Chapter Text
The first time Matsumoto Jun knows that he's fallen in love was when he was seventeen.
He’s a second year student struggling through the awkward years of thorny adolescence in the panorama of high school and of course he just had start the year off by barrelling into the butt of a third year student. Jun doesn’t remember the details of what really transpired in that window of time of his life but what he does remember was that feeling how time actually stopped and how his heart throbbed hard at the face of a boy who's scowling furiously and yelling vicious profanities to his face.
“The fuck is wrong with you? Are you a retard? Do you want to die?”
No I don't and I'm sorry, is what Jun ought to say because a normal person would have abscond the fuck out of an embarrassing situation like this in the hopes of saving face and to avoid any broken bones. Yes it's my fault I wasn't looking at where I was going I'm so sorry for headbutting your butt is what Jun could've said. But he didn't. He remains planted on the ground, his heart feeling like it's beating at a hundred miles an hour because he knows and is certain that this is it. This is that feeling everyone talks about. That premonition of love you feel when you meet the one.
“I’m in the cooking club. If you try out one dish I make and like it, let’s be friends,” is what Jun ends up blurting. The look Jun receives from the boy is nothing short of incredulous. He’s stopped shouting at Jun but is now staring at him with his eyebrows raised, his shoulders slumped and his mouth slack.
“Huh?”
Shakily, Jun bravely rises to his feet and that’s when he hears this odd shrill squawk come around the corner. He isn’t sure what it was or if it was even human in the first place but whatever it was, it had the older boy in front of him stiffening. The angry scowl quickly falls away from his face and in its place, a look of panic. Distraught, even. The older boy hastily apologises and then shoulders past Jun to break off into a sprint.
Jun stands there, slightly at a loss as he blinks at the disappearing back of the third year student when all of a sudden a tall gangly boy in a laboratory coat comes stumbling around the school building. A ratty wet shirt which has probably seen better days is clasped tightly in his hand, dripping revoltingly.
“Hey you! Did you see Sho-chan?” the boy – Lab Coat, Jun decides to call him – asks in a tight wheezy voice. His expression is pinched with barely concealed frustration. “Sho-chan? He’s, uh, he’s about this high? Has round eyes and a forehead you could land a plane on?”
Ah.
Jun almost turns his head to where that boy – Sho-chan – had run off to and fights back the smile that’s tickling the corners of his mouth. Sensing the expectant look from the other, he raises his hand and scratches the back of his head. “No. I don’t think anyone like that went past here,” Jun lies with a sheepish toothy smile.
Lab Coat groans and grumbles about spoilsports and how friends should totally keep their end of the bargain. He thanks Jun quickly and rushes off to find ‘Sho-chan’, blaring at the top of his lungs like an abandoned seagull. Jun watches Lab Coat’s retreating figure and quietly thanks him for the name, tucking it into a small corner of his mind for safekeeping.
*
It’s two weeks later and when Jun is in the middle of making Napolitan pasta that Sho comes gracelessly scrambling back into his life. Or rather, into the home economics room where Jun grudgingly stays behind in for cooking club every day.
Jun nearly drops his pan at the sight of Sho while the other boy, startled out of his poor heart, stumbles back and hits his elbow painfully into the door behind him. The loud bang has Jun wincing empathetically but they both remain where they are, staring at each other from across the room.
The pasta sizzles on but Jun can hear his heart go thump, thump, thump. He wordlessly raises his pan with one hand and turns off the cooker with the other.
“It’s you,” Sho finally croaks in acknowledgement. He remains by the door. “The one – that one time – when we –”
Jun gives a curt nod and remembers to breathe. “Yeah. That was me.”
“Right. Of course. Why wouldn't it be.”
Sho looks tentative at first, his eyes darting towards the pan before drifting around the room as if he’s trying to compute everything all at once. After a long second, he finally steps away from the door and rubs at his elbow. “A bargain,” he says in a voice that would’ve have been authoritative if it wasn’t so breathless. Not meeting Jun’s eyes, he gesticulates at the pan. “I’ll eat your food. In exchange of salvation here.”
Jun almost laughs at this – who uses big fancy words like that in real life, seriously? - but nods once more with a small grunt of, “Fine”. He tries to not drop his pan as he catches the small look of relief which crosses Sho’s face and pushes the pasta he’s cooked onto a plate. He wonders if Sho was still on the run from Lab Coat. That would probably explain why he looks so frazzled. “Not a lot of people come down this wing in the first place so I suppose you’ll be safe,” Jun adds. When Sho shoots him a questioning look, he rubs the back of his neck and meekly tells him, “Please make yourself comfortable.”
