Work Text:
Sharp pain flooded Kaoru to the brim, and his eyes snapped open.
Or, rather, they tried to.
In reality, his eyelids were so heavy they only managed to crack themselves open, despite the throbs and stabs assaulting him from… well, everywhere.
“Kaoru?”
Instinctively, Kaoru turned towards the sound, though the movement cost him a wince. Rarely had he heard that voice so soft. So uncertain. Kaoru tried to get his eyes to focus, only to realize he was pressed up against something that was blocking his view and… smelled nice? He tried to push himself up, but as soon as he shifted, fierce and fiery agony consumed his right arm and side.
“Ah!”
“Hey now,” That voice protested, clearly worried. “Don’t try to move yet. We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?” he groaned, still trying to fight through the haze of pain to think.
“He’s awake?”
“Barely.”
“Try to keep him that way, if you can. He might have a concussion.”
“I know.” That comforting voice snapped. Something about hearing that irritation soothed him, and he didn't protest when gentle fingers began combing through his hair. “Sorry, Hiromi.”
Hiromi and…
Kojiro.
Kaoru’s heart skipped a beat as memory rushed him.
“Don’t worry about it. Just keep him awake.”
“I’m right here,” Kaoru complained aloud. His head was killing him.
“You sure are.” This time, Kojiro’s voice was unmistakably relieved, half-strangled with a laugh that sounded suspiciously wet.
Slowly, pieces of his surroundings clicked into place to form a picture. The scent of flowers and Hiromi’s presence meant they must be in his work car. Carefully, he rolled his head over enough that he could look at Kojiro’s face, unsurprised that he was looking back, but utterly taken aback by the expression he found.
“Are you crying?” he croaked incredulously.
“As if,” Kojiro retorted, a single tear spilling down his face. It hung off of his stupidly chizzled chin for a moment before splashing squarely on Kaoru’s nose. He scrunched it in displeasure and immediately regretted it as his forehead throbbed. He tried lifting his right arm instead and hissed when a sharp spike of pain greeted him at the very suggestion of movement.
“Hey.” The warm pad of a calloused thumb wiped the moisture from the tip of Kaoru’s nose. “I’ve got you.”
Kaoru slumped, a deeply suppressed warmth bleeding to the surface as Kojiro returned to carefully carding his finger’s through Kaoru’s hair.
Kojiro, so solid underneath him; so attentive and gentle. Kaoru couldn’t help but melt, wrapped up in all that protective muscle. His ape-like physique did have its uses.
“That’s it,” Kojiro crooned, making Kaoru want to squirm and protest. He just didn't have the energy for it. That was all. “Just keep still now. We don’t know what kind of damage Adam did yet.”
Adam.
Since the pain prevented Kaoru from curling his hands into fists, he squeezed his eyes shut instead as a wave of misery broke over him anew. Those last moments of the beef before Adam’s skateboard had smashed into his face flashed through his head, making his stomach curdle. That simpering voice invaded his mind.
“I simply find you boring.”
He gritted his teeth till his jaw ached. More than it already did, that is.
Warmth touched his cheek, and Kaoru’s eyes fluttered open.
"Don't think about him. He isn't worth it.”
The concerned affection in Kojiro’s eyes was unbearable. Think about me, instead, they seemed to say. Kaoru closed his eyes again. Foolish wishful thinking. He couldn’t deal with that right now. Not when both his body and his heart ached so much already. He couldn’t add the hope and inevitable disappointment that were tied to Kojiro’s evanescent affections to his list of grievances this evening.
“Don’t go falling asleep on me now.”
It was the pat to the side of his face that made Kaoru realize that Kojiro hadn’t stopped cupping it.
“Mm,” he responded, pressing into the warmth of Kojiro’s palm, even though it stung. Adam’s skateboard must have scratched his cheek. Or maybe it was the pavement, afterwards. Surely taking just this small comfort for himself was acceptable?
"Don't go to sleep on us now, Cherry!" Hiromi growled from the front, clearly still channeling Shadow. "We've made it to the E.R."
The momentum of the car shifted forward, then back, though he barely moved with the way Kojiro expertly cradled him.
