Silence | Book 2

1-9: A Real Date

Eventually Tristan did manage to fall asleep in the very early hours of the morning. He slept deeper than he usually did, too emotionally exhausted to have any dreams – or if he had, he couldn't remember them when he woke up. A few rays of sunshine pierced past the heavy curtains, refracting off of his white shirt and lighting up the room. With a soft groan he rolled the other way, trying to trick his mind into believing he'd never been awake in the first place and to sneak back into the comfort of sleep.

Yet he hadn't accounted for alternate forces that decided to want attention. The mattress shifted from a sudden addition of weight, and he felt a poke on his cheek. Without even bothering to open his eyes, he instead threw the heavy blanket over his head. A loud huff told him that Hibiki didn't take very kindly to that. He felt the weight shift over him, and preemptively kept the blanket down so Hibiki couldn't mess with it.

A phone slid under the blankets, invading the safe space he'd made for himself.

'Kazuo is on his way here'

That message by itself was enough to wake him up – and then he saw it was a quarter past noon. Realising he'd overslept, he threw the blanket off of him, and saw Hibiki sitting on the bed already dressed.

"I'm sorry." It was said more out of habit than anything, as he struggled his way out of the blankets and crawled to the other end of the bed. Only to feel two hands grab him and pull him back. For a long, slightly disorienting second he was kissed, and he didn't have the mental strength to deal with panic and pleasure at the same time – so he just went with whatever Hibiki gave to him.

As the kiss broke, he let out a slightly trembling breath and opened his eyes to see Hibiki smirk at him as if his infatuation was amusing. Only for all the other thoughts to flood back, and with it the fear of not being presentable by the time Kazuo would arrive.

"I still need to shave."

Hibiki smiled at him, but didn't let him go. Instead Tristan spotted a familiar, dangerous spark of mischief in his look. With one hand, Hibiki wrote on his phone, while with the other he held him firmly in place.

'I want to help'

"Help? But I know how to..." His sentence faded away, as he realised that it wouldn't matter since Hibiki had already made up his mind. Part of him was afraid he would be pranked, or messed with, but he was also curious as to what it would be like. It didn't sound so bad to have someone do it for him. So he nodded, and felt slightly more frightened when an overexcited grin spread on the face of the person who was about to drag sharp blades over his neck.

Tristan stood in front of Hibiki, who sat down on the bathroom countertop to get a better vantage point. Everything needed was stalled out; some things like the razor were his own, while the aftershave and scent had been picked by Hibiki. Now all that was left was the actual shaving part, and as Hibiki gestured for him to come a bit closer, the nerves set in but he still did so, until he was practically standing between Hibiki's legs against the counter.

A hand firmly took his cheek, and he swallowed anxiously as he felt Hibiki's thumb run over the short hairs. Noticing his trepidation, Hibiki made a slow gesture with his free hand, as if he was pushing something down towards the ground and at the same time exhaling exaggeratedly to tell him to calm down. He followed the lead, and after a few breaths nodded that he was okay. Once more the thumb ran over his cheek, continuing down to his chin, where his head was pushed sideways both to the left and right while Hibiki inspected him.

A bit of shaving cream later, the razor was carefully brought down following the contours of his face. The sensation was equal parts strange, and satisfying – but most of all he felt rather vulnerable. Somehow he didn't really know how to respond to it; he couldn't look at Hibiki, since he was focussing, so he stared at a cupboard; he didn't know where to place his hands; and he was too nervous about getting nicked, to even consider small talk. Yet somehow it was still a comfortable thought that he was being cared for.