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Haru slowly cracks open his apartment door with calculated caution and listens. Thankfully, he doesn't hear anything aside from the normal Tokyo sounds outside. It also somehow sounds distinctly like cold, as though winter itself is just beyond where he’s standing. But aside from the threat of that biting evening chill, it seems safe, so he quickly steps out and pulls the door shut behind him.
It's not that he doesn't like his neighbor. It's just that it's better when he avoids him and his boisterous personality, especially when Haru’s in a hurry, and especially especially when Haru’s meeting up with Makoto. While scurrying past, he catches a glimpse of his neighbor’s Christmas decorations. Blinking brightly colored lights surround the perimeter of his door, and a large wreath hangs in the center. Haru can only imagine what it looks like inside the apartment, though he swears he can see a faint glow shining out the peephole.
Haru's apartment isn’t far from the station, and he’s on the train in no time. And luckily, the station closest to Makoto’s apartment isn’t far, either. This is an unusual feeling for Haru, as he has never been much for hurrying and has rarely felt any need to make haste. He gives himself plenty of time to get where he needs to go and generally has luck with avoiding unavoidable circumstances.
But right now, he's aware of his brisk pace as he hurries out of the station to their meeting place. His face feels a little flushed, and his breath leaves small puffs hanging in the air with every exhale. The cause of the hurry is of course partially because he's running uncharacteristically late. When Haru turns the corner, he slows to a standstill and quietly observes the other reason for the hurry – perhaps the primary reason.
Makoto.
It's rare that Haru has the opportunity to watch him from afar like this, since Makoto is usually the one running late. That lateness doesn't bother Haru, as it's not the result of carelessness. His excuses are always something like, "I had to go back to make sure I put the milk in the fridge!" or, "I was too focused on finishing my essay!" One of Haru's teammates had once been on the receiving end of a rather harsh glare from Haru when he remarked that Makoto seemed a little unreliable, a glare that Haru imagined must have been even more fiery than intended as this teammate was careful not to say anything even remotely judgmental about him ever again.
Haru spots Makoto furrowing his brow at his phone and can't help but smile. Haru was worried he’d look lonely standing out here in the dark, but no, he looks really cute all bundled up, his face a little red from the cold. Or maybe the flush is because he too was rushing for the same reason as Haru, hurrying in anticipation to meet up with his boyfriend for their Christmas Eve date.
Boyfriend. Date. These words still feel strange to Haru, the newness of them not yet worn off, though they seemed to be settling nicely inside of him.
Makoto looks up from his phone for a moment and then tilts his head toward the sky, as though he's looking for shapes in the clouds like they used to when they were kids. Haru follows his gaze upwards and of course can’t see any discernible shapes in the evening wisps above them. Makoto returns his focus to his phone and nervously bites his nail.
Haru’s heart starts to beat a little faster. Oh, right, he's also a little nervous. It hadn't seemed like a big deal at the time, making plans to go see the winter illuminations near Makoto’s apartment. There was a long list of places they had visited together – aquariums, parks, and museums, for starters – and this wouldn't be any different.
Except, it was. Or rather, it turned out to be. At the exact same moment while they were making the plans, they both realized the date they had decided on.
"We could go on Sunday," Makoto had said, with a natural feeling.
"I'll be free that evening," Haru had replied, with no hesitation.
"That's Christmas Eve," their brains had chimed in, with full implications.
Haru would never, ever forget the way he locked eyes with Makoto in that moment and couldn't turn away. Without unease, without wavering, and without words, the two of them had a silent conversation, confirming their mutual feelings in the blink of an eye.
"Then, it's a date," Makoto had remarked with a smile. And that was all he needed to say.
"It's a date," Haru had simply added with certainty. And that was all he needed to reply.
Haru smiles fondly, recalling the event as though he were reminiscing about something that had happened long ago and not a mere five days prior. He’s being a little greedy right now, and he waits just another moment to take in the sight of Makoto, simply standing and waiting, not doing anything especially spectacular, yet somehow managing to make Haru's chest now tighten with anticipated longing. He knows that after the holidays, they’ll have to return to the busyness of classes, extracurriculars, and the unfairness of adulthood responsibilities.
But before all that, before the new year, before the end of tonight, Haru just wanted their first kiss. This would be the perfect opportunity, and he was resolved not to let it slip away. In fact, he felt confident that he knew how it would play out, perhaps even had manifested it. The two of them would be standing side by side at the huge decorated tree. Makoto would stop looking at the tree and turn to look at Haru.
