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Sometimes it’s easy to overthink.
You stay awake looking at the ceiling while a million thoughts collide into each other like meteors, leaving you dizzy trying to make sense of where the pieces of one thought began and the other’s ended.
Harua rolls in his bed constantly trying to shake these thoughts off and get to sleep but he fails and out of frustration he slams his fist gently into the mattress.
Sounds of shifting covers echo in return.
“…Maki-kun?”
“Mhh…”
“…Are you awake?”
“… I guess now I am.”
“I want to go for a walk, would you come with me?” Harua’s voice gets incresingly louder and it takes Maki a minute to realize he’s now crouching next to his bed.
“Shit, you scared me man. Why do you want to go for a walk all of a sudden?”
“I can’t sleep… My brain won’t turn off…”
Maki sits up slowly, checking his phone. 3:30 am, it is late enough for it to be dangerous for Harua to go alone. The thing is that Maki somehow feels still terribly self-conscious about spending time alone with Harua, and it’s not because of the incident that he probably won’t ever live down. Hell, it’s all fans talk about whenever both are brought into conversation and probably the subject of more than a few fanart pieces he’s seen laying around online.
Because he’s definitely seen what Luné has posted.
Well, maybe it’s because of the incident. He knows he’s not usually Harua’s cup of tea either, the eldest prefering the company of others such as Jo or Taki and he can’t blame him. They are pleasant to have around, usually having more of an easier time matching Harua’s energy.
He’s probably just asking because they’re rooming together tonight.
“Okay…”
Harua smiles and bounces up, quickly pulling together an outfit with the clothes he had laying around. He then stands by the door and waits for Maki to do the same, the youngest notices and tries to be as brief as possible. “Alright, let’s go.”
Surprisingly, it’s easy for them to leave the hotel and Maki is pretty alarmed by this. “… Did we just… Did we just walk out?”
“Yep.”
“… No one even asked anything?”
“Nope.”
“Wait have you left before???”
“Nope, I think we were just lucky.”
“Damn…” Maki runs his hand through his hair, attempting to push his stubborn bangs out of his face. “Well… Did you… Want to walk in silence…?”
Harua senses the awkwardness in Maki’s words and honestly, feels just as awkward himself. “… No, it’s okay… You can talk if you want.”
“Dunno, usually you like walking alone and being alone… Don’t wanna disturb your time…”
“I did ask you to come didn’t I?”
“Well I thought maybe to be safer or something.”
“Maki-kun… I think you might be a bigger safety hazard than actual protection…” Harua says with a small smile, he doesn’t intend to be hurtful but unfortunately Maki has been overthinking everything long enough.
“Oh.”
“I-I mean… You’d run head first into danger and…” He trails off, unsure of how to explain further.
“Rush to protect you because I’m an idiot and will do anything because I- yeah…”
Harua doesn’t know how to respond, he hasn’t thought about that for long. “It’s… Really been that long since the last time we spent time together… Like, aside from when we film for Luné.”
“I know right, probably since that time with the shrimp.”
“That poor shrimp…” The eldest chuckles. “I can’t believe they filmed that.”
“That? They filmed us watching that. You can see picture by picture the moment where we process what’s going on.” Maki snorts, shaking his head. “What was that…”
“It was delicious though.”
“It was so delicious, I ate so much that day.”
“Considering we had snacks too, you ate too much.”
“Hey don’t shame me, it was all too good and I didn’t know what to do with myself!” Maki whines, slipping his hands into his pockets.
Harua laughs lightly at that, Maki might be way taller than himself now but he’s still only a baby at heart and this makes him feel something strange in his chest. A nostalgic feeling about this kid beside him once being smaller and much clingier.
Both walk in silence for a little longer until a beach comes into sight. Harua’s first instinct is to look at Maki whose eyes sparkle as soon as he realizes where they’re heading. “Aaaaah! The beach!! Wanna go there??”
The eldest nods with a knowing smile. Of course Maki would love that.
And Maki literally zooms towards the beach, laughing as he starts feeling his shoes sink in the sand and fill with it. Harua can’t really help himself and runs after him, his laughter and joy being much more infectious than he expected them to be. “Wait! Don’t run off like that!”
“Is it weird if I want to like… Jump in?”
“Riki you’re not jumping into the ocean at almost 4 in the morning!”
“Weeeeeeh.” Maki makes a fake crying face, shaking his head almost immediately as if he was trying to shake off the cringe that came with that as well. He sighs and takes his sneakers off, sitting to watch the waves crash instead.
Harua carefully walks up to where Maki is and sits next to him but instead of focusing on the ocean his eyes trail up to the sky, taking in the infinity of the night above them. The stars glow almost rhythmically and he wonders if they’re breathing instead of shining, it fills his heart with the sense of calm he has been craving.
