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At three in the morning, Eita knocks on Tendou’s door. Just a soft rap of knuckles against wood; not enough to rouse him if he’s asleep, but just enough to let Tendou know he’s there if he’s awake.
It takes a minute, but Tendou does open the door, in sweatpants and a large t-shirt, hair still spiked up but drooping slightly.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” Eita asks.
“Let me grab my jacket.”
Tendou disappears into the depths of his room without closing his door, without asking where they’re walking to, without saying, ‘It’s three in the morning, Semisemi’ .
When Tendou comes back, in the middle of pulling on his jacket, Eita’s tugging at the sleeves of his own sweatshirt - Tendou’s sweatshirt, black, a little bit too large for Eita, and with an All Might decal on the chest.
Tendou closes the door behind himself and whispers, “Are we going off-campus?”
“Yeah,” Eita says, voice hardly more than a breath.
Technically they aren’t supposed to leave campus without permission and telling an adult where they’re going and when they’ll be back, but Eita’s snuck out several times before - sometimes with Tendou, twice with Shirabu, and often enough on his own - so he isn’t worried. Tendou doesn’t seem bothered, either; he just pats down his hair so that it fits underneath his hood and motions for Eita to lead the way.
Outside, it’s nice. Warm, but still cold enough to warrant a jacket, and only a few clouds scattered across the otherwise-barren sky. Eita stuffs one hand in a pocket and reaches out with the other to take Tendou’s.
They pass through the entrance of campus unnoticed, which is to be expected - it is three in the morning. Eita hears Tendou sigh beside him - from relief at not getting caught or just because, he doesn’t know - and he squeezes his hand, looks at him from the corner of his eye.
Tendou’s smiling, relaxed. His hair looks strange beneath the hood, part of it sticking straight out like a horn. Eita smiles at this and laughs, light and airy, soft.
Tendou looks at him and raises an eyebrow.
“Your hair,” Eita says. “You look like a unicorn.”
“What~?” Tendou draws out the syllable, fumbles in his pockets for his phone. He stares down at it for a moment, and then his face splits into one of his sharp grins, the ones where his eyes always look wide and narrowed at the same time and his nose scrunches up just a little. “A unicorn .” Tendou lowers his phone.
“Yeah,” Eita says, louder than he intends - louder than he should , seeing as they’re only barely off campus, and if someone heard them and came to see what all that noise was about they’d both be in trouble - and he cups Tendou’s cheeks in his hands and brings his face down to bump their noses together.
“ Your unicorn.”
“Yeah,” Eita says again. “My unicorn boyfriend.”
They stay like that - noses touching, grinning, just looking at each other - for a while. Eita’s stomach swoops, because this is special, and private, and he’s in love , and even though it’s just a moment, it’s one he gets to experience and it’s perfect .
After another heartbeat, Tendou blinks and whispers, “Where are we going?”
Eita can feels his breath on his lips.
“Ah, I wanted mochi,” he admits. “The konbini down the road has really good red bean ones. And strawberry.” He adds the last part as an afterthought, because he knows strawberry is Tendou’s favourite (and it’s true, their strawberry mochi is excellent).
“I think I have some back in my room, actually,” Tendou says. “There’s only mango left, though. I’ll just give them to Tsutomu tomorrow.”
“He likes mango.”
“Yeah,” Tendous says. Then, “You brought money? Or are we robbing the store?”
“I’m not stupid ,” Eita grumbles. “Of course I brought money.”
Tendou grins easily. “Just teasing, Semisemi,” he says, his tongue poking through his teeth.
“I know,” Eita says back. He takes Tendou’s hand again and starts back down the road.
The only sounds are their quiet breaths and their feet against the pavement. There are no street lights, but the moon and stars are bright and provide enough light to see by. Eita’s breathing is even and his chest feels warm.
When the soft neon signs in the windows of the konbini are visible, Tendou lets go of Eita’s hand and pushes back his hood, runs his fingers through his hair a few times. “Do I look alright?”
“We’re just buying snacks,” Eita says. Then, “You look fine.” He knows sometimes people watch Tendou warily, especially in family-owned businesses. They used to watch Eita like that, too, when he’d go out in fishnets and boots and crop tops and far too much eyeliner, but they know him here, now; they trust him.
