Archive of Our Own

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Sakuya Fujinaga is just an ordinary boy with big thick eyeglasses and a gloomy aura. Well, he doesn't like the attention at all. He just wants to have a normal high school life and then study marine biology in college. That's the plan. Just fish. Just peace. That's literally it.

The problem is being a nerd is not a quiet existence no matter how hard you try. 

It has a whole look to it. The thick frames, the binder covered in fish stickers, the two penguin keychains that clink softly against each other every single time he walks anywhere. 

It all adds up to something that people notice and then immediately decide what to do with. Nobody outright picks on Sakuya, but nobody really ignores him either, which is honestly the worse option. 

Everyone is just sort of... wary of him. Like he might do something at any moment. Which he never does. He just stands there. But the resting bitch face really, genuinely does not help. 

He looks like he's quietly judging the entire room even when he's just thinking about whether sea cucumbers feel loneliness.

He started the aquarium club on his own money. Negotiated the room with two science teachers who looked like they'd both lost a bet that day, bought the tanks himself, set up the filters and the little bubbling aerators until the room smelled exactly like low tide, which he thinks is a perfectly good smell actually. The fish are doing well. The water temperature is always correct. It is, objectively, a great club.

Nobody joins.

He tries recruiting though. 

His method is basically waiting until someone is nearby and then delivering a fun fact to them with full confidence, like a person who has not fully processed that this is not how socializing works. 

"Actually, did you know the mantis shrimp can punch with the force of a .22 caliber bullet?" he said once to a classmate who had simply been standing near him at the water fountain, minding their own business. The classmate declined. Not even the fact. Just him. Just his entire presence in that moment. 

Sakuya stood there for a second, blinked, then turned and walked back to class at a perfectly normal pace with his chin at a perfectly normal angle. Pride intact. Just barely, but intact. He kept it.

Every day after school he goes to the club room, feeds the fish, checks the water, and tries not to think too hard about what happens to them after he graduates. It's unproductive to think about.

Meanwhile, Hirose Ryo is— well, there is simply no gentler way to say this, extremely unfair as a concept.

Brown hair that just falls right without trying. Eyes that are the kind of pretty where people genuinely trail off mid-sentence because they forgot what they were saying. 

The headliner of the school paper and the editorial team stopped pretending that's about his writing a long time ago. 

There are Twitter accounts dedicated to him. Facebook comment sections that refresh like a prayer chain every time a new photo goes up. 

Ryo knows about all of this in the way you know about a sound that never turns off. 

You get used to the weight of it. Doesn't mean it's light.

Here's the thing though. He's actually kind. Like genuinely. Not because of the face, not because he is pretending, but he is in fact just actually a kind person. 

He collects papers when the teacher forgets to assign someone and holds doors open without the little pause that signals they're waiting to be thanked. 

BUT THE PROBLEM IS people think he's kind because of his face, and he can't prove otherwise, and that makes everything feel a little hollow, like he's doing a show for an audience that already decided the show was good before he even walked out. 

He smiles and they go wow, so kind, and he smiles more, and somewhere inside him something is just quietly, continuously tired.

"Thank you, I'm glad I could help," and he means it every single time and that was Tuesday after picking up the class papers, smiling at the teacher, not sighing. 

He never sighs in front of people. The smile lasted just a beat too long in the way smiles do when something is being very carefully managed underneath them.

They're in different classes so Sakuya mostly knows about Ryo the same way everyone knows about Ryo, which is just as a general condition of the school. Like weather. 

Hirose-kun. 

Yes, that one. 

The handsome one. 

The name has been filed away somewhere in the back of Sakuya's head but he's not particularly interested. He has a fish club to think about.

Then one afternoon he sees Ryo laughing in the hallway near the gym.

Like just laughing happily with no intent of pretending. Not doing the smile for whoever's watching. Just actually laughing, head back, eyes almost completely closed, the kind that gets out before you decide to let it. 

His friends are all laughing too and it doesn't matter what they said because for a few seconds the whole hallway goes a little strange and quiet inside Sakuya's head and he genuinely forgets to keep walking.

Oh, he thinks.

...so that's Hirose-kun.

Then, with the energy of someone who has made a very fast and very firm decision, Uh-nope nope, absolutely not.

He turns around and takes the long way to class. Six extra minutes. Fine. Worth it. He has already decided, very cleanly, that he will never be noticed by that boy and he intends to keep it that way. 

Who wants a gay nerd anyway? pffttt Gay and nerd, truly a legendary combination he is working with here.

Ryo on the other hand notices everyone. 

Well, they definitely try to get his attention. But honestly, he doesn’t remember any of their names unless they share a class or he’s worked with them before. He just isn't good at names. 

He studies hard, though, because that’s what you get for having a pretty face, people expect you to be perfect. 

So yeah, beauty and brains, a deadly combination.

During the class assembly, Sakuya was there just standing at the very back of the last line. Standing there, Ryo realized they were exactly the same height.

He doesn't look at anyone. He doesn't look around. He just stays as quiet as possible. He is basically just an existing air particle that no one notices, except if they need a funny topic.

But that is the exact moment Ryo notices him.

Who’s that? Ryo thinks to himself.

He tries to make eye contact, just out of habit, but the boy is looking down at the floor with not much confidence at all. 

Ryo waits a second. Nothing. And it kind of hits him. This is the first time, literally the first time, that someone just genuinely doesn't look at him or try to greet him. Everyone in this school wants a piece of his attention.

Except this one.

The pen thing happens on a major exam week.

Sakuya reaches the classroom door and goes for his pen and his hand finds nothing. 

He checks again. Same result. He goes through every single pocket with increasing urgency, front, side, main compartment, front again, and the pen is just simply not there. His pen. His specific pen. The exam is in forty minutes.

He wouldn't let himself ask to borrow a pen from any of his classmates because he knows for a fact they wouldn't let him. He still has his pride after all. He doesn't want to be laughed at. The rejection from the past few years is already enough.He stands frozen in the doorway, not going in and not going back, and the anxiety does that thing where it takes up all available space and pushes out every useful thought. His nail is at his teeth before he's even aware of it. Then the next one. His hands are close to bleeding and he doesn't register it yet.

"Hey, don't bite your nails."

He looks up.

Hirose Ryo is right there looking at his hand with an expression that clearly happened before he thought about it. A little sharp, a little startled at himself. They're both caught off guard. Sakuya looks down at his own fingers and notices there's blood at the edge of one nail. Oh. That's why it hurts.

He looks back up, not at Ryo's eyes, he is not looking at those eyes, and that's when he sees it. The pink bunny pen sitting right there in Ryo's front pocket. Very calm about the whole situation. Just existing.

It is obviously Ryo's pen. He had it in his pocket the whole time. But Sakuya doesn't know that, and his panicked brain doesn't even stop to consider it. 

As far as Sakuya is concerned, that pen belongs to no one and just appeared right there specifically for him. 

Something about the small bunny charm on the clip makes his eyes get dangerously watery. Which is insane. He is absolutely not going to cry about a pen in front of Hirose Ryo. He is not doing that.

"Pen," Sakuya says.

He means to say more. He does not say more.

Ryo looks at his pocket. Looks at Sakuya. A small pause, and then without making it weird or asking questions or doing that little smirk people do when they have something you need, he just takes it out and holds it forward. "Here, borrow it."

Sakuya takes the pen carefully without touching Ryo's hand. Bows once, small and quick. Walks into the classroom at a speed that is technically not running but is adjacent to running.

Ryo stands in the hallway and stares at the door.

"...Thank you? I guess?"

He waits a moment like there's a chance Sakuya comes back. There is no chance. 

Sakuya is already sitting down. Ryo walks to class with a feeling he can't properly point out, not quite annoyed, not quite amused, somewhere between both and also kind of neither. 

This is genuinely the first time someone grabbed something from him, bowed, and left like he was a convenience store. Didn't even make eye contact. Just took the thing and went.

He thinks about it for the rest of the day and he cannot explain why.

Sakuya passes the exam.

He sits in the bathroom stall for a few minutes after. Not crying, just existing quietly while the adrenaline finishes doing its thing. 

Then he looks at the pen in his hand. Pink barrel, little bunny charm, cheerful in a way that feels slightly personal. He thinks, very simply, he's really kind. Just like they say.

He tucks it into his chest pocket.

He walks home.

He does not go back to return it.

This is not really a decision. The thought just never crosses his mind. Not that day, not the next, not ever. 

He starts using it for everything. He refills the ink when it runs out. Then he refills it again. The bunny charm gets a small chip on its left ear from where it knocked against his desk one afternoon and Sakuya notices this the way you notice something that matters without letting yourself admit that it matters.

Ryo remembers he lent out the pen, but at first, he didn't care about the object itself. He was more preoccupied by the fact that Sakuya just grabbed it and ran, and he can't explain why he allowed that to happen.

Sakuya remembers every single detail of that day. Not one thing has faded.

The fish presentation is in April. The teacher rotates through the clubs and it's the Fish club's turn, which means Sakuya stands at the front of a borrowed classroom with his printed slides and a laser pointer that keeps slipping a little because his palms are not cooperating, and about two minutes in the snickering starts from the back row. Quiet, deniable, specifically designed to be impossible to call out directly.

He keeps going. He explains the tanks. The filtration system. He gets to the clownfish slide, the symbiotic relationship with sea anemones, which is actually very interesting if anyone would just listen for one second, and from somewhere near the door a voice says, clear and genuine, "Actually, I didn't know that. That's fascinating."

The back row goes quiet.

Sakuya doesn't look up from his slide. He knows that voice. He finishes his sentence and moves to the next one.

Around Ryo the crowd has already redirected, wow he came to support the club, wow so kind, that's so like him, and Sakuya packs up his materials afterward with his binder under his arm and tells himself, he's just like that with everyone. He’s just like that with everyone. A clean thought. A logical conclusion. He makes sure the pen is sitting right in his chest pocket and walks out of the room.

