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Sakuma Rei comes back from England without his ears and Ritsu feels like the world has turned upside down.
It's scandalous almost, for idols like them, even if they are still just high school kids, and there are just as many odd looks in the hallways as there are high fives. It serves him right, Ritsu thinks, for leaving and coming back so different.
It used to be a thing that Ritsu could take pride in, that he had the same sleek, black ears and tail and his brother. His cool, amazing, talented brother who was always one step ahead of Ritsu in everything. Ritsu used to respect that, really, but now, with his brother just an empty shell, like one of the alien clones that Leo talks about so often, he just feels cold and left behind.
He hates it. Hates that Rei willingly just let go of that. Hates that it feels like Rei isn’t his brother anymore, that he’s different and gross and hard to look at.
He hates it even more that when he’s lying in bed in the day, the only thing he can think is, why wasn’t it me that anija came to, instead of some girl or boy in England.
Feelings and things like crushes and love are complicated too and he hates them as well.
-
It’s not the type of thing Ritsu can talk about with Mao, his Maa-kun who believes in True Love and losing his ears to imaginary pretty girls who make Ritsu’s heart ache. He wants to keep Mao his and ruffle his soft red ears forever, but he won’t hold Mao back, not this time.
Leo is different though, for being entirely unpredictable and bound to nothing, his rules governed by something far beyond the earth.
They’re on Ritsu’s futon in the practice room today, the only two there since Izumi and Arashi had a modeling gig and Tsukasa was out on family business, lounging about while Ritsu naps and Leo doodles on his sheet music between moments of inspiration.
‘Hey, Ou-sama.’ Ritsu mumbles, still pillowed on his own arms, tail lashing back and forth behind him. ‘What do you think about this sort of thing.’
‘Hm?’ Leo looks up from his paper where he’s drawing something that doesn’t even faintly resemble the alien Ritsu knows it probably is. ‘Well, it depends on what “this sort of thing” is, doesn’t it? What’s up?’
Ritsu curls the end of Leo’s tail around his fingers. ‘Like this.’
‘Ohh!’ Leo says, nodding in understanding. ‘That sort of thing! Mm, I don’t really care one way or the other, you know?’
Ritsu nods. It’s not like he particularly cares either, but it’s been nagging at the back of his mind, ever since Rei came back. An annoyance.
‘I mean,’ Leo continues. ‘They’re cute and all, and Sena’s are so soft, but it’s not like the aliens have them anyway! I wouldn’t want to hold myself back from inspiration!’
‘That’s just like Ou-sama for you.’ Ritsu purrs out. ‘Finding inspiration everywhere.’
Ritsu pulls Leo down for a kiss, sleepily grabbing at his tie and mashing their lips together roughly, sharp canines scratching at the skin there until it bruises. He doesn't quite expect for Leo to kiss him back, not really. Just like he doesn't expect to be rejected, not really. So when Leo's tongue eagerly laps at his lips and bites back in kind, he's almost surprised. When they pull back, breathing heavily but still not as bad as it’s been after their Lives, Leo's eyes are glowing.
'That was fun!' He says, and wraps his arms around Ritsu, pulling their faces close together again. 'You're amazing, Rittsu, doing that all of the sudden! So cool! Wanna do more?'
Ritsu blinks, and from this distance his eyelashes are almost brushing Leo's cheek.
'Do you even know what you're doing, Ou-sama?' It's both a challenge and a question. Ritsu doesn't know either. Not really. There's a lot of things he doesn't know about lately, but he thinks he wants to, if only because it's lonely otherwise.
'Nope!' Leo says, bright and shining, like a blaze. A wildfire. 'But, we can figure it out, can't we?' He mumbles, softer, a bit hesitant.
'Yeah,' Ritsu says, before he closes the distance again. 'Me neither.'
-
'Who're you thinking of?' Leo asks him, pausing where he's buried to the hilt inside of Ritsu, draped over him, one hand tightly clasped with Ritsu’s own. 'I don't think it's me? It's cool if it is though!'
He moves and Ritsu gasps, writhes because it hurts but it catches on his insides and makes him burn with the same vibrating intensity he'd seen in Leo's eyes earlier. They’d used Izumi’s fancy lotion and tried to be careful, but they’re both still new and bad at this.
Ritsu wants to say no one, he really does, but his Ou-sama is hard to lie to. Hard to want to lie to.
