Rites of Lupercal

By Clorinda

Rated: PG

Category: General

Summary: One can misquote Shakespeare, or one can laugh. Sometimes they can also choose to do both, or neither, and steal a kiss while they're at it. (FahrukixSako) One-shot.

Author's Note: I guess it's pretty nasty of me turn a really good friendship into this (try imagining me wearing glasses that catch the light and glint to hide my eyes, hunched over a keyboard, furiously typing a hentai fic about you and your best friend.) But I have an explanation (read: excuse not to get killed) ready.

"Rites of Lupercal" started off as a deliberately clichéd RodrigoxKaori fanfic, (all thanks go to psquare ... again) but then I was so disgusted with how awful it was, that I chose to pounce on two other random characters.

Clarification: Obviously if you've clicked on this, you're not really averse to slash, but this is shounen-ai, please. Not yaoi. There's a difference.

Dusk was yet to set in an hour, and the sky was still lit with mellow colours. The park was filled with laughing children, serene, old people and the random person on a bench with a book. The metal gate creaked on its hinges behind them, and the two boys, young men as they had become, walked down the pavement, leaving it and going down a boulevard of leafless trees where the ground was rich, red, and golden.

Alas, the bus stop was empty.

Shoes crunching over the dry, fallen leaves, Sako lowered himself on the unoccupied bench. He crossed his legs idly, and examined the bench. He looked up at his companion, and said,

"It's not wet paint, you know."

Fahruki was visibly preoccupied. His eyes were clouded, and he didn't seem to have heard. Distracted, he muttered to himself. How did he even manage to forget in the first place?

"Lupercal is approaching."

"Excuse me?"

Sako looked up in mild surprise. "Lupercal? Isn't that until February?"

"It is? ... Oh, oh, yeah, it is." He looked considerably embarrassed for the tiny slip-up. He reached out to run a hand through his glasses, and nearly knocked off his spectacles in the process. Sako had to laugh.

"What's gotten into you?" he said lightly, not used to seeing the usually composed, collected and well-informed (to an obsessive degree, he reflected ruefully, thinking back to high school) Fahruki in such an obviously flustered state. "Don't tell me you're upset because of a date you got wrong."

Fahruki laughed too, but it was weak and nervous. "'Course not," but he wouldn't meet those questioning green eyes. "Fifteenth March, right?"

"February. You could at least try reading Julius Caesar."

"Good to see Lupercal celebrated, though. Wish I were Roman."

"Huh?" Sako tapped Fahruki on the side of the head with a knuckle. "What've you been eating lately? And I told you not to stay up all night like you did last week ... it pays to listen, you know."

"I guess." The first hint of a grin tugged at Fahruki's mouth. He took of the glasses, and handed them to Sako. "I'm going to try listening to my sister this time."

But his hands hovered, uncertain. He reached out, and Sako tensed for a second, but the moment passed, and Fahruki's hand picked off a careless leaf that had landed in his friend's hair.

Something hung in the air between them for a moment. Tersely, suddenly, it broke.

"You know something," said Sako, laughing, "you look awful without those glasses. Put 'em back on. It'd feels kind of awkward if I were to kiss you and you didn't have them on."

Before the other could react, he really did lean over and kiss him.

Fahruki closed his eyes almost by reflex. He'd never been kissed before, not like that. It felt strange; for a lingering moment, he could feel Sako's lips pressed against his mouth, full and passionately, and then the next second, he couldn't.

Fahruki's eyes opened. He said slowly, "You ... you figured it?"

Sako laughed again. "Lupercal?" he said teasingly. "I'm the one in the period literature class, remember?"

A bright red blush. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to be so transparent ... Heck, what my saying? Of course I did." He reached out, and took back his glasses, ostentatiously adjusting them for a minute or so, returning into the skin of the scholarly, easily embarrassed and seemingly arrogant, soccer player he was.

"When does the bus come anyway?" said Sako, looking at his watch. "It's four-thirty— I guess it's running a couple of minutes late."

Fahruki looked at his, and his bout of coughing had been cured too. "Hey! It's five o'clock. We missed it. Your watch might just need a tune-up one of these days."

Sako shrugged. "Could be ... Maybe we should just walk back to the college before it gets any darker."

"Guess we should," said Fahruki, standing up too. He offered his hand to Sako, who took it, and the two of them walked towards the darkening sky, far ahead of the little green painted bench at the bus stop where they'd stolen from the heavens a little kiss. The seconds ticked like the hands of a clock in Fahruki's mind, and he could hear it, only minutes later, as the bus rolled past the stop they had just vacated.

—- End -—