Title: Damn the Plumbing (Part 2 of 2)

Author: shimasama

Pairing: Akane Narita and Subaru Yagi

Fandom: Hot Gimmick

Theme: #13 – excessive chain

Disclaimer: I do not own Hot Gimmick. It belongs to Viz and Miki Aihara.

Author's Note: I had waaaay too much fun with this one, you guys. Listened to a lot of happy music, and just went nuts. I thought the last one wasn't Subaru/Akane enough, so I wanted to really whap you guys with some lovely romance.

Akane had discovered several problems with having a teenage male in the apartment. She could not believe she had ever wanted one there in the first place. She also wondered how she had forgotten Shinogu's own wasted teenage years. Perhaps she had just blocked the memories. Or maybe these kinds of embarrassing situations never happened when it came to your brother.

No, it seemed to only happen around the brother of your best friend, who was too much for a dork to do anything but blush and stare at you as if he has never seen a scantily clad girl before. Which, given the aforementioned conclusion of embarrassing things happening around your own brother, he probably hasn't.

"Um, Yagi-kun? What are you doing up?" Akane asked, her glass of milk halfway to her mouth. With her free hand she tugged at her lacy top, trying to cover her midriff—something that, in the presence of other males, she had never done before. She stared at the Yagi sibling, who looked like he had yet to fall asleep, trying to make all her movements seem nonchalant. She was failing, and he was still staring at her bare skin.

"What? Oh. Oh! S-sorry, Narita-chan… I-I was hungry…" His eyes finally drifted up a little further, away from her abdomen. Akane wanted to smack him when they rested just below her shoulder for a moment, before he was looking at her face and blushing furiously. "I'll just get out of your way." He whispered quickly, before disappearing into the darkened living room. Akane was still holding the glass of milk as if she was going to drink it, although any thoughts of that had long since escaped her.

Had Asahi's brother just checked her out?

No. She had to be imagining it. Subaru Yagi was as asexual as any male could be. His idea of an ideal female was two-dimensional and probably looked like a gundam.

Or she would have thought she had been imagining it, had it not been for the second instance.

Akane had learned to not get midnight snacks while Subaru was in the house, but somehow she had not figure out the whole lock-the-bathroom-door scenario. So while she was singing Arashi songs into her brush, anyone could just barge in to use the toilet. Including Subaru, who had thought Akane had been in some sort of pain.

"N-narita-san?" He interrupted her bathroom performance. Akane turned to him, mouth open, toothbrush-cum-microphone at the ready. There was toothpaste dribbling from her lip.

"Yagi-kun!" She spoke, toothpaste getting everywhere. She squeaked and spit out her mouthful, running the water to rinse her brush and her face. When she looked up again, Subaru was watching her intently, and Akane could not figure out why. "What is it?"

Suddenly the older boy was back to being shy and awkward. "O-oh! Nothing. I just… You have some—" He stepped forward and reached out a hand. Akane had to contain the shudder when she felt his fingers on her neck. When he brought his hand away, a little bit of her wayward toothpaste was on his fingertips. "Toothpaste. You missed it." He spoke easily, despite his blush, before he turned on his heel and forged out of the bathroom.

Akane looked at herself in the mirror, to see if she had missed any more toothpaste, only to realize what had captured Subaru's attention—it was not the toothpaste. It was the hickey, just beside her collarbone. She sighed, running a hand through her messy morning hair. What a dork.

The instances of embarrassed interruption continued to occur throughout the week Subaru was staying with the Narita family. What did not make sense to Akane, however, was that they continued to happen to her, and no one else. If Hatsumi was not such a monk, then maybe Subaru would have walked in on her making out with her boyfriend, rather than Akane. If Hatsumi had more friends, maybe Subaru would accidentally pick up the phone during one of her private conversations, instead of Akane's.

Finally, only a few hours before Subaru would be returning to his own apartment (Mrs. Narita had claimed that he could not leave without eating dinner with them first), Akane stomped into the apartment, plopping herself down on the couch in a huff. Subaru, who had been sitting on the floor with his obnoxiously large headphones on, fell over.

"N-narita-san!" He exclaimed, righting himself and slipping his headphones around his neck. "Uh, tadaima?" He looked at her frustrated expression, before pulling himself up to sit on the couch-his bed for the past seven days-next to her. "Is everything okay?"

"No, it's not okay!" She shouted, fuming. Akane was dressed for a date-her make-up was untouched, her top perfectly set, her skirt a tad too short for Subaru's comfort. He tried not to look below her chin, for his own self-preservation. "My date said I smelled like another guy! What the hell is that? Smelled like another guy?" Akane whipped her head around to look at Subaru, who reeled back in surprise, practically tumbling to the floor again. "Do I smell like another guy to you? Do I?"

Subaru put his hands up in his own defense. "Y-you smell like p-perfume, like you always do." He said quickly, getting up. "I'm sorry about your date, Narita-san. Really."

Akane was pouting, and it was obvious to both of them. She looked up at the older boy, his spikes a mess from his near tumbles and falls, and tried to word the next question as simply as possible.

"I don't use perfume, Yagi-kun. What made you think I did?"

Mouth hanging open, he tried to sit down again. He only managed to put a knee on the couch cushion. "I-I don't know. You always smell nice."

Trying to look him in the eye, Akane got onto her knees to face him. They were almost nose-to-nose. "Not like another guy?"

Subaru's eyes widened. "Wh-what? No!"

"Just nice?"

He nodded his head, and they accidentally bumped noses. He jerked his head backward to give them more space, only to break his already precarious position. He fell, off the sofa's arm, and only managed to catch his hands so that his head did not crack on the floor. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

When he opened them, Akane was peering over him, parts of her body he had never even dreamed of pressed flush up against him.

"Are you okay?"

The words barely registered with him. She was too close, and he was taking up his senses in a way he never thought possible. He could not answer, even if he had wanted to. And at that point, he did not want to. He wanted to take her in, in her unmussed date clothes, the way her stupid date should have.

Her gaze pierced his own and they stayed like that for a few seconds. He was perched in a way that bent his back in an awkward direction, but he did not dare move. He was afraid if he moved, this beautiful girl who had thought of him as a dweeb ever since they had met (how long ago that seemed now), would realize exactly what she was doing, and instantly regret it.

She read the look in his eyes before he even knew he was looking at her in that way—the way guys looked at her when she walked down the street. And she grinned, softly, trying not to scare him. She slid her hand to the side of their bodies to grab his and tug him up. He came, as if on automatic. She tugged at him again, bringing him closer, and brought her lips to his. The kiss lasted longer than Akane had expected it would, even with his long pause before reacting. It seemed she had rendered every part of him useless but his lips, but Akane did not mind—she had that affect on guys.

When they broke apart they were breathing hard, and Subaru was looking down at his knees, still pressed into the sofa cushion. Akane tried to place a hand on his shoulder, lean in for another kiss, but he would not let her. Finally when he raised his gaze, she saw something she had not expected—guilt.

"I answered your phone."

"What?"

"Your cell phone. I answered it. You left it in the kitchen this morning."

This was not making any sense. "So what?"

Subaru ran a hand through his spikes. His skin was stained a pleasant red that made Akane's face heat up as well. "I think it was your date."

It dawned on her too late. Subaru was up and out of there, into the bathroom. The gears in her brain worked after he shut the door, and she let out a laugh that she felt all the way to her fingertips and toes.

"He thinks he ruined my date!"