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Kousuke’s dishes are already soaking in the sink by the time Hayato pads into the kitchen, scratching at his belly and looking for breakfast. Their mother sits at the table, reading glasses sliding to the tip of her nose as she works on correcting a pile of homework.
“You just missed your brother,” she says, not lifting her eyes as she scrawls a series of o’s down a page—someone’s been paying attention in class. She pushes her glasses back into place with an absentminded crinkle of the nose. When he approaches the table, she waves him off with a flick of her fingers. “I needed the table, so I left your plates on the counter. Soup and rice might still be hot, but your sausages and squash definitely aren't.”
Hayato frowns at the mess of paperwork spilled across the table and the stacks of folders and workbooks on the chairs. “Any chance I can get a seat?”
“No,” she says, snorting. “Not unless you want to help me get through these faster.” When she glances up and sees the sour lemon expression pulling at his mouth, she rolls her eyes and goes back to her work. “You’ve got two good legs—use them.”
He turns to peer at the tray of breakfast his mother laid out. A quick inspection reveals the miso isn’t hot so much as lukewarm. White blocks of tofu breach the surface as he idly stirs his chopsticks through, gaze drifting over to the small, empty plate sitting amid the dishes hosting food. He asks, “Was there meant to be something on this empty plate?”
“Empty plate?”
“The one in front of the rice.”
“There was a marinated egg there,” his mother replies, distracted. “Maybe Kousuke ate it.”
He groans. “Seriously?”
She sighs, flipping a page. “He mentioned being very hungry. I would’ve given him another helping, but he was in a hurry to leave for kyuudou. He probably took some things from your plate.”
Now that she mentions it, there is a spot on the plate with sausages that’s conspicuously bare, save for a faint smear of oil and char. “And I just have to be okay with that?”
“Hayato.” The tone is little more than a warning, but his jaw snaps shut just the same. He stirs his soup faster, sending a little flying over the bowl’s rim.
His mother is silent for a moment, waiting for more protest, but when he offers none, she mumbles a weary, “You boys need to work on getting along better.”
Hayato sets his chopsticks down, presses his hands together with a quiet mutter of itadakimasu, and lifts the bowl of tepid soup to his face. “We get along fine,” he says into the bowl, words coming out funny in the confined space. He takes a sip. Swallows.
“I said ‘better,’ didn’t I?” Her pen twirls, drawing three looping circles over the page. Correct, correct, correct. “He’s your brother, not some monster.”
“You sure about that?”
Another sigh. “Just eat your breakfast. You need to rest and take care of yourself if you want to be cleared by your coach to play in the next game.”
Even though his concussion has long since passed, there’s no arguing with Coach Endou—especially since this wasn’t even the first or second time a pitcher launched a ball into Hayato’s skull.
He shoves one of the sausages in his mouth whole, chewing noisily until his mother sucks her teeth. He stops. The student whose work she’s looking over has made a lot of mistakes, if the lack of marks is an indicator. He crams a sliced pickle in too, soy sauce and vinegar slicing through the grease and pork.
“Were you two up late last night?” his mother asks, after a beat, and Hayato freezes mid-chew.
He forces the food down. Tries not to think too much about it. “Not really?”
“I thought I heard noise.” She shrugs, and he lets out a wavering exhale; he didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until it was free. It does nothing to carry away the unease in his stomach. “I was worried you two were fighting again.”
“At one point I farted and Kousuke threw a book at me,” he adds, shoving a wedge of squash in his mouth before he tries saying anything more.
But his mother’s face curdles, soy milk splashed into bitter coffee. “I kind of want to throw a book at you now, too,” she admits, and then he knows he can breathe easy again.
*
Hayato has one sneaker double-knotted and the second half on when he notices the burn of Kousuke’s red furoshiki-wrapped bento sitting on the floor. It leans against the shoe cupboard like a pet sulking over being left behind, the normally perky bunny ears of fabric wilted in their abandonment. Hayato pulls his shoe on, staring at the bento with a frown.
They did sleep in later than usual today, but he didn’t realize just how late Kousuke must’ve been for Saturday club to completely forget his lunch.
He grabs the bundle by the knot and slides it into his backpack alongside his water bottle, rolling his eyes. Today’s run will be to the school, then.
