Chapter Text
The car's AC was dead.
The safehouse generator had failed hours ago.
And Gokudera Hayato was melting.
He’d stripped off everything except his tank top and boxers, hair sticking to his temples, collarbone glistening with sweat. Even his ever-present dynamite holsters lay abandoned on the counter.
Yamamoto, maddeningly unbothered, lounged on the tile floor in a loose t-shirt, one arm behind his head, sipping a warm bottle of water like this wasn’t a scene from a sun-scorched purgatory.
“Don’t you ever sweat?” Gokudera snapped, fanning himself with a file folder.
Yamamoto grinned lazily. “I do. You just look hotter doing it.”
Gokudera choked.
“Don’t say stuff like that.”
“Why not? You’ll pass out mad and flushed. Might as well pass out flattered.”
“Fuck off,” Gokudera muttered, leaning against the open fridge for cool air, only to sway slightly.
Yamamoto caught it immediately.
He was on his feet, at his side, steadying him with both hands before Gokudera could swat him away.
“You’re overheating,” Yamamoto murmured, voice low and serious now. “Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re wobbling.”
“I’m wobbly with rage, not weakness.”
Yamamoto snorted but didn’t back off. Instead, he guided Gokudera to the floor — gently, like Gokudera might shatter. Then he pressed a half-frozen soda can to the back of Gokudera’s neck.
“Jesus Christ,” Gokudera gasped, jolting.
“Better, right?”
“No. That’s torture.”
“You’re welcome.”
They sat there in the slatted afternoon light, inches apart. Gokudera’s tank top had ridden up a little. Yamamoto’s knee brushed his.
Gokudera was quiet too long.
Yamamoto turned to him. “Headache?”
“No.”
“Stomach?”
“No.”
“Existential heatstroke spiral?”
“…maybe.”
And then, softer:
“I used to think if I kissed you, you’d laugh at me.”
Yamamoto blinked. “What?”
Gokudera frowned. “Forget I said that.”
“No way. You used to think—?”
“I’m heat drunk. Delirious. Shut the hell up.”
“You thought I’d laugh?” Yamamoto asked, something in his voice tightening.
“I don’t anymore.”
“…Why not?”
Gokudera turned to him slowly.
Their eyes met. The moment stretched.
“Because you look at me like that now,” Gokudera said, barely audible. “Like you see me. And it scares the shit out of me.”
Yamamoto didn’t smile this time.
He reached out, slow and deliberate, and wiped a drop of sweat from Gokudera’s jaw.
“Good. Means I’m doing it right.”