Archive of Our Own ^beta

The thing about university is that nobody knows what the fuck is going on, but everyone is so determined to pretend they know what is going on that nobody ever has a chance to ever fully understand or ever figure out what the fuck is actually going on. Add to that the arbitrary laws of magic and you have one potion for an absolute disaster.

Take Atsumu, Osamu’s twin, from whom Osamu has just received a text message saying he caused an explosion in their dorm room because he tried to reheat an elixir in the microwave—and Osamu has told him so many times that potions, especially elixirs, cannot be reheated in a fucking microwave.

This text may have had the unnecessary side effect of Osamu cursing a little too loudly in the middle of his History of Necromancy class, earning him a side-eye from the boy beside him. Maybe Osamu should be proud, he’s never seen the boy look up from his phone during class once since Osamu first noticed him. Osamu sighs, and sends back a quick text to Atsumu telling him he was probably overreacting about the extent of the ‘explosion’, and decides to turn his phone off for the rest of the day.

x

Miya Atsumu has a propensity for overreacting, so the days in which he reacts appropriately, one cannot be blamed for underestimating the extent of the issue by about seven notches. Needless to say, when Osamu returns to his dorm after class, he most certainly is not expecting to see yellow banners closing off part of the hallway, and black scorch marks around what he could see of his room door.

“He’s with the dean,” Akagi Michinari says, coming up behind Osamu and reaching up to plant an elbow on his shoulder, despite the height Osamu has on him. “We have a bet on whether this will actually get him kicked out. Aran says yes, Kita says no, that it was an ‘honest’ accident, Omimi says he hopes so, and I also say no ‘cause Atsumu is a lucky bastard. What’s your opinion?”

“That he’s going to die.” Osamu says simply and walks away.

After finally finding Atsumu in the dean’s office and being sent to the head of accommodation, Osamu finds himself outside a new dorm room with whatever few items he managed to salvage from his apartment. He’s tired and fed up and still slightly full of murderous rage—but Atsumu is not, thankfully, being kicked out of school. Not that he cares about Atsumu’s education but because he knows he’d never hear the end of it from their parents if Atsumu were, even though it had nothing to do with him.

Anyway, due to it being the middle of the year and also the hazard of them living together, the twins—after approximately twenty years of living together—are being moved to different apartments with new roommates, very far away from one another.

Osamu doesn’t really like new people. Not that he doesn’t like them, but he could not be bothered with new people if he can avoid them, especially when he’s still full of murderous rage. He likes comfort like re-watching Spirited Away every month, his mother’s tonkatsu, and the taste of herbal tea with a few drops of sweetened sleep after a long day, even if he doesn’t need the potion. It’s habitual and he knows it and it’s what he likes.

Moving into a stranger’s room is not a comfort.

When the door finally opens, and he’s met with green, catlike eyes, a bored face partly obscured with dark bangs, the only thought Osamu has is at least he’s not new.

“Oh,” his new roommate says, and it seems like he should be surprised, but the tone hits way off key, “you’re Miya Osamu?”

Osamu blanks a moment as his brain pauses to laugh at him before finally taking control again.

“Yes?” He offers like a question. “We share ‘Oops I did It Again: A Brief Introduction Into Necromancy And What Not To Do With The Dead.’”

Suna Rintarou, because Osamu actually does know his name and maybe only partly because he has looked him up on Magic Mirror™. More than once.

Suna leans a hip against the door and crosses his arms, cocking an eyebrow he says, “You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

If Osamu blushes here, it’s out of annoyance—at the day he’s had, at his brother, at the test he has next week, at the arrogant boy in front of him that’s too pretty to not have some elven blood in him.

“Are you gonna move or do I have to force my way in?”

Suna chuckles and steps aside. That sound should not be as endearing as it is, especially when Osamu is tired, and annoyed, and Suna’s just been a bit of an asshole to him.

“Want some help?” Suna asks as Osamu begins getting his bed ready. Osamu turns and looks at Suna who’s happily—well, passively would probably describe it better—scrolling through his phone.

“That offer isn't serious, is it?”

He shrugs. “Probably not, no.”

And, as Suna’s eyes look up from his phone with a wry smirk on his lips, Osamu finds that maybe he doesn’t just hate new people, maybe he hates all people in general. Especially attractive ones that chuckle under their breath at him, just like Suna is doing right now.

x

The second rule of Divination class is to say everything with as much confidence as you can muster, no matter how much griffin crap it is.

The first rule of Divination class is to pair up with a friend so you can use information you already know about them and speculate wildly about their future. This also means you have free reign to tease them over that one mutual friend they’ve been pining over for years.

To put it simply, Osmau is sitting opposite Ginjima Hitoshi, eyes pinned to a clear crystal ball that he thinks he can see a small crack in, humming to himself as if he has a half a clue about anything.

“I see,” Osamu says slowly and in an attempt at sageness, “problems due to miscommuni—no no, a complete and utter lack of communication. I see black, spikey hair. I see the colour—”

“Shut up,” Ginjima says, smacking Osamu’s forehead, before sighing defeatedly because he knows Osamu is right, and he’s been saying it himself for not days, not weeks, but months. “Do you actually see anything?”

