Work Text:
Kei may be the worst client that’s walked through his doors yet.
“But,” Kei says, again. His gaze burns hot prayer onto Harua’s cards. The premise of bursting into flames has them trembling slightly. “Reversed is like—bad, right? The opposite?” He shakes his head. His bangs fall past and out of his eyes, like the reading would be clearer somehow. “Harua, you’ve got to tell me.”
Harua takes a deep breath. There’s a headache knocking at his temple. The grandfather clock in the corner—bought by Maki, who’d preached a mysterious atmosphere—ticks towards four, which is almost two hours past when the appointment had started. Across the table, Yuma’s expression is half-apologetic. Half is generous, really. Mostly he just looks as fed up as Harua feels.
“That’s not how tarot works,” he says, gently, again. He may be close to losing his mind but Kei is his friend. One of his best. “I can’t tell you exactly what will happen. Just premonitions, warnings, a maybe here and there. You decide your own fate.”
Kei still looks spooked, unsettled. Harua kind of gets it. For as long as Harua’s known him, Kei has been a runner—literal, metaphorical. He chases after what he wants and does whatever he fancies. Lightfooted. Divination leashes you to the ground and leaves you swimming in the air.
Whose idea was it, even. Probably Fuma, who’s always had so much trust in Harua’s readings. In any case, almost all of their circle have been here at least once, either for support or needing advice. Kei completes it. However difficult.
Kei leaves, finally, with Yuma steering him out with that very Yuma-like cogency. Harua closes his eyes and puts his head in his hands. He really should start charging for overtime.
So, divination.
It’s more intuitive than else, really; inherited, learned, barely a difference even after years of practice. His mother reads crystal balls, his grandmother a dream-teller. Harua has—since before his memory begins—tarot.
“You’re like a witch,” Maki said once. He rolled around onto his back, scattering the cards laid out on the bedsheets, grinning like an abashed dog when Harua cursed and scrambled to pick them up. “Waving over your cauldron and granting me my future,” he continued in lieu of explanation, the implication being that there was some sort of control that Harua had over his life. Even if he hadn’t meant it as such, there was a strange sense of satisfaction to be found behind that.
At a certain point, Harua thought he didn’t need divination to tell him what Maki’s future would look like. He’d grown, fast and steady, past the roundness of his teenage cheeks into toned muscles. Girls started to stare when they walked together. He looked straight out of one of those American movies that he so dearly loved. A pop star in the making.
But he stayed. Through high school, through university, after, until Harua looked back to this echoing constant that followed him everywhere. Like that, then: in their apartment, tangled in his own bedsheets, Maki peered up at him, gleeful and waiting.
“Your reading has been the same since you were fifteen. I don't know why we still bother.”
It’s a yearly tradition, Maki’s tarot reading. Whether on a classroom desk or in their small college dorm, Maki never failed to remind him at least once.
“It might change.” Maki said. He ran a hand over his freshly buzzed hair. “Isn’t the possibility exciting?”
Harua frowned. He picked up a face-down card from the ground, then another. The Tower, then Four of Cups. Maybe he should be scared. “About as exciting as the time you found a rat in your room.”
“So, very?”
“Not at all,” Harua deadpanned.
Maki made a sound like he’d been shot, clutching at his chest. “Don’t talk about my daughter like that.”
“It was male, and he was yours for all of two hours.”
“You know, for a witch, some might think you’d respect your familiars better.”
“Don't even joke,” Harua said, indignant. He swept a theatrical arm into the air. “Your rat is no match for a familiar.” Back in his mother’s shop, it was well-known that animals liked him. Cats, mostly, because he put out herring for them sometimes. The occasional squirrel and runaway gerbil. A few frogs here and there.
He opened his mouth to mention it, but Maki was barely listening. He’d been momentarily distracted with tugging on the stray lock of Harua’s mullet. Harua dodged it and stood up. Maki followed, and they had a short few-second scuffle with Maki lunging for his hair and Harua pulling away, until one of them conceded defeat and they lay back down on Maki’s bed.
“Hey, how long has it been since you’ve cut your hair? It's growing long.”
Harua shrugged. He combed his fingers through his hair; Maki wasn’t wrong. His roots were growing out into the orange-brown strands. They pooled down to touch his back. He hadn’t gotten it cut in, maybe, six months? There was work, and then fortune telling as a side hustle, visiting his family, going out with friends, he never found the time for it.
“I like it long.” Not technically untrue, but Maki’s had this whole taking care of yourself spiel memorized since second year of high school and he’d rather not hear it again. “I’ll find some time in a few weeks. Maybe.”
“Would you let me cut it?”
Maki was grinning. Harua rolled his eyes and stretched languidly, hearing his back pop. It had started to rain, then; leaving drizzly tracks on the window. The pitter-patter echoed.
“Not in a million years.” He heard Maki make a vaguely affronted noise. “You’d do something weird to my hair.”
“I wouldn’t,” Maki objected, then acquiesced, “Not that weird, really. Something you’ll like. Stop looking so dubious, you need to have more faith in me.”
“I have so much faith in you already. Too much.”
Maki had been about to argue, but then something flashed across his face and he sat up straighter. Harua could almost see the lightbulb flash above his head. “Hey, have you ever done a reading for yourself?”
