Floodgates

Takano walked on home alone. He made sure that Shio was home first. But as they had decided to meet by the train station earlier, he didn't brought his car. He didn't realize it would go over the time of the last train. And so he, the man who was always prepared, stood at the empty and cold streets, listening to the very far, far away noises that couldn't break through his brain.

"…"

He drew a deep breath and tucked both his hands into the confines of his coat pockets. His boots echoed with his every dragging step. His shadow his lone companion as he walked his way home.

Better walk than wait for a taxi. Better walk and have his mind occupied instead of standing dead on a spot and have his mind be rattled.

He was rattled enough for the night. Any more of it and he might…crumble.

He didn't like that Shio obviously was carrying another burden. Another pain. Another confusion. And he didn't like one bit that for every pain he was causing Shio for trying to make him remember, instead of getting closer to Shio, it was as though he was getting farther away. Instead of being the support he wanted to be, that support Shio seemed to have found in the person of his so-called brother.

Continuing with his fast steps for almost an hour, those steps became slower, heavier.

But he didn't want to stop. Stopping meant just more thinking.

He just couldn't afford to think so much things right now. He wanted to breathe. Even for just a little.

Two pair of eyes were staring at a muted television. They stared, watched the nature documentary but their focus was somewhere else entirely.

"I am just allowing you that two beer of cans," Shin mumbled in between his own sips. Shio was just about to grab his third.

"I'm not a child," Shio grumbled, hugging his knees instead, obviously miffed.

"You are starting to act like one," Shin commented, almost finding himself wanting to laugh.

The documentary showed a gazelle being hunted down by a lion. The gazelle was so pretty, lean, almost dazzling as it ran for its life. Why the hell was the gazelle finding its life in danger when the freaking people there were just watching for the sake of the documentary? They should have helped.

"Because they don't want to cause abnormalities in the chain of nature," Shin replied calmly. Shio didn't even realize that he blurted his own musings out.

"So," Shin continued, one leg beneath him, his one hand gently swinging the remaining contents of his beer. "Is meeting your parents that bad?"

Shio hugged his knees even tighter. At the back of his mind he could still picture that stone-cold, hard-faced man and the vulnerable, silent woman. He didn't like them. At all.

"I just didn't expect it to turn out that way. I thought there would be some rush of blood, jumping of the pulse moments like how those things in TV portrayed."

"Hmmm…" Shin lifted his gaze to the ceiling. "At least, you were able to meet them."

Shio buried his face on his knees, rocking himself slightly.

"It sucks."

"What is?" Shin asked, looking then at Shio who was sitting just a foot away.

"It sucks to know they were so good people."

Shin allowed a few silence. Shio lifted his face from his knees and glared at the inviting cans of beer in front of him. Beer that he wasn't allowed to touch.

"I know they're good people," Shio whispered. "I could see little glimpses of how warm and caring my family had been. Until…"

"Until?"

Shio sighed. So deep. So dragging. He was just plain miserable.

"I guess it somehow changed when they started noticing. When they started noticing that their only son's different."

Shin looked down at the floor, listening to the bubbles of the aquarium close behind them. Funny it seemed to grow louder, and louder by the minute. Growing closer as though one of those bubbles was closing in on them, trapping them snuggly.

"They didn't want me gay." Shio tasted a bitterness in his mouth not from the beer he just had. He knew it very well now deep-down he was gay. There was no denying that anyway. His ten-year old younger self had the guts to say that. Seems like that younger him was more courageous than he was now.

"Maybe they didn't have much time to process it?" Shin offered, although it somehow sounded like he said it for the sake of saying something good.

Shio laughed softly. "I don't know. The only clear thing I could remember was my biological dad screaming faggot here and there and how much a disgrace I am."

"…faggot," Shin mumbled. The word foreign in his mouth.

"What would I tell dad?" Shio continued. "That the boy he welcomed to his home was a homosexual all along?"

Shin sighed. Troubled. He lowered his can of beer back on top of the low table and stretched his arms behind his head.

"Although I am telling you dad is not entirely a hero regarding how you ended up in this family and this identity mayhem, there's one thing he would never do."

"…"

"He would never call you faggot. The word would never even cross his mind."

Shio smiled skeptically. "All dads wanted a manly man as a son Nii-san."

"Well, I'm telling you listen to me because I know how he dealt with one."

That got Shio's interest and whole attention. He twisted to his right, facing Shin's direction. He knew at least the dad he was referring to right now had no other sibling. "Why? A close friend of him came out?"

Shin laughed a little. "It's about his oldest son."

"Uh…" Shio frowned. "He uh…huh?"

"One day during his business trip where I tagged along, there was this really nice-looking shy green-eyed kid wandering around the hotel."

"…"

"I couldn't take my eyes off him. He struck something in me so bad I was nailed on my spot. He looked like ten or something…" Shin turned at Shio and then smiled as though the memory was so funny. "Dad came from behind, nudged me and asked me 'You like him'?"

Shio opened his mouth. But found himself closing them again.

"Of course, I was rattled." Shin sighed. "I stammered, got drenched in cold sweat. Because I know it's weird. It's a freaking simple question but I can't answer him. Because my 'like' is already so distorted. I get attracted to specific males as much as I get attracted to specific females. I was thirteen, I was afraid."

