Atsuro sat – no, fell – down next to Hiro. Yuzu kneeled beside them, leaning on the tree trunk the boys were resting on. "You're both such idiots, I could have handled them myself!" she chided. "You didn't have to run in front of me and block the demon's attack, I am capable of putting up a shield, you know."
"Sorry, Yuzu," Atsuro whispered, his eyes closed. Hiro turned around slightly so that he was facing Atsuro too. "And you had to drag me along with you too," he muttered. Atsuro smiled faintly. "I didn't realize I was holding on to you."
Hiro felt his face heating up slightly. "I wasn't – you were – look, just shut up, will you?" He turned away again. Yuzu watched them curiously. Then she shook her head. "Look, guys, it's done, stop arguing about it." She examined them. Atsuro had a big rash down the side of his face, and on his neck. Hiro had been behind Atsuro and hadn't got the worst of it, so he only had a few cuts, and bruises.
"Okay, I'm gonna heal you both, alright? Don't squirm or I'll get angry." Both boys twitched. "This is gonna take a few minutes, 'cause I'm gonna have to heal all your various cuts separately." She shook her head again, her ponytail swishing around her ears. "You guys were so STUPID..." she muttered, starting on Atsuro.
Hiro closed his eyes again. There had been a small problem in his life – but for once it was something he couldn't really imagine his friends helping him with. Whenever Atsuro smiled at him, or touched him, he would get extremely self conscious. Side effects : face burning, heart pumping, sweaty hands.... And to set it all off, the time he spent normally staring at Yuzu, was now being used to stare at Atsuro. Atsuro had a really nice smile, especially when he smiled at him, Hiro. And his teeth looked so perfect. It wasn't fair. He'd never even worn braces and his teeth were as straight as a, um, straight person. Hiro wasn't good with metaphors.
But Atsuro was. He good at everything. Computers, and having good teeth, and figuring things out, and making Hiro feel better, and making Yuzu smile.
Hiro suddenly felt an itching on his skin as his cuts started to heal and wriggled. "I told you not to squirm!" Yuzu hissed. Atsuro chuckled. He looked a lot better. Yuzu must have healed him while he had been thinking about Atsuro. His face threatened to burn again.
"Fine, it was an accident!" Hiro moaned loudly, so they wouldn't notice his rapidly reddening face. He tried to keep still. Yuzu continued healing him.
'It's probably just a phase', he told himself repeatedly, after noticing how pretty Atsuro's eyes were when the light reflected in them, or 'I'm just going through "that" age', when he would suddenly start blinking and swallowing a lot, simply because Atsuro had SMILED at him.
He felt a tap on his head. "I'm done. You both should be fine, apart from being a little tired." Yuzu said. She looked a bit tired herself, but proud nonetheless.
"Thanks Yuzu," Hiro smiled weakly at her. She stood up, tightening her pink hairband.
"Okay, I'm going to go see if I can find any rations or food or whatever, as long as its edible. That bread we got this morning won't hold out until tomorrow, you know. Any of you man enough to come with me?"
The silence from both boys was all the answer she needed. Yuzu rolled her eyes. "Geez, fine. You better make it up to me, though, you lazy jerks." She patted them both on the head and started to walk away. "I'll be back in, like, 10 minutes if I can't find anything, 'kay?" she called over her shoulder. They both nodded, forgetting she couldn't see them.
Hiro shut his eyes tightly again. He could feel Atsuro's elbow resting against his arm. He blinked and slowly looked around to sneak a look at the other boy, and was quite shocked to find that aforementioned other boy was staring at him.
They both jumped. "Sorry!" Hiro squeaked. For the third time in five minutes, his face heated up again. This time, however, Atsuro's was as well.
Atsuro giggled weakly. "Um...awkward." Hiro nodded. Atsuro propped himself up on one elbow. Hiro could see how even that simple action was a strain for him.
"Listen, Hiro, you know the way every time I do something like this..." He raised a hand and poked Hiro's nose. Hiro twitched. "...your face gets really red."
As expected, the good old blush decided it hadn't made an appearance on Hiro's face in almost 10 seconds, and well, that wasn't good enough, now was it?
As his face speedily rushed towards the colour of a ripe tomato, Hiro inwardly thought–shouted every swear word he could come up in Japanese, and summoned up a few in English that Naoya had taught him.
"I, um, I just get, um, red with anger whenever people poke me, okay?" he muttered, aware of how ridiculous his declaration sounded. By looking at Atsuro's face, he deduced the other boy was quite clearly aware of how stupid it sounded as well.