Osamu sighs and leans in close, trying to empty his mind of any and all things, trying to focus on the here and now and what this might mean for the future. He again has no clue what all this he’s saying to himself is, but still tries to focus until a yawn breaks through his chest, mouth stretching wide and eyes tearing up with the force of it.

“Still haven’t found out what’s going on with your roommate?” Ginjima asks when Osamu is finally finished yawning, and hands Osamu a tissue to wipe away the tears.

Suna Rintarou was always a little bit mysterious in the way that absolutely nobody knows absolutely anything about him except for his name and the very perfect pictures he posts on Magic Mirror™ along with the vaguest of information like his favourite coffee, which also does not stay the same apparently. Osamu heard someone once say he has fairy blood, and another say he is part kitsune, and another say that he once accidentally discovered the recipe for a philosopher’s stone and that he’s actually one hundred and eighty two years old, but Osamu doubts one hundred and eighty two year olds would be as technologically adept as he is, or as practised in those six second Ivy™ quotes.

“No,” Osamu says, fighting another yawn and pushing the divination ball towards Ginjima. “It’s weird right? He climbs out the window at three a.m. every morning for a little under an hour, and then comes back and just falls asleep again.”

“Hmmm,” Ginjima agrees.

“Do you see anything?” Osamu asks, curious at the look on his face.

Ginjima seems to inhale deeply and shiver. “I… see you, there’s a fire on the moon,” Osamu pulls a face, “and questions…”

“You can see questions?” Osamu asks, sarcasm dripping off his tongue.

“I see you being a little bitch, but that’s no surprise.” Ginjima bites back, narrowing his eyes at Osamu who gives a half hearted smile in return.

“No answers about the Suna Rintarou?”

“No answers about the Suna Rintarou.”

x

Once a month Osamu stays in, doesn’t put on clothes except for a new pair of boxers because he’s not a heathen, wraps himself in a blanket so only his nose pokes out and watches Spirited Away. This is usually followed by Howl’s Moving Castle and maybe Ponyo, but also Spirited Away again. And again.

There’s no particular reason for doing this other than it’s his favourite movie and he enjoys doing this. Having a new roommate who doesn’t really talk to him except to make small, sharp remarks and then chuckle at his sarcastic and deadpan answers to banal questions, doesn’t stop him.

On the first Saturday of June, Osamu gets out of bed, says screw having a shower to himself, pisses, changes his underwear, drapes the blanket around him, climbs back into bed and pulls out his laptop and headphones. Suna isn’t awake yet because he sleeps until ungodly hours at the weekends, and if it wasn’t for the fact they share classes which they silently walk to together, Osamu would assume he was a vampire. But also, if he were a vampire he’d be in the night class. Obviously.

The little paper Shikigami are mid-way through attacking Haku when Osamu sees movement and two green eyes squinting at him beneath a dark mess of hair and over the pink printed duvet cover (yeah there’s also the pink love heart patterned duvet he owns, but it’s cute so Osamu doesn’t question it).

“What are you doing?” His already deep voice raspy and deepened from sleep.

Pausing his movie, Osamu takes off his earphones and asks, ‘what?’ as if he didn’t know, just because he can and also Suna deserves it.

“What’re you doing?” He asks, stretching out, his back arching like a cat, long limbs stretching over his head, the blanket shifting just enough to show the muscle of his shoulders and his sharp collar bones.

And suddenly Osamu is a little embarrassed of what he’s doing.

“I’m having a duvet day to watch Ghibli movies on repeat.” There’s no point avoiding it.

Suna’s head turns to the side, that curling smile appearing on his lips, eyes a little more alert than they were moments ago.

“Your brother coming?”

“Nah, this is a ‘Tsumu free day. One he actually respects.”

“Can I join?” Suna asks as he bends over his bed and begins rooting beneath it, the tight, corded muscles in his back moving and twitching as he does so.

No one has ever joined Osamu’s movie days. Not that he’s ever explicitly told anyone they’re not allowed to join (except Atsumu), no one ever asked. Now though, the mysterious Suna Rintarou—who Osamu still isn’t fully convinced doesn’t hate him—is asking to. Suna throws bags of hard candies and jelly sweets and a bag of crisps he’s pulling from under his bed at Osamu, then smiles from where he’s half in, half out of his bed, hair matted and messy, looking somewhat like the girl coming out of the television screen in that one movie that Osamu and Atsumu got in trouble for watching when they were eight.

“Yeah,” Osamu answers before his brain can catch up to his mouth, “sure.”

“Cool,” Suna says standing up and stretching again, showing the full extent of his height before slouching again and giving a half smile, throwing one last thing at Osamu to catch.

“I made it,” he explains, “just plug it into your USB port and it’ll project the screen larger. We can sit your laptop on my bed. I’m gonna put on some clothes.”

The device is tiny, no larger than Osamu’s thumbnail, small, intricate wires cross-cross and shimmer within the clear casing.

