Chapter Text
Ruki stands in line for cocoa, jacket half unzipped, helmet hooked over his arm, a purchase he regrets on a spiritual level.
The menu board is handwritten and aggressively cheerful.
“Why is it called ‘Mountain Dream’?” he mutters. “It’s hot chocolate. You don’t get to gaslight me with fonts.”
The guy in front of him laughs.
Ruki looks up.
Beanie, scarf, red cheeks from the cold. Familiar posture. Familiar shoulders.
“Kai,” he says out loud.
The figure turns, and Ruki is confronted with his drummer, even on New Year’s break. Rude.
“Oh.” Kai looks just as surprised.
They stare at each other for a beat while the line shuffles around them.
“Snowboarding?” Ruki asks.
“Mmm. I read the slopes got a really good layer of snow,” Kai says, looking completely in his element - his posture relaxed a satisfied smile on his face.
“Yeah, something like that,” Ruki agrees, noncommittal.
“You?”
“Figured it was time to start being athletic,” Ruki explains.
“And you started with snowboarding?” Kai looks amused.
“Skis,” Ruki corrects, lifting his right foot slightly to draw attention to the boots.
“That’s harder.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that now.”
They move forward with the line, the café filling their noses with sugar, coffee, and wet fabric. Gloves hang over a heater by the door, steaming faintly, like a very specific art installation.
They reach the counter.
“What do you want?” Kai asks.
“Anything. I just want to get warm,” Ruki says, shivering. An hour on the mountain had already been more than his body signed up for.
They both end up ordering Mountain Dreams because neither of them is actually paying attention.
They sit at a small wooden table by the window. Snow presses against the glass, condensation gathering on the inside.
Kai drops his gloves on the table. They are worn, broken in, clearly his. Ruki sets his down next to them. The lift tag is still looped through the strap.
Kai points. “Those are new.”
“Don’t shame them,” Ruki says. “They’re emotionally fragile.”
Kai smiles. “They look like they’ve never known hardship.”
Ruki lifts his mug. “Neither have I, apparently, until today.”
They drink. The cocoa is too sweet, but it is warm, and that feels like a small mercy.
“So,” Kai says. “You alone?”
Ruki nods. “You?”
Kai nods back. “Yeah.”
That alone sits between them for a second.
Ruki leans back. “This is really weird.”
“You mean seeing each other in normal human circumstances.”
“Don’t call this normal. I almost fell getting here.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. On flat ground. Not even on the slope.”
Kai grins. “I wish I’d seen that.”
“You don’t,” Ruki says. “I prefer imagining you still have at least a gram of respect for me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Kai says, a little too sincere for the joke.
Ruki smiles back, slightly awkward.
They finish their cocoa slowly. It is obvious neither of them is in a hurry to go back outside. The sky has started to darken over the last half hour. Snow taps against the window as the wind picks up.
Eventually, they have to move.
Outside, the snow looks blue in the evening light, sparkling beautifully. They walk side by side away from the mountain, boots crunching in sync, gear in their hands.
Ruki squints at the trees. “I’m going to say something controversial.”
“Please do.”
“It’s almost bearable now that I’m walking in the opposite direction.”
Kai nods like Ruki just confessed to a minor crime. “I get that. It’s a nice feeling, actually, when you’ve really worked on the mountain and then get to go back to the warmth.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant, but okay.”
Kai glances at him. “Hey, you survived, didn’t you?”
“Barely.”
They pass a wooden sign. Steam curls up from a building down the path.
Ruki reads it. “Onsen.”
Kai leans in, close enough that their jackets brush. “Huh. They allow tattoos.”
“That’s rare,” Ruki notes.
“Well, this is a touristy place,” Kai says.
“I can’t remember the last time I went to one.”
Kai watches Ruki for a moment, like he is running numbers in his head. Then he lands on a solution.
“Want to go?”
“Now?” Ruki has not budgeted his energy for anything beyond a burger and complaining at the TV tonight.
“Why not? It’s a classic way to end a day on the mountain,” Kai says, looking genuinely enthusiastic.
“How often do you come here?” Ruki asks, trying to keep up with that energy.
“Depends on the year. But if there’s snow and my schedule lines up, as often as I can.”
“Wow,” Ruki drawls. “Then you actually know what you’re talking about.”
His body is already turning toward the parking lot.
“Come on,” Kai says, confident, teacher voice. “You’re not going to be back here anytime soon.”
“Fine,” Ruki says easily. He really has not been to an onsen in a long time.
Inside, warmth hits them like a wall. Wood floors, low light, the mineral smell of water and soap.
At reception, a tray of bathrobes waits.
“These are going to look ridiculous,” Ruki mutters, grabbing one and checking the size.
“It’s not a fashion statement,” Kai says, amused.
“I’m confirming my hatred.”
Locker room, echoes..towels snapping.
Out in the steam, stone and warm light, they ease into the pool.
Ruki exhales. “Okay. I get why people build religions around this.”
Kai closes his eyes. “See? I wasn’t lying.”
Five seconds of peace.
Then Ruki squints at Kai. “You’re turning pink.”
“Thank you for the medical update.”
“It’s a good pink,” Ruki says. “Healthy...like expensive salmon.”
Kai stares. “You just compared me to fish.”
“High quality fish.”
