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It wasn't like Yuki had actually expected Tenma, of all people, to crash into his apartment like this. Not when he knew that the hotel he's staying at is way closer than where he's supposed to head off the following day. And unlike the luxurious five-star hotel uptown, his place right here in the south of the city doesn't...have much.
Not for someone, who's supposed to get married to someone else the following day, drenched from the rain especially.
"I don't have a spare top," is what Yuki finally says in an attempt to break the silence between he and the man sitting on his couch with a towel covering his slouched back. Although the lights are pretty much dim, Yuki could still see Tenma's figure rather perfectly: the way his now bare six-pack chest has rainwater dripping from it and his (Yuki's, not Tenma's) jeans are slowly being tainted with them as well. Yuki attempts to calm himself, tries to process the situation in his head while brewing the last of the green tea that he's been storing in his cabinet for weeks.
"Nah, this is fine," Tenma replies. "I didn't expect you to have jeans for my size either."
Yuki puts the kettle down and sighs.
"The day you left Mankai," And although the urge to remember every single second of it is tempting, he bottles it up and focuses on just his words instead. "You left your pants on the couch."
"...You didn't tell me anything?" Tenma asks, seemingly confused.
"I didn't. Because I didn't know about it until last week when Satoshi turned it over to me."
There's a pause lingering in the air before Yuki remembers.
Ah, that's right. We don't talk about Mankai to him anymore.
"...The recruit who replaced you."
"Ah. I see."
And although hearing the word 'replaced' makes Yuki flinch on his spot, he still pushes himself to take the tray of cups and move to where Tenma has been seated for the past ten minutes or so. Yuki then sets them down and takes a seat on the chair adjacent to where Tenma is. "It's hot," he says.
He watches as Tenma's back straightens a bit while he gingerly takes the cup into his hands. Tenma blows on it a few times before moving the rim to his lips as he takes a sip.
Yuki hums. "What do you think?"
Tenma immediately jerks his head away, putting the cup down while he sticks his tongue while inhaling again and again through his mouth. "It's hot...!"
Yuki sighs. "That's why I warned you about it being hot."
"But it's too hot! You made it too hot!"
He could only look at the older in confusion. "It's tea...? It's supposed to be hot? If you don't like it, then just tell me so I can throw it away."
Well, it's not like Yuki is taking actual offense to it. (And in his defense, the tea he bought kind of sucked.) But he couldn't help but stifle his giggle at the sight of Tenma picking the cup again and taking what seemed to be a huge gulp of it.
"Ah, that hit the spot!"
Yuki could only shake his head. "You really forced it down, huh? What happened to it being too hot?"
Tenma puts the cup down and turned away, pouting. "You were gonna throw it away!"
"Did you seriously think I was going to?"
"Gh!"
Tenma crosses his arms, pouting once again.
"Y-You should have told me it wasn't serious! You know, tea like this shouldn't be wasted."
"And so? It's convenience store tea," And then Yuki shakes his head, cutting himself into the conversation just so he could get to the point before Tenma ends up saying anything else. "Anyways, forget about that. How the fuck did you end up here?"
Yuki watches as Tenma turns back to him and into his slouched form just before he came to give him.
"I...uhh..."
"Spit it out already. We don't have all night,"
"I was wandering around and...you know...seeing the sights of this city and then..."
Thud!
"...that happened."
"...you got lost, in short," Yuki curtly says.
"I-It's not like that!"
"Oh? And how did you know I live here? I don't remember telling you that I moved here after I left Mankai."
Tenma shuts his mouth. Yuki smirks to himself mentally. He got him right where he wanted him.
"And what's with the bouquet of roses you brought here..." Yuki then points at the wet, sad-looking bouquet of once red roses now lying on the table, looking very soggy. "...which, by the way, is now on my table?"
"..."
And just like that, Yuki could only conclude that his suspicions are indeed what he previously suspected.
That idiot. That fucking idiot.
"You're going to be a married man tomorrow," he says calmly, too tired from just seeing Tenma's face alone to really get worked up over him. "You know this is against the moral code of society, right?"
"..."
"..."
"...I loved you."
Yuki straightens his posture just as he catches himself slouching forward as well. "You're a madman. You know that?"
"..."