Atsuro shuffled towards him. "W-what the hell are you doing!" Hiro hissed, scooting away. Atsuro looked hurt. He sat up, taking deep breaths. "You keep doing that around me."
"Well, um, sorry." Hiro swallowed. He should have gone with Yuzu.
"Hey Hiro? Do you remember that time, about a month ago, when you came to my house, and then, when you were leaving, I tried to give you a hug, but you got really flustered and red, and ran out of the house practically crying? And my mom started laughing really hard?"
Hiro wrapped his arms around his knees and pressed his forehead against them. "Um, yeah, I remember that. I had, um, hayfever that day." He remembered that day, alright. When Atsuro had tried to hug him, and he'd suddenly felt extremely weird and sick and elated and the need to simultaneously kiss his best friend and run away to somewhere very, very far away. He remembered feeling disgusted with himself for the first week, but he had gotten used to it after a while.
It wasn't fair. There should be rules against hugging your friends.
Atsuro continued. "Well, I was kind of confused, because I thought you were angry at me trying to hug you or something, and I asked my mom why she was laughing, and she said..." He broke off and coughed, staring at the ground. "My mom said that you were, um, in, um, l-love with me, or, um, something, and that's, w-why you got freaked out."
He is so cute when he's all embarrassed like that, Hiro thought dreamily. Then what Atsuro had actually said filtered through to him.
Damn. He really should have gone with Yuzu.
"You're my best friend! Normal people don't fall in love with their best friends, Atsuro! And besides, you're a boy!"
"Yeah, well, normal people don't run away when their friends hug them!
"Hayfever, I'm telling you! "
"You start swallowing madly whenever I accidentally touch you."
"I like swallowing!"
"When I'm talking to Yuzu you're always staring at me weirdly!"
"I'm staring at that stupid hat of yours!"
Atsuro sighed. "It's okay, really. Just admit it, will you? You know I would have found out eventually."
Hiro tried to take deep breaths. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Atsuro sort of fell on him. Hiro didn't have time to be embarrassed about that, because Atsuro had decided to put one hand on Hiro's shoulder, pull himself up so that their foreheads were resting together, and decided to initiate contact with the other boy in a way that could only be called a kiss.
Hiro flailed around, but it didn't do much. Atsuro proceeded to tighten his hold around Hiro's shoulders. Hiro stopped flailing. Besides, it felt nice. Really good, actually. He didn't have time to think up some vocabulary that was adequate enough to describe the sensation, because it ended there. Atsuro rolled off him, and both boys leant against the tree, gasping for breath.
Hiro spoke first. "Okay, fine. I may be a tiny bit in love with you.
Atsuro smiled weakly. "I knew it. I knew that strategy was failproof."
"What, snog the truth out of Hiro strategy?"
"Exactly."
"Well, I don't think it worked well enough. Do it again. Now." Atsuro laughed again and leaned towards Hiro again, and then it was the same feeling again, the one that made Hiro feel that yes, it WAS damn possible to do karate in a tutu while eating cheesecake, as long as Atsuro was kissing you. Hiro tried to kiss him back this time. The results were quite amusing.
"Ow!" Atsuro moaned. "You bit my lip."
Hiro blushed. "Shut up." He leaned in for another kiss. Atsuro pushed him off after a few seconds. Hiro poked him. Atsuro poked him back and leaned on the tree with his eyes closed, breathing heavily."Stop, Yuzu will be back soon. " Hiro laughed. "Yeah? So what? C'mon, the expression on her face would be hilarious."
Atsuro gave him a feeble punch. "What'll we do?"
"About what?"
"About us, doofus." Atsuro gestured to himself and Hiro.
Hiro put his head in his hands. "I dunno. Can we think about this complicated relationship stuff later? I'm really tired all of a sudden."
Atsuro rolled his eyes. "You can't avoid that question forever, you know," he whispered.
"I know," muttered Hiro. He shuffled closer, so that he was leaning against Atsuro. They were asleep within seconds.
Yuzu arrived five minutes later. She noticedthat somehow, Hiro had, accidentally of course, managed to manoeuvre himself so that he and Atsuro were holding hands, and that Atsuro's arm was slung over his shoulder, and that Hiro's head was resting on his chest. Complete coincidence, of course.
Yuzu tiptoed up and patted Atsuro on the head. "Took you long enough, didn't it," she whispered affectionately to the sleeping boys. She sat down, in front of the tree next to them. "Good thing I was able to have a little "chat" with Atsuro's mom that day a month ago," she thought to herself smugly.