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It's warm and it's cold.
Simultaneously, the two opposing words adequately describe what Iwai is feeling at the moment. He wears his a long-sleeved black sweater underneath a ridiculously thick blanket that wraps his body like a cocoon. The morning sun also has its heat penetrating the window glass, adding to the already high temperature built up by the layers of fabric. He also feels it crawling under his skin, and yet, it's not enough to completely fight off the sheer cold coming from his own body. It's still there, and he knows it will always be there, no matter how many more blankets he's going to stack or sweaters he's going to wear. Fortunately, though, the contrasting temperatures only serve to make him warm and comfier on this bed, so it's one of the things he can enjoy today.
Although, there is something that's bothering him.
The gun shop owner shifts his focus from blankly staring at the ceiling to his hat placed on the table next to him. It's his usual gray cap that he wears anywhere to hide his short, spiky gray hair. It reminds him of his monotonic days sitting behind the counter in Untouchables, waiting for someone or the usual kid to come and shop for realistic model guns that couldn't be obtained anywhere else with a cup of coffee and the day's newspaper. He could say it's his working uniform by this point and looking at it while lying on this bed all sick like this provokes something to bubble up in his chest.
Today…
"Missing work?"
A familiar voice reaches Iwai's ears, signaling its whereabouts while also forcefully dragging him out of his own thoughts, almost like yanking, even, that he gets a bit surprised. His eyes are now locked on a man softly smiling at him with a messy, curly brown hair that has some strands standing out here and there. His body is still draped in a set of cute pink pijamas with bunny motifs and a fitting pair of pink and fuzzy bunny sandals. In his hands is a tray full of plates and glasses. He can see an endearing glow behind those glasses.
"And how would you know that, Doctor?”
Maruki sets the tray on the table next to the bed, putting Iwai's hat somewhere else, "It’s ex-doctor and, well, you did come here late after work."
"What's that? Some psychological analysis?" a chuckle follows Iwai's sarcastic comment as he sits himself up on the bed.
"Perhaps," answers the taxi driver, taking his space up next to Iwai on the bed, "Though, seeing you all drenched like that last night and given your routine, I believe it is hardly necessary for me to do that."
A sheepish, apologetic smile makes itself apparent on Iwai's face, "Sorry for always crashin' at your place late at night."
"Well, I don't have a problem with it," says Maruki, focusing his attention entirely on Iwai with a wide smile, "Some compensation for washing your clothes from last night would be nice, though..."
"Alright, alright," comforts Iwai before landing a light, brief kiss on Maruki's cheek, a gesture that is followed by an instant red on the latter's face, "I'll buy you some snacks, perhaps."
"R-right, that, uh, that will do," Maruki turns his head away from the sick man's attention, nervously fixing the strands of hair falling over his face and trying to not think how he feels like a little kid with Iwai's snacks offer. He takes a deep breath before dwelling on the thought any longer, "A-anyway, shouldn't we eat?"
"Sure, pass the plate."
Maruki takes a deep, relieved breath, glad that his social maneuver has freed him from the jail of emotional wreck. The man proceeds to take a plate of his mushroom risotto and pass it on to his lover before putting his on his lap. He can still feel its ideal warmth on his bare hands while a delicious aroma drifts in the air, once again prompting his stomach to start its rumble. He's been starving for this ever since the moment he prepared the mushrooms, trying again and again to not drool so that he can serve it in a temperature that wouldn’t burn one's tongue or kill one's appetite.
“You made this?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Smells good. You should cook for me more often.”
Iwai starts to dig into his food with a gusto usually unseen in sick people after throwing his joke, preceding Maruki's first spoonful of the food.
However, his thoughts are slowly emerging while he savors the scrumptious meal, drowning out his previous desire to just stuff his cheeks with whatever food he could find. In the silence between them, the ex-counsellor is alone with various sorts of things in his mind, along with his right hand that gets less and less automatic in shoving the risotto down his throat.
Cooking… for you, huh?
Reminiscence fills his mind like a slow but constant flow of water from a hose into a large pool, filling his head with vivid memories of his time with Iwai until now. It was just them catching each other on the streets at first, passing by every now and then, after that it was a brief meeting, one that was had in a train car late at night in which an empty, but strangely connected, conversation took place behind their masks. The brief meeting, previously thought to simply be a talk between strangers, evolved into a routine meeting in the same place, making their schedules the perpetrator of their first connection as acquaintances.
