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“It’s too early,” Tamaki caught a yawn against the back of his wrist and rubbed his eyes, determined to stay in bed a little longer. Of course, with an Alpha like Mirio, that was damn near impossible. It was like living with an overgrown puppy most of the time. Or a kid excited about Christmas, but every day.
“You can sleep in the car!” Mirio told him, leaning in to nuzzle him some more, squeezing Tamaki in an embrace before getting out of bed again. “Come on, come on! We have the whole weekend to enjoy, let’s go!”
Exactly.
They had the whole weekend, so why did they have to be up at the asscrack of dawn on a Friday?
But, after years and years of living together, and almost a year of being a mated pair, Tamaki had learned not to ask too many questions. Not unless he wanted detailed answers. So, in the end, he got out of bed and pulled on an oversized hoodie– Mirio’s, Tamaki couldn’t actually remember if he owned any that were actually his to begin with anymore– a pair of pants, and some comfortable shoes.
They’d rented a car, another thing that was weird about this whole situation, and Mirio had taken the liberty of packing it for them, without Tamaki’s input on the matter.
Well. It wasn’t as though Tamaki didn’t trust him. He just had no idea what was even happening. All he knew was that the day before, when he’d clocked out for the day, Fat Gum had told him to enjoy his weekend. A weekend that Tamaki was meant to be working. And somehow wasn’t anymore. And then he’d come home and been bowled over by Mirio who explained far too loudly and quickly that they had plans, Maki!! and that he should get a good night’s rest so they could be up bright and early tomorrow!!
Tamaki wordlessly accepted the travel mug Mirio pushed into his hands as he climbed into the passenger seat and settled into it, low as he could without hurting his back.
“Are you ready?”
“Do I have a choice?” Tamaki asked, but he was smiling, and he accepted the kiss Mirio pressed to his cheek with a happy squirm. His Alpha may have been an overgrown puppy, but he was the best person in the world, and someone Tamaki still couldn’t quite believe was his.
“Don’t be grumpy, you’re gonna love it!”
“You’re not gonna tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope!”
“Terrible,” Tamaki mumbled, sipping coffee with a pleased hum. “Just awful.”
Mirio’s laugh felt like sunlight on his skin.
As Mirio drove– and chatted, because Mirio never stopped chatting– Tamaki allowed his mind to wander a bit. Their final year at U.A. had been more difficult than he’d ever anticipated. Not for any reason in particular, just the sheer number of things they had to do, on top of work, on top of meeting with Aizawa-sensei’s class 1A to explain the importance of work placements. It had just been overwhelming. Most days Tamaki couldn’t concentrate on English class because he knew Fat Gum was on a mission and Tamaki should have been there. He’d barely passed maths because his heat had been on the horizon and he’d refused to let Mirio take the entire week off just to look after him.
In the end, he’d passed. They both had. But the cost of it, Tamaki was still feeling in his exhausted body. Random sweats, shakes, headaches, nausea. He’d checked for pregnancy so many times he must have purchased every test in the corner store, but thankfully that wasn’t something that was weighing him down going into his adult life. Weighing neither of them down.
That had possibly been the biggest shock of his final school year if Maki took the time to think about it properly. The fact that he and Mirio…
God.
He still couldn’t think back to that heat without squirming a little, and not in the pleasant way. Some nights he woke in a cold sweat, panicking that he’d forced his best friend into an arranged bonding. Actual bondage. Some nights he woke up unsure where he even was, if Mirio wasn’t in bed with him. It had been a rollercoaster for the two of them, and one that Mirio had weathered far better than Tamaki had. At least, outwardly.
But Mirio had always been good at outwardly appearing okay. It was one of the reasons so many of their peers assumed his quirk had come easily to him, his work placement had been a good word put in by someone else. They didn’t see him when he came home after a failed mission. They didn’t see him when he’d curl up on the couch and not say a word, staring into space and replaying his perceived failures over and over in his head. They didn’t see that, they just saw the smile, bright as the sun, and assumed it never had to set and recharge.
They didn’t see the work that went into making Mirio Lemillion, and they shouldn’t have to. If anything, Tamaki was proud as hell to be the one behind the scenes making sure Mirio was the best hero, the best man, he could be. He couldn’t believe he’d been so lucky, but he was proud as hell.
It had been an adjustment process for both of them, one way or another.
