Blur of Youth

Beta: Hetabee

Warning(s): Cursing, slight bit of internalized homophobia

Chapter 3

Blooper

If one were to have to name a single flaw in Misaki's plan... well, it would be the apparent perpetrator of the plot, itself: Misaki.

You see, there was a key difference between Shinobu and Misaki beyond the semantics of the thing: Shinobu was simply more extroverted than the latter. And while Misaki was certainly not okay with how overly submissive he appeared to be in public, a real poster child for good Japanese mannerisms, it was to no true fault of his own. At least, that would be how others would assess it to be. Misaki, in contrast, wondered if his behavior weren't of his own doing; a self-saboteur ever since the day of the Incident that Changed Their Lives Irrevocably.

And while Shinobu decided to keep to himself most days, despite his blatantly clear desire to go out and wreak havoc on society, Misaki didn't. He just found himself unwilling to do so. It wasn't as if the teen was terrified of people, or of going outside. He wasn't a phobe by any means; it was simply that he didn't want to, he couldn't, and that was that.

Shinobu and Misaki seemed to complement each other seamlessly, and it wasn't very often at all that Misaki wished that they were more alike than not in behavior.

It was as he pondered over whether he should call Risako and take her up on her offer that it seemed, simultaneously, both the front door opened and his mobile phone rang.

"I'm home," his brother, Takahashi Takahiro called out, voice muffled through a combination of closed door and distance from the front landing. Though he felt a quiet urge to run downstairs and greet his older brother properly, Misaki instead immediately scrambled for his phone, the device having fallen off the bed as soon as his feet had hit the carpeted flooring of their Western-styled house.

A quick glance down at its dark screen revealed that, just as he had spoken of the devil, thus he had appeared. Shinobu was calling.

"Misaki?" Shinobu asked after Misaki had answered the call, voice indistinct and crackling slightly over the bad reception. "Where are you?"

"At home," Misaki replied swiftly, moving his neck side to side slowly, trying to work out a crick that had been developing due to his awkward positioning on the bed. He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, finally giving his own standard greeting to Takahiro as the brunet climbed up the staircase. The man's slippers slapped against the floor as he made his way up and headed to his own room, after having had waved at his teen brother in response.

"Did you tell him about the party, yet?"

Misaki lowered his hand slowly as he frowned at the wall, wondering why Shinobu was asking questions he already knew the answers to. Wasn't really like him. "Of course I told him about the party. You know our policy on secrecy."

"Yeah, yeah," Shinobu murmured off-handedly. "A secret kept is a wrong done, or whatever the phrase is you guys seemed to have invented.

"What I really wanna know is how he reacted."

"He scolded me," Misaki started, recalling the memory with startling clarity, a grin quirking up at the corners of his lips. He leaned his head back against the wall silently, observing as a bird flew freely outside his window near the bathroom door. "But then he smiled this little half-smile, as if he were actually secretly happy I was out late at night, sneaking out to go to parties with you."

Shinobu chuckled at that. "Probably because you're finally acting the part of the normal, adjusted teenager."

"Do all normal, adjusted teenagers go to parties held on university campuses?"

"And make out with university boys, too, while they're at it."

"What?" Misaki paused, confused. Any outrage he would've held at that comment seemed to disappear into a nonexistent state as he tried to process what Shinobu had just revealed. "What do you mean by that? Did you... do something with someone while we there?"

"Noooo," Shinobu trailed off. Misaki could practically already see the impish smirk making its way across the brunet's face. "But I do know of a certain high school student who would've loved to do so to a certain university student..."

"What?" Misaki tried again, squinting at the bird as it landed on a branch and poked its beak at its dark features.

"Misaki," Shinobu, at first, groaned at his friend's responses, as if Misaki had been struck dumb overnight. But then his tone turned secretive. "Look, we both know you got that mysterious foreigner's phone number. We both know he pecked you on the lips. And we both know you're about dying to call him."

Misaki glanced back at Takahiro's door, as if expecting the man himself to walk out to ridicule him on his bad life choices. Decision made, the brunet walked back to his room and shut the door, throwing himself on his bed.

"I'm not... that way, Shinobu. And you know that."

"Hey," Shinobu protested calmly. "All I'm saying is, he certainly wanted more than what was currently being offered on the table. And from the way you were gazing at him with those large, doe-like eyes of yours... well, so did you, if only you knew how."

