Best Friends
by Angela
04-08-05

Part One: Taira

Taira half stood up, craning his head over the crowd to see what was the hold up at the bar. At first he couldn't see his friend through the smoky haze and dancing bodies, but then Chiba's distinctive laugh rang out above everything—even the wail of the rock band on stage. Taira's eyes followed the sound and found him immediately. He had the beers in his hands—two sweating bottles of Sapporo, uncapped and ready to drink—but he seemed distracted by a conversation. He laughed again, this time his cheeks flushing with more than alcohol and heat.

Unable to see who his band mate was talking with, Taira leaned a bit. "Move, damn it," he muttered under his breath at a pair of shrieking ko-gals who stood right in his way. To his surprise, they shifted a few steps, leaving a clear path of sight between Taira and the object of Chiba's rapt attention.

"She's not even pretty," he complained to himself, his eyes narrowing at the girl who put her hand on Chiba's arm and laughed, leaning in just enough to flash her cleavage. She was adequately tarted up, though, Taira allowed. Chiba tended not to notice much beyond female and willing, anyway. A snarl of irritation rose in his throat. It wasn't that he cared, he reminded himself. It wasn't that he cared who (or what, in this case) his friend hooked up with, the problem was the bottle of beer Chiba carried it his left hand. His hot, sweaty left hand.

Warm beer tasted like swill.

Taira pushed away from the table, jostling the empty bottles and knocking one to the floor. Determined to rescue his beer before it reached room temperature (or worse, body temperature), he wove his way through the crowded live house. The band, a newer group with some raw talent but not much else going for them, was building to its climax, the guitar turning frenzied along with the crashing cymbals. The audience was also getting more and more worked up, making it difficult for Taira to cross the room.

"Get your fucking hands off my girlfriend!" Taira heard the snarl before he saw its source—a hulking brute of a man with a face like a pug. Still halfway across the room, he watched as the newcomer tore the girl (with appropriately canine features as well) away from Chiba, not bothering to notice that she'd been clutching him, not the other way around.

Chiba grinned the grin of a man who'd had too much to drink and was smarting for a fight. "She belongs to you?" he asked casually, raising an eyebrow. "Kinda makes me wonder what she wasn't getting at home to make her come prowling around here." He looked at the girl, who was backed up against the door looking panicked. "Seems to me she wanted a real man. For a change."

Cursing under his breath, Taira shoved past the last few people who stood between him and the altercation his friend was about to be involved in. Leave it to Chiba to start a fight in a live house, where their reputations were all they had to secure a chance to play. And over a girl like that? Taira shook his head. Since their success at Grateful Sound, Chiba could hook girls a hundred times classier—they all could, even Koyuki. Why he was wasting his time with this one and her thug boyfriend was a mystery.

He didn't know what he planned to do when he reached Chiba, but whatever it was, it was too late. The guy let out a furious roar and his meaty fist made contact with Chiba's eye. Taira stopped dead in his tracks, watching as his friend fell back and stumbled against the bar. The bottles in his hand sloshed and spilled over, but he managed not to drop them.

Chiba grinned, squinting the eye that was already turning red and starting to swell. He stood up slowly, chuckling, and glanced over to where Taira was standing. "Taira-kun," he said holding out the bottle in his left hand. "Here's your beer. Some of it spilled—sorry."

Automatically stepping forward, Taira took the beer and nodded his head. "Thanks." He wanted to suggest that his friend abandon his fight and head home with him, but he was a bit speechless in the face of Chiba's cool and obvious enthusiasm for this brawl.

Chiba had faced off with his (rather huge) opponent again. He took a deep swig of beer and stepped forward. The thug grunted, his balled fists tightening. "Outside," Chiba demanded, nodding toward the door. "It's rude to interrupt someone's live." Taira was surprised when the furious boyfriend nodded his assent slammed the door open.

They took their fight outside, but the live was already ruined. Half of the audience had turned away from the band when Chiba was first punched, and now they streamed after them out the little door to the alley. Taira shrugged, taking a deep gulp of his beer. Bleh—warm. He left the bottle on the bar and trudged out with the rest of them.

Chiba was having fun. Neither of them had landed any punches yet—Chiba's strange martial arts style had the guy twisting every which way and swinging wildly while he was being led through a demented game of cat and mouse. Chiba amused himself by dodging every punch and watching the man get more and more livid.

Taira watched, happy he wasn't needed to step in and help. He could hold his own in a fight, but he never enjoyed it the way his friend did.

When the man finally made contact, his punch was strong and angry. Chiba staggered back, his arms wrapping around his middle and his breath suddenly shallow. Still, when he looked up at the thug, he was smiling. "After all those practice swings I gave you," Chiba taunted, "is that all the harder you can hit?"