He still is restless somehow.
Maki doesn’t know what to do, so he stands up and walks towards the water just to dip his feet at the shore. He kicks at the water gently and tries to run away from the waves as they drag their way across the sand. “Oh shit.” He gasps when the water gets dangerously close to the hem of his pants and this draws Harua’s attention. He finds himself smiling uncontrollably at his playful antics, realizing by the sudden warmth in his chest, how Maki had quietly stolen his heart.
“Aaaaaah stooooooooop… I’m never going to live that down will I…"
“Live what down? Oh!” Maki snorts and breaks into a fit of laughter. “Noooooooo I didn’t mean to… I mean it just came out!”
“Luné is right, this is all on you and Nicho hyung!” Harua raises an accusatory finger at him.
“Oh come on!” The youngest walks back and flops beside him, staring up at the sky. “Face it you curse as much as we all do.”
“Not in English! I didn’t think it was that bad!”
“It really isn’t, believe me.”
“Oh? There’s worse?” He looks over, hugging his legs close to his chest.
“Not telling, we got into enough trouble already.”
“Now I want to know.” Harua nudges him. “Please?”
“Never. I’m not telling you anything anymore.”
“What if I tell you something in exchange… Like… The reason why we stopped spending time together?”
“You mean the reason why you started avoiding me like the plague? Now that’s something no one will ever live down.” There’s a certain hurt in his voice that Harua can’t shake off. “I was a kid, I was excited to make friends and you … Well… You were really cute, there’s nothing wrong in wanting to have a cute friend! That’s all there was to it.”
Harua hums and slowly lays down beside him, looking up as well. “That was… As hard for me as it was for you, you know…”
“I’m sure shaking me off was hard.”
“You’re being unfair.”
“I’m being unfair???” Maki sits up, furrowing his eyebrows. “You didn’t even give me a chance.”
“I did.” Harua sits up as well, looking just as offended.
“You were being filmed of course you were going to do it.”
“That’s not it! Just let me talk!”
“So you can break my heart all over again????”
Harua stops.
Maki’s chest is heaving, each breath roars like the crashing waves behind them.
He’s trembling.
“Riki… Look at me.” Harua’s voice is quiet. “… It was just so much happening at the same time… We were debuting and we had gone through a lot of stress and… Yes, you were young but so was I! We’re only a year apart, you know???”
Maki sniffles, but smiles nevertheless. “Eleven months and sixteen days. Sorry… I don’t know what took over me…” He actually counted?
“I’ve missed you more than what you think…” The eldest continues, carefully. “… Things… Have been awkward between us for a bit and… Spending time like this… I missed it. I miss it all. I miss your need to be constantly hovering over me trying to hold my hand or hug me. I miss hanging out with you and I miss you running around and laughing and being… You…”
“Sorry… I just never know what to do with myself around you anymore…” Maki hums and slowly lays back down. “… What a loser huh…"
"You've been holding back all this time for my sake, haven't you..."
"Yeahhhh... Sorry."
"Stop apologizing." Harua laughs and flops beside him, close enough for their shoulders to barely brush against each other. "Just promise you'll stop holding back for me..."
"... Yeah I can't do that." The tallest feels his cheeks heat up so slowly it's unbearable.
"I mean it."
"Shush, no you don't. If I stop holding back I might as well break into a song and end up confessing my feelings for you until the sun rises."
Harua smiles a little at that, turning on his side to look at him. Maki tries really hard not to but also turns on his side to face Harua, only he covers his face with his hands. "Your feelings for me?"
"I can't see you but I can feel you looking at me, stop."
"No, I want to know. I already told you something you wanted to know and now you have to tell me something I want to know." Harua whines trying to pry through Maki's hands.
"Fine I'll tell you all the curse words I know but stop."
Harua was indeed curious about the potential new additions to his vocabulary, but this shy side of Maki was too cute to let go. "I don't want to."
"Fine, but you asked for it." Maki's characteristic smirk returns to his face and he scrambles to stand up, accidentally kicking some sand at Harua who starts laughing.
"Hey!"
"Gentleman and... Gentleman. My name is Hirota Maki, rizzler extraordinaire, thank you very much for coming to my private concert where I will be dedicating a song to the boy who stole my fragile teenager heart almost 2 years ago, broke it and somehow still manages to tolerate me! Shigeta Harua, I've liked you since I first met you. Please go out with me!!!"
The brightest star of the night was definitely not up in the sky. It was right before Harua's eyes.
Without you, late nights don't mean a thing, yeah
Sunsets don't mean a thing, yeah
Shining stars don't mean a thing too
Woah-oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-woah-oh-oh-oh
With you, late nights, it's full of starlight
Sunsets, it's full of dreams, yeah
So let's go see the stars right now