Work Text:
It was a quiet night in Ishigami Village. The villagers were all exhausted from doing hard labor all day so most of them were already fast asleep in their homes. There were only three people still awake; Chrome, Gen, and Senku. The three of them were all on the upper floor of the observatory, sitting on the ground sorting through materials and writing down important notes about them. Senku and Chrome naturally found this exhilarating, Gen on the other hand, found this quite boring.
“Are we done yet?” The mentalist groaned, tired of sorting through random rocks, most of which were just boring looking. He was sitting in front of Chrome and Senku, his legs crossed so he could use them as a makeshift desk.
“Not quite, Magma and Chrome were able to get a lot of potentially useful materials from their spelunking yesterday. We have a lot of work to do.” Senku replies, a grin on his face. This earns a loud exasperated groan from Gen, which is no surprise considering how dramatic he can be. This went on for another hour, just endless sorting and writing, how exciting. It was about midnight when Chrome stood up.
“Alright, I’m done for the night. Normally I’d be down to stay up longer but my back is killing me. I’ll see you two in the morning.” Chrome stretched his arms and then went back down to the lower floor of the observatory, where he normally slept. Now it was just Senku and Gen left to finish the sorting.
“Hey Senku-chan, since Chrome went to bed does that mean I can as well?”
“Not a chance. Chrome was the one who gathered most of these materials so he already put well over his needed share of work into this, you on the other hand have just been sorting them into piles.”
“Well when you’ve been doing it for nearly four hours straight it’s a lot more tiring than it sounds.” Gen mutters, he crosses his arms to convey his sassy mood to Senku. Senku chuckles and rolls his eyes.
“C’mon, sit next to me, this will make it quicker since I don't have to stretch the stones over to you” Senku suggests. Gen hums at the idea and moves himself to Senku’s right. Now instead of having to take five seconds just to hand a rock to Gen, it only takes a single one. The two friends started to engage in small talk as they continued the work, mainly talking about what they did and how life was for them before the petrification happened. Gen was quite shocked to hear that Senku had interests outside of science, like anime and video games. On the other hand, Senku was shocked to hear what little of a life Gen had out of show-biz. This made the work go by a lot faster for Gen, which was relieving.
“Mmm, do you mind if I open the window, Senku? It’s quite stuffy in here, don’t you think?” Gen asks.
“Whatever makes you work more efficiently.”
Of course that’d be Senku’s answer, thought Gen. The taller one stood up from his spot and walked over to where the telescope he had built for Senku was. He reached over and opened the window, taking a moment to appreciate the stars in the navy blue sky. It was beautiful. Before humanity was erased there was so much air pollution that it was difficult to star gaze, but now that there’s no factories or cars to fog up the atmosphere, the stars glow brightly every night. Gen took a big breath of the outside air, it was crisp and cool, it was refreshing.
After a moment of admiring the outside, Gen was dragged back to the seemingly endless work. Gen was starting to feel beyond tired, it was starting to become hard to even keep his eyes open. His actions began to slow down and his breathing as well. Senku was about to point this out until he felt a weight on his shoulder. He turned to see that Gen had fallen asleep, and just happened to land on his shoulder.
Senku froze. Normally he’d either wake him up or at the very least shove him off, but this felt different. Senku didn’t want to. For some reason, he wanted Gen to stay there, he wanted Gen close to him. But why? If it were any other person he’d just shove em off, why was it different with Gen? Senku wanted to continue working but he couldn’t, if he were to move it’d disturb Gen. So instead Senku sat there, not knowing what to do.
Senku analyzed Gen as he slept. Gen was really pretty, prettier than Senku realized. Gen’s long, white portion of hair laid on the side of his pale porcelain-like face, his lashes were quite long and delicate for those of a male. His body rose slowly as he breathed in, and fell when he breathed out. He was awfully gorgeous. Why was Senku thinking of his close friend that way though? This was completely unlike him, he didn’t know what was going on. That’s when the mentalist whined a bit in his sleep, shifting to a more comfortable position while still asleep, and it practically sent off fireworks in Senku’s stomach. He was in love.
Gen was now practically wrapped around Senku’s arm, and god, did Senku like it. He didn’t know how, or most of all why, he liked Gen of all people. Hell he didn’t even know he was gay, for the longest time he thought he was just immune to love, apparently he wasn’t. Suddenly, he understood how Taiju feels around Yuzuriha, the adrenaline, the dopamine rush throughout his entire body. God, it was a wonderful feeling. Senku understood it all now. He understood why people shower their partner in gifts, why people want their partner as close as them as possible, he understood why Valentine’s Day is so popular now. Because of love. The sweet feeling it gives you, it feels like vanilla soft serve on a warm sunset, it feels like the softness of rose petals, it feels better than anything else. And at this moment, Senku didn’t care about anything other than Gen. He didn’t care about the work in front of him, about the stone war in a few weeks, he didn’t care. He just wanted to be close to Gen, everything else could wait.
Senku tucked a loose strand of white hair behind Gen’s ear. He could stare at the mentalist for hours, something about him was just so enticing. All of a sudden, Senku let out a yawn. Shit, he was tired. Senku had two options. He could either fall asleep in his current position which wouldn’t bother Gen but leave Senku with terrible back pains in the morning. Or he could shift into something much more comfortable but would wake Gen up in the process. Senku loved Gen, but not enough for sore muscles. He gently lifted Gen off of him and laid him down on the floor. Senku then stood up and walked to the other side of the observatory where Gen’s stray blanket was lying on the floor, he picked up the blanket and walked back over to Gen, covering up his crush with the cloth. He then looked back at the piles of different stones that Gen made, he decided to just leave them there for now so the three of them could pick up where they left off tomorrow. Senku was about to head over to his usual spot when he realized that he misses the feeling of Gen’s head on his shoulder. He misses the feeling of Gen’s weight against him, he misses his warmth. Senku turned back to the sleeping mentalist and sighed, was he really about to do this?
Senku laid down behind Gen, pulling the blanket over them both so they’re sharing it. He then wraps his arms around Gen’s waist, pulling him close. Senku was able to smell Gen’s silky hair, and god did he love it. But then, he felt the older one shift.
“Senku…?” Gen muttered, half-asleep and very confused on why his best friend is currently spooning him.
“You opening the window made it cold, and our bodies are the best source of heat.” Senku lied.
“You could have just… closed the window?”
“Oh, yeah. I guess I could have.”
“You just wanted to spoon me.”
“Yeah..”
Gen giggled, and to Senku’s surprise, actually scooted closer to the scientist, their bodies as close as possible. Senku felt his heart jump to his throat, his heart beat speeding up. He was ten billion percent sure Gen was able to feel the thumping in his chest, but Senku didn’t care.
He didn’t care about anything after all, not when the love of his life was in his arms.