Chaotic Butterfly, Flash

Title: Flash [Kurosagi/Aoki]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13?
Summary: How Akai Ito entertain themselves the rest of their trip to New York for their photobook.
AN: Too much CB rereading, apparently. I just wanted something cute about Akai Ito.

Flash

Not that he’d expected much better, but Kurosagi had hoped faintly that Aoki would use the fifteen-hour flight to New York, cut off from his precious mails, to actually sleep for a couple hours in a row.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asked when Aoki woke him up for breakfast.

“Sure, sure,” Aoki answered, busily smushing pieces of his banana into his yogurt. He bullied Kurosagi into eating his own banana on the grounds that potassium would keep them from looking all puffy in their pictures. “And hey, it’s Friday again! Neat, right?”

“How many pictures of my sleeping face did you make that guy take?” Kurosagi wanted to know. Ugh, banana.

“Practically none,” Aoki said, which meant probably a million. Across the aisle, the photographer rolled his eyes a little. “Eat that banana or I’m gonna make you eat it.”

They’d been to New York City once before, years ago, but it was just after their debut and all Kurosagi clearly remembered about the trip was that Aoki was under no circumstances allowed to hold the subway map. This trip he was determined to relax and enjoy it, no pressured schedule, and the stupid photographer could take pictures of whatever they happened to feel like doing.

“You said that out loud, Kurosagi-kun,” the photographer, Machida, commented mildly. Kurosagi apologized sheepishly.

“Hey, when we get into Manhattan let’s get bagels for breakfast!” Aoki said, staring out the window with rapt attention. “Yasu said if I don’t have a real bagel he’ll never forgive me.”

“We already did breakfast,” Kurosagi said, elbowing Machida to take a picture of Aoki with his nose smushed against the window like a little kid.

“Well, we’ll do it again. You ate like two-fifths of a banana anyway, which is why your face looks like that, like I told you.”

“I’ll show you a face,” Kurosagi retorted. Aoki peeled himself off of the window to poke Kurosagi’s cheek and said he would still love him if he was all puffy in their photobook.

After going from plane to train to taxi, it was a relief to drop their luggage off at the hotel and stretch their legs a little outside going for a little walk. Aoki was still on about bagels, but Kurosagi put a stop to it by reminding him that bagels were like a zillion carbs and Aoki didn’t have the metabolism of a sixteen-year-old anymore.

“I’m pretty sure this is just as bad,” Aoki pointed out when they ended up with ice cream instead, even though they were both already shivering in their puffy coats.

“Shh, it’s different,” Kurosagi assured. “Sugar’s good for jetlag, I’m sure I read that somewhere.” Aoki rolled his eyes but let Kurosagi take a bite of his birthday cake flavored ice cream, complaining that American ice cream flavors were weird.

By early evening, even Aoki’s endless energy seemed to be coming to an end, small wonder, and both of them were yawning the entire way through their dinner in Chinatown. It probably wouldn’t make for fascinating photobook material, but then again Aoki fell asleep on the subway with his head pillowed on Kurosagi’s shoulder, so at least Kurosagi got a little bit of revenge for whatever happened on the plane when he was asleep.

“It’s too early to sleep,” he pointed out once they were back in their room.

“Don’t care,” Aoki informed him, barely managing to kick off his boots and jeans before falling face first onto one of the beds. Kurosagi picked up Aoki’s jeans and at least folded them flat, since he’d bet all the bagels in New York that Aoki had only packed one pair.

“You haven’t slept more than six hours in a row since you had your wisdom teeth out,” Kurosagi said, tugging his own shirt over his head and rooting around in his bag for his toothbrush. “You’re going to be up at four in the morning.”

“I’m sure I can entertain myself,” Aoki mumbled into his pillow. Snorting a little, Kurosagi went to brush his teeth and wash his face, momentarily amused by the tiny soaps and shampoos in the bathroom. By the time he came back and crawled in bed, Aoki was already snoring softly.

“Idiot, at least get under the blankets,” Kurosagi told him. Aoki barely woke up when Kurosagi yanked the covers out from under him and pulled them over top of both of them, only whined a little and curled up along Kurosagi’s side. “Hey! Your feet are freezing!”

Kurosagi tried keeping himself awake with the television, but it was hopeless. A half-hour later he woke up during a reasonably disturbing commercial for feminine care products, turned out the light, and fell back asleep immediately. When he woke up hours later, it was still pitch dark, the only light the glow of Aoki’s phone illuminating his face, familiar sound effects beeping in the quiet room.

“I thought I banned you from that dumb candy game in bed,” Kurosagi said, making Aoki jump a little. He stuck his tongue out.

“Shush, I’m on vacation. Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t, I was having a dream that you and Yasu were force-feeding me bananas as a punishment game on Electric Crush’s variety show.”

“Poor Kuro-chan,” Aoki chuckled. “If I quit playing, are you gonna entertain me?”

Kurosagi rolled over, back to Aoki, and faked a loud snore. Aoki laughed and dropped his phone on the bedside table with a jingle of phone charms, then curled up tightly along Kurosagi’s back, arm thrown over Kurosagi’s waist and lips pressed against the back of Kurosagi’s neck. Kurosagi let him do what he wanted; Aoki really didn’t need any effort from him to keep himself entertained.

Afterwards they even got a couple more hours’ sleep out of it before Aoki dragged Kurosagi out of bed on his continued hunt for bagels. Fearing this would become the point of their entire trip if he didn’t take control, Kurosagi simply asked the front desk where they ought to go.

