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“You’re completely insane.”
“Not true,” Aki replied, not looking up from what he was looking at. “You’ve met Mao. He’s completely insane. I pale in comparison.”
Letting out a snort of laughter at his friend’s words, Shige had to silently agree. Mao was nice, but he was… different, if he was going to be polite about it. Maybe it was a leftover attribute from SID’s more visual kei days, or maybe it was just Mao; he had no idea.
“Still, you have to be a little bit insane if you think I’m seriously going to get a tattoo,” Shige finally said, leaning against a small glass fronted counter that was near the front of the shop and held a multitude of books filled with designs. It was one of these books that Aki was riffling through, and that Shige was absently looking at from over Aki’s shoulder. He didn’t bother to look too hard at any of the brilliantly coloured images that filled the pages though, because there was no way he was getting a tattoo.
Pierced ears (double pierced, even) were fine. Everyone had pierced ears, including the majority of his co-workers. But a tattoo?
Even if he had to admit to himself that he quite liked Aki’s – and that had absolutely nothing to do with its location, and maybe his teeny tiny crush on his very pretty friend – but he just wasn’t a tattoo kind of person. He was a former law student, a fisherman, a nerd. Sure, he could pull off the glam rock look whenever the photographers felt the urge to shake things up, but it wasn’t who he was.
“Get something small then,” Aki said, seemingly ignoring Shige’s words of denial. “If you’re worried about the pain…”
“I’m not worried about the pain!”
He was, but he wasn’t going to tell Aki that. Grumping silently, he answered a few mails on his phone as Aki continued to flip through the pages. He didn’t know why he didn’t just leave the parlour. If he just left, Aki was sure to drift after him, most likely dropping the topic until another day.
“You want one…”
Shige jumped slightly, jerking backwards at the sudden appearance of Aki’s face right in front of his own. “Don’t do that!”
Aki grinned. “But you’re cute when you’re all…” he made a spastic gesture that had Shige frowning poutily.
“And no, I don’t want one! I thought we just went over this,” Shige replied, tucking his phone away.
“We did, and you do.” Aki was still grinning, looking nothing like the solemn and serious rocker that was always shown in the magazines. “Because if you really didn’t want one, you would have left ages ago, expecting me to give up and come after you.”
Flushing at Aki’s completely accurate description of what he’d been considering doing, Shige pouted a little bit more. “Just because I was being polite doesn’t mean I secretly want a tattoo.”
Except he kind of did, just a little bit. Not just because Aki wanted him to get one – well, not completely… but also because it would be neat, something that few Johnnies had. He wanted to be out there for once. Instead of being the follower, Shige wanted to lead.
“You want one~,” Aki repeated in a sing song, poking one of Shige’s cheeks.
Huffing, Shige smacked his friend’s hand away before speaking. “Okay… maybe I do. But it’s not like I could actually get one. Someone’s bound to notice bandages. What if we have a photoshoot?”
Aki rolled his eyes. “How often have you guys had shirtless shoots lately? Just keep it off your arms and calves and you’ll be fine.”
“But—“
“No buts! Come on, Shige~. Be adventurous!”
“S’easy for you,” Shige grumbled, even as he followed Aki back towards the massive book of tattoo samples he’d been looking through. “No one thinks anything of the fact that you’ve got twenty-nine and a half piercings and a massive butterfly tramp stamp. You’re a rocker. It’s expected. I’m in a boy-band.
“I do not have twenty-nine and a half piercings,” Aki replied almost absently. “You can’t have half a piercing. I have twenty-seven.”
“Same thing,” Shige said, even as he tried to stop thinking about where Aki might be hiding the three or four piercings that weren’t readily visible (not including the two under his shirt).
When Aki didn’t reply, Shige found himself drifting over to lean back against the counter and look down at the book that held his friend’s attention captive. The page was filled with insects ranging from butterflies right down to cockroaches.
“I am not getting a cockroach tattooed on me,” he warned, just in case Aki was thinking something crazy.
A muted expression of exasperation was Aki’s only response, but Shige relaxed a little bit. Aki was his friend, it was unlikely he would make him get some sort of ugly tattoo – especially considering his own were far from ugly.
“What about this one?”
Aki’s voice was soft as usual, but there was something in it that Shige couldn’t identify, even as he leaned a little closer to peer at the image Aki was indicating. It was an ethereal butterfly similar to Aki’s own, only it was done in almost iridescent shades of green. Ignoring the heavy pull in his belly at the thought that his friend didn’t seem to mind any implication that might arise from them having matching tattoos, Shige had to admit that it was stunning. Such a design should have been feminine and not his style at all, but while it was pretty to look at, there was nothing about it that really screamed girly.
“I like it…” Shige admitted, knowing his friend would know he was lying if he said otherwise.
