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Chishiya had never been particularly fond of snowfall.
There was something about the way snowy days muffled the world — how the cold sank in and the silence pressed close, deceptive and heavy — that set his teeth on edge, and as if those inconveniences weren't enough, snow also insisted on being unreasonable and illogical too, turning roads treacherous, and making otherwise reasonable people forget how to drive the moment the first flakes touched the ground. For a phenomenon so persistently romanticized, it seemed to demand far too much effort to appreciate, let alone endure.
And yet here he was, standing at the floor-to-ceiling window of his apartment, watching fat snowflakes drift past the glass like they had all the time in the world.
“Shun?”
Chishiya hummed in response to the gentle petname. It was never something he thought about much — they seemed unnecessary, overly sentimental — but when Arisu had started using it, tentative and soft after a night that had left them both breathless and undone, he hadn't been able to say no.
Not that he would ever admit that out loud.
“Just observing the meteorological inconvenience,” he replied dryly, finally glancing over his shoulder to have a better look of his boyfriend. “I'm fine.”
Arisu made a quiet, unconvinced sound and padded closer, fuzzy socks shuffling against the hardwood. His hair stuck up in at least five different directions, and there was a faint crease on his cheek from where he had been face-down on his keyboard again — a sight that managed to be both ridiculous and endearing at the same time.
“You fell asleep at your desk again, didn't you?” Chishiya asked with a sigh.
“No, I was just… resting my eyes.” The younger man said, then let out a yawn that immediately underminded his own defense afterward. “The debug session was brutal. My beta testers sent me seventeen messages about a clipping issue in the new level design.” He shuffled closer until they were standing side by side, close enough that their shoulders brushed. “What time is it?”
“Just past midnight.”
Arisu hummed, leaning slightly into him. “Mm. Late for you.”
“I could say the same about you as well—” Chishiya murmured, though he didn't pull away. If anything, he found himself leaning back just enough to acknowledge his boyfriend's affection without making it obvious. “—given that you've been at that desk for six hours straight.”
“Seven,” Arisu corrected absently, his gaze drifting to the window. “But who's counting?”
“Apparently I am.” Chishiya turned fully then, studying the younger man in the dim light reflected off the snow outside. It had a way of brightening everything — city lights thrown back in soft, diffused waves — casting his boyfriend's face in soft hues: the slope of his nose, the line of his jaw, the way his eyes went half-lidded when exhaustion finally caught up to him. “Especially because you're going to ruin your posture if you keep that up.”
“That's rich coming from someone who spends half his shifts hunched over charts.”
“I have excellent posture.”
“You only have passable posture, Shun,” Arisu corrected, and there was a smile tugging at his lips now, barely visible but definitely there. “Which is not the same thing.”
Chishiya felt his own mouth twitch despite himself. “Semantics.”
“Doctor's orders should be precise.”
“Game developers should know when to quit for the night.”
That earned him a soft, breathy laugh — one his boyfriend only made when he was too tired to keep his guard up — and the conversation dissolved into comfortable silence. They stood together at the window, watching the snow fall, until Arisu let out a quiet sigh and nudged closer still.
“I think the snow is pretty tonight,” the younger man murmured, voice thick with sleepiness as he pressed a warm kiss to his cheek. “And you are as well.”
Chishiya went very still.
It wasn't unusual for Arisu to say things like this once in a while — casual affection wrapped in sincere honesty when the night stripped away at his hesitation — but hearing it now, soft and warm against his ears, still felt… different somehow, more weighted and impossible to dismiss with his usual dismissal.
Pretty.
For the majority of his life, Chishiya had never spared much thought for how he appeared to the outside world. His face was symmetrical enough to disarm, sharp enough to be remembered, but beyond that it had always been a tool — something to be leveraged when necessary and otherwise ignored. Pretty was never a word that entered the equation. Pretty was frivolous. Pretty was soft-edged and delicate, two things he had never been, even on his best days.
And yet Arisu said it like it was the most obvious truth in the world, like it required no particular thought or justification to explain what it meant, and the idea tugged at his heartstrings until they felt uncomfortably tight.
“You're half-asleep,” he said eventually, voice more calm than how he actually felt. “That makes your judgment questionable at best.”
“My judgment is fine,” Arisu retorted, though the way he swayed slightly on his feet suggested otherwise. “I know pretty when I see it.”
“Empirical evidence suggests otherwise,” Chishiya shrugged. “Which was ironic considering how you chose a career in game development.”
“Wow.” Those lovely brown eyes widened in mock offense at his words. “That's— Okay, that's actually really mean, Shun.”
“I'm simply being honest.”
“More like being a menace to your own boyfriend than being honest.”
“Menace, huh?” Chishiya repeated, testing the word like it was something foreign. That's a strong accusation.”
“It's an accurate one.” Arisu giggled softly. “You know exactly what you're doing.”
“I'm merely stating facts.”
“You're deflecting,” The younger man corrected. “You always do that when I say something that gets under your skin.”
That was… unfortunately accurate. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” Arisu hummed and reached up to brush a strand of hair away from his forehead with careful fingers. “It's okay, you know. You don't always have to prepare the perfect response when I compliment you.”
