Yuusuke props an elbow on the table and raises his choko to his lips, eyes shifting from one slow-dancing couple to another. In the midst of that loose, bumbling crowd, he catches a glimpse of the newly weds lumbering in tight circles and takes a long, long sip. The way Tadokoro Jin and Shinkai Hayato are entwined, chins resting on each other's shoulders and their arms draped in convenient places, their dance seems more like a bear hug in constant motion.
Sorry, Tadokorocchi… Yuusuke smirks over his drink. You'll always be a bear to me, sho…
The bitterness clawing at his throat is no fault of his sake, yet he sets the choko down and pushes it away, face scrunched up.
If I hadn't left for England, that could've been—
The chair to his right creaks and the heavy frills bordering the table ripple over Yuusuke's thighs. He twitches out of his reverie and glances up to see a familiar face, recalled faster from Kinjou's candid photographs of Yonan University's campus than the conversation they once shared on the first day of the Inter-high. To be fair, compared to his exasperated howling at Toudou, followed by a deceptively courteous speech leveled at Yuusuke, Kinjou's pictures showcased a more palatable, even pleasant side of… Araki..? No… Arakita.
"This seat taken?" Arakita taps the backrest of the empty chair, his crooked smile as sharp as his gray and purple three-piece suit. Yuusuke's eyes trail down his slender frame. He pauses, then shakes his head, internally chalking up his moment of weakness to the tokkuri of sake he's been nursing for the past half hour, too reluctant to mingle with strangers and even less inclined to remain sober at his former crush's wedding.
Arakita yanks his chosen chair loose and plops down, shoulders thrown against the backrest and his legs thrust under the floor-length frills. His lower legs seem to cross twice in alternation and Yuusuke swears he heard the soft thud of a pair of shoes tumbling to the ground, but says nothing. Wilder things have happened at weddings, after all.
"Makishima, right? Makishima Yuusuke," Arakita asks as a late formality. When Yuusuke hums, Arakita's eyes dart to the newly weds next, as if he had guessed his neighbor's earlier thoughts. "Can you believe these two, huh?" he rolls his eyes. Yuusuke manages a smile.
"Tadokorocchi and.. Shinkai, right?" he grabs his choko again, then makes a troubled face at its barely wet bottom.
"Yeah…" Arakita grabs the tokkuri and pours for him, then sets it down near a bottle of Bepsi that certainly wasn't there a minute ago. "To think sparks went flying on the final stretch of the Inter-high, and I missed it 'cause I dropped dead too soon," he hangs his elbow from the corner of the backrest. "Hah! Only took them three years to make up their minds!"
"Isn't that a normal amount of time to decide if you want to marry, sho?" Yuusuke quirks his brow.
"I wouldn't know," Arakita lifts his unadorned right hand, fingers flat and stiff as if he were afraid they might fall out of formation otherwise. Yuusuke laughs.
"Me neither, sho…"
"Seriously?" Arakita drops his hand. "I actually figured you'd be married by now," he shoots Yuusuke a meaningful look, then balks when Yuusuke snorts into his palm in reply.
"How'd you figure that, sho?" he wipes his nose, thoroughly amused.
"Toudou, of course!" Arakita throws up his hand again, clearly offended Yuusuke had to guess. "The way he talked about you nonstop for two years, then on and off for the next three? He made you sound like a goddamn dreamboat!"
Yuusuke slaps a hand over his mouth in a feeble attempt to stop his sputters, his cheeks vibrant with color. Mercifully, Toudou has long strayed out of earshot, having left his stubborn, salty rival to entertain a group of eager girls instead.
"Jinpachi exaggerates, sho!" he chokes out, then takes a sip of sake to soothe his throat.
"He does, huh?" Arakita clicks his tongue, expression cheeky. "And here I thought I knew you well enough from all his yapping, but turns out all I knew was Maki-chan," he manages a decent imitation of Toudou, though his tone is too sarcastic for a proper impersonation. Yuusuke gives him a reproachful look. Arakita remains unfazed.
"So tell me.. what's Makishima like? No-no, scratch that. What's Yuusuke like?" he wags his brow. Yuusuke squints at him over his choko.
"What's with all these layers, sho? Are you telling me there's also an Arakita and a… uh…"
Static buzzes between his ears and Yuusuke can feel his face go up in flames as his mind fumbles between half a dozen vague possibilities (You even heard Shinkai say it earlier! You're pathetic, Yuusuke!), but Arakita stares back like he's expected as much.
"Yasutomo," he says quietly, his former grin shrunk to a polite smile barely there. Too embarrassed to draw the kanji onto his palm in plain sight, Yuusuke nods as he repeats the name in his head once, twice.
"Arakita.. Yasutomo," is the third time, loud and clear. The knot in the pit of Yuusuke's stomach slowly unfurls as he adds, "Nice name, sho…"
"Thanks," chuckles Arakita, his grin restored to its former glory.
"So there's an Arakita and a Yasutomo, sho?" Yuusuke pinches up the broken strand of their conversation, strangely glad for the distraction. "What's Arakita like, then?"
"If the Inter-high was any indication, Arakita's a rude, aggressive jerkface," comes the artless reply as Arakita reaches for the Bepsi and unscrews the cap to take a long draught.
