The Uke Flu
Chapter Forty-Five: Dinner Party Part III
Drawing Conclusions
In the Kamijou-Kusama living room, tea and desserts had been handed out, despite the fact Yokozawa and Kirishima had not rejoined the party. No one thought that the couple outside would feel slighted by this break in decorum after a few covert glances observed what was transpiring out on the balcony. Everyone inside was doing their best to consciously keep their eyes averted and allow the two men as much space and privacy as they could.
This wasn't as hard as one might think. It turned out Hiyori, unconsciously, was quite adept at keeping everyone's attention turned in her direction. She was now kneeling down on the floor at the coffee table next to Yukina drawing a picture of her own.
"So who are all those people?" Nowaki used the tone he had perfected talking with his numerous young patients over the years. Hiyori snorted slightly, as if she was offended that the answer wasn't immediately obvious.
"This is me and Papa and Onii-chan and my new brother, who isn't here yet, and this is my new best friend Junna."
Nowaki looked appropriately contrite for his lack of recognition before taking another bite of his cake. It turned out that he and Yukina were both experiencing marked cravings for sweets, which they rarely ate otherwise. Keito on the other hand had always been partial to sugary things and was now somewhat embarrassedly polishing off his third slice (a piece for him and one for each of his girls), despite the fact that no one besides him was keeping track.
"And who's this, Hiyori-chan?" Yukina pointed to another small female figure set off in the distance of the drawing. An uncomfortable frown flitted across Hiyori's sweet face.
"That's my old best friend, Yuki."
"Did something happen to Yuki, Hiyo-chan?" Nowaki had learned long ago that children's drawings were often a very good window into their world.
Hiyori looked at Nowaki a moment before answering. Her Papa and Onii-chan had asked her the same question when she and Yuki had stopped spending time together, but she had never given them a real answer for why they had parted ways. Somehow, here among strangers however, it seemed much easier to be truthful.
"Yuki didn't want to be friends with me anymore when she found out Onii-chan was my papa's boyfriend," Hiyori sighed.
Every man in the room stiffened slightly when she said this. Whether any of them had ever articulated this or not, each had serious concerns about how his children would be received by the world.
"That must have been very hard for you, Hiyori-chan." Serizawa reached to take Keito's hand in his own. Keito's eyes had immediately welled at the little girl's words.
"I was sad, of course, for a while and I miss her," Hiyori said quite matter-of-factly. "But I only really want friends who like me for me, and Papa and Onii-chan are part of who I am. Besides," she added, "I like being best friends with Junna. She's waaaaay funny. Plus she says even though he looks so scary, she wishes she could have an Onii-chan too sometimes instead of her mama."
"And how do you feel about not having a mother right now Kirishima-chan?" Hiroki surprised both himself and Nowaki by asking such a personal question.
A princess holding court never had as rapt an audience as Hiyori did in that moment.
"Well, I have Onii-chan; so why do I need a mama too? He does everything most mama's do and plus, I think he's even better."
Yukina was having the rare experience of finding himself overwhelmed by someone else's sparkle powers."Why's that, Hiyori-chan?"
"Well, for one Onii-chan can reach things on the highest shelf without even having to get a stool… And I wouldn't have Sorata if it wasn't for him. Plus, he can run really fast and pick me up really easyily. You know he won a race for me on parent's day once." Hiyori's eyes danced at the memory.
"Of course he couldn't run so fast now…" Hiyori trailed off thoughtfully and then suddenly perked up. "Oh, and when we go out on the streets and on the trains, people don't squish me because Onii-chan keeps them away." The little girl seemed quite delighted with this last addition to her list.
"Is there anything you would change about your family at all if you could, Hiyori-chan?" Keito sniffed. He brought his free hand to his cheeks to wipe the tears her words had pulled from him. Seeing this, Serizawa pulled a handkerchief from his pocket (he carried multiples these days for his teen giant's frequent tears) and handed it to Keito.
Hiyori furrowed her forehead as she considered the question. "Well, just two things I guess."
