Immersed in the warm glow of the television, Hikaru settled a little deeper into the couch, eyes glued to his current favorite anime.

"What does it feel like," the girl with the orange four-foot pigtails was asking her purple-headed friend tremulously, "to be in love?"

Hikaru's cell phone shrilled suddenly, the tinny strains of You Got Game clashing with the sentimental background music of the TV. Hikaru fished for the phone in his pocket without moving his eyes from the screen and clicked on.

"Shindou?" Waya said. "Listen, I've got something really important…"

"Not now!" Shindou snapped. "Xenon Seed Ultimate Blue is on!"

"But!" Waya protested, but Shindou had already clicked his phone off and let his hand fall back to his lap with it.

"I think about him all the time," Orange Pigtails was sighing. "I pick fights with him sometimes just so that he notices me. He gets so flushed when he's angry, it's so cute!"

The phone rang again, and Hikaru grunted in irritation as he clicked it back on.

"Shindou?" Touya asked. "Is that you?"

"Of course it's me," Hikaru tore his eyes away from the screen just long enough to roll them. "This is my cell phone, idiot." Not wanting to miss any dialogue, Hikaru used his free hand to scoop up the remote and turn on the closed-captioning before clicking the volume down a few notches.

He's so uncomfortable on the phone, we can't talk about anything important, Orange Pigtails mouthed.

"Is there something you wanted?" Hikaru asked after an odd moment of silence. Touya cleared his throat.

"I was wondering if you had a minute to talk about that game you played with Ochi last week. I just saw the kifu, and I noted some strange things."

"Mmhmm," Hikaru answered, but his mind was really on the bottom of the TV screen, which read, He notices even when I wear new shoes, but when he tries to compliment me, I can barely get any words out!

"…never seen you use a tsuke in such a situation before," Touya finished.

"Hmm." Hikaru was feeling suddenly itchy, and he couldn't put his finger on why.

Reading the tiny print on the TV was starting to make his eyes hurt though, so he turned the sound back up just in time to hear "Yesterday I even turned off my favorite soap opera to talk to him!"

"No!" the purple-haired girl gasped. "You hang up on me when I try to call!"

Hikaru froze, distantly aware that Touya was still talking in his ear.

"Did you? Shindou? SHINDOU!"

"What?!" Hikaru snapped back out of reflex.

"Are you even listening to me?" Touya demanded.

"Not really," Hikaru answered honestly, and Touya hung up on him.

"At night," the TV continued without relent, "I think about what it would be like to have him kiss me…"

Hikaru flushed dark red and dropped the phone in his haste to point the remote at the TV and turn off the offending self-realization, muttering "Fuck, fuck" under his breath.

"…to have him…touch me…"

"FUCK!" Hikaru howled, finally just hurling the remote at the TV and collapsing on the couch in a miserable heap. A commercial about a new brand of kiwi-flavored soda did nothing to cool Hikaru's blush.

"Hikaru, are you swearing in there?" his mother demanded from the next room.

*******

"Okay," Hikaru said shakily, holding the remote at arm's length as though it were a bomb. It was the next week, same time, same channel, and Hikaru had had a sleepless, blush-filled, and Touya-saturated week, but he was determined not to let it ruin his favorite show. "It's only an anime. There is nothing to fear. This has nothing to do with me."

He clicked the remote, and the whole screen was filled with a montage of the two main characters kissing deeply. Hikaru gave a weak moan and sank back against the couch, covering his eyes.

"But how did you get him to tell you his feelings?" the purple-haired girl wanted to know, and Hikaru peeked through his fingers. If they were going to ruin his life, the least he might take from this was some advice.

"Well, first I trapped him in the library…"

So far so good, Hikaru thought, lowering his hands. I can just substitute 'go salon' for 'library'.

"Then I backed him up against the World History section…"

"I should be taking notes," Hikaru muttered, poking around on the coffee table with his foot to see if anything that he could write on would appear.

"Then I said his name softly…"

"Shindou Hikaru!"

Hikaru twitched violently, then tilted his head back against the back of the couch to see Touya staring down at him with derision. There was a long moment of silence.

"Hikaru!" his mother called from the other room. "Touya-kun is here!" In front of Hikaru, the TV let out another stream of giggling suggestions about hand placement on the captured potential true love.

"Shindou," Touya said, and on closer inspection, Hikaru saw that he wasn't frowning so much as trying to suppress a smirk. "I don't think it's wise to take romantic advice from anime."

"What do you know," Hikaru grumbled, fumbling for the remote and switching the TV off. He realized belatedly that it was probably a mistake to take his eyes off Touya.

"Plenty," Touya answered in that same infuriatingly calm voice, just before he slid a hand underneath Hikaru's chin and tipped his head back to kiss him soundly.

It was weird and slick, and Hikaru's nose bumped Touya's chin, and his neck had a kink from leaning back too far, but it made the tiny hairs on his arms stand straight up.

"You can't know much," Hikaru muttered when the kiss broke, pretending valiantly that his palms weren't clenched into sweaty fists and his heart wasn't pounding. "Seeing as you're doing it upside-down."

The silence stretched out until Hikaru tilted his head back again and saw that Touya was letting his hair swing in front of his face to hide his expression. He felt a little knot in his chest, but also triumph.

"I knew you didn't have any idea what you were doing," he announced, twisting around on the couch and pushing himself up onto his knees so he could sit up far enough to show Touya how kissing was really supposed to be done.

All those Gravitation episodes Akari had made him watch had to be good for something, after all.