“No, never, and you can take that eager look off your face,” Harua replied, immediately. Maki whined about it for a while, but truly, the idea had his skin crawling. Call him superstitious, whatever. His mother worried over it often, back in her shop, when he was a teenager and the too-nice grandmothers would offer to help him with it. No readings for diviners or you’ll curse yourself and fall into despair, or something like that. He didn’t remember the exact details. Just that crawling, foreboding feeling.
He said as much to Maki, who isn’t really superstitious like that but nodded seriously in commiseration. He’s supportive like that, Maki. Goes along with Harua too easily. Maybe that’s the secret to their years together.
“Hey, if you ever change your mind, you can prove you really do have faith in me.”
“Never,” Harua said again, but he’d started laughing in the way only Maki could bring out. Maybe he’ll get over it, someday, and he’ll take up that offer. Maybe Maki will keep badgering him about it ‘til they’re old and graying.
His cards were stacked neat and shuffled. His best friend yawned hugely, sprawled out on his bed. The clouds spilled over the sky, the rain intensified. If nothing else, Harua thought, it was a satisfactory life to live.
One Saturday: the doorbell rings once.
Harua’s elbow deep in stacked bowls, standing at the kitchen sink. He calls out, “The door’s unlocked,” without turning around. Maki’s done this often, going out for a short while without his set of keys. Sometimes he does it on purpose when he knows Harua would be home just to fuck with him a bit. Knowing he’ll be there to respond. In any case, Harua has given up dealing with it and just lets him do what he wants.
It’s different when the door doesn’t open. Off-script. Mindlessly Harua washes the suds off his skin and heads to the door. He doesn't have any appointments lined up today, and the friends who’d come over on a whim have at least a little grace to text first. He’s already half-saying, “You could at least come in yourself,” when he pulls open the door and it’s—decidedly not Maki.
“Oh,” Harua says, stupidly.
“Hi,” the stranger says. He’s obviously nervous, shifting from one foot to another. “Um. Sorry. I know I’m probably intruding.”
He’s taller than Harua by just a little. Long-ish black hair and round-ish cheeks. It’s like every point of his appearance was made into an approximate. Harua realizes he’s staring and blinks a second too late, flushing pink.
“Hello, I don’t think I have clients today…?”
“Oh! No, Kei-hyung sent me,” which makes more sense, until he continues with, “He said I should come for a tarot reading?” And now Harua is confused again.
“I’m sorry, Kei-hyung said that??”
He’s even more antsy now. “Yeah. Sorry…?”
“He spent two hours in here last week fretting over his own reading.” Harua says. The stranger laughs and it bleeds something satisfying into his chest. “You can come in, by the way. I’m Harua.”
“Taki,” he says, and he looks relieved. Harua leads him into their apartment and sits him at the dining table before he retrieves his cards. They’re limp and well-used. Taki reaches a hesitant hand out to touch them.
“How much do you know about tarot?”
“Not much,” Taki says. He’s a little jumpy, gaze darting all over the place. “You can tell my future? Kei-hyung made it sound all mystical and magic-like.”
Harua gives him a small smile. “I mean, sure. There’s not many specifics I can give you, though. Vague premonitions. Maybe you should go ahead with the opportunity you were thinking about. Apply for the job you wanted. Or maybe you need to step back from impulse and do some deeper considerations. The cards will tell you. I’m just the messenger.”
Taki’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. Sounds legit.” His expression switches to horror. “Sorry, I swear I wasn’t doubting you or anything! Just, it's a bit unreal. Kei-hyung made it sound so unreal? But it's real, obviously, it's your craft…”
He can't help but laugh. It's cute, the way Taki scrambles. The way Taki’s smiling at him all sheepish now. “I get it. Kei-hyung’s not really one for fortune telling.”
“Yeah.”
“If you have any questions in mind, we can start with that,” Harua says. He loves this feeling: the trust that Taki’s staring up at him with. This is his art. “Any specific topic. Or we can start small and do a general reading. Past, present, future, that sort of thing.”
“Um,” Taki says uncertainly. He really is so cute. “You're the expert. Do whatever?”
“Past present future, then. You got it.”
It's easy to fall into the rhythm. Shuffle, spread, Taki picks out three. He still looks a bit doubtful, but Harua gets it. Tarot is spiritual. Some choose not to believe it, anyways. Like he said, he's just the messenger. He flips the first card.
“Past, page of wands. You’ve got a lot of passion, don’t you? Worked for a dream without hesitation.” He can see it; Taki, young and fiery and filled with impulse. “Taking risks, but it was thrilling. If you moved too fast, though, you might not have been ready to confront the challenges you were eager for.”
Taki looks impressed. “I used to train as an idol. Six years. That's where I met Kei-hyung, actually.”
“For the record, I think you'd have been a great idol.”
“You've known me for ten minutes.”
“I’m serious! You've got that kind of star quality.” Harua’s not sure where this is coming from; he's not usually this chatty outside of the explanation of the readings. Something about Taki is strangely compelling.
Speaking of readings. Taki reaches forward to flip the next card with a kind of renewed bravado. Magician, which is interesting. “Huh. As above, so below.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Harua says, considering. “Something like, mind and world reflect each other. You have the power and your life will reflect it.” It's ever so hard explaining the Major Arcana cards, without getting into all the other complexities. “Create your opportunities. Go for what you want. It’ll work out if you're sufficiently willing.”