There was a quiet intake of breath as the gathered couples waited for her answer.
Hiyori was too busy coloring in her new brother's hair to notice the men's quiet apprehension. She had made the little boy's hair black like Yokozawa's to balance the picture, since her's matched her papa's.
"I wish that Papa and Onii-chan would share the same bedroom," she confided. "Papa keeps waking me up, checking on Onii-chan at night. I swear he peeks in on him every half hour it seems like." Hiyori fluttered her eyelashes in exasperation with the situation. "If they shared, then Papa wouldn't have to worry because Onii-chan would be right there and he would know he was okay."
As Hiyori said, this neither she nor the rest of the party noticed Kirishima and Yokozawa had slipped in off the balcony a few minutes before and were standing at the back of the room listening to the conversation.
Both men were blushing furiously at Hiyori's disclosure, each for his own reason. Still, they remained silent as their little girl continued.
"Plus, then when the baby comes, I could have my own room and not have to share with my brother. Of course, I should get Oni-chan's room though because it's bigger and I'm going to be the oldest," Hiyori said quite seriously. This comment brought a couple of quiet snorts from her audience.
"You said there were two things though, Hiyori-chan. What's other thing?" Nowaki asked.
"Well…" For the first time all evening Hiyori sounded a bit shy. She dropped her eyes back down to her drawing and began coloring in Yokozawa's gray eyes. Hiyori hesitated.
"When my brother comes, he'll get to call Onii-chan 'daddy,' because that's what Onii-chan is for him. I hope that maybe then Onii-chan will let me call him daddy too. But that's it. 'Cause otherwise I think we're pretty super. Especially when no one's sad," she added, thinking about how things had been recently.
Following this statement, there was a chorus of throat clearing in the room by the men. Keito, was openly crying and making full use of Serizawa's handkerchief.
"Anyone want more tea?" Hiroki's voice sounded slightly thicker than usual. He got up quickly and headed into the kitchen before anyone could answer.
Kisa glanced over at Yukina and found he had to avert his eyes from the glow Hiyori's words had produced in his boyfriend. He looked away and found himself looking at a very serious-faced Yokozawa. Fortunately, the stern salesman seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, so Kisa was able to glance away unnoticed.
After Hiyori had finished talking, Yukina got up to go use the bathroom. As the baby was getting bigger the usually camel-bladdered giant had found he needed to pee with an increasing frequency which was becoming annoying, though at least he wasn't as bad as Keito. The poor teen semuke had made at least a dozen trips over the course of the evening. Of course, Yukina was sure all the latte's he drank didn't help.
What Yukina found even more annoying than the frequency of his need to pee, however, was that his protruding belly was starting to interfere with his aim when he pissed. It was hard to direct what he couldn't see clearly. Fortunately, as sizable as he was, he still had a bit to go before he would have to resort to sitting down to avoid "making a splash" every time he went. Keito had warned him about this recently during one of their on campus conversations.
Keito had also confided, that while it was almost impossible to miss at a urinal, he had taken to using only unisex bathrooms whenever he could when he was out in the world. Yukina hadn't needed to do this yet either, but he imagined that with his condition now undeniable, he probably should. There had been numerous accounts of pregnant ukes being assaulted in men's rooms by homophobic assholes and even though his and Keito's height made them imposing, the bigger they got the more vulnerable they became, regardless.
With Yukina's departure, Kirishima moved into the space the artistic giant vacated and sat down on the couch near his daughter. Hiyori looked up from her drawing. Seeing how happy her papa looked, she broke into a beautiful grin of her own.
"Papa," she grabbed a handful of papers, stood and then settled on her father's lap. "Look at what Yukina drew for me."
"Very nice." Kirishima flipped through the papers appreciatively; the young man's talent was clearly obvious. He pointed to what Hiyori had been drawing. "But that's the masterpiece I am really interested in."