By the time Tamaki had finished his first coffee, they were near enough to a rest stop to pull over and buy another. By now, the sky was growing lighter with the oncoming sunrise, and Tamaki finally got a proper look at his mate when he went to pay for their drinks.
To Tamaki, Mirio was, in a word: perfect. He was a perfect hero, a perfect student, a perfect friend. Now that they had it, a perfect mate, a perfect Alpha. It wasn’t that Tamaki couldn’t see his flaws, it was that they felt so insignificant compared to the rest of him. Unlike Tamaki’s, which were on prominent, permanent, display.
He watched as Mirio paid for their coffee, made the young girl at the counter smile, then laugh with a silly joke or a compliment. It made Tamaki smile too. Watching Mirio bring joy to others was one of his favourite things about his partner. He’d wondered, before all this mating madness, if Mirio’s future mate would be jealous, since Mirio couldn’t not give himself entirely to the world around him, wondered if they’d be unable to accept it as just part of who Mirio intrinsically was. Now that he was that mate, that partner, he knew that there was nothing more wonderful than seeing Mirio shine at what he did best.
He kept his eyes on him as Mirio returned to the table Tamaki sat at, and reached out to grasp his sleeve when he was close enough, leaning in to nuzzle warmly against Mirio’s side, his purr rumbling quietly in his chest. When Mirio wrapped him in his arms and squeezed, Tamaki couldn’t help but purr louder, cheeks on fire despite no one else but the coffee girl being there to witness this PDA.
The fact of the matter was: he loved him. He loved Mirio with everything he had.
“More awake, bud?”
“Getting there,” Tamaki smiled, nuzzling him a little longer before looking up to meet Mirio’s blinding grin. “Want me to drive for a bit?”
“Nope! I’ve got it covered!”
“I can’t believe you talked to Fat Gum about me taking a weekend off.”
“Of course I did!” Mirio plonked down in a chair next to Tamaki and took the top off his coffee mug to tip an inordinate amount of sugar into his drink. “It’s your birthday, and our graduation and it’ll be a few more months til it’s our anniversary. We had to do something exciting!”
Tamaki nearly choked on a mouthful of coffee at the last thing. Anniversary. Jesus. They had those now. No, not those , they had one. Not one where they started dating, and then when they chose to become mates. No, both had happened in the space of seven days locked up in Tamaki’s bedroom. Somehow.
God.
“I promise you’ll love it,” Mirio repeated, sounding almost apologetic, and Tamaki was quick to smile back.
“I trust you,” was all he said. Because that was all there was to it.
He knew that Mirio wouldn’t have arranged anything that would make either of them uncomfortable. One of the things they’d worked on in their year as a mated pair was setting personal boundaries that fit comfortably in their new bonded life. No, Tamaki wasn’t magically going to become a social butterfly, and there was no way in hell that Mirio was expected to be a quiet little mouse. Both had made the effort. Tamaki went out more, when Negiri invited them, or other classmates did. And Mirio allowed himself to say no sometimes, more times, when others asked if he wanted to hang out.
More and more, they built their new life, like a nest, around them, in a way that made them both feel secure and safe.
So Tamaki knew that he wasn’t going to be thrown into a room filled with people and noise, like a surprise party. But not knowing still made him a little anxious. He forced the feeling down. He trusted him. It was true. That was all that mattered.
The next leg of their journey was filled with singing off key to the radio, and Tamaki almost falling out of the passenger seat into the back as he leaned over to grab snacks for them. The day was still young, and now that Tamaki had woken up properly, the nerves that had been plaguing him were replaced with genuine excitement.
It was hard not to get excited when his partner was a constant source of it. Tamaki often joked that he wasn’t the Suneater, he was a plant photosynthesizing Mirio’s light on the regular.
Soon, urban towns turned to rural countryside, then to wide expanses of forest and mountains behind them. Tamaki hadn’t been out of the city in… forever. He genuinely couldn’t remember the last time. They pulled over for an early lunch at a little diner run out of the back of someone’s house; home-cooked meals, fresh meat and fish and vegetables grown right there in their garden. It was the most delicious thing Tamaki could remember eating in a long time, for no other reason than because it was just him and Mirio there, able to eat outside without anyone interrupting them to ask them questions, or for a photo.
It was nice. It was so goddamn nice.