Taki looks a bit more alive. “That’s good. Anything to look out for?”
Harua shrugs. “Not really. Don't hesitate, maybe. You manifest what you want.” He’s about to pick up the last card when, on the table, his phone buzzes once. He looks over curiously. There's only a few people that can get past his Do Not Disturb.
From Kei: don’t let Taki escape!!!!
reading on love life NOW
Harua starts. He raises an eyebrow at Taki, who’s apparently read the messages upside down and has shrunken down, looking embarrassed.
“He told me to come here for this,” Taki mutters.
There's a bit of laughter in Harua’s voice that he can’t hold back when he says, “It’s common.”
“Be serious! Kei-hyung worries too much. I swear he still thinks I’m thirteen or something.”
“Well, I can't disobey him,” Harua says and he sweeps up the cards to reshuffle before Taki can protest. This is fun. “Any questions in mind?”
“Are you going to let me end this now if I ask?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Taki sighs. “I don't know. What do people usually ask?”
“Energy, compatibility. Are you talking to anyone?”
“Not at the moment.”
Intriguing and a bit more difficult. Aloud Harua says, “We’ll do a general outlook. See how that turns out.” Taki still looks like he’d rather not be here, ears reddened to the tips, but he picks out a card anyways and flips it around.
Harua raises his eyebrows. “You’re really not talking to anyone?”
“Yeah, why?”
“It's much more common for couples to have this, that's all,” he says. Runs a finger down the long edge. “Lovers. Pretty cliché. It means you have to maintain harmony within your relationships. Friendships, maybe? Find any of your friends attractive?”
Taki makes a questioning sound. Harua shrugs. He’s helpless here for anything other than interpretation.
He checks the clock. It’s barely been twenty minutes, which is pretty standard, but for some reason there's a reluctance that settles deep in his heart. He doesn't want Taki to leave, not yet. And the reading feels incomplete, in a way.
Then: an incessant knocking on the front door. Taki’s head swivels in that direction and Harua could almost laugh at the panic in his expression. He doesn't, though; an idea strikes him so hard and lightning-quick that it almost unbalances him. Leaves him with a slight sickness that he pushes away.
“Oh,” Harua says mildly. “I may have a solution.”
“Haruuuaaaaa!!” He's a nuisance. Harua has to school his expression into something less fond when he calls out, “The door’s unlocked!”
It clicks open a second later. Maki steps in, hair rumpled with wind, a parcel in his arms. “I got that bread you wanted from the bakery. Yuma gave me a discount, because, guess what, I saw him—”
He stops mid-sentence. Taki makes a nervous ta-da! gesture and asks weakly, “What did Yuma do?”
Maki blinks out of his stupor. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t know you had any clients today. Wait, you know Yuma?”
That’s a surprise to Harua too, but no matter. He leans over to take Maki’s wrist and pushes him into the chair alongside. Maki stares at him like a cornered alley cat.
“Sorry, I was going to text you. This is my roommate. Maki, this is Taki. He’s friends with Kei and,” glancing at Taki, “Yuma, apparently?”
“Yuma,” Taki confirms. “From university.”
“Okay, I’m Maki, well, listen to this,” Maki leans in, all that past awkwardness gone. “I saw him flirting with Jojo!! At the bakery. Everyone could hear. Are they serious?”
Taki blinks. A corner of his mouth turns up in amusement. “They've been dating for three months.”
“What!”
What, Harua mouths along, incredulous. Maki turns to him with an expression like did you hear that. He did. He hadn't known about it either. Readily, Maki redirects his attention onto Taki and stares him down. It's formidable how Taki only squirms a little bit.
“Are you sure? Seriously? He told you? Or was it Jo?”
“It was him,” Taki confirms. “I lost a lot of money for it.”
Maki frowns. “Oh. You bet against him? I didn't ‘cause I thought it was a sure loss.”
“It was! But I didn't even meet Jo until it was too late.”
“A victim. I get it,” Maki sighs and he pats Taki’s shoulder mock-sympathetically, and they both burst out laughing.
“Sorry, did I interrupt your appointment? You can go on. Pretend I’m not here.”
Harua clears his throat. “Actually, I have something you can help with. Taki, here,” He gestures at Taki, who's cottoned on and is looking at him incredulously, face reddening, but he doesn't protest and it’s as clear of a go ahead that Harua has seen. “came for romantic advice on his love life. Apparently Kei-hyung thinks it's too stagnant or something. Luckily for me, I’m a helpful entrepreneur and I have a best friend who’s—available.”
Maki raises an eyebrow. “Oh.”
Then the full implication of his words hits him fully. Harua watches the progression of his expression. “Oh!”
He blushes. They're both blushing. Harua wants to snap a picture. Taki’s hair curls over his ears. He’s hesitant, clearly, but Maki’s always been good with that type. It works out. He's a genius. He’s an asshole.
“I mean, if you want to,” Maki says, his eyes alight, ever so forward. “You're cute! We have the same friends? Do you live around here?”
“Thank you, yes, and yes?” Taki answers. He looks confused, like he doesn't know how it's come to this, but not displeased. Brushes a lock of hair out of his face. “Um. I want to. You're cute too.”
