Work Text:
It starts with a simple question. A mere eight words.
“Did you know that sex can be a great workout?”
It comes out of left field, in the midst of a comfortable silence that stretched in the space between Shinjiro, lazily browsing through a mail-order catalogue on Akihiko’s bed, and Akihiko studying at his desk.
And it elicits a snort out of Shinjiro, who sits up against the headboard and tilts down his magazine.
“Oh yeah? Where’d ya hear that?”
Which prompts Akihiko to close whatever textbook he’d been perusing through, set it neatly back on the desk, then spin the chair around to face him.
“The guys on the team were talking about it.” he says matter-of-factly, like that was a normal thing to be talking about, “Apparently, it’s a really good workout for the vastus muscles, and it can burn a lot of calories.”
“The vastus muscles.” Shinjiro repeats plainly, then with a little more doubt, “The… thighs?”
Akihiko grins at that, like he was proud Shinjiro knew his anatomy. “Yeah. Or, well, it depends on the position, but there’s one called like ‘cowgirl’.” Then, without missing a beat, “It can burn two-hundred and twenty calories for the person on top, whereas the average fifteen-minute jog burns about one-hundred and sixty-five on average.”
“The hell?” Shinjiro starts incredulously, a knee-jerk reaction, because what the fuck. “You and your boxing teammates were just talking about this shit after practice?”
It’s normally the part where Aki would fumble a bit, but, even at Shinjiro’s challenging glance, he continues.
“Yeah? We’re always talking about training. Or at least that’s the only stuff I end up remembering. It’s mostly just dating stuff otherwise.”
“Training.” he repeats dryly, the word more than tired on his tongue, “You got a point to all this or were you just tired of studying?”
“Well, if you’d let me get to it,” Aki huffs, a tinge of irritation colouring his tone. He stands up, shelving his book before plopping himself down across from Shinjiro.
“I wanted to try it.”
Shinjiro’s first thought is quick. Something along the lines of There’s no way he’s serious.
“Good luck finding a partner.” he scoffs, decidedly switching his attention back to the neglected periodical, flipping the page. Because the idea is ridiculous. The implication that came Akihiko saying that after sitting down beside him –
It’s ridiculous. He’s not going to bother thinking about it any more than that.
Akihiko, however, presses on. His finger reaches into the bending spine of the glossy paper, tipping it down. “Are you saying you're not interested?”
“Me?”
“Well, we normally train together, so…” Aki says simply, peering up at Shinjiro from the top lip of the magazine. As if this and spotting each other’s reps were at all comparable.
Shinjiro says nothing though, easily concealing any sign of his stupefied silence beneath a contemplative hum and his usual firm scowl. His eyes flick to meet Aki’s. Skeptical, but not quite disapproving. Akihiko’s not smiling, doesn’t have that wriggling, shifting grin when he had the idea for a joke but couldn’t hold his enthusiasm in long enough to deliver it.
So, Shinjiro squints. Studies the lines of his face more closely, looking for some insight into his head, some indication that he’s just joking, even though Aki’s Aki, ever-aloof wears-a-speedo-to-the-beach Aki, who up until just two minutes ago, Shinjiro doubted had even the slightest clue about sex.
Are you really that desperate? Shinjiro itches to say, because he doesn’t really get why else Aki would be asking. If he really is randomly – and uncharacteristically, might Shinjiro add – horny enough to drop this on him out of the blue, couldn’t he at least man up and do it without the extra pretenses?
Shinjiro chews his lip. He supposed Aki’s always been a bit awkward, though, no matter how reckless he gets. If he needed all the smokescreen and bluster – the cover story of training – to shield himself from the embarrassment of having human desires then, well, Shinjiro’s not gonna call him out for his cowardice.
Well, not this time, at least.
There’s nothing duplicitous in Akihiko’s eyes. No ulterior motive, no sign that he’s just been hanging around Junpei too much. Only that familiar challenging glint – like an oil fire burning out on a grey sea, bold and bright and undeniably dangerous – and a slight edge of uncertainty at Shinjiro’s persistent scrutiny.
A scrutiny that ends with a clenched fist and an exasperated mental Ah, fuck it.
