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“Oh. You’re… still here.” Touya wasn’t expecting to see Keigo when he opened his eyes this morning, so he’s understandably wrongfooted at the moment. Voice rough with sleep and… probably other things, he wonders, “Isn’t that poor etiquette?”
He slides his head off Keigo’s bicep and does his best not to bury his face in his pillow immediately afterwards in a fit of embarrassment. They were so close just now—was Keigo playing with his hair, or did Touya make that up?
Touya peeks at him and ends up staring. It’s strange to see him without his wings. He knows they’re tiny right now, hardly enough feathers in them to flutter, let alone fly as gracefully as the hero is known to do. Keigo had shed most of his wings last night because they’d get in the way—he had mentioned something about being overstimulated, something about flexibility and having options.
Touya’s hand drifts up to tug on his necklace. Keigo hadn’t wanted him to take it off last night.
But now is not the time to be thinking about any of that. A quick glance at his bedside clock reads 12:04. Keigo is a morning person, so a distant part of Touya, the part that’s not freaking out, is appropriately touched that though the hero has clearly been awake for a while now, Touya woke naturally. He let him sleep in comfortably, a courtesy he was never afforded before they slept together.
The part of him that is losing its shit right now, however, is wondering what the hell Birdie’s deal is, creeping on him as he sleeps like this. It’s like he wants to have an awkward morning after interaction.
“Hmm?” Keigo glances over from the game on his phone—Touya can never remember what it’s called, but he knows Tenko introduced it to the hero—trying to tuck his arm back under Touya’s head. “We don’t have to do anything today. Sleep in some more, if you want.”
We? Touya shakes his head, trying to stay on topic. “No, I mean. This is my place,” he stiltedly explains, unsure why this has to be said. “You’re the one that’s supposed to sneak out.”
Keigo blinks once, then again. All Touya can think about is how he doesn’t need to do that.
“…What.” He looks at his arm where Touya’s head used to be and flexes as if to make sure he’s truly bearing no extra burden. Touya watches, clutching his pillow and pretending he hasn’t noticed how much it smells like the hero now. Keigo draws breath to speak, exhales it, then begins again. Slowly, he asks, “Why would I sneak out?”
Touya is the last person who should be expected to explain hookup culture. He doesn’t make the rules nor understand their principles, he just knows what they are.
Accordingly, he shrugs, “I don’t know. But isn’t this,” he gestures at the two of them sharing his bed, “supposed to be tacky? You would know better than me.”
Keigo disposes of the strange and careful calm that had colored his speech earlier. “What is that supposed to mean?”
His scowl and sharp tone make for more familiar ground, but what’s a singular foothold in an entirely new world? Touya’s jaw feels fused together; he doesn’t know what to say. “Well, you know.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t.” Keigo crosses his arms, sitting up properly.
Touya doesn’t like the hero looking down on him, so he sits up, too, on his side of the mattress. There’s a minuscule sliver of space between them, a no-man’s land.
Agitated, he expands, “I don’t know what possessed you to sleep with me last night, but—”
“Wait, wait,” Keigo waves his hands. “Time out. What do you mean, possessed me?” He frowns, leaning over the divide between them. “Dabs, I’m like, half in love with you?”
Touya chokes, leaning back. “What?!”
“And that’s underselling it! It’s been months! I wasn’t subtle, literally everyone and their mother knows.”
“No, wait—you—”
“Except for your mother, I suppose,” he adjusts. “But I’m sure she’ll figure it out within seconds of seeing us interact with each other, whenever you finally get off your ass and go see her.”
“You know what? Let’s not bring my mother into this.” Touya holds up his hands. “Time out.”
“Ah, so there is a this. See, I was confused,” he drawls, “by your earlier insensitivity.”
“Time out,” Touya repeats, perhaps a bit shrill. “I am so fuckin’ lost right now.”
“Touya,” Keigo interrupts his spiral. He squints at him, titling his head. “Are you serious?”
Touya has no time to spare for Keigo’s questions before he deals with his own confusion. “You like me? You’ve liked me for months?”
“Yes,” he promptly nods. “I thought that was abundantly clear at this point, Hotstuff. What do you think happened last night?”
He looks pointedly at the blanket covering their seminude forms, Keigo wearing a rumpled white tee over his boxers and Touya in only a pair of pants. “Oh, gosh. I wonder.”
“Before the sex,” he groans. “Did our conversation fly completely over your head?”