Maki practically beams. “Thanks! Can I get your number?”
“Yeah, of course.” Taki grins, tilting his head. Then, softer: “Thank you, Harua.”
At once, Maki turns to him. There's something a bit more conflicting in his expression now; he stares at Harua in a way Harua can't decipher. But his voice is sincere when he echoes, “Yeah. Thank you.”
Harua exhales a short breath. It’s suddenly become difficult to look either of them in the eye. Instead, he glances down at his cards. “It's nothing.”
“I heard a certain kid of ours came to you over the weekend,” Nicholas starts the moment Harua sits at the table. He leans in conspiratorially and narrows his eyes. “How’d it go?”
“You know Taki?” Harua says, startled. He'd have something smarter on hand, but his heart’s doing that stupid fluttery thing like it has every time he’s been in a metre distance of Nicholas over the five years that they’ve been friends. Habit of the old.
Nicholas looks mildly insulted. “Well, of course.” He sits back, to Harua’s relief. “Practically raised him, with Juju and Kei-hyung since young. I’m surprised you never met before this, actually. He’s pretty good friends with Yuma and Jo too.”
Harua blinks. “Oh.”
He’s rarely at a loss of words but there’s not anything to say here. He doesn’t know Taki, not really. He’d enjoyed their session but it was short. Everything he’s learned is a secondhand truth; Taki and Maki are—tentatively—seeing each other. Taki is best friends with half of his circle. And then, courtesy of Maki for the last week: Taki has a dog. Taki likes to cook. Taki laughs a lot. Taki is like sunshine.
Maki really does talk a lot. He’s been in this giddy honeymoon state for a while, coming home late with his face flushed, half the words from his mouth about Taki Taki Taki. It’s cute. Mildly irritating. And a third, simmering feeling that Harua can’t make out, settling low in his stomach.
“Aw, hey, don’t look like that,” Nicholas says, apparently reading something on Harua’s face. Harua wipes his expression clean and sticks out his tongue. Nicholas rolls his eyes but he laughs as intended. “I’m sure you’ll see him around.”
Great. Nicholas seems to have some convoluted view of what he's thinking. Aloud he says, “I’m not worried about that.”
Nicholas gives him a look, the kind that’s equal parts skeptical and playful and says I know exactly what you’re worried about no matter what you tell me. Harua scrunches up his face.
Once, Harua thought that he’d spend the rest of his life out with Nicholas. Beautiful, sharp Nicholas who was the perfect rendition of a man. Who made him laugh and saw through his every facade and gave him what he wanted all the time, every time. Harua was used to it: getting what he wanted. Not this time.
Nicholas grins at him, still sharp, still shark-like. Harua smiles back, helpless.
“You haven’t told me yet! How did it go?”
Right. “Um.” There really isn’t a way to put this that doesn't make him sound like an asshole. Especially with Nicholas, who has the most understanding of his life. Out with it anyways. “He asked for help on romance and I set him up with Maki.”
Nicholas chokes and coughs and Harua watches him with a kindled newfound vehemence that slightly surprises himself.
“You're not serious.”
“As serious as it gets,” Harua rolls his shoulder back with a sigh. “You should've seen it. Kei-hyung made him do a love life reading, and Maki was right there, and, I don't know, they looked good together.” Too good. It almost makes him kind of mad. His heart beats faster.
“You’re an asshole,” Nicholas says very seriously. “And Maki agreed? Like, really?”
“Yes.”
Nicholas rolls his eyes. “Of course he did. Good for them.”
His tone is so sarcastic that Harua hits him. Nicholas does it right back; they're squabbling now, back and forth. Neither of them ever knows when to stop.
It’s a strange magic, or something similar: after Harua meets Taki, he can't seem to stop.
Taki is always there and ever-present—on Kei’s lockscreen as a cute child; tagging along with Jo when they go out for lunch; perusing the bakery that Yuma works at. It’s wild. It’s baffling. Harua thinks he might be going insane at a certain point. He doesn’t do much more than exchange a few words with Taki every instance, but there’s some sort of shared understanding between them.
Twelve days after their tarot reading: Kei hosts a grand gathering party. Grand by his own words; it really is just nine of them squeezed into his and Fuma’s apartment with food and bottles of icy alcohol. Something to celebrate, Kei had said with a wink, new connections made! Maki called him sleazy. They went anyways.
Harua finds Taki in the kitchen. Behind the glass door, his figure is partially obscured by smoke. He slides the door open to step in and asks, “Is the smoke according to plan?”
“Something like that. Jo’s banned from the kitchen now,” Taki replies from somewhere within the haze. He waves his arms wildly through the air until some of the smoke dissipates and Harua is able to see his grinning face once more. “He doesn’t know how to work a stove, can you believe that?”
“I’m surprised you let him try anyways. I learned against that back in university.”
“Huh, you should’ve shot me a warning,” Taki says in mock outrage, like they have other direct points of contact than their friends. This pretense of closeness. Harua’s not sure how to feel about it. “Could’ve ruined Kei-hyung’s kitchen.”
“You know, I doubt you care,” Harua returns, pretending right back, and Taki coughs out a laugh. He sidles up to where Taki’s standing. “Need help with anything? I won’t cut myself or burn anything, if you’re worried.”
