Archive of Our Own

“You’ve seriously never gone to a bar? Not once?”

Makoto Naegi was standing bent forward, hands on his knees, gaze fixated on the blonde sitting on the couch in front of him. The blonde in question was staring back at him—blue eyes wide and filled with fear laced surprise.

Byakuya had been interviewed before, sure. But, Makoto was looking at him with something interrogative. Determined.

And God, if wasn’t Makoto a force to be reckoned with when he was determined.

The smaller man flopped down into the spot next to him in every sense of the word—lacking grace, elegance, not needing any help when it came to being dorky—and rested his arms by his sides. Byakuya shifted away, feet and thighs working to put distance between their two bodies.

Makoto’s knees parted. The side of his leg met Byakuya’s and the distance that had briefly been put between them was rapidly reduced to nothing.

Byakuya’s eyes flickered up to Makoto’s face. He had that look that he always seemed to get when he was thinking hard about something—face twisted in curiosity, brow furrowed, lip bitten.

He had turned twenty last week.

Makoto, being exactly three months older than him, had been in his twenties for three months and a week longer than he had. So, of course, he was more knowledgeable about the experience of being an actual, legally recognized adult.

He pinched his chin in between his pointer and his thumb. He stared blankly off into space. His misty hazel eyes never seemed empty, even now, when he was deeply lost in a train of thought. They remained vibrant with the life glimmering behind them.

“I can’t imagine being twenty for an entire week and never taking the opportunity to go to a bar.” Makoto let his hands fall into his lap with a soft huff. He tilted to the side. His body rested in the recess between the couch’s arm and the back cushion.

“Bars are loud, and not to mention absolutely filthy.” Byakuya gave a slow roll of his eyes. He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Why would I want to spend a prolonged amount of time—intoxicated, of all things—inside of a box-shaped room with blasting music and the scent of vomit?”

That was supposed to work.

Shake Makoto off of his tail.

Sometimes, though, Byakuya made the mistake of forgetting just how unshakable Makoto Naegi could be.

“We’ve really gotta get you out more.” Makoto’s lips were firmly set in a straight line. “My dad took me to a bar the night that I turned twenty.” His inquisitive gaze had fallen back on Byakuya—and the latter found that he had not at all prepared himself to be the subject of that stare once again. It took everything in him not to recoil.

He stammered for a reply, managing to spit up a low, “I’m fine, you know that,” with the crossed arms to match. “And, that sounds incredibly irresponsible of your father to do.”

He continued to speak before Makoto’s expression could fully fade into a narrow-eyed, indignant frown.

“I am just not particularly fond of… including myself in the more seedy and reckless hobbies that people such as you somehow find…”

He lifted one limp hand into the air. He rolled his wrist slowly, gesturing to nothing in particular—attempting to remember the word he was looking for.

“…enjoyable.”

Makoto’s shoulders slumped with the heavy sigh that left his chest.

“You don’t know.” He toed closer to Byakuya, the sides of their thighs fully pressing against one another. He wasn’t pouting, or looking at Byakuya with any kind of pressure in his eyes—his gaze was as light and simply questioning as ever. He always looked vaguely like a confused puppy. Maybe it was the volume of his hair.

“You could have fun.”

Fingers tapping the couch cushions to a rhythmic beat, he continued, “I think you’d like it more than you think.” He tilted his head to the side. A small grin rose to his lips. “Not all bars are… rowdy, you know.” 

Byakuya was not buying it.

He had never really gotten a taste of Japan’s nightlife the way that Makoto had, he guessed. Even in their teens, he would regularly hear the other boy ramble about how him and his friends had gone and messed around the city until midnight. It was impossible for him to wrap his head around, the concept of somebody his age that he knew going out and… doing that. Throwing away their time.

He’d had a set ‘bedtime’ until he turned sixteen. Even then, and after—it didn’t grow more flexible, it was simply an unspoken rule that he was supposed to be asleep by a certain time. Or, at the very least, out of sight. Not a nuisance.

The concept of Makoto loudly letting himself be a bother to the city past nine at night made his brain hurt. Obviously, they’d had different childhoods. That wasn’t a crime. Diversity of backgrounds was a good thing, or something. Byakuya had to remind himself of that every time Makoto opened his mouth and reminded him of just how different they really were in that aspect.

Not everything needed a critical comment. To learn about the world, he had to… y’know, be there.

