After three hours, his body woke with the dawn, the way it was used to doing. Alcohol laid heavy in his limbs, but it wasn't as heavy as the ache inside of him. Kaoru had slept quiet, snoring soft and wheezy the way it always was. Buried in the hair at the nape of his man's neck, Ebizo swallowed him down with a griefstricken throat before slowly, carefully, stiffly slipping away.
He took a shower now, in the morning, like sluts did. Rubbing soap in slow ovals against his skin, green suds washing down his knees and toes, he watched them and thought of the girls over the years who must have stood here, cleaning themselves with his soap, watching suds on their toes and wondering who the hell they were.
When he finished, he was silent in his room, now about half alive as he pulled out a long sleeved beige long john shirt and a pair of black sweatpants. He sat on the couch in grey dawnling light. Eventually, he sunk down, curled half fetal in exhaustion.
He knew the color of morning through Ebizo's windows. He knew the weight of these blankets over him, the comfort of expensive futons beneath him, like he knew now a mouth on his tattoos.
Kaoru had grown used to waking up here, both wrapped in arms and alone. It still smelled like him, it still was his, and that's what mattered.
Lashes stirred on cheeks; turned his face into the pillow and breathed his actor in. Still closed eyes, still sleep ridden bones, Kaoru smiled into the pillow and slowly sat up.
Fingers found Ebizo's indentation, measured how long it had been empty and he sighed soft, but the smile wasn't quite gone. Brow furrowing, he shivered his way up from bed to standing, sheets falling away from his nudity and he wound arms around his middle and fumbled to the shower. He'd thought Ebizo was home, today; but his brain was too tired to process the absence of him- a shrug and assumption he was wrong as he wrapped himself in water. And then in his lover's clothes; his own pants from the night before, but Ebizo's shirt too big and ill fitting, swallowing his ink and untoned limbs. Fumbling with damp hair, tugging at it, he was yawning as he wandered barefoot and damp towards the kitchen.
He paused in the living room, frozen in confusion with a hand still in his hair.
"Ebi?" he mumbled, fumbled on his footsteps to sit gingerly on the edge of the couch. No hair to run his fingers through, so he slid them over his brow and frowned down at him. "You're home today?"
Touch woke him violent and he blinked, gasped in air as if breaking the surface of a well. Ebizo felt around half blind, grapped a wrist and pulled a little, pulled it from him as he tried to sit up. Recognition came slow, blacks and whites fading into Kaoru's head, his shoulders, his body. His grip on Kaoru relaxed and he sighed a little.
"Fuck, you- surprised me..."
He wasn't expecting the jerk; Kaoru's eyes widened, but his fingers twitched over him and soothed.
"Easy, babe, it's me. Are you okay?" His confusion lilted faintly in his voice. "What're you doing out here? It's warmer in bed..."
"Yeah, jus' tired. Hungover. Out here?" Ebizo let go of him, moved to rub the heels of his palms into his eyes as a yawn forced it's way out of him. When it ended, he dropped his hands to his lap. "Must've passed out out here. What're you doing up so early?"
"You did drink a lot." Kaoru laughed quietly, kept the sound gentle for morning headaches, and he leant in to kiss him, mouth to that smooth brow. "It's not that early. I think you've been out here for a while."
"Ah... guess so." He rubbed the gunk from his eyes and his hands fell again in time for Kaoru's kiss. Eye closed, Ebizo sighed silent as Kaoru's mouth pressed to his brow and coarse hair flirted with his skin.
No, things weren't the same.
Ebizo cleared his throat. "You want some breakfast?"
"Lemme make you something." Kaoru grinned against him, ducked his head and kept the kiss to his lips chaste. "You always make me breakfast and you're good at it, but you're the hurting one and I make some pretty decent eggs."
"No-" reach and grab, hold onto those small shoulders. Kaoru wasn't going to take this away from him.
He made Kaoru hurt just like Kaoru made him...
"No, I-... I got it. It'd be frustrating for you, cause you don't know where everything is. I can do it."
There was urgency in the strong hands that swallowed him. Kaoru stared, perplexity raising and twisting his brows.
"I know where stuff is," he said with a bizarre half-laugh, tilting his head a little to the side, "I've been here and fed myself enough... but if you want to, okay. I know I don't feel like cooking when I'm hung over."
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't," Ebizo relaxed, let his hands slide down Kaoru's arms. Their fingers met, laced and he pulled away to grip the couch and push. Fucking exhausted. Maybe eating would help. Headache throbbed thick in the forefront of his head, made it harder to stay calm. But he was an actor.
