Work Text:
The first Note
Taki didn’t particularly like Quidditch.
He respected it. Understood the appeal. Flying fast, scoring points, dramatic dives and last-minute saves — it had all the components of something thrilling. But the sport itself? Not really his thing. Too loud. Too many moving parts. Too many people yelling at once.
But Magical Creatures and Their Movement Patterns — that was interesting. The way wings bent in mid-flight, the angles of chase, the way a snitch shimmered in sunlight. His Care of Magical Creatures professor had recommended he study some older Quidditch movement texts, mostly to help with sketch accuracy.
Which is how he ended up in the back corner of the Hogwarts library, dragging down a copy of Tactical Flight and the Evolution of Aerial Defense, second edition.
It was dusty. Smelled like dried ink and inkier pride. The kind of book that thought it was smarter than it was. He cracked it open at the table by the window — his favorite table, actually, the one no one else used because the chair wobbled slightly and the light came in at a weird angle during late afternoons.
He only got a few paragraphs in before he noticed it.
A sentence, sharply underlined in thick, annoyed ink:
“This maneuver allows for a near-perfect horizontal block against forward spirals.”
Underneath it, in a scrawled, aggressive script:
Perfect, my ass. You’d get clipped by a toddler with a rogue Cleansweep if you tried this during a storm.
Taki blinked. Then snorted.
He reread the scribbled insult twice, then leaned over the page, flipping ahead a few sections. There were more notes. Short, annoyed, hilarious:
This author has never actually flown a match in their life.
Why does everyone pretend Beater coordination is optional? It’s not.
Honestly? Nicholas was right. This whole chapter is garbage.
He covered his mouth to stifle a laugh. A few students nearby gave him side-eyes, but he didn’t care.
He closed the book slowly. Tapped his fingers once on the wood. Thought about it.
Then, carefully, he opened to the first page again, flipped back to the original comment, and scribbled — in small, curving letters — just beneath the angry critique:
Is your ego okay? Should I owl the infirmary for concussion protocol?
He grinned.
Closed the book.
And returned it to the shelf.
He didn’t think about it for two days.
Well. That wasn’t true. He thought about it a little. Wondered if the person would notice. If they’d reply. If it was stupid of him to write something in a book at all. But then he got distracted by a Niffler nest outside Greenhouse Three and forgot about everything else for a while.
It wasn’t until the next weekend — rainy, grey, and perfect library weather — that he remembered.
He slid into his usual seat, pulled the same book down (for research purposes, obviously), and opened it.
The handwriting was waiting for him.
Beneath his note:
Only if you’re volunteering to deliver the diagnosis, doc.
Taki giggled. Actually giggled. The sound slipped out before he could stop it.
Someone across the room turned and frowned. He ducked behind the pages.
He flipped forward. New notes had appeared since last time — more jokes, some grumpier commentary, one line that just said:
Can I hex this author or is that academically frowned upon?
And under that, in his own messy scrawl, Taki wrote:
Ten points to creative criticism. Twenty if you make it rhyme.
That’s how it started.
A book. A corner of the library. A conversation between strangers with nothing but ink and margins between them.
Taki didn’t know who it was. He didn’t care.
They were clever. Sarcastic. Weirdly insightful. And they made him laugh in a way that felt easy, like the best kind of secret.
He didn’t even know their house.
But he kept going back.
Kept writing.
And each time, the responses were waiting.
Sometimes they bickered over strategy. Sometimes they asked dumb hypothetical questions like “What do you think a broom thinks about while flying?” or “If a snitch had a favorite color, what would it be?”
Once, the mystery writer signed a comment with a barely-there nickname:
—G
And Taki, without thinking, wrote back:
—T (but not the T you’re thinking of)
And underneath that, later:
What if I am thinking of the right one?
Taki reread that one four times before flipping the page and pretending his ears weren’t pink.
He didn’t tell anyone.
Not Jo. Not Harua. Not anyone.
It wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t even a real thing.
But when he passed the Gryffindor table the next morning at breakfast and Maki — tall, loud, infuriatingly charming — caught his eye and smiled for no reason at all…
Taki stumbled.
