my Maki-chan was my boyfriend?
What would it feel like to introduce him to other people? ‘Hey everyone, here’s
my boyfriend, Maki-chan.’
No, that sounded like some four-year-old’s playground boyfriend.
‘This is my boyfriend, Makishima Yuusuke.’ Yep, that was better.
He wasn’t sure though if he was ready to introduce his boyfriend to anyone. Not
for a long, long, long time. If ever. Mom would probably cry and dad would
grunt something like ’Luckily, we have at least one child who we can pass our
livelihood to and trust that child not to bring shame on it. No, Jinpachi, it’s
not you.’ Toudou couldn’t care less even if Shiori did inherit the ryokan. He
had long ago decided that he wouldn’t become an innkeeper even though he would
undeniably be very good at it. And then if their relatives found out… grandpa
would get a heart attack and everyone would blame Toudou and grandma would ask
why Toudou couldn’t have waited until she was safely lying six feet under and…
“What are you mumbling about?” Maki-chan interrupted his train of thought. ”You
didn’t even listen to my answer.”
”Shit! I’m sorry, Maki-chan! Sorry, I was just thinking…”
“Is your family in the yakuza?”
“What, no, it isn’t!”
”It sounded like they will eliminate you if you dare to mention that you might
not have… a girlfriend, but something else.”
”No! Nothing like that! I mean, they probably won’t jump around with joy,
but...” Toudou trailed off and took a peek at his companion. “Did you answer
me?”
“I did.”
”W-what did you say?”
“I asked: ‘do you want to go out with me’?”
Yes, of course. A counter-question.
”I guess you already understand that it won’t be as easy as with a girl,” Maki-
chan continued. “And we would probably face a lot of judging and prejudice.”
“I know. But do we have to tell the others? I mean right away?”
”No, of course we don’t.”
“But maybe some day.”
“If this thing continues, then maybe.”
Why wouldn’t it? You are… you have been, like, one of the most important people
in my life for the past two years and…
Toudou straightened his back and looked Maki-chan firmly in the eyes. “I do
want that. I want to be your boyfriend… if you’ll have me.”
A smile lit on Maki-chan’s face. A genuine, happy, warm smile, so amazingly far
from that infamous clown grimace. “I do, if you’ll have me.”
“Of course I’ll have you. Dear god, Maki-chan, you are…” Toudou’s voice got
caught in his throat, making him stop and swallow several times. I have never
met a person who I wanted to spend as much time with as you. I’ve never met
someone whose opinion mattered so much to me. “I’ll have you if you’ll have
me.”
Maki-chan suddenly looked a bit shy, but the smile was still there. “Now we’re
just going around in circles. Let’s just agree that you’ll have me and I’ll
have you.”
“Sure, agreed.” Toudou was certain that he looked feverish; his cheeks were
burning that badly. At the same time, the corners of his lips were tugging and
his stomach was doing tiny somersaults that felt surprisingly pleasant. He
leaned forward, hovering above Maki-chan (he was becoming quite competent in
that, no more embarrassing slumps) until he could press their mouths together.
Maki-chan answered him, opening his lips slightly and allowing the tip of
Toudou’s tongue to sneak inside. Funny how fast you could get used to kissing.
Toudou knew what to expect, his tongue recognized Maki-chan’s tongue when they
met halfway, he knew the way Maki-chan kissed, and he was amazed at how many
emotions he could read only from the touching of their lips. Such as now, when
he could make out contentment and affection but also a grain of tenseness, like
Maki-chan was holding back a little. It had been there for several days already
and now Toudou believed he knew what it was about.
”We need to talk about that other stuff too,” Maki-chan said when Toudou pulled
back to catch his breath. Maki-chan’s cheeks were flushed and his lips were red
and swollen from kissing. His skin was so pale that any kind of change was
immediately visible. In fact, if someone had taken a closer look, they would
probably have noticed that the edges of his lips were irritated from constant
rubbing and could have put two and two together.
“Let’s talk about it then,” Toudou promised. He couldn’t stop smiling. After
that bomb (boyfriends??!!) he reckoned that the smile would last a good while.
He wasn’t worried about what was about to come anymore.
“You bought condoms,” Maki-chan said. “So I assume that you were planning
something that involved them.”
“Well, yeah. But like I said, we don’t have to.”
Toudou could read Maki-chan’s thoughts from the rising of his brows. ‘But you
do want to?’
“We can wait if you’re not… ready or something,” Toudou continued.
“It’s more about how you were planning for us to do it.”
“How were you?” Toudou asked. ”Um, like, if you’ve thought about it. At all.”
“I’ve gotten the impression from what we have done so far that you…” Maki-
chan’s eyes began wandering around the tent again. “That you want to… be on
top.”
“Hm?” Maybe his eagerness gave out that impression and honestly, that’s how he
had imagined it in his head. Every time their kissing and touching slipped onto
the more passionate side, he was overwhelmed by a need to stuff his hard dick
into a warm, tight hole. The need was quite persistent and very, very difficult
to ignore.
Maki-chan continued without waiting for his proper answer. “I… I can’t. I mean,
since one of the participants is… receiving, you know?”
Yes, Toudou was following.
”I can’t be that one. I did it when… a year ago…”
“You mean when you lost your virginity?”
Maki-chan nodded. “It hurt… like, a lot. Too much. Even though I was drunk, I
will forever remember the pain, and I was hurting for days afterwards. I don’t
know if there’s something wrong with me but… I can’t do it again. I promised
myself that I wouldn’t go through it ever again.”
So was that why it had been such a bad experience for Maki-chan?
“What if that other guy did something wrong? Was too rough or something?”
Toudou suggested tentatively. He couldn’t help but feel a bit defeated, because
he had really been waiting for them to do it… properly, but now his plans were
facing a bumpy road. But it wasn’t over yet. Maki-chan had only said that he
couldn’t be the receiving party.
“It was probably that too, but mostly I felt like my body wasn’t designed for
such action.”
”Okay, well…” Toudou scratched his chin. To tell the truth, he was a bit upset
with himself. Why had he automatically assumed that Maki-chan wanted to bottom?
He should have at least asked! “Then I suppose the only option is that I–”
His partner turned down his idea immediately. “I couldn’t force you to do it.”
”But what if I trust you and your ability to be careful?” Many guys did it for
fun; it couldn’t really be that awful. How would they be able to live a normal
life if their asses were hurting for several days after sex?
”What if it’s not a natural role for you?”
”I wouldn’t know since I haven’t tried it.” In his head Toudou had seen himself
as the more active party but his visions hadn’t matched with the reality for
some time now.
“Not all gay couples do that,” Maki-chan pointed out.
“Don’t have sex?”
”Sex perhaps, but no... anal.”
“Oh yeah, right.” Toudou digested it. He had always thought that penetration
was the synonym for sex but he really couldn’t call himself an expert now,
could he? Maybe he had only associated sex with someone pushing something
somewhere. But blowjobs were sex too, what else? “Do they only use their hands
and… mouths then?”
“I suppose.”
Toudou fell silent, musing it over.
“You still want it?” Maki-chan checked.
”I don’t want it if you don’t want it. But I’m sort of… interested.”
“There’s a lot of other interesting stuff.”
”I’m sure there is, that’s not what I’m saying.”
Without a warning, Maki-chan pulled himself up, pushing Toudou to lie down on
his back. “For example, this.” And then he was already pulling down Toudou’s
pyjama pants.
Toudou was instinctively about to give him a reply, probably something that
started with ‘But’, because that was his nature, but he shut his mouth and only
lifted his hips so Maki-chan could peel off his pants. Night air was cool and
perhaps that was why he could feel Maki-chan’s warm breath ghost over his most
sensitive part even from afar. He realized a second too late that the warm
puffs were not going anywhere; on the contrary, they were becoming hotter.
Damn, Maki-chan’s face was about ten centimeters from his groin and that was
the moment when his body put on the fifth gear. His dick that had been lounging
flaccidly against his thigh grew into a full erection with a few hard twitches.
Maki-chan peeked at him. “I didn’t even touch it yet.”
“I can’t help it, that thing has a will of its own,” Toudou defended himself.
“Maybe your gaze somehow cast a spell on it.”
Maki-chan laid his head down onto Toudou’s thigh, drawing small circles on his
skin with his fingertips. “When I asked if you had thought that we might have
some use for those condoms, I also meant, like, if we’ll need them… for
protection. Because a year ago, we used a condom and I haven’t been with anyone
ever since.”
“I haven’t gone bareback with anyone,” Toudou quickly assured him. “I’m clean…
if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then I’m going to take your word for it.” Maki-chan lifted his head, inching
closer and besides the hot puff Toudou could feel the moisture emitting from
his breath and if Maki-chan was that close, he was probably not planning to
only look at him…
His toes curled and his abdominal muscles jumped when something soft and wet
brushed over the sensitive skin under the head of his cock. A surprised yelp
escaped his throat, accompanied with a second one when Maki-chan gave him
another lick. Tentatively, maybe to test how he would react, maybe just to get
used to the taste. Thank god he had showered just an hour ago.
Maki-chan peeked up to look at him, look at his swollen dick that was
apparently trying to grow even bigger, judging by the suffocating pulse
pounding its sides. Maki-chan’s face was radiating surprise, a positive one,
something like: ‘Okay, the taste isn’t as bad as I thought’. Toudou fought the
will to grab himself and just let his head loll back, waiting for Maki-chan to
lower his head again. This time he wrapped his fingers around Toudou’s dick,
lifting it up so he could enclose his lips around the head and a typhoon of
feelings surged through Toudou.
”Nnghh, haa-ah! Jesus, Maki-chan!”
His partner pulled back and released his dick with a wet plop. “Shh! Kinjou,
Tadokorocchi and Imaizumi are in the tent right next to ours.”
“Sorry, sorry, I’ll try to keep it down,” Toudou hissed. “But dear lord above,
have you got any idea..? Christ, just do that again! Please! I’m asking
nicely.”
Maki-chan flashed him a smirk. ”So I was going to.” And then he was hovering
over Toudou again.
During the next minutes, Toudou found out why guys liked to have their cocks
sucked so much. Why Arakita talked about it constantly. And why even Shinkai
had participated in that conversation even though he was usually pretending to
be a civilized adult. Toudou had tried to imagine how it felt, but nothing had
prepared him for how divinely and perfectly Maki-chan’s lips were squeezing
him, how teasingly his tongue was feeling all the ridges and veins and rolling
around the sensitive head. Or how hot it was to see his dick disappear into
another person’s mouth and hear the smacking sound it made. Sometimes Maki-chan
took him deep in his throat, sometimes he slid his tongue along his full
length, leaving a wet, tingling trail behind. His fingers found his balls and
massaged them gently. Everything was wet and hot and the pressure was just
right and Toudou’s pulse was beating so loudly that it drowned all the external
sounds. He needed all the remains of his control in order to not moan in a way
that would have awoken some questions amongst the other occupants of their
camp. He grasped the bedding to give his hands something to do so that they
wouldn’t sneak their way into the back of Maki-chan’s neck and force his head
down on him.
Yes, he had heard that a blowjob was almost as amazing as penetrative sex, if
not more amazing, but he really had had no idea… or perhaps Maki-chan was just
a natural talent.
“Aa-ah, Maki-chan, just like that… nngh, just keep going… like that… nnhh, damn
it, I’m gonna come soon…” he panted only to realize that at that same moment
his groin cramped. “No, I’m gonna come now! Maki-chan… stop… lift you head…
shit, wait, gaa-aah, fuuuuuuck!”
In the beginning of his orgasm he realized that Maki-chan was not going to lift
his head. No, he continued sliding his lips up and down and Toudou didn’t know
if he had ever seen a hotter scene, but then his mind fogged up as his whole
body jerked with pleasure. He cried out when he felt the first hot flash
swallow him. The wetness of his come mixed up with the moisture of Maki-chan’s
mouth in a way that he could get addicted to. His hips bucked involuntarily,
squeezing the last drops out of him, before he slumped down and relaxed.
”Oh god, that... that was amazing!” Toudou panted, lying down boneless on his
sleeping bag. Maki-chan licked him a few more times, cleaning up the last of
semen from his overly-sensitive skin and making him shiver. “Sorry that my
stamina is so bad. I promise I’ll last longer when I get used to it more.”
Maki-chan wiped his mouth with his hand. “It’s fine. That thing actually starts
to hurt your neck really soon.”
”Oh. Yeah, probably. But it was awesome. You were awesome. If there was a
contest for blowjobs, you’d be amongst the finalists.”
“How do you know? You have no experience to compare it with.”
“Maybe you’re just that good. I think–“ Toudou snapped his mouth shut when
Maki-chan’s words really sunk in. “W-what do you mean ‘no experience’?”
Maki-chan looked at him, his gaze suddenly sharp. “Then you do have
experience?”
“Well…” Toudou avoided his eyes, wondering how bad it would be if Maki-chan
heard the truth. Maybe was only referring to getting a blowjob from another
guy. “Alright, no, I don’t have it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t evaluate your
skills. If it felt good to me, doesn’t that mean that you did something right?”
“Maybe. Maybe it does then.”
Toudou nodded vigorously. “Just accept the praise you get.” Then he remembered
that Maki-chan hadn’t had a chance to come yet.
With a great effort he pulled himself up, grabbing his partner’s chin so he was
able to kiss him. He could taste himself on Maki-chan’s lips, heavy and musky.
“Do you want me to do you the same?”
”You don’t have to, at least not now. Later, if you want to.”
“But Maki-chan, I can’t leave you hanging.”
“You’re not leaving me hanging. Um, I might have touched myself during…” Maki-
chan pulled back to show him a wet spot in the front of his pants.
Oh. Toudou was sure he had felt both of Maki-chan’s hands on him when he had
been nearing his orgasm. Maki-chan must have been very close to come with such
a little touching.
”You liked it too?” Toudou asked.
His partner nodded. “I did. You were so... argh, Jinpachi, I should have filmed
that. You should have seen yourself.”
Toudou raised his hand, caressing Maki-chan’s cheek. “Nah, it’s enough for me
to get to look at you. And I’d like to see how you react if I… suck you off.”
”You get to do that for sure, don’t worry. If not tonight, there’s always
tomorrow.”
