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Hijikata sat on the couch in his living room, the material of the brown leather was worn down at this point in its life, making it much softer and more comfortable to rest against. Any house with a new feeling couch wasn’t a comfortable house, and he knew that, but Hijikata also knew you couldn’t let your couch get too ragged. You had to treat it nicely, or else everyone would hurt their asses when they sat down too fast and felt the wood from the fame. Couches at a certain point would just start shedding pieces of fabric everywhere too, pieces of it falling out across the room and floor.
No couch was perfect, however, and this one was no exception. Hijikata could remember vividly the day he came home to Kondo sitting on the couch and staring at the ceiling, a defeated look set in his eyes. The couch had been ripped apart, the cushions and pillows thrown across the living room hazardly, Kondo just sitting on the base. When asked, he explained that he had dropped the remote inside and his hands were too large to reach to the bottom. The two then spent two more hours trying to fit their hands in just at the right angle to pull out the stupid thing, causing their hands to hurt on the sides and backs to cramp up. It had been painful, and in the end Hijikata had just cut through the thin cloth on the bottom of the couch the remote had been caught above to get it back.
That aside, the couch was perfect, and no one knew about that anyway unless they lifted the damn thing up.
It was that very same couch that Hijikata was resting his back against, staring at the TV in the living room. It was a wide screen playing some sort of gory scene he honestly couldn’t care less about. Toshiro turned to look at the other man sharing his couch, someone who didn’t live here with him and Kondo, Sougo. Okita was staring at the TV, his large brown eyes watching it with a sort of mindless stare. Until he cracked a small smile anyway. Hijikata glanced back at the screen, a woman had just stabbed her boyfriend and was laughing over it. Fantastic.
“What the hell did she do that for?” Hijikata asked.
“She’s been turned into a monster I guess.” Sougo replied.
“You guess? Shouldn’t something like that be obvious?” Hijikata grumbled a bit and clenched his teeth. He wished he was having a smoke right now, but he could wait until the movie was over.
“Oh I think she just did it because she wanted to, he was really annoying I would have killed him by now too.” Sougo mused, not moving his eyes from the TV.
“But isn’t she a monster?” Hijikata asked, moving his eyes back to the screen. Something bloody was happening but the effects were too bad on screen to really be able to tell what that thing was.
“Aren’t we all...?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Hijikata stood up in the living room and made his way into the kitchen off to the side of the living room. He opened up the refrigerator and pulled out a water bottle. As soon as he had closed the door, Sougo’s voice rang out.
“Can you get me a water bottle? I’m thirsty.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hijikata snapped in response. He walked back into the living room, opening the bottle to take a quick swallow. Screwing the cap back on he offered it to Sougo who opened it and drank it just as thoughtlessly. He looked down at the bottle and wrinkled his nose.
“Ew, did you drink this? I don’t want to taste mayonnaise in my water.” Sougo said, then looking disgusted, handed the bottle back to Hijikata.
“Then don’t wait until after I close the damn door to ask for some!” Hijikata said angrily before sitting back down on the couch. Sougo snorted in response, slouching in his seat.
“I don’t want your indirect kisses, so just keep those to yourself.” Sougo replied, not looking away from the screen. Hijikata followed suit, not bothering saying anything to that, although he did feel the blood rise to his cheeks.
After a few minutes passed and the girl had murdered some other guy, Sougo broke the silence.
“I’m cold, why is the AC down so low?”
“Kondo is in charge of it.” Hijikata replied boredly.
“He needs to turn it up, we don’t all have as much hair as he does to keep warm.” Sougo pulled his legs onto the couch, moving to sit criss cross.
“Shut the fuck up.” Hijikata grumbled back.
A few minutes later Sougo changed position so that his back was where he should have his butt on a couch, his legs going across the back of it and hanging off, his head dangling where his legs should be while he tried to watch the movie upside down.
“You keep doing that and all the blood is going to rush to your head and kill you.” Hijikata said, turning to glare at Sougo. Looking over at Sougo instead of the movie wasn’t really hurting anything, watching the same lady murder people was just getting boring.
“Oh no I’m fine, do you want to try it though? I bet you’ll die doing it faster than I would. Let’s test it.” Sougo looked up at Hijikata with a smirk, his eyes dancing a bit while his hair dangled off making it look like it was standing up straight.
“You keep talking like that and I’ll hit you.” Hijikata growled back.
“Oooo, I’m so scared!!” Sougo laughed then looked back at the movie.
A few more minutes passed and then Sougo dangled off the armrest. Then he moved to sitting on the floor, then he crawled back up on the couch and gave Hijikata a very serious look.
“You need to get up.”
“Excuse me?” Hijikata replied.
“I want to sit where you are, get up, or I’ll kill you.” Sougo smiled slightly after saying the last part.
“Oh my god, I’m really going to knock your head off.” Hijikata turned away from Sougo and back to looking at the screen. The girl, Hijikata had recently learned her name was something that sounded like Chloe, was killing her mother now.
Hijikata felt movement beside him and then a pressure pushing down on the couch cushion and when he looked over Sougo was a lot closer than he had been before. Hijikata’s hands were clammy and all he could think in his mind was that Kondo was right, the house air conditioning really did need to be this cold because this room was too warm and the air too stale.