They'd stare at each other for a moment before Makoto would say something like, "The tree is beautiful, but you're the only thing I want to look at tonight."
And then they'd lean in, closer and closer until their lips met in joyous warmth! Their first kiss!
“Haru!” Makoto calls out suddenly, unknowingly breaking Haru from his daydream.
Embarrassed, as though Makoto could have been reading his mind, Haru blushes and starts to walk over. As he gets closer to Makoto and his warm smile, he starts to feel more relaxed.
"Sorry I'm late," Haru says, returning the smile. "I unexpectedly fell back asleep after lunch." I would have been here sooner if I hadn't been watching you in the shadows from afar like a stalker and having strange fantasies about our evening.
Makoto laughs and shakes his head. "It's fine. I'm the one always making you wait. Actually, I'm a little jealous. I wanted to sleep more, too."
“Ah, at least you finished in time,” Haru replies, referring to Makoto’s final paper of the semester. The two of them had basically been in the same classes since they started school all those years ago, but Makoto’s coursework now seemed significantly more involved than Haru’s. "What were you looking at on your phone?"
“Just the weather. I’ve been keeping an eye on the forecast all week. They were predicting we’d get snow tonight, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen after all,” he replies, a little dispirited. Spending tonight with Haru as his boyfriend on one of the most romantic nights of the year could only have been improved by having snowflakes softly falling around them as they looked at the beautiful lights together.
Haru feels an admittedly irrational anger at the weather for daring to make Makoto feel even a tiny bit of disappointment. Before he can utter a well-meaning-but-ultimately-worthless encouraging platitude, Makoto laughs and takes his hand.
“Well, I’m just happy being here with you tonight, Haru. Are you ready to head over?”
He feels exactly the same, really, so even if Makoto doesn’t get that snowfall and Haru doesn’t get that kiss, tonight will still be wonderful, that much is certain. He nods with a smile, gently squeezing Makoto's hand, and the two of them begin their walk to the winter illuminations.
It’s not long before they start to see the holiday glow. The abundance of lights make it easy to see before even officially arriving. Even those who don’t wish to walk through the illuminations can catch a significant glimpse of those thousands – no, millions probably – of lights. Haru wonders if he should have brought sunglasses, though his neighbor’s decorations may have actually helped train his retinas for this precise moment.
“Wow, amazing!” Makoto marvels as they pass through the entrance and set foot on the designated path. “The city displays here are definitely bigger than the ones back home.”
“They are…” he agrees, his voice trailing off into an unfinished thought, one that Makoto completes for him.
“But… it makes you miss Iwatobi a bit, doesn’t it?”
Haru smiles through the fleeting moment of melancholy as it passes through him. It’s a strange feeling, to be so in awe of his surroundings yet also harbor a pining for something that’s objectively more ordinary. But then, he also finds comfort in his yearning for that familiarity of home, and that will surely never go away.
They continue to walk, slowly, taking in every bit of their surroundings without needing to exchange many words. A part of Haru is growing impatient and wants them to hurry to the end, but Makoto seems to be be enjoying taking his time. They pass through tunnels of varying sizes, ones that tower above them and ones that hold them intimately within, glowing brightly though unobtrusively and encasing them in the gentle warmth that seems to have always existed around them.
Aside from the singular path they walk along, lights seem to cover every inch of space. Even the naked branches of the many trees have been clothed with tiny multicolored light bulbs. Nets of lights engulf tree trunks, bushes, and even the ground itself. It’s a crowded evening, as expected, but Haru and Makoto are captivated only by the lights and by each other.
And then, the finally reach it. They join the crowd that gathers around the bottom of the enormous evergreen tree, its immense size and abundant decor lending to its breathtaking presence. Haru can’t even begin to estimate how many lights must be cascading down the tree in a wonderful glittering gradient of silver, blue, and green.
As they gravitate around the tree, he observes baubles of different shapes and finishes – different colored spheres and snowflakes, shiny and matte, some that sparkle and others left unadorned; small ornaments in the shape of animals, such as reindeer and robins, polar bears and penguins, and bears and bunnies, some with whimsical inorganic colorings and patterns, and some so accurate they even have faux fur and feathers; toy soldiers in that familiar image of a nutcracker; and musical instruments, some that although they are miniaturized look real enough to play.
Out of the corner of his eye, Haru catches Makoto’s face, mouth in a permanent smile as his eyes scale up and down the tree. He feels the familiar squeeze of his heart, flowing with adoration for the man standing beside him. The tree is every bit as beautiful as he anticipated, but the sight of Makoto is simply unparalleled. You’re the only thing I want to look at tonight, he thinks.
