Chapter Text
He hears light snoring when he wakes up. He feels sore all over, and he’s sweaty, but it’s not from a fever.
It’s because a grown man has blanketed himself completely over his body, wrapped around him like a koala on a branch. Natsuki is strong, maybe more fit than Uruha, but Uruha is still compromised of a lot of muscle. He feels like a weighted blanket. Not to mention, he runs hot and is making Natsuki’s body temperature higher than what it was to begin with.
Natsuki doesn’t even know how to handle this situation without punching a hole into something or kicking a hole into something or even grabbing his sword from under the bed and slicing a hole into something. He wants to throw Uruha off, and when he decides that that is appropriate, Uruha snores again, and hiccups in his sleep. The noise… is not horrible. But Natsuki still hates him, so he starts poking Uruha at his side. Much to his displeasure, he’s still well built.
“Can you wake up and move? You’re like a freaking sauna,” Natsuki says. His voice sounds so raw. How loud did he scream last night? Definitely loud enough for Uruha to run over from his place. How humiliating. He’s going to need to build a log cabin in the forest and never tell anyone where he is because they might sell the plot next to him to Uruha.
Uruha stirs awake, and in a sudden movement, removes himself from Natsuki. He looks embarrassed, and that’s enough to please Natsuki who is a little dizzy because of his illness and nothing else. Uruha looks like he’s bracing for Natsuki to yell at him about it, but Natsuki strangely doesn’t really care. Maybe he’s dying.
Natsuki makes a joke out of it, “What kind of doctor sleeps on the job?”
“A very tired one.” Uruha sheepishly smiles. “How’s your fever.”
“Gone I think,” Natsuki says. Uruha checks his forehead and he nods.
“I’ll make you breakfast.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I feel like I do,” Uruha says, but he leaves before he can say what he means by that. And maybe Natsuki can read his mind now because the implication makes him nauseated. He runs to his bathroom.
Uruha plays doctor for the next three days, with no more nightmares to tend to. Natsuki’s fever doesn’t come back with the herbs and whatever meals Uruha would make with the fish the old man brought over. He raised an eyebrow at Uruha opening the door, but he didn’t say anything other than he hoped Natsuki felt better soon. It’s then that Natsuki connects the dots and realizes he tends to give him fish when he wakes up screaming from nightmares.
Him and Uruha don’t speak about the nightmare or the crying or the fact that Uruha drooled on Natsuki a little. It happened when Natsuki was sick and when Uruha had just finished a who knows how long sleepless shift who knows where. It doesn’t count. It doesn’t mean anything at all. They all have nightmares. They all cry in the dark. This is all ordinary, and they just happen to be in proximity to each other.
By the end of a week, all Natsuki has left is a weak cough- and a sick Uruha.
Natsuki can hear him coughing from his living room. He feels a little guilty, but the idiot shouldn’t have gotten so close to him. He knows it’d be a terrible, terrible thing to ignore him, so he forces himself to go over with Uruha’s blanket freshly washed and his space heater.
Uruha doesn’t answer the door at first, so Natsuki keeps knocking and calling out Uruha’s name. He considers breaking down the door in case Uruha is passed out somewhere. How could he let himself get so weak? The door opens before his leg can go up to kick the knob. Uruha stands there with a different blanket wrapped around himself, thinner than the one he left Natsuki.
“You look terrible,” Natsuki says to him. Uruha doesn’t even give him a smile. The bags under his eyes have always been a bit noticeable if you stare at his face, but they seem more prominent. His hair is down, and it somewhat pisses Natsuki off that it’s not tangled or even frizzy. It’s just matted with sweat around his forehead.
Uruha says, voice cracking every other wordd, “You did this to me.”
“Me?” Natsuki scoffs as he’s allowed inside of the house. “You were the one that wouldn’t get off of me when I was sick. It was bound to happen.” With his back to Uruha and as he walks into his house for the first time, he doesn’t expect Uruha to buck his hip into the side of his, almost making him fall over. “Jerk.”
Uruha does chuckle at that before throwing himself at his couch. It’s green, and it’s plush, allowing him to sink in. Natsuki throws the blanket on top of him, unfolded, and connects the heater to the closest plug by the couch. He puts his hands on his hips and thinks about leaving, but he looks at Uruha, curled up on the couch. He sighs, annoyed.
He puts his hand on Uruha’s forehead. “You have a fever,” he tells him. No response. He picks up the blanket, but Uruha reaches out to take it back.
“I’m freezing.” Natsuki still takes it from him, but he unfolds it and drapes it over him.
“Did you take medicine?”
“Did you?”
“You know I’m allergic to most of them.”
Uruha is quiet for a moment. “I honestly thought you were lying about that at first. I thought you were just scared of the doctor or didn’t believe in medicine or something.”
“You think I’m stupid?”
Uruha gets a small grin on his face, as if deciding if he wants to tick Natsuki off or not. He decides he does. “Sometimes.”
“You’re so fucking rude. I hope your fever makes you catch on fire,” Natsuki says to him and marches towards the front door to leave, but he breaks out into a coughing fit. Uruha laughs at him, but he also starts coughing from the pressure, and they both just hear the echoes of their sickness bounce off the walls. Maybe Natsuki shouldn’t have swam in such cold water. “Where are your herbs?” he says after finally stopping.
“What?” Uruha’s voice is scratched up.
“Your herbs! Where are they?” Big ears for nothing. “I can make that tea if you tell me how.”
“So, you like my horrible herbs?”
“No, but they help.”
