Chapter Text
The sky above the city was completely dark, save for the glowing yellow footprint of the sun over the obscured horizon. The backlit buildings barely cast shadows anymore, but light danced on the reflective street signs as cars rushed by. It was normal to see pedestrians outnumber the cars downtown, but this almost felt like they’d time traveled back to before cars were invented. The city wasn’t hit hard by the blackout, with only a few apartments on the edge of town without power. There was probably a massive generator hiding somewhere.
As the roads were empty, so too were the parking spaces. It was uncharacteristically easy to find a place close to their chosen restaurant. Under normal circumstances, they’d have to walk blocks and blocks just to get halfway. But the cold barely brushed their faces as they briskly walked through the double doors.
The restaurant itself, however, was packed. It was littered with crocheted tables and knitted chairs, so heavily draped with scarves, hats, and gloves. 90’s ska was barely audible over the collectively booming voices of people taking shelter from the cold.
Luckily, one two-top was still available, peeking out from behind the clamor. Various plants bordered the frosty window, blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked on the other side of it. A young man brushed crumbs off the tables with a cloth. A braid, laced with green ribbon and fastened with a sloppily-tied bow, brushed his shoulder as he worked. His brow was furrowed, his breaths quick and shallow. As soon as the last crumb was mopped up, he bolted for the employee-only section.
“Oh, Kagetsu!” a peppy, energetic voice called from the front kiosk. Behind it stood a girl, clad almost entirely in pink. She bore a striking resemblance to the boy who’d been cleaning the tables, right down to their similarly heart-shaped faces and ribbon-streaked braids. “Just the two of you tonight?”
“Framme! It is good to see you,” Kagetsu greeted. “Yes, just us too today. You may join us if you have time, though, too.”
Framme flashed them an animated smile. “It’s just me and Clanne today, unfortunately, so I can’t join you.”
“I see,” Kagetsu said. “That is unfortunate.”
She gathered two laminated menus in her arms and stepped off into the rabble, bouncing on her toes as she took long, exaggerated strides. “All right, right this way.”
They strode quickly past tables lined with ravenous, cold people and Kagetsu noticed the way he was sometimes followed by the curious gaze of the members of the chilly crowd. “It is not normally this full,” Kagetsu noted, unzipping his puffy coat and shrugging it off his shoulders.
Boucheron hummed in acknowledgement. He draped his coat across the back of his chair and heaved a relieved sigh. Without his coat, he was still by far the biggest person in the room, fully eclipsing the couple sitting behind them. Even with the conversations bouncing off the walls, eyes were drawn to him like magnets. Boucheron slouched under their curious gazes, but the shadow he cast over them was no smaller.
Framme placed the menus on the table: two sheets of laminated paper, with the plastic coating fraying at the corners from repeated use, along with a much newer strip of paper listing the specials.
“Alright, I’ll leave you to look it over,” she remarked, mostly to Boucheron, before pivoting on her toes and walking back toward the podium, where a line of shivering figures was rapidly forming.
“Hey, I’ve been curious,” Boucheron began, “I was surprised you offered to let me stay with you. Thank you again, by the way,” his voice faltered, “it was just… unexpected?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Kagetsu inquired, puzzled. “We’re friends, are we not?”
“Yeah, but…” Boucheron said, “we haven’t really been in contact since college.”
“What is wrong with catching up?” Kagetsu asked. They were roommates for a few academic years, and got pretty close in that time. The two of them formed a kind of symbiotic relationship, sort of like what Kagetsu had with Ivy and Zelkov. Kagetsu’s time with Boucheron was important to him, and to him, they’d always be lifelong friends. Right?
“It’s not that, it’s just…” Boucheron trailed off.
Kagetsu faltered, “do you not… want to be my friend anymore?” Did Boucheron not agree? Was Kagetsu’s bad habit of not cleaning regularly finally coming back to bite him? What if Boucheron never liked him in the first place? His eyes stung with premonitions of tears.
“N-no! I do! I really do! You’re a wonderful friend, Kagetsu,” Boucheron stressed.
“Then, what?” His voice broke a bit.
“We left things off… weirdly,” Boucheron sighed, shoving the air out of his lungs in pieces. “Do you recall? You…”
A lump formed in Kagetsu’s throat. He quickly swallowed it.
“...kissed me.”
“Nope!” Kagetsu shouted, his loud voice attempting to cut the quickly thickening tension. “I merely quizzed you, my friend. Though I do not fault you for forgetting the details.”
“Yeah…” Boucheron muttered, “just a ‘quiz’.” He rested his head in his hand, eyes gazing off into an already filling booth Clanne was cleaning, eyes half lidded and lip bitten. His expression was stained with an undeniable sadness, and Kagetsu wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Was he prematurely mourning their relationship, or mourning some specific moment in the past? The air between them was suffocatingly empty, aside from the stagnant emotions hovering over their dinner table. When their meals came, they ate in silence, unsaid thoughts thickening with every bite.