Probably has plenty of experience from holding all those women who are constantly flocking to him, he thought bitterly. His mind immediately shied away from such thoughts in favor of turning to the only one who was truly always there for him instead, Carla.
Shit!
Kaoru's eyes opened, frantically searching. He tried to sit up again, only to pathetically whimper when the pain reared so strongly that black closed in around the edges of his vision.
"Whoa!" The hand pressed against his cheek relocated to his chest—resting, not exerting any of the considerable strength Kaoru knew was there. "Wh—"
"Carla?" Kaoru interrupted.
"Yes, Master?" His A.I. piped before Kojiro could do more than open his mouth.
The burst of panic drained from Kaoru so fast, his vision started going dark again. Nausea suddenly gripped his belly and he bit down on his lips, tongue automatically prodding at the little bumpy spot where his lip ring used to be.
"—got her." Kojiro was evidently explaining, though Kaoru couldn't remember hearing him start that sentence. It didn't really matter, so long as she was here.
A click preceded a gust of cool air. "I'm going to see if I can get a wheelchair," Hiromi said from right over his head before the retreating cadence of footsteps told him that Hiromi had run inside.
Kaoru groaned, this time in annoyance. “I’m not dying,” he groused.
“Yeah, and you’re not walking either.”
“You haven’t even given me the cha–Ah!”
“Sorry,” Kojiro said softly, adjusting his hold on Kaoru now that they were out of the confines of the car. He managed to kick the car door closed without further jostling Kaoru, which he was pathetically grateful for. “You were saying?” Kojiro probed teasingly.
“Shut up,” he grumbled.
Kojiro’s chuckle vibrated through Kaoru, making heat rush to his cheeks. He tolerated the soreness that came with moving his neck to train his eyes on the emergency room doors as two nurses and Hiromi appeared with a wheelchair. Kojiro stayed where he was, probably out of some dumb chivalrous notion like not causing him any more pain. Which happened to be a perfectly logical reason, as well, but Kaoru wasn’t about to give Kojiro that much credit.
As the trio grew closer, unacknowledged anxiety that had been thrumming in the background suddenly reared to Kaoru’s forefront.
“Kojiro,” he said softly, voice carefully controlled.
“Yeah?”
Kaoru opened his mouth, the words, Don’t leave me alone, on the tip of his tongue.
His hesitation cost him the opportunity, as the nurses descended on him with questions that both Kojiro and Hiromi tried to answer for him as he was gently settled in the wheelchair until he practically shouted at them that he could speak for himself.
The intake process was so far from efficient it pained him, but, unfortunately, his actual pain was substantial enough that he could only find a middling kind of distraction in it. The examination hurt like a bitch—he had sprained his right wrist and bruised two ribs on the same side—but, miraculously, he was not showing symptoms of a concussion. Just a nasty bump on his forehead and some scrapes that his hair mostly hid. They still wanted to keep him overnight for observation. Which he tried to protest, but reluctantly agreed to when pressed. As advanced as Carla was, she could only analyze what he'd programmed her for, and that only included basic vitals monitoring. Without the right equipment, she had no way to monitor for more serious conditions, like internal bleeding.
A nurse—he had lost track of how many there’d been at this point—wheeled him down to the room he’d been assigned. Despite no major injuries to his legs or spine, he did have a significant amount of bruising that made movement painful.
He was pitifully grateful that neither Kojiro or Hiromi were there to witness the pathetic sounds he made while the nurse helped him into bed, though a tiny, traitorous part of his brain imagined Kojiro fussing over him the way the nurse did, and didn't hate the idea. It reminded him of younger, more innocent days, when Kaoru would come down with a fever and Kojiro would come over after school to make soup with his mom and bully him into eating it.
Kaoru was still smiling at the memories when the door flung open, a familiar hulking silhouette blocking out most of the light from the hallway and rushing to his side.
"Kaoru, are you—"
"I'll live," he sighed, something that had wound unpleasantly tight in him unclenching at the fuzzy sight of his best friend. "I won't skateboard for a while, but I'm mostly in one piece. Sprained wrist, bruised ribs, no concussion," he rattled off. "But I'm so bruised I can't even stand," he grumbled.