His spoon landed in someone else's juice.
And he absolutely did not think about that stupid little G.
Even though his heart very much did.
Friendship in the Margins
The notes got longer.
Not dramatically. Not enough to draw a librarian’s ire. But where there were once clipped complaints and sarcastic barbs, there were now full sentences. Little rambling tangents that curled into the corners of the page and looped over faded paragraphs like ivy.
Taki started bringing a special pen.
He said it wasn’t a big deal. Just easier to tell their handwriting apart. But his new ink was honey-colored — a soft golden hue that shimmered faintly when the light hit it. He told himself that was just for fun.
He started using smiley faces too. Sometimes. When the other one made him laugh.
Which was often.
What’s your record for worst match performance? I once tripped over my own broom. On the ground. While trying to look cool in front of someone cute. (They laughed. I still won.)
— G
Taki’s reply:
Once dropped a Hippogriff sketchbook into a puddle and tried to dry it with a heating charm. It caught fire. In front of a crowd. I was also trying to look cool. (It did not work.)
— T
(Also, I’d laugh at you too.)
G had a thing about Beaters.
He wrote about them constantly — not just tactics, but philosophy. The rhythm of how they moved. The way they shaped a game even without scoring. He left long, thoughtful breakdowns next to certain diagrams, and sometimes added snarky comments in parentheses like (Nicholas does this better, obviously).
Taki liked reading those the best. It was like peeking through a window into someone’s brain — and then scribbling hearts on the glass.
He started responding with drawings. Little broom sketches. A doodle of a Beater swinging a bat shaped like a question mark. One time, just to be annoying, he drew a tiny snitch with legs labeled “run bitch run.”
G responded with:
If you’re going to insult a snitch, at least give it good shoes.
Taki added sparkly heels.
G drew flames on the heels.
And suddenly they had a whole page of battle snitch fashion commentary beneath a diagram of a reverse barrel roll.
Somewhere between week two and three, the tone changed.
It wasn’t dramatic. But Taki started noticing the spaces between G’s jokes — the quiet lines where he wrote things that felt real.
Do you ever get scared you’ll stop being good at the one thing you’re good at?
Taki stared at that line for almost an hour.
He’d never met this person. Didn’t know what they looked like, what year they were in, how they sounded when they laughed. But he read that note and felt something settle in his chest — soft and deep and entirely unexpected.
He wrote back:
All the time. But that’s not how it works. You get to be more than one thing. I think… maybe we all do.
G didn’t reply for two pages after that.
But when he did, it was underlined.
Thanks. You’re kind of magic, you know that?
Taki stared at those words for days.
He smiled every time.
At one point, someone else checked out the book.
Taki nearly lost his mind.
When it returned, there was a new handprint on the corner, a smudge of soot on page 67, and the notes were untouched — perfectly preserved.
Still, he wrote:
I thought I lost you.
And G replied:
Still here. You’re not getting rid of me that easily, sunshine.
Sunshine.
Taki reread that word four times before writing back:
That’s a lot of confidence for someone who still thinks Beaters are the soul of the game.
(Also — you should know — I’m a little unhinged before breakfast.)
G replied, three pages later:
You’re probably always a little unhinged. That’s half the fun.
They still hadn’t met.
They didn’t ask names. Didn’t say houses. Didn’t even try.
It was better this way.
Safe.
But still — every time Taki walked through the Great Hall and passed a voice that sounded too warm, too amused, or saw a note scrawled across someone’s book in familiar handwriting, he wondered.
He wondered.
And in his bag, the book waited for him. Soft, quiet, and covered in someone else’s words.
Comfort through the Margins
The next time Taki opened the book, there was no joke waiting for him.
No snarky quip. No drawing. No dramatic complaint about strategy.
Just a line. Simple. Neat.
I lost today.
It was written right under a diagram for the Wronski Feint, the ink slightly darker than usual — like it had sat on the tip of a quill for too long before finally landing on the page.
