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Kaoru's mind is overtaken by the wetness and warmth of Kojiro's mouth. He tilts his head back and sinks further into the soft pillow, grips tighter at the curls sprouting between his fingers. Broken sounds escape from his throat as Kojiro’s fingertips burrow into the soft flesh of his thighs.
It started with a usual night at Sia La Luce, a bottle of Sangiovese, a snarky comment about Kojiro’s dating preferences that snowballed into declarations of want veiled behind sarcasm until they were not anymore and Kojiro was kissing into his mouth like he had been waiting to do it for just as long. He still blames it on the wine, but it was not the wine, it was the way Kojiro looked at him, the open invitation to take what he desired, and the nakedness of it all. Kojiro laid himself bare to take from and give to and give into. Since then, Kaoru finds himself on this bed taking and giving, ordering and complying, tearing and patching up, being torn and pieced together almost every other night.
This is the thing about Kojiro, he makes space for all incongruities and possibilities of Kaoru. Kaoru knows very well that a bedroom is scarcely a place of liberty. The nudity is merely an illusion of intimacy that fools one into believing a bed is a place to be emancipated, that one can reverse or subvert power because they are undressed and alone in a room with someone, but power is learned clothed, so it is exercised as if clothed. Few people—and those only with few others—can make a mockery of it with the crudeness of their nakedness. Kojiro can do that with him.
“Stop.” Kaoru gasps.
Kaoru’s body lacks the wetness and warmth for a moment before it returns to kiss him. It tastes of wine and the salt of Kaoru’s own skin.
“Tell me what you want,” Kojiro says, lips brushing against his as he speaks.
“Open me up.”
And Kojiro does, with dedication.
“More,” Kaoru asks for and receives.
“On your back,” he demands, pleads.
Kojiro flips them with an arm on his waist. He looks struck with want—as he always does whether he is looking up or down or right at Kaoru—like the world is supplying him with the sight of everything beautiful in it through Kaoru's image. He wants to avert that gaze, he wants Kojiro to keep looking at him like that. It is both overwhelming and sating a deep-seated need inside him at the same time.
Kojiro reaches for the base of Kaoru’s ponytail and pulls the hair tie off, pink strands of hair fall over his shoulders and stick to his sweaty skin.
“That, you’re giving me that look again,” Kojiro says.
“What look?”
“You’re trying not to look away.”
Kaoru is left without a response at suddenly being seen through.
“You are really fucking pretty.” Kojiro delivers another blow where he has made a dent.
He takes the dare, holds his gaze for as long as he can then kisses him, open-mouthed and wanting. Kaoru does not know what Kojiro sees in that gaze or in that kiss but to him, it is an attempt to take, an attempt to allow himself to be given.
When Kaoru settles himself on his cock, Kojiro’s fingers find their place tangled in his hair and he pulls. Kaoru lets out an approving moan, encouraging him to keep going. His grip on Kojiro’s thigh tightens and Kojiro’s voice deepens, grows more lustful beneath him. Kaoru keeps his eyes at the ceiling, the whiteness appearing brighter and more encompassing as pleasure spreads through his body. An awareness of the texture beneath his knees digging into the linen sheets rises to his consciousness and fades back. The way Kojiro utters his name is what makes him give in completely to the wave breaking inside.
Kojiro’s hand untangles from his hair and moves to his waist to hold him as Kaoru steadies his breath.
“Keep going,” Kaoru says in between heavy breaths.
Kojiro pulls him down for a kiss and switches their places again. The sheets are warm against his back and Kojiro’s mouth is warmer. It burns a good kind of burn as Kojiro thrusts into him, it only burns good with him. Kaoru does not let anybody else do this to him, to bring pain alongside pleasure. It always felt wrong when others wanted to break him, hurt him as they sought delight. It was as if he came to them broken, scratched up already and they thought they could tear him further apart, but Kojiro is different. Kojiro is tender even in the way he rips apart, he is methodological. He knows how to put him back together without leaving marks where he ripped, and he does not pretend to fix a cut he did not leave. He does not bring out a first aid kit just to get the right to leave a scar on him.
