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The rain starts small, almost shy. An indistinct noise on the roof, a whisper of droplets over the tiles like hesitant fingers tapping on frosted glass; soon after, it thickens and gathers breath in the form of a discreet drumming against the window. Somewhere between the half-finished tea and the sluggish reading of a book that won’t hold his attention, it grows heavier and heavier. The droplets trail lazily down the glass, bumping into one another in minimal, inevitable collisions, joining and forming small chains of water that slide quickly toward the windowsill, where they gather for a moment before vanishing into the wood.
A grumpy thunder grumbles in the distance. Outside and behind the half-open curtains, the streetlights—once so defined and bright—blur, diffused by the humidity, by the droplets, casting long shadows across the wooden floor.
The apartment is small, but it has never felt cramped. It’s never seemed smaller than it should be, never gave the sensation that it lacked space for anything that mattered. The table in the kitchen has always had just enough room for two plates, even though he eats dinner late, waiting for you even when he doesn’t need to, even when the food goes cold and the rice loses its combative steam against the cold that seeps in through the cracks. A habit that wasn’t born from any verbal agreement, but from something instinctive, repeated so often it became part of the structure of the house like a piece of furniture. Time passed, and now he doesn’t know if he waits because he wants to or simply because he wouldn’t know how to act any other way.
The gaps—always open, even on drizzly days—let in a lazy midnight breeze, bringing with it the scent of petrichor mixed with your perfume, which still floats through the apartment, stubborn, clinging to the sheets, the towels, the folds of his clothes. He sometimes smells it on his own skin, in the creases of his elbows where you usually bury your nose when hugging him from behind at the kitchen sink, and he wonders how many washes it would take to erase it. He’s never tried to find out, and doubts he ever will.
You still haven’t come home.
Kento is sitting on the gray couch, his back sunken into the soft fabric—the kind of softness only achieved after years of use, of bodies shaping themselves into the furniture like obedient clay—a cup of tea resting on the coffee table and a book open on his lap, though he hasn’t read more than a page or two in the past half hour. The book open in his lap is an old edition of The Stranger , cracked spine and yellowed pages from the humidity, bought at a street fair one morning when you laughed at him for haggling over two bucks with the seller.
The tea has already gone cold by the time he gives up pretending to read, its surface covered by an opaque film that reflects the lamplight like the eyes of a dead fish. The words in front of him blur, the pages becoming mere intervals between the glances he throws at the window, merging into a single block of text his retinas pass through without absorbing. Every now and then, he lifts his hand to adjust the glasses already perfectly in place, runs his fingers over his face, massages the bridge of his nose in a gesture done more out of habit than need.
The clock on the wall reads 10:23 p.m., and he’s never one to text asking about time. Never has been—it’s never been necessary. That was something you both agreed on without needing to say it: one’s time is not a debt owed by the other. It’s not late enough to worry; you’ve always had a habit of working more than you should, but time has a way of stretching when waiting drags on, so he worries anyway.
He crosses his arms, then uncrosses them. Props his elbow on the armrest, drums his fingers on the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt, feels the fabric wrinkle under the touch. His leg moves without him noticing, heel tapping the floor in a short, uneven rhythm. The clock’s hand moves without sound, but Nanami still hears it—a muffled tapping at the back of his mind, along with the echo of his own blaring thoughts.
The house has no sounds but his. Just the occasional rustle of pages when he shifts, the wood creaking under his weight, the sound of his pants fabric when he changes positions, trying to find some comfort that, deep down, won’t come until you’re there. Kento doesn’t like this unnamed tightness, this sense that something is out of place even if there’s no objective reason for it. He knows you’ll come back. You always do. That doesn’t stop his chest from constricting in the exact spot where his heart should be comfortable, secure, untroubled by things outside his control. And yet, there he is, still strangely restless, staring at the empty street as if he could summon you back by sheer force of will.
In the blink of an eye, the rain worsens, blurring the city until everything looks like a huge, distorted reflection on the windowpane. The streets are empty, and the usual urban sounds seem to soften, swallowed by the water. He knows the paths you take to come home. He’s walked them so many times to pick you up from the flower shop where you work, has imagined them many more. He can picture you pulling up your hood to cover your beautiful hair, the earbuds hanging from your neck, your steps quick and certain like someone who knows the way as well as the back of their hand and no longer needs to pay attention. Maybe you’re humming softly to keep the cold at bay—an unconscious habit.
He wonders if the coat you took before leaving is warm enough, if your sneakers are soaked now, if you’re checking your phone to see if he texted. The thought doesn’t exactly comfort him. It only makes him want to see you more, to hear you laugh and say his name, the way you always do.
Now, while waiting, it’s easy to recall other memories. He thinks of the strands you pull from your shirt and wrap around your fingers before tossing them away. The way you tie your own shoelaces and then check his, as if expecting him to one day mess up the knot, even though he told you he learned to tie bows when he was five. How you press your cold feet against his calves during winter, laughing softly when he grumbles in fake irritation—and never actually pulls away. The way you close your eyes for one second longer when he says your name slowly, like the sound carries a tingling you like to feel. Nanami had always been a man of measured gestures, bound to an exact and predictable sense of timing, but when it comes to you, that same time betrays him. Every moment and second stretches and sinks in deep, until he finds himself trapped in a web of small details that become essential simply because they belong to you. Because since the day he met you—three years ago, when he bumped into you at a bookstore and saw you frowning at the philosophy shelf—his heart had already taken root, thick and firm and blooming, the kind that tried—and still do—to escape through his ribs, his muscles, his veins, through every golden layer of his skin, as all they seek is to reach you. For you, oh, his heart itself became a garden, condemned to bloom until you returned to pick your own name, written on every petal.