“We didn’t have that much of a conversation before the sex, Keigo,” he defends. “There was a new vibe, then consent, then sex. That’s how it goes.”
“Touya, work with me here.” He looks up at the ceiling. “A new vibe? That’s what you think?”
“I mean… yes? Your face is saying something else, but,” he shrugs. “I just thought that maybe you were, y’know. Pent up. Curious?” Keigo’s deadpan stare is sharply unimpressed. Touya grasps at straws. “I don’t know, it could have been a hate fuck or something!”
“It very much could not have,” he disagrees, flicking Touya in the center of his forehead. “You could never and I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“What, am I supposed to thank you?” Touya humphs. He doesn’t want to be told about himself.
Keigo is right, of course. Sexual intimacy requires too much trust for Touya to do something so perfectly engineered to backfire. He’s too calculating and he doesn’t like to hurt. His body is precariously put together and his emotions run his life; a hate fuck is simply out of the question. Wires might get crossed on his side of things and then suddenly it’s his ass on the line—sometimes literally. Touya might make a lot of questionable decisions, but he doesn’t purposefully place himself in harm’s way.
Then again, whatever he thought of Keigo’s intentions at the time, Touya still… Anyways. Maybe he’s more hedonistic than he gives himself credit for. Perhaps he’s been overestimating his own intelligence. Either way, it’s probably Keigo’s fault.
The hero tilts his head. “Wait. If you didn’t know about my feelings, why’d you—”
This conversation is embarrassing. He aims at his vanity. “Take a wild fuckin’ guess, Pretty Bird.”
“I’m hot, but not that hot,” Keigo releases a breathy, unfunny excuse of a laugh. Too clever for his own good, he’s amused. Touya is decidedly not. The hero smirks like a smarmy bastard. “Doesn’t that mean you knew that you liked me, too?”
“I didn’t know you liked me at all until you just said so,” Touya dances around a direct answer.
“We’ll deal with that in a sec. You know you like me, though, right?” Touya doesn’t appreciate at all how sure Keigo is that his own apparent sentiments are returned. “Don’t pout at me right now, it’s distracting. Just answer the question.”
Distracting? Right—Keigo likes him. Shit. Touya clears his throat. “I mean. I figured it out, like,” he lowers his voice, as if that’s gonna help, “last night.”
Keigo narrows his eyes. “When, exactly, last night?”
“Mm,” he pinches lips together. Touya avoids eye contact, slowly sliding to lay back down and eventually hide under the blankets, should the need arise. “I prefer not to say.”
When Keigo pampered him for nearly a whole week because he had suddenly become unwell, Touya realized that maybe they really are friends. All the teasing exaggerations of his siblings and the others could be chalked up to platonic regard; Touya’s occasional wandering thoughts and daydreams categorized an embarrassing newfound fanboyism, a minor obsession he’d overcome once the newness wore off. They weren’t even that often, if he thinks about it. Completely benign, pretty mild. Forgettable.
But then, last night, Keigo got weird and it made Touya weird, too. Finally hearing Keigo say his name made him wonder, oh, maybe I do have a real crush? And then having the chance to be held in Keigo’s wings was somewhat enlightening. That paired directly with sharing their first kiss, no break between the two events—well, that kindly eased roughly sixty percent of Touya’s uncertainty about whether or not he had a crush by suggesting that perhaps Touya was already well beyond saving. At that point, he was willing to entertain the idea that the constant teasing from everyone else about his relationship with Keigo held maybe an ounce or two of water. But even then, there was still a nonzero chance that they were just getting too caught up in the moment.
It didn’t take long before Touya decided that regardless of whether or not they were simply getting swept up in it, he didn’t want the moment to end. Even if it all went to shit by morning, as it likely would. It was probably around then that he became reasonably sure that he might be kinda, sorta in love with the hero, like, irrevocably. And, perhaps, upon a bit of reflection that Touya abandoned a fraction of a second into attempting, it’s been this way for a while now.
Like hell he’s saying any of that to Keigo’s face though.
“Okay, you’re driving me insane,” Keigo declares. “Stop touching my feathers for a second so I can think straight while you tell me what’s going through your head.”
Touya drops his necklace like he’s been bit. He hadn’t realized what he was doing, it’s just a comforting habit. Shit, wait—Keigo has probably felt every time he did that. Oh, fuck. Touya doesn’t want to know how often he’s accidentally taken up the hero’s attention. This is humiliating.
He knows his face is turning colors, so he tugs the blanket higher. The hero pulls it back down.