The man roared and swung again. This time, Chiba didn't have the steadiness to dodge, so the guy's fist connected with his face. It split his lip, and blood dripped down his chin.

The thug backed away, disgusted. "You might dance around a lot and try to make me look like a fool, but, as you see, there's no way you can win if I land a punch or two." He reached out to grab his girlfriend, but she flinched away, disgusted by the blood on his knuckles.

Chiba saw this. He started laughing like a madman, wiping blood from his mouth with his sleeve. He took a swig of beer (the bottle still, miraculously, still clutched in his fist) and tossed the bottle onto the ground. It didn't even have the decency to shatter, Taira noticed; instead it rolled away with an embarrassing clatter.

With a yell, Chiba got down to business. He lowered his head and charged, hitting his opponent with a head butt to the sternum. The larger man stumbled back, his breath catching. Before he had a moment to recover, Chiba was on him, swinging his fists and laughing.

The advantage lasted only a moment before the guy got his stuff together. Shaking off Chiba's blows and ignoring the blood that trickled from a slash on his cheek, he picked Taira's friend up by his shirt and flung him onto the ground. Chiba recovered, rolling away even as the guy fell to his knees to wail on him. He landed a kick to the side of the thug's head and he leaped to his feet, nimble as ever.

Taira shook his head. It was like Chiba was impervious to pain. His eye was, by then, swollen shut, and the corner of his lip was torn and brown with drying blood, but it was clear he was having the time of his life. Taira couldn't be sure, since all of his words were garbled by blood and breathlessness, but it almost sounded like he was chanting some of Beck's lyrics as he kicked the guy.

Taira saw the girlfriend pick up Chiba's abandoned beer bottle. She was crying and looking at her boyfriend, barely able to keep up with the punishment Chiba was doling out to him. He saw it all happen, and he was almost able to cry out a warning to his friend before she brought it down to shatter over the back of his head.

Chiba went down. His eyes went wild with surprised before they closed all together and he slumped onto the concrete next to the bloodied up thug.

Taira was grateful it was over. He almost wanted to thank the ugly chick for taking care of things, but he was too pissed that she might've seriously hurt his friend. Without a word, and without looking at anyone else in the alley, Taira trudged forward to collect his band mate. He dragged Chiba to his feet and some guy helped hoist him over his shoulder. "Damn, you're heavy," Taira muttered, staggering a bit under the weight before finding his center of balance.

"S'at you, Taira-kun?" Chiba asked, woozy. He reached his hand up to touch Taira's spiky, bleached hair. "You takin' me home?"

"Shut up and stop wiggling."

Luckily his apartment was nearby. Somehow he managed to carry him the block or so to his building and with his help, Chiba was able to get up the steep flight of stairs and through his door. Saku was working both his jobs that night, so the place was empty.

Taira got his friend settled on the couch and dug his first aid kit out of the closet. "You're an idiot, Chiba," he muttered, dabbing peroxide over the gash in his lip. By now Chiba was unconscious again, this time probably due to the six or seven drinks he'd consumed during the live. He snored softly, his mouth hanging open just enough to make it easy for Taira to close the gaping cut with a butterfly bandage. Using Chiba's own hand, he propped an ice pack against his swollen eye. Beyond that, all he could do was let his band mate sleep it off.

He looked down at Chiba and shook his head. "Girls like that are never worth it."

Part Two: Chiba

He woke up in stages, first feeling the dull throbbing in his head, next noticing the drip of water that slid down his nose. And his bed felt strange—scratchy and rough against his bare shoulder instead of smooth like cotton sheets. Then he heard a strange, rhythmic twanging sound. Chiba opened his eyes. Why did it hurt to do that? He couldn't see much—just the scratchy tweed material of the couch. Taira's couch.

That explained the twanging. He pushed himself up, letting the drippy ice pack slide off onto the floor. Taira was across the dim room on a chair, his head bowed low over his unplugged bass. He wasn't wearing anything but a pair of shorts, and his hair was damp and not spiked up. His eyes were closed and his fingers were picking out a bass line that Chiba hadn't heard before.

"That gonna be for 'Tabasco?'" he asked, his throat thick.

Taira didn't look up. "Yeah," he said, not breaking his rhythm. "How are you feeling?"

Chiba smiled ruefully. "Like I was clocked on the back of the head with a beer bottle," he replied.

That made Taira pause and glance at him. He laughed. "I'm glad you remember."

Sitting up fully, Chiba touched his bare feet to the cool wood floor. He curled his toes against its cool hardness. Though Taira's apartment was small, it was still a step up from the six tatami mat room where he lived. Taira had a bedroom, a kitchen, even a bathroom. And when Saku moved in, he'd brought a TV and a laptop computer. Those were a lot of luxuries for guys trying to pay for a band.

