Kiss Me (Like You Wanna Be Loved)

Chapter Six: Change Your Mind

August bleeds into September; the new term begins, and their dinner routine resumes like it never stopped.

It takes a few days, but eventually Bokuto exhausts his many stories of training camp and takes to pestering Keiji for details about what he did while Bokuto was gone.

"Summer classes," Keiji says with a shrug. "Work."

"Come on, you had to do more than that! You had the apartment all to yourself for two weeks! Tell me you did something fun! Did you throw a party?" He waggles his eyebrows. "Bring any girls home?"

Keiji grimaces. "As I mentioned before, there is a zero percent chance I will ever bring a girl home."

"Oh, come on, you can't know that!" Bokuto argues. "You could meet someone when you least expect it! Haven't you ever seen a romantic comedy?"

Keiji grits his teeth and stabs a piece of broccoli with his chopsticks. He's not exactly in the closet; he doesn't make any special effort to keep his sexuality a secret. But he really does hate having to come out again and again to every new person he lets into his life. He's avoided talking about this with Bokuto thus far only because it hasn't come up naturally in conversation. But here it is. An opportunity. And it's probably time to get this over with, because if they're going to be friends, Bokuto should know this about him.

He takes a moment to focus on his food, mindlessly stirring as he works himself up to say, "Even in the very improbable case of that happening, there is still a zero percent chance it would be a girl."

There's a beat of silence. Keiji finally looks up to see Bokuto wearing a knowing smile. "You know, I kinda thought that might be the case," he says, because he has no filter between his brain and his mouth. "You're too pretty to be straight."

Keiji isn't sure if that's supposed to be a compliment but he feels himself blushing regardless. "I take it my sexuality won't be an issue for you?"

"Um, no?" he says, tilting his head to one side. "Why would it be? You can bring a guy home if you want!"

Keiji sighs, equal parts relieved and frustrated. "Again, that is extremely unlikely. I've never even kissed someone before so I imagine it would be quite a long time before it escalates to that point."

Bokuto's chopsticks clatter against his plate as he suddenly drops them to stare openly at Keiji. "You've never kissed anyone?" he says, voice colored with shock. "Kaashi! How do you know you're gay if you've never even kissed another guy!?"

Keiji frowns. It's not the first time he's gotten a question like this, but at least coming from Bokuto it doesn't sound patronizing or derisive. As usual, he sounds genuinely curious, so Keiji reigns in his instinct to reply with biting sarcasm. "Probably the same way you know you're straight. I just... know."

"Oh, uh," Bokuto says, scratching at the back of his head. "I'm... not straight though."

Keiji's grip tightens on his chopsticks. It's a miracle they don't snap in half. "You're gay?"

"I mean, if you're using that as an umbrella term, then yeah, sure. I really just like who I like! So probably bisexual or pansexual is more accurate?" He shrugs. "I don't really care about labels."

"Oh," is all Keiji can say. His brain is whirling as he attempts to process this information, to recalibrate his idea of who exactly Bokuto Koutarou is. A part of him is strangely thrilled about this revelation, but another part of him is... he doesn't even know. It's just. This knowledge feels dangerous somehow.

"Anyways, I can't believe you've never kissed anyone! Have you seen yourself? I bet tons of people have wanted to kiss you!"

This conversation feels dangerous too, but Keiji can't seem to stop. "I doubt that," he says, holding back another blush through sheer force of will. "At least in any way beyond purely superficial reasons. I don't really... get along with people. I tend to be too mean and too cold."