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Another idyllic morning at the Kotobuki-so, strange birds stirring with the cicadas in the first light of a new day, and Hase thought it had to be one of the best purchases he had ever made, paying August's rent so he could stay over every night at Inaba's place if he so chose. With both of them on summer break, Inaba didn't have to get up before dawn to train with Akine before school. On days he didn't work, they could turn off their alarms and wake up slowly and naturally, like when they had had sleepovers as kids.
Well, not entirely like when they were kids. Their feelings toward each other hadn't been that innocent in a while.
Though even when they had been, it seemed Hase had always been looking for excuses to touch or be touched by Inaba, whether they were sparring or watching a scary movie, or riding tandem on Hase's motorcycle. Lately Inaba's spiritual training had changed him in ways that made Hase's heart swell with pride for his friend. Inaba had grown up quite a bit as a person since he started living at Kotobuki-so.
But Hase appreciated the broader shoulders and the muscles that weren't there before, too. He found himself mesmerized by the outlines of them through the thin tee Inaba wore to bed, and the curvature of his bare neck, and couldn't help himself. He had to kiss that bump of spine at the base, because he just loved the way it felt under his lips. The way the little hairs on the back of Inaba's neck stood up with electricity and he stirred and sighed in his sleep.
Hase trailed kisses upward as he rested his hand in the dip of Inaba's waist. And by the time he reached the junction of Inaba's neck and shoulder, it was clear from the change in Inaba's breathing that he was awake.
“ 'Morning,” Hase murmured against his skin.
A tired but very pleased “Mmm” was all he got in response.
“This okay?” Hase said, slipping his hand beneath the hem of Inaba's shirt. He figured Inaba would tell him if he wasn't in the mood. Even if he didn't say anything—if Hase knew Inaba, he probably still had his eyes shut, was still stubbornly trying to hold on to the coat tails of sleep—his body answered a clear yes. Hase thrilled at the leap of Inaba's stomach under his fingers, and the heat radiating above his heart. The barest dampness of sweat, because, after all, these were the dog days of summer and it was just a little too warm for a blanket at night.
Hase was thankful for it now, though, for the cover it provided as he scooted closer, pressing up against Inaba's back. He couldn't be sure if Inaba's moan, half-smothered into his pillow, was for Hase's kisses behind his ear or the eager heat of him Inaba could surely feel against his rear, but it was appreciative nonetheless. Hase took a guess and let his hand slip down over the front of Inaba's shorts, and he wasn't at all disappointed with what he found.
Nipping at the edge of Inaba's ear, Hase lazily traced the shape of him through the fabric. Little wriggles of Inaba's hips encouraged him until Inaba finally gave into wakefulness, and took Hase's wrist and guided his hand under his waistband.
Then excitement shot through Hase like a jolt, feeling Inaba's want for him hard and heavy in his hand. Hearing his breaths deepen and hitch as Hase stroked him. It warmed Hase inside, intoxicated him, like sake sitting in the stomach. This was why he was here, why he could never stay away for long. That desire that had always been with him in one form or another, to be needed by Inaba—
“Hase . . . wait . . .” Inaba shrugged him off.
But it was only so he could turn himself around and pull Hase down to him for a proper kiss. His fingers carded through Hase's already mussed-up hair, before trailing down to free Hase from his pants. When Inaba broke away from Hase's lips and lifted his hips to push his shorts down, mouth open in a quiet gasp as the waistband got hung up his erection, Hase momentarily forgot how to breathe because that might have been the sexiest thing he had ever seen, and it was all for him.
Then he was being pulled down again, by the waist or the buttock or whatever Inaba could get a grip on, and the rest of the world ceased to exist. Inaba was everything: the breath against Hase's cheek, the moan in his ear, and dick sliding alongside his and the flutter under Hase's stomach. Even the morning breath mingling with his own—Hase was drunk on it. He shook when Inaba took them both together in his hand, buried his face in Inaba's shoulder when he started jacking them. Hase's heart hammered like it would beat out of his throat, he was so impatient for release, despite Inaba's unhurried, don't-have-anywhere-to-be-this-morning pace.