Haru nearly flinches when he sees Makoto’s expression change suddenly to one of shock and bewilderment.
“Haru! Did you see that?” Makoto asks, eyes darting around the air in front of him. “I think I saw a snowflake.”
“It was probably just something that fell off the tree.” Despite the statement, Haru starts searching desperately for something to prove himself wrong.
And then: he sees it.
It had to have been a snowflake, the humble beginnings of, at the very least, a Christmas miracle flurry! “Wait! Makoto, I saw one, too!”
They laugh and look up, waiting for more to accumulate, smiling in excitement.
But then: they see it.
Undoubtedly, un-Christmas-miracley, a raindrop.
There’s one and then another, falling more and more rapidly. One hits Haru right in the eye, and he feels that same weatherly anger again at the clearly concentrated attack.
“Rain…?” Makoto wonders, as if it had been ages since he witnessed this particular precipitation.
The crowd around them starts to mutter disdain and disperse around them. Before they even have a chance to make a proper decision about whether to stay or go, Haru and Makoto find themselves running away in the unwelcome downpour, making it back to Makoto’s apartment building with impeccable timing, just as the rain starts to let up again.
Once inside the main entrance, Haru turns to Makoto and starts to apologize, even though the rain is obviously not his fault.
Makoto lowers his hood and gives a small chuckle. “Well, I guess while I was wishing for snow, I should have also wished for it not to rain.”
“Sorry.” Haru apologizes anyway and punctuates it with a small helpless smile.
“My overnight bag is ready to go. I set it just inside my door, so I won’t be long.”
Haru nods and declines the invitation to come up to dry off. It won’t be too long of a train ride back to his place, so there’s no need to linger here. He feels agitated and restless, not yet giving up on that kiss. Back at Haru’s apartment, they would have the perfect opportunity. Makoto would sit down, and Haru would hand him a cup of hot chocolate before sitting beside him with a cup of his own. Makoto would take one sip and turn to look at Haru.
They’d stare at each other for a moment before Makoto would say something like, “This hot chocolate is delicious, but I bet you’d taste even better.”
And their lips would meet in joyous warmth! Their first kiss!
This time, Haru pulls himself out of the daydream before Makoto catches him, which he is more than thankful for as he hears Makoto making his way down the final set of stairs.
“Oh, I’m glad you were able to warm up a little bit,” Makoto remarks in response to seeing Haru’s flushed face.
It’s not entirely untrue, as Haru definitely feels hot from head to toe. He nods, and hurriedly walks back outside for the much-needed fresh, cold air.
The light drizzle had stopped completely by the time they get back to Haru’s apartment. They casually ascend the stairs until they reach Haru’s floor. He pauses, listening again for the sound of his neighbor.
Makoto lowers his voice to a whisper, knowing full well what Haru is being careful of. “We should be safe. He had a blind date tonight, a dinner reservation that only started about an hour ago.”
“Why do you know that?”
“We ran into each other when I was over last week, so I asked him if he had any Christmas Eve plans.”
Haru sighs and smiles. Only Makoto would make conversation with a near-stranger and then offer up the details as if it was a completely normal thing. “Right, of course.”
They continue on to Haru’s apartment, once again passing by his neighbor’s door. Somehow, there seem to be even more lights than earlier this evening.
Once inside, Makoto sets down his bag and removes his coat before sitting on the edge of the bed. Wait, this is just like Haru imagined! Quick, to the hot cocoa!
Before Haru can even get his coat off, Makoto’s stomach growls, making him aware of his own growing hunger.
“Ah, we were going to stop for food on the way back,” Makoto remembers. “Do you have anything, or should we go back out?”
“Don’t stand up!” Haru instructs in a desperation that has to be extremely confusing to Makoto. You have to stay exactly how I imagined it when we kiss! “Sorry, you’ve been working hard, so why don’t I just go pick something up at the convenience store?”
Makoto grins, radiating sincerity. “Thank you, Haru.”
“It’s no problem. I’ll be back soon.”
“You better hurry, your neighbor just texted me that he’s heading back home.”
Haru freezes while zipping back up his jacket. “Mako–”
Makoto laughs, ending the ruse before Haru loses any more color in his face. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”
“You…” Haru starts, trying and failing to hold back his smile. “Just for that, I’m not bringing you back any chocolate.”
