Chapter Text
As November winds into December, Suguru keeps to his new routine.
Bundled up in multiple layers for the cold commute, he departs for work after sun-up. When he opens his front door, it’s with full expectation of finding something on his doorstep.
Today, it’s a keychain and a bottle of honey-lemon green tea. Suguru picks up both, slipping the drink into his gym bag and clipping the plush keychain—a fuzzy fox with grinning eyes—to its strap.
He spends all day cleaning bathrooms at the gym, teaching classes, and manning the front desk. Before heading home, he squeezes in his own workout, too. Once back in his apartment, he joins an after-school study call with Nanako and Mimiko to go prepare for their upcoming end of term exams and make plans for a suitable reward after. It’s been too long since they’ve gotten crepes together and the twins’ diligent work is deserving of a special treat.
It’s well after sundown when Suguru finally starts on his dinner, preparing a simple but warming miso soup. He glances from the kitchen to the balcony door as he slices vegetables over the pot, surprised to see it still dark and empty. Satoru should already be here, howling and moaning about being stuck outside while it smells so good in the apartment. At any moment, Suguru expects to hear a knock on glass or see the flash of a pale face pressed to the sliding door.
Distracted as he is, the knife slips in his hand. The blade sinks into the pad of his thumb instead of the peeled radish, red immediately welling on both sides of its sharp edge. A fat drop of blood lands in the soup before Suguru can pull his hand away in time, cursing under his breath.
He sucks his thumb until the bleeding slows. The bitter, metallic tang on his tongue only brings Satoru right back to the fore of his mind, wondering at how the vampire finds the same harsh taste so appealing and sweet.
He washes his hands, wraps a bandaid around his thumb, and cleans the knife. After a few minutes of deliberation, he goes back to cooking. A little of his own blood isn’t worth tossing the whole pot over. Satoru will probably be spoiling for a taste, too.
Another half-hour passes. The balcony remains empty.
In silence, Suguru finishes his dinner. The rest of the soup goes cold in the kitchen. Without Satoru here, he isn’t quite sure what to do with his free time. They’re in the middle of watching an old basketball drama and Suguru doesn’t want to start the next episode without him here.
He busies himself with tidying up the kitchen instead. Or he tries to, anyway. Every few minutes he wanders to some door or window and peeks outside, disappointed anew.
As the hour grows closer to midnight, what can he do but worry? Suguru opens the sliding door, shivering at the cold wind that blows in and swirls around him. With his arms crossed to keep warm, he waits and watches and listens.
He wonders if this is a new ploy the vampire has devised, baiting him to step outside under the pretense of his absence. One foot on the balcony and woosh, Satoru will suddenly appear in a puff of black mist, swoop him up, and ferry him to his vampiric lair for some hedonistic, blood-fueled conclusion to his month-long hunt. It’s a wonder he hasn’t given it a shot before.
As minutes creep by, uncertainty gets its claws in Suguru and starts raking ribbons through his good sense.
Should he step outside, just to get him to show? Should he shout something into the cold, empty air? Satoru wouldn’t really pass up dinner and a whiff of Suguru’s freshly shed blood, would he? He’d have come forth by now, thwarted by Suguru’s stubbornness and ready to concede to another typical night of hanging out and watching movies.
Unless… unless he’s grown tired of that. After a solid month of nightly visits, Satoru may have finally grown weary of being rebuffed and opted to cut his losses.
And that’s good, if so. It’s great, even. If he stays gone for a week or two, Suguru might even chance leaving his apartment after sundown again. He’s already missed too many rounds of late night drinks with his friends. He could sleep in and work late shifts again. He could take evening walks. He could treat himself to late night tea and ramen and pizza.
The not-knowing really bothers him, though.
He’d never cared to get Satoru’s address—not that he’d go check on him or anything of the sort, but it would at least be something to go off of. He’d refused to give Satoru his own number, knowing he’d just get hit with barrages of daytime texts in addition to Satoru’s overbearing nightly presence. Adding Satoru’s number to his contacts had seemed pointless when the man himself never went more than twelve hours without appearing on his threshold.
So maybe this is a one-off, signaling Satoru is tiring of this fruitless effort. Or maybe he’s washed his hands of this, devoting his time to some other pursuit. Either way, Suguru has no way of knowing. And that is what bothers him—being in the dark. Nothing more.
He lingers by the open door until his toes are freezing and his nose is running. With a sniff, he shuts and latches it. As he heads to bed early, an entirely different worry blooms in his mind.
Could something have happened to Satoru? Something bad?
Could being the operative word here. Satoru is head and shoulders above living humans in terms of strength and ability. He has likewise given the impression that he is a standout among vampires and demons and everything else—untouchable, unstoppable, capable of having his way in almost anything.
