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The apartment was cold when winter came — not in an unbearable manner, of course, but enough that Arisu could see his breath mist faintly in the air as he shuffled from the bedroom to the living room, laptop tucked under one arm and a blanket cape draped over his shoulders like some kind of discount superhero.
“You know,” he called out, “most people turn on the heat when winter starts. That's like… a normal human thing to do.”
From the kitchen, Chishiya's voice drifted back, dry as ever. “Most people also have jobs that require them to leave the house. The cold builds character.”
“I have a job!” Arisu protested, dropping onto the floor beside the kotatsu they had set up last week and immediately shoving his legs underneath it with a grateful sigh. “I'm a productive member of society. I debug code. I create immersive gaming experiences—”
“You argued with a fourteen-year-old on Reddit about quest design for forty minutes yesterday.”
“He was wrong about the drop rates!”
“Ah yes,” Chishiya hummed as he entered the room, two steaming mugs in hand, “that's certainly a noble use of your time: educating children on the internet.”
“At least I'm not the one keeping the apartment at Arctic temperatures because ‘the cold builds character.’” Arisu rolled his eyes, tugging the blanket tighter around himself. “What kind of character does that even build, Shun? Hypothermia?”
The older man slid gracefully onto the floor next to him then, tucking unederneath the kotatsu and setting the mugs on the table. “Endurance,” he replied, deadpan. “Or mental fortitude and an appreciation for warmth once it returns.”
“Or frostbite, actually, with how cold it is right now.” Arisu muttered, blowing on his tea. “Seriously, baby, you're lucky I love you. I'd have move out and take the kotatsu with me if that wasn't the case.”
“I'd survive,” Chishiya shrugged, taking a sip from his own mug. “Unlike you, I have evolved past such earthly needs as central heating.”
“Sure,” he huffed, the sound came off as half-laugh and half-sigh. “That's exactly what you said last year before stealing my hoodie and refusing to give it back.”
“It smelled like you.” His boyfriend responded, unbothered. “Helps me relax.”
Arisu felt his cheeks warm despite the chilly air in their apartment. Even after all this time — after transitioning from whatever messy arrangement they had stumbled into post-Borderland to something resembling an actual relationship — Chishiya still had that knack for slipping intimacy into conversation as casually as commenting on the weather itself.
“You're ridiculous,” he mumbled, though the smile tugging at his lips had already given him away.
“And yet you stayed with me anyway.” The blond tilted his head, cat-like eyes gleaming with amusement. “So what does that say about your judgment, hmm?”
“That I have terrible taste in men, apparently.”
“Uh-huh?” Chishiya hummed, “Will you still say the same thing when I point out to you that my medical training is an useful thing to have in today's society?”
“Oh, that's what you think makes me stay with you, huh?” Arisu leaned back on his hands, grinning. “And here I thought you would say it's thanks to your sparkling personality instead.”
“That too,” his boyfriend agreed without missing a beat. “I'm a complete package.”
He couldn't help but snort into his tea and nearly choke on it. “Right, that definitely applies to the man who keeps his apartment cold enough to preserve meat and considers ‘good morning’ an unnecessary waste of words.”
“I did say good morning today.”
“You grunted in my general direction while stealing my snack.”
“Same thing.”
Arisu opened his mouth to retort, then paused as he noticed Chishiya's hands wrapped around his mug — not just holding it, but practically clinging to it like a lifeline. His fingers were trembling slightly, and there was the faintest tension around his eyes that most people would miss entirely.
“… Baby,” he said slowly, “are you cold?”
“No.”
“Your hands are shaking around your mug.”
“Aesthetic choice.”
“That's not how blood circulation works and you know it.” Arisu set his own mug down with a sigh. “You're freezing, aren't you?”
“I'm perfectly comfortable.”
“Uh-huh.” He narrowed his eyes, skeptical. “So if I were to, say, touch your hand at this instance—”
“Hey, don't—!”
Too late. Arisu reached over anyway, pressing his palm against the back of his boyfriend's hands. It felt like he was touching ice and dousing his own hand in a tub of cold water altogether.
“Holy shit, you're freezing!” He yelped and pulled back, staring at Chishiya in disbelief. “Why didn't you say something?”
“Because I'm fine with this.” The blond's tone remained even, though there was a defensive edge creeping in. “I've dealt with worse.”
“That's not—” Arisu took a breath, forcing himself to stay calm. After dating his boyfriend for a while, he knew this was just one of his many, many classic traits, as the man was so used to enduring discomfort that he genuinely didn't register it as something worth addressing. “Okay, new rule: when you're cold, you tell me.”
“That seems unnecessary.”
“It's very necessary. You work with sick kids all day, baby, you can't afford to get hypothermia because you're too stubborn to turn on the heater.”
Chishiya's eyes narrowed slightly. “… I'm not going to get hypothermia in my own apartment.”
“Famous last words.” Arisu was already standing, blanket falling from his shoulders. “Stay here. I have an idea.”
“What are you—”
“Don't move!”
He disappeared into the bedroom, and from there came a distinct sound of drawers being yanked open rather forcefully, followed by a loud crash and some creative cursing before everything turned silent once again.
“… Ryō, seriously—” Chishiya sighed, resting his chin in one hand when Arisu returned to the living room with an oversized zip-up hoodie in hands — the thick, fleece-lined one he had brought a couple years back but always forgot about its existence in his own closet. “… What are you doing?”