“I have faith in you. Stir this for a bit?”
Harua does. They stand in silence for a few moments. He waits, one beat, two, then, “Did Maki come with you?”
His tone is so purposefully casual that Harua has to laugh. It eases the tension slightly. “Couldn’t you have asked him yourself?”
“Probably. He’s so forward all the time. Sometimes I have to take a breather and it feels like I’m running away somehow,” Taki says, so easily that it takes Harua aback. “I didn’t ask. He didn’t either, I think he likes the surprise.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. “Oh. Yeah, he’s here. I imagine he’ll get bored of beating everyone in Mario Kart and come find you soon.”
“That’s good.” Taki’s smile is so shy. A part giddy. “You seem so different from him. How long have you been friends?”
“Eight years, give or take,” Harua pauses. “Okay, it sounds way longer when I say it out loud. I don’t know how he stuck with me for that long.”
“He talks about you a lot. It’s really sweet, how close you both are. You’ve stuck with him all that time too,” and he goes right back to spooning steaming rice into bowls like Harua’s not standing there with his face heating up. The things that Taki says. Harua isn’t used to being caught so off-guard. “I see you around so much. Ready to give me your number yet?”
“That’s hardly a way to ask.”
“Okay, well, the last time I got someone’s number, I wasn’t the one asking, was I?”
“Sorry, I forgot your love life was so unmoving that you went to a divination reader for it.” Taki lets out a noise of indignance. “Hey, I think your soup’s done.”
Maybe that was a mistake. Taki moves to stand right behind him, peeking over his shoulder, a hair-breadth away. So close that Harua feels his heart rate accelerate; he tenses up and stands as still as possible. Taki is so warm. His chest leans against Harua’s. They’re standing in Kei’s kitchen, back to back, and Harua’s sure his face is flaming. He prays that no one comes in. He prays for something else that he can’t voice out loud to anyone, not even himself. The desire that roots itself within Harua’s ribs makes him feel sick. He thinks of Maki.
Taki withdraws and says, evenly, “Oh, yes. Can you grab a bowl and serve it? Thank you, Harua.”
Then he’s gone, whisking away and out of the kitchen. Harua stares into space for another few moments. He snaps back into attention when the soup threatens to burn, forces every thought out of his mind, and turns off the stove. The smoke’s collecting in the air again.
On Thursday, after he gets off work, Harua returns to find Taki in his home.
It’s hardly surprising anymore, the way Taki’s slid his way into Harua’s orbit. Maybe it should be expected. He slides off his shoes and watches the scene. What’s more unexpected is how comfortable Taki looks within their apartment; how familiar. Sitting on the couch with Maki, in sweatpants and a hoodie, smiling bright as a sun.
Maki spots him first and he lights up. “Hey, you're back!”
“Hi,” Harua says. His mouth is thick with saliva. He clears his throat and directs a smile at Taki. “Fancy seeing you around.”
Taki laughs easily. He does that a lot; Maki wasn't lying. “Don't joke, I feel like I’ve seen you even more than Maki these days.”
Maki makes an offended sound. “I’m a busy man! Quit your job, then.”
“How do you even get to that conclusion?”
“I know you want to be my house husband. Come on, you can't deny it.”
Taki makes a sound that can only be described as ???. Maki laughs at him.
Harua watches them banter back and forth. There’s a grace to it. He feels off-centered, a stranger in his own house. There’s some sort of easy tension in the air—a connection he’s not privy to. The feeling chases him. He wants out, or in. Either direction the same.
Then: Taki smiles at him in a mortifyingly shy manner. Harua bites his lip and the tang of blood fills his mouth.
“What have you been up to, Harua? Other than following me around, obviously.”
“I would never,” he says, mock-outrage and underlying relief. “Work, mostly. No more eventful readings than yours, if you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Taki says, and something about it is so quietly flirty that Harua has to steel himself not to look straight at Maki. He’s imagining it. Dredged straight out of his desire.
He swallows it in and traces the welt on his lip with his tongue. “And you? Are you two dating now?” Aiming for teasing, but it falls just slightly flat. He has to try very hard not to wince. “Bickering here like a married couple.”
Maki—predictably—flushes red. He doesn't seem to notice Harua’s almost gritty voice. Laughs, quick and embarrassed, and says, “Well. Not really? Taking it slow?”
“Taking it slow,” Taki confirms. It’s sweet, how shy he looks. The quick looks he steals at Maki. Harua’s throat fills with bile. “It's great, though. Thank you for doing this, Harua.”
Taki is so lovely. Sunlight seeps in through the window and casts over his hair in a golden hue. Harua feels his breath catch. Warmth glows within his ribs.
Helpless, he responds, “It's no problem.”
They're both looking at him now. That sweet love in their expressions. Harua is going to combust. He wants to run and leave. He wants to disappear somewhere. He wants to stop feeling like a pinned animal.
Before he can do anything stupid, Taki stands. “I'll go now, then. Thanks for having me.” The corners of his mouth curl up sickeningly sweet. “See you around, Harua.”
“See you,” Harua says numbly.
The door shuts behind him. A click, a whip-crack. One loud sound and then it's silence between them. Harua feels the weight of Maki’s gaze on him. He can’t seem to look back. Maki knows him all too well.
