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Something stirs Haruka’s subconscious, alerting him into wakefulness and halts the dream he was having—thinks he was having. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, and in fact he can’t actually remember any part of it in the least. All he’s aware of is it ends, it ends and that everything around him feels distinctly more real, more concrete and there. He thinks noise reaches his ears, a yawn, murmuring, something. But then again he’s really not all too sure. He’s not too sure of anything but a sudden lack of solidity, of warmth, of the way he blindly reaches out, forward, for whatever it is he’s missing—to make contact, to touch, to grab, to bring it back.
His fingers graze it, graze what he assumes to be it and they curl into the thin, soft, warm fabric to merely hold and then, when it’s not enough, tug. This time he’s more than certain he hears a laugh, low and rich, but he’s less sure of the words, if they’re real or imagined. He knows they existed, he realizes, just that he hadn’t been able to catch them, comprehend what’d been said.
There’s warmth fanning over his forehead, strands of hair fluttering in its wake, and a distinct heat presses to the exact spot as his grip’s extracted.
Now, Haruka’s by no means a fan of warmth, of heat, of anything in the ‘hot’ spectrum. Raised temperatures make him woozy, sweaty, uncomfortable in his own skin and thus often sets him in bad moods. He cooks food only out of necessity and showers under a hot spray for hygiene’s sake. Summer is only saved from the bottom of his ‘favorite seasons’ list for all the swimming it offers, for not only the permitting temperatures but also the prolonged daylight extending his time in the water.
But somehow, somehow the definite lack of this heat, this source of warmth gets to him, really gets to him in a way that has him rolling to curl into the residual spot it’s left behind. He burrows into the sheets, nuzzles into the pillow and snuggles deeper into the covers as if making up for the loss. Inhaling at length, drawing down a filling breath, he finds it scented with musk, with something floral and clean and like home. Like sunshine and white sands and the sea breeze.
Like Makoto Tachibana. Like Makoto, his childhood best friend since day one, his very first teammate. His crush before he’d even known what a ‘crush’ was, the only man, the only person he ever loved passed familial ties and friendly bonds. His roommate, his boyfriend, his…
… His fiancé.
The sudden thought serves to persuade him further into consciousness and Haruka does feel distinctly more awake. He slowly, sleepily blinks open both his eyes and the soft morning light sneaking in between the blinds and through sheer curtains, illuminating his, illuminating their room in an ethereal glow greets him. Candles only barely melted at their tops and currently unlit catch his idly wondering attention, and as the flower petals scattered about everywhere do the same pieces of his memory hidden in the fog of sleep begin returning.
He raises on an elbow, pushing to sit upright and the sheets, the covers are slipping, falling to pool around the bare angles of his hip. The not-quite-cool, not-quite-warm air feels nice, feels comfortable against his exposed skin and as he relishes the pleasant sensation he stares down his hand, the left one, the one with a finger now bearing—
“Makoto,” Haruka calls in calm panic, quiet by all standards but loud enough to carry through their open door and down the hall.
There’s only a momentary lapse before footsteps sound, approach and draw near. He doesn’t catch the way in which Makoto leans into the threshold, only hears his own name punctuated with a question as it follows. Though he’s heard it, knows he has as it registers somewhere, he’s not really aware of the fact and remains quiet, unresponsive. He pays no attention to any part of the world around him, and even if he had he’s sure the language center of his brain’s not working, suspects his brain as a whole just isn’t functioning.
It finally takes weight dipping the mattress, jostling him, and a hand settling down onto his shoulder to pull him completely from the trance. “Hey… Are you all right?”
Haruka raises his gaze, looks from the brushed silver of the ring up to the green of Makoto’s eyes. The expression of growing worry he wears visibly shifts to surprise, dissolving to sheepishness before melting into something unmistakably fond.
He considers the possibility of maybe, for once, saying something—voice his thoughts, his feelings. Not so much because it’s that they need to be said, need to be heard, but more to just say them, prove he can, break routine a little.
He scoots close and easily wraps his arms around the other’s shoulders, burying his face into one. It’s in no time at all that the body in his grasp shifts, twists around to better face his own and then there are arms coming around him. As the contact’s sinking into his skin, into him and his very being, he pinpoints it. That this… This is the warmth that vanished. The warmth he didn’t merely put up with or tolerate, but missed, craved, needed. The warmth he’d grown up knowing, grown up with, and had never been deprived of for too long.
Would never be deprived of again, he’s reminded when there’s a sliver of cold pressed to his back as Makoto’s hand presses there.
“We’re really…” Haruka breathes over the skin of the collarbone just under his lips, mirroring the other by pressing his own palm flat against the defined shoulder blades he finds.
“We are,” Makoto’s reply ghosts the outer shell of his ear, tickling strands of hair and the smile it’s delivered with is so evident, it’s so loud that his heart swells, threatens to overflow from his eyes as the tears gather in them. Because that means he’s just as happy, he’s just as happy and excited and nervous and overwhelmed and in love as Haruka is.
“I’m engaged to my best friend,” he chokes out in a whisper and the arms are slipping from around him, hands cupping his cheeks with such tenderness he fears there’s no way to contain all his emotions. A thumb brushes under his eye, there’s a forehead rested against his and he wonders how anyone can get this lucky, how he can get this lucky.
“And I’m engaged to mine,” Makoto’s voice is infinitely soft, much like the kiss he’s brushing over his nose.
And he can’t take it, he just really, really cannot take any of this a single second longer. His heart’s too full, chest so congested with the love he feels he fears its gotten into his lungs and is drowning him from the inside out. It feels the same, all suffocating and overwhelming and terrifying. But this time he can breathe, he can breathe and—
“Makoto,” Haruka exhales on a breath, all air and feeling because the words he wants to use get caught in his throat, stick fast and refuse to dislodge, choking him. There are so many, all just as important as the next and each needing to be said just as much as the one before it that it’s frustrating, rather than frightening. Because he needs to say them, needs to tell Makoto each and every one because doesn’t he deserve that much, at least?
He does, he knows he does, but then there’s that knowing, loving smile raising the corners of his mouth, lowering his eyelids and it’s made obvious that within the three simple syllables of his own name he understands. He hears everything Haruka wants to say, hears it in everything he doesn’t and understands why. He wants to know how, how it’s possibly possible—
“Haruka,”
—but he already does, he already knows and simply needed reminding. Reminding that he, too, can pick up the subtleties in each pronunciation, between every breath. That each stroke of his name’s character, the way every one sounds when spoken aloud, holds millions more meanings when on Makoto’s tongue.
Really, there’s no use in changing routine when it works so well, has for so long, now.
(But he’ll do it nevertheless to clamber into Makoto’s lap, to simply be held when it’s probably about time he trudges to the bathroom to wash up then start on breakfast. Makoto will join him, laying him back on the sheets to scoot close under the covers rather than dress and rush off to class. Instead of pressing his back flush against the broad expanse of chest behind him he’ll roll over to face Makoto and Makoto won’t snake an arm around his waist but instead cup his cheek to stroke it slowly with the pad of his thumb. Haruka will settle a hand over the firm beat of his heart with a ghost of an ‘I love you’ leaving his lips. Makoto will grasp that very same hand to raise to his own lips and press a kiss that sounds suspiciously like ‘I love you, too’ to the ring on its third finger.
They’ll skip class and miss practice. They won’t eat until 2pm or return any missed calls. Texts will be replied to later and a bath had now, though it’s late afternoon. After dinner at a restaurant nicer than their usual and another night of saccharine lovemaking they’ll return to their everyday.
Because, really. There’s no harm in changing routine every so often.)