The first time Ageha noticed something was up was at his, Sakurako’s and Hiryu’s graduation party. Despite all the people, they had somehow fit into the new apartment he and his sister had moved to a few months ago. Elmore Wood School had been suggested, but his sister had insisted, and when Fubuki put her mind to something it was hard to get her to change her mind. At least this apartment was bigger than their previous one, so it worked out alright in the end.

It had been in the middle of the party when he’d caught sight of Kabuto and Oboro near the door leading from the livingroom into the hallway, Kabuto with a drink in his hands, looking up at Oboro with a slightly red tint to his cheeks. Was he drunk? His eyes followed Kabuto’s hand as it moved from the doublehanded grip on the glass to Oboro’s wrist, and-

“Ageha, dance with me?” Sakurako obscured his view, distracting him from the two men at the exit of the room. His cheeks immediately burned, still unable to get used to Sakurako’s forwardness. It made him feel warm inside, and he gulped down the lemonade he was holding to calm his nerves before taking her hand. “Of course!”

For a moment, everything else was forgotten.

️

The second time was several months later, Ageha on his way home from his new parttime job. It was a surprisingly mundane job in a convenience store, all things considered. He sometimes did odd jobs with Kagetora, but it was a nice change of pace to deal with things that had nothing to do with PSI or anything more dangerous than teenagers trying to illegally buy beer, or drunk salarymen being too loud.

He caught sight of a familiar flash of orange in his peripheral when he walked by an alley, his feet coming to an abrupt stop. Looking over, he saw two figures huddled together in the autumn chill. Recognising the two, he called out, hand raised in greeting. Just loud enough for the other two to hear, but not loud enough so strangers would catch on to the celebrity in the vicinity.

“Hey, Kabuto, Oboro, what’s up?”

Both men looked up, Kabuto lowering his fingers from his face, a cigarette between them. Oboro was standing opposite of him, crowding Kabuto against the wall of the building behind him. Oboro’s cheeks were tinted pink, Kabuto’s own much more so, and from the slight slur of his words, it was obvious that Kabuto was at least a little bit drunk. “Hey, Ageha, what’re you doin’ here?”

 

Oboro straightened his back, smiling at Ageha, though not backing away from where he was standing so close to Kabuto. He plucked the cigarette from Kabuto’s fingers, taking a drag of it himself. Kabuto absently fiddled with one of the necklaces around his neck; a silvery star on a figaro chain, barely paying attention to the loss of the cigarette, only casting a quick glance at Oboro before zeroing back in on Ageha.

“Just got off work, on my way home. What about you two, it looks kinda shady when you’re standing in an alley like this. Wouldn’t it be bad for Oboro to be seen in here?”

Kabuto rolled his eyes as Oboro hummed, a small, satisfied smile tugging at the corners of the actor’s mouth. “Yeah, that’s the point, I guess. He’s still a goddamn adrenaline junkie even after all the future stuff, but I guess this is the best he’s gonna get now that the world’s not ending and all that shit.”

“I’ve got other things too, but I’ve got a job starting tomorrow so I can only do little things like this right now,” Oboro sighed miserably around the stick between his lips. “It’s not satisfying at all.”

Kabuto glared at him in response. “Yeah well, I’m not letting you get us banned from another bar with your BS.”

Ageha looked between them, confused. “What did you do to get banned from a bar?”

“Not one, two ,” Kabuto complained, stealing the cigarette back to take a drag of his own. He blew the smoke out into rings as Ageha processed the information.

“How’d you manage that and not get on the news?”

“We went into the restrooms and-”

 

Kabuto slapped a hand over Oboro’s mouth, hissing a quiet “shut the fuck up!” His cheeks burned red. “Doesn’t matter right now, what matters is that I’m keeping him from doing something even more stupid than getting caught smoking.”

“I didn’t even know either of you did that.”

