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sing a lovely love song in front of me, please / one that will never change, any day
“G'morning,” Meguro mumbles to the staff on duty that day after trudging through the doors of the rehearsal studio. There were a lot of things that got easier with repetition, but getting an early start was just never going to be one of them.
Meguro yawns as he sets down his things on a table, barely registering that the other members have yet to arrive. Weird. It's not everyday that he’s the first one to show up at rehearsals. He takes out his phone, hoping he hadn’t done a whoopsie and missed an important Line or e-mail or announcement.
As he scrolls through some recent message threads, Meguro feels a pair of arms curl around his waist, someone’s head thonking into the middle of his shoulders. Meguro doesn’t even flinch, the height already giving away who it is.
“Ren,” Sakuma says into Meguro's sweater.
Meguro thinks of wiggling mercilessly out of Sakuma’s grasp like he usually does, but. It just seems like a lot more effort than it’s worth, especially when there aren’t even any cameras around.
“Get off.”
“No.” Sakuma winds his arms even tighter around Meguro.
“Senpai, your behavior is a little…” Meguro deadpans insubordinately, eyes not leaving his phone screen.
“Oi, oi, oi.” Sakuma jabs a finger into Meguro’s back indignantly. “A little what, finish your damn sentence!”
Not that Meguro would ever, ever own up to it in any broadcast or interview or blog post, much less confide it in any living being, but half the fun of pretending he couldn’t stand the sight of fan favorite Sakuma Daisuke was being on the receiving end of Sakuma’s affronted reactions. It was like watching a little puppy snarl at you. (The other half of the fun was just Meguro getting to appease his sadistic side, which wasn’t much of a secret to anyone.)
“A little childish, y’know?” Meguro goes on to say, wrenching free of Sakuma and going to take a seat at one of the tables.
“You—hey!”
While he continues scrolling mindlessly, Meguro can see Sakuma out of the corner of his eye doing his little gremlin run towards the seat next to Meguro. Ending up here was inevitable, Meguro supposes.
Sakuma seems to get distracted, and Meguro can only tell because of the five-second stretch of silence left empty of Sakuma's inane chatter. He also feels the weight of Sakuma's gaze on him in his visual periphery. Meguro is about to tell him to cut it the hell out before threatening to move to another room—
“Are you okay?” Sakuma asks, disarmingly sincere about it.
Meguro narrows his eyes at him suspiciously.
“You look tired,” Sakuma continues.
“Thanks for basically saying I look like shit,'' Meguro retorts, though there’s not much bite to it. He rubs his eyes, reminded of why he slept so terribly last night. Iwamoto had messaged the group chat saying there could be a television segment on the horizon that wanted to feature Snow Man, which would probably involve a very acrobatics-centric showcase. It won't be soon, Iwamoto had reassured them, but I want you all to be prepared when the details are finalized.
Meguro knew what he was getting into joining the group, but the hang-ups he had with throwing himself up into the air brought some reluctance which wasn’t exactly a voluntary response. He would probably have to stay extra hours at the studio to work his way through it and would definitely have to ask for some help—and it just so happens that he’s seated right next to the acrobatics ace. Meguro begins to regret laying on the bit so thick earlier now that he has to wheedle his way into asking Sakuma for a favor.
“You know what you could do to help me out?”
—
say you wanna get so high? / breathe me in like air tonight
After a day of rehearsals and shooting Youtube content, Meguro and Sakuma hang around the company dance studio until the last members file out to go home or attend another schedule. Meguro starts pulling out some practice mats to the middle of the floor while Sakuma catapults around the room doing a million (okay, maybe like. At least seven) different acrobatic movements to “warm up.” True to Meguro’s my-pace approach to life, his own warm-up consists of nice, gentle stretches. He idly watches Sakuma zip past him while Meguro does his ankle rotations on the floor. It would be so easy to call him a show-off, but the mastery he had over his own body was undeniable. His shoes barely make any noise against the concrete floor.
“How do you just. Do that.”
After Sakuma lands his fiftieth flip within the few minutes Meguro had been watching, he whips his head around at Meguro’s voice. “Hm?” he asks, head tilted and eyes wide with inquiry.
“That.” Meguro jerks his chin towards Sakuma, even if he’s not doing any flips anymore. Meguro doesn’t feel like specifying. The day’s schedules had robbed him of the will to be more verbose. “You look weightless.”
