Chapter Text
“H-Hey! Down! Come on, that tickles-OW!”
Excited barking and yelps of mock terror filled the lounge, the quick taps of Koromaru’s paws on the carpet, racing around Amada’s cackling form, sprawled out on the floor. Fuuka looked on, trying (and failing) to stifle her giggles, a half-written essay on her laptop forgotten about in favor of observing the festivities in front of her.
Yukari mentally groaned. Today had been such a chore to get through; every lecture had dragged on. She had to spend most of her archery practice playing messenger for teammates too immature to properly talk out a fight they had had, and she’d been hoping to finally unwind at the dorm.
Unfortunately, it seemed that there was absolutely no hope of that out here in the lounge, and the alternatives weren’t too much better. Her room was just as boring as her phone. Fuuka was in the middle of the storm and Mitsuru was running errands, which also meant Tartarus was out of the question. Thinking about having a conversation with Junpei right now made her blood boil.
A particularly loud sneeze from Koromaru caused her to violently flinch, nearly dropping her phone onto the floor. She heard a chuckle from Akihiko sitting a few seats over, which earned him a fierce glare. Yukari sighed, starting to get up from her chair. Her room unfortunately seemed like the best bet she was gonna get. She didn’t have it in her to deal with these maniacs.
“Not interested in the exhibition?” Ahikiko asked almost entirely rhetorically with a small smirk on his face. Yukari took a moment to breathe and not immediately explode at him. He didn’t mean much by it, and she couldn’t recall the last time Amada had actually allowed himself to play around like a kid and not weigh himself down with problems quadrupling his age range. She should have been endeared by the spectacle and not selfishly annoyed that it was interfering with her late night, but they were being loud and acting erratically, and it was too much for her right now.
Koromaru took a moment to pause his almighty attack to tilt his head at the conversation. Ken was heaving with laughter, his shorts now absolutely covered in doghair. He sat up to affectionately pet his companion’s snout. “We should probably tone it down a little, Koromaru. We don’t wanna interrupt Yuki’s study time.”
Yukari paused, turning to face the two of them in confusion. “Studying?”
Fuuka removed the hand over her mouth from her soft laughter. “With Mitsuru out, I suppose he decided studying was the best use of his time.”
Ahikiko sighed. “Blew me right off for it too, guess he’s gotta keep his grades up.”
That wasn’t right. Trying to predict Makoto’s schedule was as reliable as expecting Junpei to make high honors, but something consistent is that he’d never study at night on a day where the café offered part-time shifts. He would have done it in the library after school, which he couldn’t have because she had seen him headed to track practice with Kazushi.
It didn’t add up.
“Is everything alright Yukari?” Fuuka asked, cutting through Yukari’s brainstorming to retrace his every step from the past week.
She realized she had frozen completely and put on a quick smile. “O-Oh it’s nothing! I’m just a little tired, that’s all!” She backed away before heading up the stairs, nearly sprinting up from the lounge. The remaining students in the lounge looked at each other in confusion, before Koromaru took this opportunity to lick at Ken’s face, and his giggling started back up.
As suspected, knocking on Makoto’s door provided no answer, and he wouldn’t have ignored her. (Though she did open it, just in case.) She supposed he could have simply been working and didn’t wanna offend his friends, but frankly he didn’t tend to care about things like that. He was very blunt when he had something to do and wouldn’t have bothered to lie unless he had a reason. Going to the other floors did not provide any answers either. She seriously doubted he would be holed up in the command room, and Koromaru would have noticed if he had gone into town.
This unfortunately left one real option left.
The roof was uncomfortably brisk for the season, a breeze that pressed into her skin, not strong enough to be worth the effort of warmer clothing, but enough to where she had no chance of ignoring it. A new batch of tomatoes were growing in the three dirt patches, recently watered. Makoto had started growing them in-between errands, and she had to admit he had a real knack for gardening.
He was sitting on the edge of the building, slightly slouched, staring into…something. The moon, the stars, wherever his mind went when he spaced out. The faint grey of his winter jacket blended into the dark of the night. She could see the portable player he had magnetically attached to him, wires tangled over his collar, phone screen reflecting his outline on its black face.
Yukari couldn’t describe it, but it really bothered her that he was sitting by himself, so close to the edge. She knew that Makoto spent plenty of time in his own space, but something about his posture was painfully isolating, and her anxiety was flaring up seeing that not all of his body was on solid ground.
“Makoto?”
She was half expecting to fall on deaf (or in this case musically occupied) ears, but he seamlessly took an earbud out to glance behind him, and upon seeing who it was paused his player.
(He didn’t usually do that.)
“Can you, um, come here?” Yukari asked, arms crossing over her chest. Dim headlights of a car below on the street briefly caught her attention before they wandered, not really sure where to look. She meant to give a quick glance to see if Makoto had heard her, and nearly squeaked when she found him standing directly in front of her, sneakers not even making a tap on the floor as he had seemingly teleported in front of her.
A single aqua iris peered at her curiously, tilting his head not entirely unlike Koromaru did when he was confused, and it occurred to Yukari that she hadn’t thought of a reason to call him over. She had been so focused on getting him off of the edge that she hadn’t actually thought about what came after that.
