Speak Love, Make Love

Speak Love, Make Love
by Leah Jenner


“Wha - ? What is this?” Honda asked, eyes wide, as he picked up and looked over what appeared to be a board game on Otogi’s bedside table. ‘Speak Love, Make Love.’ Yeah… definitely a board game, he discovered, after further inspection.

Otogi, on the other hand, was reclining on his bed, flipping through a magazine. He looked up at the other boy when Honda spoke. “Mm? Oh… I thought it could be something we could do if we ever got bored.”

"Like I could get bored with you."

"I still want to try it sometime." The older boy was completely prepared to leave it at that. He moved his gaze back to the magazine in his hands, scanning the article to find the sentence where he’d left off at. A few moments passed in silence. Curious as to why Honda had said nothing further, Otogi looked up again at the other boy. "...Hiroto?"

Honda hadn’t moved, and was still curiously reading over the back of the game’s box, brow furrowed a little in concentration. When he heard the raven-haired boy’ voice, he looked up. “Mm?”

Otogi looked down at the box in Honda’s hands, then back up to look in the other’s eyes. “…find something interesting?”

"I don’t know. I was just thinking… maybe we could play now?" the brunet asked with a bit of a shrug. He crawled up on the bed to sit cross-legged beside his partner against the pillows, then slipped the lid off of the box. It had never been played before, so the cardboard insulation and the advertisement inserts for other similar games were still inside. Honda took all of these things out and dropped them to the floor beside the bed. He’d throw all of it away later, but for now, he didn’t want to have to reach over Otogi to get to the trashcan on the floor on the other side of the bed.

The board was lifted out next, and set down in front of the boys. It was two-sided; one side of the board was dedicated to the speaking aspect of the game, the other, to the physical aspect of the game. The board was littered with squares, each having various instructions on them that the player would have to carry out with his partner.

Honda pulled out the remainder of what was in the box, a plastic bag containing two pawns and a die, and the instructions, printed on one sheet of paper. He set the game box on the ground to get it out of the way.

He handed Otogi the directions, then started on opening the plastic package to free the game pieces. “Here… you read that.”

Otogi took the piece of paper without question, and looked over the rules, stating important points out loud to his partner. “Let’s see… There’s two pawns, and each of us get one. We each start on opposite sides of the board and roll the die to move that number of spaces along the board. When we land on a space, we have to do whatever it says in the square we landed on. ‘Seems simple enough.”

Honda looked at the pawns in his hands – one was red, and one was white. He decided to let Otogi have the red piece, so he set it on the ‘start’ square on Otogi’s side of the board, the ‘speaking’ side. He set his own white pawn at the start of his own side, the ‘physical’ side. “So what’s the point of it all? How do we know who wins, and what do we win?”

“The point is to share with each other, whether that be with words or actions. And we both win,” Otogi stated, setting the instructions and his magazine from earlier on the bedside table beside him. “And we get each other when we win. Fair enough?”

Honda chuckled softly, setting that plastic bag down to lie with the game’s box on the ground. “Oh… yeah. That sounds fair, all right. So who starts?”

“I’ll go first, just to show you how it works.” He picked up the die, and rolled it gently down onto the board. The plastic cube stopped after a second, five black dots facing upward toward the boys. “Five,” Otogi said, and moved his pawn that many spaces.

Instructions were written on each square on the board, and Otogi read the fifth square’s instructions out loud for Honda to hear. “’Ask you partner what is romantic to him or her.’” Otogi smirked, and looked up at Honda, then, and asked smoothly, “Tell me, babe, what do you think is romantic?”

Honda started a moment. Hey, wait, wasn’t Otogi supposed to be going first? Well, he did technically go first, but Honda still turned out to be the one who had to speak first. “Me? Er… well…” He took a moment to think, looking down at his hands, folded in his lap. He spoke again, a little hesitantly, after he’d gathered his thoughts together. “I guess… when you take off work sometimes just to be with me….and that you don’t mind when I go out sometimes with Jou and Yuugi, and… when you tell me things that you don’t tell anyone else… and when you tell me that you love me, and that you only want me…” He raised his eyebrows at his partner, silently asking if that was good enough of an answer. Honda wasn’t as good at words as Otogi was, and if he tried for much longer, he might have fumbled or mixed something up.