"Could've been a lot worse."
“Thanks, Captain Obvious. Now get closer. They made me take my contacts out for the examination and I can’t see you from all the way up there, you gorilla.”
“Such a bossy princess,” Kojiro lilted in a way that made a shiver run down his spine.
His best friend leaned down to tug the blanket up a little higher and, hello, yes. Now he could see Kojiro in all his worried glory, and it made his stomach swoop and twist.
“I brought Carla,” he sat down on the edge of Kaoru’s bed and carefully laid her across his own lap. Kaoru must have been more drugged than he thought if he failed to notice that.
It was definitely the painkillers, and not Kojiro’s stupid face, that had distracted him.
And did Kojiro just call Carla by name?
Shit. First crying, and now this. Kojiro must have really thought he was dying.
“Be careful with her, you brute,” he chided in a way that sounded like ‘thank you.’ He half-heartedly punched Kojiro with his left hand.
“You’re welcome, douche.”
Was it just him, or did Kojiro’s smile look relieved?
The expression was short-lived. Between one blink and the next—or had he fallen asleep for a minute?—Kojiro’s face had gone all soft and contemplative and pinched at the corners of his eyes.
It made his chest hurt infinitely worse than the bruised ribs. Kaoru hated it.
“I was thinking, Kaoru… Do you want me to—”
“I need you to go get Carla,” he blurted, afraid that if he heard the end of that sentence, it would be exactly what he wanted to hear. And he wouldn’t be able to say no.
Kojiro sent a truly bemused glance down at the skateboard he was still cradling, then fixed that look on Kaoru, clearly wondering if he had sustained brain damage after all.
“Maybe—”
“You don’t need to get a nurse,” he sighed exasperatedly, automatically going to pinch the bridge of his nose with his right hand before a twinge of pain and the sling reminded him he couldn’t. Because exasperation was easier than being lulled by the care in those puppy-dog eyes Kojiro kept giving him. “My mind is still fifteen times sharper than yours could ever hope to be.”
“Fifteen?” he challenged, concern replaced with a dry skepticism that Kaoru found much more comfortable.
“It’s normally twenty, but I thought I should allow for the fact that the painkillers they’ve got me on are extremely effective. I’d have to be as dumb as you to think they weren’t impairing my faculties.”
“Yeah, okay, Einstein. So you were saying?”
Kaoru blinked at him. He was making a point? Oh, right …
“Carla,” he repeated. “Or, more specifically, a motorized chair that can interface with her.” He reached out with reverent fingers to brush his loyal board, missed, and brushed Kojiro’s leg instead. He snatched his hand back quickly, eyes darting away as heat rose in his cheeks and he determinedly continued on as if nothing had happened, “I built one for this exact scenario. Given the statistical likelihood of significant injury at some point.”
“Of course you did,” the fondness in Kojiro’s tone coaxed Kaoru into stealing a glance at him, then another when he wasn’t sure what he’d seen the first time was right. Kojiro was… blushing? “Yeah, I can get it. And your glasses too, right?”
“Please,” Kaoru acquiesced stiffly.
“I got you this,” he held up a cream-colored hair tie. “For your hair.”
For several seconds too long, Kaoru just stared at Kojiro in dumbfounded, touched, silence before offering a belated, “Clearly.”
It was only after he took it that he realized the obvious problem.
“Uh,” he stated eloquently.
“Oh, shit!” Kojiro finally put it together that Kaoru could not do this with one hand. “Here, let me…”
Kojiro’s thick fingers brushed Kaoru’s as he took the tie back and rolled it down his wrist.
“Can you turn? Here, let me help.” Kojiro gingerly placed a steadying palm just below Kaoru’s neck. “Does this hurt?”
Kaoru tried to swallow around his heart, which seemed to have miraculously relocated to his throat. “I won’t break, Kojiro,” he told him hoarsely.
“And I won’t hurt you.”
Unlike Adam, the space after his words said.