It had been a little while since he stood so close to her, maybe when he had helped her cook chicken sauté, but she had too been focused on his smile the food to really absorb it. Now she could see how, even though there was only one eye not covered by bangs of aqua, there was so much attention and focus toward her. Did he look at everybody like this?
Something low in her gut didn’t want him to.
Before she could stutter something out, he started to unbutton his winter jacket, fidgeting with the sleeves. Yukari blinked. “What, are you freeze-resistant or something?”
“You aren’t.” Makoto replied flatly, barely looking up from his task, jacket sliding off his shoulder.
Oh.
She had been so caught up in her own thoughts that she hadn’t realized her body had been shivering in place, hairs raised on end. Her body temperature was moderately raised by the heat rushing to her cheeks. “I’m not cold!” She protested, leaning away.
Makoto gazed at her, a shadow of a smirk tugging at his cheeks. “You’re not cold.” He repeated monotonously, yet despite his words of confirmation, he did not put his coat back on.
It instead ended up on her, empty sleeves sweeping over her shoulders. He shook it slightly to make sure it was fastened on her enough, fingers briefly brushing over her shivering arm accidentally. The goosebumps there didn’t disappear with the cold.
“A-Aren’t you gonna want this back?” Yukari muttered, unconsciously sinking into her new outfit. It was already fairly toasty from his body heat, and the slight oversize meant her torso practically melted into it. Makoto shrugged, struggling for a moment with a loose button that he typically fidgeted with too much.
“You’re not up here very often.” Nothing in his expression indicated he had said anything, still focused on the last button on his jacket. He spoke softly, but the implication was there. Why come looking for me? It was a fair question; she didn’t exactly make a habit out of tending to potato sprouts. She was a little more surprised about how he worded it. Makoto’s words were pretty cut and dry, it was difficult to think of a more blunt person in her life. It was strange for him to not just straight up ask what her business was.
“Well, the others said you were studying, but that wasn’t right, so I went to see.” Yukari picked up her eyes from the ground, the self-consciousness of being outfitted fading out with the curiosity of his behavior overtaking it.
His eyebrows knitted. “It wasn’t right?”
Yukari looked at him confusingly. “Well, duh? When do you study on Tuesdays at night? Never, not over picking up yen at the cafe. You would have done it at the library but you went to track practice instead,” She put a hand on her hip and closed her eyes, brushing a part of her hair.. “Nighttime studying for you is at best a Thursday activity, weekend if we’ve been at Tartarus a lot. So naturally when they mentioned that…I…”
Yukari had opened her eyes to an unusual look of shock on Makoto’s face. With the amount of teasing that he had been doing to her she had forgotten he was capable of being surprised. His hands were frozen over fabric, having just finished buttoning. His hair parted just barely enough to get a glimpse of his hidden eye, “...You noticed that?”
Yukari felt her ears flare. What was he so confused about? How would he not know what he was doing every hour on the average weekday? There’s only seven of them with twenty-four intervals, and they split into pretty neat chunks generally aside from his social interactions or trips to Tartarus or academic studies or going to the police station or athletic obligations or random computer side-quests!
Wait.
Maybe she paid a bit more attention than she had originally thought.
“W-W-Well of course! How can you not know your own schedule?!” Yukari stuttered, looking at his face for a moment. Why was he looking to the side? Oh my god was Makoto Yuki embarrassed?? “It isn’t that big of a deal! Normally on Tuesdays I go to archery, a-and then….sometimes I organize school supplies, and then I come here a-and…”
Mysteriously Yukari was suddenly having a very difficult time recollecting what she tended to do after school on a Tuesday, let alone her week’s schedule. Did he think she was stalking him? He wasn’t even that prevalent in her mind, aside from right now where he was very much still in front of her, and his jacket was still very comfortable around her, and she was starting to notice that her breathing was getting a little lighter-
And then he made a small hum, and then another, and then a small chuckle. She looked up dumbfounded, to see him smiling at her, cheeks slightly singed with pink. “... redhanded, huh?” His laugh was soft, softer than Fuuka’s even with her mouth covered, a four-leaf clover blowing through her ears, gliding through into the pit of her stomach.
“You’re good at seeing people, Yukari. There’s kindness in your eyes.”
She felt the signals in her brain stop, her throat attempting to deflect his compliment but her lungs had suddenly been overtaken by a migration of moving butterflies. Suddenly every individual fiber of fabric in his jacket seemed to be burning a hundred degrees, why were her hands sweating? Wasn’t she supposed to be cold?
Before she could attempt (and likely fail miserably) at stuttering out a response, he let out a yawn that stretched his jaw much wider than it had any right to. He had just told her one of the most profoundly altering compliments she’d ever gotten in her life, and transitioned right into showing less restraint than Junpei during Math II.
“I’m gonna head into my room now, I promise I’ll go where I say this time,” Makoto winked, although there was a little more water in his visible eye. “Good night.” He stepped by her, close enough that she could see the goosebumps on his biceps from the frigid air.
The door clicked behind him, and Yukari still stood at the top of the rooftop, staring off into the same space that he had been only a few minutes ago. She could still feel the genuine, shy joy emanating from his face, it was a light that adjusted a shade of her vision permanently.
It was something she wanted to see again.