It’s early, so the asphalt hasn’t hoarded enough sun to grill everything passing over it, but the humidity is already thick and stifling. Hayato stomps his way down the stairwell and out the apartment building. The elderly landlady from the first floor wishes him a good morning as she splashes water across the sidewalk. He barely manages to return the greeting before he takes off, running past sprawls of verdant rice paddies, and into the nearby woods.
Beneath the shade of the many trees splitting the city, the temperature is still on the cool side. Nowhere near enough that Hayato regrets brushing off his mom’s attempts to foist a jacket on him, but just enough that he can avoid being suffocated by the warm, sticky weight of the humid air. Summer brings with it the annual chorus of cicadas shrilling to each other from all sides, the trees around him alive with their buzzing calls.
His feet pound out a steady beat against a backdrop of high-pitched insect chirps, bird songs, and the rattling knock of woodpeckers. He counts out every long, measured breath, feeling the stretch of his lungs and the push of his diaphragm. The closer he gets to the city proper, the more the line of his back sticks to his t-shirt, held close against him by the rhythmic tap of Kousuke’s bento.
By the time he slows to a comfortable jog on the drive leading into the high school’s property, his shirt clings wetly to him and thin rivulets of sweat forge paths from his hairline to his damp collar. The cap of the water bottle fished from his bag flips back with a press of the thumb, and Hayato gulps a third of it while he makes his way to the length of the kyuudou training hall.
Even from a distance, he can make out the shapes of the club members, dressed in flowing black hakama and carrying long bows that tower far past their heads to pierce the sky. Several students stand in a line just inside the building, the sliding doors overlooking the exterior range open to allow practice shots. Some of them work on their draw while others sip from their water bottles and watch as first years retrieve the arrows lodged in targets and the hillock across the grass.
It doesn’t take much effort to spot Kousuke among the five upperclassmen standing in the shade. He has several centimeters on most of them, but moreover there’s something unmistakeable to the way his head tilts while thinking. To the reverential hands that hold a bow and arrow like they’re gods.
Hayato tugs at his collar, suddenly warm around the neck. He dumps some water over his head, but the relief it brings doesn’t last long. He lifts the shirt up and off, needing it away from his skin.
That draws some looks from the club—the girl standing next to Kousuke must recognize him, because after doing a double take, her head whips around to say something to him. Hayato waves his shirt like a flag when he sees his brother turn in his direction. He can’t quite see what sort of expression Kousuke’s making, but it’s almost definitely a grimace.
“Do you need something?” One of the first years peers over at him through the chain-link fence surrounding the range. Her eyes seem to be in a war with themselves over where to focus; they flit down to gawk at his bare chest. She flushes.
“Ah, yeah.” He slings his damp shirt over the back of his neck. “I’m dropping something off for Kousuke.”
“For Kobayashi-senpai?” He nods and she tells him to wait by the fence’s gate.
He strolls along the perimeter to the gate, shoving the water bottle back in his bag and watching the first year nearly trip over herself on her way to pass his message. When Kousuke peels off his archery glove, slides his shoes on, and steps out onto the grass, the girl who recognized Hayato tags along. Once they’re closer, he manages to place her as Kousuke’s longtime friend and classmate Sakai Ayami.
“Hi, Kobayashi-oniisan!” she says, peppy as the sunshine overhead, her voice dancing like hummingbirds. She opens the gate and promptly hands him a cold cup of water. He downs it in one go. “Did you come to watch us practice?”
“Something like that.”
“What’re you doing here?” is what Kousuke greets him with. His gaze passes briefly over Hayato’s body, something like a smile threatening to crack through the nonplussed look on his face. “I thought you weren’t allowed to rejoin baseball practice until Monday.”
“Don’t remind me,” Hayato confirms with a sigh. He pulls the bento from his bag. “You forgot your lunch.”
Kousuke’s eyebrows raise. “And you ran all the way here to drop it off, huh?” He’s not even trying to hide the smile now.
“Keep up that attitude and I’ll run straight home with it, too.”
Fully smirking, Kousuke accepts the bento with two hands. His calloused fingertips lightly brush over Hayato’s knuckles. Sakai doesn’t appear to notice, busy unstrapping her deerskin glove. “Thanks,” he says, eyes glittering with sparks of mischief. “Guess I owe you, Hayato-niisan.”
Hayato shrugs, tingling all the way from head to toe, electricity sparking throughout his body. His face is sweating and he dabs at it with the edge of his shirt. “Make it up to me later,” he says mildly.