The air remained still between them as they exited the car and ascended the driveway, penguin walking carefully to the warmth the house would provide. Kagetsu reached the door first. In less than a blink, Kagetsu’s hand flew in and out of his warm pocket, and the door creaked open with barely an indication the handle was twisted at all.
“For the record, I predicted this.” Ivy’s voice fell past the crack of the door, stained by the sly smile on her lips.
“And to what court are you testifying tonight?” Zelkov remarked, “Because I predict your trial will be canceled as well.”
“Aren’t you just a riot this evening,” Ivy retorted, scowling.
“Is that what they were going to try you for?” Zelkov grinned, almost letting out a chuckle under his breath. “Disturbing the peace ?”
“What has been canceled?” Kagetsu said, shrugging off his coat as Boucheron walked in behind him. Ivy and Zelkov sat across from each other, Ivy on the armchair and Zelkov on the couch. Ivy’s legs dangled off one armrest while her back was pushed against the other, her purple bathrobe cascading over the cushions like a waterfall. Zelkov, too, dressed for comfort, but with the kind of thoughtful touch that implied an imminent public appearance followed by hours of unpleasant company and unwillingly-made in-flight purchases. He draped his wrist over the extended handle of his black suitcase. The coffee table was littered with objects from sketchbooks to crochet hooks, some half-shoved into a bag only barely passable as a carry-on.
“My flight to Firene’s Islands,” Zelkov clarified, “which would have already taken off about thirty minutes ago.”
“Oh, right,” Kagetsu said, “I predicted that.”
“Another premonition ?” Zelkov scoffed. “A notice would have been nice.”
“Not a vision, just obvious.”
“...you ass .”
“Regardless,” Ivy sighed, “we no longer have a free bed for you, Boucheron.”
Boucheron sighed. Of course, it was too good to be true, but at least he managed to warm up a bit over dinner. Maybe he could ask them to spare an extra blanket to take back to his igloo. “That’s all right.”
“NO! DO NOT LEAVE!” Kagetsu shouted.
“No, no, it’s all right,” Boucheron consoled him. “You don’t have the space for me, it’s that simple. Nobody’s fault, and I don’t want to be a bother. ”
“YOU CAN SLEEP IN MY BED!”
All eyes fell on Kagetsu at once.
“...what?” Kagetsu said, as if it was that easy.
“Kagetsu,” Ivy began, “you starfish when you sleep.”
“Yes?”
“Have you SEEN Boucheron? He won’t fit in there with you.”
“I’ll clean the floor. For me. He can take my bed, of course.”
Zelkov smirked, and Ivy erupted in a booming laugh Boucheron could never have guessed she had in her. As it died down, she chuckled, “You? Clean? HA! No.”
“I could!” Kagetsu protested, “Or, what if we squeeze together REALLY close?”
“Listen, go ahead and let him stay,” Ivy conceded, “but don’t be surprised when you find yourself sleeping on a pile of your dirty laundry.”
“I wouldn’t mind.” Lumera help me. I need him in my arms, he mused, and quickly shoved the thought down his throat before his foot could do it for him.
Boucheron’s face flushed furiously, heating like a furnace.
“It is decided, then,” Kagetsu said. “Boucheron will sleep with me tonight.”
“Let’s hope he means literally ,” Zelkov whispered to Ivy, her brow creased in consideration of a hotel room.
“This,” Kagetsu said, twisting the knob, “is my bedroom.”
The door creaked open, revealing deep blue walls painted in the dim glow of LEDs, which traced the topmost border separating the facets of the small space. As dirty things go, this room wasn’t particularly show-stopping. Clothes collected in hampers near the dresser, some nearly empty and others overflowing, cotton and linen and denim cascading off the sides like textile waterfalls. A rug, laced with various hues matching the walls, protected the hardwood floors from the clothes and wires and torn pages of notebook paper peppering the floor. His bed stood out as the only cleared-off thing in the room, with fresh sheets and a smoothly laid-out comforter in red plaid.
“I am sorry for the mess,” Kagetsu apologized. “Ivy is right: I do not enjoy cleaning.”
“Don’t worry, this isn’t too bad,” Boucheron said.
Boucheron stumbled his way across the room and sat on the bed, gently testing the bounciness and give of the mattress.
“It is a good thing you have a queen,” said Boucheron.
“Mhm,” Kagetsu hummed, absently kicking clutter to the side, exposing a thin strip of floor as he went. Boucheron noticed Kagetsu’s furrowed brow, his forehead folded like a note with a secret. Kagetsu chewed on his lower lip, as if biting down on a nervous laugh or sigh. He rolled up his long sleeves, revealing the curves of his forearms, likely roughened by the remnants of cold air. His fingers shook like fallen feathers in the wind, until his hand found a perch on the newly exposed gooseflesh. He approached Boucheron like the bed he’d known for years was suddenly held aloft by twigs, slowly lowering himself a few feet from him until the mattress barely sunk beneath him.