A low sigh slipped from Byakuya’s lips. He leaned back against the couch with an unceremonious flop.

“I’m not convinced.”

Makoto’s body followed his—sagging and falling against the cushions. He lolled his head to stare at Byakuya.

The eye contact was unreciprocated. A particular hazel-eyed watch traced along the lines of Byakuya’s jaw, the shadow of his cheekbones—and the blonde was acutely aware. The attention made something warm bloom and spread throughout his lower body. His fingertips twitched with the urge to lean over, touch Makoto in some way.

He inhaled slowly through his nose.

He could not do that. They were just friends. Either way, he didn’t know if Makoto was… like that. Makoto didn’t even know Byakuya was like that.

He was working to keep it that way.

Byakuya tilted his head lazily in Makoto’s direction. The moment their eyes met, Makoto’s snapped away. They stared up at the ceiling instead.

The smirk that had begun to form on Byakuya’s mouth faded just as soon as it had come.

He wet his lips with an absent flick of his tongue. His eyes swept Makoto’s side profile, roving over the bridge of his nose and the boyish fat in his cheeks.

Everything about Makoto’s face was so soft—it looked like smooth clay compared to Byakuya’s, which was all angles and sharp lines. He’d stopped looking boyish after he turned fourteen. Makoto, however, hadn’t lost the youth in his appearance whatsoever. His babyface was permanent. Perpetually he would be haunted by the stumbling, five foot nothing boy that he had been throughout childhood and teendom.

Everything that was put together (or, lack thereof, really) and made Makoto him—Byakuya couldn’t help but find all of it adorable. He displayed all of his sweetness with an unpracticed ease.

His hands were twitching again. He wanted to reach up, twirl his fingers in the soft curls of mousy brown hair that framed Makoto’s face, halos on his cheeks…

He kept his hands down and balled in the fabric of his shirt.

The inside of his mouth was arid. He licked his lips once more to wetten his tongue.

“How badly do you want me to get a drink with you, Naegi?”

Makoto’s face immediately lit up. A smile dawned on his expression. He leaned forward with anticipation.

His hazel eyes were glittering brightly, flecks of gold and green dancing about the dusty landscape that they decorated. Dark eyelashes fanned over rosy cheeks—Makoto’s skin was dotted with freckles that Byakuya, one day, hoped he’d be able to properly count. It seemed so easy, then. To simply reach out and skim his fingertips along skin that was so much more sunkissed than his. He wondered if his freckles continued beneath his shirt. If they went down to his thighs, his stomach…

“Bad.”

Byakuya blinked and recoiled backwards. It took too long for his brain to process that Makoto was answering his question—and not chastising him for staring too long.

His fingers had begun to wander towards Makoto’s knee. Byakuya quickly pressed both of his hands to his own thighs.

“I…”

It was too hard to say no to Makoto. Unfairly hard. His eyes were so big and sweet, lips curled in a hopeful smirk.

He felt faint. Makoto’s smile was a punch to the stomach and that honey-dotted hazel stare was strangling him.

His teeth caught his bottom lip.

“I’ll go. We can- we can… go. Drinking.”

Both of Makoto’s arms rose into the air in a loud show of celebration—he beamed triumphantly. He pushed himself off of the back of the couch with an excited “whoo!”

He threw his head back over his shoulder at Byakuya.

Byakuya wished that he’d had it in him to smile back. He felt like he was dying. Makoto Naegi was slowly draining his life force, yet had no idea. His smile was some unique, newly invented form of violent and dangerous assault that Byakuya had never thought to prepare himself for.

Makoto was right back next to him in a minute—his hands sat on the back of the couch. His face was even closer. Byakuya kept his eyes trained up at those hazel irises.

What air that had been left inside of his lungs had long since disappeared. It was like sitting in front of the sun.

“When do you wanna go?”

Old habits die hard, even staring directly into a star, and Byakuya felt annoyance begin to poke and scratch at the edges of his mind. There was no possible way that Makoto could be this excited for him. What was he aiming to get from this? Byakuya couldn’t imagine that he was jazzed to celebrate him turning twenty. That had been a week ago. He’d had his moment, so what was this about?

Still… it was hard to stay pessimistic when Makoto was this close and this sunny. Byakuya could feel his body melting into the couch.

“Tomorrow night.”

Breathy words left him without his tongue pausing for his brain’s input. His mouth had always had a tendency to work a minute faster than his mind, as much as he liked to act as if it were the opposite.