“...thank you.”
It takes a while before Sho finally moves away from the door and hesitantly seats himself at Jun’s workstation. He doesn’t meet Jun’s eyes but instead has his gaze transfixed on the pasta. Jun picks up a clean fork and holds it out for the other boy to take. Sho glances up at him and that's when Jun finally sees yes, Lab Coat was right. Behind that stylish fringe, there is definitely a wide forehead which you can definitely land a plane on. Jun tries to fight back a smile but he knows that he’s likely to be failing spectacularly when Sho’s brows furrow slightly.
“Please excuse me. My name is Matsumoto,” Jun quickly introduces with the fork still held out between them. “Matsumoto Jun. Class 2-2. If the pasta isn’t good, you can still stay here and I’ll drop out of cooking club. I was never that interested in the first place.”
The corner of Sho’s mouth lifts into a small crooked smile. He looks like he’s still not entirely sure with what’s happening (Jun feels the same way too though he’s struggling to not openly stare at any point on Sho’s face – like his astonishingly good-looking mouth in spite of of its rodent likeliness) but he seems to have come to a decision when he finally takes the fork from Jun.
“Sakurai Sho. Class 3-1,” the older boy divulges with a small smile and in bated breath, Jun watches him fork the pasta and eat.
*
Sakurai Sho, Jun learns, is a straight-A student and unsurprisingly popular among his peers.
He’s a member of the journalism club and although he says he’s never been interested in that sort of thing, he’s ridiculously good at it (which earns him the nickname Sakurai-caster, much to the older boy’s embarrassment). Another thing Jun learns is that he’s also good at becoming Lab Coat’s guinea pig on his not-so lucky days. (Jun wonders how did that happen and much to his disappointment, all he gets out of a dripping Sho is a long wistful sigh after what looks like a failed attempt at an experiment involving a boat made out of cardboard). On top of that, Sho is smart, reliable and comes from an impressive family background and apparently it’s this which makes him a rebellious little shit.
In a passive-aggressive way, of course.
“I mean I get that studying is important and shit but is intelligence really linked to how a guy looks?” Sho grumbles one day when they were making their way to the school canteen for curry bread. “Like, fuck that noise. You know when I got home the other day, my dad gave me the dirtiest look because I bleached my hair. Hah, he’s totally pissed off!”
“Hey, Matsumoto-kun. Be honest with me. Does it really matter if I eat like a pig?” whines Sho on another day. He’s stuffing his cheeks with the leftover omelet rice Jun had packed from his cooking club. (Jun disagrees though. He thinks Sho looks more like a bleach-blond gluttonous hamster more than anything and it’s a spectacular sight). “What sort of guy behaves and eats like the queen of England, right? It’s bullshit. So at my mother’s dinner event last night, I belched so loudly at the table I’m surprised nobody puked into their soup. You should’ve seen the look on her face! She looked like she really wanted to strangle me! It was hilarious!”
“I swear I’m fucking done with them, Ma-kun. They’re now pushing me to fit cram school into my 24 hour schedule! I don’t even have time to mess around, man! I’m a growing boy! I have needs!” Sho explodes one late afternoon when they both skipped their respective after school club activities. They’re both lying on their backs on the bleachers, watching the orange-red rays paint the skies above them. Sho’s ipod sits between their heads and they’re both listening to the latest single from The Black Eyed Peas. (Jun has no idea what they’re singing about and the rapping makes his head spin from trying to keep up but he likes this. Likes lying on this bench and feeling Sho drum his fingers rhythmically against the hard surface as he listens to the sound of Sho's wonderful fruity voice). “I’m just going to piss them off by ditching school and coming home early with éclairs.”
In spite of all this, Jun notes how Sakurai Sho never fails to walk home before the sundown and he is ever so polite and sincerely respectful to his parents whenever Jun comes over. For all his obnoxious gung-ho talk and bad boy image, Jun can see the limitless unadulterated care Sho gives to his family. Jun sees how he spoils his younger sister, listening to her melodramatic middle-school girl problems and helping her with her homework. How he patiently caters to every demand of his baby brother, even if he gets kicked in the face during a tantrum or is vomited on. How in spite of his lack of cooking skills, he does his best to ensure that dinner is on the table by seven whenever his parents are working late and leaves some aside for them to eat. (Sadly, Jun doubts they would though because Sho has a tendency to undercook vegetables and overcook meat but he feels warm and fuzzy at Sho’s wonderful paternal gestures).
