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Taki was never much of an English class type of guy. Never the type of guy to start spitting out big words in casual conversation, nor the type to use them constantly no matter the situation. Rather, he’s quite content with the level of vocabulary he uses on a daily basis.
But! If there is one thing Taki is, one fact about him that solidifies his use of the English language to a certain point, it’s that he’s down bad for one particular Nakakita Yuma.
The mere sight of him; a glimpse of his hair over the top edge of his blankets, a peek of a dimple sitting next to him at an event, a radiant smile aimed directly at his heart in the middle of the night when Taki just so happened to be craving snacks when Yuma was about to head out—it’s enough to have Taki waxing poetry about his closest friend for hours on end.
Eventually, this admiration; the silly side eyes in the side view mirrors of the manager’s vans and the returned eyebrow raise from across the dressing room, find an outlet in a small journal.
The journal itself isn’t much to look at. The cover is bent at the corner, a side effect of Taki hastily shoving it under his pillow when he hears Yuma approaching, and the metal rings are distorted out of their usual round form. It’s small, about small enough to fit in the back pocket of his jeans, and thoroughly roughed up from the nights where Taki couldn’t help but write.
Some nights, his thoughts conclude in a single sentence.
“Yuma’s smile is as bright as the sun, it burns my skin and sets my cheeks aflame in shades of red and admiration.”
Other times, they turn into pages and pages of prose. Yuma’s smile is as bright as the sun, and suddenly Taki can feel wax, dripping down his back, trailing all the way down to the tips of his fingers. And not unlike Icarus, he falls.
Yet, he’s not some foolish little boy who flies too close to a heat that could very well end him. He’s Taki.
For him, his wax wings don’t melt. Not in the way that Icarus’ did. His wings, glorious white shrouds that fall over his back, drip. He leaves behind bits of his affection as he walks by, greeting Yuma, hugging him, practicing with him; it’s all slowly causing his metaphorical wax to melt away, bit by bit.
And still he flies, closer and closer, until perhaps one day: Yuma notices him.
༻♡︎༺
Taki never thought he’d be in this situation. He takes a deep breath in, only able to take in half of his usual amount of air before he has to expel it again. The night envelops him in darkness, with the only light being the few rays of moonlight streaming in from his curtains, and the fake candle that burns on his desk. They don’t offer much light, but then again, they were never intended to be used as the main light source for a whole room, so Taki supposes he could understand.
There’s a weight on his chest, unfamiliar in its holding of him, but familiar in the way of the boy it’s connected to. Every breath he takes is restricted to a small inhale, dashing any hope for a night of restful sleep before it could fully bloom. Trying to wriggle his arm free from underneath his human captor is useless. Yuma is fully on top of it, unconsciously clinging to Taki’s side in his sleep despite his protests about said clinging earlier that very day.
Taki blinks once, twice; sighing out into the open air as Yuma continues to doze. He tries not to think too hard about having his crush on his arm. Tries not to think about the warm air he can feel feathering over his neck at Yuma’s every exhale, or the way his hair splays out over Taki’s shoulder, tickling at the edge of his jaw. Every sensation has Taki’s nerves dancing, holding himself back from clinging just as tightly to Yuma as the other is to him.
Yuma doesn’t move much in his sleep; this, Taki knows well. The boy is absolute hell to rouse in the morning, more prone to being late than early to practice due to sleeping through his alarms, and yet, whenever Taki is the one who wakes him, he gets up with no complaints.
It doesn’t seem to matter the time of day. The other members, Maki and Harua in particular, have called on him in several different types of situations. Most of the time it’s when Yuma’s decided to take an impromptu nap inside of the cabinets, or when he’s decidedly passed out on one of couches in the artist lounge for the fifth time that week.
His ease in falling asleep is poorly paired with his horrid ability to rise. And so, to combat such a fate, Yuma’s taken to notifying Taki before checking out for a nap. An example of this would be when Yuma was awake just a few hours ago, watching each of their individual fancams while also laying claim to Taki’s shoulder as a head rest.
It was obvious to Taki that Yuma was already fighting to keep his eyes open when he pressed on the first fancam, but after two more and an ad break between, Yuma looks as if he’s about to knock out. He’s struggling to keep his yawns at bay all throughout Maki’s fancam, and Taki can feel him slowly getting closer and closer to his body, the warmth collecting between them getting warmer with every passing second.