"Okay."
Kaoru watched Ebizo walk with a furrowed brow; lips faintly pulled at the corners but he let him. His voice was normal but everything was shifted; two degrees off. The corner of his lips fell, just a bit.
Push himself up after him, a few minutes too late, and Kaoru was a slow and measuring step after him into the kitchen. He leant against the wall, arms lightly folded in his boyfriend's shirt, watching him move.
Eggs, rice, milk, vegitable spray, frying pan- the sound of Kaoru's bones gently connecting with the wall startled him. When he glanced over his shoulder, there he was, raven and watching and Ebizo tried to laugh a little as he said, "Watching to see how a master does it?" but his heart wasn't in it.
He wasn't sure where his heart was.
So he didn't think about it, didn't think, and set the rice cooker up, filled it with water, set the timer.
Something in that laugh left Kaoru's stomach feeling vaguely, uncertainly tight.
Out of tune, he realized, startled, and his arms unfolded to hang by his sides as he straightened up, vaguely concerned.
"What're you making?" he asked, smile and easygoing, because he didn't understand yet and maybe he was wrong. He was getting pretty deaf.
"Breakfast. Omlets. Unless you want something different?" asked with his back still to Kaoru as he got out the frying pan.
"Omelettes sound good." His fingers reached out blind, hooked in the back of a chair and pulled it around to sink into. "Sounds real good. Thanks." He watched his back move.
"You okay?" he ventured forth slowly, uncertainly. "Head hurt?"
"I'm fine, baby. Just hungover. Do you want peppers or anything in yours? I got a bunch of vegetables. No shrimp though." He opened his small fridge, peered in it without actually rifling through its contents.
Kaoru closed his eyes and licked his lips, pulled up his feet one by one to twist and tuck beneath him. His hands went down to wrap around his ankles. If he didn't look, just listened, he could hear all the sour notes.
"You sure...?" he began slowly, eyes still sealed shut to absorb the tones of his answer. Weird.
"Yeah, I'm sure. I didn't buy any because the ones at the store last week were shitty. Haven't had time since then to shop." Crack crack, chicken embryos ahoy and he whipped them with a fork. Today some membrane splashed up, got on his thumb. "Damnit," mumbled, kitchen faucet turned on with three hard yanks.
His eyes opened. Every motion in that always measured, always perfectly timed body was just a little too far.
Ebizo had been on the couch this morning. Like some nonsensical cliche, as if they had had a fight Kaoru didn't even remember. How long had he been there; since Kaoru felt his arm slide away at dawn? Since earlier?
He licked his lips and watched, quiet now.
Pssss, pssss, sizzling and he chopped up peppers, washed them off, tossed them in too. Flip, repeat, flip, repeat. Flip, sting. Ebizo's shoulders sloped as he brought his thumb to his mouth, sucked on the back of his knuckle.
Something was wrong in this scene. Something was off in this morning play.
Kaoru ran his fingers up through his hair and realized they were tight, unsteady with nerves. He swallowed air, hoped it would calm the tightness in his stomach. Thinking what was different, what made today different, didn't mean going back far.
"You... is something wrong?"
"God, Kaoru," laugh, half off, "stop asking me things like that. I'm fine. Is something wrong with you?" He put his thumb under water.
"I'm fine."
Kaoru felt vaguely sick, licked his lips to quiet it, and held his ankles as he watched Ebizo's back.
"... you wouldn't lie to me, if something was bothering you, something-- is it about last night?" His mouth was dry but his face was smooth and steady, impossible to read.
"Last night...?" an echo too slow, like the stretching of a shadowing during dusk. Ebizo turned off the faucet, wiped his thumb off on his sweatpants. His back was still to Kaoru as he gripped the side of the sink, squeezed like Kaoru's hand had squeezed his as he fucked him against a white wall.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Yes.
That meant yes.
Kaoru let the knowledge sink slowly into him, one level at a time; through his skin into his mood into the night before and how he must have been wrong. Confused, hesitating, brows furrowed, he was paused with his mouth open, fingers tight around his skinny, bony ankles, and he looked down from Ebizo and felt at a loss.
"What is it?"
"I said I don't want to talk about it." Spatula dug out plastic from plastic accompaniments, stood over sizzling yellow and poked, prodded, gripped the handle of the frying pant in white knuckles.
Kaoru closed his eyes and replayed Ebizo's back to his chest, threadbare fabric between them; hands held and their heartbeats shared, synched.