“Hey. You don’t need to do anything,” Sho feebly protests one night when Jun dutifully stands beside him to wipe the dishes.
“Dinner was really good,” Jun tells him and he means it. “Thank you.”
From the corner of his eye, he revels at the sight of Sho’s cheeks turning a little pink. “The onions were burnt, Macchan,” Sho mumbles defiantly.
A flutter of excitement takes place in Jun’s stomach. He isn’t obsessed or anything but over the span of their five-week old friendship, Jun can't help but notice that Sho is already at that comfortable stage of calling him Macchan. That is huge. Progress, even.
“You seasoned it perfectly,” Jun says giddily with a wide smile. “That’s what happens when you cook with love.”
Sho sniffs, his nose quirking up one side endearingly. It's an apparent nervous tick Jun has picked up on in their friendship and he notices how Sho is still rinsing the plate he’s holding even after all the soap suds have been washed off. “Is that why everything you make tastes so good?” Sho asks in a quiet voice after some time. “Because you’re making it for someone you love?”
Jun’s heart skips a beat and just like that the atmosphere between them abruptly shifts at the drop of a hat. Sho has said something different just now and they're both aware of it. They’re suddenly skirting along the line of their friendship, something which seems to have occurred unwarranted but is not unwelcomed. Jun’s mind is racing with a million and one thoughts as Sho makes no indication of elaborating further – well, he made it perfectly clear, didn’t he? – and deciding to humour the other boy, he keeps his gaze trained on the red tea towel he’s playing with in his hands. Runs a finger across a particular fray in the corner of the cloth to keep himself in check because he doesn’t want the bundle of nervous energy inside him to explode and cause him to do something stupid.
“Yes,” he admits quietly and adds, “I put my all when I cook for that person because when they take that first bite, the happiness on their face is all that matters.” He doesn't dare say Sho-san just yet.
It takes three long seconds before Sho finally moves. His shoulders visibly relax and he rinses the plate for the fourth time. “Is that how it is?”
Jun swallows, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden. “Yeah. The stronger that feeling is, the more delightful. Like art. Passion in a tangible form. All because of a muse.” Because at that very moment in time and throughout all those weeks of getting to know each another, nothing seemed to matter more to Jun than the look of approval on Sho’s face after he’s taken a good big bite of whatever Jun wholeheartedly prepares. He wonders then if Sho was a little bit like him. Did he look on expectantly for Jun’s approval when he served dinner? Was that why he was suddenly asking him all of these questions? The thought of it almost makes him reel.
“Thanks,” Sho tells him and Jun tightens his clasp on the tea towel.
It isn't much and it could mean anything really but Jun can feel his heart soar because he knows that they're definitely having a moment right now. The way Sho subtly shifts his weight and moves a little closer into Jun's space all but confirms it. He tries to contain the all too-wide grin he knows is already on his face and gently pries the plate out of Sho’s fingers. “Besides, I don’t think there’s any better sight than indulging a glutton,” he finishes cheekily.
Sho elbows him in the ribs. “Piss off.”
Jun bursts out laughing and he hates how ugly and braying he sounds – it’s nothing compared to Sho’s marvelous hearty one – but Sho’s warm eyes are twinkling and so full of delight. He can feel the air between them shift again and Jun resists the dizzying urge to reach over and kiss his stupid round face.
*
“You’re exquisite,” Jun blurts out one evening and he’s never believed those words to ring so much truer until it has gracelessly tumbled out of his big mouth like this.
Sho is in the middle of stuffing three glazed scallops into his mouth – Jun almost sighs dreamily and shit that’s how stupidly lovestruck he is now, he realises – and the moment they’re all in, he says “You think so?” with his mouth so full that it's a wonder nothing tumbles out.
Jun blinks at him dazedly, his brain taking its time to catch up with he just said. The moment it finally does settle in and his brain registers the apparent shithole he’s suddenly dug himself into, he freezes up . His stomach clenches nauseatingly. Sho’s chewing slowly and he’s giving him a look that is indiscernible that it makes Jun think, oh shit.
He stands up abruptly, his chair scraping noisily across the floor. He feels his stomach drop to his feet, to the linoleum floor of the home economics room and a strangled noise leaves his throat. “I – I was – I just –” he stutters weakly before he snaps his mouth shut. Sho’s a sharp boy and Jun knows that it’s futile to try to correct himself. He looks at Sho worriedly and wonders if this is the end of something that had never really begun.
