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It started with her water. The building was old. The boiler was old. The pipes were old. So Nene Yashiro wasn’t exactly surprised when her hot water quit on her midway through filling up the bathtub one night. That was fine. There was a bathhouse just down the way that she could use if she really needed to. Just until the landlord got things working again.
She was surprised when her thermostat followed suit.
Nene woke up, freezing, in the grey hours of the morning. It wasn’t that she wasn’t tired. It was just that cold. Her breath fogged in the air of her bedroom and she could see ice frosting like a skin over the glass of water on her nightstand. And that definitely wasn’t right. Something was wrong. Outside, she could see snow coming down in thick, heavy flakes—the kind of snow that she would have adored as a girl. Fluffy. Sticky. Romantic. She might have gone to stand on her balcony and watch it fall had she not been in the process of freezing her toes off.
Rolling to her feet, she pushed her hair out of her face and wrapped herself in every blanket on her bed to shuffle over to the thermostat. She shivered under her blankets as she squinted at the little dial. It was like being in the goddamn arctic. Why hadn’t the heat come on?
The thermostat was no help. No comforting click as the air turned on when she cranked the dial first one way, then the other. And again, just to be sure. Just silence. Well and truly busted.
Damn.
She clutched her blankets and huffed into her hands to keep them warm, shuffling to the linen closet to get more blankets. She moved Indigo Cataphract’s enclosure out of her way as she slid the door open and—oh shit. Oh shit! Nene whirled on her heel and rushed to check the little cage. All silent. All still. No sign of her hamster anywhere in the dark. Shit shit shit shit shit—she’d lost Black Canyon a few years back when he’d just keeled over midway through his evening meal. A typical weird death for a hamster. Nothing she wasn’t used to. But she’d only had Indigo Cataphract for a year! He still had at least another year with her before he kicked it!
Nene flicked on the light and squinted into the little hamster house. If he’d turned into a little ice cube in the middle of the night she would be inconsolable. She didn’t know what she’d do.
Thankfully, she spotted him after a little investigating. Burrowed in the corner of his house beneath a soft layer of fill. Unmoving. She held her breath and cleared the fill away from his chilly little body. Waited. Staring.
There. A breath. And a few moments later, another. Tiny, shallow things. Nene sighed. The poor guy was hibernating. It was too cold for him.
Unsure what else to do, Nene grabbed his ball from the cupboard and lifted Indigo Cataphract out of his enclosure. Closed the ball around him, making sure the vents were clear and open, and tucked him into bed against her stomach. Hopefully she’d be able to keep him from freezing solid until she could call the landlord in the morning. If they couldn’t fix her heating fast, she might have to find somewhere else to stay. The forecast was only getting colder for the next week, and she didn’t like how high some of the snow was getting outside her window.
Sleep came slow. Even burrowed beneath her blankets with her hamster, she was still cold. And in the morning, there was only more snow on her balcony. More ice creeping up the panes on her windows. More short, tiny breaths as Indigo Cataphract tried his best to hibernate the cold away.
Nene spent the next morning crouching in the kitchen in front of her open oven, going full blast to try and keep warm as she sat on the phone with Aoi. Her landlord had said with all the snow that it would be at least a day before anyone could make it over to fix her heat. Disappointing, but not surprising. It just meant that she’d need to find a warmer place to stay until the repair guys arrived. Torpor wasn’t healthy for hamsters, and she didn’t want Indigo Cataphract to have to hibernate for any longer than he had to.
“I’m sure my heat’s still working,” Aoi said, “I turned it down before I left for the weekend, but my place is newer than yours. And I haven’t heard from any of the other tenants about our power or anything going out.”
“And you’re sure you’re fine with me crashing on your couch?” Nene blew on her fingers and held them out to the depths of the oven.
“Of course, I am! I don’t want you staying in a freezing cold apartment, Nene-chan! It’s not safe!”
Relieved, Nene thanked Aoi and hung up to go pack her things. She’d have to try and catch a bus to Aoi’s apartment—Nene’s cheaper rent was nice, but it sucked living so far from her best friend, especially now. She just hoped the buses were still running. She didn’t really have anywhere else she could go.