He had thought.
"Sorry," he mumbled, dropped his ankles from too innocent a pose and sank in the chair, looking at the tabletop instead of Ebizo's back. "I'm just confused."
"Don't think about it. It's fine," gritted teeth he could pitch voice through so well. Stir stir, sizzle POP. "...Do you want some tea? There's a bottle of your favorite beer still in the fridge."
"It's too early for beer. Tea's-- good. Ebizo." Kaoru took a deep breath, kept his eyes closed because this was uncomfortable to see, to hear and be a part of. "Ebizo, it-- if something about... last night has made you upset, I'd like to know. Because it's... us both."
Kettle to stream, kettle to iron.
"I said I don't want to talk about it. We don't need to talk about it."
What was happening, what the fuck was happening?
Kaoru swallowed hard, felt acutely aware how very much these weren't his clothes and armor; his fingertips fell to fiddle with the buttons on Ebizo's shirt, do them up a little higher on his weak chest.
"Not even though you're upset enough that I can tell? Don't you think that means we should... say something?"
"Say what? You want to say something, go ahead. I'm listening," dig, flip, turn, burn.
"You're not okay." Kaoru rubbed at his brow, where the ache was setting in. "You're not okay about last night and I'm confused because I didn't--- you seemed to be, and I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, Kaoru." Ebizo pulled out two plates and this was all useless because neither of them would be able to eat.
It wasn't how Ebizo usually said his name. He wasn't used to hearing it in that voice. They dropped suffixes and were intimate and gasped out each others' given names, taken names, when against each other and inside each other; they weren't made to be said like that, so smooth, so much a coverup.
Kaoru's arm was propped on the back of the chair so he could rest his forehead in it and he breathed in through his mouth, sighed out and craved a cigarette. "Tell me what's wrong?"
His shoulders weren't used to being this hard.
"Tell you what's wrong... You really want to push it?"
"Push it?" Kaoru's eyes jerked open and looked up at him through inkdirtied fingers. "I want to know why you're upset; I want to understand what I did wrong, if it was me, if it was-- what happened last night, I want to know so that I can fix it, or make up for it, or something. And that's pushing it?"
"I told you that I did not want to talk about this. I don't know how else to say it to be any more direct to you about how I don't want to talk about this. You can't fix anything, it's not your problem, alright?" Head hung as two hands supported rigor shoulders in a masculine arch.
They were fighting, Kaoru realized, eyes wide and startled with the blow of it, they were fighting, and they weren't going to fuck their way out of having to talk because that was the problem in the first place.
Head raised, his hand dropped back down and he felt his stomach twist as he said "You said I could say whatever the fuck I wanted to, so I did."
"Fine. Then unless you got more to say, breakfast is almost ready." But he didn't move. Eggs popped.
"Fine," knew how stupid he sounded, echoing his lover's bite; knew how stupid it was for their tones to be this sharp, this early; but he pulled his legs back up and turned to face the tabletop and rub at his eyes as if they hurt. "And just.. we don't have to do it again." The snap was suddenly gone, bled out and just left tired and concern and Kaoru was still sealed off, body cold, language of it stiff; eyes down but his voice mumbled intimate, "okay? So don't be upset. We don't have to do it again."
"That's not it. Don't say that. Don't think that." But it was what Ebizo wanted. He couldn't take feeling like this.
"Then what?" Kaoru kept his arms around his middle and stared at the tabletop, with his legs folded beneath him in his chair. "I can't... think of anything else. So I'm sorry, okay? We can just..." inhale, "not do it again, and if that... makes it better, then okay."
"Fuck, Kaoru, fine, you want to talk about it? Fine. It felt horrible. Like-... Like everything that is me was-... taken or something. Just gone." Plates set on the table, and he cut the eggs with his spatula. A blob of green, red, orange spotted yellow plopped onto Kaoru's plate, did backflips on the way down. "That enough?"
Kaoru didn't look up and let it sink in.
He stared at omelettes flopping onto his plate and didn't see it. Nausea made his lips white.
"You didn't say anything," he said, finally, several long seconds later as he sealed off every gap, every open wound, every surface where how fucking sick he felt might escape; his voice was quiet and very even, unnaturally steady and soft. "I didn't know. I'm sorry, I didn't know."
The rest fell uneven and harsh onto his plate. The pan clanged in the sink, made puddles splash. He pulled his chair out, sank heavily. "I know I didn't say anything. I was drunk and I didn't want to hurt you. Once it got started, I didn't know how to stop it."