Grinning widely, Aki let out a happy noise and dragged the heavy book effortlessly over to where the tattoo artist’s assistant stood behind the counter reading.
“Aki!”
“What?”
“I told you! I’m not getting a tattoo!” Shige exclaimed, wondering not for the first time if Aki had the ability to conveniently forget – or ignore – things told to him that he didn’t care to hear. His refusal to get a tattoo wasn’t the first thing he’d said to Aki that his friend had seemed to forget.
“But… Shige…”
Fuck. Aki was pouting now; and instead of making him look like a brat as it should, it made him look so sad that Shige had to bite his tongue hard to stop himself from taking back his refusal and just agreeing to get a tattoo, if only to stop his friend from making that ridiculously sad expression.
“I can’t,” Shige pressed, trying to get his friend to see that it was okay for him to body mod to the nth degree, but Johnny was a bit stricter when it came to how they looked.
“Just get it somewhere that no one will see,” Aki insisted.
Shige’s mind dropped to the gutter and he swallowed hard, ignoring the interested look from the woman behind the counter as his cheeks turned pink. He almost hated himself right then for the fact that he’d never been able to affect a blank and disinterested look like Yamapi, because his thoughts usually ended up plastered across his face whether he wanted them to be or not.
Aki grinned a bit as if reading his mind, and Shige felt his blush deepen.
“Not there, silly. That would hurt,” Aki said with a soft laugh and a knowing look that had Shige fighting to stop his gaze from dropping curiously, wondering if Aki knew that from firsthand experience.
“The next open appointment is in half an hour,” the woman behind the counter said blandly, even as she looked at Shige with mild amusement in her dark eyes. Her upper arms, bared by the tank top she wore, were decorated with a beautiful spray of cherry blossoms that seemed to go from one shoulder and across her back to the other.
“See, perfect timing,” Aki said. “And I know you can afford it, Shige. You don’t spend even half the money you make.”
“Unlike you,” Shige said with a laugh, eager to grab onto the mild change in conversation. “You have to buy every video game for every platform as soon as it gets released.”
Aki snorted softly, but didn’t deny Shige’s words. “Come on, Shige-chaaa~n,” he said softly, voice a melodic sing song once more. “Go wild, for once in your life.”
Knowing that Aki didn’t consider some of the things he had to wear for concerts wild (though who knew why he didn’t), Shige felt his lips twitching up in a small smile. He wanted to. Deep down, he wanted to be naughty, to step outside of his box and do this. Not just because it was Aki asking him to – though he would admit to himself that that helped.
Grinning widely, Aki knew exactly when Shige capitulated. Turning to the woman, he turned the book around to face her and pointed to the green butterfly. “He’s going to get that one.”
Coming up to the counter a bit reluctantly, Shige removed his ID to prove his age, as well as his bank card to pay a deposit for the damn thing, knowing the final cost would depend on how long it took to be inked. He looked at the design again as the woman rung him in and handed him the release form to fill out, stating he was over age and understood all the risks and proper care involved in a tattoo. He had to admit, it was a gorgeous design, and the thought of only Aki knowing it was there was a big turn on.
Now if only he didn’t pass out or die while he was actually getting the tattoo, he’d be okay.
--+--+--
It hurt. A lot more than he’d thought it was going to. He could handle the pain though, with Aki there holding his hand and not acting like he was a sissy for having to do so in the first place. The only problem was… that it didn’t just hurt.
Lying there on his back, the artist bent over his hip and working carefully to apply perfect lines and dots of coloured ink on the front of his left hip, it was impossible to ignore the fact that he was hard.
He’d expected it to hurt – even if it hurt more than he’d thought. He’d never expected to enjoy that hurt.
Despite thanking any deity he could remember learning about for the fact that he was wearing loose khaki pants today, Shige just hoped that neither Aki nor the tattoo artist looked at his crotch, because loose fabric could only hide so much.
Any hopes that Aki hadn’t noticed were dashed when his friend shifted where he sat and leaned in to whisper in his ear, the warm smooth metal of his lip rings brushing against his ear as he talked. “Naughty Shige… who would have thought you’d like this.”
Aki wasn’t a slut – though Shige never really thought of anyone as a slut, regardless of their promiscuity. Sex was sex, and as long as people were safe and not hurting anyone, he wasn’t in a position to judge anyone for what they did behind closed doors. Still, while he never considered his friend a slut, he knew that Aki enjoyed sex. He’d always just assumed he only enjoyed it with girls (and maybe Yuuya when they were away on tour, something he’d always been irrationally jealous about).
Unable to respond without gasping, either in pain or arousal, Shige remained silent, biting his lower lip to keep his voice to himself.
It was hard--difficult, not hard, dear God, it was painfully hard--to keep quiet when Aki’s mouth was all but pressed to his ear, tongue flicking out now and then as he talked, shamefully dirty things that had Shige wondering how the tattoo artist didn’t know.
