Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

At Okinawa Ryukyu Middle School, Nanjo Kojiro could safely say with confidence he was cool.

Flocks of girls would call his name and cheer for him during PE, and he was always one of the first to be picked for sports teams. His grades were average, and his likeable personality often made him teacher’s pet. His mother was a romantic at heart, watching romance movies in international languages that made Kojiro’s tongue a little more fluent in foreign languages than the average Japanese kid. This just added to his list of skills in his increasing repertoire.

He began growing a little taller than the others, he was a social butterfly that knew the right words to say to anybody, was a sociable people pleaser, and.

He could skateboard.

And that made him the coolest.

All in all, Nanjo Kojiro was well loved.

Middle school flew by, and Kojiro had easily mastered ollies, could hold conversations with his trailing fanclub while skating in a backwards Fakie, and eventually, after many cuts and scrapes and 2 weeks with a hairline fractured radius, Kojiro could grind on his skateboard down nearly any type of stair railing.

Then, Kojiro went to Haebaru Junior High School, and first laid eyes on the love of his life.

Kojiro was walking in the school gates, two girls from his middle school walking close to either side of him as he laughed and said something witty, and the girls giggled behind their hands. He went to high school with his collar buttoned up and his tie neatly done up because he wanted to leave a good impression with the teachers, to butter them up first before he broke a few rules. He didn’t tuck his shirt into his pants though, that was non-negotiable. He was about to reply to something one of the girls said, Yumi or whatever her name was, when he saw him.

Kojiro’s eyes widened as a blur of white and pink dashed in front of him, the sound of a skateboard’s wheels scraping against the ground before it became airbourne hitting his ears just before, as the pink haired beauty dropped from the first floor of the building onto the ground in front of Kojiro, and began to speed away down the curved driveway back out the school gates.

In that time, it felt as though the world had slowed down, and the space around him dimmed to nothing but empty white as he saw a glimpse of sharp, golden eyes, the glint of silver somewhere on his ears, and the flowing cascade of silky pink locks, almost like the cherry blossoms he saw during spring picnics at hanami. At first glance, Kojiro would have thought the figure was a girl, but he was wearing the blue plaid uniform pants for boys, and he definitely saw a glimpse of the uniform’s standard tie hanging loosely around his neck as it whipped about.

As fast as he had come, he had gone, the sound of a skateboard making impact with hard concrete and wheels crunching along the ground fading away as the pink disappeared from his sight.

Soon after, Kojiro and the two girls by his side turned their heads to the sounds of unfit humans huffing and puffing, and saw two teachers running after the skater that was long gone, fists clenched and waving in anger.

“Sakurayashiki!” One of the teachers howled, breathless but not any less angry, and Kojiro rolled the name on his tongue under his breath.

Sakura…yashiki.

“Ne, do you know him Kojiro-kun?” Nanase asked on his left. “He skates too,” she added unnecessarily, as though he didn’t see the boy skate past him and nearly take off their heads.

“…no,” Kojiro answered after a while, staring down the driveway where the pink haired enigma just left. His heart thudded in his chest with the same kind of thrill he felt when he landed a difficult trick successfully, both feet slamming on the pavement with surety. “But I can’t wait to meet him,” Kojiro said excitedly, eyes shining bright as the spring breeze blew and the sun hung high above them, promises of excitement and adrenaline waiting in store.

He was so cool.

----

Of course, Kojiro didn’t become likeable and popular from being blind.

He could read social cues, he understood what made people ‘uncool’ or ‘weird’, and he knew what words to say to make people smile or open up. His secret to being a people pleaser, was knowing what pleased the people.

Sakurayashiki, on the other hand, was not ordinary people.

In their first year Kojiro only shared one class with him, which was traditional Japanese and even then, Kojiro was seated in the middle of the room, whereas Sakurayashiki sat in the back of the classroom next to the windows. This made it hard to talk to him, let alone look at him. Kaoru was proving harder to read, as his usual demeanour appeared stoic and unapproachable, an intimidating beauty like a single rose placed well away behind an obstacle of thorns.

Kojiro liked to come to class on time, or even a little before the bell, but he took to the habit of coming to his traditional Japanese class late. Just to get a glimpse of that lustrous pink hair as it was illuminated by the window next to him, highlighted by what Kojiro discovered were multiple silver piercings in his left ear. He always had his skateboard next to him, propped up against his desk and leaning on his bag, much to the chagrin of his teachers. Kojiro himself had a larger knapsack so he could shove ¾ of his board in and not bother the teachers or other students that tried to weave around his desk during class.

Kojiro snuck glances at him as much as he could before he sat down before each class, and approximately 4 weeks into the start of school, Sakurayashiki finally looked at him.

It was a Thursday afternoon, when Kojiro came in late to class again to sneak a look at the pink haired beauty, whose first name he had yet to learn, when those golden eyes suddenly snapped with laser focus away from the window and into his eyes. Frozen, Kojiro seized in his place, other students giving him odd looks as they made their way around him.

The intensity of his golden eyes was immense, sharp and intimidating and it took Kojiro’s breath away. His heart pounded in his chest, and he believed that he could hear it, thudding as he felt himself drowning in that golden gaze. Then, the teacher walked in, called for the students to take their seats, and the spell was broken. Sakurayashiki blinked and looked away, and Kojiro could breathe again. He felt his cheeks warm, having never experienced that kind of tension before in his life, and he bustled to his seat as subtly as he could after staring at another boy in his class like he was entranced.

Class continued on, and the teacher’s voice carried on monotonously as Kojiro continued to daydream about the pink haired beauty.

How could he get him to look his way? What was he like? Was his hair as soft as it looked? What tricks did he know? Where did he go to skate? Was he as cool as he looked? Did his lips always look so-

“Sakurayashiki!” the teacher called out sternly, and Kojiro subtly jumped in his seat, shocked out of his pondering at the sharp voice.

“Ye~s?” Sakurayashiki called out in response, dragging out his yes in what most definitely sounded like a student who was bored out of his mind.

“Since you’re falling asleep in the corner over there, and I know you skipped out on 4 of your classes last week, would you like to contribute to the class?” the teacher asked, teeth grinding and audible all the way from Kojiro’s seat.

“Bo~ring,” the pink haired punk drawled out, and the teacher nearly had a seizure on the spot from the spike in his high blood pressure. Kojiro’s eyes widened at the sheer balls of the kid, because Tanaka-sensei was not a force to be reckoned with when mad. Said teacher in question had almost turned a puce colour before he finally exploded.

