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Inazuma and its people had been battered by stormclouds and thunder so long, Ayato could not help but find comfort in a clear sky bright with stars. He leaned against the railing at the edge of Komore Teahouse’s courtyard and grounded himself with the sight, humbled by the vastness of the universe.
Ayaka and Thoma both had put their all into making this party special, and Ayato had to admit he had enjoyed himself tremendously. While neither his sister nor his – nor Thoma would ever be suited to join the Shuumatsuban, considering their pitiful subterfuge skills, knowing about festivities in advance never took away from their joy. After all, where would the Yashiro Commission be, if that were the case?
But despite the carefree joy, his body eventually felt too small to contain him, and so he had slipped outside for a bit of quiet. Still, at the tread of familiar footsteps behind him, Ayato only smiled and waited.
“My lord,” Thoma said, sounding utterly at ease as only a man could who thrived around people. “Was it … a little too much?” He sounded uncertain, as if worried it had ruined Ayato’s night.
“Not at all,” Ayato said warmly, smothering the unspoken worry, swift and practiced. ”The sake made me feel warm is all.” He closed his eyes to the cool Spring air, the promise of blossoming sakura in the crisp breeze. There was a scent to each season, and this one was his favourite. “I usually only pretend to drink the alcohol served to me, to keep my mind sharp. But today I felt like … indulging.” Speaking the word felt illicit.
“I know,” Thoma said fondly. He offered the cup of tea he was holding, and Ayato traded it gratefully for his empty sake cup. “I have known you for long enough, you know.” Thoma chuckled, crossing his arms on the railing, the empty cup dangling from his fingers. He lifted his gaze to the sky, smiling at the stars with quiet wonder as the light of the lanterns around danced in his eyes like fireflies upon a meadow, and Ayato burned.
He took a sip of the tea and barely tasted it.
“I did pick your favourite,” Thoma replied, sounding a little smug, and Ayato took a more mindful sip, his lips now curling at the taste. Ah,Thoma took such pride in his work. It was charming - Thoma was the grease keeping the people of Inazuma happy and at good relations, but he took the most pride in his housekeeper duties. Never did he seem as satisfied as after beholding white linen he had freed of stubborn stains, or watching people enjoying a meal he had cooked.
Ayato wondered how a man like him was supposed not to fall helplessly in love with a man like Thoma.
“I’m glad it was to your liking. The party, I mean! You deserve a little time off, you know? To let loose a little. You work so much I cannot help but worry. And Ayaka! Of course, her too.”
Ayato thought of the kind of rumours which might fester if his feelings for Thoma were known. The beautiful man in front of him, who worked harder than anyone, smiled brighter than anyone too, who held the blood of two nations and embodied the best of them both and yet was looked down upon for it. Ayato knew Thoma said he did not care for such things, but still. How could Ayato add to his burden?
“Hey now,” Thoma muttered. “That’s not an expression to make on your birthday.”
“Has midnight not struck?” Ayato asked mildly.
“Eh!” Thoma toasted with the empty cup he had traded. “As far as I am concerned, it is your birthday until we are all tuckered out.”
“Then, might I make one selfish request?” The words slipped from him, and Ayato knew it was wrong, but he could not for the life of him make himself stop talking. “For my birthday?”
Thoma ought to have said no. So many times, he ought to have, and yet he had kept going to a point that the very foundation of the Yashiro Commission was entangled with Thoma’s work and efforts. The Fixer indeed, Thoma was the one to sew a sleeve’s ripped edge as deftly as his words patched together tension between Inazuma’s people, and the commission sworn to serve them.
There was so much Thoma did for them, for Ayato, and each time Ayato asked he waited for Thoma to finally say ‘no’, but this time, too, Thoma only lifted his head and breathed: “Anything, my lord.”
The way he said it would give a weaker man ideas. This loyalty, it burned as the vision on Thoma’s hip, his will materialised. Ayato wanted to fold each finger against the curve of that vision until his skin warmed it. He wished to clutch it until the edges dug into his skin and Thoma’s loyalty burst through him like pain, the sweet sting of assurance.
He curled his fingers into his sleeves. “Would you give an answer like that to anyone asking a favour for the Yashiro Commission?”
Thoma’s brow furrowed, eyes searching Ayato’s face with uncertainty. “You know I like to do good work!” He gave a little chuckle, scratching at his cheek. “So, probably. Maybe not in quite the same words or, uhm, enthusiasm.”