“How…?” Osamu asks, and Suna turns back from the bathroom door, eyes and smile now rid of the sleep that was embedded in them before, so they’re back to their full capacity of sharp and glinting—but not biting.

“Magic.”

“No shit,” Osamu rolls his eyes at the teasing laugh he receives and feels his face heat a little. Plugging in the device a solid holograph of his laptop screen instantly appears before him.

He should probably put on a shirt.

“So he’s good with his hands? If he can make something like that,” Atsumu will say later, smiling smugly over a cup of coffee.

x

While magic and calculus is important to learn, at Inarizaki University of Sorcery, they also take in the need for physical preparedness. There are therefore tri-monthly self-defense and fighting classes mandated by the school in which students are pitted against each other to learn these skills in a baptism by fire of some sorts. It sounds more violent than it is.

Osamu likes these classes. He’s been learning how to fight since he was in the womb, and he enjoys the physical challenge. It’s also a chance to publicly humiliate Atsumu when he kicks his ass, even if their win-loss tally is pretty even.

Except, before he even has the chance to saunter over and declare war on his brother who’s sitting with Ginjima on the other side of the field, he hears a quiet but steady, ‘hey’, and feels a tug on his elbow that has him instantly freezing in place and heating up all over his body.

“Would you mind partnering with me?” Suna asks him cooly, almost bored to the point that Osamu thinks he could say yes or no and his expression wouldn’t change.

There’s only one answer Osamu is capable of though, one that earns him a punch from Atsumu when he goes over to him to tell him the news.

“What the fuck ‘Samu?” Atsumu asks angrily, and Ginjima’s hand shoots out to stop him from tackling Osamu to the ground.

Osamu shrugs and tries to think of an answer, even the truth would suffice because he thinks he’d like to know that too because in the moment between Suna asking and Osamu answering, it had felt like the only option available to him.

“I felt bad,” he answers lamely.

“Unicorn shit, ‘Samu. Unicorn shit,” Atsumu fumes. “We’re at a tie, are you chickening out? ‘Fraid I’ll beat ya?”

“Atsumu,” Ginjima warns, tugging on his hoodie in a weak attempt to stop him. Atsumu, for the most part, seems to oblige Ginjima’s weak attempt, and holds himself back, opting instead to just scowl at Osamu some more before telling him to ‘piss off’, and walks away, telling Ginjima to follow. Osamu shoots Ginjima an apologetic look before making his way back to Suna, picking up a wooden shinai on his way.

Suna stands at a distance from the rest of the class, expertly slicing through the air with his own shinai, and twirls confidently when he catches Osamu’s gaze. Except he does it with barely the ghost of a smirk; he’s showing off, but he’s not asking for attention.

“Don’t you ever think practising to fight with fake swords is a little redundant when magic and guns exist?” Suna asks, tilting his head to the side.

“Hmm,” Osamu considers the question, tapping the shinai against his shoulder. “I think you’re just looking for an excuse for when you lose, ‘cause I’m a better fighter.”

Suna’s smile sharpens and he straightens to his full height. “Didn’t think you were one for trash talk, ‘Samu.”

‘Samu, he’s never called him ‘Samu before.

“Only when I’m talking to a trash can.”

Suna shakes his head in a small laugh.

“Loser buys takeout?” He asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question, swinging his shinai again in a figure eight and then gliding his body into a perfect stance; feet shoulder width apart, right foot slightly forward, hips straight, shoulder relaxed, shinai grasped in both hands, the tip pointed at Osamu.

“Winner chooses?”

“Of course,” Suna smiles, lips curling slightly in a way Osamu’s begun to notice more and more.

The groups are divided and Atsumu saunters over to Osamu and Suna, mumbling something about watching Osamu get his ass kicked while Ginjima smiles hesitantly behind him.

“Don’t go easy on him,” Atsumu says to Suna, “kick his ass.”

“You don’t need to tell me what to do,” Suna says and looks straight at Osamu, the curl sharpening to a point in his grin, “I plan on it.”

x

The loud smack of the wood rings and reverberates through Osamu’s body. Tightening his grip, he takes half a step back then feints right, Suna follows, his gold-green eyes never wavering from each of Osamu’s movements, while a perpetual smile graces his face.

These training sessions have few rules, but the ones that are in place are simple; try and pull hits where possible, do not hit the sensitive area below the belt, and magic is not allowed—this is to train you physically, not magically—and you must report serious injuries and tap out when hurt. That is all. Osamu doesn’t intend to lose, he may be shorter than Suna, but he knows he’s stronger, and he has the desire to win a free dinner on his side.

Osamu is not going to lose.

Rising onto the balls of his feet, he rocks slightly, resetting his stance and smiles, a challenge written on his face, a dare in his posture, and a promise on his fingertips.

Suna watches every flicker of movement and it makes Osamu want to shiver, then he smiles bigger—his lips curling slightly and his canines becoming ever so slightly visible above his lips.