For a split second, Shige wished that he had asked for his tattoo to be on his back so that he could at least have the pressure of the bed to rub against. Instead he had nothing except that sharp sting of needles on his bare hip and Aki’s hot voice in his ear and reverberating inside his head. A small part of him wondered what on earth he’d done wrong in a past life to have earned such torture right now in this one.
Closing his eyes, he did his best to ignore anything that Aki was saying, because with every word his friend spoke, another tiny bit of his sanity was leached away.
The damp swipe of a tongue tracing the lobe of his ear before sneaking inside had his eyes opening wide and a sharp gasp escaping him. Instantly biting his lip, he managed a small nod when the tattooist paused in his work to ask if he was alright.
“Aki…”
His voice was a low admonishing hiss, but Aki just giggled. Shige was sure that there was something imminently wrong about the other man giggling when he was administering sexual torture. It was just unfair, and it made Shige’s mind go to naughtier places that involved gags and things that good J-boys didn’t know about or partake in.
Shige was all but silently praying for mercy by the time the tattooist shut off the needle gun and straightened with a pleased grin on his face. Gently smoothing ointment over the patch of reddened and inked skin, he covered it in gauze and removed his gloves, tossing them in the garbage can beside his work table.
“Take a few minutes to relax; I’ll go get you some juice. Getting inked can cause your blood pressure to drop rapidly and your body to go into shock, so I want you to stay until I’m sure you’re okay to go,” the artist said, patting Shige’s leg before leaving the small room and shutting the door behind him.
“The world hates me,” Shige groaned when he was left alone with Aki. If his friend had been willing to tease him with someone still in the room, he’d undoubtedly be even worse now that the tattoo artist was gone.
Sure enough, Aki traced surprisingly gentle fingers over the gauze that covered his freshly inked skin, a soft pleased hum escaping him before he spoke.
“It’s pretty. Looks even better on you than it did in the book,” Aki finally said, lifting his fingers from Shige before shifting a bit on his stool to lean over Shige and grin down at him. “I still can’t believe you got turned on,” he added, grin growing wider. “Straight-laced little Shige, a pain slut. Who would have thought.”
Frowning, Shige pushed himself up onto his forearms to force Aki to lean back. “Don’t say that. I don’t like that word.”
“Sorry…”
His friend looked apologetic enough, so Shige dropped it. Sighing, he flopped back down and reached down to tug his pants back up the few inches they’d been pushed down to accommodate for the tattoo. Before he could do them up though, he felt Aki’s hand knocking his away and pressing firmly between his legs, finally giving him some pressure and friction against his cock.
Exhaling sharply in surprise at the motion, he was too stunned to do more than allow it, and by then Aki had shoved his hand right down the front of his pants and had his strong calloused hand wrapped around firm flesh.
Torn between grabbing Aki’s wrist and yanking his hand away and just letting him do it, because it felt so good to get off when he’d been hard for close to an hour and a half, Shige made a soft little whine of noise, not sure what to do.
“Let me,” Aki said softly, his normally high energy laughter no longer present in his voice. He sounded so serious, so un-Aki, that Shige opened his eyes – when had they closed? – and looked up at his friend.
In retrospect, Shige honestly wondered why it had been so easy to think while he was meeting Aki’s solemn yet lust-filled brown eyes, and the other man had one hand wrapped around his dick. Except it was so easy to think when all he was thinking about was that he really really liked his friend and he was hard, and Aki was touching him and he couldn’t think of a good reason not to let him.
He couldn’t find the words, his tongue tangled up somewhere and seemingly glued to the roof of his mouth, so he just nodded instead.
“Yay,” Aki said softly, and Shige couldn’t help but smile. The other man’s childish enthusiasm for everything was something that Shige loved about his friend. He was so unaffected by his fame that it was no wonder that he knew – and was known by and loved by – half of the entertainment industry.
Sucking in a sharp breath when Aki finally moved his hand, tight and sure around his cock, Shige wondered if it was possible to die from an orgasm. It certainly felt like that was what was happening. Instead of just feeling it in his cock, Shige felt like his whole body was tingling, like he could feel Aki’s rough fingers all over every inch of skin and not just where he was dragging them over the soft damp head of his erection.
“Aki…”
His friend’s name escaped him in a tiny whimper, something he wasn’t that proud about, but Aki was really good with his hands. Maybe it was all that bass playing, or maybe he just got around a lot – or jerked off a lot – but Shige could care less right now why Aki was that good. As long as he didn’t stop, Shige was happy.
A distant part of his mind reminded him that this was probably a bad thing to do when he already had feelings of some sort for Aki, but to the rest of his mind it seemed far crueler to pass up this opportunity when he might never get it again.
