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Try as he might, Kosei had often sought out softness because he'd never been permitted it. Of course, not explicitly so, he'd never openly admit to craving that kind of intimacy. Maybe it was Enzo too, the fact he trusted him even when he probably shouldn't have. That or maybe he was just easy to break down because the control he'd held was so tiring. He didn't know, but Enzo had managed with relative and annoying ease.
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Kosei frowned at that response immediately wanting to launch into a slew of questions. Why? specifically. It was funny because typically with a six-year-old he hated any question that started with why. Now he was wanting to ask for minute details when there were probably bigger questions to ask. Though, why were you being tracked? Seemed like a good place to start.
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"Okay," As much as he tried to sound even about it, there was an unavoidable pleased edge to his tone. Enzo trusted him, that always felt like a lot. Though maybe he might have wished for that trust sooner, he knew that Enzo had a rougher life than his. It was different from his, at least.
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He laid down beside him, smiling because there was something almost childish about this. Like crouching in Miu's blanket forts so she could tell him top secrets. Without thought, he reached forward and brushed the other man's hair back. "I like when you're sappy." He laughed though and decided not to drag him through it much further.
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"Where are you from? What were you running from?"



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vincenzo de luca

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How easily pleased Kosei seemed to be with that openness. Enzo made a mental note to do better with it. Be better. He’d never wanted to be better because of someone else before. Only himself. Kosei really had become something special hadn't he? Or was that always the case?[break][break]

His eyes fell shut for a brief moment, soaking in the feeling of fingers sliding over his face to brush away stray hair. The simple domesticity of it made something in his heart shudder, though not in a terrible way. “Of course you do, you’re a big softie.” he murmured, smiling with his eyes still closed. There was no backing out now, on the cusp of sharing everything he’d kept locked away for no one to know. There was no remorse. Maybe a little trepidation, but it was disguised well.[break][break]

“I always said Sootopolis, but that was just where I landed. I’m from Paldea.” He puffed out a breath. “I never really considered it running from something so much as running toward something. You’re not the only one with family baggage, you know.” The words were teasing in their inflection, and he reached out to poke his nose afterward.[break][break]

“I wanted things for myself. I was tired of being the one depended on. I wanted more, and I wanted the space to do that without being followed by even one sibling or tie. And I didn’t want anyone to know and then chastise me for leaving.” He cracked a tired grin, with a scoff of dry laughter.[break][break]

“It was selfish, and many might call it cruel to leave my siblings in a situation they couldn’t control, but when you’re desperate, tunnel vision becomes much easier to embrace.” And like a child, he hadn’t wanted to be reprimanded. Because he had still been a child, more or less. A tired, fed up kid with ideas bigger than his life had ever been able to provide.

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"Paldea?" He muttered in response, not really asking as question so much as ruminating on the thought. He'd never been there, but he'd been to few places in the world. Vastness was a thing he'd never really felt comfortable with. Instead, he restricted himself to small-world thinking. Enzo had always been the one with big plans in mind. Kosei had simply followed him, like a small fish catching a ride on a bigger predator. He'd never done much more than eat off the scraps, but that was an insecurity for another time. It felt nice though, knowing that he was permitted more context to someone who clearly meant so much to him. Try as he might to shake loose and try to build up his own rickety life.
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Laying together like they were, it seemed far softer than they had any right to be. "Sounds like you were just a kid too, so... it's not selfish. No kid should have that kind of responsibility." It made sense though, why Enzo had always been more of the natural with Miu. Kosei had floundered, he'd been an only kid and had never really been allowed to make friends. Other kids had never really entered his life except in comparison. A 'look how great his son is, why can't you be as good?' kind of tool used against him. Enzo had always been such a natural that at first Kosei had taken it personally, like his daughter didn't want him either. It was stupid, he could be stupid.
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"Soooo, you came to Hoenn to build a hotel?" He smirked at that, little huff of laughter. Though he knew that Rocket had entered the equation well before that, for both of them. Though they both looked at Rocket a little differently.
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"Why didn't you tell me about this?"



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vincenzo de luca

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“Mmhm, Cortondo.” A simple reply. Idle humming rather than actually speaking much. His scope of his home region was limited. Most kids his age were sent off to school and from there thrust out into the world to study and explore it, then grow. He didn’t get that luxury. He was too busy trying to scrape together and save whatever money his mother or few older siblings made before she spent it on cheap, stupid shit. Or trying to make sure the litany of younger siblings ate that day, or were properly entertaining so that they didn’t go full scale melt down. In most cases, they still did. But he learned how to stretch dollars into each penny, he got good at studying the tics of others until he could preemptively divert disaster. Most importantly, he learned how to carve out his own time so that he stayed sane.[break][break]

But eventually even that wasn’t enough for all of the ideas up in his too big head.[break][break]

