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You would think Makoto would have learned his lesson after the first time he hit on a girl and got beat within an inch of his life by her boyfriend.
You would think that.
But apparently, that’s not the case, as Makoto scours the streets for gorgeous hot babes- as Kazushi calls them- who are alone this time so he doesn’t encounter angry boyfriends.
The street he picked this time is pretty tame compared to where he was last time, with just enough people that there’s a selection of women to choose from, especially women in his age range. He may be a pervert but he’s not a creep, and women do age like fine wine in his opinion. Not that’d he go after an older woman because he would much rather face an angry boyfriend than an angry husband and his angry, condescending wife.
He’s dressed pretty well today, for someone who’s trying to make an impression.
He cleaned and ironed his varsity jacket and his fade is fresh, his sneakers are bleached, and his jeans are tight. Plus he’s wearing some of that ‘instant attraction’ cologne that he swiped off of Masaru a while back, so this should be a cinch, yeah?
Yeah.
He doesn’t stop to talk to a lot of girls, mostly just keeps an eye out, and as the day goes on and Makoto continues down the street, he finally spots her.
The perfect girl.
She’s got thick blonde hair that stops at her shoulders, a trim yet somewhat boxy figure that’s highlighted by her pink sweater and short skirt, legs wrapped up in black tights as she walks swiftly down the sidewalk. She’s a fast walker, actually, so fast that Makoto almost fails to keep her in his sight.
She’s cute from behind though, so he’s not going to give her up so easily. He follows her down the street at a distance, watching her legs move, watching the skirt swish in a hypnotic way. He knows he’s being a bit of a creep right now, following some random girl on the street, but he’s gotta hand it to her, she’s really something.
When they turn a corner and head down a less crowded residential street, he begins to quicken his pace so he might talk to her.
She doesn’t seem to notice him, or doesn’t care- he hopes it’s the first one because being ignored is something he really can’t stand. It’s a big blow to his ego, and his ego can only withstand so many hits before he’s a sobbing mess on Kazushi’s floor, the smaller boy running his hand up and down his back in a comforting manner. He shudders, thinking about those nights long ago when he was more sensitive.
It’s not a bad thing to have a big ego right?
That ego works like a wall, does it not? So you can’t blame him for not wanting to be ignored.
After another turn down an even more secluded street, Makoto finally makes his move and speeds up enough to tap her on the shoulder, startling her. Makoto spots the earbuds in her ears and motions for her to take them out and as she does, she finally turns around.
Damn.
He supposes it was only to be expected that a girl as pretty as her would have an equally pretty and surprisingly familiar face. Is she a girl from his university? That’s gotta be the answer.
She’s actually startlingly haunting in appearance, in a way that makes Makoto wonder how he could ever forget her face- or her name. Her eyes are green like cabbage and just as bland to look at, though he makes an exception, and her top lip juts out over the bottom one, much like Makoto’s but much more… feminine? Refined?
He doesn’t know the right word.
She looks so delicate and fragile but something about her is sending off alarms in the back of his brain.
“Hey- oh!”
Her voice is much deeper than he first expected, almost like a guy’s voice, and her eyes go wide when she finally notices Makoto.
“Hey,” he replies, activating his interested-but-not-really act. Here goes nothing, “Are you google? Because you’re everything I’m searching for.”
The girl lets out a low, rough, almost cough-like laugh before she claps him on the shoulder and says “Walk with me.”
Huh. Who knew it would be that easy to get a girl to trust him and want him so desperately?
She’s practically throwing herself at him with the way she leads him toward what must be her neighborhood, and it’s a very familiar neighborhood indeed.
If she keeps walking down this road and then takes a right, they’ll probably pass by Takuya’s house. It’s not too late in the day but if need be he might circle back to his friend’s house and crash there for the night- and if he gets lucky then he’ll stay at this chick’s place.
Speaking of which…
“Where are we headed?”
The girl gives him a confused look like he just told a joke. “My place, of course,”
“Right, right.”
Play it cool, Makoto. Just because you’re on break from uni doesn’t mean you can start acting like a virgin again. Not that he was acting like a virgin before uni, or during, but if you don’t use your most important mantras at all times, when will you?
So he shoves aside the nagging feeling of something he can’t quite name and turns down another street, prompting this girl again.
“So, are you in college?” Very smooth, Makoto. Very smooth. The girl nods so he adds, “Cool, cool, what are you majoring in? I'm a-”
“Film major?”