Suguru has seen enough to believe it. Satoru has the swagger to back himself up.
No, it’s far more likely that he simply found something or someone better to do.
And isn’t that what Suguru wanted? Wasn’t that the point of keeping a firm, uncrossable line between the two of them? What else had he expected would happen?
It takes him hours to properly fall asleep, his nibbled-down thumbnail still tucked between his teeth. Even then, his slumber says shallow, as if still half-listening for the familiar sound of nails on his window.
Come morning, there is no gift waiting for Suguru at the front door.
For several long, perplexed seconds, he stares at the empty spot where one should be, as something always is. Whether it be flowers, candies, plushies, or bizarre talismans of questionable, possibly human origin, Satoru never misses the chance to leave some little memento-treat where Suguru will find it in the bright light of day.
Once outside, he checks either side of his apartment door in case the wind tipped or rolled his intended gift somewhere. He cranes his neck and peeks at his nextdoor neighbors’ doors, too, on the wildly unlikely chance that Satoru simply misplaced it. All his other things have been left well enough alone, so he doubts another resident would’ve snatched it… and being on the fifth floor, it isn’t as if a random passerby would’ve seen it and been tempted…
Which can only mean that in addition to no-showing for dinner last night, Satoru never swung by in the wee hours after Suguru turned in for bed, either. He simply didn’t bother coming around at all.
Which is a good thing, Suguru reminds himself when he catches himself staring glumly at the floor of the swaying subway car.
It’s just that it’s never happened before.
Maybe Satoru found someone with tastier blood and fewer hang-ups about giving it up. Someone more carefree, more entertaining, and probably prettier to boot. Someone foolish or trusting enough to let him in from the cold. And why would Satoru trade that for a sad little balcony with an old blanket, a pitiful beanbag chair, and a few worn-edged volumes of Suguru’s favorite manga?
Whatever the reason, Satoru’s sudden absence is a promising sign—for Geto Suguru, if not the poor stranger who has now caught Satoru’s eye and appetite both. The vampire’s waning interest means that he might yet wriggle out of the untimely death he’d undoubtedly been circling toward. If he proved disappointing enough, there is a good chance he may never see hide nor hair of Satoru again.
Which would be for the best. Obviously.
Suguru reminds himself of that another dozen times throughout his shift at the gym, his lunch with Haibara, and his long walk home. He stops by his local grocery store for some pick-me-up snacks and drinks. Dusk is just settling in when he locks the door behind himself.
Heavy nighttime shadows settle over the balcony, yet it remains empty. As Suguru changes and goes about his mundane chores, it stays that way. And the looming prospect of another night without Satoru darkening his door is…
Suguru should be more grateful. Really. Truly. More than once, he’d wished for exactly this.
It’s just so quiet, even with the TV playing at a low murmur—even though he’s lived here alone for years now, just fine.
A chime from the intercom lets him know someone is at the front door. Suguru rinses and dries his hands before going to answer it. Without bothering to speak to them through the intercom first, he opens the door.
“Satoru?” Too late, he realizes how the surprised, excited lilt to the name comes across. With effort, Suguru schools his wide eyes and bright grin back into a milder expression. “You’re here.”
He’s not used to Satoru showing up at his apartment’s proper front door, looking every bit the part of a boyfriend paying a visit—and where any of Suguru’s neighbors might glimpse him doing so.
Satoru leans his shoulder against the doorframe. “Miss me?”
“No,” Suguru answers out of reflex, the abrupt response undercut by the smile he gives after.
“Did you think I gave up on you?”
Here, Suguru cannot lie even half as well. “Maybe.”
Though they’ve only spent a night and two days apart, Suguru takes in Satoru like he’s brand new: the pretty fall of his pale hair and the handsome cut of his jaw; his broad shoulders and the large bouquet casually resting against one; the soft, pale sweater he wears, its sleeves pushed up around his forearms.
And the plastic bag that hangs from his wrist, smelling of freshly fried chicken.
“Is that for me?”
“It’s not for your nosy ass neighbors, that’s for sure. Why don’t you let me in so I can set this down?” he very politely, charmingly asks, dangling the bag of KFC before Suguru.
Suguru pretends to debate it, tipping his head side to side. “Hmm… no. But you can hand it to me and then come around to the balcony.”
Satoru sighs, a pout in place as he passes Suguru the chicken and then watches the front door gently close in his face.
Mere moments later, Suguru meets him at the balcony. The faintest wisps of dark energy still cling to Satoru as he hands over his other offering: that bouquet of soft blue roses wrapped in navy blue paper, sprigs of baby’s breath peppered through the blooms. It’s big enough to fill Suguru’s arms. Two dozen, at least. Suguru has no idea where he’ll put them all.
