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“Partner,” Yosuke murmurs, one day.
They're sitting on the school’s rooftop, lunches long gone. Side by side, Yosuke’s head slightly leaning against Yu’s shoulder. It's slightly windy, and he can feel himself shiver just a bit before Yu shifts to place an arm over his shoulders, as if to pull him in a little without making it too…much for Yosuke’s tastes.
“Yes?” He answers, as soon as he's convinced that they're both comfortable.
“This is kinda weird,” Yosuke says, “But do you see yourself taking your girlfriend’s family name if you get married?”
Yu tries to ignore the sudden, obnoxious sting in his chest. “Girlfriend?”
Yosuke shrugs. “Hypothetically.”
“Huh.” And it's not as strange a question as he was expecting, or almost hoping it to be. “I don't know, I've not really thought about it.”
“My name’s okay, I think,” Yosuke mumbles, suddenly. “But Narukami has a more mature ring to it, don't you think?” He lets out a sound akin to a breathy giggle, and Yu’s heart tightens a little. “Just thinking out loud.”
“I guess I agree,” Yu nods, anyway. “But, Hanamura is pretty, too.”
Yosuke lets out a noise that sounds very much like a cough. “Huh.” He says, trying to sound nonchalant. “Maybe I’m not that attached to it.”
“Right,” Yu says, squinting at him when he turns his head to look up at the silver-haired boy. “Why this sudden topic, though?”
Yosuke looks at him as though he’s studying his face. Maybe for some lingering dregs of a reaction, maybe to look for another considering what he says next. “Just a random thought. I mean, how does Narukami Yosuke sound to you?”
Yu thinks he has to jump off the rooftop, immediately. He hopes his face is blank enough. “What?”
“I mean, we’re closer than just friends, yeah? Family?” Yosuke laughs, probably at his shell-shocked expression and rigid body. And then he stops, as if he’s just comprehended what came out of his mouth. And then he goes tomato-red.
Voice suddenly small. “Ididn’tmeanitlikethat.” He shifts out of Yu’s one-arm man-embrace and scoots a little further away, as if to accentuate his point. When he looks at him again, it’s with flaring cheeks. “You’re not taking it the wrong way, are you?!”
Yu, amidst both teenage heartbreak and confusion, can only blink at him for a few seconds before he bursts out laughing.
Yosuke’s yammering goes on for the rest of the day.
-
Chie guffaws when Yu tells her this the next day - she’d been curious about Yosuke not trailing behind Yu as always this morning when he’d opened the door to their class and come in. Of course, it’s not that surprising when one of them isn’t able to accompany the other during the walk to school - but for more often than not, it’s become sort of a ritual for them to catch up on their day or any sort of gossip during those walks. For Yu, it’s almost become natural to expect Yosuke skidding to a stop behind him in the middle of the road. For Yu, it’s become natural to expect the warmth of his hand on his shoulder stopping him from taking another step ahead until Yosuke falls in step with him. Next to him.
“You know what, Narukami?” Chie says, thoughtfully. “Hanamura’s been a little hard to read these days, don’t you think?”
Yu can feel the sweat pooling on his forehead as soon as he hears this. “I suppose so.”
“I can’t tell if it’s because you’re leaving Inaba soon, or not.” Chie sighs. “Sometimes he’s horribly clingy, and other days I see him tryin’ to avoid you. It’s strange.”
Yu keeps quiet, here. He isn’t sure what to make of it either, sure, but the thought of eventually having to go back is something he sometimes forgets. He wonders about last names. He wonders about Yosuke. He wonders, for just a second more, if there’s something his partner isn’t telling him. His mind wavers. Wavers into the dregs of his brain, where he’s locked up those intrusive thoughts about asking Yosuke to live with him post-graduation. The thought of seeing his partner in the morning, flipping an egg, or something. The Junes’ apron tied around his waist. Hair longer, bangs curled up against his forehead, pulled back into a haphazard ponytail, loose strands brushing against the skin of his neck. The thought of seeing Yosuke sitting on the couch, legs pulled up to his chest, casually flipping through the TV channels in their living room. The thought of them squished up to each other in the single bathroom in the mornings, brushing their teeth or shavi-
He feels Chie pat him on the back, thankfully interrupting his thoughts. He can feel her ogling eyes on him. “Whoa there, Narukami. You floated away somewhere for a second - is everything okay?”
Yu, breathless all of a second, can only say, “Yeah.”
