Iori woke up quietly and slowly, blissfully unaided by an alarm clock. He wasn’t really one to believe in or ascribe to miracles, but days off over the weekend came close to making him think they may actually be real.
He lifted himself out of bed with deliberate precision and stretched his arms over his head. For once, he had no plans. He finished all his homework the night before in a strange bout of excitement at the prospect of a real day off, and he wasn’t on duty for cooking today so there was no need to get dressed and go out shopping.
He lazily pulled together an outfit and set his pajamas aside to be washed. He made his bed. He flipped through his schoolwork, which was just as perfectly finished as it was the night before. He went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, grabbed some tea from the kitchen, and then went back to his bedroom and flipped through his schoolwork again.
Iori Izumi was not used to being bored.
“Bored…Since when did I start feeling bored…?” He mumbled to himself, eyes glazing over as he filed through recent memories.
He resolutely put his notebooks and files away–REALLY away, so he wouldn’t be tempted to go through it again–and quietly ventured to the hall.
Who was home?
If he wasn’t mistaken, Yamato was filming for Nemesis’s sequel. Mitsuki and Sougo were invited to a variety program that shot in Osaka, so they wouldn’t be home until very late that night. Nagi and Tamaki were at a gravure shoot….
Which left Riku, who was, as far as Iori’s memory served, definitely off today.
Iori’s gaze slowly gravitated towards the neighboring room. It was slightly open (not unusual in recent months for any of them), so Iori shuffled closer to inspect. The lights seemed to be on, but he couldn’t hear anything from the other side. He reached out to knock, but his fingers hesitated millimeters from the door.
It would probably be better not to disturb him on his day off. He may still be sleeping…no, if he is sleeping, woudn’t it be better to wake him up? It isn’t good for your body to sleep in too late–but is it my place to wake him up? A day off is rare enough as it is, he should get all the rest he needs, and he doesn’t need me bothering hi–
“Oh, is someone at the door? Sorry, I didn’t hear anyone knock!”
Riku’s bright voice sparked Iori into stumbling forward, leading his hand into the door and opening it about halfway. “Ah…yes,” he managed after a quick and quiet (he hoped) clearing of his throat, “I wanted to confirm who else was off today.”
Iori quietly stepped through threshold into Riku’s room just enough to see what the other was doing…which turned out to be a very large tick on the “Bad Decisions Iori Has Made Today” list as Riku, lying on his bed reading a book with tousled hair and slightly crooked glasses, made quite an unforgettable picture.
“Iori! So you’re off today too…is anyone else?”
“No, just us.”
“I see…” Riku’s smile faltered a bit as he tilted his head. “Are you okay? Your face is a bit red.”
Having it pointed out only made the matters worse. “N-no, I’m fine, please don’t concern yourself with me. I’m going to return to my room for now. Have a good day, Nanase-san.”
“Wait, hold on!” Riku clambered out from under his sheets, (thankfully) fixing his glasses in the process. He grabbed at his bedroom door before Iori could close it completely. “Do you have any plans for today?”
“…Nothing particularly, no." Iori continued to face his room as he replied, hand still clutching at the doorknob. He turned back to look at Riku in an attempt to persuade him from any of the wild ideas he must certain have, but was stopped short at the grin plastered on his face.
"Then let’s do that together!”
“….Excuse me? Do nothing, together? Are you sure you aren’t still asleep.”
Riku pulled the door all the way open, forcing Iori’s body to lurch back in Riku’s direction. “Yeah…I mean, it’s kinda lonely to spend your days off by yourself, right? Besides, I haven’t really spent much time with you recently.”
Iori turned Riku’s words over and over and over, trying to find a pointed response, but he couldn’t deny the warmth they inspired in his chest. “So what do you propose I do, then?”
Riku crossed his arms in thought. “Well, whatever you want to. The past week has been kinda…” Riku gestured vaguely but ended with a final tap on his chest; no one needed to be reminded with words. “…so I just wanted to sit down and read. It’d be nice to have company, though.”
Riku smiled weakly at Iori, who could only sigh in response. He closed his eyes and nodded slowly, and Riku’s reaction was apparent enough even without being able to see it.
