Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Osamu.”

He blinks back into the moment, breath heavy on his lips and his fingertips trembling where they’re sunken into the bed covers next to Shinsuke’s splayed out hair. The dim glow of his bedside lamp illuminates Shinsuke’s face, long shadows curling gently over his jawline like the night’s caress, and it’s right then that Osamu realizes it’s possible to miss someone even though they’re close enough to touch—which, incidentally, is what Osamu should be doing at this very moment.

As if he could read his thoughts, Shinsuke reaches for him—his eyes aglow with the moonlight kissing his bare skin, just visible under his half unbuttoned shirt. 

“Are you okay?”

Shinsuke’s fingertips are cold as they cup Osamu’s cheek, gently urging him back to the present. It’s strange—all Osamu has wanted for the past couple of months has been to get Shinsuke under him as much as possible, but tonight Osamu can’t seem to stop thinking , of all things. Thinking about the first time he’d touched Shinsuke that evening in his studio with the December sunset spilling into the room, reflecting off dust motes that’d shimmered like stardust when time suspended in the air the moment that Osamu had laid hands on Shinsuke’s skin back when it was something foreign to him. 

And again, to reiterate—he should, by all means, be doing that right this minute. After all, touching Shinsuke has quickly become one of Osamu’s favourite pastimes over the past couple months of dating and as a rule he makes a point to do it as often as possible. It was a pleasure to discover that contrary to popular belief, Shinsuke is actually quite expressive—as long as you know where his buttons are and how to push them. 

The innocent interest started from curiosity and quickly became a dedication of sorts—to find all of those buttons and their instruction manuals, for the sake of discovering all of the different sides of Shinsuke that Osamu can reach. 

For example, Osamu knows that pressing a kiss to the base of his palm never fails to light a fire in Shinsuke’s molten eyes, and he also knows that there’s a divot on the right side of his waist where he’s ticklish, but a giggling Shinsuke is far too powerful a force for any single person to withstand—so that particular piece of knowledge is stowed away for dire circumstances only. He knows that Shinsuke isn’t fond of thunderstorms or even light static shocks from his clothes, even though the only hint that gives away his displeasure is the wrinkle in his forehead from his barely-there frown.

Osamu collects all of Shinsuke’s different expressions like pieces of multicoloured beach glass, digging them one by one out of the sand and holding them up to the sun, watching the way the rays of light pierce their core. When Shinsuke laughs, it’s cherry blossom pink, of all things. When he’s serene, it’s the colour of seafoam. 

And when Osamu touches him, the resulting colour is a deep, fiery crimson with rippling gold throughout. 

He wants to touch Shinsuke now, feel that red beneath his fingertips, commit it all to memory the way he would take a photograph. But, see—here’s the thing—Osamu can’t breathe with Shinsuke under him like this, in a proper suit with his tie undone, his champagne sweet lips parted and eyes half-lidded, staring up at Osamu wordlessly as his thumb rubs a gentle arc against Osamu’s jawline.

This is what it feels like to be embraced by a windstorm, Osamu realizes with a shiver, to feel small and insignificant in the face of something bigger than this life could ever possibly contain. Shinsuke is like that—a colossal existence that turns any space he enters into a vacuum, a wildfire that burns all the oxygen off until the only choice is to succumb to it. Quietly. Unassumingly. 

And so Osamu surrenders—again, and again, every time, without fail. 

“You’re beautiful, Shinsuke-san,” he says, his words mingled with a heavy exhale that feels oddly like a confession of sorts. It shouldn’t be. After all, he’s said it enough times and thought it even more times than that—by now it’s an old truth carved into stone, the edges smoothed out like worn marble from Osamu’s insistent lips.

To this, Shinsuke smiles with a tilt of his head that bares one side of his neck, eyes narrowing like that of a fox’s with the corner of his mouth quirked up just so.

“Yes,” he says, his voice dripping out like melted dark chocolate, “so I’ve been told.”

“Oh? By whom?” Osamu murmurs, smiling as he dips his head to press his lips to Shinsuke’s neck, over the beauty marks there that he has mapped out to a science and scraping his teeth against the delicate flesh in a way that makes Shinsuke shudder. His cologne smells warmly of citrus bitters that Osamu breathes in, noting how heated Shinsuke’s cheeks feel despite his temperature usually running cold.