“How’d you know?”
The girl shrugs, “Lucky guess?”
“Huh. You know, we’re awfully close to my friend’s house,” Makoto says slowly, glancing around the block as Takuya’s beige house comes into view.
Come to think of it, this is, like, serial killer behavior, isn’t it?
He just walked up to a random girl and now she’s taking him back to her house, but he doesn’t even know her name.
He feels like that plankton meme; I don’t know, I didn’t expect to get this far.
This has never been a successful hookup plan ever, and now it suddenly works? He’ll give this girl the benefit of the doubt, he is starting to feel rather aroused, and he’d rather swipe his V-card now than never, even if this girl is giving him a very small, rather ignorable case of the heebie jeebies.
Maybe it’s the fact that his eyes are trained on this girl’s playful yet somewhat serious attitude as he heads up three concrete front steps or the way she misses her key the first three times, mumbling something about “these damn-” (though Makoto doesn’t hear the last word and assumes it’s ‘keys’).
Maybe it’s the way she pulls him through the door at long last and doesn’t even stop to let him breathe before she has him up against a wall, her lips on his, her hand cupping his chin as he lets his brain go on autopilot and that's why he doesn't think too deeply about-
His eyes fly open and he’s greeted with the sight of his own face.
Or rather, his 18-year-old face, standing in his graduation gown, grinning at the camera next to-
“Takuya!”
He shoves the girl off of him and stares at her hard, panting, trying to remember if Takuya ever mentioned a little sister, or, hell, a twin because she looks almost identical to him! Did he ever mention one?
His memory is not serving him well today; first, he forgot the basic ‘how to not get baited by a serial killer’ guidelines and now he’s standing in… yep, this is Takuya’s house. Shit, if he finds him kissing his sister in the front hall-
“Shh, it’s alright,” she mumbles, her voice just as deep, if not deeper than the first time she spoke, “he’s not home right now,”
“I-”
“- and I am, so save your blubbering and let’s finish what we started, yeah?”
“Wait.” Makoto holds up his hands in front of him, prompting Takuya’s painfully identical sister to back up and cross her arms.
This… this can’t be real, can it? A girl who’s identical to Takuya in every way except the eyes, haircut (that’s right, Takuya has his hair much shorter…), and probably the other bits, wants him? Is he going to lose his virginity to a Yamamoto?
“First things first, I need a name. I can’t just keep referring to you as ‘the girl’ in my head.”
The girl throws her head back and laughs long and loud, her throat exposed in a way that has Makoto nearly frothing at the mouth. Takuya used to laugh like that- but this isn’t about him. The girl wipes a tear from her eye and says between laughs, “You can call me Aiko,”
“Well, Aiko… I’m assuming you weren’t just waiting out on that street for a hookup,” he says, running his hands through his fade, and Aiko shakes her head.
“No, I… Takuya said you’d be there, on the prowl for girls,” she purrs, “and I’ve been dying to get my hands on you,”
“Takuya never mentioned you,” Makoto huffs, looking her up and down one last time before deciding, fine! “But it’s whatever. Come on.”
Aiko grins cheekily and brings them back into motion.
It’s glorious. It’s grand.
He never actually loses his virginity, but that’s probably a second-date kind of thing. By the end of it, his dick is soft again and his head is too buzzed with post-orgasm jitters to really think straight, so he decides to head home and schedule another date another time.
It’s only when he arrives at his dorm that he remembers never getting Aiko’s phone number.
Fuck.
**
Turns out he didn’t need her phone number- she had his, somehow (probably stole it off of Takuya’s phone, and that seems like the most obvious option so he goes with it), and while it’s great that he now has a regular thing going with Aiko, and that they’ve descended into the whole dating thing (Woohoo!), it’s also become more and more difficult to not blow off the Mizo Mid crew for their weekly hangouts because he knows Takuya will be there, and he cannot look Takuya in the eye.
It’s not just because he’s getting handjobs from Takuya’s sister, but also… fuck, they look basically identical.
How are you supposed to look your bro in the eyes after staring at what is essentially his face while engaging in what his mother would call ‘indecent behavior’?
If he sees Takuya on campus when he’s returning to his dorm or if he sees him around town, his face goes hot and he quickly walks away in the opposite direction, ignoring Takuya completely.