Acquaintances grew into friends in the nooks and crannies of the cramped and busy Shibuya, at places where they had never expected to meet each other. They laughed and talked in a diner during rainy evenings, in a convenience store when neither of them weren’t tucked tight, and, perhaps the most important one, in Crossroads after a stressful day at work, all tired and in need of solace; a moment of ignorance from all the things that are just wrong. A single pint, rather than a dream world, does a good job of it, after all.
Yet, even with all these memories, Maruki couldn’t really remember how it all started, but from that one hazy visit to Crossroads forward, their red strings became even more tied, all jumbled up and tight only to get tighter day by day through roundabout knots here and there. The mess filled up his mind and there was no day going by without at least a single 'Iwai' passing through his mind, it was hellish and ecstatic; addictive and scary, something that was even more lethal than a pint of alcohol.
And yet, he wouldn’t have it any other way… that is, until now.
Perhaps…
"You good?"
It's now Iwai's turn to snap Maruki out of his ocean of thoughts. The brown-haired man seems visibly shocked since he jumps a bit, making his spoon and fork clatter, giving him even more thing to be surprised at. He tries his best to tilt his plate so that his utensils don't fall off, but it results in the exact thing he avoids: both of the eating utensils fall off the plate, making a loud ruckus as they hit the floor, a sound that Maruki winces at. He just sees his spoon and fork clatter on the floor helplessly as he slowly accepts his fate of having to take another pair of them to finish his mushroom risotto. He lets out a deep sigh as he settles his plate back on the tray.
"Um... sorry."
Maruki turns to Iwai and sees the man as surprised as him with both of his eyes wide open, looking at the spoon and fork on the floor before slowly moving onto him while his own spoon assumes the role of his daily lollipop, all stiff and not budging even a bit.
"N-no! It's fine!" Maruki quickly stands up from the bed to pick up his mess from the floor while putting on a sheepish smile, "It's just the usual for me..."
"O-oh, I see… the usual, huh?" a smirk is now plastered on the other man's face, quickly replacing his complete surprise before, "I wouldn't mind always seeing it then."
Hearing that, Maruki freezes on the spot, almost dropping his utensils again. There’s really nothing wrong with what Iwai just said, but there it is again, the thing that makes him lost in his own mind, the thing that makes him a Minotaur in the labyrinth of his brain.
You wouldn’t mind?
The man bites his lower lip subtly. Something is emerging in his heart, calling out to him.
“Something wrong with you, Doctor?”
Once again, Maruki is startled to hear Iwai's sudden question that he drops his spoon and fork on the tray, making yet another clattering sound. He turns to Iwai with his body all tensed up while the gun enthusiast is looking at him with a visible concern on his face.
“You need some medicine?”
“N-no! There’s no need to!” refutes Maruki with both of his hands in the air as if there’s someone pointing a gun at him, “I’m fine!”
Iwai raises a brow, but relents his curiosity at the end, “Alright then.”
The sick man gets back to his food, once again relieving Maruki of his own clumsiness. The latter's body relaxes while he also internally curses himself for being so bad with handling things.
He turns his attention back to the tray, thinking of how he has to use another pair of spoon and fork. Well, maybe only a spoon is enough so that he won’t get any unnecessary thing to wash. Perhaps he just needs to leave the dirty ones here and go to the kitchen to take a new spoon. It would be more efficient that way.
That is, if he can get Iwai's words out of his mind and actually move.
His gaze softens and his chest tightens. He bites his lip again as something wells up once more in him. The significance of it affects him immensely as his legs seem reluctant to bring him out of this room without any word. His heart wants to say something, it needs to scream out, and Maruki already feels like as if he's about to burst.
I have to at least say something about this.
"Mune– I mean... Iwai-kun," Maruki starts with his heart slowly picking up its tempo, trying his best to get used to the first-name basis Iwai keeps on insisting despite how flustered Maruki gets every single time he does it, "I... there's something I want to ask of you."
"What is it?" Iwai asks while chewing a spoonful of Maruki's mushroom risotto.
Silence precedes the reply coming from Maruki. He leans on the table and starts to tap his fingers on it as softly as possible to not make any sound, "Uhm... about that compensation I told you before."
"Yeah? You want some special snacks?"
"That... would be nice, of course, but..."
The rest of his sentence is just hanging on the tip of his tongue, but it feels like climbing a gigantic wall to say it.
"But what?"
"I, uh..."
Come on!
"Yeah?"