“So if someone asked you -” Ayato struggled with himself. As the head of the Yashiro Commission, this was unacceptable behaviour. But he was a man, with a beating heart, and wishes that had grown over time and now scarcely fit his chest. Had Thoma not already granted him to be selfish? “If someone asked you, for the good of the Commission, to grant them a kiss -”
“My lord?” Thoma sounded flustered, but he had not taken to the street running. Granted, Ayato had not accepted into the family a coward. “Who …” His voice sounded breathy. “Who would ask such a thing?”
“Anyone might,” Ayato said, with the faux confidence that put signatures beneath neat contracts if he just held fast enough to it. Sometimes in life the best thing to do was to keep one’s eyes upon the horizon and move briskly towards a distant goal with enough confidence to make everyone follow.
“Then my answer … would have to be no.” Thoma was looking away, but his jaw was set.
Ayato’s heart sang and ached. It was a confusing tangle. “Not even for the good of the Yashiro Commission?”
“You know I would do anything. I have. But there are … limits.”
Ayato stared into the shadows of the drop beyond the railing, his stomach swooping. It had nothing to do with the thought of tumbling into endless darkness, down impossible heights, and everything with restless dread as he breathed: “And if I were to ask?”
“Then it depends, my lord,” Thoma whispered. His knuckles were pale and white where he clutched the cup too tightly. “Who it is you might ask me to … to kiss, and for what purpose.”
Ayato wished to keep up the charade, this dance around the truth. He was used to this from negotiations - to dance around the end result both parties had their eyes on but could not speak of, for propriety, and find the best balance between them to leave both parties happy.
But this was not work.
This was Thoma.
And he was not just his housekeeper, but his friend.
Ayato closed his eyes and felt like he was entering a sword fight without a weapon, instead kneeling and baring his neck, putting his survival at his opponent’s mercy. “What if I asked you to kiss me?”
The silence between them was deafening. Not even the breeze rustled the wind, as if Inazuma City itself held its breath for them. It was so quiet that Thoma’s soft voice was thunder in the night. “For the good of the Yashiro Commission?”
Ayato’s eyes opened. He was no coward, either. “No.” He carefully placed the teacup onto the railing next to himself, leaving his hands empty. His fingers yearning to reach out and hold on, before Thoma decided to pull away from him for good. A truth once revealed could never be taken back, after all. “For the sake of Kamisato Ayato, who is nothing but a man, and a fool.”
Oh, what a fool he was.
Thoma made a small sound, and when Ayato looked, he saw only the pinch of his brows, and those perfect lips pursed into a frown. It was not the kind of expression that inspired confidence in a man baring his heart.
“Then my answer …” Thoma was still clutching the empty cup so tightly. “My answer,” he repeated, strangled. “It would always be yes.”
Ayato had braced himself for rejection to a point that this answer presented a reality he struggled to adjust to. “Always?” Always! Thoma had presented it as a truth so sweet in its simplicity. Ayato could not quite hide the tremor in his voice. “That is quite the promise to make.”
Thoma chuckled, the sound so weak, and so lovely. “My life is already yours.” Again, his words were so simple, like he was presenting a truth fundamental to the workings of the world. The sun rose in the morning, and birds returned in Spring, and Thoma’s life was Ayato’s. “Is it truly such a stretch?”
Ayato laced his fingers, so they would not tremble. The things he had weathered calmly, and yet, this talk made him feel like a lost youth all over again, struggling to fill a role too big for him. “No,” he mused. “I reckon it is not, though it would change everything, would it not? Perhaps it is a risk not worth taking, on the whim of a man tipsy on sake and nostalgia.”
Thoma turned then, and looked at him. Ayato felt his gaze as piercing as a blade, and burning like the flame stamped upon Thoma’s vision. “It would not be just a kiss to you then?” Thoma took a breath. “It would not only be a kiss to me, my lord. It could never be.”
“Ayato. Please. Do not call me your -”
“Ayato,” Thoma amended, with feeling. “It would never just be a kiss to me. You can have my all, or reject it, but I cannot - I could not -” He broke off, his words frantic now, laced with something close to panic. “You cannot expose me to the sun and then take it away again, I could not bear it. I never needed you to reciprocate my feelings, but I love you too much to - “
The crash of the sake cup shattering upon the stone cut through the night.
Ayato was already kissing him. Feverish, foolish, fervent he kissed Thoma even though he had no idea what he was doing.
But then the broken sound caught up to him and put his head on right, making Ayato realise his mistake, and worse, his shortcomings. The awkward angle at which he had caught Thoma’s lips, the way Ayato’s fingertips rested on his jaw as if halfhearted when truly, it was shyness. Shamed, he pulled away, only for two calloused, warm, familiar palms to cup his cheeks and firmly pull him back.