“Okay. Tomorrow?” Makoto lifted both eyebrows.

Byakuya nodded silently. His eyes searched the other man’s. Blue burned into gold dusted green.

The brunette returned to a regular sitting position—no longer suffocatingly close to Byakuya. He found himself missing the choking sensation.

Makoto slouched forward like always. He threw Byakuya a quick grin. “Tomorrow it is, then.”

Byakuya could not make decisions when staring into the eyes of a certain Makoto Naegi. That was a rule he had just made, just now—sitting in the passenger seat of Makoto’s car.

It wasn’t a particularly nice car, definitely not by Byakuya’s standards. It was relatively cramped and one side of the AC didn’t work. The seats didn’t have the capacity to move back very far—meaning Byakuya needed to fold his body like a lawn chair to fit in the front seat. His knees were almost bent to his chest.

“Are you exciiited?”

Byakuya didn’t have it in him to deal with the sing-songy tone dancing from Makoto’s lips. He shot him a sidelong glare—but ultimately remained wordless.

“Sure.” He shrugged. He turned his head to stare out the car window. The city streets passed them by in a blur of moving bodies and bright lights. “I’m excited to get this over with.”

Makoto huffed, deflating like a balloon. His shoulders slumped forward. “You agreed to this,” he reminded the other man curtly, “it’s not like there’s any backing out now.”

His elbow crossed over the middle console to jab Byakuya in the ribs.

Byakuya grimaced at the contact—his hand coming around to rub his side. He opened his mouth to spit out—

Makoto tapped the brakes as they came to a crosswalk. Byakuya’s head hit the car seat headrest and bounced forward. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, catching only on the end of it.

Byakuya’s glare from earlier returned. It was more obvious. More malicious.

With a roll of his eyes, Makoto gestured to the red light that they had almost just ran. One woman crossing the street gave him a wary look through the windshield. He forced a smile and put his hand up in an awkward, apologetic wave.

Byakuya pushed his glasses back up, crossing his arms. An aggravated sigh left him. “How long are we going to spend… out, anyway?”

Makoto shrugged, continuing to drive after the light turned green. “However long you wanna be out. I’m hoping at least an hour, though.” He glanced over at Byakuya. “I really, really think you’ll have more fun than you’re expecting. You gotta fix your mindset.”

He tapped his pointer finger to his temple. His eyes remained ahead, fixed on the road.

Byakuya’s upper lip curled in disgust.

“I don’t think I appreciate the way that you speak to me.”

Byakuya had gotten one thing right; the club that Makoto dragged him off to was loud.

‘Dragged’ was an accurate and very literal description. Makoto had one hand around Byakuya’s wrist, lugging the other man behind him as his heels scraped across the pavement. Makoto was awfully strong for somebody thirty-five pounds lighter and nearly a foot shorter than him.

Byakuya was entirely sure in his decision that he did not want to be here by the time that they had gotten to the door.

The bouncer gave Byakuya one quick sweep with his eyes—the blonde was sure the sour and tired expression on his face aged him by at least five years—before turning his attention onto Makoto.

The man in question fumbled for his wallet with one hand, the other still holding Byakuya’s wrist for fear he’d wriggle away.

They spent about five minutes at the door. Makoto dropped his wallet, spilling cards and coins out onto the concrete. He quickly dropped to his knees—apologizing to the bouncer through a fit of nervous giggling. Byakuya was utterly unamused. Yet, he kept his gaze trained upwards, for fear of what he would feel if he looked down.

He was being tugged inside before he knew it.

Strobing lights hit his eyelids and blinded him immediately—one of his hands flew up to shield his face, but it barely helped.

The floor was sticky beneath his feet. Blind and confused, he allowed Makoto to lead them through the crowd, wrapping his own hand around Makoto’s wrist. Music was blasting from a speaker somewhere—the bass vibrated the floor and sent thrums up through Byakuya’s legs.

“I thought you said that we wouldn’t be going to a dive bar,” he attempted to call over the music.

“What?”

Makoto threw his head over his shoulder. There was a pleased smile lighting up his face. Too bad Byakuya could barely make it out.

“I said I thought you said that we wouldn’t be going to a dive bar!”

“What?”

Jesus Christ.

Byakuya’s hand gripped Makoto’s bicep instead. He pushed the smaller man forward—until they were in a quieter corner of the bar. As if quieter meant anything substantial.