“Will a ride home work?” Kousuke drawls.
“For starters, sure. But one ride’s not gonna cut it.” He doesn’t miss the slight flare of his brother’s nostrils or the way his pupils dilate. “I ran here, you know.”
“So greedy, Kobayashi-oniisan,” Sakai says. “Kou-chan gives you a ride every day.”
Hayato chokes back a sound caught between scandal and laughter. “Not every day. Only half the time,” he sputters over Kousuke’s snickering.
Sakai glances between the two of them, unsure what she missed. Hayato almost feels guilty that she’s present for all of this.
Kousuke flashes a toothy smile, taking Hayato’s empty cup from his hand. “Don’t worry, Hayato-niisan, I’ll think of something.”
*
“Oho, is that Hayato?”
When Hayato pulls his head out from beneath the frigid stream spurting from one of the outdoor sinks, he sees his fellow starters Matsumoto and Takagi peering at him from the next two faucets. Matsumoto’s face brightens, intense as the stadium lights that shine down on him when he’s out on the pitcher’s mound at night, firing ball after ball into Takagi’s catcher’s mitt.
“It is!” he shouts, seizing Takagi by a strap on his chest protector and shaking him. Takagi allows himself to be throttled with the resigned air of someone who long since learned that resistance is futile once Matsumoto gets excited. “Akira,” he says to Takagi, “I don’t even remember the last time I saw him.”
“Matsu, we’re in the same class,” Hayato reminds him with a huff of laughter.
“It’s different when it’s during club hours!” Matsumoto argues. “I mostly sleep in class.” That much is true enough.
Takagi’s fringe sticks to his forehead, dark and overgrown to the point where it can always be seen peeking out from the bottom of his helmet. The collar and shoulders of his practice uniform are completely soaked—he must’ve had the same idea as Hayato, dousing his head to cool off. He shoots a curious look over Matsumoto’s shoulder. “What’re you doing here, senpai?” he asks.
“Kousuke forgot something at home.”
Frowning, Takagi says, “That’s not like him.”
“There’s a first for everything,” Matsumoto solemnly intones. “You boys’ll understand when you get to be our age.”
Takagi’s mouth presses into a thin line, the talisman trapping and sealing his thoughts on that shredding to pieces. He blinks once, very slowly. “Senpai,” he says after a moment, face growing more and more constipated by the second. “You guys are only a year older than me and Kousuke.”
“Yes,” Matsumoto agrees, slinging an arm around his neck, unbothered when water begins seeping into the sleeve of his jersey. “And what a difference it makes.”
“Easy, Matsu,” Hayato says. “Don’t put your catcher off before you’re done training for the day.”
“We are way past that point,” Takagi sighs, shoving a grinning Matsumoto off him. “Kobayashi-senpai, you get cleared for practice this week, right?”
“I better. Championships are in less than a month.”
Matsumoto gives another one of those sage nods that are so misplaced on his round sweaty face. “It’d be good to have you there to start on second. Especially since Daisuke’s ankle was looking wobbly again,” he says.
“Our second basemen must be cursed, huh?” Hayato jokes, a hand wandering up to rub ginger circles over his right temple, where the impact smashed against his skull, the helmet only doing so much to protect the rattling of his brain.
“Winning Nationals will break the curse, Hayato,” Matsumoto barks. He snatches Hayato’s arm by the bicep. His touch feels tacky with rosin, unpleasant against the skin. “It’s the only way! Therefore you and Daisuke must—” He stops shouting all at once, body going stiff and his face paling as he stares at something over Hayato’s shoulder.
“That’s our cue,” Takagi says, grabbing Matsumoto by the back of his shirt. “Good luck, Kobayashi.” The two of them flee to the safety of the bullpen.
Hayato glances back, wincing at the sight of their coach making a speedy beeline for the sinks. Escape is futile. He snaps into a bow with a mumble of hello when Coach Endou comes close enough that the swollen capillaries threading through his eyes are visible.
“What are you doing here, Kobayashi?” Coach Endou demands, because that seems to be the preferred way people are greeting him today. “I told you in no uncertain terms. You’re still banned from playing until Monday.”
His actual words were until at least Monday, but Hayato has no interest in reminding him. “I was dropping off my brother’s lunch,” he says, doing his best to appear innocent.
