Irie wakes up in the middle of night.
This isn't a particularly noteworthy occurrence. Irie's sleep schedule is a tangled mess of inconsistencies and broken routines; some nights he's awake straight through the darkest part of the evening and dragging himself through a haze of insomnia the next morning. Some nights he collapses into bed before dinner and no amount of shaking or high-pitched alarms will drag him back to consciousness until his body decides he's had enough rest. And some nights he goes to bed at a reasonable hour, and falls asleep easily, and then startles awake at three in the morning for no reason that he can tell. Those are the worst nights, Irie thinks; there's never any hope of getting back to sleep after one of those jolting moves to consciousness, no matter how heavy his limbs may feel or how bleary his thoughts are. He wonders, sometimes, what it is that jerks him so violently awake; is it a half-heard sound, an accidental motion of his arm, a too-vivid dream? Maybe his psyche is working through those half-forgotten memories of a long-lost future, processing and reprocessing and dragging him to panting, adrenaline-laden consciousness in the way that dreams about dying so often do. Irie never knows what the reason for his consciousness is, nights like that; the best he can do is to shuffle into a shower, and stand under the warmth of the spray until life feels like less of a burden, and then make his way out to the living room for a cup of coffee and the slow-paced comfort of idly browsing the internet. That kind of night is regular, if inexplicable; Irie thinks he's used to all of his usual styles of insomnia, by now, is sure he could process his way up to full consciousness within a few minutes of any of them.
This is none of the above. For one thing, Irie hasn't even opened his eyes before he knows why he's awake. It's the middle of the night, his exhausted body tells him, it can't have been more than an hour or two since he laid down, and in himself he's more than willing to turn over and drop back into the restfulness of dreams. But there's pressure on his legs, the weight of another person pinning him to the bed and pulling him awake at once, and the drawn-out purr of "Sho-chan" over him gives Irie a very clear idea of who is to blame for this.
"Ergh," he mumbles against the pillow under him. "Byakuran." He shifts his head enough to open one eye; his blurred sight doesn't do him much good without his glasses and with the dark of the night filling the room, but Byakuran stands out clearly against the shadows, his pale hair glowing like a soft halo around his head. He's smiling; Irie can see the flash of white teeth bright against the backdrop of the darkened space. "What are you doing?"
"Is that any kind of way to greet your best friend?" Byakuran asks, his voice bright and as aggressively enthusiastic as his smile. It feels like a personal attack to Irie's tired mind; he frees a hand from the tangle of blankets so he can reach up to press his fingers into his hair and try to claim a moment to collect himself. Over him Byakuran hums what sounds like laughter in the back of his throat and shifts his weight over Irie's legs like he's settling himself in with no intention of moving for the foreseeable future. "This is no time for sleeping, Sho-chan, today is a day of celebration!"
"It's not even the day yet," Irie groans to the inside of his wrist. "We can't celebrate before the sun comes up."
"Don't be a spoilsport," Byakuran tells him. Irie can't see anything with his arm over his face but he can hear Byakuran's smile under the words without any need to see it directly. "You're the guest of honor today, you can't lay in bed and ruin all the fun."
"It's barely the morning," Irie protests, lifting his arm and turning his head in a futile attempt to get a clear look at the time displayed on the clock next to the bed. "You can't wake me up at two in the morning and expect me to just come awake all at once."
"It's not two," Byakuran coos at him. "It's almost four. You've had more than enough sleep, Sho-chan, don't you want to get up yet?"
"I've only slept a few hours," Irie protests, turning his attention back to the haze of white that forms Byakuran looking down at him. "Can't I rest at least until the sun is up?"
"Nope," Byakuran informs him, smiling bright over the whole of his face. "Cake's best when it's warm."
"Cake," Irie repeats back in tones of absolute disbelief. "You made cake."
Byakuran heaves a sigh. "Oh, Sho-chan, it's your birthday." He reaches out to press his fingers to the curl of Irie's hair over his ear and stroke down against the other's cheek with idle interest. "Of course I made cake."