What Sakuya doesn't know, what he has absolutely no reason to know and would probably experience some kind of short circuit if he did know that Ryo remembered that specific clownfish fact for the next three months. 

Wrote it in his notebook at some point and then forgot he wrote it and then found it and couldn't remember why he wrote it in the first place. 

Ryo told himself he was just genuinely curious. 

He convinced himself he was just trying to learn new things about marine biology, but  when he found that note months later and stared at his own handwriting.

He was trying to remember why he wrote it in the first place, and it finally hit him. 

He really didn't care about clownfish. 

It was never about the fish.

He is not like this with everyone.

He's just not ready to look directly at what that means yet. 

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That single moment of Ryo defending Sakuya changed nothing on the surface, but inside Ryo, the whole world shifted. 

His life, usually loud with the dull echo of his own popularity, went silent, leaving only the bright, singular focus of Sakuya Fujinaga.

Ryo started watching Sakuya, a quiet interest taking root and refusing to let go, growing into something heavy and insistent that he couldn't quite name yet, but which felt suspiciously like a beginning.

He noticed the details with a sudden hunger; the way Sakuya hiked his chin up when he was trying to look unbothered, as if trying to physically lift himself above his own anxiety; the sharp, painful crease of his brow when a clownfish refused to settle near its anemone; and the way he always, always used that pink bunny pen—like it was the only piece of plastic that mattered in the whole world.

Ryo found himself identifying these things, keeping mental records of a person who seemed determined to remain a footnote.

Ryo was no longer looking at an idea or a "nerd" archetype. He was looking at a person, and he liked the person infinitely more for all the ways he didn't fit into the school's social hierarchy.

However, the problem was the perimeter. Sakuya had built a defensive wall so wide and jagged that Ryo couldn't find a way past it.

Ryo tried to join the aquarium club. A move that usually opened every door for the school's golden boy but Sakuya treated the application process like a full-scale fortress defense, a series of careful traps designed to keep Ryo out.

Ryo approached the room one day, holding a neatly folded application. Sakuya was inside, adjusting a tank aerator with a precision that bordered on the obsessive. Ryo watched the way Sakuya's fingers moved carefully, and felt a strange, twisting pang of need of attention.

"Hi, Fujinaga-kun," Ryo said, his smile genuine but carefully contained. He didn't want to scare him off; he wanted to be manageable. "I was hoping to drop off my club application. I've been reading up on filtration systems."

His mind instantly went into full panic mode. His high-functioning brain seized up.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Hirose-kun knows my name. Yes, obviously he knows it from the presentation, but he is actually saying it out loud right now. Fuck.

Outwardly, though, his voice was completely flat, a sheet of glass that offered no reflection at all.

"I can't accept that. The club is currently at maximum capacity for... souls."

"Maximum capacity? It's just you, Sakuya." Ryo stepped forward, and Sakuya flinched so subtly that only someone looking as hard as Ryo would have seen it. "Did I miss a deadline? Is there a trial period?"

"No," Sakuya said, finally facing him, his thick glasses magnifying the sheer threat Ryo represented, not as a bully, but as a disruption to Sakuya's carefully curated peace. "But did you know that the Great Barrier Reef is less than half its original size due to bleaching? It's a tragedy that requires immediate, undivided attention. I cannot be distracted by training a novice who likely thinks 'nemo' is a scientific classification."

Ryo blinked. The application felt suddenly heavy and useless. He felt a surge of frustration, but underneath it, a profound respect.

Sakuya wasn't just saying no; he was constructing elaborate, biological justifications for why Ryo shouldn't exist in his vicinity. "I... yes, that's terrible, but I want to help. I can learn."

"It means," Sakuya stated, closing the small, cheap room door until only a sliver of space remained, "that my focus is currently on the existential threats facing the oceans, not on trivial administrative tasks or social integration. We are in a state of ecological mourning, Hirose-kun. Please respect the silence." And then the door was shut, leaving Ryo in the hallway with the sound of his own heartbeat.

From Sakuya’s perspective this wasn't actually rudeness; it was a way of survival. 

He viewed Ryo as a solar flare—beautiful, radiant, and capable of melting his entire life into a puddle of humiliation if he got too close.

Sakuya executed a detailed campaign against Ryo’s presence. Sabotaging paperwork with "accidental" ink spills, cross-referencing their schedules with the zeal of a prison guard to ensure they never overlapped in the hallways, and physically disposing of any forms Ryo managed to slide under the door.

He treated Ryo’s kindness like a sophisticated phishing scam. If he accepted the smile, he’d eventually have to provide the password to his heart, and that was a security breach he couldn't afford.

The forms were gone before Ryo could even check if they had been processed, swallowed by the quiet, desperate war Sakuya was waging to keep his own world from collapsing.

It wasn't malice, just pure, self-preservation. Sakuya could literally not breathe with Ryo in the room, like he was about to die, like his heart did something violent and loud against his ribs, a frantic, impossible rhythm, and he chose the safety of his own lungs over the possibility of a massive, public nosebleed in front of the school’s heartthrob.

As the months bled toward graduation, they lived in a state of agonizing parallel existence.

They were two celestial bodies locked in an orbit of pining: Ryo, the sun that stayed, constantly trying to warm a moon that refused to be touched; and Sakuya, the moon that waited for the dark, terrified of what the light would reveal.

Ryo found himself lingering by the aquarium room long after the door was locked just to smell the ocean like low tide.

He would sit in the library in a seat that had a clear line of sight to Sakuya’s usual table, pretending to study while actually memorizing the way Sakuya chewed the end of that pink bunny pen. 

He was deeply, embarrassingly crushing on a boy who treated him like a natural disaster, and for a long time, he didn't even realize it himself.

Sakuya, meanwhile, was hyper-aware of Ryo’s shadow. He knew exactly when Ryo passed his classroom; he could hear the specific tap of Ryo’s shoes.

He felt the weight of Ryo’s gaze in the library like a physical heat on the back of his neck. He wanted to turn around. 

He wanted to say, 'I still have your pen,' but the words felt like they would choke him. He convinced himself that Ryo was just being 'kind' because that’s what Ryo did, a universal benevolence that didn't mean anything special. 

To believe it was special was to invite a kind of hope that would surely kill him.

The tension became a living thing between them, a silent taut wire stretched across the school year. 

Ryo never realized he was being actively pushed away; he only felt the cold, wide gap of Sakuya’s indifference like a physical wind. 

He found himself cursing the very popularity he usually ignored, because now it was the wall—the 'golden boy' persona was a mask Sakuya wouldn't look behind. 

Ryo wanted to yell that he was tired, that he was lonely, that he just wanted to talk about fish. He wanted to learn more about the vast ocean. 

He looked at Sakuya and thought, His nerd. Then he would catch himself, the realization curdling into a full-blown crush that hit him with the force of a hard pang in his chest.

Wait, no, no erase that.

It’s not a crush anymore.

He is in love with him. Just pathetically in love with him.

Their final interaction was in the aquarium room, and it was less of a conversation and more of a desperate pursuit of a closure that neither was ready for. 

The afternoon of graduation was quiet. The school felt hollowed out, the hallways echoing with the slow, deliberate footsteps of people who knew this was their last walk. 

Golden light streamed through the west-facing windows, thick with the dust of four years, painting stripes across the hall like the bars of a cage they were finally leaving.

Ryo had opened the door, carrying a plastic bag he’d been planning to present—a peace offering of specialized fish flakes Sakuya had mentioned once in a recruitment fact. 

He saw Sakuya standing by the clownfish tank, his reflection blurry in the glass, looking small and intensely solitary. 

Ryo felt his throat tighten. This was it. The last chance to Fact Check the distance between them.

“Fujinaga-kun,” Ryo said, his voice surprisingly loud in the silence. He adjusted the bag in his hand, the plastic crinkling like a warning. “Wait, I actually—I brought something for the tank. For after you're gone.”

But Sakuya didn't wait for words; he saw Ryo and the 'kind' smile and the 'kind' eyes, and his internal defense systems went into total meltdown. 

He didn't see a boy with a gift; he saw the final boss of his high school anxiety. 

He ran. It was a pure, panicked sprint, his binder clutched to his chest like armor, the penguin keychains clinking a frantic rhythm against the silence.

“I just wanted to say goodbye!” Ryo called out, an absolute mess of a confession that died instantly in the empty air. 

He stood in the doorway, the bag of fish flakes feeling like a lead weight. He had spent months factoring the distance between them, trying to find a prime number that would connect them, but the math just wouldn't work.

It was the final day of high school, and the opportunity vanished into the back of a bathroom stall where Sakuya had successfully hidden himself, his forehead pressed against the cold metal door, breathing in hitches. 

Ryo eventually just gave up, standing in the quiet hallway with the bag in his hand, feeling the cheap plastic crinkle with the sound of his own disappointment. 

He left the bag by the door. 

Sakuya remained perfectly, tragically oblivious, holding a pink bunny pen that he had already bought refills, carrying it around as if it were a holy relic of a saint he wasn't allowed to worship. 

Because the terrible, awful truth that Sakuya would rather swallow a live sea urchin than admit out loud was that he was entirely, hopelessly crushing on Hirose Ryo. 

He wasn't stupid. 

He knew exactly what it meant to keep a stolen pen in his chest pocket for an entire year and obsessively keep the ink alive. 

He just figured that hiding in a bathroom stall with his heart beating out of his chest was safer. 

Keeping the pen and staying completely away was the closest he would ever get to having a piece of the golden boy without getting burned.

And that, folks, is exactly how you get the ultimate one who got away in the blink of an eye. Just two absolute idiots in love with each other.

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Freshman welcome night. Ryo went because of an invitation from the seniors. It was supposedly mandatory, but more importantly, there was beer like a lot of it. 

He wanted to drown himself in alcohol one last time before he locked in to study for real, and also to forget about his first love. 