Kabuto shrugged, “only sometimes, it’s a bad habit. Don’t start or your sister’ll kill me.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good,” Kabuto dropped the remains of the cigarette on the ground, grinding the leftovers out with the heel of his shoe. “We should go, say hi to Fubuki for me, will ya?” He winked, prompting a ‘gross’ from Ageha. He had seen Kabuto flirt with his sister a few times, and it was equally annoying every single time. He wished he could tell her about the future where she was with Ian, but he didn’t want to risk ruining a potential relationship by doing so.

 

They all bid godnight under the neon lights back out on the street.

️

He didn’t put two and two together until it was straight in his face.

 

It was Christmas Day, only a few months after his run-in with Kabuto and Oboro in that barely lit alley. He’d spent the day before with Sakurako, and was still buzzing with energy from the brazen kiss she’d stolen from him in front of the huge Christmas tree in Tokyo Midtown.

He touched his fingers to his lips, smiling ‘like an idiot’ if Frederica was to be the judge, as he walked through the hallways of Elmore Wood School in search of a free bathroom. Since he had lived there for a while, and still frequently visited, he knew the layout of the mansion well. The party downstairs could be heard even now, one floor up and all the way at the other end of the building, though the sounds were muffled.

 

Finally he found himself in front of a bathroom, and he quickly stepped inside, closing the door behind him. When he turned around he was met with the sight of a shirtless Kabuto sitting on top of the sink countertop, his jeans low on his hips. Oboro was leaning over him, pushing his shoulders against the mirror, his buttonup shirt open, tie discarded on the floor together with Kabuto's shirt.

Kabuto noticed the new presence first, yelping as he shoved Oboro’s lips away from his collarbones that were littlered with bitemarks. “A-A-Ageha, what are- Oboro, didn’t you lock the door?!”

Oboro feigned innocence, smiling at Kabuto who hurriedly hopped off the counter to grab his shirt. “Oops.”

Kabuto groaned, pulling his shirt over his head. “‘Oops’ my ass, you totally did that on purpose!”

 

While Kabuto and Oboro bickered (though Kabuto was the only one who seemed bothered in the least), Ageha opened and closed his mouth like a fish, staring at the two. “You, uh, I didn’t, uh, know you two were a… thing?”

“We’re not,” Kabuto firmly disagreed, brushing his fingers through his hair, shooting annoyed glances at Oboro who was calmly buttoning up his shirt. “It’s purely physical.”

“Oh.” Ageha felt his cheeks burn. He wasn’t sure how you could do something like that with someone unless you were dating.

“Look, let’s not talk about this right now, I can see you’re gonna combust or something.” Kabuto looked himself over in the mirror, seemingly coming to the decision that he looked presentable enough. “I’ll tell you some other time when he’s not being as annoying.” He sent another glare Oboro’s way. “And you . You’re not getting any tonight.”

 

At that, Oboro did seem disappointed.

️

Things went back to normal after that, to the point that Ageha forgot all about it. Until a couple of days after his twentieth birthday, when Kabuto enthusiastically offered to take him drinking. Ageha didn’t really care all that much about alcohol, so when Kabuto found out he’d never even tried it before, he’d been quite firm on him at least trying it out. “If you don’t like it I’ll just finish it for you,” Kabuto had offered, and since he even said it was his treat, Ageha didn’t really see why not. It wasn’t like he disliked the thought of it, he just didn’t care either way. And he knew hell would’ve broken loose if he’d tried it before it was legal and his sister found out about it.

This is how he found himself at a bar of medium quality, seated at a table opposite Kabuto, a couple of beer between them.

 

Once they settled down, Ageha finally remembered what he had walked in on during Christmas. “So uuuuh, you and Oboro?”

Kabuto’s cheeks turned red, and he picked up his beer to distract from how awkward he found the topic. “Yeah, still not dating.” He took a swig of his beer before continuing, prompted by the confused look on Ageha’s face. “There’s this thing called ‘friends with benefits’, I guess you can call it that, what we’ve got going on. Only an idiot would actually date a maniac like him.”