“Okay then.” Toudou lurched onto his back, pulling Maki-chan with him. For a
moment they just lay there, listening to each other’s breathing and the sounds
from outside the tent. None of them seemed to originate from their camp. Even
Tadokoro had ceased his snoring. Slowly, Toudou pulled his fingers through
Maki-chan’s hair, combing them. Maki-chan’s left hand was resting on the
sleeping bag, supporting him so that he didn’t lie on top of Toudou with all
his weight but his right hand was stroking Toudou’s jaw and neck.
Toudou felt his stomach constrict when he thought about the holiday ending
soon. Couldn’t they just lie there forever?
“Hey, Maki-chan, should we stay in France and get married?”
Maki-chan let out a chuckle. “Isn’t that a bit too soon, Jinpachi? Besides, I’m
not sure if two men are allowed to marry in France either.”
”Well, then we won’t get married but we could farm lavender and grapes and live
in an old mansion and cycle every day in the Alpine slopes.”
“What if we just – you know, for now – planned how we are going to make use of
those condoms that glow in the dark? If we’re even going to need them.”
Toudou hmph’d. ”Is it so wrong if I want to keep you forever?”
Maki-chan lifted his head enough for him to graze his lips against Toudou’s.
“No, Jinpachi, it’s not wrong.”
Toudou would have probably still said something overly sappy, something that he
might regret in the morning when he was not wallowing in the depths of post-
orgasmic romance fit, but Maki-chan suddenly jerked his head up, his eyes
widening.
“Shh, listen.”
”What?”
”Just listen.”
Toudou listened. His brows furrowed. ”Okay, that is Hayato’s voice.” They
trailed off in unison to listen more carefully. “It does sound like… what you
said, but Hayato would never… not to mention Arakita.” He shook his head.
“Hayato is just having a wild night. It’s the local food. It’s too heavy.”
”The good thing about it is that nobody pays attention to the sounds you’re
making when Shinkai is throwing a one-man circus every night.” Maki-chan pushed
himself up, straightening his back. “I need to change my pants.”
“Don’t change. Let’s sleep naked like in the hotel.”
“It’s quite chilly here during the night. Besides, we both have our own
sleeping bag.”
“Let’s open them and use them as blankets. We could cuddle.”
“I can’t sleep if you’re clinging onto me.”
“God, Maki-chan, you’re so unromantic! I won’t cling onto you. I just want to
feel your skin against mine and it’s not possible inside sleeping bags.”
Maki-chan looked at him like you look at a stubborn child, but then he sighed
and moved off of the sleeping bags before peeling off his ruined pants. Toudou
took that as permission, opening their sleeping bags and squirming out of his
clothes.
“What if there’s an emergency and we’re both naked?” Maki-chan asked when they
lay down on the thin sleeping pads and Toudou crawled closer until their skins
were touching. Ah, the touch of bare, warm skin. This was a perfect place to
fall asleep.
“What emergency could there be?” he asked.
“If a wild animal attacks our tent. Or Manami.”
“I think Manami is going to stay in his own tent. In my opinion, a fire would
be a more realistic case of an emergency than an attack from Manami.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Your junior seems to be quite an unpredictable and
sneaky little thing.”
“That’s true, but Manami rarely misses a chance to get some sleep, so he is
usually harmless in the night time.”
Suddenly an only slightly muffled roar echoed across the camp, cutting their
chatting short. Toudou realized his eyes were bulging in his head, and Maki-
chan was staring back at him, equally shocked.
“Should we go and check that they are not having an emergency?” Maki-chan
suggested.
Toudou shook himself out of his surprise. ”I don’t think so. Arakita is going
to take care of Hayato. Though I must say, if he keeps making that kind of
noise every night, it’s a miracle that Arakita still wants to sleep in the same
space with him.” Toudou thought about it for a moment. “Until now he has only
talked in his sleep. That shouting is a new thing.”
Maybe Arakita had shaken Shinkai awake because it became quiet after that.
Until Tadokoro resumed his snoring, at least.
Toudou leaned his chin on Maki-chan’s shoulder, breathing his scent and closing
his eyes. “Let’s go to sleep, Maki-chan.”
”Mhm, okay.”
“One last kiss.”
Maki-chan snorted but turned his head so Toudou could reach his lips. “Good
night, Jinpachi.”
”Good night, Maki-chan.”
Chapter End Notes
     Omg, Shinkai, control yourself!
***** A Non-local Man Ruins Everything *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“You’re hurting. Let’s just stop.”
“I’m not hurting,” Toudou reassured while grinding his teeth. “Keep going.
Nggh, fuck! No, Maki-chan, keep trying, I’m sure it’ll… agh!”
”You are a hopeless actor, Jinpachi.”
“No need to insult me. Just push harder.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to break something.”
“Bullshit. Just try.”
“I can’t. It flopped.” Maki-chan backed off of him, sitting on his knees. “This
is not working.”
Toudou allowed his neck to fall limp, letting out a long exhale. His ass was
stinging and nothing had even got in. Damn it. “What are we doing wrong?”
“I told you it would hurt.”
“Yeah, but… many people do it, even straight couples, so it must be possible.”
Maki-chan lay down next to him, placing his hand on his chest. “Some people get
turned on by pain. Unfortunately, I’m not part of that lot.”
“But it shouldn’t be this hard,” Toudou mused out loud. Maki-chan pushed his
face near him, until he could lean his nose against his cheek. A warm breath
made Toudou’s hair flutter and his skin tickle. He raised his hand and caressed
Maki-chan’s temple absent-mindedly.
Let’s take a moment to analyze this. The sphincter needs to be tight; otherwise
everyone would just shit their pants constantly. But if something can come out
through it, it should be possible to push something in too.
“Jinpachi,” Maki-chan began tentatively. “Can I ask you something?”
”Sure, Maki-chan, ask whatever you like.” Some crazy people push their fist or
arm up there, so one chinchin shouldn’t be a big deal. Maybe we should have
first tried to see if we could get something smaller in first. Like, maybe, a
finger. If Maki-chan wants to stick his finger into my ass, that is.”
“Have you ever been with a girl?”
Toudou lost his composure immediately. “What?! Why?! Why do you want to know
that?”
“I just wanted to know if it’s this hard with a girl. I don’t mean… in the
butt, but like regular stuff.”
“Hmh, it shouldn’t be that hard.” Toudou was pretty sure that the guys would
have talked about it if it was.
“But you don’t know?” Maki-chan checked.
Toudou pressed his palms against his face. “Alright, no. I don’t know. I’ve
never been with a girl.”
”Jinpachi,” Maki-chan repeated his name, again tentatively. “Are you a virgin?”
Toudou felt his face heat up beneath his hands. “Argh, why does it sound so
horrible? It’s like if you asked me if I were a serial killer with syphilis.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Maki-chan muttered. “It’s okay if you are a
virgin. I had just assumed the opposite since you seem to have a lot of girls
hanging around you.”
Toudou dropped his hands. His face was burning. ”I do, and I could have done
stuff with them if I’d wanted to. But I never really had the urge to. Besides,
I don’t know if I’m still a virgin. My dick has been in your mouth and yours
has been in mine. That counts as sex, right?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it counts but is it actually losing your virginity? Who
knows?”
”Aah, fuck it. No, I don’t have any experience with girls and I don’t know if
it’s any easier. I’d imagine that it is. But that hole has been designed to get
something pushed in it.”
“That’s true.”
“Maybe we should ask someone with some experience with girls.” Toudou glanced
at his partner. “Do you want to ask Kinjou or Tadokoro?”
Maki-chan looked like Toudou had told him to ask his teammates about a
treatment for crabs. “Not particularly, no.”
“But if the opportunity presents itself?”
“Mhm, I can’t imagine such a situation, but alright, if it somehow comes up,
I’ll ask them.”
“Good.” It was easier for Maki-chan to ask about it, since his teammates
already knew that he didn’t have experiences with girls. If Toudou on the other
hand went and blurted out something… hmm, well, maybe Shinkai was capable of a
civilized conversation. Toudou just needed to be left alone with him and that
was a bit difficult considering that either Arakita or Izumida was constantly
hot on his heels. And sometimes Fuku too.
Their chatting turned back to physical action when Toudou turned his head,
brushing his lips against Maki-chan’s. His groin was beginning to stir again
and their touching would have probably led into something even more intimate,
if Manami’s pretentiously bright voice hadn’t echoed from outside the tent.
“Oi, Toudou-san, Makishima-san! Have you finished your make out session? We’re
going to have breakfast together before driving up to today’s stage!”
“I told you it would be a terrible idea to give it a try in the morning,” Maki-
chan muttered.
“Why is that fiend even awake at this hour?”
Maki-chan picked up his cell phone, taking a look at the screen. “It looks like
it’s already half past eight. I think everyone else is up as well.”
Toudou pressed his palms back onto his face, rubbing it. “But it was seven just
a minute ago.” It had been seven when the camp had been dead quiet and he had
woken up to the birds chirping and the first rays of sun piercing through the
tent wall. It hadn’t been more than ten past when he had pressed his morning
wood against Maki-chan’s bare ass and snaked his fingers around his torso,
caressing his nipples, flat stomach and the patch of coarse hair downstairs
long enough for his partner to wake up. From there, things had smoothly
proceeded into kissing and touching which had turned a bit heated towards the
end and then Toudou had coaxed Maki-chan into moving on top of him, hoping that
their ministrations would get their final fulfillment. Blah, it hadn’t worked.
“Get lost, Manami!” Toudou snapped. ”We’re going to stay in the tent for the
whole day.”
“And you’d miss the second last stage of the race and the most beautiful city
of France?” Manami sounded surprisingly delighted saying it; although that was
how he always sounded, no matter what the subject was. ‘Oh, my biking shorts
tore and I have nothing underneath.’ A delighted tone. ‘Hey, today’s menu is
shiokara.’ A delighted tone. ’My my, somebody forgot to flush the toilet.’ A
delighted tone. Maybe some day somebody was going to explain the mystery that
was Manami Sangaku.
“Weren’t we supposed to keep a low profile?” Maki-chan whispered. “If we stay
in our tent for the whole day, it’ll be crystal clear to everyone what’s going
on.”
“I just don’t feel like walking around with a big group.”
“Let’s see if we had a chance to slip away at some point.”
“Yep. I suppose we have to do that,” Toudou huffed, hauling himself up.
* * *
After the stage (a Portuguese guy won, Izumida remembered the name, no one else
did) they drove to the nearby city of Annecy. Toudou was glad that they hadn’t
stayed in the tent because already at first glance Annecy looked like worthy of
its nickname. Set by a lake, the city was with its canals, small alleys,
gorgeous flowerbeds and colourful buildings like a mix of Venice and fairytale
book illustrations. Not that Toudou had visited either but he had seen
pictures.
“The Lake Annecy is the cleanest one in Europe,” Maki-chan read out loud from a
brochure he had taken from the town info.
“It looks like it,” Toudou said, his eyes lingering at the clear blue canal. He
almost wanted to go swimming but the day was the coldest they had had during
the whole trip and they had needed to put long-sleeved shirts on. A brisk wind
blew from the lake, making their skin break out in goosebumps.
“One of the obligatory sights is a fortress called Le Palais de l’Ile standing
in the middle of the canal. Then there’s an old town and an ‘exceptionally
beautiful’ pedestrian street,” Maki-chan continued reading.
“Alright, which one is closest?” Manami asked from behind them.
Okay, so their wish to sneak away from the other group had proved to be quite
an impossible task. They were meant to head to Paris for the last stage of the
Tour that evening. A good five-hour drive didn’t sound like the most appealing
way to spend time, but Mr. Pierre had promised that they’d be staying in a
hotel that night. After several phone calls to local hotels, he had found a
place for them. But before the drive they were to check Annecy as good as they
could with such a strict schedule and scattering around in such a small town –
when they were meant to ogle at the same attractions – had just sounded stupid,
so Toudou and Maki-chan had gotten some stalkers. Fortunately, there were only
two of them. Unfortunately, one of them was Manami. The other one was Sohoku’s
miracle child. Toudou had noted that Maki-chan had quite happily accepted
taking Onoda with them and Four-eyes didn’t really bother him either (if the
fact that he wasn’t alone with Maki-chan was excluded) but having Manami
following them didn’t actually make him jump with joy.
“Maybe you could check your own map,” Toudou turned to tell the happy idiot.
”What own map?”
”The one we gave you at the town info.”
“Oh, that one. I might have left it on a bridge rail.”
Toudou rolled his eyes. Naturally. He didn’t dare lecture Manami about it
because Onoda was already listening to their conversation with cautious eyes,
looking like he would dive into the canal if Toudou raised his voice.
“We’re pretty close to the old town and the fortress,” Maki-chan said after
checking the map.
”Let’s head there first then.”
They trudged along by the side of the canal, stopping every now and then to
photograph some interesting things. Onoda was quite eager to use his camera and
delayed the journey the most. Occasionally Toudou turned to peek at the first-
years over his shoulder. Onoda was happily explaining something to Manami….
apparently something about an anime. Manami seemed to be listening – he was
looking at Onoda and smiling encouragingly – but Toudou knew better. He used
the same trick at school when he didn’t want to listen to the teacher: he froze
his face in an attentive expression while his brain went into hibernation.
Toudou noticed that he was even more conscious about Maki-chan’s presence and
his steps felt lighter than ever. His head had played the same record
(boyfriends!!??) for so long that he should have gotten used to it already, but
every time the thought still managed to flip his stomach. And every now and
then when their eyes met and their lips stretched into a knowing smile, Toudou
reckoned that Maki-chan was feeling the same as him. Everything was new and
exciting, and on one hand he didn’t want to tell the others, because the
response could be anything from a cake party to being thrown out of their
circle of friends, but on the other hand he wanted the whole world to know
about his happiness. Besides, he would have liked to hold Maki-chan’s hand, to
test what would it feel like to do something that bold in public. In front of
strangers. Who cared what they did in a city that they would probably never
visit again? He wasn’t bothered by the idea of some French people seeing; they
were supposed to be liberal and all. But it would be a different matter if the
first-years saw them. Manami didn’t need any more material for his fantasies.
However, in the moments when their followers’ attention turned to some weird
looking ducks splashing in the canal, Toudou noticed his fingers fumble around
at his side, looking for another set of fingers. Maki-chan recoiled when their
hands touched, but didn’t pull away. Toudou waited for a few seconds before
wrapping his pinkie loosely around Maki-chan’s.
Jesus Christ. How was it possible that such a small gesture felt so intimate
after everything they had done in their tent?
