#dapperowl

Yuuji shakes himself. “No, sorry, just spacing out. It’s fine.” Somehow smiling at Inui is easy, even with all the stress and mistrust and fear clouding so many of their interactions. “Anyway, I like looking at you.”

Inui sputters and blushes. “D-don’t be sappy.”

---

More than anything, Takumi wants to know how Mari got them a table at this place, and why she didn’t use it on herself. She’s been talking about it for three weeks now, ever since it opened. And it’s not like it’s even a super fancy restaurant, either, it’s just popular because it’s new. He would have been fine going out for noodles or something.

The soup Kiba got him to order is pretty good, though.

“So,” Kiba’s saying, and he’s got that one smile, the one that stresses Takumi out because he’s not sure if it pisses him off with its quiet satisfaction or if he wants to kiss it. “I feel like we’ve never really…gotten to talk, you know? Like people, to get to know each other. Where are you from?”

“I, uh. I’ve kind of wandered around a lot, really. My, my parents died when I was a kid, so I never really had a…I’m kind of. Not from anywhere.” Tell him, jackass, just tell him, trust your gut for once in your goddamn life and tell him. “I’m—what about you?”

Yuuji’s face flickers into something that’s probably dismay. “I’m sorry to hear that, I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject.”

“It’s fine, it was ages ago.” Be honest, for fuck’s sake, tell him hey, yeah, I died with them, only I came back and I’m a monster, do you still like me? “Anyway, are you from near here?”

“I…feel like I’ve misstepped, you look a little far away now.”

Takumi shakes himself out of it, wavers at the continuing internal scream of tell him, tell him, tell him, and says, “Seriously, I’m fine, I promise.” Impulsively, he reaches across the table and grabs Kiba’s hand, and is unexpectedly gratified to see him turn a little pink. “Please. Tell me about yourself.”

---

Inui kisses like he’s angry about something. Which, maybe he is, but it’s not interfering with anything right now, Yuuji’s pretty sure he’d stop them if he was angry about something here. He also kisses like he hasn’t kissed too many people before, and it’s cute, and he’s saying, “You’re, you’re smiling about something, what is it,” and Yuuji says, “You’re cute,” and he blushes again and says something about not being weird before Yuuji kisses him again.

It’s strange, not having either of the others in the apartment. Yuka is doing something with Mari, some girl’s night thing, and he hopes they’re having fun, and Kaido is out at a bar (a plan he loudly announced earlier, with a lot of unnecessary elbowing and winking, when he found out about Yuuji’s date). So it’s just the two of them, in this too-large, too-white apartment with a couple of glasses of wine getting ignored on the coffee table while they make out on the couch like awkward high schoolers.

They walked along the docks for a bit after dinner, holding hands, looking at the moon, talking about plenty of things but never what Yuuji really wants to talk about. He wants to tell the truth, he wants to say all kinds of things, but the moment never seems right.

Hey, just so you know, I was engaged before, and then I died, and when I came back I killed my fiancee and her new boyfriend in some kind of Orphenoch fugue state.

Inui pushes him down on his back on the couch and gives him another one of those angry kisses, and Yuuji doesn’t open his mouth and say, I have something to tell you, but it’s kind of a huge deal, can you promise you’ll keep kissing me like this after I say it?

“What, why are you distracted, am I a bad kisser or something?”

“I—no, not at all, I was just thinking about…” He lifts his hand and runs it through Inui’s hair, and Inui presses back into the touch like a dog being petted, and into yet another kiss he murmurs, “Can I take you to bed?”

Inui stares down at him, throat working for a moment before he says, “Why do you have to talk like a guy in a romance novel?”

“I like romance. I like being romantic with you.” Yuuji grins up at him, reaches up to cup his cheek. “Also, whenever I do it you blush, I like making you blush.”

Inui looks away, but he turns his face toward Yuuji’s hand, and mumbles into his palm, “Shut up, I’m not blushing. Also, also yeah, sure, you—let’s go.”

---

Takumi hasn’t done this before, but then, he’s pretty sure Kiba hasn’t either—he’s a confident talker, sure, but his hands have definitely been shaking once or twice. It’d definitely be way worse if anyone else was in the apartment, though, the thought of someone hearing them is pretty unbearable.

It feels good, though. Being together like this.

“Is this all right?”

“Yeah, this is—this is good, I’m not gonna break, come on.”