He had never imagined a moment like this one. The desire to share any of this had been locked up so tightly, he wasn’t sure when all of the deadbolts had come undone. But huddled on the bed as they were now, with no more than lamplight, and still fully dressed in their evening attire, something about it felt so stupidly right. It was laughable, really, and the sound crawled up his throat–disbelieving, before he could attempt to swallow it back down. The justification, though, soon drew a sigh to replace the sound. “No, but I did. And I figure they all resent me now, but cutting everything off meant that I didn’t have to think about it.” Even as trapped as he had felt, though, he’d still been far freer than Kosei ever had. His own entanglements were all created for him, rather than forced upon him. Built out of an obligation as one of the elder siblings, instead of a hyper-scrutiny to be a golden child in the eyes of his mother.[break][break]

Enzo wasn’t sure she ever looked twice at him if she could help it. Maybe when he was little, he would’ve given anything to have her look at him and see him and care, but it was a hope that shriveled up and died quickly. He’d learned fast the freedom in the lack of supervision over him. He had loved the littles, though, before he’d taught himself to care less, and sever the attachment. It bled over into the way he’d treated Miu from the moment Kosei turned up with her, clueless and overwhelmed. In a way, taking care of her had relieved some of that lingering guilt.[break][break]

“Ha. Wouldn’t that be a thought. No, I just came to find…something.” What he’d found, of course, had been Rocket. And eventually, he’d learned how to mesh his goals with the organization. Had fallen out when the first order had crumbled. Then came back when jayden cross turned up in his office with ideas of a new structure. Always innovative, because it suited his interests. “I didn’t tell anyone,” he shrugged, “even now. You’re the first. It made it easier to separate myself from it. That way it wasn’t possible to be used against me.”

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"That shouldn't have been made your problem." Maybe he had no right to say it. Maybe he didn't understand the complexities of their family. Kosei couldn't be sure, but he knew how it felt to be weighted down with additional responsibilities that no kid should have. He knew how it felt to have expectations thrust upon him and setting him up to fail. His hands slipped up to drift across exposed skin, softer than he'd ever dared to be with Enzo before. It made him feel exposed, like he was waiting for Enzo to push him away and tell him it was too much.
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Maybe he'd put expectations on Enzo too, to fill a lapse in comfort that the other had never wanted to fill. There was no room for guilt, but still the thought flickered in the back of his mind. "I'm sure they don't hate you though. It's been years, that's a long time to hold a grudge. I'm sure they've realized that wasn't your job to perform." He shrugged, but had no way of knowing. It was just talk, likely entirely unhelpful talk at that. Still, he wanted to comfort him anyways. Was that so wrong?
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"Something, hmm mysterious." He laughed, lips curving in a teasing smile. Though his expression slipped away, knowing that he too had been seeking something. He never found it, he'd found something else. Then, he had Miu and that unknown something mattered a lot less to him. Still, it had persisted. As much as the other liked to tease him, there was truth in it, Kosei was just a dog without a job. Hopelessly lost, pawing through the dirt of a scent it couldn't detect.
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"Are you afraid I'll use it against you now?"

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vincenzo de luca

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[attr="class","star2"]A breath of laughter. Dry, but amused. “No, probably not.” But it was what had happened all the same. There was no changing it, and he’d long accepted it for what it was. He’d moved through the stages of being indignant and angry, and he’d done something about it. He’d left. They both had—even if Kosei had hung onto some of his more stubborn traits for a good stretch. Fingers drifted across skin and his eyes fell shut at the contact, welcoming of it. Pleased like a coddled cat.[break][break]

The attempted reassurance drew another laugh, though. “Sorry, have you met me? Do I let things go? What makes you think that the rest of my family isn’t the same?” Serrano pettiness, Serrano grudge holding. He knew what he’d been signing up for the day he’d left. Not that he was critical now. Only playfully amused.[break][break]

Enzo scoffed. “Hardly mysterious.” All he’d wanted was to make something of himself. To establish himself on his terms and flex that independence when anything felt too close for comfort. It was some grand sense of irony that he didn’t even flinch away from this vulnerability now. He’d spent so long pushing away from anything that drew too close only to fall headlong into it the moment it was offered again. Had he found what he was looking for after all? Perhaps he had.[break][break]

But it wasn’t his successes that came to mind when he asked himself as much. Weirdly enough.[break][break]

He exhaled through his nose, long and slow. Violet eyes cracked open to peer at Kosei. Close, warm, constant. Though he tried to keep his expression neutral so that he might properly tease the other, he found that the corners of his mouth stubbornly twitched upward. Ridding him of the chance to playfully fib. His hand stretched to tuck loose hair away, then absently traced the lines of Kosei’s face with his thumb. “No. Can’t say I am.”

