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Niragi likes to think of himself as chaotically organized. Somebody who thrives on chaos, but whose chaos has a specific kind of order to it, one only he himself is able to see and to use to his advantage.
Look at his mornings, for example. He’s by no means a morning person, but workplace policy dictates him sitting at his desk at 7:30 on the dot. Which means that, naturally, he has perfected his daily routine to savor every single delicious second of sleep he can while also never being too late.
To achieve that, his mornings look like this:
He gets up at 6:45, spends five minutes on chugging a burning cup of horrendous instant coffee (he needs the caffeine and something warm in the mornings but doesn't care for the taste of coffee, so instant coffee is just fine in his eyes), eleven minutes on his bathroom routine, and is out of the door of his apartment and in the foyer of his complex by 7:04 to catch the bus that leaves at 7:15 a few streets away. Sure, other people would get up five minutes earlier in case something goes wrong, but it works every day, without fail, and as an engineer, he knows not to fix anything that isn't broken.
The only hiccup, if you even want to call it that, is that his schedule doesn't allow for last minute adjustments once he's already out the door. Like, for example, returning to his apartment for a fucking umbrella.
Niragi stands in the foyer, stuck between the stairs and the doors to the outside world, and stares miserably at the curtains of rain that are pouring heavily from the sky. A look at his phone tells him that, yes, the weather forecast is seeing the same thing he is and, no, he doesn't have three miraculous minutes to spare. It's his schedule, after all, and it's 7:04, just like it is every day.
"Fuck."
"Are you alright?", a worried voice asks from behind him.
Niragi jumps and manages to keep in a startled squeal before turning around and facing the person who joined him in the foyer.
He's greeted by shaggy black hair, dark eyes reminiscent of a doe staring at her fawn, and a soft, careful smile. It's the new guy who recently moved into Aguni's old apartment after Aguni finally tied the knot with his partner of many years (and questionable fashion taste) and moved in with him instead.
Niragi happens to already know the new guy's name, because while he tries to be as inconspicuous and low-key as possible these days, the caretaker of the place had somehow gotten wind of the fact that Niragi "works with computers" and therefore "surely knows how to operate a printer."
Yes, Niragi gets hired pretty regularly to print out the name tags for the bell and for the post box. And he does it free of charge. Surprised? He is as well, but he vowed to be a better person in any way he could a few years ago, and if that means using his clearly superior understanding of all things tech to print out a few name tags, then so be it.
Anyhow, Niragi knows that the man standing in front of him and staring at him with those deep brown eyes is called Arisu Ryouhei.
He has already managed to catch a few glances of him here and there, pleasantly surprised by the fact that he's almost as tall as Niragi is, but this is the first time he's seeing him up close and it kind of hits him out of nowhere that in addition to being tall, he's also undoubtedly handsome, in a way that's unobtrusive and also somehow very quiet.
Arisu is still staring at him and Niragi grapples for anything to say.
"Uhm, yeah, I'm good", he says, avoiding his gaze to prevent staring at him any longer. "I just didn't check the fucking weather this morning."
He realizes too late that he's swearing, that he's already done it two times now, and what will Arisu think of him? It's a nasty habit, he knows it is, but it's also one of the only ways to let off steam these days and despite his best efforts, he hasn't been able to get rid of it yet.
"Oh. That's unfortunate."
Niragi snorts. "You can say that again." Then he sighs and with another quick glance at his phone decides that he has to leave. Now. "'Was nice meeting you. Anyway, bye." He waves, straightens his shoulders, and makes his way outside and into the pouring rain.
It's so fucking cold and his shirt is wet in seconds. He sighs again, hunches over as if that will make it better in any way, and starts speed-walking to the bus stop, miserable because he just knows that he will be fucking soaked by the time he gets there.
Or not, because suddenly something’s blocking the rain from above. Niragi looks up and is met with the sight of brown eyes and a big, black umbrella.
"I didn't expect you to go out like this. Why didn't you go back up to get a coat, at least? You'll gonna catch a cold."
"Don't have time. Management doesn't like people getting in late and my bus leaves in a few minutes."