“Why don’t we stay in your room?” Iori offered as he physically turned Riku back towards his bed. “It’s a bit cold in the living area right now.”
The only response Iori received was a happy noise of agreement as Riku relented to being pushed back down into bed. Iori hesitated for a moment before grabbing at the covers and pulling them back over Riku. “Wait here.”
He swiftly left the room, leaving Riku’s door wide open. He had a number of things he actually needed to do, but chief among them was to compose himself. So he slid down the wall between their bedroom doors, covered his face with his hands, and quietly mumbled “Cute…” for about 15 seconds.
Yes, that should take care of that.
Iori rose from his crumpled position on the floor and first made for his own room. He grabbed his cellphone and a book off the shelf, and then turned off the lights. His second stop was the kitchen; if Riku was still feeling awful enough that he actually vocalized worries about it, then it would do to prepare some kind of warm drink. He set out to warm two mugs of milk, and while waiting pulled out the honey and a small selection of (healthy) snacks. He put the finished drinks and snacks on a tray–one of many Mitsuki had ended up buying for use during dinner time–and strode back to Riku’s room.
He could feel his ears growing warm at the glitter in Riku’s eyes and the small “Oh!” that escaped as he entered. He wordlessly set the tray on the bedside table and picked up both drinks.
“Drink it slowly, and try not to spill any of it,” Iori warned as he offered one of the mugs to Riku.
Riku placed his book aside and shuffled himself upright. “Thanks, Iori…and I’m not gonna spill it! I’m not that clumsy.” He gingerly took the mug and cradled it in both hands. Iori could barely make out a small hum of content as he took in the heat from the mug, though it was immediately followed by a small grunt as his glasses fogged up.
With the most pressing matters finished, Iori dragged the beanbag on the floor closer to Riku’s bed and fell back onto it with surprising grace.
“Let me know if you get hungry.”
Riku laughed as he set the mug aside and returned to his book. “Thanks, Iori.”
Iori suspected he meant for more than the immediately preceding comment. “I–We just can’t afford to have our center get sick!”
About an hour of relative silence passed before anyone made a sound. It was a surprisingly comfortable silence, only broken by quiet laughter or gasps of surprise from Riku as he made his way through his novel. Iori would steal glances at Riku at these moments, mesmerized as always by the transparency of his emotions and the apparent strength with which he felt them. Everything else was so quiet that Iori couldn’t push away the fluttering of envy like he normally could…but even that was okay.
It was because he was himself that he was here, after all. It took a while to be okay with that, but he was getting somewhere with it.
But after the hour passed, it wasn’t a loud outburst from Riku reaching the climax of his novel that broke the peace. No, instead, it was a surprisingly loud “Ah!” from Iori, who had for the past ten minutes been gazing at his cell phone, that nearly made Riku send his granola bar flying across the room.
“Iori?! What happened?”
“Well, no, it’s nothing. Please disregard that.”
“As if! You never let out a noise like that…”
“Why do you look so despondent?”
“Why are you dodging the question?!”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t not dodging he question.
Iori looked back down to his phone screen. The situation as it was meant he could only access the mobile version of the website, but even that was enough to see it was very well put-together–almost surprisingly so. And the date was even before their official debut–
“Whoa, is that the fansite Manager talked about?”
Iori pushed back against the floor and skid the beanbag backwards and away from Riku, who had at some point lowered himself from the bed and onto his knees and gotten close enough to look over at Iori’s phone. “Nanase-san, please do not get so close without some kind of warning!”
“I’m sorry! But you were just so interested in your phone…” Riku readjusted his glasses as he slowly circled around Iori and gently sat down on his right. Iori moved over to give Riku some of the beanbag to sit on.
“Is there anything interesting there?” Riku continued, peering over his frames at Iori.
It didn’t look like Riku was going to give up, so Iori relented. “There are quite a few pictures. Mostly from various performances, though I see there are also some candid shots. There appears to be a comment thread as well…the site is well-trafficked, which makes sense.”
“Makes sense?" Riku poked around at Iori’s phone screen to scroll through the "News” section.
“I…a number of links and searches led me here. It seems there are a number of fan sites like this one, but this is one of the older ones. The focus…” Iori broke off and cleared his throat; he could feel his ears getting red again. “…seems to be on the two of us, but the chat functions as a general gathering for IDOLiSH7 fans.”