“I respond perfectly fine—”
“You make jokes, or change the subject, or tell me my judgement is compromised.” His boyfriend interrupted, fingertips tracing lightly along his temple, and it took everything in him not to lean into the touch. “But I meant what I said about the snow, and about you as well.”
For once, Chishiya found himself at a loss for words — a rare occurrence that left him feeling far more exposed than he liked. He could deflect again, redirect the conversation somewhere safer, but the exhaustion settling into his bones made the usual defenses feel like too much effort.
So he caught his boyfriend's wrist instead, holding it there against his face, and said, “You should get some sleep.”
“So do you.”
“I'm not the one who spent seven hours debugging level design.”
“No, you just spent twelve hours managing a pediatric emergency department.” Arisu's other hand came up to cup his cheek, warm and grounding. “I know you, Shun. You're running on fumes.”
His boyfriend wasn't wrong. His shift today had been particularly brutal — two trauma cases, three worried parents who needed extensive reassurance, and a fourteen-year-old patient who reminded him far too much of himself at that age, all sharp edges and defensive sarcasm hiding terror underneath — and by the time he finished his pass-on notes to the night team, he felt like he could drop where he stood.
But admitting that, though, felt too much like conceding defeat for him, so he pushed through it, lifted his chin just slightly, and muttered, “I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me.”
“Liar,” Arisu murmured fondly, punctuating his accusation with soft kisses pressed along his jaw and cheek. “Come on. Bed.”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.” His boyfriend continued stroking his face. “Doctor's orders, even. I'm prescribing immediate rest for one stubborn emergency physician who doesn't know when to stop.”
“You're not a doctor.”
“I'm your boyfriend, which gives me authority over your wellbeing.” Arisu countered easily, giving him a smile while tugging him along toward their bedroom. “And I'm now using to make sure my lovely boyfriend gets some much-needed rest.”
When they reached their bed, his boyfriend only let go long enough to pull back the covers before climbing in, all graceless exhaustion and loose limbs, and Chishiya followed a moment later, settling into his side with considerably more coordination, only to be pulled into a hug immediately like gravity had decided to rearrange itself against his wills.
“Hi,” Arisu murmured, already looping an arm around his waist and tugging him closer until they were pressed together from chest to knee.
“Hello,” Chishiya replied, because what else was there to say when the younger man was looking at him like that — warm and open and entirely too sincere for someone who should be unconscious by now.
“This is nice.”
“You say that every time.”
“Because it's true every time.” Arisu's fingers traced slow, idle patterns over the fabric of his shirt, warm against his lower back. “I like us being close like this. It feels really comforting.”
“Comforting,” Chishiya repeated, letting the word roll off his tongue. It felt too simple, too inadequate for whatever this was — this quiet space they shared that had somehow become as essential as breathing for him. “That's… one way to put it, I suppose.”
“What would you call it, then?”
He considered the question carefully, his thoughts settling like a warm, heavy blanket. Six months ago, he would have deflected, would have made some clinical observation about the relationship between oxytocin and physical contact. Three months ago, he might have said ”convenient” and left it at that. Now, though, with Arisu's warmth seeping into him and snow still drifting past their window in soft, endless sheets, he found himself wanting to be truthful for once.
“… Necessary,” he admitted quietly. “This feels… necessary.”
His boyfriend went very still beside him, and when he glanced up, those brown eyes were wide and bright in the dim light. “Shun…”
“Don't make a big deal out of it, Ryō.”
“Too late.” The younger man's smile was incandescent now, his face looking brighter than the snow-lit windows. “You just said something really romantic and I'm going to treasure it forever.”
“I take it back.”
“No takebacks. I'm keeping it.” Arisu pressed a kiss to his forehead, then another to the mole beneath his eye, soft and reverent. “Necessary. God, you're going to be the death of me.”
“Technically speaking, the leading cause of death in relationships is—”
“Please don't cite statistics while we're cuddling.”
“I was merely—”
“Shun, baby.” Another kiss, this one to his lips, brief enough to halt his words and tender enough to calm his mind. “Just shut up and let me hold you for once, yeah?”
Chishiya considered arguing — some sharp-edged quip about how he was an adult with his own free wills, thank you very much — but the words dissolved before they could form. Instead, he let himself relax into Arisu's embrace, one hand coming to rest against his boyfriend's chest where he could feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath his palm.
“Fine,” he murmured sleepily. “But only because you asked nicely.”
“Telling you to shut up is hardly a nice question,” Arisu said, hand stroking his hair. “I'm surprised you haven't kicked my ass by now.”
“You're lucky that I'm too tired to fight.”
“I know. You've been kind to me these days.” The younger man chuckled softly. “Sleep, Shun. You need it.”
And maybe it was the exhaustion, or the warmth, or the way the snow continued falling outside their window in endless, silent descent — but for once, Chishiya couldn't find it in him to argue further. His breathing slowed to match his boyfriend's, and somewhere between one breath and the next, he realized that Arisu had been right all along.
The snow was pretty tonight.
And he was beginning to understand why.