Archive of Our Own ^beta

a pair of boys lay on the floor, legs kicked up behind them, magazines flipped open, manga strewn about. half empty bags of some sweet, some sour candy are tossed aside, nearly forgotten. there’s a window cracked open, allowing the spring breeze to blow in and cool them off when the sunlight on their backs gets too hot. 

“yeah but this guy has two swords,” baji argues. “why use a shield when you can just use force, you know?” 

kazutora considers this, licking the sour salt off his candy before taking a bite. he makes a face before saying, “i guess you’re right. using two swords makes him look cooler, anyway.” 

“that’s what i’m saying! and look—“ baji nudges him with his shoulder. it’s then that kazutora realizes just how close they are. baji reaches over kazutora’s arm to point at the manga between his hands. “these ones are serrated, so they do more damage and—“

kazutora snorts, undignified and childlike. “serrated is not a real word.”

baji turns to him, dark brows furrowed, affronted. “yeah it is!”

“no way!”

“it is, i swear!” the other boy insists, shoving kazutora’s shoulder goodnaturedly again. smugly, with his chin tipped up, he adds, “i heard it on one of my mom’s cooking shows.”

kazutora shakes his head and turns back to the manga. baji is still looking at him, he knows. he’s been doing that a lot recently, looking at kazutora even when the latter isn’t looking back. he’s always looking. 

kazutora finds that he doesn’t really mind. 

“whatever you say, man,” kazutora says, because he knows that an argument with baji is lost before it’s even begun. 

baji looks away then. kazutora can tell because—because he just can. having baji’s eyes on him feels like a gift and burden wrapped into one. how he wants to bask in it, how he wants to hide from it. baji reaches over his arm again. “so, as i was saying —“

while the looking was new, the touching was not. it had confused kazutora when he first befriended baji, his physicality. he liked to lean . he liked to shove and push and press and touch. 

although—and kazutora hadn’t quite come to terms with this just yet—baji seemed more physical with kazutora than anyone else. if they were in the same room, baji was at his side. legs touching on a park bench, an arm thrown over a shoulder, a hand clapping his back. 

kazutora chose to ignore this, because he couldn’t stand the idea of baji having favorites, and someone like mikey finding out. or worse: finding out he was wrong, and that he wasn’t baji’s favorite after all. 

years later, kazutora would remember this not so minor detail and hold onto it like his life depended on it—and perhaps, for a while there, it did. he told himself over and over again, in the cold darkness of his jail cell, that at least he had been someone’s favorite. that at least before everything flipped upside down, someone had liked him enough to want him around all the time.

(reality checks always turned this detail sour for kazutora, reminding him where he was, how he got there. he was sure he would never be anyone's favorite ever again. he was sure he had never deserved to be anyone’s favorite at all, let alone baji’s favorite. baji, who was loved by many, and who loved many in return. baji, who was gone. baji, who was gone because of kazutora.)

but now—past, present, and future, in another timeline, on another planet—baji gives kazutora that signature grin of his, canines sharp and flashing. he leans in, sharing his warmth, arm pressed to arm, shoulder to shoulder. he kicks kazutora’s leg with a socked foot, his grin only growing. 

kazutora finds himself a little lost. lost for words, lost for where to look, what to say. baji is unafraid, abashed with his affections—kazutora knows this, has always known this, will know this forever, but it’s never left him quite this speechless. 

baji flips the page of the manga still in kazutora’s hands, pointing at the fight unfolding in each panel. his eyes shine, his smile borderline feral. kazutora focuses on the tone of his voice as he tries to imitate how he thinks the characters would sound. he tries and fails, his own sweet boyishness peeking through—and kazutora loves him for it. 

he’s so focused on baji’s face, on his voice, that he misses what baji says when he catches kazutora staring entirely.

—

what was it he’d said? had it been important?

baji wears his new valhalla jacket with perfect false pride. kazutora can see right through him, but he makes the choice not to look any further than the surface. if he squints, kazutora can see baji simmering with barely contained rage. he’s angry all the time now, always boiling beneath his skin. he never looks at kazutora. in fact, he hasn’t looked kazutora in the eye for weeks . to make it worse, baji hardly speaks unless spoken to. 

how desperately kazutora wished then—and every day after that ruined halloween—that he could just remember what baji said, back when they were just kids , when all that really mattered was who got the last piece of candy or what they were gonna beg baji’s mother to make for dinner.

even more so than that, kazutora just wishes baji would look at him. just once, with something less acidic, something other than disdain, but kazutora knows he doesn’t deserve such kindness. he’s always known this, but he’d gotten spoiled. kazutora reminds himself now of what he deserves and what he doesn’t; he never lets himself forget again.

—

baji bleeds. he bleeds onto the ground, all over his jacket, in chifuyu’s arms. he finds a way to smile. he’d always found a way to smile.  

chifuyu cries. his cries drown out every other sound in the world. he shouts at anyone who dares come close. he begs. he holds baji’s paleing face in his hands and he begs . he has to be dragged away from baji’s body. 

kazutora stays. he stays because he figures it’s the least he could do. 

he doesn’t put up a fight when the police show up. he doesn’t blink when hot tears slip down his dusty cheeks. he doesn’t flinch when the cuffs tighten around his wrists.

even if kazutora had wanted to, he didn’t have an ounce of fight left in him. he doesn’t even have the strength to think; in fact, the only thought kazutora has in his head as the cop car pulls away is that maybe he should’ve been listening a little closer every time baji whispered in his ear, every time baji took a moment to share a piece of himself with kazutora. all he could think as he was barred away for a second time from the only life he knew—the one he had personally destroyed—was that everything, down to his complaints and monotonous listings of what his mother told him they needed from the grocery store, everything baji keisuke ever had to say was vitally important. 

kazutora’s mistake was not recognizing that importance until it was too late–or rather, forgetting its importance until he was beyond ever being able to hear it again. 

everything baji had ever done was purposeful—untucking his thumb before throwing a punch, straightening his knee before delivering a brutal kick. he was violent and he was cool, sure, but most of all, he cared . every shoved shoulder, every nudge with his foot, every gentle pull with his fingers through kazutora’s hair—baji was deliberate. 

until the age of twenty five, kazutora had never adored anyone else in the world quite like baji. 

and he had taken advantage of him. he had used him. he had watched his best friend turn resentful, completely incapable of even meeting kazutora’s eye. 

then baji was gone. there was nothing left of him for kazutora to hold onto except fading memory. 

—

a few weeks into his sentence, draken comes to visit. he’s the first (and only) visitor kazutora’s had. 

he sits in the horribly uncomfortable metal chair without any fear and meets kazutora’s eye through the plexi-glass barrier. he’s the first to do that in a while, too. 

“i know what you’re thinking,” draken says flatly. 

kazutora doesn’t blink, nor does he respond. 

“i know you think killing yourself is the only way out of this,” draken carries on, calm and collected. “i know you think that you can repent by dying.”

then it takes real strength not to flinch. it takes strength not to get up and throw his chair across the room. 

“but i have a message from mikey.” 

his cuffed hands involuntarily tighten into fists, teeth clenched hard. 

draken takes a shaky breath, still staring kazutora down, unwilling to look away. driving his words all the way home into kazutora’s weakly beating heart. he looks very tired. “he forgives you. mikey says you’re forgiven.” 

had he not already been sitting down, kazutora’s legs surely would’ve buckled. the weight of those first three words hit him like a well aimed punch to the face. he can almost taste the iron in his tongue, the bile rising in his throat. he’s not even sure if he’s really awake, like this might be some kind of sick dream, too good to really be true.

kazutora finds himself at a loss for words. his first instinct is to reach for an argument, for denial, so he starts to shake his head, to finally open his mouth and say something.

“don’t—don’t shake your head,” draken cuts him off, voice somehow still kind. sitting across from kazutora, delivering a message like this, draken looks grown, more mature than any of the others had been and probably will ever be. “it’s true. he forgives you, kazutora. mikey forgives you.” there’s a brief pause. another deep inhale. draken stands, towering above kazutora, who’s traitorous hands seemed to have gone numb in his lap. “i forgive you, too. we’ll be waiting for you when you get out, okay? so get better. don’t you dare give up on yourself.”

if only for draken’s sake, because he can’t stand to disappoint anyone else, kazutora does as he’s told and tries his very best for the next nine years to just get better . 

—

on his twenty-first birthday, kazutora gets a letter. 

(his first time in juvie, baji had sent him letters nonstop. he said it was because he was worried kazutora would get lonely.)

on his twenty-first birthday, kazutora cries for the first time since draken’s visit. 

after his twenty-first birthday, kazutora tucks the letter under his pillow. he reads it every single day, over and over until the paper is worn thin and tear stained. 

on, before, and after his twenty-first birthday, kazutora doesn’t pray; he begs, over and over: please.

please what? even he himself isn’t sure. 

—

when kazutora exits out of the detention facility, hand raised to protect his eyes from the sun, the phrase free man bounces around his head. he doesn’t have a single thing to his name, having refused the bell earring he’d been wearing when he went in ten years ago. kazutora thought maybe he’d be better off leaving everything from before behind. 

he spots a car at the curb. he watches the window roll down. kazutora squints at the figure inside. 

“long time no see, kazutora,” chifuyu matsuno says lightly. his hair is dark now, but the cut is almost the same as it had been ten years ago. he smiles, like he’s not looking at the person responsible for baji’s death, like he’s not looking at someone who just walked out of prison. 

he really smiles and something in kazutora’s chest does a sick twist. 

unbelievably, chifuyu says, “need a ride?” 

the option to decline is available, as is the option to turn tail and run. kazutora does neither. he drops his hand. 

free man. 

kazutora gets in the car. 

