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Having a soulmate was always a difficult concept for Kuro to grasp.
At birth, it’s nothing more than a small black squiggle. Unintelligible. As the wearer’s body matures-- old enough to have a steady conversation yet young enough to have an entire life ahead of them-- the words become clearer and clearer until, eventually, they are legible.
Supposedly, these are the first words your soulmate will say to you when you meet.
Some would hide theirs, others would show them off. Some forgot they existed, others made it their personal quest to find their other half.
For Kuro, it all seemed like a messed up, forced version of love at first sight. But who was he to judge, or even tempt, fate? This had been a part of their lifestyle and culture for as long as there was the written word.
He had seen the tattoos on the wrists of the delinquents he used to find home with, ones for kids around his old school when they would roll up their sleeves absently in the summer heat, talked about them offhandedly with his closest friends. They all seemed normal to him-- nothing too special, but specific enough to know when the moment would be. Short. Sweet. Something you’d look back on with fond memories.
He wishes his was the same.
I like your Mega Milk shirt.
Those words had come clear to him in the bath one day when he was younger, listening to his mother through the wall explain a slip stitch to an equally young Shu Itsuki. He remembers sinking deeper into the water, staring at the words, thankful that he hadn’t met that person just yet.
But just what kind of soulmate was he going to find with words like this etched into his wrist?
Sure, the idea of complimenting someone’s shirt didn’t seem too strange. He’d seen similar ones before, hadn’t he? Yet it perplexed him all the same. Just what was Mega Milk? It didn’t seem like something he’d take any interest in buying, or even feel the need to wear, in the slightest.
He’d taken to wearing a bracelet over it ever since that day, deciding it wasn’t anyone’s business what the words said. Over the years, the faded black marking remained tucked away in his subconscious, all but forgotten.
So when a friend of his gave him a gift on his seventeenth birthday, prefacing it as a joke because of how built he’d gotten over the years, he thought nothing of it. He’d carefully taken off the wrapping paper, cut the tape holding the flimsy box closed, and opened it to see something he never thought he’d see in his life. Kuro didn’t understand what the joke was about, nor did he understand what it had to do with his build, but there was no mistaking what it was.
Right there, lying in the box innocently, was the answer to all the questions he’d ignored. A white baseball tee with blue sleeves, the words MEGA MILK printed large on the front in thick, black text.
It had been the words he was hiding away for so long. Seeing them in plain sight was jarring for him, to say the very least. Nevertheless...
“You should stop wearing that thing,” a voice calls to break him out of his reverie, a pencil thrown at the back of his head to knock the distance from his eyes.
The boy in question is Keito Hasumi-- member of the Student Council, Archery Club, and one of the first people Kuro had ever interacted with when contemplating transferring to this school a year ago. While their first interactions were far from amiable (involving Kuro cursing him off more times than he’d like to count, still deep in his delinquency) he’d like to imagine they’re as close as family now. “Don’t you know where that reference comes from? You, of all people, wearing something like that. Aren’t you already the subject of enough jokes involving your affection for your sister?”
Kuro shoots him a look that could kill, had it been any other person as the recipient. “Just cause a guy loves his sister doesn’t mean it’s gotta be creepy,” he says, resisting the urge to throw the pencil right back at the other. Instead he picks it up, placing it on one of the desks before returning to clearing the blackboard. Bright orange setting sun streams through the windows, lighting up the classroom before them. The two have already changed for the day, and the ‘thing’ in question is the shirt Kuro had gotten for his birthday a few months prior. Recently, he’d taken to wearing it around town, after class, you name it. Just in case. “Don’t blame me for the choice. How else am I supposed to meet them?”
Keito doesn’t turn, but Kuro can tell he’s doing that stupid thing with his eyebrows when he’s in disbelief. “I thought you didn’t believe in that sort of thing.”
“I don’t. I’m just curious, alright? Keep talking like I do and you’ll regret it.”
It’s both a lie and not at the same time. It’s true, Kuro was curious to see what kind of person fate felt he deserved. After all that he’s done, he’d be shocked if he even found them at all. Perhaps fate will leave him dry, and it’ll be the universe’s last sick joke-- or, just maybe, karmic revenge.
But it’s also true that if he found someone else happy to be with him, someone who didn’t care that the words on his wrist didn’t belong to them, then he’d be fine.