He blinked his eyes open. He threw a glance around, taking in their surroundings.

It was dark, and crowded. Huddles of men and women dressed in all manners of fashion were gathered across the floor, some moving, some standing still with drinks in their hands. They seemed to be relatively far from the dance floor. That didn’t do much about how loud it was, though.

Byakuya leaned closer to Makoto, body towering over his. His mouth hovered by his ear.

“Why are we here?” His words were tense and laced with annoyance. He stared down at the smaller man. His eyes were wide. The expression didn’t match the rest of his face—his brows furrowed and the corners of his lips turned down in an icy scowl.

Makoto was unaffected by the venom in Byakuya’s stare. He tapped the other man’s hand until it fell away from his bicep.

“C’mon. It’s not so bad, right? You got this far.” He gestured to the corner of the club that they were in. He was right; Byakuya had willingly walked considerably far into a place that he was claiming to loathe.

Byakuya knew that. Of course he knew that, he knew everything. And he knew Makoto was right. But…

He couldn’t help the sour look of contempt on his face.

“I can barely hear you,” he spat. His lips were still hovering just a breath’s width away from the shell of Makoto’s ear.

“I want you to take me home.”

Makoto’s smile faded. His expression morphed into something more suspicious. He quirked an eyebrow.

“You need a drink,” he eventually decided, the words leaving him carefully. “If you still hate it after that, then fine, I’ll take you home. But, I’m not gonna let you avoid this like you avoid everything else.”

Byakuya oftentimes underestimated exactly how much Makoto understood him. Additionally, he underestimated how that understanding led into Makoto knowing just what to say. For better or for worse.

The complete lack of a smile on Makoto’s face told Byakuya that he meant every word leaving his mouth. A devastating rush of humiliation shot through his body. His cheeks flushed, regrettably—being so directly called out like that by somebody like Makoto never failed to fluster him.

Maybe he did possess the habit of worming his way out of every imaginable function that Makoto set up with the people they had gone to high school with.

Maybe he did purposefully make Makoto call him through his secretary purely so she could lie for Byakuya and stall him until he became annoyed enough to hang up.

Maybe he did make up imaginary meetings and ‘necessary’ trips out of town so he’d be invited to less places. So what? Byakuya was a busy man. He had a very packed made-up schedule and he expected Makoto to abide by it. And, anyway, who was he to question Byakuya?

His cheeks were burning.

He casted a glance down to the floor. His brain was coming up empty for an argument to spit back at Makoto.

His teeth worried at the meat of his lip.

He leaned away from the wall, tugging his clothes into something more orderly. He was wearing his usual attire of slacks and a starched, white buttoned shirt. This was as casual as he tended to get. Makoto looked more appropriately dressed for the club—a simple dark green t-shirt bearing the name of a band that Byakuya didn’t recognize hung over his torso, his legs covered by a pair of worn jeans.

“Okay,” breathed Byakuya after a moment of silent agonizing. “I’ll… I’ll get a drink.” He adjusted his glasses. He tugged at the cuffs of his sleeves as he looked around for the bar.

Makoto fell into step next to him. “I’ll buy you a drink,” he offered. He was already smiling again.

Byakuya’s head twitched in his direction.

“Stop trying to insult me. You are humiliating me on purpose.”

A bubbly laugh chimed from Makoto. His cheeks dimpled with the boyish smile that overtook his face.

Byakuya felt nauseous.

He snapped away from Makoto. He swallowed the growing lump in his throat.

The man he was trying desperately to avoid looking at nudged him in the ribs. “C’mon, it’s your birthday. Drinks on me.”

“My birthday was a week ago.”

Byakuya was being strangled by invisible hands. His words came out choked, tight, completely lacking air.

Makoto scoffed. “Same difference. C’mon.”

He had taken one sip of some bitter, disgusting drink recommended to him by the bartender and paid for by Makoto—and suddenly minutes were passing by seconds.

He had no idea how it had happened. Somewhere in the blur of trying not to vomit from what he learned was apparently called a gin and tonic, he had been pulled into the overpopulated sinkhole that was a club dance floor.

Both him and Makoto were firmly pressed between the bodies of two strangers. Really, they were surrounded on all sides. Byakuya had no idea how to dance. He was honestly just standing there, trying to avoid spilling his mostly untouched drink on the man meant to be his ride home.