-
The next time he sees Yosuke is when he’s on his way to the Samegawa with a fishing pole in his hand for the old man by the river. He’s been meaning to go back for a while, but something had always come up. The one time he thinks he does Yosuke is standing under a tree next to the signpost with his arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed, brows scrunched in what looks like nervousness. His foot is tapping anxiously, and the headphones usually slung around his neck are nowhere to be seen. Yu, as if entranced, stands there to look.
And it’s as if Yosuke can just sense him, because he opens his eyes, and turns exactly to where he’s standing. His eyes considerably widen, and his cheeks flood with the faintest of rosy hues. “Yu.” Not partner, not Narukami.
“Yosuke.” Yu wants to freeze time and fling the fishing pole over his shoulder. He wants to run back home and change into something that doesn’t make him look like he’s about to sit next to an old man fishing for the rest of the day by a riverbank. He wants to stop by Kanji’s mom’s textiles shop and grab one of his custom fox plushies and run back and unfreeze time and maybe, maybe, try to make things normal between them again.
Yosuke looks at him as though he doesn’t even want to. I hope you’re not taking it the wrong way! And so, Yu can only look down, unsure and unaware of what to do and unreasonably fighting with his next course of action. Should he make his way to the riverbank and make himself seem unscathed? Should he stay still and wait for Yosuke to do something? Should he say something?
He feels like he’s a child again, holding his hand out to a scared cat, waiting to be scratched. Waiting to have a reason to back off. Yosuke looks beautiful against the backdrop of midday on the plain. His hair is just a little fussed. The sun’s favorable rays reflect off of his brown eyes. He’s almost as foreign to him as the little creature he’d encountered back then, except that he doesn’t remember if he was scratched, in the end.
It feels like forever, and he doesn’t feel anything pass. By the time he looks up again, Yosuke’s no longer in his field of vision.
-
Yukiko doesn’t expect to see Yu sitting on the steps of the shrine, head resting on the knees pulled up to his chest when she comes to visit, and so her only response is to sit down next to him.
“Hey,” she says, nonchalant.
Yu looks up. “Oh. Yukiko-san.”
Yukiko tilts her head. Curious, she asks, “Were you hoping to see someone else, Narukami-san?”
Oh. Maybe his disappointment came off a little stronger than he wanted it to. It stings him a little, because Yukiko has no reason to face the brunt of it, either. “Ah, I’m sorry. I sort of was.”
She smiles, anyway. Because she’s never been one to not take his words seriously. “That’s okay. By any chance, though,” she pauses, as if to let Yu take a hold on himself. “Is it Hanamura?”
Yu’s eyes look wistful. “Is it that obvious?”
She giggles. “To everyone but him, apparently.”
Yu shakes his head, smiling back at her sheepishly. As if he doesn’t know what to say. “I…I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to make it seem as if I was disappointed to see you.” He sighs. “If anything, I’m glad.”
“Why?” she asks.
“I’m not sure what to do,” Yu tells her, truthfully. “Because what he doesn’t want is true, and it’ll probably affect what we have.” He almost wants to put his head back on his knees again. He almost wants the world to go dark around him, again. Almost wants to disappear, only so Yosuke can forget about him.
“That’s a heavy burden to bear,” Yukiko murmurs, careful with her words. She’s always been a calm force in their lives, so it isn’t surprising when all she does is put an arm around Yu’s shoulders and pull him in for a hug. “It’ll all solve itself with time, I’m sure. Okay?’
Yu almost melts in the hug. Appreciates the warmth of it so much that he lets out a sniffle just for the hell of it, and Yukiko stifles a giggle. “Yes. Okay.” A pause, and then, “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
When he arrives back home, Nanako isn’t there. Nor is Dojima - maybe they’ve already gone to sleep. Nanako usually prefers to sit out and wait until he’s home, but it only takes a glance at the clock for him to realize that he’d been out a little later than he usually is.
Maybe it’s best to not ponder on the road about lost partners and brunets watching TV in his living room.
-
It takes a couple days passing for him to lock eyes with Yosuke again. None of their ‘fights’ have gone on this long. Hell, this wasn’t even a fight. He can feel bitterness creep up in the back of his mind - if he’s going this long with a misconception in the back of his mind that Yu hadn’t even been the one to bring up, then what’s the point? But there’s too much history. There’s too much on the line for Yu to lose, if not Yosuke. His best friend, his partner, the first guy to not have made him feel like an outsider in all his years. The first person to have willingly exchanged numbers with him, the first person he’s stayed up nights talking to. He wishes he didn’t sound like a heartbroken teenager. He wishes he could be more mature about this. He wishes-
“Senpai,” comes a gruff voice. Yu turns, and Naoto’s looking at him with a forlorn expression. “Would you mind walking me home today?”
