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A girl with pink streaks in her blonde hair walks up to them and sets a neatly wrapped box down on the table. Right in front of Yuri.
“It’s the fifth one in the last thirty minutes alone,” Hapi tells Ashe, who’s just joined them in the sitting area outside the campus cafeteria. She doesn’t bother to pitch her voice down; the girl wouldn’t hear them even if they wanted her to.
Ashe feels something inside his chest wilt, shrivel up and die when Yuri looks up at the girl with a charming smile and accepts the gift. She seems unbothered that the other four occupants of the table are openly watching the exchange, and leaves with a sway of her hips and a flash of a victorious expression that Ashe catches for a second before she’s gone.
It doesn’t take long for the sixth admirer to come up. The pile of gifts sitting in the middle of the table grows, and the rock sitting in Ashe’s stomach steadily grows to a boulder with every little token added to it.
Yuri has always been popular. In the ten years they’ve known each other, Ashe has gotten front row seats to the copious amount of gifts that Yuri is showered with every time the Day of Devotion rolls around. From chocolate boxes left on his table, to love letters crammed in every nook of his locker back in high school, to flower arrangements and even expensive gifts like jewelry and makeup, Ashe has seen it all. He’d been there to help Yuri carry everything home, and he’ll do it again this year.
And it’s- fine, really, he supposes. Yuri deserves love and affection, the best possible partner, someone who will cherish him and accept him for who he is every day of their life together. Ashe wants him to be happy, happier, the happiest he can be, with whomever that is, even if it’s not him.
It doesn’t make it any easier to watch this happen every year, though.
Ashe looks down at the plastic container that holds half a dozen mini chocolate tarts topped with the ripest, sweetest strawberries and sprinkled with powdered sugar. He’d woken up before dawn to whip these up, and then found the family cat making a bed out of the ornate box he’d bought to put the treats in. A ribbon didn’t make the ensemble any less acceptable, so he left home with the plain container with its mismatched lid before he could miss his first classes.
He looks at the gifts wrapped in colorful, shiny paper with artful bows and little notes tucked under the ribbons. It’s best that he pretends these tarts are just a nice treat he prepared with no ulterior motive. And the heartfelt letter in the red envelope should stay inside his bag and never see the light of day again.
After a boy with dark skin and bleached hair leaves, Balthus stands up just as someone across the courtyard hurries their way. “Welp, I gotta take my leave. Got a hot med teacher waiting for me in her office, if you know what I mean.”
“So soon? We aren’t nearly done watching all those random strangers tripping over Yuri-bird.” Hapi flicks a nail at one golden bow, and wrinkles her nose as the latest admirer starts stuttering. “‘Sides, we’re splitting the edible goods later.”
“Later at home,” Constance corrects, tapping her mechanical pencil to the back of Hapi's hand until it retreats. “We can’t do that now. Someone might see and it will hurt their feelings.”
Hapi shrugs like it can’t be helped and slumps back against her seat. “Sorry, Balthus, seems like you can’t swipe anything for your sugar mommy just yet.”
“Manuela’s not my sugar mommy,” Balthus says, with conviction, except he’s wrong. Ashe has seen the gifts the best medicine professor in Garreg Mach has given him; she’s definitely his sugar mommy. “And I don’t need that. I have plans for today.”
“Whatever they are, I hope you can pay for them.” Yuri quips, the first time he’s said anything to them since Ashe joined them fifteen minutes ago. He takes the largest flower arrangement on the table and holds it out for Balthus, and raises his voice, “Here, put this in some water when you get home.”
They stare at each other for a beat, and Balthus whistles before taking the flowers. “You got it, boss.” He flicks a salute before he goes, headed for the professors’ offices. He definitely can’t afford their plans, but it doesn’t bother neither him nor his date.
Ashe sees someone hovering just out of his peripheral and tenses. The others do, too, and Constance is quick to spring into action, tossing her essay supplies into her bag. “I need to return a book to the library before we go home.”
“I’m not even gonna make up an excuse,” Hapi says, standing with her girlfriend. “We can’t even have an actual conversation with all these people dropping by all the time.” She says that loud enough that the person waiting for their turn hesitates in their approach. It’s just what they needed to make their escape.
Yuri grimaces and starts piling up the gifts. “Is your car around here, sparrow?”
“Huh? Y-Yeah.” Ashe jumps to his feet and helps Yuri gather all the gifts he’s received. Constance and Hapi have already mingled with the other students on their way to the library, running before they could be dragged along into moving all this to Ashe’s car.