Kojiro’s hand was so warm on his back.
Kaoru couldn’t take it.
“Please, you kick, elbow, or trip me at least ten times a week.”
“Only because you start it!” Kojiro immediately protested.
“I do not.”
“You know this is different.” Kojiro’s hand crept up to play with the wisps of hair at the base of Kaoru’s neck, stealing his breath away.
“Yeah,” he conceded airily, feeling light-headed.
“You okay like this?”
With your hands on my skin, offering something as intimate as tending my hair? Making me want things I can’t have when I'm high and my defenses are down? No. No, I am not, you dimwit.
"Yes."
Calloused fingertips ran from his temples to behind his ears, gathering loose strands of hair with care.
Kaoru shuddered.
“It’s kinda chilly in here, isn’t it?” Kojiro commented. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.”
The sharp retort Kaoru knew he should be making didn’t come. He held himself still and focused on keeping his breathing in check, even as his heart ran wild.
Kojiro was not quick.
He was nothing short of painfully attentive, combing Kaoru’s hair diligently with his fingers before gathering it and tying it down low, the way he prefered. He even draped the tail over his left shoulder once he had finished.
“Better?” he asked, tugging the blanket up high once Kaoru was slumped against the pillows once more.
“Mm.” He was exhausted.
“You tired?”
“You’re tired,” he mumbled.
Kojiro’s deep chuckle warmed the drafty hospital air. “Yeah,” he admitted. “But you’re—"
Despite wanting to hear the end of that sentence, Kaoru lost his battle against fatigue, pain, and medication, and slipped into sleep.
*
When Kaoru next cracked open his eyes, his entire body ached. That rapidly brought recent events crashing back to him, and he blearily peered around the room. It was still dark, but several things had changed.
His Carla chair was in the room, and when he reached for the bedside table, he found his glasses neatly folded. He pushed them on, heart sinking when his clearer vision told him what he already knew: Kojiro wasn't in the room.
Ripping his glasses back off, he set them aside and laid there like a sack of flour, too stiff and sore to even properly curl up into the ball of anxious misery he felt like on the inside.
When he had tried to get out of staying overnight in the hospital earlier, it wasn’t that he didn’t see the rationale in it. He just didn’t want to be alone.
“Carla,” he called softly.
“Yes, Master?” Soft pink light illuminated the room. The sound of her familiar voice brought some measure of relief.
“Where is Kojiro right now?”
“His cellular GPS data suggests he is currently at Sia la luce.”
“Thank you, Carla.”
Her lights went dim once more. Kaoru shifted, trying, and failing, to find a comfortable position.
Did Kojiro feel as alone as he did?
Thoughts of his face in those moments before his race with Adam flashed in his mind on a loop. How worried his friend had been and how he couldn’t stand to see him look at him that way. How he’d needled him just to cheer him up.
And how he’d cried when Kaoru had woken up in the back of the car after Adam’s attack.
“Kojiro,” he whispered to the cold, empty room.
He rubbed his eyes before grabbing a spare pillow to smother himself with. “Dumbass,” he spoke aloud, voice muffled.
He wasn't sure if he was talking to Kojiro or himself.
How did they expect people to sleep in a place like this, anyway? The rooms were ice cold and the beds like rocks. And he didn’t dare ask Carla to play a lullaby lest a nurse come to check in on him. He'd never live down the mortification of that.
Why had he agreed to stay the night again? He was fine. Sore, lonely, and anxious, but fine.
An idea struck him.
“Carla,” he called, with considerably more enthusiasm than before.
“Yes, Master?”
“Come here.”
The heavy whir of her following his command surprised him for a moment; he had been anticipating the soft sound of skateboard wheels on smooth linoleum, not the entire chair that Carla was currently inhabiting. But it worked in his favor. He wasn't going to get far without her assistance.
"We're getting out of here."
*
As it turned out, breaking out of a hospital wasn't all that difficult. At least not with a hyper-advanced A.I. on one's side. With a little assistance from the hospital's own security system and a touch of sweet talking, he was rolling his way down to Sia la luce at nearly four in the morning.