Otogi’s smirk had softened gradually as his partner spoke, and he nodded at the other boy, pleased with the other’s answer. “Now it’s my turn to share what I think is romantic about you.”

“That’s how it goes?” Honda asked, confused. He figured it would be his turn to roll the die now.

“That’s how it goes,” Otogi repeated amiably. “The whole point of the game is to do things together, after all. Now do you want to hear or not?”

“Sorry,” the younger boy replied, then nodded sheepishly. “Yeah… I wanna hear.”

“Well… there’s a lot of things, but I can’t list them all off, or you’ll never get a turn,” Otogi replied. He was better with sharing his feelings than Honda was, and didn’t have to think hard before the words came to him. “I think it’s romantic… when you hold my hand in front of everyone, because I know then that you’re proud of me, that you want to show me off to everyone. And when you send me text messages on my phone when I’m at work, because then I know that you’re thinking about me. And when you sing to me, because you don’t sing for anyone else. And when you agree to go to the school dances with me, even though I know you hate dressing up… And when you tell me that you love me, too. That’s the most important thing, Hiroto…”

Honda had been listening intently to the other’s words, and when Otogi trailed off, he couldn’t help but lean over to press his lips softly to the older boy’s. A lot was conveyed in that kiss - gratitude, most assuredly, and love as well. The taller boy pulled back after a moment, and grinned. “’Didn’t think I was the romantic type.”

“You just don’t realize that you’re being romantic,” Otogi replied, smiling right back. “But you are, I assure you. Here… your turn.” He handed Honda the die.

Honda took the die from his boyfriend agreeably, and rolled it. It landed on ‘three.’ He reached for his white pawn, and moved it three spaces forward on the opposite side of the board. The message there was read out loud. “Let’s see… It says, ‘Find a favorite area of your partner’s body and give it pleasure.’” His eyebrows shot up at that, not expecting an instruction like that on his first turn. His gaze rose to his boyfriend.

That smirk was back on Otogi’s face now as he asked, “Do you need me to move, Tiger? Lie down, sit, or…?”

“No… there’s good,” Honda replied, calmer now, already knowing what his favorite area of Otogi’s body was. He reached out to take Otogi’s right hand first, then next, the left. He pressed warm kisses to the inside of each palm, and over the other’s knuckles. The tip of his tongue barely grazed the length of each finger as Honda’s continued his worshipping of his lover’s hands. When he reached the top of those fingers, he slowly took each fingertip into his own mouth, one by one, to suck at them gently. Finally, he pressed a few more slow kisses to the outside of the other’s thumbs, then looked up at the other boy to see Otogi’s reaction.

The older boy, actually, was uncharacteristically speechless at first. His smirk had faded shortly after the other boy began, and he just stared into his lover’s eyes now, sober, feeling a pleasant warmth spread throughout his chest. “…’didn’t know you liked my hands that much.”

“Oh, yeah,” Honda replied, grinning again. “I think about ‘em all the time. That’s what I first paid attention to when I first saw you, you know? You doing those dice tricks for the girls… I really like these.” He raised the other’s hands to his lips again to press one final kiss against them, and then he released those hands, giving them back to the other boy finally. “…your turn?”

“Yeah… my turn,” Otogi replied, and scooted over a little more to kneel beside Honda on the bed. He lifted those hands, dry now, but still tingling a little from the other’s kisses, to curl around the back of Honda’s head, holding him in place. He leaned his own head in, then, to press a gentle kiss to each of his partner’s eyelids… then down to the bridge of the other’s nose… then down further still to press those lips softly against the other’s. His fingers sifted through his lover’s hair, then moved forward a little so that he could trace his fingertips over Honda’s ears. Otogi liked everything there… Honda’s eyes, his hair, his lips… everything. He remained right where he was for a moment, and his own eyes closed as he let himself become lost in that kiss, for however long it lasted.

Soon enough, he pulled back to smile at the other helplessly. “How’s that?” he asked.

“Hey, you went all over,” Honda observed. “I don’t think that’s allowed in the instructions.” But he was smiling, and his voice wasn’t all that convincing. The feel of Otogi’s lips against his skin had been wonderful.