Uruha smiles. “Brown notebook in one of the drawers. All my herbs are labeled in jars. Good luck because I’m not getting up.”
“You’re so lazy and a terrible host,” Natsuki says before making his way to the kitchen. The last thing he sees is Uruha curling up into a ball under the two blankets.
Natsuki might’ve been a hot head as a kid, and he might still be one as an adult, but he can follow directions pretty well. Sometimes with his own twists, but he gets to the end result eventually. But considering the notebook looks well cared for, and the writing must’ve been done by Uruha’s grandfather, he follows each delicate instruction completely through.
The tea tastes a lot like Uruha’s, only not as sour, and Natsuki grins. He did this better than Uruha on the first try, and he proudly takes him a cup to the living room. Uruha has a coffee table with a pile of wooden coasters, and he sets the tea on top of one for him. Uruha looks out of his blanket bundles before sitting up.
Natsuki sits next to him with his own cup of tea and waits to see his reaction. He wants to rub it in his face.
Uruha takes a sip from the tea, and he’s quiet for a moment, as if reflecting on something. Natsuki smirks, waiting. “It tastes exactly how my grandfather used to make it. Thank you.” And suddenly, Natsuki can’t be mean. Because Uruha is far from home and maybe that notebook is one of the last remaining things that has survived from his childhood. He imagines Uruha as a small child, and he doesn’t want to hurt him.
“You’re welcome.”
Natsuki cooks lunch and dinner for Uruha because that’s what he did for him. After this, he won’t have to be around him for a while because his debt will be paid. Uruha will stay inside his house and then go to his mystery job for days at a time, come back and sleep for days at a time, and Natsuki will be back to his regular routine.
But Uruha always ruins his plans.
When the dishes from dinner are washed, dried, and put away, no thanks to Uruha, Natsuki gets ready to go home. Uruha moved from the couch to his sleeping mat on the ground after his shower, and he blow dried his hair while Natsuki cleaned up the kitchen. He did a horrible job though because there are still damp pieces sticking around his face.
Natsuki stands at the doorway of Uruha’s bedroom where they set up the space heater in the corner. It’s a virtually empty room. He only has his futon, his presumable work sword mounted on the wall, and everything else is in his closet that he left open.
“I’m leaving,” Natsuki says to him. Uruha blinks. “Goodnight.”
“Can you stay a bit longer?” Uruha asks. He’s noticeably quiet, but the room is empty enough that his request is clear in Natsuki’s ears. He initially wants to say he’s been here all day and that Uruha is going to need to start paying him. “Just until I fall asleep. I know you have work in the morning.”
“Why not?” Natsuki shrugs. Uruha’s futon is large enough for two people, so he lays on one side, and Natsuki sits on the other.
“Do you want to borrow a book while you wait?”
“No.”
“You never learned how to read?” Natsuki grabs the spare pillow and pretends to smother Uruha’s face with it, making him laugh. He finds himself smiling too before pulling it away and laying down on it. He won’t fall asleep. He’ll just lay here until the most annoying man on Earth falls asleep. “Thanks for staying.”
“Whatever.” Natsuki watches as Uruha’s eyes close, and they stay closed. He reaches over and moves hair out of his face when his breathing settles into a steady rhythm, feeling the water he squeezes out in between his fingers. He feels insane while doing it, but he can’t stop. Why did he hate him so much again?
He rolls over on his back and eyes the nameless sword above them.
Oh yeah. Kumeyuri.
Natsuki covers his ears and closes his eyes. He counts ten full inhales and exhales. He hasn’t counted to ten in a long time.
And maybe he’s loud about it because Uruha’s voice is muffled, but he can hear the question, “You cover your ears a lot. Does the quiet calm you down?”
Natsuki puts his arms down. He stares at the ceiling, avoiding Uruha’s gaze. “I like the pressure.” This is too personal. They’re in each other’s space too much now. It’s getting hard to step away. It’s why he said yes to staying. Just a month ago he would’ve ignored Uruha’s coughing completely. He might’ve even filed a noise complaint to be petty.
“Is that why you always wear headphones?”
“I think so. And I just like music.” This is oversharing. “Go back to sleep.”
Uruha listens to him, surprisingly, and he does fall back asleep almost immediately. Natsuki watches him and feels like a weirdo doing so, so he thinks about leaving. But the futon is comfortable, and the work alarm set on his phone will wake him up if he oversleeps. He’ll just close his eyes for a bit. Just in case the most annoying man on Earth needs him.
At some point in the night, Uruha crawls back over Natsuki like he did that one night. He wraps himself around Natsuki and snores on his chest. And Natsuki, who wakes up only once in the middle of the night to feel the shameless sword bearer get comfortable, puts his hand on his back and falls into dreamless sleep.
It’s Natsuki’s alarm that wakes them both up. Uruha sits up immediately, straddling Natsuki who is rubbing his eyes and getting adjusted to the light in the room. Uruha sleeps with the curtains open while Natsuki’s keeps his completely closed. The difference is stark and almost blinding.
Uruha puts his hand on his stomach, and Natsuki’s body stiffens up. He looks from the side of one of his hands and sees that Uruha is just steadying himself to climb off of him. With a little pressure on his abdomen, Uruha gets off of him and slumps down back on his side of the futon. Natsuki thinks it’s better to not say anything and grabs his phone to turn off the alarm.
He stays next to him, sitting in the silence with Uruha who is yawning and fixing himself under the blankets.
Natsuki asks, “Are you going to sleep again?”