Thoma tilted his head and pressed closer, and then - then they were kissing.
It was sweeter than the birthday cake and burned in his chest hotter than the sake ever could, and at once this small touch felt more profound than all the stars in the sky who were quietly witnessing years of yearning crumble to a single point of desperate contact.
“Ayato,” Thoma gasped against his lips. The sound of his own name in Thoma’s voice made Ayato’s heart soar, and he felt bold enough to slide his hand along Thoma’s cheek and down, resting it against his neck. Feeling the staccato thrum of his pulse flutter so intimately against Ayato’s palm.
“Thoma,” he replied, and decided the best thing he could do to pick up this new skill was to apply himself to learning, so he pressed their lips together again. Sometimes softer, sometimes with a little more force, but each moment attuned to every hitch in Thoma’s breath, every shift of his lips, the miniscule added pressure of his fingers against Ayato’s face.
They kissed until Ayato realised Thoma was shaking, and with that realisation came another.
Thoma held on like a man afraid to lose something fragile and precious - as if he was terrified, and how could he not be? Thoma had granted Ayato every safety, had spoken his thoughts aloud. Had put his feelings out there to see as plain as the warm glow of the teahouse’s windows through the night.
Without thought Ayato drew him against his chest, running a soothing hand down Thoma’s back.
Ayato had only acted upon his own feelings, and the effort had been lackluster at best, considering his lack of expertise in this particular field of social interaction. He ought to make an effort for Thoma, too. And so he pulled back just enough to see Thoma’s face, and then gave in to at least leaning their foreheads together.
After all this time he could not bring himself to miss a single second in which he was allowed to hold onto Thoma as he had always yearned to, and he could not fight the foolish little smile on his face, either. “My life, Thoma.”
“Your -” Thoma took a deep, shuddering breath, and some of the tension bled from his shoulders. “Your life … ?”
“It is yours. It has always been yours. Do not doubt, even for a second, it is not.”
“My lo- Ayato -”
There were so many things to consider. An avalanche waiting to crash down upon them, of reasons why this was a terrible idea, might mess up their balance, might change everything irreparably.
But how could Ayato hold back when being with Thoma felt like this? There was ease beneath the thunder of their hearts, familiarity soothing the novelty of it all, understanding that only years of friendship, devotion, and shared laughter could bring.
It was, simply put, right.
Thoma sniffled, trying to hide his face away. Gently Ayato cupped it and pulled back to look at him, cheeks splotchy and eyes bright and brimming with tears. “You have such a bleeding heart,” Ayato breathed, warmly. He brushed the tears from Thoma’s cheeks with care. “It is not pain you feel, is it?”
Thoma sniffed, seeming vexed, unable to help another tear falling from his eye. “No. Not at all.”
“Good,” Ayato said. He kissed Thoma’s brow, and then his wet cheek, and then ever so gently his lips. “Good,” he repeated. “I shall protect it, your soft heart.”
“You do not play fair,” Thoma breathed, trying to sound put out when Ayato could read his tender feelings like a book.
“Would you wish me to?”
“No.” He was pouting, and it was as cute as always, and as everything, so new and familiar at once. “I will do the same. I have made this pledge to you as the Commissioner, and to you as my friend. But I vow to protect you, Kamisato Ayato. I will protect and love the man that you are.” Thoma smiled, so tender and beautiful, and breathed like this was the confession: “The fool that you are, too.”
“What a lucky man I am, then,” Ayato murmured, and leaned in to kiss him again –
“Oh!” The both of them startled apart as if caught doing something actively working against the Raiden Shogun, rather than indulging in warm whispers. Ayaka stood in the open doorway, eyes wide as saucers, hands cupped in front of her mouth. “Oh!” she gasped, again, and then: “I am so sorry! Don’t mind me! Continue what you were doing!”
“Oh!” Lumine’s blonde head had popped out of the door behind her. The traveller smirked at them. “About time.”
“Lumine!” Ayaka gasped, chiding and scandalised and giggling all the while. “My apologies!” she called over her shoulder, pushing Lumine back into the teahouse.
Thoma buried his red face against Ayato’s shoulder. “I guess we don’t have to worry about telling Ayaka, huh?” he said, muffled.
Chuckling, Ayato buried his fingers in Thoma’s hair. It was so soft, and Thoma sighed and melted against him when Ayato gently scratched his nails along his scalp. “I guess we don’t have to, no.”
Maybe not so much had changed, after all. Maybe things would be novel and familiar all the way, but either way - with Thoma warm and real and solid in his arms there was no doubt in Ayato’s heart that they would meet each challenge together – and triumph.