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"Yuuri," Wolfram said one day, flipping through a book, "what time were you born?"
Yuuri frowned at this seemingly arbitrary question. "I don't really remember? I'm sure my mom has it written down somewhere, though. I think it was sometime in the afternoon, though, because she didn't have to spend the night at the hospital."
"Well, you should ask her," Wolfram said, as if it was as important as getting vaccination shots or something.
"Well, when were you born?" Yuuri retorted.
"Ten in the morning," he said promptly. "Twelfth day of the fifth month, not that you ever bothered to ask my birthday."
"Oh, as if you know my birthday."
"Of course I know your birthday!" Wolfram looked offended. "Weller was there, remember?"
Of course Yuuri remembered, but he hadn't imagined Wolfram would have bothered asking Conrad. "Okay, but why are you asking?"
"I'm doing your astrological chart," Wolfram informed him. "In order to better understand the challenges in our relationship."
Yuuri resisted the urge to ask what relationship? and instead said "You really believe that stuff? Like what blood type you are and year of the rat and everything?"
"Our astrology is useful and informative," Wolfram said firmly. "Nothing like the weird superstitions from your world. Why would a rat have its own year?"
As doubtful as he was that Shin Makoku's zodiac could be somehow less weird than the ones he was used to (and hey, blood type might sound odd at first but a lot of reasonable people had strong feelings about it!) Yuuri decided if nothing else, it would be good for a laugh. "Okay, I'll ask my mom later. Is that all you need, birth time?"
"The location is supposed to be important too, but since I can't think of an equivalent country for your Japan, I'm putting you down as being born in the capital," Wolfram said, scribbling something down.
"You know, I wasn't actually born in Japan…" Yuuri began, but Wolfram wasn't listening.
"Even without knowing what time you were born, it looks like there's a lot of fire in your chart, like mine."
"Wasn't my element supposed to be water?" Yuuri ventured.
Wolfram scoffed. "Astrology doesn't have anything to do with your maryoku! It's a personality thing."
Yuuri wisely refrained from saying that he didn't see the difference.
"Anyway, your sun and my moon are under the same sign, which is supposed to be very good for marriage. But it says here that you're very careless and weak to gambling and losing money."
"Wait, what? Since when do I gamble?"
"Since never, because I am not letting you waste the crown's money. See how lucky you are to have me?"
Yuuri sighed. "Give me that." He peered at the page, running his thumb over the characters just in case they were raised enough for him to read. "Hey, hey, I know this word. This is… changeable? Fickle?"
"You do have a wandering eye," Wolfram said sourly.
"I do not," Yuuri grumbled. "It's called being friendly-- you should try it sometime." He looked at the rest of the page, and was rather surprised. "Thighs? Does this say 'they usually have nice thighs'? Seriously?"
Wolfram refused to comment but blushed hotly.
Yuuri shook his head. "You know what, I don't want to know. Have your weird book back." He threw it, and Wolfram caught it with one hand, flipping back to where he'd left off. "Honestly, I can't believe you won't give baseball a shot, Wolfram. With hand-eye coordination like that, I'm sure you'd be really good at it."
"I'm not wasting my time with your ridiculous ball games."
He really could have said that better.
Wolfram narrowed his eyes. "What's so funny?"
Yuuri managed to say, "I thought you liked balls," before collapsing in a fit of immaturity.
"Why would you ever think that? And why are you still laughing?"
Something was definitely being lost in translation, Yuuri decided. Wolfram was looking at him as though he'd completely lost his mind. They must have some different euphemisms than the ones Yuuri was familiar with. One of these days he'd say something perfectly innocuous about… apples, or something, and everyone would be horrified at his vulgarity.
Then again, maybe Wolfram was just particularly literal.
By the time Yuuri had recovered, Wolfram was deep in his book again. "'You fear betrayal and abandonment'-"
"Well, doesn't everybody?" Yuuri complained. "It's not like there are people going around saying 'gee I really hope to get betrayed and abandoned today'. That's the kind of vague sentence they put in to make you think this stuff is real."
Wolfram ignored him. "'Believes strongly in justice, enormously persuasive', pff, not always. 'Demands loyalty and attention'--"
"That last bit sounds more like you than me."
