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With the last traces of winter receding and bare trees slowly regaining life, the realization hits Nabe unknowingly, catching him off-guard and weak in the knees.
Looking at Miyuki sleeping on Sanada's couch wearing the googly eyes eye mask he conveniently brings everywhere, all Nabe can think about is how he thinks he's in love with him. Miyuki is on his back, still wearing his swimming club jacket with Inu, Sanada's calico cat, snoring on top of him, her body stretched out and paws on Miyuki's face, and Nabe's mind fills with the urge to press his nose in Miyuki's chest and inhale the mix of sun and chlorine with his natural, inherently Miyuki Kazuya scent.
Nabe quietly walks through the short hallway, his eyes fixed on Miyuki and his head working overboard trying to process his feelings for his friend and fake boyfriend. Too fixated on Miyuki, Nabe doesn't realize Kuramochi is watching him, a grin threatening to grow in his face.
"Stop thinking too much," he says, slinging his arm around Nabe's shoulder to drag him along to the living room where he and Sanada are playing video games.
In retrospect, Nabe thinks Kuramochi cannot be the one telling him not to overthink. Seemingly already in the know of the late realization Nabe is just having, ultimately, the fake dating was Kuramochi's grand plan years ago to get Miyuki out of his dilemma.
After Kuramochi told their friend group his suggestion one afternoon in the fall of their senior year of high school, Miyuki stared back at him, and Nabe still remembers catching the funny look on his face back then. At the time, he wasn't sure if Miyuki was judging Kuramochi for his plan or was actually considering it.
And then Sanada agreed, nodding approvingly at Kuramochi from across their table. "That way, you don't have to spend a good part of your break time accommodating every single person who wants to confess to you only to reject them anyway."
Nabe remembers vividly because he agrees. He agreed then, because after Miyuki's summer tournaments, more people started coming up to confess their feelings for him. But that wasn't the problem; the problem lied on those people taking so much of Miyuki's time that he barely had time to eat, or rest. There were times Kuramochi had to physically drag Miyuki away from the crowd that formed around his table in their classroom, and even in the hallways there were still people who blocked them on their way to the cafeteria.
And when Sanada told Narumiya about the fake dating, he unhelpfully agreed, saying Kuramochi should do it.
(And maybe, he should have. Nabe wonders if he would be dealing with possibly having feelings for one of his close friends if Kuramochi did it, instead.)
"I'm not," Nabe denies belatedly, which gets Kuramochi cackling. From where Sanada is seated on the floor, he looks up at them confusedly, and Kuramochi laughs even louder.
Kuramochi's boisterous laughter wakes Inu up, and all three of them simultaneously freeze, and then she crawls up a bit until she's nuzzled on Miyuki's chin, and then she's asleep again. Unsurprisingly, Miyuki remains asleep.
"His last class was cancelled so he's been here sleeping for two hours now," Sanada tells Nabe. "And we don't have training today as well." That, Nabe knows, because they are scheduled to get groceries and refill Miyuki's refrigerator.
"Lucky bastards," Kuramochi says as he wrestles Sanada to the floor after losing in their game. Soon he starts gathering his scattered stuff on the floor to prepare for his training. "Miyuki! Wake up! Miyuki! Nabe is here!" he then yells before going to his room to change.
Usually, Miyuki doesn't get woken up easily, but along the way Kuramochi drags him by the feet, and when Inu starts clawing on his eye mask with her paws and meowing wildly from being rattled, it gets him up suddenly.
"What the—" he croaks, a bit confused with the sudden commotion. Lost, he looks around the living area. Nabe meets his sleepy eyes, and then Miyuki smiles at him. "Hey."
Miyuki still looks half groggy, one hand scratching off the sleep from his eyes and the other petting Inu in his lap. His hair is disheveled from sleep, and Nabe does not appreciate how Miyuki's short greeting gave his fingers the foreign itch to run themselves on his hair. They've been friends since their first year of high school, and it's not unnatural for him to get a greeting and a smile, but with a new thought occupying Nabe's head, he's afraid he's about to give meaning to the littlest things that have long since been routine.
Nabe smiles at Miyuki. "Grocery?"
Miyuki doesn't respond verbally, but his smile turns cheeky, and Nabe laughs.
"Can I go, too?" Sanada asks from where he's cleaning the controllers, Inu meowing from Miyuki's lap when Sanada moves her bed. Sanada meows back at her, before he returns her bed to its original position.
