A/N: I got such a nice review but unfortunately it was from a guest so I can't answer it personally. :-/ Anyway, I want to thank you who left that nice review, it really made my day! And thank you for everyone else commenting or favouriting, too. Sorry, I've been a bit lazy posting here (I usually post first on AO3) so after this I have another chapter ready for publishing.

There will be quite a lot of Shinara in the near future. It's because in this fic Shinkai's and Arakita's relationship works so differently from Toudou and Maki that I have to get the boys going soon. But Toumaki fans, don't worry, they will get their screen time and have time to develop their relationship. :)

Chapter 10 – Solidarity between guys

~o~

One of the best features of road racing was the intensity of it. The speed, the effort, the pain, sweat and strategies, giving it your everything. And from the watchers' point of view the moment when after a long wait the first racers appeared in the horizon – and how they just zipped past and disappeared. It hardly lasted a minute even if you were standing by a long, straight road. But then the next bunch emerged and you could relive the moment. That was the spirit of road racing.

They had gotten excellent spots. Even though more people had showed up, they had managed to keep their patch beside the tree and it wasn't even crowded yet. The weather was sunny and clear, not too hot, and a faint breeze was making the dry hay swish. All in all, it was an ideal way to start watching the Tour.

Shinkai just hoped that he'd feel a bit better at the moment that the cars leading the race came into view.

The worst storm had passed after he had thrown up for the third time (at that moment there had already been a lot of people around and most evidently he had provided the opening act of the day) but his head was still hurting like someone had pounded it with a hammer. Rays of sunlight drilled straight into his brain. He had arranged a pair of sunglasses on his nose but they hadn't helped him enough, so to his utter shame he had been forced to borrow one of Mr. Pierre's coffee filter hats. He reckoned that the rest of his life would be spent listening to Yasutomo's mocking.

Although, Shinkai would rather that Yasutomo mocked him for the hat and not for what he had blurted out yesterday. With Gackt?! Just what had been going on inside his head?

Well, a fair amount of alcohol, to start with.

His recollection of memories had been cracked from the moment that they had left the bar. Somehow they had made it back to the camp, and he had slept in the tent instead of on the side of the road. But there was a nagging feeling, hinting that he'd said yet something else, something that he really should remember. And sometimes, when he looked at Yasutomo, that something tried to crawl onto stage from the back corner of his brain. Yasutomo kept glancing at him in a weird way but maybe only because he caught Shinkai staring at him with a deep frown.

He managed to push his hangover aside when the excitement rose amongst the audience and people started cheering. The enthusiasm of the crowd was engrossing – he had expected their group to cheer, wave, jump and clap – but, as it turned out, every one of them was quiet, stunned into silence. The air was thick with emotions. Next to Shinkai, Yasutomo was breathing heavily, and on his other side he could sense Juichi's muscles tensing up. He could see Jinpachi hanging onto Makishima's arm like his life depended on it, but Sohoku's climber was so absorbed with the race that he failed to notice the abuse of his limb.

It was almost ironic that the freshmen were the first ones to recover.

"That bike! Look at it! I want one just like that! Ooh, what a babe! Give it to me!"

Tadokoro had to hold Sohoku's younger sprinter as he was about to bolt into the road. If someone had lived until that day believing that there was a greater love in Naruko Shoukichi's life than bicycles, this was the moment that the illusion crumbled down.

"Try to keep your pants on, you wacky midget, you're embarrassing us!" Tadokoro ordered but his voice was also wavering with emotion.

As the peloton had ridden past, more than one member of their troop had tears on their cheeks. With Jinpachi it had been inevitable, but Juichi wasn't the first person that Shinkai would have bet on to weep. And he didn't weep per se, but secretly wiped the corners of his eyes.

The next burst of emotions followed, as Arashiro rode past. One would have thought that there wouldn't have been a crumb of control left after the first wave, but they still found themselves hanging right beside the road. And at that point the cheering gear kicked in, too.

Maybe Arashiro heard his countrymen shout – because it wasn't the most intensive phase of the stage and it was possible for racers to take a look at their surroundings – or maybe he just happened to glance to his right but he lifted his hand, waving at them.

