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Yuuta could hardly find it in himself to be bothered when he was caught, once again, lingering outside the infirmary door. Semi-regular appointments for physical therapy, as permitted by their hectic schedules, helped Toge find his balance in the world. It also meant that, semi-regularly, Yuuta could be found in one predictable location.
“Well, it started to rain,” he murmured, gaze fixed on Toge’s profile, to explain his presence this time. Toge leaned just ever so slightly out from under their shelter at the door, and Yuuta could feel the faint fond smile grow on his lips, the tender throb of his heart. There was just something about witnessing the gentle spread of childlike glee on Toge’s face.
He liked the rain. Yuuta remembered that, from one sleepless night when he was new to Tokyo Tech, and he’d wandered through the dorms like a ghost. He’d found Toge at the door to the porch, with it propped open, draped in a blanket and wonder as lightning danced across the sky.
Yuuta hadn’t known how to sign yet, hadn’t really known how to communicate with his companion very well in the slightest, not without a pen and paper or endless strings of texted notes. Some things didn’t need words, though.
A clap of thunder had made him fretfully jump, nerves on edge not long after he’d sat down, and Toge’s hand had found his in the dark amidst the flickers of lightning. He squeezed Yuuta’s fingers every time he flinched, and each flash Yuuta caught of his face showed him awe in the midst of the tempest, calmed his heart and grounded him.
They hadn’t needed words to convey anything then; they just let the drumming of the rain thread its way into the silence.
Toge’s hand found his in the present, a questioning quirk to his head, tipping toward the rain splattered walkway with the puddles spilling from the grass.
“We’ll get wet, though,” he said, voice thin with a weak whine, as though that were the worst thing they could weather. Toge tugged his hand again, pulled his palm toward the rain, eyes sparkling with mischief over the edge of his dark mask. He didn’t care, and Yuuta knew that. Toge knew that he would give in if he pressed enough, because Yuuta was a doting friend, if nothing else, who always wanted to do whatever his friends wanted, wanted to always see the glee on their faces.
Maybe Toge knew just how weak Yuuta was to him, in particular, but for all Toge liked gossip, this would be something he sealed away to the end of his days.
“Only if we hurry,” he relented. His eyes ticked over Toge’s shape, the thin t-shirt that hung from his shoulders, which would soak through in a heartbeat. “I don’t want you to get sick,” he amended. “You’ll get so cold.” Yuuta knew he only looked slender and whip thin, but even the steel that made his bones would warp under the pressure of a cold if it crept into his throat.
Toge rolled his eyes, but took a step and tugged Yuuta out from under the awning. The rain washed over him in an instant, slicking down the white of his shirt to expose the navy blue underneath. Yuuta wanted to whine again and hate it, wanted to maybe get ahead of the joke that he looked like a drowned rat, but Toge swung their hands together with a breathy laugh that was almost swallowed by the steady patter of rain. He took an extra wide step to keep up with Yuuta’s strides, splashing into a puddle recklessly. It sloshed over Yuuta’s foot.
It was fine; he was already going to be soaked by the time they got to the dorm.
Yuuta could hardly look at the path with Toge beside him like this, bright eyed, cheeks rounded over his mask. It was hard to find happiness like that right now, and Yuuta would drink it up whenever he could; he’d do anything to make Toge that happy again.
The walk from the infirmary to the dorm wasn’t that long. Perhaps Yuuta had overexaggerated it in his mind, convoluted the trip with worry when he just wanted to keep Toge warm and safe, without thinking—it was only rain, afterall.
Toge tugged him to a run when they were within sight, zigzagging to make sure they would hit each puddle with silly abandon, letting the water splash up to their knees. Yuuta couldn’t help but let the worry go, finally letting it slosh away into the puddles at their feet. A laugh peeled from his throat, and Toge’s hand squeezed his more firmly, fingers lacing tenderly between Yuuta’s.
They crowded onto the tiny porch, sheltered from the insistent drum of the rain.
Yuuta shook the water from his hair like a dog, let it flick against Toge, who knocked into his shoulder, giggling loud enough to be heard, cursed energy tickling against Yuuta’s skin.
