Two: For a Little While

oOo

*casually posts 1700+ words of description porn* I am not even sorry. He's gorgeous.

oOo

Hiroki's hands are in his, separated by the slick of their mingled sweat, clenching and unclenching around Akihiko's own trembling fingers in time with the motions of the taller boy's tongue as it moves over unmarked skin.

He is falling. They both are. Pressed against each other under the largest tree in their little clearing, they fall.

I have been falling from the start.

When he surfaces for air, he closes his eyes and listens. There is much to hear, surrounded by whispering leaves and birdcalls in the blaze of the evening sky, but all he knows—all he can know—are the bitten-down gasps, the unrestrainable heartbeat that can only be Hiroki.

Music. You are music and dance and fragrance and fire. You are beautiful. You are mine.

"Akihiko." The gruff voice sounds equally amused and breathless, and Akihiko is visited by a surge of joy so blindingly sweet that he cannot even try to hide his smile. "Akihiko, don't fall asleep on me."

"I'm not sleepy", he replies, a laugh bubbling beneath his words like seaside foam. "I just—I like this. Let's stay like this."

Wandering through their bodies like this, he can almost stop thinking of the little ache in his stomach. "Just for a little while", he mumbles.

His forehead rests on Hiroki's and he can feel the smaller boy's eyebrows twitch fleetingly with either surprise or irritation before settling back down. Then the hands slide out of his grasp, leaving a sudden cold in their wake; before he can protest, they have descended on his hair, stroking with an abstracted care that is as focused as it is lost.

You're thinking again.

The sudden urge to lay his head on his friend's chest—yes, his friend, for he has never been able to think of Hiroki otherwise—comes and goes. Stop thinking. I don't want you to be anywhere but here right now. Stay with me.

They're back, the feelings that never left are back; the need to kiss, to tease, to own.

He is sitting with Hiroki's legs on either side of him, trying not to look at the hardness that rages through dark uniform pants—not so far from his own pleading bulge—and his eyes are drawn irresistibly to the sweaty cling of black fabric to the smaller boy's thighs. You're sweating all over. The spring is gentle, nowhere near hot enough to make anyone sweat like this, but Akihiko does not need that assurance to know that he is responsible for every bead of perspiration on this body.

I want... to connect every sweatdrop with my fingers. I want to see it run off your back in streams.

Hiroki hisses softly as Akihiko's hands tiptoe up to his face. "Your hands", he says in response to the inquiring violet eyes. "They're always so cold, damn it."

It is far from news to him. "I'm sorry", Akihiko whispers. "I do try to keep them warm."

Can you warm them up, Hiroki? he wonders in the microspace before their lips meet again. Can I trust your fire to thaw the ice in me?

I want you to try.

I want you.

The words still hurt him to so much as think them; they coil, small but heavy, in the pit of his stomach. He does not know how much longer he will be able to handle the ache.

So he lets them out the instant his mouth is his to use again, panting them against his friend's blood-pink face. They tumble awkwardly from his lips with none of the seriousness they deserve, but Akihiko knows Hiroki will understand. He slams his eyes shut, willing them not to tear up with desperation, and prays he will understand.

He feels the answer swirl on his skin before his ears can catch it. "When?" His eyes open to astonishingly lucid brown ones and Hiroki, unreadable, repeats, "I asked you when."

Oh god, right now. Anytime. Always. Forever. Never.

It is an unfair struggle to form words like this, Akihiko thinks dizzily. After a moment of heaving silence, he manages a tight "When do you..." before shaking his head and letting it drop feebly onto Hiroki's shoulder.

You are beautiful.

"Hey now", Hiroki is saying softly, his fingers still tangled in damp silver hair. "What's gotten into you, Akihiko?"

I'm on fire.

I'm falling.

"I want you", Akihiko gasps into the white of his friend's shirt. Surrounded by the overwhelming smell of Hiroki—that pure, distinctive smell that sings through the sweat he feels on his face—there is little he can do but say what has been plaguing him.

Why do words hurt when I need to use them most?

The hands in his hair have stopped moving and Hiroki mutters, "Has anyone ever told you that you're an idiot?"

Am I an idiot for wanting you?

"If I'm an idiot", he says quietly, "you're stupid." Stupid and incredibly intelligent and talented and painfully beautiful. You're stupid and I want you. "But you're right. I'm an idiot. I'm such an idiot that"—a flash of inspiration, a slash of mischief—"I should change my name to Bakahiko."