As if on auto-pilot, “Of course.”
“Why’s Hanamura-senpai avoiding you?”
In the back of his mind, Yu knew this was coming. And so he recounts his story to Naoto, who listens on without even a semblance of an expression forming on his face.
“I see,” he just says, as a matter-of-factly. “I wish I could help, but it seems as though it’s out of my field. Would you care to talk to Tatsumi-san about this?”
“Kanji?” He must sound confused, because Naoto only shrugs.
“He conquered his demons, if you will. He’s probably well equipped to help, you know?”
It makes sense when Naoto frames it that way. It really does. And so Yu turns to him, with a frantic nod.
Smiling, the detective only fixes the sling of the bag on his shoulder before dragging him back to the school premises.
“Hah? Hanamura-senpai’s been avoidin’ you?”
Yu laughs ruefully. “I guess.”
They’re sitting on the rooftop, now, the three of them. Yu’s deliberately avoiding the spot he’d sat in last time, as if it’s going to place some sort of curse on him. Naoto’s taken that spot for him without a word - not that he’d know he’s avoiding it in the first place.
“Because you guys were discussin’ last names and he somehow made it weird an’ all for himself?” Kanji makes it sound like it’s nothing new. Which it isn’t, in retrospect.
“Basically.”
“Oohhhh.”
“You think he’s had some sort of awakening?” Naoto interjects. “As if, maybe, he didn’t dislike the thought of it, and that scared him?”
“Senpai’s the type to overthink it too,” Kanji nods in agreement. “Probably worryin’ himself sick over it if so.”
Yu purses his lips glumly. “How’s that my fault?”
Naoto grins and pats his shoulder. “Aren’t you glad to be the one causing him this sort of confusion?”
“No,” Yu mumbles. Even if he is. Just a tiny bit. “Why would I like to be the cause of my partner avoiding me?”
Kanji and Naoto let out another oooh, in unison this time. They look at each other, and Naoto lets out a pfft.
“Senpai, all you gotta do is be patient,” Kanji insists. He pumps his fist in the air out of nowhere and almost scares Yu half to death. “Be strong! Hanamura-senpai’ll come crawlin’ back to ya in no time!”
“I-I guess so,” Yu sighs, having almost expected the one-arm man hugs the two of them pull him into in the next minute. Everyone’s been doing this. “Thank you, Kanji. Naoto.”
“Anything for you, Senpai!”
-
He wonders if he should go straight to Junes on the weekend. He wonders if he should just corner Yosuke into his room and demand something out of him. He wonders if he’d been too passive that day in the Samegawa and he wonders if he should’ve cornered him then, instead of letting him disappear. He wonders why he’s so bitter this time around.
It’s not as though this is the first time he’s lost a meaningful connection over time. It’s not as though this isn’t anything new, with all the moving his parents do and with all the highschools he’s been transferred to over the course of just the three most formative years of his life. He should be used to this by now - but there’d been a sense of finality he’d seen in Yosuke that he’s never seen anywhere before. In the back of his mind, he knows.
He knows there isn’t going to be anyone like him ever again.
-
And, of course, instead of Yosuke, he sees Rise and Teddie sitting down in the Junes’ food court, yammering away about some recent idol scandal or another before they eventually spot him in the corner.
“Seeenpai!” Rise’s excited voice calls out. She’s waving an arm at him, and Yu can only wave back, albeit with just a little less enthusiasm. “Join us!”
Yu’s barely sat down before Rise pops off: “I saw that you and Hanamura-senpai haven’t been hanging out together lately. Did something happen?”
“Oh, uh-”
“Sensei!” Teddie suddenly shouts, jumping on top of him - Yu can barely steady himself for impact before he’s already wrapped his arms around him, yowling into his shoulder. “You can’t fight with Yosuke! No! He’ll kick me out if you do, you know!!”
“He really won’t,” Yu tries his best to say, yelping when the hug only gets tighter.
Rise gets up from her seat to pull him off, giving him a slight slap to the shoulder as she does so. Teddie yowls like a wounded cat, and seeing that it garners next to no reaction from the both of them, he sulks off back to his own seat.
And so, for the umpteenth time, Yu finds himself recounting the events to the both of them.
Thankfully, Teddie’s called back for work before he can say anything, and so when Rise moves closer to Yu, he almost feels a sense of relief.
