"What happened?"
Tetsuya sounds strange. That's about as much as Kasanoda can tell, between the blood caking his eye shut and the throb of hurt in his head. He's still seeing little sparks of light behind his shut eyelids, still breathing hard from the adrenaline of the fight itself, and Tetsuya's hands moving against his face seem the steadiest thing in the world.
"Got jumped," Kasanoda says without making the futile attempt to open his eyes. "It only lasted a couple seconds but they knocked me over and you know that alley around the block from school, where we met that first time?"
"Yes," Tetsuya says, voice still strange and exceedingly level, like it's a robot talking and not Tetsuya himself. "I know it."
"I hit my head against the wall," Kasanoda says. Tetsuya's touch draws away, there's a splash of sound; he must be rinsing the cloth clean of the blood he's wiped away. "I guess it doesn't really matter where it happened," he considers aloud as water splashes against itself, as Tetsuya's fingers come back to sweep across the ache at his forehead. "That wasn't important, huh?"
"It's important," Tetsuya says. Kasanoda's forehead is feeling cooler, now, the stickiness easing away with each sweep of the cloth in Tetsuya's hand. "You need to get this stitched."
Kasanoda lifts a hand, touches shaky fingers to the sharp-bright hurt of the injury as he tentatively opens his eyes. His vision sways, clears; his fingers come away stained pink with blood when he can focus his eyes on them.
"Guess so," he says, lifting his hand again before Tetsuya pushes him aside so he can press the cloth back against the cut. "Though it's not like a scar will make me a lot scarier."
"Don't," Tetsuya says, his voice cutting sharp as a blade, and Kasanoda's attention snaps up to the other's face, startled into focus by the edge under his voice. Tetsuya is looking at his injury, not at his eyes, but his expression is set, his eyes hard and mouth fixed in a line like Kasanoda has never seen on his face before. It's startling to see that sudden intensity, the more so because Kasanoda didn't known Tetsuya could look that way, and it's more than enough to silence his non-existent protest while Tetsuya goes on, biting off every word into razor-blade sharpness.
"Don't talk about yourself like you're not important," Tetsuya says, his touch still oddly gentle in spite of the edge to his voice. "Not in front of me."
"What?" Kasanoda says dumbly, fighting for comprehension between the shock in his thoughts and the ache at his temple.
"You are important," Tetsuya repeats, deliberate and forced on every word. "It matters when you get hurt."
Kasanoda blinks. Maybe it's hitting his head that's making this all seem incomprehensible, that is making Tetsuya's fingers against him feel like they're shaking, that is making the dark in Tetsuya's gentle eyes look like fury and tears at the same time.
"I didn't mean it didn't matter," he says, retreats over the words for clarity. "Or that it doesn't matter. Just. It's just a scar, right?" He tries for a laugh but it sounds forced, feels like an effort, can't overcome the tension of confusion in his forehead. "I'm used to looking scary. A scar won't make it a lot worse, right?"
"You're not scary," Tetsuya says, and then immediately on the heels of this absolute falsehood: "You're beautiful," so heavy with certainty it takes Kasanoda a moment to process the absurdity of what he's saying.
"What?" Kasanoda says, blinking hard in case the tremor at Tetsuya's mouth is part of his own blurred vision. "Come on, you're way better-looking than I-"
Tetsuya's hand drops from his forehead, fingers digging in against Kasanoda's hair with enough force that words die to silence on his tongue even before Tetsuya grabs for his shoulder with his free hand, braces his fingers at the back of Kasanoda's neck as he rocks up on his knees, leans over the gap between them, tilts in too close and too fast to press his mouth against Kasanoda's.
Kasanoda does not close his eyes. He keeps them open, partially because he doesn't trust his balance and mostly because he doesn't think about it, because from this close Tetsuya's hair looks like gold, catching bronze highlights and turning into something bright and metallic and beautiful. Kasanoda stares at the shine of it, listens to his heart thudding in his chest, waits for the shock to hit, for adrenaline to surge panic through his veins, but all that comes is warmth, satisfaction slow and sweeping into him like this is some resolution he didn't know he was waiting for.
Tetsuya draws back slowly, only by an inch and that unwillingly, like Kasanoda's magnetized and he can't break free. "Sorry," he says, so soft it's only how close he is that allows Kasanoda to hear - to feel - the hum of sound in the air. "I hate hearing you talk like that."
"It's true," Kasanoda blurts, because his mouth has never been very good at checking in with his brain before it decides to spill honesty past his lips, and because his blood is still warm from the friction of Tetsuya's mouth on his. He can taste unfamiliar sweet on his tongue, the smell of flowers or the hint of rain cool and foreign against his lips. "It's not me. You're beautiful."
"Young lord," Tetsuya says, the edge of his voice breaking into softness, into the tone Kasanoda can recognize even up-close like they are now, even with a tremor of concern to tip in out of it's usual steadiness. Kasanoda reaches out, balances a shaky hand against Tetsuya's shoulder; his fingers settle, steady. He can feel Tetsuya take a breath. "You're still bleeding."
"Whatever," Kasanoda says, and leans in to kiss nonexistent protest off Tetsuya's mouth.