When they drove off again, Tamaki let himself hang out the window like a puppy, just taking in the clean air and sunlight on his skin. This was nice. This was more than nice. He hadn’t realized that he’d needed a break until he’d been kidnapped into one. He supposed it made sense; they were each other’s gauge for stress and recovery, and had been even before becoming a pair. Tamaki could sense when Mirio needed to be gently scolded to go to bed, or thoroughly scolded to stop overworking himself. And Mirio… Mirio knew when Tamaki just needed to get the hell out.
It was midafternoon by the time Mirio turned into a private gravel road and bumped their little car along it, deeper into the welcome embrace of the trees. Tamaki settled back into his seat and rolled the window up.
“I already love it,” he admitted, offering Mirio a smile in answer to his wide grin. “Really.”
“Just wait!”
Tamaki shook his head and said nothing else, content to wait and see.
The little house they pulled up to looked like private property, but a little sign on the front door pointed out it was the reception area, so Tamaki supposed they were in the right place.
“Hang tight!” Mirio killed the engine and climbed out, jogging over to the front door and knocking before opening it. Tamaki heard the muffled hum of conversation, and let himself out for a stretch, staying near the car.
The first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. Not the quiet of earplugs, or artificial white noise machines, no, the genuine quiet of nature, of the forest, of being far away from the drone of the city. He rested back against the car and lifted his gaze towards the tops of the trees, watching them sway back and forth on a breeze he couldn’t feel down here. It was soothing. It was lovely. Tamaki already felt a little drowsy, but he refused to waste their precious time away sleeping.
At least not alone.
One hobby that Tamaki had shamelessly picked up after their bonding was taking naps in Mirio’s proximity. On his lap, against his shoulder, at the dining table when Mirio cooked or studied… as long as Mirio was near him, Tamaki could rest easy.
The door opened again and Mirio was bounding back to him, grabbing Tamaki up around the middle and spinning him before setting him down again.
“I got the keys!”
Tamaki laughed, shaking his head. Everything was a celebration, everything was worthy of being lifted up and spun around.
“Good,” he said, “now can you tell me where we are?”
“A bathhouse!”
“Helpful,” he shook his head again, but obediently climbed into the car once more for Mirio to drive them to the little cabin that would be their home for two nights.
There were four cabins total, each far enough away not to bother the others, but close enough to see. Each had their own private natural hot spring bath, secluded and secreted away from possible prying eyes. Tamaki groaned seeing it.
“Good?” Mirio asked, hefting up most of their things before Tamaki could stop him.
“So good,” he smiled. “Let me help.”
It took just one trip to get from the car to the cabin, and not long at all to set the more important things in their rightful places.
“How’re you feeling?”
“I think I’d like to go for a walk,” Tamaki told him, stretching his arms over his head. “I can’t remember the last time I was far enough away from the city to not hear it and feel it in my bones.”
“Same,” Mirio popped open a granola bar and tossed one to Tamaki. “Dunno if I’ll be able to sleep with how quiet it is.”
“I think we’ll sleep just fine,” Tamaki snorted, giving Mirio a look. His smile just grew wider.
“You think?”
“Oh, I promise.”
Mirio pulled him into a one-armed hug, just staying close, sharing space as they pensively chewed through their snacks. Then, without saying much else, he slipped his hand into Tamaki’s and led the way out the door.
It wasn’t cold enough to warrant being bundled up, but Tamaki loved the fact that Mirio put their interlaced hands into his big pocket to keep them both warm. The forest was lovely, dense with bird calls and the shifting of leaves. Tamaki closed his eyes and just breathed, allowing the smell of humus, of damp bark, and crushed lichen fill his lungs. Their shoes shuffled through the dry leaves already piling up beneath the trees that spoke more of oncoming autumn than the depth of spring, once in a while something snapped a twig nearby or landed heavily on a branch above their heads.
It was peaceful.
It was alive.
Somewhere on their left, he could hear the sound of a brook trickling over pebbles.
He squeezed Mirio’s hand and leaned into him, the two walking in step together, slow and steady, Tamaki trusting his mate to lead him blind through unknown terrain.