It happens in slow motion, takes a little too long to process in his brain—stuttering and catching images after they’ve happened, then rushing to catch up again. And in all of them is that smirk, those sharp eyes, and the fluid curve of each of Suna’s movements that feel like they leave a lingering after image as he cuts through the space between them. Suna moves forward, brash and daring, bending his torso at an odd angle to avoid Osamu’s panicked thrust of the shinai.

Then Suna is right beside him, so close Osamu thinks he can feel the heat rising off his body, smell his coconut shampoo, and beneath that, him.

Until this very moment—and what an awful moment to come to such a realisation—Osamu hadn’t known that this is a scent he can recognise, had come to find familiar even. Somehow, his body reacts and he manages to stumble slightly, then moves his torso just enough to not take the full force of the blow, the shinai only clipping his shoulder instead.

Belatedly, Osamu realises he may have underestimated Suna, and is maybe too accustomed to fighting his brother. Suna doesn’t fight like Atsumu, he’s sneakier and quicker. So quick he’s already attacking again with a flurry of small blows that Osamu is forced to defend, driving Osamu backwards further and further. At last, Osamu manages to catch a blow and force Suna’s weapon sideways just enough that he stumbles, giving Osamu enough time to take a breath and try to recover.

Except Suna is cunning and quick and Osamu registers this in another instinct that has his body acting before his mind can linger on the boy in front of him any longer. Osamu drops to the ground, losing his weapon, one hand out to steady himself as he swings his right leg around, until he feels the impact and continues to work through until the Suna falls heavy on his back. There’s gasps around them. Osamu moves to trap him, get him in a headlock and force submission, but Suna rolls at the last second, dodging Osamu’s grip, and both of them rise to their knees. They’re both panting, sweaty and tired and full of adrenaline. Neither have their weapons. Suna’s tongue flicks out to run over the small split in his lip and he grins again, making Osamu’s chest squeeze.

Suna lunges.

He lunges with a smirk on his face, but Osamu knows he can beat him one-on-one in a purely physical fight, so moves to meet him halfway and win. But Suna predicted his movements and he’s not going for Osamu’s torso, leaping instead, a foot planting on Osamu’s thigh, his hands using Osamu for leverage, and then Osamu’s on the ground, Suna’s legs wrapping around his neck and they’re both falling. Osamu readies himself for a triangle choke hold and manages to tuck his chin just in time to elbow his way out of it, rolling to get away but Suna is right there with him and is once again on top of Osamu, thighs tightening around his waist, those gold green eyes burning like hellfire mere inches from his own.

His hand tightens on Osamu’s throat.

Osamu can’t help but stare up at the boy on top of him as he burns cold. He can’t move.

“Fuck,” Osamu says.

Suna tightens his grip slightly and leans in close, his smile sharp as it always is, but also pulled awkwardly, in a way Osamu hasn’t seen before. It’s not the same way he does during his snide remarks or comments, it’s not the same way he does when Atsumu comes over and burns himself on the toaster, it’s not the same way he does in the perfect photographs he posts on his Magic Mirror™ account. It’s lopsided and crooked and curled at the edges, the slightest cut of teeth visible between pink lips. This smile, imperfect as it is, is followed by a small huffing sound that rumbles and quakes and builds and trips over itself on it’s way out between his crooked lips like a stampeding crowd. He’s laughing. A genuine laugh. One that is full and bouncing and joyous, joyous, in a way that Osamu didn’t really think he was capable of.

Osamu bites his tongue as his stomach lurches, catching and tugging on his heartstrings as it does—but he’s smiling too, then laughing. His head thuds back on the ground to look up at the sky, but all he can see are bright gold-green eyes that crinkle ever so slightly at the edges, and a smile that he would let devour him.

Fuck.

The whistle blows.

Suna smiles. “You owe me dinner.”

x

There is a very important rule that must be abided by all university students, magical, human, or otherwise; don’t sleep with your roommate. And no, don’t try to be cheeky and say, ‘but technically you sleep in the same room as you, that’s sleeping together,’ because it’s not funny Atsumu; what are you, like twelve?

Osamu never considered that this may be an issue. Sure he found the guy tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious. To the point he may have looked him up a couple of times on Magic Mirror™ and stole glances of him in class, but he never expected to room with the guy, and he always considered himself not beholden to base desires. He is supposed to be cool and calm and nonchalant and perfectly capable of identifying that this is his roommate and this is not someone he should sleep with.

But after their sparring, he realised that he is really, actually attracted to Suna, not just the way he looks, not the façade he adopts, but the way he laughs and smiles in those moments with all his barriers down. Or the way he watches Spirited Away with him and knows some of the lines off by heart. Or the way he makes a really good cup of night time tea with sweetened sleep in it (because he’s started doing that now).

Do you see how this could be getting complicated? Because he’s crushing on Suna hard for all these reasons all the while possessing the knowledge of what it’s like to have Suna Rintarou straddling him and laughing joyfully in a way Osamu now knows is possible. Fuck.

Anyway, you shouldn’t sleep with your roommate.

Since it’s impossible to avoid a roommate, the best thing to do is simply keep as much distance from and think about them as little as possible. Unfortunately for Osamu, this is the month the bathroom door lock breaks and he forgets about it and happens to walk in on Suna when he is in that precarious position of ‘just out of the shower but not quite having a towel around him.’