“Yeah.” He sounds tired, and his voice is still sore. “Before the sleep gets away from me.” Somehow, Natsuki knows what he means.
“Do you want me to close your curtains?”
“I’m a little scared of the dark.” He sounds like a little kid. Uruha has always had this natural air of youth around him and even as he’s aging and getting older, it doesn’t seem to go away. Natsuki isn’t envious of it per say. But it’s something he notices about Uruha.
Natsuki puts the back of his hand on Uruha’s forehead, and he’s sweating, still hot. “I think you still have a fever. Want me to call you a doctor?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ll call you a doctor.”
“Thank you.”
Natsuki knows that the sword bearers are welcome to the Kamunabi hospital for free, so he calls the receptionist there and asks them to send someone to Uruha Yoji’s home. They’ll be there in less than an hour.
Natsuki lets Uruha know and then says, “I’m going to go home to get ready for work.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Uruha’s big doe eyes look out from his blanket cocoon that he’s made himself. He looks so tender and soft despite it all.
“Do you need me to stay with you?” Natsuki can’t believe he’s asking.
Uruha smiles with his eyes. “No. It’s okay. I’ll see you later.”
“Okay.” Natsuki leaves and when he’s home he thinks that maybe he should’ve added in Take care or even Rest up or even agree and say I’ll be back after work. But he didn’t and he feels lame, which makes him feel lamer. He ruminates for so long in his morning shower that he’s almost late to work, and he has to run to No Doubt for the first time in weeks to catch the train.
Natsuki gets roughed up at work. By a kid no less, and it’s bad enough that Shiba was there to see it because it means everyone is going to know that a thirteen year old boy hit him with a stick when Natsuki was trying to stop him from causing a scene at their lunch spot. He wasn’t even on duty. He just felt like being righteous of nowhere, and he ended up with a bruise on his cheekbone and Shiba nearly busting his eardrums from how hard he was laughing.
After getting sent to the Kamunabi hospital for a quick check up, he goes back to headquarters to finish his shift. He gets strapped to desk duty once again, and he staples papers angrily as he hears Shiba recount the story from down the hall. He’s going to get him one day. Soon. He’s not sure how, but he will.
Natsuki gets home and showers again before visiting Uruha to avoid bringing in more germs into his house. He starts planning dinner for them in his head as he walks over, and he realizes there’s a familiar car parked out front. He hesitates to knock on the door, but he does it anyways.
Azami answers the door, and he doesn’t look surprised to see him. “Hey, Nurse Natsuki.”
“What are you doing here?” Natsuki asks him.
“I can’t see how Yoji is doing?”
“You didn’t come check up on me, and I work with you,” Natsuki pointed out. He looks over Azami’s shoulder and finds that Uruha is back on his couch again. He’s not bundled up in his blankets anymore. He just looks bored.
“Well, that’s why I’m killing two birds with one stone today,” Azami grins. “How is your eye?”
“Mind your own business,” Natsuki points his finger to his stupid side bang.
Uruha asks from behind Azami, “What happened to your eye?”
“Some brat whacked me. That’s it.” Azami steps to the side and looks between Natsuki who is rubbing the back of his neck and Uruha who is giggling. He looks a little distressed for some reason, and Natsuki can not think of a reason why. Wasn’t he basically begging for them to have an eternal friendship when he got Uruha to live here?
Azami says, “Well you should go rest your eye. I’ll stay with Yoji for a few more hours.”
“Don’t want to,” Natsuki says and walks inside. He sits next to Uruha who smiles and takes a closer look at his face.
“What’d he hit you with?”
“A broom.”
“You didn’t hit back, did you?”
“Who do you think I am?” Natsuki grumbles, but Uruha just laughs again. “Did Azami feed you or is he just here being in everyone’s business again?”
“He’s just here being in everyone’s business again.”
“Can’t I be nice?” Azami asks. “I wanted to see how you were settling into the house with Mr. Congeniality next door.”
Natsuki says, “You should go see Shiba and ask why he keeps making us eat lunch at that udon place.” Natsuki knows Shiba and Azami aren’t together together. But they’re together.
Azami raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a chatty little waiter there with a dangly earing he likes talking up for a free second bowl if you catch my drift.” Uruha forces a cough in this moment, maybe trying to fill the silence. Azami stares at Natsuki, as if not knowing if he should believe him or not. But Natsuki knows Azami and knows Azami is jealous as hell.
“I forgot I have to go do something,” Azami says. “I’ll see you two later.” He leaves without hearing them say anything else, and the door slams loud behind him. The car is out of the driveway immediately.
“That was scary,” Uruha says softly. The coward lived through a war and finds someone in skinny jeans scary. “Are you lying to him? Because that’s going to make him scarier.”
“Shiba is a whore.” Natsuki shrugs. “He’s going to get a little scared while trying to sort through his mental filing cabinet of men with earrings he’s flirted with, and Azami will take it as a confession.” He leans back on the couch and crosses his arms across his chest, smirking. Now he’s satisfied.
Uruha’s hair is down, and he has only one blanket draped lazily on his lap. Natsuki looks at him. His skin doesn’t look as pale and sweaty as before. He catches Natsuki staring, but he only blinks, tilting his head. Natsuki isn’t scared or nervous. The closeness doesn’t irritate him, and it doesn’t intimidate him. It feels fine. Nice, even.
“Do you want me to cook you something to eat?” Natsuki asks.
Uruha smiles. “I’d like that.” And it’s then that Natsuki decides he’s done hating Uruha’s smile.
