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It’s an unusually cold night, cloudy and moonless and with a fierce wind that nips at uncovered faces and hands unfortunate enough to be ungloved; but even that apparently hasn’t deterred people from coming to Masa’s temple to make the traditional New Year’s Eve shrine visit. Minato and Shuu are among such people, though only because Shuu insisted despite Minato’s best efforts to make him change his mind.
“We can go in the morning,” Minato had said. “It’ll probably be less crowded, anyway. Masa’s temple is really popular for midnight shrine visits.”
But Shuu had simply smiled his soft smile, the one that Minato likes to think that only he has the privilege of receiving, and that, apparently, was that; and here they now are, shivering amongst the throngs of fellow temple goers as they wait their turn in line to make their prayers.
“We’re almost there. Just a little bit longer,” Shuu whispers, and Minato shudders a bit, not from the cold, but rather from the warmth he feels when the other archer bumps his shoulder with his own. It’s the first time they’ve hung out for a significant amount of time, just the two of them, since they were children; and though their… friendship, or whatever it is that has developed between them, is comfortable and strong and leaves Minato with no doubt about Shuu’s yet unspoken affections, Minato can’t help but feel nervous whenever they are together, floating in the inbetween space of their relationship.
Shuu is, thankfully, right: It isn’t much longer until the two of them finally make it up to the top of the long set of steps leading up to the shrine. The clattering of the coins they toss into the box is muffled by the sounds of the crowd around them—Minato can’t help but laugh a little to himself at how Shuu throws in not one, but two 500 yen coins. They laugh as they struggle to shake the thick rope hanging from the bell, slightly frayed and so rough compared to the slick wood of his kyudo bow that Minato is used to. As they stand in front of the shrine—clap! clap!—Minato peeks up into the sky before he bows his head; their laugh, his and Shuu’s, is up there with the stars they cannot see, echoing for an eternity as the sound between them.
I wish that Shuu and I will be able to shoot together again, his heart sings into the winter night. So that he won’t ever forget me. Beside him, he is sure that he can hear the soft rhythm of Shuu’s breathing, and he wonders with a full heart if Shuu is thinking about him, too.
“What did you wish for?” Shuu asks as they make their way towards the stand selling charms and trinkets. Minato looks at him, at his porcelain beauty tinged with red from the cold, the elegant fingers he thinks he can still see even while hidden underneath woolen gloves.
“If I tell you, it won’t come true,” he protests. Shuu laughs, then bumps Minato’s shoulder again, the warmth of him lingering.
“Then I won’t tell you my wish either,” he says, and the feeling of his gloved hands suddenly clutching Minato’s own is like fire, illuminating their way into the new year.