It’s not like it was uncommon. He’d heard of people doing that before, even if it was typically frowned upon. Who was anyone to tell them how to live their lives, though? Even fate itself had to respect a love like that, social consequence be damned.
Besides, there were all types of soulmates, weren’t there? Maybe his would be platonic.
“Fine, fine,” Keito finally says, and Kuro can hear the sound of textbooks being arranged from across the room. A phrase on one of the worn covers seems to spark a memory in the boy’s mind. “Ah. I almost forgot. Before we meet up with Kanzaki, I have something to discuss with Eichi. You can come, if you’d like.”
Kuro wonders absently what it must be like, meeting your soulmate as a kid. Is it a relief, or is it restricting? Would he have been alright with Shu’s words being what he saw on his wrist all those years ago? Or would he have hidden them forever? Would it be suffocating?
He'd never taken the time to properly ask Keito those things. Maybe he would if he ever found his. Comparing experiences, and all.
In the time he’s been lost in his thoughts, Keito has made his way over to him, head tilted up, body leaning in towards him in a pose that says ‘ come back to earth, kiryuu’ . Kuro rolls his eyes, placing the eraser back on the ledge where it belongs. “You sure about that? I can leave the two of you alone.”
“It’ll only take a few moments,” Keito says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, sunset making them glint in a way that tells Kuro to stop his teasing before he can begin, “You could even wait outside.”
Kuro shrugs, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll leave without you if you take too long, though, so you better be quick. Don’t wanna leave Kanzaki waiting.”
With that, the two of them make their way over to the Student Council room. Kuro glances in when the door is opened, Keito holding it for him, but shakes his head in response. “I don’t wanna hear what you guys have to talk about, you know,” he says, leaning back against the doorframe, bag falling on the floor next to him, “Just remember what I said.”
Before long he’s left in the hallway alone, staring at the way the trees blow in the wind and leave dancing shadows on the walls, cutting through the oranges and yellows gracefully. He can hear the dull thrum of life throughout the building -- footsteps, the muffled voices of Keito and Eichi, birds and leaves and more footsteps, these getting louder.
A boy bounds down the hall Kuro’s never in his life seen before, marker trapped between his teeth, hair pulled into a short and loose ponytail, spilling over his skin and clothes in a spread of dull orange wildfire. As he gets closer, Kuro can tell he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while, dark circles more than obvious under his eyes, even at this distance. Papers cover his chest, held there by one arm sloppily as the other waves a finger in the air like a conductor baton to music only he seems to hear.
He stops short in front of the StuCo room, and finally his gaze rises from the ground and takes in the boy in front of him. Kuro feels uncomfortable for a moment as those eyes scan him, shifting in place awkwardly, before the other boy finally speaks, free hand plucking the marker from his mouth.
“I like your Mega Milk shirt!” the unknown boy says, pointing the marker at the shirt in question, letting out a high and loud laugh. The sound and his words reverberate through the halls. “It really suits you, you know?!”
Kuro isn’t sure how to respond to this strange boy, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck in an attempt to hide how uncomfortable he is. “Uh, thanks,” is his reply. It’s short, simple, and--
Wait, what did he say?
The unknown boy makes a sound of surprise for some reason and all of the papers he’d been holding fly to the ground, hallway covered in a sea of compositions. “Of all the days for aliens to contact me through someone again, it just had to be today!” he begins, flying to the floor just as fast as his papers had, picking them up in a hurry, “And it might be another fluke!”
“Let me help you,” Kuro says, not understanding any part of the boy’s mumbling. With the way he’s talking now, there was no way the other said what he thought he did, right?
He crouches down, picking up a handful of the papers, glancing over the contents. Music isn’t his forte at all, but his boy seems competent enough for the both of them. Just who is he? Is he a student here, too? Not someone from their grade, obviously, or Keito would’ve introduced them back in April. But he doesn’t seem to be any younger, either. Maybe he’s new, too?
The boy reaches over to grab more papers, and Kuro steals a glance at him for just a moment. The shirt that had been hidden before is dark and depicts a man being carried away in a UFO, I BELIEVE written under it in big, white text. The sleeves seem to end at his elbows, and he’s close enough that--
Uh, thanks.
There’s no mistaking it. That’s what it says, right there in front of him, on the other boy’s wrist. It’s faded like his own, but the text is more than legible. Is that why he acted so surprised? Does that mean…?