—

only a few hours later (chifuyu had told him they could wait, but kazutora was worried about disappointing the others, and he was afraid of what would happen if he’d said yes, i’d like to rest a few days, actually ), kazutora finds himself at draken’s place, surrounded by his childhood friends. they fill up nearly every vacant space of this poor man’s home, loud and excitable like children. they all grin at him, clap him on the back, congratulate him. they all say they’re glad to see him, that they’d missed him. 

it’s jarring, being surrounded by so much life after spending so long almost completely isolated. 

draken never stops smiling, black hair loose around his shoulders. he’s able to absorb and contain most of the stray energy in the room, just like he’s always been able to. his voice is considerably deeper, and he still acts like the oldest in the room. he lives with a face kazutora is unfamiliar with: inupi, who talks just about as much as kazutora does. they own a bike shop together; they own this house together. mindlessly, kazutora thinks they probably use the same shampoo, too. he wonders if draken notices inupi’s heart eyes. he wonders if inupi notices draken’s heart eyes. 

mitsuya’s hair is two tones now. he has an air of power about him now, mature and regal in an otherworldly way, in a way kazutora had always both admired and been confused by. hakkai still follows him like a lost puppy, childish grin still blinding, still overwhelmingly kind. 

pah-chin is as loud as ever, but he’s taller now. he’s grown his hair out. when he sees kazutora, he beams and crushes him into a hug kazutora isn’t really sure how to return. he appreciates it, nonetheless. peh-yan is still always at his side, just as loud and just as eager to give kazutora a warm welcome. both kawata twins are here too, and the house might be bursting at the seams. 

takemichi cries when kazutora comes in, followed closely by chifuyu. he’s sure takemichi knows more about him than the other way around, but he appreciates the sentiment. hina is the one to soothe him, naturally. 

and then there’s chifuyu. chifuyu, who wraps takemichi in a bear hug like they haven’t seen one another in a while. chifuyu, who catches kazutora’s eye every now and then and doesn’t look away. chifuyu, who seems more real than anyone in this house full of his old friends. 

chifuyu, who kazutora kinda wants to hate but can’t. chifuyu, who should hate kazutora with every fiber of his being but doesn’t, for reasons kazutora is unsure of and undoubtedly afraid of. 

it’s hard to ignore the gaps where others should be. baji, mikey—kazutora bares their absence like it’s his burden to carry (and he’s convinced himself it is). 

(he will learn later on what’s happened in all the time he’s been gone. he’ll learn what became of kisaki and secretly find himself glad. he will also learn of mikey losing a brother kazutora had never known, a sister draken had treasured, and then he will learn of how mikey lost himself, too.) 

kazutora maintains niceties as long as he can. he smiles back, he makes small talk, until his nails dig into his palms, until his jaw hurts from clenching his teeth. until it feels less like a party and more like a trap. 

in a situation like this, it’s hard not to feel like a piece from a long lost puzzle, a puzzle never quite finished, a puzzle forgotten. he doesn’t fit into this—whatever this is. 

he has to physically remove himself from the circle of people, suddenly very dizzy. 

“hey, kazutora,” pah-chin says, brows furrowed in confusion. “you good, man?” 

kazutora only nods. “gonna step outside for a bit.” 

he bumps into draken in his rush to get to the door, to step out onto the porch, into fresh air, and he doesn’t have the energy to apologize.

“kazutora—?” someone calls after him. he doesn’t stop. 

only once he’s outside and the sun does it’s best to shine down on him does he allow himself to take a deep inhale. the november air is biting cold, but he doesn’t mind. his skin itches, fingers twitchy as he shoves them into the pockets of his jeans. 

everything hits him all at once. guilt and anger and exhaustion war inside his chest, making all his limbs heavy. where will he go once this is over? what will he eat? how will he make money? who will hire a felon, with a murder charge no less? only a couple hours into following chifuyu around like a dependent dog and kazutora already regrets it. 

all kazutora can do is take. will he ever really be able to give ?

god. god. kazutora presses his closed fists to his eyes until red spots dance behind his eyelids. 

he had not anticipated that this would all be so hard . but then, he had not anticipated that he would have even gotten this far at all.  

as kazutora reached the end of his sentence, some morbid part of him had expected that he’d get out to find half, if not all, of his friends dead. a more reasonable part of him figured they’d all have moved away, forgotten about him, left him behind. he wouldn’t have blamed them, anyway. 

so kazutora had been more than surprised to find chifuyu at the curb only just this morning. he’s already off on a better foot than he thought he’d be, so why does everything weigh so heavily on his shoulders? why does it feel so hard to breathe?

why does everyone act like they really missed him? 

staggering to the right, kazutora goes to lean into the corner of the building, heated by the sun. he presses his cheek to it for a moment, feeling the burn, before turning his entire back to it. inside, hakkai laughs loud, recognizable against all the other jumble of sounds. 

his eyes sting. twenty five years old, and he’s gonna cry because he’s a little overwhelmed. kazutora wants to kick his own ass. 

what kazutora wants even more than that though, is to be able to call everyone inside his friends without feeling guilty about it, but it seems selfish. is he even allowed to call them that when he’s taken so much from them? they all seem happy to see him now, but how long will this last? how long until they remember what he’s done, until they turn on him? he’d certainly deserve it. it’s one of the few things he does deserve. how long until he slips up and—

“have a drink,” a voice says. kazutora whips around fast enough to make himself dizzy again. 

draken shuts the door behind him as he steps out onto the porch. still barefoot, he comes to stand next to kazutora before holding out a bottle. reluctantly, kazutora takes it. it’s cold on his palms. draken has one of his own. 

it’s quiet when draken takes a big drink. 

“sorry,” kazutora finds himself saying. 

draken only tilts his head. “for what?” 

“for leaving, i guess.” it’d be so easy, so satisfying to throw the bottle to the ground, just to hear it smash. the contents smell strange. “and probably for knocking into you on my way out...” 

“you don’t have to apologize.” for anything, goes unspoken. draken looks then, for a split second, sincerity dripping off every word. “they can be overwhelming sometimes, i get it. that hasn’t changed in the last ten years, that’s for sure,” he laughs lightly. 

that makes kazutora feel a little ill.

“well… still.”

draken nudges him with his arm, pointing at the bottle in kazutora’s hands. “come on, try it.” then he holds his own bottle out. “cheers.”

kazutora turns to him very slowly. unthinking, he tells draken, “i’ve never... drank alcohol before.” 

there was smuggled and homemade stuff in prison, obviously, but kazutora typically kept to himself. he never wanted to get into any kind of trouble. kazutora had wanted to get the hell out of prison, not extend his sentence or something stupid.

(somewhere in his childhood he had learned to become deathly afraid of what might happen if he dipped his greedy hands into the wrong thing—the only thing keeping him away from his own morbid curiosity was fear.)

this amuses draken, apparently, because he bursts into laughter, laughing until it makes kazutora giggle a little too. “all the better. cheers!” clacking the necks of their bottles together, draken shouts into the air: “to freedom!” 

well, there’s always a first for everything. 

dazedly, kazutora repeats his words. “to—yeah, to freedom.” and then he takes a drink, fighting a wince as it bubbles all the way down his throat and leaves a bitter taste on his tongue. it’s awful, but he drinks it anyway. 

when draken throws an arm over his shoulder, he doesn’t flinch away or shove him off. kazutora lets draken drag him back inside, into the chaos. he tries not to think too hard about the past, about the future. he tries not to think at all. 

—

it works for a little while. it works until the noise dies down, until the energy begins to dissipate. until people start to stare too long, until kazutora’s already very low social battery begins to run out.

the twins, pah-chin and peh-yan left with obnoxiously loud and slightly teary-eyed goodbyes. the party of sorts began to die down, everyone that was left having thrown themselves onto the couch or various chairs or, in takemichi’s case, on the floor. 

kazutora sits at the end of the couch, legs crossed. he tries to pull into himself, make himself smaller.

the group’s chatter fills the air, individual conversations occasionally overlapping. kazutora likes this better than the clanking of beer bottles and the shouting over one another, but he still feels wound up tight. like he might snap at any moment. 

he doesn’t. his psychiatrist would tell him he needs to have more faith in himself. 

chifuyu takes the open spot on the couch next to him. very quietly, so no one else can hear, he says, “this has probably been super overwhelming for you, huh?”

“how can you tell?” kazutora responds dryly. 

chifuyu’s hand ghosts over his shoulder then. one would expect a comforting clamp or something, but it was like half way there, chifuyu changed his mind. the action ended up much more delicate than kazutora had tried to prepare for. concerningly, chifuyu’s warm . warmer than kazutora is, warmer than he’s ever been. warm like—like baji had been. 

to make it worse, he smiles, not pityingly, but knowingly. he smiles and he’s touching kazutora and—kazutora doesn’t hate it. he wants to. he wants to throw chifuyu’s hand off. he wants to cut chifuyu’s hand off. he wants to cut his own hand off. he wants to scream and turn himself inside out but—

“we can get out of here, if you want.”

— but. 

kazutora couldn’t hate him if he tried (and he has, and he will). 

—

chifuyu makes up some bullshit lie about paperwork needing to get done by the end of the day as an excuse to leave early. for this, kazutora will eternally be thankful. 

it goes unsaid that kazutora will follow chifuyu to his apartment, and they take a shortcut on the way back. neither complains about the cold. they walk side by side through the quiet streets of the neighborhood, under dull trees and fences crawling with dead vines. they pass a trio of kids chasing one another with stick-swords and a shoe, equally as oblivious to the chill. they pass a cat hopping out of a garbage can. they walk unbothered and uninterrupted until the sun begins to set. until kazutora’s battery has begun to recharge and until chifuyu gets a text from takemichi, asking if they made it home alright. 

home . that’s a new word for kazutora.

