Learning How to Lose, in Six Easy Steps. Step Five by Alex Gabriel

Author:Alex Gabriel [Gabriel, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alex Gabriel
Published: 2014-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

For breakfast, Hiro gets out last night’s dessert. It turns out to be a milk pudding that you sprinkle brown sugar on, which you’re then supposed to melt with a miniature handheld flame-thrower. The flame-thrower is pretty much the coolest thing Ryuu has ever seen, and he squabbles with Hiro over who gets to melt the sugar, leading to some tickling (which is totally not cheating, no matter what Hiro claims) and some distracting nibbling on Ryuu’s neck (which is totally cheating, because Ryuu hasn’t thought of it first).

In the end, Ryuu prevails, of course. He’s just that cool. Plus, Hiro is a sucker for Ryuu’s pleading look.

It takes a little patient flame-throwing, but finally the sugar melts and sets into a solid, honey-brown candy surface. The living room is still set up in grand date mode, dirty dishes, leftovers and all; Ryuu wouldn’t mind, but Hiro would be all uncomfortable, and might suffer a spontaneous fit of tidying up halfway through breakfast, so they settle at the kitchen table with their bowls of flamed pudding.

Hiro taps on the sugar layer experimentally with his spoon. Then, he taps out a simple rhythm. Then, he gets chopsticks and starts drumming in earnest, ending in a dramatic riff that spills over into Ryuu’s bowl.

“Hey! Drum on your own caramel. At least when you’re drumming ‘Bushido Kiss Foray’, dork.”

Hiro’s face lights up. “You recognized the song!”

Well, duh, of course Ryuu recognized the song. There’s no way to spend significant amounts of time with Hiro and not recognize that song, even when it’s tapped out with chopsticks on caramel-encrusted pudding.

Especially then, really.

“How about this one? Let’s see if you can beat your time.”

This beat is fast, too, though nothing like the headlong rush of Hiro’s beloved horny samurai song. Bright, spirited, almost bouncy…

Ryuu knows it instantly, but doesn’t say anything — he wants Hiro to keep going. And Hiro does; he gets really into it after a second, nodding along and leaning into the beat as though he were on a drum-set. By the time he slows for the chorus (straying onto Ryuu’s pudding again), Ryuu can hear the melody twining around the beat in his head.

The triumphant launch into the final verse cracks the sugar shells of both of their puddings. Hiro’s humming along now, and before he knows it, Ryuu’s singing out loud. He finds into the song effortlessly, his voice mellow and rich and right on pitch. Hiro’s humming and the chopstick-on-pudding rhythm work so well as an accompaniment that it makes Ryuu smile, even while he’s singing.

He draws out the last note a little — not too much — and then Hiro leans forward and steals a shard of Ryuu’s caramel with the chopsticks.

“Hey! You —”

Luckily for the caramel thief, that’s the moment when Hiro’s phone starts up the opening chords of ‘Siren’. It’s bad form to whack someone with a spoon while they’re on the phone, so Ryuu grants him a temporary reprieve.

Also, he can’t find his spoon.

“Tetsu-kun, good morning! I was going to call you too, in a bit.

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