Taki stared at it for a while. He read the words once. Twice. Then again, slower, trying to hear the voice behind them.
I lost today.
It was the first time G hadn’t been invincible in writing.
He flipped the page, searching for more, and found it.
Did everything right. Still lost. Don’t know what to do with that.
I’m not used to being bad at something. I don’t know who I am when I am.
Taki closed the book gently, cradling it in both hands like it might break.
He didn’t know this person.
Not really.
But he’d never wanted to reach across a page so badly in his life.
When he returned to the library that evening, he came with ink-stained fingers and a piece of toffee wrapped in wax paper. He tucked the candy into the spine of the book and started writing on the inside cover, where the binding was slightly loose and the margins stretched wide.
Losing sucks.
You’re allowed to hate it. To sit in it. To be mad.
But also: you’re not just the score. You’re not just the win. You’re all the things you do when no one’s watching — the effort, the care, the grit.
And if that doesn’t help, sugar might.
See spine for emotional support candy.
Underneath, in smaller writing:
You’re not alone. And you’re still good. Probably annoyingly good. Like… disgustingly competent.
He hesitated. Then added:
I’m proud of you.
He didn’t sign it. He didn’t need to.
He just closed the book and left it, heart thudding like he’d yelled in the middle of the Great Hall.
Two days passed.
Then three.
No reply.
Taki tried not to check the shelf every morning before class. He failed.
By the fourth day, he was convinced he’d ruined it. That he’d overstepped. That maybe G hadn’t wanted comfort. That maybe kindness had broken the spell.
But on the fifth day — rainy, again, as if the castle itself was holding its breath — the book was back.
He opened it with trembling hands.
There was no toffee left in the spine.
But on page 73, beneath a messy sketch of a broom curve and next to a doodle of a stick figure falling off it, was a note:
You’re dangerous.
Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. You wormed into my margins with your stupid warm words and now I’m thinking about you when I fly.
I missed a shot because I thought about your “unhinged before breakfast” comment and laughed midair. It cost us a goal.
This is a hate crime. I demand compensation. In the form of more toffee.
And below that, smaller:
Thanks.
You helped. A lot.
Taki grinned so hard his cheeks hurt.
The notes picked up again after that — faster, looser, funnier than ever.
G started leaving post-match commentary. Taki responded with “emotional weather reports” for the week. (“Today is a mild rage with scattered joy. Avoid flying near me, I’m radiating strange magic.”)
They started inventing strategies with increasingly absurd names. The “Dramatic Swan Dive of Doom.” The “Surprise Hot Idiot Maneuver.” The “I Definitely Meant to Do That” Spiral.
And every so often, G would slip something in — quiet, vulnerable, unguarded.
Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to not be good at anything. Like really start from scratch. Would I still be me?
And Taki would write back:
You’d still be you. You’d still take up space the way you do. You’d still be annoying and loud and funny and stubborn. Just with different talents.
I’d still want to read your thoughts either way.
That one didn’t get a reply for two full pages.
But when it did, it was this:
Stop being nice to me or I’ll fall in love with your handwriting.
Taki had to close the book for a full minute before he could breathe properly.
They still hadn’t met.
They didn’t try.
But every time someone mentioned Gryffindor’s Chaser line-up, Taki’s heart did a weird thing.
And every time Maki heard a certain laugh from the Hufflepuff table — loud, snorty, real — he had to bite back a smile he couldn’t explain.
Almost
It was early evening when Taki found the note.
The book had been missing from the shelf for two days — not unusual lately. He’d grown used to the waiting, the rhythm of absence and return. Sometimes G kept it longer, sometimes Taki did. But this time, when it came back, there was no new commentary on page 84’s “spinning net trap” diagram or complaint about how “literally no one has ever used this outside of a bad school play.”
Instead, on the inside cover, in G’s now-familiar hand, there was this:
Do you ever wish we did this face to face?
Taki froze.
He reread the line twice, fingers curling tight around the edge of the book.
No joke. No teasing. Just… honesty.
And then, a second line beneath it:
Not saying we should. Maybe it’s better like this. But sometimes I wonder what your voice sounds like when you say my name.