“Outside!” the balding teacher screamed. “Sit out in the hallway in seiza and wait for further instruction!”

Kojiro watched with wide eyes as Sakurayashiki seemed to only smirk at the anger he caused the teacher, lazily pushing his chair out and shoving both hands in his pockets. He smiled at some of the classmates he shuffled past, whistling a tune as he eased the sliding door to the classroom open with one foot, and slammed it shut with the other foot without a care in the world.

He was so damn cool, Kojiro thought to himself.

Lost in his thoughts, Kojiro daydreamed about the little smirk he gave, the uncaring attitude he held so confidently, when he heard the teacher call something out repeatedly, and louder each time.

“Nanjo,” the teacher called out, and Kojiro stood from his desk hurriedly with the air of a student who definitely wasn’t paying attention.

“Y-es?” Kojiro managed to get out, and some students around him snickered. The teacher sighed exasperatedly as he waved around a pile of papers in his hands, his other classmate Fujikawa already handing some papers out.

“Could you please hand out the test results to everybody?” the teacher asked, and Kojiro nodded as he walked up to the desk, embarrassed. He could feel his flush heating up his cheeks and his neck, and he began to hand out test results to his peers, calling out their names when he wasn’t sure who was who.

He was beginning to get to the end of the pile when he saw someone with a 100 circled in red at the top right, and Kojiro raised a brow as he looked at it. Nerd, was his initial thought as he looked, but when he took a glance at the name that it belonged to, his heart stopped and his feet stopped walking as the breath in his chest took pause.

Sakurayashiki Kaoru.

Kaoru, Kojiro thought to himself, committing the kanji to memory as he found out the mysterious guy’s first name.

“That’s the guy that just went outside into the hallway,” a girl mock whispered up to him. Bringing him to his senses, Kojiro jolted, as though shocked with electricity and he looked down at the dark haired girl. Tomoko, he recognised from his home economics class. She was kind enough to show him a few basics that he didn’t know, with an easy smile and dark bangs framing her round face. She smiled at him as she glanced towards the doorway. “Sakurayashiki. The bad boy that just left the classroom. You can leave his paper on his desk,” she explained, and Kojiro felt the flush come back to his cheeks.

Tomoko, looking satisfied, sat prim and proper in her seat again as Kojiro robotically moved towards the ‘bad boy’s’ seat next to the window in the back corner. He felt bad, because he probably gave off the vibe that he was blushing at her. He felt even more embarrassed, because he was caught staring at Sakurayashiki's paper, when in fact he wasn’t blushing at Tomoko at all, but at the fact he was so enraptured by anything that had to do with the pink haired brat, including the fact that he could score 100 in a class where he wasn’t even paying any attention.

He set the full marks test paper down on the unoccupied desk, and felt a frown mar his features as he began thinking to himself.

How the hell does he get 100s if he skips class all the time?

----

Spring had passed and summer arrived, bringing out the short sleeve uniforms and humid thick air that had every student complaining of sweat and heat. Kojiro was still working up his courage to speak to Kaoru, but he had yet to actually do it. He was sociable, yes, extroverted, definitely, however when it came to the pink-haired classmate in traditional Japanese, he may as well have had the social tact of a fish.

In the sweltering summer heat, every student was currently working off their workbooks when Tanaka-sensei called Kojiro’s name at the front. Kojiro looked up, and Tanaka-sensei waved him over. Standing, Kojiro made his way to his teacher’s desk, and slumped his shoulders when he saw exactly what the teacher was looking at. There, on a test paper with his name written in the top left corner, was a very big incriminating 46 circled and underlined at the top right corner.

“As you can see, Nanjo-kun, your strongest suit isn’t Japanese,” Tanaka-sensei admonished lightly, and Kojiro rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

“It sure looks that way, sensei,” Kojiro commented, and Tanaka-sensei gave a small, exasperated smile.

“I know it’s not for lack of trying, sometimes some students find difficulty in it more than others,” Tanaka-sensei said, shuffling the papers to realign them so that they were straight again. “Sakurayashiki!” Tanaka-sensei called out, a little louder, and Kojiro tilted his head in confusion.

Was he not going to be dismissed before he discussed something with Kaoru?

Confused, but thinking nothing of it, Kojiro began to take his leave, when Tanaka-sensei called him back.

“No, Nanjo-kun, you stay here,” he said casually, and that’s when the alarm bells began to ring. Kojiro’s eyes widened, but it was too late by the time he heard slippered feet make its way to the front of the classroom.

“Ye~s,” came the bored reply of a voice he now knew too well. Kojiro snapped his head towards his left, where he saw Kaoru standing there, popping bubble gum while keeping one hand shoved in his pocket. A vein popped in the teacher’s face as he kicked a bin forward into Kaoru’s shin, which in turn made him spit the gum out in surprise into the bin. Kaoru shot the teacher a dirty glare afterwards, Tanaka-sensei merely holding his stare with an unimpressed look. Unbeknownst to them, Kojiro felt his heart race from standing so close to Kaoru properly, for the first time in maybe ever. The faint scent of clean sheets and light undertones of a floral, lemony smell drifted into his nose.

Why does he smell so good? Does he always smell this good? Kojiro panicked internally.

“As it turns out, Sakurayashiki-kun is the best of this class, unfortunate as that may be,” the teacher muttered the last part under his breath, and Kaoru smiled, smug. “Fortunately, that means he is well suited to be your tutor over the summer holidays this coming break, and he can teach you what you need to know during summer school.” Kojiro and Kaoru both blinked, processing the words at a different speeds.

“Haaaah?” Kaoru processed first. “What?! It’s the summer holidays, why on earth would I need to stay back at summer school? I didn’t fail like this buffoon!” he shouted indignantly, and Kojiro suddenly felt his temper flare. This guy.

“Oi! Not everyone can skip school and get good grades like you, you cheating skimp!” Kojiro fired back. Kaoru whipped his hair about to face him with fierce, blazing eyes and Kojiro glared right back.

“At least I haven’t failed any of my classes like you, you imbecilic moron-”

“Actually, Sakurayashiki-kun, you failed this class,” Tanaka-sensei said with a hint of smugness, and Kaoru whipped back to face the teacher. Kojiro blinked back at the teacher in surprise.

