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Kagami Arata had a small, splotchy birthmark on the small of his back shaped like a lopsided heart.
He had no idea that it was there until his college boyfriend had pointed it out one night, poking it casually after a bout of rigorous sex. Excited, Kagami had tried and tried to see it, looking ridiculous as he contorted himself in his tiny bathroom, angling himself in front of the mirror. Takumi had laughed himself sick watching Kagami try to prop himself up on the sink, naked, bracing himself with one arm against the doorframe, leg dangling off the edge of the vanity. In the end he had bruises all over his thighs where the sharp corners of the vanity jut into his legs and he'd given up, settling instead for a grainy picture taken on Takumi's new cell phone.
Lying on the futon later that night, Takumi's head pillowed on his chest, he'd stared at the picture in the cell phone, rotating the screen so he could see it at different angles and thumbing the buttons whenever the screen went dim. Finally, Takumi had grumbled sleepily at him, demanding that he put the phone away and go to sleep now, damnit, before the battery died completely.
After Takumi had fallen asleep, Kagami had reached over and picked up the cell phone again, flipping it open and staring at the picture in the dark. He felt dumb for being so excited about a stupid birthmark, but it made him feel special, like he wasn't just Kagami Arata - rebellious son of the police chief, itinerant dreamer and hopeless naïf. Birthmarks were for special people, right? Like in the stories, they were keys to mysteries and adventures and a life more interesting than ramen noodles and textbooks. When he'd tried to explain it to Takumi the next morning, his boyfriend had just laughed at him and asked if he'd studied for his statistics exam. Kagami could only sputter and accuse him of being an insensitive jerk.
Three weeks later, Takumi broke up with him in a public park where they'd gotten angry and yelled and screamed and generally embarrassed themselves as only kids in love could. It ended with Kagami punching his jerk ex-boyfriend in a red haze of jealous hurt and running off to cry himself hoarse in an alleyway beside a public elementary school like the idiot he was. That night, while getting miserably drunk and trying to remove every last reminder of Takumi from his tiny apartment, Kagami had collapsed in a heap on the floor, having come to the conclusion that the only way to do so was either to burn down the apartment or move into another one.
He resolved to do the latter and right before passing out, Kagami realized that the picture of him and his birthmark were still on Takumi's cell phone.
Life eventually moved on, and Kagami forgot all about Takumi, but not his birthmark, which he eventually bought a cheap, full-length mirror just so he could see it. Graduation came and went, and Kagami was recruited to Zect right out of college as he wandered from job interview to job interview with no idea of where he wanted to be – of what he wanted to be - until a stern, elegant man in a dark suit had stopped him outside his new apartment and introduced himself as Tadokoro-san.
Kagami figured being a protector of innocents was exactly everything he'd ever wanted and toasted his success with a bottle of beer and some cookies after landing the job. Lying on his futon that night, he'd rubbed his lower back absently, feeling for his birthmark over the expanse of smooth skin, thinking of all the exciting times ahead.
The job was somehow both exciting and totally boring at the same time, and Kagami should have known that being a junior flunky in a secret organization was just like being a junior flunky anywhere else, only slightly more hazardous and a probably more humbling. But it didn't matter, because all junior flunkies eventually worked their way up the ladder and Kagami resolved both to make something of himself and to save other people's brothers from being eaten by monsters. And maybe - just maybe - he could one day be that hero too.
Eventually, he met Tendou, who succeeded in making him feel as un-special and un-heroic as a snapping turtle.
Jerk.
Well, it turned out that Tendou wasn't really a jerk, at least not all the time and mostly not on purpose, except for when he was around Kageyama, which was more than okay as far as Kagami was concerned. No, Tendou was just a really talented guy who had very, very bad social skills, or so Kagami concluded after an extended acquaintance.
Kagami was not completely wrong.
He finally saw Tendou in action, infiltrating a corporate office with the charismatic ease of a wolf cosplaying as a sheep, or however that American saying went. Tendou's understanding of people and the ease with which he'd turned them to his needs was frightening. Kagami didn't know what think and pondered it over a bowl of ramen with Masaki-san, who just snorted into her food - all but laughing at him - which left him even more confused since Masaki-san was too tough to laugh and somehow made wearing high heels seem completely badass.
Eventually, Kagami figured it out: Tendou had no social skills around people he liked.
It took a fair amount of kissing and groping to make Kagami understand, and who could blame him? What adult did the equivalent of pulling someone's hair to express their admiration? Kagami was more than okay with traditional indications of courtship like the making of bentos and such. He always hummed happily to himself when Tendou fed him, wishing that his dumb genius boyfriend had just been more straightforward, because they'd wasted months that could have been productively spent making-out in Tendou's kitchen and eating delicious miso mackerel or ojiya with eggs like normal people.
But it was okay in the end, because they were together, Juka-chan was happy that Tendou was happy, and Tendou was happy for unknown reasons, but Kagami guessed that maybe he figured into that happiness somehow. Not that he could bring himself to think too hard on it as he'd given up on getting Tendou to actually say things out loud and just resorted to watching him carefully for any indications of imminent break up.
Lying on his stomach in Tendou's bed one afternoon, basking sleepily in the warm sunlight, Kagami was poked awake by Tendou's hand on his lower back.
"You have a birthmark."
"Mmm . . . yeah," Kagami yawned, stretching, Tendou's hand still warm and unmoving where it covered his birthmark.
"It's shaped like a heart."
Fingers lightly traced the outline on his skin, and Kagami laughed, squirming away to escape the ticklish caress, which only initiated playful tussling that ended with Kagami dumped out of the bed onto the cold floor, wrapped in all the bedding and Tendou naked on top of him chuckling and calling him an interesting guy.
Jerk.
Eventually, they'd settled back in bed, not having to keep an eye on the clock because Juka-chan was sleeping over a friend's house, and dinner wasn't until later that night, since Tendou had decided that they were going to watch fireworks in the park and as such, Oba-san had said blah, blah, blah, which really meant that Kagami would just have to suck it up and wait to enjoy his food like a real man or something to that effect. So instead, Kagami nibbled on crackers, had more sex with his weird boyfriend, and generally enjoyed an afternoon with no work, Worms, or touchy, abusive zectors.
"You know," Tendou spoke after a long while, startling Kagami out of his half-dose.
"What?" Kagami slurred, turning on his side as Tendou slithered up behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist, all warm, hard muscle against his back and hot breath on his shoulder and the light brush of his eyelashes on Kagami's neck.
"Only special people have birthmarks."
Kagami smiled and murmured his agreement, because honestly? Who really ever won an argument with Tendou?