A/N I'm just barrowing them from Harold Sakuishi for a moment, becasue I want to play with them.
He can't tell you when he stopped being attracted to his best friend and crossed the thin line to falling for said best friend. He thinks it may have been a gradual process, started that day Ryusuke left after Grateful Sound and continuing on through...whenever. Forever.
He can pinpoint for you exactly when he knew it though.
He was delivering pizzas that summer, for a Chinese guy named Mike if you can believe that. And there was a party going on at 31st Northwest Street where people wanted Mike's pizzas, so away he went into the hot summer night, in the van older then he was that smelled of pizza, sweat, and pot.
The door opened, and as he handed over the pizzas into waiting arms a familiar head of dark curls caught his attention and drew it to the far corner.
Chiba. Who had a pretty girl in a tank top and short shorts tucked up under his arms, the two of them paying more attention to each other then any thing else in the room.
The next thing he knew he was sitting in the van, minus the pizzas and plus payment, watching the moon cast shadows on the dashboard and listening to his heart as it throbbed one word at him over and over again.
"Oh," it said. "Oh."
(He sat there like that until Chiba knocked on the window and asked why he looked so fucking upset in the doorway and told him that if he was going to sit in the van hyperventilating he should put his head between his knees, to which Taira responded with a snap about having a bad night that he would apologize for the next day because he can't stand the hurt look in Chiba's eyes.
Never could, really.)