"Someone catch Toudou! He's passing out!" Yasutomo hollered.

"Shut up, you just creamed your pants!" Jinpachi hissed, but his balance did seem a little off and he was still hanging onto Makishima for support.

"Oh, I thought that was Naruko."

The person in question was so dazed that he let the insult slide. In fact, he was so dazed that Shinkai wouldn't have been surprised to see a wet spot in the front of his pants.

Okay, so every one of them loved cycling and amazing road racers, there was no doubt about it. But none of them loved bicycles quite as much as Naruko Shoukichi. That had become clear during those few days that they had spent in the close vicinity of Sohoku's little sprinter.

"Do you see Andy or Fränk?"

"Hah, imagine if Izumida had a chance to meet the guys," Yasutomo said. "And he told them he'd named his pecs after them."

"You could ask them to sign your pecs," Jinpachi added.

Izumida's face got somewhat red and he stayed quiet. Unfortunately they didn't spot the Schleck brothers. But maybe in the next stage.

Seeing Arashiro was probably the finest moment of the first day, after all he was one of the few Japanese cyclists to have ever finished the Tour. To Shinkai it felt like he couldn't see anything for a moment after Arashiro had disappeared from view.

Eventually the road quietened and the cars driving behind the last racers passed them. People started to scatter around. Their troupe walked slowly back to the car to eat what was left of their snacks. The plan was to have a light lunch and then drive to Tours. The next day's stage would start there.

They unpacked the snacks from the car, spreading out a couple of picnic blankets for their lunch. It was moments like this when you noticed the dynamics and friendships of the group. In Sohoku's camp, the third-years settled down to eat amongst themselves, while the second-years formed their own little group as did the first-years. Mr. Pierre had slumped down into a camp chair, his filter hat over his eyes and seemed to have dozed off in a record of time. Amongst Hakogaku, the third-years were usually inseparable but that had been before there was anyone from Sohoku present. Therefore everyone was a bit surprised when Jinpachi suddenly joined them. As did Izumida, but somewhere between the last batch of cyclists and setting up a picnic their youngest member had disappeared.

"Where's that cursed gnome now?" Yasutomo asked.

"I don't know, the last time I saw him was when Arashiro rode past," Jinpachi said.

Yasutomo clicked his tongue in disapproval. "Maybe we should leave him here. That would teach him to stay with the group."

"Mhm, we were going to do the same thing to you back at the camping area."

"What?!"

"It took you so long."

"Dude was barfing!" Yasutomo pointed at Shinkai. "Should I have ripped him off the toilet in the middle of it?"

"You shouldn't have been drinking yesterday!"

"Sorry, Jinpachi," Shinkai muttered. His teammate was right. Their timing had been utterly lowsy. It was incredible how thoroughly his self-control had failed him.

"If you're just gonna lecture us, you can move to Sohoku's camp," Yasutomo growled.

"Well, everything worked out in the end," Izumida tried to calm them down. "Shinkai-san and Arakita-san got out in time and we found a good spot to watch."

Jinpachi huffed to himself, crossing his arms. "Barely."

"No, it wasn't 'barely'. We got here hours before the Tour," Yasutomo remarked. After that, Juichi cleared his throat and the arguing ceased.

It wasn't much of a lunch, because they were meant to eat better at their next stop but Shinkai downed every piece of food that he got out of the picnic bag. Hunger had been mauling at him the whole morning but nausea had prevented him from eating and this was probably the first time in ten years that he had skipped breakfast. He gobbled two sandwiches filled with ham, cheese and salad, a croissant, two oranges, a banana and three energy bars and would have eaten even more if the others had not hogged their share of the bag. Yasutomo had borrowed (or perhaps snatched) a thermos from Mr. Pierre and he poured Shinkai some strong, black coffee. His headache started to slowly dissipate.

"After the 15th stage, it's a resting day," Jinpachi said, his tone relented. "It's on the 15th, your birthday, Hayato. Shouldn't we celebrate it?"

"Hmm, yeah." Shinkai hadn't forgotten his birthday – after all, it wasn't every day that a person turned eighteen – but the excitement from the Tour had forced his birthday to take a backseat.