The boy seems to notice the prolonged stare and pulls his arm back abruptly, turning his back to keep picking up papers that had flown further away.
“Tsukinaga?” a familiar voice from behind him says, “What are you doing here?”
Kuro hadn’t noticed the door open among the commotion. He stands up, compositions in his hand, unsure of the order but attempting to straighten them from their former crumpled state. Turning around, he can see Keito and Eichi in the doorway, watching the scene unfold.
“Ufufu, didn’t I tell you?” Eichi says, fingers coming to rest against his chin delicately, head tilting to the side innocently, “I was to meet with Tsukinaga-kun after our little talk.”
“I didn’t take you seriously. I thought he dropped out.”
The boy, Tsukinaga, turns to face the voices. “I’m right here, you know?! It’s not polite to talk about someone like that when they’re right in front of you!”
Kuro’s only been half listening to what they were saying, repeating “Tsukinaga” over and over in his head. The papers are snatched from his hand, pulling him back to reality, and the boy’s eyes scan him again for a moment before turning to Eichi.
“Let’s get this over with, oh great emperor!” he says, the last phrase sharp and full of something Kuro can’t exactly place, bowing sarcastically. The student council president chuckles in response, standing aside to allow Tsukinaga access to the room.
For one last time, both of their eyes meet as he’s passing the threshold, and it feels as if time has slowed. Kuro wants to say something, wants to reach out and ask him what his full name is, who he is, what he’s doing here, why it had to be him , but decides against it.
The door of fate is closed.
Keito waves a hand in front of his friend’s face. “You’re out of it today, Kiryuu,” he says, adjusting his glasses once again. “I can tell Kanzaki you’re feeling sick if you’d rather go straight home.”
It takes a moment for the response to pass through his mind and reach his mouth. “I’m fine, just… I’ll tell you later, alright?”
The statement feels odd and lingers in the air dryly for a moment, and Kuro takes this time to bend down and pick up his bag from the place he’d previously discarded it on the ground.
There’s nothing more said between the both of them, the comment being dropped completely, and they make their way down the hallway in near absolute silence. Birds chirp, stray students talk amongst themselves, leaves rustle.
He glances at the Student Council room before they leave.
They’ll meet again.
He’s sure of it.
“ Tsukinaga?! ”
Keito is practically screaming at this point, having repeated the name multiple times, voice getting louder with each new repetition. His hands slam against the table before him, causing the plates and cups atop the surface to rattle in protest, leaning in accusingly towards the redhead across from him. “Leo Tsukinaga? You’re positive?!”
It’s bad enough Kuro has remnants of the other’s tea on his shirt from when he’d told the story originally, he’s sure now he’ll go deaf on top of it all. At least he knows the boy in question’s name now. Leo .
“H-Hasumi-dono,” Souma cuts in, unsure if he should console the older or let the both of them work this out on their own, “Please, calm down!”
Kuro shrugs, ignoring their junior, who sinks his head onto the table in response. “Yeah,” he says, thinking back to the encounter a few hours prior, “I think so.”
“You THINK so?!”
“I said his. He said mine.” Kuro hadn’t seen Keito this… he wouldn’t call it angry-- perplexed? disbelieving? heated?-- in a while. In fact, he hardy saw this side of him at all. “Isn’t that how it works?”
Keito’s quiet for the first time in a while, and the silence feels heavy. More deafening than his shouting. He settles himself back down, crossing his legs under himself, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a long, drawn out sigh. “Alright, Kiryuu. Tell me. How did you feel when he said it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing,” Keito repeats, trailing off. His glasses are pushed up the bridge of his nose. “Come on, Kiryuu. We both know that’s not true.”
He thinks, leaning back on his hands. Had he felt anything? Shock, maybe. The light twinge that maybe, just maybe, something was wrong there.
“Uncomfortable,” he says honestly, examining the ceiling like his life depended on it, “I thought when I heard someone say that to me for the first time, it’d be like… Dunno. Like something would click. Like I’d know it was them, y’know? But I didn’t feel that at all.”
Keito lets out yet another sigh, this one seeming relieved. “In that case, it might just be a misunderstanding. It happens all the time. Unless you feel like it’s right--”
Souma’s head flies up from where it’d been resting against the table dejectedly, long hair nearly hitting Keito in the face in response to the sudden action, light returning to those purple eyes of his. “If I may interrupt, Hasumi-dono!”
