*1*

Satori is a cold-blooded creature, who shivers easily and wears thick sweaters as often as possible. Preferably of the woolen variety, with sleeves that cover his hands and a body that falls nearly down to his knees. The more inconvenient to perform any tasks requiring movement, the better. 

It takes him a while to realize this, certainly longer than five short years, which is incidentally the time it takes for him to bear witness to his first snowstorm. At least, the first snowstorm that he will remember for longer than a day. 

He remembers, specifically, mentioning the thought that it might snow to his mother, who checked the forecast just to prove him wrong. It was barely even winter, the day before had been warm enough to walk without a coat, and there was not a malevolent cloud in the sky. And the forecast predicted the same for the next day as well. 

At five, he was not aware of just how easily cold he could get, and even less so of how pleasant sweaters were, and fires, and hot mugs of tea. So, that night, when he noticed tiny white flakes drifting down the sky, he was quick to press his hands to the window, leaning his bare arms against the glass. Already having changed into his pajamas and left alone by the window of his room, there was nothing to pull him away for even a moment. Least of all his parents. 

The sun was mostly set, rapidly fading swathes of red marking the deep sky, and everything earthly was black, drenched in shadow. A line of streetlights stood beside the road, and as Satori watched, snow floated across, appearing and disappearing in their glow. Conjured up for just a moment, invisible besides.

Goosebumps. He rubbed them away unconsciously, too focused to notice the cold creeping beneath his skin. He didn’t mind it, not then when there were spectacles to witness. 

Somehow, he fell asleep next to the window, where snowflakes had gathered in a small pile against the edge, hands still pressed against it, and now his cheek as well. 

He woke with a sneeze, pulled away from the chilled glass, to see his reflection looking back at him in the morning light, face smudged a ruddy pink. The snow had melted beneath the sun, though it wasn’t warm enough to make a difference for Satori. 

It felt as though his thin pajamas had done nothing to keep the discomfort away, and he could barely feel his fingers or face. He rubbed at them, terrified that his nerve endings had frozen forever. But he could feel the tears as they pricked his eyes and dribbled down his cheeks, and it was that that calmed him more than anything. It was too bad that the snow was gone, before he’d get a chance to play in it. 

And then his mother called him down for breakfast, and ephemeral weather slipped out of his brain and onto the floor in favour of thoughts of food, and he would not pick it up again for days, or weeks.

But he would remember it, and later, would add onto it, asking again and again to go somewhere where the snows come harder and heavier and colder. (His parents offered to take him to ski in the mountains, but he didn’t like the way they loomed over him. So they didn’t go, which is a shame, he thinks now). 

*2*

His first night in the school dorms, he learns that his roommate snores. Loudly, with a hitch on every inhale. It’s too quiet for him to feel the vibrations, but he thinks he should be able to, even through the cheap, stiff mattress and the cheap, creaking wood. Eventually he’s able to drift off, after a long while of staring at the bunk above him and wishing he was the type to sleep through fire alarms. 

His first morning in the school dorms, he learns that his roommate likes to sleep ensconced in warm blankets and surrounded by cold air. Because apparently, his wonderful cohabitor Haruto had gotten up in the middle of the night to leave the window swinging wide open, allowing not just a draft, but an entire gale to enter their room. Which is why, when his eyes open, he finds himself huddled in a ball with lukewarm blankets wrapped around him, shivering. His fingers are stiff enough that he drops his toothbrush once, and then again a few seconds later, and Haruto snorts at it. Satori wants to poke his eyes out. His own or his roommate’s. 

But he shrugs it off, grins and covers up his prickling skin with a thick black hoodie. 

“I hope you have a good morning, roommate-kun,” he sings as he leaves, letting his head hang far back enough that he can see Haruto’s perturbed expression. “Don’t let the day-bugs bite,” he adds as an afterthought, because the night’s annoyances are still fresh and oozing in his mind. 

When he returns to the dorm that night, he brings with him a mug of tea to wrap his hands around, and while he waits he reads. The moment that Haruto steps through the door, he glances up from Jump and smiles. 