It didn’t take him long to come. Whether Aki was just that good, or whether it was because he’d been on the brink of coming for close to an hour, who knew. He managed a small warning, giving Aki enough time to nudge his pants down and stroke him through it. It didn’t feel weird at all to watch Aki’s expression even as his friend was watching him come, streaks of white decorating his belly.
Eventually it was all too much and he had to flop back, staring at the ceiling as he struggled to breathe properly. It was probably a good thing he wasn’t looking just then, because at the feel of Aki’s soft wet tongue – and cool hard piercing – brushing against his belly and the tip of his cock to clean up the mess he’d made, Shige was sure that if it had been possible, he would have been hard or come all over again.
Aki made it worse by the soft and appreciative hum he made after licking his lips clean of any residue.
“Both you and the world hate me,” Shige repeated with a groan, cock twitching just a little in renewed interest as Aki tucked him back into his boxers and straightened his pants. Just in time, because the tattoo artist chose that exact moment to come back in, bottle of juice in hand.
“Sorry, I had a customer on the phone,” he apologized. “How do you feel?”
Shige just laughed, letting Aki help him sit up and pull on his shirt. “Better now,” he said truthfully, though the artist didn’t need to know why.
“Excellent. Drink this, I’ll get you some after care information, and you can be on your way.”
The man handed him the juice and left the room once more, leading Shige to stare a bit helplessly at the bottle like he’d never seen one before. It disappeared from his hand and he blinked, looking to where Aki was cracking it open and taking a swing. His friend made a bit of a face.
“Ew. Doesn’t mix well.”
Snorting softly, Shige grabbed the juice away from Aki and stuck his tongue out at his friend. “It’s not your juice anyway, so that’s just karma that you can taste.”
Aki just rolled his eyes and got to his feet, helping Shige stand even as he watched his friend chug back the juice greedily.
Catching the look out of the corner of his eye, Shige paused for a breath and stared at Aki. He jerked back in surprise when Aki leaned in, but he wasn’t fast enough, and Aki’s tongue darted out and licked a stray droplet of juice off of his lower lip.
“Tastes better off of you,” Aki said with a crooked grin.
Shige didn’t know what to say.
“Want to go get lunch?” Aki asked as they left the room, seemingly oblivious to the tension Shige was sure was between them, considering his friend had just given him a handjob in the backroom of a tattoo parlour (and then licked him clean).
“… sure,” Shige sighed, no other thoughts coming to mind. “I could eat.”
“So could I,” said Aki, turning to Shige and giving him another grin. “But that can wait.”
“… I hate you,” Shige said, but there was just amused resignation in his voice, even though his mind couldn’t seem to stop going a million miles a minute, thinking about everything from Aki’s sudden sexual advances to the meaning behind his new butterfly tattoo that was eerily like his friend’s.
“No you don’t,” Aki replied, slinging his arm around Shige’s shoulders and tugging him against his side for a brief hug before letting him go.
Grunting wordlessly in response, Shige tried to ignore the way his skin was tingling just from the brief contact of Aki against him. He absently wondered when he’d turned into such a girl that a simple touch from his friend had him feeling all gooey inside.
Their walk was mostly silent as they made their way down the street. Shige was lost in his own thoughts, and Aki was silent as usual, hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans. His elbow brushed against Shige’s as they walked, and Shige swallowed hard, doing his best to ignore the riot of sensation it caused. Even through layers of their clothing, Shige felt Aki.
Lunch was almost surprisingly anti-climactic after all that had happened that morning, and Shige spent most of the meal staring at his plate and his chopsticks.
A light kick to his ankle finally drew his attention back to Aki, and he looked up to see his friend frowning at him. It was a strange expression on his friend’s normally soft and smiling face.
“What?”
He struggled not to sound short, because even if he wanted to blame Aki for the awkwardness between them, he couldn’t. Aki was his friend, and Aki was Aki. Being angry at him was like kicking a small defenseless kitten, and as allergic as they both were to the adorable animals, neither of them would ever want to harm one.
Aki pouted. “You’re mad at me.”
Shige sighed. “I’m not mad at you.” He struggled to think of how to explain himself in a way that wouldn’t hurt his friend’s feelings or cause a further rift between them. “I’m confused… but I’m not mad,” he finally said, pushing his food around his plate with the tips of his chopsticks.
Silence greeted his words, and for a moment or two Shige didn’t want to look up and see what kind of expression was on Aki’s face. He was about to look up and break the silence when Aki finally spoke.
“I’m sorry…”
He sounded so contrite that Shige had to look up. His stomach immediately hurt at the forlorn look on Aki’s face. “Don’t… I mean… I’m sure I’m giving you mixed messages, but please don’t be sorry for… for that unless you were doing it to mess with my feelings,” Shige managed to get out.
Aki’s eyes widened and he immediately shook his head. “I wouldn’t!”