Once he even waited inside a tattoo parlor for two hours on his way home from the grocery store because he thought he saw Takuya in the shop across the street.
What is wrong with him?
Still, despite it being more and more difficult for Makoto to attend the weekly hangouts, Takemichi and Kazushi are one hell of a tag team and he doesn’t have a choice about showing up at their next hangout after they get through with him.
So come Sunday, he finds himself in a small gastropub in the middle of a smaller part of town.
He’s crammed into a booth by the window, sitting opposite Takuya of all people, Kazushi caging him in on his right while Akkun and Takemichi sandwich Takuya against the window on the other side of the table.
Between them are two plates of spinach omelet, one enormous BLT with more bacon than tomato or lettuce, a plate of shrimp that everyone keeps stealing from, and a disassembled bowl of gyudon with all the meat and toppings on a separate plate and the rice set aside for someone else. Three glasses of Guinness, a glass of water, and one of those fruity cocktails Makoto had never liked are spread out around the wooden surface, always in danger of being knocked over as the rest of their food finally arrives and they seem to relax more.
‘Relax’ being a relative word here.
The others relax in their spots, easily slipping into light conversation about their part-time jobs or classes or what they’ve been up to during the break. Makoto wishes he could join in, but every time he opens his mouth he’s reminded that Takuya’s sister keeps flirting with him over the phone, or that she called him her boyfriend the other day at the mall, and he can’t speak around Takuya.
Is it shame he feels? Probably.
He knows the rule, never date your friend’s siblings, and here he’s gone and broken it.
Not that Takuya will ever find out-
“- and what about you, Makoto? What’ve you been up to?” Akkun suddenly asks, breaking Makoto from his inner turmoil.
Makoto plays with the piece of lettuce on his plate and shrugs, hoping that’s a sufficient answer, but now four pairs of eyes are on and he has to say something.
“Well um… GroceryMart’s hiring? I applied, I dunno if I’ll get the job, but that’s something I guess,” he mumbles.
He’s never felt smaller in his life, squeezed into a corner with four sets of eyes all turned on him, all expecting him to have an answer to a question he doesn’t have an answer to! Like, is he back in high school again with his parents asking him why there’s a girl in his bedroom? Not that that ever happened- his parents were very firm believers in the ‘Hina-chan is the best girl in the world and we would rather have her as our daughter than you as our son, and we know she’s not with you so bring her over as much as possible!’ mindset.
“GroceryMart?” Kazushi says, a teasing look on his face, “Guess I’ll never pay for food again!”
Makoto sneers, the tension dissipating, “Yeah right, mooch, I’ll charge you double,”
“You’ll get fi-red!”
“Fuck you,”
“Ugh, language. Akkun, you’re all grown up and engaged, you tell Makoto to stop swearing,”
“Get a hobby, Kazushi,” Akkun mumbles, grinning despite his biting tone. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of me and my love?”
“What’s this now?” Engaged? Akkun’s engaged? He’s barely 23! There’s no way this is a good idea. “To who? When?”
Takuya whistles, “Look who wasn’t paying attention,”
“I was paying attention!”
“Really?” Kazushi says with fake hope in his voice, “Well then, Mr. I-don’t-get-distracted, could you please tell me what grade our dear friend Akkun’s soon-to-be stepdaughter is in?”
Makoto groans and the others burst into varying degrees of laughter, clinking their glasses together while Makoto just sips at his Guinness with slight embarrassment roiling in his gut. “That’s just not right,” he mutters, “not right at all. Akkun with a child?”
“Well he’s already got to deal with you and Kazushi,” Takuya says, and when Takemichi starts laughing again he adds “and Takemichi might as well be an infant with how much upkeeping he takes, so it's nothing new,”
“Excuse me?!”
“I’m just playing with you, ‘Michi, we love a high-maintenance diva,”
“I think you need to get off social media, you’re starting to talk like my stepdaughter,” Akkun swears, and the group laughs again while Takuya throws a small handful of rice at the redhead’s hair. It sticks, not surprisingly, and Akkun very nearly starts screaming before Takemichi shoves a napkin in his mouth and tells him to go wash it out.
Then he turns like a snake with its fangs bared towards Makoto.
“Now, ‘Koto, is the time for you to tell us everything you couldn’t say in front of Akkun,” he says, as if Akkun was the problem. Makoto glances quickly at Takuya’s face and all he sees is Aiko. “Come on, we know you didn’t tell us everything.”