Her friend Kou and his family lived closer, but they were out of town for the winter holidays, and she didn’t have a key to their place, like she did to Aoi’s. And technically, one of her downstairs neighbors was a friend—Akane, Aoi’s on-again off-again boyfriend. But he and Aoi were off-again right now, and she didn’t feel right imposing on him. Especially because Akane and Nene weren’t any more than cordial to each other even when Akane and Aoi were on-again. It would be weird. The idea gave her hives. No, Aoi’s apartment might have been a trek, but it was a trek Nene was willing to make.
Armed with the go-ahead from Aoi, Nene gathered up a few changes of clothes, her toiletries, and Indigo Cataphract’s supplies, and stepped out into the cold to make her way to the bus stop.
She regretted it instantly. It was freezing. She could feel the warmth being sucked from the little bits of skin that were exposed to the elements within five seconds of being outside. The snow hadn’t stopped, either. Thick, pillowy drifts just like she’d been afraid of. Knee-high in places even on the roads. It was the worst snowstorm the city had seen in a long, long time. And there was no way any busses or cars would be able to make it on those roads.
“Dammit,” she hissed. It would risk frostbite, but she would have to walk.
“Yashiro?”
Nene spun on her heel; eyes wide. The door to unit 7 was cracked and she could see her neighbor leaning out, shoulders hunched against the chill. She hadn’t heard his door open, but she had three hats on, so she wasn’t exactly surprised. Even his voice had been more of a murmur against the armor over her ears.
“Oh!” her voice was muffled through the scarf around her face, “Um. Hello, Amane-kun.” She immediately felt her cheeks flush. She must look very silly, standing there in the middle of a blizzard on his doorstep. Nene and Amane were friendly. He was a good neighbor. They talked sometimes, between their balconies. Chatting about her garden or their jobs—he was a teacher, she knew, at the local high school. Science. Nene was a teacher, too, though she stuck to younger kids. Elementary-level. They both thought the other was absolutely insane. But that didn’t preclude them getting along like a house on fire. Amane helped her carry heavy bags of potting soil up the stairs from time to time, and she dropped off baked goods at his door when she made extra. Not, of course, for any particular reason. Just to be neighborly. Not because she’d been nursing a crush on him for the last six months.
But that was a lie.
Nene did have a crush on him. Embarrassing as that was. But it wasn’t her fault! It wasn’t her fault he was a horrible flirt. It wasn’t her fault that he’d only laughed at her a little bit when he’d had to come over and save her from the massive fuck-off spider that had kept her hostage on her balcony for two hours last July. And it definitely wasn’t her fault that he’d climbed between their balconies to do it! Which had just been gratuitous, really. Show-off.
Her romantic’s heart hadn’t stood a chance.
And here he was, in his fuzzy socks and turtleneck, his hair dark against the snow around them, bearing witness to her misfortune! She really had no luck whatsoever.
“What’re you even doing out here?” asked Amane, “I mean, it’s freezing, you—” his eyes caught on her bags, “…are you going somewhere?”
“…yes?”
“In this weather?”
“Y-yes…”
He smirked, “must be a special guy to get you to brave a blizzard.”
Nene felt her face heat even more, “Oh! No no no, I’m just—No! Absolutely not! I mean, I—the heat is out in my unit and, you know I have my hamster. The cold’s not good for him, I mean. He went into torpor this morning and I don’t want to risk him freezing to death or anything like that,” why couldn’t she stop rambling?! Amane always seemed to have this effect on her, and it wasn’t any kind of fair! There was just something about the sly, cheeky, boy-next-door energy he had that put her off her game. Only made worse by the fact that he seemed to know how cute he was, and was perfectly willing to use it to his advantage.
“So, you know,” Nene continued, floundering her way to her point, finally, “I’m gonna walk to my friend’s house to get him warm.”
Amane frowned, “Is your friend nearby?”
“N-not exactly.”
There was a pause, “So…Your heat is out. You’re worried about your hamster being too cold, so you’re going to walk who knows how long in below freezing weather to bring it somewhere warm, maybe getting frostbite and freezing the hamster anyway in the process. Did I get that right?”
