by Kubaru Suki (少年好き配る)

(mirrors http://s2b2.livejournal.com/88898.html)

There were two things that drove me crazy. The first? Marching bands.

But I think that’s because I’m drum major for Tsuruga University High and my horn section was getting sloppy because the other bands were starting to arrive for the competition.

“Horns, if you don’t keep your steps tucked I will put you on the line for the extended high-step. Battery, stop working your backward roll and watch the brass in front of you. Hit them with your drumsticks if you must. I will have nice, neat, ankle-knee tucked steps,” I shouted at my band. “This is the last competition of the year and therefore our last chance to shine.”

“And the last chance to show up Shuri Prefectural High,” a voice said in my ear as a heavy arm looped around my shoulders. “Not that you will because we have a floating formation you have to see to believe.”

THAT was the second thing that drove me crazy: Shuri Prefectural’s drum major, Kimura Etsuya.

“Hey, Sato, you’re ninth and we’re eleventh. C’mon.”

“I’m trying to drill down,” I said, shrugging Etsuya off.

He was so blatant. What a pain. I couldn’t believe that I hung around with him.

—

Okay, time out. Honestly? I’d only ever seen Etsuya at competitions. In fact, that’s where I’d met him—we were, both of us, terrified first year junior high students at our first actual field competition and we sort of fell in together. We see each other five or six times during the school year for competitions and that’s it, even though by now we’d known each other for six years.

It’s not that we lived so terribly far apart, because we don’t, just that…we didn’t. I didn’t know his address or his phone number or anything. I probably could have found out. I probably could have asked him. We probably could have arranged to pal around and stuff sometime if we wanted to. We just never did.

Because that would have been weird.

Don’t ask.

—

“Sato-san, I can keep time for you,” my first line, first column snare (and Tsuruga’s future drum major, though I wasn’t making announcements until I actually got my final marks) called to me. Everybody—my band, Kimura’s, most of the others—knew that we were friends and that we liked to close up together and talk before either of us went on the field.

“Inogawa,” I tossed my baton to my first row, first column snare drum. “Double check their intervals and then you guys can scatter until we’re on deck.” It wouldn’t hurt for her to get some practice in before I handed over the reins. I tucked my hat under my arm and led the way off the school lawn and into the building.

“Oi!” Etsuya shouted. I stopped to lean against the wall while he darted a few steps after a guy in a red cape (meaning he was from Honjo Commercial High) holding hands with a piccolo player wearing a blue beret (which meant she was one of his). “Oi! You had better not kiss her!” he went on when they turned. “Kissing is going to make it impossible to keep a firm mouth! If you think I won’t ditch him,” he jerked a thumb back to indicate me and I waved, “to tell Kawashima about it, you’d better think again.”

There was a lot of hurried—and embarrassed—nodding before Etsuya jogged back to my side. “Hypocrite,” I remarked, pushing off.

Etsuya gave me a little grin and a wink. “How’s it hypocritical if I’m going to be playing a flute myself?” he asked.

—

FYI: As drum major Etsuya obviously no longer played an instrument with the band.

Also: He used to play the bass drum.

See now why it would have been weird?

—

“Besides,” Etsuya said, his forehead wrinkling a little, “we don’t kiss.”

“You know what I mean,” I muttered. Of course we didn’t kiss. “You’re getting after them for that and here we are. For that.” I opened a door into one of teacher offices. There are some advantages to being the host school and knowing which deserted room won’t have a window is one of them.

Etsuya sat himself down on one of the desks and spread his hands. “Kawashima’s got three rows and five columns of clarinets but I’ve only got the handful of piccolos. In the grand scheme of things, not saying anything to them would be much like me demanding that I get to fuck you up the ass right now.”

“Don’t be crude,” I said, double checking the lock on the door. “And don’t even joke about that. I have to march. We’re doing a selection from Dies Irae. ”

“That’s my point,” Etsuya said. He looked down and began slipping the brass buttons on his tunic. “Engaging in one activity messes up another.” My tunic had brass buttons too, but they were ornamental. I ripped open the Velcro and tossed the jacket on to one of the other desks. Etsuya gave me a thumbs-up. “Nice.”

I gave him a withering stare. “It’s in case of heatstroke,” I said as I went to work on my pants. Going ninth meant we had enough time to get decently cleaned up if we skipped the preliminaries. We usually skipped the preliminaries but it was always something I thought about because there was a time when we didn’t; namely when we first started having preliminaries that needed to be skipped.

—

It had actually started during the second to the last competition of our last year in junior high; for some reason, I hadn’t been able to find Etsuya. I did find him eventually. I found him kissing a pretty blonde girl in the boys’ bathroom at Akashi Industrial High.

I hadn’t known at the time why I was so mad at him, but I was. I didn’t talk to him that day and I avoided him at the next competition and then it was summer. I’d had every intention of never speaking to Etsuya again. Not that I thought he WOULD want to talk to me since he OBVIOUSLY preferred the blonde over me.

That resolve lasted until the first of the fall competitions in our first year at senior high when Etsuya grabbed me right off the line when my band entered the school grounds. He dragged me to an empty, windowless room (which wasn’t luck since they were hosting) and slapped a hand over my chest. “Quit being so jealous,” he said.

Being the teenaged boy that I was, I got into his personal space. “Don’t tell me what to do!” I told him. And then, as an afterthought, “And I’m not jealous.” Inspiration struck. “I have my own blonde that I’m supposed to be kissing right now.”

Etsuya had scowled. “No you don’t.”