"No," Miyuki answers from the kitchen, "you have to meet your tutee at seven."
"It's barely four."
"You have to prepare," Miyuki says, picking his bag and Nabe up. "And we have to go." Before Nabe can even process their exchange, he and Miyuki are by the door already. The last he hears from inside are Sanada yelling for them to get food for Inu, and Kuramochi's noisy laugh.
"I have to, uh," Miyuki starts once he has Sanada's door slammed behind him. He clears his throat, and continues, "go to the bathroom."
Nabe laughs at him but opens the door to his apartment next door, where he picks up his and Miyuki's grocery lists on his table while his company does his business.
"Remind me to buy new goggles," Miyuki says, wiping his hand with a bathroom towel.
"Again?" he asks while he writes it on the list. "What happened?"
"Pulled too hard, snapped the strap. And I think I lost a good part of my hair, too." Miyuki's hand is on his hair as he talks, frowning at himself.
Nabe prides himself in his skill to pay attention to the most miniscule of details, but when Miyuki is right in front of him pulling at his hair, he zones in on his fingers on his hair and wonders how it would feel if he were to do the same thing.
"You should get a haircut," he suggests, taking slow steps to close their distance.
"You think?" he asks with a slight pout.
Nabe stretches his hand out and reaches for his hair. "Yeah.”
Maybe it's Nabe's thoughts clouding his logic, but he feels Miyuki lean into his hand. And then quietly, he says, "Okay."
The longer Nabe thinks about it, the more startling it becomes.
Months prior, Nabe and Miyuki would spend days on end together, bundled up in Nabe's blanket as they watched Olympics swimming videos, and Nabe wouldn't dwell too much on the warmth in his chest as Miyuki tucked him in closer, tighter.
Now, when Nabe calls out "I'm home." as he usually does even when he lives alone and he hears the distinct baritone of Miyuki's "Welcome home," Nabe freezes for a short while.
"You're home early," Miyuki continues, voice within earshot but still out of sight. Nabe takes off his shoes and replaces them with indoor slippers, noticing Miyuki's shoes by the genkan. He bends down and arranges them. Then, he hears Miyuki again. "Dinner will be ready soon."
"You're cooking dinner?" he asks, dropping his bag when he passes by the living room. Miyuki responds with a muffled yes, and when Nabe sees him finally in the kitchen, he's sitting on a chair with his back to Nabe, eyes on the pot on the stove, and a spoon hanging on his mouth.
"Tell me it's not curry," Nabe says, and Miyuki laughs as he stands from his seat.
"You're not the only one who got a week's supply of Mei's curry, you know."
From where Nabe is standing by the entryway to the kitchen, he keeps his eyes on Miyuki's back as the latter cooks them dinner. He listens to Miyuki go on about his day, about how training went and how Sanada almost choked himself to death by diving wrongly before training even began. With how much Miyuki talks, Nabe feels utterly impressed about how he can work around the kitchen and babble at length without burning the kitchen down.
"This is almost done," Miyuki announces as he turns around after lowering the heat on the stove, "I'll go get Sanada. Do you mind watching the pot for me?"
Nabe is still reeling from the way Miyuki's hair flapped like a fringe on his forehead when he turned around, remembering Kuramochi telling him and Sanada to form a boy band if the competitive swimming didn't work for the two of them. For the first time in years of interacting with Miyuki, Nabe is afraid if he tried to talk, he would end up heaving out a cough. Instead, he nods at Miyuki.
"Don't burn it."
The insult to his cooking, despite being justifiably valid, gets Nabe complaining. "It's miso soup. I think I'd know if it's about to burn!"
When Sanada arrives a few minutes later, Nabe hears him first before he sees him.
"I'm here!" he greets, before Nabe feels an arm wrapped around his shoulders. "Missed me?"
"I did not," Miyuki says. "Get out of my kitchen."
Since Sanada decided he wants to annoy Miyuki a few minutes more before dinner, Nabe exits his kitchen that is not big enough for all three of them. He's started setting up the table when his eyes flit across the room to his bookshelves, eyes fixated on the seemingly rearranged little items sitting on them.
And then he sees it. A new calico cat figure—small and delicate and looks so much like Inu, but a lot tinier. Nabe can't help but smile to himself as he embraces the warmth that spreads from his nape to his neck up the apples of his cheeks.
Miyuki isn't a huge gift giver as he always felt awkward having to receive the obligatory gifts back, so the first time he gave Nabe a gift – several sets of origami papers that he found while Sanada was scouring bookstores for a specific textbook he couldn't seem to find – Nabe remembers forgetting to say thanks out of shock.