Thankfully, no one approaches or stops them as they go, at a much slower pace than desired to avoid dropping anything. Ashe manages to balance his pile with one arm to unlock the car and pop the trunk open, and soon the empty space is filled with an assortment of wrapped gifts, flowers, and stuffed toys. He looks at a fluffy bunny with droopy ears and a red heart between its paws, and finds he can’t hate what it represents because it’s too adorable.
Yuri closes the trunk with a sigh and trudges to the passenger seat. Ashe follows, taking the space behind the steering wheel and depositing the container of mini tarts on his lap. Another year of watching Yuri deal with countless valentines. It stopped being amusing a long time ago.
“Sorry about that,” Yuri says, like he’s at fault for being the center of so many people’s affections. They’d be idiots if he weren’t, really. “What do you have there?”
Ashe passes him the container, for once glad that Cheddar decided to nap in the heart shaped box he purchased. “Just some tarts I made. You can have them.”
Yuri hums in appreciation, and pops the lid open to take a look. “These are my favorite,” he says, and yeah, Ashe knows that. It’s why he picked these specifically. Another hum, one that borders on a moan, and Yuri sighs, “Thank you.”
“Yeah.” Ashe swallows and turns the car on. Classes are done for them for the day, and the weekend is just ahead. Ashe wishes he could use the time to nurse his heart back to health and stuff his face with the other mini tarts in the fridge, but Lonato and Christophe are out of town, Ashe’s siblings are on a school trip, and Yuri invited himself over so he can make himself scarce back at the home he shares with his friends so Constance and Hapi can have some privacy. And to keep Ashe company, or so he says.
It’s a quiet drive. Yuri alternates between eating half of the mini tarts Ashe gave him and texting on his phone, sometimes commenting aloud on the messages sent by Dorothea. Between the two of them, they always figure out what Dorothea and Petra are bound to do at any given time. And it’s because of these tangled connections that Ashe has never breathed a word of his feelings for Yuri to Petra, aware that Dorothea will eventually find out and then, possibly, Yuri too.
That’s not how he wants Yuri to find out, if Yuri is ever made aware of it, in the first place. Ashe chickens out more often than he’s proud to admit, but he’s afraid of upsetting the relationship they have now. Yuri is his oldest friend; it’d hurt too much to lose him.
Ashe parks the car in the underground garage of the apartment building and they ride the elevator up to the tenth floor, pushing along a cart loaded with the presents Yuri received. Yuri used to live here with Rowe until he moved out and with his friends so he could be closer to his mom, whom he reached out to after he turned eighteen, five years after he was taken from her.
As part of the yearly tradition, they open the gifts, decide what Yuri will keep, what he’ll give away, what he’ll donate, and so forth. Most of the time, part of the chocolates and candies are given to Ashe and his siblings while Yuri splits the rest with his friends. Some are of really good quality, and it leaves Ashe torn between enjoying them and resenting their existence.
The pile on the floor really is ridiculously huge. Ashe never got as many gifts on the Day of Devotion as Yuri did; sometimes, he never got any at all. And that didn’t bother him. What did bother him was that, every year, so many people showered Yuri with their affection, while Ashe kept preparing treats and writing letters and buying small tokens that were never delivered.
Ashe frowns at a red rose arrangement with so many roses that it looks like it belongs in a digital influencer’s Instagram feed. It’s not going to be this year that he’ll deliver his gifts, either.
Yuri opens one of the chocolate boxes and places it between them where they’re sitting on the ground. He has some sticky notes for assigning the owner of each of the gifts, and it’s up to Ashe to help him catalog everything.
“So let’s begin,” Yuri says, ripping open silver wrapping paper and unveiling an equally sparkling silver bracelet. He whistles - it looks pretty nice and delicate - and passes it along to Ashe. “This is for Dorothea.”
And so it goes. A pair of golden earrings goes to his mother, the stuffed bunny goes to Ashe’s little sister. A bottle of perfume that’s too sweet goes on a separate pile where Yuri will try to find someone who likes it, a thick wool scarf goes to charity, along with a sweater that is his perfect size, but is an ugly shade of green.
More makeup, mascara and eyeshadow and lipstick. Yuri tests the lipstick colors on the inner side of his wrist, keeps some shades he’s comfortable with and assigns the rest. A powdered blush just shy of being the right color goes to Constance. A murder mystery book goes to Hapi and her ever growing collection. An unusual gift of a couple of gift cards goes to Balthus, so he can actually get something from stores like clothes and other essentials before he wastes all his money on booze.