A bulging vein in Coach Endou’s forehead quivers like a snake shaking its rattle when facing a potential threat. “I know your brother. Your brother doesn’t play baseball,” he says, voice steady in the way that means the wrong response will lead him to do something drastic. Like condemn Hayato to the bench for the rest of the year. Or suffer a heart attack. “So what are you doing here ?” He jabs a finger at the concrete floor. “Last I checked, the kyuudou club trains on the opposite end of campus.”
Hayato nods in the direction of the locker room. “I came to grab a change of clothes. My brother’s giving me a lift home after he’s done.”
Coach Endou regards him with suspicion. “Will you return to their range as soon as you’re dressed?”
“I would, but he’ll just kick me out again. He says I distract him.”
It’s not even a lie, because Kousuke’s concentration often deteriorates when he knows Hayato is there watching his performance. He falls apart the way a quiet pond shivers into chaos beneath the relentless touch of rain. Any attempts made to support his brother at tournaments happen with as much discretion as possible.
“Can I stay? I promise I’ll stay out of the cages,” Hayato wheedles.
“And you’ll keep off the diamond?”
Hayato bites back a grin that tastes of satisfaction. “Of course.”
Coach Endou gives him a long squint. “Fine,” he finally relents. “Don’t let me catch you with any equipment.”
“Can I use the weight room?”
“What part of ‘no equipment’ do you not understand? Stretching and light exercise. Nothing more.” He pauses, then notices the damp shirt draped over the lip of the sinks. His brows stoop low over his eyes as his unhappy expression darkens into a scowl. “Wait, did you run to school?”
Hayato snatches the shirt up. “It was more of a jog.”
Coach Endou drags a hand over his face. “Get out of my sight before you give me a heart attack.”
*
When Kousuke comes to pick up Hayato a few hours later, his hair is wet, the black strands coming to curl softly around his ears.
“Where’s Sakai?” Hayato asks when he jogs over to join him on the path bisecting the campus. He drops his backpack in the bike’s basket and accepts Kousuke’s kyuudou bag, maneuvering it into place. To accommodate the size of the bow, the bag is well over two meters long and often very awkward for Hayato to handle. A ways behind him, Matsumoto shouts greetings from inside the bullpen; Takagi sags beside him looking like a prisoner.
“I told Ayami to go ahead,” Kousuke replies, leaning over the handlebars to wave bemusedly over at the guys in the bullpen. “She’s supposed to help her mom out at their shop today. Didn’t want her to be late.”
“Is that so.” Hayato steps up onto the pegs jutting from the back wheel, hands resting securely on Kousuke’s shoulders. He could probably feel his brother’s pulse move if he dug in a little harder. Kousuke’s hair smells like sunshine and the school’s cheap shampoo. He pushes off the ground and they begin the ride home.
They’re traveling quickly, and ten minutes or so into the journey, when there’s a safe distance between them and the school, Hayato clears his throat. He says, “You don’t usually shower before you get home.”
Kousuke tilts his head back, sparing a brief glance up at him. “Did you not see Kaa-san’s text?” He looks very awake. At Hayato’s blank expression, he continues, “She’s not coming home until dinner. The students in her kyuudou club asked if they could practice late, so she’s staying on site to supervise.”
Hayato’s brain sizzles with this information. His grip on Kousuke’s shoulders tightens; his brother’s pulse pounds out a rapid beat as he peddles them down the road as fast as he can. “So we’ll be the only ones at home?”
He doesn’t say anything, but one of his hands floats up from the handlebars, blindly reaching back until he grasps Hayato’s thigh, his touch coaxing goosebumps. Not a deathgrip, but something closer to the firm, reverential hold he uses for drawing arrows.
It’s the same sort of way he grabbed at Hayato that first night, a few years back. He’d been doing a shit job at smothering his gaspy little whines with his pillow while failing to hide that he was jerking off under his blanket. Their parents were watching a movie in the other room and Hayato lay on his own futon facing the wall, drowning in a unique type of sweltering hot suffering while waiting for Kousuke to chase that stupid orgasm to completion.
After a particularly loud whimper, Hayato hit the end of his ability to tolerate the shortness of his own breath. Aggrieved, he snarled across the room, ‘Finish already!’ and Kousuke choked out a desperate, ‘I’m trying, but I can’t.’