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"Dunno suppose I was naïve, but you're right. You are very petty, the saltiest man I've ever met." As if he were one to talk. Grudges might have been exhausting to him as well, but he'd let a petty grudge keep them apart for years now. Though, maybe part of that was made in fear, he didn't really want to say.
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"You know," He shifted a little to look at him a little more closely. "I used to always wonder why Rocket never came after me." As if he hadn't suspected. At one time, he'd hated the thought, forced it under the surface. He'd wanted to believe that he'd dodged a bullet, instead he'd been protected by someone that he'd sworn to despise. It always felt like failure, but he'd also never thanked him for it. "Any idea about that?"
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Kosei snorted at that, feeling himself soften until he felt like putty under those hands. The unexpected softness of fingers drawing across his face. They shouldn't be allowed to be this soft with one another. It was an abandonment of logic and reason, it was not what he'd been taught. He didn't feel like he deserved it, but what else was new. "Not even sure what I'd do with that information."



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[attr="class","star2"] “And don’t you forget it,” he retorted with another scoff of laughter. “Though you’re pretty formidable yourself.” He wasn’t quick to forget their falling out, even now with the way things had changed. He’d told Kosei it wasn’t worth continued apologies, that it was over and done with, and Enzo stood by it. But that didn’t mean that the memory didn’t linger. He knew how they could class like opposing forces, and while he wasn’t normally one to cave, there was still the ever present reminder that he'd been the one to back off first.[break][break]

And by the sound of it, it seemed Kosei had put two and two together. A low hum of acknowledgement rumbled in his throat as one eye cracked open to peer at Kosei as he scrutinized him. A slow grin spread across his face as that same eye fell shut again. “I have no utter idea what you’re talking about.” An obvious lie. “I just pulled a few strings, that’s all.”[break][break]

More than a few, given the fact that it had taken Kosei six years to come around, but still.[break][break]

“Well, hopefully nothing.” His smile morphed into a smirk as he shifted closer, finally regaining some of his normal demeanor. Poking at the other until he fell back and Enzo could hover over him. It was strange repeatedly falling into bouts of sentimentality. Particularly when they left him more vulnerable than he’d started out. The ache in his chest was the good sort. An affection he’d let grow at some point.[break][break]

His tie dangled between them, and it was only then that he realized he’d forgotten to take it off. He reached up to loosen the knot at his throat. “So don’t go getting any wild ideas.”
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"Yeah, suppose I am." Probably even more so, but it was too late to go feeling sorry over it. Even if the guilt was still present. He'd not been petty, he'd been angry. And stupid, of course. Once again, going out of his way to prove nothing to nobody, hurting himself in the process. The comfort he felt, curled up against Enzo, shouldn't have been so natural. Even then, he curled up closer. His fingers drew between layers of clothing and sheet, lightly running over warm skin on the other man's lower back. Not really enticing anything, but simply enjoying the contact itself.
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"Yeah?" He was silent for a moment, half appreciating while also deprecating himself for not immediately realizing it. Enzo had done so much for them even after all that. "Weren't you mad?" It sounded dumb, but he was still genuinely curious. Would he have been the better man if the roles were reversed?
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"Hmph well you know me, more bark than bite." At least when Enzo was involved. Kosei was a man of big promises, but very little else. Usually, it was a source of disdain, but in this instance, he was thankful he'd not gone out of his way to do anything stupid in petty revenge over nothing.
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"No worry about that," He said, smiling as he reached forward to undo the other's tie for him.


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[attr="class","star2"] “Yeah, of course I was mad,” he replied. A soft snort of incredulity followed, “there’s no way you’ve forgotten that fight.” The big one, the falling out. Even if it was in the past and he no longer harbored any more deep resentment for how it had played out, it was still something he’d be hard pressed to forget. In the weeks that had followed, he was fairly sure he’d replayed it in his mind enough times for it to stick there forever. But he’d been young and stupid and headstrong.[break][break]

They both had.[break][break]

And maybe five or six years wasn’t really all that long in the grand scheme of things, but that had been time enough to feel a lot further away from how he’d used to be. Even if that version of him still lived somewhere under his skin and showed up in little habits like frugality over things like food and cooking versus dining out. Or a particular brand of mouthiness and lack of poised formality that only Kosei managed to provoke.[break][break]

Enzo shrugged then, “But even if I was mad, didn’t mean I wanted to find out you’d been given the chop.” He wasn’t that vindictive. Usually. Not with the people who counted, anyways. Maybe that wasn’t so obvious because the people who fell into that camp were few and far between.[break][break]

“I do know you,” he retorted, grin lopsided as he peered down at Kosei, “no more than an overgrown puppy as far as I’m concerned.” He felt himself tugged down naturally as the other unfastened the knot of his tie. Not quite able to help himself as he leaned forward to kiss the underside of his jaw. An inquisitive hum wordlessly asking if he should continue.[break][break]

Though the reassurance did draw a belated snicker, “Good to know. If that’s so, maybe you should call me Luca right now. See what happens~”

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