“by the way,” chifuyu says once they get back to his place. “you’re more than welcome to stay. the spare room’s all yours, if that’s what you want.”

he tosses kazutora an extra key. with chifuyu, it somehow feels more like a promise than something to hold over his head. 

“it’s not much,” chifuyu says timidly, flicking a light on. “but it’s home, you know?”

the space strikes kazutora as very lived in . there’s a coffee mug from this morning on the countertop, magnets on the fridge. further in, in the living room, the couch has a dip in the far left cushion where chifuyu probably sits first, a blanket thrown over the side. the walls are dotted with photographs and movie posters. there’s a laundry basket next to the television, and kazutora has half a mind to suspect that’s a weird spot to put it, but what does he know?

“i tried, uh, cleaning up a bit before,” chifuyu mutters behind him, quickly running the coffee cup under warm water and wiping his wet hands on his jeans. “you know, before you got here. well, not that i knew you’d come with me, because—i mean, you know— anyway. ” 

when kazutora looks at him, his cheeks are red. he doesn’t know what to say. 

“like i said,” chifuyu continues, pointedly ignoring eye contact, chest puffed out like he’s holding his breath. “it’s not much.” 

lip quirking, kazutora shrugs. in this light, in this environment, it might even be easy to forget the rift between himself and chifuyu. kazutora’s not really thinking when he opens his mouth next. “you could’ve given me a cardboard box and i would still be thankful.” 

slowly, chifuyu really does look at him, and the action feels charged. it feels like it might cost something. it feels dangerous. 

kazutora kinda likes it. 

“you deserve better than a cardboard box, kazutora.” 

oh , okay. 

—

later, after the sun has long since set, kazutora will enter the spare bedroom and he won’t feel completely horrible about it. he’ll find a pair of pajamas at the foot of the bed, and chifuyu will pop his head into the door. he’ll say, “ i figured it might be nice to have something of your own, even if it is just a pair of pajamas. ” 

kazutora will pull back the blanket and climb into bed and when his head hits the pillow, a few stray tears will slip down his cheek. guilt and appreciation fight for dominance behind his eyelids. he still doesn’t pray, he begs: please. 

kazutora has spent his whole life begging; for what, he might never be sure. 

—

a week passes like this, kazutora inhabiting chifuyu’s place, trying with all his power not to feel like a stranger. he very quickly takes up some of chifuyu’s chores, insisting even when chifuyu denies him, because otherwise he’ll feel like nothing more than a leech. 

kazutora didn’t have a whole lot of housekeeping experience prior to prison, or prior to juvie the first time for that matter, but it’s not hard. it’s the very least he could do.

takemichi comes by once or twice. kazutora doesn’t hate him as much as he thought he would. draken does too, quiet inupi always in tow, always bringing food with them. 

even mitsuya drops by, bringing with him two huge bags full of clothes .

“mitsuya, no —“

“don’t be ridiculous,” mitsuya waves kazutora off, plopping both bags down and sitting comfortably on chifuyu’s couch like he’s done it a thousand times before. he probably has. “i had to clean out mine and hakkai’s closet anyway.” 

so then, all the sudden, kazutora has things. even if he had not gotten them on his own, they’re his all the same. he tries not to feel bad. he tries not to let the guilt boil him down to his bones. he tries, and he fails. 

—

well, kazutora thinks, it was bound to happen eventually anyway. 

something bitter and irrational sparks beneath kazutora’s skin when chifuyu takes his dishes to wash them before kazutora himself can. to make it worse, he brushes kazutora off when kazutora tries to take it all from him and do it himself. 

“relax, kazutora,” chifuyu says, irritatingly light. “you do the dishes like, ninety percent of the time now, so i can do it just this once.”

kazutora freezes. relax , chifuyu said. relax , kazutora tells himself. instead, his nostrils flare. instead, he boils. 

“i meant to tell you,” chifuyu keeps going. “i have to go into the shop a little bit earlier tomorrow, so don’t flip if i’m gone by the time you get up.” 

his cheek twitches. chifuyu’s already done so much for him, why can’t he just let kazutora do this one thing? why can’t he just trust that kazutora can get it done? why can’t he see that kazutora needs to do this? 

“ also , there’s a movie on at the theater down the road, if you want—“ chifuyu glances at him then. his brows pinch for a single moment. kazutora almost misses it. “why are you looking at me like that?” 

kazutora tries to turn down the heat before he opens his mouth. finally, in his most retained tone of voice, he asks, “why?” 

chifuyu turns off the water. “why, what?”

kazutora closes his eyes for a brief moment, breathes in, breathes out. “you know what.” 

finally, finally, chifuyu turns to him. gives him his undivided attention. his eyes are clear of contempt, full of patience. this makes kazutora unreasonably angry, because maybe he’d been hoping for a fight. maybe his physical and mental exhaustion from these last few weeks have frayed his edges and he wasn’t as well off as he’d thought, as his psychiatrist had believed him to be and—

“you mean, why am i helping you?”

if he clenched his jaw any harder his teeth might shatter. 

chifuyu continues. “well, i don’t really—“

something snaps, some very thin thread kazutora had pulled too far. 

“you should hate me,” kazutora bites out, voice loud in the quiet expanse of this apartment chifuyu has so kindly invited him into.

chifuyu frowns at him. “but i don’t,” he says simply, like it’s just that easy. 

“but you should ,” kazutora hisses. he tries not to raise his voice, tries to reel in his temper.

he so desperately wants to be thankful, but kazutora spent his entire childhood on defense. nice things didn’t come without a price. it didn’t seem right that someone like chifuyu, who had more right to hate him than anyone else in the world aside from baji’s mother , would hold out a helping hand for someone like kazutora. 

and now that he’s started, kazutora finds himself barreling toward the cliff's edge. he’s nearly forgotten how to slow down, how to put on the brakes.  

it would’ve been so easy for chifuyu to just… not show up on the day of kazutora’s release. it would’ve been so easy for chifuyu to have never sent that letter all those years ago, for chifuyu to move on with his life and pretend kazutora had never existed to begin with. it would’ve been easy and probably considerably less painful. 

he didn’t have to show up. he didn’t have to offer kazutora a ride, a place to live, or a semi-stable foundation to help kazutora begin to rebuild his life. kazutora didn’t deserve a single bit of it. and yet—

“baji believed in you.” chifuyu heaves a great sigh, deep and sad. believed , he said, past tense. “he wouldn’t have wanted you to get left behind. he saw something worthy in you and—“ his voice cracks here, frowning. “—and i believed in him . if baji thought you deserved a second chance, then i will too.” 

the mention of baji’s name is nearly enough to send kazutora to his knees. it makes him feel physically ill, nauseous and dizzy and ready to bolt. some still-twisted part of kazutora wants him to deck chifuyu square in the face for mentioning baji, wants him to tell chifuyu to mind his own goddamn business, wants him to chifuyu he’s not a fucking charity case and he doesn’t need his stupid pity.

(he wouldn’t mean any of it.)

reel it back. put on the brakes. just take a breath, dammit. 

kazutora has to bite the inside of his cheek until he tastes iron to prevent himself from saying anything seriously damaging. just do better. just be patient. just listen to him. 

baji believed in you. 

mikey forgives you. 

when kazutora says nothing at all, chifuyu tries again, careful as if trying not to spook a wild animal. “kazutora.” 

there’s something strangely personal about hearing his name fall from chifuyu’s tongue. 

their eyes meet. all the violence crackling beneath kazutora’s palms sizzles out. chifuyu’s got a shine in his eye, just like baji had. a shine that says he’s not going to give up, even if kazutora really wants him to. even if kazutora thinks he’s not worth the effort. 

“i told you in that letter that baji would want me to forgive you.” every word cuts like a knife. kazutora’s throat is dry. “kazutora, you’re forgiven , alright? you can be angry if you want, but i’m not.” quieter, voice barely more than a whisper, chifuyu adds, “i haven’t been for years.” 

maybe you should be , kazutora wants to scream. it was so much worse to be the only one angry. maybe you should just admit you’d rather have baji here than me. maybe you should’ve just left me behind, left me to die—

“let me give you a chance,” chifuyu insists, unconsciously reaching for kazutora. warm fingertips graze his arm. he says let me , he doesn’t ask, though there is clearly room for escape if kazutora is willing to look hard enough. there’s always room to back out, with chifuyu. 

he’s not. kazutora deflates completely, drops his head before chifuyu can see the tears welling up in his eyes. he’s done a lot of that recently, crying. kazutora’s tired of it. he’s tired. 

“alright,” he croaks. “okay, chifuyu. okay. ”

—

“come work at the pet shop with me,” chifuyu says idly, drying a clean plate with a tattered flower patterned dish towel. after last time, chifuyu came to a compromise: kazutora would wash the dishes, chifuyu would dry them and put them away. 

kazutora, standing beside him and cutting up green onions for dinner, nearly misses and gets his fingertip instead. chifuyu steps around him to put the plate up in the cabinet next to his head. his dark hair drips onto his shoulders, wetting his shirt. kazutora can smell his body wash. he frowns when he realizes this minor detail. 

“you sure you want a felon working at your place?” kazutora blurts out. ah, well. he hadn’t really meant to say it, but he’s had a disconnect between his brain and his mouth since childhood. not even that could be fixed with ten plus years of government sanctioned therapy. 

the other man closes the cabinet door then leans with his hip against the counter, facing kazutora. he’s drying off his hands, and kazutora can see out of the corner of his vision that chifuyu is watching him closely, he always is, a curious and stubborn look about his face.

“well, your options are limited,” chifuyu responds easily. he's got a lilt to his voice and when kazutora sneaks a look at him, he can see the corner of his mouth tipped up in an almost smirk. he knows what he’s doing. kazutora barely suppresses a sigh. 

not gonna do this again. not gonna meltdown again. 