When the first-years turned towards them, Toudou let go of Maki-chan’s finger
and tried to look like nothing had happened. Maki-chan tucked his hands in his
pockets, turning away from the brats, his face against the wind. Toudou
realized he should have done the same when Manami opened his uncontrollable
piehole.
”Wow, Toudou-san, were you thinking dirty thoughts?”
”No, I wasn’t. Why’s that?”
“Your face is all red and your eyes are gleaming strangely.”
“I was just entertaining myself with the thought of throwing you into the
canal.”
Onoda let out a tiny yelp and took a step back, but Manami just laughed. “I bet
you and Maki-san were just groping each other right when we turned our backs.”
Sometimes Toudou felt like Manami only existed to destroy other people’s lives.
Onoda looked taken aback. His innocent blue eyes flickered from Toudou to Maki-
chan and back, his mouth hanging stupidly agape. He looked like he wanted to
ask something but chickened out in the end. Maybe he would ask when he was
alone with Maki-chan. Toudou was glad that Maki-chan was actually a pretty good
liar.
They walked through the fortress and the old town before heading to rest their
aching feet in an inexpensive looking restaurant.
“Phew, sometimes walking feels more exhausting that road racing.” Toudou huffed
as he slumped down onto a chair and placed his bag of souvenirs on the floor.
He had bought a couple of gifts in Alpe d’Huez, but of course he had had to get
souvenirs from the most beautiful town of the country.
“The first part of the night will be nicely spent in the car,” Manami said.
“Gaah, don’t even talk about it.” Toudou straightened his posture when the
waiter materialized beside their table with menus.
”Bonjour, Monsieurs. Blahblahblah! Blahblahblah?”
Perhaps the most unbelievable thing about French people was that they
automatically assumed that every foreigner spoke their language, and even when
the poor tourist indicated that they didn’t understand, the more persistent
locals just happily continued their gibberish. The best way was just to nod,
smile and place some ‘Ouis’ here and there.
At this point of a restaurant gig the waiter usually asked what they wanted to
drink so Maki-chan ordered them a bottle of mineral water and the waiter left
looking more or less satisfied.
Toudou inspected the menu. During the trip, he had learned a few words for food
and he already understood which of the dishes had chicken in them. “I really
need to have something light for a change. Which of these is a salad?”
“Try number three,” Maki-chan suggested.
He had the same as Toudou but Manami and Onoda ended up ordering a seafood
dish. Something that could be a clam soup as well as a plate of fried shrimps.
“I can’t wait to order something that’s not a surprise,” Toudou said after the
waiter had left. “Although after nine days in this country, I can say that
three out of four dishes contain something made of wheat flour.”
“Stop complaining. Nobody forces you to eat baguette.”
Toudou sneered and let Maki-chan have his opinion.
”I need to go to the bathroom,” Onoda said then, pushing his chair back
“I’ll come too,” Maki-chan said, getting to his feet.
Toudou was automatically straining his leg muscles because he didn’t want to be
left alone with Manami at the table, but he had already used the bathroom in
that fortress just twenty minutes ago and if he went again so soon, the others
might suspect that he had a loose stomach or something. Besides, the
restaurants here only had a maximum of two booths and it would have only looked
desperate to loiter outside. So he stayed.
It seemed like Manami had been waiting for the opportunity because right after
Maki-chan and Onoda had disappeared into the bathrooms, he leaned closer to
Toudou. The cunning look on his face didn’t promise anything good.
“Have you thought about what I said before?”
“When?”
”In that medieval town. Remember?”
Yes, Toudou remembered very clearly what that little vermin had coughed out of
his throat, but he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “You’ve
said a lot of stupid things during this trip. There’s no way I could remember
all of them.”
“I asked if it would be okay with you if somebody, say, me, asked Maki-chan
out.”
“Oh yeah.” Toudou lifted his hand on the level of his eyes and pretended to
examine his nails. “Sure, why not?”
“And it wouldn’t bother you?”
”Why would it? Maki-chan can make his own decisions. However, I wouldn’t
necessarily expect the most fruitful outcome.” Are you seriously thinking I
can’t see through your game? Have you already forgotten what you were hollering
outside our tent this morning? God damn it, even those waiters get what’s going
on and they don’t even speak Japanese!
“How come?”
“I’m not sure if you’re his type.”
“And you know what his type is?”
Toudou cracked a cryptic smile. “I might.” He was sensing some level of
frustration radiating from Manami.
“Well, what is it?”
”Maybe you can ask him yourself.”
”Maybe. Though I don’t really trust that ‘type’ thing. People’s tastes are not
that confined. But if it’s okay with you, I’m going to ask him if he wants to
go out with me sometime.”
“Go ahead. I already told you that it’s fine by me.”
“Well then, on our way back, could you maybe pull Sakamichi-kun to the side for
a while so I can talk to Maki-chan privately?”
God, the punk was persistent.
”Sure, I can do that,” Toudou agreed. “Although I have no idea what to say to
him. I haven’t watched anime in years.”
Manami was quiet for a moment. His lips pursed as if he was either chewing on
Toudou’s words or considering another argument. Toudou picked up the menu from
the table and pretended to inspect the desserts while he waited for the young
climber’s next move.
“Okay, I give up,” Manami huffed. “You win. Fucking hell, Toudou-san, you have
some poker face! I have no idea why people call you a bad actor.”
“W-what?!” Toudou realized that his voice had gotten needlessly high. ”People
call me a bad actor?!”
Maki-chan called you that in the morning. In fact, he said you were a hopeless
actor.
That’s different. I wasn’t trying then.
”Yeah. I mean, sometimes. Some people.” Manami waved his hand. ”Doesn’t matter
now as it’s obviously not true.” Then the little demon’s lips stretched into a
genuine smile, one that reached his eyes. “You saw right through me from the
beginning, didn’t you?”
It depended on if Manami meant today or the previous conversation in Oingt.
“Well, yes, I did”, he only said, trying to sound very modest.
Laughing, Manami shook his head. “Damn. Could you give the loser something, at
least admit that you and Maki-chan are involved in flirtation.”
Toudou raised his brows. “Seriously? Flirtation? I thought that word was
obsolete.”
“Who cares if it’s old when you understood it?”
“I don’t recommend using it in practise if you don’t want Kuroda to call you an
old geezer.”
“I think I’ll live through Kuroda-san’s lecturing,” Manami said, smiling
angelically. “But don’t change the subject. Maki-chan and Sakamichi-kun will be
back any minute.”
Toudou weighed out his options. They both already knew that Manami knew as much
as it was possible to without seeing it with his own eyes. Besides, he yearned
to tell someone, even if that person was Manami. “Do you think you can keep
your mouth shut?”
“Have I said something to others until now?”
“I can’t even count how many times!”
“Come on, I’ve only been kidding. Nobody has taken it seriously.”
“Will you stop that if I tell you the truth?”
Manami lifted his hand solemnly. “I swear!”
“Alright. Maki-chan and I are dating.”
Manami jumped to his feet, slamming his hands together. “Hah, I knew it!”
“Why don’t you shout a bit louder, so we get the waiters to throw you out?”
Manami dropped back against his chair, grinning victoriously. “I knew it.”
”I heard that already.”
“I’ve known for a while.”
“That is quite strange since this only became official a few days ago.”
”Seriously?” Manami looked genuinely surprised. ”I would have thought that you
had been going out for a year or something.”
Toudou leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “You were wrong.”
“Does anyone else know?”
”No, and that’s why you have to keep your mouth shut.”
“Of course. I promised already, didn’t I?”
“Alright, you got what you wanted. Now let’s drop this subject before your
four-eyed friend hears us. Besides, Maki-chan doesn’t need to know that I told
you. Try to look like we have only been discussing cycling.”
“Sure thing, Toudou-san.”
Luckily their food arrived at the table simultaneously with the missing Sohoku
duo, so what Toudou and Manami might have talked about was left in the shadow
of the meal.
“Wait a minute! This is not a salad,” Toudou pointed out as he stared a soup
plate with big junks of vegetables swimming in a red broth.
“You’re right, it’s not. It’s ratatouille,” Maki-chan said. He didn’t sound
sorry at all even though he had misled Toudou. “We haven’t eaten it yet so I
thought it was about time.”
“Maki-chan…”
“It’s a very famous dish and only consists of vegetables. Does it matter if the
vegs are cooked or raw? Just taste it.”
Blargh. Okay, maybe he should try it. It wasn’t like he could send it back.
Besides, it smelled quite tempting.
It turned out to be good. Not as good as Toudou would have thought based on the
famousness of the dish – he would have been more generous with the spices – but
it wasn’t hard to empty his plate. And he had to admit that a hot soup was
better suited for a chilly day. The dish was probably meant to be eaten with
bread but he left that for the others.
Maybe he would have enjoyed the meal more if their pocket demon hadn’t
constantly stared at his and Maki-chan’s interactions and tried to wink at him
not-so-subtly. The only reason why Toudou didn’t jump to strangle Manami was
that Maki-chan didn’t seem to notice.
* * *
The sun was already setting when they returned to the camping area. They were
planning to have a bite to eat, pack their stuff, climb into the van and say
goodbye to Southern France. Even though their travelling mates were beginning
to get on everyone’s nerves and the diet hurt their condition, a tiny amount of
nostalgia was lingering in Toudou’s mind when he thought about all the things
that had happened during the holiday and how he would probably never visit
these locations again. Luckily Maki-chan and what they had was coming with him
to Japan.
Cleaning of the camp was nearing its end already, thanks to Kinjou, Fuku,
Izumida and the rest of diligent souls that had returned earlier from the town
tour. Toudou stuffed his souvenirs into his bag and headed for the bathrooms to
freshen up before the dull car ride. In the bathrooms, he ran into Shinkai.
“Hi, Jinpachi,” the redhead greeted, the same tireless smile resting on his
lips. “How was your sightseeing tour?”
“It was alright. We visited that fortress standing in the middle of the canal
and the old town.”
“We went there too.”
“Then we had ratatouille for lunch.”
”Oh, that we didn’t do.”
“You didn’t miss out a lot. It wasn’t that good.”
“Heh, alright. How’s your ear, by the way?”
“It’s fine, I guess. Not clogged anymore.”
“Good. That might have caused some problems at the airplane.”
Shinkai waited for Toudou to wash his face and arrange his hair (the windy day
had blown it into a mess and he wondered, slightly terrified, if he had looked
this rickety the whole day). As they began to wander back at the camp, Toudou
realized that this was the chance he had been hoping for: he was alone with
Shinkai. Although his teammate would soon become suspicious since he was asking
such strange questions all the time. But they were nearing the camp and he was
running out of time. It was better to leave out all the prompting and just
blurt what he wanted to say straight out.
”Hayato, um…” he cleared his throat. “Have you… have you ever done it with
Ayane… like, from behind?”
Shinkai looked only a little surprised about his question. “Eh, yes? It’s a
pretty common position.”
“No, I mean… the other hole. Like, buttsex?” Toudou hoped his face wasn’t
flaming as badly as it felt.
“Oh? No, we haven’t done that. Ayane is not that excited about it.”
No wonder.
“Why’s that?” Shinkai asked. Of course he would ask.
”Just thinking.”
”Have you thought... you know, about maybe giving it a try?”
Toudou had been expecting that question too, but his answer wasn’t as ready as
he had hoped. In fact, it was not ready at all. But of course he had to say
yes; why the hell would have he been asking for it otherwise? ‘Oh, I’m just
doing a poll here. You don’t happen to know if Fuku or Arakita have tried it,
by any chance?’
Shinkai looked at him and maybe there was something expecting in his gaze but
it was lacking any pressure. Shinkai never pressured. Toudou lowered his eyes.
Fallen leaves lying on the grass suddenly looked extremely interesting.
“Um… it crossed my mind, yeah,” he muttered eventually.
“Well, if you ever decide to give it a try, get a lot of lube. A lot of lube.”
That made his head snap up. “O-oh?”
“Yep. Since, y’know..? That hole doesn’t produce its own lubrication.”
Now that Shinkai said it, of course Toudou understood. Of course butts didn’t
make their own lubrication. They would need lube, because screwing a dry hole
probably felt as good as masturbating with a cheese grater. Argh, god, he was
such an idiot sometimes!
He didn’t ask how Shinkai knew if he had never tried it. Maybe Shinkai had
thought about trying it and studied the matter beforehand, maybe he just knew
for some other reason. Toudou didn’t ask, because Shinkai didn’t ask more
questions. This could be handled smoothly, without unnecessary embarrassing
queries.
“What else should I take into account?” Toudou dared to ask.
“Proceed slowly. First with one finger, then with two and so on.”
Oo-kay. Now he started to understand. How wrong they had done it in the
morning! And if that creep that Maki-chan had lost his virginity to had done it
the same way, it was no wonder it had hurt. Toudou was burning to tell him what
he had learned.
He looked at his teammate a bit timidly. “Um, could you not tell the others
what I asked?”
Shinkai smiled. “Of course.”
Their spot came into view and for starters they were greeted by Arakita’s
scream that probably echoed through half of the camping area. “Shinkai! Yo,
asshat, drag your lazy carcass in here! The food is getting cold and the Bepsi
is going stale!”
“Your foul-mouthed appendix is shouting something.”
Shinkai laughed. “Yeah, it seems so. I guess I need to go and shut his mouth.
I’m getting kinda hungry already. Did you want to ask anything else, Jinpachi?”
“No. No, that was all. Um… thanks, Hayato.”
“No worries. You’ve got to help a pal out, right?”
“Shinkai, you fucking wanker! Get the fuck back here right now! Oi, you hear
me, dickwad?!”
Toudou might have blinked a few times too many. “Did he swallow a swear word
encyclopedia or something?” Sure, Arakita had always had a crude vocabulary,
but his language sounded a bit too strong considering the situation.
“Nah. We just happened to wander into a small beer brewery earlier and Yasutomo
might have tasted too many of their products. We bought a couple of bottles to
take along too.”
“Fuku will be so happy.”
”I’m sure. Well, I guess I need to go and make sure that Yasutomo is not
smashed when we begin our ride to Paris.”
Toudou huffed. “Please!” Five hours in the car with a drunken Arakita would be
an experience to put medieval torturing to shame.
Shinkai waved his hand at Toudou, heading back to their cranky teammate.
Toudou’s gaze followed him as he played their conversation over in his head
again, musing about how it was such a blessing that friends like Shinkai Hayato
existed.
And since his eyes lingered on the receding figure of his friend, he also
happened to witness how Arakita slapped Shinkai on the butt.