"And Yasutomo, sho?" Yuusuke presses on, genuinely curious. Arakita averts his eyes.
"I don't know," he shrugs, shoulders tense as he tosses the bottle cap onto the nearest tray. "I've never let anyone that close before."
"Didn't I hear Shinkai call you by your given name, sho?" asks Yuusuke, mentally rewinding to the two of them standing in line a few guests apart, waiting to be greeted by the young couple and directed to their seats. Arakita scoffs.
"Shinkai calls everyone by their given name 'cause he likes to sound chummy," he explains, evidently offended by the liberty. "For you, though, I knew he'd go for Yuusuke-kun. Back in the day, it was Jin-kun, Jin-kun for at least six months."
A pause. Yuusuke takes another sip of his sake, expression pensive.
"I don't think anyone's ever called me just Yuusuke, sho," he says at last, unsure how to feel about the revelation. Arakita lowers his bottle.
"That's a shame," he leans back, his eyes seeking Yuusuke's. "It's a nice name. Got a real nice ring to it… Yuusuke…" he tries it on, his voice softened to a purr. Opposite him, Yuusuke downs the rest of his sake, his stomach full of tipsy butterflies. Arakita clears his throat.
"So… what do I call you, huh? You wanna be Makishima or Yuusuke or some weird nickname? I could call you Moles.. you'd like that? Huh?" he teases without an ounce of sarcasm, and Yuusuke laughs despite himself at the improvised nickname. Way better than you on your first try, sho, he mentally side-eyes the absent Toudou.
"I.. suppose I wouldn't mind being called Yuusuke, sho…" he says, forcing himself to look Arakita in the eye. "What about you, sho? Do I call you Yasutomo, then?"
A shadow spills across the table as Shinkai's sibling pirouettes by on their brother's arm, still happily clad in their floral bridesmaid dress. As Yuusuke lifts his head to watch them dance, a fit of inspiration strikes his neighbor.
"If you dance with me, you can call me whatever you want," Arakita nudges him. Yuusuke blinks.
"You know how to dance, sho?" he blurts, catching himself too late, but Arakita takes no offense.
"Nah," he grins harder, "but right now, I feel like swaying around, cheek to cheek like a gross couple. If anyone else is doing it, why can't we, right? You like dancing, Yuusuke?"
"I.. can't remember, sho," Yuusuke shrugs his shoulders, unable to recall when he's last had the pleasure, if it was a pleasure at all. Arakita crosses his lower legs twice, then pushes his chair back and stands, shoes on once more.
"Let's jog your memory," he reaches out his hand, positively glowing when Yuusuke takes it and rises to his feet. He briefly notes their similar heights as Arakita leads him around the table, then pulls him into his arms, one pair resting by each other's sides and their free hands clasped mid-air. A few feet away, Tadokorocchi gives Yuusuke a thumbs up behind his current dance partner's back and Yuusuke flushes crimson, half afraid his burning cheek might leave a mark on his own partner's face.
They flounder about like marionettes on wires, awkward and silent, but in the faint scent of Arakita's cologne, and the way his fingers tuck to Yuusuke's back when his hand relaxes, there's a sense of snug comfort that anchors Yuusuke in place. Occasionally, other dancers brush past them and bump their elbows, yet neither breaks away; Arakita only cradles him a little closer, and Yuusuke's hand never strays from the other's back except to pin a loose tuft of hair behind his ear. At one point, he can feel Arakita tense against him as Shinkai gives them finger guns from across the floor ("It's about time you joined us, Yasutomo!"), but his hold softens soon enough, and pressed so close together, Yuusuke can feel the onset of that lopsided grin, raw and ugly and impossible to resist.
Just thinking of it, Yuusuke's features lurch every which way in one of those hideous smiles everyone seems to hate so much. He bows his head slightly in a frail attempt to hide it, but it lingers as Arakita presses his hand like he just knows.
"Yuusuke…" he whispers as the music begins to fade. Yuusuke closes his eyes and hums, cheeks tinged.
"I'm a man of my word, Yuusuke," Arakita carries on, calm and mild. "Call me whatever you want. But I gotta warn you… if you decide to call me Yasutomo, I might just wanna sit you down somewhere nice and hear your whole life story. I'll even listen if it's funny."
"Funny how?" Yuusuke's voice trembles.
"Funny as in, it's funny how good I'm feeling right now, and I'm not even drunk like I planned," Arakita squeezes him just hard enough to tingle. Yuusuke snorts against his shoulder and they burst into quiet laughter, lost in the cheerful murmurs of the crowd.
As the song ends, they draw back to look each other in the eye. The butterflies are at it again, but Yuusuke no longer minds.
"Yasutomo," he whispers without hesitation, beaming as Yasutomo grins back.
NOTE:
They danced one more time because the next song started too early, then slipped away. Eventually, Tadokoro and Shinkai became worried because they couldn't recall either of their friends saying goodbye or leaving with the other guests, so they went to look for Yuusuke and Yasutomo. They eventually found their friends fast asleep in a remote alcove, Yuusuke slumped over Yasutomo's lap with the other's suit jacket tucked around his shoulders. Feeling generous, Shinkai took a picture and sent it to Toudou.
Thank you for reading!