Notes: Ag what happened to this story why is there no dialogue until 2,000 words in.

He'd accidently kissed Kevin when they were seven. He hasn't thought of it in years, hasn't had any reason to, and so he's sort of surprised that it's the first thing that crosses his mind when he walks in on Kevin and that guy James from homeroom totally making out.

They'd been roughhousing. Mike had stolen Emily's favorite stuffed animal, and Kevin had chased him to the balcony of Emily's room in his attempt to be a knight in shining armor. When Mike had held the yellow elephant over the edge in a mock threat to drop it, Kevin had lunged at him, and Mike had put a hand out to smash against Kevin's forehead. When Kevin had kept pushing, Mike had stopped him by shoving the stuffed toy at him and planting a kiss on his lips.

No one had told him that he wasn't supposed to kiss boys. Well, no one actually ever told him not to kiss boys, even after that particular incident. Rather, he was told not to kiss anyone until he was old enough.

It had been so simple when they were kids. Mia and Emily had placed twin cheek kisses on him at his sixth birthday, and all the adults had cooed. Kissing had been easy to do, welcomed by most everyone. Save for Kevin, anyway. He'd totally flipped when Mike had pressed their lips together that day so many years ago.

Which is probably why Mike thinks of it now. Because, huh, irony.

They don't talk about it later. They're too busy to talk about it, really, because everyone's distracted by Mia and Emily fighting. When the girls fight, no one is happy. It's a lesson that's taken them the better part of 14 years to learn.

It's a stupid fight, Jayden informs them. Because Mia "totally got her boobs first", goes shopping with Serena for a training bra, and then Mike's mom has to give Emily the "late bloomer" speech because Emily's mom is way too embarrassed to talk about boobs.

They all listen in, obviously. There are lots of flower metaphors, and Mike thanks heaven that they'd all been sat down by Kevin's dad for the puberty speech, because there had been no colorful metaphors or diagrams of any kind. Kevin's dad was like that-very to the point.

At some point or another, there's a master plan (it's probably all Mikes fault), and it's how all three of the guys end up hiding in Jayden's mom's room while she's cooking a nice big family dinner, stealing and stuffing her bras.

Kevin keeps giving him weird looks, but Mike just counters by rolling up a bit of tissue and shoving it in Kevin's bra playfully. It's maybe a little bit awkward when Mike insists on inspecting Kevin's stuffing job, and reaches out, cupping both of Kevin's fake boobs.

Jayden rolls his eyes, swats them both over the head with an empty box of tissues.

When they march out of the room with both Emily and Mia waiting for them and most of their parents there as well, the stunned silence is quickly followed by guffaws of laughter. Mia and Emily playfully chase them around the house, their squabble forgotten with the united problem of boys, and it almost makes the chewing out they get from Jayden's mom worth it when Mia and Emily finally make up.

It's always been like that, with them. The five of them have been inseparable since kindergarten, when Jayden had bonded them together through a battle of wills about stolen cookies and they'd all refused nap time together because of the injustices of the classroom. They all had siblings, save for Kevin, but there was something different about the five of them. They were the only kids from their parents group who were all the same age. It gave them something special, Mike liked to think. Some sort of secret samurai bond that had been enshrined when Jayden had waved a red hoodie over his head and declared victory on behalf of the Shiba family when the person bullying them out of their cookies had finally been brought to justice.

Their other siblings hung out, of course. Mia's brother Terry and Jayden's sister Lauren were in the same year of school, too, but they didn't always get along very well. Serena took a special interest in all of the younger kids, being at least six years older than all of them. And everyone got together every Sunday, when Jayden and Mike's moms cooked a giant meal for their weird extended family.

No one ever misses Sunday dinner.

Well, some of them started to wuss out when Mia started to help prepare the food, but for the most part, the entire group could be counted on to show up.

They all knew why they were an extended family. They'd heard the stories. Mike even has vague memories of being very small, his mother saying a tearful goodbye to him and his baby brother and their dad before rushing out in green armor. When they were still young, Jayden had a lot of nightmares at their sleepovers about his father not coming back, ones that had made Mike's mom call Alan Shiba in the middle of the night to cross the street between their houses and comfort him. But it all seems very far away now as they sit in the giant living room of the large Shiba house, Jayden tossing little bits of rice at Mia and Mia meaning to kick him under the table but getting Mike instead. It's a lifetime away from their happiness, and it hardly ever gets brought up.

Sunday dinners can usually be counted on to be a happy time, but Kevin's dad has started dating again, and his new girlfriend starts tagging along to the group get togethers. It makes Kevin unbearable for all of Saturday and most of Sunday, and then he's all smiles and cheery jokes at the dinner. Only Mike, Jayden, Mia and Emily get to see how he really feels about his dad's love life.

