Before Night Knew Them

By Califaction

The full autumn moon bathed Inui's roof in a slow, audacious glow, like it didn't care that the roof was Inui's. More recently, it was Kaidoh's too. Inui was seated at the bench but Kaidoh's hands were on his shoulders, and he was leaning into Kaidoh's body.

There was a telescope on the clean, angular oak bench in the corner that faced the street and the rising stars, one that Kaidoh had lugged up the stairs because the elevator was so often out of commission that he hadn't realized that the Out of Operation sign wasn't taped to the front.

Inui was more than capable of repairing the elevator. Kaidoh suspected that Inui impaired it in order to avoid the temptation of using it. He wondered at the heated coals in his belly whenever they saw a panting tenant collapsed against a wall on the fifteenth floor and he got to watch Inui's lips turn up just so while his eyes gleamed. Sadist.

Probability that Kaidoh had made the bench: 100 percent. It had appeared seven days, seven hours, and seventeen minutes after Inui had shown Kaidoh his recently purchased ETX-125EC telescope, and mentioned how unfortunate it was that he would have to wait two months before he could appropriate enough funds for a suitable stand.

Inui's lips had curved into a surprised, "Oh," and that night he had thought that the vasodiliation of the venous plexus over Kaidoh's zyogomatic bones was unusually adorable. Analysis of the data showed that the color of Kaidoh's blush had not differed from the mean, and it had taken Inui 168 hours to figure out what that meant.

Probability that Kaidoh had finished the bench in five days or less and had humored his affection for symmetrical timing: 91.7 percent.

Kaidoh had jogged to Inui's apartment seven days after he'd gotten the last splinter out of his palm and forgotten to look at the elevator sign, and when he'd gotten to the roof Inui had been waiting with his back to the stairs. The arterioles in Inui's skin and digestive organs were constricted, and Inui's pupils had been dilated so that he'd imagined he could see the particles of the moonbeams if he tried hard enough. Inui had figured out the data, but he hadn't known.

Then Kaidoh's hands had been on his shoulders, kneading as if Inui's skin was something fragile and full of grace. Kaidoh had moved a step forward, and Inui had bent his spine approximately thirty degrees from a right angle so that the occipital and parietal bones of his skull were resting against Kaidoh's abdomen.

Inui reached back and took one of Kaidoh's hands into his own. He felt the calluses and the wrinkles—good data—and Kaidoh's other hand stopped kneading but stayed slack and light on Inui's shoulder. Inui, still holding Kaidoh's hand, swung his legs over the bench and stood up. He saw the small creases in Kaidoh's forehead, the beginning of worry and uncertainty, but Inui's vision was back to normal, and his muscles felt loose and relaxed.

Probability of the next maneuver being successful: 100 percent.

Inui slipped his free hand around Kaidoh's back and pulled him close. Faces nearly touching: Research indicated that this was a classic signal that kissing was imminent.

Kaidoh saw Inui's lips curve up and felt the warm current in his belly quicken. He learned that hissing was not just an expression of anger. "Fshuuu." He smiled just before he felt the press of Inui's glasses on his face, and Inui's lips on his, and they engaged in a different sort of tennis. Inui pulled back a few moments later; for an instant it seemed like even the moon had retreated, leaving them in a small, dark space where he could only see Inui.

Then the moonlight returned, and the probability of him kissing Inui back until they couldn't breathe was 100 percent too.

A cold autumn breeze made them shiver. "We should go inside," Kaidoh mumbled against Inui's neck.

"Yes." They kissed for seven more minutes, and then went into Inui's room. Kaidoh fell asleep on Inui's bed, and Inui took the opportunity to enter the new data into his computer, do some calculations, and formulate some hypotheses.

He wondered if Kaidoh was ticklish.