Chapter End Notes
     An artistic licence: There very probably isn’t a beer brewery in
     Annecy.
***** The Last Time *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“What the hell did you do that for?” Shinkai hissed. “Jinpachi saw us!”
”Sorry, it was a reflex,” Yasutomo defended himself. His voice contained no
bluster – in fact it was slurring a bit – and his posture was radiating
submission. “But Toudou’s not gonna get it anyway.”
“I certainly hope not,” Shinkai grunted and on a whim, slapped Yasutomo back.
“Let’s try to make it look like this is some sort of inside joke. There’s
Juichi. Go on, slap his ass too.”
“I’m not gonna fucking slap his ass. You slap it, you fucking faggot!”
And this not-so-innocent conversation led to the quite peculiar and awkward
moment where Shinkai Hayato came to slap his stone-faced captain Fukutomi
Juichi on his well-formed buttocks.
Yasutomo’s face could have been framed on a wall. And Juichi’s too, as he
turned around to see who had abused his rear.
“Hey, Juichi,” Shinkai said as naturally as he could.
Juichi cleared his throat. “Shinkai. Arakita.”
”We went to the famous beer brewery of Annecy,” Shinkai explained. “They
offered us a lot of free samples.”
“Mhm, I see.” Juichi coughed again. His face was switching colours in a strange
manner. First, it looked green but then it turned red and then back to normal.
“Well, that explains a lot.”
“Wanna have some, Fuku-chan? Fucking great stuff.” Yasutomo fished a bottle out
of his bag and pushed it towards Juichi’s hand.
Juichi looked at him sternly. “When we’re back at home, I’m going to put you on
the rollers for three hours. For every practise session. For two weeks.
Alongside the normal training.”
”Ah, come on, Fuku-chan! Shinkai has been stuffing his face like a sumo
wrestler for the whole damn trip. Besides, what the fuck for would we train
now? The Inter High is over already.”
“Does that mean you want to stop road racing after one single big race? And
Shinkai burns every calorie he eats.”
“Don’t I burn it then?” Yasutomo pointed at his lean frame. “Oi, Shinkai, do
you think I have been putting on weight?” You should kno–” He snapped his mouth
shut at the last second, and Shinkai realized that this was one hell of a good
moment to confiscate all the alcohol and drag Yasutomo to cool off in an icy
lake. “I’m not gonna stop racing,” Yasutomo continued, trying to reconcile.
“But teachers are gonna force us to stop anyway and study for the university
exams. Secondly, a few beers do nothing to you.”
“Alcohol is way unhealthier for your body than other things.”
“Shinkai is drinking too! Why don’t you lecture him?”
“Don’t you drag me under the bus with you,” Shinkai muttered.
“You have also been smoking,” Juichi said. His arms had been crossed over his
chest.
“One mini pack throughout the whole trip!”
“Hey, Juichi, don’t worry. I’m going to watch over him and see that he won’t
get smashed”, Shinkai promised.
“And we only have a couple of bottles left.”
Juichi didn’t look convinced. “On a second thought, I think I’m going to accept
your gift.” Then he snatched the bag from Yasutomo’s grasp.
Yasutomo looked like he was going to protest but in the end decided it was best
to keep his mouth shut if he didn’t want the two weeks on the rollers to become
three. Juichi turned on his heels and went to take the bag to the car.
“Fuck. I shouldn’t have offered him,” Yasutomo groaned.
“It looks like he gave them to Mr. Pierre,” Shinkai said, peering at the car.
“Well, the poor man deserves a few beers after babysitting us for a week and a
half.”
“As long as he doesn’t drink them before our drive.”
“I’m pretty sure people here in France always drive in a small buzz.”
“I’m still not very excited about a drunken driver on winding mountain roads.”
“I don’t think he’s going to drink them at all. Look, now he went to pack them
in the back of the car.”
“That’s where we sit. We’re probably gonna get them back.”
“Come on, it wasn’t that good.” Shinkai wasn’t even that fond of beer. Too
bitter, not enough sweet.
“Are you shitting me? It was the fucking best beer I have ever tasted! It was
almost as tasty as Bepsi. Almost.” Yasutomo stared at him insistently, trying
to get him to agree. Shinkai stood his ground. His companion was getting a bit
too drunk; he should really help him sober up before the drive.
“Shall we go and see if the café is still open?” he suggested. A cup of strong
coffee might clear Yasutomo’s head.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“I don’t want any coffee. I’m just going to feel like peeing the whole drive.”
“You think that amount of beer won’t have the same effect?”
“But coffee wouldn’t help the situation.”
Yasutomo had a point. Shinkai didn’t really feel like drinking coffee either.
Maybe they should take a short walk instead.
Yasutomo rocked on the balls of his feet, his hands in his pockets, and stared
at Shinkai with half glassy, half sharp eyes. “Shinkai, I have a boner.”
“Are you sure? You’ve downed quite a few doses of alcohol.”
“Oi, I’m just a bit drunk, not shitfaced. Try for yourself if you don’t believe
me.” Yasutomo offered him the front of his pants.
“I think I’ll pass, thank you very much.”
“Hnngh, this is annoying.”
“There’s no helping it now.”
”Let’s go to the bathrooms.”
Shinkai felt like he should have been shocked, but Yasutomo’s suggestion didn’t
really sway him. But he had been drinking beer too. “We’re not going to the
bathrooms. In thirty minutes, we’ll be heading to Paris.”
“In thirty minutes we can do it twice.”
“Weren’t we going to eat something?”
“Let’s eat in the car.”
“Yasutomo, no.”
”Yasutomo, yes.”
“No.”
Yasutomo leaned closer so that Shinkai could feel his beer-wafting breath ghost
his ear, making him shiver. “I know you want to.”
You’re right about that, but I still won’t give in.
“Let’s wait until Paris.”
”It will be two or something when we get there and there’ll be another
ridiculously early wake up call in the morning. Besides, we might not get a
room to ourselves.”
The forthcoming night would be their last in France. The flight to Japan would
leave in the early evening the next day. And even though Shinkai hadn’t talked
about it with Yasutomo – because you didn’t just talk about such things – they
both knew that their little agreement would end there. What happened in France,
stayed in France, like Yasutomo had said to Jinpachi about smoking.
That meant that they were running out of chances.
“We can’t... in a public bathroom,” he said, reasoning with himself as much as
with Yasutomo. “There will be people constantly popping in and out. Some of our
lot might come there.”
“There’s a separate handicap toilet.”
“It’s not soundproof either.”
“Maybe you don’t have to scream like a dying man.”
Shinkai was annoyed by the fact that even Yasutomo’s hinting made his body perk
up. Soon there would be two idiots with boners standing in the spot.
The change had happened in two days or more likely during those minutes when
Yasutomo had fucked him with the Adam Sandler movie playing on the background
(he could never watch that movie again – and probably not any other Sandler
movie either). The association was already so strong that even mental images of
trashcans didn’t offer any help. He could practically hear his defence
crumbling down – although, god forbid, who wanted to have sex in a filthy
public toilet? – but he still tried to argue just for the sake of it.
“What if the others begin to wonder where we are? I just returned from the
bathrooms. It would look suspicious if I immediately went back there.”
Yasutomo lifted his hand, checking his wrist for an imaginary watch (he hadn’t
ever worn a watch during the time Shinkai had known him). “We’ve already lost
two minutes. Soon we won’t have the time anymore.”
Argh. Fucking hell.
”Is someone looking at us?” Shinkai asked.
Yasutomo’s lips spread into a wide grin and he peeked over Shinkai. “Nope.
Nobody cares.”
“But all the utilities are in your bag.”
“Wrong.” Yasutomo looked at him, his eyes dripping with shrewdness. He rummaged
in his pocket until Shinkai could see the outline of a tube. He didn’t even try
to work out at what point Yasutomo had dug the condoms and the lube (real lube
that they had finally found in a shop) out of his bag. Had he been walking
around with them the whole day? No, probably he had gotten them after they had
returned to the camp, but he must have planned this out, nonetheless.
If Yasutomo had thought it through this far that he had even sneaked the
utilities in his pocket during the busy packing session, who was Shinkai to
argue? He needed to appreciate his teammate’s efforts. And he couldn’t deny
that his blood had began to circulate all too fast in his groin and the front
of his pants would soon pitch a tent that every passer-by would see.
“Fuck, let’s go then,” he huffed.
Yasutomo patted him on the back. “I knew you would listen to the sound of
reason.”
When the bathroom door slammed shut behind them and Yasutomo turned the lock,
Shinkai almost backed out – because what the actual hell?! – but this was one
of those moments when it was better to abandon all rational thinking. In fact,
those moments had been quite regular over the past few days. Common sense was
hiding beneath the surface, trying to occasionally break into conscious
thinking, but the topmost layer of his mind had developed an effective security
system around it. ‘Rational thoughts, clear-headedness, moral? Ha, we don’t
need such things here! Get lost!’ So he bid his farewell to hesitation and
tugged his pants down while Yasutomo did the same. The place smelled like a
heavy chemical and all the stuff they tried to cover with it, there were pieces
of wet, mushy toilet paper lying on the floor and splashes all over the walls
that he thankfully didn’t see in all their glory since the toilet’s only light
bulb was blown and the only source of light was the rays of sunset filtering
through the curtain of room’s little window. The camping area bathrooms in this
country couldn’t exactly brag about their cleanliness.
“Don’t touch anything before you touch me,” Shinkai warned before turning his
back on Yasutomo and leaning over the toilet tank. Not the most comfortable
position out there, he decided when his arms protested the ice cold surface,
but it didn’t really matter now. He wondered when baring his ass to a teammate
had stopped feeling weird, and maybe he was the tiniest bit ashamed of the
willingness he offered his ass to Yasutomo with, but at the same time there was
something extremely arousing in it. His cock bobbed hopefully to its full
measures, and he was already becoming accustomed to the pulsing in his groin
spreading between his buttocks.
“I was going to touch the condom and lube.”
“But don’t touch any surfaces.” Who knew what kind of gonorrhoea was lurking on
them?
“Didn’t even cross my mind to.”
Shinkai kept his head straight, his gaze fixed on one spot in order to avoid
noticing something so gross that he would lose his arousal, listening to the
sounds coming from behind him. The rustling of the tinfoil wrapper, snapping of
the rubber, Yasutomo’s slightly laboured breath… they all made him shiver with
anticipation. Since their peculiar (and somewhat extended) experiment didn’t
include any kissing, unnecessary touching or displays of affection, his body
had become sensitized to respond even the tiniest stimulus. Yasutomo only
touched him after getting the condom on; his hand grasped Shinkai’s hips,
firmly and decisively. Shinkai felt a jolt in his lower body and he took a
quivering breath.
“Fuck, these condoms are freaky,” Yasutomo muttered. “My dick is shining like a
fucking lightsaber.”
“Aren’t you flattering yourself a bit, now?” Shinkai remarked, making Yasutomo
answer with a sneer. He knew he was going to pay for his comment. Yasutomo was
going to make him feel every inch of his ‘lightsaber’.
Fingers slick with lube glided between his buttocks and first he jerked out of
reflex, but the feeling was already so familiar that he could relax. A hiss
left his lips as he inhaled sharply between his teeth when the fingers pushed
inside him, stretching and dropping jots of pleasure on the way. He knew where
to look for them now when they were past the initial clumsiness. The difference
between lotion and real lube was significant. The slicking effect was in the
league of its own and it lasted longer than lotion that tended to absorb and
not offer any help towards the end.
He was still loose from the night before. Yasutomo noticed it too and withdrew
his fingers after a few thrust, only to replace them with his cock. He inched
inside with careful, slow, torturing glide, making Shinkai grunt with
frustration. Alcohol in Yasutomo’s blood didn’t really affect his erection one
bit, he was as hard as always.
Yasutomo rolled his hips, gliding deeper, and pulled out, finding a light,
almost playful rhythm. Both of his hands were squeezing Shinkai’s hips,
preventing him from pushing back.
“Heh, stay still, will ya?”
Hnnrgh! Shinkai gritted his teeth. Yasutomo was clearly enjoying his
frustration, and the more he showed it, the wilier his partner became. Like the
night before when he had just… rocked against him like he was swaying on the
lazy waves of a calm day, clearly planning to continue for hours and let him
curse and groan and grind his teeth until he sprained his jaws. And then when
Shinkai had already decided that he couldn’t take the torment any second longer
and he would throw his partner on his back and ride him, Yasutomo had abruptly
changed the channel. From classical to hard rock, no puns or Ashikibas
intended.
Shinkai might have been a bit noisy after that. Yasutomo had remarked that it
would be nothing short of a miracle if nobody asked them anything in the
morning.
The miracle had not happened. Jinpachi had asked Yasutomo if Shinkai tended to
shout a lot in his sleep. Yasutomo had said yes and described how he had to
shake Shinkai awake many times a night because of his solo concerts. Jinpachi
had looked at Makishima, stated ‘What did I say?’ and left it at that. It had
left Shinkai careful, but as their trip was nearing its end, there wouldn’t be
more situations that could raise suspicions.
“Could you… possibly… move… any faster?”
“Hmm, let’s see,” Yasutomo pretended to think about it. “No.”
Of course not. ”Haa-ah… bastard.” Shinkai rested his cheek on his arms,
momentarily concentrating on searching for his self-restraint. Yasutomo was
right, this time he really should control his volume. But if Yasutomo had known
how this felt to him… if he had experienced himself how agonizingly he was
massaging the walls of Shinkai’s passage and how he nonchalantly brushed that
spot that made his erection twitch…
This time the torture didn’t last too long. Either the drunkenness was
affecting Yasutomo’s self-control or he had realized that they didn’t really
have minutes to spare, maybe both, but he picked up his pace without warning
and forced Shinkai to grasp the water tank tighter.
This was better but not enough yet. Shinkai was aware that the beer was
affecting his senses too, because even though the movements felt good to him,
they still could have been a bit rougher.
Oh well, desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Fuck, harder!” he urged. “Is your usage of intoxicants starting to affect your
stamina? Is that all your hips have got?”
“Someone is asking for a rough ride again, I presume?” Shinkai could hear the
grin in his partner’s voice.
“Apparently it’s not coming this time. Your hip work is somewhat lacking. Maybe
you should have skipped a few beers.”
”Fucking...” Yasutomo grunted, grasping his waist tighter. ”You insatiable
wench, I’m gonna show you hip work...”