“Taki?” Yuma’s tired voice sounded out, setting down his phone somewhere on the blankets. When Taki turned his head, he found Yuma already looking up at him, eyes barrelling through Taki’s defenses and piercing him right in the heart. “You mind if I stay here for the night? Harua took my bunk again to stay with Jo.”
Taki blinked down at the boy in his arms, taking in the gentleness of his voice and the way his smile slowly grew on his face. They both know that Harua and Jo would easily share Jo’s bunk, just as Yuma was on Taki’s bunk, but for some odd reason, Taki doesn’t believe that Yuma has any intention of leaving his side.
His point is proven when he shrugs his acceptance of Yuma’s request. The space between them disappears in seconds with Yuma turning his body flush to Taki’s side, and Taki has to apologize to any god that was watching when Yuma snakes an arm around his waist, holding him tight. Every touch from Yuma sets Taki’s skin alight, sending butterflies down his nerves all the way up to his chest where they sit and flutter about.
“Goodnight.” Taki whispers, laughing to himself when he feels the breath of air of Yuma’s response. The other is probably already gone to the world, and here Taki is, talking to him as if he wasn’t already frolicking off in dreamt up flower fields and running along shipping containers that defied gravity.
He’s not sure when it happens, but eventually Taki also succumbs to the rapid pulls of sleep. Promoting in two different countries has him more exhausted than he formerly realized, leaving him prone to the occasional eight hour nap in the artist lounge himself.
Today is no different. He’d taken a long, long nap on the small futon Harua had shoved into one of the bigger cabinets of the practice room, resulting in a five minute panicked search party and an even longer scolding from K. He listened intently, as he should, but couldn’t stop laughing when he saw Yuma behind their eldest, mimicking his every word and gesture with a silly little smile.
Yuma moves closer to him in his sleep, if that’s even possible, tucking his head into the crook of Taki’s neck. His breathing is even, and his eyes are still closed, so logically Taki can assume the boy is sleeping quite soundly. With every movement, however, Taki has to slowly reposition himself to ensure his own ability to sleep comfortably.
It’s only when their legs get tangled up in the blanket that Taki gives up on moving, too lazy to try and undo the complicated knot of limbs he’s gotten himself into. He tries to force himself to sleep, closing his eyes and sending up a stray plea in his mind, to no avail. Vaguely, as in a few years back, Taki remembers being told how he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he napped in the day, but back then he’d believed it all to be myths told to him to keep him in line.
He was just a fourteen year old in a foreign country, after all. Someone had to keep an eye on him, whether it was someone who spoke the same mother tongue as him or someone who was younger than him. For Taki, it was K on that horrid survival show, and now it’s Yuma in their daily life.
“Of course it’s K.” Taki mutters, not really meaning any ill intent toward one of the biggest older brother figures in his life, but definitely cursing him out in his mind a few times while he has the chance. He’s a younger sibling. It’s in his blood to curse out his older brothers. “Why does everything he says make sense? Piece of shit, that old man.”
A cold breeze blows over him from the AC, sputtering out the last of its cycle before it falls quiet again, but Taki doesn’t shiver. He looks down at the Yuma-shaped heat pack that’s attached itself to his arm, jumping a little when he realizes that Yuma’s shifted his head a little in his sleep. His face is in full view now, allowing for Taki’s tired eyes to slowly graze over the landscape of Yuma’s face.
He looks much younger like this, Taki realizes with a jolt. Yuma’s hair lays limp over his face, its length allowing for it to get trapped beneath the junction of Yuma’s head and the beginning of Taki’s arm, and there’s a slight part in Yuma’s lips, tinted a shade of orangey-pink from the boy’s citrus flavored lip balm.
Taki looks away immediately.
Perhaps it’s time to sleep. Yeah. Taki nods to himself, freezing only when Yuma stirs at his sudden movement. If he sleeps now, maybe he would be able to stop fantasizing about that orange citrus lip balm over his lips, about a cute little snaggletooth catching on his bottom lip, about—
Okay, stop. Record scratch. Freeze frame.
Taki closes his eyes and lets out a long, long breath.
Maybe he has a small little problem.
༻♡︎༺
The next time Taki is inconvenienced, or blessed, he has yet to make a decision on that one, it’s the next day. He manages to get out of being teased by Harua and Jo by simply flipping them the bird anytime they attempt it, but by the time they make it to the practice room, he finds that he can’t hide for much longer.