"It's..."
Come on, Maruki!
"Oh, you want twice the amount? Heh. I see what you’re–“
"No!"
Fuck!
Maruki feels incredibly stupid for cutting Iwai off with his outburst and how there are only inches between their faces now.
"I-I-I mean," another deep red spreads immediately on Maruki's face, making him panic, "That's not what I mean! I did not mean any hostility by that, I swear! I know snacks would be good and all but there's something I need to tell you but I swear I didn't mean to scream at your face like that all I meant–“
"Maruki."
His body straightens up instantly, just like how he abruptly cuts his own blabberint the instant he hears his name.
"Is there something you wanna tell me?"
"Uh...," he rubs the back of his own head while turning his attention on the tray again. There is something that he wants to tell him, but it feels like climbing up Mount Fuji with his bare hands just to say it, “It’s just that, uh… I…”
"What is it?”
A slight hesitation precedes his answer, the thought of giving it all up passes by, but nonetheless, he strengthens himself and stands on his own two feet.
"Truth is," Maruki takes a deep breath, "I-I just think that it's, uh, it’s nice! And, uh, it’s… neat! To have you around, that is. You know? Well, despite the laundry today, i-it's actually nice to spend some time with you! Y-you know? It’s… it’s, uh, always… great when you’re around because, well, you're my partner and all that, but I'm just thinking… spending more, uh, more time with you would be even nicer! Maybe… in the form of more frequent dating! We meet even more often! Or we can call each other! Or we can–“
"Live together?”
FUCK!
Iwai doesn't care to beat around the bush and it's always an effective attack on Maruki's heart.
"W-w-w-w-w-well! Well! I-I mean, that's... it’s… well, uh, i-if… if you interpret it that way th-then… then I…," his voice gets smaller and smaller as he progresses through his sentence until it becomes inaudible, still not looking at Iwai.
A dreadful pause comes between them and Maruki could swear he might faint anytime now. He feels like his face is burning and his heart doesn't have a sense of rhythm anymore, it's just him being a mess in this painful silence. He starts to curse himself on even starting this, trying to think what might've happened if he didn't even start.
"Damn, 'Ruki," curses Iwai in an endearing way, cutting Maruki's hesitation and makes the latter looks directly at him while he rubs the back of his head with a tinge of pink colors his face. A deep breath precedes his next words, “I thought I could get you to say it.”
Huh?
“Huh?”
“Y’know,” he looks down, avoiding Maruki's inquisitive gaze and red face, “Ask me to move in.”
Wait, what?
“Move in?” asks Maruki, reflexively and subconsciously sounding out part of his thoughts.
“Duh, I threw you all the codes back there,” the sick man continues on, “I thought you bit the bait but apparently you didn’t even eat it. I even came here drenched and all just to make sure the plan goes smoothly.”
Cogs start to run in Maruki's brain, connecting one piece of information to another, filling in the blank spots of the puzzle, creating a net of connections which creates a grand picture upon which things start to make themselves apparent. It doesn’t even take more than three awkward seconds for everything to make sense for him. His cooking, his clumsiness, Iwai's codes, his flustered self, his hidden desire, the rain…
Oh.
“You… intentionally got yourself sick just so that you can do this?”
“I… guess.”
“O-oh…,” Maruki looks down to the floor, avoiding to look at Iwai at all cost, “Oh, I… see.”
“I didn’t know it was going to rain, but I'd planned it, so I just went through with it,” admits the other man slowly, seemingly quite confused on how to set his tone of voice so that he doesn’t sound so embarrassed.
“You planned this?”
“I needed Kaoru's approval, after all.”
“Oh, yes…,” mutters Maruki. His legs feel like noodles and he could just fall on the floor any second now, “Y-yes, that’s correct.”
“I also wanted to, uh, sleep next to you again,” Iwai feels the heat on his face spreading to the buds of his ears, “So, yeah.”
No reply comes from Maruki after he hears the other man's ever-so-sheepish confession, he gets entangled in all sorts of emotions coming through his mind. Happiness, relief, anxiety, curiosity, all melting into one big pot, stirring and mixing together into a stew that launches Maruki to cloud nine. It’s an all-new feeling for him, and it’s overwhelming him already.
“Isn’t this what you wanted too?”
“H-huh?”
“Me moving in with Kaoru. This is just a plan, though.”
Maruki's answer comes in the form of immobilizing silence. He feels like a prisoner of his own feelings.