Almost an eternity passes before Sho finally swallows and Jun hates this part of Sho sometimes, he realises. The unnatural silences he unintentionally drops between them, all of which are neither awkward nor meaningful. However instead of the bombardment of questions Jun braces himself for, Sho surprises him by simply stating, “It’s only fair that I tell you that you’re remarkable, then.”
Jun stares at him, dumbstruck. Beyond the open window of the home economics room, a raucous cheer erupts and reverberates from the football field.
“Remarkable,” Sho repeats, this time in English. Jun follows his smooth movement of Sho's hand as he reaches over and pops another scallop into his mouth with his butter-glazed fingers.
“Oh,” Jun says breathlessly.
Remarkable. Sho thinks he’s remarkable.
That’s a greater word than exquisite, isn’t it?
Jun beams and Sho laughs cheerfully, pleased that Jun is quick on his feet to catch on to Sho's unexpected subtleties. He only remembers at the last minute to cover his mouth when bits of scallop fly out and land on Jun’s sleeve. Apologising, he brushes the food bits off contritely but Jun pays no attention to it. He's on cloud nine, blissfully replaying Sho’s accented drawl of ‘remarkable’ over and over in his head like the broken record he often hears whenever he passes that one cosy little cafe at the corner of Shinjuku. He thinks maybe he'll bring Sho there one day but for now, he's content with watching Sho sit across him, snorting ingloriously behind his hand with nothing but a plate of Jun's scallops resting between them. It's Sho's favourite food, he takes note.
*
“I looked through a food magazine at home the other day. There were articles about shops and successful chefs in it and such,” Sho is going as he absently rolls a spatula between his hands but trails off, suddenly looking embarrassed. When Jun meets his gaze inquiringly, he seems to steel himself and ends up telling Jun rather resolutely, “I'll want to write about you one day, Macchan.”
“You want to be a journalist?” Jun asks with surprise. For the past few days, Sho has been staring disdainfully at the ‘future career plan’ form and Jun hasn’t been able to hold a proper conversation with him due to how moody and distracted he was.
“Food writer,” corrects Sho with a little bit of smugness.
“Really? That sounds amazing!”
“Oh,” Sho rubs the back of his neck sheepishly and sniffs. “Well, I’ll be going to university first of course. My parents have been nagging about degree choices and I reckon I might go to that direction. It’s a respectable career, I’d like to think.”
“Absolutely,” Jun chirpily agrees before he carefully removes the glass bowl of melted dark chocolate out of the bain-marie. Today’s the first time he’s practicing how to temper chocolate without a marble slab since the school doesn’t provide one and he’s actively going over the methods in his head as he works and talks. “I'm certain you’d do really well, Sho-san. I read your articles in the school paper and you’re just, well, really good. In writing and when you talk too! You can exactly describe the things that I make even when I don't know how to. You're just brilliant like that.” Jun reaches out and slaps Sho’s hand which was poking a finger into the chocolate. “It’s not done yet!”
Sho stares at him wide-eyed, looking confused and guilty for a moment.
“You can't just touch things that aren't done yet,” Jun chides. “You'll ruin it.”
Sho pulls a face. “Well I'm not sorry. You of all people should know I can’t help myself. Your food's always phenomenal,” he says sulkily before he sticks his chocolate-dipped finger into his mouth. The grimace which erupts across Sho’s face is priceless.
“I told you. Not done yet,” Jun mumbles, flushing a little because be still his heart, Sho called his food phenomenal.
“Ughh. This is ghoulishly bitter.”
“Just ghoulishly? I expected better, Sho-san.”
“You little shit. You know I'm not that good at describing deserts.”
But Sho’s mouth is curled into a smile as he says this and the corners of his round eyes crinkle wonderfully behind his fringe. Jun doesn’t believe he can fathom any other image that’s as beautiful as this right now – the glorious smile Sho’s directing to him and only him, even after he’s just eaten some disgustingly bitter chocolate – and he commits it to memory, gradual and steady like a still photograph that's developing in the dark.
*
It happens suddenly and yet not unexpectedly, that Sho dates a girl from Class 2-3.
Jun is not bothered.
Because when Sho spends less time with him and more with her during school (Jun has decided to call her Ninosan because he seriously thinks that it’s the most innovative thing he’s come up with so far), he makes it up to Jun by accompanying him to the public library during some weekends so that they both could find new recipes for Jun to try (and Sho to greedily savour).