Sakuma gives one of his nasal chuckles (the ones that sound like “heh heh” all spelled out), eyes crinkling, and goes, “Oh, you just do a big ol’ jump and—”
“No, I know that part. I mean—it’s so easy for you. Like you’re just breathing.”
“Well—practice, right? Some things just need some getting used to. You know that too, don’t you, Meme?”
Meguro heaves a sigh. “I suppose I do. I'm not sure why I'm still looking for an easy way out where there isn’t any.”
Sakuma holds out a hand to get Meguro up off the floor. “Come on then!”
—
Meguro is fairly well-acquainted with the side of Sakuma that fans and pretty much everyone outside of the company don’t see often. He isn’t caught off-guard that Sakuma speaks more sternly now and comes down on Meguro as hard as it takes to work him through the primer exercises leading up to the backflip.
“You’re not tucking your knees in fast enough. C’mon, Meme,” Sakuma chides. “Mind over matter.”
Meguro is still in the middle of standing back up from his last sprawl on the mat. “What does that even mean?”
“Huh. I don't know, actually.” Typical. “It's just something I hear people say all the time.”
“Don’t go around using expressions you don’t know the meaning of?” It comes out more exasperated than how Meguro would normally jab at Sakuma, the exhaustion leaking out of him as he repositions himself at the edge of the mat. He's tired, alright? You try going over an hour flinging yourself into the air and having gravity pummel you back down to the not-very-soft mat-covered floor.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Sakuma cries. Meguro rolls his eyes, springing into the air almost without a second thought. And somehow, in his brief moment of inattention, his body finally registers the correct positioning and speed he needs to maneuver into, like puzzle pieces slotting together. He gets his legs up over his head and, quick as a whip, manages to get them tucked in in time to stick the landing. It’s a clumsy finish, having to wobble into a small jump that brings him into a more stable stance, hands held out for balance—but it sure as hell is something.
Meguro and Sakuma stare at each other in disbelief for a good five seconds before a grin spreads across Meguro’s face and he lets out an emphatic “Fuck yeah.”
“You did it, you did it, Meme!” Sakuma yells gleefully before throwing himself into Meguro's arms with enough force that it knocks the two of them back onto the mat. Meguro is left slightly winded when he lands on his ass. Sakuma is still tightly wrapped around him, their foreheads pressing together until all Meguro can see are tufts of bleached hair and the curve of Sakuma's eyes, squeezed shut in his elation.
When they catch their breaths, Meguro realizes how close Sakuma is, practically in his lap. It also takes him a while to realize Sakuma's knee has been jostling Meguro's crotch all the while, and with his blood pumping from the exercise he is woefully prone to an unfortunate show of arousal.
"Ah," Sakuma softly exclaims, looking down at Meguro's lap.
Fuck. Meguro says as much as he avoids meeting Sakuma's eyes, trying to get Sakuma off of him. It was only weird if he made it weird.
"Wait, Meguro, it's fine." Sakuma refuses to budge, hands trying to placate Meguro's arms trying to shove him away.
"It's not anything," Meguro says, fully aware of how weird he is making it getting all defensive like this, but he can't stop—
"I can help you," Sakuma says, and Meguro has to stop dead in his tracks and look at him for the first time. Which almost immediately feels like a mistake because Sakuma's blown-wide pupils suddenly make the room feel ten degrees warmer. Meguro's skin prickles with something that doesn't quite feel like it’s from discomfort.
Words leave Meguro's mouth in a panic when Sakuma leans in closer to him. "What the fuck are you say—"
Sakuma presses his palm into Meguro's crotch, the span of Sakuma's hand lining up right against the outline of his half-hard cock. Meguro's exhale sounds painful.
"It's completely normal," Sakuma says, nonchalant—which kind of made it feel absolutely not normal at all. "Nothing to be embarrassed about." Sakuma's hand doesn't stop moving over Meguro's dick, getting him properly hard by the second.
"S-Sakuma, the fuck are you—" Meguro tries to get a full sentence out again, but Sakuma slips his hand under Meguro's waistband. Meguro grits his teeth through the shock of having Sakuma's warm, callused palm skin-to-skin with his dick.
"Sakuma," Meguro gasps, hand flying to close around Sakuma's wrist in an alarmed grip. Meguro holds on but doesn't actually do anything to still the steady jerk of Sakuma's hand. He doesn't know how to.