Chiba loved being at Taira's place.

"I notice you finally got that MCS tattoo," Taira said, putting the bass down and looking at Chiba with smiling eyes. "I knew you'd eventually find the nerve for that."

Reaching over his shoulder to where he had "Mongolian Chop Squad" in red and gold on his back, Chiba winced. "It hurt like hell," he confessed. "I should'a put it on my arm or something, so people could see it when I sing."

Taira shrugged. "This way it's an exclusive surprise. You know, for the girls."

Chiba blushed. "Never thought of it that way," he said, rubbing his nose in embarrassment. Leave it to Taira to find a new way to see anything. He imagined the delighted squeal of a female Beck fan the instant he took off his shirt. It made him blush harder.

"It sure surprised me," Taira said in a low voice.

"Th-thanks for doctoring me up," Chiba stammered, noticing the change in his friend's tone. He'd heard that voice before, and it could mean only one thing. "Sorry I'm always such a hassle." As he babbled, he found himself intensely aware of the fact that Taira's muscled chest was bare. Sometimes it was his favorite part of Beck—watching him fling his shirt off during concerts always got his blood pumping for the set.

Taira sat on the arm of the couch, his long fingers reaching out to touch Chiba's lip. "Does it still hurt?" he asked.

Chiba shook his head, his eyes never leaving his friend's face. His body had come alive in the instant that Taira touched him, and he wondered—not for the first time—what was wrong with him that he would react to his best friend like that. Did Koyuki get hard when Saku touched him? Chiba was mortified by his train of thought and banished the idea as soon as it popped up.

Smiling, Taira relaxed. "I'm glad," he said, his voice smooth and untroubled.

And that was another thing. Why was it that Taira—who seemed to react in exactly the same way—was never bothered by this whole thing? In fact, Chiba thought he almost seemed to look forward to moments like these, when they found themselves alone and aroused and somehow nearly naked. That had to be even less normal than Chiba's reactions.

But then Taira was kissing him, and Chiba gave up the analysis.

He leaned back against the couch, happy that his split lip only hurt a little. His hands slid their way around his friend, one settling low on Taira's back, near the waist of his shorts. The other plunged deep into the damp tangle of his hair, and Chiba was astounded—as he had been a dozen times before—that it was smooth and soft despite the bleaching.

They tangled together on the couch, Chiba wincing only slightly as his friend dragged his hot palm down his chest and across the bruise on his abdomen. "You okay?" Taira asked, pulling back at his sudden intake of breath. His face was close to Chiba's and the rapper could smell the faint traces of mouthwash and shampoo. "Am I being too rough?"

"Yeah," Chiba answered. Taira's eyes were suddenly hooded with apology. "And no." He pulled the blond closer, kissing him hard on the mouth. It took Taira a fraction of a second to respond, but then his lips parted and his hands thrust into Chiba's curly hair.

Time passed slowly for Chiba. He savored the salty taste of Taira's skin and the short bursts of breath his friend expelled at every touch made him ache for more. The bassist's callused fingers moved everywhere, and it wasn't long until Chiba's jeans were kicked off to join Taira's shorts on the floor.

"Do it," the blond ordered, his eyes heavy beneath the fringe of his dark lashes. "You know what we need."

Breathless and unable to argue with that wicked smile, Chiba thrust his fingers inside of his friend. Taira closed his eyes, a moan slipping from his lips. The sound made Chiba hungry. "Do you need more?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

Taira looked up at him, his face contorting into a scowl. "Don't tease me," he growled.

Nearly at the end of his own patience, Chiba moved himself into his friend, nearly crying out at the warm tightness of it. He grasped Taira's hips—the other boy reached down to caress himself as Chiba moved inside of him.. "I-Is this better?" the rapper asked, his voice unsteady as he thrust.

Taira couldn't answer. He looked steadily up at Chiba, who couldn't seem to close his eyes or look away. This was the part where he ought to be imagining a girl, he realized. But all he could think of was Taira.

The blond cried out when he came, curling up to hang on to his friend's shoulders. "Chiba," he said raggedly, his mouth pressing damply against his neck. "God, Chiba."

Chiba came an instant later, choking back the yell that would no doubt be too loud for the apartment building. He collapsed onto Taira's chest, happy when the other boy's arms came tightly around him. "Thank you," Taira whispered against his ear.

They dressed quickly. Taira vanished into the bedroom, leaving Chiba to fumble into his clothes in the living room. He felt awkward and embarrassed—usually this was about the time where the girl got all clingy and he felt like he had to leave. But it was different with Taira—the guy was his best friend, so he didn't want to leave. He wanted to hang out and play video games or eat some ramen.

"I left your shirt in the kitchen," Taira called from the other room. "It's kind of a mess, though, so you might want to throw it out.