Irie blinks at Byakuran leaning over him. The other is tipping in closer; Irie can make out the shadow of purple over Byakuran's cheek, now, can separate the dark of the other's eyes from the vague shape of his face. His smile is sharper from up close, pulling wide against the give of his mouth and clinging to the shadowy corners of his lashes. "Why couldn't you wait until the morning?"
"Because I was excited," Byakuran says without any trace of apology in his expression or voice. His smile is going wider, his lashes dipping as he considers Irie's features with lingering appreciation; his fingers slide farther into the other's hair, his head tips closer so his breath comes warm at Irie's mouth. "It's my best friend's birthday, it's my responsibility to make it perfect."
"You could have let me sleep a little longer," Irie protests, but the words are weak from proximity to Byakuran's lips, and Byakuran's hummed laugh says he can feel the other's capitulation as clearly as Irie can. He leans in closer, fits the friction of his mouth feather-light against Irie's, and Irie shuts his eyes in unspoken surrender to the drag of Byakuran's mouth over his. Byakuran lingers long, like he's savouring the sleep-warmth clinging to Irie's skin, and by the time he draws back Irie's breath is coming faster, his cheeks flushing with heat that has less to do with sleep than it might otherwise.
"I got tired of waiting," Byakuran purrs, and then he's pulling back and away, rocking his weight over Irie's lap and bracing with a casual hand at the other's waist as he leans sideways to reach for the nightstand alongside the bed. Irie blinks at the ceiling, his attention still hazy and warm, and then Byakuran's fingers are dragging against his face again as the other fits the familiar burden of glasses over Irie's eyes.
"Ah," Irie says, and reaches up to fumble for a hold against the frames. "Byakuran, wait."
"Don't want to," Byakuran tells him, sliding the glasses inelegantly over Irie's face. They're lopsided, the arms uneven over Irie's ears and the lens out-of-focus, but while Irie is still frowning and reaching to straighten them Byakuran's fingers slide under the weight of the frames, his touch ruffling through the curl of the other's hair as he fits them into place. "You're awake, that means you have to have some cake first thing."
"Why does it mean that?" Irie asks, the words half a protest but coming out as a resigned whimper. "Can't I just go back to sleep?"
"Nope." Byakuran is leaning sideways again; there's a clink of sound, metal tapping against ceramic, and then he's straightening again, his hands braced against a plate with a slice of cake laid over it. "You have to have the first bite of your cake, that's the rule for birthdays."
"Oh." Irie shuts his eyes and lifts his hand to rumple needlessly through his hair. "You just want cake for breakfast."
"Of course!" Byakuran chirps without the least indication of self-consciousness at this admission. He picks up the fork lying across the plate and draws it down through the end of the cake to collect a somewhat reasonably-sized bite. "Open up, Sho-chan."
"I just woke up," Irie protests, but the words have all the force his protests to Byakuran ever do, which is to say very little at all, and he's letting his arm drop to his side so he can brace an elbow against the bed and push himself halfway to upright. His head still feels bleary, his thoughts are still coming slow on the last vestiges of sleep clinging to his awareness, but Byakuran is holding the fork out, the expectation of obedience clear in the whole line of his arm, and Irie opens his mouth without protesting to let Byakuran steer the bite of cake into his mouth. Frosting catches at the corner of his lip, collecting at his skin as Byakuran feeds him, but then Irie closes his mouth against the weight of the fork, and Byakuran draws it back carefully, and the taste of sugar fills the whole of Irie's mouth. It's overwhelming, in that way that the first food of the day is always overwhelming against sleep-dulled tastebuds, and for the first moment the sweet is all Irie can process, as if the sudden surge of flavor is overwriting the whole of his awareness with the burden of the taste. He blinks hard, trying to process the completely unexpected weight of the cake, and over him Byakuran hums and lifts the fork to his own mouth to lick it clean.
"The frosting turned out well," he says, just as Irie's awareness is catching up to the details of strawberry and vanilla underneath the overpowering sweet of the cake and the frosting. Byakuran looks back to the cake to slice off a significantly larger bite, which he claims for himself with perfect tidiness; even the fork comes away clean, and Irie is fairly sure the swipe across his lower lip Byakuran makes with his thumb is more for Irie's benefit than out of any real need to collect missed crumbs. "Don't you think, Sho-chan?"