“So, what?” Shinjiro relents, entertaining the thought just a little further. For curiosity’s sake. “You’re proposin’ that I give you a ride, is that it?
“I didn’t word it like that, but yeah, I guess.” Akihiko rolls his eyes, "But I’ll be doing the work, just so we’re clear. That’s where the burn comes from.”
Shinjiro briefly wonders if Aki has any idea how ridiculous he sounds, but that question has an easy answer. No, and he wouldn’t care anyway.
“Right,” Shinjiro clicks his tongue, “I’m just providing the equipment.”
Akihiko chuckles at that.
“That’s a good way of looking at it, actually.” he replies, as if Shinjiro wasn’t joking but had been instead entirely serious. He stands, flexing his arms out behind his back before lunging to stretch his legs.
“Alright. Gonna need you to lie down first, Shinji.” Aki instructs as he twists loose his torso.
And Shinjiro, for lack of better word, just blinks at him.
“Hah? You wanna do this now?”
“Hm? I’m ready, so why not?” Akihiko answers with, oblivious as ever to the fucking implications of that kind of statement. But before Shinji can even say anything about that, he barrels on, unrelenting.
“I’ve done my research. A lot of work, you know. I hope it’s worth the results.”
“W-Wait. Are you tellin’ me you’ve already –” Shinjiro swallows, trying to find the words as his mind races, “Prepped for this?”
Akihiko scrunches his face at him like that was somehow a stupid question.
“Uh, yeah? I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t.” he says, “Are you game or not?”
Shinjiro’s mouth opens, then closes. If he was honest with himself, which he rarely is nowadays, just the talk of sex has got his dick twitching up in interest. The idea that Aki has already gone and stretched himself has Shinjiro shifting a bit in his seat trying to minimize any visible interest in the idea.
“I… guess.” he finally yields, sucking in a sharp breath and steeling himself enough to finally meet Aki’s eye. He tries not to wince as he adds, “You got a condom?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll go get the stuff. I left it in my bag.”
The stuff, he says. So fucking casually too.
And then he’s walking out, leaving Shinjiro to stew in the decision he’s made. The decision he’s committing to, he informs himself, as he kicks off his slacks and sits on the ledge of Aki’s bed. Because now there’s a tent poking out of his crotch that he’d more than appreciate some help in dealing with.
Which is what he’ll blame his increasing interest in seeing Aki deal with on. Clouded judgement, lust-impaired rationality. As if he’s not entirely lucid.
He wishes he wasn’t. It’d make this a whole lot easier. Anticipation simmers low in his belly, foreign and restless and twisting. His hand itches to palm himself in the quiet interim, but he refrains, scratching the back of his neck instead while he waits for Akihiko to retrieve the supposed Stuff.
Which turns out to be a bottle of lube and a roll of condoms, when he finally returns. Proudly displayed in each hand, because of course he’s not even trying to be discreet about this.
Shinjiro reels at the sight. Because up until about half a second ago, he was still trying to convince himself this was all some big joke. Weird dream, maybe.
But then the door clicks shut, clicks a second time to lock, and then Aki’s stripping to match Shinjiro’s state of undress. Wrenches his belt free and lets his loose slacks fall to the floor, before sitting down on his haunches right at Shinji’s side.
“This should fit you, right?” he says, a shiny aluminum square in his palm.
Shinjiro at least has half a mind to shut his big gaping mouth, but he’s struck dumb, mind running a mile a minute because he still can’t wrap his head around the fact that Aki’s serious about this. Sitting – in a pair of tight red briefs, knees neatly tucked under his thighs – on his bed with his lip bunched pensively into his cheek.
“Uh. Probably?” Shinjiro replies, once he’s figured out how to use his tongue again. Ain’t like he could tell just off some brandless wrapper.
He sits up a little more properly, takes the proffered foil packet from Akihiko’s hand to examine it.
“Where did you even… get this?” Shinjiro’s drawn to ask, because he can’t see the Aki he knows braving the aisle of the pharmacy where they actually sold this shit. Let alone the cashier afterwards.
“Oh, Mr. Edogawa handed it out,” he answers, which makes a lot more sense, “I didn’t expect to have a use for all this, but I’m glad I kept it.”
