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You lean against the door frame of Nanami's study.
He's outlined by the desk lamp, bathed in the soft orange glow of a summer sunset. His shadowed brow is furrowed, his wire-rimmed glasses perched low on his nose. He flips steadily through the files he's sorting.
It seems mundane. But there's so much more to it. It's in the softened set of his shoulders; the way he idly gnaws at a pen; the soft fall of his mussed, loose hair around his sharp, handsome features.
At his most vulnerable, Nanami Kento is simply ordinary.
(It's the only chance he ever gets at it.)
"Kento?"
He hums an inquiring noise, a low, rich resonance that settles warm into you. He doesn't look up.
"Kento," you say flatly.
His hands go still on the papers. He glances up at you, and blinks as he takes in the bankers box—ferreted out during your approved re-organization of the hallway's closet to accommodate more of your things—you have propped on one hip. He leans back in his chair, raking a hand through his hair. It spills golden through his fingertips. You watch the way his fingers flex, the push of his tendons beneath his skin.
"Snooping?" he asks.
"Yeah," you say cheerfully. "Gojo promised me densuke watermelon if i found something embarrassing."
Nanami grimaces.
You push off of the door frame and settle yourself on the floor, the box in front of you. Nanami considers you for a minute, but he pushes his chair back and kneels on the floor too. He firmly ignores your grin.
"And what have you found?"
"Dunno," you say. "You tell me."
The box is still taped shut.
(You're at lunch when Gojo—who showed up twenty minutes in, towing Shoko behind him, having charmed the hostess into bringing two more chairs to your table, which is decidedly meant for two—asks you what you think about Nanami's apparently questionable taste in decor. Nanami's hand flexes, all of the scars that dapple his knuckles going white, like little stars burning hot.
I'll let you know, you say with a laugh. Haven't seen it yet.
Shoko's brow rises.
Your space is your own, you tell Nanami after. You're walking back to campus. The back of your hand is brushing against his, skin on skin, a hint of warmth in the settling chill of fall. You get to choose when to let me in.
Nanami doesn't say anything. But his pinky brushes against yours, and then he's twining them together. He doesn't look at you, but the tips of his ears have gone rosy.
You smile.)
You don't push, but you also don't let opportunities slip past you.
Nanami pulls the box closer. For a moment, his big hands rest on the top of it, his fingers curled over the rim. You lean back on your hands; you're not one to tell him what he already knows.
He splits the tape beneath a fingernail.
He pulls out a few thin binders. You realize they're photo albums, and though you've always given Nanami his space, your fingertips itch.
Nanami is not much for pictures. He tolerates it at times, but most of your pictures are stealthy candids. Your phone background is a slightly blurry selfie—Nanami's fast asleep with you curled into his side, your little smile sleepy and puckish and warm. Nanami grumbled about it the first time he saw it, but he wasn't particularly sneaky when he texted it to himself from your phone.
The albums are worn at the edges, the leather of their spines starting to crack, a delicate cobweb of age.
"Are those—"
"Pictures from my childhood, yes," Nanami says.
You fidget. "Can I?"
His eyes flicker to you. In the low light, the brown of them has darkened. You think of the gleam of topaz in the sun, the color deepened by the curve of the shadows.
"Alright."
You open the album he hands you immediately. It's meticulously organized, little labels in neat handwriting below each snapshot. The photos lack the crisp definition of today's pictures, and it softens them, drapes them with nostalgia.
"Oh, Kento," you breathe, looking at the first picture. It's a true baby photo. He's tiny, mid-yawn, his face scrunched up from it. His cheeks are puffed out, and his hair makes you think of wheat sheaves, pale golden and wispy.
You watch him grow through pictures—all shy little smiles and scraped knees and laughter and the occasional grin so wide it's like the horizon, expansive and never-ending. His chubby baby cheeks last through those early years.
There's a shift that starts when he's maybe four or five. Sometimes, he's looking past the camera, his bottom lip threatening to wobble. His smiles shrink, wilting like the last flowers of summer. You touch his solemn little face lightly.
"I'm the only sorcerer in my family," Nanami says.
It had been hard enough for you, seeing those spindly centipede legs attached to sharp-toothed mouths, even with generations of sorcerers behind you.
There's a moment of quiet, a space laid bare, but Nanami doesn't elaborate.
You suppose he doesn't need to.
You take the second album from him. You'd like to see more of the first, but you'll wait. There's a rawness just beneath his skin. Some wounds never quite heal.
He's a sharp-eyed toddler, his umber eyes keen even then. It's obvious even in the photos. You flicker through them, cooing here and there. Nanami shifts, his ears tinted pink.
"You were so cute," you say, tracing a finger over the curve of his chubby cheek, leaving a smudge on the laminate.
"Was I?"
"Mhmm," you say, glancing up at him. "what happened?"
"Brat," Nanami says, rolling his eyes, and you shriek with laughter as he drags you into his lap. You try to wiggle free, but he doesn't let you, wrapping a strong arm around your waist. He drops a kiss on the slice of skin revealed by your collar. His lips are warm. Familiar.
You splay your hand out over the album. Over the remnants of his childhood. "Will you tell me about some of the photos?" you ask.
He's quiet for a moment. Then he picks up the last album, lying untouched, and opens it. It falls open to a page where the edges of the laminate are slightly yellowed, worn thin by touch.
He nudges at you, directs your attention to a slightly faded polaroid.
"My father loved bluebells," he says. "My mother planted what felt like hundreds of them."
He taps a finger against the picture. He can't be more than three, outfitted in a pair of corduroy overalls streaked with dirt, a plastic spade in hand, his spun-gold hair wind-ruffled, and a grin just as golden.
"I used to help. Hinder, really, but still."
You lean back into the cradle of his chest, listening to the soft, rich rumble of his voice. It settles warm into your bones, twines up your nerves like silk, weaves around you like home.
You lean back, and Nanami keeps talking.
He keeps letting you in.