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The air is thick and wet and stifling, like a drowning river or an expectation or a pillow over the face, and Ikkou can’t sleep.
Across the room, he can hear Isshu breathing. Perhaps it would be irresponsible to leave his brother alone and unguarded—but then, Isshu doesn’t sleep any more heavily than he does. Always on watch. He’ll wake if there’s trouble.
Ikkou stands up, dresses, pulls on his jacket, and leaves his brother asleep.
The night is dark, heavy cloud cover mostly blotting out the waxing moon and plentiful stars, but he’s used to darkness. He stalks through the valley as if he’s hunting something, although he doesn’t know what. All he can smell is ozone. There’s a storm coming. A big one, if he’s any judge, the kind that knocks down trees.
He’s not sure what he’s hunting until he gets up to one edge of the valley and finds Yousuke sitting on his jacket on the grass, gazing dreamily up at the sky. “Hey, Ikkou,” he says, not looking away from the clouds, “I kind of thought you might show up.” He sounds happy about it, inasmuch as Ikkou can read his tone.
Ikkou stares at him. “There’s a big storm on the way, you know.”
“Yeah, I can kind of feel it in my skin, that’s why I came out here. And I couldn’t sleep anyway.”
“You couldn’t sleep, so you walked all the way here? To sit on the highest point in the area with a storm coming?”
“I biked most of the way.” Yousuke waves over his shoulder, and Ikkou looks where he’s pointing and sees a bicycle leaned up against a boulder. “You can sit with me if you want. I’d like the company.”
Another long moment of staring, and then Ikkou sits down on the grass next to Yousuke and shrugs off his jacket. “Are you trying to get struck by lightning.”
“I’m not going to get hit by lightning.”
It’s said with such thoughtless confidence that all Ikkou can do is stare again, because somehow Yousuke has a talent for leaving him at a loss for words. There are high winds up above them; as he’s staring the clouds part for a moment and Yousuke’s face is illuminated by moonlight, and he says, “And me?”
“Mm?”
“You weren’t worried about running into me out here? We haven’t always been friends.”
“Why would I be worried? You’d never do anything to hurt me.”
More of that thoughtless confidence, but now in him.
“You know,” Yousuke continues, apparently not noticing how Ikkou is looking at him, “I can always tell when it’s going to rain now. Ever since I became a Hurricaneger. Isn’t that funny? I feel like Sensei really should have mentioned something about that. Do you ever feel the rain coming?”
“Only if there’s going to be a thunderstorm.” The scent of ozone covers the back of Ikkou’s tongue. “I can feel it then. Look over here.”
“Over where?”
“Yousuke. Look over here.”
Yousuke turns towards him, a smile beginning to show before it’s stifled by Ikkou’s mouth on his. He gasps. He tastes like the oncoming storm. And his hands come up to curl in the front of Ikkou’s shirt, pulling them closer together, leaning into the kiss so much that Ikkou pushes back slightly too hard and knocks him to the ground and follows after him.
The first droplets of rain hit the back of Ikkou’s neck as he’s learning the shape of Yousuke’s mouth with a thoroughness he’s usually only devoted to form drills. He tries to sit up, but Yousuke pulls him back down. “It’s only rain,” is the murmur between kisses, “it’s rain, that’s all.”
Rain, beading in Ikkou’s hair, soaking into his shirt as he’s kissing Yousuke’s throat and Yousuke’s fingers are dragging down his back. Rain on the ground, rain on their faces, rain on their skin, harder and harder as the storm arrives. The wind is picking up, too, and the first lightning strike is not long after, and Ikkou counts the seconds from the lightning to the thunder in more kisses, one, two, three, four, five, and even at that distance he feels the rumble in his bones.
Yousuke grins up at him, lit by the moon and the flashes in the clouds, and says, “You should take your shirt off.”
Ikkou bites back a laugh. “Do you really want me to? Now?”
A vivid flash, and almost instantly the roar, not quite deafening but shockingly loud. Yousuke glances to the side, wide-eyed. “Ok, maybe not now now, maybe we should get inside somewhere.”
“Oh, and what happened to you not getting hit by lightning?”
“Well, I don’t want you to get hit by lightning.”
“Unbelievable.” Beat. “There’s a smaller cave just below the ridge here where we can take cover.”
He tries to stand, but Yousuke tugs him back down again for just a moment, their mouths meeting as lightning strikes again, further away but still too close for comfort. It should be cold, being soaked to the skin like this, but Ikkou could be on fire.
Then he’s allowed to stand, and he reaches around to help Yousuke up, finally allowing himself to laugh as Yousuke looks mournfully at his mud-covered jacket before grabbing his hand and pulling him to shelter.