“Mm. I forget,” Shinsuke laughs airily, winding his arms loosely around Osamu’s neck. 

Ah, and there it is again—a feeling that Osamu can’t succinctly name even if he tried, building in his chest, overflowing into his throat, filling him to the brim until his fingertips tingle like they’ve been electrocuted. Cherry blossom pink and everything that it insinuates. He can’t contain whatever this is and the weight on his shoulders is making it awfully hard to concentrate on the present—even though a half naked Shinsuke has never been something that Osamu has ever had to try to concentrate on before. 

“Hey.” With a gentle push on his shoulders, Shinsuke pulls back to look at Osamu properly, a concerned frown etched in the lines between his brows. “You’re acting weird. Are you upset about the gala after all?”

The gala . Osamu pauses, considering for just a moment if he should lie and say yes so he can avoid voicing any of the sickly sweet thoughts that have been clouding his thoughts all evening. It’s uncharacteristic—and more importantly uncool —of him to be like this, after all, in a way that makes Osamu wonder if he should quit photography and take up poetry instead, save for the fact that he’s rather sure an author who only ever writes poems about the same person wouldn’t do very well in the limelight. 

“No.” He ends up admitting the truth with a small smile, tenderly grazing his thumb over Shinsuke’s bottom lip in wonder. Shinsuke is beautiful—the kind that simmers quietly like a low flame right up until you realize that the room is on fire, but there’s nothing you can do except continue slow dancing amongst the flames as soot rains down around you like wedding confetti.

Because Osamu had walked into the gala earlier this evening, his shiny dress shoes sinking into the plush carpet underfoot, and it really felt like some sort of joke when the entire damn world fell away as he laid eyes on Shinsuke standing there alone in front of Osamu’s exhibit in his simple charcoal suit, with his fingers curled delicately around the stem of a crystal champagne flute.

Despite his initial hesitations about entering, Osamu’s gala submission was a piece that he is actually quite proud of: a close up shot of a female model’s face dotted with freckles, spidery pathways of strong reddish light glinting off her cheekbones and shining into the honey-gold of her irises. The intention was to utilize the shapes of the lighting and shadows combined with the model’s natural freckles in order to create imagery similar to webbing like that of nebulae. It was the specific play on stars that Osamu had been hoping for, drawing inspiration from that first heart stuttering sight of the lovebites on Shinsuke’s neck all those nights ago.

The way Shinsuke was gazing up at Osamu’s photo—lips parted in wonder, softened eyes that’d glimmered with nothing less than reverence—had promptly lodged itself in Osamu’s throat, refusing to go down no matter how much he tried. It hardly mattered that his piece hadn’t even made it into the honourable mentions of the night, not when Shinsuke had been making that kind of expression in the face of Osamu’s piece. 

“Then what is it?” Shinsuke says now, cupping Osamu’s cheeks between his hands. “What are you thinking about?”

What is it , indeed. Ever since he laid eyes on Shinsuke earlier that night he’d been trying to put a colour to it but he doesn’t think it’s possible. Ethereal doesn’t have a colour. Breathtaking doesn’t have a colour. Life changing doesn’t have a colour.

He wishes he’d taken a picture.

Instead of replying Osamu finally leans in to kiss Shinsuke proper, licking the strawberry champagne off his lips and revelling in the way Shinsuke opens up for him. They’ve gotten to know each other over the past few months and what Osamu once thought to be a language he couldn’t recognize, he now knows it as a much loved book that he is still finding new things to be stricken by each time he rereads it. Case in point—up until now he’s kissed these lips innumerable times and yet each time it feels new, each time it feels just as bewitching, because Shinsuke bites his lower lip and Osamu can’t help but squeeze his eyes shut, hiding his groan between their mouths like a badly kept secret.

It all comes down to the fact that he’ll never stop finding new things about Shinsuke to be in awe of, and in the grand scheme of things that thought is just a little overwhelming to accept.  

“Shinsuke-san,” he sighs in defeat, and somehow, Shinsuke knows. He always knows.

Shinsuke flips them so that Osamu is on his back, staring up dazedly as Shinsuke straddles his hips while shedding his suit jacket, looking awfully like some of the dreams Osamu used to have before he was lucky enough to get his hands on the real thing.

(That’s a lie. The dreams continue to this day. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.)