“Hey, watch your mouth, my sister was into him.”

“She’s free to join, if she wants.”

“Ew, you sound like an old perv.” Ageha picked up his own beer, sniffing it. He pulled a face at the smell, but still took a tiny sip to taste. “Ew,” he reiterated, this time about the drink. “This tastes terrible”

Kabuto cackled, making a grabby-hand motion at the glass. “I’ll order the kid a cream soda instead.”

 

Even as Ageha protested being called a kid, Kabuto got up to get him said drink. It was fine, he liked cream soda anyway. He was starting to think Kabuto had just brought him along as an excuse to get drunk. He watched the man make his way back to the table with his drink, sliding it across the table toward him as he sat down.

“You got any other questions?” Kabuto asked after taking a large gulp of his beer.

 

Ageha took a long sip of the soda, getting rid of the aftertaste of the beer. “Since when did you have pierced nipples?”

 

Kabuto promptly choked on his beer, spitting some of it on the table. The bartender shot him an annoyed look as Kabuto coughed into the crook of his elbow. The older quickly wiped the table in front of him with the napkins supplied to every table. “Oboro’s almost got us banned from this place, so I’m on kinda thin ice here,” he explained quietly, glancing at the bartender. Then, remembering what made him spit out his drink in the first place, he started to scrape at his nail polish. “Like, a year and a half ago or so. Surprised you even noticed that, uh, considering everything else.”

“They’re bright blue, kinda hard to miss.”

Kabuto chuckled into his drink. “A girlfriend picked them out for me. She’s a piercer, you should see the ones she’s got, mine got nothing on hers.”

“Another, uuuh…?”

“Friend with benefits. Yep.”

“I guess it’s kinda hard to wrap my head around that concept, especially if you can have more than one. Isn’t that, kinda cheating?”

“I keep telling you, we’re not dating. So we’re free to fuck whoever we want, doesn’t matter. He’s a celebrity, you think I’m the only one he’s got?”

 

Ageha’s head was spinning with how everything seemed so out of place when it came to Kabuto and romance. There was one thing he could focus on at the moment though. “I didn’t even know you were into guys, much less Oboro. Didn’t you think he was nuts when you first met?”

“Sure, if they’re hot I don’t see why not.” The admission seemed easy and as obvious as 123 coming out of Kabuto’s mouth. “And he still is, obviously. Kind of an asshole, too. But he’s real fucking good in the sack. Genius with his hands and to-.”

Ageha slapped his hands over his ears to cut off the rest. “I don’t wanna know! Sakurako and I haven’t even…” Why was he telling Kabuto this? This was far too embarrassing. He concentrated on his drink instead.

“You did kinda ask, man.” Kabuto shrugged, finishing off his beer and picking up the one he’d initially bought for Ageha. “Speaking of, you and Bunny seem awfully cuddly. It’s very sweet.”

“Thank you,” came the stiff reply. What did you even say to that? But he felt himself relax, soften around the edges when thinking of Sakurako. “Our three-year anniversary is coming up, it’s really exciting. We’re going to Osaka, gonna make a full weekend of it.”

“Oooh, spending the weekend all alone? Naughty.” Kabuto waggled his eyebrows at him, making Ageha’s cheeks burn. He’d stayed the night at his girlfriend’s apartment many times by now, but with the previous conversation fresh in mind, it made his stutter.

“I, uh, I don’t- we’re-”

Kabuto cut him off with a laugh. “Don’t worry about it, I’m just fucking with you.” He chugged the remains of the beer, stretching his arms over his head. “I’m gonna call it a night, promised to hang out with my uncle tomorrow.”

“Don’t mooch off him,” Ageha called out as Kabuto headed to the bar to pay.

The other turned back around, sticking his tongue out at him. “I stopped doing that a while ago.”

 

While some things stayed the same, it was nice to know that some things were changing for the better.

 

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