"It wouldn't have hurt me if you'd said you weren't ready." He was him, he was high school and the first time and the roles were reversed and Kaoru's throat was tight and none of it showed in his voice, in sealed off eyes. "It wouldn't have. I'm sorry. We don't have to do it again. I'm sorry I didn't realize. I should have. I should have stopped."
Ebizo wasn't looking at him, couldn't even look at himself in a mirror. "I was drunk. It's not like I was thinking all that clearly. So stop apologizing."
"Okay." He was staring at his hands, his hands resting uselessly next to his plate and not moving to pick up the silverware. Kaoru's mouth was dry and his face began to hurt from how locked it was. "Okay. Just know I am. It shouldn't have been like that."
He licked his lips, head not raising, thinking hard at keeping his mind blank as he watched his fingertips tap on the tabletop.
"If you want me to... go, give you room, I can."
Their breakfast was getting cold.
"No," a huff, hard and swift, like the shake of his head, "No. Unless you want to go. It's not your problem, Kaoru." He didn't know what to do in these situations because usually girls just screamed at him, slammed the door behind them and then they'd come crawling back in a week at most. He wasn't so sure Kaoru would come back.
"I don't want to go unless you don't want me here." Ebizo wanted him, despite everything.
He didn't make Ebizo feel how Ebizo made him feel; didn't do him equal, only hurt him more, and he wanted him.
Kaoru's hands slipped off of the tabletop, folded on his ankles. His head stayed bowed and he took a slow, deep breath.
"But it is my problem because it's you and me, not just you. Okay? I've tried." Inhale, sooth the nerves and the ache rocking deep. "I've tried before and it's not something you can always feel better about on your own and I want you to know I'm here."
"I don't know what to say. What you think I should say," Ebizo said soft, a hand rising to rub his thumb against his nose, a true masculine work of art. "I'm not the type to talk things out."
He didn't express his feelings in words. He fucked his feelings out, he act out to get his feelings out and he drank wine. He worked out hard and he pushed his voice to the breaking point bouncing off of theatre walls.
"I'm not telling you to say anything." Kaoru looked at him, looked at him through broken pieces of black hair and his chest was tight; strange, alien, uncomfortable ways his chest was tight. "I'm not telling you to... I'm-- look, I don't talk, either. I don't talk about it when I'm upset, or when something's bothering me or I don't feel--- safe or whatever; I deal with it on my own. But I-- this isn't just within me; it's not just within you; I had something to do with it, you know? So if you-- if you need to say anything to me, if you want to, at any point, that's my-- what I'm saying. I'm saying that you don't have to figure it all out alone. If you have a hard time with it. Okay?"
There was a moment of silence, of respect for the man he was in love with as Ebizo sat, bit his tongue, and mulled over those words before responding. He had to be careful, but it wasn't Kaoru's feelings he was currently afraid of hurting. Slowly, a struggle, "Ok. Of course I'm having a hard time with it. It-... hurt, and not just my ass. And that's not your fault, it's just me. It's just-... it felt wrong. Because that wasn't me, it was as if the core of me, of being a man, was gone all of a sudden. And then there was realizing that I'd done this thing that made me feel that way to other people."
Ebizo spoke to him, talked, was braver than Kaoru ever had been. He took a silent breath, filled his lungs, and folded ink blackened arms on the tabletop.
"If it helps you," he murmured, "you never made me feel that way. I had my experience with that long before I met you."
Eloquence, his ancestry, was gone. Left behind was a battered heart, a hangover and a man who cared for him. Ebizo leaned on the table, gripped his upper arms. "Every first time... is it like that?"
Asking him like he was the expert on sex with men, on fucking with men; Kaoru almost laughed the unsteady, self-depracating laugh less people than he had fingers on his right hand knew the sound of, but it would do nothing but stab into this man who needed him, and Kaoru couldn't be that selfish.
You're good at taking care of people, right? he thought blindly, swallowing forced on a dry mouth; you've always been good at taking care of people, right?
He'd never thought he'd have to do that with him.
Kaoru shrugged his heavily inked shoulders, polluted ink stains under Ebizo's shirt, and sank a little in his chair. His eyes went up to Ebizo, studied him briefly without letting his eyes go too deep and wound, and slid back down to his fingers on the tabletop, winding together.
"I don't know. It was for me. It doesn't have to be." Kaoru took a deep breath, fingers twisting in his fists. "It shouldn't have had to have been. For either of us. I'm sorry I was that for you."