“Pay attention,” Shinsuke says simply, tipping his chin up with an icy stare, and Osamu’s mouth immediately goes dry when Shinsuke places his hands on Osamu’s chest so he has the leverage to grind downwards, rolling his hips just enough to make Osamu gasp.

The searing heat in his belly flares—he digs his fingers into Shinsuke’s thighs, an involuntary hiss slipping out between his teeth when Shinsuke goes to undo his own belt. Osamu’s position is a perfect vantage point to bask in yet another beautiful beach glass expression, because Shinsuke is biting his bottom lip with a lovely flush high on his cheekbones as he pulls down his zipper to show Osamu how badly he wants him.

And yet, it’s Osamu’s breath that stutters, eyes half lidded as he allows himself to enjoy the show. He loves eating but as the saying goes, you eat with your eyes first , and though his principle is to seize opportunities as they come, he also knows that good things come to those who wait.

“Show me, Shinsuke-san. I want to see you.” His voice cracks at the edges, crumbles, in fact—much like his fraying self control judging by the way his fingers tremble where they’re buried in the fabric of Shinsuke’s suit pants.

The Shinsuke above him right now is a rich swathe of velvet purple, alluring like the midnight sky, toeing the edge of inviting and slowly but surely tipping into the realm of dangerous . Osamu can see his beauty marks peeking out from beneath his crumpled collar—they’re barren of the marks Osamu has gotten fond of leaving and it really is near unforgivable for such a perfect canvas to be left blank. There is no other choice but to remedy that before the night is over. 

Shinsuke lets out a shaky sigh, lashes fluttering as he closes his eyes and strokes himself off slowly. It’s a wonder, really, how Osamu once thought Shinsuke to be stone faced when in reality he’s been so wonderfully expressive all along. It’s just that Osamu—and everyone else for that matter—hadn’t been looking properly. 

It’s fine. Osamu doesn’t want anyone else to know this version of Shinsuke, the one who maintains eye contact while he fucks into his own fist, his heated gaze both a confession and a dare all at once. There isn’t anyone out there who knows Shinsuke better than he does—no one else who knows as precisely as Osamu when to ebb and when to flow in order to make Shinsuke laugh in the specific way that unveils his lone dimple, or how tightly Shinsuke likes to be hugged in order to ease that perpetual (and adorable) wrinkle between his eyebrows.

His self control finally snaps when Shinsuke wriggles his hips to shuck his pants lower until they fall down to his thighs, and then, staring into Osamu’s eyes the entire time, he brings his fingers to his mouth and sucks on them salaciously before reaching behind himself.

“Shinsuke-san—”

Osamu moves to sit up, his heart beating itself into a frenzy as it works its way into his throat. It’s not his style to let his job be done for him while he’s just lying there like a useless prop—but the minute he shifts, Shinsuke stops him with a single look from those beautiful moonlit eyes, right as he presses his first finger inside.

“No touching,” he says, lips cherry red from biting on them as a little sigh escapes alongside his words. “Since you were so distracted earlier.”

“Wha—that’s not—!”

“Then tell me what you were thinking about.”

The Shinsuke above him right now is ruthless—blatantly ignoring Osamu’s painfully tented pants as he rolls his hips onto his own fingers, his heated cheeks flushed red and pupils blown wide. He’s sulking, Osamu supposes, which would be more endearing if Osamu didn’t feel like his insides are on fire, burning up under Shinsuke’s blazing eyes.

Osamu swallows, his mouth running dry. “I was thinking of you.”

Really—what else could it be? Of course it’s Shinsuke. It always has been, ever since the first time Osamu laid eyes on him, crouched on the ground with multicoloured tubes of acrylic paint scattered at his feet. And even after all this time despite how different everything is in comparison to that day, back when Osamu and Shinsuke had been mere strangers whose paths just happened to cross—Osamu can’t help but feel like all roads lead back to here, with him gazing up at Shinsuke in quiet wonder, unable to voice even a fraction of his true thoughts.

Osamu has never been great at articulating in that way, after all. Photography does it for him—captures everything that he doesn’t know how to say and communicates his sentiments in a way that only the people who bother to look properly can understand.