He was fully expecting to find a new crush to distract himself??? Because yes, Sakuya Fujinaga is his first love. 

Obviously he is pathetically in love with the nerdy boy.

Ryo was speaking with some freshmen and seniors when he was cut off mid sentence because someone caught his eye.

The exact person he wants to forget the most was sitting right there!!!

He was shocked. Not in a way that you are shocked because you saw someone again and you thought they were dead. 

Shocked because Sakuya was there sitting completely engrossed with a notebook, scribbling away like his life depended on it. That part is nothing new. 

But Sakuya’s hair, his freaking hair is now ash gray and he is wearing contact lenses.

Ryo internally let out a raw, silent scream and thought to himself, fucking hell, he is so handsome? Also, what is he doing here? Is that the pink bunny charm? Is that my pen he is using?! Also, what is he writing? I'M SURE IT'S ABOUT FISHES.

For the record, Sakuya changed his hair simply because he felt like it. New university, new look. He just thought ash gray looked cool. There was no deep, hidden agenda behind it.

Meanwhile Sakuya is getting approached and has no idea why. It's the ash gray hair. It has to be the hair. People keep drifting toward the corner where Sakuya is sitting quietly with his notebook.

"Hey, haven't seen you around before," someone says.

"...okay," Sakuya replies.

"Can I get you something to drink?" another person asks.

"...sure."

Someone actually reaches out and touches his hair. "This color is so cool."

"...thanks."

Sakuya goes right back to writing about eels. Because yes, Ryo was right, he is writing about eels. He does not realize any of this is flirting. Not a single one.

Ryo is watching all of this from across the room.

Who are these people? Why are there so many of them? THEY JUST TOUCHED HIS HAIR. You don't know him. You don't know anything about him. He writes about fish and talks about fish all the time. He has a penguin keychain. He kept my pen for over a year. You think you can just walk up and touch him.

Ryo is already walking over. Very calmly. Smiling.

Sakuya doesn't notice until Ryo is standing right in front of him. "Hirose Ryo?" Sakuya’s eyes widen so big like an owl at night, almost gasping like he has seen a ghost.

Inside, Sakuya is having a massive breakdown. Seeing Ryo from across the room was one thing, but having him actually walk over and stand right in front of his table is a completely different reality.

Sakuya is now noticeably towering over Ryo, a stark change from high school when they stood eye-to-eye. Sakuya is suddenly hyper aware of his own heartbeat.

"Oh hi Fujinaga-kun," Ryo says while smirking. He feels like he won an Olympic gold medal. A final smile.

He sits down next to him. Shoulder to shoulder. He does not look at any of the other people.

"There you are," Ryo says.

Sakuya blinks.

"...I've been here the whole time."

"I know."

Ryo was so mad. Externally, completely chill. Internally, he was barely containing a surge of intense frustration.

Sakuya genuinely thought Ryo just wanted a place to sit down because he was tired. He did not register that Ryo inserted himself into a crowd of people trying to talk to him. 

But he absolutely registered the shoulder contact. Sakuya’s left side flushed hot where Ryo touched him. He was gripping his pink bunny pen so hard his knuckles were white.

He desperately wanted to just pack up his notebook, stand up, and run. Just sprint straight back to his dorm and hide under his blanket. But he couldn't do it. He was panicking, yes, but he was also overthinking. This is a completely new university. A new environment for both of them.

What if Ryo doesn't actually know anyone here yet? What if Ryo is just sitting here because he is lonely and I am the only familiar face he could find? I can't just abandon him in a room full of drinking strangers. That would be cruel. I have an obligation to stay. 

At least, that is the lie he is actively telling himself to justify why he hasn't moved an inch.

He aggressively flipped the page to the anglerfish section just to look busy. 

He risked one tiny, microscopic glance at Ryo out of the corner of his eye. Big mistake. Sakuya immediately snapped his gaze back to the paper while his brain just started repeating like a broken record. 

He is so pretty. Still pretty. And kind. Still pretty. Oh my god, HE IS PRETTY.

Ryo sat there for twenty minutes burning quietly. In his head, he was straight up killing people. He had 101 different scenarios drafted on how to violently get rid of every single person standing near their table.

At one point someone tried to continue the conversation and Ryo smiled at them so nicely, with such terrifying politeness, that they just awkwardly backed away and left.

Sakuya didn't notice that either. He was staring blindly at the anglerfish notes, gripping his pen, terrified that Ryo could hear how loud his heart was beating.

It gets to that late hour of the party where people start getting bold.

Ryo and Sakuya are still sitting shoulder to shoulder at that corner table. And honestly, their table has become the absolute gravitational center of the entire room. They are a deadly combination. You have Ryo, the undisputed golden boy who is effortlessly glowing and gorgeous. And right next to him is Sakuya with his new ash gray hair and contacts, looking like an accidental fashion model who just happens to be obsessed with marine biology.

They are basically the kings of the night. The entire party is captivated. Everyone keeps staring. Everyone keeps finding an excuse to walk past their table just to look at them.

Eventually, a pack of very charming, very insistent seniors manages to swarm them. They completely corner Ryo, hovering over his chair with total dedication.

"You shouldn't walk home alone," one senior says, leaning in a little too close to Ryo.

"We'll take you, it's honestly no trouble," another adds with a bright smile.

Ryo is laughing and waving them off. He is pretending to be significantly drunker than he actually is just to buy some time.

"Haha, I'm fine, really," Ryo says.

But internally, he is broadcasting a massive distress signal. Oh my god, Sakuya, please do something! 

Sakuya is sitting mere inches away. He has been eating chips and thinking about deep sea fish for the last hour while Ryo burned holes into the side of his head. 

But Sakuya finally registers the scene. He watches the seniors crowding Ryo. He sees Ryo's forced smile.

Something inside Sakuya's brain snapped. Sakuya’s control snapped. His focus went utterly blank.

He stands up from his chair.

"I KNOW WHERE HE LIVES."

Dead silence. The music keeps playing but the room feels completely, totally quiet. Everyone turns. Ryo turns. Sakuya turns his head and makes direct eye contact with Ryo.

FUN FACT!!! Sakuya does not know where Ryo lives. He has never known where Ryo lives. He has absolutely no earthly idea why he just yelled that at the top of his lungs.

Ryo stares at him, biting his lip so hard to keep from completely losing his mind.

"...okay," Ryo says softly.

Sakuya has committed. He cannot retreat. He absolutely will not retreat.

The seniors slowly disperse, realizing their window is permanently closed. Ryo immediately staggers out of his chair and leans heavily into Sakuya's space. It is a very convenient stagger. His timing is perfect.

"Fujinaga," Ryo slurs a little, resting his chin right by Sakuya's neck. "I don't feel so good."

Sakuya is still burning red from his outburst.

"...you're faking." He whispered.

Ryo leans his head a little closer.

"...a little."

Sakuya sighs. He turns his back and crouches down.

"...get on."

It is a piggyback ride. Ryo climbs on and immediately hides his enormous, victorious smile right against the back of Sakuya's shoulder.

The entire walk home is just blind panic. Sakuya navigates purely by guessing and hoping for the best. 

He just takes random turns, pretending he has a destination in mind so Ryo doesn't figure out he lied. He finally drops Ryo off at a building he guesses looks about right.

By some absolute miracle, it is the right building. Sakuya will count this as a major personal victory for the rest of his life.

They are standing at Ryo's door. The piggyback ride is over. Ryo has sobered up enough to be completely, one hundred percent lucid. 

He turns to face Sakuya, and something in the air physically shifts.

"Okay, you're home," Sakuya says, his voice a little tight. "I'm gonna go."

Ryo doesn't say anything. He just steps forward and kisses him.

It isn't brief. It is soft, and it lingers. Sakuya is now noticeably taller, requiring Ryo to lean up slightly to reach him. The absolute second their lips touch, a literal shock of electricity shoots straight through Sakuya's entire body. 

His brain completely flatlines. He forgets how to breathe. 

And honestly, Ryo isn't doing much better. He planned this, he thought he was being smooth, but his own heart is hammering out of his chest. 

He feels that exact same electric jolt racing through his veins, making his hands tremble just a tiny bit where they hover near Sakuya's waist.

It is incredibly, terrifyingly intentional.

Sakuya just stands there, completely frozen.

"...goodnight, Fujinaga," Ryo says quietly.

Sakuya turns around and walks home on pure autopilot. He does not remember a single second of the journey back to his dorm.

Ryo knew exactly what he was doing. Ryo does not do things by accident. But Sakuya is going to spend the next week actively convincing himself that it meant absolutely nothing.

Later that night, Sakuya's phone buzzes. It is a text from an unsaved number. Sakuya has no idea how Ryo got it, but he probably just pulled it from the freshman group chat. The text is just an address. No words. Just the exact address of the building he dropped Ryo off at.

Sakuya stares at the glowing screen for exactly eight minutes. Then he saves the contact name as "ryo (left)" because left is the direction he turned at the final street corner. He is behaving completely normally.

It is 2 AM. Sakuya is lying in his bed. His fish posters are staring down at him from the walls. The penguin plushie on his desk is judging him silently in the dark.

"He was probably still drunk," Sakuya whispers to the ceiling.

He rolls over.

"He's just like that. He's kind." He repeats again until his brain believes that is true. 

He pulls the blanket up to his chin.

"I shouldn't read into it. I won't read into it."

Sakuya proceeds to stare at the ceiling for four straight hours, doing absolutely nothing but reading into it. He has an entire encyclopedia of marine biology stored in his brain, and he cannot read exactly one human being.

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Meanwhile, Ryo is absolutely not fine either.

He is currently roaming the campus, casually asking every mutual acquaintance he can find about one specific fish obsessed freshman. This requires an insane amount of effort because Ryo is a Law major. His classes are on the exact opposite side of the campus from the Marine Biology department. He has zero logical reason to be anywhere near the science labs.

