#melibobelli

Ryousuke smiles, and Kuramochi knows he’s stuck following him to the ends of the Earth, no matter what. “I’ll suck you off, later,” he says, like he’s commenting on the weather.

Heat rises to his ears, and he mumbles something like “y'don’t have to” but doesn’t precisely contain words.

The house they arrive at feels different to what Kuramochi expected. The styling is modern, for one thing, and in the small front garden behind the ostentatious fencing, there’s signs that someone who lives here is a pitcher, with a basket of baseballs and a three by three grid attached to a stand.

“Maybe we can ask to play catch.” Ryousuke is teasing him — dick knows he’d rather be fooling around practicing with some kid than what he’s being dragged into.

Ryousuke rings the doorbell, and Kuramochi tries not to look like a delinquent as he stands next to him. He should have left his leather jacket at home, he thinks, and fiddles with the soft lining inside one pocket.

A minute passes, and Ryousuke frowns. Kuramochi fights the urge to tell him to call the whole thing off as Ryousuke tries the doorbell again.

As he’s about to do so, the door swings open. Kuramochi swallows at the sight of the woman at the door. She’s perfectly smooth, her jacket flowing down into her pencil skirt and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Ryousuke chuckles beside him, and he breaks his gaze away. “Shut up.”

“My butt is cuter,” Ryousuke comments, as the two of them are lead inside.

Kuramochi laughs. “Are you sure?” he replies, though they both know it’s no contest.

They’re settled down in front of a table in short order, set up for the main event all too soon in Kuramochi’s opinion.

“Would you like tea?” she asks.

Kuramochi begins to say “no” just as Ryousuke speaks over him with “yes, please.”

She nods, amused, and Kuramochi hunches into himself. He’d have let Ryousuke speak for him, but the thing is, he’s nervous. He grew up knowing that you just don’t mess with these things. If you leave them alone, they leave you alone — that’s how it works. But if Ryousuke wants to get up to his neck in it all, then like hell is Kuramochi staying behind. So if Ryousuke is heading down this road then Kuramochi is coming, too.

As she pours the tea, she watches the both of them. “He doesn’t believe in fortunes?” she asks, the question directed at Ryousuke. She fills their small round cups perfectly to where the ceramic curves off.

Ryousuke takes one of the cups, and snickers into the tea. “No, he believes in them too much.”

“Like hell I do,” Kuramochi snaps, face heating up once again. It’s one of those days.

She raises an eyebrow.

“’S just…” he begins, when she doesn’t prompt him further. “If I don’t mess with it, it won’t mess with me,” he blurts in a rush.

She nods, and the lights in the room turn the lenses of her glasses white for an instant. “You could be right,” she comments, mildly. “But then you wouldn’t be fully in control of your own fate.”

Kuramochi wants to say that he doesn’t <em>need</em> to be in charge of his own fate. This is why he likes having a boyfriend like Ryousuke, who loves taking charge and pushing Kuramochi as far as he can go. But this woman — who, he realizes, hasn’t even given her name — doesn’t need to know that. Doesn’t even need to know that’s how it is between him and Ryousuke, though she could have overheard his comment earlier.

His expression must say something to her, though, because she says, “A short reading, in that case,” and puts down her cup of tea and takes the lid off a small box, filled with large cards, which she begins to separate into two piles.

“Lots of swords, today,” Ryousuke comments.

She chuckles. “On the surface,” she says, “but they’re all here.” She continues separating the cards until they’re all in the piles, and then picks up the smaller pile, containing more ornate cards with pictures on them, and hands them to Kuramochi.

He takes them. The urge to throw them on the ground and storm out of the house passes over him, but it’s gone quickly enough to hear her give him instructions. She tells him to shuffle, and then draw three cards and place them down.

He does, despite his misgivings. He lays them down in a line.

The cards from this pile have roman lettering on them, and he frowns as he tries to pick what the words could mean, based on the pictures. There’s an angel pouring water into a cup, then a man hanging upside down, which he’d initially gone to turn around as he placed it on the table, and then lastly a tall building on fire.

He drops the rest of the cards messily next to the line of three. “Happy now?” He’s not sure whether he’s asking the woman or Ryousuke, but she responds with a small smile, and Ryousuke leans in and grins like Kuramochi has done something right.

“Very,” he replies.

Kuramochi tosses the last of his tea down his throat and stands up. “‘Kay, then I’m out,” he says, and practically runs from the house. Something about it makes him feel like he needs to crawl out of his skin.

Ryousuke doesn’t follow him for ten minutes, but Kuramochi figures he’s stayed to hear whatever the woman had to say about her fake magic. When he does return, Kuramochi has found the bat that goes with the rest of the baseball gear, and has taken off his jacket to practise his swing. He catches Ryousuke watching appreciatively before he speaks.

“Rei-san was very impressed,” he says. “She thinks you should come back again.”

“Not likely,” Kuramochi grunts in between swings.

Ryousuke hums, but doesn’t reply.