SixTONES, And One to Grow On

Title: And One to Grow On [Shintarou/SixTONES]
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary: It’s Shintarou’s last year to act completely unreasonable, so he’d better take advantage while he can.
AN: Shintarou birthday kisses ♥ Happy birthday, kiddo. I was gonna write some stuff for Hasshi too but then his group fed him cake on TV so that seems like he’s covered.

And One to Grow On

1

Shintarou is in the kitchen, just deciding that balancing three bowls of ice cream is a terrible idea and turning around with one in each hand when the attack descends.

“Mmf?” he asks. It’s Juri of course, the only person in the house likely to pin Shintarou up against the counter and kiss him senseless. His hands are cold, but otherwise it’s nice, and Shintarou lets his eyes fall closed and lets Juri do what he wants.

“Mm,” Juri assesses when the kiss breaks. He leans back just enough to look at Shintarou without being cross-eyed, but his hands stayed where they were, slid down into Shintarou’s pockets. “Just about midnight.”

“Is it?” Shintarou grins. That makes it officially his birthday, the 24 hours when he can be the most unreasonable and still probably get away with it. He leans in for another quick kiss. “Got something to say to me?”

“Happy birthday. It’s your last one before we quit spoiling you as an adult, so enjoy it.”

“That’ll never happen,” Shintarou scoffs. His hands are actually starting to hurt, but Juri is still pinning him to the counter. “Leggo, I need to put these down.”

“Nope, not yet.” Juri’s eyes are amused as Shintarou squirms, his knee between Shintarou’s thighs, his hands still cupping Shintarou’s ass. Shintarou whines and squirms, but Juri only laughs at him, leaning in close enough to capture another long kiss.

“Juri! It’s melting, come on!” Shintarou protests, turning his head. “I’m gonna drop these!”

“Hmm, okay, okay,” Juri finally says, stepping back. He holds up Shintarou’s phone, stolen from his back pocket. It’s lit up with half a dozen birthday messages already, and in Juri’s hand it buzzes with two more. “I just had to beat these guys this year.”

“You know it’s really cute when you guys fight over me,” Shintarou says, setting down the ice cream bowls and flexing his half-numb fingers. Juri told him not to get used to it, but let him warm his hands up against the warm skin of Juri’s back.

2

“Technically,” Juri speaks up from behind the rack of hats, “you can have about his fifty-seventh birthday kiss. Not that I was counting.”

“Don’t listen to that weirdo, everybody only gets one,” Shintarou soothes Hokuto’s frown with a quick pass of his hand over Hokuto’s waist. They’re in public, meeting for a shopping date, so he probably shouldn’t do anything untoward, but it’s safe enough to wrap his fingers around Hokuto’s wrist and tug at him. “Come on, pick out something for me to try on.”

Hokuto hems and haws a bit, poking around the racks, but eventually settles on a suitably rock-style T-shirt with stars speckled across the shoulder. It’s not subtle, but that’s fine with Shintarou. He’s hardly subtle when he drags Hokuto into the dressing cubicle with him. That’s when Shintarou finally kisses him, Hokuto’s fingers still fiddling with Shintarou’s shirt buttons and his bangs hanging in his eyes.

Kissing Hokuto is sweet and gentle, like Hokuto himself, and Shintarou rests his hands on Hokuto’s waist, happy to let it go on as long as Hokuto wants. It’s such a nice contrast to Juri’s aggression, as fun as that is. When Hokuto does pull back, Shintarou licks his lower lip as if he expects to find the last taste of something sweet.

Hokuto blushes faintly. “Happy birthday. Did you wish for something?”

“Nah.” Shintarou watches as Hokuto goes back to undoing his buttons, carefully sliding the plastic through the fabric, one by one. “I’ve got most of my wishes already.”

“It’s only eleven in the morning.” Hokuto rolls his eyes.

“Kouchi promised me yakiniku for lunch,” Shintarou says, already laughing when Hokuto pinches his abs and says he really is the baby.

3

Kouchi does come through with yakiniku for lunch, and waves away Juri and Hokuto’s demands to let him help pay for it.

Shintarou meant what he said, he thinks while he watches Juri guarding the meat on the grill dutifully, Kouchi ruffling Hokuto’s hair and trying to make him laugh. Most of his wishes have already come true this year. His family is healthy, his group members are happy, and SixTONES has been busy most of the year. The worst of his growth spurts are over, and maybe he doesn’t think he’s as awesome as he thought he was when he was twelve, but to be honest that’s probably for the best. This year Shintarou thinks he’s doing basically all right, and that’s a pretty big step up from the years before that.

He’s looking forward to this year, a lot.

“What are you thinking about so deeply over there?” Kouchi asks, reaching across the table to poke Shintarou’s forehead with his chopsticks.

“Does it feel different when you turn twenty?” Shintarou asks, somewhat out of the blue. “This one doesn’t feel very different.”