“Thank you,” he says, burying his nose among the petals. The baby blue of them reminds him of Satoru’s eyes, which may well be the reason Satoru chose them. A little vain of him, if so. Not unwarranted, though. “These are beautiful.”
“I know, right?” With that, Satoru rubs his bare hands together. “Brr. Brr brr. Chilly out here.”
Suguru laughs off that obvious bait, his swaying steps leading him toward the kitchen. He picks a single rose from the bouquet and slips it into a slender vase—one of the few he has, all of them recently purchased to accommodate Satoru’s frequent flower-giving. He’ll keep this one on his bedside nightstand.
“Suguru. Suguru. Come feel how cold I am.”
In too good a mood to argue, Suguru leaves the rest of the roses where they lay and doubles back at once.
“You don’t have anything resembling a normal, living metabolism,” he says as he crosses the living room, knowing very well that this is just another ploy for sympathy. He remembers well the chill Satoru's touch carried on Halloween. “Of course you’re cold.”
Still, when Satoru presses his hand to the airy barrier that runs along the threshold, Suguru raises his own to meet it. His fingertips slide up the length of Satoru’s longer, paler, more slender ones, until their palms are touching. Satoru radiates a sinking, pulling cold better suited to a frozen corpse; Suguru can feel the heat being wicked from his hand the moment they touch, the intensity of it almost biting.
“You are cold.” It shouldn't be a shock, yet it is. “Wait. Are you always this cold? It’s like I’m touching ice.”
“I caught a tiny little chill.” Wagging his eyebrows, he asks, “Wanna warm me up, Suguru?”
“Does it matter?” Suguru wonders, drawing his hand back and rubbing it along his thigh for warmth. “I mean, the cold won’t kill you. What good does being warm do?”
Satoru drops his hand to his side, for a moment just standing there. Then he shrugs his shoulders.
“Feels nice.”
Suguru’s mouth rounds in a silent oh. He hadn’t imagined it could be something as simple as comfort, but it tracks. Once or twice, Satoru has mentioned feeling warmer—better, stronger, satiated—after feeding. Suguru doubts it feels as nice for a vampire when the warmth is passively absorbed rather than drunk in, but still.
“You should probably dress in a few more layers, then,” he says, dancing around what Satoru actually wants him to say.
Not that he minds Satoru showing up in thin, clingy, weather-inappropriate sweaters or showing off a bit of bare skin; he’s just not quite ready to throw his body on the line just to keep a vampire cozy.
“Eh, that doesn’t really do much for those of us who don’t generate any body heat to begin with.” Satoru scratches his nose. “Hint, hint.”
“Mm, that does make sense.” Suguru gives him a wink. “Don’t worry, Satoru. I’ll get you hot in no time.”
With a smile, he retreats into the apartment’s interior to ready everything he thinks will help. He returns with a freshly-filled hot water bottle and one of his own hoodies, still toasty warm from the heated bathroom where it’s been drying with the rest of his laundry.
“Not the kind of hint I was dropping, but sure,” Satoru says, wasting no time in pulling the hoodie over his much nicer sweater. He’s still sniffing at the collar of it when Suguru offers him the hot water bottle next. “What’s this for?”
“To help get you warm? Here, take it. Hold onto it, like this. Or keep it in your lap.” He jiggles the water bottle, more or less foisting it on Satoru. The fuzzy-soft cover that wraps the bottle is stitched to look like a whale shark. It’s cute! It’s effective. Suguru picked it for both reasons. “I usually use it for sore muscles or to keep my feet warm in bed. It’ll stay hot for at least a few hours. Just take it, Satoru.”
The nagging works. Satoru cradles the oversized, whale-shaped water pouch against his front, hands squeezing around it, and seems pleased with the warmth it radiates.
“Not bad, right?” Suguru asks when he returns with a bowl of fried chicken and french fries. “I mean, it’s definitely going to warm you up better than I ever could.”
“Doubtful. But it is pretty nice,” Satoru agrees while working the water bottle up under the hoodie he has on, trapping it between layers to better hold that heat in against him, “since Suguru chose it for me.”
Satoru kisses his lips out and bats his lashes and doesn’t shy from any silliness that will make Suguru laugh.
Admittedly, it doesn’t take much. Suguru can’t help that he keeps grinning and giggling over nothing at all. Compared to yesterday, he feels airy-light and carefree.
In high spirits, he nibbles on drumsticks and chicken tenders while Satoru complains about the line he’d encountered at KFC; he’d have been here right after sundown, apparently, if not for being held up behind ten other orders.
“It starts to get like that in December. And it’s total chaos on the twenty-forth,” Suguru, a veteran of multiple Christmas Eves spent waiting in lines that wind out the door, warns. “Not worth the trouble, in my opinion. It's kind of a gimmick anyway.”