The seconds that followed Yasutomo’s words didn’t leave any clear memory in
Shinkai’s head.
He remembered the slapping of bare skin against another, the nascent smell of
sweat, fingertips digging into his hips, Yasutomo’s suppressed grunts as he
pounded into him with an animalistic rage, and commanding barks, as he told him
to keep it down because ‘The whole camping area is going to hear, and lord on a
road racer, Shinkai, do you scream like this when you’re in the other role?’ He
also remembered wondering if his ass was capable of handling treatment this
rough, but then every bit of hesitation had drowned under his climax.
When he once again understood something about his surroundings, he noticed that
the toilet floor had gotten a new stain in its collection. And part of his load
might have hit the toilet seat too.
Yasutomo slumped against his back. Shinkai felt his last twitches inside him
and his hot breath through his shirt fabric, as he panted in the last waves of
his labour.
“You’re really starting to get on my condition,” he said after catching his
breath and lifted his head off Shinkai’s back. “Girls always whine about
hurting if you try to bang them a bit harder.”
Yep. Shinkai had some experience of that too. He assumed it was a question of
anatomy.
He was about to say that Yasutomo wouldn’t need to renew his performance
anymore, since their little ‘friends with benefits’ agreement would be over
after their return to Japan, but the words didn’t come out. It felt like the
comment would ruin the mood. And Yasutomo knew it already anyway. Perhaps he
was even thinking about it right now.
Yasutomo pulled out and patted Shinkai’s back. ”I think we should head back
before the others start wondering.”
“Mhm.” Shinkai snatched some toilet paper from the holder and wiped the lube
off his ass. Yasutomo peeled off the condom and dropped it in the trashcan
before pulling his pants back up and going to the sink to wash his hands.
Shinkai followed at a slightly slower pace.
His ass was hurting. Maybe it was good that their ministrations would get a
short break.
Or, not necessarily that short.
Shinkai firmly rejected any feelings that tried to follow the thought before he
could even recognize their nature. Better to keep the channel on zero in his
brain. That was how he had managed to cope this far.
Yasutomo waited for him to clean himself up before opening the door.
The bathrooms were empty apart from a middle-aged man who looked too blond to
be French and who was standing by the sinks looking like he had been there for
a while. The man stared at the mirror through his angular glasses and plucked
his moustache that was as blond as his hair. When he heard the door close, he
turned towards them and said something.
Yasutomo glanced at Shinkai who shrugged.
“We don’t speak French,” Yasutomo told the guy in English.
“Hah, yeah, I got that already. You don’t look French,” the man said in English
that lacked French accent. Maybe that was why he was easier to understand. He
was probably a tourist, just like them. Shinkai wasn’t too sure if he liked the
cunning expression lingering on the man’s face. “Where are you from? Thailand?”
Gaah, foreigners and their incredible inability to tell Asians apart. Thus far
they had been confused as Chinese, Malaysian, Korean and once even Eskimos.
“From Japan.”
“Ah, Japan! Interesting, interesting. Very exotic country!”
Shinkai wondered if they should have asked where the man was from for the sake
of politeness, but he really wasn’t that interested in engaging in small-talk
with a stranger. If they didn’t return soon, the others could come to look for
them.
“Well, we’re just going to go then–“ Yasutomo began, but the man interrupted
him.
“It’s just that…” he said, glancing around him and lowering his voice. “Would
you boys be interested in…” He nodded towards the handicap toilet. “..offering
the same kind of services for a reasonable amount of money?”
Yasutomo’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You guys really know how to have some fun together,” the man laughed. “I was
just wondering if you’d be willing to increase your holiday budget by… a bit of
group fun?”
Shinkai realized that his jaw had dropped. What? Was that man seriously
suggesting..?
“Fuck, gross! Come on, we’re leaving now!” Yasutomo barked at Shinkai in
Japanese.
”Don’t get unnecessarily embarrassed, boys! Of course this would just be
between us…”
But Yasutomo was already pulling Shinkai outside by the arm. They didn’t stop
at the front of the bathrooms but rushed, half-running, to the path leading to
their camp. Only after putting a proper distance between them and the creep,
did Yasutomo let go of Shinkai and glance over his shoulder to make sure that
the man hadn’t followed them.
“God damn, what a lewd old man!” he hissed, spitting on the ground.
“Was he seriously suggesting..?” Shinkai checked. He wasn’t sure about his
English.
“Yeah, he was. Fucking pervert.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re not going to talk about this. Ever,” Shinkai muttered.
Yasutomo tucked his hands into his pockets. “Deal.”
They slowed down, their shoes pattering on the gravel path. Many other campers
were packing their stuff now when the Tour had changed its location. They had
waited until the evening on purpose, thinking that the roads wouldn’t be too
crowded, so hopefully not many people had gotten the same idea.
Shinkai was the first one to burst. Laughter bubbled out of his mouth before he
even realized it was coming.
Yasutomo glowered at him for a moment before chuckling too. “Shit, we just had
to experience that too, didn’t we?” he asked, shaking his head.
“You probably noticed that he was looking specifically at you.”
“What are you talking about? He was definitely after your booty.”
“No way, he was practically measuring you with his eyes.”
Yasutomo snorted. “I guess he wanted us both. Hrr, what a disgusting creep.”
“Hey, Yasutomo?” Shinkai said a bit more seriously. ”Do I look like… we just
did something?”
His teammate peered at him carefully. “No. Your cheeks were kinda flushed
before but not anymore. How about me?”
“Your hair is a bit ruffled.” Shinkai lifted his hand, but Yasutomo beat him to
it and smoothed his hair by himself. Shinkai nodded. “Alright, that’s better.”
Even if someone at the camp had noticed their disappearance, they said nothing.
The others were packing the rest of their stuff and eating snacks. After
glancing at his phone, Shinkai realized they had been absent for only fifteen
minutes. Well, it had been quite a quickie.
“That was all,” Kinjou said after lifting the last bag in the car. “Everyone’s
here, right? Come on then, hop in, so we can get going.”
“I don’t want to sit next to Hotshot,” Naruko announced.
“You will sit where you’re told to sit,” Kinjou said with a voice that left no
room for argument, indicating that he was starting to get fed up with cramped
travelling and bickering companions, and the young sprinter snapped his mouth
shut. Kinjou let his stern gaze roam among the lot as if to ask if anyone else
dared to complain. Nobody said anything.
They packed themselves in the car and a fatally long drive to Paris began.
* * *
Shinkai woke up to the lights brushing against the car window. With some
effort, as his neck was protesting the long hours he had spent leaning against
the window, he lifted his head and peeked outside. The lights were becoming
more frequent and the traffic was getting busier even though it was probably
past midnight. He had no idea how long he had been sleeping and he shook
himself awake to check the other passengers. Kinjou was chatting in a hushed
voice with Mr. Pierre in the front seat. Naruko was sitting calmly and quietly
next to Imaizumi and playing something on his phone; the screen shone too
brightly in the dark car. Everyone else seemed to be sleeping. Tadokoro snored
but this time it was quiet since every time he let out a louder sound,
Makishima poked him between the ribs with his elbow. In the back on their row
of seats, Juichi was snoozing with his neck amazingly straight and his arms
crossed over his chest, looking like he wanted to advertise his catchphrase
even in his sleep. Izumida wasn’t far behind from him but at least his head had
dipped back against the seat.
Yasutomo was leaning on Shinkai’s shoulder, puffing long, warm breaths against
his neck. And drooling. His sleeve was wet. Instead of nudging his teammate
back up, Shinkai found himself smiling. Just let the others sleep as long as
possible. They’d be in Paris soon anyway. He pulled his phone out of his
pocket, checking the time. It was half past one. While he was at it, he also
noticed a familiar symbol in the top corner of the screen and opened the
message he had received.
‘Hey, what time are you here tomorrow? Shall we do something this weekend?’
Both he and Ayane were going to spend the rest of their holiday at home and
return to Hakogaku only at the end of August, but they had talked about
spending some time under the same roof. Shinkai had already told her that he
was going to stay home because of Usakichi and Ayane had agreed to that.
Shinkai’s parents would probably be fine with Ayane staying over. Ayane’s
parents were a different matter but supposedly she had a plan.
Shinkai wasn’t too fond of the tsunami of complicated feelings lurking in the
corner of his mind. He typed out a quick response (‘I can’t remember our time
of arrival now but I’ll let you know. I’ll call you later so we can talk about
the weekend.’) and hid the phone back in his pocket. His movements made
Yasutomo straighten up his posture but he stayed asleep.
Kinjou turned to look at him over his shoulder; he had probably heard him
typing.
“Where are we?” Shinkai formed a silent question with his lips.
“In Paris,” Kinjou answered equally silently.
“It’s a 15 minutes drive to the hotel,” Mr. Pierre said.
Naruko lowered his phone and scrambled into a better position. “Finally. I’ve
been needing to poop like for an hour.”
”You should have said something. I could have stopped at a gas station,” Mr.
Pierre said.
“Nah, I thought I could hold it in. Besides, everyone was sleeping and I didn’t
wanna cause any group hysteria.”
“I hope you actually did manage to hold it in,” came Imaizumi’s voice from the
next seat.
“Of course I did! Or does it smell like shit to you in here?”
”Well, your unique smel–”
Naruko whirled around to attack Imaizumi. “God damn it, you dandy beanpole, I’m
gonna–!”
Kinjou shushed them, but the others had already begun to wake up. Mr. Pierre
announced again that they were already in Paris and so close to the hotel that
everyone should stay awake.
“Unfortunately, I only got us four rooms. We’ll have to sleep quite tightly.”
”That’s okay. In every case we get to sleep in proper beds.”
“I got one bigger room. Five of us can go in it. The other rooms have a spare
bed.”
“Yay, a cot!”
“I’m not gonna sleep in it,” Yasutomo muttered from Shinkai’s side before
pulling himself up and rubbing his eyes.
”Neither am I,” Shinkai seconded. “You’d just complain about the creaking.”
“I think we can squeeze into the same bed like we did last time.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
Yasutomo looked at him as if to work out if he was kidding or not but the
subject wasn’t as weird as it would have been a few days ago. The staring
ceased when Yasutomo opened his mouth to yawn.
Kinjou cleared his throat. “It’s almost two in the morning, so do you think we
could share out rooms without any extra ruckus?”
They did. Almost everyone was too tired to care about with whom they ended up
sharing with. Mr. Pierre, Kinjou, Tadokoro, Teshima and Aoyagi got themselves
the biggest room, Toudou and Makishima had a private double room (probably only
because Toudou was the only one that had the nerve to demand it), Manami went
with Onoda, Imaizumi and Naruko, and Shinkai, Yasutomo, Juichi and Izumida took
the last one.
Shinkai wasn’t sure if he felt disappointed or relieved. He had known that this
would happen. He had known that his private nights with Yasutomo were over. He
glanced at his teammate as if to check his mood when they were dragging their
tired bodies towards their room, but Yasutomo walked with his head kept
straight, his eyes empty, and seemed only to be hoping to get back to sleep
soon.
There were two beds and two cots in the room. Izumida volunteered to sleep in a
spare bed before anyone even asked about it.
“Shinkai and I can share a bed. It will do for one night,” Yasutomo said.
“Fuku-chan can take the other one.”
They set down with a fairly quick pace. Shinkai only popped in the toilet,
brushed his teeth, removed the top layer of his clothing and crawled between
the sheets. Yasutomo followed him in a moment, worming under the same blanket
even though there was another one available. In ten minutes, everyone was lying
in their beds and Juichi turned off the nightstand light. The first creak could
be heard in the darkness as Izumida switched position in his rusty bunk.
“Sorry, I’ll just find a good position and then I’m going to lie still,” he
promised.
“I think everyone’s too tired to care about small creaking sounds,” Juichi
pointed out. “Besides…” he began but trailed off.
“Besides, we’ve been listening to Sohoku’s human bear’s earthquake snoring for
the whole trip. What’s quiet squeaking compared to that?” Yasutomo ended the
captain’s sentence. Juichi let out a sound that could have been a laugh. Then
it became quiet.
Shinkai rolled onto his side, his face towards the wall. Yasutomo turned
against his back. His hands were leaning on Shinkai’s back, his knees were
touching his thighs and his warm breath was ruffling the hair in the nape of
his neck. Shinkai let him lie there and only listened to his breath turn from
slightly restrained to deep as he fell asleep.
Shinkai lay awake for much longer than he would have liked, thinking about how
this would probably be the last time he would sleep so close to his teammate.
Teammate who, by a twist of fate, had become his sex partner.
Chapter End Notes
     Shinara fans, before flipping tables, please just wait for until the
     very end of the fic. :3
     Btw, the creepy man at the bathrooms was an inside joke between me
     and my friend and I promised to include it (he's supposed to be a
     certain Finnish celebrity). So if that scene seems a bit out of
     place, that is the reason. :D
***** The Joy of a Private Hotel Room *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
After driving for about 20 minutes, nobody seemed to be interested in each
other’s doings, so Toudou pulled out his phone and typed out a message.
Maki-chan jerked awake from his thoughts as Toudou thrust the phone under his
nose.
‘I found out some interesting stuff.’
Maki-chan looked at him. Toudou yanked his phone back and typed more.
‘About what we talked about this morning. I figured out how it works.’
Maki-chan took the phone and wrote: ‘Well, that was certainly fast.’
‘Yep. Now I know what we did wrong.’
Maki-chan didn’t answer that, so Toudou continued writing. ‘I want to try again
tonight.’
This time Maki-chan took the phone. ‘We’ll be in Paris around two.’
‘I don’t care,’ Toudou answered. ‘Let’s sleep in the car so we’ll be perky when
we get to the hotel.’
Maki-chan let out a short laugh. ‘We might not get a room to ourselves.’
Damn, that was true! Toudou hadn’t considered that possibility. He bit his lip,
typing out: ‘Let’s try anyway. To get one, I mean.’
“Alright,” Maki-chan said out loud, indicating that the texting was over.
Tadokoro on his other side was already glancing at them questioningly. But
Toudou was content. He had gotten his answer. He tucked his phone back to his
bag and leaned against his seat, planning to catch a few hours of sleep.
*
“It’s almost two in the morning, so do you think we could share out rooms
without any extra ruckus?” Kinjou asked when they were close enough to their
hotel that it was time to think about the sleeping arrangements.
The situation worked in Toudou’s favour since everyone else was too tired to
actually ask for a certain room or roommates. So he vigorously announced that
he wanted a private room for himself and Maki-chan.
