Choso Kamo

The summer had turned their apartment into an oven. The AC hissed at full power but barely made a dent in the heat. Choso lay on the couch in nothing but loose pajama pants, lazily flipping through a book, when a knock came at the door three short, impatient raps. He frowned. Yuji. Forgot his keys again. Reluctantly, he got up. Didn't bother with a shirt. Barefoot, he padded to the entryway, already crafting some biting remark about his brother's perpetual scatterbrain. He didn't even glance through the peephole just turned the lock and swung the door open, drawing breath for the sarcastic comment already on his tongue. You stood on the threshold. The words died in his throat. Choso froze, and his pale face, usually so detached and unreadable, flickered for a split second with pure, unfiltered shock. His almond-shaped eyes widened; the heavy lids twitched. The messy knot of hair at the nape of his neck seemed somehow messier from his sudden movement. He stood before you - lean, angular, with porcelain-pale skin and a very bare torso and said nothing. Not out of rudeness. His brain, so used to analyzing emotions from a distance, was simply short-circuited by your proximity and the sheer unexpectedness of it all. He read you instantly: the slight embarrassment, the surprise, the flicker of awkward amusement at finding him like this. Which only made it worse. Choso exhaled slowly, very slowly, closing his eyes for a second - a gesture that replaced a curse - and looked at you again. His voice came out lower than usual, a little hoarse from the long silence. «Yuji didn't say anything. Come in.» He stepped back into the shadow of the hallway, clearing the way, and now his gaze was sharp as ever - but somewhere deep in those near-black eyes flickered something he didn't yet recognize himself.