“So,” Satoru drawls, “you wouldn’t want KFC that night, then?”
Suguru chews slowly, his stare fixed on Satoru. “Are we spending Christmas Eve together?”
A silly question. It’s not as if Suguru can slip out that night for a romantic date and Manami, his usual fellow-single-slash-pretend-date for such occasions, has a girlfriend of her own to spend the holiday with.
“We are,” Satoru states with convincing certainty—and a smile. Even with the points of those long fangs peeking out, there’s considerable charm to it.
“Then I wouldn’t say no, as long as you're the one picking it up.”
Looking awfully pleased with himself, Satoru says, “Then it’s a date.”
Suguru smiles at that, exhales softly through his nose, and even feels the kiss of a blush on his cheeks. Though they’ll be spending it in much the same manner as they do all nights—him inside, Satoru barred outside, talking and almost-touching across the threshold—sharing Christmas Eve together certainly feels… significant. A new marker in whatever this relationship of theirs is. A promise that Satoru isn’t yet willing to leave him alone.
While licking his fingers clean, Suguru says, “Hey. Wanna help me with something?”
Satoru stops staring at his phone and absently smacking the water bottle resting against his belly. He squints. “Help with what?”
In cold, damp winter, Suguru hangs his clothes to dry in the bathroom rather than out on the balcony. With the door closed, all he has to do is run the heated bathroom fan until everything is fully dried out and pleasantly warm to the touch. Humming to himself, he pulls everything down—mostly workout clothes, towels, and pajamas—and loads it all into a laundry basket.
Smiling, he carries it out to the living room and sets the basket down in the open door, half in and half out.
“Oh, I get to do chores now? That’s the surprise?”
“You don’t have to. I’m perfectly capable of folding this all by myself,” Suguru says as he sits cross-legged beside the basket. It’s what he’d have done tonight regardless. Usually, though, he stands by the couch and handles the laundry while they both half-watch some movie or show. “But it'd be nice if you leant a hand. And we can… you know. Sit and talk.”
After a moment spent staring down at Suguru, Satoru silently lowers himself to sit atop the blanket-covered balcony. The whale shark hot water bottle now rests in his lap. His bare hands lay over it, letting the heat it radiates sink into them.
As Suguru starts in on the large pile of laundry before him, he asks the question that has been on his mind for the better part of two days: “So, where were you last night?”
Satoru’s mouth draws into a sly smile. “Were you worried about me, Suguru?”
“No.” Suguru scoffs, all his attention focused on folding with neat, clean lines that will minimize wrinkles. He swallows and lifts a shoulder, feigning nonchalance. “No, but you’re always here whether I like it or not, so… without you, it wasn’t… it just wasn’t the same.”
A long beat of silence follows.
Suguru skirts his gaze up to steal a quick look at Satoru, who has yet to say anything. He is met with a cheek-dimpling grin and a set of crinkled, half-moon eyes fixed on him; Satoru’s pinky is pinched between his teeth, as if satisfying the need to bite and hold something. The vampire is so transparently delighted that Suguru half expects him to giggle and twirl his hair.
“Sounds like someone missed me~”
“I was perfectly happy to get some much-needed alone time.” Suguru keeps his eyes on the sweater in his hands, avoiding the dreamy stare he knows is still fixed upon him. “I enjoyed a quiet, peaceful night in.”
“Sure you did.” The soft, grinning laugh he lets out has Suguru’s neck burning fever-hot under his sweatshirt collar. “Well, I was out of town. On family business.”
“Oh.” Suguru is perhaps more surprised than he should be. Given the modern era and Satoru’s seemingly endless free time, he’d assumed the Gojo clan no longer had many enemies to contend with. In a low whisper, he guesses, “The kind where you kill someone?”
“I wish. Would’ve been less boring.” Satoru answers as if such a topic is mundane and unremarkable, his inflection scarcely changing. Almost pouting, he adds, “I have talents outside of killing, you know.”
“Like?”
“Everything. I’m good at everything.” Satoru only smiles wider as Suguru snorts and rolls his eyes. “This time, all they needed was something scraped up from the bottom of the ocean.”
It’s so out of left field that Suguru drops the shirt he’d been handling and leaves his forearms resting on the laundry basket’s rim. “Excuse me?”
“Have you ever been to Ogasawara?” At Suguru’s slow, stupefied head-shake, he shrugs and goes on. “Well, out past those islands there’s an old Portuguese shipwreck way, way down. The clan historians traced it to a relatively small area,” he says, making a little box with his hands, “but it’s hard to pinpoint things exactly at those kinds of depths, much less get down there and dig around. Which is where I came in.”
Suguru stares blankly back at Satoru, mystified by his grin and general air of unbotheredness.