Uruha doesn’t ask Natsuki to sleep over that night, so he calls his brother a few times. He doesn’t answer, and Natsuki has to pick between going to bed or jogging over to his house to make sure there’s not a crime scene.
He grabs his pajamas to change into, but he decides that he’d rather not add more things to his list of regrets, so he grabs his windbreaker instead.
He slides on his sneakers at his front door and makes his way outside. He looks at Uruha’s house. Only the bedroom light is on now. He thinks about telling him where he’s going, but he realizes that’s ridiculous and leaves. He pays attention to his knee but so far, nothing hurts. He speeds up.
He gets to Ibuki’s house and knocks a few times before giving up. With his heart in his throat, he puts the spare key Ibuki made him in the knob and turns it, prepared for the worst.
But it’s fine. The place is clean other than one dirty plate in the sink. There was a time when the kitchen was full of trash and moldy food, and it took Natsuki a few days to get through all the trash for him. Ibuki promised he’d never let his place get that bad again, and he’s stuck to it. But that was about his house. Natsuki is worried about his brother.
“Hey!” he yells out. “Where are you?” He walks through the house, checking every room. But it’s all empty. He makes another round through when he finds that the back garden patio door is open, and he walks through it.
Ibuki is lying on the grass on a blanket, sleeping. He was stargazing and fell asleep. There’s a sword tucked under his arm. Natsuki goes and sits next to him, and Ibuki is a light sleeper, so he wakes up immediately. But he doesn’t freak out or get scared. It seems like he’s memorized the sound of Natsuki’s movements, just as Natsuki knows the sound of his footsteps.
“Oh, hey,” Ibuki yawns. “What’s up?”
“I thought you killed yourself.”
He’s quiet, trying to decide if he wants to be funny or sincere. “Oh. You were serious when you told me to?” Funny is the route he chose, but Natsuki doesn’t laugh. Ibuki sighs. “I’m assuming you called.”
“Only twenty times.”
“Sorry. I think my phone is in my room. I don’t know. I’m used to you just showing up.”
“I’ve spoiled you.”
“You can’t spoil the eldest child.”
“Stupid.” They both chuckle, but Natsuki realizes he’s not exactly faultless in all of this. “Sorry I haven’t been by. I got nightmares, and then I got sick. Didn’t want to worry you.”
“It’s fine. If we hang out too much, we start wanting to kill each other. You get really annoying.”
“I got it from you.” Maybe it’s a good thing they weren’t fighting side by side during the war.
Ibuki sits up and says, “You know you can worry me, right? I’m still a Misaka brother.” Whatever that means now. Maybe it means he’s an indominable warrior. Or maybe it means that he’s the other half of Natsuki.
“It’s fine. Uruha was taking care of me.”
“Oh. You banged it out?”
Natsuki raises his hand and smacks Ibuki on the temple. “Ow! Well!? You can’t just say that after our last conversation and not expect me-,” Ibuki gets smacked again. “Ow! You’re such a brat. I was sleeping peacefully for the first time in years, and you just come to my house saying you hoped to find me dead and then start smacking me. Something is seriously wrong with you.”
“No, something is seriously wrong with you!” Natsuki says to him, red in the face. His palm stings, so he knows the slaps really did hurt Ibuki on some level.
“Okay fine, you’re finally friends then?” Ibuki rephrases the question. But it’s something Natsuki barely wants to admit.
“I guess.” His answer is quiet. He curls up his knees to his chest and hugs them, staring down at the blanket they’re sitting on. It’s one from their hometown, a scene of a winter forest woven together.
Ibuki studies him quietly. “I want to say something, but you can’t hit me.”
“Take your chances.”
“Never mind then.”
Natsuki looks at him, dares him, “No, say it.”
“Nope.”
“Why not? Just say it.”
Ibuki puts his hand out as if to shield himself, “I don’t think you’ve ever really hated him. You’re too good of a person.” When he realizes Natsuki isn’t going to punch him into tomorrow, he keeps speaking. “Yeah, you’re an asshole most of the time and just unpleasant to be around-,”
“Thanks.”
“But you’re not a bad person. And Yoji is a really good person, so you’re both compatible- as friends. You just get so caught up in what you want and when it doesn’t happen for you, the world stops and you never get over it. You need to learn to get over things, Suki.”
His brother’s words ring in his ears as he walks home. The air is cold, so Ibuki let Natsuki borrow a scarf, and he wraps it tight around his face, keeping warm. Ibuki smells like their childhood home still, and Natsuki wonders what he did wrong to stray so far from that. Or maybe he needs to let the smell of what was once home go, too.
He reaches the river front neighborhood and as he gets closer to his house, he realizes that there’s a figure sitting out by the river. He recognizes the blanket wrapped around the idiot who shouldn’t be sitting out in the cold when he’s still recovering from a fever. Natsuki clicks his tongue and makes his way over to Uruha, who turns around to look up at him. He looks tired.
“Why are you out here?” Natsuki asks. “It’s freezing. You’re barely getting better.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Uruha says, yawning. “I thought maybe this could lull me to sleep.”
“What was your plan? To just sleep out here?”
“I didn’t think that far ahead because I think I knew it wouldn’t work,” Uruha admits to him. Natsuki thinks about all Uruha’s days out of the house and how he had just enough energy to bother him but still looked exhausted. Was he running on tea and fumes all that time? Maybe it’s not a coincidence he started watching him swim every chance he got.
Natsuki asks, “Can you not fall asleep when you’re alone?”