“you’ve already done so much for me,” kazutora mutters slowly. though, with a job, he could start saving up and get a place of his own. get out of chifuyu’s business, take his dead weight elsewhere. 

though, that thought dissipates almost as soon as it came. 

chifuyu tilts his head, wet black hair sending rivulets of water down his nose and his cheeks. it drips onto the floor too. “will you let me do one more thing?” then, he leans in, pursing his lips and whispering almost right in kazutora’s ear like a child sharing a secret. “we have caaaaats. lots of theeem. they’re very sweeeet—“

at least chifuyu isn’t angry at him for snapping the other day. at least there’s that. 

then kazutora really does sigh and puts his hand, palm flat, to chifuyu’s face and lightly pushes him away. the sound of chifuyu’s stupid giggle makes kazutora’s face get hot. he turns back to the vegetables half cut up before him. “go on, you’re getting water all over the floor.” 

kazutora had learned very quickly what sort of a menace chifuyu could really be, a kid at heart, but he still gasps in shock when chifuyu shakes his head violently, sending cold drops of water flying all over the place. 

“ you —!” 

chifuyu takes off laughing, loud enough to fill up the small kitchen. his socked feet slip on the floor and he nearly faceplants in his haste to run, which of course makes him laugh harder. kazutora can only watch as he disappears into the bathroom to find the towel he’d discarded too soon. there’s no fighting the heat that blooms in his chest, crawls across his skin like stray electricity. 

he feels more than sees chifuyu come back, always emanating a kind of warmth that was impossible to ignore. 

and then he bumps shoulders with kazutora and shares a little bit of that warmth. kazutora finds himself leaning into it before shame and fear can shut down his entire nervous system. 

“so i take that as a yes,” chifuyu says oh so gently, watching kazutora’s hands move. 

kazutora can’t look at him. he can’t, because he knows he might do something stupid. he summons his most long suffering sigh yet. he’s not even sure where his response comes from, why he agrees and gives in so easily. “okay.” 

“okay?” a smile coats chifuyu’s voice like honey. 

“yes, okay.” and before chifuyu can get too excited, before it can infect kazutora just as his laugh, his smile, his everything has, kazutora shoves him back. “you gonna help me or not? this is your kitchen.”

“it’s yours too,” chifuyu says offhandedly, like it’s so easy. “come on, move over.” 

(chifuyu’s everything was becoming a problem kazutora didn’t know how to confront.)

—

it doesn’t get easier, carrying all this weight . 

not when chifuyu flashes kazutora a smile over breakfast, or when he nudges him with his hip at the kitchen counter. not when chifuyu stares at him after he comes out of the bathroom, hair freshly dyed with big strips of blonde. not when chifuyu falls asleep next to kazutora on the couch, his feet pressed to kazutora’s leg. 

alarmingly enough, the few moments of reprieve kazutora gets is when chifuyu is touching him, because then all he feels is panic instead of guilt . it happens often. well, it happens more often now than it had when kazutora first got here. even more alarmingly, kazutora never… objects to it. 

so one can imagine how grateful kazutora is when he starts working at the pet shop, because it’s a lot of mindlessly stocking shelves or checking out customers at the register. lots of petting cats, too. the repetition and peace keeps kazutora’s head from spiraling out of control. keeps him from wanting to tear shit apart, from wanting to run away. 

and, he supposes, being around chifuyu more often is kinda nice too. 

weeks pass like this. weeks of chifuyu getting closer every single time they cook together, every time they sit on the couch to watch some horrible comedy together, every time they need the bathroom mirror at the same time. 

the closeness is vicious . it plants an acidic kind of want in the pit of kazutora’s stomach, treacherous and all consuming as it burns through him. the feeling is unfamiliar and it scares kazutora more than anything. 

against his will, kazutora has learned so many new things about chifuyu. harmless things, like how chifuyu loves dark roast coffee the most, and he despises boba because of the texture. he learns that chifuyu snorts when he laughs too hard, that he’s allergic to bees. his favorite color is red and he favors cats over dogs.

kazutora also learns that chifuyu’s hands are warm, a fact repeatedly reinforced over time. he learns  that chifuyu doesn’t sleep with a shirt on (the first time kazutora walked into the kitchen and saw nothing but chifuyu’s bare back, he’d turned around fast enough to nearly face plant into the wall). he knows now that chifuyu can and will flirt with a potted plant if he’s drunk enough, and he and takemichi have definitely kissed at least once. 

kazutora knows chifuyu wears his heart on his sleeve. the want inside him grows with time, with knowledge. this part of himself inclines kazutora to always lean toward chifuyu when he enters a room, like a magnet, like chifuyu’s had his own gravitational orbit and kazutora had no power to keep away. 

and then he feels guilty for feeling this way, on top of everything else. 

and then he feels guilty when chifuyu tells him not to feel guilty. 

he feels guilty when chifuyu says nothing at all.

he feels guilty—well, always. 

unfortunately—again, against his will—kazutora starts spending a lot of time wondering about chifuyu, about what he’s thinking, how he’s feeling. he wonders if chifuyu misses baji. the rotten parts of him wonders if chifuyu thinks of baji whenever kazutora enters a room. those sick trains of thought spiral out of control too often, muttering, asking if chifuyu can see the blood on his hands—baji’s blood—when he’s working at the cash register, when he feeds the cats, when he folds laundry. when he does anything at all. 

he can see it almost all the time; that little voice in the back of his head tells him everyone else can see it, too. 

on his worst days, kazutora wonders if chifuyu can remember more of baji than he does. kazutora, who had nothing but free time for ten years to think of baji, holds tightly onto the last scraps of memory he has. treats it like treasure. 

all that time to think , and instead, it felt as though all kazutora had really done was rot . sure, he got better, but he’d had to kill his fifteen year old self to do it. kazutora had done more than shed his skin, had done more than just scrape out all the murderous bits of himself. he’d had to strip himself down to nothing but bare bones after pushing the only goodness he thought he had—which had been born from his relationship with baji—deep down inside himself, so that all this destruction couldn’t touch it. couldn’t tarnish it. 

somewhere along the way, kazutora forgot how to reach those parts of himself. he forgot who he’d been before. 

when he’d walked out of that building—a free man, they said—he was not who he’d been when baji died, nor was he who he’d been when baji had loved him. kazutora had become someone else. kazutora had become an empty shell . he forgot himself and he forgot a lot of baji, too. 

(draken would tell him that if he’s empty, then there’s only room to grow , or some cheesy shit like that. but what he didn’t understand was that it was hard to grow in an unfamiliar environment. it was hard to grow when you didn’t know which direction was up or forward. )

kazutora wasn’t sure if any of that was a good thing or not. wasn’t even sure if all that rotting he’d done in jail had been worth it, because even now his head is no less traitorous, no less bitter. it was just that now, he had less to recall of baji. that made him feel guilty too—forgetting what his very best friend’s laugh sounded like when he hadn’t slept in too long, forgetting which side of his mouth formed a dimple when he grinned. 

guilt was eating him alive. panic floods kazutora’s chest. 

how could he forget baji ? baji, who he adored. baji, who he loved . baji, who, against all odds, had loved kazutora back .

the blood in his veins turns icy. the only thing connecting him to his physical body are the cold floorboards beneath his feet. 

how could i forget? 

kazutora finds himself in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror, long hair around his shoulders, hairbrush in hand. task forgotten, like too many others things. 

a younger version of himself looks back. 

he still doesn’t know what baji had said on his bedroom floor all those years—a lifetime—ago. 

kazutora can feel his lungs tighten as he tries to take a breath, but the kid before him doesn’t move, doesn’t even seem to be breathing at all. he tries to blink away this memory—a memory he would rather not have, one he’d trade for the sound of baji’s stupid giggle in a heartbeat—in his reflection, tries to remember the breathing techniques his psychiatrist taught him. 

everything escapes him. 

the kid grins then, unblinking, pale and mean. a grin taught to him by baji, no doubt. 

kazutora squeezes his eyes shut, tries to function, brush his hair, breathe, anything. 

part of kazutora wants to pry chifuyu’s brain open and see his memories of baji. in his last year, chifuyu had more of baji anyway. did baji sit on chifuyu’s bedroom floor too? share his snacks and his warmth? did he laugh in chifuyu’s ear and call him a badass, a menace, a pretty boy? did chifuyu ever get to see baji’s bedhead hair? 

did chifuyu listen when baji spoke, did he retain those memories and keep them close? does he remember ?

he’ll never tell you , that voice hisses at him. kazutora flinches, the brush tugging at a tangle in his hair. 

go away , he thinks. or says. i won’t do this. i can’t.

you don’t deserve to know anyway , it whispers. the brush catches another tangle and kazutora shuts his eyes even tighter, tucks his chin to his chest like he’s flinching away from something. you weren’t listening when you had him. you took advantage of the time you had. you took advantage of him. 

his eyes fly open and it’s not himself he sees in the mirror at all: it’s baji, limp and bleeding in chifuyu’s arms. chifuyu’s in tears, cursing kazutora to hell and back, sweeping baji’s hair back from his face, begging him to open his eyes. sirens blink behind them. 

i shouldn’t be here. kazutora rips through his hair again, brutal on purpose. it should’ve been baji—it always should’ve been baji. no one wants me here, they’d all rather have him back than me anyway. 

takemichi cries. mikey bleeds. draken dips his head. 

no—go away. the hairbrush clatters into the sink. this isn’t real. it’s over. there’s nothing i can do. it’s over, it’s over, it’s—

“ what have you done? ” chifuyu demands.

no, no he doesn’t. no he doesn’t. 

the image—the memory disappears completely like it had never been there at all. the real—very real—chifuyu stands behind him, lingering in the bathroom doorway, worry etched across his face. so unlike the betrayal and distress written all over his past self’s face.  