Shige couldn’t help but giggle at that, because Aki looked younger than usual in his panic. Relieved though, he wondered if it was safe to ask something he really wanted the answer to at the risk of making things uncomfortable between them once more.
“Can I…” his voice cracked embarrassingly and he blushed, taking a sip of his tea before speaking again, voice a little stronger this time. “Why did you do it?”
Expecting Aki to blush – or look away – Shige was surprised when he just lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t really know. I mean… I like you, and it was hot that you were turned on, but I don’t normally go around doing stuff like that in places like those.”
A little relieved by his friend’s answer, Shige rolled his mug of tea between his hands absently for a moment until one portion of Aki’s answer registered a little bit more in his admittedly still-foggy brain. “…what do you mean by ‘like’?”
This time Aki did blush, and Shige had to blink a few times and bite his tongue to keep himself from reaching out and touching deliciously pink cheeks to see if they were as warm as they looked.
“I like Shige…” Aki said finally, looking down at the table and avoiding Shige’s gaze for the first time today.
It was almost impossible to misinterpret those words, unless he was being willfully ignorant. He spoke before his mouth bothered to connect with his brains and said the first thing that came to his lips.
“Why?”
Aki blinked and looked up at him, confusion filling his expression. “What do you mean why?”
Unsure of how he could make that question any clearer – without insulting his friend’s intelligence at the same time – Shige glanced down at his plate blindly for a moment, valiantly trying to regroup his scattered thoughts.
“I mean… why me?” he asked again, still at a loss. “You know everybody. Why on earth out of all of them would you like me?”
Aki’s expression lightened as Shige clarified his ‘why?’ but it darkened again almost immediately at Shige’s self-deprecating words. “Why not you?” he asked in response. “You’re my friend, Shige. Obviously I like you enough in some manner if we’re that much to begin with. Why can’t I like you more than that?”
He’s making it sound so simple, Shige thought. He’s making it sound like he doesn’t have half of the entertainment industry (as well as anyone else in Tokyo) at his beck and call. He was probably exaggerating just a little bit, but not by much. There was something about Aki – something more subtle than his gregarious personality – that drew people to him.
“Shige…”
Aki’s voice was soft and Shige had to fight from flinching reflexively when Aki reached across the table to cover one hand with his own and give it a soft squeeze. Warmth suffused his cheeks and he felt like his skin was tingling just from Aki touching him.
“I like you. I also just like you. You’re my friend, but I’m not going to lie and say that I haven’t thought for a long time that I’d like to be something more to you.”
It took all of Shige’s willpower to not ask Aki ‘why?’ again. He had the feeling that even just asking it once had hurt Aki’s feelings. It was nice to sit here like this, Aki’s hand on his, and just enjoy his touch. Except he couldn’t think of anything but the words Aki was saying. It was like those words were the only thing taking up space in his conscious mind right now, because he couldn’t even remember what he was having for lunch without actually looking down at his plate.
“We can’t,” was his only reply. What he wanted to say was ‘yes’. Actually, it was closer to: Oh dear God yes, and while you’re at it, do you mind touching me with those hands again? But common sense prevailed (for once) and he spoke what was the painful truth.
What would their friends think? And beyond their friends – and families – what would their fans think? Neither of their companies would allow them to risk their careers, and the careers of their band-mates, just for something as supposedly trivial and meaningless as love.
“Yes we can,” Aki replied. His voice was hard and stubborn for once and Shige actually looked up at him in surprise. “You’re just scared.”
“Of course I am,” Shige exclaimed. “Why shouldn’t I be? You come out of the blue with… this… this thing, this confession. What else am I supposed to be? We could lose our jobs, Aki. More than that, we could be ostracized by society and our families. I don’t know about you, but that’s not something I can just brush away and not be scared of.”
Shige almost regretted his tirade for a moment when that hurt look reappeared on Aki’s face. He held firm for once though, because this wasn’t just something small; this was their lives that Aki was considering turning upside down.
“I know. Believe me, Shige. I know. You think I haven’t thought about this at all?”
Aki’s face was serious now, their lunches abandoned between them. Shige exhaled shakily and shook his head. “Of course not. I didn’t mean to say that you weren’t taking this seriously. You’ve just had a lot more time to think about it than I have.”
A tiny smile curved Aki’s lips and caused the light to reflect off the piercings on his lips. For a small moment Shige was distracted. He wanted to kiss Aki, to see what it was like to kiss someone with so much metal in their lips and tongue. Heat flooded his face and pooled between his legs and he shifted uncomfortably for a moment, ignoring Aki’s further widening grin and amused expression.
“Please… just give me a chance?”
Shige’s arousal faded a little bit when Aki spoke again. His friend’s voice was so soft and earnest that he felt like a monster for even considering saying no. It was obvious that this wasn’t just a whim to Aki, even if his actions in the tattoo parlour might have been.