Makoto heaves a great big sigh and runs his hands through his fade again, something he’s found calms him. “I…”
“Yes?”
“I…”
“We don’t have all day now,”
“... I have a girlfriend.”
Takuya does a spit-take, spewing water all over the table and coughing up a lung as Takemichi gently pats him on the back, and oh god he should’ve known Aiko would tell Takuya!
They’re siblings after all, for crying out loud!
Judging by the spit-take though, Aiko didn’t tell Takuya that she thought of Makoto as a girlfriend, which means he read their whole relationship wrong which means… unless she didn’t tell Takuya?
Maybe he’s just stunned that Makoto got a girlfriend, which is a whole other level of insulting that he’s not even going to try and sort out today.
Kazushi, much to Makoto’s dismay, starts laughing and exclaims “Really?!”
“Yess, I wouldn’t lie to you guys… well, I would, but I didn’t this time,”
“So you really got a girlfriend…” Takemichi sniffs and wipes away a fake tear while his other hand continues to help Takuya clean up the water, “I’m so proud, my boy,”
“Quit it, we’ve only been dating for a week,”
“A week?!” Takuya shouts, drawing attention from other pub patrons, “Man, what?! I was starting to think you’re gay,”
“Like you’re not?”
“At least I have a boyfriend,”
“Yeah? Well-” his mouth moves at lightning speed and his eyes widen in shock before he even says it, “- I’m dating your sister!”
**
When all is said and done and the others have gone home, Takemichi volunteers to walk Makoto back to the dorms since they’re within walking distance and Takemichi plans on crashing with Hina anyway.
The hangout had been fun for Makoto, though the bit at the end where the color had drained from Takuya’s face until he looked like a corpse had not been a fun experience for any of them.
He also needs to buy Takemichi dinner because he changed the subject from dating to school before Akkun came back, and he knows Takemichi will expect at least some fancy steak or something. He’ll throw in a cheesecake since Takemichi’s walking back with him.
“So you’re dating Takuya’s sister.”
Scratch that, he’s not getting him cheesecake or dinner. “Uh… yeah,”
“Huh. I didn’t know he had a sister,” Takemichi muses aloud, thinking back to his childhood days when he’d been joined at the hip with Takuya. He doesn’t remember a sister, but if she’s younger than her brother then it’s only natural since Takemichi was very much a ‘ew girls’ kid when he’d been playing with Takuya. “What does she look like?”
“Uh…” Makoto scratches his chin. Crap, he can’t just tell Takemichi that his girlfriend looks identical to Takuya. That’s weird, right? “Well… she and Takuya are definitely siblings,”
“So they’re similar?”
“You could say that, though she’s… different in some ways,”
“I’m guessing she’s not a nerd like Takuya?” Takemichi asks, and Makoto laughs as he shoots his friend a confused look. Takemichi explains, “‘Kuya’s always had a bit of a passion for researching things. Not like Kazushi, but like… medicine, and theater,”
“Theater?”
“He’s gay, Makoto.” At that, they both laugh again and the cool night air makes their laughter feel neverending. He wishes he could bottle this feeling. Takemichi’s eyes crinkle as he adds, “He was in our elementary school play! It was Into The Woods, I think, and he was Rapunzel,”
“Of course he was,”
“I think he still has the contacts from when he did that.”
Makoto pauses in his steps and stares straight ahead at the front gate to his college campus.
The dorms are still another mile away, but he feels like he should ask this question before he gets near his dorm, because then whatever answer he gets will stay out here.
“Um…” he starts. He can feel the question burning in his mind as the alarm bells from his first meeting with Aiko start ringing again, “... contacts you say?”
“Yeah, you know, like for your eyes? His were these cool glittery green ones, and in elementary school, people thought Takuya was a girl because he was so quiet, you know? With the Rapunzel wig and-” he keeps talking, but Makoto stops listening as they start walking again towards the dorms.
What the hell?
It’s all making sense now.
Her missing her keys the first three times, the unfocused way she acted, the way Takemichi doesn’t remember her, the green contact lenses…
Makoto’s going to be sick.
How could Takuya do this to him?
What kind of sick joke is this where Takuya tricks Makoto into thinking he has a girlfriend?
This is just cruel.