“It didn’t look like you were complaining while I was doing it…” Otogi replied with a smirk, mirroring Honda’s thoughts. “All right, all right. No more cheating, I promise. But it’s my turn to roll now.” He took the die from the board, and rolled it again. Two. He moved his red pawn two spaces forward, and sat back down instead of kneeling, so as to read the instructions. “It says… ‘Share one commitment you have for your partner and your relationship.’”

It wasn’t hard at all for Otogi to come up with an answer for that. Almost immediately after reading the instructions, he continued, “I’m never going to want anyone else, Hiroto… You’re all that I want, you know that.” He looked into the other’s eyes, and reached up to brush the backs of his fingers against Honda’s cheek. “You’re all I could ever want… God, you give me so much, Hiroto, and sometimes you don’t even realize it, but… you make me so happy…. really happy. So much so that I can’t get enough of you sometimes… Just to be around you is enough for me… I never want to lose that. And if I have any say in the matter… I won’t lose you.”

Honda took Otogi’s hand, and held it against his cheek, twining their fingers together. “I know, ‘Yuuji… I know you’d never do anything like that. And I know you wanna stay… And I feel the same way too, pal. And I’m never gonna leave, either, like I’ve told ya before. I’d change for you… Leave Domino to be with you… even if it was hard at first. I can’t do it without you.”

Otogi’s expression softened. He’d heard those words before, but they continued to completely tame him every time he listened to them. He curled his free arm around the other’s neck, and nestled his face in against the crook of the other’s neck. “’Can’t do it without you, either.”

The taller boy circled his other arm around Otogi’s middle, and held him close. It was nice like this, so close to the other boy… and for a few minutes, he had forgotten that they were playing a game. He was too lost in feeling the other’s warm form against his own, and reciting the other’s loving words in his head, that the outside world seemed nonexistent for the time being.

After a little while, however, Honda lowered his head to nuzzle his partner’s temple, then said softly, “Hey… s’my turn now, yanno.” He grinned.

Otogi snickered softly, and raised his head. “Impatient are we? All right… Here.” He backed off, then, and handed the other boy the die for him to roll. But before Honda took it, he leaned over to press a kiss to the other’s cheek.

He rolled a six, and moved that many spaces forward on his side of the board. He read the instructions aloud. “It says… ‘Dance a slow, romantic dance with your naked bodies. Have music or not.’ Wha - naked?” His eyes widened, and he looked up at his boyfriend.

After seeing the younger boy’s expression, Otogi couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s wrong? If that’s what it says, then we have to do it.”

“But… I… mmf,” Honda replied, at a loss, and flushing a little.

“Aw, Hiroto… no one but me is going to see…” And that was true – the emerald green curtains in his room where closed, blinds shut tightly beneath them. Otogi lived alone, besides.

“It’s not that,” Honda protested. Actually, the problem was… being that close to his partner, and naked to boot, well… Honda figured after that, he wouldn’t be able to continue the game any longer. “’Suppose we… er, get distracted from the game after we do?”

“That’s the whole point of the game.”

“Oh. Yeah, but… I thought the game would be longer,” Honda corrected. “We’ve only had four turns.”

“We haven’t had four turns. Because we haven’t even done anything for this turn yet,” Otogi replied, voice impatient.

“Okay, okay!” Honda said, holding up his hands defensively. “We can dance. That’ll… be good. I’d like that.”

“Do you want music, babe?” Otogi asked, calmer now that Honda agreed to get on with his turn.

“I dunno… Should we?”

“Maybe… What about the one… that you sing to me? The one from the girly movie?” Otogi asked. He was referring to “Your Song,” from the movie, Moulin Rouge.

“It’s not a girly movie,” Honda replied, out of habit. It was obvious from the tone of his voice that they’d had this exchange several times before. But his voice calmed again after that. “Okay… we can listen to that.”