It doesn’t bother him to see Ninosan cling to Sho’s arm like a slippery octopus and giggling uncontrollably at a grating pitch down the corridors because it's after school that Sho would always end up gravitating to the home economics room where Jun is preparing ingredients and waiting with a smile.
It doesn't bother him that Ninosan emails Sho almost every two minutes when they aren't physically next to each other together because at the end of the day, Sho always sends him a short but meaningful goodnight Macchan to Jun's phone just as he's about to fall asleep.
And on the occasions when Sho meets up with Jun after school with kiss-swollen lips and a rumpled uniform, Jun easily sets aside his envy towards Ninosan because the apologetic look and the sincere offer to treat Jun at their favourite soba restaurant as they jostle shoulders while walking closely together is so much more . (Plus, watching Sho's profile as he slurps up his noodles with no reserve fills Jun with so much love for this boy he's only gotten to know over the last few months. The sight makes his heart swell and he ends up giving away his boiled egg which earns him an affectionate ruffle to his hair).
“Is it normal for a guy to spend lots of time with his friend just as he does with his girlfriend?” Jun asks his sister cryptically one evening when they're sitting in front of the television, watching a famous five member idol group make absolute fools of themselves on national television.
Smiling knowingly, she gives him a tinkling laugh as she jabs her spoon into her yogurt.
“Well, that means that friendship is obviously a special one then, isn't it?”
Jun purses his lips into a thin line and stares down at his own yogurt with so much fondness that it actually earns him a kick from her just as one of the idols on television squawks about unwarranted violence.
*
It happens suddenly and yet not unexpectedly, that Ninosan breaks up with Sho.
It's a little before sundown when Jun receives a curt email from Sho about the split and he quickly meets him at the bleachers where a slouching Sho sits fiddling with his ipod. He looks so miserable, even after Jun hands him a small box of chocolates - a variety of hand-rolled truffles - he had finally created with success.
“Sho-san.”
Sho looks up and he gives Jun the most poor attempt of a smile he's ever seen.
“Hey.”
Three pieces and a long brooding silence later, Sho suddenly leans forward and clumsily bumps his mouth against Jun’s. His lips aren’t properly aligned with Jun’s because they’re trembling so much and while it annoys him a little bit (it's their first kiss after all), Jun can’t help but press his face a little closer until his teeth jut awkwardly into Sho’s bottom lip. He can taste the cocoa powder on the seams of Sho’s lips and his heart goes thump, thump, thump, thump. The faraway noise of traffic in the cool evening does nothing to distract him from the way the tip of Sho’s nose nudges awkwardly against his cheek. Jun's heart is hammering so hard against his chest and dizzily he thinks he can feel Sho's too.
“What did I do wrong?” Sho finally asks against his lips when he pulls away slightly. He sounds awful and weary.
“Nothing,” Jun reassures, swallowing as he tries to calm himself and not ascend to seventh heaven too quickly. He curls his fingers into the folds of his trousers, keeping them there because he can't trust himself. “Ni – She doesn’t deserve you.”
“But she’s the first girl that I've –” Sho stops and he squeezes his eyes shut, exhaling. A wave of regret seems to pass through him when he says this and Jun picks up on it. He's quick to notice the little signs with Sho like the tenseness in his neck and jaw and a spark of angry jealousy ignites in Jun when he knows exactly what Sho has stopped himself from saying. Damn it.
Jun pushes back against Sho's mouth in the foolish notion that he thinks he's able to chase away the phantom kisses Ninosan left by replacing them with his own. He knows his aren't perfect. Hell, they're probably the worst Sho's ever received. But there's a lick of desire burning in Jun which is desperately eager to stamp out the shame and misery out of Sho and right now Jun knows what he needs are not words but action. He's a mature boy who strides forward with his head held up but his feet firmly planted on the ground. What happened with Ninosan, whatever she had said to him had obviously knocked him off his feet and now he's sitting on the ground and staring aimlessly ahead with nobody but Jun in front of him.
“Not the last,” Jun growls defiantly. "Because I'm here." He's here because Sho wants him to be. Even if it's just to fill in the void Ninosan had selfishly left.
Sho says nothing after that but he presses back against Jun's mouth, his fingers grasping Jun's chin to tilt his head so that their lips slot into place. It's still not a perfect fit as Sho's lips are plump and Jun's are just so horribly uneven but it nevertheless makes a shudder run down Jun's spine in the most incredible way. After a moment, he feels Sho's other hand find purchase on his forearm and he holds it firmly with shaky fingers like he's afraid Jun would disappear anytime soon.