"One per bookstore we went to today," Miyuki said as he put them down beside Nabe's laptop.
"They're pretty," Nabe complimented, lifting one paper up. It was the blue one with cosmos all over. Nabe started folding a paper crane, his fingers moving naturally like they just remember from every year in high school their class had to make a thousand pieces of them before the year ended.
Once he was done, Nabe turned around and showed Miyuki the finished product. The latter just raised his brows, waiting for him to talk. Nabe stayed quiet, but he smiled at him. Thank you, the words didn’t seem to materialize.
Miyuki didn't say anything, either, but Nabe remembers, for sure—Miyuki smiled back at him.
Between then and now, Nabe didn't even realize how much of Miyuki was in his apartment. From the scattered origami in his place that are all made from the papers Miyuki gave him, to the random designed kitchen hooks and towels, Miyuki has left so much in his place, and a lot of them, Nabe didn't even receive straight from Miyuki. He just finds them in his apartment, wonders where the scented candle in his bathroom or the little rubber ducks in the tub came from or if he got them for a long time already but was only noticing them recently, and it will take weeks before Miyuki would even tell him where he got it.
Now, few years since the first gift, staring into the fourth calico cat figure in front of him, it clicks to him: the amber strips on Inu's body and ears and tail, much like the very figure he's boring holes at staring, reminds Nabe of Miyuki's eyes.
Nabe lifts it up, looks at it under the light. The colors shimmer, sparkle—like how Miyuki's eyes do when he sees the first traces of water in summer.
Ah, Nabe breathes, giving the cat figure a little pat on the head, maybe that's why they're his favorites among the many little trinkets Miyuki brings home to him.
Sanada's voice is what pulls Nabe out of his thoughts. "Hey?"
Nabe blinks a few times, repeatedly, bringing himself back from his thoughts. "Hmm?" he hums, looking at the two of them.
Miyuki doesn't say a word, but Nabe hears the unspoken question from his lips. He's wondering if Nabe's alright, so he nods. The frown on Miyuki's face tells Nabe he's confused if he really was fine, so Nabe offers him a smile.
And then he smiles back, face light. Nabe wonders if Miyuki saw through him and how Nabe realized he's irrevocably in love with him.
In high school, every time they held hands, it was out of necessity.
It was necessary to hold hands, so people wouldn't have to ask about them. It was the easier option; Nabe realized that, despite being averse to physical contact unless extremely necessary, Miyuki would rather hold his hand than be redundant and tell people repeatedly that they were together.
In university, the first time they held hands, it was accidental.
They were all in Miyuki's apartment with a Ghibli film playing on the television; at some point, feeling fidgety with nothing to hold in them, Nabe folded his hands in his lap, and he realized Miyuki's hand was on his lap, and it shocked him. Because he was used to Miyuki reaching out for his hands in public, where people would see. The slight touch in private, even when completely accidental, caught Nabe off-guard, but he didn't say a word. Because they're friends, and they're fake boyfriends, and they're a lot of things but not awkward with each other.
Nabe left his hand in his lap, and Miyuki moved his hand so they wouldn't touch.
Not long after, Miyuki took his hand back and kept it in his jacket.
(In university, the second time they held hands, it was intentional.
Kuramochi, from where he's sitting on the floor with his back leaning against Nabe's legs as he argued with Sanada which movie they wanted next, probably felt the way Nabe moved a bit towards Miyuki's side, having been pulled closer, closer, closer.)
Since then, Nabe doesn't even realize when they're holding hands, or just keeping each other close. Reaching out for each other is second nature now that no one even bats an eyelash anymore.
And when Nabe comes to terms with his feelings and accepts that he is in love with Miyuki, he expects holding him, or being held by him, to feel different. Thinking about how his hands will turn clammy under Miyuki's touch, or how he will feel shaky against Miyuki's steady hold, Nabe contemplates keeping his hands to himself.
But as Nabe walks out of his last class for the day and the sight he gets out to is of Miyuki getting up from his spot on the stairs when he meets his eyes, Nabe decides it will be okay.
So, he smiles up at Miyuki and watches him grab his bag and walk towards Nabe with a boyish grin on his face—all the while having all eyes on him.
"Hey," Miyuki greets, taking a familiar scarf out of his duffel bag and putting it around Nabe's neck, "I'm hungry."