“Not really,” Uruha says. He licks his lips. The river is loud tonight, pushing through to make its journey wherever home is. Natsuki wouldn’t have swam against the strong current that night even if it was warm. “During the war, there was a day where I was just so tired. And I thought everyone would be okay without me for a few hours. I fell asleep a few kilometers away from camp. When I woke up, Soga’s attack had started, and I wasn’t there to help.”
Natsuki didn’t know this. But then again, he’s never really spoken to Uruha. Everything he knows about him has been learned from someone else or from watching him from a distance. This isn’t something you casually bring up in conversation. This is a confession, and Natsuki is no priest.
Natsuki says to him, “You know not even fifty men could hold him down, right? You wouldn’t have been able to do much. You might’ve even died.”
“I would’ve rather died than not have been there.”
“I could’ve sworn you were there.” Natsuki sits next to Uruha, only an inch away from him. His body radiates the cold, unusual for him.
“I got there two hours after it started. Someone came looking for me, and we went as soon as we could. But that preschool at the edge of their village. It’s the first place I saw.” Uruha doesn’t have to say details for Natsuki to imagine the carnage he saw.
“There’s nothing more you could’ve done. You did all you could. Anything more would have been unrealistic.”
Uruha sniffs. Natsuki is unsure if it’s his illness or if he’s crying. “I know you’re right. It’s just going to be a while before I believe it.”
“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you do,” Natsuki says. Uruha looks at him with wide eyes. He looks like a lot of things in this moment. Ill. Confused. Taken aback. Natsuki realizes the tone of how he said it. But he’s never been the dishonest type. If that’s how it sounded, then that’s how he must’ve meant it.
But Uruha is sick, and Natsuki is still trying to mull things over in his head. This friendship, for one. So he ruins the moment and says, “Let’s get you to bed. I have to go to work tomorrow and see if Shiba is alive.”
“Okay,” Uruha says, barely audible under the river song.
Natsuki walks Uruha all the way to his room and turns his attention to the space heater while Uruha changes into his pajamas. He coughs a few times in a row, and Natsuki rolls his eyes because he’s so irresponsible.
Natsuki says while fidgeting with the space heater settings, “But if it were me out there in the middle of night while sick, you would’ve been so upset with me.” Uruha doesn’t reply and instead coughs again. “Water or tea?” Natsuki asks, still not looking at him.
“Water is fine.” His voice is dry, and Natsuki leaves the room to go to Uruha’s kitchen he’s become well acquainted with. He pours a glass of water and takes it back to Uruha who is sitting up on his futon, his legs blanketed. Natsuki hands him the water, and he says, “Thank you,” before nearly chugging the entire thing.
“You don’t need to take any medicine right now?” Natsuki asked. “Wasn’t it every six hours.”
Uruha’s smiles and shakes his head. “I took it before I tried to go to bed the first time.” Natsuki checks the time on his phone. It’s almost midnight. “Where did you go?”
“Why do you want to know?” Natsuki asks.
“I just want to know.”
Natsuki can’t argue with that. “My brother’s house. He says hello.”
“I should call him. Maybe when I’m better I can join you.”
“Yeah,” Natsuki says and crosses his arms. His chin sinks a little deeper into Ibuki’s scarf. “I’d like that. Well, he’d like that. I don’t care.” Uruha’s nose crinkles into somewhat of a grin, and Natsuki can’t stand how cute it looks. He gets nauseous and holds his stomach. “I should get going.”
They both stay quiet. Natsuki wondering if Uruha is going to ask him to stay again, Uruha maybe wondering if Natsuki is going to offer to. But it feels different now. Natsuki actually feels a bit of fear in the tips of his fingers he doesn’t quite understand. He wants to grab Uruha, not by the neck, but by the back of it and feel where skin meets scalp. His hair will be soft, and he'll feel warmth spread on his wanting fingertips.
“I should go,” Natsuki says, realizing immediately that he already said that. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Natsuki.”
He can’t get out of that house fast enough.
He doesn’t know how he fell asleep that night, but he did, and he makes it to work on time. Shiba is waiting for him at his desk, sitting at his chair with his leg on the desk. Natsuki isn’t scared of him, so he simply walks over and tells him, “Move.”
“You’re such an ungrateful brat,” Shiba says and flicks a paperclip at his forehead.
“You’ve never done anything for me in my entire life,” Natsuki says. Which is sort of true.
Shiba stands up and wraps his arm around Natsuki’s shoulder and says, “When you’re living the good life, you’re going to realize what your good pal Shiba did for you.”
“I’m going to tell Azami about this.”
“Azami knows your heart is taken,” Shiba says and pats Natsuki’s chest. Natsuki body slams Shiba off of him, but Shiba is sturdy and doesn’t fall over. He just laughs and walks out of the room. When Natsuki goes to the training levels later on, he pretends he is hitting Shiba in the face.
Natsuki gets off of work late and all he can think about is Uruha. It was difficult to navigate his mind and the mission he was sent on, thankfully with people who didn’t irritate him- as much. He blasts his music on the train home and rushes to his house.
When Uruha’s lights are on, he feels a burst of excitement in his chest. For the first time in his life, he wants to see him.
He goes home to shower and change out of his uniform, and he knocks on Uruha’s door. As if he were waiting for him to knock, Uruha opens the door almost immediately. He looks a bit more livelier today, with more color in his skin. A bit rosier. His hair is up even although Natsuki thinks he likes it down a bit more.
“Hi,” Natsuki says with his hands behind his back. This feels awful, but he doesn’t want to leave. Nothing he’s ever wanted to stay for has felt this terrifying.