"I'm very proud of you, you know, Hiyo." Kirishima recalled Hiyori's earlier words and how much they had encouraged every man in the room, including himself. Hiyori leaned back against his chest. He wrapped one of his long arms around her, gathering her in. Hiyori absentmindedly stroked the light hairs on her father's forearm.
"You're silly Papa," she sighed.
"Silly, am I?" Kirishima gruffed playfully and gave his daughter a light tickle that brought about an array of hiccups and giggles. After a few moments of this gentle roughhousing, he sat back and allowed Hiyori to snuggle in against him.
"So, is that us?" Kirishima asked referring to his daughter's drawing again.
"Yes." Hiyori stifled a yawn.
"Well when we get home later, Onii-chan might have to help you make a correction to that picture." Kirishima looked up and offered a sly grin to Yokozawa who had moved around and was now standing next to him by the sofa.
Yokozawa looked away scowling. Then seeing Yukina returning to the living room as he turned, he tried to hide a shocked snort.
"What the hell happened to your hair?"
Completely unfazed by the comment Yukina shot back immediately, "Hiyoti-chan did it. But she told me you taught her everything she knows about styling." This garnered a laugh from Kirishima, which only deepened Yokozawa's scowl.
Looking down and seeing Hiyori yawn for the second time in a span of five minutes, Yokozawa nudged Kirishima's foot with his own. "You know it's well past Hiyori's bedtime."
"Okay, Dad," Kirishima said with a smile. "Come on, Sweetheart. Let's get you packed up." Yokozawa was shocked, but in a pleased way by his lover's new appellation. Kirishima had long teased him about his care-taking nature by calling him "Mama," which had always really vexed him.
Once Hiyori slid off his lap and began to tiredly gather her things, Kirishima stood up. Yokozawa bent down awkwardly to help her situate everything in her kitty pack. As he was doing this, Kirishima moved close to Yukina.
"You know you really have some serious talent there, Yukina-kun." He slipped a business card into Yukina's hand, making sure Yokozawa was busy with Hiyori so that his action went unnoticed.
"We're looking for some new artists... We seem to have found ourselves understaffed for some reason recently. I could offer you some part-time hours, as long as you were up for it. Maybe even figure out a way you could work from home if you needed to." Kirishima said this nodding down at Yukina's belly.
"I have a few other employees I want to try and work something like this out with, I just have to convince our president to go for it."
Kisa had just come from the kitchen after helping Hiroki carry in a bunch of the dessert dishes. He looked at the card in Yukina's hand.
"Thank you, Kirishima-san, but Yukina is going to be a painter. So if he's going to be doing any art outside of school he'll be painting." Yukina looked down at Kisa with a shocked expression on his face. It was rare to have the older man speak so plainly or sound so resolved.
"Kisa-san, we could use the extra income." Kisa looked up at Yukina, his dark brown eyes intense.
"You were meant to be a painter, Yukina. Please, I don't want you to get distracted from your goal. I can take care of us. Okay?"
Yukina was deeply touched by the earnestness of Kisa's declaration. He felt a knot in his stomach at what his lover might say about the distraction twins would bring to his studio practice. That however, was a conversation for another time; for now he just nodded.
"Please keep the card anyway." Kirishima flashed Yukina a smile filled with his own seme sparkle. Though getting Keito up took some doing, by this time Serizawa and Keito had also risen. It was obvious the party was breaking up.
"Now you call me please, if you need anything, Keito-san. You too Serizawa-san." Nowaki moved with them to the entry. The young couple's plight really pulled at his heart.
"Thank you, Kusama-san," Serizawa said as Keito nodded shyly. "And thank you, Kamijou-san, for opening your home to us."
"Well, I'll being seeing you soon to see about those titles." Hiroki blushed lightly as he bowed goodnight, having never been particularly adept at goodbyes.
"I'll set them aside for you first thing when I get to work," Serizawa promised. After exchanging goodbyes with the rest of the party he and Keito headed off, Keito taking Serizawa's hand as soon as the two entered the empty hallway.
"You and your handholding," Serizawa teased his giant.