“Not for that guy,” Juri says, popping a piece of steak in his mouth to test the doneness. “He’s been an old man since he was like fourteen.”

“Hmm.” Kouchi crosses his arms and looks at the ceiling, thinking. “I felt more pressure. Like, is it really okay to keep doing this? Shouldn’t I have things figured out by now?”

“Yeah, shouldn’t we?” Hokuto echoes. Juri offers him a piece of meat to distract him.

“Twenty’s good,” is Juri’s verdict. “It’s right in the middle. Senpai still take you out and kouhai want your clothes. We’ve been around a long time but there’s still time, and lots of stuff I want to do with you guys. You’re a middle kid too, you should like it.”

“Don’t compare his birthday to being a middle child!” Kouchi laughs, but Shintarou sees what Juri means.

When they’re standing up, Shintarou acts like he’s going to the bathroom with Juri and Hokuto, but then doubles back to the table, Kouchi fishing around in his bag for his wallet. Their table is behind a partition, so it’s safe enough to lean in for his third official birthday kiss.

“Hey, you,” Kouchi warns gently, but he seems happy enough. “Good luck this year too. Don’t worry about twenty until you get there.”

“If you’ll still treat me, I won’t worry at all,” Shintarou answers cheekily. Wallet located, Kouchi lets his bag drop and reaches over to hug Shintarou firmly, the surprise of it warm and pleasant.

“Always,” Kouchi promises. Shintarou hugs him back a little longer than he should, confident of Kouchi spoiling him.

4

Jesse pounces on Shintarou as soon as he gets into the changing area, not at all worried about whether the other juniors are watching as he pushes Shintarou up against the lockers and gives him his very thorough fourth birthday kiss. Birthday kisses and ass-slaps are pretty traditional in the locker room.

“Aw, come on, Jesse-kun!” Rinne whines. “Do it in front of someone else’s locker! I’m gonna get yelled at for being late again!”

Jesse turns his head to stick his tongue out at Rinne, then goes right back to kissing Shintarou. Shintarou is laughing too hard to barely participate at that point.

“Sorry I couldn’t make lunch, man,” Jesse says when they’ve stopped tormenting the kouhai and are changing. “Make it up to you after work? Take you out and get you…ah, you’re still a kid, aren’t you? Shame, shame.”

“Fuck off,” Shintarou laughs. “I’d just as soon miss your first year of sloppy drunkenness, thank you very much.”

“Speak for yourself, dude,” Juri calls from halfway down the row, looking up from roughhousing with Morohoshi. “He has no idea what he’s doing and it’s hilarious.”

“NO INSTAGRAM,” Kouchi yells, reaching over to whap Jesse across the back of his head.

“He said it, hit him!” Jesse protests, trying to defend his head with no success. “We don’t all have nineteen delinquent brothers to train us in our youth! And where’s your apartment, eldest?! You’re supposed to be hosting safe little home parties for your younger members!”

Kouchi blows them a raspberry, and Jesse says that he’s defecting to Kis-My-Ft2 for both the home parties and the kissing.

“If you don’t get me Friday’d, going out after work sounds great,” Shintarou tries to draw Jesse back to his original topic.

“I can’t make any promises,” Jesse tells him with a wink. “But we can ask Iwahashi and Jinguji along and then if it looks chancy, throw them out as bait while we make our getaway.”

“Deal,” Shintarou laughs, and Kouchi calls over no more yakiniku for the day or he’ll die.

5

It’s a few days later when Shintarou is slumped, relaxed, in a chair at lunch, and someone taps his shoulder. Leaning his head backwards, Shintarou would know that mop of bleached hair anywhere, even upside-down and backwards.

“Kyomo-chan!” he calls happily. Taiga looks exhausted, with purple smudges under his eyes, but his tired smile is still a smile. Shintarou kicks at the chair next to him hopefully, and Taiga flops down into it, bag hitting the ground with a wham like Taiga couldn’t carry it one step further.

“Sorry I missed your birthday,” Taiga apologizes.

Shintarou shrugs. “Forget it. You’re here now, and I saved you a birthday kiss.”

“No expiration date on those?” Taiga asks. “I hear they get gross in the fridge.” Shintarou is already leaning across the small gap between them and kissing him anyway. Taiga grabs the zippered edges of Shintarou’s hoodie and holds on tight, pulling him in closer, like he’s trying to make up the time that he missed.

The edge of roughness feels nice, even though it’s made out of frustration, that Taiga can’t be everywhere at once that he wants to be, that he can’t do all the things he wants to yet. Shintarou doesn’t want Taiga to be frustrated, but it’s nice to know that Taiga wants to be with them even when he’s doing something cool on his own.

Eventually Taiga lets go and flops back in his chair, the minimal effort seeming to have depleted his energy. “I’m last, huh? Tcht. Next year I’ll be first.”

Shintarou grins; it’s really cute when these guys fight over him. “I’m looking forward to it.”

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