“Thank you, friend,” Boucheron whispered when Kagetsu finally relinquished his weight to the bed, “really.”
Kagetsu smiled.
Steam drifted off Boucheron’s body like he was a cup of hot chocolate (extra large, extra cozy). Kagetsu nearly melted just by being in Boucheron’s presence. His large T-shirt somehow overwhelmed his already massive form, and fell gracefully over his frame like clouds over a mountain’s peak. He slept like that every night? How would Kagetsu get any sleep at all?
He took a seat next to Kagetsu on the bed, looking down at him with such sweetness in his gaze. Kagetsu wanted to make a nest in his arms, forego the world in favor of warm hugs on nights when the cold reached for him.
“This’ll be…” Boucheron paused, biting his lip. Dammit. “Snug.”
Kagetsu cracked his knuckles to drown out the awkward silence that followed. He fidgeted idly with his hands, exploring the joints and folds of his fingers, the texture of his skin, to calm his racing mind.
“Yes,” he said. I like snug, he thought. Snug means we’re close together. Snug means warm. Snug means-
Boucheron stretched himself across the mattress and stole the comforter to wrap himself in it, becoming a burrito in one fell swoop. A cozy burrito, with only one ingredient inside it. An ingredient that must be lonely in that tortilla.
“Kagetsu, are you all right?” Boucheron said. Worry and care folded his face, his warm green eyes catching his bedside lamp’s soft yellow glow. It caught Kagetsu by surprise, how soft they looked. How Boucheron looked at him with a fondness that no normal friend ever had.
“I’m sorry,” Kagetsu confessed, “for kissing you back in college.”
Boucheron eyed him quizzically, “where’s this coming from?”
“You mentioned it back at dinner,” Kagetsu noted. “I sort of… ran from it, at the time. But I realize now that that might have stifled our friendship. I value you very, very much. So I do not want that.”
Boucheron’s gaze softened further. How that was possible, Kagetsu had no clue, but his heart softened in turn.
“Well,” Boucheron began, sighing quietly, gently, “I don’t think you need to apologize.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Don’t you remember?” Boucheron turned away from him, his eyes fixed on some faraway decoration, a speaker or a candle Ivy left when they, too, lost power. “I liked it.”
Kagetsu breathed in, letting his chest expand as big as it could go, trying to hold the world's air in his lungs like he needed all of it to finish his sentence. His fingers quivered, then tightened their grip on the sheets, grasping for words yet unspoken. “I like…”
Kagetsu sucked in another breath.
“I like… you.”
And, all at once, let it out in a happy sigh. His chest bloomed with heat, and his heart sank under the weight of the affection poured into Boucheron’s gaze, full and heavy with love. The air between them felt like a warm hug, like Kagetsu was something beyond precious. “I like you, too.”
Kagetsu took a third, deep breath, let it pool deep in his stomach, “may I try… kissing you again?”
Boucheron blinked, but smiled with an infectious warmth, “of course.”
Kagetsu cautiously rested one hand on Boucheron’s arm, and the other cupped his cheek. They never felt more comfortable resting anywhere else. Kagetsu and Boucheron locked eyes, and Kagetsu almost forgot he asked to kiss him, getting lost in his eyes instead.
Before he drowned in vibrant green, Boucheron’s own hands clutched Kagetsu’s face, ricocheting him out of his trance before Boucheron slammed his lips against Kagetsu’s.
Instantly, Kagetsu melted. Boucheron’s lips felt familiar, but he carried himself with a new power that he didn’t have in college: more certain, hungrier, but not greedy. The kiss disassembled Kagetsu slowly, unravelling him piece by piece as Boucheron’s hands released the tie on his hair to card through it. Kagetsu felt like Boucheron’s favorite book, stained with salty tears but loved so deeply as to be read again and again, renewing the water damage every time. He imagined the book felt honored to have those scars, just as Kagetsu glowed from inside with warmth as Boucheron cradled him like something so easily breakable, but so important.
They broke apart, both breathing heavily, lips still barely brushing, as if yearning to connect again.
All in one barely calculated motion, Kagetsu swooped under his comforter and snuggled up next to Boucheron, whose confused grunts betrayed how easily his arms settled around Kagetsu like all they remembered how to do was hold him close.
“Snug is fine,” Kagetsu said. Snug means home.
What is happening? Boucheron’s brain scrambled thoughts into nonsense word omelets. He tried in vain to control his racing mind, but vocabulary was beyond his grasp. Who could handle phrases at a time like this?
It was hard to tell what time it was. The room was pitch black, save for the red glow of the alarm clock. But he felt Kagetsu’s chest against his back, breathing quietly and almost too warm. His light breaths rhythmically ghosted Boucheron’s neck, and Boucheron found himself slowly breathing in tandem with him.
There was only one word that made sense, that repeated itself over and over like an involuntary mantra he soon accepted.
Finally.