Kaoru gives back with his fingernails digging into his shoulders and Kojiro tugs his lower lip with his teeth. It is always reciprocal between them, fair, no monopolies.
After Kojiro comes panting against his mouth, he nestles in the crook of his neck. His skin is damp with sweat, and he can feel the cum drying on his belly getting sticky, but it does not feel out of place, the indelicacy of bodily fluids covering them after consuming each other. There is space here for any product of nudity: beauty, disgust, ugliness, warmth, hunger, pain, pleasure.
When Kojiro leaves the bed, the sudden lack of his body weight on him and the chemicals flooding his synapses make him feel almost weightless. He revels in feeling not less or more, not marred further or more patched up after getting fucked. All of his lines as they were, all of his scrapes and dents counting up to the same number.
Kojiro returns after discarding the condom and speaks as he sits next to Kaoru, “Let’s take a shower.”
“You mean you will take a shower by yourself .”
“No, I want to take a shower with you .” He pulls him up by his hand and leaves a quick, close-mouthed kiss on his lips. “Come on,” he murmurs.
“Only because I’m so sweaty and disgusting.”
“Exactly, I don’t want to come back to a sweaty, disgusting Kaoru.”
“Say more and I’m leaving you here sweatier and more disgusting and taking that shower by myself.”
Kojiro shakes his head and kisses him once more, grinning. “You can’t resist me.”
“I choose not to. You get really sore when I do.”
“I don’t.” He pulls him up to his feet and drags him toward the bathroom.
“You’re getting sore right now.” Kaoru lumbers behind him.
Kojiro kisses him as soon as they make it into the shower, all hunger and need back on his tongue.
“Should’ve said ‘I want to fuck you again in the shower’ if that’s what you meant,” Kaoru says.
Kojiro keeps kissing him.
“Actually, I want you to fuck me.”
“I can’t stand you.” Kaoru opens the tap on the coldest side without warning and draws a shriek out of him.
“Kaoru!”
“Hands only, I’m tired.”
He turns the tap to warm and kisses him. Kojiro humms, seemingly forgiven him for the shock.
Kaoru makes his way to Sia la Luce again before long. He has a routine: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He comes just before closing time when he is usually the only customer, sits on the same chair on the bar table, orders a carbonara if he needs a lift, asks Kojiro to cook him whatever he wants if he does not, drinks half a bottle of wine or more and ends up sleeping in Kojiro’s bed most of the time. Today, he needs a carbonara, more than half of the bottle of wine, and probably sex too.
Kojiro greets him as he settles into his seat.
“Carbonara and Sangiovese?”
Kaoru nods. As always, Kojiro is able to tell with one look, he brings out the bottle and pours both of them a glass.
“Bad day?”
“Too much work.” Kaoru takes a sip of the wine and the cherry notes mixed with rustic earthiness bring him closer to the relief he needs.
“Want a massage?”
“You are shit at giving a massage, too rough.”
“A good fuck, then?”
“Do you have to be this obnoxious at all times?”
“Just for you, darling.” He disappears into the kitchen with a grin on his face and comes back with a plate of carbonara, sets it on the table. “It’s just work, right?”
“Yeah, there’s this piece really taking up my time, don’t worry.”
“That’s unusual for you, don’t you have a robot making sure your schedule is perfect all the time?”
“I wasn’t expecting this to take so long. Also, she is not a robot.”
“That’s unheard of. You always make sure you know what to expect.”
It is true. Kaoru hates surprises. He likes knowing what to expect, feels safe doing so and he has been doing calligraphy for a long time. He has a good guess of how long a piece will take to complete and his process through it. If an obstacle presents itself, he knows how to deal with it from experience but this time it is different.
“It’s an unusual client, Mashitori-san. He commissioned me for an anniversary gift. The piece will be hung between nude paintings of his partner.”