Yuri used to offer Ashe gifts, sometimes, when they were still in high school. It was easier then to pay closer attention to Yuri, to see him carrying knight novels up and down that never actually belonged to him. Sometimes the novels Yuri offered were new releases, and Ashe would itch to accept them and spend the whole night awake reading them.
He never did. It didn’t feel right to take something from someone who had feelings for Yuri, too.
Ashe runs his fingers over a cat plushie distractedly. He’s running out of sticky notes, half the box of chocolates is gone, and his stomach is beginning to turn; whether that’s due to all the sweets he consumed or the lingering dread at the pile of gifts, he doesn’t know.
“I think I need something savory,” he declares as he stands up, wincing at the stiff feeling on his legs.
“Good idea.” Yuri holds out his empty water bottle. “Can you refill this too? I’ll continue while you’re there.”
Ashe takes the bottle into the kitchen and spends a full minute bracing his weight against the counter as he goes through every snack option in the house. He did some shopping for Yuri’s stay, so he has staples like chips and pretzel sticks, but he’s not feeling like that. He ate too many chocolate pieces to have enough space in his stomach for mini sandwiches, either, and Yuri isn't a fan of carrots and hummus.
Leave it to Ashe to overthink something as simple as an afternoon snack that he’s to share with Yuri. Truth is, Yuri would be content if Ashe took those chips back to the living room, but after the day he's had, he feels the need to flex his cooking skills a little bit (like some sort of old school dude who wants to prove to his love interest that he can provide for them) - even if it's just trying to make something a little fancy out of the puffed rice cakes and multi grain crackers he bought to make snacks for his siblings' road trip.
Yuri calls from the living room, just as Ashe starts arranging the cakes and crackers on a plate, around little round dishes he’ll fill with dollops of the different spreads he bought. “Can I borrow more sticky notes?”
“They’re in my bag,” he calls back, and adds the last handful of baby carrots to the plate. Yuri’s not a fan, but Ashe enjoys them.
Ashe spends a little while admiring his work. Simple, but he’s sure the homemade sun-dried tomato spread and the creamy garlic and herb dip will be approved by Yuri. Satisfied, he tucks Yuri’s refilled water bottle under his arm and walks back to the living room with his pseudo snack platter.
Yuri’s back is turned to him when Ashe joins him. “Did you find them?”
It takes a while for Yuri to reply. When he does, his voice is strangely distant and vacant. “You didn’t tell me you got a gift today.”
“But I didn’t.” Ashe looks up from the snack platter he placed on the coffee table and blanches when he sees the red envelope his life-long friend, his impossible crush, is holding. “That-”
The strange look on Yuri’s face flashes as a teasing smile curls on his lips, but it is off and stilted. “You didn’t even open the letter, sparrow! How inconsiderate.”
“Give me that!” Ashe lunges for him, but Yuri quickly dances away. There’s a reason why he was the cheer captain in high school while Ashe was one of the kids in the book club. “Yuri!”
Yuri waves the envelope and slips his finger under the flap, breaking the seal (which is just a glittery star sticker that Ashe raided from his sister’s extensive collection) and sidestepping another one of Ashe’s attempts of tackling him. “Come on, don’t be embarrassed! It can’t be that bad.”
Ashe tries once again, and it proves futile like all the other times. He has to accept defeat, though the dread in his stomach sparks to life again when Yuri pulls the letter from inside. “Please, don’t.”
Yuri looks at him, the letter held tight in his hand. He’s not one to push and tease Ashe after he’s told to stop, and Ashe can see that he’s wavering; Yuri knows Ashe’s limits and he knows when to back off.
Uncharacteristically, he doesn’t do that. Yuri steels himself and unfolds the letter. He holds Ashe’s gaze like he’s asking for forgiveness before slowly turning his attention to the words penned by Ashe himself. And then he starts reading aloud, “Dear Yuri.”
Yuri pauses. Distantly, Ashe thinks that this is it. It’s done. Ten years of friendship end here because he was too careless and forgot about the letter. Even when Yuri had his first and only boyfriend in his first year of college, Ashe kept quiet about his feelings.
He continues to stare at the letter like he can’t believe it’s real, and yeah, Ashe can’t believe this is real life either. When Yuri pulls the sheet of paper closer to his face and squints his eyes at Ashe’s unmistakable handwriting, Ashe turns and flees the kitchen as dignantly as he can. He doesn’t have to stay and watch Yuri’s reactions closely.