It is also the month he hears him sing for the first time, and Osamu is now the proud possessor of the knowledge he cannot possibly be part elf or fairy because he cannot sing any better than a cow could meow.

It is another month in which they have yet another Ghibli movie marathon together and Suna almost falls asleep on Osamu’s shoulder.

It is also the month he sprains his wrist and so Osamu helps him by cooking them both food and taking notes for him when possible and also fixing the typing errors the speech-to-text software creates. You’d think with magic that wouldn’t be a problem, but the laws of magic are arbitrary by nature.

It is also the month that holds this very moment.

Osamu has come to accept that every night Suna leaves their shared bedroom through the window—they’re on the ground floor—around three a.m., and returns around an hour later a long time ago. So much so, that he’d even begun sleeping through it despite Suna’s lack of elegance in escapology. Maybe Osamu’s being harsh, he may have come to develop an extra sense for these things, growing up with the brother he did.

Tonight, he wakes up with a start to the sound of one of his potted plants crashing to the floor.

“Shit,” Suna mumbles, still only halfway in the window, blocking the light behind him so he’s only a dark shape, “who did I kill?”

Osamu turns on the bedside lamp and looks down at his broken and fractured aloe vera plant. “Totoro,” he tells him.

“Fuck,” Suna says, but it’s not said in the way it should be, it comes out a little gaspy and rattling. An instinct in Osamu, one that comes from being a sibling of someone who’s done a lot of stupid shit and has gotten in a lot of trouble, begins to load and boot up within him.

“Suna, you okay?”

Then he notices the way Suna holds his side as he tries to maneuver through the window, attempting to avoid breaking anything else on his way in, but he stumbles and Osamu manages to catch him, as well as the pained gasp he takes.

Yet, Suna laughs. “I told you to call me Rin.”

“No you didn’t.”

The smile on his face begins to curl and his eyes begin to crinkle. “Yes,” he says softly as Osamu lowers him to the bed, “I did.”

“I think I’d remember that,” Osamu says, carefully lifting each of Suna’s fingers from his side, it’s hard to see anything but he doesn’t miss how a patch of his shirt is wet and sticky. “Suna—”

“Rin.”

“Rin,” Osamu corrects himself, “what the hell happened to you?”

Suna squeezes his eyes shut, wincing. Osamu tells him to breathe and wait, then goes to turn on the main light and collects what he needs.

Osamu likes plants, likes herbology and potions best of all his classes. Around his old room, there were a plethora of plants and flowers in small little pots that he watered and took care of every day. Most of them perished in the Great Atsumu Explosion, but Osamu’s collection had begun to grow again, although R.I.P. Totoro, and he has a small collection of multi-use dried herbs under his bed. He’s not sure of the extent of Suna’s injuries, and he has a feeling that the reason Suna is hurt is not one that they can call the school nurse about, but he thinks he should have enough to treat him.

First he needs to keep him lucid.

“Rin, I think I asked a question.”

“Hmm,” he hums drowsily as Osamu switches on the small kettle after finding the jars he needs. He opens one and shoves it under Suna’s nose, and he begins coughing.

“Howl Pendragon, that smells awful,” his nose curling up and his eyes open just enough to look at Osamu who cannot help laughing at that.

“Howl can’t help you now.”

“Ugh,” Suna says, but he keeps his eyes open and stares up at the ceiling, breathing deeply. “No Face?”

“Do you really want No Face to try help? Here, chew this,” Osamu says and Suna obliges, opening his mouth to accept the white willow bark. Osamu hesitates a moment before carefully placing it on his tongue, hyper aware of every movement he makes and still manages to somehow accidentally brush his fingertips against Suna’s lips. Dragging himself through the explosive static in his mind, he looks down to Suna’s side again.

The dark shirt is plastered against his side, darker than the rest, with a small tear in it. Osamu can now smell the metallic tang in the air. Carefully, he tucks his fingers under Suna’s shirt and begins to pry it off the wound. He hears Suna hiss with every movement, but he doesn’t want to do it too fast in case it rips open some of the clotting and causes him to bleed more.

“Hey,” Osamu says, when he notices Suna’s eyes flutter closed again, he’s still chewing the bark though which is good, “you okay?”

“Cleary not,” Suna replies, but Osamu doesn’t miss the quirk of his lip before he winces again. The kettle whistles and Osamu pours some water into a mug, adds salt and stirs it until it’s all dissolved, then grabs one of his clean towels from the pile of laundry he hasn’t put away yet.

“Okay,” he says coming back beside Suna, who cracks an eye open, “this is gonna hurt but I’ll try to be as careful as possible.”

Suna doesn’t say anything until he realises Osamu is waiting for an answer. He gives a short, curt nod before Osamu begins dipping the corner of his towel in the salt water and dabbing gently at the wound. Sporadically, Suna hisses, continuing to chew on the bark that should begin to kick in soon. Osamu pauses at every wince, every flinch, every moment of discomfort as he tenderly cleans away the blood.