"Let's just stick a candle in a choco-banana PowerBar. That'd make a suitable cake."

"Arakita, you're so rude that I keep wondering how Hayato still has the patience to look at your impolite face. We'll definitely come up with something better than an energy bar cake. Let's see where we will be then…" Jinpachi fished a folded map of the Tour out of his pocket, opening it with a very self-important look on his face. "A place called Mont Ventoux. Maybe there'll be some nice restaurants or other places we could visit. I wonder if it has an amusement park."

"Mont Ventoux is a mountain," Izumida said. "It's completely bare. There's nothing there, hardly even plants."

"Oh yeah, right. Damn. Well, maybe there's a village or something close by. Isn't France quite a populous country? Hey, maybe on that resting day we could rent bikes and go for a ride!" Jinpachi turned to look at Shinkai and Yasutomo, his gaze stern. "Barring that on the night of the 14th you won't disappear to get yourselves shitfaced."

Seriously, the world lost a great mother hen in Jinpachi.

Their next accommodation was a tiny camping area about twenty kilometers from Tours. In fact, it was so tiny that it was a miracle that they had managed to book a spot. Maybe Mr. Pierre knew the owners. The old man stopped the car in the shadow of trees. Patches weren't outlined clearly but on both of their sides there were caravans so it was easy to make out their spot.

Some of them started to set up the tents right away, because they were still planning to go and have dinner somewhere close. Shinkai sat down in the shadow of a tree to enjoy the day's third cup of coffee. He wasn't really a coffee drinker but for a hangover the bitter drink worked wonders. While sitting there, he fished his phone out of his pocket, where it had been lying the whole day. He just hadn't remembered to check it since yesterday.

Whoops. There was a collection of new messages waiting for him again.

'Hayato, where are you now? Did you get to see the Tour yet?'

'Did you see the Tour? What was it like?'

'Huh, it's actually really weird to not hear from you for a long time. Sure there's the time difference but shouldn't it be almost noon in France now? Text me when you have a moment.'

They had been messaging last night and even though it seemed to have been a forever ago, in reality only 20 hours had past, most of them spent sleeping. What was Ayane's problem? She had always been very eager to text and call him, but Shinkai had clearly stated that he couldn't use his phone constantly during his trip. He was almost scared to open the last message.

'Hayato, where the hell are you? I'm getting worried!'

"Hey, dude." Yasutomo halted next to him and poked him lightly in the shoulder. "What's up? Feeling better?"

"Sort of. Still tired though," he said. He felt immensely better, having eaten, downed a couple of litres of water and some coffee on top of it, but he'd need a good night sleep to feel properly alive again. Luckily he'd been able to remove his ridiculous headwear.

"Mhm, same here." Yasutomo pulled a scrunched L&M pack out of his pocket, shaking a cigarette onto his palm. "Wanna bet on for how many seconds I can manage to smoke this before Toudou comes to lecture me?"

Shinkai chuckled. "Jinpachi seems to be quite busy elsewhere at the moment." Apparently their climber princess had decided that he had fulfilled his duties towards his own team and had glued himself to Makishima again. Sohoku's climber was trying to set up their tent, and instead of helping out, Jinpachi was tugging his sleeve and babbling about something Shinkai luckily couldn't hear to his spot. Makishima listened, looking more or less suffering. And people said about Shinkai that he had the nerves of a cow!

"Just watch." Yasutomo clicked the lighter under his cigarette, taking a first drag. Smoke enveloped them in the windless evening. "Well, what do you think about the first day of the Tour?"

Shinkai answered with a wide smile. Words felt insufficient, too light to describe the feeling that seeing the Tour had left them with. Everyone seemed to suffer from the same problem. Throughout the day, they had talked about it and every now and then someone had brought up a new detail about the race. Remarks about how someone had ridden, what kind of bike he'd had, how the rest of the audience had reacted. 'Fucking amazing,' Yasutomo had said and it was pretty much to come from him, but it – like all the other comments – still sounded like… like someone had ordered a small ball of vanilla in the world's most luxurious ice cream café.

