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The Christmas tree that sits as the centerpiece of the hotel lobby sparkles and blinks with all kinds of interchanging colors. You’ve been staring at it for the past five minutes, watching it go through all of the different colored patterns programmed into the lights.
You know you’re early, but you’ve been anticipating this reunion for what feels like ages now. There was this guy you met who was traveling in your city some time last year, and while he had only asked you for directions, you ended up spending the rest of your afternoon with him — showing him around, recommending him things to eat, making stops at local spots that wouldn’t be found on websites.
It was a grand old time, and he was really fun to be around. Even with a slight language barrier, he was able to make you laugh and made your time feel worth your while. You enjoyed it so much, you ended up acting as his personal guide for the next few days when you didn’t have work.
After he left — on to his next adventure — you kept in contact with him sporadically. He’d send you photos of his shenanigans in yet another country that he was traveling, and you’d be vocal of your envy.
He kept inviting you to join him in each new place, but it was ridiculous to drop everything on such short notice just to meet up with this guy you knew over a few days. But eventually, you started thinking… why not?
And you kept thinking it, for weeks on end.
Until you finally got some time off at the end of the year and decided to ask him where he’d be this year.
Now, here you are, waiting for him in the festively decorated lobby of a hotel in Vienna, Austria, with plans to check out one of the supposed best Christmas markets in Europe.
He’s supposed to have landed around an hour ago and he’s making his way here to the hotel first to drop off his things. You made the bold move to share a room with him to reduce costs for both of you, which, again, was quite extreme for some guy you barely even know, but he was okay with it and didn’t make it weird, so you just went for it.
You sprung for a room with a queen sized bed and a sofa bed, which he said he didn’t mind — he even insisted that he’d be perfectly fine to sleep on the floor if there weren’t any good options available. Which there honestly weren’t, since it was the holiday season and everyone was in town visiting, but you managed to snag a relatively decent room, though it was a little further away from the city center.
A call of your name has you whipping your head around to see a guy on the shorter side with a little tuft of blonde hair at the center of his hairline, waving at you enthusiastically.
“Noya!” You call back, your smile racing across your face faster than your feet can bring you to him.
You greet him with a hug and an excited exchange of words before you urge him over to the check-in desk. After the receptionist quickly gets a copy of his passport to confirm the other guest listed for your room has checked in, you lead him to the room and get caught up on each other’s journeys here to Vienna.
“It’s awesome to see you again! I’m really excited to be traveling with you.” Yuu Nishinoya, or ‘Noya’ as he’s suggested you to call him, is from Japan, but he’s been picking up on a lot of lingo from all over the world. And he’s learned enough of your language to achieve relative fluency for someone who only started learning it about a year ago.
You’ve tried learning a bit of Japanese to talk to him too, but you can’t communicate nearly as efficiently as he can. He’s already figured out how to adjust some of his speech to reflect his own personality into your language, an impressive feat.
“Yeah, it’ll be interesting since I won’t be the one guiding you this time.” You reply with a laugh, “I’ve heard a lot of good things about this Christmas market in particular. They have a really cool ice skating rink and stuff.”
“I can’t wait!”
He really can’t, it seems.
After putting all his things down into a corner of the room, using the bathroom for all of 5 minutes to get freshened up, and re-lacing his boots, he declares that he’s ready to be up and about the town. And while you can’t comprehend not having a proper rest period after a long journey, you know Noya to be a pretty energetic guy, so you’re not all too surprised that he wants to start the night while it’s young.
You take the lead on navigating to the Christmas market, finding the right street names and tram station stops with his help, sharing your experiences about similar or different patterns you’ve noticed in both of your travels in other places, and making general light conversation along the journey.
Once you’re on the tram, it’s rather crowded, so you end up squeezing up close to one another to avoid losing each other.
While you had imagined Noya to be quite the ladies’ man with his straight-backed confidence, it turns out that he can get kind of shy. He thinks nothing of putting his hand on your hip to navigate you into a small corner of the tram so that he can take the brunt of the other rocking passengers, but it doesn’t escape you that he flushes a little pink each time he’s thrown a little closer to your body by the movement of the tram.
You hide your little giggles from him whenever you notice.
