Work Text:
It’s snowing.
It’s the kind of snow that threatens to melt into mush the second morning comes around. Right now, though—it clings desperately to the ground, anchoring their shoes with each step they take.
It doesn’t snow in Tokyo. Not really. A dusting across the city, sometimes, that’s gone by morning. Never anything like this. And Ryunosuke has experienced proper snow before, of course, from way back before he moved to Tokyo, but Kazuma—
Take one look at him; you can tell he hasn’t. Wonder (childlike, innocent, so unlike him) glints in his eyes as he watches the footprints they make, his breath ghosting the air, the shine of snow against the low gaslight of each home they pass.
And what of the splotches across his cheeks? The stark snow collecting in his eyelashes? The little tug on his mouth when the wind blows just so, collecting all the snowflakes in it?
There’s something beautiful about it. About him. Like an artifact cradled within frosted glass—there, but distant. Look, but don’t touch.
Ryunosuke keeps his hands firmly in his coat pockets.
Kazuma reaches out and knocks snow off the next windowsill they pass. It falls to the ground in clumps.
“You’re like a cat.” Ryunosuke’s breath fogs the air. He tries not to watch how Kazuma watches it curdle—fade.
Kazuma snorts. “I’m far more pleasant.”
“Are you?”
“I would say so,” Kazuma returns sweetly. “What, are you arguing I’m not?”
It’d be all too easy to find a proper comeback. What about the time Kazuma made his classmate cry during a mock trial? How about when he took up arms against the Yumei administration when they forbade Enka performances on-campus? Or, you know, we could do something simple: anything from when he and Kazuma first met.
It’d be all too easy—normally. As it is, something needles all over Ryunosuke’s heart, like a pincushion. Can’t quite make the insult—however playful—cross his lips. He doesn’t end up replying, not really.
And it should be stilted. A little awkward. It isn’t, not really. Kazuma just laughs under his breath—like he’s won the argument; he kind of has—and lets it go.
The time passes. They make it back to their apartment.
It’s a small thing. Kazuma insisted on it, to make the most of their stipend. Really, it was a good choice. It lets them have these little outings to teahouses, even the ones clear on the other side of town, without stretching their budget. More than that, though—
More than that, though, it means that Ryunosuke is able to—has to—stand close to Kazuma in the entryway as they take off their outerwear, shake the snow off. Kazuma runs a hand through his hair; snow falls from his fingers onto Ryunosuke’s hair, shoulder. Ryunosuke squawks—an inelegant thing—and Kazuma huffs, half a laugh, as he brushes it off Ryunosuke, too.
His hand is rough. It’s nice.
They’re so close. Kazuma’s warmth bleeds off him, onto—into Ryunosuke. Terrible, really, that Ryunosuke still wants more. Wants to reach and brush the snow off Kazuma’s eyelashes—feel for himself if they’re as delicate as they look.
“You’re staring again,” Kazuma sighs as he reaches around Ryunosuke to hook his coat on the hanger.
I know, Ryunosuke wants to say. It’ll happen again. Maybe even also: Stay just like that? “Sorry.”
“I can hear you thinking,” Kazuma continues. “Have all night, really. Out with it.”
How do you put it into words? The realization that the more things change, the more they stay the same—that Kazuma is always going to hate chicken, always going to get up at the crack of dawn to practice his swordsmanship, and whatever else, even if he can stomach English food now. The realization that he’s changing just as Kazuma is; that they’re changing, growing, around one another. The realization, on the other side of the world, that home isn’t so much a place as it is a person.
“I’m glad I came with you,” is what Ryunosuke ends up saying. Because, really, it would have been just as easy to finish out his English degree at Yumei. There wasn’t quite the need—the pull—to study abroad.
Kazuma is magnetic, though. Convinced him to apply; tugged him right along.
Kazuma’s face softens. Just a bit. “Me, too.”
It burns something terrible. Liquid and molten through Ryunosuke’s veins. It’s accidental, really, how his eyes fall to Kazuma’s mouth. Kazuma’s breath stutters—so quiet. Inaudible if not for how close they are. “You looked—happy, out there,” Ryunosuke continues. His eyes don’t leave Kazuma’s mouth. They can’t.
“Ryunosuke.” It’s not quite a tremble to Kazuma’s voice. Not exactly. More like that breeze that heralds a hurricane; the precursor.
“Yeah?”
“What are you getting at,” Kazuma asks, but it’s not quite a question. His voice creaks.
Well—“I don’t know,” Ryunosuke answers, truthfully. Isn’t it enough to look, observe? Linger in this moment? “Do I have to have a point?”
“I’d hope you did, now of all times,” Kazuma returns. Oh—he shifts, leans in a little closer. Ryunosuke basks in it.
“What are you hoping for?” It’s a genuine question, really, and—
Kazuma kisses him. It’s a quick, sudden thing—Kazuma’s hand coming to cup his cheek as he leans down like he’s done this a hundred, a thousand, times before. Ryunosuke makes a little noise against Kazuma’s mouth—kisses him back, kisses him back, kisses him back. Kazuma sighs, breath ghosting across Ryunosuke’s skin, as he steps in a little closer—boxes Ryunosuke against the wall, so lovely—and Ryunosuke’s arms circle ‘round Kazuma’s neck, and…
“That,” Kazuma says as he pulls away. “Though you might’ve gotten there. Eventually.”
“Eventually,” Ryunosuke agrees, a little dazed. Somewhere else.
“Not quick enough, though,” Kazuma continues, because he always has to win. His mouth is—a little wet. Just a little. Flushed red, though. Because of Ryunosuke. Because of Ryunosuke.
“Impatient,” Ryunosuke mutters.
“Proactive,” Kazuma corrects him, sagely. Ryunosuke huffs out a laugh; Kazuma smiles. Just a tug on his lips. Just beautiful.
“I love you,” says Ryunosuke. Spills right out of him as Kazuma holds him there against the wall, as their breath skirts across one another’s, as they bleed into one another. He needs to know.
Kazuma’s eyes widen. He ducks his head—flits his gaze away.
“I just—you should know. That’s all.”
Kazuma mumbles something incoherent. Something that might be—“Me, too,” Kazuma clarifies, before Ryunosuke can even ask him to repeat himself. “You—should know.”
“Look at me?”
Kazuma does. Of course he does.
“Say it again. Please.”
Kazuma does. Of course he does.
Ryunosuke kisses him again, halfway through—swallows it down, lets it thrum through his chest. So lovely. Kazuma might huff out a laugh against Ryunosuke’s lips at his impatience. That’s lovely, too.
But, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. They don’t bother with separate futons, later; they still bicker about who gets which side of their two-futons-pushed-together, and how much room Kazuma takes up, until Kazuma huffs and just lays his head on Ryunosuke’s chest, like that’s a solution. Well, it is.
“Your heart’s beating so fast,” Kazuma mumbles. Picks up even more at Kazuma’s voice; Kazuma might smile against his skin.
“Of course it is.”
“‘s nice,” Kazuma continues.
Ryunosuke threads his fingers through Kazuma’s hair, fiddles with a strand or two. Doesn’t reply, even as Kazuma nuzzles a little deeper into Ryunosuke’s chest. Doesn’t need to.