He supposed that Mirio needed this as much as he did. Another misconception about his best friend was that Mirio was always on all the time, that he never needed downtime, that he didn’t enjoy activities that weren’t filled with energy and interaction. In truth, Mirio loved the quiet. He could lose himself in a novel, curled up against Tamaki’s side for hours without saying a word. He liked to meditate on the balcony when the weather was nice, eyes closed and chest rising and falling with his even breaths.
Being in the forest was probably just as healing for the Alpha as it was for Tamaki, and that made his heart swell and soar.
They were here together, sharing this magical place.
“Maki,”
“Hmm?”
“Open your eyes,” Mirio squeezed his hand again, and Tamaki blinked his eyes open, looking up at his partner. Mirio’s smile was fragile, not in a way that suggested he was upset, but in a way that suggested he was entirely awed. “Look.”
Tamaki followed where Mirio was pointing and felt his jaw fall slack.
They were in a clearing, still partially hidden by lower-hanging branches, and in front of them, among the younger, frailer trees, were tiny blue flowers shivering in the sun. So many they looked like a single blanket rather than individual things. But then, one moved, not on any wind or breeze, and lifted from the leaves entirely and Tamaki gasped.
They weren’t flowers. They were butterflies. hundreds, no, thousands of butterflies.
For long moments, Tamaki didn’t dare take a breath; it was just too extraordinary, too remarkable… surely they weren’t actually seeing this miracle right now? Surely they weren’t so lucky…
“Tell me about ‘em,” Mirio whispered, letting go of Tamaki’s hand so he could wrap both arms around him instead, standing behind him and resting his chin on Tamaki’s shoulder. Tamaki had to swallow down the sudden lump in his throat before he could answer in words at all. He grasped Mirio’s hands where they held him, and just rested back against him, taking it all in.
“Sa… sasakia charonda,” he murmured finally, unable to hold back his smile. “The Giant Purple Emperor.”
He’d only ever read about them, and had always wanted to find a way to see a real one that wasn’t mounted or held in captivity in a butterfly house. Ever since he was little, Tamaki had loved butterflies. There was such a fragile beauty to them, he was absolutely besotted. He’d never told anyone, even Mirio had found out by pure chance; he’d had a hard enough time at school without being bullied for being in awe of something considered so feminine.
But he loved them, couldn’t get enough of them. And now they were here, where they were so many of them at once… but that meant that they were–
“Did we drive all the way to Shikoku?” Tamaki asked him softly, and Mirio nuzzled the side of his neck with a hum before kissing his bonding mark. Tamaki shivered.
His Alpha, his best friend, the love of his goddamn life, had driven them for nearly eight hours from school to one of the first migratory stops for the Japanese national butterfly. All because Tamaki loved butterflies. All because it was nearly his birthday, and they had just graduated, and they were about to celebrate a year as a mated pair.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to curl up into a tiny ball and sob, he was so happy. But instead, he stood and watched the butterflies, watched the way their wings lazily opened and closed, revealing alternatively eye-like markings on their underside, and the bright iridescent blue that reflected the light and made them shimmer.
Then, without realizing he was doing it, Tamaki began to speak.
He talked quietly, just above a whisper, half-turned into Mirio so he didn’t have to crane his neck. He told Mirio about their origins, and why they were so special to Japan, he told Mirio about the fact that their larvae looked like little reindeer with their horns, he told him about what they ate, where they migrated too, how their populations were declining due to deforestation of the trees which protected them during their migration.
He talked, and Mirio listened, holding him close and warm, gently rocking them back and forth as they both watched the butterflies flicker and flap quietly from branch to branch when the mood struck them.
“God, they’re so beautiful aren’t they?” Tamaki whispered, biting his lip and just… staring. Mirio nuzzled his hair, a warm purr rumbling against Tamaki’s back as he did. And though he wouldn’t have put it past Mirio to say something silly like but you’re much more beautiful to me, and he’d have even forgiven him the cliche, Mirio was quiet, letting them just have this peaceful moment.
Suddenly, Tamaki felt giddy, he felt the same bubbling excitement in his belly that he assumed Mirio felt regularly.
“Let me try something,” he said, gently freeing himself from Mirio’s embrace and stepping further into the clearing towards the ocean of fragile little wings. He had no intention of disturbing them, he just wanted to be a little closer, wanted to submerge himself in their midst and just… absorb the whole experience into every cell of his body.