Taki’s stomach dropped and fluttered all at once.
He glanced around the library, suddenly aware of how real this felt. Not just scribbles anymore. Not just banter. Someone was thinking about him. Wondering. Wanting.
He flipped a few pages forward, but there was nothing else. G had stopped there.
Waiting.
Taki took a breath.
And replied.
I think about it too. Sometimes.
I don’t know if we’d even like each other in person. I’m weird. I talk too much. I draw on everything. I eat toast upside down because I like saving the crust for last.
But you make me feel... seen. And I don’t know how often that happens for you, but it’s rare for me.
He stopped. Sat back. Then wrote:
Also, you flirt like someone who’s never been punched in the face. But weirdly… it works? So thanks for that.
Then, at the bottom, heart pounding:
If I ever do meet you, please don’t be hot. That would be devastating.
— T
The next day, the book was gone again.
Taki tried not to panic. Not yet.
He checked back that evening.
And the day after that.
Still gone.
The library shelf looked hollow without it. Like a tooth missing from a smile. Taki even checked the returns bin, the catalog ledger, under the table. Nothing.
Days passed.
And still — nothing.
Maki hadn’t meant to keep the book.
Not like this.
He’d written the note on impulse, closed the book, and carried it with him all day. It stayed in his bag during class. On the bench during practice. Under his pillow at night like a secret he didn’t know how to hold properly.
He wasn’t scared of people. He wasn’t scared of talking, or failing, or messing up.
But this? This was different.
T was different.
And that message — the one about toast, and feeling seen, and saving the crust for last — was too much and not enough and perfect, and Maki was absolutely losing his mind over someone he’d never even officially met.
Three days later, he opened the book again and stared at T’s words until they blurred.
Then he finally picked up his quill.
I’m not hot. I’m devastating.
But I’m glad you talk too much. It means there’s more of you to hear.
And I think maybe we’d like each other too.
Then, after a long pause, in smaller ink:
You feel rare to me too.
But before he could return it — before he could even get to the library — practice ran late. Rain hit. He forgot the book in the changing room.
By the time he ran back for it, it was already gone.
The library catalog didn’t list it.
Madam Pince hadn’t seen it.
It had vanished.
And suddenly, silence filled the margins.
Him
The library was quiet.
Late-afternoon golden, the kind of hush that settled into the stone like a spell. Maki wandered between the stacks with a scowl pulled tight across his face, not really reading the spines, not really looking for anything.
Except, of course, for that book.
He’d searched the shelf three times already. Checked under nearby tables. Even flipped through other books in the same series in case someone had misfiled it like a heathen. Nothing.
Gone. Just like that.
The silence left in its absence was... louder than expected.
It wasn’t just about the banter. Or the toffee. Or the stupid sparkly snitch heels. It was about the voice. The voice he’d gotten used to hearing in his head — warm, cheeky, wildly strange, and secretly kind. A voice that had become part of his week, his rhythm, his routine.
And now?
Gone.
He sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair and dragging himself down the aisle toward the back window table. The one with the uneven chair. The one no one ever used.
Except—
Except there was someone there.
Slouched over a stack of notes, sketching furiously in the margin of a Herbology handout, was a boy.
Small. Messy. Radiating mild chaos. The sleeve of his robe was half-pushed up, ink smudged across his knuckles and under his jaw like he’d been distracted mid-sentence and leaned too hard into his quill.
His hair flopped into his face. He blew at it once, failed, then shoved it back with his wrist. Mumbled something under his breath like, “Why are leaf veins like this. I am not a plant, I do not need this knowledge.”
Maki stared.
Then blinked.
Then stepped forward, heart slowing to a strange, deliberate rhythm.
On the corner of the boy’s notes was a doodle. A sketch of a puffskein in a cup labeled “tea floof.” There were sparkles around it.
And underneath it — in loopy, casual script — were five unmistakable words.
I miss my stupid book.
Maki stopped breathing.
He knew that handwriting.
He knew that voice.