Aki’s way too nonchalant about this, Shinjiro decides. The only indication of any anxiety manifests in the fidgeting fingers as they fumble free the buttons of his sweater vest.
“Are you really sure about this?” he asks just one more time, glancing back up as Aki moves to saddle himself on Shinjiro’s knees.
“What, are you chickening out, Shinji?” he responds in a chuckle, depositing the red heap of fabric around the head of the far bedpost.
Shinjiro scoffs at that, clenching his teeth with a dismissive wave of his hand. So much for showing concern, then.
He feels a little unease roiling in his own stomach, is all. He doesn’t just see Aki, he can feel the weight and warmth of his body pressed so immediately against his own. And there’s an unfamiliarity there, which makes sense. They’re close, too close and in a way too different to any closeness they’ve shared before.
But alas, he’s still bulging out of his boxers, because no matter how strange this might be for them, however new the territory they’re stepping into, there’s an undeniable appeal in the sight of Aki stripped to his dress shirt and briefs perched neatly on Shinjiro's legs.
The contact between their bodies is something new, too. Electric. The friction kindles sparks of white-hot static that scatters across his skin and seeps into his every muscle, his every nerve. It’s hard not to wonder if it’s Poly’s doing.
And yet, Aki seems to pay it no mind, immune. He’s got that overly confident, insufferable expression on his face, with those determined furrowed brows and thoughtfully pursed lips. He tugs down Shinjiro’s boxers enough to carelessly slide them off without thinking to warn Shinji about it, shimmying forward and resettling himself on the newly bare thighs.
“Wow, you’re already hard?” Akihiko has the gall to say while Shinjiro’s still mouth-open dumbstruck, which has the fortunate consequence of snapping him out of it so he can scowl at Aki instead.
His brow twitches in irritation. How could he not be? It wasn’t like some secret that Aki was attractive – he had a fucking fan club for a reason. Even Takeba would agree with that, albeit he imagines with… a bit more reluctance than he’s willing to.
“Shut up,” Shinjiro sneers. Eager to regain some footing, he snatches the bottle from Aki’s hand, muttering “And give me that.”
There’s no way he’ll be able to forget the sight of Aki’s hand wrapped around his dick, so Shinjiro rips off the foil wrapper and rolls the condom down the length himself.
Akihiko’s still there, of course, in his periphery, watching with eager eyes as Shinjiro squeezes out a generous amount of lube onto his palm and slathers it over the latex.
“Hey, don’t use it all.” he whines.
Shinjiro snaps the lid closed with a quick clap from his palm. “Tch. What, we gonna do this again?”
“If it has good results, then of course.” Akihiko answers simply, and really, what was Shinjiro expecting him to say?
“Get on with it then.” he huffs. It’s an off-hand comment, one that doesn’t at all reflect his complete unpreparedness nor the stupor Shinjiro enters when he sees Aki casually slip off his briefs then shift onto his knees, hovering just over the reddened tip.
But, before he’s even got a chance to process that, Aki’s already lowering himself, guiding the girth against his entrance with a clumsy palm. The ring of muscle gives around the hot flesh, and suddenly he’s sinking down, each inch buried and encased in a tight, delicious warmth that makes Shinjiro’s head spin.
He bites down a groan, keeping his eyes down, transfixed on Aki’s body as he eases onto the mean of the shaft. The thew of Aki’s thighs tense and slacken with the strain, his shirt riding up his abdomen, rising and falling in clipped, laboured breaths.
Shinjiro's hands instinctively move to hover over his hips to steady him, only to be hastily swatted away.
“No touching,” is the heady, laboured response that follows, hoarse and hard. There’s a surge of arousal that comes with the bitten words, slipped quietly through Aki’s teeth as he continues to lower onto him. Shinjiro’s fists grasp for the sheets beneath instead, gripping on tight as their bodies finally meet flush against one another.
Aki’s breaths come in soft pants along the fringes of Shinjiro’s vision as he adjusts to the size. Shinjiro appreciates the interlude, because even his trained and stoic façade threatens to crack and crumble under the squeezing heat of another body on top of his own, the catching sight of toned thighs bowed on either side of his abdomen, and that’s not even considering who those thighs belong to.
“You alright?” Shinjiro asks hesitantly, against the electricity that bounds and flurries beneath his skin.