It was an awfully good thing that Okinawa wasn’t a terribly large place.
By the time he rolled into Kojiro’s restaurant, he was beyond overtired. But it was so good to see Kojiro in his chef’s top, to smell the familiar scent of spices that had soaked into the wood, to have him bantering with Kaoru the way they always did again, to have something normal after the heart-shattering ending to his race with Adam, that he kept up his best act until the moment Kojiro left his line of sight.
Then, and only then, did he let himself slump against the bar, just to rest his eyes for a moment.
*
Crawling from consciousness for the third time in under twelve hours was even less pleasant than the first two. He hurt. Without even opening his eyes, he tried to stretch or move in some way that didn’t make the ache worse, and only ended up whimpering.
“Kaoru?”
Muffled footsteps and the surface he was laying on dipping, prompted him to crack open his eyes and squint up at the giant pile of muscle he called his best friend. “Kojiro?” he whined, before turning to bury his face in his pillow so he could die.
It smelled like Kojiro. Kaoru felt dangerously close to either laughing or crying hysterically.
“Hey.” A heavy hand rested on his shoulder. “I think we should take you back to the hospital.”
At that suggestion, Kaoru found the will to shake his head, though not as vigorously as he wanted to. His neck was so sore.
“M’fine,” he insisted, refusing to look at Kojiro. A thumb stroked his shoulder.
“You’re not fine, Kaoru. You’re hurt. And you’re scaring me a little.”
That got Kaoru’s attention. He forced himself to sit up a little, confining his pain to a wince.
“I’m just stiff. Get me some ibuprofen and I’ll be good as new.”
The hand on his shoulder tightened. Kojiro looked unhappy.
“What? Out with it already.” The ape knew he was fine, so why—
Kaoru’s train of thought abruptly derailed into a pile of growing confusion and anxiety when he found his face cupped between Kojiro’s palms.
His eyes bore into Kaoru’s for long seconds before finally letting his touch slip away.
Kaoru wanted to chase it. He didn’t dare.
“I’m worried about you,” he finally answered, not looking at him. “When I got to you at S and you weren’t moving…” Kojiro shook his head. “I thought you were safe in the hospital, and then lo and behold, you show up just like it’s any other night. Demanding my wine and then falling asleep on my counter without having a sip.” He chuckled ruefully, and he suddenly turned sharply disapproving eyes on him. “I had to carry you upstairs, you know. You forgot to take that into your chair design consideration. It’s charging downstairs, by the way.”
“She,” Kaoru corrected automatically.
Kojiro’s laugh sounded more genuine this time. “Right.” He nudged Kaoru playfully. “But clearly no match for me, am I right?”
“Hardly. No one compares to Carla,” Kaoru scoffed.
“Oh, c’mon. If Carla had been good enough you wouldn’t have barged into my restaurant at four in the morning.”
Those words laid a trap that all the pain and grogginess in the world couldn’t make Kaoru fall into. He lunged for a diversion.
“What were you still doing up, anyway?”
“What do you think, you ass?”
“Hm,” he mocked, “I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I asked, dimwit.”
“I had a lot on my mind!” Kojiro exclaimed. He carded a hand through his hair, leaving it tousled in a way that was unfairly attractive. If Kaoru tried that, he’d just look like a bird tried to nest in it. He probably looked that way now. The bandages certainly weren't doing him any favors in that department. He had to fight the urge to try to smooth it. “You, Adam, the competition… I needed some time to process it all.”
Something clicked in Kaoru’s mind. He narrowed his eyes at Kojiro.
“You drank that bottle on the counter, didn’t you?”
He sat up a little more and reached for his glasses without looking. Kojiro always put them in the same spot.
His best friend held up his hands in a lackadaisical gesture. “It was already open. Someone needed to drink it before it went stale. For some reason, I thought I wouldn’t have you to help me with it."
“Well, that was your mistake now, wasn’t it?” he retorted primly, settling his glasses on his nose for effect.
"Yeah, it was." The feeling of fingers in his hair startled Kaoru from the relaxed state their bickering had lulled him into. Kojiro's eyes had gone soft in a way that made Kaoru’s heart triple its speed.