“That is unusual,” Kojiro confirms with a raised brow.
“I made many pieces for anniversaries but all of them were about love and appreciation, you know the usual stuff.”
“And what’s this about?”
“Desire.” The word is heavy on his tongue. Kaoru has been picking up his brush and dropping it off sometimes without making a single stroke, sometimes before almost finishing the piece, sometimes after writing the same words again and again but it does not work. He does not know what to say or how to say it with his brush.
After consuming a plate of carbonara and more than half the bottle of wine, Kaoru ends up in Kojiro’s room. It starts slow, as it usually does. Kojiro’s lips are soft and rusty from the wine and his hand is warm on his nape. His tongue is slick as it parts his lips and Kaoru hums with satisfaction. He kisses with urgency and hunger and Kojiro kisses back like giving permission to take as he pleases. Kojiro is always so open and allowing. It is as if he sees Kaoru’s need to take, to fill himself with Kojiro, the gap in him that is widening every time. It terrifies him how Kaoru hungers for him more than he ever did for anyone, anything but he cannot keep himself from coming back. Perhaps because Kojiro gives so freely, spreads himself so wide that Kaoru believes he can be sated but the more Kaoru takes, it only grows bigger.
“I still have a wish to be granted,” Kojiro says and he can feel Kojiro’s breath warming his skin.
“Should I?”
“Please.” Kojiro kisses the plea onto his jaw.
Please is a word reserved for this room for Kaoru. Please is a word that exposes hunger and hunger has always been on a tilted scale with others. Please is a word people say or want him to say to conquer. Please is a word Kojiro says with comfort in his hunger, and he says to Kojiro without shame.
He undoes one of the buttons on Kojiro's shirt then slides his fingers under it and pulls it off. His lips are back on Kojiro’s in an instant before he starts removing the rest of his clothes. Every part of him that touches Kojiro moves as if trying to take as much as they can from him. His lips, his tongue, his hands, they take and take and take.
Kojiro settles them into the bed. Kaoru sits up on his lap, reaches for the knot of his obi, and tugs, staring into Kojiro’s eyes. It is meant to be an offering, the way he slides the indigo fabric off his body, to say have me. Kojiro’s sunkissed hand reaches for his milky, taut belly and travels to his neck, slow and admiring. He pulls him down to his lips, kisses him without a hurry.
“You know you are beautiful, don’t you?” Kojiro says.
“I’d still like to be told.”
“Spoiled." He kisses him again. “Pretty.” Then again. “Pretty and spoiled.”
Kaoru kisses along his jaw, down his neck, grazes the skin with his teeth, licks, and sucks to draw out the sounds from him. When he presses the pad of his tongue on his nipple, he feels him shudder and it is the sweetest control Kaoru was ever given. He chases the reactions, whatever he can cause in Kojiro’s body.
“Stop teasing,” he whines as Kaoru’s mouth travels around his inner thighs.
Kaoru complies. He finds the bottle of lube and a condom in Kojiro’s drawer and returns to him, takes hold of his hand.
“Too tired to finger me yourself, pinky?”
“I just like it when you do it.”
“Lazy.” He grins.
He pours the cool liquid on his long, tan fingers and spreads it with his own, moving a little too slow and tender. When Kojiro moves his fingers inside himself, Kaoru muffles the sounds he makes with his mouth. It is messy but Kaoru likes having Kojiro like this, completely in tune with his pleasure.
“Ready.” Kojiro pants.
“Good,” Kaoru murmurs against his lips.
Kojiro takes him like soil ravenous for water, his neck arching ressurrectively like leaves drinking up long-lusted water. He begs for him to move faster. Kaoru obliges. Each thrust into Kojiro is like a slow drip of honey filling his cup, thick, sweet, and sating but the cup breaks, honey oozes out and Kaoru is left with a bigger cup to fill next time as he lets his body fall on his.
