A/N: Yeah, so I don't own Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy chapter three.
Chapter Three: Two Homes
When Yuu woke up the next morning, his stomach felt like he had swallowed a leaden weight. At first, he was worried he had eaten something bad, since he knew he hadn't drunk too much, but then the weight moved, shifting its position slightly. He lifted his head and looked down towards his feet, noticing a lump under the futon over his stomach. His heart froze as he tried to make sense of the situation. Had some wild animal come into the house somehow–he had no idea how that could happen–in the middle of the night and snuck under the covers with him? Hands shaking slightly with trepidation, he delicately raised the futon to look beneath.
There, resting with his head on his stomach, was Nijiro. Despite the fact that the man had his back to Yuu, he could tell it was the other male assistant because the red and bleached streaks in his hair had been pushed back over his head in his sleep and were lying gently on Yuu's shirt-covered chest. A moment later, Yuu registered that the pressure he'd felt across his legs must be Nijiro's arm laid atop him.
As he gazed down at Nijiro, the events of the previous night came back to him. They had left Shizundaniwa Izakaya sometime after one in the morning, and riding the train back, Nijiro had passed out from fatigue. Because the assistant was new, Yuu didn't know where he lived, so he had been forced to haul the man's luckily relatively light body to his own home.
Yuu narrowed his eyes. When they had arrived and he had gotten Nijiro to his room, he'd laid out a second set of bedding, arranging Nijiro's unconscious body beneath it. So what was the man doing using his stomach as a pillow? He turned his head to look over at where he'd set the futon for Nijiro, and noticed it was thoroughly rumpled and tossed about. Ah, so the black-haired man was a restless sleeper, and had rolled over to join Yuu in the middle of the night. Yuu had to wonder how he'd gotten under his futon in his sleep, and how he'd managed not to suffocate himself, given his head had been completely covered by the futon, but those were not questions he thought he was likely to get the answers to any time soon.
He wasn't that bothered by Nijiro's impromptu snuggling, since his fellow assistant's body was pleasantly warm, but it would cause him some problems getting out of bed. He lay there trying to think of a way to move the man without waking him, but before he could think of something, the dark-haired head moved, and Nijiro awoke.
Noticing where he was, Nijiro rolled over slowly and saw Yuu looking down at him. Now that he no longer wore his glasses, Yuu noticed Nijiro's eyes were darker and deeper than any he had seen. He felt himself being unwittingly drawn in the longer he looked.
Suddenly, Nijiro yawned, closing his eyes, and the spell was broken.
"Good morning, Yuu," the mangaka assistant said. Lifting his head off of Yuu's chest–ah, that feels better–he inched up until his head was level with Yuu's. He lay on his chest, his body stretched out behind him. Crossing his arms in front of him and laying his head casually atop them, he turned his face to his futon companion, smiling at the man.
"What happened? Did I fall asleep on the train?" he asked.
Finally able to lay his head back down, Yuu sighed, readying himself to get up for the day.
"Yeah, I brought you to my place, since I don't know where you live," he replied. Forcing himself to sit up, he got out from under his futon and stood up, stretching. "Your bag's over there, by the way," he added, pointing before strolling off to wash his face.
"Thanks," Nijiro gratefully responded, taking his cue from Yuu to get up. He folded the futon and placed it against the wall, then strode over to his bag.
After Yuu washed his face, he headed into the kitchen to make coffee, still in his pajamas. A few moments later, Nijiro joined him in the kitchen, a few drops of water dripping off the ends of his slightly damp hair. When he saw Yuu making coffee, he made an appreciative noise and leaned his back against the countertop not far from where Yuu stood, waiting for the breakfast essential to finish brewing.
"There's food in the fridge if you want anything," Yuu commented, and Nijiro stretched again and stood away from the counter, walking over to open the fridge. The man took out an apple and bit into it, the juice flowing down his chin. Looking over at him, Yuu discovered he'd put his glasses back on. Shielded by the glass, his eyes were now merely impossibly dark, but Yuu still found himself staring.
Suddenly, in front of him, the coffee machine made a gurgling noise, drawing his attention away from his guest. He returned his gaze to the machine and saw the coffee begin to pour out into the glass pot.
"Sugar or cream?" he asked, taking two mugs out of the cabinet.
"Just black, unless you have artificial sweetener," Nijiro replied. "I can't have sugar in my coffee."