He knew that sketching style — ridiculous, detailed, a little chaotic but always weirdly cute. And now, standing five feet away from it, he knew exactly who it belonged to.
Hufflepuff. Fifth year. The one who’s always laughing at the most random things. What’s his name—
The boy muttered something else, flicked his quill across the page in a tiny dramatic spiral, and Maki felt his heart pull in his chest like a broom in a nosedive.
It’s him.
It’s you.
Taki.
He didn’t need to ask. Didn’t need proof. He knew.
Everything slotted into place like puzzle magic — the softness, the jokes, the warmth laced through every page. The way he drew stars in his Os when he was excited. The way he wrote sunshine in tiny letters when no one was watching.
It was all him.
Taki frowned at his paper, reached into his bag for a sugar quill, and immediately dropped half his ink pot. He yelped quietly and muttered “traitor” at the bottle before trying to clean it with his sleeve.
Maki bit back a laugh — an actual laugh, sharp and bright and unstoppable.
And then he backed away. Quietly. Calmly. His heart wasn’t calm, but he pretended it was.
He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t interrupt.
Didn’t blow the cover.
Instead, he walked back toward the front of the library, found a spare scrap of parchment in his pocket, and wrote, “You’re better in person. It’s kind of unfair.”
He didn’t send it. Not yet.
He just folded it, tucked it behind the Quidditch Captain rotation list in his bag, and smiled like a boy who’d just found treasure and wasn’t ready to share.
Taki didn’t know.
Not yet.
But Maki did.
And that changed everything.
Unapologetically Taki.
It was like once the name clicked, he couldn’t unsee him.
Taki was everywhere.
Not in a loud way — not like the Gryffindors, who practically announced their location with every dramatic door slam and Quidditch victory chant. No, Taki was… woven in. Quietly chaotic. Constantly moving. Like sunshine filtered through clouds, warm and just a little unpredictable.
Maki saw him in the hallway the next morning, laughing at something Harua said, hair messily pulled back with a quill sticking out like he’d forgotten it was there. He wore his tie loose, one sock higher than the other, bag full of wrinkled parchment and half a muffin. His laugh — gods, it was stupid. Loud and snorty and nothing like the breezy, aloof voice Maki had imagined for the boy in the margins.
It was better.
Raw. Real.
Unapologetically Taki.
In Transfiguration, Maki got paired with someone useless and spent the entire class scowling at a melting teacup. Across the room, Taki sat perched on the edge of his seat, completely absorbed in charming a rock into a hedgehog. He kept whispering “you can do it, little guy,” to the rock and then cheering when it halfway twitched.
Maki’s teacup exploded.
He started seeing Taki at lunch. Not every day, but often enough that Maki started arriving early — just in case. Taki always sat on the far left end of the Hufflepuff table, legs crossed under himself, scribbling notes or sketches between bites of food.
One afternoon, he drew a chibi dragon attacking a bowl of soup and then laughed at his own joke so hard he choked on bread.
Maki had to excuse himself to “get water,” but really he just needed a moment to breathe.
It was too much.
He was doomed.
Once, between classes, Taki walked past him in the corridor, talking to Jo and gesturing wildly about something that involved “glitter, definitely sentient glitter.” He didn't even look at Maki. Just passed by in a blur of ink-stained hands and flying commentary and that voice — that voice.
Maki didn’t realize he’d stopped walking until someone bumped into him from behind.
He muttered an apology and kept going. A little slower this time.
At night, Maki found himself replaying it all.
The margin notes. The sparkly snitch heels. The joke about being unhinged before breakfast.
And now — the real version.
Taki making faces at his quill. Taki tripping up the stairs and laughing about it. Taki defending a first year in the courtyard from a hex with a verbal smackdown that ended with, “pick on someone your own size — like an angry gnome with bad posture.”
Maki had to pretend to sneeze to hide his laugh.
He didn’t even know how to act around him now. Not really. Not when he knew what he sounded like when he was honest, even if it was just on a page.
The real Taki was everything the margin boy was — and more.
Messier.
Warmer.
Somehow louder and softer at the same time.