He looks purposely at Kuro, who turns his gaze down to stare back at him. “It doesn’t always have to be that way! Sometimes it takes time.” The purple haired boy’s hands come up to make fists in front of his chest, as if to show his conviction on the topic. “I was like you at first, Kiryuu-dono! I wasn’t sure I’d like Adonis-dono at all, let alone like that ... ” He trails off, a small smile playing on his lips as he’s lost in memory for a moment. “But if it happens, you’ll know! You should get to know him first.”
There’s a beat while Kuro processes those words, bringing one of his legs up. “Yeah. You’re right, Kanzaki,” he says, reaching an arm forward to ruffle his underclassman’s hair, “You’re growing up into a great man, you know?”
“-- Even if I don’t like who it is and don’t approve.”
Kuro stops ruffling his hair to hit him.
“I dunno what all this hate with Tsukinaga is, and I’m not gonna ask,” he tells them while Souma rubs the heel of his palm against the side of his head, grimacing, “If I get to know him and I don’t like him, then alright. I’ll keep looking. But if I do, neither of you get start anything. And you don’t get to interfere.”
The two in question are silent.
Kuro raises his voice, words coming out serious. “Man’s promise.”
That results in two sounds of defeat.
“You’ll have an easy time talking to him, at least,” Keito says, elbow on the table before him, chin resting atop the back of his hand, glasses lit by the screen of his phone, “Eichi says he’ll be in your class.”
Keito told him that Leo had a falling out in the middle of last year, just after the incident with Shu and Kuro’s interest in the school as a whole. Everyone thought he dropped out for good after it, transferred to a different school, but his welcomed return signaled otherwise. He was a genius. He was…. unique, is how Keito had phrased it. Nothing else had been told to him.
It was a start, at least.
The ring around Kuro’s neck is played with absently as he strides down the hall with one Nazuna Nito, the shorter boy struggling to keep up. “Hey, Kuro-chin! Slow down, will ya? Not everyone’s got long legs like you.”
“Sorry,” Kuro says, slowing his pace down, allowing the other to catch up.
Nazuna looks up at him now, noticing the impatience in his gaze down the hallway. “Hey, are you okay? You look like you’re in a hurry.”
Kuro shakes his head, finally seeing the sign to their classroom in the distance. “I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about me.” He slides the door open, letting Nazuna in first as if to show he’s really, truly not in a hurry, and while the blonde raises an eyebrow, he doesn’t protest.
“Leo-chin?!”
Kuro enters the room next and, sure enough, Leo’s there, scribbling in a far corner of the classroom. In a uniform he seems even more surreal of a sight, writing two separate scores on the desk before him with both of his hands. He doesn’t seem to have noticed the entrance of two new people, and continues his work soundlessly.
“Leo-chin!” Nazuna shouts again, scurrying across the room to get a better look at the boy, “I thought you were gone for good! We all did…?!”
Leo finally looks up. “Oh, so you know me, at least! That’s good, that’s good. I thought for sure I was in the wrong school. It’s been so long, you know?! And everyone’s been looking at me weirdly!”
It’s then that he notices Kuro, pointing the marker accusingly at him in a way reminiscent of the day prior. “You! You look familiar! You’re that ogre from yesterday, aren’t you?! With the Mega Milk shirt?!”
“That’d be me,” Kuro says, sitting on the edge of the seat across from Leo’s desk, “Sorry for making you drop your papers yesterday. Hope you got them back in the right order.”
“I didn’t, for your information!” he says, beaming up at the other, and for some reason Kuro feels that reaction is all wrong, “But it’s alright! You managed to make it better than it was originally, so I’ll have to thank you…?!”
“Kuro,” he says, reaching an arm out to the other, “Kuro Kiryuu.”
Leo stares at the hand for a long while, and Kuro swears he sees him glance at the bracelet adorning his wrist for a moment. The boy takes it, shaking it a bit too hard for a good first impression. “I’m Leo Tsukinaga!” he says, laughing that same laugh from the other day, “.... I think! That’s what everyone tells me, at least?!”
It’s from that moment that Kuro realizes, no matter what the outcome, his life is about to get more interesting.
It’s brought up after class one day, dropped seemingly out of nowhere.
