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It seems, according to the members of Shinoa's squad, that Yuuichirou had a big problem with invasions to his personal space.
When the squad first assembled, nobody was allowed any physical contact with Yuu or he'd more than likely punch them in the face. As though he'd wrapped himself in barbed wire and broken glass, Yuu spurned any kind of contact between himself and anyone else. He hated it, hated people touching him for no reason other than to fight him. He didn't want the affection, didn't want the closeness of someone else, especially after having lost everyone he ever cared about.
Shinoa's squad understood after a while, when they'd learned what had happened to him. How he was a prisoner of the vampires with other children, his 'family', and how they'd all been murdered right in front of him. They had most likely been the reason he couldn't stand the intimacy of a hug or a handshake, because they probably gave him so much when they were alive, and their traumatic deaths created a negative space around him with their absence.
Now that they were gone, nobody was allowed to fill that space, nobody could take away the area that only they would be allowed to fill. Even four years hadn't made it easier for him.
The circle around Yuu was sacred to him, his personal space was a place so special that no normal person was permitted to intrude on it. He always stood at a distance from everyone, even if surrounded by people, he ensured that nobody walked close to him, or so much as breathed in his direction. To do so would incite his anger and he'd threaten to fight whoever caused the infraction, as harsh words and enraged ranting split the air in a cacophony of insulted rage.
This was most evident when Yoichi had tried to give Yuu a hug after the black-haired boy had saved him from bullies at school, only to end up with two fists in his collar and a hard shove away.
Don't touch me! He'd yelled, and a pain behind his verdant eyes made itself starkly clear as Yoichi righted himself. At the time, he didn't understand why Yuu would react in such a way to something as benign as a grateful hug, but he didn't press. It was Yuu's business, not his, and he certainly didn't take it personally. He knew the basics as to why Yuu reacted the way he did, but didn't want to dig into something that didn't involve him.
Kimizuki had seen it himself as well, when they'd been handcuffed together. Yuu would stand as far away from him as possible, at the limit that the handcuffs could manage, curling his fingers away so that not a single piece of skin could make any contact. Though, they did see that he willingly violated his own personal space rule was when they had arguments that resulted in them screaming in one-another's faces, which probably helped fuel his rage. Eventually, when the cuffs had come off and they'd gotten along (barely), Yuu still placed himself at a distance to the taller boy.
Shinoa had noticed this peculiarity also, when watching him interact with his guardian, that not even Guren was exempt from this negative space bubble. She'd witnessed them chatting, and when Guren reached up to either place a hand on Yuu's shoulder or ruffle his hair, Yuu would quickly reach up and swat his hand away. They'd supposedly been through it many times before, as Guren had laughed and called him weird, but she theorized that their dynamic was an odd one to begin with.
For the few months they'd known him at that time, he'd been incredibly prickly, unwilling and unable to open himself to the idea that he could receive kindness from people who consider themselves his new friends. He tried to turn down their friendship, tried to keep himself as a lone wolf, but found himself unable to reject them completely. They were making an effort to get to know him and he couldn't just dismiss them so easily.
So he opened up a tiny bit, gave them a little more of himself to work with so that they could function together as a team without it collapsing from the inside. He was still hard-headed and stubborn, but he pushed himself to allow them to help him in his goal to destroy the vampires and the Horsemen that they'd been assigned to kill.
It was only after the battle of Shinjuku, only after seeing his childhood friend again, one that he'd believed he'd seen murdered, that everything began to change.
His personal space bubble had shrunk almost immediately. The months of work the squad had put into trying to lower his walls had meant nothing when he'd been faced with Mikaela's presence.
Mika, the name he'd been screaming in his sleep, Mika, Mika.
After the battle, the screaming in his sleep stopped. The harsh, abrupt words trickled to nothing, and the distance he'd put between himself and his team had dwindled.
Yuu woke up from his coma, and almost instantly he was more tactile. He was allowing people to touch him now, allowing Yoichi to give him a very brief hug when he woke, holding out his hand in solidarity to Shinoa, and letting Kimizuki pat him on the shoulder as a 'welcome back to the waking world' form of congratulations.
But that was the limit. He'd let them touch him, but not for too long, and kept his focus on reclaiming his friend from the vampires. Mika had become his primary objective, and everything else became white noise. And they understood. They understood that completely.
And when Mikaela had joined them after the battle of Nagoya, his personal space bubble had vanished. The other boy was never out of Yuu's space, and they almost always were touching, as though one of them would disappear should they leave one another's presence.
It seemed, though, that the space around them was saved only for the other. Mikaela was just as prickly as Yuu had been about his personal space, as though the losses and the pain and the torture he'd been through, coupled together with the agony of vampirism and thirst over the years, had created an impenetrable wall around him, with only a Yuu-shaped hole in it. But the team let him have his space. They understood.
The two of them were damaged, but together they made themselves a cobbled together form that resembled something whole. The space around them may have once been reserved for their lost family, but as they are all long dead, all they have of them now is one another.
But there was more to it than just family, more than just the bonds of friendship and loss. There was a level of intimacy between the two of them that they couldn't share with anyone else. It's deeper, more important, more devoted than mere friendship, and their body language towards each other revealed it even if they'd never admit it out loud.
Whenever the group got together, the two boys stood so close that their arms would brush, a stark clash of white on black that nobody could ignore. Whenever they sat down they were all but pressed together from hip to shoulder. They never left one another's company long enough to feel the loss of contact. And they spoke to each other in such a way that it was almost too intimate, almost a language that the rest of the squad couldn't quite understand.
And everyone almost immediately knew why.
They were close as children, but after their reunification, all their personal space is designated only for each other.