“You take the fun out of everything,” Aoki accused, but he didn’t seem that put out about it with his face full of cream cheese and smoked salmon. Kurosagi was content to just take a few bites of Aoki’s breakfast and stick mainly to black coffee himself, thinking about the time Aoki had dragged him out of bed at four in the morning to go eat sushi just outside of Tsukiji market. Honestly, this was practically the same thing, plus or minus the photographer.

“Let’s go shopping,” Kurosagi suggested after even Aoki hit his cream cheese quota. They had a whole day to fill before they stopped by Fujishima’s concert that night. Thankfully it was a little warmer with the sun shining brightly, although Aoki’s hands were still freezing every time he grabbed Kurosagi’s hand to pull him along. New York might be great and all, but Kurosagi thought it could sure stand a couple vending machines with hot drinks to stick in their pockets.

“Warm~,” Aoki sang, locking icy fingers around Kurosagi’s wrist and making him yelp. “Oops, sorry. Guess I should have packed some gloves, huh.”

“What’s even in that bag you brought?” Kurosagi wanted to know. “You had to borrow deodorant, socks, and contact solution from me this morning!”

“Four pairs of shoes, some underwear, and I think manager-san might have stuck a couple stageplay scripts in there.” Aoki looked thoughtful. “I hope I’m not supposed to read those, I’m on vacation. Oh, hey, speaking of that, I might need to buy some T-shirts or something.”

“You think?” Kurosagi rolled his eyes. Honestly he wasn’t even sure what Aoki had packed the underwear for. Rather than try and puzzle it out, Kurosagi focused on finding a shop they could photograph Aoki trying on clothes and not look like complete creepers.

“You try on some stuff too,” Aoki insisted, dragging Kurosagi into the dressing room with him and shoving some shirts into his hands. “It’s no fun if it’s just me.”

“People probably think we’re filming a porno,” Kurosagi grumbled, making Aoki laugh until he had to lean against the mirror.

Eventually they ended up at Bryant Park, pretty even in winter, and Kurosagi was more than ready to just sit on a bench and people watch for a bit. He really wanted to send Machida off for a bit, no offense to Machida, but it was the guy’s job after all.

“Hey, Machida-kun?” Aoki asked seemingly at random. “There’s a Starbucks over there, would you mind getting us something hot to drink? I’m freezing. We can watch your stuff a second, we’re just resting anyway.”

“Sure, Aoki-san,” Machida said, agreeably enough, waving off Aoki’s offer of handing over his credit card. Once he was a dozen steps away, Aoki turned to give Kurosagi a little smile.

“Was I that obvious?” Kurosagi asked, feeling guilty, but Aoki shook his head.

“Just to me. I only bought us like five minutes, though.”

It was more than good enough. Kurosagi reached up to press his hands to either side of Aoki’s face, holding him in place for Kurosagi to kiss him firmly. He took his time about it, enjoying the sweet press of Aoki’s chapped lips against his. When he pulled back, Aoki’s eyes were wide with surprise, his pink cheeks not just from the wind.

“Takeshi?” he said softly. They were in public after all.

Kurosagi shrugged, a little embarrassed himself, but he’d been dying to do that all day. “Nobody knows who we are here, right? Here you’re just my boyfriend.”

“That might be so, but…” Aoki glanced around, seeing any number of couples sitting at little tables scattered about the edge of the park, just like them. “I guess a little anonymity has its perks. But hey, since when am I ‘just your boyfriend?'”

“Shush, partner.” Kurosagi wrapped an arm around Aoki’s shoulders and pulled him a little closer, kissing his temple. “You know what you are.”

They sat like that peacefully for the rest of the ten minutes it took Machida to come back into view, balancing all three coffees between two hands and trying not to get run over as he crossed 6th Avenue. Kurosagi chanced another quick kiss, and Aoki grumbled that he was going to send Machida to the moon.

They were halfway through their drinks when Aoki announced abruptly that he’d had a great idea. In winter time in New York, people ice skated in the park, right? Surely a page of that would be completely acceptable in their photobook, and if they had to hold hands the whole time, well, it wasn’t like either of them could skate that well.

Plus, later that night, Kurosagi got to kiss all of Aoki’s bruises.

*****

“How can you possibly have that many mails in just fourteen hours?” Kurosagi wanted to know during the N’EX ride home. Aoki made a vague noise at him, his nose having been buried in his phone every since his phone connected back to the network after their return flight. “Everybody we should should have been sleeping at least a couple of those hours!”

“You might want to see this one,” Aoki said, handing over his phone. Kurosagi didn’t understand why he looked so sheepish until he got a good look at the mail, which was from Adachi.

[Thought you might want to see this. I’ve been keeping it off the message board, but maybe you’ll want to keep it? Your fangirls are amazing and also terrifying.]

The attachment was a very nice shot of Kurosagi kissing Aoki on a park bench.

“Oops,” Kurosagi said. “Seriously, that’s such a good shot. How did they get that?”

“Nobody knows who we are here,” Aoki mimicked Kurosagi in a high-pitched voice. “Let’s make out on a park bench! Nothing can possibly go wrong with that!”

“I do not either sound like that,” Kurosagi said, grabbing Aoki around the waist and tugging him close to hug him from behind. “It’s because you made me eat all those bananas. Send me that, we should frame it.”

“We should not!” Aoki wriggled as if trying to escape for all of half a second. He blew his bangs out of his face when Kurosagi kissed his cheek. “Oi, quit it. …Till we get home.”

“Right, right,” Kurosagi agreed amiably, letting go of Aoki with only a sneaky pinch to the waist.

Thanks to the jet lag, he’d probably end up keeping Aoki entertained half the night, so he might as well conserve his energy now.