Misaki didn't even want to deem that incongruent statement with a response, it was so beyond the realm of possibilities in relation to him. Where did his usually private friend go, and why was he trying so desperately hard to set Misaki up with this other guy? This older man? A man, in general? Is this what happened when you were gay? Did you suddenly found yourself searching for these unreal, so subtle they weren't actually there, nuances in other men's behavior in order to... engage in depraved sexual acts with them? Or was it a matter of patience and conversion? Was being gay some sort of cover for a cult? Was Shinobu a cult leader?

"Are you some sort of secret gay cult leader?" Misaki asked, and then wanted to smack himself for doing so.

"What?" Shinobu sounded genuinely shocked at that, before he broke down laughing. "I... I don't - give me a second."

As the laughter continued on for a few moments longer, Misaki grew more embarrassed at his actions.

"Alright, alright," Misaki grumbled at his friend, shifting the phone from one ear to the next. "I get it."

"Where did that come from?"

"Well," Misaki started, crawling backwards and inaudibly sighing when his back met the cushioning fabric of his pillows. "It's like you're trying to make me be... gay, or something. And then I got to thinking about how cult leaders converted people into followers, which lead into gay guys being cult leaders..."

"Misaki," Shinobu's voice suddenly had a weird, bland tone to it, and Misaki narrowed his eyes at the wall, in place of his friend's face. "There is no 'gay agenda,' you realize."

"No, I don't realize." Misaki said, scrunching his mouth to the side in a parody of a frown. "You've been on me for a while now about guys and crushes, even when I don't have them. I'm straight!"

"No, you're not!" Shinobu finally cried out. A long silence hung between the two as they processed what Shinobu's outburst meant to his opinion of Misaki's behavior; one in bewilderment, the other in embarrassment.

"I can't do this over the phone," Misaki sighed, reaching up to massage the place in which a headache would soon make itself apparent. "Can you come over real quick?"

"Sure," Shinobu said. "I'm sorry, I'll be there soon. Bye."

"Bye," Misaki said, in turn, before hanging up the phone and flopping over onto his left side. What was Shinobu on about? Since when did Misaki have the slightest inclination towards men? At all? It was as he continued to ponder that question that his forest green eyes soon strayed over to, and subsequently locked on, a picture frame that had been left sitting atop his nightstand ever since long ago. Reaching over, the brunet picked it up and lay back on his back, staring up as he held the photo aloft over himself.

It showed what had once been the typical average, happy family; two brothers, one mother, one father. The lot of them were smiling goofily up at the camera, the oldest boy with a silly cone-shaped hat on his head with the words, "Happy birthday!" splashed across it in bright lettering. On his right stood his little brother, Misaki, getting ready to blow out the boy's candles himself. A couple feet above him stood their mother, her hands steady on Misaki's shoulders, as if she were trying her best to restrain him in his excitement. On Takahiro's own left stood their father, who merely had his arms tossed around his family's shoulders, as happy and content as could be.

Sighing shakily, Misaki brought the picture frame back down to his chest and wondered why.

Several minutes passed into nearly half an hour before Shinobu finally made it to the brunet's apartment, skipping up a few stairs at a time instead of using the elevator in his haste. A cursory glance down the hallway lead his feet to a familiar door, the nameplate neatly displaying the name, "Takahashi" in bold, upraised lettering.

He banged his fist on the door and waited silently for the sounds of footsteps to soon follow. It was as Shinobu felt his patience begin to wane as seconds passed by without due answer that he rose his hand in order to bang on the door once again. But before he could do so, the front door opened and Takahiro's kind face appeared in the space where the brunet's fist would've hit reinforced wood.

And Shinobu had so wanted to hit the door again.

"Hello, Shinobu-kun," Takahiro greeted, opening the door wider and stepping aside in order to allow the sandy-haired teen entrance. "How are you?"

"Sorry for the intrusion," Shinobu murmured. "I'm doing fine. And you, Takahiro-san?"

"I just got home from work," the man answered vaguely, waving off the question with a nonchalant wave of the hand. "Misaki should be up in his room, if you're looking for him."

"Thanks," Shinobu said offhandedly as he beat a hasty retreat up the steps, his need to see Misaki so great.

