love is something I deserve (but you, I deserve more)

four

A/N: i don't think I'm even reminding myself that this was supposed to be 10k oneshot at this point. I just write and edit and write and edit and write and edit with no intention of stopping.

what is wrong with me?

Six years ago (contd.)

The silence in their small living room is so taut that Kazama can probably play out a sound from the almost visible lines of tension covering the entirety of the room.

He chooses, instead, to focus on his phone, clutched way too tightly for the processors of the tiny device to breathe properly. But Kazama doesn't care at this point, not when the pretense of sending a text to his student for the night, who is probably waiting for him now at the college library, and telling her that he won't be able to, or more like can't, make it for their session is what is keeping the confrontation he can literally feel about to happen any minute now at bay and he will take anything over that.

Shinchan's eyes are hot on him, posture the epitome of laziness and a bit of arrogance as he sits on the couch in front of Kazama, legs spread enough to exude dominance but not enough to appear wanton. As he forces himself to stare at Sakura's very quick and very feminine reply -- a sad, pouty selfie with the caption Get well soon, Zama! Lemme know if you need anything! -- to his abrupt and typical I'm feeling a bit under the weather cancelation, his mind wanders, wondering what it would feel like to sit on or kneel between the parted legs on display in front of him. He knows himself enough to know he wouldn't mind either of the scenarios.

A voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like his conscience, chastises him, because while Shinchan is sitting in front of him, hurt by the mere implication and question of whether Kazama was actually avoiding him these last few weeks, Kazama's twisted and depraved mind is imagining things, sexual things when he has no right to. God knows if Shinchan even got the whiff of where his mind is wandering, he'd be disgusted and running off to the hills, or anywhere far, far away from Kazama.

But still, as he braves a glance at those deep, deceptively so, black eyes, and sees the barely contained anger and hostility, both trying to break free fueled by the hurt and disappointment his actions have made the other feel, he can't help but notice how restrained and strangely held back, Shinchan is around him.

Kazama is no fool, he has fully functioning ears and eyes and he hears and sees things, unnecessary but true things about his best friend because university gossip just can't be stopped. No matter how loyal the person is. He knows, has known for a long while, that Shinchan is very out there in their life of college experiences; everybody wants him, and he wants everybody. Girls want to fuck him, get in his bed and become his forever while boys envy him, want to be his friend for his association means a lot and some even want to fuck him, though none is bold enough to say it out loud in public. Kazama knows. Kazama is one of them.

But that fact aside, there are other things as well, things people like to brag about after a particularly rough night Shinchan spends outside of their apartment, when masochist Kazama is left wondering and guessing exactly what kind of gossip he's going to hear about his only and best friend come morning. These people are girls, of course, because Shinchan is straight alike a fucking pole, Kazama reminds himself, and they talk. These girls, they talk and spread and brag and Kazama hears and sees and hates. But mostly, he wonders, imagines and then hates more.

He hears that Shinchan is said to be very experimental. His best friend is into every girl who wants him, and everything they want him to do to them, because again, Kazama hears, and he has heard a lot about the sex life, more like the other life Shinchan lives, apart from being Kazama's one and only. He has heard about the clubs and parties, the drugs and smokes, the games and sex; wild, untamable but so fucking erotic sex that even hearing about it makes Kazama hard. He drowns himself in a fit of self-loathing after that, of course, but it happens.