“kazutora?”

kazutora, the real, present and alive kazutora, tucks his face into his shoulder, his face aflame with shame and tears he didn’t even know had begun to fall. 

“sorry,” he mutters, because what the hell else could he say? weak. how many meltdowns is this? how many more until he can be okay? how many more until chifuyu gets tired of him?

“what’s going on?” the floorboards creak where chifuyu takes another wary step forward. 

trapping kazutora. his chest gives a horrible squeeze, feet itching to run. all progress he has made seems to slip right through his fingers. 

there is nothing more humiliating, kazutora decides right then—or perhaps a long time ago, in another lifetime—than this pity. he sniffs, quickly wiping his tears with the back of his hand. “nothing.” 

the creaking stops but kazutora knows chifuyu stands right behind him, feeling that tell tale warmth. quietly, carefully, chifuyu says, “it’s not nothing. come on, you don’t have to lie to me.” 

leaning over the sink, palms flat on the cool countertops, kazutora takes a shallow breath. “can’t—i can’t—“ he tries. can’t speak. can’t breathe. can’t see straight. can’t be here. “god dammit ,” he hisses, slapping an open hand on the counter just because he can. 

“kazutora—“ again with that gentle invocation of his name. again with the softness. again with the—chifuyu’s fingers ghost the back of kazutora’s arm and the latter whips around before he can blink. the skin tingles where he’d been touched. burns . 

in an attempt to save his dignity, kazutora lifts his chin, staring at chifuyu down his nose. chifuyu can see right through him; of course he can. this doesn’t stop kazutora from backing all the way up against the counter and crossing his arms across his chest. anything to separate himself, anything to shield himself. 

from what? 

chifuyu sighs, something he does around kazutora quite often. “if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.” then he steps forward. 

panic. panic . kazutora gasps, “don’t—“ 

freezing immediately, chifuyu holds his hands up like he’s surrendering. “ okay , okay. alright.” under his breath he says, “on your terms then.” then, there’s this: “we don’t have to talk about it, but—will you just breathe with me?” 

a shred of baji claws his way out of a dark corner in kazutora’s head. he whispers, “why don’t you let me help you for once? i don’t mind, kazutora.”

“i can do it on my own.”

“but you don’t have to.” 

kazutora tries to zero in on the man in front of him. tries to say something, to deny him, to shut him out. instead, all that comes out of his mouth is this: “chifuyu—“

he shakes his head. “you don’t have to say anything. just breathe with me, yeah?”

and because he desperately wants normality, because he doesn’t want to destroy everything he’s been given, all that he’s worked for regardless of whether the worst parts of him thinks he deserves it or not, kazutora does as he’s told. 

when kazutora can see straight, when his legs don’t feel like they might give out at any given second, chifuyu nods, satisfied, though he’s clearly not finished because he says—says, not asks, though there is very clearly room to deny him, if kazutora is willing to look for it:

“let me brush your hair for you.” 

stunned, kazutora’s eyes widen. he wants to say no. he wants chifuyu to get out of his face, to leave him alone, wants to tell him that he can brush his hair himself, thank you very much

(he doesn’t look very hard for a way to tell him no. some strange part of him wants to say yes. some even stranger, very new part of him wants to always say yes to anything chifuyu asks.) 

“i can be gentle, i promise,” chifuyu says when kazutora continues to stare, a lopsided smile crawling across his face. the air gets lighter as that smile widens. the energy of the room shifts. it’s a weirdly endearing look on him, and kazutora—well, he is certainly not immune. 

impossibly, most definitely against his better judgement, kazutora finds himself nodding, accepting, giving in. when did he learn to do that, to give in? to allow himself to be cared for? 

it doesn’t matter, because chifuyu makes him sit on the closed toilet seat. he takes kazutora’s hairbrush and then his hand is on kazutora’s head, gently prodding him to tilt down. chifuyu keeps one hand on his shoulder or his head or even his neck as he works through every tangle of kazutora’s hair until it’s brushed through and smooth around his shoulders. 

the urge to recoil and lash out dies as that simmering want in his stomach boils back to life, searing through every one of kazutora’s bones. it feels like whiplash, this swinging back and forth between emotions, this desire to melt under chifuyu’s hands, this urge to turn around and—

“there we go,” chifuyu breathes. he sets the brush on the counter and circles around until he’s in front of kazutora. 

kazutora has to look up at him, and when he does, chifuyu is smiling again. it’s dizzying, this closeness. it’s worrying, this attention. but kazutora can’t really look away now, can he? 

he has to psyche himself up, but eventually, kazutora whispers, “thank you.” 

then chifuyu tucks the bleached blonde of kazutora’s hair behind his ear, effectively stealing all the air out his lungs for one nerve wracking moment. he wants, wants, wants. 

chifuyu whispers back, “you don’t have to thank me.” 

holding out his hand, he tacks on, “come on. let's go make dinner.” with a shrug of his shoulder, chifuyu says, “i always feel better after a good meal, anyway.” 

“okay,” kazutora replies, dazed. another impossible move, another terrible idea: he takes chifuyu’s hand. “yeah, okay.”

he wants. wants what? kazutora doesn’t know. 

(everything he doesn’t deserve. everything he shouldn’t crave. everything he’s never had, everything chifuyu is willing to give .)

—

the fire is fueled one cool spring night after chifuyu has too much champagne so graciously given to them by pah-chin. kazutora lets him have all he wants after trying it and decidingly hating it. 

he comes to regret this decision very quickly, because chifuyu loses all sense of personal space in this inebriated state. kazutora knew this, but he hadn’t been thinking, and consequences never occurred to him. 

until now. 

kazutora had only been sitting in his corner of the couch—the right side—entertained by chifuyu, a sideline character of whatever drama chifuyu was acting out, using the almost empty champagne bottle as a microphone. 

and then he’d set the bottle down and climbed onto the couch, sitting on his knees like a child as he faced kazutora. 

who is currently very pointedly not looking at him because—

“kazutoraaaaa,” he whines, the bastard. chifuyu tips forward to butt his head into kazutora’s shoulder. 

“chifuyu,” kazutora answers flatly, watching but not watching whichever show is playing on the television now. drunk people are weird, he decides. 

“can i—“ chifuyu starts, pauses. then he pouts. “can i just—“ 

only then does kazutora turn to look at him, brow raised high. “can you what?” chifuyu’s cheeks burn pink, and kazutora can see him chewing the inside of his lip. part of kazutora considers shoving him off the couch. 

chifuyu screws his eyes shut tight and says, way too loud, “can i just put my head in your lap?!” 

kazutora blinks. what? 

one blue eye peeks open. more quietly, chifuyu adds, “please?” 

what? kazutora blinks again. there’s a choice to be made here, a decision that could mean nothing—but it could also mean everything. that electric feeling is back, singing in kazutora’s blood. his eyes narrow at chifuyu just a bit before he straightens his previously crossed legs, readjusting.

this is a terrible idea. 

“fine.” 

this is a terrible, very bad idea. 

immediately, chifuyu beams. he turns over on his back and then wiggles around until he’s comfortable, his black hair splayed out across kazutora’s thighs, feet kicked up on the arm of the other side of the couch. chifuyu keeps smiling up at him, giddy and content. 

this is worse than a terrible, very bad idea. all rational thought flies out of kazutora’s head until the only thing that’s left is this: whatever he asks. anything he wants. 

there is no residual guilt, or regret, or even panic. 

there’s just this: chifuyu smiling at him. and that’s all that really matters, right? 

warm fingertips just barely graze his neck where his tattoo is and kazutora nearly jumps out of his skin. chifuyu hears his sharp inhale and pulls away almost immediately, still thoughtful and aware despite his current state. 

“sorry,” chifuyu stage-whispers. his hand hovers still. 

want. want. want. 

kazutora peers down at him, swallowing his fear. “it’s okay,” he whispers back. “you—you can—“ 

“can i?” 

apparently he’d swallowed his words too, because kazutora can’t really vocalize a response. he nods instead. chifuyu beams again, his fingers ghosting over the delicate skin of kazutora’s neck, over intricate ink lines. he traces the tiger agonizingly slowly, taking his time, never taking his eyes off it. kazutora can only sit and watch, praying to every god he’s never believed in that chifuyu can’t feel his racing pulse. 

chifuyu’s pointer finger follows kazutora’s adam’s apple when he swallows. 

“chifuyu,” kazutora breathes, voice strained. what does he do with his hands? what does he do with this , with what he wants ? 

“hm?” still with the mindless touching. kazutora feels like he’s about to come completely undone. 

to stabilize, to be selfish, kazutora puts a hand on chifuyu’s head, letting his fingers slip through the strands like it might’ve been an accident. he’s probably shaking. what had he been about to say? “you’re very drunk.” 

“only a little.” chifuyu tilts into kazutora’s touch like a cat, his smile turning cheshire, pleased and broad. he takes kazutora’s other hand and pulls it onto his chest. “this okay?” he asks, searching for kazutora’s eyes. 

hand flat across chifuyu’s chest, he can feel the beating of his heart, the warmth beneath, the rise and fall of his chest with each breath. so full of life and kindness and—and kazutora only has the power to nod, robbed again of all verbal capabilities. 

those slender fingers dance up kazutora’s neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake. they trail over his jaw, behind his ear. kazutora doesn’t dare breathe as chifuyu’s eyes follow his fingers, over his cheek, gently, then freeze at the corner of his mouth. 

in a daze, some kind of touch-drunk trance, kazutora parts his lips. shivers when chifuyu’s pointer finger drags over his bottom lip and back again. a small sigh escapes him before he can catch it. 

want, want, want. 

suddenly looking much more awake and sober than he had just two minutes ago, chifuyu stares. he stares and stares, kazutora’s hand in his hair, brushing it away from his forehead. he stares, and when kazutora is sure he can’t take it anymore, chifuyu says, “pretty.” 

just that: pretty. 

kazutora crumbles . 