Otogi crawled over to sit on the edge of the bed, and pulled off his black leather boots. He stood, then, and walked to the other side of the bed to stand in front of his boyfriend, who had mirrored Otogi’s action of pulling off his shoes. “I want you to watch me, Hiroto…”

Honda certainly had no problem doing that. He watched as his lover slid off the headband that he always wore. The tie that bound his hair came next, and that dark hair fell free around Otogi’s shoulders, then. He let both items fall to the ground, starting a pile on the ground. His tee shirt, came next, the snug material pulled over his head, then fell to the floor. Honda couldn’t help but reach out to touch – his palms slid warmly over the other’s sides.

“Wait…” Otogi replied softly, with a shiver. “We have to dance… remember?”

Honda nodded, and dropped his hands reluctantly. He could honestly skip the dance by now, but it was clear his partner wanted to go along with the instructions for the game, so he acquiesced.

Otogi tugged at the catch of his own pants finally, unbuttoning, pulling down the zipper there, then sliding the rest of his garments to the floor, leaving him bare.

It was difficult for Honda to stop staring - damn, his boyfriend was sexy - but after a moment, he quickly reached for the bottom of his own shirt to pull it over his head, tossing it over with Otogi’s pile of clothing. He stood up, pushing Otogi a step back so that he’d have enough room to slide his own pants off.

Meanwhile, Otogi stepped over to grab his CD player’s remote control on the bedside table on that side of the bed. He often listened to “Your Song,” so the CD was already in the player. He pushed play, then pressed the ‘next’ button until he reached track number six. The volume was lowered a little, the song placed on ‘repeat,’ and then the remote abandoned as Otogi went back to his lover.

Honda, the taller of the two boys, took Otogi’s hand, leading him away from the bed. Otogi’s room was large, so there was plenty of room to move around it. The plush green carpet underfoot was more than comfortable on their bare feet.

As the song began, Otogi reached up to curl his arms around the other’s neck. This was supposed to be a slow dance, the instructions said, so he didn’t feel the need to have his arms down. Besides… he was closer to Honda this way, and he liked that.

The other boy’s arms remained low, encircling his partner’s waist and holding Otogi close against his own body. Honda liked the feel of his skin against his lover’s, and he began swaying slowly, moving with his partner to music. The song was slow at first, and fit nicely for a slow dance.

Otogi lowered his head to press gentle, warm kisses to the other’s neck as they moved, and Honda tilted his head to the side, resting his cheek against Otogi’s arm, to give the other boy more room to work with. His eyelids slid shut, and he concentrated on the feel of those lips against his skin.

The song grew louder, its pace just a little faster. Honda turned his head back to look at the other boy. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, as if speaking a silent language of lovers, one forehead resting against the other.

As if by instinct, both boys leaned in at the same time, pressing their lips together. Otogi’s arms dropped, hands resting instead on his lover’s chest, and Honda’s hands lifted to cup behind Otogi’s head, his fingers gently grasping handfuls of that beautiful dark hair. Both boys were too preoccupied to realize that their feet had ceased moving.

That kiss grew firmer… more heated, until they both were hungry for it, not wanting it to end. “Hiroto…” Otogi whispered after several warm moments, his breath quicker now after that kiss. “…let me love you.”

Almost breathless from that kiss, Honda just nodded quickly, not hesitating at all to be led over to the bed. He climbed on, and took a moment to push the game board to the ground carelessly. He turned, then, to face his partner as Otogi, too, crawled up.

Otogi settled in between the other’s legs, and pressed gently down on Honda’s shoulders, guiding him down to lie back on the black coverlet and pillows on the bed. Honda went without question, but only after his arms snugly circled the smaller boy’s form, just to make sure Otogi was coming down with him.

Bodies pressed against one another, legs intertwined, and Otogi explored the length of his lover’s body with his hands, his lips, his tongue. The younger boy’s back arched, and he let his head fall to the side, not bothering to fight the barrage of caresses from his lover. Arousal spiked, grew more intense, until both boys couldn’t still their desire to be joined. Their love-making was slower than usual, gentler, tamed by the loving words in the song playing in the background. Soon enough, however, their finish came, their pleasure swelling, then releasing at last.

Lightly covered with a sheen of sweat, both boys remained in each other’s arms, content in the afterglow of their union. Otogi snuggled his head in beneath Honda’s jaw, and the brunet stroked back his lover’s hair as he listened to the song, still playing in the background. Softly, he began singing along with Christian, his voice hushed, lulling his lover to sleep.