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The Dark Hour stops for nothing and no one, not even with all the distance between them and Iwatodai, and Makoto lies in his futon with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the wooden slats in the ceiling while every inch of the room is bathed in green light. If he were to turn his head to the left, he would be met with the sight of a coffin; his roommate had Transmogrified. While most people would find it eerie, Makoto truthfully considers it to be a relief, the snores of the person he has been stuck with for his room assignment thankfully cutting off the moment the clock had struck twelve.
His eyes have finally fluttered shut and he's making a real effort at getting some semblance of sleep when he hears the creaking of the floorboards and the sound of footsteps in the hall. They sound hurried and Makoto freezes, his heart pounding in his throat as his eyes flutter open. His first thought is there is a shadow on the loose in Kyoto and one of SEES has come to get him, maybe Junpei or Akihiko, and Makoto slowly sits up with a frown, his breath stolen from his lungs when the door slides open and reveals Mochizuki Ryoji standing in the hall in his yukata.
The green light throws Ryoji's face into sharp relief; his eyes are wide and his breath is coming heavily and it takes a moment for Makoto to place him, the hour combined with the lack of his yellow scarf around his neck rendering Ryoji strange and unfamiliar.
“Makoto,” Ryoji says, his voice hushed, standing as still as a statue in the doorway before he comes jerkily to life. There's something wild and desperate in his eyes when he stumbles over to Makoto and falls to his knees before him, his hands fluttering uncertainty over Makoto's body before taking Makoto's face gently between his hands. Makoto stares back at him, wide eyed, feeling his throat tighten as Ryoji leans their foreheads together, his eyes fluttering close as he gives a breathless laugh. “I'm so glad you're okay.”
You shouldn't be here, Makoto thinks. He's quiet as he looks at Ryoji's face: the way the tension eases from it as he leans into Makoto. Makoto's mind is spinning but he swallows half in part to Ryoji's proximity, hesitating before leaning in as well as he lets his own eyes flutter shut.
“I'm fine," Makoto murmurs back. "It's nothing I'm not used to.”
Ryoji seems to startle at that, his breath hitching in surprise, and Makoto's mouth pinches when Ryoji pulls back and lets his hands drop from Makoto's face. Makoto opens his eyes to find Ryoji already staring back at him, his brow furrowed in confusion, and Makoto wants to press his fingers to it and smooth it out until Ryoji's forehead is unlined once more.
"That’s—how can that be? The blood in the halls—"
“Don't forget the coffins,” Makoto says instead of anything helpful, idly wishing that Mitsuru was here to give the usual spiel and take the burden of explanation off of him. He gives a subtle tilt of his head to his Transmogrified roommate and Ryoji's eyes finally flicker to Makoto's left, a bewildered expression crossing his face, like he was blind to anything but Makoto the moment he came into the room.
“Oh,” Ryoji says, surprise thick in his voice, his eyes flickering back to Makoto. “That happened to my roommate too. But when I wandered out to investigate and saw the blood everywhere…” He pauses, looking almost shy for a moment, and it's unusual for someone like Ryoji who feels everything so wholeheartedly, not a single ounce of shame in any fiber of his being. “I was so focused on making sure you were okay it kind of slipped my mind.”
“My hero,” Makoto says dryly but the smile that follows is involuntary, small and muted but no less sincere.
His flicker of amusement is drowned out yet again by the realization that he has to actually be the one to explain everything. He sighs, shifting a little to be more comfortable for what will no doubt be a long conversation. Ryoji's eyes dart down and then back up, a flush suddenly flooding his cheeks, and it takes a moment for Makoto to realize the yukata he wore to bed is slipping slightly off his shoulder. He keeps his face blank while he straightens it back up but he is carefully watching the way Ryoji's eyes track Makoto's fingers and how Ryoji's throat works as he swallows.
“It's called the Dark Hour,” Makoto says, holding Ryoji's gaze when his eyes flick back up and suppressing a smile at the faintly dazed look that steals over Ryoji's features. “The time period between one day and the next.”
The conversation goes well enough, all things considered, but it helps that Ryoji is not only an avid audience but an overly forgiving one, waiting patiently each time Makoto lapses into silence and gently prodding him along if he trails off too long. At one point Makoto lies back down and Ryoji lies down with him and there's something hushed and intimate about it all, the scant inches between their faces as Ryoji intently fixes his eyes and ears upon him, hanging onto every word that tumbles from Makoto's lips with his eyes bright and strange in his face.
“Ten years,” Ryoji murmurs after Makoto lapses into silence again, sounding thoughtful and mournful all at once. "Were you alone all that time?”
