“…I’m right,” Shirahama says, with budding glee. “You’re mad I’m right!”
Sasaki is mad, but not because he’s right. He’s mad because a week after his twentieth birthday, Shirahama is trying to scam alcohol off of him with his stupid face, and Sasaki kind of likes him anyway. This is the trouble with people’s affections. His sister had refused to let him pass his birthday in peace, so she’d gotten their parents to bake a triple-tier cake even though it was just the four of them celebrating, and she’d also bought copious amounts of alcohol. A week later, the leftovers of both were still in the fridge, and Shirahama had locked onto them like they were his newest dating sim target.
The cake, Sasaki had cut him a generous slice of. The alcohol, he was being unbearably stingy about—Shirahama’s words, not his.
this is kiss ask 2/4, requested by @dirtbra1n: sasashira + 💙 (drunken kiss / tipsy)
kind of evil to request this when I don't regularly get drunk or interact with drunk people. but I took this as an excuse to get like, classically fictional-drunk about it, which was fun. and I love sasashira. there will be more of them from me, I promise. fic's on ao3 but also under the cut!
.
“Come on,” Shirahama says. “What if I die a virgin?”
Sasaki stares at him, thoroughly unmoved.
Shirahama sighs. “An alcohol virgin, don’t give me that look. Don’t they call the non-alcoholic ones virgin cocktails?”
Sasaki is mad, but not because he’s right. He’s mad because a week after his twentieth birthday, Shirahama is trying to scam alcohol off of him with his stupid face, and Sasaki kind of likes him anyway. This is the trouble with people’s affections. His sister had refused to let him pass his birthday in peace, so she’d gotten their parents to bake a triple-tier cake even though it was just the four of them celebrating, and she’d also bought copious amounts of alcohol. A week later, the leftovers of both were still in the fridge, and Shirahama had locked onto them like they were his newest dating sim target.
The cake, Sasaki had cut him a generous slice of. The alcohol, he was being unbearably stingy about—Shirahama’s words, not his.
He looks to the window, where the rain beats down on the glass, hard and heavy. His sister is staying over at her boyfriend’s place, and his parents are out of the city entirely, so for tonight, Shirahama is daring enough to use the weather as an excuse to stay over. Without his pathological need to impress Sasaki’s family, and the resulting skittishness in his efforts, he’s brighter, bolder, and a hundred times more annoying than usual.
“And you never know,” he catastrophizes, “Lightning could hit me tomorrow. I could die an alcohol virgin and a regular virgin.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Okay,” Shirahama concedes, but he’s never really kicked that dogged persistence of his, so he adds, “but you don’t even want it.”
“Because it doesn’t taste good,” Sasaki says. “It’s bitter and awful and I don’t want to try it again.”
“So you wouldn’t be trying it,” Shirahama says. “You would be giving it to me. Doing your friend a solid. You’ve got the supply, I’ve got the demand—isn’t that what your major is all about?”
“I will never help you with your taxes,” Sasaki swears, which is a credible threat only if Shirahama’s streaming career ever takes off.
It’s also, more likely than not, a lie.
Because Shirahama is his friend—almost four years in, it’s no longer hard to admit it. It had been hard, at first, to understand why the middle schooler he’d run into at his cultural festival wanted to befriend him, and though Sasaki is still skeptical about why—apparently he liked his hair, and thought he was cool, which are impressively thin reasons—but Shirahama had succeeded through sheer stubbornness. He never thought he could be friends with someone so annoying. Even though Shirahama’s only like that a little.
A light flashes through the room, and a shaking thunderous boom sounds just a few second afterwards. This was the horrible weather that Shirahama had come to visit him in. Sasaki remembers him, seven or so centimeters shorter, doing the same, though he hadn’t been nearly as audacious or argumentative, then. His words, though, remain surprisingly compelling, as does the way he looks—braced for refusal, errant hope still stealing across his face. Sasaki kind of thinks his three hundred Twitch followers better appreciate what they have.
He says, “You can’t complain about the taste.”
Shirahama wavers for a moment before screwing his face into a determined look. “Fine,” he says.