Instead, Ritsu takes a breath to steady himself, bringing up his other hand to softly brush against Leo’s ears for the last time.
'What about you?'
But Leo only smiles, too toothy, a fire that's trying to rekindle itself from sparks.
'We'll just both have to guess then, won't we!' He breathes out and then wraps a hand around Ritsu, stroking from the bottom up, his thumb playing at the slit in a way that's the best sort of distracting. He’s not bad at this part, at least.
Ritsu remembers the way Leo's gaze had lingered on Izumi earlier and the guilty sadness that flashed there, remembers his righteous fury and passion at Eichi, remembers the soft 'I love you's Leo shares with Tsukasa when he thinks Ritsu is asleep in the corner of the room, how he and Arashi would hold hands in the hallways, and thinks they both know anyway.
With his mind going blank, though, at least he can't imagine that Leo is Mao. That Leo is Rei.
-
It’s as much messy and painful as the sex, when they wake up later to their ears and tails peeling away from their flesh, like a sweater unraveling.
The futon in the practice room is covered in shedding hairs and bits of blood and one of Leo’s ears hangs off of his head at an odd angle. It would be gross, almost, if it weren’t laughable, the way Leo picks at the ear between two fingers and makes a face at the way it flops back lifeless when he lets it go.
Ritsu laughs.
‘Do you need help with that, Ou-sama?’ he hums, though he’s sure he’s in no better of a position. He can feel the tackiness of drying blood in his hair, the sharp itch of shed fur on his nape and waist.
‘Do we have to let them go naturally?’ Leo pouts. ‘Like, can we use scissors. I bet the aliens would use scissors. Oh, or lasers! Ah, this is so troublesome!’
Ritsu makes a disgruntled noise, falling back onto the futon and feeling his tail wobble and come undone a little more where it meets the fabric of the sheets. Gross.
‘Too much effort. If you want them, you’ll have to look for them yourself.’ He huffs out, but when it looks like Leo is seriously contemplating it, eyeing his shirt where it lies crumpled and discarded on the floor, Ritsu feels a stab of something in his heart. ‘Mm, on second thought, just come back down here.’
Leo grins and crawls down to lie beside him, distaste fickle and forgotten when he has a distraction. ‘Sure. What’s up?’
Ritsu touches Leo’s hair, lightly, feeling at the marks as Leo shivers from the contact, Ritsu’s fingers tracing over where his ears stood so proudly before. It’s not as bad as he would have thought, already healing away to nothing, a nearly clean break. For not the first time, Ritsu realizes that it’s not something either of them can come back from.
‘Rittsu, that tickles!’ Leo groans out, but he doesn’t move away, just watches Ritsu idly. They really are both disasters, aren’t they.
‘Just a second, Ou-sama. Let me--’ He takes hold of the ear, flopping idly on Leo’s head, still hanging by a single thread of skin, and pulls .
It comes off easily in his hand, so he’s sure that the screech Leo lets out is over dramatic at best.
‘Really, Ou-sama, we’re still at school; have some delicacy .’ He teases, bringing the ear up to his mouth to lick at the blood.
Leo makes a face, pouting and rubbing at his head.
‘I don’t think anything we’re doing right now falls in line with delicacy! You’re starting to sound like Suo~.’ but he doesn’t seem too annoyed at least, even if Ritsu raises an eyebrow at the comparison. Who’s thinking of someone, now?
‘Hey,’ Leo continues on, still chatty and uninhibited. ‘Want me to do you too? You’re kinda--’ He pantomimes what Ritsu is pretty sure might be an alien abduction, or that he’s just a mess, it really is hard to tell with Leo.
He nods anyway.
‘Do whatever you want.’
-
They wash off in the sink and throw the remains in the school incinerator, sheets and tails and ears, and Leo holds his hand as things go up in a blaze.
Perhaps they’re supposed to care about formalities, but neither of them are really the type.
-
Well, even if they don’t care, per se, it would still be asking for rumours and trouble if they both showed up at school the next day like this. They still have an image to keep up, toeing the line between too much and just enough.
This type of store isn’t exactly common, but if you know where to look it’s there and the products range from high class prosthetics with prices that make Leo pale, to cheap ears that come complete with a sexy maid headband, which Ritsu just smirks about when he thinks of Maa-kun.