The longer that Byakuya spent in this room, in this establishment on its dance floor—the less he understood. He could not wrap his head around anybody finding this enjoyable. He didn’t understand what was so fun about the blinding lights, or the music so loud that he could barely understand it, or how this concoction of an alcoholic beverage had ended up in his hand in the first place.

But, then Makoto turned around.

There was a big, beaming grin on his freckled face—and that sight alone somehow made everything he didn’t understand snap perfectly into place. Suddenly the bitter taste in his mouth wasn’t so nauseating and suddenly the ache in his head from the strobe lights was worth it.

Bright neon light pooled in the divots and dimples of Makoto’s boyish face. Hot pinks that melted into royal blues, then green to orange and back to pink again. The flecks of gold in his misty green eyes had never looked brighter. More valuable. 

Makoto’s arms looped around his neck before he knew what was happening.

The cup in his hand crunched as his grip grew suffocating. Cold liquid poured over his hand in colorless rivulets, dripping onto the floor. It was inaudible under the bumping bass. Byakuya could barely feel the wet now seeping into his shirt sleeve. His vision was reduced to a tunnel fixed on the other man’s face.

“You don’t know how to dance?”

Makoto’s question was a scream over the music and chatter.

Byakuya shook his head aggressively. His hair shook around the sides of his jaw. “No.”

The brunette huffed in disbelief—or more accurately, disapproval—and forcibly moved them both the side. Byakuya found himself swaying awkwardly like a puppet on taut strings. What was left of his drink sloshed around inside of its crushed plastic.

“It’s not that hard,” explained Makoto, voice still a level yell. “Just move!”

Byakuya squinted at the other man. He glanced down at their awkwardly shifting feet. Makoto’s hole-filled sneakers moved in tandem with Byakuya’s shiny loafers.

“I’m gonna go pour this drink out.”

He squirmed from Makoto’s grip, throwing his arms off of his shoulders and ignoring the whiny “come on!” that left the other man’s mouth.

He managed to find his way out of the crowd, unable to tell if he was stumbling over his own feet or those of a stranger. He tossed his crushed cup into the closest trash can. He wiped his alcohol-coated hand on his pant leg. He didn’t have much use for decorum anymore, not in a place like this.

He wandered back to the dance floor. He waded through the stumbling mass of bodies. His entire body recoiled in a wince as a particularly excited party girl screamed in his ear.

God, he felt blind. Everything was so bright and loud. His body felt more like a blurry mass of static than anything. He couldn’t tell where he began and he ended. It was like every appendage in his body was merging with the writhing, sweaty mass of human bodies surrounding him.

Something was rubbing against his groin.

When Byakuya managed a look down, squinting away from the direction of the strobe lights—he found it was somebody’s hips. He could not tell if it was purposeful or a result of their close quarters, but either way, this stranger was unapologetically grinding back against him in a slow, steady motion.

His hands immediately flew to hold the hips of whoever this was—before shying away.

What was he supposed to do in this situation? There was no singular experience in his life that could have prepared him for this—for being… danced on. Was that the accurate descriptor? This didn’t seem much like dancing. He’d dabbled in ballroom dancing as a child and this was not much of a box step.

His hands hovered midair, his entire body tense and stiff with indecision. On any other day, he would have nudged whoever this was off and curtly told them to watch themselves—but it was too loud and cramped for that to work.

He managed to gulp around the lump in his throat. His palms were soaked in sweat.

Timidly, he planted his fingertips on the small of the other person’s back. That was a weak spot for a lot of people, right?

An undignified squeak left the person in front of him. Their back straightened out—and suddenly those sneakers sliding across the lit up floor looked a lot more familiar.

All of his blood was very suddenly rushing downward.

Byakuya sucked in a deep breath through his nose. Maybe his erection was just… delayed. Any sane man would get aroused from being rubbed on like that. It wasn’t like he was purely turned on from the fact that it was Makoto. No. No, he was not.

Makoto whipped around to stare at Byakuya. His eyes widened, his cheeks flushing pink. His face looked bright red under the neon lights.

“Togami!” His eyes grew to the size of saucers. A rosy flush painted his cheeks hot, hot red. “I’m so-“

His apology was cut short as one misstep from an overly exuberant partygoer sent them cascading into each other.

Makoto lost balance easily—as if he possessed any sense of coordination in the first place. One awkward trip over his own feet tugged his shoelaces loose.

Byakuya’s arms sprang out to catch him. He pulled the other man into himself—their bodies pressed chest to chest. Makoto’s feet planted themselves between his own.

