Chapter Text
THEN
The street outside the izakaya was cold, but that was okay with Keiji. He had a way to warm himself up.
He pulled his pack from his pocket, tapping the bottom till a cigarette popped up. He rested it on his lips as he put the package away and pulled his lighter out.
Or at least he tried to.
After frantically patting his back and front pockets and looking around the floor at his feet, he realised he had lost it inside. With a sigh, he leaned back into the wall, the cigarette limping uselessly from his mouth. He stared out into the empty street, willing the flickering street light to magically light his cigarette to life.
The light that bleeds from the doorway momentarily blinds him when the entrance to the izakaya slides open. "That stuff is bad for you, you know?"
He looks towards the doorway, at the shadow there, as the door closes them back into the outside darkness. As his eyes readjust to the moonlight, he catches Bokuto leaning on the door, a smirk on his lips.
Keiji looked back towards the streetlight. "Not if you don't light it." He bears his empty hands. "Which I can't do."
Bokuto steps closer until he's leaning on the door next to him. "Lose something?" He holds Keiji's lighter, the familiar star-spangled banner on the side of the Zippo.
Keiji's eyes widen, and he reaches for it. "My lighter!"
Bokuto pulls it away, hiding it within his closed fist. "I'm not gonna give you what you need to light up the cigarette!"
"Fine." Keiji shrugged. "You light my cigarette, then." He puts the cigarette back on his lips and stares at Bokuto straight in the eye.
Bokuto stands there, frozen, staring back at him, the lighter gripped tightly in his hand. Keiji feels his cheeks heating. I might’ve taken it too far , he thinks.
They knew. It was apparent, this unspoken thing between them.
The looks, the touches, and the tension between them never released.
Never mentioned, never acted on - seven years of wanting, of desiring, of nothing.
It was about time Keiji brandished the opportunity.
It was the alcohol in his veins, he reasoned. That’s what kept him holding Bokuto's gaze, what made his lungs restrict, removing oxygen, waiting, desperately, for the release of lips on lips, of bodies on bodies, of skin on skin.
His heart was beating so erratically that it was practically leaping from his chest.
And Bokuto wasn’t goddam moving.
Keiji almost gave up. Almost fake chuckled, a ‘just kidding’ on his tongue. How stupid of him to even dangle the opportunity, but-
Oh.
Bokuto was leaning forward, one hand propped against the wall by Keiji's head, caging him in with the opportunity to get out. But Keiji couldn’t move. He couldn’t even look away from the fire in Bokuto's eyes. It took him too long to realise that fire was the reflection of the lighter.
He closed his lips around the cigarette, propping it closer to the flame. When there was contact, he breathed in slowly and pulled back. Bokuto shut off the lighter and pocketed it.
Keiji pulled the cigarette away from his lips and released the smoke just below Bokuto's chin. “Thanks.”
"Enjoy it. It’s your last one.” He smirked.
Keiji shrugged. “Guess I’ll just have to find something else to keep my mouth occupied.”
Bokuto leaned closer, lips just a breath away. “I might have a few ideas.”
Keiji smiled, cigarette falling from his hand, forgotten, as the wanting, pining, and desire were kindled in the cold moonlit street outside the bar.
NOW
The mid-morning air that blew against the balcony was cold. Keiji barely felt it through the smoke that escaped his lips, cigarette limp from his fingers, propped against the metal railing.
There was the sound of a sliding door, and Keiji closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of fresh air before taking another puff of smoke.
“I thought you quit.”
Keiji blew the smoke out dramatically on purpose. “You thought a lot of wrong things about me.”
He felt Bokuto's body heat as he leaned beside him, personal space be damned. “How's the hangover?”
Keiji ignored the twinge of pain near the front of his head and pushed down the urge to vomit. “I don’t get hungover. You know this.”
Bokuto chuckled humourlessly. “You’re so full of shit.” Faster than Keiji could react, Bokuto pulled the cigarette off his lips and butted it out before throwing it off the balcony.
Keiji sighed. “I wasn’t done with that.”
Bokuto took his wrist and flipped him around, caging his body against the railing with his own. “Funny, that’s what I told you about us.”
“There’s no us, Bokuto.” Keiji could feel his anger rise like a kindled fire beneath his skin. “There never was. You made sure of that.”
He knew Bokuto too well, better than he allowed himself to admit. And, though it was rare, he knew what true fury looked like in his body. The tightening of his grip on the metal, the tension corded through his muscles, the flaring of his nostrils, the red at the tip of his ears, the uncomfortable pressure in his jaw.
Bokuto was a big man. Such anger in such a person would terrify anyone. But Keiji just felt excited. It was the most visceral reaction he’d been able to see out of Bokuto in months.
“What’s the matter, Koutarou?” The fire was in his bones, his veins, his voice. “Don’t like being handed back your own mistakes?”
Bokuto growled, the ripple in his chest mirrored in Keiji's breath. “You’re so goddamn frustrating.” He grunted before pressing his lips to Keiji's with such force that his body banged loudly against the glass behind him.
Keiji's hands automatically rose, burying in Bokuto's hair as Bokuto gripped Keiji's waist. It wasn’t so much a kiss as a desperate exchange of spit and air. Keiji felt feverish. Every part of his body hurt, and he couldn’t breathe. But all he could think was more, harder, Bokuto, Bokuto, Koutarou .
As fast as it had started, it was over, Bokuto pulling away from him entirely. The fire in his veins froze over like ice, spidering through his blood from his heart to every crevice of his body Bokuto had ever touched.
He watched, through the cold mist he exhaled, as Bokuto walked away, closing the door to Keiji's apartment with a haunting finality.