Work Text:
The streetlights filter in through the smudged and finger-printed window of the restaurant Rosho and Sasara have chosen for their post-practice... chat, of sorts, if you could call their weekly get-together where both of them slide neatly into the same booth and stare at anything but each other while partaking in light conversation a “chat.” Rosho watches the street while Sasara’s story reflects off his eardrums, watches the signs flicker and change as he takes another small spoonful of his pudding, and thinks to himself that if only the familiar weight of his old leather jacket sat across his shoulders, it would be as though nothing had changed. Sasara orders his melon cream soda and Rosho orders his pudding, and it’s as if eight years have melted away in an instant, easy as Sasara’s ice cream melts away under the warm lights of the booth.
They haven’t, of course, because even Sasara’s cheerful gaze is tinged with a hint of something more serious - but Rosho says something apparently funny and Sasara laughs - not his fake laugh, the one Rosho likes to call the “appeasement chuckle” - but his real laugh, the one that sends a spark down Rosho’s spine and a warm bloom throughout his chest. His pudding sits half finished, his cheek sits in his hand as Sasara begins a story about a woman asking him for his number during his last show and the bit he spun out of it - though Rosho’s only halfway listening to the story itself. The clipped and enthusiastic syllables of Sasara’s speech envelop him in some sort of spellbound trance through which his field of vision is narrowed down to the blinding source of light that Sasara has his way of becoming. The years, again, seem to strip away before his eyes as the animated motions of storyteller-spellweaver-Sasara bring a sense of life into the otherwise drab restaurant booth.
Sasara has his way of doing that everywhere, Rosho thinks, studying the comedian as he rambles on. The suit and hair don’t exactly allow anything else to be dull, but in a less dead-literal sense, it’s Sasara’s smile that brings color into any environment. Sasara has his way of making things easy, even when Rei is being Rei and Rosho can barely keep his composure even for the sake of Dotsuitare Hompo’s existence. He’s the catalyst that holds the division together, the sunlight on a rainy day - the thief of Rosho’s pudding, he realizes just a moment too late as deft fingers swipe his spoon and take a chunk out of the pudding. He can’t even find it in himself to be mad about it, so caught up in Sasara and the nothing-short of shit-eating grin he gets flashed, a small smear of pudding lost at the top of Sasara’s lips. Rosho only responds with an embarrassed half-smile and a light swipe to the top of dyed-turquoise hair, pushing up his glasses in a poor attempt to hide the flustered furrow of his brows as Sasara’s laughter echoes through the restaurant.
-
There’s no point in Sasara going all the way back to his apartment so late at night when Rosho’s is just a few streets away, or so Sasara argues. Rosho doesn’t put up a fight - only exaggeratedly plays into Sasara’s wheedling excuses - Of course, sir Nurude, your tired legs would never be able to make it all the way back to your apartment, we simply must go back to mine - in an attempt to get more wondrously earnest laughter out of Sasara. Of course it works, and the shorter man responds by slinging an arm around Rosho’s shoulders and pulling him close as they walk along the streetlight-dappled sidewalk, the quiet murmur of the night-time streets washing over their bubble of serenity.
Rosho has no idea what’s gotten into him to put him in such a bright mood. Perhaps it’s the promise of a week free of Rei until the next practice - the conman has business “elsewhere” - perhaps it’s the lingering essence of the warmth Rosho feels whenever he gets Sasara to laugh the way he does... whatever the case, he’d rather believe it’s the latter. He refuses to allow Rei, even in his absence, be the source of his joy.
He turns back to Sasara, fumbling with the door key, and again - it’s as though they’re young again, whole again, and Rosho puts a pin in that train of thought as he jostles the door open. Sasara’s started a string of key-and-hole related jokes - bright grin refusing to wipe itself off his face as the puns grow dirtier in nature - and Rosho loudly cuts him off as he ushers the giggling comedian inside and shuts the door behind them.
Sasara promptly makes himself comfortable on the couch - as always - and Rosho is all but dragged over to sit next to him. His windows are still partly open, showing a shuttered view of the city; the moonlight casts pale blue stripes across Sasara’s face and Rosho is hit with a crashing wave of emotion that threatens nearly to overtake him before Sasara inches closer on the sofa and bumps their shoulders together.
Rosho takes a moment to reacquaint himself with the situation at hand. Sasara, dyed shades of blue and not-so-subtly trying to worm himself under Rosho’s arm. The quiet whisper of the city outside and the scattering of orange-yellow lights almost makes Rosho wish he were an artist, or at least had a camera on hand - the image of Sasara before the cityscape - their cityscape - is something he wants engraved on the backs of his eyes until he breathes his last.
He finally relents to Sasara’s efforts and pulls him closer, threading his fingers through blue-tinged locks. Idly, he considers reaching over and pulling the cord to bathe the room in warm orange lamp-light, but his heavy eyelids beg to differ with that course of action.
Sasara is warm and heavy against him, steady breaths revealing his equivalent exhaustion. Thoughts of papers to grade and work to complete - having given him a rest for most of the evening, but only now weaving their way back among thoughts of Sasara - are buried beneath the clouds of sleep as Rosho relents and relaxes back into the cushions.
His glasses are still on. He can’t bring himself to remove them.
He thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s made the right decision for once in his life.