“I don’t believe you,” Makoto replies with confidence. If there’s one thing that Haru is absolutely weak to, above all else, even mackerel, it’s pleasing Makoto in every little way he can.
“I guess we’ll see,” Haru jokes as he walks out the door.
“Mm, we’ll see!”
Once Haru is gone, Makoto turns to flop back onto Haru’s pillow. He covers his smiling face with his hands, heart overflowing with happiness and love for Haru. He has to tell him. He wants to tell him. The two of them have always been able to say so much to each other just with a look. But Makoto thinks he might explode if he doesn’t tell Haru just how much he means to him.
Hurry back, Haru, he thinks. Hurry back so we can exchange our feelings, with words this time, no matter how embarrassing it is. He’s so happy, he feels like he’s floating, suddenly so light, drifting away, drifting away…
Makoto’s thoughts slowly start to return to him, and he realizes he had fallen asleep. There’s a weight next to him that he immediately recognizes. He smiles and mutters a sleepy, “Haru…”
“You’re awake now?”
Makoto’s eyelids flutter open, and he stares, confused. “What…” He blinks a few times and rubs his eyes before starting to look around the room, slowly making sense of what he sees, though still unable to process how exactly it happened.
Haru’s bedroom has become filled with snowflakes suspended from his ceiling. Some are made of paper, some plastic, some covered in glitter, and some in lights, all different sizes and patterns, arranged so meticulously that Makoto wonders if he had been asleep for days.
As tears start to fill his eyes, he turns to Haru, whose gaze is already on him. “Haru… you made it snow for me.”
Haru smiles and lies down, and Makoto shifts to his side so they can face each other. Haru takes a moment just to look at him. This whole day he felt an inward hurry, this self-inflicted pressure to go, go, go. But now, he wants to observe Makoto in this moment, in this happiness. He wants to wait and find out what waiting brings. He wants to prolong things, just a bit longer, to see what happens next.
He doesn’t imagine anything or try to manifest an outcome; he just exists.
“I wanted to tell you,” Makoto starts. “I mean, I wanted to say it, especially now that we’re, you know, together. And I wanted you to hear it, not just feel it as something that’s, well, insinuated. I love you, Haru. I know you know that, but I love you, and I’m really happy being with you. I mean, I’ve always been happy to be with you, and–” Makoto stops to laugh. “You look really happy right now, too.”
Before Makoto can continue rambling, Haru moves forward to place their lips together. Not because he has to, not because he forced the perfect opportunity, and not because he’s impatient, but just because the timing feels right. Really, it’s better than anything he could have imagined, though he does think joyous warmth is an accurate description. They break away, smiling, lips tingling with this new sensation. I love you, Haru says back, in his own way.
“So, are you going to tell me how you did all of this?”
Haru smiles. He wants to say no, mostly because he’s too embarrassed to admit it, but as usual, he gives in to Makoto. Makoto was fast asleep by the time Haru returned to the room. Naturally, he wasn’t going to wake him up. But then, Haru got an idea. He went back to his front door and waited, reluctantly. It wasn’t too much longer that he heard his neighbor return home, so he quickly peeked outside.
Good, he had thought, you’re alone, which may have been an indication that the date had not gone so well. But that wasn’t Haru’s fault, so he unabashedly intruded and asked for a favor.
As expected, his neighbor had been more than generous with Haru’s request and handed over an exceeding amount of decorations. And Haru had perhaps made a vow to himself to be a little more open to chatting with him from time to time.
After that, it was just a matter of getting everything hung up without waking Makoto.
“So,” Haru finishes, “it’s a good thing you’re a heavy sleeper. You really didn’t wake up?”
“No! I had no idea.”
“I’m glad I could surprise you.”
Makoto smiles and kisses Haru again, this time using his tongue to encourage Haru to open his mouth a little bit.
“Haru-chan, you’re blushing quite a bit,” Makoto teases. “Did I surprise you, too?”
Haru sits up and quickly gets out of bed. “I’m throwing away the chocolate I bought you.”
Laughing, Makoto gets up and wraps his arms around him from behind. “You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t…” Haru replies, smiling comfortably in Makoto’s embrace. “Sit back down, and we’ll eat. I have hot chocolate, too.”
Makoto does as requested and sits on the floor at the table while Haru grabs everything and joins him.
They continue to linger there in each other’s company, exchanging words, exchanging glances, exchanging feelings. A moment passes, and then another, and another. They talk, they observe, they simply exist.
They’re together, feeling a most familiar and profound happiness that always comes naturally between them and never needs to be rushed.