“Staples,” Keigo says.
“Birdie,” Touya acknowledges.
Keigo stares and stares and stares. And then he smiles. Touya probably would have been better off if he had grinned something shiteating or mocking, if it had come with a quip or even a sike! I’ve been trolling you this whole time!
Touya holds his hands over Keigo’s face. “Stop. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” His gaze is unbearably soft, his smile the gentlest Touya has ever seen. It’s obvious. God, it’s so obvious. “Like I’m in love with you? But I really am. What are we gonna do? I even like this part of you.”
“Keigo, c’mon, quit it.” Touya fidgets, trying to hide from the light in Keigo’s eyes and the inexplicable heat it’s generating throughout his body. All that does is instigate Keigo to climb on top of him, caging him in his embrace as his feathers return in a mesmerizing stream back to his wings. “Keigo.”
“Touya,” he sings. “I can’t believe this is the part that embarrasses you. What about when—”
Touya misses the days when just saying his name was enough to get Keigo to do what he says. He holds his hands over the hero’s mouth, glaring as he gathers his dignity.
He wants to know that the hero is sure, so he asks, “So you’re not gonna run away? You want to stay?” Keigo kisses his palms—like that’s an answer. Touya has to yank his hands back to safety next to his rapidly beating heart, barking, “Would you quit that?!”
“I’m not going anywhere, Dabs. God, I could just eat you,” Keigo smiles. He drapes his wings around them, blocking out the rest of the world—and, fuck, the way that makes his eyes glow. Touya’s breath hitches, pinned under that golden gaze. “See? You’re so much more honest like this, Touya.”
He’s getting distracted. Shaking out of it, Touya scowls, “You’re being very annoying right now.”
Keigo lets his feathers ghost across Touya’s skin as he leans closer, nipping at the hinge of his jaw. The hero’s every movement shoots sparks down his spine. “I’m sure you have something more to say, don’t you? Gonna be a little more forthcoming now, Touya?”
“No,” he snaps. Touya has accepted that he’s probably just as obvious as the hero, but now it’s about the principle of the matter. “I don’t. I’m not.”
Keigo just laughs. “I figured as much, contrary bastard. I like that about you, too. Just so you know.”
Impatient, Touya doesn’t bother responding. Enough of that half-assed shit. He pulls the hero off balance, pressing their mouths together. Why would Keigo want to irritate him when they can do this instead?
Because he’s a sadist, Touya decides. Too soon, Keigo pulls back. “Before I forget—”
“Keigo, you said we didn’t have anything to do today,” he reminds him, tugging him closer by his collar. They both know their feelings are returned; what follows should be obvious. “Read the room.”
He speaks through his kiss, batting his lashes. “But I’m curious what Rumi’s shovel talk was like. You might not have recognized it at the time, but now—”
“Huh?” Touya dismisses, “No, Bugs never gave me a shovel talk.” He’s absolutely sure of that; they probably would have gotten here faster if she had.
“Huh?” Keigo sits up. “What do you mean?”
“Shovel talks are my thing,” Touya stretches. He sits up as well; it doesn’t seem like they’re gonna go back to their earlier activities any time soon. “It’s like villainy that’s allowed. No one else does it.”
Keigo blinks, “Do you have any idea how many people came to threaten me over treating you right?”
He snorts, disbelieving. “Please, enlighten me.”
A serious look takes over his features before Touya can reflect on his mistake. Keigo has accepted the challenge. “Fuyumi was the first. Rumi was even there—but that was just to ogle her girlfriend. And, mind you, this all happened two months ago because that’s how long she thought—”
“Okay, okay.” Touya thought he was going to get a chance to mock Keigo if he entertained this tangent, but now he feels embarrassed. “I get it.”
But Keigo is on a roll. “Do you? Because Shouto got his entire class in on it. He called a support group meeting two days after I did. He tricked and trapped me,” he grumbles. “It was too similar to the one I hosted with Shigs to be a coinc—”
“Shigs?” Touya narrows his eyes. Keigo’s gaze flicks slightly to the side, telling on himself, and Touya shoves him. “It was you. You’re the reason Natsu and Tenko are dating?!”
“I’d say it’s more their fault than mine.” He catches Touya’s hands before he can be fully shoved off the bed for the cheeky response. “You’re focusing on the wrong part, babe!”
“Who the fuck are you calling babe?”