Arisu's smile is still there, still small and quiet, even though he too is standing in the cold, being assaulted by the rain. "Where do you need to go? Let me walk you there."
Despite the chill in the air, Niragi can still feel heat creeping up his neck and ears. "Don't you need to go somewhere, too?"
Wow, good job Niragi. Way to make it sounding real fucking grateful!
But Arisu doesn't look offended and only steps closer to stand under the umbrella as well. "I work from home and I'm pretty flexible when it comes to my hours, so I really don't mind."
"Uhh, sure. Thanks", Niragi mumbles.
Arisu is still smiling. "Come on, lead the way", he says, slightly adjusting the umbrella in his grip so they both fit comfortably underneath it. "I'm Arisu, by the way."
"Niragi", he offers. Now that he has the time, he looks at him a little closer and sees that he's wearing what seems to be a big hoodie with... is that the Triforce on there? Oh god, if this man, in addition to being handsome, turns out to be a nerd as well, Niragi will be well and truly lost.
He looks again, and for some reason can't shake the feeling that Arisu is familiar somehow, like déjà-vu, only stronger.
"You just moved in, right?"
"Yep, moved back to Tokyo after living up in Hachinohe for a few years."
"Hachinohe?" He feels his eyebrows rise all the way up his forehead. He imagines snow, deep and white in winter, and lush greenery and trips to the sea or to one of the many volcanoes in summer. "That's a big change. Why'd you come all the way back to fucking Tokyo? Or moved up there in the first place, if you used to live here?"
Arisu chuckles, but it sounds a little sad. "I needed a change. After the meteor hit, I couldn't be here anymore. Lost my two best friends that day and barely made it out alive myself. Had to get away somehow. But now I'm back for good, I think."
Ah. Well, shit. Way to put his foot into his fucking mouth.
But then the information sinks in properly and suddenly, Niragi knows where he has seen Arisu before.
"You were at the hospital", he blurts out, eyes wide. "Always around that short woman and that smug fellow with the blond hair."
Arisu's eyes widen as well. "Oh my god, you mean Usagi and Chishiya? You were at the hospital, too?" He seems to think really hard, wrinkling his nose in a way that’s entirely too cute to be legal. "I don't think I remember you. Sorry."
Niragi isn't surprised. His burns where pretty bad, even though they've healed remarkably by now, but he had been pretty bandaged up the whole time most of the other meteor victims were there.
"That's fine", he says and adds, "I'm sorry about your friends."
Arisu smiles. "It's okay. I do miss them still, but it's been years. I got time to heal." He turns quiet before asking, "Did you lose anybody?"
Niragi shakes his head. "Only myself, but that's a good thing, I think."
"What do you mean?"
Niragi hesitates. He never really talked about this to anybody, except his therapist, so he isn't quite sure how to put it into words, but he wants to try.
"I felt ... different, after I woke up at the hospital. Like I had somehow become this whole new person, with new hopes and dreams. And I wanted to be different, I wanted to change and try being a whole new person. Turn a new leaf, and all that fucking shit that's normally only found on inspirational posters. If that makes sense?"
He feels awkward saying it, because how can he think about something as trivial as that while Arisu lost his best friends? But to his surprise, Arisu nods.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Like how I suddenly really wanted to study psychology, for no apparent reason whatsoever. I mean, it was a great fit in the end, but I had never even thought about it, the whole college experience way too stifling for me to even want to try again. Until, suddenly, I did."
He laughs and the umbrella in his hands jumps up and down with his movements. "I think all the people I talked to after it said something along those lines, really. Chishiya got it the worst, somehow turning a complete 180 and going from being completely indifferent to caring way too much. I think it kinda fucked with his head a little in the beginning. But he got there in the end. Usagi also said something similar, about suddenly feeling a lot of hope where there used to be none before."
"How is she?", Niragi asks, actually curious. He doesn't know why, but her face is something that he can recall with almost perfect clarity, even after all those years. It isn't attraction, nothing like that, more like an urge to make sure that she's okay. To make sure she's safe and cared for.