"It's okay though right, Seri-san? Since there's no one around?" Keito looked apprehensive of the answer. Serizawa squeezed his lover's hand just a bit tighter.
"It's perfect. So, do you want to get a latte on the way home?"
Keito smiled and nodded.
Yokozawa and Kirishima were the next group out the door. Kirishima was carrying the almost empty curry dish and Yokozawa was toting Hiyori's kitty pack and holding the little girl's hand. Hiyori at this point was visibly dragging.
Before they had left, however, saying their goodbyes, Yokozawa had paused uncomfortably in front of Kisa.
"So I suppose I'll see you around Marukawa."
"Please, Yokozawa-san, understand that I am not going to say anything about tonight to anyone at the office," Kisa offered sincerely. Yokozawa's brows rose at the editor's declaration and a look of relief flashed for an instant before his serious expression clamped this back down.
"You know you're very different away from work, Kisa-san. More serious, less… cute. You should cultivate this. It's a manner more befitting a senior editor." Yokozawa shot a look at Kirishima as he said this.
Kisa frowned at Yokozawa's comment. But then Kirishima, who had caught the last bit of this advice, laughed. "Oh, come on, Taka. You like it that I'm cute."
"I have never called you 'cute,' Zen." Yokozawa sounded highly offended.
"Out loud." Kirishima added completing his lover's internal comments. Yokozawa blushed.
"Go on, you ass!"
The salesman was clearly finished with his goodbyes, all but pushing Kirishima out of the door. Yukina and Kisa followed. Then Yukina stopped.
"Shoot, I forgot our dish."
"I'll wait, Yukina." Kisa leaned against the door frame. He listened distractedly to Kirishima continue to tease the "Dark Horse" as they traveled down the walkway.
"Oh, that's right now I remember... You're the one that's cute."
"I am a full grown man, Kirishima; cute is a word one should reserve for kittens and babies."
"Hiyo, you think Onii-chan's cute, don't you?"
"Don't answer that," Yokozawa growled looking down at the sleepy girl. He stopped in the middle of the walkway. "Are you so tired you couldn't manage to get your buttons right, Hiyori?" He scowled at Hiyori's mis-buttoned coat. He knelt down with a bit of difficulty and started redoing her buttons before she even had a chance to answer.
"Sorry, Oni-chan," Hiyori yawned. Yokozawa looked intently at the little girl standing before him. He dropped his gray gaze and muttered uncomfortably.
"You know, Hiyo-chan; you could call me 'Dad' if you liked."
"Really?" Hiyo whispered.
"Ummmmm… I suppose I wouldn't mind it." Yokozawa finished her last button. "If your father thought it was okay."
Hiyori looked up at her papa, her eyes huge with the question. Kirishima stepped closer and took her hand.
"Well, I think you should try it on and see if it fits, I suppose, Hiyo." But Kirishima was positively beaming as he said this.
"Daddy, will you hold my hand too?" Hiyori asked Yokozawa after he'd risen again. Her sweet voice was slightly tentative. Yokozawa silently reached out and engulfed Hiyori's hand with his own.
"Like a glove, I think," Kirishima breathed.
The trio started walking side by side together down the walkway: the two semukes with their little girl in between them.
"I said Dad, not Daddy," Yokozawa muttered softly to Kirishima above Hiyori's head.
"It's better than Mama," Kirishima teased.
"There is that."
"Does this mean I get a bigger room too?" came a sleepy voice from down between them.
Kirishima looked at Yokozawa and gave his lover a beautiful smile. Yokozawa blushed a bit around his frown and said nothing.
Kisa watched the trio depart. His ever-young forehead creased with rather a significant furrow. He realized he had seriously misjudged Yokozawa, who despite his rampant assholery at work, seemed to actually really be human.
He thought about this and what he'd told Yokozawa before they had separated. While Kisa would acknowledge that he was an integral part of the Marukawa grapevine, the secret of Yokozawa's double life was one that he fully intended to keep. The editor looked up from his thoughts as Yukina emerged again from their host's apartment, dish in hand.
