"Left hand, red," Oliver intoned.
Gene stretched his left hand to a red circle on the mat.
"Left leg, blue."
Yasuhara moved this time.
"Right leg, green."
John wiggled his right leg towards a green circle.
"Right leg, blue."
Masako moved. Oliver looked up, looked where Mai was perched — both legs on green, both hands on yellow — and span the spinner.
"Left hand, blue."
Three people on the mat narrowed their eyes at Oliver as Mai moved her left hand forwards to the spare blue circle right in front of her.
Oliver hit the spinner again.
"Right hand, red."
"That's impossible!" Gene complained.
"Do you forfeit?"
"No!" Gene reached towards the red circles but due to Yasuhara being directly in the way he could not quite reach it without—
"Ouch!"
Gene and Yasuhara tumbled, falling into Masako who in turn ended up sitting on John. This left Mai still perched in her corner, safe from the collapse.
"I win right?" she asked, innocently.
"No, you don't!" Gene muttered. "Because someone was cheating!"
Mai frowned.
"I wasn't—"
"He's not talking about you," Masako said.
"Perhaps we should play something different?" John suggested weakly. "Mai, Masako, this is your party, why don't you two pick?"
"Hide and seek," Masako said before Mai could speak. "And as Mai won the last game, she can seek first."
There was a murmur of assent from everyone apart from Oliver, who was folding away the Twister mat.
"Okay, what should I count to?" Mai asked.
"Fifty?"
"And what other rules? Luella and Martin wouldn't want us in their bedroom, and maybe the garden should be off limits too? It is getting dark."
"Sounds reasonable."
"Great, okay then," Mai covered her eyes and began counting, "one, two, three…"
The remaining teenagers scampered away, apart from Oliver, who left in an orderly fashion. He hid in Martin's study, behind the sofa, with a book. Masako remained in the living room and hid behind the long curtains. John went for the cupboard under the stairs.
Gene had also intended to hide in Martin's study, but Oliver had somehow beaten him to it. So he ran upstairs — being far louder than intended — and threw himself into Oliver's bedroom. There was only one place to hide in here — the space underneath the bed was filled with storage boxes — and that was Oliver's closet.
It had originally just been a weird bit of wall that had been set back from the rest, about a foot and a half wide. Not long after the twins had been adopted, Luella had decided to do some DIY and convert the gap into a closet. She put up a rail for hanging clothes on and an overhead shelf for more storage. A door had been fitted to the front and voila! A closet.
Gene knew Oliver only used it for hanging up the clothes he rarely wore and thus it made it a great hiding spot. He flung open the door just as he heard Mai shout—
"Fifty! Ready or not, here I come!"
But it was already full.
"You can't hide here!" Yasuhara hissed. "This is my spot!"
"There's no time! Budge up!"
Gene forced himself into the closet and pushed behind the clothes so that they covered both him and Yasuhara. There was barely an inch between them. Gene was thankful that there was no light in the closet because he felt himself going bright red.
Because it was warm in the closet. That was why.
Definitely not because there was an attractive man pressed up against him. Nope. No siree!
"Is the door shut?" Yasuhara whispered. "That would give us away."
Gene reached for the door and checked it.
"It's pulled to. There's no door handle on this side so we don't want to close it completely," he breathed back. "As long as we stay quiet, these clothes should hide us."
Both young men listened hard for any sound of Mai's approach, despite the fact that there was no way of escaping.
"I can't hear anything, I guess she started downstairs," Gene said in a low voice. "Oliver is downstairs, in Dad's study."
"How'd you know that?"
"That's where I went to hide originally."
"Masako went behind the curtains, didn't she?"
"Yeah."
"Surely she'll be found first?"
"Maybe."
They both fell silent at the sound of the house creaking.
"Mai will find us right? It's kind of stuffy in here," Gene mumbled. He shuffled his feet then stopped abruptly as he realised doing this caused him to rub against Yasuhara.
"She will, she's stubborn like that," Yasuhara replied. "It's not like she'll just find Oliver and start making out with him or something."
"You say that, but a bit of me hopes she does…"
Yasuhara chuckled.
"He wouldn't," he said. "Oliver's got his whole 'I'm going to uni so can't date' thing, hasn't he?"
Gene rolled his eyes.
"Well if they had got together when I first suggested it, they would have been dating for like four years by now."
"Really?"
"Noll has had a crush on Mai for forever."
"And has she had a crush on him? She's never really mentioned it…"
"She's never mentioned it but she totally makes extra effort to sit next to him and stuff," Gene said. "Let me ship it, okay?"
"We all ship it, Gene," Yasuhara replied.
They fell silent, listening again.
"What about you?" Yasuhara asked. "Do you have a crush on anyone?"
"Are you sure you don't want to save these questions for truth or dare later?" Gene hastened to reply.
"Oh, I don't know, I currently have you here captive and you can't escape so…"
"No, I don't have a crush on anyone."
Liar.
"Really?"
"Well it's like you said, we're going to university soon and—"
"So you do!" Yasuhara poked Gene in the chest.
"Oww!"
"That didn't hurt."
"Yes it did!"
"Want me to kiss it better?" Yasuhara offered smoothly.
Gene choked on thin air.
"No!" he managed. "Now be quiet, otherwise they'll find us! I can hear voices!"
And true to his word, voices could be heard from the other side of the door, but they were faint.
"Who do you think she's found?" Yasuhara whispered.
"If you don't shut up—"
"Then what? What will you do?"
Gene opened his mouth and completely failed to come up with a comeback.
"I have a suggestion if you need it," Yasuhara purred.
"Uhh…"
Somehow the space between them lessened.
"Gene, I don't want to make you uncomfortable but—"
The bedroom door opened and Gene reacted instinctively. He pressed his lips to Yasuhara's as the only possible method of keeping him quiet.
"They can't be in here," John's voice said. "There's nowhere to hide."
"What about the cupboard?" Masako's voice asked.
"Yeah, check that."
Footsteps. The turning of the door handle. Light seeped through the clothes.
Yasuhara and Gene froze, lips still pressed together. They could not see anyone, but that did not mean the seekers could not see them.
The light faded. The door had shut.
"Nothing here," John said, "Let's check Gene's room."
The pair heard their friends leave.
"Yasuhara," Gene whispered. "They shut the door. We can't get out."
"So we're stuck in here?"
"Yes."
"Well in that case, what was that about you not having a crush on anyone?" Yasuhara teased.
Gene decided his best course of action was to start kissing Yasuhara again. It was the best way to shut him up after all.
Author's note: So I found a prompt that was like "we're really close, are we going to kiss now" and this happened and I know its short and kinda crappy but oh well! I want more ice cream...