"Oh, she's good. Climbing mountains all over the world, that little bunny", Arisu snickers and Niragi throws him a quick glance.
"Are you two dating? You looked like you were, back then."
Arisu laughs again. He seems to do that a lot, and Niragi feels a flutter in his stomach, like that soft chuckle just made its way down his throat and settled comfortably in his gut.
"No. Well, we did try, back then, for a few months. Felt like fate, you know, meeting her at the hospital after we both survived something like that. And I needed somebody, back then, because my family ... well, let's just say they tried, but they didn't get it. Not really. But Usagi did." He looks up into the strands of falling rain, looking like his mind's gone back in time, far, far away from the present, before he shakes himself and looks at Niragi again. "But we figured pretty quickly that it wouldn't work in the long run, so we decided that forcing it was no use and would just make us unhappy in the end."
"Really? I would have thought having somebody who went through the same thing you did would only bring you closer together?"
"Oh yeah, no doubt about that. We're still very close, even after all those years and after I moved that far away. But there was that small but not insignificant matter of me realizing I don't like girls and her realizing she doesn't like anybody in that way, so... yeah, platonic bffs for sure, but nothing more."
Niragi's heart doesn't jump in his chest. It doesn't.
"Yeah", he chuckles, hoping that he doesn't sound as weak and nervous as he feels. "Well, I can relate to the not liking girls part." His cheeks are burning and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Arisu's smile turn a little wider. It's fucking beautiful, Niragi just knows it is, but he can't look because he knows that if he does, he won't be able to look away again. They're almost at the bus stop already and he needs to go to work and be a respectable human being and not a gay disaster, thank you very fucking much.
Absentmindedly, he rubs at his arms, because while the umbrella managed to keep most of the rain away from him, his shirt's still thin and also quite damp, making goosebumps break out on his skin.
They reach the bus stop with less than two minutes remaining and Niragi ducks under the roof that shelters him from the rain. He turns to thank Arisu but watches in bewilderment as the man presses the handle of his umbrella in Niragi's hand before pulling his sweater over his head. Niragi catches a sliver of skin and the faint hint of a happy trail disappearing beneath the waistband of Arisu's jeans before it gets covered by the soft fabric of a slightly wrinkled grey shirt with little Koroks on it. Koroks! Arisu is such a nerd and Niragi is so doomed.
"Here", Arisu says then and holds out his sweater to Niragi, "you can borrow this." His hair is even more shaggy and disheveled than before and Niragi stares at him for the embarrassingly long time it takes his brain to reboot.
"What? No!", he finally protests. "You’ll get cold."
" As I said, I work from home, so I can just put on another." He smiles, and then he does something that short-circuits Niragi's brain again. He winks, before adding: "I mean, you know where I live, so you can just come and give it back some time."
Niragi might not have dated all that much since the meteor, but he still has enough experience under his belt to recognize that sentence for what it is: an invitation to see each other again. There's no way he can refuse that, not in a million fucking years.
"Yeah, I guess I can." He takes the hoodie, pulls it on and hopes it's not too obvious that he's pressing his nose into the collar immediately, smelling Arisu's subtle scent that reminds him of summer. Some of Arisu's body heat still lingers, and Niragi can't help but melt into the warmth of it. "I can return it tonight, after work. I've got some coding to do, but I should be done and back by 6:30."
Arisu smiles, his eyes twinkling. "Sounds good. Maybe we can catch some dinner, too?"
Niragi can't stop the grin that's spreading on his face. "I'd like that, yeah."
"Cool.”
His bus arrives and Arisu raises his umbrella and steps back out into the rain. But then he turns around one final time, his eyebrows furrowed into a frown. "Wait", he says as he looks at Niragi, and then his eyes widen. "Wait a minute, you said coding. Shit, I knew your name seemed familiar. Where exactly do you work?"
And when Niragi tells him, he has the pleasure of seeing Arisu's eyes widen even more. He laughs as he steps into the bus and watches Arisu's mouth open and close a few times, speechless.
Oh, it's going to be a very good evening.