Sakuma lowers his head to rest against where Meguro's neck meets his shoulder, an almost-tenderness that contrasts starkly with the strokes of his hand. "Will you tell me how you like it, Meme?" Sakuma murmurs, thumb pressing into that one spot on the underside of Meguro's cockhead. "Or will you just pretend you don't?"
Fuck you, Meguro wants to spit out, but it comes as a choked exhale instead. It only takes a few more tugs before he’s coming into Sakuma’s palm, clawing mindlessly at Sakuma's sleeves to steady himself through the waves of orgasm. He can’t breathe for a moment, until he does, shakily.
With his brain still fogged up, he feels Sakuma extricate himself from their positions on the floor. “I'm going to go clean up,” Sakuma says. The bathrooms are in the hall outside the studio, so that’s where he goes.
Meguro waits in a daze for five, ten minutes. Maybe he reaches fifteen. Sakuma doesn’t come back.
—
he says, he's just like the sun / i get so burned when you are close to me
Last night made things complicated, to say the very least.
Meguro is somewhat saved by their schedule today; it’s a full day of learning choreography. He doesn’t have to front for any cameras or be forced to interact with, uh, certain members that he’s still trying to navigate an emotional minefield around. Y’know, the usual. Breaks wouldn’t even be an issue because fortunately he could go right off on his own and no one would think a single thing of it. He was fine, he was set, he wouldn’t even have to spare it any thought. He could pretend it never happened.
Meguro just didn’t factor in Iwamoto throwing a wrench into his plans by blocking Meguro’s and Sakuma's positions very close to each other a whole lot. Fuck a wrench, it was an entire sledgehammer.
Eye contact is kind of inevitable at this point, so Meguro just has to suck it up and deal with it. It’s strange (expected), but Meguro thinks at the first split second that their eyes meet, Sakuma looks uncertain. It tinges his brows and the corners of his mouth. Then, in a blink, Sakuma gives him one of his signature grins, the kind that scrunches up his eyes. The kind that the fans like. They would call him cute for it.
They don’t really have time to say anything. Iwamoto’s count-off cues them to run through this section of the choreography, so they do.
Maybe it would be fine. Maybe Sakuma was also pretending.
—
and i can't find my breath / can we just say the rest with no sound
He's doing it again.
During the most inopportune of times, like the filming of some promotional material for television broadcast, Sakuma will fidget relentlessly like a man possessed. His unbridled energy does always spill out into movement eventually, Meguro amends, but sometimes he does more than cross the line. He sprints across it and into the sunset. It’s just stupid things, fanservice-y poses and gestures that he camps up a bit as a gag, nonsense little improvised choreographies that are simply just too much of a distraction from whatever script Fukka is reading out to the camera.
Maybe you could call it a fit of nerves, maybe it was something else. Meguro would never figure it out.
He wraps an arm around Sakuma, grasping his shoulder with intent. “Behave,” he says in an undertone, hopefully low enough that the mics don’t pick it up.
Sakuma keeps his little grin pasted on, scrunching his eyes like he’s telling Meguro he heard him, he got the message.
Sakuma doesn’t move as much afterward, his face a little more serious now.
Well. Meguro wasn’t expecting that to work as well as it did.
—
When they wrap, Meguro heads off to find one of the backstage bathrooms so he can reset his brain, shake off all the—whatever the hell was happening during the shoot. Maybe take a piss. What have you.
When he pushes past the door, someone is already at one of the sinks. At this point, Meguro really shouldn’t be taken by surprise that it’s Sakuma, but, then again, reading into the dramatic irony of life wasn’t exactly something he was known to be able to do.
Meguro doesn’t at all plan for shit to happen, but it sure does happen. Without thinking very much, he turns to lock the door swiftly, in an almost nonchalant manner. Like it’s not weird that he’s keeping Sakuma from making a convenient run for it. Like it’s not weird that he’s thoroughly expecting Sakuma to make a run for it.
“I thought this was supposed to be completely normal.” Meguro echoes Sakuma's words from when he—yeah. You know.
Sakuma, at least, has the decency to offer him a sheepish smile. “I—you’re right. I thought it would be.”
“Look, we don’t have long before the van leaves, so I'll just come right out and say it. I—” Meguro doesn’t really know what he’s about to say but this is probably an okay time to throw caution to the wind. “I don't think this has to be as hard as it is. It’s honestly not as big a deal as I probably made it out to be in the beginning. I don't give a damn about whatever else happens, but the only thing I wouldn't be fine with would be anything getting in the way of us being friends. So I won't let it.”