She blushed, “Well. When you put it that way—”
Laughing, Amane stepped back to open his door a little more, spilling warm yellow light out onto his step, “You know, you don’t have to walk all the way across town in a snowstorm if you need a place to crash.”
Nene blinked. Was…was he offering to let her stay with him?
“…are you—”
“Yeah, I mean,” he shrugged, “it’s the neighborly thing to do, right?”
Oh sweet, blessed universe, why couldn’t she catch a fucking break?! Her gaze skimmed guiltily over the figure he cut in the doorway, knife-sharp angles softened by his sweater and the almost lazy way the light trailed over the planes of his face. He smiled. Nene’s cheeks blazed, “I-I couldn’t! I mean—I don’t want to impose.” She knew how small their apartments were. There wasn’t a lot of room for guests, and the close quarters would surely kill her if given the chance. There was no way she could survive.
“You’re not imposing—look,” he leaned on his doorjamb and Nene’s stomach did a clumsy little flip at how soft he looked, lounging there, “I’m just gonna stand here with my door open until you come inside. So if you really want to make my life easier, you should get in here before I let all the heat out. Yeah?”
Dammit.
That was all it took. With one last bashful assurance that, really, he didn’t need to do this—to which Amane responded that yes, actually, he did—she shuffled awkwardly inside and let him shut the door behind her.
Nene shrugged off her coat and subsequent five other layers, but before she could do the awkward fold up your coat and leave it on the floor so as not to take up too much space, Amane had already shouldered open the door to his cramped little coat closet and was snatching the parka out of her arms to hang it up for her, “Oh—thank you,” she mumbled.
He winked, “Complimentary coat check. As you can see, this is a very fancy establishment.” She smiled and knelt to take off her boots, leaving them pooling snowy water in the entryway. Then, she followed Amane into the apartment proper.
Amane’s apartment was a mirror of her own. Everything that was on the right side in her place was on the left in his, and vice versa. It was disorientating, looking to the right and seeing the bedroom door where her kitchen entryway should be. Everything designed to catch her slightly off-balance. Put her at a disadvantage.
She’d never really been inside his apartment before. Had popped in once to borrow a screwdriver, but had never gone any farther than the entryway. It was nice. Not exactly tidy, but not messy either. There were plenty of things scattered around the place, but all of them seemed to be where they should be, at least as much as was necessary for whatever off-kilter organizational strategy he used.
“Where should…I mean, is there a good place for him?” she hefted Indigo Cataphract’s cage a little higher in her arms, unsure where she should put him down.
“Eh, anywhere’s fine,” said Amane. He meandered into the kitchen and she heard the telltale sound of the stove turning on, “I can clear some room off a bookshelf, if you want.”
Nene’s stomach clenched, “No, it’s fine. He can just…” she bobbed aimlessly for a moment, before putting the cage down safely on the floor, near the warm slats of a heating vent, “he can live here, for now.”
She surveyed the arrangement, not wanting to put the cage too close to the heater for fear of melting some of the plastic bits; and almost jumped out of her skin as Amane stepped close behind her and propped his chin up on her shoulder. “So, what’s his name?”
“Oh!” she pressed a hand to her chest and swiveled to glare at her host, who smiled back at her with oblivious innocence, “it’s…Indigo Cataphract.”
Amane whistled, “Big name for a little guy.”
“It’s a good name.” Nene scrunched up her face, immediately on the defensive. Most people made fun of her pet names, but she didn’t see why a pet had to be named dumb things like Lucky or Princess and not something cool like Emerald Destiny or Blazing Miracle. Amane, it seemed, was no different. He snickered and turned back to the kitchen.
“I never said it wasn’t.”
“Then why are you laughing?” she snapped, trotting after him with her hands on her hips.
“Because it’s funny,” he said, and busied himself filling a little pot with milk, “You’re funny, Yashiro. You know that, right?”
“Funny?” Nene’s cheeks warmed indignantly.
Amane’s smile vanished as he turned around and saw the look on her face, “Oh. Um. Good funny, I mean. Not making fun of you funny. I swear. Now,” he opened a cupboard and pulled out a pair of mugs for her inspection, “which one do you want?”