Ashe doesn’t lock the door of his bedroom, and throws himself face down on the mattress like he’s ten again and tired of being teased by the other kids for liking knight stories. Christophe isn’t here now to ruffle his hair and promise to take him out for ice cream, but the thought makes him smile slightly all the same.
After keeping his face shoved in the pillow for a while, Ashe turns his head and stares out the window, keeping an ear open for any sound Yuri might make, either a door opening to announce his exit, or a laugh, or anything really.
That Ashe is going to hear anything at all is unlikely. They were both too good at sneaking around when they were kids, sometimes going and coming back before anyone even noticed they were missing. Yuri can leave at any time and Ashe will only know when he picks himself up from his bed and looks around the apartment.
“We need to talk,” Yuri announces as the door swings oepn. Ashe jumps out of his skin before scrambling into a sitting position; he expected almost anything, but not this.
Dizzy, he eloquently blurts, “What?”
“This.” Yuri waves the letter in the air and Ashe’s world comes to a screeching halt. Right. Of course. “We need to talk about this.”
Ashe doesn’t squirm, but it’s a close thing. “S-Sorry. You shouldn’t have seen that.”
One of Yuri’s perfectly designed eyebrows arches up. “Why not?”
This time, Ashe does squirm and shrugs a shoulder for an answer, because it’s better than admitting what goes on in his head. “Why would you want to see it? You didn’t even like it.”
Yuri’s other perfectly designed eyebrow lifts to match the first. “Who said I didn’t?”
Ashe almost scowls. As though Yuri wasn’t making faces as he read the letter. “I could see in your face.”
Yuri sighs and shakes his head. “What, my shock? That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. And maybe if you hadn’t run off, we could’ve talked sooner and you wouldn’t be getting any ideas.” Yuri sits on the edge of Ashe’s bed, placing the letter on his lap. Ashe is surprised to see it isn’t balled up, or torn, or hasn't been returned to him yet. “Did you mean it?”
“Yes.” Every word was written carefully several times, because Ashe was never content with the loops and lines of his own handwriting. He knows them all by heart.
“Even the part where you say you’ve had feelings for me since you were thirteen?”
Ashe angles his head to look at Yuri from the corner of his eyes. Yuri seems serious enough, eyes focused ahead on the neighboring building. “That too.”
“Even-”
“I meant all of it, Yuri,” Ashe cuts in, facing forward again. The weather is nice outside; it won’t be long until the sky turns pink with the setting sun. “You know I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“It’s just hard to believe,” Yuri says, fingers ghosting the edge of the letter. “That’s a very long time.”
“So it is.” Ashe purses his lips. He doesn’t want to be too optimistic, which he usually is, but he might get to keep Yuri’s friendship if this conversation goes well.
Yuri sighs slowly, a bit dramatically, and leans back on his hands. “You could’ve told me sooner. It would’ve made things easier.”
Ashe frowns and turns to him again. “What do you mean?”
“Well, for one, I wouldn’t have tried to date that guy a couple of years ago. We weren’t even a decent match, but I needed something to, you know, move on.”
If possible, Ashe frowns harder. “Move on from what?”
“My feelings for you.” Yuri looks at him, alight under the warm stream of light pouring in from the window. Everything about him glows, his skin, his hair, the gloss on his lips - reapplied, Ashe notes, because he knows Yuri for long enough to know what he looks like with a fresh coat of gloss, as well as he knows the freckles on his own face.
Ashe reels back, and he thinks of the way Yuri did the same thing just minutes ago in the living room when he opened the letter. “Oh, so… you…?”
“Like you so much that I’ve been trying to ask you out for years? Yep.” Yuri turns his face towards the windows again, and under the direct light of the sun his eyes are even brighter. “But you didn’t seem interested, and I didn’t want you to feel obligated into saying yes because we’re friends. My best friend, whom I’ve loved since I was nineteen, give or take.”
“That’s definitely not the case,” Ashe murmurs, tracing the geometric pattern of the bedspread. “I would’ve gladly- it’s always been you, Yuri. Even when I’d feel attracted to someone else, you were always there. I just couldn’t.”
Yuri makes a noise of agreement in the back of his throat. “I panicked when I saw the envelope. I thought someone had finally caught your attention and I lost my chance for good, and I just had to know who it was, to see if at least they were good enough for you.”
Ashe risks a glance at Yuri to find him already looking his way. He stops breathing for a moment and thinks of all those years of silent pining, of longing, of wanting to be the one who gets to call Yuri sweetheart, honey, baby, or whatever other pet name he’d like - and lets all his feelings make him brave enough to ask, “Well, is he?”