“What?” Kaoru asked incredulously.

“This class is a part of your mandatory course work, meaning at least 80% attendance is required,” Tanaka-sensei huffed, arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair. The dots began to connect and Kaoru’s face went from shocked to pissed. Kojiro couldn’t help but contain a smile at this. Serves you right, asshole.

Forget gorgeous, Sakurayashiki Kaoru was a brat.

He didn’t even know Kojiro, on what basis was he calling him a buffoon and a moron? Served him right.

“Thus, because you played ‘hooky’ on class too many times, you failed, Sakurayashiki-kun,” Tanaka-sensei repeated, although Kojiro felt that was more for his own benefit than Kaoru’s. “To make up for it, you are to attend the school’s library for summer school and check in with Hayabayashi-san for roll call each lesson and tutor Nanjo-kun in Japanese. Are we clear on this?” Tanaka-sensei asked the two of them, and Kojiro finally began to realise the seriousness of the situation he was just placed in. Kaoru, beside him, already had his arms crossed tightly, his shoulders hunched up almost to his ears, as he ground out through his teeth-

“Crystal clear.”

An overall feeling of numbness and dread began to settle in Kojiro’s bones.

This was going to be the worst summer ever.

----

“No.”

Kojiro felt a vein pop in his face. He rubbed out the kanji he’d written on the page and substituted it for another word that may have fit in the section he was writing in. He huffed as he shoved the book across the desk to show the pink haired snob sitting across him. Kaoru sat with his arms crossed and his head leaning on the back of the chair on the backrest, body completely slumped forward in a way that made his legs encroach into Kojiro’s space. He wasn’t even trying to look interested or helpful, he was straight up attempting to sleep. Kaoru cracked open one golden eye and looked down at the page.

“Wrong,” he said bluntly, closing his eyes again and huffing as though he were the one being inconvenienced, and Kojiro restrained himself from lunging across the table to strangle the pretty boy.

What in the hell did I ever see in this stupid idiot’s pretty face? Kojiro grumbled to himself in his mind as he took back his book violently and rubbed out the whole page. Feeling vindictive, Kojiro stomped a foot down on Kaoru’s foot, and the pink haired teen’s eyes bulged as he shot up like a bullet, ready to tear Kojiro apart.

“You motherfu-”

“AHEM,” came the stern cough from the librarian as she glared at them from above her spectacles across the library. Kaoru looked frazzled, like a cat who had its tail stepped on, but unable to make a noise about it or scratch the person responsible. Kaoru and Kojiro mumbled their apologies and hunched their shoulders in, but Kojiro couldn’t keep his spiteful grin from spreading on his face.

“I’ll kill you,” Kaoru whispered fiercely to him, glaring at him with as much hate as he could muster.

“Heh, you’d have to be able to reach me first,” Kojiro snickered behind his book, sliding his chair out of Kaoru’s angry stomping reach.

“Just hurry up and do your damn idioms so we can both get out of here,” Kaoru hissed at him, crossing his arms and legs.

“If I knew how to do it, we wouldn’t need to be here, would we?” Kojiro ground out through his teeth.

“Correction; if you weren’t an idiot, then we wouldn’t need to be here,” Kaoru said haughtily, and Kojiro threw a highlighter at the other boy’s forehead. Unprepared for such a quick retaliation, Kaoru lunged across the table and grabbed a black marker, squiggling a black line across Kojiro’s face. Kojiro managed to grab both of Kaoru’s wrists, and the two wrestled back and forth for the next five minutes until Hayabayashi-sensei finally lost patience with them and kicked them out of her library.

“Now, until you two settle down and become friends, don’t come back!” she shouted at the front steps of her library, and slammed both doors shut on the boys that sat on the dirt outside, blinking and dazed.

“Well,” Kaoru huffed, trying to look dignified as he stood up from the ground and dusted off his knees, his skateboard tucked under his other arm. “I guess we’re never coming back here then, ‘cause I’ll never be friends with the likes of you,” he sniped. Kojiro grabbed his dropped books and shoved them in his bag, standing to his feet aggressively.

“Yeah, well I don’t know anyone who’d want to be friends with you,” Kojiro bit back, missing the flash of hurt that appeared on Kaoru’s face as he shoved his books in, not bothering to put his pens back in their little case. Kojiro huffed and pulled his skateboard out of his bag, and Kaoru blinked in surprise. “See ya-” Kojiro began to say, one foot poised to kick off the dirt and propel him away when Kaoru grabbed him by the back collar of his shirt and he promptly choked on it.

He nearly fell backwards, and managed to keep on his feet as his board skated away from him, Kaoru’s grip on his shirt still strong. Kojiro stood up, shrugged his shirt out of the other boy’s grip and whipped around to face him.

“Dude, what the hell-”

“You skate?” Kaoru asked, almost vibrating with untold excitement in his spot. For a moment, Kojiro remembered why he was so obsessed with the boy at first, his bright golden eyes shining and his handsome face set in an almost smile. But then he remembered what a pompous asshole he was, and Kojiro pouted as he tried to will his heart to beat a little slower.

“Yeah, and?” he asked, a little peeved that the two had known each other for nearly 5 months now, and Kaoru had just noticed he carried a skateboard around. Suddenly, Kojiro felt his hand being grabbed and he looked down for a moment to curiously observe how pale Kaoru’s hands looked against his own skin before he was being tugged violently towards the school gates.

“Come with me!” Kaoru said excitedly, though his excitement felt more commanding than anything else, and Kojiro stumbled as he scooped up his skateboard along the way.

“Ugh, hey, wait!” Kojiro tried to say, desperately trying to hold his still open bag closed as pens and books began to fall out. “Where are we even going?” he asked exasperatedly, and Kaoru turned his head to smile at him, and then Kojiro was done for.

“You’ll see,” the pink haired boy said mysteriously, his piercings shining in the dying sunlight, and all of a sudden, Kojiro’s heart decided it wanted this boy again, and he knew he was a goner.

By the time the two boys reached the school gates, two skateboards hit the ground in almost synchronised tandem, and the traditional Japanese summer school workbook lay forgotten in the dust.

That summer holiday, Kojiro and Kaoru failed Japanese as a subject, but they wouldn’t have traded their time together during those heat haze days for anything.

Even if Kaoru let him skate in public with black marker all over his forehead and nose all afternoon, and the two laughed about it together after Kojiro punched him for it first.