"Sorry," Yuu apologized, internally wondering why the man would say he couldn't have sugar in his coffee. He supposed it was an easy way to add unnecessary sugar into the diet, but, still, from the look on Nijiro's face as he took a drink of the coffee Yuu handed him, the man preferred his coffee to taste a little less like the vile-tasting drink it was. He didn't like sweets, but even he needed both sugar and cream in his cup before he would take a sip. He asked Nijiro if he wanted anything else for breakfast, and the dyed-haired man declined, admitting he usually couldn't eat much in the morning anyway.
"What time is it?" Nijiro asked, and Yuu gave him his answer.
"Good," the mangaka assistant continued, "I want to stop by my place to change clothes before we go to sensei's." He drained his cup, rinsing it and placing it in the sink. "Want to come? That way you'll know where I live for the next time I pass out on you," he joked.
Yuu reflected he might as well, and a few moments later the two were heading out, back towards the subway. Since it was morning, there were many more people riding the train, so they stood together until Nijiro gave the signal for them to disembark. Walking along, they passed a park and finally came up to Nijiro's apartment building. It was a high-rise, thirty floors, all concrete and steel, the kind of building built for function and not beauty. Taking a key out of his bag, Nijiro let Yuu in, and they got into the elevator.
"Yeah, I live on the twenty-eighth floor, so it's pretty high up," Nijiro told him, pressing the button. When they got out of the elevator he led Yuu to his door, adding, "Sorry about the mess, by the way."
When he unlocked the door and they passed through the entryway into the main apartment, Yuu could see what he meant by the mess. Every available surface was plastered with drawings, some in color, others in black and white. Most were of landscapes–he recognized a collection of Odori Park year-round–while others showed small sketches of flowers, birds and other small items. On the far wall, above Nijiro's unmade bed hung a set of portraits of a middle aged couple and three pretty women, all wearing matching expressions of confidence and strength. That must be his family, Yuu thought.
"Kari! Kari!" called Nijiro, and Yuu wondered what he was doing for a moment until a ginger streak shot out from under Nijiro's bed and ran up to him, meowing loudly.
"I hope you like cats," the glasses-clad man, said, picking up the cat. Yuu told him he didn't mind them, and his host turned around and presented him with the cat. "This is Kariyama, my cat." Nijiro scratched the cat on its head and put it back down. "Make yourself at home," he told Yuu, "I have to go feed Kari." He walked through the door in the right wall into what Yuu assumed was the kitchen.
Yuu let his eyes wander over the drawings covering Nijiro's wall, which he assumed were the man's own art. The lines were clean and accurate, the drawings not only capturing photographic clarity but also showing the emotion of the moment in which they were drawn. He strode across the room, taking special interest in the pictures he assumed were of Nijiro's family. Closer to them, he could tell his earlier supposition was correct. All of the faces had the same sharp cheekbones he'd seen in Nijiro's face, although they were softer in the faces of Nijiro's mother and sisters. Looking at them, he could see Nijiro had gotten his infinitely deep eyes from his father. On the middle aged man, however, they seemed milder, but that might have been because of the joyful grin Nijiro had drawn on his father.
"Yeah, those are of my family," Nijiro said, coming back into the main room and seeing what Yuu was gazing at. He crossed the room to stand beside Yuu, introducing his family via the portraits he'd done of them. "My parents, obviously, and those are my sisters: Risa, Marika, and Tsumari."
"These are really good," Yuu complimented. He almost felt he could get an impression of each family member's personality from the drawings. Nijiro's father, he could see, was laid back and cheerful, the center of the family's happiness. His mother was the business head of the family, and his sisters, judging by the confidence of their expressions, had followed her down that path.
"Thank you," Nijiro replied graciously. "I mostly do landscapes, as you can see," he gestured at the art surrounding them, "but I had to do portraits of my family when I left home." He left Yuu's side and began rummaging around in his closet. "Drawings are better than photos for that kind of thing, I think."
Yuu understood him to mean that no photo could capture the feeling of a person the way sketches could, and he agreed. There was something special about art done by hand that infused a sentimentality into it.
He turned away from the portraits just in time to see Nijiro standing shirtless, halfway through changing clothes. Instead of turning away, he looked the man up and down, admiring his physique. He was an attractive man, Yuu thought absently, with a delicate bone structure somewhat reminiscent of Chiaki's.
"Ah, sorry," Nijiro said, pulling a black shirt over his head. Yuu made a sound to signify that it didn't bother him and Nijiro returned to the closet, sliding his arms into a scarlet vest, then draping a white scarf around himself. Next he went over to the small nightstand by his bed, taking a small box out of it and dropping it into his bag.
"Alright then, I'm done here," he said, and, with some reluctance, Yuu followed him out of his apartment and back to the elevator. He had wanted to stay and inspect more of the pictures, but he supposed that could wait until next time. For now, they had to go to work.