Riku nodded along with Iori’s explanation as he continued to poke around. “Ah! Look, Iori, from the unit tour…this was a park theater in Osaka, right?”
“Yes. If I remember correctly, it had rained the night before–”
“–and the stage was really slippery!" Riku continued with a laugh. "We both nearly fell multiple times.”
Iori sighed with a grimace. “I nearly fell off the stage once, if memory serves. It’s a testament to your vocal control that you managed to pull me back without a hitch in your performance.”
Riku pulled his hand back from Iori’s phone to curl in on himself with mirth. As he did so, he lost balance and fell over. His head landed on Iori’s shoulder, but as Iori didn’t make any movements to push Riku away, he kept it there.
“Look,” Iori moved his phone to the side so Riku could see the picture currently displayed there.
“Ah! That’s….weren’t we with Mitsuki?” Riku grabbed at Iori’s right hand to bring it closer. “Yeah, that was the only time all three of us had a day off.”
Iori somehow managed to laugh despite how jumbled his organs felt at the various points of contact between him and Riku. “Yes, Nii-san insisted on taking us out to play. I should be less surprised at there being candid pictures of us from fans, but it’s still quite a shock.”
Riku nodded slowly in agreement. “Yeah…that was a fun day, though. And I finally got to see how good Mitsuki is at arcade games!”
Iori smiled quietly at the memory. Mitsuki handily beat both of them at every single game they tried, but he didn’t feel any bitterness about it. After the first few defeats, he and Riku had wound up trying to tag team Mitsuki in other games whenever possible, but even then he came out on top…except for the very last game. The picture displayed on the screen was taken with perfect enough timing to display the moment their hands connected in a high-five.
He stopped the reminiscing, however, when he felt Riku burying his head into his shoulder with a whispered “Thank goodness.”
“Nanase-san?”
Riku stopped moving, but still didn’t look up. “I’ve always been worried, you know? About whether or not I was really good enough to be in a unit with you, or whether I was just a weight holding you back…but seeing you laugh about these things makes me really happy. You’ve told me before about how much you like my singing, but you’re not a very straightforward person, so I always wondered about me. Thank goodness…”
Iori felt the tears on his shoulder before he heard or saw any sign of them, but that alone was enough to tighten his chest and make it difficult to breathe. But breathe he must, so he took in as much air as his pained chest would allow, and expelled it slowly.
He never realized Riku had misgivings like these. Iori’s head had been full of his own thoughts–of Riku disliking or even hating him, of taking focus away from Riku’s voice during performances, or in those rare instances of not being able to match Riku’s talent–but had only rarely given time to how Riku may feel. Though even in those times, he had never thought the worries had been about wanting Iori’s affection…
Well, with this, most of Iori’s own worries were assuaged, so he didn’t deem it necessary to talk about them.
“Nanase-san. I’m happy…to be in a unit with you. I promise.” He quietly brought up his other hand–the hand that wasn’t still being gripped by Riku–to flick at Riku’s forehead. “Come on now, you’ll break your glasses if you continue to burrow into my shoulder.”
Riku’s head shot up, giving Iori a full view of his tear-stained face, which was only accentuated by the once-again fogged up and crooked red frames. His eyes were wide as they darted between Iori’s own. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You aren’t upset about not being with Mitsuki?”
Iori quietly looked away from Riku, face burning red. “I want Nii-san to shine on his own…I want him to know that it’s all him. So I’m glad he gets to be the star of his own unit, while I’m with you.”
Riku squeezed Iori’s hand–how long has he been holding it now?–and slumped back onto his shoulder. “Let’s look through that site some more. We might find some interesting memories in there.”
The weight of Riku’s head on his shoulder slowly forced Iori to lie back on the beanbag, and Iori was glad to let it happen. He moved the phone to his left hand so he could let his right hand, still holding Riku’s, drop between them. It meant Riku had to navigate the screen for both of them, but it was an arrangement that worked.
In ten minutes, Riku started quietly singing Fly Away. Iori, somehow even quieter, joined in.
They fell asleep within the hour, fingers still loosely tangled between them.