Akihiko doesn’t answer, not verbally. Instead, he rocks forward and back, seemingly testing the waters, his scope of motion. Shinjiro’s fingers flex and bunch the fabric, seething out a breath at the sensation that racks up his body in every slight change in angle. Shinjiro can feel himself throb against his walls, aching to move, to feel Aki. To make Aki feel him.
Shinjiro knows better, though, with how insistent Akihiko was on ‘doing the work’. He’s not exactly in the mood to hear Aki’s nagging while he’s got his cock inside him.
Not that he’s complaining about that last part.
So he grits his teeth, bites down on his need and keeps his hips still. As if mesmerized, as if he didn’t know better, Shinjiro’s eyes stay locked along the curvature of Akihiko’s spread form as he ruts more urgently against his crotch; taking the leap to finally pitch his hips up by the barest margin, before lowering onto Shinjiro once again.
And then he stills, suddenly, and Shinjiro’s brows furrow in concern as he looks up. He finds Aki’s mouth spelled out in a wordless gasp, his brows lifted from their focus.
“Oh,” he whispers, soft with surprise, “T-That feels… strange.”
“Strange.” Shinjiro repeats, feeling a bit like he had cotton for a tongue. There’s not much else he can think to say with Aki – his best friend of over a decade, Aki – mounted on his dick.
He swallows harshly. “Think it’s natural for something in your ass to feel weird at first.”
“N-No… It’s different from when I had my fingers there earlier.” Akihiko replies, voice breathier than it had been. He’s settled down nicely now, his half-hard cock dangling between his legs over Shinjiro’s abdomen.
“Different how…?”
Akihiko doesn’t answer. He bites his lip in concentration, and then Shinjiro feels it, the deliberate motion – how he angles forward, knees pressing insistently into the mattress as he lifts himself up, then sinks down onto the back of his calves until Shinjiro’s buried to the hilt.
“– nh…” It’s a breathy, stifled sound that follows. Not quite a moan. “T-There it is again.”
Shinjiro feels dizzy. He’s almost got half a mind to grab Aki, to stop him from moving, but he’s entranced by Akihiko’s honest exploration, his mind hazy from the tight heat enveloping his cock. He groans as Akihiko rolls his hips up again, and then, more confidently, a third time.
Another sound: a little longer, a little louder. A moan, if he dares to call it that. And no matter how badly he wants to, Shinjiro can’t deny just how hot Aki sounds like that. The bed creaks gently with Akihiko’s insistent rocking, building into a feverish tempo as he gains confidence, as he relaxes around the intrusion.
“Ah,” he puffs, and he clenches around Shinjiro, body pulsating around the length. Shinjiro’s been trying not to look, but his focus reflexively darts back up to Aki’s face. His head is tipped to the ceiling but his eyes flit downcast, meeting his gaze.
And then his mouth opens, his voice shaky, filled with need as he whispers, “S-Shinji,”
Oh fuck.
“Yeah?” Shinjiro replies, as steady as he can will his voice to sound.
“It feels good,” Akihiko says, in a low, throaty whimper, “Why does it… feel like that?”
And then, like a brick, it hits him. Aki wasn’t playing dumb earlier. Wasn’t just trying to protect his pride under the fragile guise of training. Wasn’t orchestrating some elaborate corny ploy just to skirt around the fact that he had desires like any other man.
No, he genuinely thought – this was training.
The whiplash is momentarily stoppered by the dizzied, flushed look on Aki’s face as his mouth slackens and gapes because he won’t stop fucking moving and it’s making it a whole lot harder for Shinjiro to think straight. There’s a fog over his mind and each uncertain whimper and shuddering breath only thickens it; a haze that muddles and melts away any attempt at coherency.
He gathers his words just enough to rasp out, “Aki, what do you - think you’re—doing?”
His hands seize the flesh of Aki’s outer thighs on impulse, only for Akihiko’s palms to wrap over his knuckles in silent protest to Shinji’s touch as he continues jerking his hips up and down in a manic rhythm.
“T-Training.” Akihiko answers in a gasp, arching his back, “I-It’s not training if you’re not – hah – working up a sweat.”