‘For fuck’s sake…’ Hayato crossed their tiny bedroom and ripped the blanket away. He dropped down to crowd him between his limbs, shoving a hand down Kousuke’s shorts and wrapping his dick in the too-hot cage of his fingers, and his brother let out a startled little noise that was immediately gobbled away by panting. He came undone not even a minute later in a trembling mess, white-knuckled as he clung to Hayato’s shoulders.
And Hayato knocked their skulls together, foreheads touching with a slide of fresh sweat, Kousuke’s cum oozing warmly over his fingers, the back of his hand. ‘Do that next time,’ he hissed, shaking in the dark. His tongue felt too hot for his mouth and he breathed raggedly, lips parted, air dancing over Kousuke’s face.
Kousuke’s grip on his shoulders tightened, just a little, preparing to draw an arrow. He swallowed, then said, softly, ‘Hayato-niisan.’ His eyes were big with awe.
‘Oh my god, shut up.’ Hayato ground out, biting down on his lip. He was hard in his sweatpants.
*
The door barely closes behind them when Kousuke shoves Hayato up against it, hands working their way beneath the waistband of his shorts, blunt nails dragging over his hips. They’re still in the genkan, sneakers on and no sign of their mother. A rare moment of solitude where the only sounds in the apartment come from their hitched breaths and needy grunts.
“We gotta—bedroom,” Hayato gasps in between fervid kisses, mouth wet. Kousuke looks like he has half a mind to get down to his knees right here, but Hayato leans forward until their heads touch. They share two breaths. “C’mon.”
Only accessible from the balcony, their bedroom exists in a strange dual state of being part of their parents’ home, but also an isolated retreat from reality. The tatami mats whisper beneath their socked feet as they stumble their way in. Their stuff gets dumped in the corner, Kousuke’s bag crossing the length of the room to reach over a garbage bin overflowing with used tissues, most crusty with dry semen.
The futons are still laid out from this morning and Hayato lets himself be pushed down onto one, shirt pulled over his head and shorts and underwear already wrenched off and cast into exile. His dick rests heavy and full against his hip, twitching as it begs to be touched. Kousuke settles in his lap, clothes discarded, hands cupping Hayato’s face as they kiss, tongue slipping in to taste the inside of his mouth.
Hayato glides one hand through his hair and the other down the line of Kousuke’s chest, firm from exercise and drawing arrows, his abs taut and his dick already hard. He wraps his fingers around its girth, just the right amount of tight, and strokes him a couple times, just to hear Kousuke groan into his mouth.
“Hayato-niisan,” Kousuke says. He squeezes the bulk of Hayato’s shoulders as he bucks into the curl of his hand, noses brushing together. He reaches down, cradles Hayato’s balls before seizing his dick. Long fingers glide through the precum pearling at the head, smearing it down over the length. Hayato’s brain crashes for a second, his hold loosening. Kousuke licks lightly over his brother’s slack mouth, murmuring his name again.
He withdraws, traveling down Hayato’s body, speckling his neck and chest and belly with a mess of kisses and bites that are sharp enough to sting, but won’t leave any evidence for the baseball team to gossip about.
Lube slides cold and slippery, glossy on their fingers and dicks. Kousuke sighs against his neck, needy as he strokes himself, hips working in easy circles.
“You good?” Hayato asks, tugging him closer, three-knuckles deep in his ass and playing with the idea of adding a fourth finger, just to see if Kousuke can take it. His pinky is just skimming the edge of the rim when Kousuke seems to remember himself and nibbles at Hayato’s earlobe.
“Put it in me already,” he says, an order, not a request, but Hayato’s always been weak when he gets that plaintive note in his throat.
He pulls out after a final thrust, relishing the shudder that works its way down Kousuke’s spine. Hayato places his hands firmly at his brother’s hips, squeezing gently and tilting his head back in the silent request for a kiss that Kousuke grants without hesitation. When the head of Hayato’s dick prods at his hole, steady against the resistance, his tongue swipes between his lips. He lets out a slow exhale and sinks down.
Hayato grits his teeth, barely breathing as his dick makes its careful push into the scorching clench of Kousuke’s body, pinning his need to ram his ass as hard and fast as he can with the promise that having patience will be worth it in the end. It’ll keep Kousuke from getting sore too fast.
When he’s fully seated, every last centimeter stretching him from the inside out, Kousuke lets out a long groan, head dropping onto Hayato’s shoulder. “Fuck.”