After they clean up the cum and sweat off their skin, Kojiro holds Kaoru in comfortable silence until he breaks it, “Why is it taking you so long to finish that piece?”
“Hm?” Kaoru pulls away enough to look at him, “I told you, it’s not like anything I’ve done before.”
“Is it just that?”
Kaoru wonders how he can always see right through him.
“I just don’t understand it well enough to say something with confidence,” he sighs, “or I think I can then I start doubting it.”
“What do you think it is, desire?” Kojiro asks.
“Striving to acquire something you lack,” Kaoru says, his voice rising towards the end.
“Can you acquire a person?”
“No, but you want to and that keeps people going, the impossibility.” Kaoru's voice is just loud enough for the space between their faces.
“What happens when you realize it’s impossible, do you stop?”
“Most people can’t and it makes them more desperate.”
Kaoru’s phone interrupts the silence of his dark, cool room with a buzz. It is a text from Kojiro:
Take Carla and meet me outside.
Do you realize it’s 1:00 in the fucking morning? he answers.
I’m waiting outside!
Kaoru gets out of bed with a groan, changes into a burgundy yukata.
Kojiro is in fact waiting for him outside his apartment, in that ridiculous orange striped shirt of his, hair appearing darker in the moonlit night and a grin on his face to greet him.
“What’s this?”
“A date, I’m taking you on a date on the beach,” he says and flaunts the bottle of wine in his hand.
“ This is your idea of a date I would enjoy? Maybe if you didn’t—”
“Come on pinky, catch up!” Kojiro is already on his skateboard, moving.
Kaoru follows behind him, the summer night breeze flowing around him as he skates into the empty street. The traffic lights keep changing for nobody, the roll of wheels against asphalt disturbs the silence. Kaoru keeps behind Kojiro for a while, staring at his back, his loose curls fluttering, his tan skin obscured by the darkness, his beauty on the open road. He catches up then, passes him and they go the rest of the way taking turns getting ahead of and falling behind each other.
The ocean greets them with its salty breeze when they step into the sand, cold sand particles slipping into his socks. They sit down a few steps away from where waves recede into the water. Kojiro takes out his keys from his pocket and stabs one of them into the cork of the wine bottle, twists it open.
“You didn’t bring glasses, did you?” Kaoru scolds.
“How am I supposed to carry glasses on a skateboard?”
“This plan was faulty from the beginning anyway.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t been inside my mouth now.” He passes the wine bottle to him.
To Kojiro’s credit, he brought his favorite wine, a Brunello di Montalcino that tastes like blackberries, cherries, and chocolate.
“I met Mashitori-san and his partner today.”
“How did it go?”
“Nice,” Kaoru passes the wine bottle, “ they are interesting people. They’ve got it figured out, you know. I've never met two people who exist so comfortably around each other.”
“What does that mean, existing comfortably around each other?”
He shrugs. “It’s just apparent that there’s no shame there. It looks so easy, they are almost like one person.”
“Shame?”
“Yes,” Kaoru staggers, “I think that’s hard to escape in a relationship.”
“How?”
Kaoru digs into the sand with his fingers.
“It’s like people look at me and see a pretty thing, a little broken and they think it wouldn’t matter if they broke me a little further. It’s always that, some twisted exertion of power. I would be ashamed if I let them keep doing that."
"Do I do that to you?"
"Not you." He wants to say more but he does not know how to say it. “Not you.”
“But you keep holding back.”
Kaoru looks at him but Kojiro doesn't wait for an answer.
“You try hard not to look away when I tell you you are beautiful and your hands go shaky when you undress yourself looking at me, sometimes you kiss me because you sense I’m about to say too much and I know you hate waking up early but you do so I don’t make you breakfast.”
Kaoru swallows hard, keeps holding the wine bottle. He takes a second sip, breaking their steady routine.
“Tell me what you think it is,” he says with the alcoholic burn in his throat.
“What?” Kojiro reaches for the bottle.
“What you think desire is.”