Hase happened to look up over Inaba's head—
And got such a start at the tiny glowing face staring back at him, he shouted. “Fool! What the—”
“Pardon the interruption, Yuushi-sama—er, Hase-sama,” Fool said, waving his little wings with the usual touch of melodrama and seemingly oblivious to the way Inaba nearly jumped out of his skin in fright. “Far be it for me to cut in when you are putting such splendid resonances out into the universe, but we could not help but notice the precipitous rise in your body temperature, and your heart is racing not unlike a chariot careening out of control—”
“ 'Cause you're embarrassing the hell out of me!” And Inaba tugged the pillow out from under his head and chucked it at his familiar. “You have got to learn the meaning of privacy, Fool!”
“Forgive me, Master,” came the little voice from under the pillow, “this one merely wanted to make sure you were not in any danger of suffering a cardiac event—”
“He's fine!” said Hase.
“I'm fine! Mind your own damn business!” said Inaba at the same time. Before hiding his face in his hands, with a groan of utter humiliation. “Ugh, for the love of—”
Hase wished he could have warned him that Kuri had chosen that moment to peek through the door (at least, Hase prayed that Kuri had only just opened the door) and stare entreatingly at the two of them, a stuffed crocodile clutched under his arm.
He wished he could have warned Inaba, but in no time at all Kuri had covered the distance between the doorway and them, with a flying leap toward the futon.
Whereupon he landed knees-first on Inaba's crotch.
A truly blood-curdling sound escaped Inaba like that of a dying goat mixed with a balloon that has a slow leak, and Hase was sure by Fool's horrified expression that if he had anything under those Mickey Mouse pants resembling balls, they were currently retreating inside his body in sympathy like Hase's seemed to be doing at that moment.
After Hase overcame his shock, he grabbed Kuri under the arms and lifted him off Inaba, but the damage had already been done. “No, Kuri! That wasn't a nice thing to do.”
“WHY~” Inaba wailed. At least, if the noise he was making was in fact a word, that was the word it most sounded like to Hase.
“Jeez~” a nightie-clad Mariko yawned as she floated up through the floor, “what's all the commotion about at this hour?”
Then she saw Inaba curled into a ball and rolling in agony, and gasped. She was solid and at his side in seconds. “Yuushi-kun, what happened?! Are you unwell?” And she cradled Inaba to her bouncing bosom.
Or perhaps “stuffed him into her cleavage like a joey” was a more accurate description. Needless to say, in Inaba's current state, it was not only unhelpful, it was very confusing. Fortunately he and Hase still had the blanket to protect their modesty from the waist down.
“Akine-chan, come quick!” Mariko hollered loud enough to wake whatever dead were still sleeping. “I think Yuushi needs medical attention!”
“Really, he doesn't,” Hase started to say, but Kuri was determined to get into his lap for a morning cuddle, and seeing as Hase didn't want to scar the kid for afterlife or have to answer some very uncomfortable questions later, he tried even harder to avoid that.
To make matters worse, Shiro—no doubt looking for Kuri—came bounding in and, seeing Inaba in distress, hurried over to comfort him. By standing on Inaba's crotch and licking his face.
By the time Akine appeared at the door, Inaba's spirit was threatening to leave his body, Mariko was trying to remember how to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and Hase literally had his hands full keeping a stubborn Kuri off his own lap and Shiro off Inaba's.
She took one look at the situation and burst out laughing.
“Yuushi doesn't need medical attention,” she told Mariko. “He needs you three to leave him alone. And an ice pack, by the look of things.”
“Thank you,” Hase breathed.
“I can get the ice myself, thank you very much,” Inaba managed while Akine hurried the interlopers out of the room. And not a moment too soon. He looked as though he was just one more shock away from becoming a permanent resident of the Kotobuki-so. “Hase, my Petits. . . .”
Fool was way ahead of them, and handed Hase the Hierozoicon to hand to Inaba. With the last of his strength, Inaba summoned Jin and asked him to retrieve some ice in a towel, stat.
Then he collapsed back on the futon, wincing. “How is Kuri so heavy? He's a ghost!”
Hase chuckled as he stretched out beside him, propped up on an elbow. “If it makes you feel any better, you took that knee to the junk like a champ.”