And he had no idea that Maki knew.
One night, Maki passed by the Hufflepuff common room just as the door opened. Taki stepped out, hoodie half-zipped, hair a fluffy mess, clutching a handful of parchment and mumbling about needing to return a library book.
They made eye contact for half a second.
Taki blinked.
Maki smirked.
And Taki… bolted in the opposite direction.
Maki stood there in the hallway, heart hammering, grin growing, and thought:
Oh yeah. I'm screwed.
Finally
Taki had stopped checking the library shelf after the second week.
There was only so long you could keep hoping before it started to feel like begging. Like a wound that wouldn’t close because you kept pressing it open, again and again, waiting for a miracle that never came.
The book was gone.
And with it, G — whoever he was. Whoever he had been.
Taki didn’t know what happened. Maybe someone else took it. Maybe G figured out who he was and got bored. Or scared. Or disappointed. Maybe he’d been stupid to believe in it at all — in the notes, in the rhythm they built together, in the safety of it.
Maybe that kind of connection didn’t exist outside of margins.
He still thought about it, though.
Sometimes he’d catch a joke in a textbook and imagine how G would’ve answered it. Or sketch a ridiculous Quidditch formation and wonder if G would have called it “brilliant” or “blasphemy.” Or both.
He missed the voice in the ink. Missed the easy comfort. Missed being seen.
And worst of all — he missed someone he’d never really met.
It was late afternoon, almost dinner, and the hallway outside the library was nearly empty. Taki was leaning against the wall beside a window, sketching the edge of a moving cloud on the back of his Arithmancy notes, chin tucked into his scarf, mind somewhere far away.
He didn’t hear the footsteps until someone cleared their throat gently beside him.
He looked up.
And froze.
Maki.
Gryffindor Quidditch Maki. Unruly hair, smug posture, full of infuriating self-assurance and impossibly tall up close. He was looking right at Taki — not vaguely, not passively, but like he knew something. Like he’d been meaning to find him.
Taki blinked. “Uh—hi?”
Maki tilted his head.
His voice, when it came, was soft. Confident. Familiar in a way that made Taki’s skin prickle.
“Do I get to know what your voice sounds like when you say my name?”
Silence.
Taki stared.
Everything in him went still. His hands. His thoughts. The pen in his fingers. The air between them.
That line. That exact line.
From the book. From G.
His heart jumped, then dropped, then twisted hard enough to steal his breath.
“…What?” he said, because it was the only word that worked.
Maki smiled, slower this time. Almost shy. “Or, if you’d rather — you can just tell me if you’re still unhinged before breakfast. I brought snacks. I can prepare.”
Taki gaped.
“You’re—”
“G,” Maki said simply.
And then, after a beat, “Hi.”
Taki’s throat went dry. His whole chest felt too tight and too full all at once.
“You—how did you know—?”
“Inside cover. The toffee. Your handwriting. Your stars.”
Taki’s fingers trembled around his quill.
“You knew this whole time?”
“No.” Maki looked away for a second, then back. “I found out later. But once I did… I didn’t want to scare you. I thought maybe you’d come find me first.”
Taki looked down. “I thought you left.”
Maki stepped closer.
“Never,” he said. “You’re kind of hard to leave.”
Taki laughed — once, soft and a little strangled.
Maki smiled. “There it is.”
Taki looked up, eyes wide. “What?”
“Your laugh,” Maki said. “Up close.”
Taki flushed so deeply he might’ve caught fire.
“…Do I still flirt like someone who’s never been punched?” Maki added.
Taki snorted through a half-choked breath. “Gods, you’re so annoying.”
“And yet, here you are. Still talking to me.”
Silence stretched, warm and fragile.
Then Taki whispered, “You’re better in person.”
Maki’s smile curved into something softer. “So are you.”
The start of something
It was weird, having a voice now.
For weeks, all Taki had known of G — of Maki — was scrawl and sarcasm, sweet notes in the margins and long, inked thoughts about flying and fear and things left unsaid.
And now?