"Fujinaga," Ryo casually asks a guy in the courtyard. "Ash gray hair, marine bio major. Does he come to these things often?"

The guy squints. "You mean the handsome genius fish guy?"

"I just want to make sure he got home okay that night," Ryo says smoothly.

Internally, his brain is screaming. I need to find him. Why won't people just give me his exact daily schedule?

Also, Ryo had Sakuya's phone number now. He knew exactly who had texted him the dorm address the night of the party. But Ryo also knew that if he just texted Sakuya out of nowhere, Sakuya’s flight response would instantly kick in and he would probably throw his phone into the ocean. A text was too easy to ignore. Ryo needed to corner him in person

(For the record, Ryo was looking for Sakuya specifically.)

Then comes the reunion.

It happens in the campus library. Sakuya is sitting at a secluded table, completely surrounded by open textbooks on cephalopod biology. The penguins keychain are dangling off his backpack. He is entirely unaware of everything happening around him.

Ryo walks in. He spots the ash gray hair. He stops completely.

There he is. Finally.

Ryo has been the center of attention his entire life. People constantly want things from him. But Sakuya is the only person who ever looked at him like he was just a normal person. Back in high school, Sakuya was the only one who talked to him, not at him. 

He didn't talk to Hirose Ryo the untouchable golden boy. He just talked to Ryo. Ryo has been sitting with that realization for months, turning it over and over in his head until it basically consumed him.

Ryo walks over and sits down right across from him. He leans back casually, acting exactly as if his heart isn't currently doing something deeply embarrassing inside his ribcage.

"Hey," Ryo says. "Nice to see you here."

Ryo is actively trying not to grin. He is completely failing.

Sakuya blinks and looks up from his textbook. The penguin keychains swings against the table. The moment just breathes.

"...hi."

Sakuya stares at him. He looks at Ryo, then looks at the giant textbook about squid anatomy on the table, and his brain immediately starts working overtime to find a logical explanation for this.

He must be lost, Sakuya thinks. The law building is a twenty minute walk from here. He probably got turned around looking for the constitutional history section and ended up in marine invertebrates. I should offer him a campus map. That is the only rational explanation for why he is sitting here smiling at me.

Sakuya is genuinely preparing to tear a piece of paper from his notebook to draw a map.

Meanwhile, Ryo is not lost. Ryo has never been less lost in his entire life. He literally crossed the entire campus on purpose just to hunt down this specific table. 

He is sitting there absolutely overjoyed, radiating pure unfiltered happiness just to be breathing the same library air as the guy who is currently ignoring him for a squid.

It is their exact dynamic perfectly summed up at one table. Ryo is completely, hopelessly gone for him, and Sakuya is too busy looking for a logical explanation to realize that he is the explanation.

In hindsight, Ryo’s past self looked like an absolute idiot.

He thought he was doing the right thing back then. He thought that if he was just patient, if he just gave Sakuya space, eventually Sakuya would realize Ryo wasn't a threat and come out of his shell. He thought leaving things alone was the respectful thing to do.

He was completely wrong. Patience gets you nothing. Patience gets you a stolen pen and a whole lot of regrets. College Ryo is not making that mistake again.

The first thing Ryo has to deal with is the absolute, massive shift in their social dynamics. College changed the hierarchy completely. Back in high school, Ryo was untouchable. Everyone knew him. Everyone wanted to be near him. 

But in college, Ryo is just another stressed out law major drowning in readings about property disputes. Nobody treats him like a god anymore. He is just a normal guy trying to pass his classes, and he actually prefers it this way.

Sakuya, however, had the exact opposite trajectory.

Because of his new look, Sakuya accidentally became the main character of the campus. The college crowd does not see a weird nerd. They see a mysterious, effortlessly cool guy who is seemingly too good for everyone. Sakuya became instantly popular overnight. 

People constantly stop him in the hallways. Upperclassmen try to buy him drinks. People literally asks marine biology questions just to speak to him.

And Sakuya is completely, hopelessly oblivious to all of it. He genuinely thinks people just really want to know about some fish species.

Ryo watches this happen and his blood pressure hits the ceiling. He went from being the popular guy to being the guy silently glaring at everyone who breathes near Sakuya. 

He realizes he cannot wait around anymore. If he waits, one of these brave upperclassmen is going to snatch Sakuya right out from under him.

So Ryo makes his move.

He figures out Sakuya's schedule. Sakuya always goes to the fourth floor of the main campus library to study in the corner by the large windows. So, Ryo completely abandons the law building.

The law library has ergonomic chairs, better lighting, and all the actual textbooks he needs to pass his degree. Ryo does not care. He starts dragging ten pounds of constitutional law books across the entire campus every single afternoon just to sit at Sakuya’s table.

At first, Sakuya tries to rationalize it. He tells himself the air conditioning in the law building must be broken. He tells himself Ryo just prefers the natural lighting on this side of the campus.

But by the third week, Sakuya runs out of rationalizations. Ryo is just there. Every day. He sits down, drops his massive textbooks on the table, and smiles.

"Hey," Ryo says.

"...hi."

Ryo does not push. He just sits there and studies. But he makes sure his knee accidentally bumps against Sakuya’s knee under the table. Smooth. 

Every single time it happened, Sakuya’s composure shattered, leaving his mind a blank static. He stares blankly at a diagram of a jellyfish while his entire left leg feels like it is on fire. 

He spends twenty minutes trying to figure out if he should move his leg away. But if he moves his leg away, Ryo might think he is disgusted. So Sakuya just leaves his leg there, sweating profusely, gripping his pink bunny pen like a lifeline.

The tension builds for weeks until it finally snaps over a plastic bottle.

Ryo shows up to the library on a Tuesday and places a cold bottle of peach tea directly next to Sakuya’s notebook.

Sakuya looks at the bottle. It is his absolute favorite drink in the world. He looks at Ryo, completely bewildered.

He doesn't know that Ryo was standing behind him in the cafeteria checkout line three days ago. 

Ryo watched Sakuya debate between apple juice and peach tea for two whole minutes before finally picking the peach. 

Ryo filed that information away in his brain immediately, because Ryo pays a terrifying amount of attention to everything Sakuya does.

Sakuya takes the bottle. His fingers brush against the cold plastic.

"...thank you. You didn't have to."

"I wanted to," Ryo says smoothly.

Sakuya’s cannot handle this. The proximity every day, the casual knee touching under the table, and now Ryo memorizing his drink preferences. 

It is entirely too much. His high school survival instincts kick into overdrive. Sakuya immediately starts packing up his bag.

"...I should go," Sakuya says, keeping his head down and shoving his notebook away. "...you probably want to study with your actual friends from the law department. I don't want to take up your space."

Ryo stops flipping the pages of his textbook. The polite smile drops from his face completely.

Ryo reaches out and lightly grabs Sakuya’s wrist. Just enough to stop him from zipping up his backpack.

Sakuya freezes. He looks at Ryo's hand, then up at Ryo's face.

"Sit down, Fujinaga," Ryo says. His voice is quiet but incredibly firm.

Sakuya slowly sits back down.

"Look at me," Ryo says.

Sakuya forces his eyes up. Ryo is looking at him with a level of intensity that makes Sakuya want to sink directly into the floorboards.

"You need to stop doing that," Ryo says. "You keep acting like you are not allowed to be near me. You keep acting like I am some untouchable guy from high school and you are just bothering me."

Sakuya swallows hard.

"...but you are."

"I am not," Ryo says flatly. "This is not high school anymore. Nobody here cares who I am. I am just a guy failing his tort law quizzes. You are the one getting stopped in the hallways every ten minutes by people trying to hit on you."

Sakuya blinks.

"...hit on me? No one is hitting on me. They just want to asks me questions."

Ryo stares at him. He literally has to take a deep breath to keep from yelling.

"Sakuya. They do not want your fun facts. You are practically the most popular guy on this campus right now. And I am just sitting here hoping you don't run away. We are on the same level. Honestly, you are probably out of my league at this point."

Sakuya's entire face flushed a deep scarlet. Did Ryo just call him Sakuya? Did Ryo just say he was out of his league?

"So stop running away from me," Ryo says, his voice softening. He finally lets go of Sakuya’s wrist. "I am sitting here because I want to sit with you. Only you. You can talk freely with me. You don't have to hide anymore."

Sakuya stares at the table. His heart is beating so fast he thinks he might actually go into cardiac arrest. He slowly unzips his backpack and takes his notebook back out.

"...okay."

Ryo smiles. A real, genuine smile this time.

That conversation changes everything. Ryo realizes that the only way to get Sakuya to truly open up and talk freely is to speak his language.

Ryo is a law student. He spends his days reading about criminal negligence. But at two in the morning in his dorm room, Ryo is watching National Geographic documentaries. He is reading Wikipedia articles about cephalopod defense mechanisms. He is studying marine biology harder than he studies for his actual degree.

He waits for the perfect moment. It happens on a rainy Thursday in that exact same library corner. Sakuya is looking particularly stressed over a massive textbook.

"Did you know," Ryo says casually, not looking up from his laptop, "that the Greenland shark can live for over four hundred years?"

Sakuya drops his pen.

The pink bunny charm hits the wooden table with a loud clack. Sakuya stares at Ryo.

"...what did you say."

"The Greenland shark," Ryo repeats. "They don't even reach maturity until they are a hundred and fifty years old. I read about it last night. Seems kind of lonely."

Sakuya’s brain reboots. The guy he has been crushing on for years just dropped a hyper specific marine biology fact into a casual conversation.

Sakuya cannot help himself. The floodgates open.

"They also have a very slow metabolism," Sakuya blurts out.

"Really?" Ryo says softly.

"Yes." Sakuya sits up straighter. "They swim incredibly slowly to conserve energy. And their meat is actually toxic if it isn't fermented properly."