“It’s not about lacking something or someone. How can you even lack something you can’t have ? You can’t acquire a person because you don’t lack them.”
“Then what is it?”
“An act? It’s a thing you do. Together.”
“Isn’t that messy?”
“Some things are just messy but simple. People may have convinced themselves that you are something they need to acquire but that's not you. You can't be possessed. You don't try to possess."
Kaoru sighs, puts the bottle down between them and stands up. He reaches for the end of the clam’s mouth knot on his obi.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going for a swim.”
“You don’t swim.”
“I don’t swim in sunlight, there’s no sun now.” He puts his yukata on the sand in a semi-decent fold and throws his socks on top.
“You are driving me crazy sometimes.” Kojiro gets up too, takes his shirt off.
Kaoru is completely naked and his hair is untied by the time Kojiro is out of his very distressed jeans. He walks into the water, it is a little warmer than the cold sand under his feet. When he plunges into the water, it fills his ears, sneaks behind his shut eyelids and stings a little, wraps around his body, and replaces the night chill. He feels the movements of another body disturbing the water behind him shortly after. His lungs demand air again and he swims back to the surface, Kojiro follows suit.
The chill of the night is harsher now that Kaoru is covered in salty water. The buzz beneath his skin wiping his mind clean.
Kojiro combs back the dripping locks of hair away from his face and says, “You are impossible.”
Kaoru swims closer, wraps his arms around Kojiro’s neck. “Can we go back to that later?”
“Okay,” Kojiro sighs, “you should’ve said that before jumping into the water though.”
“I know, sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
Kaoru kisses him, soft and slow and Kojiro kisses back the same.
“You okay?” Kojiro asks.
He doesn’t know if it’s about the water or before that but he answers, “Yeah, don’t worry.” and kisses him again, keeps it slow.
It goes on like that for a few minutes and Kaoru is content savoring him, tuning the glide of his lips with the waves licking up his shoulders. Kojiro is sweet when it is fast, sweeter when it is slow. The ocean water drips down Kojiro’s nape and into the gaps between his fingers. It steals the warmth from Kaoru’s exposed skin and evaporates.
“Let’s get closer to the shore,” Kaoru says when his legs get tired from swimming.
They swim until they can both step on the cold sand beneath the water. Kaoru takes in the sight of him then, the droplet about to slip off his chin, his kiss-tinged lips, his eyelashes stuck together in wet clumps, the glisten of his eyes. Kojiro presses him closer with a hand on his shoulder blade. He smiles at him, recognizing his gaze and kisses him with the curl of his smile lingering in it. It gets deeper and faster while the ocean keeps its pace crashing its waves into their shoulders. Kaoru feels the overwhelming urge to devour and be devoured again, caving in to make space for him. He tries not to. Not to attempt the impossible labor of having him but he does. He digs his teeth into Kojiro’s lip and a shaky moan is all he can gulp. Now that he knows this is not Kojiro giving but simply desiring, letting himself want, and urging him to join, the fact that he can never plaster him into a hole in his being is harder to go against.
“Kojiro,” he pants against his lips, “touch me, please.” Kaoru prays that the hitch of desperation as he says it gets filled with the sounds of waves crashing, that the ocean clothes his starvation.
“No need to beg, sweetheart.”
He relishes the wrap of his fingers and the ocean around him, the stroke of his hand. He can ignore the caving and let Kojiro stream into him even though he knows when he comes the waters will have retreated and all his depressions will be exposed again.
The next night, Kaoru is in Kojiro’s bedroom again despite it being Sunday but Kojiro took him inside without any questions, offered him wine, kissed him when he got tired of bickering, and let him take his clothes off. Kaoru untangles their lips, looks down at Kojiro from where he is seated on his lap. His pupils are dilated, his lips are ruddled from Kaoru’s, his hair is tousled from Kaoru’s fingers. His eyes flirt around Kaoru’s face in return and Kaoru feels the heaviness of being seen like something pretty.