The wound isn’t all that big, but it is deep. When he has it cleaned, Osamu notices a pattern, it’s a strange oval shape created by small punctures the whole way through; teeth marks. It won’t need stitches which is something Osamu is grateful for; his grandmother once tried to teach him to sew, but he just stabbed Atsumu with a needle, accidentally embedding it into his leg, and so he wasn’t allowed to again. So he doesn't think he could do stitches.

Or maybe he could; he does have practice sticking needles through skin.

“Suna—Rin,” he corrects himself, “what the fuck happened to you?”

Suna stays silent and Osamu picks up part of Totoro from the floor, breaking the leaves and squeezing out the thick, sticky gel from it and begins rubbing it in careful circles around the wound. Suna’s muscles twitch slightly, but it seems the pain has subsided from the bark.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Hmm,” Osamu replies, watching the way his fingers travel over his skin, slow and careful. Now isn’t the time, but Osamu has the sudden urge to run his hands up the rest of his body, under the shirt bunched over his chest, to feel the rest of the muscles of his torso move beneath his hand—because of him. “Try me.”

He looks up at Suna but doesn’t lift his hand from where it is, not wanting to lose the sense of touch just yet. Suna is looking down at him too, slightly flushed, his eyes hooded but eyes alert.

“I… eh,” he takes a large gulp and then sighs, “I have a pet dragon.”

x

“You have a pet dragon.”

Osamu stands still, astonished, as he looks at the little makeshift pen just outside of the school campus. They waited a few days until Suna’s injury had healed a little before sneaking out to see Suna’s pet dragon, whose name Osamu has learned is Hoshi.

“It’s a teacup Moon Dragon, though.”

“Are you sure? It doesn’t look very teacup sized to me.” Osamu says looking at the silvery scales of the reptile looking up at him with bright, black eyes. It’s at least the length of his forearm.

“I think this is how big it’s supposed to get.”

“Rin… where did you get it?”

“Her.”

“Rin, where did you get her?”

Dragons as pets is a very controversial issue. They need a lot of space and care and there’s the little fact that they never get entirely domesticated. And they can breathe fire.

“It’s… it’s a long story.”

Osamu turns his head to look at him. It turns out Suna Rintarou is not mysterious because he’s cool, but because he’s a massive dumbass. He posts pretty pictures of himself on Magic Mirror™ as a guise to hide the fact that the soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time plays in his mind on loop, and he doesn’t have a favourite coffee because doesn’t really like coffee but drinks it anyway and so orders something different every time. And he’s an asshole because…

No, he’s an asshole because he’s an asshole, and he posts the pictures because he’s pretty and simply enjoys social media, and he’s actually smart especially when it comes to technology, and he’s incredible with charm magic, and he doesn’t talk much because he doesn’t like small talk, not because he’s secretly judging you all the time—which actually isn’t true, he probably is.

The truth is, Suna Rintarou is exactly nothing and also everything people think he is, but tilted slightly to the left and put through a kaleidoscope, shifting from two dimensional to three dimensional, and splaying out in captivating, coloured patterns, because he’s so much more incredible and blinding than anyone could ever imagine.

He’s still a dumbass though. But most people are when you get to know them, and Osamu is surprised now to realise he really does know Suna Rintarou. He swallows the little fluttering in his throat and looks back at the dragon eyeing him warily.

“Rin…”

“It’s not so much the story as the reasoning,” Suna looks sheepish as he says this and scratches his arm, a nervous tick he has. “I was hiking, and I found her hurt and alone. I tried to pick her up but I was worried her mother would come and I dunno, eat me?”

“Why were you hiking near a dragons nest?”

“I wasn’t! There were no dragon warnings. Anyway, I checked the next day and she was still there and she looked terrified, so I snuck her to campus. She lived under my bed for a few weeks until I managed to put this together.”

“And you didn’t call Dragon Services because…?”

Suna slumps, folding in on himself a little which is a feat because the man already holds himself like he’s cradling something important, making him always two inches shorter than he actually is.

“This is where it gets complicated.”

Osamu just looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t want to.”

Osamu almost bursts out laughing at that, and little Hoshi hisses at the snorting sound he lets out instead.

“Rin,” Osamu begins, “why the fuck did you think this was a teacup Moon Dragon?”

“Moogle™.”

“You really trust the internet for everything, huh?” Osamu asks, watching Hoshi watching him.

“You know you’re an accomplice to my crime now don’t you?” Suna asks with faux offence on his face in an attempt to change the subject.

“Fuck.” Osamu says. He seems to be saying that a lot around Suna.

“Yeah.”

“And she bites now.”

“Yeah.”

Osamu groans somewhere deep in his throat and looks up at the sky and wonders how or when this all happened, and he knows it’s Atsumu’s fault for blowing up their dorm room, but that’s not what he means.

He wants to know how or why the fates decided to weave this particular path so he’s standing outside in the cool night air with an illegal dragon in a pen in front of him, with thousands of little sparks flying through his veins and wings beating in his stomach, standing beside the most beautiful boy and dumbass he’s ever met, whose face is now a horrible shade of pink that shouldn’t suit him at all, and Osamu wants to know why this is the only place he could ever want to be in this particular moment and why he never wants to leave it.

