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Tap tap tap tap…
Katsuki coughed and opened his eyes to a dark, still bedroom. His throat felt thick and dry from sleep, and a chill seeped straight to the bone, leaving him shivering and pulling his nest of blankets tighter around himself. The dull ache in his temples when he’d gone to bed early that night was still present, as was the inability to breathe through his nose.
It was obviously too soon to be waking up, but he glanced at his bedside clock: 5:57 a.m. It was officially January first, and he was still down for the count with the goddamn flu that had stuck to him for most of winter break.
Happy Fucking New Year.
Katsuki grabbed his second pillow that he’d dropped on the floor in the night and hugged it to himself. He shut his eyes and willed himself back to sleep.
Tap tap tap…
But there was that noise that had woken him before. Katsuki groaned and looked around his bedroom. Neither of his parents were present, and nothing seemed out of place. But the pale light outside cast shadows from the direction of his window, including one familiar but unexpected silhouette across the floor.
Red hair in messy spikes wilting from a full day and night of wear, Kirishima was standing out on Katsuki’s balcony. When Katsuki finally caught sight of him, he uncurled the fist that had been tapping on the glass and waved. Only his edges were illuminated by the soft glow of twilight and a single dimming street light behind him, but Katsuki could still make out the eager smile on his face even in the darkness. Maybe it was just that bright on its own, or maybe Katsuki had just grown so accustomed to it that his mind just knew it was there. Either way, it filled him with a warmth that just slightly took the edge off his chills. Slightly.
Mostly, though, Katsuki was still sick and tired, and… “What the fuck are you doing out there? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Apparently Kirishima took that as permission to enter the room because he experimented with the handle of the door and, finding it unhindered, let himself in. “Sorry for waking you, dude,” he whispered. “How are you feeling?”
Katsuki coughed into his hand as he sat up. He shivered at the cold air that Kirishima had brought in with him and pulled his blankets up higher. “Like shit.”
Kirishima made a soft, sympathetic noise and shuffled his feet a bit. Probably second-guessing his decision to show up here so early in the morning, Katsuki figured. He must have come straight from the night out with Kaminari and Sero. A New Year’s Eve that Katsuki had been meant to spend with them before he’d gotten sick. It figured that bunch of nerds had probably been up the entire night. Kirishima was probably too tired to think.
Katsuki sighed and softened his glare. “What are you doing here?”
Kirishima scratched the back of his head and held up a small paper bag with his other hand. “Happy New Year? I brought you some mochi and… uh… oh man, I feel bad for waking you. I just figured you said you were going to bed so early last night, you might be okay to get up and watch the sunrise together, at least. Do you want me to go home so you can get back to sleep?”
Katsuki suspected Kirishima had already traveled quite a way to get there; there was no reason those three would have been close to Katsuki’s home if he wasn’t with them. If he took the train ride back to Chiba Prefecture now, Kirishima would surely miss the sunrise he’d come there for.
Besides, Katsuki had been disappointed to cancel their plans, and the prospect of starting the new year’s first sunrise with Kirishima was somehow more appealing than the call of sleep.
“No, but it’s cold as hell out there,” Katsuki decided. “I’m not sitting outside for the next hour.”
Kirishima set the bag on Katsuki’s bedside table and started to take off his outerwear, depositing his red coat and earmuffs on a chair. “We can stay in here for a while,” he said cheerfully.
Even sick, Katsuki’s reflexes were quick enough to dodge the body plopping down unceremoniously beside him. Kirishima wriggled around and made himself comfortable before grinning at him.
“You dumbass, you want to get sick too?”
“I’ll be fine,” Kirishima said confidently, seemingly settled into his spot shoulder-to-shoulder with Katsuki.
“Well, if you’re planning on staying there, don’t blame me if you end up getting used as a pillow. I’m making no promises about staying awake.”
“You sure you don’t want me to go?”
Katsuki sighed. “Just shut up and tell me what you and the idiots did all night.”
“How can I tell you if I have to shut up?”
He totally deserved the pillow that smacked him in the face and accepted his punishment like a champ, laughing out an apology. He started talking about the night, how they’d all met up at Kaminari’s house, Kaminari’s failed attempts to woo a girl and Sero laughing his ass off about it...