So much so that they even sleep in the same bed. Or at least, Yuu sleeps cuddled next to Mika's form, clutching the blond tightly to himself every single night like a teddy bear. Even if Mika doesn't feel the need to sleep anymore, that doesn't change the fact that he returns the embrace just as fervently.
They spend each night a tangle of limbs under covers, either facing one another or with Yuu's arms wrapped tightly around Mika's waist and his face pressed into the back of the vampire's neck, breathing in his scent, as though he would disappear in an instant if he were to let go.
Shinoa wanted to take pictures of them together, but the red-eyed glare Mikaela sent her way when she brought it up in jest convinced her to think otherwise.
It was obvious that they literally could not keep their hands off of one another.
Mitsuba had walked into Yuu's room at one point, to relay orders that they were leaving and that he should start getting his things together, she ended up seeing something she almost wished she hadn't.
The two of them were kneeling on the bed, Mika practically perched on Yuu's lap, and Mika's arms around Yuu's shoulders while his mouth was firmly latched into the side of Yuu's throat. Yuu himself had one arm tightly coiled around Mika's middle and the other in his hair, holding him close as the vampire took his fill, eyes closed and a look of pure bliss on his face.
Frozen in spot, she could only watch as Yuu stroked his fingers through Mika's hair, and a smile played serenely over his features. His other hand traced idle circles on the back of Mika's white uniform, his head pressing against the vampire's as their light and dark hair intermingled. They looked so... entwined in one another.
She must have made a noise, or he had some advanced form of spatial awareness thanks to his demon, because he'd suddenly opened his eyes and looked straight at her, face dropping to surprise. His fingers uncurled from Mika's hair to drop and pat his thigh in a form of signal, and the vampire pulled back from his neck, turning his scarlet eyes to her as well.
There was a small trickle of blood trailing from his lips that he quickly caught with his fingers, which left no doubt as to what they were doing, as Yuu reached up to press his own fingers against the still bleeding wound on his neck, waiting for his demon to seal up the twin fang marks. They both looked unabashed to have been caught in such a tangled embrace, but Mitsuba couldn't think through her embarrassment.
As she stuttered through her relayed orders, she couldn't help but notice they still hadn't let go or moved away from one another, Mika's hands had moved to grasp the front of Yuu's shoulders while Yuu's hand was still pressed on Mika's thigh. She felt like such an intruder into that moment, that she excused herself as quickly as she could and left, leaving them with the knowledge that they'd better wrap up their activities because the team would be setting out shortly.
When they finally emerged from the room, they interacted with her as if nothing had happened. Or at least, Yuu did. She couldn't stop apologising for interrupting them, but he'd said that it was fine, that there was nothing to apologise for. After the third time someone had walked in on their feeding sessions, Yuu had started warning them about it, to prevent any more embarrassment on account of the team.
It had only been when they hadn't said they'd gone to feed, and had snuck off one night with one another that the true nature of their relationship finally came to light. Yoichi had spotted them accidentally while he was on watch, perched as he was on a dilapidated building.
They'd been going for a walk along the perimeter of their camp, far enough that the others should not have been able to see them, but close enough that they could immediately head back if they needed to. It had appeared as though they'd been arguing briefly, but due to the distance, he could see them and was unable to hear their words.
Unbeknownst to them, however, their loud voices had attracted a nearby Horseman of John, which had milled around the campsite for hours, and it began it's four-legged lumber over, giant slavering and spiked maw snapping at the idea of fresh food. Yoichi had almost sent an arrow in warning, but the two of them beat him to it, quickly taking down the beast in a fantastic display of blood magic and demon energy.
Before the creature had even finished collapsing in it's death throes, Yuu stormed up to Mika, gripping the back of his neck with his free hand, and kissed him. The vampire stumbled back a step in surprise, before seemingly allowing himself to reciprocate. Their arms coiled around one another in a mixed embrace of black and white so entwined, that the darkness almost made them blend together to a shade of grey.
Instead of being shocked, Yoichi released the energy that had built up in his nocked arrow and let his draw slack, a giddy smile crossing his lips. He saw the two cling to one another a second longer before averting his eyes, leaving their privacy to themselves. The Horseman they killed was the only one hanging around this part of the city, so they were safe for now.
He hadn't even said anything, and almost immediately he could tell that the entire team knew about it before he'd even come down from the building. Perhaps it was the smile on his face, or the way the two of them simply interacted with one another afterwards that gave them away, but the group took their newfound romance in stride as they did with everything else.
Their relationship didn't need a classification or a label to define what they were to one another, and their transition from childhood friends, to family, and eventually to lovers was an unsurprising one. A light-hearted tease from Shinoa, a roll of the eyes from Narumi, congratulations from Mitsuba, a 'took you long enough' from Kimizuki, and an ecstatic smile from Yoichi was what they received when they finally admitted that they were together.
Yoichi had managed to convince everyone to give them a group hug, even Narumi, who tried to fight it, but eventually gave in to Yoichi's puppy dog eyes and joined in. None of them had ever seen Yuu smile so brightly, or Mika look so embarrassed when the group released them, fingers tangled tightly together and shoulders pressed as though the space between them was non-existent. Yuu showed his affection with touch, and could now accept it from others he considered his family, and Mika was learning to do the same.
The negative space they'd created around themselves had been almost magnetic between them, drawing the other in closer and closer until barely even air could pass between them.
For two people who'd kept themselves at a harsh distance from others for so long, who had both recoiled from touch and affection for so many years, to accept it from anyone at all was an amazing feat. They deserved any shred of happiness from whatever they could get it from, even if it was only from the small group of army defectors that surround them, as well as one another. They deserved a space of acceptance, of kindness and affection.
And the team couldn't be happier for them now that they found it.