Makoto’s breath was warm against Byakuya’s face. His chest was heaving, breaths leaving him in quick, sporadic pants. Eyes wide and unblinking, his body froze in Byakuya’s arms.

Byakuya wasn’t much better. He secured his hold around Makoto’s waist (so lithe and thin and so easy to grab) and found himself unable to hold his hands back from wandering subtly over the natural arch of his back.

The warm, foggy hazel of Makoto’s eyes looked so sweet. So inviting. Byakuya wanted to get closer, lean in, feel his breath fan out in a concentrated sigh against his lips—

“Byakuya.”

His voice cut through the blonde’s fugue.

Makoto’s gaze was less scared, more focused. Interrogative. That was dangerous. It wasn’t safe when he began to think.

“Are you okay?”

For some odd reason, Byakuya could hear his voice perfectly, despite the blasting music. It was all he could hear. It was crisp. It sounded like amplified sound that had been recorded in a studio.

His eyes bored into Makoto’s softer ones.

“I’m fine.” His words came out a low hiss. His hands shifted to grope the curve of his waist, desperate to feel the skin underneath his t-shirt—

What was he doing?

This was disgusting. Predatory.

He dropped his hands to his sides instead. He swallowed audibly. His Adam’s apple bobbed beneath his skin.

“Are… you okay?”

That was an appropriate question to ask. Especially given that Byakuya had been roving his hands over his body a minute ago without an ounce of shame or self-control.

Makoto’s searching expression morphed into something more determined. He tugged Byakuya’s arms back around his body, hands gripping his forearms. They slid up to his biceps and held him there.

Ohhhh God, he was so, so done for.

“I’m fine.” Voice softer now, he let go of Byakuya’s biceps. He fixed the other man with a squinty stare.

“I don’t want you to fall,” he explained flatly. He gestured to the loose hold that Byakuya now had on his body.

Byakuya couldn’t think. He felt sick. He would’ve blamed it on the alcohol, but telling himself that he was nauseous and sweaty from two conservative sips of a cocktail was more embarrassing than just admitting what the true cause of his vertigo was.

His lips parted. Nothing came out. His entire body seemed to be stuck on a ten second delay.

“Okay.”

Those two syllables were choked. Squeaky.

Just as he thought that maybe, maybe he could find a way to act normal, ignore the growing weight between his legs—Makoto began to roll his hips again.

“Are you having fun?”

He was going to pass out. Byakuya Togami was going to pass out and die on this floor and they were not going to be able to resuscitate him and it was all going to be Makoto’s fault.

The friction of Makoto’s hips rubbing against his through several layers of fabric was the sweetest torture he could have ever imagined. He’s not doing this on purpose, his mind hissed at him, there’s no way he’s doing this on purpose. Why would he? With you? Please.

Oh, please. Please please please.

Those words were on the edge of falling from Byakuya’s lips—yet he had no idea what he would have been begging for. More? Less?

His hands clenched into fists. They were holding the back of Makoto’s shirt.

“…’Koto…”

His tongue ran absently along the seam of his lips. He couldn’t force his eyes to focus on Makoto’s face—though he desperately wanted to see his expression. Heat was coiling deep inside his gut, in that spot right behind his intestines, flooding his innards with the sensation of being burnt alive from the inside out.

He was sure that he was sweating all over. His grip on the back of Makoto’s shirt was tightened. He could’ve sworn that he was just going to tear the fabric off of his body at this point.

Whatever the other boy was saying, if anything, was nothing more than white noise to Byakuya’s ears. He could vaguely see his lips moving.

The rolling of his hips grew more insistent. At some point, Makoto’s hands had found his shoulders—there was a comfortable weight on both sides of his body.

Everything felt fuzzy. Overwhelmingly warm—as if he’d been standing directly under the stream of a boiling hot shower for over an hour. Every part of his body that he had sense in was burning.

The strobe lights stopped flashing through colors of the rainbow, returning instead to a simple white. It was easier to make Makoto’s face out, now, even through the embarrassed tears threatening to bud in his eyes.

Makoto was simply staring. His lips were parted—but he didn’t look nearly as affected by this dancing(?) as Byakuya felt.

The blonde’s gaze fell between them. The source of their friction, where Makoto’s jeans met the smooth fabric of Byakuya’s slacks. He wet his lips with a smooth flick of his tongue.