“I’m sorry, you… went down? Into the ocean? In the middle of the night? Alone?” Suguru imagines being a tiny speck of a creature navigating the vast, cold, dark unknown of the ocean’s depths; the mere thought of trawling through the guts of some dead-filled wreck has his skin clammy. Even if Satoru has no need of air, it’s a horrible thing to ask of him. “That’s awful. Why would they send you to do that? And why would you go?”
Satoru’s smile slips. He peers at Suguru strangely, the slightest furrow drawn between his brows. “What? No. No, it was fine. It wasn’t a big deal. I meannn, aside from missing out on visiting youuu—”
“What if something had happened to you down there?” Suguru leans forward, lips parted, aghast at how Satoru is so blase about being sent to one of the loneliest, most inhospitable places on earth—and all for some old, long-forgotten ingots or coins, as if he himself isn’t a million times more remarkable than any amount of gold bullion.
“What could possibly happen to me, Suguru?”
Suguru doesn’t enjoy contemplating the worst, but it's always come easily to him. One after another, he counts the ways even a vampire like Satoru might have never returned: sunk to the bottom of the sea before finding himself unable to rise again, left to be dragged around by the tides and trapped in lightless trenches; slowed by the water and pressure as he’s torn apart by some deep sea creature, or scores of them; scorched by a thermal vent, dissolved into ash underwater; pinned and trapped in the wreckage he’d been sent to pilfer through, unable to escape but unable to drown.
“Suguru.” The softness in his voice causes Suguru to blink, looking up from the t-shirt bunched tightly in his hands. With a reassuring smile, Satoru tells him, “I teleported down and back up. Poof, just like that. The worst part was finding the damn thing, honestly. All that silty stuff at the bottom had me bumping around like a human in the dark.”
Feeling foolish, Suguru lets out a soft, hollow huff of laughter. Of course Satoru is impervious, even to mortal dread and doubt. For once, there’s some actual relief in that.
“I guess the ocean doesn’t count as running water,” Suguru muses to take his mind off the rest of it, his heart beginning to settle again. “Is it only streams and rivers that give vampires trouble, then? Or is that just story-stuff?”
“Some kind of human-made nonsense, sounds like. I’ve never had a problem with either.” Satoru’s teeth shine as he says, “I’ve hunted past the Urals before. Plenty of rivers between here and there. Never stopped me from getting who I was after.”
“Well. That is a horrifyingly impressive distance to go for a hit.” Satoru seems to take that remark for a compliment. “Was it personal or was it on your family’s order?”
Satoru makes a sound of discontent—of offense, almost. “It was at their polite, beseeching request. Do I look like I take orders?”
Suguru gives him a once-over, considering, and then tries not to smile. “No. No, you’re right. You look like you do whatever you want. And you look like you get away with it, too.”
Satoru grins.
“Right on both counts. If it were you, though,” he purrs while walking two fingers along his side of the laundry basket, “I might listen. Say, if you told me to fetch you the head of an ex, or deliver few million yen to your front door, or to fuck—”
“To go back to whatever you were doing before and leave me alone?”
He means it to tease. Mostly. Suguru is already back to accepting that in so many ways, this is something of a foregone conclusion; he is still grappling with the late realization of how empty his nights are without Satoru. But as the silence stretches, he licks his lips and wishes he hadn’t said it at all.
Satoru is quiet. “Are you telling me I should?”
“No,” he answers too quickly. Hushed, almost reluctant, he checks, “Would you?”
“No.”
Suguru nods. He hadn’t expected any different. His heart is pounding anyway.
“So, um… if your family asked you to do something that you personally disagreed with, you’d refuse?”
Though he’s curious about Satoru in general, this question has a point. If the Gojo clan were to find out that their most valuable asset is wasting night after night on some random nobody’s balcony, offering to do his bidding instead, might they see him as something of a liability?
“Of course. I’ve done it plenty.” He rolls his shoulders. “You spend a few generations upholding your bloodline’s interests and they get so reliant on it. And entitled.”
“Were they waking you up to do chores?” Suguru asks, smiling as he gives the laundry basket a pointed nudge into Satoru. “Or to fight all their battles for them?”
Clearly, Satoru doesn’t mind being asked to plunge to the bottom of the darkest seas. Neither does he mind running little errands to pick up takeout or drinks, though they’re clearly far beneath him. Suguru is curious to know what does cross a line in this vampire's mind.
“Bit of both. The worst was waking up thinking there was some fun battle waiting for me and instead it’s just stupid intraclan dispute number eighty-nine. Crying to me about backing the rightful heir… demanding I kill off their rivals in the clan… throwing their unwanted wife in with me in the hopes I’ll eat her.” He sighs, rolling his neck in a circle. “As if I exist just to make all their problems go away.”
