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Mika has never been one to keep his feelings packed away inside of him; everyone, including the humans he has been trying to keep his distance from, knows that Yuu is his number one priority, his family, the person that he would do anything for if he only asked, but the name that he is starting to put to this feeling is something that he has kept to himself. The realisation of what his feelings were was gradual up until he saw Yuu again. Before they were reunited, the last time that he had seen Yuu was when he was twelve years old, and what did twelve-year-olds know about the heart? During those four lonely years, Mika clung to his memories of the sound of Yuu’s voice, of the way he used to clutch his stomach laughing at something stupid Yuu had said or done, and how just sitting beside Yuu and their family, it felt like, somehow, everything would be okay. As he grew older, Mika put his intense feelings for Yuu down to admiration. After all, Yuu had escaped where he couldn’t; he remained human when he couldn’t.
But when he saw Yuu again, and Yuu saw him, Mika’s heart bloomed despite the sword deep in his chest. Even though they had both grown taller, and Mika had grown fangs, Yuu was still the same Yuu up close.
Mika has never seen an example of love, let alone what someone in love looks like, or what it feels like. Growing up in the orphanage, he didn’t know his parents. He doesn’t know if they had been in love. He doesn’t know if they shared chaste kisses before work or had cheesy pet names for each other; he doesn’t even know how they met.
The home that Mika feels when he looks at Yuu isn’t foreign to him, though; he’s known it and felt it ever since they were kids, but he has never known what to name it, other than that Yuu is his family, and he never wants to lose him or this feeling. This is the emotion he feels the strongest; with his humanity fading rapidly, Mika wants to superglue the feeling to his chest. If he loses this feeling, he ceases to be Mika; the Mika that is Yuu’s family.
“Mika?” Yuu’s voice. Yuu is awake. His voice is quiet, croaky from lack of use, which only happens when he has been asleep. Mika has taken to resting in an armchair beside Yuu’s bed while he sleeps; he hasn’t gotten as far as lying in the bed yet. He’s better able to defend them both from his position in the armchair, anyway. Yuu’s head pops out from beneath the covers. Mika is surprised he hasn’t suffocated himself in his sleep yet.
“I’m here,” Mika says. “Did you have another nightmare?” The moon is still out, and there’s a couple of hours left until sunrise. Mika rises from his chair and makes his way quietly to the bed, then rests his arms on top of the mattress, and his chin where his hands connect.
“No.” Yuu yawns, scrunching up his nose as he does so. “I just woke up, and I wanted to check if you were still there.” He holds the covers to his neck and shifts sideways to face Mika. His eyelids droop.
“You should go back to sleep.”
“What were you doing while I was asleep?” Yuu blinks sleepily, ignoring Mika’s suggestion, and Mika reaches forward to brush away a stray eyelash on his cheek.
“Nothing.”
“You can’t sit for hours doing nothing. That’s boring as hell.” Yuu raises an eyebrow, the yawns after such an exhausting feat. “Don’t you get bored?”
“Fine, I was thinking. Something you wouldn’t know a lot about.” Mika resists a smile, but his mouth twitches at the edge anyway, flashing a fang for a second or two.
A hand appears from under the covers and knocks Mika on the shoulder, then disappears back to where it came from. “What were you thinking about?”
A strip of moonlight streams in through a gap in the curtain, hitting Yuu’s eyes and lighting them with vivacity in spite of the tentative line between his conscious and unconscious state. Yuu’s eyes have always fascinated Mika; he’s never seen anyone else’s look so alive.
“The four years we were apart.” Mika chooses his words carefully. He shuffles his legs and crosses them, ignoring the slight nausea gnawing at his stomach.
“You don’t have to think about that. We’re together now.”
Mika shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.” There’s silence between them for a few moments. Yuu’s hair falls across his eyes; he tries to blow it away with his breath, but it lands back in the same place no matter how hard he exhales. Mika pushes it back. “How can you even see with this? You should ask to borrow a hair tie from Shinoa or Mitsuba.”
“I would never live that down,” Yuu replies, but he’s smiling. Yuu is always pleased when Mika mentions one of the humans in passing, even if it’s in a neutral way, because that means he doesn’t completely hate them. Which, granted, Mika doesn’t, though he wouldn’t say he actively likes them either; he just doesn’t dislike them so much anymore.
With his hair pushed back, Mika can see the whole of Yuu’s face, not just the parts poking through the fringe he probably should have cut ages ago. His skin isn’t perfect; there are little scars here and there, and a spattering of spots that comes from being a teen, but Mika knows every line of this face. The way his eyebrows, just as messy as his hair, furrow and raise, and the way his lips part to show his flat teeth when he gives his biggest smile.
“Anyway, what did you mean by what you said before, then?” Yuu asks. Mika knows he wants to understand; if there is something up with Mika, Yuu wants to know.