The image of Shinsuke’s face as he stood in front of Osamu’s photo once again comes to mind. He wonders if Shinsuke received his message clearly, wishes that he was capable of explaining how the model’s freckles are homage to Shinsuke’s beauty marks and the nebulae webbing is a reminder of the first night he got to press his lips to Shinsuke’s skin.

He wonders if Shinsuke understands that Osamu’s gala entry is the closest he has ever come to creating something resembling a love letter.

“You know,” Shinsuke says after a moment, leaning forward until his curved lips are scant millimetres away from Osamu’s and he can feel the heat of Shinsuke’s skin on his own. “If you have something to say, then say it.”

Osamu has heard these words before. The slow realization dawns on him—from then until now Shinsuke is still waiting for him ever patiently, with that steady voice and hands that never tremble. Such is their dynamic, Osamu supposes—where Shinsuke leads, he will surely follow, and even though Osamu has only ever been this complacent in Shinsuke’s midst, it would be unsightly if he keeps Shinsuke waiting forever.

“I’m in love with you,” he says, teeth chipping on bullet as he loses his breath along with the colossal impact of his words. With a flourish he surges up to push Shinsuke down against the bed, his arms caging Shinsuke in perfectly on time to witness a glorious beach glass expression spreads itself across Shinsuke’s face—wide eyes, parted lips, and that perpetual wrinkle in between his brows. Osamu can’t help but laugh, pressing his index finger to it in an effort to smooth it out as he repeats, “I love you, Shinsuke-san.”

The Shinsuke whose eyes well up with tears right there in between Osamu’s arms is a bright, brilliant daisy yellow.

His tears are silent and ephemeral. Osamu barely catches sight of them before Shinsuke is tugging him in to kiss him, his lips urgent and pleading and of course Osamu responds in kind, unbuttoning his pants with one hand as he wraps the other around Shinsuke’s heated flesh.

“Osamu,” Shinsuke murmurs, in a tone that might just be pitchy enough to pass as a whine. His fingertips scrabble against the back of Osamu’s neck, tugging him closer insistently in an uncharacteristic show of impatience and the heat in Osamu’s belly flares . He slaps blindly at the nightstand table to feel for the bottle of lube, not caring that he knocks just about everything else onto the floor in the process.

The mood goes from soft to desperate in mere seconds. Osamu squeezes out way too much lube in his haste, mouthing along Shinsuke’s neck and revelling in the small gasps that he draws out from between Shinsuke’s lips as he presses two fingers in without any difficulty at all thanks to the earlier prep-slash-tease.

“Don’t need it. I’m ready,” Shinsuke says lowly, tugging on Osamu’s arm with a small frown.

“Just in case.” Osamu smirks, fully knowing he’ll have to pay for this later but deciding that it’s well worth the punishment as he crooks his fingers exactly where he knows will make Shinsuke gasp. Shinsuke’s spine curves up off of the bed and he lets out a muted moan, his fingers tangling tightly in the sheets. Being loud doesn’t come naturally to Shinsuke, and that doesn’t change in the bedroom—his voice has to be coaxed out slowly, just like his expressions. Luckily, Osamu is nothing but dedicated to mastering the art.

After all, he has to make up for all the time he’d wasted earlier, lost in his thoughts despite the fact that the person himself had been right in front of him, close enough to touch. Osamu inserts another finger, curling all three against Shinsuke’s prostate, massaging it thoroughly while closing his other hand over Shinsuke’s cock. The response is electric—Shinsuke chokes out a sob with his eyes screwed shut, and Osamu’s heart stutters in his chest at the sight.

“Shinsuke-san, are you gonna come?” His blood is running so hot that it burns, but above all else he wants to make Shinsuke feel good and that desire takes precedence over any of his own needs as he pumps his hand slowly, noting the way that Shinsuke’s toes curl and his breath hitches like a sweet fever dream.

“S-stop.”

Osamu stills immediately.

“What’s wrong?” He asks worriedly, removing his hands slow enough that it makes Shinsuke shiver. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t want to come by myself.” Shinsuke’s eyes are glazed over as he reaches for Osamu, pulling him close. “Please.”

The quiet plead hits Osamu like a freight train. Shinsuke isn’t one to ask anything—he tells people what needs to be done and sees to it that the task is completed. As far as Osamu is concerned, there hasn’t ever been a need for Shinsuke to say please to him and the effect has his heart stretched taut like a bowstring, thrumming so intensely that it threatens to snap.