He closed his eyes, breathing evenly and slowly as he took stock of his body, reached for the coiling tendrils of his ever-present quirk. With a sigh, he rolled his head against one shoulder, then the other, gently stretching out his neck, and then he summoned the quirk, concentrated, manifested…
Wings unfurled slowly, stretched out wide before coming to rest comfortably against Tamaki’s back. He hadn’t been entirely sure what poultry he’d had at lunch, just knew it was something utterly delicious, and a little more gamey than chicken or turkey. Looking at his wings now, snow-white and soft, he could only assume it was dove.
All the better; they were beautiful. He turned to look at Mirio, who was watching him like Tamaki had hung the moon, and smiled, grinned, before turning back to the kaleidoscope of butterflies. He stepped closer, stopping only when his presence spooked a few off of the branches closest to him, and then knelt, allowing his wings to spread quietly again, stretching up over his head before they rested out at his side.
He waited, bated breath and trembling fingers, before flapping them, just once.
The woosh of air was enough to scatter the tiny things every which way, and Tamaki looked on in wonder as they flickered around him like confetti, like tiny dancing pieces of glass. Slowly, they came back to settle on the saplings again, but some landed whisper-soft on Tamaki’s wings too, antennae twitching and trembling as they investigated this thing in their midst. A couple landed in his hair. When he held his palm out, some settled there too, hanging off his fingers, crawling up his wrist.
He laughed, a breathless, awed little sound, and brought his hand closer so he could take in every tiny detail of them.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, long enough for his mind to idle, for his legs to grow numb, for his quirk to start to chafe a little against his skin. Only then did Tamaki gently withdraw his wings, shaking them just enough to let the butterflies take off before he made them disappear back into himself as though they never were. A few remained perched in his hair and on his shoulders, and when Tamaki turned to look at Mirio, his expression bright and wide and joyful, he saw that Miri had his phone out, taking photos and video of this entire experience, something for Tamaki to look back on and remember over and over.
“Miri,”
“Yeah, bud?”
Tamaki laughed, unable to hold the sound back any more, and softly shrugged the remaining butterflies off himself, careful to never touch their wings. When he was finally able to get up, he took the few steps needed to get to Mirio at a jog and threw himself into his embrace, wrapping his arms around Mirio’s head and kissing him breathless.
He clung tight to him, trembling a little when Mirio finally managed to slip his phone into his pocket and hug Tamaki back. He kissed him with everything he had, feeding Mirio all the awe, love, care, gratitude he felt but couldn’t find the words to say, he showed with his body instead.
He didn’t realize he was crying until Mirio hushed him, soothing him with another rumble of his purring, the sweet, cool, pleasant scent of his pheromones. When Tamaki pulled back to try and wipe his face, smile still bright and so wide his cheeks hurt, Mirio caught his hand and leaned in to lick over his face instead.
It was so gentle, so loving and intimate. An unspoken permission to cry all he wanted, feel all he needed to. I’ve got you, you’re safe, I’m here. Tamaki laughed again and let his mate groom him, turning into every brush of his rough tongue, letting his hands helplessly knead at Mirio’s arms like a content cat until he was finished.
By then, they were both purring, both releasing their scent to mingle together, creating an unseen cocoon of familiarity around them both. When Mirio was done, he turned his head to scent his mate properly, and Tamaki went boneless and heavy against him, relishing in the care and love he was getting. He felt weak. He felt exhausted in the best, most beautiful way.
“Hey Miri?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.” Tamaki clung to him and let himself be held for a moment longer. “This was just what I needed, it’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
A pleased trill from his Alpha and Mirio pulled Tamaki even closer against him, the two sharing heartbeats, sharing air.
“Let’s go back?” He offered after a while, “time yet to take a nap before we make dinner and get into the tub.”
“Yeah,” Tamaki whispered, nuzzling him. “That sounds amazing right now.”
“They told me the stars are really bright out here.”
Tamaki squeezed Mirio tighter and clung on a little longer. “Yeah,” he said again, unsure what else he could say, what else he wanted to say. This already felt like a dream, like their own little slice of genuine magic.
They moved after what felt like an hour just standing still, hands slipping together again, one holding on to the other, secure and close. Tamaki looked over his shoulder just once to make sure he hadn’t dreamed the entire scene, and smiled when he saw the butterflies still gathered in shimmering groups all over the saplings in the clearing.
He wondered if they’d be there tomorrow.
He hoped they would.