Irie swallows. His mouth is filled with the tang of strawberries, his nose with the smell of vanilla. "Yeah," he says, capitulating to the demand of Byakuran's question without even making an attempt at petulant resistance. "It's good."
"I know," Byakuran says, as self-satisfied as if he didn't all but offer the words for Irie's lips. "I made sure it would be." He takes another overlarge bite, halving the amount of cake left on the plate, and reaches out to replace it on the bedside stand while he's still licking against the sugar caught at the corner of his mouth. His lips are damp from the drag of his tongue, they collect the minimal illumination in the room to a glossy shine; Irie's attention catches against them, holding fixed and unnoticed until Byakuran's mouth tugs sharply up at the corner with the weight of a sudden grin.
"Sho-chan," he purrs, his throat humming over the sound until Irie can feel the vibration in the air like a touch running along his skin. Irie jumps with a rush of self-consciousness, pulling his attention up to Byakuran's eyes as his cheeks burn into embarrassed heat; Byakuran is watching him, his mouth pulling against that grin and his eyes so dark in the shadows they look almost black. Irie takes a breath, feels self-consciousness knotting tight between his shoulderblades in expectation of the bubbling liquid of Byakuran's teasing; but Byakuran just lets his gaze drop to Irie's mouth and tips his head to the side as he purses his lips into a show of consideration.
"You missed some frosting," he says, lifting a hand to touch a finger just against Irie's lower lip. Irie's breath catches, startled out of its usual rhythm by the weight of Byakuran's fingers against his mouth, and Byakuran is leaning in before he's figured out how to smooth his inhales back to calm, pressing his mouth warm against Irie's nearly before he's drawn his fingers back and away. Byakuran's mouth settles steady against Irie's, his lips fitting themselves to the startled half-part of the other's; when his tongue touches Irie's mouth the contact is deliberate and dragging, pulling against the sweet clinging to the other's lips from the wayward frosting. Irie can feel his lashes flutter, as if the burden of them has abruptly become too much for him to bear, as if his scattered focus is giving way at this telltale point first, and Byakuran's hand is sliding over the line of his jaw, the other's thumb dipping to press against the flutter of Irie's pulse for a breathless moment before dipping around to curl at the back of the other's head. Irie's bracing arm is shaking, the support giving way to distraction and the pressure of the odd angle at the same time, and Byakuran is still licking against his mouth, tracing out the line of the other's lips with his tongue with as much attention as if there's really anything there left for him to taste but Irie himself. The friction is slow, focused, weighted with intent; by the time Byakuran draws back to shudder an exhale over Irie's kiss-damp lips Irie can feel his cheeks all but glowing with heat, can feel his breath catching high and straining in his chest.
"There," Byakuran says, sounding like a cat with the taste of cream still sweet on its tongue. "All gone."
Irie presses his lips together on the whimper that tries to cling to his breathing, catches the sound at the back of his throat and swallows hard to pin it inside the cage his ribs make around the thud of his heartbeat. When he opens his eyes Byakuran is watching him, his mouth as dark as his eyes and the points of the design printed across his cheek; the addition of Irie's glasses have sharpened the edges between light and dark without offering any more illumination to bring out the shades of purple in Byakuran's hair or shadowed behind the weight of his lashes. He's all black-and-white, like this, the dim lighting of the early hours washing him into a study in opposites contained within a single existence. Irie blinks, the motion as weighty as the strain in his throat as he swallows again; and then he opens his mouth, and lets "Byakuran" spill out into the desperate plea it wants to become.
Byakuran's lashes dip, his mouth curves up onto a smile. "Yes," he says, and when he leans in this time his hand at Irie's neck draws the other back, urging him down over the sheets as if to postpone the meeting of their lips. Irie falls to the sheets, blinking hard as Byakuran leans in over him, and when Byakuran sighs against his mouth he can feel his whole body tingle like the contact is prickling electricity through every part of his body. "Happy birthday, Sho-chan." Irie takes a breath, feels the warmth of the air spreading to fill the whole inside of his chest; and Byakuran leans in, and presses his mouth to Irie's to hold the glow between them.
His touch makes Irie feel like the dawn.