"If you wait for a couple of hours, I'll compose a symphony of this day."

His teammate smirked. "What are you going to name it? Cycling symphonies in a hangover falsetto?"

"Perhaps. Would you agree to sing in them?"

"If you're looking for some horror elements."

"Come on, your voice is not that bad."

Yasutomo snorted. "You should recruit Fuku-chan. You'd get some opera in your symphony."

Shinkai let out a laugh. The only time they had actually lured Juichi into singing, the results had been quite memorable, mostly because Juichi sung as he lived. Honourably. And because judging by his singing style he had only listened to opera until that day.

"Yeah, Juichi would undeniably fit in it."

They chuckled in companionable understanding.

"Maybe we'll get there some day," Yasutomo said. "Y'know, the Tour."

"Maybe." Shinkai wondered if he'd have time to train at a university. He should definitely pick a school that provided the chance to continue his hobby. "By the way, where's Manami? Did we leave him back at the watching spot?"

"Nah, Toudou reached him with his phone. He's probably sleeping in the back of the van right now."

"Okay." Shinkai really had no relationship with Manami whatsoever and the boy caused his troubles all by himself, but they shouldn't just leave him somewhere in France's periphery.

He ate his last energy bar, rinsing it down with coffee. After that, he got his phone out again, starting to type his reply to Ayane. She would literally climb the walls and maybe call Shinkai's parents if she didn't hear from him soon.

'Sorry, I haven't had time to answer because we've been on the road the whole day. It's that sort of a trip. Can't really call it a holiday. We saw the Tour, it was really great. Now we're in a camping area again near Tours and tomorrow we'll go to the city early to get a good spot for watching. Please don't get worried even if you don't hear from me every day.'

The last sentence was useless. Ayane was the worrying kind.

He almost felt like shutting off his phone to avoid making an extra bill but that would make Ayane totally freak out. Besides, it was good to be available in case his folks needed something.

Yasutomo sat with his knees bent, leaning his arms onto them, taking a drag out of his cigarette now and then and watching Shinkai type out of the corner of his eye. Shinkai had a feeling that he wanted to say something, but he had the patience to wait until Shinkai had sent his message and stuffed his phone back into his pocket.

"So… have you had a chance to consider my suggestion?"

Shinkai turned to look at his black-haired mate. What frigging suggestion?

Aargh, he knew that he had been left in the dark about something from yesterday!

"You practically already agreed," Yasutomo added, and to Shinkai it seemed that he was trying to pretend to be more careless than he actually was: the cigarette on the lips, a slight inhale, puffing out the smoke, a casual glance from between his half-closed lids.

It was getting better yet. He had promised to do something that he had no recollection of.

He tried to rummage through his mind. They had sat on the patio, downed some cider, beer and finally the shots, talked bullshit about women and Jinpachi and his relationship with Makishima. But he couldn't remember having promised anything.

"Remind me," he said.

Yasutomo shook his head. "Let's talk about it later."

"Why later?"

Yasutomo nodded towards the tents. "Toudou is coming this way."

Oh yeah, he was, actually. And he was stamping his feet while marching up to them, making the grass fall like it was cut with a trimmer. His hands were clenched in fists, his brows pressing heavily down onto his eyes.

He stopped in front of them, crossing his arms.

"Arakita, what are you doing?"

"I'm sitting in a French camp site and enjoying the warm evening."

"You. Are. Smoking!"

Yasutomo lifted the cigarette to eye level, raising his brows as if he'd only now noticed it for the first time. "Lo and behold! So it seems."

"Do you have any idea what that stick of cancer is doing to your body? To your cycling condition?"

"I do. That's why I'm just going to finish this pack and not buy a new one. What happens in France, stays in France."

Jinpachi didn't look convinced. "How many are there left in the pack?"

"Mm, seven."

"It's seven too many. Your lungs will turn into chimneys. Give that pack to me!" Jinpachi, who had never understood the concept of personal space, tried to sneak his fingers inside Yasutomo's breast pocket. Yasutomo just slapped the hand away and resumed his smoking.

Jinpachi's face got flushed with anger. "Give me those cigarettes!"

