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Keiichi was no stranger to the cold.
He had been born and raised in Tomakomai, a town of not much more than ice and snow; a hockey player since he was old enough to stand. It was more than evident that he would know the cold intimately.
Slippery ice making him stumble and fall; icy wind freezing his fingers and galvanizing his movements on skates; snow blocking his sight and his path on a near-daily basis. Not even summer was a respite for the all-encompassing cold. But he liked it that way. Cold was always something you could prepare for.
Getting snowed-in was just another inconvenience, as common as scraping your knee or getting a flat tire. He simply had to brave through it, and find a solution as it happened. It had become common practice for the Genma household to keep a stack of wood in the garage, so that when the power went out they'd be able to warm themselves up. It always gave Kouichi and him an excuse to bust out the board games and have a few sessions in front of the fireplace.
Blizzards were getting more frequent as of late, but Keiichi wasn’t keeping track. All that meant was that he had to pack an extra-warm jacket for when he got out of practice; and that he'd have to keep a few spare bills in case he needed to take a cab home. Sometimes, it meant he would have to shelter in place at school until the worst of it passed. And for someone as restless as him, that was the worst case scenario.
But this would be the first time he’d have to shelter at Oinokami High.
The gym was turned into a makeshift shelter; the few hundred teens that populated the school were crammed into it, stiff sleeping mats taken out once it got too late to go home. Blessedly, the school had a generator, so they didn’t have to spend the night in the freezing cold, and if they so needed it, they could take hot showers. Keiichi had always been called dramatic by his brother, his parents, his teammates. It really could be worse for him than staying the night at the gym. He could be stranded in the snow, far from home and with no shelter nearby. He could get mauled by a bear. He could slip and crack his head on the pavement.
And while all of that was true, there was a weighty reason he dreaded staying at the gym so much. And it was having to share a space with Shirakawa Rou.
Shirakawa Rou was the bane of his existence. For all of his rosy dispositions, he was a true thorn in Keiichi's side. His fragrant aromas and expensive hair products and self-assured demeanor all had crawled its way into Keiichi's brain without his permission. It was beyond infuriating, how such a sweet smell could sour Keiichi’s mood.
Not only was Shirakawa Rou elegant and precise atop the ice; he was beautiful outside of it, too. And the moment Keiichi's brain had dawned on that realization, his hatred for Shirakawa Rou became permanent; a cemented pile of plaster that he possibly would never get rid of.
This entanglement of feelings wasn't something he was prepared to deal with. He could mend his physical injuries just fine, and whenever he had an issue with someone he would just talk it out, whether with words or fists. But this was a contradiction he didn't know the way out of, so he just avoided Shirakawa the best he could.
Practice was a drag, and they often were made to train together, but Keiichi always consoled himself with the promise that it was temporary. It would come to an end as it always did, and then he wouldn't be forced to fume and flush at Shirakawa's pretty face. Keiichi prayed every night that Shirakawa never noticed the way his eyes lingered on him.
But being confined in the gym, where they were all sorted by class and last name, was a maze with no exit. For one, he wouldn't know how long the blizzard would last. They could be there anywhere from a few hours to the entire night, maybe even two nights in a row. It was maddening to think about. He really just wanted to go home, but so did everyone else.
Being with Shirakawa, so close, for such a prolonged period of time only threatened to make him short-circuit. Any time Shirakawa tried to approach him for conversation, it took everything in Keiichi to control himself from lashing out. Not even he knew what would happen if Shirakawa breached the barriers of his personal space. And it was worsened by the fact that Shirakawa was only interested in asking him the questions on his mind, as though Kosugi or Dohi didn't have the answers he wanted.
"Is this how things usually go around here?"
"We didn’t have these rations in Tokyo. Are they good?”
"Are they giving us time to shower?”
“Are we gonna have to sleep on those dirty mats?”
It was a constant barrage of questions that Keiichi responded to with clipped, almost dismissive answers. He couldn't get wrapped up in conversation with Shirakawa. God forbid he let out a giggle or show any indication that he actually enjoyed the other's company, even though impulse begged him to indulge that desire.
Shirakawa’s gaze turned more dejected with each response, until eventually he ceased asking the questions altogether, moving onto Dohi like Keiichi had wished for. It gave him a nameless kind of dread, but satisfaction, too. It meant his mind could focus on what was actually important: surviving the night.
At least the sleeping arrangements would be random, right? Maybe they'd let them choose their mats. It would only be right, after the inconvenience of spending the night at school.
Oh, how wrong he was.
Of course they'd set them up alphabetically. Curse the person who decided "ge" should be so close to "shi" in the gojūon table. How convenient that the mats were set up so that Shirakawa and Keiichi would be facing each other during the night. That is, unless Keiichi turned on his back to face the other way.