“Hey there,” he says, “how are you? It’s freezing in here, huh?”

Haruto blinks at him, at the hoodie he’s wearing (most likely deformed with the layers he’s put on beneath it), and at the tea in his hands. “Yeah, I guess,” he says. 

So Satori smiles, imagining that this will be enough of a hint to get his roommate not to open the window.

It isn’t. 

He does it again the next night, and the next, always without fail leaving it swinging wide open, and Satori, finally, is thoroughly pissed off. He asks, politely, and as clearly as possible, for his roommate to keep the fucking window closed, and spare his skin, and his lungs which have begun to sting with every inhale. Haruto nods, looking mildly uncomfortable, though for the life of him Satori does not understand why. 

The only change that comes from his efforts, he’s pretty sure, is that Haruto leaves it open only a crack now. And even though he’s still cold every time the sun rises, it is manageable, when he wears gloves, and thicker pajamas, and adds more blankets to the pile already there.

*3*

As expected, he gets onto the volleyball team without a hitch. Less expected, Shiratorizawa only allows one first year on the starting lineup. Satori is not that first year. Ushijima Wakatoshi is. 

Well, at least he still gets to practice. Though with the way he’s playing today, he wouldn’t be surprised if that didn’t last much longer. The day was warm enough, sun out bright and wind easily ignored, but his hands didn’t seem to get the memo. He blew on them and rubbed them together before starting, but they were still stubbornly cold even well into the middle of practice, and it was throwing off his blocking.

He lands after a particularly hard spike goes right through him, frowning at the ball as it rolls away, a teammate already there to scoop it up and return to play. Ushijima glances at him as the other team prepares their serve, and Satori thinks he looks a little frustrated, and a little confused. 

“If you are not feeling well, you should not feel obligated to continue to play,” Ushijima says, before his brief attention is drawn away by the thwack of the served ball. Satori’s still trying to decide if that was an insult or suggestion when the ball goes to their setter and Ushijima is running up, arm pulled back to hit, and Satori scarcely has time to blink before it goes rocketing past the blockers. It hits the floor and bounces off, high enough that it blocks one of the buzzing ceiling lights from view. He stares after it for a moment longer than it takes to fall. 

He’d really, really, like to block one of those spikes. 

He turns to Ushijima with the intention of saying just that to him, but the spiker is already walking off the court. Because it was set point, and the scorekeepers are resetting now. They have a break, until the next group finishes and they swap opponents. 

As he follows, he shakes his hands around, wiggling his fingers in front of his face and blowing on them. Ignores the look Eita Semi gives him. Grins at Ushijima, who is handing people their water. 

“Thanks, Ushijima-kun!” he chirps, tipping his head to one side as he accepts his bottle. Ushijima stares blankly back at his face before nodding in acknowledgement, his hands now empty but for his own water, which he does not drink from. 

“Are your hands alright?” Ushijima asks, watching the other group’s increasingly long rally. 

“Hm? Oh, yeah, they’re just cold.”

Ushijima looks at him now, and Satori is pretty sure the tiny furrow in his brow is concern. “Persistently cold hands can be a symptom of poor circulation. Anemia, low blood pressure, and dehydration can cause this.” His gaze shifts to Satori’s still-full water bottle. “You should drink more.”

Satori’s smile widens, cutting into the edges of his cheeks. Oh, this guy is a riot. “I’m just cold-blooded, Ushijima-kun, didn’t you know? All monsters are.”

Eita, who is standing a few feet away from them, snorts. “You’re not a cold-blooded monster or dehydrated,” he says, with an audible eye-roll. “You’re just skinny as fuck.” 

“Way to ruin the fun, Semi-Semi,” Satori gripes back with widened eyes, but before he can continue their coach roars at them to get ready to play in three minutes, since the last group finished a good ten seconds ago. 

“Don’t fucking call me that?” 

But Satori doesn’t need to answer, though he would have, because he can instead turn to Ushijima and ask, “you seem like someone who has warm hands, Wakatoshi-kun. Mind sharing them with me?”

“I do not know what that means.”