At least right now it’s reasonable to not talk. The expression on Kiba’s face is a lot, though, looking at Takumi like this, like he thinks Takumi’s beautiful or worthwhile or something. Takumi glances away, feeling his face go hot, and sees their shadows on the wall, sharp-edged in the light of the lamp on the other side of the bed—two silhouettes, their arms around each other, so precise and neat that it’s as if they could be having their own conversation separate from Takumi in Kiba’s lap on the bed.

Kiba moves a little bit, and Takumi stops thinking and moves with him.

Afterward, though, there’s this moment, Takumi’s on his back now and Kiba’s over him still, looking down at him, and part of him thinks, now, now, now, do it, tell him, tell him you’re a dead man walking, tell him you’re a superhero, tell him you love him and that you’re terrified that he’ll hate you if he finds out about what you really are. Tell him everything.

“Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No, no, I’m fine, it’s fine, you should—you should kiss me again.”

Kiba smiles at him, fuck, it’s such a beautiful smile. “You promise you’re not getting sick of it?”

“If I was getting sick of you kissing me I wouldn’t tell you to do it.”

Leaning down, an incredibly gentle kiss, and, “You’re gorgeous, did I mention that?”

“Don’t make it weird.” Takumi tugs him down, irritably, presses his face to the side of Kiba’s neck both to hide the fact that he’s blushing again and because Kiba smells good.

Tell him, just be honest, he won’t hate you, you should just tell him.

“Tell me what?”

“Shit, did I say that out loud?” Takumi’s getting sleepy, he yawns against Kiba’s skin and pulls him closer. “No, it’s fine, it’s nothing.”

---

“There was that reporter? Reiko?”

“She was interested in me, that doesn’t mean I felt the same way.”

“Well, that’s fair, I guess. Although she seems nice. Still, there are a lot of cute girls at my university, and I bet you’d be really pop—”

“Gamu.”

“Yeah, Fujimiya?”

“Shut up for a second and look over here.”

Gamu blinks and turns toward him. “Did I say someth—mm?”

A silence.

When Fujimiya shifts back, Gamu blinks rapidly for a moment before saying, “Is that. Uh. New? Or have you wanted to do that for a while and I’m really stupid?”

Fujimiya actually smiles, very slightly. “You’re a little short-sighted, maybe.”

“Wow, ok.” Gamu raises a hand to his mouth, still blinking. “I mean. Uh. Wow.” He touches his mouth again, repeats, “Wow.”

Fujimiya watches him for another moment and then turns back to the ocean. “Anyway, as appealing as you make university sound, I’m still facing criminal charges. I imagine it’d be very difficult to enroll anywhere when even a cursory background check is going to reveal that I’m wanted for terrorism. Not to mention renting an apartment.” He draws his legs up, wraps his arms around them, rests his chin on his knees, in every way folding into himself as he stares out at the golden road on the water. “And in any case, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Gamu frowns. “Like, what you’d study?”

“Not that.” His voice is very quiet. “I don’t know how to live without a battle to fight anymore.”

There isn’t a lot Gamu can say to that, and so he doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. The sun continues to set. A dead fish washes up down the beach and is immediately beset by seagulls. A whale breaches near the horizon and then dives again. Finally, when at least ten minutes have passed, he says, “I mean. I can’t really help with the criminal charges, but. You wouldn’t…have to rent an apartment, if you didn’t want to? You could, you could stay with me, my apartment’s kind of messy but there’s room.”

Fujimiya doesn’t quite look at him. “I kissed you once and you’re already asking me to move in with you?”

“No! I mean. I mean you did kiss me but. Uh. I would offer either way. Because we’re friends and I like you and. I want you to be happy.” Gamu stares down at his own feet, swinging against the rock. “And also I want you to kiss me again, but that’s not, like, conditional to any of this, that’s its own thing. Seriously, though, the last place I remember it seemed like you lived in was that…warehouse, or whatever it was, the one with all the computers and the exercise machine you taped me to that one time, and that’s probably not healthy, living in a warehouse when you could be somewhere that’s warm and comfortable. And we could spend more time together, there’s this restaurant near the university campus that I bet you’d—”

“Gamu.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up again.”

The silence this time is longer, and Fujimiya doesn’t pull away after, just leans their foreheads together as Gamu says, dazedly, “Ok.” And then, when he has more breath, “I’m pretty sure there’s always a battle worth fighting. It’s just that sometimes it’s not one we have to be, you know, not one that needs us to be Ultraman.”