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“It's cold as balls today. It's fucking ridiculous.”
White clouds escaped Gumiya's complaining mouth. He shivered and dug his hands deeper in the pockets of his jacket.
His friend who was much more prepared for this harsh weather than him empathetically patted his shoulder in the comfort of his gloves. Mikuo ended up putting his arm around Gumiya in an attempt to share some warmth.
“Let's just hope it doesn't rain,” Aka quietly added.
At these words Yohio raised his head to the sky just in time to catch the first snowflake. It landed on his left cheek and melted immediately. Yohio blinked a couple times before wiping his cheek.
“Jinxed it,” Aka sighed while putting his hood on.
“We should be able to get home before it gets too bad.”
The red-haired man nodded silently and absent-mindedly, looking already disinterested. Since he never really bothered changing that bored expression of his depending on the context, he could still be interested in all that Yohio knew but nobody dared take such gamble.
As he only stood next to him, the blonde wondered if he was going to trip when the streetlights couldn’t light up his path and what he would eat for dinner. That thought led him to the other important red tuft of hair in his life. The collected snowflakes on his hand resembled him, delicate white cotton reaching out and settling in his palm before melting. Always cold, always slow and always reaching him eventually and warming up. He smiled.
“Does Fukase like snow?” He looked at his breath forming a burst of mist.
“How should I know? It doesn’t usually snow where we live,” Aka said in return, drowsiness creeping in his voice. “But… Someone like him..”
“He comes from cold regions, yes?” Yuuma interrupted while nudging Yohio on the other side. “He must at the very least be used to it then.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” And the conversation instantly fizzled out with that.
Going back to his previous thought, Yohio found himself wondering if the younger version of Fukase was the type to play in the snow until dark and stare at the window while snowflakes fell endlessly from the sky. Perhaps even taste the snow and the forming ice.
And thus, speculations about his dear accompanied him until he stood in front of the door of their room. His coat was drying on the heater with the ones of Mikuo and Gumiya but glittering evidence of the weather still remained in his hair.
He carefully creaked the door open and peered into the room. Stillness and darkness laid out in front of him. He turned his tall body into the quietest of footsteps to not bother the sleeping figure in front of him.
As he carefully changed his clothes in the dark, his mind went back to the day Fukase complained to him about coming home so late. He recalled the frowned eyebrows and avoidant gazes that he misunderstood for anger and the semblant selfishness of his requests.
“I can’t fall asleep if you’re not next to me,” he whined. “It’s not as simple as you think to wait this long to see you.”
He meticulously lifted the blanket and settled next to Fukase, admiring how his pale skin would pop out even in a pitch black room.
“You know you’re coming back but I don’t.” He later grew restless as if admitting his fears would turn them into reality. “Just… Just bear with me for a little while. I just need to cement it in my brain. Let my brain trust my heart and that… you’ll always come back at the end of the day.”
Yohio tenderly wrapped his arms around Fukase, the smaller man grabbing at his shirt in response and shuffling closer to him.
He was right and Yohio had to recognize it as well: he will never understand the constant doubts Fukase deals with. He used to believe that love and sincerity would quickly ease up even the most bruised and broken heart but that was nothing more than wishful, naive thinking. The reality of his lover waiting for him until the border between night and dawn, and his relief when seeing him open the door shattered Yohio’s past convictions to be replaced by simple straightforward attentiveness.
If it takes a hundred days with a thousand words and a million actions to let him rest easy, then so be it.
But these days are gone now. The back of his hand caressed Fukase’s soft cheek and his lips met the top of his head. He could now fall asleep after a phone call and a bit of reassurance. It was Yohio’s pride. It was Fukase’s growth.
One last time, his mind went back to the falling snow and he wondered, half-asleep, if it would survive the night just so he would learn something new about his dear.
-
A cold breeze shook Yohio out of his sleep. His eyes fluttered open while his body reconnected to his mind. He located the discomfort coming from his calf and instantly shoved his legs deeper in the covers, colliding with his partner’s by doing so. Said partner was still passed out, holding onto Yohio’s torso firmly.
Luckily none of them had anything scheduled on their day off and thus he didn’t have to break the calmness of this morning. He did, however, have to get up to relieve himself, which he knew would wake Fukase up. He quietly whispered apologies before taking Fukase’s hands off of him and getting out of bed. An incoherent mumble rose out of the hardly awoken man as Yohio reached the bathroom. He smiled at the extended groan he let out while probably stretching in that catlike pose.