"You confess to me, break up with me, move out of Mankai to chase both your acting dreams and that one model girl living in America, and now you're back here to give me bouquet of roses and tell me that you loved me."
Tenma doesn't respond. Yuki throws himself back onto the chair and dryly laughs while covering his eyes. He couldn't care less about the increasing tension between them anymore; he's tired to put up a filter for himself. Imagine living with this bullshit. It's bad enough that Yuki's life hit for a landslide since he left Mankai that now he has to face whatever fuckery they had as idiotic teenagers just as the wound in his heart has already become permanent.
Fuck this. Fuck all of this. Fuck Tenma who just crashed into his life like he hadn't ruined it enough for him before. Fuck this crappy actor for coming back into his life like this.
And it takes everything in Yuki not to let his own tears to spill in front of the older man.
"This is so stupid. You're a really stupid man."
"...Don't you think I know that by now?" Tenma croaks out.
"I don't know," Yuki responds. "I didn't expect you to be a man who'd actually think, to begin with."
Another wave of silence fills the air before Yuki finally asks, "So, what are you going to do now? I'm sure your parents will call police on you because their son who's supposed to get married tomorrow at noon has run off to act stupid in front of his teenage crush."
Tenma hums. "My parents are too busy to really notice that I'm gone. Igawa's too drunk off his ass so I took it upon myself to finally escape."
"And? How did your lost ass find my house?"
"Wasn't really easy," he shrugs. "Only heard about some fashion designer with green hair while I was in the bar a few hours ago and immediately, I already knew it was you. The office men who talked it off dropped me off around a block away from your apartment in exchange of a selfie."
Yuki mentally groans. Fuck that Takigawa for spilling the beans.
If anything, it was somewhat miraculous for Tenma that they led him to the fashion designer he has been specifically looking for. But then again, there weren't many fashion designers around the city. What more for a fashion designer with green hair?
But now isn't the time to think about that. Tenma has a wedding to attend in several hours. And Yuki has to get to the bottom of this. Fast.
"So how do you plan on getting back?"
"I won't," Tenma answers immediately. "At least until tomorrow morning, when the ceremony starts."
"You're going to stay here for the night and then come back tomorrow to get married?"
There's a beat of silence that hangs in the air. One that makes Yuki even more tense than he already is.
"It's more than that,"
Of course. It's always something more when it comes to Tenma.
Yuki feels a shifting sound before recognizing the warmth on his hand, pulling it away from his eyes so he could stare at the man before him. He's no longer as dripping wet as when he first took him in. But Yuki takes it upon himself to stare at him even more, traces the more defined jaw with his golden eyes down to his even more obvious chest. Yet even with Tenma's shoulders now broader than before and his features even looking sharper than when he was teen, Yuki could still recognize that it's the same Tenma who still pouts every time he gets lost when going somewhere. That it's still the same Tenma whose eyes light up at anything that interests him like acting and bonsai. It's still the same Tenma who's now looking at him with eyes full of love, warm and soft purples that remind him of back when they were young and in love, when that look was only reserved for him and him alone.
The words that come out of his mouth make Yuki's heart jump enough for it to be stuck in his throat.
"Yuki, please let me dance with you. One last time."
Yuki doesn't say anything, still in a trance, still processing the other's words, when Tenma pulls him out of his seat and drags him to the vacant space between the living room and the kitchen. Yuki doesn't turn away from Tenma even when he feels the warm, calloused hand holding onto his waist and the other on his shoulder.
"Please," And Tenma pleads, finally bringing Yuki back to his senses enough for him to make sense of what's happening right now. "Give me this one last night. For us."
Yuki doesn't think twice when he puts both his hands on Tenma's shoulders and answers, "Yes."
Because he misses him so much. Because they've been away for far too long without each other's warmth. And Yuki, for all the strong fronts he's put up in response to it, knows that he needs this.
They slowly begin to move around, just choosing to mindlessly sway with their feet, body, and in each other's embrace instead. Yuki buries his head on Tenma's best, feeling the warm skin on his cheek. He hears Tenma's slow heartbeat pressed to his own ear as he closes his eyes and draws out a sigh.
He does miss him. And he can't believe that he's this desperate to need him again, even for just a moment.
"You really are an idiot," is the only thing that comes out of Yuki's mouth in response to it.