— 

(the haze lifts when chifuyu drops his hand and promptly turns his face into kazutora’s stomach, mumbling something kazutora doesn’t quite hear. then he falls asleep there, leaving kazutora no choice but to keep holding him. he finds that he doesn’t mind at all.)

—

the days start to get longer and warmer, the grass greener, the trees more lush. most days, chifuyu opens a window in the kitchen and leaves it like that all day, until the night air chills the entire apartment. summer drapes itself over them and kazutora is finally able to enjoy it—even when he gets a horrible sunburn—the first time in over a decade. 

kazutora finds himself opening up, more unabashed smiles, more loud laughter until his stomach hurts. he develops a real appetite and an appreciation for midday naps, when he can find the time. there’s a very angry elderly cat at the shop he’s slowly been trying to befriend, and he’s gone four days without getting scratched. that’s a record. 

but just as kazutora starts to catch up, chifuyu slows down. kazutora can tell by the dark circles under his eyes and half hearted good morning ’s that he’s not sleeping well. for why, he doesn’t know. he just does his best at—well, just his best in general, for chifuyu’s sake. 

kazutora doesn’t push him, doesn’t want to be nosy, but he’s never been a heavy sleeper—and when he hears chifuyu’s bedroom door creak open, his feet pad across even creakier floorboards, kazutora’s eyes fly wide open. moonlight shines in from his curtainless window. it has to be past midnight by now. 

without hesitating, without thinking twice, kazutora gets out of bed. he wraps his blanket around himself and slips out of his room. 

he finds chifuyu on the kitchen floor, back to the cabinets, head hanging between his knees. his heart skips a beat, panicked for a moment. then kazutora crosses the floor and comes to sit beside him. 

he doesn’t say anything. there’s not anything to say, really. he knows, he does. nightmares have followed kazutora for well over ten years, the majority of his life. he can’t remember how many times he’s woken up in a cold sweat, in tears, unable to fall back asleep. unable to forget what he’d seen, what he’s haunted by. 

chifuyu buries his face in his hands and gasps. 

kazutora knows. he really does. 

tentatively, kazutora puts his arm, blanket and all, around chifuyu’s frame. chifuyu immediately turns into him until his cheek presses into kazutora’s collar. kazutora’s shirt is wet with tears in no time. still saying nothing, he wraps both arms around him then, pulling him closer. this is allowed, right?

he lets chifuyu weep. he waits until chifuyu’s breathing evens out. 

carefully, daringly, kazutora turns his face into chifuyu’s hair. voice low, he says, “would it help you to sleep if you weren’t alone?” 

he can’t think of how many nightmares left him shaking uncontrollably, how many times he had ached for just a bit of comfort, a bit of warmth. how badly he had missed baji on those nights. 

chifuyu’s fingers fidget with the hem of kazutora’s shirt. “i don’t—“ his voice shakes with the threat of another wave of tears. “i don’t want you to feel like you have to… do anything.” he presses his face into kazutora’s shoulder hard, like he might actually be able to hide here, mumbling around the fabric of his shirt. “for my sake, or whatever.”

kazutora squeezes him gently, tilting his head down more to speak quietly into chifuyu’s ear. “you sound like me.” 

he’s rewarded with a weak laugh. that’s a start. 

“i want—“ kazutora frowns when he realizes what he’s about to say. he’s found a new way to surprise himself. “i want to help you, chifuyu. i want… to be there. for you, if you need it. if you—you know, want it.” 

he doesn’t say, you’ve done the same for me. it’s the least i could do. he doesn’t say, you’ve become so important to me, i wouldn’t be able to live with myself if i just sat back and watched you suffer. 

chifuyu pulls away then, fingers still clutched tightly onto kazutora’s shirt. his face is streaked with tears, cheeks ruddy. “you—you really mean that?”

of course he does. it hurts him a little to think that chifuyu would doubt him, but he doesn’t mind having to prove himself. that’s what he’s spent the last nine months doing, anyway. 

“i really mean it.” 

chifuyu lets kazutora stand, taking him by the hands and leading him to his bed. kazutora’s never spent much time in chifuyu’s room, but he doesn’t let himself think of it as an invasion, doesn’t let himself overthink at all. he lets chifuyu get into bed first, following quickly behind when chifuyu lifts the blanket and taps the bed with his hand. 

when they’re face to face, kazutora lifts a hesitant hand to swipe away a stray tear off chifuyu’s face. “rest now,” he says. 

“i’m glad it’s you,” chifuyu mumbles, already sleepy again. “i’m glad you’re here… wi’ me...” then he takes kazutora’s hands and pulls them close before curling into him, forehead to kazutora’s collar once more. his warmth envelopes kazutora completely. the closeness is thrilling, comforting. he doesn’t dare move or even breathe until chifuyu relaxes, until he’s sure chifuyu is asleep. 

this is the want. this is the need. 

and if kazutora kisses the top of chifuyu’s head in the dead of night where no one else can see, that’s his business and his business alone. 

—

the night after that, chifuyu wakes from another nightmare. he knocks on kazutora’s door.

he says, “can i…?”

kazutora answers, with unwavering certainty, “always.”

kazutora opens his blanket as chifuyu had done for him, opens his arms, opens his heart. 

he lets chifuyu in. 

they never sleep alone again.

—

mitsuya invites kazutora over to his studio to model some new pieces, and when kazutora tries to decline, mitsuya cuts him off and says, “hakkai is out, anyway. you’re the only one tall enough to fit these—well, draken could, but he never… please, kazutora.”

and kazutora can’t really say no to that. 

the pieces mitsuya styled are nice. like, really nice. they fit kazutora suspiciously well, accent his skin tone and his hair even better, but he has hell posing for mitsuya. when mitsuya had said model , he thought just trying them on . 

but no. 

mitsuya had him standing on a platform, standing different ways as mitsuya fluttered about, holding up different colored earrings to his ears, readjusting his hands this way and that, asking him to smile— no, not that wide. just a casual smile. smaller. well, now you look angry. try this—oh. 

and then kazutora had doubled over laughing at the expression on mitsuya’s face when he’d finally nailed whatever look mitsuya had been looking for. 

hours pass like this. it’s—well, it’s fun. 

and then, the dreaded question: “how’s it going with chifuyu?” mitsuya asks with a pin between his teeth, nonchalant. too nonchalant. 

kazutora’s first thought is oh my god, does he know we’re sleeping together? and then it’s, oh my god, not like that. and then, oh my god, i don’t know which is worse. 

“huh? oh, uh—it’s fine,” he stammers, making a point to ignore mitsuya’s raised brow. “we—well, you know, we got a few new stray kittens at the shop and we’ve been working to get them used to people…"

mitsuya smirks around the pin. “uh huh.”

helplessly, kazutora shrugs. “and that’s it. it’s fine.”

“that’s it?” mitsuya takes the pin and sticks it—actually, kazutora has no idea what the hell he’s doing with the fabric under kazutora’s arm. making it fit better? he doesn’t know.

he almost forgets mitsuya said anything at all. “uh, yes. that’s it.” 

“well,” mitsuya hums, stepping back. looking kazutora square in the face, a curious glitter to his eyes. “if you say so.”

aside from that panic-inducing two minutes, kazutora ends up enjoying himself—and leaves with a pair of dangly earrings mitsuya insists he keep. 

at the door, mitsuya stops him with a hand on the back of his arm. “i’m glad you guys stuck together,” he says quickly. “chifuyu seems happier every time i see him. and you too, kazutora.” 

heat crawls up his neck. “ah, well—“

“i mean it,” mitsuya raises a stern brow. “i’m proud of you.” cracking a sly grin, he tips his chin toward the street, in the direction of chifuyu’s—of their apartment. “go on, tell him i said hello.”

kazutora gets about two steps out before turning over his shoulder. “mitsuya?”

“yeah?” 

something inside his heart clicks back in place. “thank you.”

mitsuya smiles, and there’s no malice behind it. there never has been, there never will be. and for once, kazutora doesn’t think about how he doesn’t deserve it. “of course, kazutora. always.”

—

even before kazutora can get his key in the lock, he knows chifuyu is inside. 

and sure enough, when the door opens, chifuyu is there in the kitchen, making mad circles from the sink to the fridge to the stove and back again. 

he can’t even get a word in before chifuyu sees him and jumps, like he hadn’t been expecting to see him. “oh, there you are!” he chuckles, trying to be… casual? about what, kazutora doesn’t know. “i was just about to start dinner for, um, when you—when you got here.” 

that sends something fluttering wildly in kazutora’s ribcage, beating against his bones, racing against his heart. 

“oh yeah?” he says coolly. “what were you planning?”

chifuyu sucks in his bottom lip, and kazutora knows he probably had about a thousand ideas and still had yet to settle on a single one. he dodges the question, turning back to the counter to where he’s got half the kitchen’s contents pulled out. “sorry, did you eat with mitsuya? i guess i should’ve asked first—“ 

kazutora huffs softly before coming up beside him, brow raised in curiosity. “chifuyu.”

“i just thought, you know—“ his voice is quiet, like he might be embarrassed. “you always cook and i thought—i thought it might be nice to, uh,” he shrugs. “to return the favor. i guess.” 

it’s such a sweet gesture kazutora considers grabbing him by his shirt collar and planting a big stupid kiss on his cheek right then and there. 

wait. 