Ryo rests his chin on his hand. He does not care about toxic shark meat. He only cares about the fact that Sakuya’s eyes are absolutely glowing right now. 

He cares about the way Sakuya’s hands are moving as he explains it. Ryo just stares directly at Sakuya’s lips while Sakuya talks for forty five straight minutes about Arctic marine life.

Sakuya thinks he is just having a deeply intellectual conversation with a curious peer.

Ryo thinks he is making absolute, undeniable progress.

Months go by like this. The progression is slow but steady. Ryo breaks down Sakuya’s defenses piece by piece until sitting together in the library becomes a mandatory routine. Walking home together becomes a mandatory routine.

Then the texting starts.

At first, Sakuya would take three hours to reply to a simple text. Sakuya would type out a response, delete it, type it again, and then ask his penguin plushie for advice before hitting send.

Now, Sakuya replies in ten minutes.

Sometimes, Sakuya even texts first. It is never anything romantic. It is usually a blurry picture of a strange crab he saw in a textbook with a caption that says "Look at the claws on this."

Ryo saves every single picture of every single weird crab to a hidden album on his phone. He treats those texts like absolute gold. He will be sitting in the middle of a serious law lecture, his phone will buzz with a picture of a sea cucumber, and Ryo will just smile like an overwhelmed, lovestruck idiot. 

His law friends think he is texting a supermodel. He is texting a guy who just learned how to use the jellyfish emoji.

The groundwork is officially laid.

Sakuya no longer jumps when Ryo sits next to him. Sakuya no longer tries to find logical excuses for why Ryo is around. 

Sakuya has accepted that Ryo is just a permanent fixture in his life. He still tells himself it is just Ryo being incredibly kind. 

He still goes back to his dorm every night, looks at his ceiling, and actively forces himself not to read into things.

But Ryo knows the truth.

Ryo is standing in his own dorm room, looking at himself in the mirror. He fixes his collar. He checks his phone. It is a Friday afternoon.

The infiltration phase is complete. He has successfully woven himself into every single part of Sakuya’s daily routine. 

He is no longer just the untouchable guy from high school. He is the guy who buys Sakuya peach tea and listens to him talk about sharks.

It is time to strike.

It is time to stop playing games, stop hiding behind library tables, and stop pretending this is just a really intense friendship.

Ryo grabs his keys. He walks out the door. He is going to go find his marine bio nerd, and he is going to ask him on an actual, undeniable, official date.

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

To understand how Ryo executes this Friday afternoon plan, you have to look at what his week actually looked like leading up to this moment.

Ryo has a massive midterm for his constitutional law class in exactly four days. He needs to memorize three different landmark court cases and write a ten page paper on property rights.

He spent the entire week with zero law documents open. Instead, he had fourteen different browser tabs open to the official website of the city aquarium. He researched every single aquarium within a thirty kilometer radius. 

He memorized the feeding schedules. He memorized the peak crowd hours. He figured out exactly which bus route has the least amount of walking distance to the front entrance. He completely ignored his degree to become a certified expert in local aquatic tourism.

Because Ryo does not leave things to chance. He leaves nothing to luck. He was always going to execute this perfectly.

Ryo walks straight across the campus, enters the library, and sits down at their usual table. He drops his textbooks. Sakuya is already there, highlighting a passage about deep ocean pressure zones.

Ryo leans back in his chair. He makes sure his posture is incredibly relaxed. He makes sure his voice sounds totally casual, like he just thought of this five seconds ago instead of planning it like a military operation.

"I was thinking of checking out that new deep sea exhibit this weekend," Ryo says smoothly. "You like fish, right?"

Sakuya drops his highlighter.

Sakuya's reaction was instantaneous.

"THE BIOLUMINESCENCE EXHIBIT?"

Sakuya does not whisper. He says it so loudly that a girl two tables away actually turns around to glare at them. 

Sakuya doesn't even notice her. He is staring at Ryo with his eyes completely blown wide behind his contact lenses.

"Yes," Sakuya says, his voice urgent. "Yes I want to go. When. Now?"

Ryo has to bite the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes copper just to stop himself from laughing out loud. He knew exactly what he was doing. 

He had the aquarium's special exhibit schedule completely memorized. He knew the bioluminescence tour was opening this weekend. This is not just a casual hangout, THIS IS A DATE IN HIS HEAD.

"We can go Saturday morning," Ryo smiles.

Sakuya nods rapidly. He looks like he might actually vibrate right out of his chair. He immediately opens his planner and writes the word AQUARIUM in huge, heavily underlined letters. 

Ryo's heart absolutely melted at the sight. He was so cute, Ryo thought, wishing he could just wrap Sakuya up and keep him forever.

Saturday morning arrives. And the absolute second they walk through the front glass doors of the aquarium building, Sakuya transforms into a completely different human being.

In normal college classes, Sakuya is incredibly quiet. He drops things. He forgets to make eye contact. If someone asks him a question, he will accidentally give a ten minute monologue about fish to an entirely uninterested person and then spend the rest of the day feeling embarrassed about it.

But at the aquarium, Sakuya is a god in his own domain.

The hesitation is completely gone. The awkwardness evaporates. Sakuya walks up to the first tank, slaps both hands against the thick acrylic glass, and immediately starts talking.

"Okay, okay, so this is the mimic octopus," Sakuya says, pointing at a strange lump of tentacles in the sand. "It doesn't just change color. It physically alters its shape to impersonate fifteen different toxic species. It can pretend to be a lionfish. It can pretend to be a sea snake. It is a master of psychological warfare."

Ryo is standing right next to him. Ryo has not stopped smiling since they got off the bus.

They walk to the next tank. It is filled with kelp.

"The leafy sea dragon," Sakuya announces, leaning so close to the glass his nose almost touches it. "Technically, it is a seahorse. But the camouflage is so advanced that predators just think it is floating seaweed. It relies entirely on being invisible."

Just like you tried to do, Ryo thinks fondly.

Ryo is not looking at the leafy sea dragon. He is not looking at the mimic octopus. He is looking entirely at Sakuya. Sakuya’s ash gray hair is catching the blue neon lights of the tanks. 

His eyes are bright and alive. He is talking with his hands, pointing at the coral, explaining water filtration systems with so much pure, unfiltered passion that it actually makes Ryo's chest ache.

Oh, Ryo thinks, his heart doing a very slow, heavy drop inside his ribs. This is just how he is. He is just like this.

It hits Ryo all at once. This is the real Sakuya. Unfiltered. Unpanicked. Completely in his element. Ryo feels an overwhelming, almost violent wave of affection wash over him. I want to stand next to this person forever.

They enter the bioluminescence room. It is completely dark except for the glowing neon blue and green lights radiating from the jellyfish tanks.

Ryo pulls out his phone. He pretends he is taking pictures of the jellyfish. 

He is absolutely not taking pictures of the jellyfish. He is taking photos of Sakuya. He takes a picture of Sakuya looking up at a giant glowing dome. He takes a picture of Sakuya’s profile illuminated by the neon blue water. 

Sakuya doesn't notice a single thing. He is currently having a deep, whispered conversation with a moon jellyfish.

Suddenly, Sakuya spots a sign on the far wall.

"RYO," Sakuya gasps. "THE PENGUINS. THIS WAY."

Before Ryo can even process the fact that Sakuya just yelled his first name in public, Sakuya reaches out and grabs Ryo's wrist.

Sakuya’s fingers wrap tightly around Ryo’s wrist, and he physically drags Ryo down the dark hallway.

Ryo’s mind went blank. His entire arm feels like it has been electrocuted. He stumbles after Sakuya, his heart hammering out a frantic rhythm against his ribcage.

Sakuya drags him for exactly five seconds. Then Sakuya’s brain seems to catch up to what his hand is doing.

Sakuya immediately lets go of Ryo’s wrist like he just touched a burning stove. He drops his hand to his side. He stops walking. 

The blue light from the tanks hides a lot of things, but it does not hide the fact that Sakuya’s ears and neck have just turned a violent shade of crimson. 

Sakuya goes completely, totally quiet. He stares rigidly straight ahead.

Ryo is standing behind him, clutching his own wrist, actively trying to remember how human lungs work.

I cannot, Ryo thinks, staring at the back of Sakuya’s red neck. This is too much. I am going to spontaneously combust right here in the marine biology exhibit.

They finally make it to the penguin enclosure.

It is a massive artificial ice habitat. There are dozens of penguins waddling around, diving into the freezing water, and squawking loudly.

Normally, this is the part where Sakuya would start dropping intense facts about feather density and subzero hunting tactics. But Sakuya says nothing.

One full minute passes. Silence.

Two full minutes pass. Absolute silence.

Ryo looks over. Sakuya is standing completely still, staring at the artificial snow. He looks incredibly suspicious. His jaw is locked tight. His breathing is shallow.

Slowly, almost comically, Sakuya reaches his hand into the pocket of his oversized jacket.

Ryo watches him. He thinks Sakuya might be reaching for his phone, or maybe a notebook to write down an observation.

Sakuya pulls his hand out of his pocket. He turns to Ryo. He still refuses to make eye contact. He is staring fixedly at a spot somewhere near the laces of Ryo’s left shoe.

Sakuya reaches out and grabs Ryo’s hand. He turns Ryo’s hand palm up.

And then, Sakuya places a rock in the center of Ryo’s palm.

It is a small, perfectly smooth, dark gray stone. It has clearly been washed and polished. It is completely flawless.

Ryo stares down at the rock in his hand. He has absolutely no idea what is happening.

Sakuya takes a deep, shaky breath.

"...penguins give rocks to their chosen mate."

Ryo stops breathing.

"It is a sign of affection," Sakuya whispers to Ryo’s shoe. "It means commitment."

Sakuya’s entire face is so red it looks like it might actually catch fire. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

"...and it is a proposal."

Sakuya Fujinaga just proposed to him with a rock.