“Are you okay, Senpai?” she asks. Suddenly, she looks unsure, too. Yu feels sort of bad - he’d been somewhat aware of the crush she’d been nursing on him, and it feels bad that she’s felt hurt over him, even if those feelings don’t necessarily exist anymore. “You barely like to air out your business like this, and I know how it feels having to go ask for advice.” She sighs, gazes up at him with a sincere look in her eyes. “It’s frustrating, isn’t it?”
“So, so much,” Yu whispers.
The corners of Rise’s lips turn up. She’s matured so much over the past year, Yu thinks. He can barely recognize her.
“It’ll stop feeling like an arrow in your chest eventually.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes.” She laughs. “For a while, it’ll feel like a butter knife. And then, a toothpick.”
“And then?”
Rise smiles. She holds her hand out, and Yu grasps it, feeling the comfortable warmth seep into his nerves. She leans up, then, pressing a chaste kiss to his cheeks. “A needle. And then it’ll get all better.”
Yu closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He can feel her small palm cupping his cheek. Feels his own hand come up to hold hers. Feels the tears before they cradle his skin. “For putting you through all of that.”
“Don’t worry about trivial things anymore, Senpai,” comes her voice. Soothing. “I may have been head over heels for you once, and it was all because of this. How considerate you are, how much care you’ve given me.
I hope you realize you deserve all the same and more, too.”
Yu sighs. He doesn’t see it, then.
Yosuke, looking on from behind a pillar. Yosuke, leaving with his arms crossed over his chest. Pulling his headphones over his ears.
-
The next time they see each other, it’s the week before Yu leaves Inaba.
It’s back on the Samegawa, sitting under that gazebo overlooking the river. Yosuke’d been the one to text him to come over, and Yu had never scrambled up from his futon as fast as he’d done. Never put on his coat so quickly, never dashed out of the house without saying Good morning to Nanako, never, never -
Yosuke had looked at him with an incomprehensible expression. Yu doesn’t know if he’d looked desperate. How desperate, maybe. And now they’re sitting, and they’re not saying anything, and he can see Yosuke fiddle with his fingers, and Yu can feel the beating of his heart go faster and faster by the second. He can’t take it. He can’t. He can’t. He-
“Yu,” Yosuke says, suddenly.
And Yu thinks he’s breaking down into a million pieces. As if there’s a million chains unlocking at once, as if the sun has just risen for the first time in a million years. As if the scared cat’s come crawling to him, licking the edge of his little finger instead of scratching him. And he stays quiet, and still, because now he’s the scared one, and he’s -
“Partner…”
Yosuke sounds pathetic. Like he’s still holding himself back. Like he’s draped over by thorns and like he doesn’t know Yu’s willing to run around the block to steal off Kanji’s biggest pair of scissors to cut them all down around him. “Partner,” he says again, and Yu hopes that his stillness scares him. He hopes he feels a measure of his ugly, teenage heartbreak, but then he eyes over and Yosuke is shaking and his eyes are scrunched up again and he’s almost keeling over helplessly if only to directly look at Yu’s face, again. “Please look at me.”
Yu feels bile up his throat. He feels every emotion in the world crashing down onto him at the same time, as if he’d not tried to ignore them all. He’d tried, he’s been trying so hard. It should be easy to look away, to avoid Yosuke’s gaze as if he hadn’t sprinted to his call at lightning speed.
And so, he looks. And it feels like a thousand mountains crashing down his head.
“Please don’t go.”
He feels numb. It’s evening, and Yosuke’s hands can’t seem to leave him. His partner’s left his phone on the bench of the gazebo, playing some soft, small-romance song while he guides him along to the steps, even with his head buried in Yu’s shoulder. Yu doesn’t know how he’s doing this. He doesn’t recognize the song. He doesn’t recognize the sun behind their backs. He almost doesn’t recognize Yosuke’s touch, especially when he pulls himself back, taking Yu’s cheeks into the palms of his hands.
“M’ sorry, Yu,” he mumbles, again. And again, and again, with his skin stained by tears and Yu’s jacket stained with tears and hands trembling around his waist in a way so unsure despite the fact that they’ve probably been dancing for hours, every other passer-by barely stopping to see them. “Sorry that I left you there. Sorry for avoiding you, sorry, I don’t want you to hate-”
“Yosuke,” Yu says, voice hoarse. “I don’t think I ever could.”
Yosuke looks at him as if he’s just learned how to breathe. “I want to kiss you.”