Without Taki, it feels overtly unbalanced. He hasn’t felt this way since he was sixteen and in the face of a tearful Maki. The awkward air, this unsettling quiet. Maki staring at him. This is their home. They’ve been best friends for years. Nothing that seems to matter.
“Harua,” Maki says, soft for once. He’s looking at Harua in a way that makes his skin crawl—that itchy, unbearable feeling. That love. “I always give you what you want.”
What do you want?
Maki turns, and he goes.
Here’s a more evaluative truth: the year Harua turned nineteen, Maki kissed him on Kei’s leather couch.
That’s pretty inaccurate wording, to be fair. If there was a storybook about them, every line would have Harua first. Harua, verb, participle, adjective, then, finally, Maki. Harua kissed Maki. Harua took his hand and called his name. Harua said let me try something? phrased like a question, like Maki would or could say no. Harua clasped his free hand on Maki’s shoulders and leaned in.
It was less dramatic than Harua had imagined. He still had Maki’s hand in his, warm and sweaty, and he could hear Maki’s rushed, ragged breathing. There were the sounds of Kei and Fuma moving around the kitchen and Yuma laughing in a bedroom somewhere, but they were here and alone and together. He couldn’t figure out if it would be better to close his eyes. When he sneaked a look, the sight of Maki’s lashes fanning out long and shadowed over his cheeks made him a little nauseated. So he shut them.
When Harua pulled away, he could hear Maki exhaling a short, stuttered breath. He pressed a palm over Maki’s heart and felt it racing the same.
“I thought about this,” Maki managed. His face was completely flushed. He always did turn so red. “Harua—”
Then Jo had walked in with all his resounding presence and the tips of his ears reddened, Yuma badgering him from behind, and it took them all of thirty seconds to notice Harua and Maki on the too-rough couch. Yuma raised his eyebrows at the redness in their faces. He asked, point-blank, laughter in his voice, if there was anything going on between them.
Maki giggled nervously. He was about to say something, Harua could tell, impulsive or purposeful, that would condemn them both.
“No,” said Harua immediately. He laughed, or tried to. Continued, through the visceral sickness rising up in him, “No, never.”
Yuma went quiet. Harua stared straight at the window. The memory ends here.
Not for the first time, Harua wishes for his mother’s crystal ball or a dream—a visual sign—anything better than tarot—anything that could turn him around at that moment to watch Maki’s expression. He wants to know. He wants to turn around and see it: Maki, who expresses himself so easily, what he’d have looked like then. The silence. He knows what Maki looks like freshly kissed and vulnerable; he wants the rest, too.
What he remembers, his gaze fixed on, was the condensation on the window, the foggy view. No matter how much he squinted he could only make out blurry colors.
Goddamn tarot.
“Something’s gone awry,” says Harua, coming into the room.
Euijoo’s apartment is as furnished as it can be without being underfurnished—couch, table, rug, a few framed pictures here and there. From the coffee table, Taki winks at him with Kei’s arm thrown around his shoulder and Nicholas poking his cheek. Harua can’t look at it for more than a few seconds before he has to turn away.
Nicholas is sitting at the table. He looks up and raises an eyebrow. “That’s a big word. What’s the occasion?”
“No it’s not,” Harua grumbles. He’d been looking for Euijoo, who would be decidedly less empathetic but also probably have the best advice. Or Fuma who comes over sometimes. This is fine, though. He can work with it, however embarrassing or ironic.
Then: “I think I’m falling in love with Maki.”
Nicholas drops his phone. It clatters against hardwood with an echoing thunk, and it’s a testament that he doesn't check on it immediately. Instead, his attention is on Harua. “Oh, shit.”
So it is as big as he’d thought. Miserably, Harua comes to sit opposite, resting his chin on the table. He lets Nicholas take his time to recover.
“You’re—now? Why?”
That's the real question, isn't it. Harua’s thought about it. He has a full arsenal of answers that all sound wrong. In the end he settles with, “I think I always have. Isn’t that silly?”
“Harua, that kid’s had a crush on you since forever.”
“I know,” Harua says, because he does, Maki told him, he was always good at doing that. Knowing what he wants. Voicing it out. Laying his heart down for Harua. Fifteen: that tear-streaked face. Eighteen: I thought about this. I like you so much.
I always give you what you want.
“You can’t—Harua,” Nicholas tries. It’s sweet, his rushed Japanese, the slurred syllables. Eyes narrowed into cat-like slits. Harua finds he doesn't react to it like he used to. “You can’t fuck with him like that. I’m sorry. Maki’s my friend too.”
It's a wrongful punch to his gut. Harua snaps, “I'm not.”
“Then?” Nicholas shoots back. “Weren’t you the one who introduced him to Taki? What's going on with you?”
“I don't know.” He lets his cheek roll onto the cold surface. The texture of wood digs into his skin. “I like Taki too, a lot. I can't help it. I like them. They're already so good together. Something’s wrong between us, me and Maki. I think he knows. I don't know if I can keep doing it.”
Nicholas’ eyebrows shoot up. “Whoa, okay. Um. Are you going to tell him? Tell them?”
“I don't know,” Harua repeats. His head hurts.
Nicholas looks at him, helpless.
“This is the part where I need you.” Harua sits up. He take a deep breath. “I’m going to sit here and do a reading for myself and I need you to make sure I don’t just, like, die, or something. Or that nothing bad happens to me.”
