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The door to the apartment is unlocked when Ritsu arrives, cell phone still in hand.
Glancing up from Shou’s message on the screen, Ritsu takes in the new place where Shou and his mum would be living from now on, bathing in the ghostly light of a cloudy winter day that bleaches every surface of the room. Ritsu stands in the genkan, dripping sleet from his hair and jacket, as he removes his shoes and slips into the slippers neatly laid out for guests, white and non-descript like paper.
Outside, wet snowflakes turn the grey asphalt black, melted before they reach the ground.
There are still too many cardboard boxes stowed into the corners of the room, but they’re unobtrusive compared to the kotatsu in the middle, with its thick green blanket bundled up around the table. A thick blanket with an odd, shapeless lump on one side.
“Like the new apartment, Shou?”
The lump beneath the blanket stirs, and Shou’s face peers out at him like a small burrowing animal’s, pale eyes looking almost unnaturally wide. He’s resting on a moss-coloured pillow that matches the blanket, and his hair is recently shorn.
“Ritsu! You’re late.”
“It took longer to find than I expected,” Ritsu says, “Your instructions aren’t exactly crystal clear.”
He drops his school-bag on the floor and sits down, while Shou pulls himself up on his elbows.
“Well, I offered to meet ya, but you didn’t reply to my text.”
“I was reading on the bus,” Ritsu says, a little defensively. They both know Ritsu tend to forget to check his phone, simply because not many people have his number. “Besides, you look like you were happy to stay where you are.”
“You like it?” Shou grins, gesturing to the kotatsu he’s currently nesting underneath, like a snail proudly showing off its shell. “Mum barely had any space for one at her old place, so she decided to splurge a little. Now get in here before I make you.”
Shou lifts the blanket in invitation and Ritsu slides in next to him on his back, sharing one half of the pillow. The heat of the radiator comes in a wave, washing over Ritsu from his toes to his lower back as he makes himself comfortable.
Despite the wet weather outside it’s cold in the apartment, the air raw and uncomfortable in his lungs. The heavy blanket comforts him, and for a moment Ritsu is six years old again, curled up with his brother under the kotatsu at home, clutching orange rinds their dad had peeled into shapes.
He’s jostling to make himself comfortable when Shou’s nose bumps into his; Shou’s kiss lands like a snowflake and leaves a wet spot on Ritsu’s lips.
“Your nose is cold,” Shou says accusingly. “And your hair is dripping.”
Ritsu snorts and nuzzles Shou’s nose again just to tease--
“Do you want to get up and fetch me a towel?”
--and to distract him from the cold fingertips that sneak inside Shou’s shirt, pressing lightly against his warm, firm abdomen. Ritsu laughs when he flinches, but Shou doesn’t push his hands away, only buries his face in the pillow and grinds out a curse between his teeth.
“Asshole,” Shou says adoringly and kisses him again, longer this time. Their lips are tissue-paper dry as they slide against one another’s, planting silence in the space between their mouths. Ritsu rests his hand against Shou’s side, relishing the sensation of skin on skin. The kotatsu shields their bodies from view and that makes him daring, maybe too daring as his fingers find the curve of Shou’s hip and he pulls back, flustered but strangely happy.
There’s not much furniture in the apartment yet, apart from the kotatsu and the TV table. It’s too big for all the bare necessities from the old apartment to fill it completely, leaving empty space along the walls where there should be shelves and picture frames. There are no house plants on the windowsills yet, or anywhere else for that matter; Ritsu wonders if he should have brought one, and realises he forgot to buy a housewarming gift. That might be just as well—both Shou and his mum would berate him for it.
Overall the apartment looks bare, bone-coloured walls and wispy curtains only strengthening the impression of empty space. Even the sky outside is a dull white that almost hurts to look at, draining the room of colour.
Shou blinks blearily at him, pupils dark and fond, and Ritsu thinks of clean slates and fresh starts.
“When you’re all warmed up,” Ritsu says, “you have to show me your room.”
Shou laughs. “Yeah—mum insisted we should furnish that and the kitchen first. I asked if she was planning on sleeping under the table, but she didn’t seem to get the joke.”
When they were younger, Ritsu once asked where Shou usually spent the night, and the answer had been disconcertingly non-committal. Maybe Suzuki-san had gotten a similar reply at some point.
“It looks nice,” Ritsu replies, feeling suddenly stupid. “It’ll be a good place to live.”
“Mmm.”
Ritsu pulls the blanket up to his cheek, relishing the warmth from the kotatsu. They’ll have to move somewhere else soon, or Ritsu is going to be fast asleep before dinner time.
Shou leans in, close enough that their foreheads almost touch, and clears his throat.
“Welcome home,” he says, cheeks dusted pink.
They don’t move from the kotatsu until the white light is blue, and the wet snow has turned to raindrops on the windowpane.