----

After summer break, students returned to Haebaru High School to see to their confusion, Kaoru and Kojiro for all their bickering, were absolutely inseparable. When once, they could only be seen arguing or fighting, they were now seen with their heads bent close, laughing closely and touching freely with one another. Like two halves to a whole, the two weren’t ever seen without the other with their trusty skateboards in hand.

Soon, they had a small following from even outside of their school, and their secret rendezvous to hidden skating areas traded for the open public streets of Okinawa, and they became notoriously known for their stupid little boards, and their stupid little wheels.

But to Kaoru and Kojiro, it was everything.

One lunch break had Kaoru and Kojiro sitting together, both of their boards out as they traded more tips and tricks with each other.

“It doesn’t have enough life to it!” Kaoru exclaimed, holding up the underside of his own board as if to demonstrate. The bottom of his board was painted with bold strokes, each a different myriad of colours with a dragon cartoon motif stuck to the middle. Kojiro tilted his head as he pressed his hands to his feet, his knees almost pressed down to the ground in a butterfly seated position.

“Heeeh? You really think so?” Kojiro asked, flipping his own black skateboard over to look at the colourful underside of it. He thought he had enough stickers and motifs on it. It wasn’t as though he was as good at art as Kaoru and could paint it himself. He just stuck a bunch of stickers on it that he grabbed in passing that he thought had looked cool at the time. Looking at it now, he could see he left an awkwardly shaped black hole in the middle.

“Yes, I do,” Kaoru said haughtily, popping his yakisoba bread into his mouth to hold onto it as he used both hands to dig something out of his backpack. He pulled out an array of stickers, some of them fluttering to the ground, and Kojiro felt a grin light his face up in excitement.

“Uwooah! You’ve got heaps!” Kojiro exclaimed, leaning over into Kaoru’s space. Grinning, Kaoru took a bite of his bread and set it aside.

“Yep! Take your pick! I stole these from-”

“Kaoru!”

“-the supermarket down the road. What? It’ll be fine, it’s just a few stickers, I made sure to pay for my hair conditioner,” Kaoru said dismissively, and Kojiro shoved him with his shoulder. Kaoru went off balance from the shove, and bounced back with all his might, pushing Kojiro until he was nearly parallel to the floor. “Stop using your brute strength, you big oaf and just pick one,” Kaoru argued, and Kojiro laughed as he perused the selection, spreading the stickers out to take a look at them on the ground.

“What about this one?” Kojiro pointed out, indicating an exaggerated cartoon Kabuki lion sticker. “This looks pretty cool.” Kaoru shook his head, moving aside more stickers until he suddenly grabbed a stylised sun motif, with a few long wavy rays and a few short ones alternating in a pattern.

“This one!” Kaoru said triumphantly, holding it up in Kojiro’s face.

“A sun?” Kojiro asked, confused and cross-eyed. Kaoru nodded to himself and already began peeling off the back of the sticker to place it on Kojiro’s board. Helpless to the whims of his best friend, Kojiro was offering the bottom of his board up before he even realised it.

“Yep! It reminds me of you, because you light up a room when you’re in it,” Kaoru said plainly, almost as if he was discussing the weather, and Kojiro felt his heart seize. All of a sudden, his repressed crush came surging back, and Kojiro felt his whole face heat up, heart thundering in his chest.

Becoming friends with Kaoru over the summer had been the best thing to happen to Kojiro’s life, alongside skateboarding.

While Kaoru was still stuck up, arrogant and prissy, he was smart, witty and actually charming once you got past the spikes and got to know the soft person he was underneath. He liked miso soup, but hated kimchi, his favourite colour was purple, and he fished for compliments because he was actually a soft insecure melon bread. Kojiro learnt to never tell that to Kaoru’s face again lest he wanted to be pushed off the railing and have his body be split in half from in between his legs and up again.

And god, did Kojiro have the biggest crush on him.

The initial wonder and awe he felt for the boy had come back ten fold, as the time they spent together had only solidified his feelings. Mid-summer hang outs at the local corner store, where they bought garigari-kuns to split and share. Hot summer afternoons which bled into cool windy nights where they skated in the parks and any abandoned warehouses or buildings they could sneak into before getting chased out by the cops.

The more Kojiro began to fall in love with Kaoru, however, the less he wanted to jeopardise the trust that was building between them, and so he decided.

He would keep his feelings to himself.

Kaoru was the first true friend that Kojiro could call his equal (if not better, only because he could do a melon grab flip and stick the landing perfectly), not someone who wanted to suck up to him because he thought he was cool, and not someone who found the need to flatter him constantly to get on his good graces.

He was simply just, Kaoru.

And Kojiro couldn’t lose that.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the inner turmoil that Kojiro was facing alone, Kaoru stuck the sun onto the centre of the board, and held it up reverently in the sunlight. Kojiro stared at him in confusion as Kaoru held it up.  “And God said, let there be light!” Kaoru mimicked poorly, and Kojiro sat there blankly for a moment longer before bursting into laughter. Kaoru brought the board down, tilting it aside as he laughed together with his best friend, and the two of them shared the moment between them, absorbing the warmth of sunlight above them, and treasuring each moment they spent together under the autumn sun.

No way could Kojiro ever lose this.

----

In the second year of high school, Kojiro showed up to Kaoru’s house in the early morning with a coy smile, and Kaoru’s mother smiled in fond exasperation. She turned into the house and called out Kaoru’s name, turning to Kojiro at her front door step to tell him “he’ll be a minute,” before nodding her head and retreating back inside. Kojiro balanced on his skateboard for a bit, doing a few lazy ollies as he finally heard the sound of Kaoru’s footsteps making its way down his stairs.

“Finally-” Kojiro drawled out before suddenly stumbling off his skateboard, and catching his balance just barely as a very obvious glint of silver caught his attention. Kaoru, oblivious to Kojiro’s meltdown, bent down to tie his converse laces.

“L-lip!” Kojiro sputtered out, pointing at Kaoru’s lower lip. Kaoru looked up at him with a raised brow, challenging him with his gaze as he finished tying his shoelace. “Y-you got your lip pierced!” Kojiro pointed out dumbly in surprise, and Kaoru smirked, flicking his tongue out to lick at the silver ring, and if Kojiro’s body didn’t know he was going through puberty, he sure knew now. Kojiro subtly shifted his hips backwards and tried to hang his shirt out a little looser in front to hide the part of him that wasn’t shy at saying hello to Kaoru this particular morning.