Sakuma seems taken aback for a second before he blinks and a teasing grin forms on his face. “Is that how you confess to girls?”
Meguro is about to tell him what a menace he is when someone jiggles the door handle from outside the bathroom. “Eh?” he hears a confused Koji say, followed by a series of urgent knocks. “Meme! Sakkun! Are you in there? I hope you’re not pooping because we’ll be leaving very soon! Okay, I love you both! Please hurry because I miss you! And Teru-nii will be mad if you make any of the staff wait! Okay, bye!”
Meguro shakes his head in mock exasperation while Sakuma chuckles fondly because anything Koji does endears him to Sakuma's smitten ass. When they decide to book it the hell out of there, Meguro stops to give Sakuma a quick and very uncharacteristic hug.
—
you turn back so cold / but you'll come back tomorrow night
Meguro is about to settle down in bed when he hears his doorbell chime its little chiptune melody. Who in the fuck—Meguro had half a mind to straight up ignore it, but, getting the feeling it would fester into a longer-term problem than it had to be, he deigns to drag himself out of his warm bed.
He squints at the intercom screen rather irritably. Is that—Sakuma? He holds down the speak button. “Go home,” Meguro says, by way of greeting.
Sakuma pouts. “But I brought you food,” he says, holding up a convenience store bag next to his face. “And alcohol.”
“I am not letting you in because you have food, I am letting you in because I am a nice person and you look pitiful.” Meguro jabs his thumb against the unlock button to let Sakuma through the gate and cuts off Sakuma's triumphant giggle by ending the intercom call.
It turns out they can’t actually eat Sakuma’s food or drink his alcohol because they’re supposed to be dieting for upcoming shoots, but Sakuma is kind enough to put the bento meals and beer cans neatly into Meguro’s fridge anyway.
“Why are you here,” Meguro asks, barely containing the annoyance he felt at having to turn a deaf ear to the siren song his bed was singing.
Sakuma takes a step closer to where Meguro is standing in the kitchen so they’re directly in front of each other. “Heh, it’s a little embarrassing, but—” Oh, Sakuma admitting something is embarrassing means it’s going to be really embarrassing. Meguro braces himself for the psychic damage. “About what you said earlier. Does that mean you’re not opposed to, um. Certain things happening again?”
“What d’you mean, things?”
“I mean like—” Meguro does not have the foresight to predict where this is going, so when Sakuma pulls himself up on his tiptoes and tugs Meguro down by the neck to kiss him, all he can do is let it happen.
Let's get things straight: the kiss is not sweet. Not that Meguro doesn’t think Sakuma has it in him, but Sakuma isn’t trying to be romantic about doubling their physical relationship back to first base and sticking his tongue into Meguro’s mouth.
With the same reluctance Meguro has admitting he genuinely cares about Sakuma, he has to come to terms with the dominant thought in his head right now which is that kissing equals good. Nice, even. Meguro parts his lips further, letting Sakuma lick across his tongue. It stirs a warmth inside Meguro, the way Sakuma’s mouth retreats by millimeters, taunting Meguro to go on, chase him, before giving in and meeting Meguro's lips again. Meguro will have to rethink that time he called Sakuma pure.
Before Meguro can raise his hands to get a grip on Sakuma and press him closer, Sakuma breaks away, a thread of spit briefly joining their lips. The wetness on Sakuma’s mouth glistens in the low lamplight. (A part of Meguro buried deep thinks it’s a look that becomes him.)
“These kinds of things,” Sakuma says, finishing a sentence that had long been wiped from Meguro’s short-term memory.
“You can’t just do that,” Meguro manages to say.
Sakuma's big, expectant eyes turn confused. “Huh?”
“You can’t just do that and not follow through with it?” Meguro says, and pulls Sakuma into another kiss.
—
They stumble to the other end of the apartment and onto Meguro's bed, a trail of clothes in their wake. Stripped down bare, Sakuma’s skin is warm against his; their lower halves brush momentarily, sending electricity up Meguro’s spine.
“Jesus, fuck,” Meguro exhales between kisses.
“Sensitive?” Sakuma feigns concern while rolling his hips against Meguro's again very deliberately.
Meguro chokes on his next breath. “Fuck you.”