"Sorry, Kisa-san, I got to talking again." Yukina laughed shaking his head. "Kusama-san's so cool. Would you mind if he came by the apartment sometime to see our shoujo collection?"
"Why would I mind?" Kisa was trying hard not to feel just the littlest bit jealous. Then he turned to Yukina. "Speaking of apartment's, Yukina. I really meant what I said about your painting."
"Kisa-san?" Yukina looked slightly confused at the link his boyfriend was making.
"Look, I only have a bit more to go on the contract for my apartment, and I bet if I found someone else to rent it, the manager would let me out of it early." Kisa was blushing profusely by now.
"What I'm saying is, I think we should look for a new place together that has room for the baby and a studio space for you." Yukina stared at Kisa in open eyed wonder at the significance of what he was suggesting.
"Really Kisa-san?"
"Ummmmm."
The two men walked side by side in silence together for a minute or two.
"Are you still feeling okay, Kisa-san?" Yukina asked. "I mean after you… uh… after what happened earlier." This mention of his earlier fainting spell brought a new blush to the older man's cheeks.
"I'm fine," Kisa mumbled. "We should be worrying about you here, not me."
Yukina wasn't willing to let the matter drop, however. Seeing Kisa collapse like that had really disconcerted him.
"You haven't ever um… 'tripped'… more than once in a night before have you?"
"I haven't ever 'tripped' at all before," Kisa answered hotly.
"Um… say, Kisa-san… Did you know Kusama-san is having twins?"
Kisa looked at his boyfriend, rather shocked by the abrupt change in topic.
"Oh?"
"And Keito-san is having twins too."
"Really? Wow, what are the odds of that? You know it would be crazy if Yokozawa-san had twins. He looked like he was hardly holding it together as it is." Kisa grimaced at the thought of being pregnant. He was so thankful for the vaccine. "Not that I blame him, of course. Poor bastard."
"How do you feel about twins, Kisa-san?" Yukina pretended to be nonchalant in the wake of Kisa's troubling words.
Kisa looked up suspiciously."What's this about, Yukina?"
"Kisa-san, maybe we should stop on the way home and get coffee somewhere."
Kisa looked at his boyfriend perplexed and suddenly wondered if this rabbit-tracking conversational style was going to be the next new symptom of Yukina's pregnancy. He shrugged this thought off after a moment's contemplation.
"That's fine with me, I guess. But I have to go in early tomorrow, so I'm getting decaf… and you should too, Right?"
Yukina reached out and took Kisa's hand in his. "Of course, Kisa-san."
"You know how I feel about PDA." Kisa growled, though he didn't immediately pull away.
"Please, Kisa-san," Yukina entreated, unsure of what would happen later if he told him about the twins.
"Fine, but just to the coffee shop."
Yukina nervously squeezed Kisa's hand tighter in agreement.
Nowaki had seen Yukina to the door the second time the cinnamon seme departed.
"Yukina is so cool."
He sighed contentedly, pausing to lean against the wall in the entry, marveling at how well the evening had gone. Moving back in to the apartment Nowaki found Hiroki at the sink washing up the last of the dessert dishes.
Hiroki had donned the black apron he had been wearing earlier when cooking dinner. This new apparel did not go unnoticed, as now that Nowaki's appetites for food and sociability had been met, this left one more appetite that had yet to be sated. Hiroki just finished rinsing the last dish, when he felt the heat of Nowaki's body drawing closer. A few moments later, strong arms snaked around his waist.
"I'm so proud of you, Hiro-san." Nowaki's hot mouth began kissing a trail up Hiroki's neck.
"Proud of what?" Hiroki grumbled. A set of fine teeth nipped along the outside of his ear and gave a worrying pull to its lobe.
"You did so well with all our guests," Nowaki whispered in his ear.
"I'll have you know I am perfectly capable of being cordial... When I want to be." Hiroki leaned forward in Nowaki's embrace, looking for something else to wash, to distract him from what his giant was doing.