It feels as if everyone is watching him as they dance. There’s eyes burning into his back when they transition to a new formation, boring into him when they stop for a much needed water break, and there’s hands on his shoulders when he moves to sit down.
Yes, he’s purposefully sat himself as close to Yuma’s stuff as possible, but does he really need to mention that? Yuma doesn’t mind his constant presence and jokes around with him like he would on any other day, and that’s all that really matters to Taki. They push and pull, jokingly tossing each other around between cuts and repeats, only stopping when Euijoo has to get involved to stop Yuma’s things being tossed to the ground.
Taki pouts at their leader, but finds his silent request being ignored as the older boy takes Yuma away to Fuma with the excuse of helping him with the lift during his verse.
“Loverboy!” Shouts Maki from across the room, looking rather pleased with himself when no one but Taki looks at him. Taki scowls when he realizes the trap he’s fallen into, but quickly smoothes his face into something much more neutral when Maki approaches. “Can you come run the chorus with me again? I can’t get the timing of the landing to match with Euijoo.”
“Sure.” Taki shrugs, gulping down another glug of water before he rises to his feet again, making sure to cap the bottle tightly. He rubs at his arms when he stands next to Maki, feeling the full effect of the snowy Seoul winter and the forcibly set sixty degree air conditioning that their manager insisted on. Oh, how he hates the cold. “Where do you wanna start from? Harua’s part? That would be an easy place to get in.”
They blunder about like that for a few moments, eventually settling on a part and counting out the beats one by one as they dance. It’s not nearly as powerful or precise as it needs to be, but Taki’s not one to really care about those things during practice. He keeps his limbs moving to feel the adrenaline rush running through his veins, checks every finger to make sure it doesn’t lock up, and even finds himself joining Maki in freestyling the last chorus of the song after they land the jump correctly.
Yuma does eventually return to him, joining them during the bridge where he takes the center and Maki and Taki flank him at either side.
Taki can’t help but watch in awe as he gracefully does his center part, controlling their entire formation with just a flick of his wrist and a curl of his finger. With just a single movement, Taki drops to his knees, perfectly performing the next few movements without a second thought as Yuma controls him from above like a puppeteer would his puppets.
Like this, his head bent back and arms clutched at his chest, Taki feels as if his heart is at Yuma’s mercy. His hands create patterns above him, spinning and twirling in accordance to the way K had choreographed the part, and Taki follows every small twitch of those fingers. They end up pressed back to back, both of them facing in a different direction, but neither looking at the mirror where the imaginary camera supposedly was.
“Oh!” Euijoo’s voice pipes in from the side, breaking through Taki’s trance-like concentration. He’s quick to rise back to his feet, using his palm to push himself up while Yuma falls backward dramatically at the loss of Taki’s back for support. “You two got that part so fast? It took forever for me and Jo to do the mirror dance yesterday.”
Yuma laughs from his position on the floor, rolling over onto his stomach to stretch out his body. Taki can’t help but compare him to a cat like this, his arms stretching out in front of him while his legs kick out behind him. Yuma’s head bends at a strange angle to look Euijoo in the eye, and he rolls back onto his back to accommodate the taller boy.
“That’s because me and Taki have better chemistry than you and Jo do.” Yuma teases, stretching his arm outward to grab at Taki’s ankles. He taps twice on the muscle, and Taki finds himself sinking to the floor, allowing for Yuma to pull himself over to his side and rest his head on Taki’s leg. “Right?”
Taki’s mind takes a second to reboot, a little too occupied with Yuma literally resting his head on his leg, but he replies all the same. It’s easy to fall back to teasing Euijoo, just as it was for any other member, and it’s the easiest way to distract himself from the actual angel in his lap. “Of course, I don’t think I’ve seen you and Jo in the same room as each other alone without one of you leaving.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.” Euijoo pouts and turns away, walking toward where Jo and Harua have set up their stuff around the water station. They welcome him with open arms and wide smiles, pulling him down to join them in one of their random games.
A finger pokes him in the cheek, and Taki looks downward to see Yuma looking back at him with a strange expression on his face. When Taki furrows his eyebrows in silent curiosity, he answers with a question. “Do you think me and you have chemistry?”
“What kind of question is that? You’re literally on my lap right now, Yu-kun.” Taki blinks down at the boy on his leg, feeling a sense of overwhelming affection come over him. Was Yuma really wondering about something Taki is so sure about?