Mika looks up to the ceiling. He knows he can trust Yuu; he is the only person he can trust. Yuu was never disgusted by his fangs, as he always imagined and feared he would be, and he didn’t look even the slightest bit repulsed when Mika drank his blood and his eyes changed from the ocean blue he’d always known to the pool of blood that Mika himself hates. He had only ever been happy that Mika was alive. If he can’t trust Yuu with this, he can’t trust anyone.
“When we were separated, I only saw you in the way my twelve-year-old self saw twelve-year-old you,” Mika starts, hoping his thoughts translate into something that Yuu can decipher. “I didn’t know a different you, an older you and an older me; my memories were all I had.”
Yuu nods, silently urging Mika to go on.
“The way I see you now… It’s different–not in a bad way–and I’m not really sure if it did change, actually, I’m just more aware of it now that I can see us both in the present, instead of being stuck in the past.”
“How do you see me now?”
“I’m not–I’m not completely sure. I think–I know that my feelings aren’t exactly… platonic. I’m sorry if you’re uncomfortable I can stop talking. I’ll keep quiet and you can go back to sleep.”
“Dummy,” Yuu says. “I’m not going back to sleep. Not yet, anyway. I want to help you understand yourself first, at least a little bit.”
If it were still possible, Mika’s cheeks would have reddened.
“What do you feel, exactly?” Yuu presses. “You don’t have to label it or anything, but like, how is it different to when we were twelve?”
Mika exhales sharply through his nose. “Not everything is different. I still want to protect you, and I still think you’re dumb as hell sometimes.”
“Hey, that was uncalled for–”
Mika puts finger on Yuu’s lips, shushing him. “Remember when I said we should run away? Just the two of us?”
Yuu nods, quieting down for a second.
“I still think about that–and I know you don’t want to leave the humans behind–but it would be nice, to just be with you.”
“Kind of like how we are now?” Yuu says, prising Mika’s hand away from his mouth. He holds onto Mika’s wrist, gently, until he rests his cheek against Mika’s open palm.
The calmness of the night, with the stars glowing and the quiet that the moon brings, is something that Mika has grown to love now that he is consistently awake to appreciate it; now, with Yuu real and in front of him instead of just a four-year-old image in his head, Mika is feeling a calmness that he didn’t ever think he would be able to feel. Of course, when the sun rises and they both have to face reality again, the calmness will be gone, but he will still have Yuu.
Yuu’s cheek is warm against Mika’s palm, and Mika can feel the faint pulsing of Yuu’s blood beneath his skin. He isn’t thirsty, not desperately anyway; it’s comforting to know that Yuu’s heart is still beating after all this. He strokes his thumb across Yuu’s cheekbone.
“Mika?”
Mika realises he hasn’t answered Yuu’s question. “Yeah. Kind of like how we are now.”
Mika doesn’t want to move his hand away from Yuu’s face. He wants to stay like this forever, in the dim light with no fear, and Yuu’s life force grounding him.
Yuu shuffles beneath the covers. Mika opens his mouth to tell him to stop fidgeting else he’ll end up with cramp in his legs, but before he can get the words out Yuu frees his other hand from beneath the blankets and places it on Mika’s right cheek.
“You’re cold,” Yuu says.
Mika looks away. Rather, he tries to, but Yuu is still cupping his face.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I was a bit stuffy in the blanket.”
Mika looks back at Yuu. He’s gotten closer in the second that he glanced away. Their noses are almost touching.
“I think I know what you’re feeling… because I’m feeling it too.” Yuu’s voice is quieter and softer than before, almost like when he had only just woken up. “If I’m wrong, please don’t be mad.”
Mika waits for Yuu to say something else; instead, Yuu closes his eyes and places a kiss on Mika’s mouth. It’s quick, more like a peck than anything else, but it’s enough to make Mika blink in surprise.
Yuu pulls back, taking his hand and letting Mika’s drop from his cheek. Mika stays silent. “Sorry–I thought–I thought that was what you wanted.”
Mika ghosts his fingers across his lips where Yuu’s were merely seconds ago. Then, in the next instant, he leaps onto the very minimal space left on the edge of the bed, replants his hand on Yuu’s cheek, and kisses him. He does so with a little more force than intended–Yuu makes a small noise in surprise–but soon returns to the calm when their mouths move together. Mika is more aware of his teeth than he would like to be; they clink with Yuu’s a few times, and he’s careful to avoid cutting Yuu’s lips with them. Yuu’s hand makes its way into Mika’s hair, gripping at the nape of his neck and pulling him closer and further into the kiss.
Yuu breaks away to breathe but maintains their closeness. “I was right then, huh? Of course I was.” Mika feels a tingle at Yuu’s breath on his lips.
“Shut up, Yuu-chan.” Mika laughs quietly. If there was anyone who knew Mika’s feelings, it would be Yuu. Mika isn’t going to tell him that.
Mika may not have ever seen what love looks like, or known that that was the name of the feeling he had, but he felt it. He felt it when he looked at Yuu and Yuu smiled at him; he felt it when Yuu grabbed his hand; he had felt it when he was waiting to see Yuu again.
Perhaps he had felt it when they were twelve, too, and he just didn’t know it yet.