Chiba's t-shirt was torn and bloodied from his fight. "This was my favorite," he complained, holding it up. It was completely ruined.

"Pitch it. You can have one of mine," Taira suggested, coming out of his bedroom in jeans and a Green Day concert shirt. He tossed a black tee at him.

"This is the one you wore at Grateful Sound," Chiba said wonderingly, looking at the skeleton hand printed on the front. "But you threw it into the crowd. How'd you get this back?"

Running a hand through his hair to spike it, Taira laughed. "Remember the chick who took her shirt off—right up near the front?"

How could he not? That girl almost made him forget the lyrics. She was gorgeous.

"I ran into her the week after the concert. She had picked it up and wanted to return it to me."

Chiba was skeptical. "What? She had it with her?" he asked, pulling it over his head.

Taira blushed. "It was at her place, so we went back for it."

Not sure whether to be celebratory or outraged, Chiba looked at his friend, dumbstruck. "So you slept with her? Just to get your shirt back?" He felt slightly betrayed, but he wasn't sure if it was because Taira hooked up with the hot girl or because the hot girl hooked up with Taira.

"Actually, I slept with her because she was hot, but I regretted it later." Taira wandered into the kitchen, evidently not feeling even remotely awkward. If Chiba remembered right, he'd been just as casual the last four or five times they'd fooled around, too.

But he needed to focus on the conversation. "Regretted it? Why? You decide you were tired of hot anonymous hookups?"

Laughing, Taira came back into with two steaming cups of ramen. "No, but I did find out from Ryuuske that she came to Koyuki before the concert—evidently Maho saw her in his tent."

Chiba's eyebrows shot up. Little Koyuki with a hottie like that? He couldn't imagine that would've gone over well with Ryuuske's sister. That Maho was gorgeous, but she had a temper. "Nothing's ever gonna surprise me again," he said, shaking his head.

Taira handed him the ramen and sat on the floor across from him. "Nothing?" he asked skeptically. "It seems to me that you're still surprised every time we fuck."

He'd never said anything so bluntly before. Chiba almost dropped his food, catching it just in time to slosh the scalding broth onto his hand. He ignored the burn, gaping at his friend.

"See?" Taira said, his lips curving into a mischievous smirk. "That surprised you, too." He put his cup and chopsticks carefully on the floor beside him, pulling his knees up to his chin. "It's not against any rule to talk about it, you know."

For a moment Chiba had trouble finding his voice. "O-Okay," he said slowly, licking the fish broth from his burned hand. "So what's going on here, do you think?"

Taira's eyes were calm and cool. "Whatever we want," he said simply.

Chiba tried in vain to emulate his friend's composure, wondering if it was the kind of thing that could be managed only by being slightly older. "It's okay, then, to like . . . being with you? That way?" His face was probably the color of an eggplant.

"Absolutely." Taira looked amused. "I wouldn't want to do it if you didn't like it, too."

"And we can still hook up with girls?" He liked Taira plenty, but he didn't think it was possible for him to give up girls.

Taira jostled Chiba's leg with a gentle kick. "I really don't think it's possible for you to give up girls."

Chiba grinned. Leave it to Taira to read his mind on top of everything else. "But let's not tell the others, okay?"

Looking stricken at the very thought, Taira nodded. At the same moment, a knock sounded at the door.

Shrugging, the blond hopped up to answer it. Ryuuske stood in the doorway, looking vaguely bored. "I heard about the fight," Ryuuske said, glancing it to check out Chiba's wounds. "It's not good for Beck if you lose," he said, smirking a little.

Taira laughed and invited him in, but Ryuuske shrugged. "Let's go out—hit an arcade or something. I've been standing out on the street for twenty minutes, waiting."

Always up for a late night out, Chiba jumped to his feet. "What were you waiting for?" he asked. He tipped the Styrofoam cup against his lips, gulping down the last of his ramen.

Ryuuske beckoned them close. He leaned toward them as though he had a huge secret. "Waiting for my two best friends to stop fucking each other so they could come out with me," he said in a conspiratorial whisper. Before either of them could recover, he turned on his heel and walked out the door. "Now come on," Ryuuske barked in English. "I'm sick of waiting."

Mortified, Chiba tried to keep his head down as he slid his feet into his shoes. His mind was buzzing with a thousand ways that Ryuuske could've found out—the most embarrassing involved the living room window that was shamefully uncovered.

"It's okay." Taira's voice was low and close as he leaned down to tie his own shoes. "After all, it's just Ryuuske—no one would believe him if he tried to tell."

Chiba looked up and smiled at his friend—his lover. "If you're okay," he said in a hushed voice, "then I suppose I don't mind."

Taira bumped his shoulder against Chiba's. He grinned—that dazzling thousand-watt smile that no one ever got to see. "Then let's go."