It is only because he’s pretty sure he’s gotten used to Ushijima, and only because he’s pretty sure Ushijima has gotten used to him over these past weeks, that he places down his water bottle and presents his hands, palms up. “Gimme your hands. I want to warm mine up.”

There’s a brief pause where Satori wonders if he messed up, but then Ushijima seems to finish considering, and he obligingly sandwiches Satori’s hands between his own. They’re warmer than he expected, though of course they are, and he melts a little. It’s nice, much more so than the air or the sun or his own breath. 

“Your hands are cold,” Ushijima comments, with the tiniest of emphasis. Satori huffs a laugh in response, because that is exactly the problem, thank you for mentioning it. 

“Indeed, Wakatoshi-kun, indeed they are. And yours are not.” 

Ushijima gives a small nod in response. 

They don’t move until their three minutes of break are up, and Washijo is shouting at them to get back on the court. It’s three pretty nice minutes though, especially since when they do move apart his hands stay gratifyingly warm, and he is able to play at his best again. 

By the time practice ends, his fingers have not returned to their uncomfortable state of stiffness, and he walks out of the dressing room with buoyed spirits. Ushijima is there at the same time, and without a word they fall into step with each other. 

He meant it when he said it was nice outside, with a nearly cloudless sky and soft sun illuminating the grounds. He feels almost like he could close his eyes and have butterflies appear around him, as light seeps into his bones. There’s nothing left in his schedule, so he is content to follow Ushijima, revelling in the day. 

He is led to a wooden bench overlooking a pond he never realized was there, too covered by trees to be visible from any window in the school, and so sequestered in its corner that only someone looking for it would ever find it. Once he is seated, Ushijima pulls out a little plastic baggie which must have held his lunch, now filled with only crumbs and corn. Satori opts to lean over the back of the bench, crouching slightly and resting his head on his elbows. 

“Whatcha doing, Ushijima-kun?” 

“Feeding the ducks.” 

True to his word, there’s a group of maybe six ducks circling the water, and as Satori watches Ushijima takes a handful and tosses it onto the water in a long, graceful arc. Once the ducks have snapped up the majority, he repeats the motion, slowly starting to empty the bag. 

“You do this often?” Satori asks, though he receives no response. Instead, Ushijima throws another handful, seemingly absorbed in his task. Satori jumps over the back of the bench to sit, knees pulled up to his chest and arms dangling in front of him. The largest duck in the group steals a piece from midair, directly in front of another who is forced to scoot away to content itself with easier pickings, and Satori snickers. 

It’s calming, sitting here. He gets why Ushijima likes it. 

They stay long after the bag is finished, and the ducks have paddled away, their interest lasting just as long as the food. Satori unfurls his posture to sit more normally, letting his hands fall to either side of him and his feet to rest on the floor, head leaning over the back of the seat. Ushijima reaches out and places his hand on top of Satori’s, as though he’s testing something. 

“Your hands aren’t cold.” 

“Mm. Nope.” And he yawns, widely, and squints his eyes at nothing. He can feel Ushijima’s gaze, and he lifts his head just slightly to look at him. 

“Man, I’m tired.” Satori closes his eyes, then thinks better of it and forces them open again. The feeling is probably a combination of the fact that he woke up three hours too early again (to close the window, courtesy of his roommate), volleyball practice, and school, but it’s still annoying. “Stay here? I might fall asleep.”

“You can.” Ushijima shifts so he isn’t facing Satori as much, turning back to the pond instead. Taking that as an invitation to close his eyes, Satori drops his head back again and within less than five minutes, his only thoughts are of a pleasant darkness. 

He drifts for a while, before he is dimly aware of someone telling him they need to go, and mumbling a cloudy agreement. Then he is back to his previous state, just conscious enough to enjoy the sun, until not even that. 

-

When he wakes up, maybe an hour has passed, judging from the clock he can see through one of the school windows. His hand is empty, and a cloud has passed over the sun, and the ducks circle the edges of the pond now. He flexes his fingers, which are slow to respond. He is slower to actually stand, stifling another yawn, as he leaves the bench, and the water. Though the heat is all but gone, he feels as comfortable as before, so much so that he smiles as he walks, and if there was anyone to listen, he would have whistled a tune. 