Yuma hums his agreement, adjusting himself so as to not cramp up his shoulder. Taki takes the chance to quickly change the way his legs are arranged, pulling himself into a criss-cross right as Yuma plops his head back down.
They bicker back and forth like that for a while, right up until K is calling for them to rise to their feet and learn the next few steps of the bridge. As much as it pains him, Taki has to physically push Yuma off of him in order to regain some type of feeling in his legs. They’d gone numb after the first ten or fifteen minutes of their break, but he didn’t have the heart to ask Yuma to move.
Pins and needles crawl up his leg when he tries to slap it back to life, smacking his kneecaps and feet with enough force to topple a precariously built tower of wooden play blocks. He can hear the gentle echoes of Yuma laughter somewhere to his right, probably a product of Jo and Euijoo doing something silly again. He wishes he could get up and see, but alas. His leg doesn’t even twitch.
Taki sniffles. He can’t seem to fight the shiver that travels down his spine when the air conditioning turns back on either. He’s sitting right in front of it, and his leg isn’t exactly functional, so it’s not like he could move out of the way of the cold air. For all intents and purposes: he’s stuck.
“Taki? You cold?” Yuma’s voice reaches him before his shadow does. Taki follows its movement along the wooden floor with a small smile on his face. He can see Yuma’s hair bounce in his shadow just as it does in real life. “Do you have a jacket or anything on you?”
Taki sends a glance to his duffel bag, already sure of what he’s packed the night before. He shakes his head before Yuma can get another lecture about being properly prepared for the incoming weather changes between countries. “No, just the black padding from the morning. I’d rather not dance in that though.”
It’s another few moments of silence, filled with the usual sounds of the smattering of seven sets of feet on the wooden flooring and an occasional shout or cough, but eventually Taki’s vision is thoroughly obscured by a veil of thick black fabric and his nose is downright assaulted by the light tones of citrus and vanilla.
“You better give that back later!” Yuma shouts, moving as fast as he can to his position while Taki does his best to follow while also tugging the hoodie over his head and arms.
The hoodie is a near-perfect fit, barring the inch-too-short sleeves, and Taki eventually finds himself permanently engulfed in Yuma’s preferred citrus cologne. It hovers all around him, and with every movement he makes, it only gets stronger and stronger. Almost as if he were to be surrounded by Yuma himself, physically attached to the other boy.
The thought drives his mind wild, sending him down spirals of imaginative situations where Taki holds Yuma in his arms. They dance in the rain together, arms linked; he sees them buying their breakfast together before heading to practice, fingers interlocked behind their backs, and he can see them in the dorms, fighting over a racing game with a blanket draped over their shoulders and legs overlapped in the strangest of ways.
Taki pulls himself out of his head when K calls for the music to start, his body automatically following the music that runs beneath his feet. He won’t deny his natural chemistry with Yuma, that would be impossible. But he can for sure deny any and all questions and concerns about his focus for the last hour or so of practice.
Who cares if his nose is buried in citrus and vanilla until the middle of the night? Certainly not Taki. He definitely doesn’t spend half of the night rolling around in bed, dreaming of vanilla blossoms and freshly squeezed orange juice.
Definitely not.
༻♡︎༺
After practice, Taki finds himself trekking through the biting cold winds, determined to make it to the convenience store down the street. He pulls his jacket–Yuma’s jacket–tighter around his body, using the hood as a shield for his eyes. The wind swirls around him, engulfing him in citrus and burning his eyes something vicious.
Taki curses when another blast of wind comes from his side, easily finding its way to his face. Why, oh why, did he have to be the one to lose rock-paper-scissors this time. How in the world did Euijoo of all people win with his horrible track record of losses? Taki was looking forward to draining Euijoo’s wallet, not his own!
A vibration rings out from the depths of Yuma’s jacket, quickly sending Taki into a frenzy as he tries to find the pocket with his phone in it. The phone doesn’t cease ringing, not up until the very second Taki pulls it out. Because of course the call has to end right as he finds his phone, of course it does.
The caller rings again, displaying a blown up picture of Yuma with an embarrassing amount of hearts on the nickname. Taki’s quick to slide the answer button, fumbling his phone a few times in the process, but still answering nevertheless.
“Hello?” Taki asks, pathetically breathless. It’s the Yuma effect, he swears. “Hello? Yuma?”