“That was fun,” he admitted. “We should get inside, though.” Before the chill set in, before the breath of wind that whispered between the drops could fling them sideways, keeping them perpetually wet.
Toge’s eyes were on him, maybe a moment from giving his first vocalized word of the day, spread thin as they were of late, when a blue flicker of lightning flashed across the sky. Toge’s shoulder bumped into his as he turned his head, blond hair slicked down across his forehead, over his ears. His fingers squeezed a soft pulse against Yuuta’s once more, a shiver of anticipation.
Yuuta held his breath as the thunder rolled over them, exhaled at the wonder that washed over Toge’s face.
He liked the noise of the thunder, he’d written, sometime between their first storm and now. Poetic, when Yuuta hardly knew this quiet boy, could hardly tell what space he’d grow to occupy in Yuuta’s heart. He liked the noise, he’d written, the pause of nature as it struck, how the frogs and insects in the wood stopped their calling and the world fell away, an inhale before the symphony started anew.
Yuuta hadn’t known then, but he did now, knew without a doubt that Toge had taken root in his heart, tangled vines through his ribs that would never let him go.
Toge’s head dipped to his shoulder, chin pushing against him as he tried to shift his sodden mask. He couldn’t remove it with Yuuta occupying his hand, and the wet of the fabric had to be difficult to breathe through.
Without thinking, Yuuta reached up with his free hand, slipping fingers beneath the elastic and shifting the loop. Toge distractedly let him, head tipping to let Yuuta free him of it entirely. He pocketed it for later, watching Toge’s lips quirk into a grateful little smile, the seal on his cheek pulling with the soft expression. His lilac eyes flickered toward him, then back to the storm.
Yuuta watched the path of a raindrop as it beaded from Toge’s hair, tracked over his brow and traced over his cheekbone.
Yuuta always held back, kept his hands to himself, kept the lines between them firm, even when they bent so close to breaking. He wondered often if Toge could feel the same for him, if he was just as staunchly afraid of their barriers falling.
What would happen if they did?
What would happen if he let go of Toge’s hand? What if he were to reach up, just so, to brush away the water as it slid across his skin, a soundless promise to do the same for frustrated tears Yuuta had always been useless to stop.
Would anything really change between them? If Yuuta, for the first time in so many years, were to let his chest peel open, to put his heart in someone else's hands, rather than keep it locked away, love hidden and collected all for himself.
The lightning flashed and Yuuta breathed out with it. “Toge?” It was almost a whisper. Maybe it was better if it wasn’t heard, because he wouldn’t ask, couldn’t ask. Toge looked at him, though, a question in the arch of his fair brows. Another drop shook free, caressed the bridge of his nose, and Yuuta couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop himself from turning, from reaching up and brushing it away, his thumb trailing down, swiping to collect the one that clung to his cheek. Toge didn’t pull away, didn’t flinch under his touch. His smile spread wider, grew warmer, but his skin was chilled when he tilted his cheek into Yuuta’s palm.
His eyes traced over Yuuta’s face, pinned him there; there was no way for him to back down, not while Toge still held his hand, froze him in his grasp. It was too soft, too gentle, too close.
The thunder rumbled slowly over them, a crescendo building to rattle them down to their bones, to shake open the cage of his ribs.
In the silence that echoed after, Yuuta bridged the gap between them, the space that had for so long existed over the precipice of his fear. Their lips pressed together, hasty and chapped and tinted with the chill of the rain.
Toge didn’t pull away.
He breathed a sigh against Yuuta’s lips, gentle like he always was, the sense of a word in the quiet sound.
Finally.
Once, Yuuta hadn’t known how to communicate with Toge, had been afraid to start, and he had held the two of them apart. He’d hoped timidly for more, and had never considered the reality that he’d been holding them back once again.
He didn’t deepen the kiss, left it a chaste promise as his lips trailed to Toge’s cheek, let his fingers slip back across his jaw to the tangled strands of his soaked blond hair to tuck him close. There would be a time for heat, he was sure, but not for now.
The world came to life around them in the wake of the rumble of thunder, and they let the sound break around them.