Now they sat beside each other at the edge of the lake, awkwardly close, legs crossed in opposite directions, talking about literally nothing while both pretending their hearts weren’t tap-dancing in their chests.
“I still don’t believe you’re the one who wrote all that stuff about Beaters,” Taki said, picking at the edge of a leaf.
Maki raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“You’re too smug to care about strategy.”
Maki gasped. “I’m deeply offended. I am the blueprint of strategy.”
“You once launched a Quaffle at your own teammate.”
“As a diversion.”
Taki side-eyed him. “He bled.”
“A very successful diversion.”
They laughed — both a little too hard, a little too grateful. The silence after stretched soft and golden, broken only by the lazy lapping of the lake and the rustle of grass under their robes.
Maki shifted slightly, brushing his knee against Taki’s. He didn’t move away.
Taki stared down at their shoes. “So… do we just hang out now? Is that a thing we do?”
Maki leaned back on his hands. “I mean, we already sort of dated in writing. This is the post-credit scene.”
Taki laughed again, cheeks warm. “Feels weird.”
“Weird bad or weird good?”
Taki peeked over at him. “Weird good.”
Maki smiled — one of those rare ones. Not cocky. Not dramatic. Just real. Small and bright and a little surprised.
Taki picked up a stick and started drawing little circles in the dirt. “It’s so stupid that we lost the book. I wish I’d copied some of the pages.”
Maki shrugged, like it was nothing. “I did.”
Taki blinked. “Wait—what?”
“Not all of them,” Maki said casually, but his voice had gone soft. “Just some of your parts. The toffee note. The sunshine bit. A few of the really weird ones. I didn’t want to forget.”
Taki stared at him. “You… you actually saved that stuff?”
Maki looked straight ahead. “You were the best part of my week, back then. Of course I did.”
Taki’s breath caught in his throat.
He looked away, cheeks flaming, and mumbled, “I don’t even keep my own homework, Maki.”
“They were important.” A pause. “You were important.”
Taki looked at him, eyes wide and stunned.
Neither of them said anything for a second.
Then Taki nudged him gently with his knee. “You still flirt like someone who’s never been punched.”
Maki grinned. “Yeah. But now you don’t want to punch me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Taki said, but he was smiling, too.
That week, they walked to class together — always a little awkward, never quite brushing hands, but not trying to hide it either.
Taki waited outside Maki’s practice twice, pretending to sketch clouds.
Maki didn’t ask. He just handed him a snack and bumped his shoulder against his as they walked back toward the castle.
They weren’t dating.
Not yet.
But Taki kept catching Maki looking at him like he was already his.
And honestly?
Taki didn’t mind.
Study Dates
Studying with Maki was… complicated.
For one, Maki was distracting — not on purpose, not even because he tried to be, but because he existed like someone who knew how to fill a room just by being in it. He slouched into chairs like he owned them, twirled his quill between his fingers like a show-off, and tilted his head when he read like it might help the words go in better.
And he talked.
A lot.
“This Transfiguration chart looks like it was made by someone drunk on cauldron fumes,” Maki muttered, spinning the parchment around like it might rearrange itself out of shame.
Taki, curled on the other side of the table with his notes in a pile and his robe sleeves shoved up to his elbows, didn’t look up. “That’s because you wrote it.”
Maki leaned back dramatically in his chair. “Are you suggesting I lack academic finesse?”
“I’m suggesting you spell ‘finesse’ with a y.”
“Fine. Then you do it.”
“I already did.”
He held up his finished chart, perfectly color-coded, clean lettering, with tiny visual cues sketched in the margins: a cup, a candle, a comb.
Maki narrowed his eyes. “Okay, you win this round, Professor Sunshine.”
Taki rolled his eyes, but he smiled.
They worked in silence after that — real silence, comfortable and warm, broken only by the occasional page flip or the faint scratch of ink. Maki’s leg bumped Taki’s under the table once. Then again. He didn’t move it.
Taki’s heart was way too loud for the quiet they were sitting in.
