Not that he didn't like Kaga--but there was just something so nice about waking up late on Saturday morning and having Kaga's little apartment all to himself. Kaga would be at work for another five hours, at least, and Tsutsui had started to look forward to spending those hours puttering around the tiny apartment, doing his homework on the postage-stamp-sized desk, playing with his tiny magnetic goban, poking through Kaga's small but impressively filthy hentai collection, and messing around on the computer. Kaga didn't give a shit as long as he put stuff back when he was done with it.

It embarrassed him to admit it, but in some ways he considered Kaga's place his own. Well, no, that wasn't quite it. Sometimes on those Saturday afternoons he liked to pretend it was his own apartment, small and quiet and away from everybody, and then he'd usually find some small chore to do--washing the dishes or taking out the trash--and feel very proprietary while doing it.

And then Kaga would come home bearing takeout and the illusion would be shattered, because Kaga owned any place he chose to park himself in, and this place most of all. But Tsutsui still had several hours in which to pretend.

Four hours later, combing his hair in front of the dresser mirror and firmly, dreamily convinced that everything in the apartment was secretly his, Tsutsui spotted Kaga's fan laying discarded on the dresser.

Tsutsui picked up the fan and absently ruffled it open, glancing at the kanji painted on it. He fanned himself with it once or twice, blowing his overlong bangs back from his forehead, then glanced at himself in the mirror and couldn't help smiling a little; snapping the fan shut again, he pointed it at his reflection. No, that wasn't right. He lifted his shoulder a little higher and stabbed the fan at the mirror, and tried grinning this time.

Closer. Not quite right--he yanked off his glasses and put them on the dresser, then messed up his hair with his free hand. Squinting at the mirror he tried again, and was encouraged by the improvement, but it still needed something--

He yanked the top drawer of the dresser open and came out with a half-empty pack of cigarettes and shook one out one-handed. With that clutched clumsily in the fingers of his free hand, it was so close--Tsutsui dropped both the unlit cigarette and the fan onto the dresser and yanked his t-shirt off over his head, dropping it onto the futon. He grabbed the waistband of his jeans in both hands and wriggled it down until his jeans sat perilously low on his narrow hips, then snitched one of Kaga's discarded Hawaiian shirts out of the laundry basket and tossed it on, not bothering to do up any of the buttons. It was far too large for him, but the resemblance was almost perfect now, especially since he was having to squint myopically at his reflection.

"Almost," he mumbled, leaning in to squint at the mirror, then he whirled around and dashed for the bathroom. The light in here was better, and the mirror was bigger, and if his hair was just a little longer it would be just right--

No. Not quite right. Putting down the fan Tsutsui reached over and grabbed the half-used roll of toilet paper off the back of the toilet and he couldn't quite help laughing as he shoved it down the front of his jeans. But then he eyed himself myopically in the mirror and stopped laughing. Yeah, that was about right.

He pointed the fan at his reflection and practiced holding the unlit cigarette out at a casual angle. And he was actually getting fairly good at the little sneer by the time he noticed Kaga leaning against the wall outside the bathroom, watching him...

Tsutsui screeched in shock and the unlit cigarette tumbled into the wet sink, now ruined.