By Your Side (ioriku)

13

Iori combs a finger through his hair, once, twice, and then he sighs loudly in frustration. He rumples his own hair back into its bed-headed mess and tries again, going for a more fanciful approach. It doesn't work, even with all the hair products he uses and his desire to get it just right. He'd been so precise with everything, but never his appearance, and it was a hassle to try to be perfect for a certain someone.

"It's 6 in the morning," Mitsuki yells through the bathroom door, knocking aggressively. "You've been there for an hour."

"Has it been that long already?" Iori questions aloud to himself, amazed that something he deemed so futile would take this long.

"Yes! It has!" Mitsuki grumbles. "Hurry it up! You've still got school before your date, y'know?"

Iori stiffens up in embarrassment. "It's not a date."

Except it most definitely was.

It had gone like this:

"Maybe we should meet up before I go to your place!" Riku had suggested last week, excited at the thought soon-to-be reality of living with Iori, even if it were only a brief stay.

"Meet up?" Iori asked, overwhelmed with the mere idea of seeing Riku outside of the hospital. How Riku would look in front of cobalt blue waters, or in front of a pretty landscape, or beside the cherry blossoms that would be blooming soon. "What do you mean?"

"Next Friday, right after you come out of school, we should hang out and go somewhere! And then at the end of the day, we'll go to your house and hang out even more. Exciting, right?"

Iori was certainly excited at the thought, very much so, but his need to hide it took over. "If you say so."

And that's how Iori ended up in front of his bathroom mirror that Friday, overlooking his appearance and combing through his hair aggressively. He had never looked at himself for this long, and maybe it was better that way, because he was slowly fretting that there was nothing to like about him. Or worse, maybe there was nothing for Riku to like.

Two more loud knocks on the door made him jump away from his thoughts. "Also, I'm sure Riku doesn't care how you look, stop worrying so much," Mitsuki says to him before walking away once again. And Iori isn't sure how his brother had noticed, but he doesn't mind it for once. Iori wants to believe him, to believe that Riku really doesn't care about his looks. That the way Iori presents himself to the "not a date" won't make Riku dislike him. So he tries to believe him.

But he doesn't stop worrying.

❧

The casually formal clothes beneath Iori's uniform must be noticeable, because at school Tamaki pokes him in the back and asks, "Are you going on a date or something?"

"It's not a date," Iori says, grinding his teeth to stop himself from saying too much.

Tamaki is silent for a moment before coming to his own clear conclusion. "So you finally asked out Rikkun."

Iori turns his body in a sudden twist, chair squeaking. "No, I most definitely did not. It was his idea, and it isn't a date. We're just... hanging out. And afterward, Nanase-san will be staying at my house for a while. That's all it is."

Tamaki's mouth hangs open, completely dumbfounded. "He's staying at your house already!? I think you skipped a few steps."

Iori rolls his eyes and exhales deeply. "I didn't skip any 'steps.' We aren't in that kind of relationship."