Nicholas blinks. “Um. What??”
So he has to explain the whole divination situation, for which Nicholas looks more and more skeptical. Not about the superstition part, but the idea in itself.
“You want to divine yourself a solution?”
Harua shrugs. What else can he do? Divination is the thing he knows and does best. Without it—he doesn't know.
Out loud, barely louder than a whisper, he says, “What else can I do?”
Nicholas stares at him. He looks disbelieving, before his expression melts into something like quiet concern.
He says, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Harua echoes. He sits up. “You'll watch me do it?”
“I can hardly stop you, can I?” Nicholas points out.
Which is true, but also not the resounding support he would have liked. Whatever works. He picks up his cards. His hands are shaking, a little bit. He forces them steady. Shuffle, spread, choose. The routine feels less like a routine and more of a stranger inhabiting his body. He thinks of a summer’s day in Maki’s bed: if you ever change your mind…
It’s started raining. He can’t seem to pick up a card. The cold seeps in slowly.
Then, Nicholas says, “You know, you remind me of Euijoo, sometimes.”
He can’t help it; his head snaps up, taken aback. Once, Harua had wanted to be just like Euijoo. His kindness, his earnestness. The sincerity and desperation in pushing himself. Especially: that constant, untouchable connection he had with Nicholas. Harua wanted to touch it. He wanted it bad. Once, Harua knew exactly what he wanted.
Nicholas puts his hand over Harua’s on the table. Harua thinks about Maki. About Taki. He feels sick.
“You're both just so alike. So frustrating,” Nicholas continues, crude as ever. “Why can't you let yourself try? You're always holding back.”
Whatever last dregs of anger in Harua’s chest flares up. He snaps, “Why do you make it sound so easy? It’s not! I don't know what I’m supposed to do when I’ve already made this mess. I’m—scared.”
Startled, Nicholas squeezes his hand. He’s quiet for a while. Then: “Oh, Harua,” layered with pity; sharp still. “Just let yourself love, can’t you? You coil yourself up so tight over nothing. You can be scared.”
It knocks the wind out of his lungs: in that faint, breathless moment, his grip on the card deck loosens and Harua watches as they slide forward, out, scattered, onto the hardwood table, and not a single one flips over.
He stretches a shaking hand forward and picks a card: Devil, reversed.
Ragged: “I don’t think I know how.”
There’s a lot that Harua knows and understands. Divination. Painting his nails perfectly. Maki. The crux of it: he likes the feeling of knowing, craves it with an animalistic hunger. All his life has been funneled into his art; divination as a window for clarity. There, he’s rooted down in safety, stability.
With Maki and Taki, it’s different. Here, there’s something he lacks. Here is a necessary laid-bare vulnerability. Extending himself flightless into the air. He wants it; he's scared of it; everything clashes; there's nowhere to go but forward.
Nicholas’ voice is gentle. “Do you have to?”
There's nowhere but forward.
He stands. Nicholas doesn't look the least bit surprised. Some of the playful twinkle has returned to his gaze. He seems to beam at Harua. Pride, or whatever. Harua hits him just for the sake of it. He gets hit back as easily.
“Thank you, Nico.”
“Go,” Nicholas grins, and Harua runs.
Harua makes his way through puddles on the pavement, the wind pulsing water into his eyes, with an umbrella borrowed from Nicholas that does little. By the time he’s outside the apartment he is well and truly soaked, a stitch in his side.
Taki is there too. There isn’t a doubt in his mind. They’ll both be there, in his home. Truly: when he opens the door, there are two gazes fixed on him almost immediately.
Maki jumps to his feet, startled, and hurries over. “Rua, you're soaked!”
He is. Taki brings a towel for him to bundle up in until he can stop shivering. Their expressions are both riddled with concern. All three of them, squeezed on their couch meant for two, Harua in the middle.
He starts to speak and stops. Coughs around the lump in his throat and sucks in another breath of air. All the lines he’d been carefully constructing spill out of his mind, until at last, he manages a rough, “I love you.”
Something imperceptible ripples across Maki’s expression. He opens his mouth, but Harua’s not done. He can’t—won’t—leave it here, hanging. He wants it out. All of it. He wants them, the two of them, to know him weak—to see him bared. It all rushes up in a rippled wave of clarity. He’s going to strip himself to the bone.
“Taki, too. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” Harua says, feeling crazed. He shakes his head. Droplets of water scatter out of his hair in an arc. He feels like a wet dog. A crazed wet dog. “I don't know what to do. I like you. I miss you. I can't stop feeling wrong.”
“Harua,” Maki says, his face crumpling. Taki, wordless, takes his hand.
“I miss you,” Harua repeats softly. “I don't know what I’m doing. It doesn't feel right.”
“It feels right like this,” Taki says. “Doesn't it?”
It does. Taki is how he’s always been: honest, piercing, surprising.
“You’re shaking,” Maki says, and he wraps the towel around Harua tighter like it’ll do something. “I’m right here, Harua.”
“I know.”
“I like you so much,” Maki says plainly. The way he always has. “For so long. I waited for you for so long.”
Harua exhales. “I know.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” Taki says, soft. “I don’t know what I’m doing, either. What I know is I like you. I like Maki. Doesn’t it feel right, like this?”