It’s dead silent on the other end. Then, a loud, heaving breath. “Would it kill you to walk a little slower every once in a while?”
“What.”
“What?” Yuma’s voice responds, sounding suspiciously close. “Turn around.”
Taki hangs up first, whirling around on his heel. There, almost blending in with darkness behind him, is Yuma. He’s draped in another member’s jacket, most likely Euijoo’s judging by the obnoxious baby pink coloring, but Taki can see shivers raking through the other’s body. The wind must be getting to him more than he originally anticipated.
Taki’s quick to wrap an arm around Yuma’s shoulders, pulling as close to his body as he can while still continuing to walk. There’s a thick silence over them, thick enough that Taki can’t seem to break it completely from his mind, even when asking a simple question. “I thought you won the game earlier?”
“I did, but you can’t carry all of that stuff on your own can you?” Yuma shrugs, giving Taki a shrewd smile. “Plus it’s not like it’s a crime to leave early, K just makes it seem that way.”
“Weren’t his exact words something like,” Taki clears his throat, lowering his voice to make it sound more like K’s, “‘Dont leave early unless you’re sick, injured or dying!’ Or something?”
Yuma laughs, loud and clear through the empty streets. “Maybe not so dramatic, but something along those lines, yeah.”
They end up talking like that up until the entrance of the corner store, pushing at each other’s arms and giggling all the way to the door. Despite the raging cold all around them, Taki can feel a slow warmth beginning to spread in his chest at every step they take together, side by side. The weight of Yuma’s jacket on his shoulders mixes with the warmth of Yuma at his side, blending into something that Taki couldn’t decipher. It flows down into his chest, bleeding into his heart with little to no effort.
It’s Yuma who calms down first, suppressing his laughs just enough to greet the cashier when he walks through the doorway, holding it open for Taki to follow while grabbing a small basket wiht his free hand. There’s heat blasting through the small building, most likely coming from the hard working radiator set up near the back aisles, but Taki can’t bring himself to take off his outer layers. The smell of sweet oranges is too much; too strong for him to even think of abandoning in favor of being a little cool.
“Oh, Rua said that he wanted jellies, by the way. The ones you always buy for him.” Yuma blurts, pointing at the aisle with several racks of gummy candies on display. Taki leads them in without much thought, grabbing Yuma by the sleeve to ensure that he follows, and failing to notice the way Yuma’s eyebrows raise at his back.
Taki pulls him along through every aisle, readjusting his grip to properly hold Yuma’s wrist when he complains about his hands being cold. He pretends to be nonchalant about it all, hiding the squeals clawing up his throat when Yuma takes the initiative to interlace their fingers in the chip aisle, and skilfully burying the rapid beating of his heart beneath the store’s floorboards when Yuma links their arms together with an excuse of reaching over Taki’s front to grab a bag of candy for K.
Yuma’s hands are surprisingly warm for someone who doesn’t do well in the cold, which leads Taki to suspect that something is going on. Normally, Yuma would barely complain about the way the oncoming chill would affect him, offering his blankets to the younger members and content with sharing a bigger blanket with the older ones. Other times, he would simply shiver in the wind, having given away his only warmth to either Harua or Maki, and it’s during those times that Taki has to keep an eye out.
“One of these days, you’re going to freeze like a block of ice.” Taki had warned once, opening his own blanket and pulling Yuma in as close as he could. He rubbed up and down the boy’s shoulders, wincing at the goosebumps that appeared under his fingertips.
Yuma had smiled then, still shivering in Taki’s arms. “But the kids will be okay.”
“Self sacrificial idiots, all of you.” Taki complained, flicking Yuma’s forehead with a well controlled frown. Using one hand to keep the blanket tight around them, Taki brings his free hand down to hold Yuma’s own. “Can’t you look out for yourself every once in a while, Yu? Your hands are freezing.”
“Worth it.” Yuma laughed, wrapping his arms around Taki’s waist and stealing all of his body warmth in one fell swoop. “I don’t regret a thing.”
And that was that. Taki had made a promise to himself then, to always be by Yuma’s side when they were shooting outdoors in the winter. If Yuma couldn’t be bothered to keep track of his own warmth, then Taki would lend him his own. From shared blankets to mysterious pairs of matching winter clothes, Taki’s done everything in his power to ensure that Yuma was never cold like that again.