About 45 minutes later, you’re finally making your way towards the brightly lit and colorfully decorated Christkindlmarkt entrance. As expected, there are a ton of people to navigate around, so you take inspiration from Noya’s honorable tram gesture and loop your arm into his.
When he looks at you with mild surprise in his eyes, you just smile back, explaining, “So we don’t get separated.”
The surprise melts away behind his own bright smile as he agrees, “Sure!”
Though this time, it’s less clear whether the pink in his cheeks is from a flush or the cold air.
Before you know it, you’ve fallen into tourist mode, pointing out different food stalls or holiday displays, buying snacks and taking photos with Noya in succession as you make your way through the market. You strategize in ordering different items from each stall and sharing with one another so you can both get a taste of everything.
He takes pretty big bites of things, so it’s all you can do to keep up with him. Luckily, the lines are occasionally long enough that you can take your time finishing what you eat before you get to the front. And if you get tired of anything, he offers to finish it for you without complaint.
The two of you fall into such a comfortable pace with one another that it’s hard for you to remember that you had only met this guy once almost a year ago. He’s just so easy to be around, and he’s endlessly entertaining you with both his stories and his personality.
While it hasn’t necessarily been established that this was a date, it certainly doesn’t feel too far from one, especially with the way you’ve transitioned from linking arms to holding hands.
Once he grabbed your hand in the excitement to pull you over to the next food stall he noticed and babbled on about how he heard about this specific business and their schnitzel, he either forgot to let go or didn’t feel the need to.
You don’t mind, since his hand is surprisingly warm even without gloves on. He must run hot, considering he moves around a lot and used to be an athlete or something. He told you how he used to live in a colder part of Japan too, so he’s used to it.
“The hard part is packing for traveling in a cold place,” he goes on to say, “All that extra gear really weighs down your pack!”
“So do you prefer to travel to warmer places?” You ask, “A lot of the places you’ve mentioned traveling to before are famous for having nice weather or being pretty hot.”
“I will say, it’s definitely a lot easier to pack and plan for. There are tons of activities you can do when the weather is hot. Not as many options when there’s a chance the snow will close things down. But…” Noya takes a moment to look up at the large park tree decorated in string lights and gorgeous ornaments, then turns to smile warmly at you, “Lots of people gather together in the winter, for things like this. They can be just as fun.”
You return the smile and hold up your hot drink to him in salutation, “Cheers to that.”
“Cheers.” He chuckles as he bumps his own paper cup against yours, “I’m really glad you came out to meet me this winter.”
“I am, too. This has already been a highlight of my year so far, honestly.” You admit.
You’ve had some exciting points throughout the year, but you have to say, deciding to fly over to a different country and share a room with a friend you sort of know has been one of your more spontaneous decisions.
“Then let’s go make it even better!” He declares, pulling you by the hand over to the booth to buy tickets into the ice skating area.
It takes a bit of time to get to the front, but luckily they allow you a pretty quick timeslot, so after you both rent out a pair of skates and help each other lace them on, you’re wobbling hand in hand together to the entry point of the skate park.
What’s special about Vienna’s Christkindlmarkt is that they freeze over all of the streets of Rathauspark, the park surrounding city hall. So instead of just a large rink where everyone skates in circular or rectangular laps, it’s like you’re making turns through a maze with all the different routes the winding park streets take you on — a skate through the park, if you will.
It’s crowded, but Noya seems to have a pretty good sense of balance and has already gotten the hang of how to move in his ice skates. So he keeps your hand securely in his, which reassures you every time you feel yourself slipping too far in a certain direction. Keeping a gentle hold on each other feels beyond natural at this point, and the almost forced proximity of the skating crowds of people still manages to make this time with him feel relatively intimate.
Is it the proximity? Or is Noya just that good at making you feel comfortable?
It’s only been a few hours, but he’s only been accommodating towards you, almost trying to take on the role of the guide himself this time despite it being his first time here, too. His warm smile and aura do a lot to make you feel at ease too, reassuring you that you don’t have to force yourself into anything for his sake.
The night is hardly over, but you already feel the small inklings of dread over this time together ending. What’s going to happen when the vacation is over? Will you get to see him again like this? How are you already starting to miss him when he’s right here with you, holding your hand?
Now’s not the time for that, you think, pushing all of the nervous anticipation out of your mind. If Noya has shown you anything, it’s how to live in the moment. You could do well to follow his example.