*4*

Their second year, they have the good fortune to share a dorm. At some point, though Satori is not quite sure how it happened, he became friends with Ushijima Wakatoshi, and at some point, Ushijima became Wakatoshi became ‘Toshi. 

But it doesn’t matter how it happened, just that it did, just that it only matters that Satori was allowed to pick the top bunk this time, and that the window remains stubbornly shut. 

Now, it is a common routine for them to walk to and from classes and practice together, and for Satori to push his finished copies of Jump towards Wakatoshi to read. When they do homework, they sit back to back at their desks, nearly touching due to the room’s cramped space. 

And yet. Satori kicks his feet out from where they are nestled against his chest until they touch the bed’s railings, which is not so far a stretch as one may assume, and he winces at the fresh cool feel of the previously untouched comforter. He tucks himself back into a ball, shifts over to his side to stare at the far wall, and the electronic clock that Wakatoshi had brought with him.

It’s too cold to sleep. If he tries, he can keep away the shivers, keep his body still as it should be, but it is an effort to try, and one that cannot be sustained. Especially not if he wants to relax enough to rest. 

It’s a few weeks into winter, and he has forgotten what the air feels like when temperature drops. Even with the thermostat set high and the window closed, the chill creeps in, cradles him, and he cannot chase it away with the hoodies and blankets he has donned. He turns over, and over, and watches the tiny blue numbers on the clock creep slowly upwards, and thinks he’d like to go to hell if only for the heat. His mouth tastes gross, and he swallows, contemplates getting out of bed to swallow some toothpaste, but it isn’t worth leaving his lukewarm cocoon. 

He breathes a quiet sigh and shifts again, trying not to disturb Wakatoshi. Of course he does anyways, Wakatoshi is a light sleeper, and he hears his voice, muddled and dry, come up to him from the bottom bunk.

“Tendou?”

“Good morning, ‘Toshi,” Satori says, and pulls his arm out to dangle it over the side where Wakatoshi can see it. 

Wakatoshi repeats Satori’s greeting, and he hears him push a layer of blankets to the side. 

“Hey, ‘Toshi. Can you check the thermostat? I’m cold,” he asks, drawing out his syllables in a lilting tone. It’s situated on the wall, close to Wakatoshi’s head. Satori groans when he hears that it’s a nice, warm 20℃, and waits for a few moments of shuffling, before an electronic beep that he assumes is Wakatoshi turning the temperature up a degree. 

 Rolling onto his stomach, he buries his head in the pillow and resigns himself to waiting for morning. It’s only about four hours away, at least. Then: “Do you want me to warm your hands again?” 

He can’t help it; he heaves a laugh, muffled into his pillow. It’s become a routine for them to do that before games and practice, and he finds it funny for Wakatoshi to think of it now. “It’s kind of my whole body that’s cold this time, but thanks for the offer, ‘Toshi.” 

Silence reigns after that, long enough that Satori convinces himself Wakatoshi has fallen asleep again. He stays put where he is and listens to the hum of the vents and the slight ringing in the back of his ears that always comes with a lack of noise. 

Just as he’s closing his eyes, hoping if he does so long enough he’ll fall asleep regardless, he hears a last word from Wakatoshi. 

“Would you like to move to the bottom bunk? I am very hot here.” 

Oh. He’s offering to switch beds for the night. Satori doesn’t think he’s too opposed to that, at least, if Wakatoshi isn’t. 

“Well, you are close to the heater,” Satori says, and swings his legs over the edge of the bed so he can jump off, not caring if he wakes up the people on the floor below him, because he knows there is a storage closet below him. 

He crawls in at the foot of the bed, lying closest to the wall and parallel to Wakatoshi, to give him space to get out. In the meantime, he closes his eyes, absorbing the warmth. Wakatoshi wasn’t lying when he said it was hot, and Satori tugs the blankets over himself, pulling them up to his chin. It takes him a moment to realize that Wakatoshi isn’t moving, and he squints open his eyes, just to make sure. 