A literal rock. Sakuya studied penguin mating behaviors, retrieved the most perfect, symmetrical pebble he had kept safe for the past year, put it in his pocket, and brought it to an aquarium to formally present it to the guy he likes.

His ability to form a coherent thought was currently zero.

Ryo stares at the smooth stone in his palm. Then he looks up at Sakuya’s violently red ears. Then he looks back down at the rock. Then he looks at Sakuya’s locked jaw. Then he looks back at the rock.

A sound escapes Ryo’s throat. It starts as a quiet exhale, and then it bubbles up into a laugh.

He starts laughing. It is not a mocking laugh. It is the most overwhelmed, fond, desperately affectionate laugh he has ever produced in his life. 

He laughs so hard he actually has to cover his mouth with his free hand. He feels his eyes getting hot. He is actually getting a little teary. 

He has never been more deeply charmed by another human being on the planet.

"Fujinaga," Ryo breathes out, his voice shaking with pure fondness.

Sakuya finally looks up. He looks terrified. He thinks he made a mistake.

But then Sakuya sees Ryo’s face. Ryo’s face is entirely, devastatingly soft. The polite mask is completely gone. The cool, untouchable golden boy is nowhere to be found. Ryo just looks like a boy who is completely, hopelessly in love.

Ryo steps forward. He does not ask for permission this time.

Ryo kisses him.

It is not like the quick, brief kiss at the dorm door. This is proper. This is slow, and deep, and completely deliberate. Ryo reaches up to accommodate their height difference and cups the side of Sakuya’s jaw, his thumb brushing right over the pulse point on Sakuya’s neck, which is currently beating frantically. Sakuya gasps softly against Ryo’s mouth, his hands coming up to grip the front of Ryo’s jacket to keep his balance.

Ryo kisses him until the rest of the aquarium completely fades away. He kisses him until Sakuya’s knees go weak. And the entire time, Ryo is gripping that smooth gray rock in his other hand like it is the most valuable diamond in the world.

He will never let that rock leave his possession. From this day forward, it will live permanently in his jacket pocket. He will never tell anyone what it means. But he will never, ever put it down.

Ryo finally pulls back. They are both breathing heavily. They are standing in front of the penguin enclosure, surrounded by screaming children and loud birds, just staring at each other.

Ryo searches Sakuya's face, seeing the sheer, dazed wonder there. He leans in again, pressing a second, firm kiss to Sakuya's lips—a silent confirmation that this is real, that he isn't letting go.

 When he pulls away this time, Sakuya doesn't just stand there. The realization finally clicked: all the years of quiet, agonizing longing had been mutual. 

Sakuya reaches out, his fingers tangling in the front of Ryo's jacket, and leans down to meet him, initiating a third kiss that is clumsy, desperate, and filled with the relief of a thousand unspoken words.

When they eventually break apart, Ryo is beaming. His laughter bubbles up again, bright and echoing off the acrylic tanks, fueled by the pure absurdity of how long they both waited.

Sakuya, flushed and still slightly out of breath, looks at Ryo with wide, searching eyes. "...so what does that make us," Sakuya asks quietly.

Ryo stares at him for two seconds. And then Ryo starts laughing again. He throws his head back and laughs, a bright, echoing sound that bounces off the acrylic tanks.

Sakuya immediately panics.

He is laughing, Sakuya thinks wildly. He is laughing at the question. That means rejection. I just did a formal penguin proposal, we kissed for a solid minute, and now I am being laughed at. I miscalculated the entire interaction. I need to move to the bottom of the ocean.

Sakuya. Sakuya Fujinaga. He had kissed this man twice. He had given him a literal rock. What did he honestly think the answer was? That frantic, overthinking part of his brain simply would not stop.

Ryo sees the absolute terror dawn on Sakuya’s face and immediately stops laughing. He reaches out and grabs Sakuya’s hand, the one that isn't holding the rock, and squeezes it tight.

Ryo's face shifts. The humor fades away, leaving something incredibly raw and quiet behind. He pulls Sakuya a little closer, leading him over to a wooden bench sitting in the shadows near the back of the penguin room.

They sit down. Ryo does not let go of Sakuya’s hand.

Ryo looks down at their joined hands. He takes a slow, deep breath.

"...you know I liked you first, right."

Sakuya freezes entirely.

"...what."

"High school," Ryo says softly. He looks up and meets Sakuya’s eyes. "I liked you first. Long before we ever talked."

Sakuya just stares at him. The aquarium noise seems to completely vanish.

"You used to look at me like I was just a person," Ryo explains. His voice is barely above a whisper.

 "Everyone else looked at me like I was a trophy. They looked at me like I was unreachable, the newspaper headline, the perfect student council guy. They talked at me. They wanted things from me."

Ryo rubs his thumb over Sakuya’s knuckles.

"But you didn't. You just looked at me. Not the newspaper thing. Not the photo. Just me. Nobody else did that. Sakuya, nobody else treated me like a normal human being."

Sakuya is very, very still. He is barely breathing.

"I had a massive crush on you," Ryo confesses, a small, self deprecating smile pulling at his lips. "I didn't even know your name for like a month. I just knew you were the quiet guy with the glasses who actually saw me. I tried to talk to you. I tried to join your club."

Ryo pauses. He looks away, watching a penguin dive into the water.

"And then I thought about it," Ryo says quietly. "I thought, what would someone like me want with the fish guy."

Sakuya flinches slightly.

"No, wait," Ryo says quickly, squeezing Sakuya’s hand. "Not like that. I meant... I thought I was too fake for you. Sakuya, you are so genuine. You care so much about the things you love. You don't hide it. And I was just this PR machine running around school, smiling at people I didn't care about, pretending to be perfect."

Ryo looks back at Sakuya, his eyes incredibly sad.

"I told myself it didn't make sense. I told myself a guy as genuine as you would never want someone as fake as me. I thought I ruined your quiet world. So I told myself to let it go and just move on."

Ryo laughs softly. It sounds a little broken.

"And then you showed up at the exact same college, with ash gray hair, looking so beautiful it actually made me angry, and you just handed me a rock."

Ryo shakes his head.

"I almost gave up because I thought I wasn't good enough for you, but good thing I didn’t."

Sakuya sits there in absolute silence for a long, heavy moment. His brain is processing years of data all at once. Ryo liked him. Ryo thought he was fake. Ryo thought he wasn't good enough.

Sakuya slowly pulls his hand out of Ryo’s grip.

Ryo immediately looks panicked, like he pushed too far.

But Sakuya just reaches into his jacket pocket again. He pulls out a worn, slightly faded pink object.

He sets the pink bunny pen on the wooden bench between them.

Ryo stares at it.

"...you thought you didn't make sense to me?" Sakuya asks. His voice is shaking, but he forces himself to keep looking directly into Ryo’s eyes.

"Sakuya..."

"I forgot every fish fact I knew when I first saw you," Sakuya says.

Ryo’s mouth opens slightly.

"I was standing in the hallway," Sakuya continues, his face burning but his voice steady. "You walked past me, and my brain went completely blank. For three whole seconds, I did not know what a shark was. I did not know what water was. I just knew that I was looking at the brightest thing I had ever seen in my life."

Ryo just stares at him, completely paralyzed.

"And you thought I thought you were fake?" Sakuya shakes his head. "I never thought you were fake. I just thought you looked really, really tired."

Ryo’s breath hitches. He goes very quiet. Nobody had ever noticed he was tired. Everyone just saw the smile. Only Sakuya saw the exhaustion underneath it.

"I kept the pen," Sakuya whispers, gesturing to the plastic bunny. "I bought ink refills for it multiple times. I kept it in my chest pocket every single day until graduation. I carried it like a secret because I thought you were so far out of my league that keeping a stolen piece of plastic was the only thing I was allowed to have."

Ryo reaches out and touches the pink bunny charm. His fingers are actually trembling.

"Sakuya," Ryo breathes.

"There is something else," Sakuya says. He looks down at his lap. He is gripping his own knees so hard his knuckles are white. "You think it is a coincidence that we ended up at the same college."

Ryo blinks. "It isn't?"

Sakuya shakes his head slowly.

"In our third year of high school," Sakuya confesses, his voice dropping to a guilty whisper. "I went to the faculty room to drop off a biology report. The teacher wasn't there. But there was a stack of college applications sitting on the desk."

Ryo’s eyes widen. He realizes exactly where this is going.

"Your application was on top," Sakuya says. "I didn't mean to look. I really didn't. But I saw your name. And I saw the university you were applying to."

Sakuya finally looks up at Ryo.

"I had already filled out my forms for a different school," Sakuya admits. "A school closer to the ocean. But I went home that night, and I threw my forms in the trash. I rewrote my entire application. I applied to this university instead."

Ryo is absolutely speechless.

"I didn't even plan to talk to you here," Sakuya says, looking absolutely miserable with his own confession. "I just... I just wanted to be in the same place as you. I just wanted to see you walk across the courtyard sometimes. I changed my entire life path just for the possibility of breathing the same air as you."

Sakuya reaches up and rubs the bridge of his nose out of pure muscle memory, completely forgetting he is wearing contacts instead of his old heavy glasses.

"You thought you were the one chasing me," Sakuya whispers. "But I literally followed you here. I am pathetic."

Ryo stares at him.

That is possibly the most romantic, insane, unhinged thing anyone has ever said to him. 

Sakuya Fujinaga, the quiet fish nerd, threw away his ocean university plans just to secretly follow Ryo, and then spent an entire year pretending it was an accident.

Ryo gave up in high school because he thought it didn't make sense. Sakuya forgot what fish were and stalked him to college. They are the exact same. They are both completely, hopelessly unhinged about each other, and neither of them knew.

Two absolute idiots who assumed the other one was out of reach.

Ryo looks at Sakuya, who is currently staring at the floor, waiting to be called a creep.

Ryo doesn't call him a creep. Ryo slides across the wooden bench, closing the distance between them entirely. He wraps both arms around Sakuya and pulls him into a massive, crushing hug.