Except he knows the answer to the last part, and it has something to do with the most beautiful boy and dumbass he has ever met, whose face is now a horrible shade of pink that shouldn’t suit him at all.

x

So Osamu is now officially a criminal. Yet criminality, like most things, looks good on Suna.

“The plan,” Suna says seriously, they’re hunched over his tablet in one of the coffee shops on campus, heads so close that Osamu can imagine he feels the brush of Suna’s hair against his own. The situation makes him want to laugh because no matter how much he sees Suna like this or in some other state of disaster, he cannot get over how much he had misjudged him at the beginning. He even went so far as to buy black cargo trousers for the ‘heist’ (except it’s more of a reverse heist), which he’s wearing with a black t-shirt and track jacket, a black bandana around his neck to pull up over his nose, and a baseball cap—on backwards of course. Osamu, on the other hand, just chose black jeans and a hoodie.

“Is simple. We sneak out as usual, we coax Hoshi into the box, we drop her outside the door of the Dragon Services building in the city, we play ding dong dash, we get back to campus, we pretend this never happened.”

He looks up at Osamu under his dark lashes, and his eyes look far darker than Osamu knows they are. His lips begin to curl and Osamu realises he’s been looking at him a little too long.

“Yeah,” Osamu says and shuffles in his seat, accidentally knocking his knees against Suna’s, who doesn’t pull away from the touch, instead tapping Osamu’s ankle with a soft kick and then leaves his foot there, almost hooked around Osamu’s, “that sounds good. Easy.”

“You nervous?” Suna asks mixing his order of an iced caramel macchiato with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla syrup, topped with pumpkin spice cold foam (yeah, Osamu doesn’t know either) and an added two drops of extra focus, and then pops the spoon into his mouth and sucking the remaining foam off it, looking at Osamu the whole time.

Osamu swallows and looks down at where he’s fidgeting with the wrapper of the small bottle of juice he bought.

“Nah,” Osamu answers, “‘Tsumu and I gave our parents hell. Not that we ever did anything criminal, except maybe steel a couple of pick ‘n’ mix sweets. It’ll be fine.”

x

It is not fine.

It turns out Hoshi, at some point in the last twenty-four hours, learned how to breathe fire. Dragons are a little like kettles in a way, because as the fire builds up in them to spit out, it heats up their whole bodies.

It’s fine again though, because all this means is going back to the apartment and stealing a pair of oven gloves and a fire blanket from the kitchen. What’s petty oven glove and fire blanket theft when you’re in possession of an illegal pet and trying to pull off a reverse heist? Nothing.

Dragons are mostly made of muscle too, so even a small dragon, like Hoshi currently is, is strong. They managed to coax her into the cage (thank the gods they got a metal one and not the plastic ones they were looking at) with a chunk of sausage easily, but it’s when she’s shut-in and the blanket is thrown over the cage, that the next problem starts. Hoshi uses every single muscle in her body to fling herself at the walls of the cage, causing Osamu’s arm to be jolted sharply with each of her attacks. Then Suna pulls the second oven glove from where it is tucked under Osamus’s arm and slips it on, taking hold of the handle too to try and help steady it more, and his hand overlaps Osamu’s in the process.

It’s fine though, there’s thick oven gloves between their hands, it’s not like Osamu is thinking about how close this is to holding hands or anything.

They weave their way out of campus and keep to the quieter roads, maneuvering their bodies to try and hide the contraband that glows sporadically, little trails of smoke following after them.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Osamu says when she calms down and his arm isn’t being tugged from it’s socket constantly.

“Me neither,” Suna replies, “I’m going to miss her.”

Osamu makes a disbelieving sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh.

“I’m serious, I’ve had her longer than I’ve had you.”

You don’t have me, Osamu thinks.

“I’m not a pet.”

Suna laughs. “Nah, you’re right. You’re a nuisance.”

“Says you,” Osamu retorts with no malice in it. “I’ve been meaning to ask, I’m missing some clothes, any idea where they could be?”

“Yeah,” Suna answers easily, boldly, “in my drawers.”

“Don’t you have enough clothes already?” Osamu asks because he doesn’t think he’s ever met someone with as much clothes as Suna, and they’re nice clothes too. Osamu’s are all tracksuits and jeans and t-shirts and hoodies, except he’s running out of t-shirts.

“Yeah,” Suna answers as they round a corner to the main street, they’re close to their destination, “but they’re not as comfy.” He tilts his head to the side as if thinking. “And they don’t smell as nice.”

Osamu feels his stomach squirm and his heart thud loudly. He needs to say something to that, he can’t just let Suna have the final word, he can’t let him know that this is making him squeal internally and that if it weren’t for the breeze, he wouldn’t be able to bear the heat on his face.

“Maybe if you washed your clothes more often they would. That pile at the end of your bed is soon going to grow mushrooms. Maybe we could use them in herbology next semester?”

Suna laughs and it rings through the night air. “My way is easier.”