As he dried his hands and adjusted his hair he began to hear footsteps coming closer. He hurried out of the bathroom and scooped the man still bundled in the heavy blankets.
“Good morning,” he ushered to him, unable to contain his smile at Fukase’s morning behavior.
“Mh.. Mph.. Mhm..” was all he was currently capable of saying.
Yohio put him back to bed and joined him in the covers. Fukase’s hands naturally went back to holding his shirt while Yohio started pampering him with kisses all over his head. Their lips met briefly which seemed to help chase the sleepiness out of Fukase’s eyes as they opened enough to reveal their glimmering red color to Yohio.
A light conversation started, primarily made of the blonde’s questions and the other’s one-word answers but, steadily, it grew into a regular, more energized one.
“That’s crazy that someone can be that stupid.” Fukase retorted after Yohio finished his tale about yet another one of Len's misadventures. He shivered before hugging his boyfriend closer. “Why is it so cold?”
“Oh,” his thoughts from yesterday came rushing back, “oh, oh ! It’s snowing ! Well, at least yesterday night it was. Did you see it?”
“No, I probably went to bed before that…” He leaned towards the kitchen to hopefully take a peek outside but couldn’t from his current position.
The other took it as a sign and stood up to check for himself.
The view was virtually the same as usual but the thick layer of snow on top of everything gave it a sense of unfamiliarity. Yohio couldn’t help but smile giddily at it, it seemed the snow not only survived but intensified throughout the night, leaving now a clear sky and a heavy blanket of snow on the city.
“Still here?”
Fukase poked his back to ask him to move aside, which he did while watching for the other’s reaction. His eyes –even more dazzling since illuminated by the sun– scanned the view and his face quickly shifted from curious to surprised. He turned to the older man before staring back at the window. His forehead met the glass in a thud when he approached to check the parking lot.
“Wow,” he let out after some time.
“Pretty neat, right?”
“Yeah,” he answered, his mind clearly elsewhere, “it’s… It’s been so long, it’s as if I forgot what snow looked like in real life.”
Seeing his amazement, Yohio abandoned the thought of asking for memories. Let the past be past and the present be enjoyed, he thought. He ruffled Fukase’s hair before preparing breakfast. The other did not leave the window the entire time, scanning the same sight over and over and chuckling to himself from time to time.
“Do you want to walk around today? Enjoy it while it’s here?” He inquired as he set down the last plate on the table.
“Should we?” Fukase turned around at the sound of him pulling his chair and joined him at the table. “I don’t know if I’ll behave if you take me outside.”
“Who said anything about having to behave?” He chuckled at the other's smirk and excited gaze.
The cold air bit the two men’s fingertips and ears, flushed their cheeks almost instantly and transformed their joined chuckles into ephemeral clouds. Fukase stepped out of the porch first and flinched at the slight sinking of his foot. It was deeper than it looked from their room. Shock soon turned into excitement as countless ideas popped in his head. He took several more steps in the snow before turning to Yohio who was already blowing on his fingers. He pulled his scarf away from his face, revealing his playful grin.
“Snowball…” he articulated slowly to see the other’s reaction. Said other rose his gaze to meet his eyes for a moment before his eyebrows imitated them.
“...Fight?” He finished Fukase’s sentence softly. “This early? We should probably leave that for last.”
“Alright…” He pouted with exaggeration to receive Yohio’s signature warm forehead kiss. And receive it he did.
They agreed to walk around leisurely, warm their bodies or get used to the cold –whichever came first– before proceeding with any bold idea.
Their pace was slow. One looked around more than he looked ahead while the other strayed off the path repeatedly to hear the snow crunch under his feet or to look at the blades of grass barely peeking out of the shining layer of snow. Only the occasional slip made them utter words to one another and join their hands for a moment. Their shared excitement carried them to a local park that showed signs of a previous battle between small feet.
“Just how early do kids wake up? I don’t get it…” Yohio inquired while looking around. A lonely snowman partially hidden behind a tree caught his attention. “With that much energy too…”
“They passed by here on their way to school, maybe,” the other suggested. Putting his own foot next to the already existing footprint, he frowned at the small difference in size between the two and quickly erased all evidence with a sweep. “We should also–”
He paused himself after seeing his companion jogging toward the snowman. He joined him, covering his nose with his scarf since the cold air was starting to sting his nose.