So you do just that, straightening your back and already standing taller on your feet. And surprisingly, it gives your stance more stability, and enough confidence to skate in front of Noya and pull him with you to twirl around in the more open area of the skating park. Even he looks surprised for a moment at the shift before he matches your speed immediately.
At one point, the two of you figure out how to distribute your weight just right while spinning in order to keep the momentum of your twirling going. It gets to a speed so fast that you just start squealing and hanging onto him until you both inevitably fall onto the ice together, laughing.
Noya manages to get himself underneath you, bracing most of your fall against the ice, though it’s a bit of work to get your ankles and skates untangled from each other.
Something about the light energy and your warm cheeks and Noya’s chivalrous save gives you the gall to swoop down and lay a peck against his cheek, giving him a warm laugh when you come back up, “Thanks for catching me.”
You’re already lifting yourself onto your knees to get back up on your feet as Noya blushes a little harder, almost stammering as you offer your hand to lift him back up, “S-sure thing.”
Okay, maybe that was a little too bold, but you got swept up in the moment. And you don’t necessarily regret doing it — especially since Noya is kind of cute when he’s flustered. So you’ll only hope that it won’t make the rest of the evening too awkward.
Luckily, he bounces back the second he spots the carousel on the way back to the exit through the frozen park streets, pointing it out with sparkling, childlike eyes. Looks like your next destination has been decided.
You didn’t think a simple carousel ride would be all that exciting, but you find that it’s actually quite wholesome fun. Once you and Noya are let in to choose seats, you walk around, letting the kids pick their animals first before finding some horses beside each other. You take a couple of photos and videos of you two together as the ride starts moving before Noya starts regaling you about some horses he’s ridden in other parts of the world.
You, of course, go on to say how much you’d like to try it out for yourself, and he easily invites you to join him next time he’s visiting a pasture or farm. And it feels like you’re having your regular old conversations over text again.
He really is the same guy you’ve been in contact with for the past year. And he’s just as fun and easygoing as he was when you met him the first time and showed him all the beautiful things your home had to offer. You’re coming to see that he is exactly who he makes himself out to be.
And all you want is to see more of him.
It’s past midnight by the time the two of you are tired out and your bellies filled to bursting. Luckily, the trams were running late enough to get you back to your hotel without worries.
Noya insists you wash up first, so you do. Though you try not to take as long as you usually do since it was pretty cold out there, and you’ll bet even he’s capable of catching a chill. Once you’re done, you come out to see that he’s already laid out the sofa bed and unpacked most of his stuff around it.
“Oh, nice. It’s actually pretty big—!” You say, sitting down on the bed to test it out, only to sink down with a loud, squeaky descent of the springs coiling beneath your weight, “Holy crap, Noya! This is so loud! And uncomfortable.”
“It’s not so bad! I’ve slept on worse.” Noya says, pressing his hand down on the spring mattress, prompting a noisy, metallic release. It makes you wince.
“Well, you cannot sleep on this. Let’s fold this back up. You can share the bed with me.” You announce.
“What?! No! I can’t do that to you.” He rejects the idea immediately, cheeks already getting rosy at the thought.
“You’re not doing anything to me. The bed is big enough for both of us, and much less noisy while infinitely more comfortable.” You lay out all the facts, “Besides, it would make me feel bad if I let you sleep on this. Come on, it’s not a big deal.”
Well, sleeping in the same bed with a sort-of-stranger-turning-closer-friend isn’t necessarily a small deal, but you’ve done worse before. Plus, something in your gut tells you that Noya is trustworthy.
He argues with you a little more over it, but eventually relents when you start threatening to sleep on the sofa bed or the ground yourself. And he retreats into the bathroom upon his defeat to finally wash up.
After finishing up with a few more steps of your night routine, you fall into one side of the bed with a sigh of relief. You didn’t feel it while you were out, but now the exhaustion has really sunken into your body. You were hoping to watch a movie or an episode of a TV show or something before bed with Noya to get him to loosen up a bit, since you can only assume he’s going to be a bit stiff sleeping in the same bed as you.