“He’s a bit of a shady character, I think.” Yuri tilts his head, rests the side of his jaw on his shoulder, hair draped behind him and curling at the tips. “But he’s very attractive.”
“He’s beautiful,” Ashe says, because it’s the truth. Yuri knows how stunning he truly is, and he’s not exactly fishing for compliments, but Ashe knows what it is like to doubt your worth sometimes. “He means the world to me.”
Yuri’s cheeks darken slightly, and he dips his head to hide his face under the fall of his fringe. “You mean the world to him, too.”
Hearing that is a relief. Something loosens in Ashe’s chest and he breathes a little easier. “I’m sorry I don’t have a proper gift for you. I made the tarts, but…”
“I could go years without getting another gift for the Day of Devotion. The Goddess knows I’ve got one too many in this lifetime.” Yuri turns on the bed, plants both hands on the space between their thighs and leans into Ashe’s space. “But I wouldn’t mind getting a kiss. From you, specifically.”
Ashe flushes, and his heart thrums with excitement. He tried a few times, to move on and find someone else like Yuri did, but all he managed were some dates he failed to pursue a second time and just enough knowledge to not fuck this up.
He leans across the space, cradles Yuri’s jaw in his palm and presses their mouths together, a slow and tentative slide of lips. Yuri sighs quietly and pushes into the kiss, lips sticky with gloss. He tastes like strawberries, and just the slightest hint from the chocolates they ate.
They part until their noses brush together. Ashe can’t lift his eyes to look into Yuri’s, so he focuses on his mouth instead, parted as they breathe in the same air.
“Good.” Yuri’s voice cracks. He licks his lips, and Ashe traces the motion with his eyes. “One more time.”
Fingers curl around the soft fabric of Ashe’s sweater and Yuri pulls him down as he falls back on the bed. Ashe braces his weight awkwardly on his elbow, legs bent and twisted on the bed, and feels blood creeping up to his hairline at their position. He can see himself kneeling over Yuri, bracketing his hips with his thighs, pushing into his mouth as they navigate this new step of their relationship.
Yuri laughs pleasantly, fingers running through Ashe’s hair and pushing it back. It falls forward again, and he smiles indulgently as he continues to play with it. “Too much?”
“A bit overwhelming,” Ashe admits sincerely. “But I feel like we’ve waited enough? I’m not sure what to do.”
“We’ll figure it out. Just tell me when you’re uncomfortable and I’ll do the same. Deal?” Yuri swipes his thumb over his bottom lip, and Ashe presses a kiss to it. Yuri’s pupils dilate.
“Deal,” he breathes out and leans down, catching Yuri’s lips again and giving in to the curiosity of exploring his mouth with his tongue. Ashe lies on his side and they fumble around, trying to get comfortable without pushing each other too far, but with the way that Yuri hums and moans into his mouth when he settles on top of Ashe, he’s confident that they’re doing just fine.
Yuri pulls back, lips red and swollen and his gloss completely wiped away by Ashe’s tongue. “How about I make us dinner and we have a little date? I don’t need more than that.”
Ashe runs his hands up the line of Yuri’s spine just to feel him shiver. “Because all you need is right here?” He chances to ask, grinning when Yuri rolls his eyes and nods, cheeks red.
“I figured you’d like hearing it since you’re such a romantic at heart.”
“I know you find it cheesy, so there’s no need.” Ashe leans up to peck his mouth, but ends up reaching his chin instead. “Hearing it doesn’t hurt, though.”
Yuri rolls to the side and falls back on the mattress. Ashe feels a little cold without the pressure and warmth on top of him, but he’s rewarded with Yuri tucking himself into his side and draping an arm over his torso. “Let me know when you want to hear more, I’ve got a lot of things to say.”
“Same to you.” With Yuri using his bicep as a pillow, Ashe bends his arm as much as he can to skim his fingers along his side. “I kind of don’t want to move.”
“Then don’t.” Yuri smothers a yawn against Ashe’s chest, then presses a kiss over his heart. “We can stay like this a little longer. I always knew you gave the best hugs, but this is so much better.”
Ashe curls his arm tighter around him and hides his nose in Yuri’s soft hair. Yuri can definitely hear how hard his heart is beating, but Ashe doesn’t care about his telltale signs anymore. They lie for a while, watching the colors change in the sky and trading kisses, celebrating their first Day of Devotion together.