Mike had held Kevin's hand at the funeral. He and Mia had sandwiched him in the pew, none of them tall enough for their feet to reach the floor. The large intimidating church and giant stained glass windows are the only thing Mike can really recall from the service. That, and Kevin's choked off cries as tears rolled out his eyes and he tried to act like a grown up, tried to will it to stop. And Kevin's hand clinging to his, as he said a last farewell to his mother.

It isn't that Carol isn't nice. She's very nice, and she tries to bribe all of them into liking her by bringing these delicious pies that would totally work on Mike if Kevin wasn't his best friend. It's just that it feels too soon, and Mike can tell that all of their parents think so too. Only they won't say anything, because Shay is dead, died years ago, and no one is going to begrudge Kevin's dad his happiness. Not even Kevin, who's hurting so bad that he punches holes in his closet door and then calls Mike to help him turn it around so his father won't know.

Maybe that's why he'd picked James, Mike thinks. Why Kevin would reach outside the group for something that personal, without telling any of them. Because no one else knows, and it's obvious every time Kevin looks at Mike, like there's some big secret Mike's keeping.

Mike doesn't press Kevin when James's family moves to Delaware. He invites him over for video games, junk food, and they don't talk about it. And when everyone else shows up in Mike's room later that night, it feels back to normal between them. No more secret to keep. Not really. And Mike can tackle Kevin and tickle him into submission again, like the good old days, without feeling weird about it.

When they turn 16, Terry announces he and Mia are forming a band, and the garage of the Watanabe house gets turned into a padded room to try and keep the sound from echoing through the neighborhood. It doesn't really work, and pretty soon they all end up attending band practices to heckle, sitting on coolers and drinking sodas and being generally disruptive until Terry starts bringing out duck tape to keep them quiet. That's pretty much how band practices go until Mia recruits a guy named Antonio to play guitar and sing with them, and then they actually start sounding like a band.

Jayden and Antonio start spending a lot of time together, so much that Jayden starts either missing Sunday dinners or bringing Antonio, and it becomes clear very quickly that they'd all better get used to the eccentric Latino, because Jayden's keeping him. Even when the band pretty much stops practicing in lieu of hanging out in Mia's garage, Antonio sticks around.

Kevin has the most trouble with it, feeling replaced, which Mike thinks is ridiculous, because they've always been closer than Kevin and Jayden had been. And okay, maybe Kevin and Jayden had shared a certain serious bond that Mike lacks in all of his relationships, but Jayden's still there, and Kevin eventually gets over it. Especially when it becomes clear that Jayden wasn't trying to replace any of his friends so much as bring his boyfriend into the fold.

The handholding was a big clue, but one day Emily just sort of tilts her head and says, "So you guys are a thing?" and there are some affirmative head nods and that's the end of it.

Mike watches Kevin pretty carefully during the exchange, but if he feels any kind of shock or wants to add his support to the conversation, it never happens. He keeps quiet, catches Mike's eye, raises his eyebrows. Mike shrugs.

Serena gets sick that same year, some kind of chronic lung disease. It's treatable, but it worries everyone. Emily starts getting panic attacks, and Kevin talks her into going to a couple of grief counseling groups, and suddenly everything shifts around, and it's Mike and Mia who start spending the most time together, studying in the library for their SAT's, talking about college. Mia even talks him into taking Home Economics with her as an elective, and he likes to take credit for her cooking improving slightly that year.

Sunday dinners start feeling really rushed when they enter their senior year of high school. There's so much to get done, and so many plans to make, that all the conversation invariably turns to that every time, and it just starts stressing Mike out. He starts to worry every time Jayden and Antonio talk about going to college somewhere upstate, because the plan had always been for all of them to go to the University of California together, and then Mia was going to go to med school after, and Mike to law school, and Emily to veterinarian school, and Kevin would head off to the Olympics, and Jayden would open a dojo. They'd talked about it since they were little.

Which is stupid, Mike knows. Dreams you have when you're small don't always pan out in the long run, but even if they changed careers, Mike had thought they'd get at least another four years together after high school. The idea that the five of them (six if he counts Antonio) won't be together much longer makes him impossibly insecure.

Kevin's dad marries Carol over winter break, and Kevin seems genuinely happy for them. He dances with Carol at the wedding, and then all of them steal some champagne and hide out in one of the hallways at the reception hall and have their own private party. Mike and Emily mock the vows, Kevin admits how ridiculous he feels in a tuxedo, and Mia twirls around in her pink party dress until she falls over and Jayden has to carry her home.

Kevin stays at Mike's house while they go on their honey moon. It's a nice break from their ridiculous schedules during the school year, what with Kevin's swim team practices and Mike's extra tutoring sessions. They spend whole days in Mike's room in their pajamas, watching daytime TV, surfing the web, playing games, and occasionally wrestling when Mike says something Kevin can't let him get away with.