They had been talking for a few weeks since then, on and off, casual but enough to be considered on good terms. Maybe even friends, if you wanted to go that far with it.
“Hey, Kuro?” Leo mutters, and some sort of warm feeling rises in Kuro’s chest at Leo finally remembering his name. Or maybe he never forgot it in the first place. He’s kneeling down to transcribe his recent scrawlings on the walls onto a crumpled piece of paper, the taller cleaning anything he’s already rewritten.
(Kuro told him to take a picture. Leo said writing it again helps fuel his inspiration.)
Kuro stops scrubbing for a moment to glance down at the boy. “Yeah?”
“You saw my wrist that day, right?” Leo says, and the world stops for a moment. Spring air flows through the open window in the corner of the room, tousling both of their uniforms gently as a breeze rolls through. It’s the only thing that tells Kuro time is still moving. “When we met…?”
“Yeah.”
“In that case, you should show me yours! Maybe I can help you find someone...?!”
Kuro shifts, lowering his arms to his sides, leaning his back against the wall. The words come out of his mouth without thinking. “I don’t have one,” he says, and the ease of his lie is so startling to him, he almost breaks the illusion. Why’d he say that? Wouldn’t it be easier to just show him? Isn’t this the moment he’d been waiting for? “Dunno why. Never really cared enough to know, either.”
“Right, right,” the boy on the ground says, pencil pressed to the area just below his lip, “What were we talking about, again?”
He returns to transcribing, and Kuro wonders just what’s going on in that mind of his.
Maybe someday he’ll have the chance to find out.
“Be more careful,” Kuro says, hand wedged between the other’s lower leg and the fabric of his uniform, “These things cost a lot, y’know?” He guides the thread through the the fabric carefully, making sure not to accidentally prick the other’s thigh.
“Money isn’t something you need to worry about when you know someone that can sew!” Leo says, leaning forward, watching Kuro work.
Leo had torn the pants of his uniform in an incident a few moments prior involving a pair of scissors, a stick of butter, a bag of toy stuffing, and a few dozen banknotes. Thankfully, Kuro was just down the hall in the handicrafts room.
Shu didn’t look too pleased with the offer being taken, but Kuro had brushed him off.
And here they were, Kuro with his hand shoved up Leo’s pant leg because the latter absolutely refused to take them off temporarily, attempting to mend the hole the other had so carelessly formed in his endeavors.
“What were you trying to do, anyway?” Kuro asks, taking the needle between his teeth for a moment, “I can’t see anything coming out of that combination except a mess.”
Leo shakes his head, hands holding Kuro’s free hand dramatically. “It’s something too complex for you to even begin to grasp! You’d never understand!” he says, staring him dead in the eye, “And, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“I’d love to see you try.”
The contact is broken when Kuro returns to his work, nearly done. Something in him misses the other’s touch for a reason he refuses to place.
“You see why I can’t tell you, now?! I’d just die in the process! It’s life or death here, Kuro!”
The taller rolls his eyes, finishing up the last stitch and pulling back from the other boy. “Alright, you’re done. Just make sure not to make this a habit of yours, alright?”
When Leo leaves, Kuro finds himself staring at the hand that had been held and smiling.
Shu tells him as he takes the needle and spool back, “You’re both absolutely disgusting.”
Months pass.
They talk more and more. Get to know each other. Become closer. It’s easier than Kuro had thought it’d be, and he finds that the topic of the day they met is never mentioned again. Maybe what he thought initially was right. Maybe it all felt wrong because they weren’t meant to be anything more than platonic.
Leo sends a SMS one night while Kuro’s in the bath.
I’ll be coming over!
Make sure there’s a futon laid out for me, alright?
Wahahaha!~ ☆
Kuro only has enough time to throw on a tank top and sweatpants after the message is read before there’s a knocking at his front door. His sister answers, and he can hear the unmistakable voice of Leo Tsukinaga carry across the entire house.
“There he is!” Leo says once Kuro turns the corner and shows himself, towel draped over his head, bangs dripping slightly and brushing against his forehead. “You should wear your hair like that more often. It looks better than that tryhard mess you usually have!”
“Thanks.”
The taller makes his way over to the both of them, putting his hand on his sister’s shoulder. “This guy bothering you? I’ll kick him out, just say the word.”
“If he was, I’d just do it myself,” she says before ducking behind him, returning to her room.