“I-I mean, if you don’t want me to move in then–“
“No!”
Once again, Maruki gets himself way too overboard with his effort in talking with the man who's stolen his heart that their eyes are just inches away now. He could feel his heart exploding like a New Year's fireworks and his legs could barely hold his body up anymore that he has to prop himself up on the bed using his slightly trembling hands while leaning forward. If he was a robot, he might've turned himself off from overheat right at this second.
“This… this is what I wanted, too,” whispers Maruki while trying his best to not make his voice tremble and make himself sound pathetic in front of Iwai, forcing him to speak slowly, “I’ve been wanting it, s-so bad."
“Then… why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I...,” the taxi driver gulps. He grips his bedsheet tight to ground himself before continuing, “Because I want to hear it from you first, Iwai-kun.”
The other man, upon hearing this, has his pink turns into a deep red and his eyes widen, both of them are focused intently on Maruki, on those brown pair of eyes that are trying their hardest to keep their focus on him. Shock and happiness fill his heart and he swears he could beat anyone into pulp with only a punch if it keeps on this way.
Damn…
In the slight pause between Maruki's shy confession and Iwai's reply, the latter takes a deep breath before continuing on.
“Alright,” Iwai puts on a wide smile before placing his now cold plate onto the tray next to Maruki's. He then proceeds to hold the latter's wrist, tugging at it a bit, “Come up here.”
Maruki gets visibly a bit confused at the instruction, but he follows what Iwai says eventually after realizing it might be better to faint on the bed than on the floor. He climbs the bed with all his strength, exerting all of his energy just so that none of his limbs fails him. Fortunately, he has Iwai still holding his wrist, helping him to pull the weight of his body that feels tenfold heavier now.
But suddenly, Iwai's other hand reaches out to him and wraps itself around his waist before promptly pulling his body into a tight hug on the sick man's lap. It all happened so fast that it takes Maruki a few seconds to let his mind machinery runs its course. He's now hugged tight by the other man in the room. It’s so tight that the serotonin from this gesture only adds to his confusion.
“I-Iwai-kun?”
“You want me to say it? Then I'll say it,” Iwai pulls Maruki from his sudden hug to cup Maruki's face in his hands, “Will you let me move in here with my son, Takuto Maruki?”
Shit.
That’s it.
That’s it for Maruki, the last straw for him. That does it for him. It is the meteor to his dinosaur era, one that summons the catastrophe on his Earth, destroying most forms of life in the process. All lives are wiped out in a grand explosion and sweeping blaze, bringing an end to everything. It is Mount Vesuvius and his Pompeii is now in ruins. There’s nothing left, only stones and charred corpses, and he stands in the middle of it all, defeated, utterly defeated. There is no word capable to express what he feels right at this very moment.
And yet, he uses words to express his answer anyway.
“Y-yes… I'll let you all move in here with your son, Iwai-kun."
And now, it’s Iwai's turn.
Upon hearing that, he can feel himself launched into the edge of Milky Way in a rocket containing only him and Maruki in his arms. The journey upwards pump excitement into his bloodstream, making it unbearable. All he could feel is his lover's presence that provides him with a never-ending list of why he should wear a wide smile on his face no matter what time it is in space, even if an asteroid brushes against their rocket, all that he is now is just a man full of joy.
Joy that he shares passionately and deeply through a sudden, intense kiss he gives to his lover.
It’s as if his body has lost every control to the happiness overtaking him. It feels like his body moved on his own to show to his lover how grateful and happy he is right at this moment, a bliss unobtainable ang other way. He swears he could stay this way forever with his Maruki in his arms, and he wishes so.
Even so, he eventually breaks the kiss reluctantly, realizing his own limit to take deep breaths that he pants. His eyes show no hesitation through their intense, direct gaze into Maruki's now hazy obsidian eyes. He couldn’t hold back his wide smile while having his lover breathes the air like there’s no tomorrow in his arms.
“Thank you, 'Ruki."
“I-is that… how you say thanks?” a little awkward chuckle escapes while he talks, “But, no problem.”
“You always know how to get me in a tight spot, Doctor.”
“It’s ex-doctor, Sir.”
“Shut it,” mutters Iwai under his breath, pulling Maruki back into yet another kiss, intoxicating them with each other.
That one morning, both of them share an agreement, another step in their relationship and a doorway into their family...
.
.
.
.
.
“Wait, you’re still sick, aren’t you?”
“You still care about that?”