While he was right and I didn’t, I was never going to admit to that. “Do so. We kiss and hold hands and—”

He cut me off. “Do you do this?” he demanded, pressing one hand hard over the zipper of my uniform pants and then rubbing. I’m not sure, but I think my eyes crossed. “Do you let her?”

I had ended up missing marching in that competition and so did Etsuya. Later, Etsuya had explained to the both of our drum majors that I’d been throwing up in the bathroom and that he’d been taking care of me. Which was TRUE but the throwing up came when I’d realized what I’d done, who I’d done it with, and that I’d missed my school’s start time to do it.

—

Watching Etsuya strip out of his tunic while I opened my pants always made me think of those times when we’d stripped each other (as much as we’d dared, anyhow) and took our time touching each other. There were times when I missed it. But then again, there were times when I missed Etsuya; there was the possibility that the stress of student life was just getting to me.

I shooed Etsuya off the desk. “No way, Kimura, it’s my turn. You get the chair.” I boosted myself into his place and spread my knees, making room for him. I was already hard as I drew my cock out of my pants.

Etsuya looked at me. “You—you know you—” he said and then shut his mouth with an audible snap as he sat down, the chair pushing away from the desk with the force of it.

I didn’t know and I didn’t think I wanted to but I did want his mouth open. “I’m not marching with this,” I said, curling a hand around my erection and stroking. It wasn’t as good as Etsuya’s mouth on me but it was still good. And this time, at least, Etsuya was sitting right in front of me. I could look at him while I did this and that would be better. I could— “Ohhh,” I moaned as Etsuya’s mouth covered my fingers over the head of my cock. I could let him get on with things.

Over three years of high school I’d been in that position at least a dozen times but it never got any less electrifying. Etsuya’s mouth was hot and slick and clever. He took no prisoners during a blow job—his tongue pressed hard at the underside of my cock and his cheeks hollowed slightly under my hands as sucked at the head. He never objected when I threaded my hands into his hair and pushed up into his mouth, either. Instead he just took it, swallowing around me over and over until I was in as far as I could get. And then he moaned around me.

I wrenched my eyes open and managed to quit staring at the ceiling so I could stare at Etsuya instead. I liked watching him touch himself while his mouth moved on me. I’d learned a few interesting tricks to try out on myself by watching him. That and…and there was something about watching his hand on his cock and knowing what it tasted like down there, knowing how hot it felt and how hard it was and being absolutely sure I could make him beg. “Etsuya.” It never took long. Never. “Etsuya,” I managed to moan again. It was a courtesy warning—just in case he decided that, this time, he didn’t feel like swallowing.

Or finishing. I glared down at him as his head came up.

“You say my name when you come,” he said breathlessly, his dark eyes glittering up at me.

Which was all very lovely except I wasn’t coming and I couldn’t think. “What? Get back here.” I pushed his head back toward my crotch. Etsuya’s tongue was warm and it swirled over my shaft in an almost apologetic sort of way. I curled my fingers back through his hair. “Etsuya~,” I said, more or less to praise him.

His head popped back up. “You can call me that,” he said.

“What?” I was probably whimpering a little. “Etsuya,” I tried to pull him back to the place where his spit was going rapidly cool. “What are you doing?”

Etsuya however, stood up. “Why don’t you call me that?” he asked.

He drove me crazy and I could find no excuse for it the way that I had with my band. “What?” I wailed. I shoved at his shoulders. I had to march and I desperately needed to come. “Etsuya, just—”

“Sorry,” he muttered, but he didn’t sit down again. He stepped forward, so that we were pressed cock-to-cock, and took us both in hand. His hand felt good, moving in a rough glide.

“Why–?” I managed to get the words out between gasps for air. We had a routine and he was changing it and I didn’t know why. Or maybe I did. With one arm hooked around his neck, with our foreheads pressing together and our breath mingling, maybe I did. This was the last day and we both knew it. I wrapped my hand around his and caught his rhythm. “Etsuya,” I said, just to say his name.

It was his turn to whimper, the sound hot on my cheek. “Where are you going to school?” he asked as the tempo kicked up. There wasn’t time. I was close. “Which university,” he demanded. There wasn’t air to answer him. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

So I turned my head and I kissed him. I didn’t know where he lived or what his phone number was or what he liked to do when he wasn’t doing a field drill. I didn’t know his favorite food, what his dreams were, or even if he had any family. But I did know that I was still a little pissed off that he’d kissed some blonde girl and that I’d never kissed him because of it. The arm around his shoulders pulled him in tighter and I kissed him with everything I had. It was messy because I was close, sloppy because I hadn’t done this before, and breathless because it was him. “Etsuya,” I said against his mouth because damn if he wasn’t right—I did say his name when I came.

He just moaned, long and low and deep.

—

We rested our heads together for a long while—a long while given how little time we had, really—and then reached for the box of tissue on the teacher’s desk, pulling up a handful. Etsuya took them from me with a little snort. “This is going to raise a few questions,” he said cheerfully, toweling off his hand and tossing the wad of tissue into the trash.

“What do I care?” I asked, checking my hand one last time before I reached for my uniform. “I’m graduating.” I pushed Etsuya back a step so that I could get my pants up and closed.

“Yeah. Ryosei…” he said, catching my arm before I could slide my jacket back on. “About that—this— Ryosei, I—” He looked so serious and I realized that Etsuya had a face that I loved to look at, especially when he was saying my name for the first time.

But, first time or not, there was no time. I was going to miss marching if I tried to deal with what this was and who it was with. “Catch me after you performance,” I said, catching his hand in mine and moving it off my sleeve. I swung my tunic on and Etsuya pressed the Velcro closed. “I’ll give you my phone number.”