“She’s cute!” Leo says, beginning to kick his shoes off, and it’s then that Kuro notices he has a bag slung over his shoulder. He’s really prepared to spend the night, isn’t he? “Pictures don’t do her justice! You’ll have to come over to meet Ruka-tan someday.”
“Sounds good,” the taller says, stepping aside to let the other boy further in. Kicking him out and saying he couldn’t stay would be rude, wouldn’t it? Or maybe a part of him wanted Leo to stay. Who knows. “What’s with the sudden sleepover, anyway?”
Leo’s too busy examining the inside of Kuro’s house, peeking into every doorway and looking at every picture hung on the wall. “It’s just the two of you?”
“Usually.”
There’s a humming coming from the shorter boy before he turns to look at the other again, throwing his bag without warning, caught effortlessly. “Put it in your room! There’s too many here for me to tell!”
“You could’ve just asked me to bring you there,” Kuro tells him, shoving the bag back in the boy’s chest as he passes him. The door to his room is thrown open, the owner flicking it’s light on and gesturing for the other to come in.
It’s not a remarkable room by any means. A single futon off to the side, made up nicely. A desk off to the corner. A closet. A small heater.
“You can see the floor!” Leo remarks as he walks in, throwing the bag on Kuro’s futon absently and running his fingertips across the surface of his desk. “I thought there’d be fabric and clothes and stuff all over the place. Or at least sewing stuff!”
Kuro dries his hair one final time before putting the towel around his neck, opening his closet and pulling out the spare futon he keeps there for occasions such as this. “There’s another room for that,” he says, starting to set up the temporary bed, “My mom was into sewing like I am, you know? Even more than I am, actually. I can show you some of my stuff later, if you want.” It’s then that Kuro realizes the initial comment, standing up once he’s finished with everything. “Wait. Does that mean you can’t see the floor in your room?”
Leo hums. “Messiness amplifies my inspiration,” he tells him, as if this was common knowledge. He picks up the picture frame that rests atop the desk, the only thing there aside from papers and a few stray pencils. “She’s beautiful,” he says, smiling in Kuro’s direction and turning the frame to face him.
It’s an old picture. His mother’s holding his infant sister wrapped in a big, blue sheet. Her blonde curls cascade down down her back, smile bright enough to light up the entire picture on it’s own, hazel eyes soft and warm. Kuro himself is sitting on her knee, a little over four at the time, black hair slicked back. His father’s in the back, his hand on his wife’s shoulder, a serious expression on his face.
He remembers how his mother told him she made all of their outfits just for that picture.
“You have her eyes!”
“Her’s were kinder than mine.”
“Yours can be, too. It’s not like you’re this big, scary monster all the time!”
Kuro makes a move to take the frame from the other boy, brushing their hands in the process accidentally. Leo looks down for a moment at the contact, eyes lingering on the other’s skin for a long moment, eventually going wide. Kuro doesn’t realize what’s wrong until it’s far too late, his own wrist being shoved in his face as a lie from long ago is exposed.
“You told me you didn’t have one!” he says, something between a shout and his normal speaking voice, “Isn’t lying against your man’s code, or whatever!?” He turns it back to him as if he doesn’t believe the words. “And it’s what I said to you, isn’t it?!”
Kuro could easily pull his arm away from the other, could easily force him out of his house, could easily ignore him for the rest of his life to not face this. It wouldn’t be a man’s thing to do, but like Leo said, did he even deserve to be called one after lying about something so stupid?
But he doesn’t.
Instead he sighs, looks away. “I didn’t want you to think of me differently. I liked what we had.”
In the silence they can hear the muffled sound of Kuro’s sister talking on the phone, some television show, the faint start of rain beginning to fall outside the window. Steeling himself, Kuro looks back at Leo. His eyes reflect unspoken emotions, ones he knows the other simply can’t put into words, and he understands. He’s feeling the same way. Whatever that may be.
“Do you want me to leave?” Leo asks, making a move to grab his bag off of the futon.
Kuro moves to stop him, grabbing the closest possible thing to him-- Leo’s hand. “You can stay, if you want. It sounds like it’s starting to storm outside. Wouldn’t want you to get caught up in that.”