The unmoving stare of Makoto’s eyes reminded the other man of the question he had asked him. Fuck, he’d been so caught up in… this that he had forgotten to process it.

Are you having fun?

His hands fell down to Makoto’s hips. His thumbs groped loosely at the belt loops in his jeans. He slipped them beneath the strips of denim.

“I’m having a lot of fun.”

He hoped that was convincing. He hoped that didn’t betray nearly how wrecked he felt, how nauseous he was, how his sweat was making his clothes stick to him—

“Yeah?”

Byakuya’s thighs pressed together. Now he was the one tripping over his feet—it was just his luck that he was using Makoto’s body to keep himself upright.

The nausea persisted. Byakuya’s lips straightened out into a hard line. His eyes, swimming, wandered about Makoto’s figure.

His waist truly was so small. Byakuya could easily fit both hands around it and have his fingers touch along the ridge of his spine. The throbbing between his legs grew more insistent. Blaring heat rushed throughout his lower body. His thighs were shaking.

The grinding didn’t slow or stop whatsoever—not even when Byakuya squeezed the other man’s hips in some last ditch effort to stave off what he knew was approaching. Makoto had no idea he was doing this. Right? He was just trying to give his friend a good time. God, he was disgusting. Disgusting and gross and perverted—

“Fffuh- nnh…”

Byakuya muzzled himself with a harsh bite to his bottom lip. If Makoto had no idea about what he was doing, he had to be blind.

The burn tightening in his stomach like a noose around his organs pulled tighter and tighter until there was nothing left to tug.

One more drag of their hips together made his knees buckle.

His entire body loosened. A soft moan was prompted from the cavern of Byakuya’s chest, soft enough that he prayed Makoto didn’t hear it. He rubbed his hips in an upwards circle. His body knew what he wanted more than his mind did. He wanted heat and friction and to ride out this feeling of floating for as long as he possibly could.

Clarity settled in once he felt his wetness against himself.

Oh.

Oh, God.

He had just came. In public. Because of Makoto. On Makoto, basically.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

At once, his hands pulled away from Makoto’s hips as if the other man’s body was made of scalding hot metal. He stumbled backwards—body being caught on a net of poorly dancing women—muttering something about the bathroom. He pushed himself out of the crowd and broke into a run.

If Makoto replied, he didn’t hear it.

Byakuya ducked inside of one of the bathroom stalls.

His entire body was still wracked by the occasional pleasant aftershock of his lingering orgasm—but the bliss was not long-lasting. He clenched his fingers in his hair.

What had just happened? What had he just allowed to happen? He had caught Makoto, then allowed himself to put his hands all over him, and then…

I don’t want you to fall.

Byakuya rubbed his fingers beneath his glasses. He pushed the frames up onto his forehead. Makoto should have let him get trampled beneath the crowd.

He dragged his fingers along his scalp. He tossed his head back, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes.

If Makoto had any idea about what had just happened, he had an apology to draft. A formal one. Possibly with some kind of financial compensation attached.

Byakuya rubbed the heel of his palm into his eye socket. He had become overcome with exhaustion in the moment it took from him to run from the dance floor to this bathroom stall.

Makoto had said he would drive him home whenever, all he had to do was say the word.

Byakuya really couldn’t stomach looking at Makoto right now, though.

He was tired. There was a stickiness in his pants that grew more uncomfortable every moment he spent standing around, shifting his weight from side to side in a pointless attempt to relieve himself.

Protectively, his arms crossed over his stomach.

He felt so, so sick.

He was disgusting. How could he do that? To Makoto, of all people? Innocent, sweet, pure Makoto. He was falling snow. Byakuya was the earth, dirtying him as he touched the ground.

He didn’t sit down. He was smart enough to know not to sit on anything in a club bathroom. Instead, he slouched against the stall door.

What was he supposed to do? What he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and punch himself in the ribcage until something cracked.

His gaze wandered slowly to his chest.

No, no, he couldn’t.

He slipped his glasses off of his face. His eyes were weighted with impending sleep. The tendrils of exhaustion were already pulling his body down. All because of his inability to keep his hands to himself, he guessed.

He closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he found the image of Makoto once again—face focused and not betraying of any emotion as their hips rutted together.

A shudder wracked his body. His knees bowed inward, calves rubbing together.

Fuck.

The single breath that he managed to suck in was shaky on the intake. It was even shakier on the exhale.

Makoto Naegi was going to kill him.