“I don’t know what to do,” he finally admitted, lifting his gaze to meet Aki’s. He didn’t need a mirror to know what he must look like to Aki, because he knew deep down that his expression mirrored his thoughts that were a jumble of hope, panic, and outright fear.
Aki laughed softly. “You think I do?”
“I was hoping you did. One of us should have some sort of clue,” Shige said.
Aki just shrugged again. It was an easy flowing motion and did nothing to hide the powerful muscles of his chest and arms. Shige wondered if it was possible to turn gay after one handjob or if he was just Aki-sexual. It was a stupid term, but considering Aki was the only male he’d ever let do such a thing, it was kind of accurate.
“Aki…”
“Don’t, Shige.”
Shige blinked. He hadn’t even said anything yet, and Aki’s voice was hard in a way that Shige’d never heard before. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t give me some long winded and ridiculously trite reason why we shouldn’t be doing this. I’m not stupid. I know that it’d be frowned upon, that even if we weren’t famous we couldn’t just go out holding hands or kissing in public… but I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you, and even if I have to keep it a secret, I still want you.”
The force of his words was so strong that Shige almost had the urge to lean back in his seat. He seemed so earnest in what he was saying, so sure, that a small part of Shige was almost jealous for how secure he seemed in what he was feeling.
Considering he’d had all of this just sort of thrown on him recently, Shige had to bite his tongue against saying anything that would cause a rift between them.
“I don’t know how I feel for you,” he finally said, staring down at his hands on the tabletop like they were the most interesting thing he’d seen all day. “You’re my friend, and I care for you in the way that a friend does… but I don’t know if I feel more.”
“You certainly liked me enough to come all over my hand,” Aki pointed out, mouth twitching as he struggled not to smile.
Blushing furiously, Shige couldn’t help but look around as if someone might be leaning over the side of their booth and listening to their sordid conversation. “Shut up,” he mumbled, embarrassment still high. “And that doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m twenty-three and male and I was already turned on! That’s pretty much an already stacked deck right there. I could have gotten off from the table, you just happened to er… lend a hand, as it were.”
Aki laughed at that and Shige found his blush receding gradually as normality returned.
“Anyway,” Shige continued when Aki’s laughter had calmed down a little, and his friend had picked up his glass of water to take a small sip, “the point is that even if I like you emotionally, I’m not going to get into a relationship with you if I’m not sure I can like you physically too. I don’t want to be putting either of us into the awkwardness of half a relationship.”
“Fair enough.” Aki looked at him solemnly, all traces of laughter now gone from his expression. There was an expression in his eyes though that Shige couldn’t quite read, and it made a tingle run down his spine just a tiny bit. Whatever that expression meant, it made Shige think that perhaps he should be running for the door. Very, very quickly.
The waitress chose that moment to return and they paused their conversation in order to settle their bill and gather up their things. Shige’s plate was still half full, but he had no interest in even looking at food right now, let alone actually eating it.
Aki took his hand almost as soon as they were out of the restaurant. It was hard not to pull away, and his friend must have felt him tense because he dropped his hand and grinned. It was a slightly wicked grin and it brought back that earlier tingly feeling that told him he should be running away.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
It was all Aki said, but that one word was filled with so much intent that Shige stumbled in his walk. He couldn’t help but follow Aki though, even if his mind seemed to be running nonstop about all the reasons Aki might be taking him home, and why he shouldn’t be going.
Either time sped up almost painfully quickly, or Aki’s apartment was closer than he’d thought to where they’d been shopping, because it seemed like mere minutes had passed when they arrived.
With his thoughts all tangled up and in the clouds, Shige allowed Aki to lead him inside. He took off his shoes almost without thought, working on auto-pilot to the point that he didn’t even notice when Aki led him down the hall.
Blinking the haze from his eyes as he finally looked at the room they stood in, a fierce blush covered his cheeks even as he sputtered a bit uselessly. He was starting to get an idea of why the look on Aki’s face made him think that he should have run away. At the same time, he couldn’t deny the interest that was causing heat to pool below his belly.
“Aki… I…”
“Please?”
Aki’s one word – combined with the look on his face – had Shige stopping his protestations in their tracks. Aki was his friend; even if he wasn’t sure if he had deeper feelings for him, he felt like he owed it to the other man to at least try and find out.
Letting out a soft sigh, he nodded and allowed Aki to lead him to his bed. A small smile lifted the corner of his lips, if only because the bed was definitely not how he would have imagined Aki’s to look if he’d ever given it any thought. Aki was a guy through and through, and to be honest, Shige would have expected his bed to be unmade and messy with the first sheets and comforters he’d been able to find decorating it.
Instead it was neatly made, pillows in their places and sheets tucked in. The fitted sheet was a soft cream colour and the top sheet was a darker gold. The comforter and the pillow cases were a deep royal blue and looked soft enough that Shige almost pulled away from Aki to flop down onto the mattress with the intent to luxuriate.