He kisses Shinsuke hard enough to be bruising, slicking himself up with lube and pressing in to the hilt in one fluid motion, shivering as Shinsuke’s heat envelopes him, creating starbursts behind his eyelids and fireworks in his belly.

Shinsuke buries his face into Osamu’s neck as Osamu fucks him in earnest, pressing his nose to Shinsuke’s hair while muffling his groans. They’re both too wound up to keep up pretenses—it’s all either of them can do to let go and simply lose themselves in each other, skin to skin with their fingers tangled together in a white knuckled grip. Shinsuke curls into him, moving as best as he can to match Osamu’s somewhat erratic thrusts. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that his hips are stuttering because he can already feel the undeniable coil of pre-climax heat building, overwhelming like only Shinsuke can be.

“Shinsuke-san,” Osamu gasps, pressing his lips to Shinsuke’s sweaty forehead. “Fuck, you feel amazing.”

In lieu of a response Shinsuke silently clings on tighter—which isn’t strange because Shinsuke isn’t usually verbal in bed anyway, and this fact only serves to make his earlier admission of wanting to come together that much more earth shattering. But tonight Shinsuke tucks his face close to Osamu’s ear, tiny whimpers tumbling out with every thrust of Osamu’s hips.

“—ove you.”

The syllables are hidden within a whisper and Osamu nearly chokes on his own breath. He jerks back in surprise to look Shinsuke in the eyes, only to find the same indescribable expression that he’d been unable to stop thinking about this entire evening.

He finds Shinsuke’s lips parted in wonder and softened eyes glimmering with nothing less than reverence, his hair spilling across the bed sheets like a halo, shining gently under the pale moonlight. 

The piece of beach glass that he can’t put a colour to. Ethereal, breathtaking, life changing .

That look hadn’t been in the wake of Osamu’s gala exhibit after all, he realizes, bending low to hug Shinsuke to his chest. He thinks about all that he hasn’t been able to say, offering three measly words as if they could even come close to containing the gravity of the real thing—but he’s sure Shinsuke understands. After all, Shinsuke isn’t a man of many words either and that single expression had managed to convey all the secrets of the world that Osamu needs to know.

He’s being loved properly, huh. The emotion that swells once more in his chest is not so much loving, but loving and being loved in return. Embraced by a windstorm , slow dancing under burning wedding confetti kind of love. 

They move together until they’re both quaking under each other’s touch, until Osamu’s nerve endings are white hot and he gets his hand around Shinsuke’s cock to finally bring him over the edge.

“Osamu—!” Shinsuke cries softly as he comes in a gorgeous full body shudder, clenching around Osamu so that he reaches his climax in tandem. He blisses out so hard that tears involuntarily bead up in the corners of his eyes and for a single instance the world shrinks until all it encompasses is Shinsuke and Osamu, and even their heartbeats are synchronizing to each other’s tempo. 

Moments pass as Osamu basks breathlessly in the afterglow with Shinsuke in his arms, their breath softening as they melt into a thick post-orgasmic haze. It’s in the midst of it all when the realization that Shinsuke loves him seeps into his awareness slowly, inch by inch, before it eviscerates him like a damn meteor.

Shinsuke loves him.

Osamu sits up, eyes wide, turning to stare down at Shinsuke with disbelief.

“Say it again please,” he says, desperation not at all subtle, to which Shinsuke simply blinks owlishly in return, clearly not understanding the request until the same realization dawns on him and his eyes widen just the tiniest bit to give him away.  

He rolls over to hide his cherry blossom cheeks in the pillow, petulant voice muffled by the soft cotton. 

“No.”

“Shinsuke-san, please say it one more time.”

“No.”

“Shinsuke-san.”

“No.”

“I love you.” Osamu laughs dopily, tugging on Shinsuke’s arm and leaning in to kiss Shinsuke tenderly. He traces his fingers along the crimson flush that spreads all the way down to Shinsuke’s chest. Cherry blossom pink. Seafoam green. Midnight purple. Daisy yellow. Fiery red with rippling gold throughout. He loves every single one of Shinsuke’s expressions, all of his colours, every button that he now knows exactly how to push, and everything that he has yet to discover. 

It’ll take a lifetime to find them all, he thinks.

With Shinsuke’s warmth steadfast against his skin, that plan suits him just fine.