Sougo’s eyes were locked onto Hijikata’s, a determination clear in their red tinted depths. He didn’t hesitate in his movement, continuing to put one hand in front of the other. Hijikata watched him numbly for a minute before squirming, trying to push Okita off of him.
“Oh come on, you don’t even care where you sit, stop being a bully and let me sit there.” Okita said while Hijikata pressed his hand into his face trying to push him away.
“Like hell! I always sit here!” Hijikata yelled back.
“It’s time for a change, why are you so boring?!” Sougo grabbed Hijikata’s shirt and pulled roughly, pulling himself effectively on top of him. Hijikata moved in his spot, his body being turned slightly towards Okita in response.
“I’m not moving!!” Hijikata wrapped his right arm around the couch arm, anchoring himself solidly in place. If it came to it he was going to kick Sougo in the damn face.
“Fine, then I won’t either.” Sougo snapped back. He let his head and body relax, putting his head against Hijikata’s stomach.
“Hand me one of those pillows that you tossed off, I want to hold something.” Hijikata grunted in response and reached his arm on the right side down from the arm of the chair to grab one of the three pillows they had tossed over. Admittedly Hijikata didn’t usually use them on the couch, it made the whole thing feel too crowded.
“Here.” Hijikata said unceremoniously before dumping the pillow on Sougo’s face.
“Do you have a blanket you could get me?” Okita asked, sounding a little too sincere.
“Fuck you, I’m not getting up to get you a damn blanket. If you think I’m going to move from this spot, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Why do you suck so much?”
Hijikata tried not to just scream in frustration in response.
They laid like that for a few minutes, Sougo curled up around a pillow while his head rested against Hijikata’s stomach while the later gripped furiously onto the couch next to him. His left hand, however, felt awkward. It was always the arm that wasn’t being used when being in contact with someone else that felt the most out of place. Toshiro didn’t know if he should just keep it wrapped around the back of the couch like he was doing or give in and just drape it on Sougo.
Option 1. Hijikata kept his arm where it was, strained and pulling his shoulder while he kept it atop the couch in order to stop himself from touching Sougo in some awkward way that he would be made fun of for no good reason, seeing as how it was him who started this spot fight in the damn first place. If he stayed it would mean hurting himself more, but he would escape unnecessary contact.
Option 2. Hijikata moved his arm to drape across Sougo’s shoulders. If he put it on the smaller man’s body he was free to put it around his shoulders, across his back leading into his hand touching his hair, or even behind his body. All of these positions would save Hijikata the current arm pain, and would probably be even comfortable in the long run to.
Hijikata glanced down through dark eyelashes, trying to make sure he wasn’t seen looking, at Sougo beneath him. He still had those eyes fixed on the TV, his arms holding onto the couch pillow in a relaxed and comfortable way. Hijikata realized, looking down on him like that, how casual and domestic this cuddle was and felt blood rise to his face for the second time. His throat felt filled, and tongue heavy. Hijikata knew if he tried to speak he would just have a strangled noise come out from how flustered he felt. At this rate did it even really matter if the two of them ended up actually cuddling? Being this close on the couch was one thing, Hijikata might as well have his arm be comfortable… Right?
Hijikata swallowed, locking eyes on the TV. There was some blur of color and he thought he saw someone crying but he really wasn’t trying to pay attention. Moving his arm from the back of the couch, Hijikata moved it to lay across Sougo’s shoulders. His hands rested in brown hair, only disturbing it slightly.
Hijikata paused, waiting to see if Sougo would move or say something like he had thought he would earlier.
No sound came.
Toshiro swallowed and then allowed his hands to move a bit, trying to get more comfortable. Hijikata’s fingers moved reflexively and he was startled for a moment at how soft Sougo’s hair was. If anything he had expected the young man to have dry feeling hair, but if anything it was smooth and silky feeling. The idea that he tried to keep it clean was surprising but it probably shouldn’t have been.
Sougo still hadn’t moved in response, something interesting had to be happening on screen, so Hijikata let his hands idly trace his hair more. He turned his eyes back on the screen to see the movie was in some sort of slow scene, a school dance maybe? A young couple dancing in the crowd stopped to look into each other’s eyes, smiling, they leaned in for a kiss… And then Chloe burst through the door, screaming and laughing all at once she lunged for them.
Sougo snorted a bit and Hijikata could hear him in his head saying it served them right.
They continued like this for a while, cuddling on the couch without saying anything about it. Hijikata got surprised when Sougo turned his head into his stomach for a little while watching the movie, pressing his face in before turning back to look at the TV. It was weird, Hijikata thought, that suddenly Okita didn’t care about changing his position every second anymore.
The night ended much more quickly and easily than it had began, when the movie was over Sougo didn’t move, and when Hijikata looked down he realized he had fallen asleep sometime ago. He snorted to himself, smug he had won the contest in the long run, then switch the channel over to the news to see what was happening in the world.
Kondo, when he came home, found the two of them still cuddled up together like that, Sougo snoring softly and Hijikata holding onto him.