Disclaimer: I do not own Junjou Romantica or Sekai ichi Hatsukoi or Café Latte Rhapsody or any of their characters.
The Uke Flu Chapter
Chapter Forty: Unexpected Guests
Hiroki opened the door and found himself greeted with yet another Misaki look-a-like. Again the man was small and slender, with dark hair. Like Kisa he had deep brown, over-sized eyes. What differentiated this uke however, from both Misaki and Kisa was a light smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. This new guest looked quite young as well, but after meeting Kisa, Hiroki was not about to make any more assumptions.
Then Hiroki glanced at the youth's partner. He found himself looking up… and up… and up. He was astonished at the other young man's height; this visitor had to be at least ten centimeters taller than Nowaki. The evidence of the young man's mixed heritage, as Yukina had mentioned, was evident in more than his height, however: he had chestnut hair and extraordinary amber eyes, tinged around the edge with a bit of green.
One thing was certain about this new semuke... "sparkly" was not the first word that came into Hiroki's mind when he saw him. Even the "Demon Kamijou" found himself hard pressed not to quail a bit. The seme's curiously colored eyes held an intense glare that was more than a bit intimidating. The way the man stared reminded Hiroki of Riki Takeuchi. Hiroki had seen the actor's image on Miyagi's laptop at the University when the senior professor was sneakily trying to brush up on his knowledge of the action movies Shinobu favored.
Then Hiroki watched as the smaller man took his huge partner's paw and gave it a reassuring squeeze. The giant youth looked down at his petite lover and the expression on his face instantly softened. Hiroki found himself feeling rather confounded that someone who had appeared so incredibly fierce just moments before now looked so amazingly sweet.
The obvious uke of the pair (if one went by height rule anyway) gave Hiroki a polite smile and bowed. "Ah hello, I'm Serizawa." His taller partner followed, though somewhat uncomfortably.
"Tsuda-McCloud" the imposing semuke said rather awkwardly, his words carrying a strange accent. "B-but please call me Keito." Hiroki was surprised at how shy and gentle the fair giant sounded.
"Uh Kamijou," he offered returning their bow as he ushered them in.
"Thank you so much for inviting us," Serizawa smiled brightly in his best customer-service voice.
"We were out getting lattes when Yukina-san called," Keito mumbled softly, looking down at the ground. He glanced timidly at Hiroki and held up his disposable paper cup. "Decaffeinated," he assured looking guilty.
Hiroki watched the new couple with amusement as Serizawa knelt and began untying the pale-eyed giant's shoes.
"Honestly, Keito-kun... What are you doing wearing anything with laces these days?" Serizawa teased. Keito scrunched his eyes and blushed at the joking reprimand. Hiroki, seeing the expression on Keito's face, feared for a moment the tall youth might burst into tears.
"I'm sorry, Seri-san," Keito apologized. "That's the only pair I had at your apartment right now."
Serizawa stood up and slid his own shoes off. He looked at Hiroki with an uneasy expression. "Keito-kun still lives with his parents most of the time and they're not too thrilled with me at the moment."
"I'm nineteen," Keito offered as explanation, growing even redder.
Hiroki found himself shocked at how young Keito was.
No wonder his parents are upset. "And I'm guessing you're older?" Hiroki looked at Serizawa.
"Twenty-three," Serizawa offered slipping off his coat and hanging it up.
"Would you like take your jacket off, Keito-kun?" Hiroki asked, bringing out manners he'd rarely used since he was still living with his parents. With all the cooking and the radiant semes in the kitchen, the apartment was feeling warm. Normally, he wasn't inclined to be so cordial, but something about the tall teen standing shyly in front of him told him he needed to be tender.
Keito looked at Serizawa apprehensively.
"Come on, Keito-kun," Serizawa encouraged. "You said Yukina was in the same boat, so you're among friends here."
"Uh… Okay," Shyly, Keito slipped the huge hoodie his slender frame had seemed to be swimming in off over his head.
Once the tall teen's torso was revealed, Hiroki was hard pressed not to gasp; his eyes bulged. Keito's stomach was huge! He averted his eyes quickly.
"Ah, Welcome to our home. Please come with me; everyone is in here." Hiroki moved further into the apartment.
Rising to greet the newcomers from where he'd been sitting on the couch Kisa had the same reaction as Hiroki when he first saw Keito.
"Wah," Kisa breathed softly. "That guy is huge."
Apparently Keito had the same auditory acuity as the other semes, as his shoulders suddenly stooped in an attempt to make himself smaller. His large hands instinctively moved to cover his swollen belly simultaneously, as though he couldn't decide which manner of "huge" Kisa had meant.
He brightened, however, when Yukina joyously exclaimed, "Keito-kun, you made it!" and moved out of the kitchen to greet him.