"No. I'll smoke them during the trip."

"I will tell Fuku."

"Be my guest."

Jinpachi stomped away at least as theatrically as he had arrived, with determination and huffing and puffing to himself. Shinkai felt a smile tug his lips, though on the other hand, he actually understood Jinpachi. Competitive sports wasn't just a hobby, it was a way of life. Your daily choices had to be taken into account, whether it was about how many hours you slept or what you put into your mouth. But their all had their weaknesses: Juichi had apple pies, Shinkai had choco-banana bars, Manami was a slob to the core. Probably even Jinpachi sometimes hogged fast food when he was alone. Izumida was the only one of them with a samurai's self-discipline.

Yasutomo had his Bepsi. And he was a bit lazy, though it was nothing in comparison to Manami. He was right too; a few cigarettes wouldn't ruin his condition, as long as smoking didn't become a habit.

Yasutomo didn't bring up his suggestion anymore, but it looked like it was still bugging him. Hell, it was bugging Shinkai too. Because he saw himself as a man who kept his promise. That is, if he had promised something. It sounded more like Yasutomo had come up a crazy idea, for example, he had suggested that they would dress up as sheep for the graduation party, and Shinkai had agreed in his drunken state.

He brought it up himself when they had retreated into their tent (which was made for two people this time – they had swapped with Jinpachi and Makishima) soon after their dinner trip, planning to get more sleep than the previous night.

"So what have you suggested?"

Yasutomo was in the middle of changing his shirt and Shinkai's question caused him to freeze with his head inside the piece of clothing. Even time seemed to stop, he was so still.

Was it that huge of an issue?

Then Yasutomo continued getting dressed, meaning that he tried to violently yank his shirt on. Shinkai watched for a moment as his tent mate wrestled with the cloth before clearing his throat. "That's a sleeve."

Yasutomo swore and tugged his shirt off to look at it properly before pulling it on in the right way. His black hair was tousled from the operation and his black eyes were staring at the tent wall.

"You seriously don't remember?"

"Nope."

Yasutomo turned to look at him. "Do you remember what you said about Gackt?"

Heh. "Yeah, I do. But that wasn't a promise." Or was it?

Had he promised to try to get in Gackt's bed?

No, he could never be drunk enough to promise that.

"Yeah well…" Yasutomo arranged – wrenched – the hem of his shirt over his pyjama pants. Usually he wore nothing more than underpants in bed. Shinkai knew it from the numerous training and race trips. He himself didn't usually wear more than underpants in bed. But in France it became surprisingly cold during nights and the sleeping bag wasn't enough to keep him warm. Yasutomo tugged the zipper of his sleeping bag, opening it and lying down. His movements were still a little too fast, nervous-like. Was he upset because Shinkai didn't remember?

Shinkai waited, but his tent buddy didn't say anything, he was just lying on his back, snuffling to himself. Alright, he'd talk when he was ready. Shinkai pulled out a pocket size detective novel that he'd bought just for the trip, intending to read it until he fell asleep. Which wouldn't take long.

"We talked about who you'd do it with if you had to screw a guy."

Yes, he remembered this subject. It had presented itself a few times during their trip ('a few' had to be pronounced very emphatically and with sarcasm). Apparently Yasutomo was having some kind of identity crisis since he was constantly musing over it.

Shinkai lowered his book. What kind of friend would he be if he didn't listen to a guy in need? "Yep, that we did."

"And if we forget those Gackts and other celebrities because it would be kinda unlikely that you'd get a chance to try it out with him, even if he had a fetish for high school boys… The real option however would be to experiment with someone close to you – so you wouldn't need to go and hang around some gay bars – and…" Yasutomo trailed off, taking a deep breath. He was searching for a more careless tone. Shinkai could have pointed out that that ship had sailed long ago.

"And I asked who'd you be with if you had to choose one of us."

Had he really asked something like that? Shinkai couldn't reach the memory but he had a feeling that something of the sort they had jabbered about. This was what had been nagging him earlier when his eyes had brushed over Yasutomo.

He hmm'd to indicate that his friend could continue.