Shinjiro thinks he might lose his mind if he keeps this up, training be damned. It’s so much all at once: the wiry muscle of Aki’s legs moving fluidly beneath his palms, the warm shaking hands on top of that, and the fucking sounds he’s making. The air fills with the scent of heat and musk, raw and impassioned and thick, permeating through his every pore.
He should stop this, probably – something Shinjiro only figures in the far recesses of his mind, where all of his logical thoughts have gone, apparently. But if Aki really is that fucking oblivious, then Shinjiro should step in as the responsible one and educate him on intimacy and consent and all the implications that he’s apparently been blind to this whole time.
But Aki looks too damn good like that, bouncing on his cock all frenzied and frenetic, the softer back of his thighs clapping against Shinjiro’s own, eyes blown dark in lust and his lips wet and parted, crying out in a string of husky moans. A frisson of want runs hot down Shinjiro’s spine, and his resolve budges and cracks like the cement of a collapsing dam.
“A-Aki,” Shinjiro groans, strangled, and it’s all he can get out before Akihiko’s movements punch the objection from his mouth into a weak and spluttered moan. His fingers press red moons into the milky flesh, desperate and aching, and Aki’s still there looking at him, making it so much worse, so much more intense and personal and intimate.
“Shinji…” he says again, out into a shaky sigh. His hips roll up and down in a cyclical rhythm, like the motions of a turning wheel. “Does… Does it feel good for you, too?”
Aki’s voice is soft with its strain, the sight and sound of his pleasure palliative, absolutely hypnotic. His hands, still wrapped over Shinjiro’s like an ill-fitting blanket, press against the dorsal backing. He spreads the webs between each knuckle and slots his fingers like puzzle pieces into the spaces between.
“Yeah – ah,” Shinjiro pants back, rough and ragged and thunderous as he struggles to keep his hips still in compliance, “Feels fuckin’… incredible, Aki.”
His pace isn’t regular or steady. It’s wild. Burning. Base. Mesmerizing not in its metronomic rhythm and even beats, but in its impassioned clumsiness. The movements are confidently unmetered, unrestrained, just like Aki’s always been. No holds barred.
His legs are shaking. Distantly, Shinjiro figures the position must be hard to maintain, even for someone as stubborn as him. Akihiko’s arms have migrated behind his back, bracing himself with a white-knuckle grip on the meat of Shinjiro’s thigh. His shirt slides up further and further, the ironed white fabric rumpling into turns and carving a nice triangular window of his trembling navel.
It makes for a stunning view, Shinjiro will lend him that. Aki spread out open on top of him, his cock bobbing with each quick draw up and down, his body eagerly swallowing all of Shinjiro’s girth. Need creases at his brow, his lips lined wet with the pearls of drool that spill from his opened mouth, and yet he’s relentless. Still so enthusiastic, so hungry and zealous.
Shinjiro can’t help himself, not with a sight like that presented to him. His hips twitch up into that maddening tightness, and he revels in the belt of pleasure that guns up his chest and flurries into his veins, that exhilaration of repossessed control.
Akihiko’s face flashes, his mouth spilling open in a wordless cry as his ass reflexively constricts around Shinjiro. His eyes shoot open, his hitching breath accelerating in the excitement that mantles his skin.
And there’s something there, new ground to be broken, so Shinjiro jerks up into him in a tentative thrust, more deliberate this time. Akihiko’s middle folds, and his expression cracks wide to something anguished, something vulnerable and desperate.
He cants overhead, anchoring onto Shinjiro’s shoulders to scaffold himself. Akihiko squeezes the muscle of his arms as Shinjiro’s hands seize onto his lower back, guiding him even as Akihiko’s listless, syncopated movements continue to drag on. Ever tenacious.
“Ah, hah. G-Gonna take over, Shinji?”
Even now, he’s still mouthy. There’s conflict warring on his face, a there-and-gone battle between giving in to what feels good and hanging onto his precious pretenses. But Shinjiro bucks his hips up again, and the fight is easily won.
Akihiko leans further forward – their faces spanning mere inches apart, his gasps wet and warm where they fall on Shinjiro’s skin – and he readjusts to accommodate the change in position. Akihiko’s thighs buckle and slide to straddle either side of his stomach in wordless concession, while Shinjiro parts his own to widen his range of movement.