Tenma slowly spins them around for a bit before they continue to sway back and forth. "I don't know how many times I'd have to hear that in a lifetime."
"As many as it takes," Yuki answers. "Your soon-to-be wife will be saying that same thing to you, you know? The oh-so great Tenma Sumeragi still needs to be cared for like a five-year old."
"Shut up..." And Yuki feels Tenma's smile. "I don't even let her call me stupid."
"Oh?"
"Because it's different when it's coming from you."
And then the room is filled with silence once again as they bask in each other's presence, swaying and waltzing to the rhythm of the rain. Not long later, Yuki could feel himself almost drifting off to sleep to the point that he stumbles on his feet. Just as he's about to fall, Tenma manages to catch and hold him tighter.
"You didn't tell me that you're exhausted from work today, dear."
And oh how Yuki's heart clenches when he hears the very nickname he loves coming from Tenma's mouth for the last time.
"You're acting like we're married," Yuki says jokingly.
"Well," Tenma chuckles. "It's my last night with you, after all. Had things been different, I would've married you instead."
"...But would you still marry me, given the chance now?" Yuki asks, not caring anymore if he's softening up to him again like this. This is the last time he'd meet Tenma like this, after all. And although it will pain Yuki that Tenma would be a different man by tomorrow, he tempers himself to focus on the now, on the fact that Tenma still made time to visit him like this, with feelings unchanged and love he had once harbored before still unfaltering in his chest.
It hurts, having to know that someone you love reciprocates it but for reasons that won't let them be together.
(Yuki feels hurt. So he holds onto Tenma even more, as if his life will end if he dares to let go of him.)
"Of course," Tenma whispers. "No matter how many lifetimes I'd have to go through, I will always choose to marry you."
But you didn't.
And they both know why they can't.
"If your father finds out about this, he's gonna get furious at the fact that you want to marry a random boy than some girl everyone who everyone has been eyeing on from you."
Tenma could only shrug. "Society sucks."
"Still didn't mean you had to leave Mankai though. You left us behind. And most of all, you left..."
Me.
"I had to do what people wanted me to do or else I'd suffer something worse than death," Tenma replies. "But on the bright side, you don't have to fight someone anymore."
It's just not the same, though.
And Yuki doesn't have to say it for them to realize his feelings.
"...But it was a dick move coming from me," Tenma continues. "So, I'm sorry."
"..."
"You don't have to forgive me now."
Yuki laughs. "I wasn't even planning on doing it."
And Tenma laughs back. "That only seems fair."
They continue to stay like this until Yuki could feel his eyelids getting heavy. Just as he's about to fall asleep, he hears a hum from Tenma—an all too familiar one that is. One that only crumples his heart even more.
But Yuki knows that if anything, it's the song that perfectly describes what they are feeling now: drenched in their emotions because of society's wants, because they're both puppets moving along to what they want without ever being a given chance to choose not even this for themselves.
As Tenma hums, he sings the lyrics in his mind.
Was there a lifetime waiting for us in a world where I was yours?
Was it the wrong time, what if we tried giving in a little more?
Yuki thinks, maybe in the next lifetime, he'll make it his mission to find Tenma. Re-meet him, re-bond with him, then fall in love again with the hopes that nothing will ever separate them again.
He thinks about it to himself: another life, another chance for them to reconnect and finally be together without anyone to pull them apart again. He thinks of their next-lifetime selves, living the free life by just being together and spending their simple days enjoying each other's warmth. He thinks about how much fun they'd have and how much trouble they'd be spared from going through what they themselves are suffering from right now.
And he thinks to himself that maybe a life like such wouldn't be bad after all.
I'd spend a lifetime waiting in vain just to go back to the way we were before
Was it the wrong time, what if we tried giving in a little more
To the warmth we had before?
It doesn't take Yuki long enough in the midst of him being carried by his dreams to feel the darkness falling into his vision.
"Good night, Yuki," and Yuki hears the warm voice he's always loved whispering into his ear. "May we finally be together in the next lifetime."
Is there a lifetime waiting for us?
All this time, I have been yours
By the time Yuki wakes up on his couch, Tenma Sumeragi has already become a new man.
And for the first time in years, he lets the tears flow on his cheeks.