Nabe frowns at him, wondering why he felt the need to wait for him instead of grabbing a quick meal. "You know I can't cook, right."
Miyuki laughs, tugging the scarf one last time before he takes Nabe's hand in his. "I know. Let's go?"
Nabe doesn't ask where, but just gives him a nod. Miyuki takes it and tightens his hold on Nabe.
And then, it sinks in.
Holding hands, now, doesn't feel any different. Being aware of how he feels doesn't make any difference; holding Miyuki's hand is still as easy as it always has been. It makes Nabe wonder how long he has kept himself in the dark; wonder how long he's been in love with Miyuki without even realizing it.
"Your hands are so wrinkly," Nabe says instead of speaking his thoughts out loud.
The thing about Miyuki is that it's not hard to fall in love with him. Sometimes, Nabe thinks it's too easy, even. After all, Miyuki wouldn't be in the predicament he was in four years ago if he were hard to like.
Nabe thinks it's ironic, how the thing he agreed to do with Miyuki to fend off people who would try to confess lead him to realize he has stuff to confess to Miyuki, too. But he doesn't dwell on it too much, until he realizes maybe this was how everybody felt when they realized their feelings for him: the overwhelming adulation that threatens to suffocate, and the need to breathe them all out.
"Are you going to tell him?" Kuramochi's voice asks from the other line, reminding Nabe how he told Kuramochi about his feelings first before Miyuki gets a hint.
"I should," Nabe says, "I need to be honest with him."
"And what if he rejects you?"
"That's okay. He needs to be honest with himself," Nabe answers without missing a beat. "I'm not confessing for reciprocation, anyway."
Kuramochi exhales a laugh, and Nabe hears Narumiya in the background ask what's funny. "When are you confessing?"
"I'm not—" Nabe cuts himself off when he hears knocks against his door. "I'm sorry, I have to get this. I'll call again later."
"No need," Kuramochi says, and Nabe can hear him try to bite back a loud laugh. "And you're taking way too long confessing. We're impatient! Talk soon."
Nabe doesn't understand Kuramochi's parting words until he opens the door to his room, and he sees Miyuki, head down as he takes deep exhales to catch his breath.
"Your mom let me in," he says, and when he looks up, their eyes meet, and Nabe feels himself drown in the intensity of his stare.
"What are you doing here?" Nabe asks, trying not to stumble with his words. For a moment he thought his words would come out as an incoherent cough.
Miyuki is silent for a long time; he's just standing outside Nabe's door with his forearm on the doorframe, eyes fixated on Nabe. For a while, Nabe meets his gaze, until he's unable to breathe without a hiccup. And then, taking no consideration of Nabe's internal struggle to stay upright, Miyuki announces, "I like you, Nabe. A lot."
Nabe audibly gasps, and Miyuki heaves a deep sigh. He visibly deflates, and Nabe finds him leaning his forehead on his shoulder, his hands snaking down until both theirs are intertwined.
"I have no idea since when," Miyuki tells him, breathing warm on Nabe's neck. Nabe feels a ticklish feeling, unsure whether it's from Miyuki's breath, or the butterflies in his own stomach. Then there's a pause—long and calculating. And then Miyuki lifts his head up and meets Nabe's eyes. "But I'm sure. So don't go on that date. Just—stay here."
Even when he's feeling all sorts of warm and fond despite the confession out of the blue, Nabe finds himself frowning at Miyuki. "What date?"
Miyuki stares back at him, a confused frown mirroring Nabe's own on his face. "Sanada said there’s this guy from your journalism class… who asked you out…"
Nabe sees the exact moment Miyuki realizes, because then his frown disappears, and a smile takes over his entire face. Nabe can't take his eyes off him.
It takes a while before Miyuki finds it in himself to pull Nabe closer, and as he feels himself getting embraced by the familiar warmth he misses every time Miyuki is far away, Nabe sighs, relieved. He doesn't think there's anywhere else he'd rather be at the moment.
"I like you a lot, too," Nabe whispers on Miyuki's chest, his head tucked under his chin. He feels Miyuki's arm tighten around his waist.
"Date me?" Miyuki asks, calmer now—more relaxed. A lot of the time, Miyuki thinks too much but never says enough. Nabe thinks he'd stay with him and listen to every unspoken word.
"Isn't that what we've been doing all these years?"
Miyuki doesn't say a word, but he's pouting petulantly when Nabe pulls away a little to look up at him. He doesn't even need to ask, but Nabe offers him a nod, and then he feels a soft pressure at the top of his head.