He settled into a routine of school, sex, and basketball, not necessarily in that order. High school had been everything he'd been expecting in terms of girls – though more of the ones that he wanted wouldn't touch him unless he lied about his age. But that was fine. He'd been lying about his age for a long time, and this way he was only stretching himself one or two years. Only one thing was bothering him.
Kiriyama had kept to the background when it came to basketball, and Shinji had no fuckin' idea why. He made all of his shots, but he never tried any fancy ones; instead, Kiriyama had found himself with a reputation of a solid inside shooter. Shinji got all of the glory, with his hook shots from the three-point line and his half-court buzzer beaters (or, half-court whenever-the-fuck-he-felt-like-it), and Kiriyama stayed in the background. Shinji, who had fully expected Kiriyama to come, show them all up, and leave, was worried about this.
He hung back one day after practice, grabbing Kiriyama and pulling him into a corner until the rest of them had departed. Kiriyama didn't react, and instead just stared at the hand that Shinji had on his arm.
"What's your deal?" Shinji asked, and Kiriyama met his eyes, the slight crease of a frown between his eyes. "I thought you were going to come in, steal the show, and leave. Why the hell haven't you?"
"I was going to," Kiriyama said. He nodded a few times. "But I want to know what it feels like to win. So I'm going to stay through the first game. And then I'll quit."
"And, what, you'll steal all of my shots in that game? You'll look like an idiot if you try for it in a game and it misses."
"I won't miss," Kiriyama said, and Shinji shifted. There was something about the way that Kiriyama was looking at him that made him want to fuck him. It was an overwhelming, primal urge, and Shinji did all he could to cover it up. He turned away, goosebumps raising on his skin, and got his normal clothes on so that he could go home.
Yutaka was calling him, but he didn't want to talk right now. He didn't want to do anything right now except fuck, if he was being completely honest. He kept one hand clenched n a tight fist, his fingernails digging into his palms in an attempt to distract himself. It didn't work. He let out a breath between his teeth and wondered if he should find Souma, and that's when he saw Sho Tsukioka.
Tsukioka didn't go to their high school – Shinji hadn't seen him since the last day of middle school, where he'd been fawning over Kiriyama like he always did. Shinji had rolled his eyes and gone back to his conversation, not giving it a second thought. But now there he was, talking to another guy who was probably in his thirties, cigarette hanging out of a corner of his mouth. He looked… older.
Tsukioka was one of the guys that had always made sure that they looked good – and of course he had, Shinji thought, he was one of those guys – but he'd grown into it more. He'd grown another few inches, and his hair was styled in a way that didn't make him look like he was playing dress-up.
The two of them locked eyes, and Tsukioka patted the guy on the arm and crossed the street.
"Hello, Shinji-kun," he said, smiling. Shinji took a step back, but Tsukioka kept the distance between them short. The smell from the cigarette was starting to make him light-headed. Shinji guessed that smoking could look hot, but, man – the smell was something that Shinji wasn't going to deal with. He looked good enough without it.
"Hey," Shinji said. He hovered on the edge of splitting and staying where he was. Tsukioka didn't let him make the choice. He threw an arm around Shinji's neck and steered him through the streets until they made it to an old apartment building.
"Come on," he said, and Shinji wondered if he wanted to run. He didn't know where he was, but he had no doubts about finding his way to someplace he knew. He was a smart guy, and it shouldn't take him long to figure things out. It never did. If he ran, he'd be fine.
If he didn't run, he could figure out if he really did want to have sex with men.
He didn't run. He let Tsukioka lead him up to an apartment on the top floor, and he watched Tsukioka stub out his cigarette and he watched Tsukioka turn to him.
"What do you want?" he asked. He felt an urge to cross his arms, but resisted. He left them hanging loose on his sides, though one hand was still in a fist. The other was curled halfway there. Tsukioka smiled and ticked things off on his fingers as he spoke.
"You're flushed, your hand is clenched like you're trying to distract yourself, and looking at all of these and then inspecting your crotch, you want to get some action right about now."
Shinji took a step back and wondered if it had been obvious the entire time he'd been walking. Tsukioka seemed to read his mind, because he just laughed.
"Don't worry, only a master could tell," Tsukioka said. He laughed again. "I'm sure if you ran across Souma she'd know the exact same thing. And then you stopped, and then you looked at me, and I thought – well, if you want to try something new, who am I to stop you? This is new for you, isn't it? You're a real ladies' man."
"I am," Shinji said. He hadn't planned on confirming or denying anything, but, damn – he was a real fuckin' ladies' man, and he wasn't going to deny that just because he was in a possibly bad situation. "So?"
"So, are you one of those straight guys that's had a passing thought about a friend, got so scared he pissed himself, and decided he might as well find out for sure, or are you really interested in this?"
Shinji shook his head. "It's none of your business. I just want –" he faltered then, and Tsukioka's grin widened, and Shinji grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down and kissed him hard on the mouth. Tsukioka might have been surprised, but if he was he hid it well – and he got over it fast, because the next thing Shinji knew he was up against the door, Tsukioka's mouth working at his neck and Tsukioka's fingers popping the buttons on his shirt and Tsukioka's hips grinding against his. He'd never felt powerless like this before, not in a sexual situation like this; even if it was a girl working at him like this she was always smaller, there was always a sense of power that came with it, but with Tsukioka there came none of that.
He didn't know if he liked it.
Little Shinji sure as hell did.
"You don't know how long I've wanted you like this," Tsukioka was talking now, his hands being the primary workers now, unbuttoning his pants and yanking them and the underwear down. He kept talking, his voice a little breathless and a little gloating, and Shinji couldn't do anything other than press his head back against the door and point his head at the ceiling so that he didn't let Tsukioka see how he felt. "And here you are, here you are, right at my mercy with your cock in my hands and you just clenching your teeth to keep from moaning, oh God is it the best."
Shinji swallowed, hard, and his fingernails found the grooves in his palms, and he dug them back in. Tsukioka was good, Tsukioka was really good, but the fact that it was Tsukioka made Shinji want to knee him in the face and beat it out of there.
He didn't, though.
He waited. He let Sho Tsukioka jerk him off, and he left without saying anything. He left with Tsukioka laughing, and he was more tempted than anything to hit him, but he didn't. He just left. His phone buzzed, but he left it. It was Yutaka, probably, and he really didn't want to talk to Yutaka right now. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He wanted to go home and he wanted to pound out three or five or ten hours on his computer, he wanted to hack into government websites and he wanted to extract information and he wanted to lose himself to the sound of his fingers tapping the keyboard and he wanted to be so sucked into the virtual world that when his eyes left it they got all spotty and fuzzy.
Maybe if he was lucky, this encounter had scared him off of guys.
So, I know this is technically manga!verse, but I'm not writing full-on manga Tsukioka. I'm just not doing it. So there's that.