They fall asleep together in Mike's bed more than once.

New Year's comes and goes, and before Mike even knows it prom is there. None of them even worries about getting dates, it seems. Mia gets asked by about a hundred guys, but she turns then all down for whatever reason. Mike just can't think of anyone he'd like to go with, and so they end up going as a big group.

Jayden insists on renting a limo, and the girls spend all day getting ready. Mike dresses down, wearing a dark green shirt and a vest instead of the full suit. Antonio shows up in a sparkling gold shirt that blinds them all, and then Kevin and Mike spend a good ten minutes laughing about it while they wait for their parents to get the cameras ready.

"Okay, come on you guys," Mike's mom says, ushering them out in front of the beautiful bushes in Mia's front yard. "Get together and bear with us!"

"Longest part of the night, guaranteed." Mia says through a big smile, and they all laugh a little bit.

They take a bazillion pictures, individual ones, tons of Jayden and Antonio, a couple of Mike with Emily and Kevin with Mia, and then they mix it up, pairing everyone into different assortments of couples. Mia starts goofing off after about fifteen minutes, making silly faces and insisting Mike lift her up bride style. It gets the point across, and they're finally allowed to leave for the night after lots of "proud of you"'s and "be safe"'s.

"Any champagne?" Antonio jokes as they pile in the limo.

They make it to the dance, and it lasts all night long. They dance with each other, with other people they know, and the teachers insist on putting on "electric slide" for reasons, and they all dance to that too, because prom.

At the end of the night, when Mike's leaning against a wall sipping some of the non-spiked punch, shirt slightly unbuttoned and vest discarded from the heat, Kevin finds him. He leans with him, bumps his shoulder. Mike offers him some punch, and Kevin takes it.

After a few minutes Kevin looks at him. "Why didn't you ask anyone?"

Mike shrugs, takes the punch back. "There wasn't anyone I wanted to go with more than you guys. What's your excuse?"

Kevin looks at him, the last slow dance of the night winding down and the lights still dim, and he smiles this sad small smile. "I came with who I wanted to come with, too."

They stand there while "My Wish" by Rascal Flats winds down, bumping shoulders, sharing punch, waiting for their friends. Then there's lots of nostalgic clapping when the song ends, and Mia and Emily find them soon enough, holding hands, Mia's shall wrapped around Emily's shoulders. Mike has to go politely tap on Jayden's shoulder when he and Antonio won't stop making out on the dance floor, and eventually they all make it home.

They change into their PJ's, meet up at Jayden's house, stay awake all night watching terrible horror movies, and fall asleep at dawn in a big pile on the floor.

The next week, Mike's mom has framed the group picture of them from prom and hung it on the wall, right next to the group picture that was taken on their first day of school. Mike stands, examines the photos. They've lost most of the baby fat from the kindergarten photo, and they're a lot taller, but they're the same, really. They're still ridiculously color coded, their parents former lives as Power Rangers having some kind of overlay on their psyches. Antonio is the one addition, but he's a good one, and the six of them have been through their fair share of teenage trouble.

Mike picks up the kindergarten photo, looks at their large backpacks, Mia's worried flat lips, Emily's giant enthusiastic smile that shows she has no idea what's coming. Jayden with his arms wrapped around all of them protectively. Kevin, already ridiculously tall even at that age.

"Mom?" He calls into the kitchen. When Maria Montoya pokes her head around the corner, he holds up the photo and says, "Do we have copies of these?"

Which is how the pictures find their way into his and Kevin's off campus apartment three months later, hanging happily next to the coat hooks and the hallway table. Kevin gives them a look, shoots Mike his best "Are you serious?" face, and then never contests their existence again.

Emily and Mia decide to room in the student apartments with four other girls they won't know, and Jayden and Antonio do end up going to the upstate college of their choice, but with promises to visit every weekend and never miss a single Sunday dinner, except on finals week. So Mike and Kevin sublet a small two bedroom close to campus, and Mia and Emily get keys for when their new roommates inevitably piss them off.

It becomes the hub, because the four of them hang out there when they aren't on campus, and whenever Jayden and Antonio come to visit they alternate between crashing in Kevin and Mike's living room and staying with Jayden's parents. Mike holds his study group for physics there, which Kevin sometimes attends because he was able to test out of the intro class. They even host a couple of parties for Kevin's college swim team, and when they get busted on a noise violation they start putting a collection jar by the front door for anyone to pitch in. It's where they drop their spare change at the end of each day.