Kinjou looked at him behind his glasses for a moment as if to ask if Toudou was
seriously daring to demand something at this ungodly hour. Toudou held his gaze
as firmly as he could (since Kinjou was a bit scary) and Sohoku’s captain
turned his eyes to Maki-chan, maybe searching for help. Luckily Maki-chan
maintained his calm exterior, although Toudou would have hoped for some sort of
support from him. In the end, Kinjou sighed. “If that’s okay with the others.”
Arakita muttered something about a pampered candy-ass but that remained as the
only protest.
And that was why, when the hotel room’s door clicked behind them, they were
alone. The room wasn’t much to talk about. It was shabby and very small. A
double bed in the middle of the room left only narrow spaces around it and
right below the window there was a busy, noisy street. On top of it, the room
smelled like old tobacco.
Maki-chan dragged his bag next to the bed, dropping it before sitting down on
the mattress and wiping hair out of his eyes. “You probably understand what
kind of impression demanding a private room gave to the others?”
“Mhm, maybe,” Toudou said. “I don’t actually care that much. They could always
assume that we just don’t want to sleep in the same room as Manami or some
other idiot.”
“Since there are only five hours left of tonight, I don’t think that’s
probable.”
Toudou circled to his side of the bed. “Does that bother you?”
Maki-chan shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, Kinjou and Tadokorocchi have
probably already figured out what’s going on, but the younger ones don’t need
to know everything yet.”
“Come on, I’m sure they don’t realize,” Toudou assured him. Manami had promised
to keep his mouth shut and everything. “Let’s just forget about the others and
take advantage of this room.”
Maki-chan smiled sheepishly. “It feels a bit dumb with so many arrangements.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? We’re not diving in headfirst and only half-
prepared.” Like they had done in the morning.
“I guess so.”
“Or… are you too tired?” Toudou asked tentatively.
“Nah, I’m not. But I was thinking about taking a shower.”
“Shall we go together?”
He received a lift of eyebrows. “A little while ago you were about to pull a
Naruko out of the mere thought.”
”Pull a Naruko?”
”Crap your pants.”
Toudou almost asked, but decided against it at the last second. Talking about a
teammate’s bowel movements probably wasn’t the best way to get in the mood.
“Well, I’ve changed my mind about it.” He had seen Maki-chan naked so many
times and touched almost every spot of his body, so separate showers just
sounded like affectation.
At least until they saw what kind of a box their shower was. Yes, the hotel was
below par on other levels too but surely they could have squeezed a slightly
bigger stall in the bathroom.
“How do gaijin shower in that closet?” Toudou asked while pushing his pants
down. He didn’t mind that he would have to stand side by side with Maki-chan
but there was a serious risk of hitting your elbow on the wall.
“Maybe it’s more spacious than it looks.”
Well, it wasn’t. Toudou had to lean on Maki-chan in order to close the door –
not that he complained – and when Maki-chan turned the shower on, they had no
room to escape the splash of cold water. Toudou might have let out a shriek
that under some circumstances could have sounded girly.
Maki-chan looked at him, surprise and amusement mixing on his face, as he
pointed the shower head into the corner, away from them.
“Fuck, that’s cold!” Toudou protested. His skin was immediately infested with
goosebumps and he felt like if Maki-chan hadn’t seen his junk, he would have
whirled around quickly. But because he had, Toudou only glued his torso against
his partner’s back in the hope of getting warmer. Maki-chan jumped and almost
leaped forward.
“You are cold too!”
“Sorry. I’ll warm up in a minute.” Toudou wrapped his arms around Maki-chan’s
waist, hugging him tightly. Warmth gradually spread into him, and he buried his
face into the green hair, inhaling the scent. His nether regions interpreted
naked hugging as a permission to steal the majority of his body’s blood supply,
and soon he could feel the first familiar sparkle in his groin.
Maki-chan let him continue his cuddling, holding his fingers under the shower.
“Takes quite a long time. For the water to get warm, I mean.”
“Have you noticed that in the local showers the water pressure is so fierce
that it almost rips your hair off?”
Maki-chan chuckled and peeked at him over his shoulder. “Yeah, I have. The
other option is that there’s no pressure at all and the water just drips out
because of the gravity.”
”I know! That’s interesting. Do French people have equally bad showers in their
homes or are they a specialty of hotels and camping areas?” The shower in this
hotel was of the first kind. From a close distance it almost hurt.
After several minutes of shivering and waiting, the water had warmed up enough
for them to wet their skins. By then, Toudou was already having a full hard-on
and washing up had begun to feel like a secondary task. But he was feeling
worn-out from the drive and the action they were about to jump into was
something in which cleanliness was very important, so he just contained
himself.
Nevertheless, Maki-chan glanced at him, looking somewhat amused, as if to ask
if his little Toudou never rested.
‘Hey, I’m 17,’ Toudou answered equally silently. ‘There would be something
wrong with me if it didn’t work. The bigger question is how you don’t have a
boner yet.’ Not that Maki-chan had any problems on that area but Toudou had
taken a note (alongside Maki-chan, as it seemed) that his dick just was damn
quick and seized every opportunity like it was their last, whereas Maki-chan
was more collected, more sparing.
Wait a second, was he comparing the functionality of their dicks? Suppose he
was.
Oh well, it was two in the morning. That was his excuse.
To distract his body he picked up his shower gel bottle and squeezed a generous
blob onto Maki-chan’s back. Maki-chan froze for a second before relaxing again
and Toudou began to spread the slippery substance over his skin.
“I’m going to smell like you,” Maki-chan pointed out.
“I think we already smell like each other,” Toudou said, continuing his
ministrations. He soaped up Maki-chan’s back before sneaking his hands around
his sides and onto his lower stomach while listening to changes in his rhythm
of breath. Maki-chan leaned partly against him, allowing him to slide his hands
lower onto his partner’s groin and circle teasingly his awaking dick. Toudou
leaned over Maki-chan’s shoulder so that he could reach his lips. Unfortunately
the cramped stall wasn’t a place for romance to bloom, so after a short smooch
and cuddle session they ended up washing themselves and moving back into the
bedroom.
“So what have you learned?” Maki-chan asked, sitting on the bed to dry his
hair. Toudou only wiped himself quickly and dived between the sheets naked. Why
get dressed when they were going to remove their clothes soon anyway?
Oh right, he hadn’t told Maki-chan yet. “We’ve done everything wrong!” he
squeaked.
Maki-chan’s hands stopped. “Everything?”
“Well, not everything, but… I mean, this morning. No wonder it didn’t work.” He
coughed and tried to sound affirmative and educated. “We need lubrication.”
Maki-chan nodded. “Hmm, okay. Sounds about right.”
”Then we have to start slowly... with fingers.”
“You mean like stretching?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you learn it so quickly?”
Toudou avoided his gaze. “Um, from Hayato.”
Maki-chan was quiet. It was only for a short while but it felt like an eternity
before Maki-chan spoke again. “Did you ask him directly?”
“Sort of. I didn’t say that I need it for… us or anything, but…”
“You think he didn’t realize it?” Maki-chan didn’t sound upset which made
Toudou feel a bit better.
"Hayato is not going to tell anyone,” he promised. “He’s not that kind of guy.”
Maki-chan sighed, resuming drying his hair. “Whatever. Half of the lot knows
anyway.”
Toudou wasn't so sure about that. Manami knew, and now perhaps Shinkai, and
Maki-chan had mentioned Sohoku's third-years, and it had looked like a few
wheels had turned in Onoda's head during their sightseeing tour in Annecy...
Agh, who cared? If half of their troop knew, they took it very calmly. Toudou
decided it was time to get back to business. It was well past two in the
morning and he had had a hard-on for half an hour now, nonstop.
"What I'm wondering is, why this is not taught in schools," he said. "It would
save the students from a lot of trouble."
"Would you seriously want to listen to some teacher talking about using lube in
butt sex?"
"If it were a young teacher lady, why not?" Their health education teacher just
happened to be like Toudou assumed Mr. Pierre was as a teacher. During their
sex ed lessons Mr. Hashimoto had just shoved an old VHS cassette into an even
older VCR player and told the students to watch it while he himself had sipped
tea and stared out of the window. On the video, a nurse that looked half-
mummified had coughed embarrassing word from her lips and shown some reduced
line art images. In order to avoid dying from embarrassment, the students had
begun to joke about the video and imitate the speaker, and in the end they
hadn't got that much out of it. The things Toudou knew he had learned from his
friends and online.
"But we have a problem," Maki-chan remarked. "We have no lube."
That Toudou had understood too and he couldn't really have asked Mr. Pierre to
stop by a pharmacy. He had deduced that any substance that removed friction
should work, and he always carried a bottle of lotion with him on holidays. He
voiced his thoughts and Maki-chan nodded after a bit of thinking.
"I suppose we could try it out."
"It's scented, but I guess that makes no difference." Toudou leaned over the
bed's edge to rummage through his bag for the lotion. He had lavished it on his
skin during the trip and there wasn't much left but it should be enough for one
experiment.
He froze when a warm hand landed on his naked buttock. "And you're still sure
you want to be on the receiving end?" Maki-chan checked.
"Yes, I'm sure. That's how we agreed to do it."
"But do you actually want it?"
Toudou found what he was looking for and hauled himself back up on the bed.
"Maki-chan, as long as I do it with you, I don't care which way we do it."
His partner was quiet for a couple of seconds. "Well, that was cheesy."
"It was, wasn't it? But please stop worrying about me." Toudou cupped Maki-
chan's face and leaned closer so that he could brush his lips with his own. "I
want this. That's all you need to think about."
"What if..." Maki-chan dropped his gaze. "What if it fails again? What if I...
totally suck?"
Ah, the pressure to perform. Maki-chan wasn't supposed to suffer from it, but
Toudou could understand him very well. It appeared exactly when it wanted to.
"You won't suck," he promised.
"How do you know?"
"Because you're Maki-chan and you haven't sucked thus far. Except for my dick."
Maki-chan offered him a small smile, but Toudou could see nervousness still
lurking behind his eyes. He leaned forward again, kissing his partner in a way
that he hoped felt encouraging. Maki-chan responded to his gesture by opening
his lips and letting his tongue slid inside while his hand inched up Toudou's
naked thigh, caressing it slightly and making him shiver. Toudou grabbed the
hem of Maki-chan's shirt (why had he put his clothes on again?) allowing his
hand to dive underneath. His fingers caught a warm, still a bit damp skin, and
he trailed them upwards along Maki-chan's abdomen.
They lay down on the bed, and Toudou helped Maki-chan get rid of his clothes.
At some point during their smooching and groping he noticed that he had ended
up on top again. His lips were touring around Maki-chan's neck and collarbones,
although he was careful not to suck too hard and leave marks, and his lower
body was grinding against his partner in the most shameful way. Maki-chan's
hands were travelling along his sides, ending up squeezing his ass and even
pulling it towards himself.
Toudou could feel the sweat of frustration occupy his skin. It would have been
so easy to just slip between the white thighs and find that hot, tight hole his
lower body was screaming for, but no, he had promised. He had decided that
Maki-chan didn't have to be in a role he didn't feel comfortable in. So he
rolled off of his partner, onto his back, and placed the lotion bottle in Maki-
chan's hand.
"I think you need to prepare me now."
"Yeah... alright."
"Do you find it gross?" Toudou asked.
"No. I wouldn't be doing this if I did."
Toudou nodded, huffing. Maki-chan coated his middle finger with lotion and
placed it between Toudou's buttock. Toudou tried to concentrate on keeping his
muscles unstrained, as Maki-chan rubbed back and forth with his finger before
slowly pushing it in.
Hmm, compared to this morning things were proceeding quite smoothly. First of
all, something did get in, and secondly, it didn't even hurt. It was weird
though, different to what he had imagined.
Maki-chan glanced at him through his bangs. "How does it feel?"
"Weird. Not bad. Carry on."
Maki-chan continued and Toudou kept a close account on sensations. Maybe it was
leaning towards pleasant, but it was still quite far from sparkling pleasure.
If the same procedure had been done at a doctor's appointment (like to
Izumida's grandfather) it would have probably felt uncomfortable, but now the
intimacy of the situation made it exciting.
The excitement only grew when Maki-chan leaned over his groin, his lips
nibbling his half-mast. Which turned from half to full in the blink of an eye.
Maki-chan lifted his chin to look at Toudou. "I'm not sure if I should be
flattered or call the Guinness World Record jury."
Toudou snorted. "It's just because of you. And perhaps a bit because my veins
are in such good condition."
Maki-chan hmm'd, resuming running his lips along Toudou's length. Toudou basked
in the feelings for a moment but he had to put a stop to it, because Maki-chan
was the World Champion of blowjobs and Toudou could have come from the mere
thought of feeling those lips around him again. Damn, why did he have to be so
sensitive? He really hoped his stamina would grow soon.
Maki-chan left his erection and pushed another finger inside him. It felt tight
and a bit unpleasant, but since they went in fairly easily, they had to still
be on the right track. Thank heavens for Shinkai and his expertise. Toudou
tried to stay relaxed and find something to grab on in the new feelings. He
could make out something; thin flashes of pleasure here and there, especially
close to the entrance and somewhere deeper in the front. Yet it still sounded
weird that he could come from the fingers touch only, the feeling was that
mild. But dicks were thicker and would create more friction.
"Wanna try it properly?" he suggested, driven by his thought.
Maki-chan looked at him carefully. "If you're certain. Which way you want to do
it?"
"Face to face," Toudou said immediately. He wanted to see Maki-chan's face, the
pleasure on it, and let his long hair hang around his head like drapes while
they were doing it.
"You want a condom?"
"Nah, we can leave that out." They hadn't used protection in the morning after
realising it was unnecessary. It would probably feel better without.
He wondered if his heart should have been beating a bit harder. Maybe. It was
pounding slightly faster than normal but not up to nervousness. He wasn't
nervous, not this time. He had a strong belief in both of them.
Maki-chan took the lotion, squeezing a fair amount on his dick. Then he inched
closer, grabbing Toudou's hip with his other hand, and Toudou could feel him
position himself. A slick head pressed against him. It reminded him of their
attempt in the morning but at the same time it felt somehow... righter. More
sensible. He had a feeling that this was how it was supposed to be done.