“Yeah, how’s it look?” Kaoru asked triumphantly, moving his other foot forward to retie the laces on his other shoe.

“How the hell did you get it pierced? I thought you needed to be over 18 to get facial modifications!” Kojiro spluttered, still freaking out and very much looking at the silver ring in Kaoru’s lip that he toyed with. Kaoru finished with his laces, stood up, and settled one foot on his skateboard as he looked at Kojiro with a sly smirk.

“I did it myself in my bathroom,” Kaoru said smugly, and Kojiro felt himself fall a little more in love.

That night as he lay in bed alone, Kojiro thrusted furiously into the palm of his saliva-slick hand, panting a certain teen's name out desperately as he thought of pink hair, golden eyes and a silver lip ring that helped push his orgasm over the edge.

Muffling his cries, Kojiro came into his hand and panted in the aftermath, bringing his sullied hand up to look at it in the moonlight, and swore himself to secrecy, and that it would be the last time.

----

It was not the last time.

----

Haebaru High School and their skateboard crew with Kojiru and Kaoru began to gather a name for itself, as other schools came to try and challenge them to bets and competitions. Kojiro and Kaoru of course beat them all, combined with Kaoru's mastered skill of flips, and Kojiro's precision on railings, Haebaru High School was no name to sneer at. Back when there was no S, they hadn’t found Crazy Rock yet, and their beefs were settled by tricks and flips.

And then, the beginning of the end came.

And it came in the form of a no name from Naha Technical High School.

Word travelled along the grapevine that they wanted to have a beef with Haebaru, and the two groups met in the damp of an abandoned warehouse by the beach, the salt in the air heavy and the caw of the seagulls loud as the moonlight illuminated them overhead.

Kojiro and Kaoru stood at the forefront of their group, skateboards at the ready as some Naha Technical High School no names stood opposite to them. One of them even hid their face with a black hood, and his white uniform was pristine and un-dirtied. Kojiro scoffed. That wasn’t the uniform of someone who skated well, taking pride in the dirty patches, scrapes and tears he had on his own uniform, including the little hole that Kaoru kept picking at to piss Kojiro off.

“So… Haebaru huh?” the hooded one said mockingly, and Kojiro stepped forward to teach him a thing or two. Kaoru beat him to it, and shoved him aside to go first. Kojiro smiled exasperatedly. 

Well if words wouldn’t show him, Kaoru’s airtime sure would. They piled the skateboards one on top of the other, and of course, Kaoru went first.

He skated up with barely any headway before he pulled a perfect ollie, making it over the obstacle with no trouble at all, and Kojiro felt a swell of pride bloom in his chest, hollering his cheers with the others as Kaoru landed neatly and skated to a stop with a confident smirk and a glint of challenge in his eyes.

Without warning, all Kojiro saw was the mysterious figure in white smirk with his eyes gleaming scarlet in the dim light, and Kojiro immediately the hairs on the back of his neck and arms raise. The hooded figure in white huffed a small breath, the sound of a skateboard hitting concrete echoed throughout the building, and then-

He flew.

The height and the airtime he had on his board was far superior to anyone who was there in attendance, far superior to anyone they had ever seen, and Kojiro felt his mouth drop open and his eyes widen in wonder as he watched the beginning of the end. Amazed, and excited to see someone so skilled around their age, Kojiro turned to look at Kaoru, and felt his heart drop. He saw the same wonder in Kaoru’s golden eyes, wide eyed and glowing and filled with awe-

It was the same way Kojiro looked at Kaoru, except Kaoru wasn’t looking at him.

----

After that, two became three, and three heads were better at finding trouble than two.

(“I hide my face because my family hates the idea of me skateboarding,” Adam said to them one day in confidence, and Kojiro and Kaoru listened, hung on every word. “But I love it,” he said with a grin, scarlet eyes barely visible under his heavy blue fringe, and that was all the fire they needed to keep the three of them going.)

They were simply skating away from the cops at the time when they stumbled upon their treasure. Their special place for years to come, and the three of them looked over the abandoned mine with a grand sense of hope and anticipation.

It was at these mines that ‘S’ was born, and beefs had evolved from tricks into races, where the risks were higher and stakes were raised.

Before there was S however, there was just Adam, Cherry Blossom, and Joe.

Together, the three skated in all the free time they had. They skated after school together until the day bled into night, went home for dinner at their respective residences, and after bidding their parents and guardians goodnight, they snuck out again to meet when the streetlights were well lit and police began their patrols through their place that they dubbed ‘Crazy Rock’. This lasted well into the early hours of morning until they evaded police, skated home, slept for barely 4 hours and then got up to go to school and repeat the process over and over again.

All in all, their time together felt free but fleeting, and like all good things, it was coming to an end, unbeknownst to the three of them.

It was mid-afternoon at school one day when Kojiro heard the news, sitting at his desk while holding the paper in between his hands in a numb state of shock.

Acceptance of International Culinary Scholarship Letter

“…Kojiro. Earth to Koji~ro?” Kaoru’s voice suddenly filtered in, and Kojiro jumped, immediately stuffing the paper into his bag messily. Kojiro glanced up at Kaoru’s face, currently staring at him in confusion as he stood above Kojiro’s desk. The lunch bell had gone, and Kojiro didn’t even notice. Kaoru put down the hand he was waving in the dark green haired teen’s face, and put his fist on his cocked hip. “Geez, what were you even thinking about?” Kaoru asked with a pout, and Kojiro looked up at him, blinking.

In their third year of high school, the future loomed before them. Not only what was happening with S, and the speed at which it was gaining popularity, but their futures career-wise. Kaoru of course, being the smart little shit he was, found an interest in technology and computer science, with the big name universities lined up to accept him in due time. Kojiro, from growing up in a single parent household with 4 younger siblings to look after, found a love for cooking, and wanted to broaden his horizons, which led to his current predicament.

How can I tell you? He thought forlornly, gazing into those concerned, golden eyes. I don’t want to be away from you, he thought to himself desperately, taking in the sight of the beautiful boy before him.

Kojiro opened his mouth to voice his thoughts when he noticed something in particular about Kaoru was… different.