But that just earned him a glare. Too bad for Inaba, Hase only found him more adorable that way. “It doesn't. And I'm beginning to think you like seeing me suffer.”
Seeing as he couldn't exactly deny it, Hase thought it best not to respond to that. “Poor Inaba,” he teased instead. “Want me to kiss it and make it better?”
For a moment, Inaba could only stare, as he tried to determine whether that had been a joke or a serious offer. “Now you're just rubbing it in,” he eventually settled on, pouting.
“I take it the mood has been well and truly killed, then.”
“Along with any chance of me ever siring children.”
“You know,” Hase said while Inaba pouted, as a truly brilliant idea had just occurred to him, “you could always come and stay with me for a weekend. No little kids or nosy neighbors popping up through the floors uninvited. You could even leave the Petits at home. Just for one night.”
He thought he saw Fool puff up in umbrage out of the corner of his eye.
But Inaba was seriously considering it. The prospect of privacy, and a proper mattress to spread out on. Nothing could match Ruriko's cooking, of course, but, “It has been a while since we've had a sleepover at your place.”
Hase knew he had already won, and grinned. “We can make popcorn and watch one of those terrible movies we used to like so much, for old times' sake. That is, if Dad doesn't end up talking your ear off the whole time about what you've been up to the last few months. You know he's always had a soft spot for you.”
“Master, if I might make one tiny suggestion?” Fool began, doubtless having doubts about Inaba being out-of-range of his services for even one night.
But with that reminder of all he had had to endure this morning already—and they hadn't even gone down for breakfast yet—Inaba's mind was more set than ever. He said to Hase, “How soon can I come over?”
The pretense of studying to gear up for the start of second term didn't last long. Even before they retired to Hase's room he had been on pins and needles with anticipation. By the time Inaba started philosophizing on English prepositions (“I don't get it. Is it 'different from' or 'different to'? Aren't those opposites of each other?”), Hase couldn't take it anymore.
“It's both,” he said, joining Inaba on top of the coverlet on the bed. “It really doesn't matter which way you say it, it means the same thing.” And he reached for the book in Inaba's hand to take it away.
But Inaba moved it out of his reach. “That doesn't make any sense.”
Hase sighed. Had Inaba really come all this way and charmed Hase's parents and sister through a long family dinner just to practice his English? Hase straddled his legs in pursuit of the book, and this time Inaba had no place else to go and had to let him take it.
And the self-satisfied grin on Inaba's face told Hase that was probably his goal all along. He was learning, the sly bastard. But then, he had been taught by the best, if Hase did say so himself.
“Just trust me on this,” Hase said, but he was preaching to the choir. Relieved of their book, Inaba's hands found something else to occupy them, slipping up Hase's sides beneath his T-shirt.
So Hase pulled it off and settled himself into a more comfortable spot. He did love the way Inaba's waist felt between his knees, like the two of them had grown so as to fit together more precisely.
“So, would you say making out at your place,” Inaba said, letting Hase link their hands and pin his back against the pillow on either side of his head, “is different from or different to making out at Kotobuki-so?”
“Mmm, neither. I prefer to say it's 'different than'.”
Now Inaba looked really confused. “Okay, now I'm really confused.”
Hase chuckled in place of an explanation. “Just trust me.”
“So you keep saying,” was all Inaba managed, and even that half-heartedly, before Hase leaned over to erase the space that had insisted on remaining between their mouths all evening.
Hase really didn't care about prepositions, and he was pretty sure Inaba didn't either, but he was interested in finding out how different this would be. Without supernatural neighbors listening through old, thin walls, and psychic eavesdroppers like the ones that inhabited the Petit Hierozoicon. As amazed as Hase continued to be by Fool's bond with Inaba—most of the time—surely even a mage-in-training needed the occasional break from his familiars. For tonight, it was just he and Inaba, lying slightly tousled against Hase's pillow and probably precisely aware of how irresistible he looked.
And wasting no time reaching for Hase's fly.
Hase rolled eyes at him. “Skip the foreplay, why don't you.”
“I thought that's what all this was.” Inaba tried to sound nonchalant, but he was already fidgety with excitement and half-hard between Hase's thighs. And here Hase had thought he was the impatient one. If he had known English grammar could be such a turn-on, maybe he would have suggested studying together long ago. “You can think of it as picking up where we left off.”
