One

"And then he got all red in the face and started babbling something about it not being hygienic and…" Asakawa broke off, turning his grin from Kazuhiro to look up. "Hi, Mom."

"Hi, Kei-chan." Asakawa-san blinked at the two boys, grinning up at her from the carpet, on their stomachs and surrounded by photographs and construction paper. "What are you two up to?"

Kazuhiro liked Asakawa's mother, he reflected as Asakawa started explaining their plan without hesitation. She was pretty and smiled a lot, just like Asakawa, and didn't mind if her suit skirt got wrinkled when she knelt down beside them to see their progress, toes scrunching the carpet through her nylons.

"Well, that's certainly a sweet thing to do for your…friends." Asakawa-san giggled, and Kazuhiro met Asakawa's eyes and rolled his eyes. "Can I help?"

"You want to help?" Kazuhiro looked down at his own project, which right now consisted of a lopsided green heart and a candid shot of Kobayashi scowling at a bare arm slung over his shoulders.

"I was in the craft club in high school," Asakawa-san said, lifting her chin proudly, and both boys laughed for a few seconds before she joined them.

Kazuhiro did have to admit that his own Special Friends Who Are Boys Day present does look a lot better after Asakawa-san's help, even if he did have to explain several times that Kobayashi would probably not be very susceptible to the metallic purple gel pen.

"Next we're going to make chocolate, right?" Asakawa-san asked. "Because I'm really good at…"

"Mooooom," Asakawa whined, shoving her shoulder with his, "we aren't girls!"

"Oh right," Asakawa-san looked down at 'I' in 'friends' that was dotted with a sparkly heart sticker. "I forgot."

Asakawa whined some more, and Asakawa-san started tickling him, and Kazuhiro laughed and wondered if Kobayashi's mother would be just as excited about Special Friends Who Are Boys Day.

******

Two

Tachiki was starting to think that everybody in the whole school had lost their damned minds.

At morning practice, Tsukada hadn't ordered a single lap and Kichida been even more bipolar than usual. Harada had been too hoarse to yell anything, and Marty had yelled more Japanese words in a row than he had all spring so far. Tachiki had tried and failed to pick three separate fights with Sato, and Kobayashi had been…maybe cheerful was too strong a word. Something weird, though.

And now Misaki was standing in front of him, holding up a plastic case with a burned DVD, "SDHM OVA 1-2" scrawled across it in green Sharpie.

"So can I come over after practice?" Misaki was asking, and when Tachiki reached for the disc, Misaki held it up just out of reach and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Misaki grinned and flipped Tachiki the plastic case, then turned to head down the hallway.

"Hey, wait," Tachiki said, chewing the corner of his lip. Misaki half-turned back, looking over his shoulder, and Tachiki saw the shadow of a fading bruise on his neck, where his collar just barely covered it. "Do you know what day it is?"

"Thursday," Misaki said, then sauntered off.

"Thursday," Tachiki repeated, pressing his fingers against the corners of the case and spinning it idly. He looked down and scowled when he caught sight of the back of the case.

In the same green Sharpie, it read "Happy Special Friends Who Are Boys Day."

******
Three

"Yo, Oulette, mail call!" And then a package wrapped in brown paper landed on the table in front of Marty, nearly upending his cereal.

"Thanks," he grumbled, picking up the package and peeling a strip of his bacon off the bottom. The guy who had dropped it, one of those lunatics from Dormitory 3, dropped a few more pieces of mail in other people's food, then took off in a flurry of melodrama, dragging a weary-looking friend in his wake.

"Wazzat?" Marty's roommate asked through a mouthful of eggs. Marty shrugged, then his face lit up when he flipped it over and he saw the SAL stamp underneath the bacon grease, along with a string of kana in the world's worst Japanese handwriting, aside from his own. "Can you even read that?"

"It says 'Seigaku fight-o!'" Marty answered without really paying attention, already using his fork to slit the packaging tape holding the thing together.

His roommate was asking him something else, but just about then Marty managed to tear one of the flaps of the box open, and a shrink-wrapped manga tumbled out, making Marty bray with startled laughter.

It was, of course, the first volume of the Kansaiben Whispers serialization, and when Marty got the rest of the box open, there were several other items that had all the boys sitting near him peering over his shoulder with varying degrees of interest and open mouths. There was a letter, written on torn out notebook paper, which Marty folded up to stick in his pocket.

There was also a folded piece of construction paper, which when Marty unfolded had "Happy Special Friends Who Are Boys Day" scrawled in the middle, surrounded by pictures. They were all shots of this year's lacrosse team, the official team photo, candid shots, some clippings from the school paper, most of them faces that Marty didn't recognize, but there was one of Harada and his freshman (the name had stuck long after it no longer applied), grinning proudly with their Captain and Vice-captain letters, respectively.

Every single picture had a blank space circled and a little arrow that said "Marty should be here."

"What's all that about?" his roommate wanted to know, and Marty had to clear his throat twice before he could answer, chuckling at himself.

They were running late to class, and Marty had to take the box with him, sliding it under his desk in English class. Nobody else seemed to notice it, but Marty tapped his heels against it lightly when he swung his feet a little. He pulled the letter out and read it during class, squinting at a few of the kanji since he was out of practice and thankful that Harada barely remembered any of them that he'd been taught after the fourth grade.