Sakuya gasps, his cheek pressed hard against Ryo’s shoulder.

"You are a genius," Ryo whispers into Sakuya’s ash gray hair. He is laughing again, but this time he is definitely crying a little bit. He buries his face in Sakuya’s neck. "You are an absolute genius. Thank god you looked at that desk."

Sakuya’s tense shoulders finally, slowly drop. He tentatively brings his arms up and wraps them around Ryo’s waist. He holds on tight.

"So," Ryo whispers, pulling back just enough to look Sakuya in the eyes. Ryo reaches into his pocket and pulls out the smooth gray stone, holding it up between them. "Just to be perfectly clear. Since I accepted the rock proposal. This makes you my boyfriend. Right?"

Sakuya’s ears turn bright red again, but he doesn't look away this time.

He looks at the rock. He looks at the pink bunny pen on the bench. And then he looks at Ryo’s face, which is no longer tired, no longer fake, just completely, genuinely happy.

"...right," Sakuya says softly.

Ryo smiles. It is the brightest thing Sakuya has ever seen. Ryo leans in and kisses him one more time, right there in the dark, while the penguins squawk in the background.

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

The world didn't actually end when Ryo accepted the rock, which was shocking. The apocalypse Sakuya had planned for, the one involving him moving to a remote deep-sea trench to become one with the anglerfish, was officially canceled.

What followed was a complete, agonizing period of adjustment. They were boyfriends. Two absolute idiots in love, and now, officially, two idiots in a relationship for the first time.

The ride home from the aquarium was one of the strangest periods of silence in their entire relationship history. That was saying something, given the years of mutual, agonizing avoidance. They were now officially in love, which only made their communication worse.

Sakuya sat on the bus, a human statue gripping his backpack straps, his ears still burning a shade of violent crimson over the fact that he'd proposed with a rock. Ryo, meanwhile, occasionally touched the smooth gray stone in his pocket just to confirm the entire, unhinged sequence hadn’t been a shared hallucination.

Their fingers eventually found each other, a clumsy, nervous entanglement of knuckles and palms, like two survivors who had just barely clawed their way out of a shipwreck and needed physical proof they were still alive.

The first few weeks were a fumbling disaster. They had no idea what to do. Ryo, the man who effortlessly negotiated with professors and administrators, was now utterly paralyzed by the simple act of holding hands in public. 

They approached the role of "partner" with the same intense, almost clinical focus they applied to their majors, resulting in a strange mix of meticulous planning and pure, helpless fluff.

Ryo showed up to Sakuya’s dorm not with flowers, but with a cooling face mask and a pair of utterly ridiculous, glittery, hot pink star-shaped hair clips.

"This is not happening," Sakuya muttered, sitting ramrod straight on the bed, his ash-gray hair already clipped back like a four-year-old on a spa day.

"It's happening," Ryo whispered back, carefully applying a generous layer of avocado mask to Sakuya's cheekbones.

The law student, who cited obscure constitutional law cases in his sleep, was now entirely focused on securing a small plastic star above Sakuya's eyebrow. Sakuya, whose brain housed an encyclopedia of marine biology, could only feel the gentle pressure of Ryo's fingers. It was a terrifying, intimate level of attention. Every time Ryo’s hands brushed his skin, Sakuya's entire body would seize up.

You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen and you are putting a star on my head. I’m going to die.

Their kisses were a testament to their mutual inexperience. A perfect blend of passion and dental injury. A clash of teeth, a missed angle, sometimes a near-battering of glasses (Ryo quickly learned to ask Sakuya to remove them beforehand). But every awkward contact was followed by a soft, breathless laugh that felt infinitely better than any practiced, perfect intimacy.

One night, Ryo tried to hold Sakuya’s hand while they walked to the cafeteria. Sakuya stiffened completely, his brain instantly searching for a rational, logical reason for the physical contact.

Is he trying to prevent me from falling? Does he think the pavement is slippery? Is this an emergency protocol? His frantic internal logic nearly ruined the moment until Ryo just squeezed his hand hard, leaned in, and whispered, "Just stop thinking for two seconds, Fujinaga. You’ll give yourself a legal aneurysm."

Sakuya squeezed back, his heart doing a chaotic drum solo, and decided Ryo was the one person in the world who could command his brain to simply stop.

As finals approached, Ryo’s dorm became their shared war room. Ryo was terrified of failing the class his entire family pedigree hinged on, and Sakuya was terrified of failing any subject that might keep him from the deep ocean.

When Ryo’s eyes began to glaze over from citing the Rule Against Perpetuities, Sakuya would wordlessly move over to the bed. 

Straddling the mattress behind Ryo, he would massage his perpetually tense shoulders, leaning down to recite a calming marine biology fact: how sea otters hold hands while they sleep so they don't drift apart, or the complex, necessary chaos of a coral ecosystem.

Ryo would lean back into the touch, pulling Sakuya’s hand to his lips. It was a gesture of profound gratitude. He was rejuvenated by the steady presence of the boy who had followed him across the country.

One particularly stressful afternoon, Ryo was reviewing his property law notes. "I don’t get it," he groaned, rubbing his temples. "This case is about adverse possession. It’s boring and morally gray, like deciding who gets to keep a piece of land they technically stole."

Sakuya took the binder from him, skimming the details. "Wait, this is about boundaries, right? About who gets to keep what they care about by consistently showing up for it?" Ryo nodded, exhausted.

Sakuya smiled faintly, tracing a diagram of a deep-sea trench on his own notebook. "This isn't boring, Ryo. This is about defining territory and defending your space, which is basically the ocean floor. The trenches are like deep-sea contracts, defining where you can swim and where you’ll face the crushing, existential pressure of someone else’s life. You’re not reading about boring property lines. You're reading about survival and absolute commitment."

Ryo stared at him. The realization hit him like a tidal wave. Sakuya had just articulated the emotional core of property law more clearly than any professor. Sakuya could translate the cold, logical world of Ryo’s studies into something fiercely emotional and alive.

Ryo reached across the desk and took Sakuya’s hand, the small, smooth rock pressing into his palm from Ryo’s jacket pocket. "You make this make sense," Ryo whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

"You make me make sense." Sakuya squeezed his hand back, his thumb tracing the tiny chip on the ear of the pink bunny pen lying on the desk. "You do the same for me," Sakuya admitted. "I talk about fish, and you hear a genius. I give you a rock, and you hear a promise. You make the complicated, terrifying things, like this whole mess, simple, Ryo."

They were stressed, they were tired, and they were hopelessly inexperienced, but they were finally, truly, in it together.

Later that night, as the adrenaline of their study session began to fade into a comfortable, sleepy silence, Ryo watched Sakuya’s flushed profile. He thought about the way his own name had sounded slipping past Sakuya's lips earlier. 

It made him realize that the last stubborn piece of their high-school formality still lingered between them, acting as a polite barrier they no longer needed.

"We need to talk about something," Ryo said, closing his property law textbook and turning his body fully toward Sakuya.

Sakuya's ears instantly turned pink. "About what?"

"About names," Ryo clarified, his voice warm. "We only use each other's first names during high-stakes emotional situations. You called me 'Ryo' when we saw the penguins. I called you 'Sakuya' when I was demanding you sit down. And you just used it again when we were talking about the notes. It’s not much of a boyfriend routine to treat our first names like emergency flare guns."

"And you call me 'Fujinaga' when you're trying to scold me," Sakuya retorted softly, though his entire face was heating up. "I can't just casually say 'Ryo.' It feels... too much. Like a major turn-on. My entire nervous system short-circuits."

Ryo's eyes widened slightly before a laugh escaped him, bright and echoing softly in the late-night quiet. He reached out and gently brushed his fingers over Sakuya’s burning cheek. "That's exactly why we need to practice, Sakuya. We are trying to overload your nervous system on purpose."

Sakuya swallowed, looking at the carpet, completely flustered. "Fine," he muttered, quickly standing up to grab his backpack. "We will practice. But only once a night. And only when we are saying goodbye."

Ryo smiled, a slow, utterly smitten look. "Duly noted. Contract terms accepted."

The clock on Ryo’s desk read midnight. Sakuya needed to leave before he missed the curfew for his own dorm. He gathered his notebooks, the pink bunny pen tucked safely away, while Ryo walked him to the door.

Sakuya paused at the threshold, his gaze fixed on the hinges. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ryo," he said, the name still feeling immense and forbidden in his mouth.

Ryo's neck instantly flushed deep red. The use of his first name, not in a moment of panic but here, quietly and deliberately, was a physical shock.

"Yeah," Ryo managed, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. He leaned against the door frame, watching Sakuya fidget. "Goodnight, Sakuya."

Sakuya’s entire face turned a violent scarlet. Hearing his own name spoken so softly, so possessively, by Ryo—it hit him with the force of a physical jolt. 

He nodded once, unable to speak, and quickly slipped out the door.

Ryo stood there for a full minute, leaning his head against the wood, a victorious, utterly smitten smile on his face.

And to sum these all up… finally!!! They had successfully navigated years of miscommunication and the terrifying, uncharted waters of their first love.

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Sakuya Fujinaga was screaming his head off on his pillow when he went home to his dorm. 

He had walked into his room, locked the door, dropped his backpack right on the floor, and immediately face-planted onto his bed, and he was just absolutely losing his mind, screaming into the fabric until his lungs burned.

For what reason?

Uhm.. Well…

“We can go Saturday morning.”

WELL THAT WAS THE REASON.

Sakuya flipped over onto his back, gasping for air, staring wildly at the ceiling of his dorm. He was basically trying to process the information little by little. He needed to keep his wall of boundary so he wouldn’t look into it too much. 

Because Sakuya is a Marine Biology major. He is a man of science and he deals with data. He needed to look at the objective facts of the situation. 