I've always been alone, Makoto thinks, but that isn't entirely true. He had relatives who erred on the side of caution around him because a traumatized child can only get grace for so long and something about his apathy and silence as he aged had seemed to make them uncomfortable. What he had never admitted to Yukari or Junpei or anyone else was that the Dark Hour was almost a comfort in a way after his parents’ deaths: a time where he was far away from empty platitudes and awkward well wishes, a time where he didn't have to track the nervous swallow of his relatives’ throats or pretend not to notice the way that their eyes would skirt away from his face. Makoto had intentionally held himself apart, the empty world full of sickly green skies and coffins and pools of blood preferable to the one that existed in the light of day, thinking that the ugliness of the Dark Hour was more honest in its darkness and brutality than the ugliness that would lurk behind fake smiles and false niceties. He still thinks that deep down, remembering the way Fuuka had been bullied and ostracized and how both teachers and peers had turned a willful blind eye, remembering how Ikutsuki had deceived them all with his dumb jokes and goofy grin.
Ryoji isn't like that. Ryoji thinks the world is wonderful and so is every person in it, the makings of the world and the people who exist in it a never ending source of joy and fascination to him. The reason the world is beautiful is because of the kindness of the people living in it, he had told Makoto just the other day as they ate lunch on the roof at school, and Makoto had looked back at Ryoji, taking special note of the brightness of his eyes and the soft curve of his mouth, and had been surprised to find he didn't disagree.
He wonders how much of that is Ryoji and how much of that is the past year Makoto has spent in this place with these people who have opened him up, little by little, piece by piece.
“I'm not alone now,” Makoto murmurs back, the moment feeling strangely charged despite there being a literal coffin not that far away from them, and Ryoji's smile at that somehow leaves him breathless.
They're sharing Makoto's pillow, lying on their sides as they face each other, and Makoto almost feels like he is watching outside himself as he raises a hand and presses it to the exposed skin of Ryoji's collarbone. Hears Ryoji's sharp inhale as he slowly traces it with his fingers. Sees the roundening of his eyes, the dilating of his pupils, the swallow of his throat.
“Makoto,” Ryoji says, hushed.
“Ryoji,” he says, just as quiet and intense, and maybe that is all that needs to be said. They've never needed words to understand each other.
In the end it is almost nothing at all to lean in, to bridge that small measure of distance between their mouths and kiss Ryoji. Something about the way Ryoji's mouth opens to him under the green light of the moon feels surreal, hazy and dreamlike even as his hand slides from Ryoji's collarbone to rest firmly against Ryoji's heart. Ryoji's hands flutter over Makoto again but with decidedly more intent and purpose, mirroring how they had begun earlier by holding Makoto's face between his hands, then sliding his left hand down to brush his fingers over Makoto's own collarbone, letting the thumb of his right hand graze teasingly over Makoto's pulse and smiling against Makoto's mouth at Makoto's shiver and the small hitch in his breath.
Makoto curls his other hand around the back of Ryoji's neck and draws Ryoji's lip between his teeth, grinning against Ryoji's mouth at being able to elicit a gasp of his own.
Eventually the kissing tapers off and their hands stop migrating and make to tangle together. Ryoji brings one of them up to his lips, brushing his mouth over the skin of Makoto's knuckles.
“I had a confession all planned out,” Ryoji says, eyes at half mast while they lean their foreheads together and smile like fools. “I was going to play the piano. It was going to be very romantic.”
“I'm sure it was,” Makoto says, half wry and half consoling. “Not as romantic as blood and coffins though.”
“Of course,” Ryoji says, sagely, and then they stare at each other for a heartbeat before bursting into laughter, the sound of his own laughter rusty and foreign to Makoto's ears but there is no room for awkwardness to creep up on him, not when Ryoji is looking at Makoto like he's never heard anything more beautiful or precious.
“I still want to hear you play,” Makoto tells him when their laughter dies down, just to see the way Ryoji's eyes brighten with pleasure.
“I'll be better this time,” Ryoji says with that earnestness that Makoto once found so unnatural but has now come to accept comes as naturally to Ryoji as breathing. “Promise.”
“You could be terrible at it for all I care,” Makoto says, a smile curving his mouth. “As long as it is you.”
They continue to lie there—sometimes kissing, sometimes not—with the knowledge that this interlude will eventually come to an end, that the world they are currently inhabiting will soon consist of more than just the two of them. Ryoji ends up leaning his head against Makoto's chest while Makoto cards his fingers through his hair and listens silently while Ryoji whispers his heart to Makoto under the cover of darkness.
“You know, when the world changed…I wasn't scared. At least not for me. I was worried for you, of course, but as strange as everything was I found something about it almost...peaceful.” Ryoji had been muttering into Makoto's chest while he spoke but his face upturns at last to peer up at Makoto, a vulnerability in his voice and face that Makoto isn't used to from Ryoji. He pauses. Swallows. Whispers: “I still do.”
Makoto presses his lips to Ryoji's hair and stifles a smile at how Ryoji's eyes widen.
“I get it,” he says, quietly, because he does. “The others made it all sound like something so terrible and it is, I know that now, but for me it was different. It's okay that it is different for you too.”
“Sometimes I feel like I've always known you,” Ryoji confesses after a long moment. “Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.”
“Maybe,” Makoto says, his throat oddly tight, and kisses Ryoji before reality can wedge itself between them again, content to continue living just a bit longer in this world that was only the two of them and no one else.