Yu doesn’t move. He feels Yosuke’s hands fall back to his shoulders.
“I want you to take the initiative,” Yu murmurs. And then, with a huff to hold back his smile, “I’m too tired.”
And so he does.
It isn’t anything like the romance novels say. It isn’t anything like the movies or the books or the games or the hidden magazine compatibility columns say, because it feels less like fireworks against the black of the sky and more like a resounding bloom within the confines of his chest when Yosuke kisses him. Like the lull of the river, the Junes’ jingle playing on the TV back home, a vintage CD on a dreary day, a puzzle piece resurfacing and slotting itself back into its rightful place.
It isn’t like anything he’s ever imagined, but it’s everything, Yu thinks, as he forces Yosuke to tilt his head enough for him to kiss him deeper, that he’s ever wanted.
Nobody really questions it when he brings Yosuke home. Nobody does, usually. Nanako only waves at him as Yu takes him up after greeting her, and then he’s pushing Yosuke onto his futon and kneeling down, jacket barely off before he’s guiding his lips on his own again. He kisses like he’s making up for lost time, pushing the thought that he’ll be gone within the week into the confines of his mind, before Yosuke’s pushing him back, Wait, wait, partner-
I don’t want to. Not anymore. No. “Sorry, sorry-” Yu forces himself to sit back, forces himself to stare at Yosuke’s lips, blotchy and raw and red, and feels the embarrassment so suddenly-
“Dude,” Yosuke breathes out a laugh. “You’re a little worked up, huh?”
“Don’t call me dude?”
Yosuke rolls his eyes, “Yeah, because making out once cancels out the dude privileges, doesn’t it? Listen,” Yosuke crawls towards him with a serious look. “You let me off a little too scot-free, didn’t you?”
“What do you want me to do?” Yu grumbles. “Kick you out?”
“No,” Yosuke smiles, all sly. “But doesn’t it make you..frustrated?”
“Um,” Yu pauses, as if to think. “I’m already half in love with you. That sort of distracts it.”
The brunet flushes red. “Partner, I’m trying my best to egg you on. Not-”
“You’ve done that enough these last few weeks.”
Yosuke stares at him. And then he hangs his head with a sigh, raising his hands in defeat. “Fine. Kiss me again?”
Yu nods gratefully, before pulling him in.
They’re staring at the ceiling, with Yosuke’s head on top of Yu’s outstretched arm, cuddled up just a little uncomfortably on the futon. “I’ve been thinking,” Yosuke says, suddenly.
“Never a good precedent,” Yu mumbles.
Yosuke would shoot daggers at him if he could. “Come on.”
“Yes, yes, what have you been thinking about?”
He’s uneasy, all of a sudden. “About the last name thing.”
“Mm,” Yu sighs into his hair. He pulls him just a little closer, fingers dancing on the skin of his collarbone. “Don’t bring this up if it’s gonna make you avoid me for another week.”
“Hey.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Where will you go from here?” It’s suddenly not about last names. It’s suddenly not about childish fights. “Aren’t your parents in Tokyo, or somewhere?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Yosuke frowns. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Their plans are very…spur of the moment.”
“Huh.” A pause. “And I thought I had it bad.”
“What about you?”
Yosuke can feel the grip of his fingers tighten just a little, as if they’re trying to drag him along with him.
“Nothing, yet. Maybe I’ll apply to a couple of colleges in mind, work in Junes’ till something sticks. I didn’t think far ahead.”
“Come with me.”
Yosuke sits up, then. “What?”
Yu smiles ruefully. “Come with me. Take my family name. We can find an apartment, somewhere. We don’t have to flee the country to get married, or whatever. It’ll be our little thing.”
We can have one of those childish breakups, again. Patch up. Go to college, Sleep in the same room. Leave the windows open, adopt a cat, get into a houseplant phase, learn to cook better, buy a TV from Junes’ - you’ll get an employee discount, won’t you, Yosuke? Watch the fireworks, visit Inaba together, watch Nanako grow up together -
It’s a bad habit. It’s bad, and it distorts into the eye of his mind, like a far-fetched dream -
“Okay.” Yosuke says.
It’s Yu’s turn to sit up.
It doesn’t sound all that bad, in the end. It has a nice ring to it - Narukami Yosuke.
Huh, Yu thinks, on the train. Feels the weight of Yosuke’s sleeping body on leaning against his shoulder. Maybe they should flee the country to get married.
He looks at his partner.
One day, for sure.