“Come in,” Uruha says. “I had the energy to make dinner today. Medicine helped.”
“I’m glad,” Natsuki says and closes the door behind them. He’s glad? So generic. He slips off his shoes and follows Uruha into the kitchen. “Want me to make the tea for you again?”
“Can you?” Uruha sounds excited. Natsuki likes that, and he nods quietly before grabbing the old notebook and going through Uruha’s herbs. They stand side to side at the stove. Uruha watches his pot of soup boil, adding more vegetables in quietly. Natsuki adds in herbs to a pot in the order that the handwriting demands. Their shoulders bump into each other. At some point, they don’t move their shoulders away from each other.
It’s quiet other than the noise of boiling water and the loud smell of herbs. Natsuki has learned to find comfort in them rather than disdain. They stand next to each other for minutes because somehow, there is excitement in watching the flames in front of them.
Uruha lays his head on Natsuki’s shoulder, for just a small moment, before he decides the soup is done. He turns off his burner on the stove and moves to grab plates. Natsuki, who is a bit frozen in the moment, turns off his burner and moves to grab Uruha’s hand.
Uruha turns to him, a bit surprised. And Natsuki doesn’t know what to do with himself. He looks between the hand he’s holding and Uruha’s startled face. They’re both silent and waiting for something. But they’re just waiting for each other.
Natsuki gently squeezes Uruha’s hand a bit, and he thinks about letting it go. This feels ridiculous. His heart is thrashing in his throat. He hasn’t been this nervous about anyone in years. Maybe ever.
“Yes, Natsuki?” Uruha asks.
“I don’t know.” He doesn’t. He really doesn’t.
Uruha exhales a laugh. “It’s okay.” Natsuki likes the way his laugh sounds, so he pulls him a step closer to him, and Uruha doesn’t push back. Uruha goes along with it. Uruha seems happy to be in front of him, and Natsuki realizes that his entire list of regrets is just made up of the times he was shitty to Uruha. Because right now? He wants him closer to him, but he wants to feel that he really deserves him.
Natsuki says, “I see you as my friend.” Uruha’s face contorts into confusion. “Wait,” Natsuki scoffs at himself. “No. I’m saying I don’t hate you.”
“I think I connected those dots a while back,” Uruha says to him. This is so humiliating. But he doesn’t let go of his hand. Once he does, he won’t have the courage to do it again. He won’t even have enough guts to sit through dinner with him. “You can kiss me, Natsuki,” Uruha says to him. His cheeks are a light shade of red, and Natsuki finds himself smiling. He pulls him into his arms.
Natsuki kisses his right cheek first. He likes the warmth of his skin under his lips. He tilts his face, going nose to nose to him. Their eyes meet, and it’s quiet in their neighborhood. Uruha has one hand in his and the other on Natsuki’s hip. He kisses Natsuki first although Natsuki will never admit that.
It feels like being whole. Uruha is the one that pulls Natsuki closer and breathes him in, and Natsuki feels wanted. He feels the admiration he’s always wanted from the world as a sword bearer. But he’s receiving it as a person. A good person, even.
They part from each other, breathless. They’re looking at each other like they can’t believe that just happened. Natsuki is the first to smile, and Uruha follows. He puts his hand on Natsuki’s cheek, his thumb on Natsuki’s lip piercings.
“I’ve never kissed anyone with lip piercings,” Uruha says.
“Good,” is all Natsuki can say before kissing him again.
God, he really likes him.
It’s hard to get through dinner and tea while playing footsies under the table. Wordlessly, they agree that Natsuki will go home and change into his pajamas and then come back to sleep on the futon with Uruha.
They stare at each other in the dark, holding hands under the covers. Natsuki doesn’t have to work the next day, and Uruha, who still won’t tell him where he works even after the sixth kiss, doesn’t have to either. They will wake up together and not have to peel apart from each other. Natsuki wonders if he’s always been inherently romantic, and it was just pummeled by the war. Pummeled by growing up as a fighter.
Because he sees Uruha and suddenly he sees a future that isn’t all guts and glory. It’s peace, too. It’s quiet river days and shared meals and shared blankets and the smell of herbs.
Uruha asks, “What are you thinking about?”
“About how insane I feel.” It makes Uruha laugh, and Natsuki is fine with that. “What are you thinking about?”
“How I didn’t want to believe it when people told me you had a crush on me and that’s why you were mean to me.”
“I didn’t have a crush on you, and I was mean to you because I didn’t like you,” Natsuki says. Uruha chuckles at the admission.
“I’ll take the past tense in that sentence as a confession,” Uruha says, placing his hand on Natsuki’s cheek. Natsuki’s cheek turns up into the warmth of his hand. “You’re so hard to get to. Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” Natsuki says. “I think my brother would agree though.” Suddenly, he remembers Ibuki saying he just needed to bang it out with Uruha, and his face flushes. Kissing is enough for now. Even just holding hands is driving him up the wall.
Uruha gets closer to Natsuki, and he climbs over his body, putting his entire weight on him. It’s relaxing and silent. Neither of them plan to speak anymore.
But as they’re fading into sleep, Uruha says, “I’m glad you like me back, Natsuki. Or I would’ve had to move to the other side of Japan.”
Natsuki wakes up before Uruha, in complete disbelief. His hands are both on Uruha’s back, and Uruha is sleeping soundly on his chest. He’s afraid his heartbeat is going to wake him up.
How did he even get here? He never thought this was even a possibility.
