A Lingering Touch (Junjou Romantica)

[6]

Hiroki checked through videos that he found online. He let out a big yawn while he ate another bite of his rice omelette. Going through different sites, he settled on YouTube. He was surprised when he found some videos he used to watch in his school days. Some dating back to when he first started elementary school. Taking a good chunk of time, he sighed when the first few searches came up with nothing. He acquired the jackpot when a channel had the movie he wanted in a single video and not in different parts. Even if he didn't find them on the site, there were plenty of sites for him to search for movies. He just felt lazy to search for them.

Having woken up late, he brought down his futon and placed it in the living room. Made a quick meal and dark coffee. Something inside of him nagged at him for turning into this lazy mess. Waking up late in the morning, eat snacks or food, work on his novel, go on errands and then sleep. On some occasions, Nowaki arrived in the afternoon and hung around him. Although, Nowaki handled some of his business, so his visits turned out short in the previous weeks.

He yawned, ate another spoonful of his omelet and kept his eyes on the screen. The movie started and the beginning always lagged. He didn't want to skip on ahead or he missed something vital. Smacking his lips, he glanced over at the time.

In his semi-schedule, he placed a whole afternoon on writing. Storyboard and notes. Character fleshing and maybe some barely legible sketches on their appearance. Before this, he wanted to clean the bathroom and the kitchen. He pushed those aside for the last two days and he needed to feel sort of efficient. At least, he threw away his garbage on the right days.

The bells throughout the house chimed out loud. Hiroki had no outward reaction, he sighed. Nowaki arrived earlier than usual. He came around whenever Hiroki either left the house on an errand or in the afternoon.

Hiroki continued on watching the movie when he said. "Hey, Nowaki. You're earlier than usual. Finished your patrols for the day?" He took his first sip of his coffee and cringed. It had gone lukewarm.

"Yup! Nothing has been wandering around the town. Either way, I feel any dark spirits from a distance, so I never miss one."

"Uh huh." Hiroki paused the movie, then stared up at Nowaki. "I'm still surprised you can walk around with such long hair. I can barely tolerate the hair that I have." He checked out Nowaki's bangles, no noise came from the time they hit each other.

"I've gotten used to it. I don't think I have ever had it short." He noticed the movie on the screen, and he grinned. "I like this movie! I watched it with a child who saw me when it first came out." Nowaki almost squealed as he stood next to Hiroki. "She tried giving me snacks the whole time too. I had to play along. She wouldn't get the hint that I couldn't eat anything."

"Kids never get the hint. You have to be blunt with them." Hiroki patted the spot beside him. "Sit. You might as well watch it with me." Nowaki took a few seconds to move his feet which confused Hiroki. "What? Can't you sit or something?"

Nowaki sat next to Hiroki, wagging his finger with a grin. "So impatient. And yes, I can sit down."

Hiroki huffed, pointing his finger at him. "You are old, it wouldn't surprise me if you were so slow. Shit, you might be slower than Akihiko and he's a month older than me."

"Oh, Hiroki-san." Nowaki bellowed out laughing as he wiped an imaginary tear from his eyes. "Ah...so you will keep going with calling me old then? That's pretty mean of you."

"Until you convince me otherwise." Hiroki stated. "I never said I was nice."

Nowaki shrugged his shoulders as he poked the touch pad and the movie resumed playing. "If you need someone to cry on," He patted his lap and wiggled his eyebrows. "I'm right here."