Maki-chan remembered the morning too, because he used too much force in the
beginning, breaking through Toudou's barrier with a swift thrust. They both let
out a surprised yelp when the head slipped in just like that. Toudou's surprise
changed into a sharp gasp when a pinching, stretching pain shot through his
nerves. His muscles had loosened up but they seemed to have reached their
limit. It felt like stretching a tissue that was not meant to be stretched.
He didn't need to say it out loud. Maki-chan had already noticed it and was
holding himself back. As Toudou grunted, gritting his teeth and digging his
nails into his arms, he was about to pull out, but Toudou stopped him.
"Hold on. Wait for... me to get used to it."
Maki-chan didn't look convinced. "Does it hurt badly?"
"No, it doesn't... if you don't move. Just wait for a moment." Cramps came as
short, sharp waves, clearly trying to push the intruder out, but Toudou fought
them and tried to concentrate on the calm phases in between. Maki-chan lowered
himself onto his elbows and pressed their lips together, stealing Toudou's
attention. And it worked. When Toudou only concentrated on how his partner's
tongue was gliding along his lower lip and poked playfully his own, he forgot
that his muscles were straining like on a steep climb. And as he forgot it,
they actually gave in.
Maki-chan swallowed his muffled groan as he could feel the stretching pressure
inch deeper inside. Aargh, fuck! If he felt this stuffed, how tight it was for
Maki-chan?
"Mhm, damn, you feel good, Jinpachi," Maki-chan suddenly said, hiding his face
in Toudou's neck as if he was embarrassed of his words.
Oh? Okay then. So apparently he wasn't squeezing too much even if he felt like
it. Maki-chan didn't stop but pulled a bit out only to push in deeper. Toudou
tried to accommodate but his instincts told him to push back. His fingers were
grabbing Maki-chan's arms so much his joints hurt.
"You don't have to hang in there for me," Maki-chan continued. "If you want to
stop, just tell me."
"I don't... I don't want to," Toudou muttered into Maki-chan's hair. And he
really didn't, because fuck, they were already way into it and he wouldn't
leave this country as a virgin even if it was the last thing he did and he
would totally go and demand that Arakita finished it, if Maki-chan couldn't...
Okay, maybe not. He wanted his first (and perhaps his last too) to be Maki-
chan, but Maki-chan was sometimes too understanding. Toudou already knew that
he wasn't hurting as much as Maki-chan had hurt during his first time. In fact,
the movement had diluted into mild discomfort, one that he could handle until
the end. It didn't resemble entering through Heaven's gates, but maybe that was
normal for the first time.
While floating in his thoughts, Toudou managed to relax enough and soon Maki-
chan was moving inside him without barriers, long, deep, slow thrusts that made
Toudou whimper even if he wasn't sure what the nature of the feelings was. He
liked the intimacy at least; how Maki-chan was so close, hot skin against
another, the smell of clean hair mixed with the first drops of sweat, facial
muscles tightening and relaxing, as Maki-chan held himself back, wet sounds
where their bodies connected, the creaking of the bed underneath them. Toudou
placed his hands on Maki-chan's ass to pull him closer, and simultaneously
forced him deeper. It felt uncomfortable for a minute but then he managed to
let go of the control and the thrust became easier.
He was actually pretty good at this! First proper attempt and he mastered it
immediately, taking his partner inside him like a porn actor. What a shame that
he couldn't brag about it to his teammates.
The head of his dick brushed against his stomach with every thrust, creating
some nice friction. Maybe he should touch himself to get in the mood better.
But would Maki-chan think of it as insulting?
Then something new and intriguing flashed inside him, making his dick jump, and
he fumbled down his body with an instinct. His fingers wrapped around his
length, rubbing lightly. Maki-chan wouldn't mind, he was sure. Besides, he
looked like he was not going to last long. His pale skin had turned pink and
his thrusts had become erratic and he was letting out strained sounds that
Toudou had never heard before and a couple of times he even breathed out
Toudou's name and...
"Jinpachi, I'm sorry, I can't... go on for long, this is too much..."
Toudou had no chance to answer as his partner began to move faster, grapping
his hips tightly and slammed into him so hard that he yelped in surprise. He
had about half a second to find his rear muscles and make them go limp, before
the thrusts became fast and hard.
"I'm sorry... I hope..." Maki-chan spoke between his thrusts. "I hope you're
not hurting... fuck, ha-aah, I can't..."
"Don't worry, just let go," Toudou promised. His hand synced up with the
thrusts, pumping the aching length and the pleasure flamed in his groin,
growing and pulsing, but he... would have needed... just a little bit longer.
Maki-chan dug his fingers into Toudou's skin, jerking against him. A suppressed
moan escaped his throat. Toudou could feel his climax inside him as a weird,
wet warmth, but above all he could see it on his face, as his eyes squeezed
shut, his mouth opened and closed, air surged in and out of flared nostrils...
and he almost came right there and then, except not quite.
Maki-chan dropped on top of him, not with his full weight as he caught himself
on his elbows, and Toudou rubbed his back while waiting for his after-tremors
to pass. When he had caught his breath enough to understand something about his
surroundings, he pressed his lips on Toudou's neck.
"Sorry, I missed your timing, Maki-chan, next time I'll−"
"Shh, don't worry, Jinpachi." Maki-chan propped himself up onto his arms,
backing off so that he slipped out of Toudou, and was immediately crawling down
his body. He was pressing light kisses all over his skin but his final
destination was clear. Toudou hissed when hot, heavy breath hit his erection.
Maki-chan took the head between his lips and lifted his dick up using only his
mouth. The same mouth Toudou had already promised him the World Championship
for.
This time Maki-chan went straight into business, skipping any teasing, since
Toudou was already past the halfway and teasing would have made him extremely
frustrated. His back arched as Maki-chan took him deep into his throat,
surrounding his every centimeter with hot, squeezing wetness. Toudou could also
feel two fingers pushing inside him and beginning to move in the rhythm of his
partner's mouth. His muscles wrapped around them, seeking for more friction,
and Maki-chan changed the angle, rubbing the front of his passage.
"Aah, god, I can't..." Toudou grabbed Maki-chan's hair. "I can't take this...
I'm... gonna... come... like..."
Maki-chan hummed approvingly around him. His tongue was doing some interesting
twirls on the underside of his dick, and Toudou's breath caught in his throat
when a hot burst set off from his groin, forcing him to close his eyes, open
his mouth to a silent scream and grasp the blanket instead of Maki-chan's hair
so that he wouldn't hurt him.
Maki-chan swallowed it all. He always did. Toudou had no complaints. After all,
it was freaking hot. A perfect ending to a perfect performance.
He slumped on the mattress, jerking as a strong shudder went through him when
Maki-chan touched the oversensitive head. Realizing, Maki-chan backed off,
giving him a moment to gather himself.
"Shit, you're good," Toudou muttered. "You're fucking good. Do your teammates
know that you're such a pro at giving head? You could earn yourself some extra
respect if you told them."
Maki-chan let out a sound between laugh and sneer. "I think I can live without
it."
"You do know that you don't have to swallow?" Toudou checked. He wouldn't mind
if Maki-chan finished him off with his hand or spit out the results. It really
wasn't that good, if not gross either.
"I know. I'm doing it because I want to. Your expression makes it worth it
every time."
Toudou answered with a smile. "Well, I'm not telling you to stop." He
straightened his legs and stretched. His hips felt unexpectedly stiff, but he
had kept them in a weird angle for a long while. Maki-chan crawled up the bed
to lie next to him, tucking his face into his neck and lowering his hand on his
chest.
"You're not hurting, are you?"
Toudou patted him on the shoulder. "No, I'm not. Everything's fine." He
understood why it was possible for that action to hurt like a bitch if it was
done incorrectly. Since he wasn't hurting, he could only come to the conclusion
that they had done it right. Heh. Happy smiley. And he wasn't a virgin anymore!
Success! Another smiley. Luckily Maki-chan wasn't looking at him, because he
was probably grinning like a maniac.
They lay there for a few minutes, just enjoying each other's company, but then
Toudou's bladder announced that it wasn't time to go to bed just yet. "I need
to go to the bathroom," he said, sitting up and climbing to his feet.
After only two or three steps he realized that something was leaking out of
him.
"Argh, Maki-chan, your delivery is coming back!" He leaped into the bathroom
where he tried to collect the spunk on toilet paper but the leak showed no
signs of ending. Seriously, just how much of that stuff did Maki-chan produce?
Litres?
"Using a condom seems to have its benefits," he said when his boyfriend
appeared in the doorstep, watching his agony with clear amusement. "Fuck, thank
god, we didn't do this in the morning. I would have watched the stage with a
wet spot in my pants." Toudou dropped the papers in the toilet, deciding it was
time to take another shower.
"It is a bit impractical. I can wear a condom next time if you want."
"It's fine in the evening. If we sometimes want to do it in the daytime and we
need to go somewhere after it, a condom would be quite useful." Toudou
shrugged, stepping into the stall. Maki-chan followed him.
They showered quickly and returned to the bed, Toudou with a batch of toilet
paper because the stuff was still dripping out of him. Every time he thought it
had ended, another wet surge forced him to stuff paper between his buttocks.
Really sexy. Why wasn't this told anywhere? Why hadn't Shinkai told him?
Thankfully Maki-chan was one of those people who didn't mind such mess.
"You know what?" his partner said after checking his phone. "It's already past
three."
"Yippee. Well, we'll sleep on the plane."
"What if we tried to sleep for the rest of the night?"
"Fine by me."
Maki-chan turned off the nightstand light and darkness dawned in the room. It
wasn't complete, thanks to the street lights shining through thin curtains, and
Toudou turned towards his boyfriend, trying to find his eyes as his hand
climbed to rest on his chest. He could make out Maki-chan's lashes that blinked
while he stared at the ceiling.
"What are you thinking about?"
Maki-chan shrugged. "I'm thinking that I would have wished to perform better
than that."
"Why? What was wrong with it?"
"I wasn't able to wait for you."
"Isn't that normal for the first time?" Toudou asked. "That much I can remember
from our awkward sex ed lessons."
"I guess so."
"Hey, you finished it in a very acceptable way. If you had just turned your
back on me and gone to sleep, I might have gotten a bit upset," a smile broke
through Toudou's voice and he knew that Maki-chan could hear it too. "Besides,
wouldn't it be boring if the first time was perfect? It would be like winning
your first race; what you should practise after that for?"
"Like, for the Tour?"
"Alright, so maybe it wasn't the best simile out there but you probably got my
point. I think it's way more interesting to practise and reach the top
together."
Maki-chan accepted his explanation. He lifted his arm to rest it across his
forehead, closing his eyes. "Tomorrow is the last day of the Tour."
"I know. The time has gone so fast but on the other hand it feels like we've
been in France for a month."
"I think after this I'll need another holiday. A real holiday."
"Do you think... we could spend it together?" Toudou asked. "I mean if I came
to your house or you could visit our ryokan..."
Maki-chan nodded. "It's possible. My brother is coming over soon, but he will
only stay for half a week or so."
"Your brother that lives in Britain?"
"Yep, Ren. Maybe after that I could come and visit you? If that's okay with
your parents."
Toudou couldn't hide the excitement in his voice. He hugged Maki-chan for what
he could while lying down. "Of course it's okay!" Mom could maybe even free him
from the gardening if he told her that his friend was coming over.
"Good, let's talk about it later. Now we should sleep or we'll be too tired in
tomorrow's finale."
"Yeah." Toudou adjusted his position and closed his eyes. He suspected that his
lips were still frozen in a smile when sleep finally came and claimed him.
Chapter End Notes
     In Finnish we have a saying "Ei mennyt niin kuin Strömsössä",
     literally "It didn't go like in Strömsö", meaning "it didn't go as
     well as it could have" or "didn't go according to keikaku (note:
     keikaku means plan)". So it really didn't go as well as it could have
     for these two, but hey, that's life. Instead of hot, steamy smut you
     got some more fumbling and premature ejaculations. You're very
     welcome. :D This was the last actual chapter. The epilogue will be up
     tomorrow.
***** EPILOGUE – Sayonara, France! *****
Chapter Notes
     Thank you everyone for reviewing the last chapter and for your
     amazing support throughout this fic! Here's the epilogue. Oh, and
     please make sure you read the A/N's and the afterword in the end -
     even if it's something you normally skip, this time I strongly
     recommend reading it. :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The evening was dawning on Champs-Élysées. They weren’t the only ones watching
the Tour finale, so finding a good spot proved to be impossible; some people
had apparently been there since morning even though the racers were not
estimated to arrive before nine pm. Mr. Pierre told them to stay in a spot that
they could easily leave when it was time to head for the airport while he went
to return the car to its owner. Now they were waiting for the racers along the
most famous street of Paris.
Even though it was hard to see the road, the arrival of the racers would be
clear from the crowd’s cheering. The mood was contagious and a certain group of
Japanese school boys found themselves yelling among the other audience. Then
the bull came up with a great idea and lifted Naruko up on his shoulders. The
redhead didn’t protest at all, after all he got a vantage point. In fact, he
was heard to thank generously ’the old man’.
Kinjou lifted Onoda. Imaizumi could see by himself with his over 180-centimeter
height. Among Hakogaku, Shinkai adopted the idea, offering Manami a spot on his
shoulders.
”Hey, me and Manami are equally tall, you know,” Toudou pointed out.
”No, we’re not,” Manami said, flicking his ahoge. He was the one to get on
Shinkai’s shoulders. Next to them, Arakita was looking at them disapprovingly,
or maybe he was just trying to get Fuku to act as his crane. The captain just
looked at him with a bored expression.
Toudou turned to observe Maki-chan. When his partner noticed his gaze, he shook
his head. "No way. I can't lift your weight."
"Hmm, I suppose not."
"I can lift you, Toudou-san," Izumida promised.
"Could you? Hey, awesome!"
Izumida squatted, allowing Toudou to climb onto his shoulders. He didn't budge
even once as he straightened himself. Toudou was pleased. Now he could see
everything! He waved at Maki-chan from the heights, making him only snort and
turn his head away.
"Fuku-chan, come on, lift me up!" Arakita continued demanding. "I weigh like 40
kilos, maximum!"
"If I lift you, will you clean the club room alone for two weeks?"
"The fuck I will!" Arakita tucked his hands into his pockets, turning his back
on the captain. He pouted for a while but then got a new idea. "Oi, Shinkai,
you should lift me in turn!"
Shinkai turned to look at him. "But Manami has been watching like half a
minute."
"Yeah, but I mean, after him."
"You're taller than me. Shouldn't you lift me?"