Jun reaches up and gives his hand a reassuring clasp.
As if that would ever happen.
*
It happens suddenly and yet not unexpectedly, that Sho begins acting more like the bad boy he had constructed himself to look.
It bothers Jun.
Because when Jun is busy learning and practicing tricky dishes as the semester progresses, Sho seldom drops by to the home economics room as he goes off flirting with girls who have long been trying to get his attention (and into his trousers, for that matter). It's no secret, really, that Sho goes out with lots of girls after school, especially after news of his and Ninosan's breakup spreads like wildfire. No one really knows who was at fault but Sho's loyal following were quick to point the finger at Ninosan and her lack of remorse now that she's dating another boy in Sho's class who has bigger muscles than both Jun and Sho combined. Jun often catches the venom in Sho's eyes whenever Ninosan passes by and it's frightening. Ever since Ninosan, Sho has become increasingly temperamental and hot-headed. He's like fire which catches and burns easily if one doesn't handle him carefully.
Fortunately, his grades have not slipped. If anything, they seem to be climbing just as his attitude has. Jun often catches the excited whispers from the juniors about how the teachers were constantly getting headaches because of Sho's brusqueness but they can't do anything about it due to his impeccable school record.
He's so untouchable, they all say. He's become so much cooler.
No, Jun thinks. He's spiralling out of control.
The only person who shares Jun's quiet concern is Sho's mother.
“Rotten old hag,” Sho spits poisonously one day as he forcefully snaps his cellphone shut and slams it on the table between them. It's one of the odd days where Sho turns up to Jun's kitchen space and says he wants to watch Jun cook. “Isn't it enough that I've already done everything she wants me to do? 'Your dad and I still expect you to go to cram school, in spite of your grades'? Fuck everything. This is bullshit.”
Jun stays quiet, his hands moving deftly across the counter-top as he chops some cabbage. He lets Sho rant and curse until he runs out of fuel and is finally slumped in his seat, staring off into space with a perpetual scowl on his face. His newly pierced ear is still pink, the silver ring gleaming under the fluorescent light. Jun tries not to stare even though it looks devastatingly good on him.
Sho lets out an aggravated sigh and Jun instinctively knows that Sho didn't come here to just rant. So he lowers the heat on the cooker before wordlessly going over to sit on the stool next to the older boy. They don't look at each other. A torrent of warmth passes the small space between them and the sound of water bubbling in the pot is lulling.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
Sho leans over just as Jun turns his head. The distance between them is shortened as their lips meet.
“It's too much,” Sho tells in a tired voice. He rests his forehead against Jun's. “Tests, cram school, then there's girls, stuff happening at home.”
“I'm always with you,” Jun tells him immediately in a soft voice and that's perhaps the closest thing to a confession that Jun will ever be able to muster at this point in time. There's enough on Sho's plate and Jun isn't self-centered enough to want more than what he has right now, even if he yearns for it desperately. “I'll always be.”
Sho's not looking at him but Jun thinks he sees something shining in his eyes as he stares intensely at a certain point near Jun's mouth.
“Huh.”
When Sho finally glances up, he manages a small smile towards Jun and it's one that is the closest he's seen of Sho since before Ninosan. Jun looks back at him and it feels so strange when their gazes connect like this. It's so intimate and Jun thinks he can see both everything and nothing in the dark hues of Sho's eyes.
“Remarkable,” is all Sho says after a bout of silence and Jun lights up, returning the other boy's smile twofold.
Stay gold, Sho-san, he thinks earnestly as they share another kiss. You're exquisite.
*
“Hey, Matsumoto,” one of his classmates – Akanishi, he recalls – calls out to him as they're about to leave the classroom for after school activities. “You were close to Sakurai-senpai, weren't you?”
Jun quirks his brow, shouldering his bag. Were . Akanishi used the word were. At an earlier point in life, Jun wouldn't notice such a thing because he would simply think nothing of it. But ever since he's hung around Sho and his wonderful cleverness, he's started to pay attention to words and the certain uses of certain words that he can't help but cling on to that one portion of a sentence which sticks out so glaringly to him. Were.
Jun shrugs halfheartedly in response and asks “Is something the matter?” only because it was courteous to do so.
Akanishi grins wickedly. “Aren't you jealous though? Since he doesn't seem to have time to play favourites with juniors anymore. Well, unless you've got banging tits.” He snickers. Jun purses his mouth. “Kind of a relief to see that Sakurai is still as human as the rest of us, eh?”
