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Mikaela didn’t need sleep—but tonight, he wanted to pretend. The fireplace crackled softly in the corner, casting flickering shadows along the walls of their quiet little home. Outside, snow drifted lazily from a sky too gray to tell the time.
Inside, everything was still—except for Yuichiro’s heartbeat. Mikaela lay curled against him, wrapped in the same hoodie he hadn’t given back in weeks, his fingers loosely curled around Yuichiro’s shirt. He could feel the rise and fall of Yuichiro’s chest beneath his cheek, the heat radiating from his skin like a sun Mikaela could orbit forever, his heartbeat his favorite sound comforting to his sensitive vampire ears.
“You’re doing it again, Mika” Yuichiro said softly, not bothering to open his eyes.
Mikaela blinked. “…Doing what?”
“Staring at me like I’ll disappear if you look away.”
Mikaela huffed, but there was no real edge to it. “You’re imagining things.”
Yuichiro cracked one emerald eye open, catching the barest flicker of a smile tugging at Mikaela’s lips. “Nope. You get this look sometimes—like you’re memorizing me.”
“I already have,” Mikaela said quietly, fingers tightening just a bit. “Every line of your face. Every heartbeat.”
Yuichiro’s smile faltered, only to soften into something deeper—quiet, reverent. He reached up and brushed a thumb along Mikaela’s cheek, cold beneath his fingers.
“You always say things like that so seriously,” Yuichiro murmured. “It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?”
“You make it sound like forever, and then remind me it might not be.”
Mikaela was silent for a moment, then slowly reached up, pressing Yuichiro’s hand tighter against his cheek.
“It is forever,” he whispered. “As long as you’ll have me.”
Yuichiro swallowed. “Idiot. You say that like there’s ever been a day I wouldn’t.”
“I say it because… I need you to know, Yuu-Chan”
Yuichiro leaned forward then, forehead brushing against Mikaela’s. “I know. But I want to feel it, too.”
So Mikaela kissed him. It wasn’t desperate. It wasn’t heated. It was soft—tentative at first, then steady, sure. His hands trembled slightly where they cupped Yuichiro’s face, not from cold, but from how warm this was—how real. Yuichiro kissed him back like he was trying to melt every frozen part of him, slow and searching, breathing life into a body that hadn’t needed breath for years.
When they pulled apart, neither of them spoke right away. Mikaela just rested his forehead against Yuichiro’s, eyes fluttering shut.
“I feel it,” Yuichiro said eventually, his voice barely more than a breath. “I feel everything, when I’m with you.”
“…Me too,” Mikaela murmured, face painted in the most pretty flush that Yuichiro admired always.“You make me feel human.”
Yuichiro smiled, his thumb brushing over Mikaela’s lips.
“You don’t have to be. Just be mine.” Mikaela nodded, small and certain. “I already am.”
The snow outside continued to fall. The fire crackled on. And in the stillness between them, something warmer than blood, deeper than silence, settled in. They didn’t speak again that night. They didn’t have to.
They had warmth.
They had forever.
They had each other.