Sakuma just laughs. “All in good time.” They end up seated on the bed, Sakuma in Meguro's lap, thighs bracketing Meguro’s waist. Sakuma stops kissing him again to lean over to his bedside drawer, rifling around until he brings out Meguro's bottle of lube, which he distinctly does not remember ever telling Sakuma that he keeps there, let alone that he has any. Then again, it probably did not take much of an educated guess to assume where a young, unattached man kept his, uh. Personal effects.
Sakuma preps himself but keeps Meguro's mouth busy with his own, letting out little moans and gasps that Meguro swallows down.
Sakuma swings off of Meguro, pulling Meguro over him as he lays on the bed, expectant again. Meguro falters for a second, and Sakuma sees right through him.
“Anything wrong?”
“Look, I haven't—” Meguro's not embarrassed about this, but. It’s one thing to be a virgin and it’s a wholly other thing to have to admit it out loud to someone you’re about to stick your dick into. “I haven't been inside a girl before, alright?”
Sakuma gives him a look that he isn’t sure how to interpret, which is worrying coming from ever-transparent Sakuma. “Well, lucky for you, I'm nothing like a girl.”
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.”
Sakuma laughs at him again, but not unkindly. He reaches up to brush a bit of Meguro’s hair out of his eyes. “Stop worrying. Here.”
Sakuma sits up and gets the lube out again, squeezing some out onto his hand before warming it between his palms. He slicks Meguro’s hard cock up with both hands, the slide of skin excruciatingly good. He shudders in pleasure against Sakuma, his head falling into the crook of Sakuma's neck.
“Fuck,” Meguro hisses.
“C'mon now,” Sakuma breathes into his ear.
Sakuma leans back against Meguro's pillows and, as if spellbound, Meguro follows him, hovering over his body as he slides his hands up the underside of Sakuma's thighs, lifting them up, folding Sakuma under him.
Meguro uses his thumb to stretch the skin around Sakuma's hole, his other hand guiding his shaft to enter him.
(Mind over matter.)
Both of them make pained exhales when Meguro’s cockhead makes contact. Meguro thrusts in shallowly, getting the tip sheathed in the heat of Sakuma’s body. Sakuma lets out a small cry, hands balling up into Meguro’s sheets. He’s still so fucking tight, Meguro wonders at the back of his mind if he can really fit all of himself into Sakuma. He gives a little experimental push further in and Sakuma gasps, reaching to grip at Meguro’s shoulders.
“Fuck, you’re big,” Sakuma breathes, eyes dazed and half-lidded.
“Should I stop?”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
Meguro takes a hellishly slow pace, finally working his cock in up to the hilt, breath heavy in his ears. Sakuma whines softly and Meguro takes it as a cue to try thrusting in and out for a few strokes.
“Oh, fuck, Ren,” Sakuma sighs out. “You fill me up so good, I want you inside me forever, you fuck me so well—”
Meguro groans, half in arousal and half in annoyance. “Can you stop talking,” he says through gritted teeth. One more word out of Sakuma’s mouth and he would blow his load in the most embarrassing amount of time. It’s more out of instinct and desperation to get Sakuma to shut the fuck up than being at all aware of what Meguro’s hand was actually doing, but he slides it up Sakuma’s chest to lay across the base of his neck, fingers pressing at the sides. Sakuma stops talking immediately.
Meguro looks up at his face. Sakuma's eyes are unfocused now, mouth parted.
“Yeah,” Sakuma whispers. “Just like that.” He lays his hand over Meguro's and presses down on it.
The moment it dawns on Meguro that Sakuma is into being held down here, around his neck, does it for him. He tightens his grip, tighter than he means to, and continues fucking into Sakuma even harder.
Feeling the heat in his stomach build and build, Meguro reaches in between their bodies with his free hand to jack Sakuma off, quick and dirty—getting his timing just right so when Sakuma comes, walls tightening around Meguro’s cock, he takes Meguro right over the edge with him, spilling into Sakuma’s tight heat.
Meguro passes out for maybe a second, minute, hour? It’s hard to tell. Sakuma pats him awake on the head. “Meme, let up. You’re so warm.”
Meguro snaps to attention, realizing he’s been crushing Sakuma underneath him, and has also left come in and on him, so he sees to cleaning both of them up immediately before laying back down next to Sakuma and letting sleep take him.
—
“Ren.” A hand on Meguro's shoulder rouses him from sleep, but only barely. “I'll leave now.”
“Why,” Meguro mumbles with his dry mouth. He feels around for Sakuma's wrist. “Stay.”