Now though, Taki frowns down at Yuma’s hand, completely warm in his hold. He’s gone back to holding his hand, swinging their arms back and forth as he reaches for random things on the shelves to throw into their basket. The basket itself has somehow navigated into Taki’s free hand, pathetically weighing down every other step he takes. Who knew a bunch of air filled chip bags and densely packed candy bags could be so heavy?
“Do you like orange flavored things?” Yuma suddenly asks, not facing in Taki’s direction in favor of looking at the various flavors of jelly candy before him. There’s a bag right in his hand, blatantly orange colored and most likely orange flavored. “I wanna try these orange jellies, but I don’t think I’ll finish–”
“Throw them in,” Taki finds his mouth moving before his brain, waving the basket so Yuma can toss the bag in easier. He doesn’t elaborate on his sudden choices lest he suddenly spill all of his hidden wants and desires to the one person where that opinion would not be appreciated, but he does give him a cheeky little smile when Yuma does eventually get curious. “What, can’t I be a little mysterious every once in a while?”
Yuma, looking torn between two extremes, settles on his own coy smile. “No, not unless it’s really bothering you.” He sets the basket at the edge of the self checkout belt, letting go of Taki’s hand and jabbing into his chest. “Then I’ll let you be all broody and mysterious. Otherwise, you’ll always be normal, goofball Taki to me. The same as you’ve always been, really.”
They scan the items together, and with Taki taking them out of the basket and Yuma scanning them, they’re out of the store faster than Taki can even comprehend. The plastic bags of their purchases weigh heavy in his left hand, having been the one to take the heaviest items so Yuma didn’t have to suffer with such things, but to him, and most likely him alone, the weight of Yuma’s hand weighs a hundred times heavier.
“Taki?” Yuma calls out, his voice ringing through the quiet buildings around them. He’s still swinging their hands as they walk, but it’s not much of an arc this time. It’s more like a small wave, starting with a light push from Yuma and continuing on until the momentum stops.
Taki hums his acknowledgment, looking over to Yuma to physically show his attention. He’s a little occupied with everything else in his hands, and his mouth hums a little tune, growing louder and louder with every rapid beat of his heart.
“Do you like me?”
Taki’s hums stop. “What?” He mutters, not able to look Yuma in the eye, but also not able to back away from Yuma’s gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Yu.”
“I don’t—Taki.” Yuma stops, forcing Taki to follow. Their hands are still interlinked between them, but Taki no longer feels that comfortable warmth for earlier. Instead, he feels the rapid beating of his own heart, fear runs through his veins, and adrenaline spikes in his chest. “You’re really confusing, you know.”
“Uh—”
Yuma looks away, letting go of Taki’s hand. The lingering warmth doesn’t last long. “You let me lean all over you, but push Nicho away when he tries to do the same. Euijoo lends me his jacket and you glare at it as if it’s murdered your entire family.” He crosses his arms on his chest, leaning into Taki’s space like a child. “You let me sleep in your bed when no one ever in the history of that dorm has even been able to go near it. What’s up with you? Why am I getting this special treatment?”
Taki all about loses his voice. Oh, this is no good. Absolutely not a good situation to be in. He’s always walked a fine line between friendly behaviors and flirting, but he’s never really been careful about letting others do the same things that Yuma could. He didn’t even think anyone was paying that much attention.
“I—“ He starts, only to pause when something gets caught in his throat. Perhaps it’s his nerves signaling for him to stop talking; or it’s his mouth trying to get too many words out at once, but either way it doesn’t have the same type of heat as Yuma’s stare. “I think you’re a really good friend?”
Yuma frowns again. Shit. Can he handle this in a calm and collected manner? “A good friend? That’s it?”
“Yeah?” Taki cringes when his voice cracks, and clears his throat to ensure it doesn’t happen again. His heart might be on the verge of shattering into little bits, but no way in hell was it going to be with a voice crack. “A really lovely and great friend.”
“Mm.” Yuma responds, void of any emotion but curiosity. “But I don’t think of you like that.”
Taki frowns, “Then what do you think of me as?”
“I like you, of course.”
And then he has the nerve to smile, bright and cheerful to break out of the somber mood they’ve found themselves in. As if he hasn’t just permanently broken Taki’s brain with a few simple words and a cheeky little snaggletoothed smile, he grabs at Taki’s hand, pulling him forward and humming a little tune.