He can’t go back to his dorm with this information- in fact, every impulse in his body is screaming at him to go see if it’s true. Aiko shouldn’t have given him that spare key… no, Takuya shouldn’t have given him that damn spare key. He bids Takemichi goodbye and then he begins to run.
He’s out of shape and Takuya’s place is nowhere near his dorm, so by the time he gets there it’s almost 2am and his rage has simmered down a bit.
Still, he’s nowhere near being ready to brush this off as a prank- he needs answers, he needs closure, and he needs it now.
The neighborhood is just like he remembered from that day he met Aiko, though it’s dark now and there’s only one light on out of the whole block.
Unfortunately, it belongs to the house Makoto needs to go to, which means that either Takuya lied and did not actually go home with Kazushi, or he really does have a sister. Either way, Makoto still has to go through with this, so he stalks up the front steps and uses his spare key to make his way inside.
Once inside, he intentionally does not look at the graduation photo of him and Takuya, and he doesn’t think to check the first floor for anyone else before he heads upstairs to where he knows Takuya’s room is.
It’s lucky that Takuya’s roommates are away for the break because he’d rather not get accidentally murdered for trespassing, unlike some people.
The door to Takuya’s room is cracked open enough to let out some light, so Makoto knows he’s definitely in there, but he has the element of surprise going for him, so he knows what the best strategy is.
After a few seconds of psyching himself up, he bursts the door open loudly, earning a startled “What the fuck?!” from Takuya before he’s out of his bed while Makoto dashes towards his closet.
Just as he suspected, there are the three different outfits he’d seen Aiko rotating between, and a small case on his dresser confirms the contact lens theory. “What the fuck man!” He all but screams, turning his rage on Takuya. Takuya holds a small lamp in one hand and a pillow in the other, his chest heaving as he stares at Makoto. “What the fuck!”
“I…!”
“You,” he starts, pointing at Takuya, who honestly looks like a deer caught in headlights, with the contact lens case, “have a lot of explaining to do. Start talking,”
“I… I don’t know what to tell you, man,”
“Excuse me? You pretended to be your sister and… and you told me you were my girlfriend,”
“See? You already know all that, there’s nothing for me to tell you,” Takuya says, circling his way back onto his bed when Makoto tries to get near him. Makoto knows this game of keep away and he’s not going to play it today, so he moves back by the door and waits for Takuya to back himself into a corner again.
“Why’d you do it?”
“You… you don’t want to know,”
“Is it because you’re gay? Are you secretly a woman? Is that why you wear those… things? Do you always pick up guys in the street like that? Are you a prostitute?!”
“Jesus Christ, Makoto, no!”
“Then why?!”
“Because!” Takuya pauses to set the lamp down. “Remember when we were in Junior High and you told me you’d totally date me if I was a girl?”
Makoto waits for a second.
Wait.
Okay.
Yeah, he kinda remembers that. He also remembers how at least a month ago he’d remembered seeing what was basically Takuya’s face- no, what was Takuya’s face- and he remembers kissing him and thinking it wasn’t weird at all. So his memory's not the best right now.
He’s not gay, Takuya is just… an exception? Maybe?
“I just…” Takuya sighs and sets the pillow down too, “I wanted to see if it was true, if I really did have a chance with you, Makoto. I do like you, you know, and I figured you’d get the hint after I put that note in your locker in year two,”
“... That was you?”
“Yes, how many people do you know with the initials T.Y?!”
“Like, three!” After a beat, Makoto realizes he’d been yelling and he sighs loudly, “Look, I just… never thought that you would… like me, not in that way, alright? I thought this-” he gestures to the closet, “- was a setup to humiliate me,”
“I wouldn’t… actually, yeah I would do something like that, but I didn’t this time,” Takuya mumbles, paraphrasing Makoto from back in the pub. Then he grins something wicked and Makoto feels his heart skip a beat and his face go hot like he’s a character from a romance novel. “You know, I’ve got all my feelings out, my bed is right here, my roommates aren’t home, there’s a lock on the door behind you…”
“You want me to have sex with you,”
“If you want,” Takuya shrugs. “If it breaks bro code then don’t bother but I’m offering. Oh, and Makoto?”
“Yeah?”
“Just wanted to let you know, you’re a fantastic kisser. You’re free to go though.”
That does it.
You know what, he should’ve known somewhere in the back of his brain that he’d lose his virginity to a Yamamoto.
Even if there’s only ever been one option.