He really is staying.

For about ten seconds, Satori’s chest drops, and he almost gets up, out of Wakatoshi’s space. But then, he figures, Wakatoshi invited him, and it’s so comfortable here he might actually sleep, and obviously they’re both fine with it, and–

He falls asleep before he can think much more. 

-

It is a weekend the next day, and so he does not wake to an alarm but to birdsong, and sunlight spilling over his face. The light is diluted though, and the bed’s warmth has fled in the cool morning air along with Wakatoshi. He expected that though, since Wakatoshi’s routine begins at least an hour before him and does not change even when they have no school. Satori can only be glad he wasn’t woken up at the same time. 

And it becomes an occasional thing after that, and then a common one, and eventually it feels stranger to sleep apart than together. He always wakes up alone, but he is happy with that, with drifting off together, floating in covers that feel like clouds. 

*5*

The habit continues on even into their third year, where they are in separate dorms once again, though it takes a while to restart. Mostly because it is a hassle to walk all that way, and against the rules, and in summer the cold is not so big a deal. 

And he doesn’t want to bother Wakatoshi’s roommate, or goodness forbid Wakatoshi himself. 

Still, that is an irrational thought, because Wakatoshi would not be bothered, would not keep it to himself even if he was, and wouldn’t begrudge Satori for it either. There is less to know of his roommate, however, and that’s what opens cracks beneath him when he thinks of it, makes his doorknob glow white-hot and painful when he reaches for it in the dead of night. 

Eventually, winter returns, drags itself in by its nails to poke and prod him once more. And he turns the temperature of the room up, the temperature of the shower up, and shivers nonetheless when he steps out of them and into harsh air. 

He just can’t take it after a certain point, misses the feeling of warmth circulating his blood so much. He finally makes the walk down to Wakatoshi’s room well after midnight, on a day that the bristling wind is audible even through the walls. 

He’ll remember how grateful he was that it was Wakatoshi and not his roommate who opened the door. And he’ll treasure forever the moment that he woke up, Wakatoshi sitting calmly at his desk already and his roommate shrieking something unintelligible about the Guess Monster. 

It was perhaps only a surprise to that roommate when Satori and Wakatoshi began dating halfway through the year. Their team only thought they had started even earlier, Semi pointing accusingly at them and Goshiki looking between them, a confused furrow between his brows, asking if that was news or something. 

The team powers through their matches, winning them all. They are jubilant and triumphant, and Satori, for one, feels like Wakatoshi had pulled them up and kept them there one-handed. Shiratorizawa couldn’t lose, not with him. 

Up until Karasuno. 

Up until Karasuno, when Satori watched the ball drop and his paradise slip through his hands like slick, half-melted ice, and he didn’t even go to his own room that night. It was such a comfort then, to still have Wakatoshi’s room open to him. 

But now Satori is moving to France, alone. And he’s so, so excited he can feel it through every vein and artery, because his future is laid out before him and he can finally take another step towards it. Though the airport was acridly bittersweet, and though he knows he will miss Shiratorizawa forever and a day, he smiles as the plane takes off. 

For at least the first thirty minutes, he doesn’t even bother checking the in-flight entertainment system. He just stares out the window at the city disappearing, and then the wide open ground flying beneath them, and then nothing but water and clouds, and grins so widely his cheeks hurt. 

He is bright, up here in the sky, high enough and fast enough to follow the sun beyond the curve of the horizon.

That joy lasts about halfway through the flight (fifteen fucking hours, by the way). By the time they land, he is a horrible mix of existentially exhausted and wired, and it is all he can do to grab his bags and hail a taxi to his apartment. When he opens the door, he does not take in the beauty and potential of his new home, or marvel at the strange sights and sounds he can see and hear now. No, he collapses onto his bed without even bothering to turn on the lights, let alone the heat. 

It’s a given that his plane clothes do not conserve heat, and his bed wasn’t even made, and there is not a warmth-giving item in the entire house. So he wakes up in the middle of the Paris night, shivering, reaching across the bed for a person who is not there, jet-lag crushing his bones into the mattress. 