They laugh.
Ruki feels a little awkward.
Of course they have been in similar situations before, but not like this. Not alone. And probably not in the last ten years.
He suddenly becomes aware of himself. Of the space he takes up in the water. Of the way Kai has not stopped keeping up his workout routine. Ruki knew that, theoretically.
It is different, though, to be confronted with the results this directly.
A drop of water falls from somewhere above and breaks the surface of the pool with a soft, hollow sound.
Ruki looks up at the ceiling. “This place has sound effects.”
Kai nods. “Premium experience.”
Ruki shifts his leg slightly to avoid bumping the couple sitting nearby. “This pool is smaller than it looks.”
Kai shrugs. “People always take up more space than they think they do.”
“Some more than others,” Ruki says.
Kai glances at him. “That’s accurate.” He smiles.
“For example, Uruha never notices when he’s already halfway on top of me,” Ruki adds, narrowing his eyes. The words sound stranger out loud than they did in his head, and Kai startles a little at that.
Ruki clears his throat and recovers. “Well. He’s probably half drunk by then.”
“Precisely,” Kai agrees, sliding his towel farther up the stone edge so it does not slip into the water.
The towel leaves a dark, damp line behind on the rock. Steam gathers there, softening the edges of it.
Ruki watches for a second longer than necessary, then looks back at the water.
“Band trips always turn into a geography problem,” he says. “Everyone forgets where their own body ends.”
Kai hums. “Some people are worse at that than others.”
“Name names,” Ruki says.
Kai pretends to think. “You do have a habit of leaning.”
“It’s comfy,” Ruki says.
Kai glances at the noticeable space between them, and Ruki becomes a little too aware of his own body because of it.
Kai’s hair is damp at the ends, clinging slightly to his neck. He looks content, confident. There is no trace of the usual work tension in his shoulders. Ruki is not quite sure what to do with this softer, relaxed version of him.
They fall quiet for a moment, the only sounds the low murmur of voices from the far end of the pool and the faint drip of water from somewhere above.
Ruki tilts his head. “You’re very calm today.”
Kai glances at him. “Is that a complaint?”
“An observation.”
“I’m off duty,” Kai says. “This is my relaxed version.”
Ruki hums. “I don’t see this one very often.”
“Most people don’t,” Kai replies with a sheepish smile. “It doesn’t come out much.”
Ruki watches the steam roll across the surface of the water. “You should take it on tour.”
Kai snorts. “It would get fired.”
“We wouldn’t survive,” Ruki agrees.
Kai shifts his weight, stretching one leg out, the water rippling outward in slow circles. “You don’t look particularly stressed either.”
“Maybe ... I don’t know,” Ruki says. “I think I’m just too tired to think about anything.”
Kai nods. “Yeah. You’ve got that dumb but pretty blond look on your face,” he adds, teasing.
Ruki flicks a bit of water toward him. “Don’t patronize me.”
Kai lifts a hand in mock defense. “I’m being descriptive.”
“Poorly,” Ruki replies.
Kai smiles anyway, the kind that does not try to be anything more than it is. He dips his fingers back into the water, drawing a slow line across the surface.
“You’ve always been like this after long days,” he says. “Quiet. Like you’re buffering.”
Ruki lets out a slow breath. Steam settles across his shoulders, warm and insistent, easing tension out of muscles he had not realized he had been holding.
“Maybe I just function better when I’m heated up,” he says.
Kai hums in acknowledgment.
Ruki starts noticing small things: the way his fingers wrinkle in the water, the faint mineral scent clinging to the air, to his hair, to the inside of his lungs.
Kai leans back, eyes closing for a moment. When he opens them again, he says, “We should probably get out before we both fall asleep in here.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ruki replies. “I could absolutely become part of this pool.”
Kai snorts, but he shifts anyway, bracing his hands against the stone.
The cold hits them again in the locker room, sharper this time, the small, practical sounds of getting dressed surrounding them. Ruki pulls on his shirt and feels the lingering warmth trapped against his skin, like the onsen followed him out.
Outside, the air is clean and thin. Their breath fogs between them.
Kai reaches for Ruki’s skis before Ruki does, lifting them easily.
Ruki stops. “What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
“I’m not a princess in distress.”
Kai huffs. “You kind of look the part.”
They walk a few steps in silence, boots crunching in the snow.
Then, quieter, Kai adds, “I didn’t mean that like a dig.”
Ruki glances at him. “It’s fine. I get it. You just want to feel like a prince.”
Kai lets out a short laugh. “That obvious?”
“Painfully.”
They reach their cars.
Kai pauses at his door, keys in hand. He glances over. “You hungry?”
Ruki considers. “I could be persuaded.”
“I’ve got beer at my place,” Kai says, casual. “And something I can pass off as dinner.”
Ruki weighs his options for a moment. He could decline. He could follow on autopilot. Instead, he chooses something else entirely.
“Trying to lower my inhibitions?” he says.
The joke lands a little too close to sounding like an accusation.
Kai tilts his head, studying him.
“I don’t think that needs alcohol,” he replies, calm.
Ruki lets out an awkward laugh. Kai follows a beat later, softer.
“We’d better get going,” Ruki says finally, opening his car door.
Cold air rushes in, sharp and clean, and for a second it feels like a reset button.