I mailed it early, said the part that Marty read over several times, but it probably won't get there on the right day anyway. I'll make it up to you over summer break (we're still on right?!!) but you have to do what I say because I'm captain now.

When the teacher handed out a worksheet, Marty wrote "Harada-kun should be doing THIS" in thick pencil on the top with an arrow pointing towards the English assignment, then elbowed the guy sitting next to him.

"Hey," Marty hissed, handing over his phone, "take a picture of me with this."

The teacher caught them and sent them out into the hall, the other guy cursing Marty under his breath the whole time, but it was worth it when Marty emailed Harada the picture and got an emoticon he'd never seen before in reply.

*******

Four

"Kobagin. Kobagin. Kobagin!"

"Mmph," Kobayashi mumbled into his pillow, keeping his eyes firmly shut and hiding his grin against his elbow.

"Kobayashi-ginsho, get up! We're both going to be late!"

Kobayashi let his eyes open just far enough to see Kazuhiro scowling down at him, hair freshly dyed black and respectable, office shirt buttoned almost the whole way up, tie in his hand. When Kazuhiro reached out to shake Kobayashi's shoulder again, Kobayashi grabbed his wrist and yanked, making him lose his balance and tumble down onto the bed.

Their bed, Kobayashi thought fiercely as he rolled over to tangle them in the blankets and keep Kazuhiro exactly where he wanted him, in their apartment.

If Kobayashi was a sap like Sato, he might have thought that his heart was pounding with happiness rather than just his morning erection pressed against Kazuhiro's leg.

"Kobayashiiiii," Kazuhiro whined, struggling and making Kobayashi's eyes flutter. "It's my first day! And you have class!"

"You don't know what day it is, do you?" Kobayashi asked, then kissed Kazuhiro before he could answer. Kazuhiro's breath hitched in surprise, making Kobayashi grin against his mouth. Being Kazuhiro's boyfriend for so long had certainly made him sneaky enough to creep into the bathroom and brush his teeth quickly while Kazuhiro was busy showering and hollering NewS's latest single at the top of his lungs.

Kobayashi had a real present somewhere in one of his pockets, a tie-tack shaped like a lacrosse stick, but right now he was occupied pushing himself up to straddle Kazuhiro's hips and undoing all of his buttons, leaning over to sink teeth into Kazuhiro's collarbone when his shirt fell open to reveal a silver chain and the suizo character pressed against his sun-dark skin.

"What…" Kazuhiro started to ask, but his breath caught in his throat when Kobayashi leaned back, gritting his teeth against the sting of his fingers sliding in.

"Can't have you limping around your first day," he answered the unasked question, and he didn't have to ask twice to get Kazuhiro scrambling to shove his boxers out of the way and stroke himself slick.

"This is so worth being late," Kazuhiro laughed as Kobayashi started sliding down on him, holding Kazuhiro's cock steady with a hot, slick hand.

"Kichida's coming to pick us up," Kobayashi informed him, hissing when he slipped the last inch and his weight settled firmly on Kazuhiro. "I called him last night. Happy Special Friends Who Are Boys Day."

"Mm, that's why you're the smart one with the university classes and I'm just the idiot salary man." Kazuhiro's eyes were dark and happy, and they both moaned when he pushed his hips up, making Kobayashi brace his hands against Kazuhiro's shoulders.

"You're not an idiot, idiot," Kobayashi said, tilting his head back to hide his affectionate grin.

Later, when Kobayashi padded stiffly into the kitchen and opened the fridge to see what he could throw together for breakfast, he found a full bento box with a hot pink sticky note on top which read "Happy Special Friends Who Are Boys Day."

Kobayashi looked over his shoulder to see Kazuhiro leaning in the doorway, re-buttoned and fingers tangled in his attempt to tie his tie.

"Who doesn't know what day it is?" he asked, and Kobayashi hid his smile against his T-shirt.

His smile disappeared when Kazuhiro held up a card with rainbows and the text "Happy Special Friends Who" where it wasn't covered by Kazuhiro's thumb, and said that it was for both of them from Kobayashi's mother.

*******

Five

"It's a marketing scam," the boy said, hands shoved in his pockets and looking around as if to see if anyone was watching them. He was wearing Rikkaidai colors, black and bright yellow. "Just like the other ones."

"Who cares?" the second boy asked, snapping his gum. He was wearing the same colors, and it clashed with both his brightly-dyed hair and his gum. He picked up another card from the convenience store rack and nodded, satisfied, but wrinkled his nose at the envelope that came with it.

After rifling through a few others, he settled on one that was slate blue, silver stars sprinkled over it. Hyoutei colors. Interesting.

The boy dropped the card into it, then stripped the wristband off his wrist and dropped that in as well, then grinned at the boy with him. "Let's go!"

"Finally," the first boy grumbled.

When they had both headed over to the counter, the first boy trying to keep some distance between himself and the second boy, a third boy, who had been watching the entire exchange from nearby, leaned forward to read the little label attached to the card rack.

Happy Special Friends Who Are Boys Day, it read. Even more interesting. Still examining the cards, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and thumbed a speed-dial button.

"Tezuka," he said as soon as there was a connection, "I'm looking at something very interesting…"