"Misaki!" he called out as he headed towards his friend's room.

"Come in," the brunet drawled lazily, sitting up swiftly as Shinobu entered. For a few seconds, only panting breaths met his ears and he peered curiously at the boy's outward appearance - hair somewhat mussed, cheeks flushed a pinkish tone, chest heaving slightly - before inquiring, "So, you gonna stand there and breathe, or are you going to explain yourself?"

'And Misaki is in a snarky mood, now. Great,' Shinobu thought at his friend's query. 'Just what I needed: a sarcastic defense mechanism.'

"What would you do if I were to just stand here and breathe?" Shinobu answered as soon as he'd been able to catch his breath properly.

"I would send you out and wait in silence until you managed to act like a human being," Misaki remarked. He pat the space next to him on his bed in a bid for the other boy to sit down beside him. "Now, explain yourself."

Shinobu sat down quickly and picked at a bit of fabric on the brunet's bedspread for a few seconds before taking another deep breath, turning around to face the other boy, and stating, "I think you're in denial."

"In denial?" Misaki chuckled incredulously. "Pull the other one, why don't you?"

When Shinobu didn't even bother to rise to the brunet's semi-insult, Misaki stared at him in a complex mixture of truculence, hurt, and curiosity.

"What could make you possibly think I'm in denial?"

"Well," Shinobu started, recounting the many, many encounters and events in which the brunet had acted in an exceptionally campy, flamboyant manner. "Do you remember when we last went to Marimo Books?"

"Yeah..."

"You bought all the plushies you could manage to?"

"They were Za Kan plushies!"

"Misaki," Shinobu glanced at the brunet in exasperation. "What possible use could a variety of adorable plushies have to a straight, seventeen year old boy, such as yourself?"

Misaki seemed to be panicking at that.

"There is no judgment here, Misaki," Shinobu quoted from a western television show he'd once seen in Australia. "Only love."

"Take your love and shove it," Misaki grumbled, throwing himself back on the mattress. He picked up one of his stray plushies and held it to his chest, sending a most spiteful look in Shinobu's direction. "What else?"

"There was the time we went to that teddy bear amusement park."

Misaki waited a few seconds before he looked back at Shinobu, waving a hand in a gesture meant to signal elaboration. When even that didn't get him to continue, Misaki grunted and said, "And...?"

"And nothing," Shinobu rolled his eyes. "Once again: what possible use could a teddy bear amusement park have to a straight, seventeen year old boy, such as yourself?"

"I didn't see you complaining when you found a stand selling panda merchandise," Misaki shot back.

"Well, excuse the faggot for happening to have a love of pandas."

At that, Misaki's green eyes deepened in color and he at once clipped, "Don't say that."

"Say what?"

"That... that word," Misaki practically growled. "I don't ever wanna hear you put yourself down like that ever again."

"We've talked about this," Shinobu sighed. He wavered for a moment before settling himself in the same position as Misaki on the bed, taking the older boy's hands in his. "It's my way of trying to combat the abuse. Not only that, but I'm also trying to dissociate the word from its common derogatory use. It's just a word, now."

Misaki's big eyes roamed the expanse of Shinobu's face, and after seeming to find whatever answer or confirmation he was searching for, closed them and rubbed his cheek against his pillow.

"I just don't like it when you hurt yourself."

"It's not really hurting myself," Shinobu said thoughtfully. "It's just rote desensitization."

They both glanced at each other for a few seconds and smiled, before Shinobu grew serious again.

"You understand why I seem to believe you're in denial, though, right?"

"But I'm not!" Misaki protested.

"It's not only been just those few incidents, Misaki," Shinobu shook his head. "It's the way you look at guys when you think no one will notice. I've seen you blush and get flustered easily when someone you seem honestly interested in gives you any sort of positive attention.

"And the foreign guy, remember? You were practically falling all over each other and flirting shamelessly. And it hasn't been the first time I've seen some dude become completely dazzled by you."

"I don't want to be gay, though," Shinobu heard his friend murmur. It practically broke his heart, truth be told, though he had never been the usual victim to tears at kicked puppies or tragic sob stories; really, it was hearing such a dejected tone in his oldest friend's voice that nearly ripped him to shreds that did the trick. "What do I do if Nii-chan doesn't accept me?"