Something in his ass clenches, something unconscious and ravenous and Hayato can’t help it, he thrusts up, just once. His leverage sucks like this, so he’s hardly moving all that much—but it’s enough to make Kousuke’s breath hitch, his bitten lips parting in a perfect o that Hayato can’t help but cover with messy kisses.
It all unfolds very quickly and crazily after that, Kousuke riding his dick like he needs it to live and Hayato grinding his teeth together to keep from leaving a mark on his brother that’ll never fade.
They’re making some noise. They’ve gotta be. Kousuke’s dick leaks with precum as he trips over a mumbled chant of fuck, fuck, fuck, and Hayato breathes so hard that his lungs ache, overwhelmed by the need to take the tightness of Kousuke’s hole and ruin it.
That’s when he hears the living room door to the balcony slide open.
It is so fucking hard to stall his pistoning hips. It is so. fucking. hard.
Kousuke lets out a soft cry like he’s dying when he stops, but Hayato’s hand flies up to cover his mouth, barely smothering the choked off whines. He jerks his head over at the door, watching as Kousuke comes down from his high to realize that there’s someone out on the balcony—only one sliding door away from discovering them like this, Hayato with his dick straining for purchase deep in his brother’s ass like this is where it was always meant to be.
They hardly breathe, too scared to move for fear of drawing attention. Kousuke’s hand finds Hayato’s, fingers twining together. He’s shaking. Eyes huge, but not in the way that Hayato always craves. This is a face that he never wanted to see. That he never wants to see again.
Whoever is out on the balcony is taking their time. The acrid scent of cigarette smoke wafts inside—their father, home unusually early from his job at the sawmill in the next town over.
Hayato stares at the curtains hanging heavy over their window and door, chewing at the inside of his cheek. There’s not much they can do at this point. Except wait.
At long last, they hear the door to the living room reopen, then close.
Neither of them move for a few minutes, the fear not far enough in the past for them to break free from its unyielding ice.
Then, distantly, Hayato hears the sound of the bathroom door closing, the noisy clang of its metal frame. The pipes rumble to life not long after. He punches out all the stale air from his lungs in a harsh rush that leaves him hollow. He could throw up.
A hand still rests over Kousuke’s mouth, but the shallow breaths of hyperventilation are beginning to ebb. Their laced fingers cling together bruisingly.
“Kousuke,” Hayato says. His brother stares back at him. He presses a deep, fierce kiss to his lips. “You’re okay.” He kisses him again. “We’re okay now.”
After wrenching his hand free, Hayato maneuvers Kousuke from his lap and moves on leaden legs to get the tissue box, pulling out nearly half of its contents as he wipes them both to a state of acceptable dryness. Kousuke watches him woodenly. Some lube clings sticky between his legs, but he doesn’t seem in the mood to deal with it. When handed a pair of sweatpants, he pulls them on after letting out a gusty sigh. They’re Hayato’s, emblazoned with the baseball team’s logo over the thigh and too short for Kousuke’s height.
Hayato dresses himself silently, frowning as he watches his brother. He squats down in front of him, elbows resting on his knees. “You’re okay, Kousuke,” he repeats. “Everything is okay.”
Kousuke murmurs, voice barely audible, “Hayato-niisan.” He flops back against the futon, hands covering his face. He swallows. His Adam’s apple quivers in his throat. He croaks out an ugly laugh. “Hayato-niisan,” he says again. “Hayato-niisan.”
And Hayato yanks him into a tight hug, petting his mussed hair, rubbing at his back, babbling words he hopes are soothing. But Kousuke keeps laughing, his shoulders shaking from the effort.
It’s hard to say when it crumbles into hiccuping sobs.
Outside, an unexpected thunderstorm explodes overhead. Torrential rain wasn’t noted in any weather report for today, but it’s already unfolding with the massive crash and flash of thunder and lightning. Storms exist to be unleashed.
There’s a lake not far from their building. A small one. A big pond, really. Hayato sees it every morning when he leaves their bedroom and has to rejoin the real world. He peers out at it sometimes as he wipes at his kiss-swollen mouth, as he gulps down last night’s stale water to wash away the familiar taste of his brother’s cum from his tongue.
He imagines what the pond looks like right now. Pictures its surface mottled with ripples and the searing burn of violent white light.
Kousuke’s hands rest around Hayato’s waist, his breathing even against his neck. The touch is warm. Reverential. Completely devoted.
Hayato closes his eyes. He breathes.