Her options, it seemed, were, Cougar in Training, or I’d Rather Be Fishing. She went with the latter.
“I didn’t peg you for a novelty mug guy,” she said, turning the mug over in her hands as Amane attended to the pot.
He shrugged, “My brother gets them for me. He’s on a mission to find one that I won’t use. But I’m not about to let that happen.”
“What’s the worst one so far?” Nene felt in her heart that she’d regret it, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
Amane paused to rummage around in the cupboard again, before he pulled down an all-black mug with Post-Nut Clarity printed big and wide across it, “It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just kind of lazy. He could do better, I think.”
Nene snorted to keep up appearances, but averted her eyes from the text, nonetheless.
Amane finished his work with the stove and passed Nene her mug—now full up with hot cocoa. He smiled, and she felt her heart flutter, “Wanna watch a movie?”
“S-sure,” she said, and took a sip of her drink.
So, they did. Amane set up his laptop on the kotatsu and they huddled together underneath as the day grew old around them. They watched Ultraman and a couple no-name, low budget horror movies before breaking for lunch. Then, Nene recommended her favorite new animated slice-of-life show, and they ended up watching very nearly the entire first season before they realized that it was now full dark, and they’d ended up missing dinner by several hours.
“You’ve got me hooked, Yashiro,” he said, as she helped him in the kitchen—Nene was adamant that he not put himself out over her staying with him, and had ventured next door for a moment to grab some extra dinner supplies.
She smiled, and turned her knife to the bell peppers she’d brought over, “It’s cute, right?”
“It’s adorable.”
In her pocket, Nene’s phone buzzed. Probably Aoi. Nene had called her around lunch time to tell her about her change of plans, to which Aoi had been extremely sympathetic. Moreso than was entirely wholesome. Aoi was well aware of Nene’s crush on her neighbor, and she’d been trying to push Nene into asking him out for the last month.
Nene-chan and Yugi-kun in close quarters during the blizzard of the century! She’d squealed, and Nene had been very glad that Amane was in the other room and would be unable to overhear her best friend being utterly embarrassing. The romance practically writes itself! If you don’t make a move, I’ll never forgive you.
I’m not going to make a move!
At least be sure to snuggle up to him for warmth.
No!
And then Amane had returned from the bathroom, and Nene had been forced to hang up unceremoniously on Aoi. A crime that she was certain Aoi would never let her live down.
Nene passed Amane her bell peppers and checked her phone. It was, indeed, Aoi.
>>Staying warm? ;)))
“Ugh.”
“What’s up?” Amane asked, leaning over her shoulder like he was about to look at her phone.
She scrambled to turn the screen off and shoved her phone back into her pocket, “Nothing! Nothing, just—um. My friend is being embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?”
“Y-yeah,” she laughed, “you know, I let her know I wasn’t going to her house, and now she’s teasing me about it.”
“Why?”
“Oh…well. Um.” She couldn’t very well tell him the truth, “She’s just making jokes about sending me snowshoes so I can walk to her place after all. Dumb stuff like that.”
“Ah.” Thankfully, this seemed to satisfy him, and they finished making dinner with no further interruptions.
Outside, the snow continued to fall. Fat, fluffy flakes catching like moths in the light above Amane’s balcony. But inside, all was warm. All was good. Nene and Amane ate their dinner and she helped him wash up after, chatting about whether or not they should try to push through and finish binging the show they’d been watching earlier.
“It’s only five more episodes,” he said, “I can muscle through if you can.”
Nene was a little surprised, “That’ll take us to,” she did some math, “one? Is that still okay?”
“Easy,” he said, “You don’t know this about me, Yashiro, but I don’t sleep. Like. In general.”
“Don’t you?”
“Absolutely not. I’m too powerful for eight hours a night.”
She laughed, “if you say so.”
“I do,” he grinned and moved to grab their mugs from the living room, “more cocoa?”
“Please.”
Nene had forgotten that the end of the first season was a bit of a cliffhanger. Amane was furious. How could she even think about putting a stop to their marathon? How could she make him wait even a moment longer before finding out what the letter Yuma received from Junji really said?