Tendou takes Eita’s hand again and they go inside. The kid behind the counter doesn’t even look up from the magazine they’re perusing when the bell above the door tinkles softly.
The mochi is displayed in a case lined with soft blue lights. There’s a sign advertising them with a little smiling cartoon rabbit. It’s a very cute mascot; Tendou says as much.
“Look at its eyes, Eita! They’re so big.”
Eita hums in agreement, eyes scanning over the clear plastic boxes the mochi is stored in, looking for the right labels.
The red bean and strawberry are next to each other. It’s fitting. There isn’t much left, so Eita grabs two boxes of four of each flavour and turns away from the display. “Do you want pocky or soda or something, too?”
“Hmmm, pocky,” Tendou says, stops eyeing the mochi rabbit.
Having guessed Tendou would go for pocky, Eita is already halfway down the aisle it’s stocked in. “Strawberry and chocolate?” he calls over his shoulder. He already knows the answer - Tendou likes to get both and eat them at the same time - but he asks anyway.
Still by the mochi, Tendou smiles; it’s answer enough.
Eita pays for their snacks, the cashier hardly paying attention as they count change and continue reading their magazine at the same time. Tendou gathers up the snacks in his arms and Eita thanks the kid as the change is passed back to him. Then they’re out the door and back into the night.
It’s three-thirty now. Eita’s still not tired, so he leads Tendou back onto the road. They walk about halfway back to Shiratorizawa before Eita stops and pulls Tendou off the side of the road to sit beneath the trees.
The grass here is soft and dry. The branches over their heads are few enough that they can still see the stars if they look up.
There’s a warm breeze; Tendou’s jacket slips, unzipped, down his shoulders. Eita keeps his hoodie on.
The mochi is sweet. They’re warm and slightly sticky from the walk, but they still satisfy the craving. Tendou eats three - two strawberry, one red bean - and then opens his pocky. With one of each flavour hanging out of his mouth ( Like fangs , Eita thinks briefly) he turns to Eita and says, “Hey, pocky game?”
Eita swallows his bite and jokes, “With mochi?” then snorts because wouldn’t that be a sight.
Tendou bites his pocky and the ends falls onto his lap. He swallows, and Eita continues, serious, “I don’t want to kiss you when you have food in your mouth.”
Eita rests his hands on his knees and leans forward to catch Tendou’s lips with his own. It’s gentle and open-mouthed, and tastes of strawberry and chocolate and that strange sweetness of red bean paste.
Tendou’s lips are pliant and his mouth is warm; Eita’s stomach flips and his heart flutters in the best of ways. He can feel Tendou’s eyelashes flutter lightly against his cheek. Tendou’s tongue slides against his own, and Eita forgets about the snacks.
Tendou holds Eita’s cheek in a hand and caresses his thumb across his cheekbone; Eita shivers, definitely not from the cold.
When they pull away, Tendou is flushed and beautiful, and Eita’s own lips feel wonderfully-swollen. They do nothing but look at each other for a moment until Eita looks away to check the time on his phone.
It’s four.
“We should go,” he says, “before someone wakes up and realises we’re gone.”
Tendou groans and falls backwards on the grass.
“Satori,” Eita bends down and grabs Tendou’s wrists, tries to pull him up. “I don’t want to, either, but we have class at eight and I want to get at least a little sleep.”
“Less than four hours? No, thanks, I’ll just stay here.”
“We can sleep together on the common room couch,” Eita says, partly because they really should be getting back, but mostly because he likes sleeping with Tendou tucked against his side, arms wrapped around Eita’s waist.
“Hmm, you just want to make Shirabu uncomfortable,” Tendou says, and, yeah, there’s that, too. But he does give in and lets Eita pull him to his feet, and asks, “Do you want what I didn’t finish?”
They gather up their snacks and Eita says, “No, I bought them for you; they’re yours.”
Tendou just smiles and takes Eita’s hand.
The walk back to Shiratorizawa is long, mostly because Tendou keeps stopping them to point out different constellations or animals hiding in the brush. Eita smiles the whole way.
By four-thirty, they’re curled up on one of the couches in the common room, Eita’s arms wrapped across Tendou’s back and Tendou’s around his waist. It feels like home.