His thoughts must have been visible on his face because Aki grinned and gestured to the mattress. “Go ahead. You know you want to.”
His words made Shige blush, because as innocent as they were, there was still the small problem of the fact that they were in Aki’s bedroom, and it wasn’t likely that they were here to do anything as innocent as enjoying the softness of his sheets.
“What are we doing, Aki?” he asked softly, even as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed, hands gently touching the comforter’s soft fabric beneath him. “Is this a game to you?” He didn’t really think it was, but he had to be sure.
“Of course not!”
Exhaling a bit in relief, Shige glanced down at the wooden floor beneath his feet before looking back up at Aki. He would have been lying if he’d said that he wasn’t interested. He knew his body was interested now, even if his heart and mind were unsure. Aki was his friend, yes, but that meant more than anything that he didn’t want to lose that friendship by trying to turn it into something else and failing.
“Shige…”
Shige looked up as Aki spoke; smiled softly as his friend sat next to him, and took his hand in his and squeezed it gently. Nerves squirmed in his belly and he finally gave into the urge he had to kiss Aki, lips trembling slightly. He thought that he quite liked kissing Aki, despite the awkwardness that this was his friend.
Whatever Aki might have been about to say must have left his head when Shige kissed him, because he didn’t attempt to pick up the thread of conversation when they parted and paused for a breath. Instead he just looked at Shige like he wanted to do a lot more than kiss him, and it made Shige’s blush return even as he pressed back in for another kiss.
Kissing he could handle, and he thought that maybe – just maybe – if he kissed Aki long enough then he might be able to decide whether or not he was able to take things further than that between them.
It was impossible to count the exact number of kisses they shared, because one seemed to blend into the next, their lips only parting the slightest bit for ragged inhalations of air when it became too much. If Shige could think at all about anything other than the way the inside of Aki’s mouth tasted, or the feel of his tongue (and piercing) against his own, he might have pondered why no one ever remembered to breathe through their nose while kissing.
His senses felt so overwhelmed. Between the slick feel of Aki’s tongue in his mouth and the warm dryness of his lips against his own, Shige was drowning in tactile sensation. It only seemed natural for him to slide his hands up under the back of Aki’s shirt, tracing idle patterns on soft skin and pulling Aki closer to him.
Shige wanted to smile smugly at the needy keen of noise that Aki let out when one of his hands found a particularly sensitive patch of skin just under the nape of his neck. Instead he pushed Aki back – and ignored his confused protests – switching their positions so that his friend was on his belly on the mattress and Shige could straddle lean hips.
Pushing Aki’s shirt up and helping him squirm out of it, Shige felt a rush of emotion slide through him like a punch to the gut. Looking down at soft inked skin and the subtle muscles that it showcased made him want to do things that he’d only ever thought about doing to girls before now.
Getting into a better position, Shige arched his back and pressed a soft kiss to that sensitive little patch of skin on Aki’s neck, smiling into the skin there as Aki made that helpless little noise again and squirmed underneath him. It took him only a brief moment to realize the exact reason why Aki’s hips were pressing down in tight short waves. Emotion shot through him and he moved, pressing his weight onto Aki’s ass and lower back, forcibly stilling his motions.
“Not yet,” was all he said when greeted with Aki’s lost and pleading whine.
“Shige…”
“No. I… I want to be the one to do it,” Shige replied, cheeks burning hotly with his embarrassment at actually saying that out loud, even as that coil of heat in his belly burned hotter at his acknowledgment of what he wanted to do with – and to – his friend.
They could have stopped right then as soon as Shige came to the realization that he definitely had the ability to be attracted to Aki physically as well as emotionally, but even if Shige wanted to stop, he had a good idea that Aki might have killed him if he did. Or at least beat him further senseless with one of his precious guitars anyway.
“… ‘kay.”
A soft snicker of laughter escaped Shige at what was a rather anticlimactic response from Aki to his claiming, but it seemed to fit. Aki’d never been all that good at being loquacious when one word answers would get the job done just the same.
Sitting there, straddling his friend’s hips with his very hard cock pressed against the soft swell of Aki’s ass, Shige lost his nerve for a moment, hands stilling on Aki’s back where they’d been exploring the lines of ink that made up the tattoo so like his own new body modification. He wasn’t a stranger to sex. He’d had girlfriends and he’d had one night flings that he’d picked up in clubs.
Hell, he wasn’t even really a stranger to kinky sex, which might have come as a surprise to his band mates if they had ever known some of the stuff that got him off in bed. The truth was though, what made him nervous right now was not the fact that Aki was oh so very male, but the fact that Aki was a close friend.