“Kojiro,” he says in a crumbling voice, “tell me how I’m supposed to do this. How do I just—” take what I want? make peace with the mess? He doesn’t know the right way to say it.
“Hey,” Kojiro cups his face, leaves a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth,”it’s easy. You already know how to.”
Kaoru closes his eyes, gives a little shake of his head.
“Listen,” he brushes Kaoru’s hair away from his face, “most things are beautiful in their own way but you are beautiful in an encompassing way, like everything and nothing at once. I don’t want to take from that. I know I can’t contain you and I know I want you not because I realized I’m lacking you. I want you ‘cause that’s a thing I can do. I want you and it won’t go away once I have you so I let it happen, let it come and go and return. I know that’s how it goes and I’m okay with that.”
“It feels like my body is struggling to keep a part of you.”
“That’s not what it’s actually doing. Wanting something bad doesn’t mean possessiveness. Hunger, thirst, they both return. It’s the same thing. Just let it come and go. I’ll be here when you feel it, I’ll give you whatever you want. You don’t have to keep anything.”
Kaoru kisses him, tries to do only that, tries not to grapple.
“I don’t have to keep anything,” he repeats against his lips.
“You don’t.”
The warmth of Kojiro’s fingers trails over his skin as he undresses him and his mouth follows. Kisses petal out of his lips and Kaoru’s skin ripples beneath them. There is newfound emancipation in being touched like this, being wanted so freely.
“What do you want?” Kojiro asks.
“So much.”
“Anything. Anything you want."
Kaoru presses the pads of his two fingers on Kojiro's lips and he welcomes them into his mouth. He slides his fingers in, against the slick surface of his tongue. Kojiro encloses them in his mouth, like he is being fed. Kaoru scissors his fingers and feels the vibrations of a moan being stifled at the back of Kojiro’s throat.
“Beautiful.” Kaoru exhales. “I want to fuck your mouth.” He pulls his fingers out, a string of saliva bridges their bodies, twinkles.
“Do it,” Kojiro urges.
Kaoru rises to his knees, cups Kojiro's chin, and brushes his thumb against his lips. Kojiro opens his mouth, keeps his eyes on him as he thrusts into it. The curls falling on Kojiro’s nape are damp with sweat under his fingers. Kaoru lets all the sounds escape from his throat as Kojiro’s fingers hold onto his thighs. With his long eyelashes and lust-rusted cheeks, Kojiro is beautiful. Desire buds into a pleasure-bearing tree inside Kaoru.
He pulls out before it spills out of him. Kojiro wipes the saliva off the corner of his mouth, not like wiping away repulsing leftovers to restore dignity but with bliss and pride. Kaoru sits back on his lap, kisses him.
“Fuck me, here on your lap, ” Kaoru says in between kisses.
They start slow, rocking more than thrusting. Kaoru puts as much of his skin on Kojiro’s as he can, not because he hopes some of him seep through his pores but because he wants to. He wants more of his skin, wants to be greedy because he can, wants his greed to not hurt, wants to welcome it and let it be the fertilizer of his pleasure. Kojiro’s hands clasp around his waist and Kaoru urges him with a moan. Kaoru’s body becomes a mere shell for the sweetness Kojiro pours into him, a vessel for the relish. When Kaoru comes, it is not waters retreating from his depressions or a cup being replaced with a bigger one to fill, it is every container Kaoru made to store Kojiro breaking.
Kaoru settles his chin on Kojiro’s sweat-beaded shoulder and Kojiro collects the locks of hair splayed over Kaoru’s back with tender fingers and lays it over his shoulder. He leaves a kiss on the commissure of Kaoru’s ear, then on his neck.
“I want miso soup for breakfast and an omelet, with cheese.”
Kojiro chuckles. “Anything you want, princess.”
When Kojiro kisses him again, Kaoru’s lips stretch to match the curve on his. He doesn’t feel the need to fill up his vacancies. He is content, complete, like an atom in its emptiness.