Somewhere in Kirishima’s story, Katsuki must have fallen asleep, because he was roused by a large hand gently shaking his forearm. His cheek was squished uncomfortably against Kirishima’s shoulder, but rather than move away, he opened his eyes slowly and stared at the hand that had gone still against his wrist, just one fingertip touching the palm of his hand. In his sleep haze, Katsuki thought he might slide his own hand up until their fingers slotted together, to see how they fit, to feel if Kirishima’s hands felt as soft against his own rough palms as he remembered from months ago.
But then Kirishima’s voice broke through the haze, and Katsuki stopped himself before his fingers could so much as twitch toward Kirishima’s.
“Sun’s about to come out.”
Katsuki sat up wordlessly and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes while Kirishima gathered his outerwear from the chair — outerwear that, a moment later, Katsuki was having forced on him, the sleeves unceremoniously pulled up over his arms before he had woken up enough to actually fend Kirishima off.
“The hell are you doing?”
Kirishima shushed him while zipping up the coat. “Relax. I’m not taking you outside without a jacket, dude.”
Katsuki didn’t argue — if he went down for his own coat, he’d probably wake his parents, after all — but he glared when Kirishima put the earmuffs on his head, too. “What about you?”
Kirishima grinned. “I can handle a little cold.”
“Not that much cold.” Katsuki slipped into his house shoes and headed for the balcony. “Grab blankets.”
Kirishima did as he was told and followed him out to where they sat with their backs to the closed door, both of them wrapped up together in as many blankets as he could hold. Their breath came out in small, fleeting clouds that dissipated in the wind, and he pulled the blankets tighter, tucked one up under Katsuki’s chin when he shivered.
“Thanks for watching with me, even though you’re sick,” he said earnestly.
The sky was a periwinkle blue — already too bright to see the stars any longer — that faded into pale yellow before it bloomed into brilliant orange where it met the horizon. Many of Katsuki’s neighbors were out, of course, little silhouettes among the other rooftops and balconies, but no one Katsuki could make out clearly. That made it feel more intimate, somehow, to sit out there in that cocoon of blankets, close enough that only he could see Kirishima’s bright eyes and gleaming teeth and that tiny, almost imperceptible dimple in his cheek in the pale light.
“I’m surprised you had to come all the way here instead of just watching with the other two pains in the ass,” Katsuki said.
Kirishima shrugged. “I could have. I wanted to spend the new year with you, though. I had this whole plan for the night, actually, before you couldn’t go. It ended here, too. Well… not here here, but watching the sunrise together, just us.”
Katsuki hummed and sank further into their blankets, closer to Kirishima, seeking as much warmth as he could when the wind nipped. “Not sure why you needed a plan for all that, but sounds good to me. Sorry for messing it up, I guess.”
Kirishima snorted and shook his head, cheeks turning a little pink. Katsuki didn’t know what he’d said that was so amusing, though.
“Hey, um…” The corner of Kirishima’s lips curved into a small, nervous smile, and he rubbed tiredly the side of his face. “We’re pretty close at this point, right? I mean, we practically live in each other’s dorm rooms, and I dunno… we know a lot of stuff about each other, don’t we?”
Katsuki frowned at the odd question, and Kirishima’s nervous fidgety behavior. “What’s your deal, Kirishima?”
Kirishima met his eyes and shrugged. “I was thinking, you’re really important to me. You’re my best friend, so you should start calling me Eijirou, shouldn’t you?”
No one in their class called him that. It sounded foreign and new, hearing it outside of a roll call, separate from ‘Kirishima.’
“I could call you Katsuki, too,” Kirishima added even more anxiously, and it felt like more than a name, somehow, the way he said it.
Shining gold peeked out from the horizon, stretching upward like flames glowing from a hearth, and Kirishima’s eyes glimmered as those first rays reached them. He and Katsuki turned to watch the sunrise, and sighing, Katsuki leaned against his arm.
The sun was whole, floating above the horizon, when Katsuki spoke again, but at that point his eyes had fallen shut as he began to drift back to sleep on his friend’s shoulder. “Hey Eijirou? Thanks for waking me up at the asscrack of dawn.”
Eijirou laughed softly. “Happy New Year, Katsuki.”