Nowaki bounded over quickly behind him. "Wow, how amazing!" The medical giant sounded completely delighted. Watching from the side Hiroki couldn't tell if Nowaki was thrilled by the young man's obvious pregnancy or his height; he could easily imagine that Nowaki might be happy to finally encounter someone taller than himself.
After all the introductions had been made, Nowaki asked, "Keito-san how far along are you?"
"S… seven months..." Keito dropped his eyes, looking uncomfortable.
"That's remarkable," Nowaki breathed. "And you're obviously doing so well."
"Hard to believe in another two months I'll look like that. Huh, Kisa-san?" Yukina rubbed his own significantly pronounced five-month bump. Kisa's reply to this was an anxious frown which only made Yukina chuckle.
Hearing the warmth and acceptance in the other semuke's voices, Keito lifted his head hesitantly and offered a sweet, shy smile. "Can I help with anything?" He asked tentatively. Nowaki replied with a question of his own; his natural concern and professional inclinations coming into play.
"Are you okay to be up, Keito-kun, or would it be better if you were resting?"
"Well standing too long sometimes makes my low back ache a little bit," Keito admitted softly considerably downplaying how hard it really was becoming for him to get around. This confession about a "sore back" drew sympathetic glances from each uke in the room. "But I'm not doing too bad right now and sometimes once I sit down, it's not so easy to get back up."
This answer resulted in a number of queries from Nowaki and Yukina. Keito tried to answer as best he could. It was an amazing feeling for him to have other semes in the same situation he was, but the energy of the two older men was a little exuberant for his quiet personality. He looked over to Serizawa for help, but his boyfriend was talking with Hiroki as Kisa looked on.
Keito was literally saved by the bell, however, when Nowaki's cell phone rang and the young doctor excused himself from the conversation.
Nowaki exchanged a few words with his caller and then closed his phone. Hiroki, who had come in the kitchen to throw Serizawa's empty latte cup away and get the man a cold tea looked on curiously as Nowaki took another plate down from the cupboard.
"Would you put that on the table for me please, Hiro-san?"
"What's this, Nowaki? Another unexpected guest?" Hiroki took the plate along with the tea can.
"Uh… yeah, Hiro-san," Nowaki answered with just enough hesitance to make Hiroki suspicious.
"Not another semuke?"
Nowaki looked down at the ground nervously. "Ummm… no, not exactly."
"Spit it out, Dumb-ass," Hiroki growled. "Who is it then?"
"Well, Hiro-san… one of the other couple called and said his babysitter fell through and they wouldn't be able to come. So I told him he should just bring his daughter along…" Nowaki admitted.
"You invited someone to bring a child to our house? In the midst of a yaoi dinner party?" Hiroki hissed. "What in the hell are you thinking, Nowaki?"
"Hiro-san, I thought it would be good practice for us. Besides, it might be good for you to spend some time around children."
"I don't want a strange brat in our house," Hiroki snapped, though his tones were whispered. "Call them back and tell them not to come, Nowaki." Then seeing the look in his partner's eyes after he said this, Hiroki quickly amended, "I mean I'm sure I'll like ours… just not other people's."
Nowaki looked at Hiroki with an expression that was slightly stubborn, "Well I can't tell them not to come, Hiro-san… Especially when they called just now it was to tell me they were parking."
"Wait, you knew about this beforehand and you didn't tell me?" Hiroki scowled.
Nowaki took the plate back from Hiroki's hand and moved over to the table. Hiroki followed after. "I didn't tell you before because I knew you'd react this way, Hiro-san."
Nowaki set the plate on that table and looked over at the couch where Kisa and Serizawa were talking about bookstores. It turned out the bookstore Serizawa worked in carried a number of the manga that Kisa edited. Back over by the kitchen, Yukina was trying to convince an apprehensive Keito that they should consider starting a semuke basketball team once everyone had delivered.
There was a knock at the door. Nowaki looked at Hiroki. His blue eyes were kind, but they were also unusually firm.
"It sounds like our last guests are here, Hiro-san. I have to finish setting this place at the table so I'd like you to go get the door." Hiroki's scowl deepened, but he didn't want to cause a scene in front of all these almost near strangers.
"Fine," he muttered. Then he blushed as Nowaki leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth.
"Thank you, Hiro-san," Nowaki smiled. Hiroki strode off with just enough stomp in his step to let Nowaki know he was still not happy about this development.
"Be good, Hiro-san" Nowaki called after his partner as he returned to the kitchen.
"Idiot." Hiroki growled as he entered the front hallway. He stopped however, when he heard the voices on the other side of the door. It was obvious from the muffled exchange that he was apparently not the only one who was unhappy with this sudden turn of events.
For those of you guessing Trifecta, you were right!