Hase's mouth over his told Inaba how he felt about that. It wasn't that Hase didn't want the same thing, and now, just that he wanted to take his time with it. Take the scenic route, not the shortcut. Opportunities like this didn't come along every day, and this long break together had made Hase realize just how sick and tired he was of theirs being a weekends-only-and-sometimes-long-distance relationship.
Inaba's hand slipped down the front of his trousers, and it seemed to take all Hase's self-restraint to pull it back out again.
His regret must have shown on his face for just one second, because Inaba blinked in concern when he pulled away. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing.” And that was the truth. This moment, with Inaba looking up at him with such want in his eyes, such trust, was perfect just the way it was. Hase's chest ached with the beauty of it.
It was like something out of one of Isshiki's novels, a turn of phrase that Hase would have to reread because it made him feel with every fiber of his being, That's it, that's just how it is. Even if he couldn't find words to describe it, Hase at least wanted Inaba to know how he felt, in whatever way he could. “I just want to try something . . . different,” he said in a small voice, as he scooted back down the bed and worked himself between Inaba's thighs.
The look on Inaba's face when he understood was priceless. “Oh.”
But Hase could feel the change in energy come over Inaba, the nervousness that wasn't there before. He would have been lying if he said he didn't feel it too. Like that weightless feeling he'd get behind his navel just before the roller coaster dropped down that first big hill, equal parts thrilling and terrifying. Hase hadn't done this before. He wasn't used to feeling like such a beginner.
But he had been thinking about it for some time, fantasizing about it. When they hadn't seen each other for weeks or months, and he read Inaba's letters before bed and missed him so much that he dreamed about what Inaba tasted like. Hase hooked his fingers into the waistband of Inaba's pants, but lingering doubt kept him from going further. “If it's alright with you.”
Inaba seemed to be at a loss for words. As if anything he said might break whatever unspoken spell had put this notion in Hase's head. But he did swallow hard, and nod, and lift his hips so Hase could ease his pants and underwear down off them. Blushed a little at being so exposed so close to Hase's face, and so vulnerable, his feelings plain to see. But he didn't take his eyes off Hase for a second.
Hase wished he could tell Inaba that he had nothing to worry about. He treasured each reaction he coaxed out of Inaba—though he wasn't so much of a sap that he would ruin the moment by saying it. It was enough to know Inaba wanted Hase as badly as Hase wanted him, and to show he understood, Hase pressed his lips to the shaft of Inaba's dick. Tentatively at first, noting the hitch in Inaba's breath and the little tremble in his thighs. But it didn't break him, so Hase kissed him again, and again, deeper each time, tracing the shape of Inaba with his mouth. He wanted to adore every centimeter of him, to breathe in Inaba's scent and fix it in his memory.
Grasping for more of him, Hase slid one hand up over Inaba's side, under the hem of his T-shirt. He found Inaba's bellybutton and started drawing lazy circles around it with his fingertip before he even realized he was doing it, and that was almost too much for Inaba. He seized Hase's hand, pulling it off to the coverlet and twining their fingers together tight, breathing so shallow Hase half-worried he might start hyperventilating.
“Would you relax?” Hase chided him with a puff of a laugh, locking eyes with Inaba over the length of his body. “You're so tense, it's making me think I'm doing something wrong.”
“Never,” Inaba assured him, and his impish smile nearly undid Hase right then.
But at least Inaba tried to do as he was told, difficult though it must have been with Hase taking his glans into his mouth. A little of the tension eased from Inaba's thighs, and he slowed and deepened his breathing in time with the moist pop of Hase's kisses. He sighed Hase's name, and the sound of it was like a hissed profanity in Hase's ear, or a secret prayer, the need in it trickling down through him to curl warm and delicious at the base of his own cock. And Hase wondered if maybe it was past time he asked Inaba to call him by his given name. He wondered how those more intimate syllables would sound catching on Inaba's lips and teeth just before he came.
“Mizuki~ Think you and Yuushi-kun could use a tea break? I brought some of those French melon cookies you like so much~”
Hase and Inaba both froze at that voice right outside the door. “He wouldn't—” the latter mouthed.