"I know that, Hiro-san, but usually you avoid people and you seemed to actually like our guests tonight." One of Nowaki's hands drifted up his professor's trim torso as he said this, while the other one drifted down.
"I don't avoid all people," Hiroki snorted. "Just over ninety-nine percent of them." After a moment's pause Hiroki conceded, " But I suppose that lot wasn't too bad." Hiroki could feel Nowaki grinning behind him. He bit back a gasp when a skilled hand sought and found one of his nipples and began teasing it outside the fabric of his shirt.
"You were so good, Hiro-san, I think you deserve a reward," Nowaki purred. His lower hand slid under the apron and squeezed Hiroki through the jeans he was wearing. "And even if you don't want my reward, I still have your promise."
Nowaki expected Hiro-san's usual initial display of resistance to this teasing. But like his behavior with their guests, his partner surprised him. Hiroki turned in Nowaki's arms and looked up with a challenging glint in his eye.
"I know that, Idiot; why in the hell do you think I'm wearing this apron?"
NEW AN: So, If you like JR SIH crossovers and have the taste for lemon, The Black Flamingo 101 just posted a new fic over in the SIH fandom that pairs Hiroki and Kisa in their wild college days for one night, well before their OTP's. It's kind of like my Hiroki/Takano mix in Don't Preach's "College Days." I encourage you to check it out and drop the Bird a line, she's been feeling blue lately, instead of black and it would cheer her immensely.
Gothpandaotaku, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LOVELY READER! I hope you had a great day and this next year is blessed with lots of yaoi goodness for you! Thank you for your kind words. I am glad you're enjoying all the connections and the development of the relationships. Few things please me more than to know my humble ramblings have stirred up emotions in the people I share them with.
Starrynights1987, thank you for the review and I am so happy to hear that you like my changes.
Lionfish13, no worries about getting behind, just know I am always pleased to hear from you. I am pretty behind myself, though I do hope to get caught up soon. I am pleased the Trifecta bit moved you. I wanted to show that not all semukes are happy catching the flu. And yes, I love interjecting the Pandasan fangirls. They're a wonderful vehicle for humor. The crossover aspect of Nakamura's JR and SIH worlds is one of the things I love. Nowaki even had a tiny cameo in the last Nostalgia chapter I read. Thank goodness Kisa had the vaccine. And while Hatori may need leave to care for Chiaki, he won't be having babies himself. Mino... hmmm well school's still out on that one.
MiniBlueSkirt, welcome back, My Dear! How wonderful to get a review from you and such an amazing one no less, though you have always made superb comments. I am glad you tried out Cafe Latte Rhapsody and found it to your taste. Thank you for telling me that I am keeping them IC. And I do think that Takano eats cake for a reason... Yokozawa is versatile after all and the two love vying for power so much, I can't imagine them not each trying to top the other. And thank you for your response to the Trifecta couple. As I said before, I am very excited to write UF Trifecta at some point. Hope to hear from you again soon!
Popthepoppot, yes, the rare teary Kirishima is a moving figure. Though I am glad he bounced back to his tricksterish humor. And the sex of the Egoist babies will be coming up in a few chapters.
Barettachante, a koi, so good to hear from you and don't think I have forgotten your "Days Without Sun" chapter, my devoted reader. It's in the works. Hope you try out SIH at some point. I hope to get Don't Preach's Trifecta fic "Celebrations" fic back up soon to. So much to do, so little time... Damn.
Sakurayuri89, thank you, doll.
33, Thank you for writing a review, it's appreciated too!
Alchemy, thank you, my dear. I do love those semuke Trifecta men. Growl...
OLD AN:
So in my ever present mission to educate, I thought I would include the following link to a story on the benefits of same sex parents for you that was posted on yahoo news today. Just take out add a real dot, and you should be good to go. Hope you enjoy.
Now back to the Egoist action, but know that there a bit of terrorist too next chapter. MoyMoy… hope you're still stalking. Cause that chapter's for you.