Archivist's note: "bibishii" means "beautiful" in Japanese.

Bibishii
by Laisia Laurant

His insomnia-induced wandering around the living room led him to Duo's laptop, but it was sheer boredom that led him to pick it up, go back into the bedroom, and sit on the bed next to the sleeping Duo with it. A quick button push and the volume was off. He opened the default web browser and opened Duo's favorite places list. Somehow, he wasn't surprised when he saw that it was mostly fanfiction websites. His lover was constantly trying to get him to read the stories, seeming to forget that Heero had no idea who the characters in them were.

Nevertheless, curiosity had been getting the better of him. Witnessing obsession did that to a person, he supposed. So he clicked one of the links and, once at the page, was given three choices: het, yaoi, yuri. He chose yaoi for obvious reasons -- well, obvious to himself -- and proceeded to choose a story about two characters from an anime he actually knew, Yu Yu Hakusho.

The story started with Hiei sitting on the bed next to a sleeping Kurama, plagued by insomnia. Heero smiled in spite of himself; now, if only Hiei was on a laptop. Ah well, close enough.

~~Hiei looked at the beauty sleeping beside him, drinking in the glory displayed there like a man lost in the desert upon finding an oasis.~~

Why did Duo read this crap? This was the stupidest thing Heero had ever read. But if that was true, why was he still reading?

~~Shining, smooth fire-red hair splayed over the black-cased pillow, creating a stark contrast.~~

In spite of himself, Heero found his eyes shifting to Duo, comparing the comparison. Duo's own long hair was half-wrapped around the sleeping figure, matted clumps of brown stuck to sleep-induced -- and induced by other earlier activities -- sweat that still shone a bit on his skin. Duo hated sleeping with his hair down, but he'd been too tired to do anything with it earlier. He was going to be a real bitch about it when he woke up, and Heero was going to have to help him with it. Too late now. As for the pillow, it was a starch-white cheap thing from the store two blocks down.

~~Full red lips were parted just slightly, barely moving from the easy, calming breaths of sleep that passed through them.~~

Slightly chapped lips were parted more than slightly, allowing the occasional fog horn of a snore to blast through them.

~~His whole body was an expanse of smooth, soft skin, perfect to the eye and to the touch.~~

Duo's skin was crisscrossed with battle scars. The tops of his thighs were covered in goosebumps, the consequence for sleeping naked with no covers. Heero reached over and pulled the blanket over his lover's sleeping form. Duo made a small noise in his sleep, grabbed for the covers, and clutched them, snuggling into them. A glaringly red pimple rested on the side of his nose, marring the supposedly perfect skin there. Light freckles dusted his nose and under his eyes, not the blatantly obvious kind, but the kind that you have to squint at to notice.

~~Long-fingered, elegant hands rested on the sheets, each finger topped by a well-crafted nail.~~

Duo's hands were practically square in their construction, and his fingers were relatively short. Some of his nails were chewed to something akin to nonexistence; the others were decorated by teeth-tortured hangnails. Calluses adorned parts of his palms.

~~His frame was lean and compact, all slender limbs and a smooth midsection.~~

Muscles rippled through Duo's limbs; they were far from slender. His arms were a study of shadow because of it, as were his legs that were now covered by the ratty old gray blanket. A smooth midsection would have been nice, but the muscles Duo owned there were starting to get overshadowed by the junk food belly he was acquiring. He was hardly fat, very far from it, but the days of the washboard stomach were ending. Someday, Heero promised himself, he was going to hide the Oreos and forbid all consumption of potato chips. Just... not today. Or tomorrow.

~~All in all, he was more perfect than a model in any magazine.~~

Duo was hardly perfect, that was for sure. The more that Heero looked at him, the more he saw that Duo was a long shot from anyone from any of these stories.

~~He was beautiful.~~

He was beautiful.