But the doorknob was already turning and there was no time to do anything that would make their situation look like anything other than what it was.
They shot apart even as the door swung open, Inaba holding one of Hase's decorative pillows over his crotch with a white-knuckled grip, looking like guilt personified, Hase hiding his mouth and searching frantically for his discarded T-shirt—or anything to cover himself up with—but with no luck. “Dad! What the hell?! Haven't you heard of knocking?!” And tea and cookies? Did he forget how old they were or something?
For a second, upon realizing just what it was he had walked in on, Hase's father froze, tea tray and all. And Hase thought for sure he would be struck down dead himself at any second, because he couldn't imagine any possible way a person could suffer this level of humiliation and live to tell about it.
But then his father just laughed and leaned way too nonchalantly against the doorframe. Which, somehow, was even worse. “Oh-ho, studying hard, I see—”
“A LITTLE PRIVACY HERE?!”
“Now, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's perfectly natural for boys your age to be curious about each other's bodies. Why, when I was in high school—”
“Oh god, pleasejustleaveanddon'teverfinishthatsentence!”
By some small blessing, his father got the hint. And when they were alone again and the door shut, Hase buried his burning face in the other pillow and waited for his mortification to pass. Though right now he didn't see how it ever would.
“That's it. I'm dead,” he groaned. “Kill me now, Inaba, put me out of my misery.”
“I guess it's a good thing your dad has such a soft spot for me, huh?” And he could feel the mattress shaking under him with Inaba's silent laughter. “That was practically a stamp of approval!”
“Don't make this any weirder for me than it already is.”
“I mean, it's still better than someone jumping on your junk. All things considered.”
Hase pinched his thigh. Hard enough that there was a genuine “ow” in there amid Inaba's laughter.
This decided it, Hase thought as he hugged the pillow under his chin. He would just have to hurry up and move into his own place. There was nothing else for it. But in the meantime: “Let's run away, Inaba, just you and me. Somewhere no ghosts, Petits, or meddling family members can find us.”
“Uh, what about school? And you know one of us actually works for a living.”
But Hase wasn't listening. “Belize.” He could see it now: the palm trees and ceviche and Mayan ruins, Inaba leaning against the railing of their balcony, catching a sun-warmed breeze through his open shirt. . . . “Yes, that's it. We'll go to Belize. We can practice our English and go snorkeling, and no one will disturb us but room service.”
“Or~” Inaba purred, gently smoothing Hase's mussed hair back into place and chasing his dream of paradise away, “instead of flying halfway around the world and spending a lot of money, we could just wait until everyone's gone to bed.”
His touch sent a little shiver down Hase's spine despite himself. But he grumbled, “How can you even think of fooling around now? My whole family knows what we're doing in here. Or they will soon enough. Ugh, Migiwa's never going to let me hear the end of it. . . .”
“What's the big deal? I'm pretty sure they already suspected that was what we were doing, and we did it anyway.”
“There's a huge difference between suspecting and knowing, Inaba.” And the fact that Hase had to spell that out was further proof that living in an apartment full of spirits with a lackadaisical grasp of mores had already rubbed off on his friend. Where had his sense of shame gone to?
Perhaps Inaba had left it at home next to the Petit Hierozoicon. He had such a smug grin on his face Hase just had to ask him what it was for.
“So, if you were phrasing that in English, would you say suspecting is different than knowing—”
That tore it. Before Inaba could finish, Hase was yanking him down by the ankle and jumping on top of him, and the two of them grappling just for the simple thrill of trying to overpower one another, like they used to do when they were in middle school and had sleepovers in Hase's room.
Although the ruckus they raised didn't sound nearly as innocent to Hase's ears as it used to. And the bed didn't hold two grown young men with the ease it had two boys, so one careless roll was all it took to dump them both on the floor in a heap of tangled limbs and bumped heads. They laughed at that until they had to wipe tears out of their eyes, and by then Hase was simply enjoying himself so much, he wasn't sure he cared anymore what anyone outside that room was thinking.
If he had been a bit more superstitious, Hase might have wondered if the two of them were cursed. Instead, he preferred to take a page out of Inaba's book and think of their relationship as one big adventure. And no adventure was without its fair share of perils.