Sakuma giggles quietly. “We have work later. You’ll see me soon.” Sakuma uses his free hand to extract himself from Meguro's grasp, but he takes hold of his hand while he leans down to press a light kiss to Meguro's lips.
Like the vestiges of a dream, Sakuma disappears. Meguro sinks back into sleep.
—
i've always been cynical / but you came in like a miracle
Sakuma was right about one thing: most things just needed some getting used to. Like finding yourself and your coworker in more and more compromising situations where the end goal was hopefully to get someone to orgasm.
By pure coincidence (he swears), Meguro finds himself and Sakuma waiting in one of the multipurpose rooms for the other members to arrive so they can shoot another Youtube video. They’re alone at work for once, which does not happen often these days. Meguro immediately feels a sense of foreboding at the thought.
He can tell Sakuma is getting fidgety again because he’s not playing any of his gacha games and even if Meguro is very pointedly looking at his own phone screen, he can still feel Sakuma's eyes boring into him.
The thing is, they’re seated at a table with their chairs that just so happen to be angled towards each other and fairly close, giving Sakuma the prime opportunity to carry out his bad idea. (Then again, Meguro wouldn’t put it past him to just be running on mere impulse.) Sakuma lifts his leg and plants his sneakered foot right on Meguro's crotch.
Meguro shoots him a look of warning. Sakuma has his own features schooled into an expression of faux innocence, which really is the kicker, especially when he pushes his foot down, gently, experimentally, adding pressure to Meguro’s dick. Meguro is still some ways away from getting a boner from this, but it was only a matter of time.
“Sakuma, I swear to god.”
“What?”
“If you so much as get me hard, I am revoking your dick privileges, effective immediately.”
Before Sakuma can protest, Meguro is saved by the door opening, at which Sakuma makes the smart decision to put his foot back down on the damn floor.
—
They tumble into Meguro’s bed (again, because Meguro doesn’t think he could do this under the watchful gazes of Sakuma’s hundred-odd figurines) with their tongues in each other’s mouths (also again, because what are they if not predictable [and horny]).
“Always so cold when we’re in public, Meme,” Sakuma says in his feigned hurt tone when he breaks away for air. “I'm starting to think you don’t like being teased where people can see.”
“Yeah, it’s fucking annoying when you do that.” Meguro puts more bite into his kisses as he drags his hand up under Sakuma's shirt, across the abs he likes flashing to the audience so much. “Always so needy for attention.”
Sakuma laughs into the next kiss. “No, I think you like it.”
“Distracting.”
—
Sakuma ends up with his arms wrapped tight around Meguro, head resting on his chest. Meguro is almost sure he’s asleep, going off of his breathing. Now that Meguro has an opportunity to really think about it, it’s such a strange, unfamiliar position he’s in. Strange not because it’s Sakuma, but the fact that any person was here at all, close enough to count his eyelashes, almost stiflingly so. It's strange.
(Meguro doesn’t hate it.)
The thing about Sakuma is that he thinks time spent not being in physical contact with a person he’s familiar with is time wasted, and Meguro just so happens to be most conveniently in Sakuma’s vicinity, all of the time. Meguro used to think he begrudged it. But in this pocket of time, Sakuma's weight is like an anchor, reminding Meguro how nice it feels to have a harbor to return to.
i fall asleep / i hide in your wings
—
When Meguro wakes up, he briefly wonders if he’s suffering some sort of blindness because his vision is obscured by a pale yellow. No, wait, hold on—
Meguro's palm lands smack dab in the middle of his face, feeling the papery texture of the sticky note pasted to his forehead.
Squinting through the sleep in his eyes, Meguro can make out Sakuma’s handwriting (unless someone had broken into his apartment, it could only be Sakuma’s, but he also knows it’s his because the characters are somehow both spiky and stout at the same time):
i have a schedule today, i know you’re going to miss me a lot ♡ σ(≧ε≦σ)
Meguro rolls his eyes, but the corners of his mouth fight hard to keep from lifting into a smile.
—
cinnamon lips and candy kisses / on my tongue
Judging by how Sakuma has started casually showing up to Meguro’s apartment with expectations that almost always end at least somewhat adjacent to sex, Meguro reaches the conclusion this must be what people call hooking up.
Though sometimes he feels like he might be going a little in over his head.
“You want to have some fun, Meme?” Sakuma asks, which seems innocent enough out of context and if you didn’t know Sakuma, but Meguro was unfortunately very much involved in the context and knew Sakuma far better than he would like. It didn't help that they were both naked and Meguro was lying under a Sakuma who seemed all too prepared to ride out his next power trip.