"Who can actually lift you? You probably weigh like the wreck of the Titanic."
Their arguing ceased when people around them broke out into a deafening yell.
"What's happening?" Maki-chan asked.
Toudou scoped at the street. "The front riders just arrived."
"Who's leading?"
"A guy from Giant-Alpecin," he said after recognizing the team colours.
"Might be Kittel," Izumida guessed. "He's been strong throughout the whole
competition."
"Yeah, maybe it's him."
After that, talking became a bit difficult because of the noise. Toudou
witnessed the next riders to arrive but then he began to feel like he would
prefer to watch the race beside Maki-chan, despite the visibility dropping
close to zero.
Toudou patted Izumida on the head. "You can put me down and lift Arakita
instead."
Izumida let him jump back down. At first, Arakita looked like getting lifted by
a second-year would be too humiliating, but he wanted to see so he swallowed
his pride and climbed onto Izumida's shoulders.
Toudou inched over to stand next to Maki-chan. He wanted to offer him his hand
or pinkie but the crowd wasn't tight enough for the others to not see them, so
he settled for smiling and leaning lightly towards him so that their shoulders
touched. Maki-chan glanced at him briefly, but it was enough to show a smile on
his face too.
It was such a weird feeling to think that their holiday was almost over. It was
weird that they wouldn't pack themselves in the too small vehicle and hurry
from one location to another just to get good watching spots or sleep in tiny
tents on a hard surface. No more heavy wheat flour meals or French babbling.
Could one get attached to a country in ten days? Toudou came to the conclusion
that he would miss what had happened more than where it had happened. Yes, they
had had wonderful moments watching the Tour, seeing famous attractions, cycling
in the Alps, and he had both his phone and camera full of pictures he wanted to
show his family and friends, but the best thing of the journey that was
standing next to him was from the same country as him.
When Chris Froome was announced the overall winner of the Tour, Toudou made
sure that no one was watching them, leaned towards Maki-chan and quickly
brushed his cheek with his lips. And then they were standing there in the light
evening wind, the festivities of the Tour finale shining in bright colours and
people cheering around them, and said nothing.
Unfortunately they missed the awards ceremony, because when the last riders
were crossing the finish line, Kinjou's phone began to ring. He spoke shortly,
raising his hand for the others to see.
"That was Mr. Pierre. It's time for us to go."
*
After two hours, the group of tired travellers were sitting on a plane and
leaving the airspace of France behind. The majority of them were already fast
asleep and Maki-chan told Toudou he'd close his eyes and try to rest. Toudou
was left alone to tap armrests with his fingers. He wasn't tired yet even
though it was about midnight. Too many things had happened during the past 24
hours. He tried to read his book, but after not touching it for ten days, he
had forgotten half of the plot. When Arakita climbed to his feet behind him and
excused himself to the bathroom, Toudou hauled himself up and moved to sit next
to Shinkai, as he wasn't asleep or didn't look tired either.
”Hey, Hayato.”
Shinkai lifted his eyes from his lap where one of his detective novels was
lying. Toudou wondered for a second or two what was wrong with the setting,
realizing then that there wasn't an energy bar hanging from Shinkai's mouth.
Apparently he had run out of them and hadn't had a chance to buy more. "Hi,
Jinpachi."
"Do you mind if I sit here for a moment?"
"Well..." Shinkai hesitated. "Yasutomo's going to be back soon but I guess you
can sit there until that." His eyes softened and he closed his book. "Did you
have something on your mind?"
"Not really. Everyone else is just sleeping and I'm not tired yet."
"It might be better to stay awake so it will be easier to adjust to our own
time again."
"Yeah, maybe." Toudou leaned against the seat. "Well, what do you think about
the trip now that it's over?"
Shinkai hmm'd. "Undeniably it was hard at times and there were incidents I
would rather have missed." He turned the back of his hand towards Toudou,
showing a lump with a tiny hole from the sting in the middle. The inflammation
had gone down but the lump would probably stay there for a week or two. "But
I'd do it again right away. Or maybe not right away. I could use a couple of
weeks rest first."
"Yup. What's next then? Giro d'Italia, next summer?"
"Maybe. I think it depends on what kind of situations we're all in then."
Toudou huffed. Why did things have to change? He would gladly have spent
another few years at Hakogaku. "But wouldn't it be cool to come together once
in a summer and go on a holiday?"
"The financing might be a problem. The school sponsored this trip, remember?"
"I suppose that's true. Not everyone can afford to go on a holiday every
summer." And talking about everyone, Toudou meant himself. He wasn't exactly
bathing in money and from now on he would be using a lot of his savings to
maintain his relationship because of the distance. Not that he complained. He
was happy to spend his money on Maki-chan.
"Not that such holidays wouldn't be very nice," Shinkai trailed off and
something changed in his face, his eyes getting a tone that on another person
could have been called sly. On Shinkai, Toudou called it 'knowing'. "Did it
work, by the way?"
"Did what work?"
"You know... the thing you asked me about yesterday."
First Toudou considered lying, but he suspected that the heat surging from
underneath his neckline had already painted his face red and that Shinkai would
notice if he tried to dodge the subject. His expression already told Toudou
that he knew what was going on.
He coughed, focusing his eyes in the seat in front of him. "Hmm, yeah. I
mean... um, yeah, it worked." Damn blush, why did it always have to come and
ruin people's lives?! He used all of his mental capacity trying to force the
scourge to disappear. If Arakita came back now, he would be ruined. "T-thank
you. You know, for the advice."
"No worries. Glad I could help." Shinkai didn't question him any further.
Instead, he placed his hand on Toudou's shoulder. "I know nothing about
anything, but if you happened to sometimes wonder what the other guys think
about it... it's cool. At least with me."
Toudou's throat did a weird jump. He collected himself for a good while before
nodding and daring to peek at Shinkai. The same old jovial smile. Shinkai
should have seriously considered a career in health care; he had a talent for
calming people down.
Toudou leaned forward to check between the seats to see if Maki-chan was
sleeping. He was. Then he looked to his left. Kinjou seemed to be asleep, as
did Tadokoro and Mr. Pierre sitting next to him. Maybe it was okay to talk
more.
Shinkai grabbed the armrests. "I think I'm gonna−"
"Are we that obvious?" Toudou asked.
Shinkai stopped. Had he been meaning to stand up? No, he just adjusted his
position and relaxed again. "What do you mean?"
"I mean if you have already realized that we..." Toudou could have maybe voiced
the rest of his sentence since the others were sleeping and airplane acoustics
were a mysterious thing anyhow, but the words just didn't come out. He couldn't
care less about Manami, but Shinkai was a different matter.
"I wouldn't say 'obvious'," his friend calmed him. "If we were back home in
Hakone, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything, but now we've been
practically living together and then you happened to ask what you did."
"Do you think the others have noticed too?"
Shinkai was quiet for a moment. "No, I don't think so."
"Even though we wanted a private room last night and all."
"Yeah, well... you've been together for the whole trip. I don't think the
others paid so much attention to it. I can't say for Sohoku though."
Toudou felt like Shinkai had only said it to make him feel better, but who
knew, maybe he was serious? Why would people even care about what others did
behind closed doors? Except Manami.
"But now I need–” Shinkai began.
"You know–” Toudou said, realizing he had interrupted his friend. ”Sorry,
Hayato, can I just say one thing quickly?”
Shinkai nodded. "Sure, go ahead."
"I'm a bit... scared. Because not all people are that open-minded, you know?
Like my parents, they will probably flip tables when they find out. And what
about the rest of the club members? We have communal changing rooms and showers
and if the guys think that..." he lowered his voice into a whisper. "..that I'm
staring at them or..."
"It's not like you have to tell them," Shinkai said. "I'm not going to tell and
you're not going to tell. Does your family need to hear about it right away?"
"Of course they don't have to hear about it now. I'm just thinking if this
becomes a longer... relationship." As he suspected. He just couldn't picture a
situation where he and Maki-chan broke up after all this.
"You can re-evaluate the situation again then. I wouldn't worry about it at
this point. You're still supposed to float around with rose-tinted glasses and
not worry about tomorrow."
Toudou let out a small laugh. "Yeah, maybe. But I'm still... thinking about
it."
"Of course you are, because you're you. But maybe this would be a perfect time
to let go of control, just concentrate on your new relationship and let the
world rotate on its own."
"Hmm, I suppose you're right. But it's a bit hard since we live so far away
from each other..."
"Two hours by train. It's not far. Maybe you won't get to see each other during
school days but the weekends are free."
Toudou sighed. Shinkai made it all sound so easy. Maybe he was worrying for
nothing.
"So..." Shinkai continued. "Are you pitching or catching?"
Toudou almost choked on his spit. "Wha−?"
"Which end of the field are you?"
Toudou had no idea where his body drew the energy for another sweat attack, but
it felt like a steam boiler had exploded inside him. "Erm..."
"Not that it matters. I suppose it's fun either way."
"Argh, Hayato, will you shut up? My face is burning!" Toudou buried his flaming
cheeks into his hands. Since when had Shinkai been throwing such comments
around? "You've spent too much time with Arakita."
Shinkai merely chuckled at him.
"I'm not... I mean... I'm not really..." Toudou stuttered.
"You don't have to answer me. I'm just messing with you. But you know what, I
need to pop in the toilet." Shinkai's fingers landed on the armrests again as
he was about to push himself up.
Toudou was relieved to change the subject. One more minute and he would have
third-degree burns on his face. "Every toilet seems to be occupied," he said,
pointing at the red light of the lavatory sign.
"Yeah, but I'm gonna go and line up so no one else gets there before me."
"You can always wait for Arakita to come back. Then one toilet would be free.
Where the hell is he dawdling anyway?"
"I think I'm gonna go and wait there anyway," Shinkai said. "I drank way too
much water earlier and my bladder feels like a balloon."
But before Toudou got up and moved on the aisle to give Shinkai some room, the
toilet's light turned green and Arakita returned to them. He wore an undefined
expression that turned into anger when he saw where Toudou was sitting.
Toudou tilted his head to look at his black-haired teammate. "Wow, Arakita, you
were there for like half an hour."
Arakita looked past him at Shinkai and spoke between his gritted teeth: "I
know."
Shinkai answered with an apologetic shrug. Toudou's eyes sailed between the
two.
"Come on, it's not Hayato's fault if you have an upset stomach. Did you eat
something weird?"
For a fleeing moment, Arakita looked like he wanted to smack Toudou right in
the face. Toudou instinctively leaned away, but in the end Arakita settled for
insulting him instead. "Get back to your own seat, you head-banded nightmare!
Go sit next to your beloved Maki-chan."
"Jeez, how impolite," Toudou muttered, but got to his feet. He had had his
chance to chat with Shinkai and he didn't feel like continuing their talk in
Arakita's presence anyway.
He slumped onto his seat, facing Maki-chan's tired eyes as he woke up to his
movements. "Mhm, Jinpachi?"
"No need to panic. I was just chatting with Hayato."
Maki-chan blinked, looking like he wanted to say something, but in the end his
eyes just slid shut again. Toudou allowed his head to roll onto his right
cheek, so he could observe his sleeping boyfriend, the green wisps against the
pale complex, slightly ajar lips, lashes resting on his cheeks and the small
mole underneath them. He looked so... beautiful that on a whim Toudou pulled
out his phone and took a photo.
He checked the picture before putting the phone away. Then he decided to
attempt sleeping too and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Almost
instantly, he heard Maki-chan shuffling and warm skin touched his wrist lying
on the armrest. Toudou opened his eyes just a little and saw long, bony fingers
resting over his hand. They just lay there, waiting. Otherwise Maki-chan was
exactly in the same position as before and looked like he was sleeping.
Toudou turned his hand around so that he could grab the fingers. He squeezed
them a bit and caressed the soft skin with his thumb before closing his eyes
again, a wide smile occupying his lips.
~ The End ~
Chapter End Notes
     Friends, Monica and Chandler, anyone? (In other words, if you got
     what was going on with Shinkai and Arakita, please let me know in the
     comments. ;D)
     Ugh, I think 60 % of the chapters of this fic end in someone falling
     asleep.
     *
      
     Must read or innocent teddy bears will suffer!
      
     Some of you have heard this already but here comes the official
     announcement. Somewhere along the way I noticed that Shinara is not
     even close to the point I was planning to get them when I was writing
     the beginnings of the fic. Shinkai is too clueless, Arakita is too
     stubborn and they both are just "WTF, how do we get ourselves out of
     this mess?" On top of that, Shinkai's girlfriend is lurking behind
     the scenes. Toumaki has gotten their happy ending, Maki-chan has
     opened up to Toudou (figuratively) and Toudou has opened up to Maki-
     chan (literally) and all is well in their camp. They can do without
     my help now but Shinkai and Arakita can't. Therefore I've decided to
     continue their story in my next fic. It will also feature another
     main pairing, Ashikuro (Kuroda x Ashikiba), but Shinara will have an
     equally big role in it at least. So if you're reluctant to let go of
     the imbecile twins, you're most welcome to read the sequel!
     * * *
     Afterword
     When I began Le Tour, I only had one single reader in mind. I decided
     to translate the fic into English in the hope of reaching a bigger
     audience, thinking that if even one more person found it, I would
     have achieved my goal. Little did I know that I would receive such a
     positive welcome and so many Yowapeda fans out there would find my
     story. Along this journey I’ve met many wonderful people, both
     international and Finnish.
     I would like to thank all my readers who have left kudos, favourited,
     commented, made fan art or otherwise helped me to finish this story.
     Special thanks go to my Finnish readers Emmi, KikiGabriella,
     Nakkimakkara and Perunaprinssi who have given me a reason to write
     the Finnish version and the international readers such as Ollie whose
     reactions and “dorks-losers-frickfrack” talks are the first thing I’m
     waiting for after publishing a new chapter and Fomalhaut48 who always
     makes me feel like I don’t deserve her praising. It’s been one hell
     of a ride, guys. But my biggest thanks go to my awesome beta
     ladyleopardy who is everything that I can ask from a beta reader and
     even more. Cheers, Courtney, here’s to you! *raises an imaginary
     champagne glass*
     November 2017 - Note to my readers
     I'm currently working on an original novel (vampires, very gay) which
     will be released sometime during the first half of 2018, with both
     eBook and printed version available. If you're interested in reading
     my original stuff, please follow my Twitter author account @sakeranen
     for further news. I mostly tweet in Finnish, but the news regarding
     the release of the novel will be in English too.
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