Yuma’s hands are sweaty now, but not because of the weather. Taki can tell he’s nervous, more nervous than Taki can attempt to understand, but nervous nonetheless. He’s trying to play it off, but the tune he hums it’s stable, wavering in and out of pitch every time Yuma tries to sneak a glance in his direction, and his steps no longer try to keep at Taki’s pace. They outpace him by a few inches, which in turn forces Taki to uncomfortably lengthen his own strides to keep up.
He’s sure they look silly like this, probably like children racing down the sidewalk without being able to run. Even the silence is pitying him, filling the empty air with whistles of wind and the inevitable crunch of leaves beneath their feet as they arrive in a tree lined walkway.
There’s a small bus stop hidden beneath some of the branches, and it’s here that Taki fully stops, pulling Yuma with him to sit on the bench. The fluorescent light shines on Yuma’s face when they sit down, further illuminating the lingering pale pink of Yuma’s cheek and turning his eyes into a brilliant shade of brown. He’s a little late to notice, but Yuma is most definitely pouting. Out of subconscious habit, Taki doesn’t know.
“Sorry, my feet hurt.” Taki apologizes, fully aware of the skeptical look Yuma is shooting his way. He stretches his legs to keep up the act, staring out into the rapidly darkening sky in order to not meet Yuma’s eyes. He may not be the most calm person about his feelings, but he for sure can get a conversation started when it’s truly needed.
He sits back up straight, almost flat against the back of the bus stop wall, and puts on a dramatic frown. “And my heart hurts a little too.”
Silence.
Okay, Taki never said he was good at starting conversations either. But his lame quip seems to do the trick because soon enough Yuma is falling over his shoulder, gasping for air to fuel almost chaotic sounding bouts of laughter. There’s small exclamations in there too as Taki’s already made out several muddled cries of “so lame!” in there for sure, and while he’s glad to lift up his mood, he really would like some answers too.
“How can–how can you do that so easily?” Yuma asks, still between laughs, but with much more breathing room between each small giggle. Their hands are still intertwined between them, but that doesn’t stop Yuma from rocking back and forth while he laughs. “I don’t even think I’ve seen K do anything like that and he gets sulky so easily.”
Taki lifts up Yuma’s hand, watching Yuma go completely still when he sandwiches it between his own. “For one, I’m not K.” He clarifies, feeling the need to get that small bit of information through Yuma’s skull. “Secondly, my heart hurts because you don’t think of me as a friend. After all that we’ve done together? I’m still not there yet?”
More silence. Yuma blinks at Taki, Taki blinks back, and no one tries to speak. This is it, Taki mourns, already thinking of people to belatedly invite to his heart’s funeral. Yuma is going to reject him right here, right now, and Taki will have to be okay until they reach the dorms. He’ll have to curl up in his bed, alone, and when every last one of the others have succumbed to sleep, only then will he be able to truly mourn his losses.
“The hell do you mean ‘am I not there yet?’” Yuma tilts his head, genuinely confused amidst Taki’s shock. Actually, “confused” isn’t exactly right. Rather, Yuma looks quite offended when repeating Taki’s words, always quick to come to anger before any other valuable emotion. “You’re way past that line. You passed it, like, a really long time ago.”
“Then why am I still not considered your friend?” Taki near shouts, kicking his feet from where they hang just above the floor. He’s well aware of how childish he looks, but honestly, he doesn’t care. He could be as childish as he wanted when it comes to Yuma. “Am I just not friend material, Yu? Have I not done enough–”
A harsh impact interrupts him, taking all of the breath out of his lungs both metaphorically and literally. Taki instinctively wraps his arms around the source of the impact, quickly ensuring they didn’t tip over while also secretly relishing in the waves of citrus that crash over him. It’s not as strong as the scent that lingers on Yuma’s jacket, but it’s still as sweet as Taki expects it to be.
“You’re enough.” Yuma breathes, having scooted over enough to be flush against Taki’s side. His arms wind around Taki’s waist, perfectly mimicking the way Taki’s arms have found purchase along the collar of Yuma’s shirt. He buries his face into Taki’s chest, muffling his next words. “I said I like you already, do you need me to say more?”
“Yes.” Taki responds a little too quickly, his voice barely able to keep up with the speed of his mouth. “Well, actually. No. If you don’t feel comfortable explaining, you don’t have to. I want you to be comfortable in your feelings rather than be uncomfortable explaining them to me.”