“He's not playing favourites.”
Akanishi blinks and he actually looks surprised at this that it makes Jun's stomach churn horribly. “You're actually friends?” he asks, painfully blunt.
(Friends. Jun latches onto this word quickly and he examines it with speculation because he doesn't believe this word is applicable to what he and Sho have now. The nature of their bond has evolved because he and Sho are more than that, he ascertains dizzily.)
Slowly, Jun nods.
Akanishi purses his lips into a thin line and for some reason gives Jun a pitying look. “Well, shit. Sucks to be you, I guess.” He shoulders his bag and gives an awkward pat to Jun's shoulder before leaving the room.
Jun remains rooted to the spot and he stares across the emptying classroom, feeling all sorts of things and nothing at the same time as he hears Akanishi's words echo like the broken record he sometimes hears when he and Sho drop by that cosy cafe at the corner of Shinjuku. It goes round and round and round and Jun lets out a breath as he says to no one in particular, “We're going out.”
*
“What the hell are you talking about? Us dating? You and I never fucked. Don’t think about such disgusting things, moron.”
And just like that, Jun’s heart stutters like a failing car engine and breaks.
He stares at Sho with eyes unseeing and ears unhearing. Takes in the wild distracted look in Sho’s eyes, the tenseness which pinches around his mouth and just how cold everything around him feels.
Jun’s breath comes out in a shaky huff. “So all the time we spent together. Those kisses. They were nothing?” His voice is just as hollow as how he feels.
Sho rears back and is looking at him with wide eyes, as if it’s Jun who isn’t the one making sense here. “Excuse me?”
“Us,” Jun spits out the word like a curse, his tone challenging. “We’re nothing?”
Sho doesn’t say anything. He's falling into that stupid frustrating silence and – no. No, fuck that bullshit.
Jun’s patience runs thin and instantly snaps. All the anxiety that has been building up in him over the past weeks – ever since Akanishi used stupid insinuating words like were and friend – finally spills over and he blindly reaches out. He shoves Sho’s shoulder.
“Don’t screw with me!”
Sho reacts instantly. It could have been his voice – the way the words explodes out of his mouth, loud and piercing in the night – which spurs the older boy to raise his own hand and shove it right back at Jun's own shoulder with more force. “Cut it out! You’re fucking gross!” he cries out.
“Gross?” The side of Jun’s mouth lifts up into a sardonic smile and in bravado, he challenges with a soft, "Really?"
Sho positively fumes at this. His lips are pursed but he stubbornly keeps his mouth shut. His face is flushed so red that it almost matches his recently dyed copper hair. Jun wants to laugh. So he does and it's a harsh painful sound because the absurdity of the situation is catching up to him, making his mind reel. He doesn’t know why he’s reacting so openly fierce like this. It isn’t in his nature - sure, he's a passionate person but he's not as explosive as this - and he's certain Sho’s well aware of it.
He continues to stare at Sho imploringly but the older boy maintains his listlessness, refusing to speak.
So fucking stubborn.
But it's not Sho's fault, the traitorous little voice in the back of Jun's head reasons. It's his. It's always been his because he's in too deep. It's him who's fallen so hopelessly in love with this exquisite boy who has a way with words and eats like a horrible goblin but is dazzling like the last stars at dawn. Ever since the beginning, he's always been perpetually fucked because somehow along the way Sakurai Sho has started becoming his raison d'être.
“You're an asshole,” Jun says hoarsely, just because he feels like he should have the last word. Because the way Sho's looking at him with those eyes of his - once cleverly appraising but now brutally condescending - makes him feel so horribly small and irritated with how stupid all of this is. He can't believe that it's now all come down to this with the two of them standing near Shibuya river at night with Jun's bento box tightly clasped in Sho's hand and Jun's heart broken and trampled on the ground between them.
Sho still doesn’t say anything. No surprise there. But what he does do, which warrants Jun's disbelief, is raise the bento Jun had prepared for him – butter-glazed scallops, Sho’s favourite – and tips the contents into the river below them. Jun's stomach lurches and he watches Sho's face, steely and ruthlessly impassive, in numb shock until he hears the final scallop drops into the water with a faint sickening plop. Sho doesn't stop there though. Almost as a polite afterthought, he releases his grip on Jun's bento box and lets it falls into the river. It lands with a dull splash.