They each take turns trying on different ones: gaudy things with sequins and gold that Leo comments that shitty emperor would like if he ever got that stick out of his ass, bright purple ones that remind Ritsu of a cheshire cat.
‘Hey, Rittsu!’ Leo calls from the other side of the aisle. ‘Look, look!’
He’s got a pair of alien antennae on his head and Ritsu stares for a moment before bursting into a fit of laughter, Leo joining in with him only a beat later.
Like this, both of them giggling like school kids in the back of the shop, Ritsu suddenly realizes that he hasn’t lost anything at all.
-
It’s hard to get into the habit of putting on his fake ears and tail in the mornings now and he often just sleeps with them on so he doesn’t spook Maa-kun too much, but it’s the weekend so when Ritsu takes then off to pass out on his bed until sunset, he forgets about them where they lay in a messy pile on his floor, opening his door to sleepily wobble past Rei on his way into the kitchen.
Rei doesn't say anything for a long moment, enough for Ritsu to have forgotten, almost, that there is anything different about him at all. He doesn't feel different, he's just hungry now, waking up in the evening for cereal like everything is completely normal.
‘Oh my. Ritsu, you’ve really grown up haven’t you.’ Rei says from the couch, and Ritsu has to stop where he is, freezing for a moment before quickly bringing his hand up to his hair with a curse.
This is the worst. Rei wasn’t supposed to know, at the very least. Not that he thought he’d be able to hide it at home forever, but he’d hoped he could.
‘Now now, don’t make that face, Ritsu.’ Ritsu can hear the soft smile in his voice. ‘Come here?’
And it’s against all of Ritsu’s better judgement not to just turn back to his room and hide out for the rest of the foreseeable future, but he is still hungry and he’s got to do this some time, right?
He stands awkwardly in front of Rei, with his arms crossed. His ears would be pressed flat to his head if he still had them and he sometimes misses the ability to express his annoyance so easily.
Rei takes the opportunity to pull Ritsu down into his chest and Ritsu flails.
‘H-hey! What are you doing, you disgusting bug!’ He complains. Ritsu doesn’t like being touched, not without warning. It makes his control slip. It’s too much.
Rei lets his hand gently card through Ritsu’s hair, though. Massaging the faint lines where his ears used to be, soft and warm. It’s comfortable, almost. The sort of too good feeling that Ritsu hates as well, even as he relaxes into the touch.
‘This sort of thing still feels good.’ Rei says, lightly. ‘Even when they’re gone.’
‘I guess.’ Ritsu sighs. This is just exhausting.
Rei hums in acknowledgement but he doesn’t stop and Ritsu almost doesn’t think he wants him to.
‘I’d noticed that Tsukinaga-kun’s ears were a shade off from his hair, but I had thought it would be gauche to mention.’ Rei says, and Ritsu knows what he’s not-so-subtly implying. Well, he’ll give him that at least.
‘Ou-sama is an idiot.’ Ritsu huffs out, burrowing a little bit into Rei’s shirt. ‘I had to talk him out of coming to school dressed like an alien.’
‘Are you two dating, then?’ Rei asks, and his tone is calm, but there’s something off about the way his hand moves in Ritsu’s hair that strikes him as weird.
‘Don’t be gross, anija.’ While Leo is his King, Leo is also everyone else’s king. Belonging and having is something that’s hard for either of them to do willingly. ‘I just, wanted to get rid of them, that’s all.’
‘Ahh, I can understand that.’ Rei breathes out, hot air ruffling Ritsu’s hair. ‘I’m always here for you, if you need to talk, Ritsu. If it’s difficult. Please know that.’
But Ritsu doesn’t think he understands, and he tells him so, looking up just to see the flash of hurt in Rei’s eyes that it brings and the hand stilling in his hair. Good, he thinks. It’s payback. It makes him all the easier to hate.
It makes it easier too, though, to lean up like this and capture Rei’s lips with his own.
He doesn’t expect Rei to reciprocate: it’s not like with Leo. It’s different and horrible and there are gross feelings pressing against his throat, full of words he can’t say and doesn’t even want to try to.
Ritsu doesn’t feel any older, like this. Not any more grown up, like Rei had said, but Ritsu is starting to think that it’s the same for Rei too.
So when Rei does kiss him, tentative and nothing like Ritsu’s brash recklessness, he thinks that it’s fine, whether they've changed or not.