Suguru hums at that, empathetic as he can be about something wholly unrelatable. “Kind of sleazy to try outsourcing all the kinslaying to you.”
“Right? Like, do it yourself,” Satoru snorts. “The last thing I’m interested in is handling the petty minutiae of running a clan for eight hundred-plus years. Yeesh. Honestly, it should be the last thing they want me involved in, too.”
“You don’t think you’d make a good clan head? But you seem so sensible,” Suguru dryly murmurs.
“Hey, I'll have you know I was an amazing clan head,” Satoru snaps back. “For like… twenty years. During wartime, mostly. After that, it got pretty boring. I couldn’t be bothered to keep at it.”
“What, too much peace and prosperity?”
“Yes. Exactly. Too quiet. Too much time at home,” he says with a laugh-turned-groan. “And my parents had died sometime while I was away,” he goes on, softer. “They were adamant that they didn’t want to… be like this. And they weren't alone in that. So when smallpox came back around and swept through, the way it always did, they died. And soon enough, I looked around and there was no one left from my childhood. Just faces with passing resemblance to ones I knew and liked better.”
Suguru doesn’t quite know what to say, even if it’s not unexpected.
“That’s sad.”
“It is sad.” His doleful, rounded eyes flit to meet Suguru’s, playing it up. “I’ve been dealt a tragic hand, Suguru. You know what would cheer me up, though?”
“My god, you’re hopeless,” Suguru groans, not needing to hear Satoru’s request to know it contains one of two things: him going out or Satoru coming in. “And you’re not folding anything, either.”
With a snort, Satoru finally begins rooting around in the basket. “You’re awfully demanding. I thought I didn't have to help?”
“But it would be considerate to, Satoru. If you’re going to have me sit here with my door open for hours, letting all the cold air in, you could at least make yourself useful.”
“I keep you entertained, don’t I? What did you even do without me here?”
He ate in silence, washed up, went to bed. After waiting pathetically by the door for hours, of course.
“I took a nice, relaxing bath with the window wide open and a perfect view of the moon. It just was like being at an outdoor hotspring.”
“Mhm. I could take you to an actual onsen, you know,” Satoru mutters back. “There are some really nice ones down around Kyoto…”
“No need to go that far. There are some really nice ones just outside of Tokyo.”
“You’re so right. We should visit one together. Like…” Satoru has already abandoned a half-folded set of sweatpants to scroll on his phone. With a smile, he turns the screen around where Suguru can see it. “Here!”
Without showing too much interest—there’s no need to get Satoru’s hopes up for nothing—Suguru gives it a look. He can’t help but purse his lips out and admire the pictures Satoru scrolls to show him. There are rooms with private onsen, pretty views of Mt. Fuji, and lush forest all around. It’d be a dreamy overnight or weekend trip.
“I could make a reservation right now,” Satoru says while shaking his phone side to side, as if that will further sway Suguru. “C’mon. Say the word, Suguru. One free onsen weekend for the low, low cost—or generous prize, some might say—of coming with me.”
“Oh, so tempting.” It is quite tempting, if he’s honest. If he were less capable of self-denial or a smidge more optimistic, maybe he’d risk it. “I’ll have to pass, though.”
Satoru flips his phone in the air and lets it thud somewhere on the balcony behind him, sighing. “You’re impossible!”
“You still haven’t folded anything,” Suguru reminds him—mildly, while ignoring the dramatics he’s come to expect. “Is it that you don't know how? Have you spent the last decade paying someone to handle your laundry? Or does your family still do it for you?”
"I know how." With a snort and more force than is necessary, Satoru picks out one of Suguru’s t-shirts and shakes it out. After a momentary pause—his pupils shrinking and his nostrils flaring—he folds it in half, then in quarters, and then plops it atop the corner of the laundry basket.
“No answer for the rest, huh,” Suguru murmurs to himself, quietly judging Satoru’s sloppy form. That itself is answer enough. “You have all the time in the world but make mortals do your drudge work?”
He tsks, mostly to tease. The cool blush at the tips of Satoru’s ears is an amusing reward for it.
“Time is money. Or money is time, I guess. Whatever. Works either way. I have plenty of both, is what I’m saying, and why waste my time on menial tasks when there are far better uses for it? And it’s not as if—oh. Oh. Well, well, well, what’s this?” Satoru asks, a devious sparkle in his eyes.
With his hands still buried in the pile of clothes, he lifts his stare to meet Suguru’s. A soft wolf whistle falls from his pale lips, which then slant into a grin as he stage-whispers, “Lingerie?”
Lingerie? Suguru's brain runs blank for one painfully long second. In the laundry?