So Nene caved, and they watched more, even as her eyelids drooped and she found herself slouching farther and farther under the comforting warmth of his kotatsu. Amane, at least, seemed to have no problem staying awake. Apparently, all-nighters were normal for him in a way they weren’t for Nene. She hadn’t pulled an all-nighter since college.
Her phone buzzed somewhere nearby, but she couldn’t be bothered to sit up and look for it.
The show continued.
She yawned, trying her best to watch the show through her eyelashes. Her phone went off again. It had really been going crazy this last hour. She blinked hard to try and wake up. Beside her, Amane laughed, “Tired?”
“Mmn. Guess I’m just…not as powerful as you.”
“That’s not true,” he said, and she flinched as he reached over and ruffled her bangs fondly. "Here, I’ll be right back. You wake yourself up a little and then we can go to bed when we finish this episode.”
“Sounds good,” she mumbled, and slapped her cheeks to shock herself into coherency. Amane grinned and strode off into the kitchen. For what, she had no idea.
Her phone went off again.
Nene growled and snatched it from the floor beside her—it must have fallen out of her pocket at some point. What the hell could anyone want at this hour? She held it up to her eyes, blinking blearily as the lock screen came into focus.
>> DON’T IGNORE MEEEEEE!!!
What? Who was she ignoring? She tried to tap in her passcode, but nothing happened. She was too tired for this shit. Nene sighed and touched the little text banner, opening up the latest messages without actually unlocking the phone.
There were so many.
>Tsukasa:
>>have you copped a feel yet?!
>>You gotta tell me if you have
>Tsukasa:
>>COME ONNNNNN
>Tsukasa:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(tradition)
>Tsukasa:
>>Maybe if you ask nice, she’ll let you kiss her! Since you wanna do it so bad!
>Tsukasa:
>>Amane and Yashiro-san sitting in a tree
>>K
>>I
>>S
>>S
>>I
>>N
>>G
>Tsukasa:
>>HEYYYY
>>HEEEEEYYYYYYY AMANEEEEEEEEE
>Tsukasa:
>> DON’T IGNORE MEEEEEE!!!
“Okay, ready to churn through this last episode?” Amane stepped back into the living room and stopped. Nene stared at him, her sleep-deprived brain still trying to parse what she’d just read. His eyes flicked from her to the phone in her hand and he went pale. Nene’s stomach dropped.
Shit.
Shit.
“This…isn’t my phone,” she said.
“No, it’s not,” he murmured. And all the pieces clicked into place.
Nene dropped his phone onto the surface of the kotatsu as if it had burned her, “I—I’m so sorry! I thought it was mine, I—I didn’t mean to—” she could feel the heat radiating off her face. An inverse match for the pallor that had overtaken Amane’s cheeks. He was blanched. She boiled. “I would never—I really thought, I mean—I’m so sorry, I was just so out of it, I don’t even know what to—”
Amane held up a hand, and Nene bit her tongue to shut herself up. Silently, he paced across the room and crouched to grab his phone. She watched him take a deep breath, as if readying himself for a blow, before he turned the screen toward himself and set his eyes on the notification feed.
He swallowed once, throat bobbing, and then set the phone back, face down on the kotatsu. He sat down. His face betrayed nothing.
“…did you read…all of it?”
“I—” her voice came out high and breathless—barely in the range of human hearing, “I didn’t mean to.”
Amane closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
She felt awful. It was a horrid breach of privacy, to read someone else’s texts. But she really hadn’t meant to. It truly was an honest accident. She just hoped he could forgive her mistake. Fidgeting, Nene twisted her fingers in her sweater, trying to ease the pressure in her limbs; and Amane let out a long, slow breath.
“I. Um,” his voice was low and quiet. Perfectly controlled, “I’ll understand if you’re uncomfortable. If you—y’know—don’t want to stay here, anymore.”
Her mind blanked, “…what?”