Leo nods, picks up his bag, excuses himself for a moment. He thinks for sure the other will make a break for it, but he doesn’t. Never before did he think he’d feel relieved to hear someone open and close the bathroom door before. The tension between them felt unbearable, like the air they shared was suffocating, and Kuro wishes he hadn’t lied in the first place. Why did he?
It’s a sudden realization. Why he hated the concept of the tattoos, why he’s always hidden it, why he lied to the boy who was, according to fate, likely his soulmate. It’s dumb, he realizes, falling into his desk chair and laughing at himself for a moment.
Above all, he wanted Leo to get to know him for him. Not because of some words etched on his skin.
For the other to think that even for a moment, there’s a chance to make a deep connection with someone, even if there’s no predetermination involved. He didn’t want it to feel forced. He wanted it to be natural.
But maybe Leo had always thought that way, too.
Maybe that’s why he kept him around for so long.
Why was it so important for it to feel natural, anyway? Why did that matter so much to him? As far as he could tell, he saw Leo as a friend. It’s not as if he’d fallen for him or anything, right? He’d know it by now. He’d have admitted it to himself.
Leo returns, dressed in his pajamas. Kuro wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but if he had to put it into words, it’d definitely be this. A t-shirt with an alien motif on it, and pants that have the same motif but patterned. White, green, and black.
“Looking good,” Kuro teases, testing the waters between them.
Leo throws his bag to the side, striking a pose. His ability to bounce back is remarkable, or maybe he’s forgotten. Maybe the “forgetting” is to conceal his true emotions. “Naturally, Kuro!” he says, “You never know when the aliens will return for you, so you should always be wearing something to let them know you’re with them!” He changes his pose again, legs parted, one arm tugging the shirt down further, the other pushing his hair back dramatically. “Sena showed me this one.”
“It doesn’t work if you don’t make the face too.”
“Right,” Leo says, taking a moment before looking into the distance, a serious look on his face, and it takes all of Kuro’s self restraint to keep himself from laughing.
Leo starts laughing for him, dropping the modeling act and flicking the light switch off. He settles himself down on the futon Kuro had rolled out for him, legs crossed before him. “So, tell me, Kuro…” he begins before catching himself, putting a hand over his mouth, “If that’s your real name!”
“Of course it’s my real name,” the boy says, moving from the desk chair to his own futon, back against the wall. He tosses the towel that had been resting around his neck to the side, making a mental note to pick it up in the morning.
“Alright, Kuro ,” Leo says, the other’s name emphasized mockingly, “Why didn’t you let me know about fate bringing us together?! For real, this time!”
Kuro rolls his eyes. “I already told you, I didn’t want you to think any differently of me. We’re friends, right? No need to make it weird.”
There’s something different in Leo’s eyes at the response, some sort of poorly masked hurt at being caught off guard. Moonlight shines on the haphazard mess he calls hair, yellows and oranges lighting a fire in the night, and Kuro feels something stir inside of him.
“I didn’t mean it that way--” Kuro starts, but is cut off.
“It’s fine!” Leo says, bouncing back again easily, too easily, and had this been any other night, Kuro would’ve called him out on it, “The whole soulmate business is stupid, anyways! Let people find their own person to terrorize for the rest of their life, right?! So what if we share these ‘first word’ thingys! It doesn’t mean we’re a couple!”
Kuro’s silent for a moment until he realizes something. “Is that what you want?”
“What?”
“Did you want us to--”
Leo seems to have realized what he’s said at this point, shouting to keep the other from repeating his slip of the tongue. He leaps onto Kuro, slamming a hand over his mouth, desperate to keep those words from escaping. “Don’t! Just don’t, alright?!”
Kuro’s hand comes up, placed over the other’s, pulling them down just slightly to get his next words out. “Tsukinaga, tell me the truth,” he starts, locking eyes with the boy kneeling next to him, tone only half joking, “Did you invite yourself over to hit on me?”
An exasperated sound fills the air and Leo sinks, down, down, down, against Kuro’s body. His stomach is laying over the taller’s lap, head against the other’s sheets. He’s met with a firm palm between his shoulderblades.
Souma seems to have been wrong.
Somewhere between the talks after school, the midday SMSing, the walks around town, he’d started to crave something more than Leo’s friendship, sure. But there was nothing that clicked. There was no action that settled it, and even now, he’s sure the other’s reaction didn’t drive him to this realization.