Panic kicks in, sending color racing to his cheeks. He scrabbles to grab Satoru’s wrist, his hands, whatever embarrassingly skimpy top or underwear is clutched in them, desperate to snatch it back and squirrel it away. In the same lurching moment, his mouth catches up to the stuttering confusion spinning circles in his mind.
“What? No! I didn’t—that—there wasn’t any in here, so I don’t know how...”
He stops himself mid-thought as Satoru’s hands finally come into sight. All Satoru has in his grasp are a pair of old, very unsexy socks… and Suguru’s hand, which extended well past the threshold barrier as he fell for the vampire’s little trap.
With one hand, Satoru squeezes along the line that curves around Suguru’s thumb joint and across his palm. With the other, he fiddles with the warm fingers resting stiffly in his hold—a hold that is now only slightly cool to the touch.
With a grin that stretches ear to ear, Satoru leans in and tells him, “That was too easy, Suguru. Like, comically easy. You really do have some lingerie then, huh? And you haven’t let me see any of it? What a shame.”
Steam-red, Suguru swallows. Every small, subtle attempt he makes to slip his hand free from Satoru’s grasp is resisted without effort—almost without notice.
Slowly, Satoru angles his head. Though he’s still smiling, there’s a dangerous note of possessiveness as he asks, “Who’s it for?”
That catches Suguru off-guard. “What?”
“Who bought it for you?”
“Me. For myself.”
Though it’s the truth—at most, a few strangers in nightclubs have glimpsed satin straps or a lacy waistband peeking from under his boxy black clothing—Satoru squints tight at him, plainly harboring suspicion.
“Let go of me,” Suguru gently suggests, his voice dropping lower, “and I’ll show you.”
A heartbeat ticks by. After a hum, Satoru’s sulky, slightly sour demeanor brightens. But rather than let Suguru go, he first presses their thumbs together. His is pale and pretty, its nail sharp-tipped and glassy smooth. Suguru’s is still wrapped in a peeling bandaid that covers most of the black polish.
“What happened here?”
“Nicked myself cooking dinner yesterday.” It’s not smart to goad a vampire with direct access to his wrist—to all of him, should he give one good, strong pull—but Suguru presses on anyway. Satoru ought to know what he missed out on while deep sea diving. He should be more wracked his disappearing act than Suguru was. “Some blood went into the soup I was making, unfortunately. And the rest I had to clean up myself.”
Satoru groans under his breath, squeezing tight around Suguru’s fingers like he means to never let go; with his heartbeat thumping like a rabbit’s, Suguru holds his composure and waits it out.
With one last sigh, Satoru relaxes his grip and lets Suguru pull his hand free. “Seriously? The one night I’m not here…”
With all his limbs safely inside again, Suguru gives a small shrug. Even if Satoru had been watching from the balcony, it’s not as if he’d have put his thumb in the vampire’s mouth to let him suck it clean of blood. That would be asking for some kind of ravening frenzy, same as he’d seen in Satoru’s eyes on Halloween.
The mental picture of it, though… Satoru’s lower jaw in his grip and those eyes fixed on him all the while, half-lidded… that cold, squirming tongue pinned under the sliced pad of his thumb, pink, blood-smeared lips wrapped around him… Satoru on his knees for it…
“Well? Let’s see it,” Satoru says, huffy now that he’s had to let Suguru go and learned he missed out on a chance at freshly spilled blood. “I know you love to keep me waiting, but a deal's a deal.”
Suguru licks his lips and gets up in a hurry, glad for a reason to slip away and cool down. As he leaves, he says over his shoulder, “You better actually have some clothes folded when I get back.”
In the cool privacy of his room, he takes a much-needed breather. The feverish haze in his head clears… for the most part. Some sense of gravity returns. The heated tingle low in his belly tapers off into neglected, unsatiated want. Later, after Satoru has left and there is a safe cushion of kilometers between them, Suguru can deal with his horny, harebrained thoughts. If he were to try and take care of himself right now, even in the interest of just getting it out of his system, he might well do something equal parts stupid and irreversible.
As he digs to the bottom of his top dresser drawer, the back of his neck burns with a blush for an entirely new reason. He pulls out a low-cut top that’s all cheap satin and lace—one of the few things he could find that fits over his shoulders and around his chest, and even then it’s always been an unforgivingly tight fit. Every centimeter of muscle packed on his frame really tests the strength of those seams.
It’s nothing extravagant but it has adequately served its purpose. Every so often, Suguru tries it on in the privacy of his own bedroom—with a number of other pieces—or wears it under his hoodies and loose button-downs on casual nights out. It’s not the kind of thing he’s ever had the confidence or reason to show off, but…
He runs his fingers over the shiny black fabric and traces the deep vee of lace trim that cuts down its front, realizing how long it’s been since he put it on. The last time he wore something skimpy and sexy, it was Manami’s clever idea—that nurse costume on Halloween, his usual roomy clothing traded for tight polyester that hugged his form and a hem that barely hit mid-thigh. With a blush that has his cheeks aching, he recalls how avidly Satoru had stared at his legs in their ripped black stockings.