“My brother doesn’t know when to shut up—I just—” he pressed his fingers into his temples as she watched, the veneer of calm fracturing just a bit at the edges. Color started to blossom up into his ears, “I don’t—I…um…yeah.” He let out a breath through his teeth, “Fuck this is so awkward.”
He…wasn’t angry? Nene tried to shift gears. Her brain’s transmission churning as she struggled to figure out what he was talking about. He wasn’t mad. He was…embarrassed? But she’d read his texts. It didn’t make sense. He should be upset at her—even if it was an accident. She’d seen—she’d read—
Have you copped a feel yet?!
Oh.
Oh dear.
Nene didn’t think it was possible to blush any more than she already was, but she managed it. Her face felt like it was on fire. But below the bright sting of mortification, something hopeful stirred to life in her chest.
“A-Amane-kun?”
“I need you to know, I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” he blushed and averted his eyes, fingers drumming furiously on the table, “he’s just…just being dumb—saying shit. But, like I said, it’s okay if—”
She balled her hands into fists and took a deep breath, “Do you like me, Amane-kun?”
He choked, “Wh-what?”
Nene forced herself to look at him, “Do you like me? Is—is that what those were about?”
Amane’s jaw worked for a moment, embarrassment and reluctance forcing him into a furious kind of silence. But, nonetheless, he nodded. Tight and mechanical. He nodded.
The hopeful thing between her lungs burned. And Nene, hesitantly, like he would vanish if she moved too fast, reached out and covered his hand with hers, “Then…it’s okay.”
His fingers twitched, “…What?”
“It’s okay,” she said, “because…because I like you, too.”
“You—” he blinked, “What?”
“I’ve liked you for a while, now. Since July, at least. But,” she risked a frightened glance up at him, “I was too nervous to say anything.”
“…July?”
Nene nodded, “So…is it okay if I stay?”
“Y-you…” Amane’s voice was so faint; she almost didn’t hear it over the heater kicking on. Just a breath, barely audible as he stared at her with wide eyes. He blinked, seemed to try to recover himself, “…Yes.”
She couldn’t be sure who moved first. Whether Amane broke their standoff, or if Nene leaned in before he could. But the next thing she knew, she was halfway over the surface of the kotatsu with her arms around his neck, kissing him like her life depended on it. And it really wasn’t fair that something she’d wanted to do for so long was ending up being even better than she’d ever imagined. It made her realize just how tepid her powers of visualization were.
“I really am sorry,” she mumbled between kisses, “I honestly thought it was my phone—”
“Don’t care,” Amane said, hauling her the rest of the way into his lap. And the way his hands fit around the curve of her waist set rabid butterflies loose in her stomach, “just kiss me.”
Nene obliged.
The last episode of their show was utterly forgotten in the rush of him. In the softness of his hair between her fingers; the solid presence of him against her chest; his arms pinning her in, cradling her close. All her faculties were focused on him, and the world fell away.
Or, it would have. If Amane’s phone hadn’t started vibrating insistently in her ear. He fumbled around for it, not even breaking off kissing her as he slammed the Ignore Call button and threaded his fingers immediately back into her hair. But whoever was calling him wasn’t about to be ignored. They had about ten seconds of uninterrupted silence before the phone went off again—incessant, refusing to be cast aside.
“Dammit,” he hissed, breaking away from her to scoop up the irritating thing and shove it unceremoniously to his ear, “What, Tsukasa?”
“You wouldn’t answer my texts!” His brother’s voice was muffled against his cheek, but Nene was close enough to hear him clearly.
Amane rolled his eyes and Nene stifled a giggle against his shoulder, “Yeah, I’m watching a movie, I’m not gonna text you all the way through it.”
“Why do you sound out of breath?”
“None of your business.”
“Oh shit—Are you getting some?!” Nene had to clap a hand over her mouth to stifle her embarrassed squeak.
Amane shot her a simmering glare, free arm tightening around waist in warning, “I wouldn’t tell you even if I was. Can I hang up now?”
“No! You can’t ice me out like this! It’s twin law! You have to tell me!”
“I’m not telling you shit.”
“Is she there?! Hi Yashiro-san! We’ve never met, but Amane talks about you all the time!”
“She can’t hear you.”