It’s always been there, hidden deep and growing with every new thing he learned about the boy laying across him.
He wanted to know everything about Leo. He wanted to know what he was like, what he was truly, truly like. What his favorite food was. His least favorite movie. The kinds of music he absolutely hated.
It’s not that he wanted to stay this way forever. It’s not that he knew for sure if soulmates truly lasted, if this was all the work of some kind of fate or if they had forged this feeling for themselves, but he did realize he was more than willing to try.
“Saves me the trouble if you did, at least,” Kuro finds himself saying, smiling down at the boy draped over him, leaning in a bit over him, “Just talk to me normally for now, alright? I don’t want you to start screaming about aliens at me if we’re going to be doing this.”
Leo pushes himself up so fast, Kuro’s shocked his nose doesn’t break. He mutters a curse, and the shorter boy starts saying rushed apologies, hands on the other’s shoulders. When Kuro shows he’s alright, the hands slide down to his chest instead, eyes wandering down with it, realizing he’s sitting on the other’s lap.
“So? Is it what you want?”
There’s a groan, and Leo pulls his hands back, glancing away and waving them in the air to try to hide the blush that’s more than apparent on his face, even in the moonlight. “Yeah,” he says, biting at the inside of his mouth momentarily, “Only because you’re asking, and there’s no amount of alien--”
Kuro narrows his eyes.
“-- What I mean to say is that I’d have to be a complete idiot if I said no to someone like you asking me out!” he says once he catches himself, sitting back a bit to gesture at Kuro as a whole, as if he’s in disbelief, “Really, do you even look in the mirror at all?!”
There’s a deep chuckle that comes from the boy under him. “Hey, I never said I was asking you out. Just that if it’s what you wanted, we can try, alright? See where it takes us.”
“That’s the same thing and you know it!”
And maybe it was.
I’m waiting outside the cafe! You better bring an extra scarf, though.
It’s cold as hell out here, and I may or may not have forgotten mine! ☆
“Took you long enough!” Leo says, blowing hot air into his bare hands, looking up at the boy standing before him, “I was practically freezing to death out here!”
Kuro gestures at the cafe. “You could’ve went in there.”
“And risk you missing me?! Think again, Kuro! It’ll take more than that to get rid of me!”
Hazel eyes are rolled as the spare scarf is pulled out from the inside of his jacket, Kuro stepping closer. He begins to wrap it around Leo’s neck, slowly, carefully, before tucking the excess into the top of his coat. “You should’ve told me you had no gloves. I’d have brought you some of those, too.”
Leo nudges him, urging him to start walking. The both of them make their way to the path that leads off from the cafe and towards the park before he’s given any sort of response. “Then I wouldn’t be able to stay stereotypical things like…” He pauses for dramatic effect before holding his hands in front of his face, gasping loudly. “My hands, Kuro! They’re freezing! Looks like you’ll have to warm them for me!”
In a motion that’s too quick for Kuro to catch, Leo’s shoving said hands up his jacket, under his shirt, and over his bare chest. Kuro jumps at the sudden cold against his skin.
“Very funny,” he says, allowing Leo a few more moments before pulling his arms out. Instead he takes both of the other’s hands in his own, lips pressing against the knuckles of both of them respectively. This results in the winter tinged pink cheeks and nose of the other to burn even brighter, bringing a smile to the taller’s face. “I like this better, though.”
“You’re so domestic it’s sickening sometimes, you know!”
There’s something in the way the park lights shine against his boyfriend’s face, the way the light snowfall catches on his eyelashes, or maybe it’s the other’s words or genuine smile he’s being given, but something warm and proud swells in his chest.
In a quick motion he swoops down, catching the shorter’s lips with his own. Leo stares at him in confusion for a few moments before giving in, eyes closing, arms wrapping around the other’s neck.
Maybe this is how soulmates are supposed to feel. It’s not love at first sight, it’s not some spectacular, earth shattering thing. It’s the realization one day that you can see yourself with another person for a long time, for better or worse. Kuro’s perfectly fine with exploring this feeling with Leo.
Kuro pulls back, laughing at the way Leo follows him back and attempts to continue the kiss.
The two continue down the pathway, hand in hand, admiring the Christmas snowfall and the presence of each other. Kuro’s not sure how long they’ll last, he’s not sure if he’ll always feel this way. But right now, he’s happy.
That’s enough for him.