From there, Shinjiro tries a few exploratory thrusts, testing different angles, different levels of intensity, different rhythms and paces. And he learns quickly what it is Aki likes, what makes him shudder and clench and –
“—inji, gh-good –”
moan out, head thrashing from the ceiling down to look at Shinjiro. Akihiko’s forehead presses against his for the briefest, most transitory moment, cheeks flushed and eyes lidded, before Shinjiro drives into him again and his face flings into the haven of Shinjiro’s collar instead.
There’s an attempt there, to muffle himself, like Aki finally realized just how loud he’s being. He bites hard on his lip, the squeezed-out cries mouthed against the sensitive flesh of Shinjiro’s throat.
Shinjiro’s not in much better shape, he’ll lend him that. Can feel his brows screwed together in rapture, his dry throat rasping out groans that he can barely discern over the rapid thumping of his own heart.
Perhaps characteristically, it’s unrestrained – full, hard, primal thrusts – that Aki likes most, that makes him clutch onto a fistful of Shinjiro’s hair and pull brutally against the grain. And all Shinjiro can do is clench his jaw and fight the encompassing heat of Akihiko’s body, the consuming coil that tightens and flares with each erratic drive of his hips.
It’s hedonistic, driven by a wild animalistic need that he thought had been long buried beneath the pool of cement poured in by the suppressants. The position makes it difficult to maintain a steady pace, but Shinjiro pushes on, digging his heels into the plush give of the bedding and fucking up into Akihiko at an unruly pace, no rhyme or rhythm or reason to it.
And Aki’s body rocks forward and back with each deep thrust, his cock dragging against the soft flesh of Shinjiro’s abdomen. His palms curl around the circle of Akihiko’s waist, the sprawl of his spine slicked in sweat that Shinjiro’s grip slides along, losing leverage before grasping blindly for a new place of purchase, a new expanse of skin to mar with his rough hands.
“Ngh—! Shinji! I – I’m…!”
He trails off, voice lost to a shattered cry, but Shinjiro doesn’t need Aki to say anything more, not when he feels it too: that winding pressure low in his gut, simmer rising to a boil. Each word is punctuated by a wretched moan, breathless and clipped, sounding almost like hitching sobs if not for the absence of tears down his face.
The sounds smudge together, an incoherent amalgamation of half-broken syllables and slurred pleas – sometimes gruff, hoarse things, other times weak and pitiful, downright obscene and too lewd to attribute as anything else than raw chants of pleasure.
Akihiko’s body pulls taut, tucking his head under Shinjiro’s jaw and against his neck. There’s low, mangled noises whispered into the flesh, wet and protracted, voiceless begging for mercy, for more, as he tries so hard to hold on. Stubborn as always.
But it’s a futile struggle against the current, against the cresting waves of pleasure, and Akihiko is quickly consumed by it, coming in a sharp cry as he yanks hard on that same ruff of Shinjiro’s hair.
And lured in by the sight, Shinjiro falls to it himself, eyes screwing shut as his thoughts fizzle and blank. His muscles seize, jolting up convulsively as his climax takes him. He smothers a wracked moan into Akihiko’s clavicle, something long and guttural and pathetic, not that Aki can hear it in his own whited-out satisfaction.
Akihiko is lying limp on his chest when Shinjiro comes to, opening his eyes again to the sight of his best friend’s back from over the knoll of Aki’s shoulder, glossy with sweat and heaving still.
“Fuck, Aki,” he groans. His grip unfastens in increments, each in a quavering exhale. The first indication of Aki’s consciousness comes in a gravelly laugh as his fingers, locked in a vice grip on the back of Shinjiro’s scalp, finally release him.
“You always… get carried away.” Shinjiro whispers, voice a crackling rasp as his breath rattles in exertion. The back of Akihiko’s neck is damp and sticky but he runs his hand down the silvery tufts anyway, wrapping loosely around his nape.
“Mmfh… yer one t’talk…” is all Aki says by way of mumbled rebuttal, mouth slack against the junction of Shinjiro’s collar. He lifts his head up just enough not to slur his words, forehead pressed into the column of his throat.