Okay, maybe sometimes while watching Uruha train when they were younger, he’d imagine what it’d be like to feel the hands he held his swords with or what his lips would taste like after a full workout. But he’d quietly get rid of those thoughts and put the energy into his own training. Nobody has ever handed him anything he didn’t have to fight for, and he doesn’t feel like he’s earned Uruha.
He runs his hands through Uruha’s hair that is down. It’s soft like he always imagined, and it’s silky between his rough fingers. All of Uruha is soft. His pale cheeks and the skin of his knuckles. Natsuki feels jagged next to him. It feels like he’s at square one with comparing himself to Uruha, only it’s a different field. As a younger brat, he thought he was more deserving than Uruha of all the titles and acknowledgments. Now, he doesn’t feel like deserves Uruha’s acknowledgement at all.
Uruha’s voice breaks his thought process, “Don’t overthink things.” Natsuki, a bit frightened frankly, tightens his grip on the back of Uruha’s shirt. “I can hear your brain working.”
“Can you not do that? It’s a bit creepy.” Natsuki struggles to sound like he’s making a joke.
“I don’t want you to run off on me,” Uruha says. “Unless you’ve changed your mind and you actually don’t like me. But I really do like you.” Uruha sits up, straddling Natsuki. He looks down at him and puts his hand on Natsuki’s jaw. His thumb places itself on his lip rings.
“I was so mean to you,” Natsuki says.
Uruha purses his lips. “I thought it was mostly banter if that makes you feel better.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Okay.” Uruha runs his hands through the front parts of Natsuki’s hair as he thinks. His fingernails barely caress his scalp, but it’s peaceful. Natsuki relaxes enough to put his hands on Uruha’s thighs, holding him. “Apologize once. For everything. And I’ll forgive you for everything. And then we can move on and figure this out together while we’re on the same page.”
Natsuki feels even more undeserving now. But he likes the sound of it.
Natsuki barely says, “I’m sorry.”
When Uruha blurts, “I forgive you. Let’s kiss and make up.” He doesn’t even let Natsuki think before he’s kissing him on the mouth, and Natsuki finds himself laughing, his hands holding Uruha steady. “You get emotional when you’re hungry,” Uruha notes.
“No, I don’t,” Natsuki says, raising an eyebrow. Ibuki would call him a “hangry” person, but this couldn’t be the same. He blinks. It’s the same. “I mean. I guess sometimes I do.”
“I like that you admit when you’re wrong,” Uruha says.
“Don’t get used to it.”
“I already am,” Uruha giggles and hops off of Natsuki. “Let’s go make breakfast.” Natsuki was hoping to stay in bed with him a bit longer, but he’ll follow Uruha anywhere.
When they’re sitting down and eating, there’s a knock on Uruha’s door. They both look at each other, a bit pale in the face.
The person knocks again and then Ibuki’s voice yells out, “Yoji, are you awake? I can’t find Natsuki! I’m a bit worried.”
“Shit,” Natsuki accidentally says too loud. They had opened the kitchen window to air out the smell of cooking, and Natsuki can feel Ibuki freeze from where he’s standing.
Ibuki’s footsteps slowly approach the window, where he can see Natsuki and Uruha eating at the dining table. He looks at Natsuki and his pajamas and Uruha in his pajamas and folds his arms. He shakes his head and clicks his tongue.
Ibuki says, “You fucking liar.”
Uruha looks between Natsuki whose hiding his face in his hand and Ibuki. “Uh. Do you want to join us, Ibuki?” He’s so polite that it’s cute, but Natsuki can’t think anything of it because he’s mortified. This wasn’t supposed to happen so soon. Ibuki literally never calls first, much less visits first.
“Can you just let me in, Yoji?” Ibuki cackles, cracking his knuckles.
Natsuki says, “Don’t let him in.”
“Natsuki, that’s rude,” Yoji shakes his head disappointingly and gets up to allow Ibuki in. As soon as the door swings open, Natsuki stands up and starts running to the back of the house. Ibuki’s heavy footsteps are behind him, hauntingly.
“Get back here!” Ibuki yells as Natsuki goes to a back window to try and climb out. He opens the window, and he’s about to make it through, but Ibuki is still faster than him. He grabs Natsuki by an ankle and drags him onto the floor inside. He pins him to the ground with his body like he used to do when they were children pretending to be wrestlers.
“My knee!” Natsuki tries to yell at him, making a fist and pounding his shoulder.
“I’m not stupid, it’s the other one that’s damaged,” Ibuki yells in his ear.
“Oh geeze.” Uruha looks only slightly worried at the end of the hallway. “You two haven’t changed. Do you want me to fix you a plate, Ibuki?”
“Yes, please,” Ibuki says with a grin as Natsuki can barely breathe under him, his brother’s arms wrapped around his neck. Uruha walks away, and Natsuki feels embarrassed that he couldn’t wrestle his way out of this in front of Uruha. As soon as Uruha is gone from view, Ibuki smacks Natsuki on the temple like he did to him. “You’re such a liar.”
“Nothing has happened!” Natsuki whisper yells to his brother. His face is stupid hot from the implication. “Nothing like that!”
“But you’ve liked him this entire time and gone to my house and smacked me around because you swore you didn’t?” Ibuki is more amused than anything, and Natsuki just wants this conversation to be over. Ibuki smacks him again. “Answer me!”
“Ow! Yes! I liked him this whole time, get over it!”