“I don’t believe you—Yashiro-san! Has Amane told you that he’s obsessed with your—” Amane hung up on him.
“Bastard,” he grumbled, tossing his phone aside.
Nene giggled, “He sounds nice.”
“He’s not,” Amane said, and reached up to pinch her nose, making her flinch, “and he can never find out how this happened. Understand?”
She swatted him away, laughing, “What do you mean?”
“If he finds out that we got together because you read his dumb messages, his head’ll be too big to fit through the door. He’ll never let either of us forget it. So, he can’t know. Got it?”
She grinned, “got it.”
“Cool,” he said, and kissed her, sending her brain into a dizzy spell all over again. But something he’d said needled at her. She pulled back, smiling shyly.
“So…we’re together?”
Amane blinked, and she watched as a mischievous grin cracked across his face, “…if that’s alright with you.”
Nene nodded, “Very.”
“Good,” he squeezed her around the middle, nose scrunching up with the force of his smile, “Now. Can I kiss you again?”
“Not if I kiss you first,” she smirked. Amane laughed, but there were no complaints forthcoming as Nene leaned back in and kissed him soundly.
She was just sending up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever gods had decided to dump so much snow on them, glowing with happiness and very much appreciating the soft texture of his sweater under her fingers when there came another rumble from his phone. Amane groaned in frustration. Nene stifled a giggle, pulling away to glance at it, “Aren’t you gonna check it?”
“It’s just gonna be something stupid,” he said.
“Or it could be something important.”
“Fine, since you’re so nosy,” he stretched to the side to grab his phone from where he’d tossed it. Without glancing at the screen, he passed it to Nene, “go ahead, sate your curiosity. But I’m telling you now, it’s probably dumb.”
Nene grinned, trying to wriggle away from him as he pulled her close and kissed her cheek, her jaw, her throat, “Stop it! I’m trying to read!”
“Sorry,” another kiss, “Can’t.”
Nene rolled her eyes and squinted at the screen.
>Tsukasa:
>>remember to use protection! >:3c
“Oh my—” Nene gasped and made a strangled warbling noise. She dropped his phone, very nearly throwing it to get it away from her, blushing furiously and covering her face to hide her embarrassment.
“What?!” Amane released her to retrieve it and look for himself. She watched through her fingers as he opened the message and color blossomed up his face and into his ears. His jaw clenched, “Dammit, Tsukasa,” he dropped the phone and ran a hand over his face, “I’m so sorry he’s like this.”
“It’s…fine.” Nene couldn’t even look at him. She curled into herself, hiding her face in his shoulder, blushing all the way down to her neck. She wanted to vanish.
They sat there in mortified silence for a moment, mood thoroughly ruined, before Amane sighed and flopped back onto his elbows. He looked up at her, cheeks flushed, hair tousled, and really hot for it—even if he looked like he wanted to dissolve into the floor from embarrassment, “So. Um. Sleep?”
Nene considered this. She was still very tired. And there really wasn’t anything precluding her from kissing him again, later. When she was less flustered, “Yeah,” she mumbled, “That’s—that’s fine with me.”
Amane let her use the bathroom first, then, when they were both dressed in their pajamas, he grabbed her hand and tugged her gently in the direction of the bedroom. Nene blushed, “R-really?”
He smirked, “Come on, Yashiro,” he said, and gestured out the window, where great flurries of snow whipped by, illuminated by flickering streetlights, “Just think of it as huddling for warmth. Like penguins.”
She laughed but let herself be tugged along, anyway. Tucked herself into the bed beside him and yawned. Already relaxed. Already sleepy. Amane pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and pulled her close, folding himself around her.
“Is it bad if I kind of don’t want them to fix your heat anytime soon?” he murmured into the dark.
Nene snorted, and cuddled up a little closer to him as the wind picked up outside—moaning between the window panes and sending snow hissing against the glass. She could just see the flakes whirling by through the gaps in his blinds and couldn’t help but be glad of the warmth in his apartment. The comfort of being beside him, in his arms.
“I think it’s fine,” she said, yawning again, “I’m kind of hoping they don’t fix it soon, either.”