And Satori is a cold-blooded creature, and so not even his own skin, as he wraps his arms around himself, provides comfort. 

Slow tears trail down his cheeks, and his lips turn up awkwardly as they clump quietly on his eyelashes. 

It really doesn’t take long to miss someone. 

*+1*

It doesn’t take long to miss someone, and that feeling grows like mountains, reaches peaks and valleys, so dishearteningly hard to traverse. Satori soon becomes well acquainted with the treacherous rocky terrain during the months that pass in France. 

His first day of culinary school is a summit, a whirl of excitement as he introduces himself to person after person, stuttering over his French, and gapes at the beautiful kitchens he now has access to. The official learning does not quite begin in earnest the first day, but that is more than a lie because he learns so much. Names and layouts and numbers and favourite foods and even than a few recipes he manages to wrangle out of the more willing students-to-be. 

When he tumbles through his apartment door, tired and grinning, he is reminded that the air is thin on mountain tops, and hard to breathe, stinging noses and throats and starving of oxygen. Because Wakatoshi isn’t there for him to shout delightedly at, is actually still asleep and so he cannot even call. 

But overall, the view is worth it, he thinks, because it must be. And it is. 

His lungs just hurt. 

-

It takes eight months before they are able to see each other again, in the flesh, and these months are supplemented by daily texts and as many calls as they can stuff into the week. Satori spends the time he can getting to know his neighbors, and fellow culinary hopefuls, and his teachers and anyone else he happens to come across. 

In the night he stacks on blankets and pillows until he cannot add any more without suffocating, and holds hot water bottles that fade by morning. Most of the time, it works, and he comes to school grinning and ready, having heeded the first alarm he set.

Some days it doesn’t, and it is obvious to everyone around him. Those are the days he shows up with double the sweaters, and a coffee so stuffed with milk and sugar it is hardly recognizable, having snoozed every alarm twice and nearly fallen back asleep regardless. 

But when the eight months have passed and the day of his flight back to Japan comes, he forgoes the coats and hot drinks in favour of getting to the airport faster. This time, the whole flight is spent in a state of nervous anticipation, and though he is exhausted again by the end, he is the first to bound out of the plane. 

Wakatoshi is playing tonight, and so he takes a cab to the arena, pulling his bags through the doors and ignoring the strange looks people give him. He is a few minutes late, though that’s okay, and he waves and yells for Wakatoshi’s attention in the stands. 

He watches Wakatoshi play, and laughs at how amazing his teammates are, and pays little to no attention to their opponents. 

When the game is over, he waits with empty bones by the dressing room, and though he is tired, he leaps into Wakatoshi’s arms the moment he appears, laughing his head off. 

“My miracle boy, Wa-ka-to-shi!” Satori shouts, swinging his arms out wide as Wakatoshi holds him up. And he smiles, as Satori hugs him tightly, straightens his legs to touch the ground. 

He’s home. 

Home, where he can grab Wakatoshi’s hand and drag him outside in the cool blackened night, and prance along and tell him all the things he told him on call, only now there is no separation, no timezones or lag to plan around. Where they can go to a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant for ramen (oh, how he missed japanese food), and he does not have to filter his thoughts through another language to be understood. 

Where he and his boyfriend (what a lovely word!) can fall into bed together, and hold tight to the warmth bleeding through the lemon-smelling sheets, and Satori can fall asleep to dream of nothing.

And when he wakes up, it is a weekend, and there is nothing in their schedules, no practice or school or social obligations, and Wakatoshi is able to stay with him there. Stay, unheeding of the cold and the time and the sun rising bright over the city. 

At home, where he wakes up and he is warm, arms that he mirrors wrapped tight around him.

“Good morning, Wakatoshi-kun,” he whispers.

Though he will have to leave again, though it is temporary, it is all the sweeter. Because Satori’s absence will never have to be permanent, and he will return again and again until he can stay for good. Until that, when they will have forever. 

And until then, he will bear the cold and love the warmth, and press a kiss to his dozing partner’s forehead. 

I love you.