As if there was any chance of that happening. Come bedtime, Keiichi twisted and turned in his mat. Most people were already asleep around him, exhausted from the afternoon's ordeal. For a moment, he felt cursed that hockey practice had been cancelled. At least then, his physical exhaustion would be good enough of an excuse to shut his eyes and succumb to the sands of dream.
No. Instead, he was cursed to stare furtively at Shirakawa in the next mat over, his soft snores proof of his better fate. Keiichi wished he could fall asleep that easily. He looked at Shirakawa’s face in intervals, until he decided there was no one awake to bear witness. So, he switched to staring at him as one would stare at a statue. His face was especially beautiful in his sleep, when the permanent furrow between his brows managed to relax.
Often, Keiichi would wonder how it would feel to kiss it.
The visage of peace was disturbed by a gradual, uncontrollable shaking that took hold of Shirakawa. Despite the covers and jackets they all wore, it was evident Shirakawa wasn’t used to sleeping in the cold. Probably had some fancy Tokyo heating system anytime the thermostat dropped below zero Celsius. He wondered if he shivered like that at home when they were snowed in, too. It took some time for the body to adapt to new weather conditions, after all.
The shivers mounted until Shirakawa’s teeth were chattering; he somehow was fast asleep through it all. It made Keiichi resentful. He wanted to banish those shivers until Shirakawa’s peace was restored. An idea wormed its way through his mind. He pondered it, turned it around, envisioned it, and then, with heavy palpitations, he acted on it.
Reaching his hand towards Shirakawa’s futon, he shook him awake as gently as he could (which, Keiichi being Keiichi, wasn’t gently at all).
“Shirakawa,” he whispered, trying not to wake the rest of their sleeping classmates.
“Mm?” Shirakawa mumbled, evidently disoriented.
“You’re cold, aren’t you, Tokyo boy?” Keiichi asked despite himself. He sounded ridiculous.
“What do you think, genius?” Shirakawa said.
“Well, you were sleeping right through the shivers.”
Shirakawa drops a metaphorical anvil on his head. “What’s up with you, Little Genma? Were you watching me?”
Keiichi feels his face heat up immediately, as though the blizzard had been nothing but a fantasy.
“Shut the hell up. What if I was?”
“Saw anything you liked?” Shirakawa asked between shivers, only aggravating Keiichi’s fragile state.
“You know what, you can just freeze in your sleep,” Keiichi said, immediately turning on his side to escape the conversation.
“Oh? Were you gonna offer something?”
“Not anymore.”
“Come on, tell me. You woke me up for nothing?” Shirakawa’s tone bordered on angry, but there was a playfulness there that never faded.
The heat in Keiichi’s face was damning. It truly was a death sentence, but the darkness was his accomplice. In lieu of a response, and with his face still turned far away, he lifted the thick blanket of his futon in a silent invitation. “Don’t make me regret it.”
He couldn’t see the way Shirakawa’s face morphed into delighted surprise. Nor the smile that reached his ears, or the tinge that colored his skin. But he did feel the dip of Shirakawa’s body entering his sleeping mat, a glacial presence that immediately curled around him. He really was freezing; good thing Keiichi was burning up with embarrassment.
“Well, thank you,” Shirakawa whispered, so close that he could definitely hear Keiichi’s heartbeat.
“I’ll kill you,” Keiichi said, but words failed him upon feeling Shirakawa’s arms around him.
“Sure you will.” Shirakawa said against his nape. One of his cold hands reached for Keiichi’s, as though they belonged interlaced.
In moments, Shirakawa’s shivering stopped. Keiichi couldn’t bear to turn around. Instead, he willed his rampaging heart to settle down. There was no way Shirakawa couldn’t feel it.
“Sweet dreams, Little Genma.” And then, Shirakawa pressed his lips against the back of Keiichi’s neck.
Suffice it to say that his attempts to calm down died right there and then.
Did that mean what Keiichi thought it meant? Was Shirakawa only trying to get on his nerves? Did he miss any signs? Did Shirakawa like him too?
The spiral of questions had no end. A jarring beat rumbled through his ribcage, right under where Shirakawa’s hand held his own. Keiichi had surely already been dreaming, wasn’t he?
The solid presence behind him and the soft snores emanating from it dissolved all doubt.
Keiichi was no stranger to the cold. It was the warmth of another person that he had always been estranged from. And feeling it like this, in a form as pure as the snow piling up outside, made him understand that he wanted to keep feeling it for as long as he could.
Banishing shame, he turned around to wrap his arms around Shirakawa, and fell asleep to soft scents of pomegranate and citrus.
And when they woke up to hordes of curious eyes (and phone cameras) locked on their entangled forms, all Keiichi could manage was to burrow his face deeper into Shirakawa’s shoulder.
A laughing Shirakawa held him tighter in return.