“That was… a lot more fun than a fifteen-minute jog…”
And Shinjiro’s breath hitches, his hand hesitating over Akihiko’s back. His entire body stills when Akihiko’s face pitches up in silent question, finding himself at a loss for words.
There’s a sweet numbness that comes with his gratification, like spilt water over the circuitry of his mental faculties, but he reaches in and grasps for some semblance of his rationality.
“It’s…” Shinjiro starts, swallowing thickly, “We – shouldn’t do this again.”
To his surprise, Akihiko just chuckles at that, as if he was surprised by Shinjiro’s sudden sheepishness. Shinjiro’s brows crease, palms tentatively landing against the skin he’d been so ruthlessly groping at just minutes ago.
“Aki, I’m serious. Havin’ sex ain’t just burning calories. It’s – not a decision to make so haphazardly. I thought –” He pauses, lips against Akihiko’s temple as he wrestles for the words, “I thought you were just shy about wanting it. Not that you were… actually that dense.”
“Well… It’s not like they teach what it’s like between guys…” Aki answers quietly, fingers idly carding through the wild shocks of Shinjiro's hair, “I didn't realize that it’d feel like that. Thought only… girls got pleasure from it.”
Shinjiro’s chest rings out in a short wet laugh, disarmed by disbelief.
“I… shoulda stopped it. When you started talkin’ like that.”
Akihiko pulls his head back to face Shinjiro's, arms still wrapped comfortably in a wreath around his neck.
“No.” Aki rejects him simply. He looks down almost timidly, but after a short pause adds, “I didn’t want to stop, Shinji, I… liked it.” His expression changes, brows furrowing as he huffs, “And you did too. Don’t try and lie about that.”
Shinjiro must make a face, because Akihiko’s twists into something disapproving, his hand sliding into the bangs that cling to Shinjiro’s slick forehead and flipping them back.
“I knew it was… intimate…” Aki admits, his typical awkwardness bleeding into his tone, “But I was curious, okay? And you’re someone I trust. A lot. Happy now?”
Well, Shinjiro wouldn’t say happy, per se. More relieved, maybe feels the tiniest bit smug, but –
“Yeah. A little,” he tells Aki anyway. And Akihiko rolls his eyes at him, shifting idly to rest his head on Shinjiro again.
The readjustment has the unfortunate consequence of alerting Shinjiro to the presence of limpened cock, still half-nestled inside Akihiko, and the release bunched into the beetled latex tip.
“Aki, m’gonna need you to get off me for a sec.” he says, in interest of not making any more of a mess than the one smeared between their stomachs. Akihiko makes a muffled noise of protest before rolling off, allowing Shinjiro to sit up and tie the condom in a half-assed knot.
He leans over, making a note of the box of tissues at Akihiko’s bedside as something to tease him for later when he’s not actively making use of it himself. He’d prefer something damp, but for now he’ll settle for not having to worry about hearing Aki complaining about dried come on his sheets.
Aki, whose arms are still coiled warmly around one of Shinjiro’s own, eyes closed gently in such an unfamiliar state of peace that he’d feel guilty pulling away. It makes cleaning up a one-handed effort, but he gets through it with some clumsy scrubbing, finding himself grateful that Aki’s trash bin is only an arms-length away from the ledge of the bed.
He feels a tug at his forearm as he deposits the evidence, looks down to find Aki staring back up at him.
“Are you staying?” he asks quietly, as if Shinjiro would want to leave, let alone want to enough to try walking out of here with how wobbly his legs feel.
Still, Shinjiro hesitates. Sleeping in Aki’s bed means waking up beside him, which feels decidedly like a big jump in their friendship. A bigger jump than sex, somehow.
And the look on his face, too, says that Aki might enjoy some post-training cuddles, but that’s another jump, isn’t it? They haven’t – they haven’t cuddled since they were kids, kids who didn’t much care about anything other than being warm at night.
“If you want.” Shinjiro offers anyway, because he’s tired and weak and certainly not because he’d maybe also enjoy that.
Akihiko doesn’t respond with words. His eyes flutter shut, and he tugs again at Shinjiro’s arm. And Shinjiro lets himself be tugged, lets himself fall back against the sheets, and lets Aki cozy up at his side, slot their legs together and breathe out a contented sigh against his chest.