"And is there anything wrong with that?" Wolfram resumed. "'Women are obsessed with your mysterious aura'-"
"Oh, come on! Nobody's obsessed with me but you! And you can't tell me you think I have a 'mysterious aura'!"
"I'm not obsessed!" Wolfram said petulantly. "Who could be obsessed with a wimp like you?"
Yuuri rolled his eyes. "That's what I was saying, except for the part about me being a wimp, which I am not."
"'Stubborn and proud'-"
"Again, that's you."
"Will you shut up? This is important."
"How is this important?" Yuuri retorted. "And why are you just going through the list of my supposed traits? What about your astrological chart?"
"What about it?" Wolfram said sourly.
"If Shin Makoku astrology is so useful, what does it say about you?" Yuuri felt he was being very reasonable in an extremely unreasonable situation. "Don't I get to know your horrible secrets or whatever?"
Wolfram considered the question. "I don't have any horrible secrets. And you know me better than you think you do, but as a reward for taking an interest in making our marriage work, I'll help you look up my chart."
Yuuri sighed. "That's very generous of you, Wolfram."
"I know."
Yuuri got up and sat down next to Wolfram, peering over his shoulder as Wolfram flipped through the pages too rapidly for him to recognize more than a word here and there.
"Here. This one's my sun and moon combination. Earth and fire is a very goal oriented combination, you know."
"Uh-huh," Yuuri said absently, squinting at the characters. "Okay, that's earth and… ownership? You own the earth? That can't be right… wait, maybe it's 'possessive'. Earthy possessiveness… I'm not sure what's so earthy about it. 'May be considered… jealousy…' okay, that's just ridiculous. Possessive and jealous are the same thing!"
Wolfram sniffed. "I wouldn't be jealous if you weren't so openly flirtatious with everyone."
"But I'm not. And the book even says you're possessive! I mean, Wolfram, seriously." Yuuri leaned in more to make his point, and Wolfram's eyes widened. "Do you really think I'm going to go off and start making out with people? Whatever this stupid chart says, I'm not that kind of guy. And even if I was, I still wouldn't do it because I know it would hurt you."
Wolfram's cheeks went pink, and it was kind of adorable. "Hmph! Don't try and sweet-talk me."
Yuuri grinned, because coming from Wolfram that was practically an apology. "Hey, maybe I am enormously persuasive!"
Wolfram glared at him, though it wasn't exactly his best effort. "That better not mean you were lying!"
"Of course it doesn't. But…" Yuuri couldn't resist adding, "you got pretty worked up for somebody who's not obsessed with my aura or whatever it was."
Wolfram flushed again, and crossed his arms. "Just because I care about our marriage! Don't get cocky. Wimp."
Yuuri decided to chalk that one up as a victory. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that last part."
There were a bunch of big words in the next bit that Yuuri didn't want to bother with, so he skimmed past them. Mostly at this point he was looking for something new to tease Wolfram about. "It says once you make up your mind, you don't budge. Good thing we know that's not true, huh? 'Not always the best judge of character'…"
"I am an excellent judge of character!" Wolfram tossed his head. "Better than you are, that's for sure."
Yuuri had actually made that last bit up, but now that he knew Wolfram wasn't going to check the book… "Hmm, it says you're very modest. Prudish, even."
Wolfram made an outraged noise, and Yuuri tried not to laugh. "Just because I don't flaunt myself like some people! Hmph. You must not be looking in the relationship section."
Now that threw Yuuri for a loop. "I… what?"
Wolfram was looking pink again but he stared Yuuri down defiantly. "Go ahead. See how prudish I am."
Yuuri honestly had no idea if Wolfram was telling him to keep reading or… do something else. They were sitting really close to each other. Great, now his face was getting hot.
Abruptly, Wolfram yanked the book out of Yuuri's hands, and started flipping through it again. Yuuri wasn't sure if he was relieved or not.
"There! Love astrology, spring births. Boastful and confident!" Wolfram jabbed a passage that Yuuri couldn't read because of Wolfram half covering it with his hand. "Always takes the lead. Not wishy-washy."
"It doesn't say that!"
"Well, it should."
Yuuri threw up his hands. "Gah! How did we even get into this? Astrology is stupid!"
Wolfram turned the page without comment, then suddenly went bright red.
"Wolfram?"
"Nothing! Hmph, astrology is stupid." Wolfram chucked the book across the room.