"Same here."
Now what?
Ebizo's right rose, rubbed spread eagle up and down and up against his scalp. He was studying the table as he spoke, slow and deliberate. "I'm not gay. There are women I like and there are men I like. It's just that I've always known exactly what I wanted in sex. I never wanted that, it never entered my mind. Putting aside the way it made me feel, if your first time was like this too and yet your tastes have changed, there's nothing to say I'll dislike it forever. I'm trying to say I dont want to be unfair to you and your needs."
He didn't think of himself as a liar, but Kaoru knew he wasn't honest. Not in questions danced around, not in imbalance, not in how little he gave Kyo because he was too fucking afraid. His stomach hurt. His body reeled, all while perfectly still in his seat, drawing hands slowly, slowly back the only motion, until they could fold in his crosslegged lap.
Kaoru kept his eyes down too and spoke softly.
"I'm not gay either. I've had relationships with women. I... haven't. With men. Not really. Not ones like this. I don't want you," he said, voice the same monotone except for the deep breath he took before it that was not-quite so smooth, "to... be me, Ebizo. You don't have to be me. I don't have any needs that'd make you do something you didn't want to do or don't feel ready for. You don't need to have a second time, until, unless, if you're ready. I don't want," Kaoru found it, a concrete center, a smooth cool comforting wall he could rest his hands against and breath and keep his voice steady, "you to become me."
Ah crap.
This is why his relationship with Kaoru had been so fucking fantastic, such a breath of fresh fricking air. There were no power games, no lines to step carefully around, so bullshit whining and manipulation. Kaoru wasn't a woman. Not in the most abstract extrapolation of the word. Kaoru was a man and that was something he cherished with an almost awe, that it could be like this.
And now here they were, his head pounding and Kaoru looking down in his lap like he was afraid of him and he wanted to throw the table down or something, something dramatic and stupid that would end the way this conversation was making his chest tight. He'd been in this sort of position many times before, but unlike then, it hurt and he actually gave a real shit about the outcome.
So he sat still, rubbing his head, and tried to sound calm. "No, that's not my point. Not what I was saying at all. You misunderstood me. I wanted to say that if you want to switch it up in bed sometimes, I'll handle it because I want you to get what you want, to satisfy you because you're-..." GOD, "You know. My boyfriend."
Kaoru's lips twitched, a soft, burning, absolute tug that went from his mouth down to his gut. The smile was lopsided and private and turned down to his hands, but he raised his head up.
"I got that. I know. Ebi... I know." Soft, sobriety, the smile staying and he struggled for a second. "I meant--" he shook his head, cut himself off and shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "No, just, I understand what you're saying. And offering. Just know only that I don't want you to have to handle it. And that it's okay if you don't or can't. We're..." he paused, lips tugged, eyes gone dark and solid and he took what warmth he could get and wrap it around the outside of the wall until it was nearly invisible, "we're together like this, we're... boyfriends, means we respect each other and when we ask, we can say no. You can say yes, too," laugh quiet, crackle, cover-up, "but don't ever, just-- if you promise not to make yourself do anything you don't wanna."
"People never learn anything by saying no to things they don't want to do, Kaoru." Ebizo raised up, left his gaze focused on that dark man as he leaned his cheek to his now fist. "The only stipulation will be that we're both sober for it next time." A silent sigh and he watched him, the way his tattoos burned under his shirt on Kaoru's body. "What did you mean then? I'd like to know, know what you're thinking and feeling."
Slow, careful words. Kaoru looked at him, but their eyes didn't quite meet. He shook his head; he was already rebuilt.
"Only that you don't have to say yes, that's all."
"No, I got that, I was referring to when you stopped earlier. What were you going to say? What did you mean?" Ebizo's voice grew soft. He was just as uncomfortable with being direct as Kaoru seemed to be, so he was hoping Kaoru wouldn't make him get blunt.
Slow, care, soft. They'd made love a handful of times compared to how they had fucked and Ebizo's voice made him think of that.
Kaoru closed his eyes because it was easier and less vulnerable than looking down. His fingers folded and fought together in his lap and he held his hands tightly, but the rest of him, visible, was smooth and calm, still, wall, peace.
"That is what I meant. You don't have to say yes. You don't have to be me. You can pick your second time, control it, not give it up for me or because you're supposed to. You don't have to say yes if you don't want to and I don't want to do that to you. I don't," Kaoru said, voice quiet, still, measured step by step, "want you to fight with it like I have, and I don't want you to feel like you lost who you are." A beat. He relaxed his fingers unseen. "That's all."