Keigo kisses him quiet, a rather quick way to prove his point. Touya instinctively reciprocates until he realizes that he’s making things too easy for the stupid bird, pulling away with a glare. It’s no use; Keigo already looks entirely too satisfied, the bastard.
Pretty privilege must be real because Touya can’t even hold onto his irritation while looking at his face. That, or Touya likes him a lot more than he realizes—and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It’s such a light feeling, it’s warm.
As if their spat never happened, Keigo continues, “Toga came to my agency to threaten me because everyone else in the League broke into my place instead. She said she knew she was early but also that she could already smell it in my blood and she would taste it, too, if I ever fucked up. So that was fun. And then she got caught, so I had to tell this poor new hire that she was my little sister!”
Touya can’t help but laugh. Himiko had refused to tell him the full story behind her suddenly gaining little sister privileges from Hawks, but the punchline was funny enough that he never bothered with the setup. He would have, had he known what he knows now.
“And I know you’re wondering how that excuse even worked, but it’s simple. She wasn’t carrying a bloody knife or wearing her space buns, so she was basically unrecognizable.” He ticks off on his fingers, “Blonde, yellow eyes, sharp teeth, looks good in red—what else could she have been but my sister?”
“A stranger,” he suggests. “Duh. You make your lies way too complicated, Pigeon.”
Keigo pouts. “Dabs, you’re so cute that I’ve been letting you get away with it, but don’t you wanna use more sappy, couple-specific nicknames for me now?”
“No,” he shuts it down. Give this bird an inch and he’ll take the whole world. “That’s embarrassing.”
“It’s not, sweetheart. It’s fun!” He tries to entice him, playing with his hair. “When else can I call you sugar cheeks and get away with it, snookums?”
Touya gags. “Is that what you think you’re doing? Getting away with it?”
He laughs, tangling their hands together. “We gotta experiment with them, find ones we like. Don’t be a coward, Firefly.”
“Says the guy who was too chickenshit to shoot his shot for months.”
“Says the guy who didn’t notice his own feelings for months,” Keigo tugs on his hair in retaliation. “See, it’s ‘cause you have an attitude like this that Natsu didn’t bother threatening me. He was the only one to happily congratulate me, no strings attached—”
Touya rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure, since you helped him get with my boss.”
“—like, yeah, he was a couple weeks early, but it was sweet. Very encouraging. Rika was there, too, and,” he clears his throat. “Well. She was less sweet, but it’s… nice that she’s so protective.”
Touya smirks, “Well, at least somebody loves me.”
“Weren’t you listening? The point is that a lot of people love you,” Keigo drawls.
Touya is, of course, absolutely delighted to learn how many shovel talks were given on his behalf. “Yeah,” he smiles, “I guess they do.”
“You know, this is the first popularity poll I’ve ever lost,” Keigo falls out, overacting his upset as he sprawls across his side of the mattress. “And it’s all because of some archaic practice that makes us pretend that you’re some kind of damsel in distress! How disempowering is that? The whole thing is kinda trashy, when you think about it.”
He shrugs. “Sure. But they’re fun to give.”
“Okay, Villain,” he rolls his eyes. “How unfortunate that you had to miss out on the fun of receiving one. Ugh. So much for me being the public’s universally beloved darling. It’s all a lie, I’m telling you.”
“So dramatic,” Touya pokes his cheek, looking down at him. “You’ll be fine, Birdie.”
“Easy for you to say! Apparently, nobody loves me! No one gave you a shovel talk on my behalf,” Keigo pouts. “Not even my best friend, so she’s dead to me.”
He’s angling for a kiss that Touya provides without a second thought. “Well, I love you, darling. Take from that what you will.”
Keigo stares, opening and closing his mouth. His feathers are all fluffed up and his face is nearly as red. “Wait. You can’t—that’s cheating. Surprise attacks aren’t fair.”
“This whole morning has been a surprise attack, Hero,” he rolls his eyes. He settles back in the bed; it’s time for a midday nap. Hopefully Keigo will have gotten with the program by the time he wakes. “If you have a problem with it, go back to your place.”
“Don’t wanna.” Keigo throws himself atop Touya’s chest, making himself comfortable. “You’ll be upset if you wake up and I’m gone, won’t you?”
Touya catches a mischievous pair of wandering hands. “I will cremate you, Birdie.”
“That’s fine. Do it after my PTO ends.” He winks, “That’ll give me enough time to win you back over.”
Touya thinks it’s in his best interest to shut him up with a kiss or two. They’ll figure it out from there.