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'Tsukishimaaaa,’ Koito’s face is dangerously close to Tsukishima’s, and Hajime counts to ten in his head and takes a deep breath just to keep himself from starting away.
‘Teach me some Russian, Tsukishima’.
He’s not sure whether it is a simple request born from the second lieutenant’s boredom or an order, but what choice does he have, anyways.
‘Ой, бля’ slips from his tongue too late to hold it back, though. So much for being a good and very tired soldier; execute the order first, think second.
Koito furrows his eyebrows, visibly confused. ‘What was that’, and he looks like a scientist trying to comprehend a discovery or something.
‘An interjection. Meaning I’m quite confused by your request, sir, and I apologize’. Tsukishima pauses for a bit and adds, ‘Means ‘oh’, basically’. He pauses, collects himself. ‘Is there anything you’d want to know in particular, sir?’
‘Nah’, Koito sprawls himself across the tatami like a cat, long limbs everywhere, lazy warm gaze, his chin resting on his hand. ‘Anything you know. I just like it when you speak Russian, it sounds nice’.
Tsukishima pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. ‘Anything’ is too broad of a request, he can speak Russian almost fluently now, and what could he possibly teach his superior? He looks around the room they're in, there's a стол, and a печка, and the tatami Koito is laying on is на полу, and it's a метель outside. He mumbles all of this under his nose, almost inaudibly, as if to remind himself how to speak.
‘What?’, Koito interrupts.
‘Метель за окном’, Tsukishima answers, absent-mindedly. 'It's a snowstorm outside’.
He reaches for a phrasebook in his pocket, finally. It's a Russian one that he bought for practice, always keeping Lt. Tsurumi’s words in his mind: study Russian as if your life depends on it. Simple phrases like ‘сколько это стоит’ or ‘как пройти к улице …’, rough Japanese transcriptions. It was hell, making sense of this little book, but any effort was worth it, in the end.
And so he reads. ‘Рыба’ means ‘fish’, ‘солнце’ means ‘the sun’, ‘небо’ means ‘the sky’, and ‘how to get to the library’ means ‘как пройти к библиотеке’. Tsukishima just reads, without a thought, translating immediately, and Koito listens, his gaze half-lidded, calm, as if he’s lulled by the words that keep rolling off the sergeant’s tongue.
‘How do you say ‘I love you’?’, he finally asks. The words come out mumbled and silent, his chin still on his palm, his eyes still almost closed, his posture calm and relaxed.
‘Я люблю тебя’, Tsukishima answers automatically. ‘Ой, бля’, he thinks a few moments later, again.
‘And ‘I love you too?’ Koito is now looking at him, expectantly, with a hint of mischief and something that might resemble hope, if one's to watch carefully.
Tsukishima watches carefully, of course.
‘Я тоже тебя люблю’, he answers, at last. ‘Душа моя’.
And, of course, he doesn’t explain what the latter means, as Koito doesn’t ask. They just repeat the words in almost-silence, as the storm howls outside.
‘Душа моя, hm’, are the last words Koito speaks before falling asleep.