"So and then…" Yasutomo cut his explanation off once more, rolling onto his side to support himself on his elbow, facing Shinkai. "You really, honest to God, don't remember?"

"I don't! I wouldn't lie about something like this. I was so fucking wasted or more likely half asleep when you started talking about it. I just remember that you tried to mol–"

Molest me?

Shinkai stared at Yasutomo. Yasutomo stared at him. Seconds passed, becoming a minute, then another and then yet another. Then the time stopped altogether. The wind was rustling the tent fabric. Somewhere in the outside world a baby was crying.

Hmm, there were grey-brown specks in Yasutomo's seemingly black eyes once you got a closer look. Shinkai hadn't noticed before.

"You want to fuck me?" he finally said, stated like in the morning when you look out the window and state that it had been raining during the night. Because that was all he was capable of.

Yasutomo threw his head aside, breaking their eye contact. The muscles in his jaw were tensing up, Shinkai could see them outlined on his skin. "Not exactly… I mean, I don't specifically want to fuck you. I was just thinking when we talked about how it would be interesting to try and... maybe it would be most convenient with a teammate."

Shinkai failed to see any logic in that.

"If you really want to screw a teammate, how about Juichi?"

Yasutomo looked at him all too meaningfully. "Do you have any idea what you just said?"

Yeah, suppose it wasn't up for discussion, not even on a theoretical level.

"If I remember correctly, Jinpachi was excluded, but maybe Touichirou would be up for it?" he suggested.

"No, not gonna happen."

"Manami?"

"Christ, Shinkai! Can you hear yourself talking? Can you hear the absurdities flying out of your mouth?"

Can you?

Not that Shinkai could (nor wanted to) imagine Yasutomo going at it with a freshman. Manami's sexuality was a mystery in any case. Shinkai didn't spend his time thinking about his teammate's orientations but Manami was one of those cases where it wouldn't be surprising even if his libido was directed towards tree trunks.

"In other words, you wanna fuck me," he repeated.

"Argh, I said it's not specifically…"

"But if you don't accept anyon–"

"I would, if there were other people in our team besides the least loony elite of an outpatient care – that wasn't a compliment – and one iron-masked piece of wood!"

"And I'm not part of that outpatient care lot?"

Yasutomo lowered his gaze, and Shinkai thought he saw a hint of pink on his cheeks. Arakita Yasutomo embarrassed? They must be nearing the greatest plot twist of all times. "Um, you're not so… You have some sense in your head and…" he muttered.

Shinkai wiped his face, taking a deep inhale. This was by far one of the strangest situations he'd come across during his relatively short life. "You know what, Yasutomo? Can I just say that I'm flattered? For the fact that you could consider... um, fucking me." I salute thee, sentence I never thought I would say. "But I've got a girlfriend and actually I consider myself quite straight and…"

"I'm not asking you to marry me, damn it!" Yasutomo barked, remembering only afterwards where they were and lowering his volume considerably. "You're making the whole thing bigger than it is. I only said it would be interesting to try it… to find out what it would be like with a guy. And it would be safest to try it with someone you already know." He trailed off, his jaw moving, as he searched for words. "I don't see it as cheating. If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't think that. It's more like… solidarity between guys. It wouldn't involve feelings. It's a bit like when you jerk off with other guys in a locker room."

In Shinkai's opinion, it wasn't the same at all.

On the other hand, Yasutomo was right about the detail that excluding feelings changed the act. There wouldn't be anything romantic involved. It would be purely mechanical performance, without any unnecessary touching, kissing or anything that would indicate passion or two people caring about each other.

Shinkai didn't think of himself as flawless person. However, he did think of himself as a peace-loving, generally nice guy. Sometimes being a nice guy became a burden. He could step into other person's shoes, see things from their point of view too easily. He gave in too easily when persuaded. The quality had gotten him in trouble before.

But this was… this was in a league of its own.

"I think I can see your point," he began, probing, because he was afraid of giving Yasutomo the wrong impression. "About it not being cheating mentally, if there are no feelings involved. But there's, like, this minor rule about being a boyfriend and a girlfriend and that's no touching other people below the waistline. Unless you happen to be a doctor, which I'm not."