“… are you wearing eye make up?” Kojiro asked instead, slow and distracted. In due time, he would tell him, Kojiro resolved. Not now, but soon, when he felt ready to share the big news of the next step in his constantly moving life. He would tell Kaoru everything. 

…Everything except his debilitating infatuation with the teen, of course.

Kaoru focused his sharp eyes on Kojiro, further sharpened by the winged cat eyeliner that he did on his eyes, his lashes appearing even darker and longer with the mascara he seemed to have applied.

“Astute, even for a moron,” Kaoru drawled, but Kojiro could see Kaoru biting the inside of his cheek, a habit he did when he felt insecure. Kojiro stared at him further, and finally Kaoru spat out what he wanted to say. “So… does it look okay?” he asked a little prissily, a little demurely, running his hand through his hair nervously. Kojiro didn’t think Kaoru even knew he was doing it.

“Yeah! It looks real nice!” Kojiro complimented enthusiastically, holding a thumb up and Kaoru smirked, flipping his hair over his shoulder, all traces of shyness gone with an arrogant confidence in its place.

“Of course it does, I did it,” he said conceitedly, and Kojiro kicked Kaoru’s foot to push him off balance. Kaoru landed on the ground and Kojiro sniggered, and the two fell into their usual bickering and bantering as they fought all through lunch, and then all through after school until they skated their way to meet up with Adam.

So long as Kojiro had this with Kaoru, he thought it would be okay.

So long as he could have this, and Kaoru kept looking at him.

----

“Oh? Did you put make up on, Cherry?” Adam asked, hood pulled up as he skated to a stop beside Kaoru. Kojiro watched with interest from afar, having already started practicing his attempts at a Crail Snatcher at their usual haunt under the abandoned restaurant's pier. Adam lifted a hand up to Kaoru’s hair, twirling it around his finger as Kaoru’s eyes glittered with recognition of his efforts.

“I did. How is it?” he asked enthusiastically, but Kojiro could see the small tremor that ran in his long fingers. He was nervous. Back with Kojiro on the school grounds, he was timid, but here, he was… different. Kojiro couldn’t take his eyes away then, standing straight to watch them as his hands came to hang loosely by his side.

“It’s gorgeous Cherry! Really makes your eyes stand out,” Adam gushed, twirling the strand of pink hair between his fingers as he smiled charmingly, pulling his own hood off, and then.

Kaoru blushed.

Honest to god, Kaoru blushed, his cheeks turning a delicate pink as he laughed and swatted Adam’s hand away painfully and wow.

That reaction was a hell of a lot different to the one he gave Kojiro.

Rapidly, Kojiro found it a little harder to breathe, his chest tightening as much as the fists he held by his side, the sharp sting of nails biting into his palm.

All of a sudden, Kojiro didn’t think he would be okay.

So long as things stayed like this, he wouldn’t be okay, because he was starting to realise, Kaoru was busy looking at somewhere else.

Someone else.

Feeling isolated even though he only stood a few metres away, Kojiro watched emptily as Kaoru laughed at something Adam had said, the pink on his cheeks just deepening as the red in Kojiro’s fists began to drip to the floor.

Why can’t I get you to look at me? He thought to himself miserably, feeling more alone than he had ever felt since entering high school.

----

The undeniable sound of wood snapping filled the night-time air at Crazy Rock, and Kojiro momentarily felt the whoosh of his stomach fly up to his throat before he crash landed to the ground and came back to reality. He rolled painfully until he came to a stop against a short cliff face, and Kojiro briefly glimpsed over the edge of the precipice, realising for the first time just how dangerously they were playing with fire. Panting and wide eyed with his heart racing, Kojiro barely registered the sting in his palms and knees and the ache in his ribs before he whipped his head around to face the person responsible.

Adam stood there, laughing, but his smile looked a little cruel, and his posture look a little mean as he laughed down at Kojiro. Anger began to well up inside him, and then Kaoru skated to a stop beside Adam a few seconds later to see what happened.

“What? You fell? How lame,” Kaoru teased, and Kojiro bit his lip to hide the sting of tears that threatened to fall. Instead of looking at them, he made his way over to his skateboard, heart dropping as he saw it had broken cleanly in half, the sun sticker Kaoru had blessed him with now ripped and torn down the middle.

“I told you you wouldn’t be able to keep up with me,” Adam mocked, and Kaoru snickered beside him.

“You cheated,” Kojiro hissed, and Kaoru stopped his smiling as he looked to Adam in confusion. Adam kept one foot to the ground and moved his board back and forth under his other foot, bored. “Who the hell kicks someone else’s board during a race? That’s dangerous,” he began to yell, holding the two pieces of his board in his grip.

“All’s fair in love and war,” Adam said in a chilling tone, the perfect picture of calamity posturing as calm elegance, and Kojiro felt the anger in his chest rise. A tense silence settled, and Kaoru put his hand on Adam’s shoulder, which made the anger in Kojiro’s chest flare hot for reasons he couldn’t explain.

“Adam?” Kaoru asked, more confused than disbelieving, and Adam scoffed, shrugging a shoulder and displacing Kaoru’s hand.

“It was an accident,” he said eventually, putting a hand in front of Kojiro as an offer to help him up. Kojiro looked up at him warily, feeling his anger fade as fast as it had come. Kojiro was not a spiteful and angry soul, couldn’t hold his anger and grudges as long as Kaoru could. He took the hand and stood up with Adam’s help and held the pieces of his skateboard close to himself. “I knocked your board by accident with my own board. Won’t happen again,” Adam said with a smile that inexplicably made Kojiro feel greasy, but he gave a wary smile back anyway, desperately trying to cling onto this friendship they had forged together.

Because they were always going to be Adam, Cherry Blossom and Joe, right?

…Until you leave them for Italy, a traitorous voice echoed in Kojiro’s head, and by clenching his fists in reflex, he remembered about his skateboard.

“Ah… my board though,” Kojiro said, once again looking at the splintered pieces of his skateboard with a forlorn face.

“It’s alright, I’ll lend you one of mine until we get you a new one, yeah?” Kaoru said lightly, punching him on the arm. “It was an accident. It’s just a skateboard, not like it was special anyway.”

“… Yeah,” Kojiro lied reluctantly. He stared down at the two halves of the sun Kaoru had stuck on for him, feeling like the air around them was suffocating him slowly.

Kojiro learned later on, that there were two lies told that night, though he felt he knew it all along, but was unwilling to believe it at the time.

That the skateboard was not just a skateboard.