“You’re so mean to me, Natsuki,” Ibuki does a fake pout. He might be mocking Natsuki, but he can’t tell right now with the lack of blood going to his brain. “When did this happened? If it happened weeks ago-,”
“It didn’t happen until after I visited you! Literally last night!” Ibuki glares at him, not believing him. “You can smack me one more time, but I’m not lying to you. It literally just happened. I swear. You can ask him!” He hopes Ibuki will have some compassion, but he does smack Natsuki one last time. Only this time, it’s softer and more of a friendly tap.
“You’ve always been hopeless,” Ibuki sighs and lets him go. Natsuki scrambles away from him before he changes his mind. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
With his back against the wall and breathing hard, Natsuki says, “Me, neither.”
Ibuki sits with them at the table and halfway through his meal that includes staring between Uruha and Natsuki, he asks, “Yoji. You genuinely like him back? This annoying man? Has he shown you his belly button ring?” Natsuki hides his face behind one of his hands.
Uruha replies, “Yes. I’ve seen it.”
Ibuki explains as if he were narrating a nature documentary, “He did that himself knowing that if he got infected, there’d be no medicine for him. He was willing to die for a belly button piercing.” Uruha puts his finger to his lip as if he’s thinking. He doesn’t have anything bad to say. “Don’t tell me you think that’s attractive.” Ibuki looks disgusted.
Uruha shrugs, “It’s not atrocious.” Natsuki finds himself smiling a little behind the hand he’s hiding with.
“You two deserve each other,” Ibuki sighs. But he’s smiling. Natsuki thinks. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“You’ve said that already,” Natsuki points out.
Ibuki asks Uruha, “Can you believe this is happening?”
“Not really,” Uruha smiles a bit shyly. Natsuki thinks it’s cute, so he has to look away so Ibuki won’t embarrass him for staring.
“See,” Ibuki says to Natsuki. “It’s crazy.” He finishes eating the rice Uruha served him and a piece of grilled fish. In a mouthful, he says, “I should’ve bet the money.”
Natsuki raises an eyebrow, “What money?” Him and Uruha look at each other.
“I just thought it was unethical to bet money on my brother’s dating life,” Ibuki says. “Honestly, I did feel deep down that you would as least hook up once or something. But also, I didn’t bet money on it because I didn’t want to lose.”
Natsuki reminds him, “I thought because it was unethical.”
“That mainly, yeah.” Ibuki nods along, still chewing.
Uruha asks, “Was it Shiba and Azami?”
“Yes, but they got betted on, too. And not just them. A few other people have been waiting for you two to get together or fight to the death. Whatever came first.”
Natsuki feels his face turning red. He hates his coworkers. He hates the Kamunabi. He hates the government and anyone who isn’t Uruha and maybe his brother next week after he’s cooled down. Natsuki demands, “Who? I’m going to take money out of all of their wallets.” Uruha laughs, and Ibuki looks at Uruha like he’s grown a second head.
Ibuki says gently, as if he’s talking to a little kid, “He’s not that funny, Uruha. You don’t have to laugh at anything he says.” The comment only makes Uruha laugh a lot more, and with Natsuki fully blushing, Ibuki looks both disgusted and happy for them.
Natsuki and Uruha will hold off on telling anyone else but Ibuki for a little while. They like the privacy they have, sharing both of their homes. Although, Uruha has taken a liking to Natsuki’s bedroom with his expensive therapeutic mattress, and Natsuki likes Uruha’s kitchen because of all the different ingredients. They’ve had dinner with the old couple a few times, and Ibuki as well who has started to join them on jogs. Not every day, but at least he leaves the house now.
Natsuki can feel himself getting his brother back.
Both fully cured from their colds, they sit out in front of the lake in chairs, holding each other’s gloved hands. Although, it’s more of Uruha holding out his palm flat in place and Natsuki tapping his fist on it.
It’s the end of autumn already, and Natsuki didn’t know life could be this peaceful. Even with the burdens that come with being in the Kamunabi, suddenly they’re easier to bear. The nightmares are easier to handle, and he doesn’t have to wear his headphones as much. He likes hearing Uruha’s voice now, in the mornings.
“Hey,” Natsuki says to him, “where do you work?” Uruha looks at him from the corner of his eye. He’s bundled up in a green scarf, so Natsuki can’t see his mouth. The topic hasn’t come up in a while. Natsuki didn’t realize it was a sore subject since the last time he asked.
“I’ll tell you when the job is over,” Uruha says. He still disappears for a few days at a time, letting Natsuki know in advance. Distance indeed makes the heart grow fonder.
“When is that?”
“I have no idea. Maybe in a few months. Or a few years.”
“You’ll still be with me by then?” Natsuki asks, opening his fist to hold Uruha’s hand. He never thought he’d be the clingy type, especially when it came to Uruha, but he really does feel out of balance when he wakes up and goes to bed alone. He can still function alone, but he likes his life better when Uruha is around.
Uruha tightens his grip on Natsuki’s hand. “Of course. I worked too hard to get you.” Natsuki finds himself grinning comfortably under his scarf. It’s nice to be someone’s.
“Okay. I can wait a few more years,” Natsuki says to him. The river sounds lovely, like crinkling wrapping paper. “I wish we could swim right now.”
“You just want me to be your doctor again.”
“I kind of do want some of that soup again.”
Uruha laughs. “You’re such a liar.”
“Any type of soup?”
“I guess I’m cooking tonight.”
“If you insist,” Natsuki says and stands, pulling Uruha up with him. Uruha follows along and stands, taking his free hand to lower both his and Natsuki’s scarf. Uruha kisses him, and Natsuki’s cheeks get warm. Getting a new neighbor wasn’t so bad after all.