Yasutomo stayed quiet for a moment, digesting his words. Probably coming up with a counterargument.

"You genuinely like that chick?"

"Hmh?" The question caught Shinkai off guard. "Ayane?"

"Yeah."

"Sure, yeah. I like her. I mean, we haven't been dating for that long but..."

"So you're not with her just to get laid regularly?"

"No, I'm not."

Yasutomo huffed, looking like he'd still want to say something but then he decided otherwise. Good. Shinkai tolerated many things but criticizing his girlfriend wasn't one of them.

Yasutomo rolled onto his back, sighing again. The tent quietened down. Shinkai lay staring at the ceiling for a moment but then picked up his book again.

He couldn't really decide how to feel about his teammate at the moment. It wasn't that Yasutomo had confessed to have a crush on him or something equally weird, he was only curious (anyone would be if they watched that much porn) and Shinkai was conveniently available. But he was totally the wrong person. He had a girlfriend and had, while musing over the subject of having sex with a man, come to the conclusion that it really wasn't his thing. Girls were soft and cute and tender and clean and everything boys weren't. Those were the qualities that he valued in girls; that made him attracted to them. Instead, if he'd have to stick his face close to other guy's equipment… hrrgh!

Although. He had heard... or he was under the impression that the sex act itself with another guy wasn't all that bad. Like, if you forgot that men were hairy, noisy and dirty. He had also heard that anal sex was quite a memorable experience for a receiving party too, and specifically in a positive manner when done right. If he didn't have to fondle the guy or kiss him or touch his dick, he maybe could have…

Dear lord, was he actually thinking about it now?

"So you'd be putting me in the chick's role?" he checked.

Yasutomo practically jumped at his question. He had probably already thought that they wouldn't discuss the matter anymore that night.

"Er… you mean like…"

Because you asked me that one night if I have ever considered letting someone fuck me. That's how you phrased it. That I would be the one to take it up the ass.

"Because if we now, in theory, pictured that I could see myself agreeing to something like that – just out of curiosity. Hypothetically," he emphasized. "The partner should be of a very active kind because I'm really not sure if I'd be willing to touch another guy's dick."

He knew that he was an exception. In some cultures to be gay was only to be on the receiving end, the bottom, and the active party was still considered straight. According to that, he should have wanted to be the one topping. But… if he'd ever get involved in that sort of craziness, he felt like it would be easier to just lie down and let the other guy do the job rather than try to make himself get excited over flat chests, narrow hips or hairy asses. Not that Yasutomo had a particularly hairy ass but naturally he had more wool than girls.

Oi oi, you shouldn't be thinking that! You've got a girlfriend! You're straight!

Fucking hell, what was the matter with him?

Yasutomo's jaw was hanging open and his eyes had moved to the far right, as he stared at Shinkai. He felt a small jolt of twisted pleasure for being able catch Yasutomo off guard for a change. And it gave him back some of his composure, bringing a grain of humour to the whole ordeal. Because, cross his heart, he really couldn't take this conversation seriously anymore.

Yasutomo pulled himself together. "Sure, you could be the bitch. If you wanted to."

"Okay." Shinkai nodded to himself, getting back to his book. "Just checking."

"What are y–?"

"Shh, Yasutomo, I'm reading my book now."

A snort. And then another. Finally, as Shinkai refused to react, Yasutomo pulled the zipper up to his chin, rolling onto his side with his back towards Shinkai. His side rose high and then collapsed, as he let the air out his lungs. Shinkai was chuckling inwardly.

"I still think," he said. "That you should get yourself a girlfriend too."

A/N: The remark about Andy and Frank (or it's Fränk actually) was inspired by this post: post/91797987836/ok-but-can-you-imagine-if-izumida-ever-goes-pro

Fan art! Emsandman drew a very drunken Shinkai wearing Mr. Pierre's hat and also Toudou lecturing Arakita about smoking. You can check it out here: post/94148544595/hungover-and-ashamed-shinkai-is-forced-to-borrow

She also drew the picture that Manami took from the previous chapter: post/93193424420/manamis-photo-of-a-very-hungover-arakita-and