“Kojiro what—”
A soft pressure prevented his lips from moving a millimeter more, and it took Kaoru far, far, too long to realize what was happening. By the time he did, Kojiro was already pulling back, a hand scratching at the back of his head and his eye’s looking anywhere but Kaoru.
“Sorry. I… Sorry,” he repeated. “I just… I kept thinking about it. Last night. How Adam could have permanently messed you up. Or killed you. And then you showed up here like nothing had happened and, yeah, I'd had a little to drink. And a little more after you passed out." His lips quirked up fondly, but his expression fell back to brooding just as quickly. "I just…” Kojiro finally met Kaoru’s disconcerted stare, resolve steeling his voice. “I needed you to know how I feel. How important you are to me. I know this isn’t how we are. And I won’t let it change our friendship. But still… I just wanted you to know.”
It took Kaoru a long time to work enough saliva back into his mouth to speak. His mind was reeling from the fact that Kojiro had kissed him. “Know what?”
“Kaoru…” His name was so soft on those lips. “I love you.”
Kaoru’s lips opened, then closed. He tried again, but his voice, his air, was completely gone. So Kaoru communicated the only other way he knew how.
By punching Kojiro in the arm.
"Fuck!" The pain was enough to return words to Kaoru’s mouth, and he glared at Kojiro because this was absolutely his fucking fault.
"What the hell, Kaoru?" Damn bastard wasn't even rubbing his arm. He had taken Kaoru’s hand, examining it for additional damage. Kaoru yanked it free.
"You stupid, dimwitted, imbecilic, barbaric, brainless, moronic, baboon!" he seethed. And, in the moment, Kojiro did look truly stupefied. "For years, I've had to watch you and your ceaseless parade of half-dressed women. Never once did you look my way. And then you," he growled, but that was when emotion finally got the better of him, sealing off his throat and preventing him from producing anything more than a strangled sound.
It turned out he didn't need to complete that sentence anyway.
"It was always Adam for you!" Kojiro exploded. Kaoru pulled back like Kojiro had slapped him, his injuries throbbing in commiseration. His anger was snuffed out so completely he could almost smell a wisp of smoke. "From the moment he showed up," his harsh timbre softened into something resigned. "I think, in some ways, it still is. You don’t like the person he’s become any more than I do. Hell, probably less. But I think part of you always hoped that beating him would bring our Adam back. Your Adam." His fingers stretched forward on the blanket till they were just barely brushing Kaoru’s thigh. "But he's not the one who's been here, sweetheart." The term of endearment didn't come out with its usual sarcastic edge. Kaoru stared at Kojiro's fingers, feeling utterly disarmed. "And skating against him didn't make him any less of a bastard." Kojiro’s fingers curled into fists, like he wanted to deck Adam just thinking about it. Then his eyes met Kaoru’s and softened. "For a long time I was satisfied with the knowledge that, in the end, you chose me over him. Or maybe the better way to phrase it is you rejected his way of doing things and I was still there. Either way, I was happy. And, yeah, I like women. They’re soft, and pretty, and fun—"
"You can stop anytime," Kaoru choked out, not wanting to hear any more.
“But they’re not you, Kaoru,” Kojiro pressed on anyway, melting Kaoru's bamboozled brain that much further. “Between any of the girls I’ve gone out with and you, who am I still with?”
Kaoru swallowed. There was only one answer. He bit his lower lip.
Kojiro’s eyes went all liquid-soft again. “That’s right.” One of Kojiro’s gorilla hands reached for his face, and Kaoru didn’t even try to fight it this time. He wanted it too much. Years of pining, and Kojiro seemingly offering up exactly what he wanted when he was so pained and weak, made him helpless to spurn him now. He felt warmth rise in his cheeks where Kojiro touched him, but it didn’t stop there. The heat reached his eyes, making his glasses fog. He could feel every emotion he’d had in the last 24 hours piling up behind them, overwhelmed and out of more coherent methods of expressing himself.
“You damn stupid ape,” he sobbed, trying to hide his face in Kojiro’s palm, glasses be damned.