—
“Did you know,” Shirahama says, “you’ve got really pretty hair?”
“Yeah,” Sasaki sighs. “You said that already.”
True to his word, Shirahama did not complain. His face had gone sour at the first sip, but he’d doggedly drank the whole thing, and then asked for another one so he could really commit to his bad decisions, which Sasaki had thought was super funny—at the time. Now he’s suffering the consequences of a teenager's limited alcohol tolerance. And he has to do it dull and sober, too, because at Shirahama’s insistence, he’d taken one sip of his second beer, and sworn off alcohol for the next year.
“Well,” Shirahama says, squinting up at him, “it’s true. Nice color… looks like it’d feel nice.” He nods to himself. “You should let me touch it.”
Before Sasaki can say, That wasn’t a question, Shirahama has already moved to touch Sasaki’s hair. Before he can think better of it, Sasaki is already dipping his head so that Shirahama can run his fingers over with ease. This leniency, now routine, had fit like a jagged piece when they’d first met. Sasaki wasn’t used to being anyone’s senpai, and no one was looking up to him, so he hadn’t needed to try. But Shirahama had forced his hand.
It was annoying then—it was really annoying, now, but even though he didn’t realize it, underneath his bluster Shirahama possessed a stunning capability for kindness, so everything he does skates off more like… a brush of hair at his side. A ticklish feeling at his heart. Not that bad, after all.
Shirahama’s scooted closer. His knees are tucked to his chest. His face is close as he runs a hand through Sasaki’s hair. Sasaki catches a whiff of his conditioner, something light and pleasant, and stills as Shirahama’s hands catch on a tangle. “It does feel nice,” he declares, and even drunk he’s able to extricate his fingers without tugging at Sasaki’s scalp.
Sasaki runs his fingers through the place his fingers had caught, detangling it. “Okay,” he says, and makes his own declaration. “You should never touch alcohol again.”
“You don’t control me~” Shirahama sings. His fingers skate light and aimless across Sasaki’s face. As if dedicated to proving Sasaki’s good opinion wrong, his fingers pinch at Sasaki’s cheek and he gives a sharp tug.
Sasaki yelps and smacks away his hand. “What was that for?”
“Your face is… also soft?” Shirahama says, helplessly. Through his drunkenness he seems recalcitrant enough, and Sasaki’s face doesn’t really sting, and… this is the worst kind of annoying that Shirahama is.
“Here,” Shirahama says, making a vague gesture, “let me,” and maybe that one sip had left Sasaki intoxicated, because his disastrously impaired judgement lets him lean in—
Shirahama kisses his cheek. It’s not a pretty kiss—more like the pressure of his lips on Sasaki’s skin than an actual kiss—but the distinction doesn’t matter to his face, which burns at the touch. “Feel better,” Shirahama says. “Now you can say you’ve never—never never been kissed.”
Woodenly, Sasaki says, “You kissed me.”
Shirahama’s head dips in acknowledgment. He looks unapologetic—if anything, he looks pleased, the barest hint of a smile creeping at his eyes. “…Feels nice,” he murmurs. His piece said, he goes soft and quiet, gaze unfocused.
The rain hasn’t ceased its torrent. Sasaki is glad that the excuse holds—that the Shirahamas think their son is staying over because of terrible weather and not because he’s a terrible drunkard. They should never trust him; he’s a terrible senpai.
“Tired yet?” he asks.
Shirahama hums indecisively, so Sasaki decides for him. “You take the bed,” he says, and thankfully for his heart, Shirahama doesn’t insist they share.
He’s out like a light once he’s laid down, but it’s only when he turns around in his sleep and faces the wall that Sasaki slumps against the bed and buries his face in his hands. He wants to pull Shirahama’s hair. He wants to do a lot of things to a guy who is sleeping thoughtlessly beside him.
A few minutes later, Sasaki unfurls himself. He steals a glance towards Shirahama, and before he can think better of it, he pinches his cheek. Shirahama’s face scrunches up again, like how he’d looked when trying the beer, but it smooths out within the next second. He looks like he’s having a nice dream.
Sasaki frowns. “Payback,” he mutters, and then he amends, “part one.”