"…"

"Dad must have seen I was about to cry. Damn that was so lame." Shin laughed some more. "He gave me a pat and just told me it isn't so bad. That I have a freaking gold heart."

"…"

Shin shook his head. "Really…gold heart?" Snorting, Shin waved a hand in the air. "Gold heart, as in I don't give a damn whether who I find attractive, whether they wear boxers or panties. His term is so…weird."

Shio was silent. He just sat there hugging his knees, eyes fixed at the other's reminiscent profile.

"You're gay. And people call the likes of me as bisexual," Shin shrugged. "Dad and grandma would pop balloons and cakes and party."

There was silence. Shin didn't know whether it was because he just dropped a bomb at Shio. All he wanted was to come out as well. The brunette had been telling him every inch of his worries and fear and somehow it just felt like natural to be telling him that sexuality issues weren't only happening to him. It was happening to many.

Shin picked up his empty beer of can just so he could move the sudden iceberg between them. But he stopped, froze and stared. Melted.

Shio was looking at him. Right at his eyes. Deep and somehow, god forbid he was just imagining it; there was longing. Desire.

The older man didn't move. He held all his nerves intact, not wanting to do something rash. He stayed put, not trusting his own self. However, it was Shio who leaned towards him, who inched closer, who initiated what was to be the breaking point of all of them.

Shio kissed him. Shin kissed back.

Takano felt a jolt somewhere in his chest. The blast of a car horn startling him.

"Man are you crazy?!" the driver shouted.

When Takano looked around, he was practically in the middle of the road, almost getting himself rolled over by a delivery truck.

"Get the hell off the road man!"

Takano almost blindly headed back to the sidewalk, still feeling a clenching, seizing feeling in his chest. He looked back to where he came from. And the fierce piercing in his chest clenched and deepened.

The muted television continued on showing the beasts of the wild. It seemed to mirror the very primal instincts suppressed for so long, two men entangled on the couch.

What started in a chaste, testing of water actions churned into thirsty, intense exchange of breaths.

Shin was doing his best not to get carried away. Because he was just, really, a second away from ripping the annoying knitted long sleeves the man beneath him was wearing.

Entangled on the couch, its usual large space that could serve four persons seated was in no way able to sustain two men in horizontal positions.

Shin rested his arms on both sides of Shio's face, his face bordering between deep amusement and laughter.

"What the hell are we doing?" Shin breathed out, lowering his mouth down Shio's exposed throat who, surprisingly, was as willing and needy. Shin could feel the bite of Shio's fingers as the brunette dug into his shoulder and arm. "Shit…" Shin groaned, sensing the worse in his own lower body. "You really should start pushing me away."

"I don't want to," Shio replied, a husky whirl of breath, seductive and challenging. "I need to…Nii-san…"

Shin closed his eyes, trying to calm down as he tried to lift himself a little away from Shio's body. "That is so weird. This seems like incest."

"We're not brothers." Shio laughed.

"Damn you're drunk."

Shio shook his head. "I only had two cans of beer. There's no way I am drunk from all of that."

"Yeah?" Shin mumbled, reaching a thumb to Shio's moist lips. It was exhilarating to know that the shine on the younger man's parted lips was due to his sucking and nipping and invasion. "Yeah, you have no idea how much I burn to get a taste of this."

Shio narrowed his eyes. "What are we…? Tell me what are we?"

There was the obvious mutual attraction between them. Perhaps even from before, it was already there. It was as though a floodgate had been opened and a dam, too strong to stop got spilled and was wrecking havoc in its way. But Shin tried to reign his own self. No matter how much Shio insist that he wasn't drunk, he may not be one, but the brunette was still confused and in his core, he didn't want to take advantage of that. Though, little licks and nips, and taste, might be okay? Shin was damn going to take what he can, as he danced in the thread bare barrier he created himself.

Shin sucked his breath. "Hi, my name is Shin. Officially removing myself the title 'nii-san'. How's that?"

For the weirdness of it, Shio laughed. He looked like he'd been trapped for so long and now he was just letting the wildness he himself didn't know he had in him. Shin thought Shio would continue laughing like that, but moments later, the brunette grew silent. He just laid on the leather, staring at the ceiling.

"What? You're starting to realize we're crazy for reaching this point?"

Shio shook his head. "I'm just thinking I should introduce myself too."

"Okay…?"

Shin knitted his brows, sensing some tension in Shio's body. He started removing himself off Shio when the brunette suddenly held him back by grabbing on his arm.

"T-Thank you for being a brother to me. My name…" Shio drew a deep breath, his eyes reddening for some reason Shin found odd. "My name's Ritsu."

Chapter end notes:

HI everyone! Busy this Halloween! XD Yeah, I know. Sorry for those who want Takano and Ritsu to make up already. I guess I've already said it before I don't intend to make it easy. Because I must confess, I enjoy making the uke suffer (and for those who've read most of my previous oneshots and series, it's always the ukes suffering! I fully wanted to torture the seme here for a change). *insert sadistic laughing audio clip here*

Thanks again, sorry for the wait and please share your thoughts!

~shuusetsu