Fact number one: Hirose-kun asked me to go to the new bioluminescence exhibit.

Fact number two: We are going to an aquarium. ON SATURDAY.

But his big brain simply couldn’t fathom this information. The logic was completely failing. The math is not even mathing. The more he thought about the casual effortless way Ryo had leaned back in his library and dropped that sentence, the more he panicked.

Oh my god, Sakuya thought, his eyes wide behind his contact lenses. Hirose-kun literally asked me to go out with him? 

Wait, wait, no, no, that’s impossible, his brain desperately supplied, trying to build that mental boundary like a firewall. This is for research purposes. Yes. That’s literally it. He is a law student. He probably just wants to broaden his horizons because of some environmental law class. Yes, it for education purposes. Two peers, we are just two university students analyzing the whole aquarium. JUST COMPLETELY PLATONIC.

(Okay, Sakuya convince yourself more, whatever…🙄🙄🙄)

He took a deep breath. Okay, he was calm. He was completely fine. 

Then the second wave hit him so hard. 

Wait… He didn’t invite anyone else. He didn’t say WE SHOULD GET A GROUP TOGETHER. He said WE just him and me. Wait, he doesn’t even have a permanent friend group here at university? Cause he is always here at the Marine Biology department. OH MY FUCKING GOD.

Sakuya shot up into a sitting position pointing an accusatory finger at his empty room.

“It’s just going to be the two of us!” Sakuya whispered-yelled. He grabbed his own hair, “OH MY GOD, THAT’S SO GAY.”

He jumped off the bed and started pacing the narrow strip of the floor between his desk and his cabinet. He was completely spiraling. His mental fence was destroyed. 

“It’s a date,” Sakuya muttered, his breathing getting shallow. He started pacing faster, almost jogging in place. “He literally asked me on a date. We are going to be in a dark room looking at the glowing things. What if… what if he tries to hold my hand?”

Sakuya stopped dead in his tracks. He stared down at his own hands like they were not his. 

“NO, NO HE WON’T DO THAT,” Sakuya said out loud, aggressively shaking his head to rattle the thought out of his not so stupid head, “He is Hirose Ryo. Why would he want to hold my hand? My hands literally always smell like fish food! Who wants to hold hands with someone who smells like algae? This is just a FRIEND DAY, i am just projecting. I am actively projecting my own delusions.”

But the memory of Ryo grabbing his wrist in the library flared in his mind. 

The way Ryo had looked at him. Sakuya grabbed fistfuls of his hair again, his internal temperature rising to dangerous levels. Sakuya’s blabbering went into an overdrive. 

“What should I give him?!” Sakuya kept blabbering, doing a tight circle around his desk chair. “I have to give him something, right? It’s an aquarium! Should I confess my feelings?! SHOULD I DO IT?!”

His brain immediately supplied the penguin fact. The rock. He had been keeping that deranged hyper-specfic proposal idea locked in the vault of his mindd for years, a completely absurd backup plan for a scenario he never believed would actually happen.

ERROR. ERROR. 

Sakuya’s internal servers were completely crashing. A literal blue screen of death behind his eyes. This was a lot to take in a for a boy who just knows how to take care of fishes all of his life. He knew the perfect pH levels for fishes. He knows how to fix a broken aerator tube, fundamentally did not know how to handle the most handsome guy on an aquarium date. Ironic, right?

The sheer exhaustion of his own overthinking finally won. 

GAY PANIC is a physically draining activity. 

Sakuya slumped back onto his bead, pulled his heavy blanket all the way over his head to hide from the world, and just let the darkness and quiet take him. He felt his eyes heavy.. And then the scenery shifted just immediately. 

It wasn’t a nice peaceful one.

This is the memory that he wants to forget the most.

He was seventeen again. It was graduation day. 

The late afternoon sun was hitting the dust in the air, painting the school in that hollow golden light. He was standing alone in the aquarium club room. The room smelled exactly like low tide just like it always did. 

This was exactly the day he ran from Ryo.

Sakuya was breathing hard, staring blankly at the glass of tanks. He had sneaked back into the club room right after his massive panic attack in the bathroom stall just to say a final goodbye to the fishes before he left this school forever.

But he remembered how he was not brave enough to face Ryo just an hour ago in the hallway. Ryo had just wanted to say goodbye. Ryo even had brought a gift, that plastic bag of specialized fish flakes, and he had seen it sitting abandoned by the door, and Sakuya didn’t even listen to what he was going to say. 

Sakuya had just seen the school’s heartthrob, panicked, and bolted like an absolute coward. :( 

He was full of regret. Just an absolute suffocating weight of regret pressing down his chest that he could barely breathe. He had ruined his last chance, his anxiety had won, and now Ryo was gone forever. 

Full of that crushing sadness, Sakuya walked over to the clownfish tank. This was the tank he had bought himself, with his own money when he first started the club. 

He rolled up his sleeve and reached his hand right into the cool water. The little orange and white fishes swam around his fingers like his little puppies, but Sakuya ignored them and reached all the way down to the sandy bottom.

His fingers closed around a specific rock. He pulled it out. It was smooth, dark gray, and perfectly round. 

Sakuya stood there, holding the wet rock in his palm, watching the water drip into the floor. He started talking to the fishes, just like any normal day. 

“Did you know,” Sakuya whispered to the clownfish. His voice sounded small, pathetic, and completely broken in the empty room. “Did you know that Gentoo and Adélie penguins don’t build nests out of twigs?”

The fishes doesn’t care. They just keep swimming in circles.

“They used rocks,” Sakuya continued, his voice starting to shake violently. “The male penguin will search the entire beach. He will look at the thousands of stones. And he will find the absolute smoothest, most perfect rock. And he will bring it to the penguin he likes.”

A hot tear spilled over his thick eye glasses and splashed onto the wet stone. Then another. And another.

Sakuya started crying because he was so scared, he was so scared to admit that he wanted Ryo so badly. All he could think about was Ryo while holding the rock close to his chest. He thought about the pink bunny pen sitting in his pocket. He thought about Ryo defending him during the presentation. 

He thought about Ryo’s kind smile. 

“It means he chooses them,” Sakuya sobbed quietly. He sank down until he was sitting on the cold floor, pulling his knees to his chest. He was so incredibly sad. Why he couldn’t he just be brave? Why did he always run away from the brightest thing in his life?

“I hope that I can give this to someone someday,” Sakuya cried his heart out to the empty room, clutching the stone right over his beating heart, “I hope that it’s him, please.”

He drowned in the pain of wanting someone so badly, being too terrified to stay, and knowing he could never have them.

“Sakuya…”

“Hey, Sakuya?”

A gentle voice kept calling his name.

Then damp smell of the club room vanished, the cold floor evaporated. The feel of the hard rock on his palm was missing.

Sakuya gasped. His eyes flew open.

He woke up from a series of flashbacks of dream from the day that Ryo asked him out on a date and from highschool, his chest heaving, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. It felt like he was there again. 

But the feeling of calmness came after when he felt the very soft feeling of the bed, the morning light was coming through the window, warm and bright. 

He wasn’t in his dorm, nor the club room. He was in Ryo’s dorm. 

Sakuya just laid there for a second, blinking rapidly as the heavy suffocating sadness of the dream slowly fade away. He let out a shaky exhale. He turned his head to the side. 

Right there on the nightstand, sitting exactly where it belonged was the rock he gave Ryo. 

The exact same dark gray stone from the clownfish aquarium. The one he had cried over on the floor. The one he had successfully, finally shoved into Ryo’s hand at the bioluminescence exhibit. It was just sitting there, safe, perfectly illuminated by the morning sun.

And Ryo was right there.

Ryo was lying next to him. His brown hair was a complete mess, sticking up in the back, and his voice was thick with sleep. But he was smiling at him, waking him up.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Ryo asked softly.

He reached out, his warm fingers gently wiping Sakuya’s cheek. Sakuya realized with a jolt that he had actually been crying in his sleep. His face was wet, “I kept calling your name because I heard you call mine…”

Sakuya stared at him. He looked at Ryo’s tired eyes, at the guy who used to be the untouchable golden boy he ran away from, who was now just his ridiculous boyfriend who kept a literal rock on his nightstand like it was a diamond.

The nightmare was over. The years of hiding and stealing pens and running away were just gone.

Sakuya didn't even use his words. He just lunged forward.

He tackled Ryo right back into the pillows, throwing both arms around Ryo’s neck and hugging him so tight he practically knocked the wind out of him.

"Oof—" Ryo grunted, totally caught off guard.

But Ryo didn't hesitate. Ryo never hesitated anymore. His arms immediately wrapped around Sakuya’s waist, pulling him flush against his chest. He buried his face in Sakuya’s ash-gray hair, holding him with that desperate, steady grip that made Sakuya’s entire nervous system finally quiet down.

"I've got you," Ryo mumbled sleepily into his hair. "I've got you. It's okay."

"I was dreaming about when you asked me on a date, then the graduation day, the graduation day was the worse part" Sakuya whispered, his voice muffled against Ryo’s shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut, inhaling the familiar, safe smell of Ryo's laundry detergent. "About the club room. And the day I ran away from you. I didn't even listen to what you were going to say. I was full of regret. I was so scared back then."

Ryo’s hand stroked up and down Sakuya’s back, a slow, calming rhythm that felt like a steady ocean current.

"Well, you don't have to be scared anymore," Ryo said softly, pressing a firm kiss to the side of Sakuya's head. "Because you didn't run away this time."

Ryo shifted slightly, just enough to look at the nightstand, and then back at Sakuya.

"The penguin accepted the rock," Ryo smiled, his voice full of that absolute, undeniable fondness. "And he is never, ever giving it back."

Sakuya let out a watery laugh, burying his face deeper into Ryo’s neck. The panic was entirely gone. His big brain finally shut off. There were no more errors to process, and absolutely no more regrets. Just Ryo, holding him exactly like he had always hoped for.