“For you.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

Suna makes a little off-key happy sound, and they walk the rest of the way in a ringing silence, Osamu’s cheeks beginning to tire from the smile he has, but he refuses to let it go.

Dragon Services arrives before them too soon, and beside him Suna sighs. They place the cage on the doorstep. Suna begins to lift the blanket slowly, to make sure Hoshi isn’t going to scorch his eyebrows off. When she doesn’t, he takes it off and hunkers in front of her. Osamu takes a step back, watching the street around them for people, giving Suna some space.

“Hey baby,” he says, and Hoshi purrs, “I’m sorry we scared you earlier, but this is what’s best for you, I promise. It was fun… until you bit me, but it was fun and I’m going to miss you—”

“Police,” Osamu blurts, interrupting Suna when he spots the man coming out of an alleyway across the street. “Police. Suna.”

At that exact moment, the policeman catches them. He and Osamu lock eyes for a moment, before he looks down at Suna and the shimmering silver dragon he’s crouching in front of.

“Is that a…?” He starts.

“Bye Hoshi, I’ll never forget you,” Suna says standing up and banging on the door to the building.

“Stop!” The policeman yells.

“Run,” Suna laughs.

They run. Feet thundering on the ground and they keep running as the officer starts to follow, shouting at them to slow down.

They don’t.

“Faster,” Suna pants, throwing a challenging look over his shoulder at Osamu who grits his teeth and forces his body to move faster, pushing himself to catch up. Suna breathes half a laugh and turns back to the road, dropping his head low and pushing his legs to pick up speed.

“No fair,” Osamu grins and pushes himself that bit more so he’s once again side by side with Suna. And then Suna is grabbing his hand, slotting his fingers between Osamu’s easily and the bandana slips down his face just enough to show the curling ends of his smile.

“So you don’t get left behind,” he says, squeezing Osamu’s hand and heart in one.

Osamu snorts and then chokes lightly on the air, then Suna’s tugging him around a corner, his heart thundering down the street with him.

“This way,” Suna’s saying, tugging him down another side street and stopping so abruptly Osamu almost trips over himself before being pulled into a small, dark cul-de-sac. Suna’s hand covers Osamu’s mouth as he presses up against him and begins chanting. The gap appears to close off, and Suna drops his voice lower, continuing the chant so the mirage doesn’t fade. They hear the officer getting closer and he drops his voice a little more, and for a second the image falters.

Osamu tries to steady his breathing and stop his stomach and heart dancing the way they are. He can smell Suna’s shampoo again under the salty smell of sweat.

Then the officer is running past them, not even hesitating as he runs by, panting and clearly not happy with his job choice at that very instant.

Suna doesn’t move, continues chanting for another minute, before slowly letting it peter and dropping his head onto Osamu’s shoulder, the small huffing laugh he lets out brushing over Osamu’s shoulder and sticking to his skin, sinking in through it and wrapping its way around his bones and heart, squeezing and constricting in a way that makes Osamu want laugh and scream and never let him go.

“Your hand’s sweaty,” he mumbles instead, because it is and it’s still firmly against Osamu’s mouth. He’s rewarded with another breath of hot breath sweeping over his skin, but Suna complies and drops his hand, letting it fall onto Osamu’s shoulder.

“Why do I have the feeling,” Osamu says when his throat allows him to formulate something more substantial than just breathing, “that these kinds of things happen way too often to you?”

Suna pulls back and smiles at Osamu with the smile Osamu only sees aimed at him, and shrugs.

“I attract trouble,” he simpers and bats his eyelashes.

He’s still pushed up against Osamu, and like this, Osamu can feel the height difference between them, he can also feel the thundering in Suna’s own chest, and can feel the heat oozing out of him. Then his hand is moving from Osamu’s shoulder and his long fingers are catching the material of Osamu’s hoody, curling and catching it into a ball in his fist.

“I’m not trouble.” Osamu replies.

Suna drops his head back onto Osamu’s shoulder and laughs again, shoulders shaking.

“Are you saying you’re attracted to me?” He arches an eyebrow and Osamu feels himself colour, then Suna’s laughing again—he’s never heard him laugh this much. “I also think that’s a lie, Miya Osamu. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble. And there was the thing with the fireworks in the potions building last year, all of the frogs escaped if I remember correctly. You’re trouble and I heard all about you before I even met you.”

Osamu opens his mouth to retort, but closes it again because maybe he’s a little harsh on Atsumu sometimes, if he’d been caught that time he’d definitely have been expelled.

“I’ll ask again,” Suna says, tightening his grip on the front of Osamu’s hoodie and letting his other hand tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, “are you attracted to me?”

There’s that damn curl to his lip again.

“Yes,” Osamu replies, his hands on Suna’s waist, mindful of his injury, but pulling him closer, “I am. I mean, I committed a crime for you.”

“Good,” Suna says and leans down until his lips brush against Osamu’s, “because I like you a lot.”

x

“Disgusting,” Atsumu says later, “I blow up a microwave and you end up committing a crime, banging your roommate and getting an arrogant boyfriend? Disgusting.”