The creation was far from glorious. The base resembled a pyramid more than a sphere and the face was slowly falling to the side. Fukase kept glaring at the pitiful thing while Yohio was already gathering snow.
“He's having a heart attack or something,” he mumbled, making Yohio giggle, “poor guy.”
“Let's at least give him a friend then.” The taller man walked towards Fukase and gave him gloves.
As time passed, less and less snow was around them, instead forming a very polished snowman. It was taller than the other and empathetically reached for him with its stick arm. Yohio decided to capture the scene, the red-haired man making it infinitely more difficult to not make the picture blurry by coming up with a dramatic backstory for the two of them.
“All in all, they're kinda like you and me. I ship them,” he concluded before leading the two of them away from the park.
Their hands swung between the two of them, the atmosphere light and quiet, their attention still focused on the sights.
Paws and bird feet traces appeared every now and then, suddenly stopping for getting erased by other footprints that came with all kinds of designs and sizes. It was only then that one realized how many lives and stories borrowed the same path at some point. How even the smallest sidewalk witnessed glimpses of lots of tiny worlds over the course of a single day. The traces of the couple added to the record of time that was this white carpet, although only for as long as it survived its fight against the sun.
Every road was an unfortunate reminder of reality as it only gave the gray, soggy snow to walk one or large puddles, making things messy. It served as an excuse for them to take the longest detours to avoid any crosswalk.
When the sky started to cover itself back with thin clouds, the parking lot behind their apartment complex showed itself.
Fukase glanced back. Now was the time.
He ran towards the gate and grabbed as much snow as he could, shaped what was not stuck to his gloves as a ball and chucked it at Yohio. He missed since he was frantic but it still enabled the long awaited fight. The blonde positioned himself in front of his partner and imitated his movements, taking more time to aim properly before barely missing him every time.
“Stop wiggling around !” He shouted at him before himself avoiding a snowball.
“Wiggling around is the best tactic in FPS ! I will not stop !” He was still as quick to form and throw bullets but somehow corrected his aim as time went on.
And when they weren't yelling at each other, they laughed hard enough to sting their throats, surely letting themselves catch a cold, but it didn't matter at that moment.
As the moon rose in the still blue sky, their excitement came to a halt and their bodies went to rest on a nearby bench.
Fukase was panting hard, his wiggling tactic exhausting him faster than the other but, according to him, making him the winner. In his hands, the once large piece of ice that rested on the bench was breaking into smaller and smaller pieces until smithereens fell to his feet. Yohio, on the other hand, went back to calmly looking around, his breathing only slightly louder than usual. He tapped Fukase's thigh every now and then to show him either a stalactite, a puddle, or solar panels covered in snow that he somehow found hilarious.
The smaller man just nodded at whatever he pointed at and stared at his face between his discoveries. His brown beanie was still well adjusted on his head, only partially messing up his hair which fell gracefully on his forehead. His scarlet eyes darted everywhere, made darker by the shade of his lashes. Those brushed against his smooth and flushed cheeks at every blink. They weakly glittered from the melting snow that reached his face and ran down all the way to his lips. Ah, these lips–
“You're staring,” the gentle voice took him out of his daze.
“Yeah, and ?” He raised an eyebrow and tried to hide his embarrassment behind his scarf. Yohio grinned in a sigh.
“And nothing,” he said before looking back in front of him, convinced he wouldn't be looking for long, “stare all you want.”
Gloved fingers approached his face to turn it back where it was facing and a kiss was sealed before he could even blink. He smiled while taking off his own gloves, his boyfriend was very predictable. As his cold fingertips touched Fukase's cheeks, the younger man flinched a bit and let out a quiet whimper that was immediately taken by the other's mouth.
After playful confrontation, their bodies naturally went back to completing one another in a slow, loving embrace. The blush on their faces was no longer due to the cold and their ears no longer felt impossibly frozen. Everything was slowly heating up as time went on and that's when they knew it was time to come back inside.
Not without two failed attempts, they eventually broke their kiss and stood up from the bench to head back to their apartment.
The sun was finally setting and their many layers were finally coming off. With warm drinks in hand, they spent the rest of their rest day without a care in the world, just them basking in each other's presence.
Hopefully, the snow will last until the next morning.