He’s waiting for a reply. It does. Harua says it aloud, and it feels like a weight off his chest. The desire that grows.
“Just to be clear, I don’t know what I’m doing either,” Maki says, then, “What! I thought we were all saying that! Taki, stop laughing.”
“You never know what you’re doing.”
Back and forth. Harua listens to their banter. They’re doing it for his sake, he knows that, and he’s grateful for it. He takes everything in. Their constant, unspeaking care. That heavy love. He’s apart of something good and present.
The rain’s slowed to a drizzle. He hears: the sound of their breathing; their shared heartbeats; the raindrops on the window. The warmth of their hands; Taki’s wrapped around his own, Maki’s on his thigh. The three of them. It feels like an eventual truth. He doesn't need tarot to tell him this, not really. Some people, they’re meant for you.
“What do you need?” Taki asks. “What are you hesitating for?”
“I don’t know,” Harua says. He can’t look Taki in the eye—sincere, bright Taki, looking at Harua like he’s worth the wait, the fight. Beside him, Maki’s breathing is quiet. They’re both watching him, waiting so nicely. It’s dizzying. It's exhilarating. He exhales shortly. “I’m scared of what might happen.”
A beat. In the vague distance, the rain stops. A breath away, Taki’s voice comes gentle. “Isn’t it exciting to find out?”
In the end, he’s not sure who initiates. Just that they’re kissing, full-fledged and whole, and there are fireworks under Harua’s eyelids that he has to blink away. Frame by frame, a riot of color, Taki’s face so near, the bubble of sensation in his chest that threatens to swallow him whole. He breathes in the heat. Maki’s palms, warm and open on their thighs, stabilizes them.
Taki’s lips are warm and sun-soaked. They curve into a grin when Maki makes a sound that can only be described as guttural. Harua learns them: the creases, the fullness. His mouth opens into Taki’s and he learns that too. The warmth makes a home in his heart.
When they break apart, Maki is staring at them with a type of carnal want in his expression. He says, “I hate you guys,” and Harua laughs wetly.
“If you kiss me now, I might cry,” he warns.
“I don’t care,” Maki answers, resolute, and he doesn't, he kisses Harua right then. This time there’s no question of who initiates first; Maki presses forward like no other. He holds Harua’s chin gently and kisses him hard and strong. This is rougher, and so full of years of desire and restraint. They know each other so well. Even better now.
The sun re-emerges; he sees it through a fractal of sunlight that reflects off Maki’s eyes, through Taki’s sunlit skin in his peripheral. Light everywhere. Glowing warmth.
Harua breathes and lets himself have it.
Turns out that Taki works part time as a hairdresser at the nearby barbershop. In any case, it works out almost too well. Maki books an ‘appointment’—which really means he wheedles Taki into dropping a shift—for Harua to get his hair cut. Then they’re together one morning, all three of them in Harua and Maki’s too-small living room, armed with newspapers and a pair of scissors.
“Not on the dining table!” Harua has to declare.
Maki pouts, but reluctantly steps away anyways. “Aw, you’re no fun.”
There’s barely any space other than the dining table, and they’re definitely not risking getting hair onto their precious sofa. In the end, the layout: Harua sitting on the floor before the coffee table, Taki situated right behind him, newspaper laid out, while Maki lounges on the sofa and watches.
“Your hair’s really long,” Taki marvels. He gathers it up to form a tiny ponytail before letting the strands loose. Again, probably just for the pleasure of it. Taki’s a lot like that. “How long have you been growing it out?”
“Few months,” Harua says at the same time that Maki chimes in with, “Since April.”
Surprised, he turns. Maki’s flushed a lovely pink and he looks uncertain. He runs a hand through his hair nervously. “I pay attention? Especially when it’s you.”
Taki cuts between them with laughter. “Cute!” he crows, and surprises Harua by brushing his hair away to press his lips to his nape. When he reappears—well. Now all three of them are red-faced, embarrassed. There is no one to witness it. Harua finds he likes it like this.
Never one to remain silent for long, Maki says, “You should let me try. I bet I’d make a great hairdresser.” He means it as a joke, probably. Harua thinks about it anyways.
“Fine. Just a bit, though,” he relents. It’s worth it when Maki makes a startled, pleased sound, and immediately scrambles over. He cards his fingers through it, first thing; his calloused fingers brush against Harua's nape.
“Are you going to get it re-dyed? I’ll kinda miss the brown.”
“Well, if you like it…”
He can’t see Maki’s expression, but he hears Taki laugh, which means it’s something embarrassing.
“You should come by the shop someday. Gunwook’s great with dye, Kei-hyung’s blonde is his work.”
“Okay, I will,” Harua says, and then, “Ow!”
“Sorry!”
Harua risks a glance back before Taki starts to yelp about him remaining still. It’s a difficult order to follow; he can’t stop himself from giggling when he catches sight of Maki’s face, screwed up in concentration. He fixes his gaze forward, instead: onto the window. The sunlight peeks through and into the room; outside, the sky is clear. A bird lands on the nearby tree and picks at an acorn. With this weather, and their schedules cleared, they might just go out together later. Beach, maybe.
Behind him, Maki laughs, bright and clear, when Taki makes a noise of alarm. It’s going to be a good day.