“I'm getting worried.” Meguro starts out saying it in jest, but Sakuma takes advantage of the moment to slide his hands across Meguro's arms, guiding them to stretch above his head, crossing them at the wrists. By the end of Meguro's sentence, he doesn’t think he’s kidding anymore. After gently pressing Meguro's wrists together, Sakuma giggles sweetly and gives Meguro a quick kiss on his mouth. Pulling away too soon for Meguro’s liking, he moves lower down Meguro's body. Foreboding seems to be the number one recurring emotion when he’s around Sakuma.
Sakuma kneels between Meguro's legs, one hand coming up to hold a lock of hair in place by his ear as he bends down further. Holding Meguro’s gaze all the while, he gets his mouth very close to Meguro's cock.
“Don’t move.”
—
and by the time i'm dreaming / and you've crept out on me sleeping
“Hey,” Meguro says firmly, feeling an unpleasant sense of deja vu wash over him. “You need to calm down.”
Sakuma's at it again, being a loose cannon around the dressing room right before they’re scheduled to record on a music show. It was bad enough trying to shoot one of their announcement videos earlier, what with Sakuma bouncing around incessantly, bumping into the other members (lucky that Abe-chan is a saint), just moving all. The. Time.
Meguro wasn’t annoyed by it, but he was starting to suspect there was more to it than simply attributing it to Sakuma’s intrinsic megawatt levels of energy. Because he was fairly sure none of the members were getting a full eight hours these days, least of all Sakuma, so if he kept insisting on pretending he wasn’t running on fumes for an entire work day—Meguro doesn’t even know what would happen. And he wasn’t about to stick around and find out.
Sakuma fully ignores him and yells “Koji!” about to march in the direction where a few of the other members are gathered, before Meguro grabs him by the upper arm and drags him to the bathroom instead.
Locking the door behind them for good measure, Meguro faces Sakuma and realizes he has to loosen the grip on his arm. (He doesn’t let go.)
He notices Sakuma won’t make eye contact with him. Meguro sighs. “Listen. I know you think you’re invincible and that you need to be firing on all cylinders to keep the group afloat, but you don’t have to do that. You don’t. Not all the time.”
Sakuma's expression is vexed, like he doesn’t want to be hearing this. “That’s just who I am—”
“Who you are? Or who you’re trying to be? Or who you’re supposed to be? Those aren’t the same thing.”
For once, Sakuma doesn’t have anything to say to that.
Meguro lets his hand drop down Sakuma's sleeve to take his hand. “You’re not going to be of use to anyone if—when you burn out.”
Sakuma squeezes his hand. “I know.”
“Just making sure.” It was not a lot by way of communication, but Meguro had faith in him.
Sakuma finally gives him a small smile. “Watch out, Meme, or someone might think you care about me.”
“I do care about you.” Meguro doesn’t think much of it when he says it. He just turns and unlocks the door, leaving Sakuma with a stunned expression on his face that Meguro doesn’t see.
—
They end up fucking in Meguro’s bed again, because of course they do. Afterward, Sakuma has his head resting on Meguro’s chest, angled toward his face so Sakuma can look at him with pensive eyes.
“I don't know what I would've done if anyone else saw through me,” Sakuma says, “but I'm really glad it was you.”
—
Meguro wakes up and everything is—ordinary. Sakuma is gone again, leaving nothing behind this time.
you will wake and you will see / that some things cannot be / what we want them to be
—
[ LINE : memeren♥ ] did you get home all right?
[ LINE : memeren♥ ] i know my schedule’s pretty packed right now, but we can go out to eat tonight. if you want
[ LINE : memeren♥ ] is something wrong?
Meguro raises his head to the sky and wishes it wasn’t as blue as it was.
He's spending some time outside on the set location of the movie he’s shooting, killing time before the next scene scheduled to be filmed. If you could call obsessively reopening the same message thread sixty times in a row “killing time.”
It was nearing the end of the week and, because of their schedules, Meguro hadn’t heard from Sakuma since he last spent the night at Meguro’s. Meguro could take a hint and give him some space, but not knowing what he’d done wrong (if anything) still left him restless.
At a loss, Meguro makes a quick call, even if he has absolutely no idea what he’s going to say.
“What's up?” comes Shoppi’s voice over the phone.
“I have a question.”