“Solving a problem.” He announced cheerfully, pulling the hoodie on over his long-sleeve shirt. It was comically large on him, the sleeves extending well past his hands. “Okay, Shun, arms up.”
Chishiya blinked. “What?”
“Arms. Up.” Arisu made an expectant gesture. “You're cold, so I'm here to fix this problem and pull you out of your misery.”
“That's… very noble of you…?”
“… Shun, baby, please?”
There was a long moment where the blonde-haired doctor just stared at him, clearly weighing his options, before the man eventually relented and raised his arms with an exaggerated sigh that didn't quite hide the fond amusement beneath it. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.” Arisu shuffled closer with a grin, essentially wrapping himself around his boyfriend like some kind of oversized barnacle and cocooning the older man in fleece-lined warmth. “Perfect. Now we're cozy!”
“… This seems inefficient.”
“Shut up and enjoy the warmth I'm giving you,” he muttered in response, burrowing closer until he could feel the older man's heartbeat against his chest. “It's nice, isn't it?”
“Aside from limited mobility,” Chishiya said gingerly, moving around a bit, “I suppose it is… tolerable.”
“Tolerable?” Arisu leaned back to look at him, mock-offended. “You’re practically thawing thanks to my noble sacrifice, and all I get is tolerable?”
“… Alright, I'll amend that comment.” The older man hummed, eyes crinkling with mischief. “This feels… adequate.”
“Wow,” he deadpanned, though his face was trying its best to fight back a smile, “such high praise from my affectionate boyfriend.”
“I'll upgrade it to ‘pleasant’ if you stop talking.”
“Unbelievable.” Arisu huffed, though he didn't pull away. In fact, he only drew Chishiya closer, tucking the blanket over the both of them to ensure they were both warm. “You know what? I'm keeping you like this. Consider yourself swaddled.”
“Swaddled,” the older man repeated dryly. “Like an infant.”
“Exactly. My favorite ice-cold, emotionally constipated infant.”
“… That's slander.”
“That's love.” Arisu retorted before pressing a kiss to his boyfriend's slightly cold cheek. “Now shut up and let me swaddle you properly.”
Chishiya went quiet at his command for a while, then he eventually melted into the hug and said, “… Your hands are warm.”
“That's kind of the point, yeah.”
“No, I mean—” The blond paused, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its sardonic edge. “They're always warm even during winter. I like it.”
Arisu felt his cheeks warm up significantly at that comment, because it was such a small observation to have, but coming from Chishiya — who never said things like that unless he really, truly meant them — it felt like a quiet kind of intimacy all on its own.
“Well,” he said, voice light despite how his heart was hammering against his ribs, “someone has to keep the apartment's average temperature above freezing, since you've clearly given up on that responsibility.”
“I haven't given up on anything. I'm simply allowing natural selection to run its course.”
“Natural selection,” Arisu repeated flatly. “In your own apartment.”
“Darwin would be proud.”
“Darwin would be concerned, actually,” he muttered, adjusting his grip until Chishiya's head rested against his shoulder. The older man was still cool to the touch, but his muscles had started to relax, the tension bleeding out with every quiet minute beneath the kotatsu.
They stayed like that for a while — half-wrapped in fleece, half-swallowed by the kotatsu's warmth. Outside, the wind had started whistling against the windows of their apartment, but neither of them paid that any mind, not when the heater finally clicked on (because of course Arisu had turned it up when Chishiya wasn't looking) and their shared space became warmer than before.
“… Did you just turn on the heat?” The blond squinted his eyes at the temperature change.
“Nope,” Arisu said, words tumbling out far too quickly. “Ah, wonder why it's warmer now. Must be a fairy turning it on for us.”
“… Ryō.”
“Really, I'm innocent from all of this.”
Chishiya's gaze flicked toward the thermostat light glowing faintly on the wall, then back to Arisu, who gave his most innocent grin. “Liar,” he said, though his tone was fond.
“Warm liar,” the brunette corrected, hugging him tighter than before. “And I'll turn it up even more if you complain.”
Chishiya huffed — a quiet, breathy sound that might have been a laugh — before leaning in and pressing a fleeting kiss against Arisu's jaw, barely more than a whisper of warmth. “Fine, I concede defeat.” he said softly. “You win this round.”
“I always win.”
“Questionable.”
“Please,” Arisu smiled, carding his hand through those strands of blond hair. “You'll thank me later when you're not sick.”
“I'll thank you now,” Chishiya murmured, eyes half-lidded, “for the hoodie, the heater, and the excessive concerns you have for me.”
“They're all my charm, baby.” Arisu said, grinning. “Besides, someone has to balance out your complete lack of emotional display.”
“You're doing a great job, then.”
“Damn right I am.”
By the time the sun dipped behind the buildings outside, they had both drifted halfway to sleep under the kotatsu — mugs forgotten, the apartment finally warm, the hoodie and blanket a tangled mess between them.
Chishiya shifted once, his breath ghosting against Arisu's collarbone, and murmured, “You really are warm.”
“'Told you so.” He smiled into his boyfriend's hair. “I'm a built-in heating system.”
“Useful,” came the sleepy reply. “I think I'll keep you around for as long as we can be.”