It's a rare day when Kevin and Mike find themselves with a lazy Saturday on their own in their place. When it does happen though, they end up with bacon egg sandwiches that Kevin cooks, and they watch Saturday morning cartoons while they doze lazily on the couch. Sometimes they hardly touch, but others Mike sprawls his legs across Kevin's lap, and sometimes Kevin leans into him heavily, his head somehow ending up on Mike's chest, and Mike will lazily rack his fingers over Kevin's short hair.

It's perfectly comfortable until one morning when Kevin looks up at him from their somewhat cuddled position and says, "You should stop doing that, or I'll be forced to kiss you."

Mike double takes, looks at Kevin to see if he's bluffing. Kevin looks perfectly serious, but there's no anger or annoyance in his face. Just rational declaration that Mike's hand is provoking some sort of reaction in him. "Wouldn't be the first time," Mike quips, stilling his hand.

He sees Kevin's eyes go funny, the corners of his mouth quirk up a little, and Mike thinks again to that first kiss, to boys being boys, to Kevin pretending to be a knight in shining armor. He watches Kevin's face as he remembers it, watches him shake his head a little, put it back down on Mike's chest with a happy sigh.

Mikes hand twitches, and he knows he's going to do it, and wonders what kissing Kevin will be like. He starts brushing his fingers over Kevin's hair again while Totally Spies plays out the second half of its episodic formula on the TV, and Kevin's head tilts up on his chest, so that all Mike has to do is look down for their lips to touch.

It's ridiculously gentle, the kiss Kevin gives him. Their lips are barely parted, and Kevin presses so lightly that Mike barely has time to feel his lips before Kevin pulls back, looking up at Mike with sudden worry.

"Hey," Mike says reassuringly, "you warned me."

And he leans back down, presses his lips against Kevin's, tugs Kevin up until their mouths are level, and they spend the rest of the morning lazily trading kisses on their second hand couch.

Mike doesn't realize it's a secret when he tells their friends that night as they're crowded in around take out boxes in the dim light of their kitchen.

"Just so we're all clear," Mike says, laughing around a bite of sweet and sour chicken, "Kevin's officially off the market, so tell that slut in c-3 hands off."

Mia's eyes widen, and Emily laughs so hard she chokes a little bit. Kevin just gives him this look like something's possessed him, but Antonio raises his glass and says "Huzzah!" loudly.

When Emily calms down from her laughter, she shakes her head, drinks some water and says, "Took you two long enough, seriously."

Everyone nods, and Mike looks around at his friends, wondering what the hell he's been missing all these years. Kevin just blushes, so yeah, Mike obviously missed something. It's doesn't really matter, though, because they're all still together, and apparently all very happy, so he doesn't dwell on it.

Antonio proposes to Jayden their sophomore year at Christmas, in front of all of their families. He says yes, and there are pictures and Mia totally cries, which makes Mike give her this bone crushing hug because the last time he saw Mia cry they were twelve and her turtle had died.

Emily hold mistletoe over his and Kevin's head, and they come out to their families on the same night Jayden and Antonio get engaged, and Mia is the only one legally old enough to drink now and she just get happily shnockered and sings Christmas carols to Emily all night long.

That night, when they're all camped out under the Christmas tree in Jayden's parent's house, there's talk of weddings, and kids, and Mike lifts his head from Kevin's chest to look at them all.

"Do you think we should coordinate?" He asks with a wry grin. "Try and have our kids at the same time, like our parents had us?"

Everyone looks at him, varying degrees of amusement crossing their faces.

"Our parents had us from a mixture of crazed hormones and fear of death," Jayden says slowly. "I'm not sure we could repeat the experiment."

"We could try," Emily says, propping herself up on an elbow. "It'd be cool. History could repeat itself."

"Or it could be a terrible disaster," Kevin chimes in, and Mike swats his pessimistic arm.

"The universe is a random collision of events, smattering together at different rates of impact, somehow resulting in our lives," Antonio says sleepily, fingering the ring on Jayden's hand. "We should just be grateful for what we have, right now, in this life, and let it keep smattering on."

Everyone laughs quietly, and Mike lays his head back down on Kevin's chest, thinks back to all the many years they've done this, their Christmas tradition. Heads all laid down under the Christmas tree, waiting for Christmas to come, year after year, and he hopes, he really hopes, that it will go on forever. That they'll be fifty and still doing it, their kids with them. That they'll stay together, all of them, hopes they would have been together, would have found each other no matter what smattering of events had occurred.

Antonio is right, though. They are very, very lucky. And Mike is grateful.

He's grateful for their family, for their lives, for their impossible amount of good fortune. He lets that lull him into sleep, along with the sound of Kevin's heartbeat and Mia's soft tipsy snores.

He'd be grateful to be with them in any world, under any circumstances, for however long they had. He's always been grateful, he thinks, all this time.

All these long odd years.