Lips brushed his cheek, just making him cry harder. “Yeah, I can see that now,” he told him, wiping Kaoru’s tears away.
Kaoru glared.
“Your timing is terrible.”
“I know.”
“Stop agreeing with me!” he yelled, making himself flinch when the effort that required aggravated his bruised ribs.
Silence reigned.
A peal of laughter from Kojiro broke it, Kaoru helplessly chuckling a moment later, until he was outright laughing with him and clutching his side against the pain, tears still streaming down his face.
“We’re both idiots,” he wheezed, scrubbing his cheeks as they calmed down. He was about to clean his glasses with the edge of his yukata, only to realize he was still in the clothes the hospital had put him in. He used Kojiro’s blanket instead.
“Did you want me to disagree with that?” Kojiro teased.
“Shut up. I hate you.”
Kojiro’s expression immediately fell into something startlingly serious.
“No, I don’t think you do,” he commented softly, something very vulnerable lurking behind the words.
Kaoru sobered, reaching out to place his good hand over one of Kojiro’s. He only hesitated a breath before finally saying the words that had haunted the back of his throat for years. “I love you, Kojiro. Very much. And for a very long time.”
The emotions that flitted across Kojiro’s face were too numerous and complicated for Kaoru to track; and then he couldn’t see anything, because Kojiro’s arms were warm and solid around him, carefully holding him in a way not so unlike last night.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted to hear you say that."
Kaoru wrapped his good arm around Kojiro’s back, wondering if he was going to wake up. Maybe he had died after all. But no. Kojiro was too real, too himself to be some figment of his imagination. That, and he still felt every bruise Adam's attack had left him with.
"I suspect longer than I want to know, since it appears we've both been holding back for several years."
Kojiro pulled back, but didn't let Kaoru go. He brushed a loose lock of hair behind the ear that was still lightly scarred from the piercings he wore in high school. "That just means we have more time to make up for," he intoned in a way that went right down Kaoru’s spine.
He smacked Kojiro’s back.
"Damn horny ape," he grumbled. "I'm still hurt, you know!"
Kojiro’s smile was blinding. "Yep! And that's why we're going back to the hospital."
Outrage swelled in Kaoru till it popped, "You can't tease me like that and then make me go back there!"
"Sure I can." Kojiro booped his nose with one meaty finger. Kaoru snapped his teeth at it but missed. "It's not like you can stop me."
“Fine, we'll go back. Even though we both know they'll just discharge me anyway. But," he insisted, "I need a bath first. I feel disgusting." And a hot soak sounded like just the thing his aching muscles needed.
“I think I can help with that,” Kojiro offered, voice dropping in pitch once more.
“I haven't gotten any less injured in the last two minutes, you single-minded gorilla!”
Kojiro scowled. “Oh, so first you give me shit for teasing you, then for refusing to follow through, and now you're mad that I might change my mind? You can't have it both ways, Kaoru," he lilted.
Kaoru huffed.
"Besides, give me some credit! I wouldn’t actually do anything to set back your recovery, you know!”
“Of course you wouldn’t!” he heatedly agreed.
“Then what are we arguing about?”
“I don’t know!”
Kojiro kissed him.
It was a good thing he was already sitting, or he probably would have fallen from how weak his knees went. His breathing was considerably harder when they broke apart. At some point Kojiro’s hands had tangled in his hair. His hair tie—the one Kojiro had evidently bought at the hospital—was now laying in his lap.
He looked up at Kojiro pointedly. “I hope you’re going to put that back.”
“Of course, your majesty." His grin was so wide, Kaoru wondered if his face might stick that way. It wouldn’t be the worst thing. "You're definitely feeling better if you've got the energy to complain about something that small.”
Never mind. It was absolutely the worst thing and he was going to erase that dumb smile off his stupid face.
Normally, that would entail wiping the floor with him in a beef, but now, several frighteningly exciting alternatives were at his disposal.
“Just a bath,” he stated firmly.
“Uh huh.”
“I am serious, Kojiro!”
“So am I!” he protested.
(It was not just a bath.)