Well, now Yuuri had to know. "Wolfram… what did it say?"
"Nothing!"
It had to be good to get Wolfram to clam up. "What, was it something about your thighs for once?" Yuuri nudged him. "Or did you just spontaneously decide to do an impression of a tomato?"
"Shut up." But Wolfram was clearly fighting a smile! (Hey, at least Yuuri's jokes weren't as bad as Conrad's)
"Come on, at least tell me if it was about me or you. We already heard about how I'm a gambling flirt or whatever, clearly I need to know if you're a secret hoarder. Or a sandbear. You'd tell me if you were a sandbear, right, Wolfram? For the good of our relationship?" He had almost said for the good of our marriage which just went to show that Yuuri had been spending way too much time in Shin Makoku.
"I'm not a secret anything!" Wolfram said indignantly, which was probably true. (Wolfram wore his vices on his sleeve, proudly as anything else)
"So then it was about me!" Yuuri grinned. "More love astrology? I thought you were 'boastful and confident'?"
He was so convinced he had the upper hand, that when Wolfram slowly turned to him, it never occurred to Yuuri that there would be any other response other than more blushing and furious denials.
Instead Wolfram lifted his chin and said, "That's right, I am."
Then he kissed Yuuri.
It wasn't much of a kiss-- just a chaste peck on the lips. But for Yuuri, who'd never done any sort of kissing whatsoever, it was... it was like hitting the ball out of the park. Or having the ball hit him. He was so stunned that at first all he could do was stare at Wolfram.
It occurred to Yuuri, fuzzily, that he wasn't leaping back in revulsion or embarrassment at being misunderstood.
"Wimp," Wolfram muttered, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he turned away.
Wolfram. Without thinking, Yuuri tucked a loose strand of Wolfram's golden hair behind his ear. Wolfram's cheeks were going pink again, filling Yuuri with an inexplicable tenderness.
Why not, I guess.
Quickly, before he could second-guess himself, Yuuri leaned forward and kissed Wolfram by his ear.
Wolfram whirled around. "Yuuri?"
Yuuri's stomach was pounding. He was terrified, but he didn't want to take any of it back. "I'm not wishy-washy."
Wolfram was staring at him intently, almost suspiciously. Yuuri swallowed hard, but didn't look away. Slowly, he leaned in and closed the distance between them.
Again, just a peck. But it was still mouth to mouth contact, which was a huge deal, and probably not the most heterosexual thing in the world to do with your guy friend.
Yuuri had always assumed for all his confident bluster that Wolfram had… experience… with this stuff. But Wolfram looked every bit as dazed as Yuuri felt, and now they were both blushing.
Wolfram's nose brushed against Yuuri's, and Yuuri wondered if Wolfram was as conscious of Yuuri's warm breath as he was of Wolfram's. "Yuuri…"
Yuuri wanted to lean in again, to rest his forehead against Wolfram's, to stay like this forever. Words came slowly. "Yes, Wolfram?"
"You really need to stop eating so many onions."
Yuuri jerked his head up so fast he almost banged his forehead. "What?!"
"Your breath reeks!" Wolfram tossed his head. "It's inconsiderate."
"Inconsider-- I can't believe you!" Yuuri spluttered. "I kissed you! You kissed me!"
Apparently unmoved, Wolfram crossed his arms. "Yes, and if you want us to go on kissing, you're going to have to change your diet."
Yuuri groaned. "Are you even happy about this, or do you just have a list of complaints?"
"I don't have a list, I only thought you'd want to know," Wolfram said petulantly. "Of course I'm happy, you idiot." His cheeks were pink again, and Yuuri almost forgave him.
Almost.
"Well, good. But there is a time and a place for nitpicking about nice things that happen to you, and it is not… while they're happening to you."
Wolfram gave a long-suffering sigh. "You don't have to take everything so personally, you know."
"Because you never take things personally." Yuuri was grinning anyway. He bumped his knee against Wolfram's. "So, fine, you're confident, but what am I?"
Wolfram reddened, and mumbled something under his breath. Something something generous lover?!
Yuuri dove for the book to see for himself, and also maybe kind of so Wolfram wouldn't notice Yuuri was just as embarrassed, but before he could reach it, it burst into flames.
"I'll find another book," Wolfram muttered.