And that that incident was not going to be the first of future accidents to come.

----

Months passed, Crazy Rock was gaining popularity at a crazy speed, and.

The number of people that ended up in hospital after a beef with Adam began to add up into numbers that Kaoru and Kojiro refused to count anymore.

(When the tally surpasses both their hands and past their fingers, they found it hard to.)

(You said it was an accident, didn’t you, Adam?)

The setting sun cast all of them in a pink and purple glow, their meeting spot under the wharf at the abandoned Okinawa Ocean View Restaurant occupied by the three of them.

“Are you listening to me?” Kaoru said exasperatedly. Kojiro stood beside him, the two of them facing down Adam, who leaned against the concrete pillar with his arms crossed, avoiding eye contact. “Answer me, Adam! Why have you changed?” Kaoru demanded an answer, and Kojiro felt his jaw tighten where he was grinding his teeth, also waiting for an answer.

When did the passion they shared between them change from exhilarating to terrifying?

“People change too, right?” Adam said eventually, talking as though it was as normal as a teenager going through puberty.

Like almost killing people was as much as a sport as skateboarding.

“Then, change once more! Don’t skate like that anymore!” Kaoru pleaded. Kojiro smartly kept his mouth shut because he didn’t think it was a wise idea, with the things that he wanted to say to Adam at the moment.

“I don't want to. Besides, there’s no time left.” Adam looked away after he said this, breaking eye contact with the two. “I’m leaving for America tomorrow.” Kojiro and Kaoru both flinched, as though electrocuted. “I have to move on from playing with you guys now.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have kept my mouth shut, Kojiro thought to himself numbly, as Kaoru’s mouth gaped to find the right words.

“You- what!? Why? How? What about Crazy Rock? What about S?”

What about us? Is heard clearly by the three standing in silence by the water and the setting sun. When it felt like nobody had moved for the next few minutes, Adam lifted his head up with a smile as he looked at Kaoru and Kojiro both.

“I don’t have time to waste with nobodies like you anymore. Your kind of skating is boring now,” he said, simple and honest, and he turned to walk away from them towards the sleek black sedan that waited with tinted windows. Kojiro and Kaoru watched him go wordlessly, speechless and dumbstruck.

And then, just as suddenly as Adam came, Adam was gone.

----

Weeks had passed, and the spark of joy and adrenaline that skating gave Kaoru his motivation was gone, extinguished by the loss of Adam, and his lack of presence. Kojiro tried to coax Kaoru into it again, asked him to go to the skate park, tweaked his board for him, even spent his meagre savings on more paints and stickers for him, but.

Kaoru turned each of them away, shoving them out of sight to tell Kojiro he needed to ‘focus on his studies’.

Afternoons spent at the skate park were traded for hours spent studying, actually studying in the library, and hours usually spent at Crazy Rock were spent in bed on sleepless nights where the moon set and the sun rose, but both parties barely slept.

Time began to slip away, and graduation began to loom closer with each week that Kojiro spent procrastinating. Each time he tried to bring up his scholarship, or each time Kaoru spoke about university, Kojiro felt his throat close up.

For days, he agonised over it, told himself it had to be like ripping the bandaid off, like the way Adam did, and that the longer he waited, the more it was going to hurt.

But he couldn’t do it, until one day, the two were going home side by side after spending some time in the library together, Kojiro idly skating in the hallways with his skateboard, and Kaoru walking beside him. They filled the space between them with comfortable, idle chatter, nothing heavy or incriminating, and then Kaoru said.

“I’m glad I have you by my side Kojiro,” he said simply. “At least you won’t leave me.”

And Kojiro knew he had waited for too long.

Kojiro used his anger at himself to fuel his courage for the next words he forced out of his mouth as he abruptly stopped skating, and picked up his board by kicking it up into his hand.

“I need to talk to you,” Kojiro said suddenly, firmly, grabbing onto Kaoru’s wrist and stopping him in his tracks. Kaoru turned to him, eyebrow raised and furrowed in confusion.

They found an empty classroom to talk in, where classes had long ended and club activities were well under way. Kojiro opened the sliding door to the classroom, gesturing for Kaoru to go in first, and he walked in with his head held high and his shoulders pressed back, elegant and beautiful as always. Kojiro rolled the door shut behind him, took a few steps and then took a deep breath before he looked up to Kaoru’s assessing gaze. He set his skateboard aside by placing it on a desk between them.

“So? What did you want to tell me about? Kaoru asked sharply, no nonsense tone set firmly in place. Kaoru was further in the room, arms crossed and back to the windows as his golden eyes glowed in the darkness of the room. The sun was on its way to setting, and this side of the building was covered in shadows at this time of day.

Kojiro swallowed thickly, and steeled his resolve.

I have to tell him. I’ll tell him everything, even about how I-

Kojiro took a deep breath.

“I’m… Before Adam told us he was leaving,” and he felt his chest constrict at the sight of Kaoru’s hurt expression at the mention of his name. “Before we knew he was going to America, I… accepted my scholarship.”

Kaoru raised an eyebrow and Kojiro’s heart sank.

“So? I don’t see how that’s worthy of taking me aside into a classroom to tell me this,” he said disdainfully, and boy did Kojiro wish he was anywhere but here right now.

“It’s, the uh, my culinary scholarship,” Kojiro added, and Kaoru began to look impatient.

“And?” he snapped irritably, and Kojiro wanted to fucking scream, wanted to say I’m in love with you, and I want to ask you to wait for me until I come back but I can’t be that selfish, I won’t be; it fucking hurts to watch you be so broken after Adam, it fucking hurts that you won’t even skate with me anymore, Kaoru but it-

“… It’s in Italy,” Kojiro said instead, and he watched as the life seemed to evaporate from Kaoru entirely, his eyes widening, his arms dropping and his shoulders slumping like a puppet cut from his strings. “I’m going to Italy,” Kojiro added, wanting to clear the air and remove any misunderstanding. The sun must have started its descent proper then, as the room began to darken even further, but both sets of eyes adjusted, nothing but gold staring into sienna.

The silence stretched between them for an uncomfortable length of time.

“… you what?” Kaoru eventually asked lowly, tension hanging dangerously and crackling in the air. Kojiro felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand.