If he fucked up with a girl, relationship or hook-up, he might feel bad initially, but then he’d move on and forget all about it. This wasn’t just a girl though. This was Aki – and even if it had been another friend like Koyama or Massu, he would still feel this apprehension because to him friends were always more important than someone he was sleeping with, and the last thing he wanted was to ruin one with the other.
“You’re sure this is okay, Aki?” he asked even as he arched his back to lean down and press soft and curious kisses across the expanse of broad shoulders covered in tanned skin.
“I’m sure, Shige.”
He didn’t say more than that, but his voice was firm. Shige nodded, even if Aki couldn’t see him. It didn’t matter to him right now if they fucked or just fooled around; he just needed to know that this was all okay.
Covering Aki shoulder to ankle with his own body, Shige pressed a soft kiss to the skin just under his ear, loving the feel of Aki’s pulse tripping wildly under his lips. It was so powerful to pleasure someone – one of the reasons why he loved being with someone. Not just to feel that power like it was a sense of control, but to have the power to so affect someone’s moods, to make them cry or scream, to watch them tremble under his hands and mouth, helpless to do anything but what he wished.
He was sure he came off as very M to most people, but he was definitely an S in bed.
Letting himself touch and taste as much of Aki’s skin as he could, it felt like all too soon that Aki was naked beneath him, twisting and writhing sensuously. He looked so beautiful like that, so lost to his passion that Shige had to absently wonder why he’d never considered this before. Why had he never seen Aki in this light?
His hip was starting to hurt, the on and off pressure against freshly inked skin (even if it was still protected by bandages) bringing an extra edge to his pleasure when he finally settled between Aki’s muscular thighs and took him tentatively between his lips.
It wasn’t something he’d ever tried before, but the bonus to gay sex was that he already knew what felt good to him, and it was relatively easy to replicate those sensations for Aki. Even if it took a little getting used to – the taste and feel of a cock in his mouth – Aki’s reactions to each touch of his mouth and hands had him rubbing against the mattress almost helplessly, as if that would ease the feeling of how badly he wanted to come.
Aki’s own orgasm took him by surprise, his friend’s hand tightening where it was tangled in his hair just before his cock swelled a little bit more and released short bitter bursts of come into his mouth. Startled, he pulled back abruptly, come decorating his lips and face even as he coughed softly to get his breath back.
“Sorry…”
Shige bit back a laugh at Aki’s dazed sounding apology. It was kind of cute. Making a face at the warm feel of come on his skin, he reached for the corner of the bedsheet and pulled it close, wiping his face and hands clean before turning to wipe at Aki’s cock, the softened flesh a lot less intimidating than it had been moments before.
He met Aki’s gaze and grinned when his friend propped himself up on his forearms to look at him. Shige wondered what it meant that he thought Aki looked even cuter like this, hair a fluffy messy riot, mouth slack as he panted softly, and skin a million different blotchy shades of red from exertion.
“Stop looking at me like that, idiot,” Aki said even as he reached down and tugged Shige up to lay on top of him. A soft hiss escaped him at the feeling of pressure against recently spent flesh and Shige shifted carefully to straddle his upper hips, keeping his weight off of sensitive areas for now. He didn’t even have a chance to respond to Aki’s words before his friend pressed his thumb hard against the square of gauze covering his new tattoo.
A hot wave of pain flashed over him and he came unexpectedly, all of the recent sensations and stimulation pushed over the edge by that delicious and unexpected hurt.
“You are such a pervert.”
Shige would have objected, but considering he had just come what felt like his brains right out of his dick, he just stayed where he was, silently lying on his back next to Aki and staring at the plain white bedroom ceiling, uncaring that they’d used the sheets once more to clean up Shige’s release before pushing the top sheet to the side, allowing them to lay on the only slightly damp fitted sheet.
Soft fingers danced over the undefined flesh of his belly and he let out a surprised bark of laughter, body instinctively curling in to escape such a ticklish touch. Rolling onto his side, grateful that Aki was laying on his right so that he didn’t need to put more pressure on the tattoo that had already been abused, Shige propped his head up on his hand and reached out to cup his friend’s cheek.
“Do you regret that we didn’t make love?”
Blinking for a moment at the last question he expected Shige to ask, Aki just grinned and shook his head, leaning into the touch as his eyes slid almost all the way closed.
“Not at all. Save the best for last and all that,” he said. Amusement was rich in his voice even as he shifted lazily on spoiled sheets to cuddle up close. “We can always do it next time.”
Shige raised one expressive eyebrow and fought to keep the smile that was threatening to break free from appearing on his lips. “What makes you think there’s going to be a next time?”
“This does,” Aki said, mouth wide in a pleased smile as he lowered one hand between Shige’s legs and gave his burgeoning erection a gentle but firm squeeze.
Unable to do anything but moan at the touch, Shige had to wonder just what it was that he’d gotten himself into – or if he really even cared anymore.