Every few minutes, he caught himself just… looking. Watching how Maki chewed on the end of his quill when he was stuck. How his lashes dipped low when he was focused. How he furrowed his brow and muttered spells under his breath like he didn’t trust the paper to remember them for him.
It was ridiculous. And unfair. And kind of amazing.
Taki forced himself to look back at his notes — except now the words were blurry and definitely rearranging themselves when he wasn’t looking. He exhaled slowly. Picked up his quill.
Felt a hand brush his.
He froze.
Not a graze. Not a bump. Just… a touch.
Fingers, gentle and tentative, sliding next to his on the tabletop.
Taki looked over.
Maki wasn’t looking at him. He was still pretending to read. But his hand stayed there — palm up, waiting. Not forcing. Not grabbing. Just open.
Taki hesitated.
And then — slowly — he slipped his fingers into the space between Maki’s and curled them gently into place.
The pressure was feather-light. Their palms barely aligned.
But Maki’s thumb brushed the back of Taki’s hand once, soft and steady.
And that was it.
Taki couldn’t feel his face. His heartbeat was loud enough to be illegal.
But he didn’t let go.
Neither did Maki.
They just sat there — two boys in a library, pretending to study, breathing a little faster than normal and not saying a word about it.
Lucky Charm
Maki asked him three times.
The first time, it was casual. “You should come to the match.”
Taki had shrugged, noncommittal, nose buried in a sketchbook. “Maybe.”
The second time, it was teasing. “I’ll only play well if you’re watching.”
Taki snorted. “Tragic. Sounds like a you problem.”
The third time, it was quiet.
Just a soft, sincere, “It’d mean a lot if you were there.”
Taki didn’t answer that one out loud.
But when Saturday afternoon rolled around, and the first whistle echoed over the pitch, and Gryffindor’s red robes blurred across the sky—Taki was there.
Wrapped in a borrowed scarf, sitting halfway up the stands, hood pulled low like maybe no one would notice. Jo spotted him first and nearly fell off the bench with joy. Harua elbowed him so hard he dropped his quill.
Taki ignored them both. His eyes were on the pitch.
Or—more accurately—on him.
Maki.
Zooming through the air with that familiar, reckless speed. Sharp turns. Clean passes. Untouchable confidence. But he was distracted. A little off. Missed a pass. Fumbled a feint.
Until—
Maki turned toward the stands.
Saw him.
And everything changed.
Within seconds, he dove for the Quaffle, whipped into a spiral, shot down the field like he had something to prove—and scored.
The crowd roared.
Jo cheered, “YOU’RE WELCOME, GRYFFINDOR!”
Taki went red to the tips of his ears.
He stayed until the end. Until Gryffindor won. Until the team swarmed Maki mid-air, and the banners waved, and Harua screamed something about destiny.
But then he slipped away. Quietly. Back behind the bleachers, where the noise faded and the wind carried only the soft rustle of trees.
He didn’t expect Maki to find him.
But he should’ve known better.
“Taki.”
He turned.
Maki was still in his kit, robes half-unfastened, hair wind-tossed, cheeks flushed with victory. He looked like the storm that had just passed through the sky.
“You stayed,” Maki said, breathless and wide-eyed.
Taki shifted, suddenly shy. “Only for Jo. I’m not emotionally invested in spherical projectiles.”
Maki smiled. “You came. That’s what matters.”
There was a pause.
Then Maki stepped closer.
“I won because you were there,” he said.
Taki rolled his eyes—softly. “That’s not how sports work.”
“It is now.”
“That’s not causality. That’s casualty.”
Maki blinked. “I don’t know what either of those words mean.”
And then—he leaned in.
Lifted Taki’s face gently in both hands.
And kissed him.
It was soft. And slow. And a little awkward. And absolutely perfect.
Taki’s heart stuttered. His fingers curled in Maki’s jersey. His knees almost gave out.
When Maki pulled back, he was smiling.
“You,” he said, “are going to become my lucky charm.”
Taki huffed out a laugh, dazed and breathless. “That’s ridiculous.”
Maki grinned. “Yep.”
And then he kissed him again.
Longer, this time.
Like a promise.