“…I’m going to Italy. For culinary training,” Kojiro said thickly, his tongue feeling fat and useless in his mouth. Gone was his usual silver tongue, and in its place fear and apprehension. His body felt wound up, way too tight, like his fight or flight response was set and ready to go. For another moment, it was still quiet. Then, Kaoru picked up his skateboard abruptly with the fury of a lighting strike, and threw it with all his might at the opposite wall. It crashed noisily against the classroom wall, clattering to the ground just as loudly. Kojiro winced at the impact, watched as one of its wheels bounced off in the turmoil and rolled away to a far corner in the room.

He brought his eyes up to the only other figure in the dark room as he watched Kaoru storm his way over to him, his gold eyes fierce in the darkness and suddenly the back of Kojiro’s head met with the classroom door behind him. Kaoru fisted both his hands in the front of Kojiro’s uniform and shook him.

“How could you? How could you?!” Kaoru began to shout, bringing Kojiro toward him before smashing his head against the door behind him, and Kojiro’s instincts kicked in, grabbing at Kaoru’s wrists to try and get him to let go.

“Kaoru-”

“No!” Kaoru screamed, and the ruckus brought other kids out of their club rooms. Kaoru tried to smash Kojiro against the door once again, but other students slid it open and the pair fell through, straight down to the ground as Kojiro’s head smashed against the linoleum floor to the cries and shouts of surprise from other students. His wrist twinged painfully as he landed on it. Kaoru followed him down, landing on Kojiro’s stomach but mounting him above his hips, fists still clenched in the fabric of his shirt. “No!!” Kaoru screamed again and then students swarmed around them, some of them trying to pull Kojiro out from under him while several tried to pull Kaoru off by his arms. The students succeeded, some of them holding Kaoru while others held onto Kojiro on the ground.

“Fuck you, Kojiro, fuck you!” Kaoru screamed, and Kojiro just wanted to take it all back. Wanted to rewind back in time, reject that no name Naha Technical High School’s beef, undo the application for his culinary scholarship to Italy, just reapply to Tokyo and hold Kaoru in his arms as he told him he loved him-

Tears streamed down Kaoru’s beautiful face, and Kojiro felt stricken from it, lunged forward to try and hold him in his arms, make the pain go away. Stray arms held him back, and one student grabbed him from behind at his chest, taking away his core strength.

He was deaf to anyone’s voice that wasn’t Kaoru’s but he watched, helpless, as students held him down and girls stood to take Kaoru away, separating the two from one another. The last he saw of Kaoru was his tear-stricken face, betrayal and fear etched into every part of his being. And then, clearly, as though Kaoru had screamed it, they both knew what the pink haired male was thinking as he looked at Kojiro with fury in his bright, tear blurry eyes.

I’ll never forgive you.

The classroom door was shut in front of him, and Kaoru’s cries were muffled behind the green rolling door as several girls voices could be heard consoling him, asking him what was wrong.

Breathing heavily through his nose, Kojiro never imagined this was how today was going to end. Vaguely, he could hear his class mates ask him if he was alright, what the hell happened just now, but he couldn’t hear them over the pounding of his heart, the heaving breaths he had to take.

It fucking hurts Kaoru, Kojiro thought to himself, pouring out the words he couldn’t say out loud earlier. But it won’t hurt as much as this.

This, being the way Kaoru had finally, finally looked at him.

But it was a look of utter and complete betrayal.

----

The next day, Kojiro walked into the classroom with a lump on the back of his head, and a wrist guard for his sprained wrist, and paused in the doorway when he saw Kaoru’s seat was empty. Kojiro was eventually jostled by other students that tried to make their ways past him, and he robotically made his way to his seat beside the empty desk, sitting down and staring at the chair where Kaoru should have been sitting.

He was going to apologise, and continue their conversation from yesterday. He was going to force him to listen, tell him he loved him, ask him to wait for him, because he was selfish, he did want Kaoru to wait for him, he couldn’t live without him-

“Hey, are you alright?” Tomoko from behind him whispered. Kojiro turned his ear slightly to listen to her better, eyes still trained on the little sun he carved onto Kaoru’s desk just to piss him off that one day in Winter during maths class.

“Where’s Kaoru?” he asked, and he missed the look of sympathy that flashed across her features.

“Oh Kojiro… he transferred schools,” she said apologetically, and Kojiro’s eyes widened as he whipped around to face her. Her eyes were sad, but there was no lie there, and Kojiro felt his chest twist. “I’m so sorry Kojiro,” she said softly, knowing about what happened just yesterday. There wasn’t a soul in the school who didn’t know about it.

Distantly, he heard the sound of his heart thud hollowly in his chest.

Something in Kojiro switched, just then, like an off mechanism that he didn’t even know he possessed. He felt numb inside, but flipped into autopilot, unfeeling of the smile he plastered on his face as he turned in his seat to face Tomoko properly. Warily, she looked at him, unsure of why he was smiling when he was clearly just delivered news that his best friend had transferred schools without even telling him. Kojiro tilted his head in the way he knew girls liked, crinkled his eyes in the corners just a little bit, and asked her in his low voice.

“So. What are you doing after school?”

----

That afternoon, when Tomoko’s parents conveniently worked late, Kojiro learned that Tomoko really did like him a lot, learned the supple, soft curves of the female anatomy, the unbelievable feeling of sheathing his cock inside a warm body, and-

That he would probably never hear Kaoru gasp his name the way he had always imagined him to every time he masturbated to the thought of him and his pale skin, and that no warm body beneath him could ever compare to the warmth Kaoru’s laughter and smiles made him feel.

“Oh, oh! Kojiro, Kojiro,” Tomoko gasped underneath him as he held onto the bed sheets around her head, and tightened his fists as he bit his lip and groaned, thinking in his head the whole time Kaoru, Kaoru-!

Tomoko let out a low moan that almost could have passed as Kaoru’s voice as she came, and that was just enough to tip Kojiro into spilling into the condom as he gasped and made his release. Once their breathing started to even out, Kojiro pulled out, tied a knot in the used condom, and tossed it into the trash. He collapsed into a heap on his side, facing Tomoko as she turned to look at him fondly, eyes shining full of adoration, like he hung the fucking moon and stars up just for her.

Kojiro felt his own eyes begin to shine as tears threatened to well up.

Why didn’t you ever look at me like that, Kaoru? He asked himself desolately in the privacy of his mind, while Tomoko snuggled up to him and he draped an obligatory arm around her.

Why did you never look at me the way I looked at you?