Bare moments, Kaoru's eyes, and the hurt was thundered down by rage.
Ebizo stood, chair sliding slow so as not to startle. Stood, dizzy, and he walked those few steps to slide his fingers on Kaoru's shoulder. "Come here," bedroom quiet.
Ebizo was coming close, slow and measured but still too fast and Kaoru was startled, was still careful and still and implacable but his iron curtain eyes showed the widening and the startlement and he was saying, "What?" in an uncertain voice, drawing in as he drew up under Ebizo's hand, but his body was braced, his mind rushing back. "What--" and he shook his head quietly, cover quick, "it's not-- wasn't like it sounds, I went along with it, don't."
"Come here," rumbling quiet tenor thunder and Ebizo tugged, yanked him that step closer so he could mash his arms around that small frame. Hands spread, one on back and one on the back of Kaoru's neck, buried under his thick, lucious rockstar hair. And he held him there, crushing them both.
For a few numb minutes bare few before, Kaoru had been afraid that he would lose this. Lose this.
Ebizo's arms surrounded him and all of Kaoru's small body was enveloped in him, buried in him, hands in his hair and on his back and he found himself tucked against his lover's chest, head bowed, bridge of his nose pressed to his throat and he took a deep breath that shuddered and ached.
Fingers curled in Ebizo's shirt, finally, and Kaoru closed his eyes and leant there for a moment before he mumbled, "Ebizo."
Kaoru folded to him, accepted him and Ebizo's face relaxed from where he buried it in ebony strands. Kaoru smelled like cigarettes, alcohol, sex, old sweat, cologne. Sweet. Their eggs were frozen on the table and Kaoru fit in his embrace just right. His body still ached in a way that was more humilitating that he'd ever experienced in his life, an alien shame at this body, but he wasn't uncomfortable. He was gentle.
Murmuring to pale scalp, buried so far beneath all that hair, "I'm yours."
Yours.
Kaoru's dry lips cracked as they parted between them and Ebizo's pulse thundered against his brow. He licked his lips and sucked in air uncertainly, not sure when he would surface again from this feeling, or if he wanted to, if he could bear it.
Kaoru closed his eyes and pressed them to his throat, and he kissed him there where his lips fell, where his shirt opened and he could form his small mouth to the hollow of his throat.
"Ebizo," he murmured, fingers whiteknuckle tight, and he swallowed dry mouth, kissed him on that line of symmetry and breathed an unsteady, "I know."
Was that 'too' or 'thank you'? It didn't matter, not for the moment. For now, he could hold Kaoru, hold him with the promise of his dedication to making Kaoru's past stay that way: far gone, far different, over. Kaoru fit in his arms in a way no woman ever had and his heart double-thumped, beat to envelop his man. It'd be scary if he weren't so outraged, so torn by emotions too complex for him to bare thinking about in company.
Ebizo kissed Kaoru's hair. "Good."
Too close and all consuming. Kaoru took a moment, hands flat on Ebizo's chest now and bowed, kissed, he took a deep breath and left the imprint of his lips over his heart.
Turning his face upwards, his lips hit the underside of Ebizo's jaw and then his cheek and he was shifting in his arms, red and eyes distractedly avoiding a lock. "Anwyay," mumbled, uncomfortable, fingers picking at his shirt, "anyway. You get my point, right."
Neither were looking each other in the eye.
Ebzio breathed in deep, let it out slow. "I do. As long as you get mine. You're allowed to ask for what you want."
"And you're allowed to say no."
Kaoru closed his eyes, fought down the burn on his cheeks and the discomfort in his gut and he nosed against Ebizo's jaw.
"I'm sorry for last night."
"I know. I'll say no if I have to." Saying I promise wasn't their style.
A hand rose, cupped the back of Kaoru's head but he didn't push. "Don't have to be. You didn't know how I'd feel about things."
It was good enough; it was a promise unofficial, honest. Kaoru breathed out a quiet huff and took it.
"I should've. How do I make up for it," he mumbled, "so you only think about last night leading up to that point, instead?"
"No, you didn't know. You know I'm not the kind of guy to drop hints." That he'd never let another man fuck him because that just wasn't who he was? Whatever. Too intricate for a hungover, relationship-phobic man to figure out. Patting Kaoru's head, he mumble, "You got nothing to make up for. I don't wanna do that. I just wanna keep doing us, keep on today."