“chifuyu.”

chifuyu still won’t look at him but even from this distance kazutora can see his cheeks turn a glorious shade of pink. “started to feel bad because you’re always taking care of me, you know, and—“

“chifuyu.” still he blabbers away. “look at me.”

slowly but surely he turns toward kazutora, teeth worrying his bottom lip. “what?” 

a gentle smile breaks loose over kazutora’s face; he can’t even help it. “that’s very sweet of you,” he says softly, so softly. too softly. his hands are definitely shaking. when did that start? “i really appreciate it.”

chifuyu stares at him like he’s never seen him before—no, like he’s never seen him in this light before, like he’s seeing a kazutora he had previously been unfamiliar with. his mouth tugs down at the corners, brows pinched in what might be frustration. 

“what’s that look for?” 

frustration quickly gives way to impatience.

to combat this, he responds with all the patience he has—which, lately, is a lot. “what is it, chifuyu?”

“i just— ijustreallywannakissyou .”

and for some reason, kazutora doesn’t find this nearly as surprising as he probably should. “then why don’t you?”

a switch flips in chifuyu’s brain; he takes one step forward, both of his warm hands on either side of kazutora’s face, and kisses him. it isn’t fireworks, or every mile he’d ever gone over the speed limit on a bike as a stupid kid. it wasn’t a fire blazing in his gut. it wasn’t desperate, or demanding. 

it was patient, like they’d both known they’d have gotten to this point eventually. it was the end of whatever path they’d been dancing along, around, for months. it was inevitable, already subconsciously decided at an earlier time. when chifuyu pulled up at the curb? when he’d given kazutora the key to his apartment? was it when chifuyu brushed his hair, smiled at him over dinner, held open his blanket for kazutora to slip into bed with him? 

it didn’t matter, because they were here. this was now. this was putting the final piece of the puzzle into place, stepping into a sunspot on a cloudy day, finding your way home after a long night out. it was thinking, dazedly, of course, this is where i’m supposed to be. 

when chifuyu pulls away, he keeps his hands on kazutora’s face, fingertips dancing at the edge of his hair, thumb brushing over the beauty mark beneath kazutora’s eye. “was that—is this—“

“okay,” kazutora breathes, nodding, unable to think of anything else to say. he tips forward, puts his forehead against chifuyu’s. 

“okay?” he can feel chifuyu’s eyes searching him. his heart hasn’t stopped pounding since he’d walked in the door. 

“yeah,” he tries, letting out a shaky exhale. “ yes .” 

“okay.” chifuyu kisses the edge of his mouth. he’s dizzy from the taste of him, from all his warmth, from just this contact. this closeness. “ okay. ”

“chifuyu.” greedy hands slip around chifuyu’s waist. that’s okay, right?

“kazutora?”

“kiss me again.”

he doesn’t wait to be told twice. this time is more urgent, more confident. chifuyu’s arms snake around his neck, until they’re chest to chest. his knees turn to jelly, but chifuyu doesn’t let him slip. doesn’t let him fall. all kazutora can think is this: he wants , and chifuyu wants, too.

stupidly, his brain chooses this moment to remind him that he might be terrible at this. it wasn’t as if he’d never kissed anyone before; he had , but it was never like this. it had never meant anything, had only ever been mindless and short term, something for entertainment, to pass the time. it had certainly never been good , nor had it ever been this important , fueled by almost a year’s worth of pent up aching. yearning. not even wanting, but needing. 

even with baji, kazutora didn’t have this. 

but he can feel chifuyu’s heartbeat against his own, racing in time with one another, can feel chifuyu smile against his lips, and he decides it doesn’t really matter. nothing else in the world matters. 

“can’t tell you—“ chifuyu murmurs against the corner of kazutora’s mouth. “how long—“ another on his chin. “i’ve wanted this—“ and on his cheek. “wanted you. ” that’s his jaw. 

“all those times you stood at this counter—“ beneath his ear. “in my shirts—drinking my coffee—“ chifuyu’s lips ghost down his neck and he’s gone. “your stupid morning voice.” kazutora feels the vibrations of his voice against his skin. “your stupid smile when i walked in—“ 

teeth graze the column of his throat and kazutora very nearly collapses. he’s embarrassed by how airy his voice is when he says, “all this time…?” 

chifuyu pulls just far enough away to make eye contact and he looks like a dream . kazutora tries to pinch his leg or something just to reassure himself that he's awake, that this isn’t a trick, an illusion. there’s a lovely flush to chifuyu’s face and the kiss-red of his lips. something about his lopsided smirk makes kazutora want to kiss him again. and again. and—

“ yes . yes, all this time.” 

it’s the only thing he really needs to hear. kazutora all but falls into him then, arms tight around his middle, and buries his face in the side of chifuyu’s neck. gets as close as possible, just because he can. just because he’s wanted to for so long. words slurred by chifuyu’s skin, he says, “now you have me.” 

chifuyu freezes; kazutora can feel it, and then dread shoots through him like a poison. he tips back fast, afraid he’d just said the wrong thing, afraid the moment might shatter. “should i not have—“ 

but all he sees when he pulls away are chifuyu’s eyes blown wide as dinner plates. instead of saying, he asks: “is that what you want?” 

yes, kazutora thinks immediately. of course. yes, obviously. yes, a thousand times over. 

to be wanted by chifuyu, accepted and cared for and loved by him— yes, this is what he wants. had wanted. will probably want forever. 

but uncertainty prickles at him. he knows he’s too much, but he’s improving, isn’t he? kazutora had done what was asked of him, what those important to him believed he was capable of: he’d gotten better. but is he worthy? does he deserve this? has he earned it? has he paid enough? has his repentance been enough ? 

kazutora can’t remember wanting anything else in the world so badly as this. this, which goes so much deeper than being able to kiss chifuyu whenever he feels like it. this, which goes deeper than sharing a bed and taking chifuyu’s nightmares away, helping him at the pet shop, or even just putting up his laundry. 

it was another step toward proving himself redeemed. worthy of acceptance, worthy of love, worthy of life. 

“if you’ll have me,” kazutora whispers, afraid. always so afraid. 

“of course i’ll have you.” there’s that gentle smile again, brighter than a thousand suns. chifuyu presses into him then, nosing his cheek, taking a careful breath. kazutora’s worries and concerns melt away under all chifuyu’s light, and the air shifts when he giggles, “what part of all this time did you miss?” 

kazutora basks in it all, overwhelmed and relieved and close to tears. 

when they make dinner, they do it side by side. when they sit to eat, it’s pressed leg to leg. when they go to bed, chifuyu still doesn’t let him go, peppering his face, his neck, his chest with kisses. he tells him over and over, “mine, all mine,” until kazutora is drunk on the sound. 

—

by far, kazutora’s favorite thing about their entire apartment is the window in the kitchen, wide enough that he could stretch out his arms and just barely reach the edges. this window faces east, and each morning after sunrise, enough light pours in to light up the whole room. 

kazutora takes advantage; he sits on the counter with his back to the window, soaking up the heat with a cup of coffee in his hands. he’d finally, finally managed to master making a cup that tasted how he liked. he’s got the window cracked just a bit, chilly morning air biting at his skin and leaving goosebumps in its wake. 

this , he thinks, this is all i need. 

a bedroom door cracks open. 

and that, he thinks stupidly, dreamily, like a teenager, that’s all i want. 

chifuyu stumbles in with his hair a mess, his shorts hanging low around his waist. shirtless, unfortunately. always shirtless in the mornings, without a care in the world. stretching his arms above his head, kazutora can see how he’s barely able to keep his eyes open against the brightness of the room. 

when chifuyu says nothing, kazutora isn’t surprised, as he’s come to learn chifuyu is not a morning person, but he regards him carefully all the same. 

then chifuyu inserts himself between kazutora’s legs, hardly giving him time to set his coffee aside before it spills. chifuyu all but falls into him, arms around his waist, face smooshed into kazutora’s chest. his eyes flutter shut again. there’s that warmth again, that closeness. kazutora will never tire of it. 

“good morning to you too,” kazutora says lightly, hands instinctively going to chifuyu’s hair, his bare shoulders. he watches as chifuyu shudders under his cold fingers. cautiously, kazutora asks, “nightmare again?” 

chifuyu shakes his head—as best as he can in this position. “left me in bed.” 

big baby. kazutora huffs, laughing under his breath. his fingers glide over the short hair of chifuyu’s undercut, to the base of his neck. to the edge of his spine and then to his shoulder blades, carving out the shape of them just because he can. he tilts down as far as he’s able and whispers in chifuyu’s ear. “i’m sorry.”

all he gets in response is chifuyu squeezing him tighter. 

leaning back, hands still exploring the expanse of chifuyu’s back and his lovely shoulders, kazutora takes a deep inhale. holds it there. lets it fill his lungs, this crisp morning air, the sharp scent of coffee, chifuyu, chifuyu, chifuyu. he breathes out slowly, almost savoring it, and for once in this entire life does he feel almost… weightless. 

kazutora prods chifuyu gently. “i made coffee.”

another squeeze. he’s not entirely convinced chifuyu hasn’t just fallen back to sleep.

“i’ll make you a cup,” he offers, brushing the hair back from chifuyu’s forehead. 

this gets chifuyu’s attention. he perks up, albeit slowly, eyes narrowed still against the light. then he nods, drops his head back down in kazutora’s lap. “then we go back to bed?” he asks, slurred and sluggish. 

we.

“yes, then we go back to bed.”

chifuyu makes a happy little noise in the back of his throat, strange and magical and amazing in all the ways kazutora never believed a person was capable of.

his heart has tied itself in knots. 

