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So they’re holed up in the back of the theater, shins bumping chins and knocking against elbows. Ten inches away Katsuyuki hisses, “Knock it off, rookie,” because Itsuki’s stepped on his foot again, and somehow Masatoshi manages to loom without being visible because one very considerate order to shut up has everyone hunkering down for the long ride. Masatoshi and Katsuyuki miraculously nab two corner seats, and because Carlos is nice he’s sharing a third with Itsuki, but Mei and Kazuya end up squashed by their feet, knees braced against the chairs in front, both wanting more touch and neither quite sure how to hit engine start.
It’s not hard to sneak outside food and beverages into the Metreon, and Mei pops open a classic eight-ounce bottle of Coke, rolling the cap along his knuckles and offering it to Kazuya. Between his fingers it looks like a tiny gold star, a sheriff’s badge, a coin stolen out of a wishing well.
“Come and get your love,” he mouths along to Chris Pratt’s dance number, and Kazuya shakes his head, leaning over to drink. Mei tips the bottle so Kazuya doesn’t have to angle his jaw so much, and if Kazuya tries really hard he can pretend that the gleam in Mei’s eyes is the glow of the movie screen, meaningless, imagined, nothing.
Kazuya’s lower lip catches on the mouth of the bottle and Mei tracks the movement with his sharp gaze, grinning when he realizes that Kazuya is watching him back.
“Aren’t you being a little too obvious,” Kazuya murmurs, all nerve endings electric.
Mei shrugs and takes a sip himself. “So’re you,” he replies easily. The movie’s title credits roll in, the villains emerge through a veil of extraterrestrial sea spray, and Kazuya convinces himself it wouldn’t hurt to lean into Mei just a little more.
“You just want to know what else I can do,” Kazuya jokes, and Mei’s expression crash-lands somewhere between interested and annoyed.
“I hate it when you,” Mei begins, breaking off when Carlos nudges a knee against his arm to shush him. Kazuya grins back with too much teeth, and in a flash Mei presses the cold bottle to the side of Kazuya’s neck, bare and vulnerable and open to attack. The battle is lost the moment Kazuya fails to bite back a gasp that has Mei laughing into Kazuya’s shoulderblade, the press of his nose soft and funny-feeling and weirdly intimate through Kazuya’s shirt.
They shake together in silent mirth, Mei’s fingers digging into Kazuya’s sides like iron clamps. “Damn it,” Kazuya snickers, twisting to swat Mei’s hand away, but nothing can prepare him for Mei’s nose sliding along his cheek, his soft breath fanning over Kazuya’s chin.
Nobody says a word. Nobody notices.
“C’mon c’mon,” Mei whispers. Kazuya’s glasses are askew and Mei’s face comes to him in pieces, the slash of a jaw and the blurry blue-tinted smear of a mouth. “Memento mori and all that shit, yeah?”
“I think you mean carpe diem,” Kazuya counters, voice steady. His pulse is thudding in the crook of his arm like a rhythm too big for his body and Mei’s got it trapped under his thumb, keeping time to how much how fast Kazuya wants this.
Something explodes in the background and Mei’s glance flickers between Kazuya and the big screen in a quick side-to-side scan. He looks unusually serious, half-bent over Kazuya with the sharp edge of his collar popped up, self-assured grin gone and forgotten.
“Then what’re you waiting for?” Mei wants to know, and Kazuya responds to the challenge in his voice by lifting his face to meet Mei halfway. As far as first kisses go, this one has too much nose mashing and not enough mouth, except Mei gives one big huff and tilts Kazuya’s chin and suddenly their lips are slotting together with the barest hint of teeth, warm and clumsy and soda-stained.
Pulling away to wipe his mouth on the back of his hand, Kazuya remarks, “We need to cut down on the spit.” During the kiss he’d been unable to make himself close his eyes, stealing glimpses of Mei’s face half-obscured by shadow. It was an oddly thrilling sensation, all at once embarrassing and wonderful because it was Mei.
Glowing with excitement, Mei brushes one cool palm along the hollow of Kazuya's neck, thumb following index finger. “I thought you knew how to make out. Big talk from a big liar.”
“I said you wish you knew what I could do, which I neglected to mention is absolutely nothing,” Kazuya dutifully corrects. He grips Mei’s shirt in a fist, feeling like he’d slide out of his own body if he didn’t grab onto the nearest solid thing, and for a moment Mei looks surprised and then achingly smug.
“Yeah, yeah, real big talk.”
The movie doesn’t matter anymore, not that Kazuya had cared much about it in the first place. “Third time’s the charm,” he insists, game face on, and he can tell he’s got Mei hooked because Mei’s already leaning in, his hand on Kazuya’s waist drawing them even closer together. The jumble of thigh over leg is uncomfortable but also negligible, and a third kiss melts into a fourth, a fifth.
By now Masatoshi and Carlos have noticed, and Katsuyuki is quick on the uptake, sighing like he’d predicted the turn of events lightyears ago.
“Get a room,” Carlos teases, except they don’t because there’s really no room to get.
“Get out,” Katsuyuki suggests as an alternative solution, except they also don’t because there’s really no space for them to do much more than press against each other.
Shifting positions, Kazuya cuts his thumb on the edge of the Coke cap, carelessly abandoned on the floor. The stinging doesn’t faze him at all, a minor throbbing, a small distraction to ground him, keep them from falling too far. At some point he also catches Itsuki’s wide dark eyes following him and Mei, vaguely ashamed and curious, like he’s torn between wanting to watch them and wanting to be them. Kazuya doesn’t bring it up with anyone, just another secret for him to keep too well, and thinks little of it, really, until much, much later.