Summer Rose

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/1957.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Ze
Relationship: Raizou/Kon
Character: Shichikawa Raizou, Kon
Additional Tags: Raizou/Kon - Freeform, picfor1000
Stats: Published: 2006-02-19 Words: 1000

Summer Rose
by vissy

Summary

Any excuse for a kiss.

Notes

Written for Slodwick's 2006 'A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words' challenge. Based on
this picture.

Raizou woke to the piercing wail of a cicada and an empty bed.

His damp t-shirt was rucked up beneath his arms and he yanked it over his head and threw it to one
corner of the bare room, ruffling the dust motes. The sweaty sheet he shared with Kon-kun was
lodged uncomfortably between his thighs and he kicked it away, then rolled to one side to trace the
neat outline left by Kon-kun. The bed felt dry and cool where Kon-kun had slept and the pillow
smelled like a gift, and Raizou filled the space with his own warm body and tried not to wonder
where Kon-kun might be.

***

Kon-kun did not appear at the breakfast table, but the others were there, even Waki-san, and
Raizou took this as a sign of household harmony. He sliced fresh fruit and poured tea, and when
Kotoha-san looked hopeful, he started mixing eggs and sugar and soup stock for tamagoyaki.

Ouka-san sat in full military uniform, seemingly oblivious to the heat. Benio-san perched beside
her, peeling a blood orange with careful patience and pressing each segment between Ouka-san’s
lips, which grew swollen and carmine-stained. Raizou watched as Benio-san suckled her own
fingers and soothed them over Ouka-san’s glistening mouth. Raizou was not certain when this had
come to seem normal, although he still blushed.

Opposite them, Kotoha-san sat with two elbows to the table and two hands slapped over his ears.
“Konoe, make them shut up,” he said.

Konoe-san did not look up from his newspaper. “Don’t be such a baby. Your whining’s worse than
the cicadas.”

“But they hurt my ears.” Kotoha-san’s doleful expression was so irresistible that Raizou added
another teaspoon of sugar to the batter, despite Waki-san’s disapproving raised brow. “Konoe?
Kiss it better?”

Konoe-san sighed and folded his paper, then hooked a long arm about Kotoha-san’s waist to drag
him closer. Their open mouths met, practised and wet, and Raizou beat his batter faster, trying not
to stare as Konoe-san pulled one of Kotoha-san’s hands down until he could nuzzle at a little
earlobe.

“Raizou, the pan is getting hot,” said Waki-san with a smirk in his tone.

“Oh!” Raizou turned the heat down and poured out a layer of the creamy batter, blinking as the
fragrant steam rose.

“Smells good,” Kotoha-san murmured dreamily.

“Yeah, anything’d be better than your ear wax and morning breath, Kota,” said Konoe-san, and
Waki-san laughed outright.

***

Raizou darted about the house, stripping all the linen before anyone could think of returning to
bed. There was no hint of rain in the air, and he wanted to make the most of the blazing sunshine to
do as much laundry as possible.

He had learnt not to look too closely at the household sheets; even Waki-san’s were often stained,
although Raizou supposed it was just sake.

He knocked at Waki-san’s door and was welcomed into the cage where he found the puppet master
at his desk with a drink in one hand and a sheaf of arcane papers in the other. “I’m just doing the
washing,” he said, gathering Waki-san’s bedclothes and looking about surreptitiously.

“Kon’s not here,” said Waki-san, a suspicious gleam in his eyes. “Perhaps he needed some time to
himself.”

“Oh.” Was that Waki-san’s way of saying Kon-kun was doing a ‘job’? Or worse, was he saying
that Kon-kun never wanted to see Raizou again?

“He’s not the most romantic soul, you know,” said Waki-san, and Raizou felt the question well up
inside him, not ‘where is Kon-kun?’ but ‘what is Kon-kun, what?’ and the cicadas’ thrum was so
loud he almost missed Waki-san’s quiet remark: “But he is special.”

***

Four loads of laundry later, Raizou sat alone at the kitchen table, nibbling onigiri for lunch. “Even
Waki-san has fled before my domestic frenzy, Grandma,” he said with a vague sense of
vindication. “No more unclean things in this house, that’s for sure.”

He choked on a piece of rice and wondered if someone had heard him.

He washed up his dishes and put the rest of the onigiri in the fridge, where Kotoha-san was bound
to ambush them later; even Grandma would’ve had trouble keeping that belly filled. Raizou only
wished there was a way he could feed Kon-kun.

He looked out the front door, just in case Kon-kun was sitting in the shade of the old chestnut tree,
but there was no one there.

Raizou rolled up his sleeves and cracked his knuckles, then grabbed a mop and bucket; there were
approximately six billion floorboards in this house, and he planned on scrubbing every one of
them.

***

The rainy season had wreaked havoc in the back garden, where the gluttonous grass had climbed
knee-high before collapsing beneath the sun’s glare. Several weeds stood in insolent triumph over
the fallen but the glossy green camellias that rimmed the property dwarfed them in turn.

Raizou squinted against the late afternoon light and held his empty basket over his head like a
parasol as he trudged the overgrown path to the clothesline, and he’d folded four towels before he
discovered the rose, soft and pink, hanging from a peg before him.

“I like you too,” he heard, as he released the rose into his hand, and he was so startled he clutched
the stem hard enough to drive a thorn into his palm. Kon-kun appeared between the drifting white
sheets and said, “I like you, Raizou.”

“Kon-kun!” he cried. An endless, helpless smile creased his face at the sight of Kon-kun, so small
and dear, so earnest. “Kon-kun, it’s beautiful.”

“I thought you might...press it...between paper,” said Kon-kun. “I made you bleed.”

“So you did,” Raizou said, laughing. “How am I supposed to fold laundry like this?”

“I can help. I want to.” Kon-kun stepped closer, bracing one hand on Raizou’s shoulder and
wrapping the other around Raizou’s clenched hand, so that the thorn pressed even deeper. Then he
reached up with his hungry mouth to kiss the hurt away.

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