"He loves you," Shinobu said matter-of-factly. "I highly doubt he'd let something as ridiculous as your proclivity towards men get in the way of family. You've all the other's got, remember?"

"I guess," Misaki muttered, cuddling the teddy bear plushie close to himself. He looked down at it and smiled softly, raising a hand to brush at its fur. "So..."

"So, what?"

"Do you honestly believe Usami-san has a thing for me?"

"Are you shitting me?" Shinobu asked rather vulgarly. At Misaki's dirty look, he shrugged apathetically, not in the least apologetic for his use of language. "Did you see how he looked at you? I'm not partial to poetic words, but it was like he was dehydrated and you were the only source of water in his near vicinity."

Misaki blushed brightly at that. "No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did."

"That's impossible," Misaki growled at his friend. "What possible reason could someone as... as him look at me like that?"

"Misaki," Shinobu groaned, rolling over onto his back and flinging an arm to shield his eyes. "You cannot be even remotely serious."

Misaki ripped the brunet's pale arm from his eyes and stared down at him mutinously. "And why not?"

"Because, if I didn't value our friendship, I would fuck you myself."

"Shinooobuuuu," Misaki moaned at that, falling back on his bed in surprise and embarrassment. "You can't say things like that. It's so weird!"

"It's not my fault," Shinobu sputtered, sitting back up."If anything, it's your parents' and their genes'."

"I'm not attractive in the slightest," Misaki sighed to himself. "There really isn't much of anything going for me."

Shinobu shook his head furiously at that and didn't let a single centimeter of thinking guide his actions as he straddled his friend suddenly, pinning the boy's arms on either side of his head on the bed covers.

Gazing down at Misaki, he said, "Do you really want me to go on and tell you every single detail that would attract anyone to you, or is this position embarrassing enough?"

Misaki began squirming far before Shinobu had managed to finish his sentence. "Get off, me."

"Admit that you're attractive."

"Never!"

"C'mon, Misaki," Shinobu leaned his head down and breathed gently into his friend's ear, smirking in satisfaction when that seemed to induce a complete cease to the brunet's movements. "Admit iiiiit."

"This isn't making me change my stance on the subject," Misaki whimpered, straining his head to the side in an unconscious bid for more sensation on his ear and neck. He bucked his hips once more, trying to uplift his friend and throw him off to the side. However, as always, Shinobu was much stronger than most would give him credit for.

"How about your stance on the other one?" Shinobu asked, gritting his teeth back at the shiver of arousal that was quickly making itself apparent.

"What other subject?"

"Your sexuality," Shinobu grunted, picking himself up and sitting back on his legs. Misaki lay sprawled below him, confusion deeply etched into his expression. Aside from his obvious bewilderment, a blush that had begun on his cheeks had spread to his chest and ears, from what Shinobu could see of the skin that had been revealed in their playful tussle. His chocolate colored hair was in disarray, strands littering his pillow and face in what appeared to be a dark halo of sorts.

"I-" Misaki started, throwing his head back in frustration at the emotions that his friend was forcing out of him. "I guess I am... gay..."

Shinobu let out a whoop at that, fist pumping in the air. "I did it!"

"Uh, Shinobu?" Misaki began uncomfortably.

"Hm?" the boy asked, preening.

"Can you get off me?"

Shinobu himself blushed at that, having forgotten what he had been doing prior to Misaki's reluctant announcement of his revealed sexuality. He rolled off his friend and stared up at the ceiling.

The silence hung between them, once again, though this one of relative comfort rather than the tension-tinged awkwardness of earlier. Shinobu was content at what he'd managed to do, having been at his wit's end for some time over Misaki's constant and irrefutable denial of his true feelings towards other men in general. It had seemed that, no matter how much he pushed the envelope, his friend would always be stuck at the same path, static rather than dynamic.

"Are you going to call him?"

"I have no idea," Misaki murmured.

And Shinobu left it at that.

Author's Note:

Yah, yah. I know the chapter is several months late. But, hey. Lack of grammatical errors leads to a smooth ride, roight? It's just... ya know. I get caught up in focussing on procrastination, and this sort of thing happens.

Hopefully, you guys enjoyed this new chapter D;

Also: JR SEASON 3 COMES OUT IN JULY! :D