June 2007
kestrelsan@aceweb.com
Writing prompt written for torch, who asked for Here is Greenwood, Mitsuru/Shinobu: pajamas, school spirit and kissing.
Kissing Signs
by Kest
Mitsuru finished the outline of his drawing and poked through the pile of colored markers in front of him. The posterboard kept wanting to buckle and curl, annoyingly so, until he weighted the corners down with one of Shinobu's shoes and a book Shun had dropped off for him last month that he'd never gotten around to reading.
"I don't see why we're doing this," Hasukawa said again, and considering that Shun had cornered him into helping decorate headbands, Mitsuru couldn't quite blame him.
"School spirit," Mitsuru told him. Across the room, Shinobu snorted.
Ignoring Shinobu, Mitsuru went back to his marker choices. He decided on green for the shading then studied the outline he'd drawn. It looked vaguely like the track runner he meant it to be, but also a little like an old man crossing the street, and even more like a cat about to be sick.
He leaned over to Shun, who sat crosslegged on the floor in red pajamas and covered by a pile of white fuzzy headbands, to which he carefully applied stripes of orange and blue glitter. "What does this look like to you?" Mitsuru asked him, tilting the posterboard so Shun could see.
Shun paused in his headband atrocities and looked over Mitsuru's drawing. It took him a long time, and Mitsuru began to think he should scrap the posterboard and start the drawing anew.
"Is it a basketball player?" Shun finally asked.
Mitsuru decided it was. If he made the ball part of the drawing obvious enough then maybe no one would notice it looked more like a sick cat. He drew a circle where the basketball would be and carefully filled in the lines.
"The competition's not for three weeks," Hasukawa pointed out several minutes later, again not for the first time. He had bits of Shun's glitter in his hair, and Mitsuru wondered if he could keep Hasukawa from realizing that until breakfast tomorrow.
"Early advertising," Shinobu said. "Someone decided to invite the local vendors, and now they want to know our probable headcount."
"I don't remember you disagreeing at the time," Mitsuru said.
"I didn't disagree," Shinobu replied calmly.
Mitsuru considered him, and also considered the likelihood of shaking Shinobu from that composure. He stared at Shinobu until Shinobu caught his eye, and tried to convey as many dirty thoughts as he could think of, which, surprisingly, were only a few. Short notice, he decided; he was pretty sure he could come up with a long list of dirty thoughts if he had more time.
He wished there was some sort of signal, something easy that said kiss me without having to say it, though kissing Shinobu first usually worked pretty well. Sometimes, though, he just wanted to be kissed.
Shinobu came over to look at Mitsuru's drawing. "It looks like a sick cat," he said, not unkindly. "Chasing a basketball."
Mitsuru thought of several things he could say in his drawing's defense, but really, Shinobu was right. "I'll go back to the shop for more posterboard tomorrow."
"I'll get it," Shinobu said. "I have to go there tomorrow, anyway."
He stood by Mitsuru's desk as if to study the drawing more, but even to Mitsuru it looked like an excuse. Perhaps dirty thoughts had been conveyed after all. He leaned closer to Shinobu, liking how the skin of his arms tightened with the proximity. "If you angle it this way it looks all right," Mitsuru said.
The back of Shinobu's hand brushed Mitsuru's as he leaned forward to straighten the drawing. "Is that my shoe?"
"Yes," Mitsuru said, and wondered how he could sidetrack Shinobu's thoughts past shoes and onto kissing.
"I'm done," Shun said happily, to no one in particular, and Mitsuru jumped. He'd forgotten the other two were still in the room. Shinobu straightened and stepped back; Mitsuru sighed and pushed his drawing away
Hasukawa declared that he was done, too, even though he had two unfinished headbands left. Mitsuru took his time looking over Shun and Hasukawa's work before pronouncing it worthy, while Hasukawa fretted and Shun cautioned them not to touch any of the headbands until the glitter had dried.
When they left, Mitsuru thought about piling up the headbands to get them out of the way, then decided that wet glitter everywhere was worse than the inconvenience of stepping over them.
He leaned back in his chair and gazed at Shinobu, who had gone back to the competition schedule he was working on and was sadistically not looking up. "There should be some universal signal," Mitsuru said wistfully.
"A universal signal for what?" Shinobu said, but Mitsuru could tell his mind was really on his schedule.
Mitsuru didn't answer. He stood and crossed to the window to open it. The room was stuffy with the combination of the four of them and an uncommonly warm day. He put his head out the open window but there was nothing all that interesting to see out there in the dark night, without even a breeze to relieve the heat.
When he turned from the window Shinobu was staring at him with eyes so full of smoky invitation that Mitsuru felt rooted to the floor, pinned by an electric suffusion of heat that kept him from moving a muscle as Shinobu crossed the room and kissed him.
"A universal signal for that," Mitsuru said, when he could breathe again.
Shinobu considered him. "You could borrow Shun's glitter. Or wear something blue."
Mitsuru thought about throwing Shinobu's shoe out the window. "I'm going to fix my drawing," he said, and pointedly ignored Shinobu's look of skepticism.
Back at his desk, Mitsuru glanced over at Shinobu, who didn't look up from his schedule; but then he did, and Mitsuru turned back to his drawing, satisfied.
He thought he might wear his blue shirt tomorrow.