“Aren’t you filming?”
“I—yeah, I have some downtime right now—”
“If this is about dragging me outside for a walk at 1AM again, I'm hanging up.”
“No, no, not that. Listen, have you ever suddenly just—suddenly, it’s like your life has become about one person and they could—annoy the hell out of you and do shit you couldn’t explain and drive you fuckin’ crazy sometimes but it wouldn’t matter because in the end—you just want to see them happy. Even if they didn’t spend a single second thinking of you. You just want them to be really, truly—happy.”
Shoppi gives a light snort. “What are you, in love or something? ”
In love? A few months ago, he probably would have said he was certain he knew what that meant. He'd dated girls before. That was love, wasn’t it? He'd seen love in a hundred movies and dramas. And yet, Sakuma—the way he cared for Sakuma wasn’t like any of those things. Either no, he wasn’t in love, or—maybe he just hadn’t known what else love could be.
“Am I?”
Shoppi is silent for a while before he goes, gently, “Oh, Meme. What have you gone and done.”
What, indeed, Meguro thinks, spinning a few paces around the building lot in contemplation. That's when he sees him.
Sakuma bounds up to where he is, so nonchalant that Meguro is almost convinced he’s dreamed him up.
“I'll call you back,” Meguro says into the phone before hanging up.
Sakuma holds out a plastic bag to him, a grin that could only be described as polite on his face. “I brought you some stuff.”
Meguro takes it. The bag has some sports drinks, canned coffee, water. “How did you find me?”
Sakuma's eyes scrunch up when he smiles wider. “I asked around.”
Meguro doeswant to smile back, joke about something stupid, he wants nothing more than for things to go back to how they were. But he remembers how much he didn’t like the days of radio silence Sakuma left him in. He couldn’t sweep that under the rug this time. Sakuma seems to reach the same realization.
“I know I owe you an apology,” Sakuma says. “I'm sorry I haven't been contacting you. You don’t deserve that. I just didn’t want to be distracted while I—thought some things through.”
“And what’s the verdict?”
Sakuma chews his lip, reluctant to answer, until— “I think we should stop, um. this. Let's just go back to being friends. Nothing more.”
i still can’t forget about you / i still live in your scent that’s left
“What—why do you say that?”
“We can't keep fooling around like we’re teenagers, Ren. Sooner or later, the consequences are going to catch up with us.”
“And you just suddenly started caring about that?”
“Yeah, well. Better late than never. What's the big deal to you, anyway? If you’re looking to get your dick wet, I’m sure there’s no shortage of people who’d take up the offer—”
Meguro is not one to resort to physical aggression, but this was too fucking much. Dropping the bag, he backs Sakuma into a side alley no one uses, his forearm coming up to pin him by the chest against the wall. (He’s not trying to hurt him—besides, Sakuma wasn’t some delicate flower himself.)
“Is that really what you think of me?” Meguro thought the anger would harden his voice somehow, but the hurt leaks into it instead.
Sakuma's eyes well up with tears. It's hard to watch. “Why else would you be holding on to this?”
“I'm holding on to you!” They’re both properly crying now, Meguro pressing his forehead against Sakuma’s, removing his arm to clutch at the front of Sakuma's clothes. “I told you, didn’t I? I care about you.” (Never mind that Meguro only figured out what that meant moments before.)
“You would say that to anyone,” Sakuma says thickly, but Meguro can hear a hint of a smile shine through.
“Now, why are you so eager to get rid of me?” Meguro says, grinning in spite of himself.
“I was so sure I was just—falling. And I am tired of picking up the pieces.”
“This is me catching you,” Meguro says. “Go out with me. For real this time.”
Like stars aligning, like puzzle pieces slotting together, like landing a shaky backflip after months of trying—when Sakuma leans in to kiss Meguro, it sure as hell is something.
“Great,” Meguro breathes out, as if in reply. “And I don’t go saying that to just anyone.”
my heart is playing tricks now / a beautiful tulip seems to bloom
—
They’re back in the dance studio and Iwamoto is finalizing some of the blocking they haven’t worked out yet, going around to each member to adjust their position for the start of a new section.
Meguro waits patiently, running through the choreography in his head, looking to the other members to commit to memory their positions in reference to him. He just so happens to be at the opposite end of the formation from Sakuma, who catches his eye and gives him a shameless wink. Meguro rolls his eyes, but he can’t help breaking into a laugh.
and i'd be so good to you.