It’s only when the doorknob turns that he realizes he’s been holding his breath.
Kento doesn’t move immediately. He stays still, fingers tense on the edges of the book, while his heart races in a rhythm that exposes the farce of his composure. You enter in a breath of wind and rain scent, your coat clinging to your body, lips pink from the cold. Your hair, darker now than its usual color under the humidity, sticks to your temples and neck, revealing the soft curve of an ear he knows as well as the lines of his own palms. You shut the door with your foot, half-distracted, half-accustomed, and look at him with that expression of someone who doesn’t quite understand the worry, but accepts it anyway, with a small smile curling only one corner of your mouth. You drop your bag on the chair—exactly where he imagined you would—and your keys into the ceramic bowl by the door.
Nanami releases the breath he had been holding, uncrosses his arms, and finally stands in a single movement—the cup is left on the table, the book on the sofa, the floor creaks under his weight as he walks toward you. His ribs expand with the brief relief of seeing you where you should be, whole, safe, just a little colder than he’d like. You open your mouth to say something, maybe to explain why you took so long, maybe to say the rain caught you off guard, but you can’t get the words out, because any explanation is swallowed by the sudden closeness.
Kento is already there, already too close, his large hands already on your face, warm and steady. His thumbs trace the lines of your cheekbones, brushing aside wet strands of hair dripping warm water onto the collar of his shirt, his almond eyes scanning your face like he wants to memorize every detail—even though they’re already carved into every corner of his brain.
“You’re soaked,” he says, as if it’s the most important thing in the world.
You laugh softly, and the sound fits perfectly, blooming in his chest where there had only been tightness before. Instinctively, your hands—cold and nimble—rise to cover his, trapping the warmth there between your fingers as if you could absorb it.
“You worry too much, love.”
Nanami sighs but doesn’t argue. There are things he doesn’t need to deny, and this is one of them. Instead, his fingers slide behind your ears, lose themselves in the damp mass of your hair, and pull you closer until your foreheads touch, feeling the cold rain in your clothes, your fingers slowly trailing up his back. For a moment, the whole universe compresses and expands into this: his broad shoulders, the remnants of rain evaporating off your skin, the weight of the hours you spent apart dissolving in the contact.
You slip away before he can get lost there—but only enough to let the heavy coat fall from your shoulders, to shed the soaked weight and let Nanami follow you without a word. The sneakers are kicked off carelessly and neither of you care. He watches as you walk to the couch, exhausted but comfortable, your cold fingers rubbing your temples in an effort to shake off the fatigue, as if you already know the exact path to rest. He knows what comes next even before it happens—the way you sink into the couch with a long sigh, the way your legs fold as you settle in, the precise way your head finds the corner of the pillow like that spot was molded just for you.
Kento watches you for a moment, as if weighing whether he should do the same, but there’s no real doubt in the question. He recognizes where he wants to be and is not one to doubt his own will; gravity pulls him to you naturally, without resistance, a magnet realigning to its polarity.
So, without hurry, without hesitation, he slides closer, knees sinking into the couch, his weight leaning gently over yours. He buries his face in the hollow between your shoulder and neck, where the scent of wet earth mixes with that of home, of familiarity, of everything he already recognizes without needing to look. With the same intimacy he recognizes the smell of the coffee you make every morning—a little stronger than he prefers, but he drinks it anyway, because it’s made by you. The same way he knows you like to read lying on your side, your back against the couch, cold feet seeking shelter beneath his thigh. In the present, his hands find a safe resting spot beside your waist before he lets himself collapse there, head resting against the curve of your chest, like someone who’s done it so many times the gesture has become instinctive. And indeed, it has.
The tip of his nose brushes the exposed skin of your collarbone, and Kento inhales deeply, as if wanting to absorb the moment completely, to carry it in his chest for when he needs it. At the same time, your fingers find his hair and slide through the golden strands still meticulously aligned, loosening them slightly into softer waves. You draw soft circles on his nape, at the root of the hair he never lets grow too long. It’s a distracted touch, yet constant. Nanami feels his entire body relax, an invisible tension leaving his shoulders, his ribs, his breath. Then he closes his eyes before whispering:
“I told you it was going to rain.”
“I like the rain,” you murmur, your voice hoarse and warm with sleep. The knuckles of one hand slide gently downward, along the line of his collarbone, finding the edge of his chest, and Kento realizes your heartbeats are starting to sync.
In response, he lets out a low sound, somewhere between a sigh and agreement, because the truth is that it no longer matters if it’s raining or not. It doesn’t matter if the night is cold outside, if the wind howls between the buildings, if the world keeps spinning at its usual frantic pace. What matters is that your touch against him is warm now, that your fingers keep tracing lazy paths over his scalp, that you can stay there for a while without saying anything, without needing to.
For a fleeting moment, he wonders if you’ve fallen asleep, but he doesn’t open his eyes to check. He’d rather believe you have, that you gave in to sleep before him, that you trusted him enough to surrender first. He knows that if he says something now, if he breaks the silence that’s settled between you, you’ll answer. That you’re not really asleep, that you’re still there, half-awake, half-adrift. But he also knows that if he stays quiet, if he lets himself remain there a little longer, maybe time will freeze and he’ll be able to exist like this for a few more minutes, a few more breaths, a handful more heartbeats.
So he stays.
He just needs to feel that you’re there, that you came home, that you still own every piece of him, without even knowing it.