It's worth it just to hear the laugh, to feel it rumble beneath Hiroki's skin. Akihiko smiles.

"You haven't answered my question, 'Bakahiko'."

Something in the tone of the gravelly voice causes Akihiko to say, "That's not your only question though, is it?"

When indeed?

"Answer this first and we'll get to the next ones later", Hiroki replies, but the taller boy feels the motionless pair of hands give away a rising heartbeat and is happier for it.

When?

Always. Any time. Any time at all...

Even if it is for a little while...

"Tomorrow?" he asks weakly. Even sitting on the long, bendy grass with his head supported by a bony shoulder, he feels ready to collapse. The need to touch is eating him.

Another laugh. But Akihiko does not have to listen with any degree of care to detect the tremble in Hiroki's voice as he says, "That's settled, then."

Does he dare feel this relief just yet?

"What's settled?" his own hands are fisting handfuls of grass now, shaking wildly enough—almost as wildly as his voice, but not quite—to uproot them altogether. He feels Hiroki's chest rise and fall in a quiet sigh. "What you said, stupid. Tomorrow. It's settled. Now put that much out of your head and for fuck's sake stop worrying."

Oh.

"Alright..."

I really am such an idiot...

"I'm not finished", Hiroki is saying lightly. Why do you sound so... so relaxed, so unconcerned... Why am I the one going to pieces? "What do you want to do?"

Ah, but... you're not really all that relaxed.

You beautiful thing, you. Oh, god, I am an idiot.

A thought unfurls. I want to write you a love letter. It helps him chuckle as his fingers skate across the small of Hiroki's back, just above the belt, tracing blind patterns on the sweat-soaked shirt with a touch light enough to tickle.

The relief is kicking in at last. "Goddamn it, Hiroki", he breathes gratefully, aware that he would not have been able to say this minutes ago, "you know what I want."

I want you to melt me.

"I suppose I do." Without warning, the hands leave his hair; he is assailed by that familiar coldness just before they return, this time to his face, and lift it up until he is looking squarely into Hiroki's grave eyes. "What I don't know, Akihiko, is why."

Why...

There is no why...

You don't know why I want you?

For a moment, the shutters in those honey-brown orbs give way just a little and Akihiko can see it: the confusion, the genuine curiosity. You really have no idea.

It hurts.

It hurts more than his unspoken desire, far more than anything he has ever experienced, and he knows that his words cannot fail him this time.

"It's impossible", Akihiko mumbles at last, willing himself to keep his eyes open, to hold his friend's gaze. I cannot be blind now. "It's just impossible to see you—to know you like this—and not—and not—"

I've never really said it, have I?

"—and not fall completely in love with you."

Taking advantage of Hiroki's momentary shock, he brushes their lips together again. Anything to distract himself from the dull heat creeping up his face. Don't just sit there. His hands wrestle with the impulse to slip beneath the untucked shirt and just have done with it. Don't be so surprised, Hiroki. His mouth travels upward, skimming over a pink forehead and a straight nose; when it finds Hiroki's lips again, they are quivering.

Say something, he pleads silently as his arms wind tighter around the person he loves like he is only just discovering what love truly means. Please.

When Hiroki does speak, his voice is plaintive. "Akihiko, you are the biggest idiot to ever have walked this earth."

"We both know that", Akihiko replies petulantly. "I just gave you one hell of a confession and that's all you have to say?"

"I'm sorry" is all Hiroki seems to be able to say in response; he sounds so winded that the taller boy is hard-pressed not to giggle. "Say what you want, but you're stupid."

To his delight, he sees nimble fingers twitch reflexively, as though reaching for a book to throw. The fiery brown head, however, only nods in resigned agreement before flopping onto Akihiko's pounding chest. "I'm sorry", Hiroki whispers. "I am stupid."

Hiroki... it's alright, Hiroki...

There is no flinch this time as his hands rub little circles on the narrow back in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.

"I'm fine", Hiroki is saying now even as his knuckles whiten around fistfuls of Akihiko's shirt. "Just... let me lean on you for a little while." It's sweat, the large wet drop that just fell onto his lap is sweat. For Hiroki's sake Akihiko will believe that it is sweat until he dies.

But the spring is gentle; their secret place in an ocean of trees is ablaze with thawing ice.

Just a little while, then. "For as long as you want, Hiroki."