“And you’re nothing but a second-rate chef who’ll never reach the top.”
The feeling that knocks into Jun – anger, sadness, crushing disappointment – hits him so hard in the gut. Jun lets out a shaky pained breath, clenches his fists but firmly stands his ground. He glares hard at Sho and it takes a lot of willpower on his part to not punch that stupid round face and that smart mouth of his because how dare he. After all this time how fucking dare he.
“You're a fucking asshole,” he grits out in a surprisingly level voice. He sees how Sho is trying so hard to not let his nose quirk up to the side and Jun almost smiles. “Good luck on getting far with that ten-foot pole up your ass. I’m sure precious daddy will always buy your way through.”
“Fuck you, Matsumoto.”
*
It's unsurprising that Sho finishes high school with flying colours.
Jun walks out of the school gates and adjusts his overgrown floppy hair for the umpteenth time that morning. He doesn't want to be in the vicinity, doesn't want to be awkwardly standing around and wildly hoping like those silly girls.
It's been months after all.
Jun walks on and with each step he takes his heart feels heavier, like it's reminding him that he's left something behind. He probably has – he's left so much behind after that night in Shibuya – because it's taking so much willpower for him to not just turn around and run back. Because maybe, that stupid little voice in the back of Jun's mind persists, maybe Sho-san is waiting. Maybe he'll give you his button. It's not much but at least it's something –
“What's eating you?”
Jun stops in his tracks and instantly he's back to where he is, out of his ridiculous thoughts and standing in the middle of a strip mall. He's far away from the stuffy auditorium where Sho's graduation is taking place. He looks up and finds himself looking up into the face of a shrewd-looking boy who's wearing the most garish assembly of clothing he has ever seen in his life. There's a plastic bag hanging off his arm like an accessory and a ghost of a smile on his lips. Jun notices that it's from the game shop down the corner.
“Fuck off,” he snaps quite rudely.
The boy looks unfazed by Jun's hostility and shifts his weight to his other leg. “I'm Nino,” he tells him coolly with that secret smile of his and pauses, almost dramatically. As if he just knows .
Jun's eyes widens in shock but he doesn't dare say anything, doesn't dare read the signs. Jun's not superstitious but he feels an overwhelming itch to turn around and leave because his gut is telling him that being acquainted with this odd person at this odd time and with that name seems far too coincidental to be a simple fluke. It's an omen, this is.
The boy – Nino – seems to take Jun's silence as his cue. “Let's get some ramen,” he suggests assertively as he swings his plastic bag. He's walking forward and Jun for some reason falls in step with him. “There's this cool place with great offers so let's go to that. Stop giving me that look. Not even a stupid heartbreak can stop the beckoning of ramen, yeah?”
At the end of the day, when Jun settles in bed, he adds Nino's email address but struggles to remove Sho's from his contact list.
It'll get better, is the first email Nino immediately sends him but Jun stubbornly waits for one last time, staring at the screen and wildly hoping because who knows, what if. But nothing arrives just as Nino bets and like before. Since Shibuya, Sho has not contacted him since. Has no reason to really. Jun closes his eyes and he knows this is it. This is where it has to stop. This is where he knows that he's now the person that Sho had once been when Ninosan had knocked him off his feet. He's now the one sitting on the ground and staring aimlessly ahead with nobody in front of him. Like a prolonged injury, it only begins to smart when he's come to a standstill.
It'll get better.
Sho's a mature boy who strides forward with his head held up and his feet firmly planted on the ground. Like Akanishi said, he doesn't have time to play favourites with juniors anymore. He's going to university to be a food writer. He's already three steps ahead of Jun and after Shibuya, he'll never look back.
It'll get better.
With a pained sigh, Jun forces himself to press 'Remove'.
The second email Nino sends him that night is an address to a website with a list of culinary schools in the country.
Jun doesn't reply to it, doesn't want to think of the impeccable sense of timing Nino seems to mysteriously have. But he spends the rest of his sleepless night researching on the schools fervidly and it's only at the break of dawn when Jun is red-eyed and sprawled across the middle of his bed that he decides fuck getting better. Fuck sitting around and staring aimlessly ahead. Fuck feeling so fucking low because if Sakurai Sho can be three steps ahead of him, can cruelly break his heart and say that nothing has ever happened between them, then Jun can catch up to him and trip him over. He'll damn well make sure that he'll become the best culinary artist out there and make Sakurai Sho eat his damn words. Even if he that means he has to fight dirty. All is fair in love and war, after all.