Yuma sighs, readjusting himself ever so slightly to lean into Taki’s side. “No, no. I really like you, just, let me figure out how to say it. I’ve never had to say it out loud before.”
“That’s okay.” Taki hums, pulling Yuma closer when a chilly wind blows through the open sides of the bus stop. “Take your time.”
“Being around you makes me happy, of course, as it should. But it’s different from when I’m with Jo or Harua.” Yuma pauses, gathering up his thoughts a little more. Taki gives him as much time as he needs, rubbing circles into the boy’s hands with his free hand. “Being with you makes me feel like there’s only the two of us in the whole world. Like, we’re in our own little bubble away from everyone else, you know? Sitting next to you like this has my heart tumbling in my chest and makes me want to hurl all at once.”
“That sounds awful.” Taki winces, knowing the feeling well enough himself to sympathize.
Yuma nods his agreement. “It’s so awful, but it’s absolutely worth it. Seeing you smile makes my entire day, and that’s not counting the days you let me sit so close to you and, like, hug you and stuff? Those days are always the best. Maybe it’s something to do with the way I am, but getting hugs from you makes me feel so, so happy.”
“So yeah. I like you, Takayama Riki, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” Yuma smiles, letting his voice fade out at the mention of Taki’s full name. As if saying his last name makes his confession more real and tangible, saying it in such a way that Taki can feel his very emotions through the few syllables of his name.
Taki blinks. Oh, he feels stupid. He has one of the cutest boys in the universe leaning into his side right now, and he can’t muster up a single word to respond to his heartfelt confession. He can’t even look at him, only a little scared of the stars he would see in Yuma’s eyes and the little snaggletoothed smile he would use to win his affection.
Not that he has to win it, anyway. Yuma was the owner of Taki’s affections since a few years ago, and Taki has no intentions to move on.
“Taki? You still there?” Yuma asks, pulling away from Taki’s side to look him in the eye. There they are, those stars that infect Yuma’s gaze and the worried, or more scared than worried, smile he’s unconsciously pulled onto his face. It falls into a frown in seconds. “Are you that opposed to answering? Come on, I thought I could be honest here.”
The pout is all it takes. Taki uses his arm to pull Yuma closer, resting his forehead against Yuma’s. It’s more intimate than Taki’s even been with another member, closer than he’s ever been with anyone besides his family, really. He can feel Yuma’s breath ghosting over his face, and can’t help but let his eyes drift down to his lips, tinted a lovely shade of ruby red underneath the fluorescent lights and advertisements.
“Is this okay?” Taki asks, locking eyes with Yuma through the curtain of hair that’s been pinned to his face. “Are you good?”
“Good,” Yuma nods, clanging their foreheads together. They both back away, each choosing their own colorful words to make their pain known. Taki in particular hears a rather unfathomable Kansai style curse that only really serves to make him laugh. And it only gets worse when Yuma follows, both of them laughing and laughing until they’re leaning into each other again, content smiles on their faces.
Kissing Yuma is like nothing Taki’s ever experienced before. Sure, he’s also never kissed anyone else before this, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t have expectations of what his first kiss would be like. Yuma tastes sweet, almost like the vanilla flavored sugar candies Taki likes to buy from the store every so often, but the way he moves is so much sweeter. He’s pliant in Taki’s hands, angling his head ever so slightly to let the kiss get deeper, and to make it last longer.
Taki can feel Yuma’s hands scrabble at his waist, bunching up the end of his shirt in his fists. It’s only when they break apart for air that Yuma seems to realize this though, pulling his hands away and awkwardly popping his knuckles in an effort to not look Taki’s way.
“So, I guess it’s safe to assume you like me too?” Another chill blows through the bus stop, and this time Taki has no trouble pulling Yuma close. Yuma smiles at him, his joy infectious. “Right?”
“I’ve always liked you, Yuma.” Taki admits, pulling Yuma into another hug. There’s no underlying reason for this one, none at all. Totally not a ploy to be as close to him as possible. “I like to think that I’m the number one contender of your heart; unless there’s someone else I need to know of.”
Yuma sighs, full of a fondness that makes Taki’s heart go into overdrive. “You already have my heart, doofus.”
“As do you.” Taki smiles, dropping a quick kiss on Yuma’s forehead. “From the very beginning until the day I fall into the ocean waters below, I’ll have loved you for every second in between.”