—

it happened by accident. really, he couldn’t have planned it if he’d tried—and why would he have? 

kazutora sees a kitten lingering just off the front porch of the apartment one day after shopping, his arms full of grocery bags. he freezes immediately, mid-step, careful not to crinkle the bags. eyes wide, he watches as it stares back, yellow eyes bright against dark fur. 

“hi,” he breathes. he thinks of all the skittish kittens they’ve gotten at the pet shop, violent balls of fluff ready to bolt at any minute. he had a streak of almost two weeks without getting scratched, but—

kazutora didn’t really care about a streak. or the pet shop. or his groceries. he’s too busy a staring contest with this stray, hunched on its back legs, clearly prepared to run off if kazutora makes any sudden moves. stupidly, he thinks of it as a battle of wills. 

after setting his bags down as carefully as he can, kazutora crouches, sitting on his heels, and then he holds his hand out. “what are you doing here?” he asks gently. “where’s your mom?” 

the kitten’s ears perk up at the sound of his voice, flattening itself to the ground. the corner of kazutora’s mouth curls up in the beginning of a smile. when he shuffles forward, the kitten doesn’t run. idly, he wonders what his plan is: look for it’s mother? maybe it’s siblings? take it to the pet shop? 

another shuffle forward, hand still outstretched. “c’mon,” he whispers. “i’m not gonna hurt you.” 

and then he’s got his hands on the kitten, who only squeaks out a tiny hiss in protest, small claws extracted. “there you are.” kazutora sighs in relief, mildly surprised with himself. he holds it close to his chest, using his thumb to gently pet its head until it starts to relax. it still has some of its baby fluff, but it’s clearly old enough to be weaned from its mother. maybe that’s why it’s all alone out here…

“what are we gonna do with you?” the rhetorical question hangs in the air. kazutora scratches under its tiny chin and that’s when it happens, where the decision comes from; the kitten starts purring, rumbly and noncommittal, and the thought of taking it to the shop evades kazutora completely. he couldn’t just leave it out here after this . 

kazutora doesn’t know why he does what he does next, doesn’t know why keeping this kitten safe and earning its trust is so suddenly important to him, but it is, and his mind is made up before he even stands up. 

“come on, let’s go inside,” he says to no one in particular, getting up slowly so as to not startle the kitten. not once does he take his eyes off it.

carrying the groceries in is a pain, as he does it with one arm, too afraid to set the kitten down inside the apartment just yet. what if it ran into a corner and didn’t come back out? he carries the bags in one at a time, and once he’s got them all, kazutora kicks the door closed with his foot. 

“wonder if mom cats give their babies names,” kazutora murmurs to the kitten as he takes the contents painstakingly slow from one bag. he chatters away as he puts the groceries up, scratching the kitten's chin every now and then just to hear it purr again. “i guess we’ll need to pick one for you soon, huh?” 

there’s that word again. it comes out naturally these days. 

the front door closes quietly, so quietly kazutora almost hadn’t heard it if not for its proximity to the kitchen. “i’m home,” chifuyu announces, leaning against the wall to take off his shoes. he peers up at kazutora through the curtain of his hair that definitely needs a trim and smiles, sweet and dazzling. “who were you talking to?” he asks lightly, curious and teasing. 

kazutora has two seconds to blink the stars out of his eyes. “welcome home.” and then another half a second to think of a proper response. he hadn’t really thought this far ahead. dumbly, he says, “uh—“ and then he turns to face chifuyu fully, kitten still cradled in one arm. 

chifuyu stares at him, at the kitten, then at kazutora again. “kazutora,” he starts patiently. “what have you got there?”

“it’s a kitten.” kazutora wonders if he should’ve asked before bringing a cat into the apartment. wonders if he should’ve chased it off instead. was chifuyu about to get angry with him? some long forgotten part of him braces for it. kazutora wasn’t sure he had the heart to abandon the kitten now, not after he’s spent the last hour petting it, getting it to purr, talking to it like it actually understood him. he definitely didn’t have the stomach to handle chifuyu getting mad at him. 

“i can see that,” chifuyu says flatly. something in kazutora’s core shrinks away at the tone of his voice. “but why—“

kazutora, eager to defend himself and to fix that look in chifuyu’s eye, says, “she likes me.” 

this earns him a huff of disbelieving laughter from chifuyu. that’s a step in the right direction. “kazutora—“

he’s not angry. he’s not angry. he’s not. “chifuyu.”

the corner of chifuyu’s mouth perks up, easing the tension building in kazutora’s muscles. “kazutora—“ it’s clear to the man in question now that chifuyu seems to be trying not to laugh. “we have a pet shop— “

“—this one likes me. ”

“ —full of cats —“

“—listen to it!” kazutora says firmly, lifting the kitten up to his ear just to hear the tiny rumble. “it’s purring!”

even though his lips are pursed, kazutora can see chifuyu cheeks tint the tiniest shade of pink. he sighs deeply. “alright.”

kazutora’s eyebrows rise to his hairline, kitten replaced back in his arms, against his chest. “alright?”

“ alright .” on the other side of this, chifuyu thinks to himself, i couldn’t deny him if i tried, not for anything. he knows this, but he certainly doesn’t say it out loud. instead, he crosses the threshold into the kitchen, and once he’s at kazutora’s side, stands on his tippy toes to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek, oblivious to the full blown blush kazutora breaks out in. then he leans down to be eye level with the kitten, who backs away instinctively.

“it needs a bath first.” 

—

chifuyu ends up finding a pretty big bowl in one of the cabinets to fill with warm, soapy water. when he turns to take the kitten from kazutora, he’s struck all at once by how soft kazutora looks, dipped in sunset light from the window, gently scratching the kitten’s chin and looking down fondly at it as if it were his actual child, like sometime between when kazutora found it and now, they’d developed an unbreakable bond. 

surely there had not been enough time for that, right? 

chifuyu doesn’t know. he doesn’t really think it matters, either, judging on that glitter in kazutora’s eye. his heart tries to climb out of his throat when kazutora whispers to it, “ you’ll be safe with us. ” 

with us.

us, us, us. 

chifuyu likes that word. 

kazutora stands directly behind chifuyu as he bathes the kitten, leaning down just enough to rest his chin on chifuyu’s shoulder. when chifuyu is least expecting it, he presses in even closer to kiss the side of his neck. then he tells him, “i missed you today.” 

it feels good, this closeness. it feels good, to be missed, to be wanted. it feels good to be loved. 

—

(the cat, discovered to be female, is dubbed kitty by the end of the night. chifuyu teases kazutora for his not-so-creative name, but he finds it weirdly endearing, too.

kitty becomes a treasured member of their household.)

—

a pair of boys—not really boys anymore—lay in bed, legs tangled beneath the sheets. already half awake, kazutora settles on his side, blindly reaching out until his fingers find purchase in chifuyu’s bedhead hair. the room, seemingly the whole world, is quiet on this sunday morning, save for their gentle breaths. there’s a window cracked open, allowing the spring breeze to blow in and keep them cool. 

there’s something in the air. kazutora feels perfectly whole, untouchable and impenetrable in this safe space. it feels a bit like he’s been here, belonged here, since the very beginning. like he’s always been here, was always supposed to be here . 

“k’zutora,” chifuyu mumbles sleepily, reacting immediately to kazutora’s touch. his arm comes out from beneath his pillow, reaching out and tapping around until he finds what he’s looking for. 

this snags kazutora’s attention. “right here,” he murmurs. “come on.”

taking chifuyu’s reaching hand, he pulls lightly to encourage him. he’s allowed to do this now—has been, for quite a while now, though sometimes it’s hard asking for this—this intimacy, this closeness, this want. he asks, and chifuyu responds. chifuyu gives. 

bleary eyes still closed, chifuyu shuffles over before clumsily climbing on top of kazutora. he’s all but strewn across him, sleepy and careless. he tosses both arms over kazutora’s shoulders, tucks his hands beneath kazutora’s pillow. plants his cheek to kazutora’s collar, further tangling their legs and encapsulating kazutora in that cozy warmth of his. 

“comfy?” kazutora breathes in his ear, grateful chifuyu can’t see his stupid smile. chifuyu nods against him, tilts his head to press a kiss to his shoulder. 

every morning, on their off days, is like this. and every morning, kazutora eats it up. chifuyu’s affection and adoration is something kazutora holds very close to his heart, tucking it back in a safe corner, away from the world, away from the worst parts of himself. 

kazutora kisses the side of chifuyu’s head, loosely wrapping his arms around chifuyu’s middle. 

the door creaks open. a chirp of a meow echoes through the room. 

“better not be that cat,” chifuyu grumbles. 

already looking for her, kazutora can’t help but giggle. “it’s the cat—oh, come here, kitty.” he beckons her with a hand, and she chirps again. she hops up onto the bed and chifuyu can hear her obnoxiously loud purr through his sleepy haze. 

chifuyu manages a weak, “mornin’, kitty,” before she’s climbing onto his back with her tiny paws. the sound of kazutora’s stupid giggles wake chifuyu up more than anything, even as kitty sits on him, her tail carelessly whisking across bare skin. she chirps again—it’s never a regular meow—and chifuyu is nearly convinced she and kazutora have a secret language. 

chifuyu can’t remember the last time he’d been so content with the world, so far removed from the things that plagued them both. he presses another kiss to kazutora’s freckled shoulder, and then another. suddenly overwhelmed by this feeling, chifuyu’s tongue slips and he says, “’m so glad to have you.”

as those words settle in the air, fondness thick as honey seeps into kazutora’s bloodstream. it flows out of his heart, through each and every one of his limbs and back again, leaving him dizzy and stupid and so very in love. 

yeah, he thinks dazedly. that’s what this is. 

when kazutora says it back—whispered in chifuyu’s ear just for him and not another soul to hear—he means it, wholly, undoubtedly, with absolute certainty.