Now that you’ve already escalated the situation a bit during the Christmas market, you suppose you might be insinuating something by inviting him to sleep with you. You can’t say you would mind that, but you doubt that he’d be up for something like that your first night together. Plus, you’re more tired than you thought, so you don’t know if you’d be very up to do anything else either.
You must doze off at some point, because by the time you come to, Noya has turned off most of the lights and is trying to undetectably slip into bed beside you. He freezes when you move to stretch with a sleepy yawn and pat down the bed beside you, “Get in already, I’m sure it’s gonna be a busy day tomorrow, too.”
“Right.” Noya relaxes a little with a laugh, pulling the covers up as he finally lies down properly in the bed, “There are still more Christmas markets to see around the city.”
“Stephansplatz, Karlsplatz, Belvedere… The list goes on.” You agree with another yawn, pulling the blankets closer to your chin.
“Wow! You remember all of the names of them?” He asks.
“Mmh…” is all you have the strength to reply now, your eyes closed most of the way.
You don’t really recall if he said anything else after that, but you do feel a nice warmth everpresent beside you through the night. It’s a sweet, comforting warmth that makes you feel safer than you’ve ever felt in a new place with someone else.
*
The next few days are a whirlwind of winter adventure. Noya has this whimsy about him that leads him to the most spontaneous of activities and adventures that you never would’ve found yourself.
At most, you expected to visit a few Christmas markets, famous historical landspots, and eat some well-known local foods. You never would have started conversations with strangers that led you to new parties, secret holiday market spots, or local dives that serve questionably-looking, life-changing food. But Noya seems to have a magnet for all of these things, and you feel lucky to be able to be beside him for the ride.
He gets gradually more comfortable with the physical contact between you two, holding your hand even when he doesn’t have to keep from losing you in a crowd anymore. And you’ve been bold enough to leave a few more kisses on his cheek here and there after a couple of drinks or amidst some exciting events.
Honestly, everything feels exciting with Noya. Even just calling him by his first name feels like a huge thing because of his reaction to it. (You were a little tipsy when someone else you guys met had started calling him ‘Yuu’ and you felt a little left out and started using it, too. He proceeded to remind you with bright pink cheeks that ‘Noya’ was perfectly fine.)
It’s hard for you to accept that it’s almost time to part ways again. He’s leaving a little earlier than you tomorrow morning, and you just don’t want to think about saying goodbye. That dread of separation that hit you the first night has returned in full force. You don’t even fight the urge to cuddle up against him in bed that night.
“I can’t believe it’s already our last night… I’m gonna miss you so much.” You sigh into his shoulder.
He’s comfortable enough to hug you into his chest now, giving you a warm smile, “I’m gonna miss you, too. This has been the best adventure yet.”
“You’re just saying that.” You snort, “You always have a good time, no matter where you go.”
“I mean it, though.” He says, tone more serious than you expect, “I’ve traveled to a lot of places, sure. But somehow, being with you just makes them feel way more memorable. I really… I had such an amazing time together with you. I don’t feel regret very often, but for some reason, I feel like I’m going to regret saying goodbye to you…”
You blink up at him in awe. That was so much more than you expected from him. He’s always been so carefree and happy-go-lucky. But right now, he sounds so vulnerable and sincere, like he’s experiencing something new again for the first time, and he has to acknowledge its importance here with you.
“Then when are you going to see me again?” You volley back immediately.
Because you have that feeling, too. That you simply can’t just say goodbye to him. You have to see him again. And if you don’t set it in stone now, you might not ever be able to.
He stares back at you, blinking slowly, thinking about this as seriously as you must be. Before, finally, he proposes, “How about spring? I’m gonna head home a little after this to earn a little more money. You can come to Japan, and I’ll show you the best spots to see some cherry blossoms.”
“Spring… So three months?” You ask, trying to hide the slight pout in your voice.
“Three months.” He smiles, then surprises you with a soft kiss to your forehead, “You can stay with me from when they start blossoming until they fall from the trees.”
You pull back a little with a laugh, “I don’t think I could get that much time off, but…” You look up at him for a moment, then finally come in close to press a real, proper kiss against his lips, “I can most definitely come see some cherry blossoms with you.”
His eyes are soft, melting a bit from the kiss and the heat in his cheeks, but he smiles through it, “I can’t wait.”
This time, he comes in to kiss you back, and you can feel in your gut that the deal has been sealed.