He’ll have a lot to think about when he’s trying to fall asleep tonight.
With a sigh and a nervous flutter in his belly, Suguru steps out into the living room again. One hand splays over his chest to hold up the lacy, low-cut camisole. The other runs down his front, smoothing the material flat.
Through the doorway, a set of faintly glowing eyes blink.
“Oh. I thought you meant, like,” Satoru licks his lips, openly disappointed, “it’d be on you. Showing some skin.”
“What?” Suguru never said anything like that. He looks down his front at the woefully thin, cheap satin held to the front of his sweatshirt. “With the door wide open? Are you crazy? It’s like two degrees in here! You’re lucky you’re even seeing my hands. I ought to be wearing mittens.”
“Mmm. They are nice hands. Pretty wrists, too.” There’s something wrong with him, so easily distracted into making eyes at Suguru’s wrists. With a slow wag of his eyebrows, he adds, “If I were inside, we could close the door and keep the warm air in…”
“Just use your imagination,” Suguru insists instead, holding the lacy number up to his chest and giving a slow spin. Against the black of his sweatshirt, the delicate edges and sheer designs don’t stand out much—not nearly as dramatically as they would on his bare skin, with soft curves of muscle spilling out and over in places.
That doesn’t stop Satoru from letting out a whistle that leaves Suguru smothering a laugh.
“I’m imagining you, alright. Imagining you with that under your costume on Halloween. A missed opportunity.”
Suguru gives Satoru one last look at the lacy cami against his front before balling it up. “A missed opportunity for what? Incentivizing you to carry me off on the spot?"
Satoru’s mouth splits in a wide, toothy grin. “Exactly. I mean, letting you go hasn't exactly worked out the way I'd hoped. Obviously."
“You call this 'letting me go?’”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it having you.”
Suguru nods his head side to side, supposing that’s true, too. Their interactions tend to hover on some liminal plane, not quite one thing or another—a little like Satoru himself, who is neither truly dead nor truly alive, and the threshold that forever separates them. Suguru is not quite safe, but not in immediate peril. Satoru is indulged, but still left unsated. They’re not together, yet they’re rarely apart. They can enjoy each other’s company, but never to full satisfaction. They can’t even share the same room together.
Suguru flings the camisole onto the couch. He sees Satoru’s eyes follow it, stare lingering before letting it alone.
“So?”
“So?” Suguru questions back as he kneels down by the balcony door.
Satoru makes an oversized, dramatic gesture… that directs Suguru’s eye to the small, flat stack of three or four folded garments perched on the corner edge of the laundry basket.
“Wow.” Suguru’s brows raise at the pitiful, paltry effort on display. “Thank you. You’re really helping me out here.”
“Heh. Not a problem. Not a problem at all.” Satoru tosses the measly stack atop Suguru’s much larger pile of clothing just inside the door. “Hey. I was thinking… let me in and I can get your PS4 working again.”
“That?” Suguru’s head swivels to his TV console and the sad, defunct Playstation beside it. “I told you, it doesn’t even turn on anymore. I already tried everything on the forums. It’s dead.”
He just can’t bear to let it and all of his saved data go just yet.
Satoru snorts out loud. “Psh, I’ll be the judge of that. C’mon, Suguru. Let me work my magic and revive your Playstation.”
Suguru settles back and considers. “Tempting. But my safety is probably worth more than a bricked console. Could you not work on it out there?”
“Nope. I need to be inside to do it. Non-negotiable.”
“Too bad. Guess that means no Tekken for either of us.”
“Guess not,” Satoru says with a sniff.
He is adamant, refusing to entertain the idea of fixing anything without first being welcomed in, and… Suguru can’t hold it against him, really. After a night and two days spent wondering where Satoru was and whether he’d come back, he doesn’t even mind the persistent wheedling to get inside.
With a slow smile, Suguru asks, “Are you all warmed up now?”
Satoru gives the soft, whale shark-shaped water bottle in his lap a quick series of fond little smacks. “Mhm. Big improvement.”
Still smiling, Suguru holds his hand up in offering, wanting to feel for himself.
After a moment, Satoru lifts his hand and lines it up against Suguru’s. It takes a bit of adjustment for their palms to touch. His skin is decently warm now, if only just.
“So you like the hot water bottle? Maybe I should invest in an electric blanket for you. Or a heat lamp? Like the kind lizards use.” Suguru only grins wider at Satoru’s total lack of enthusiasm for the idea. Clapping his hands together, he asks, “Oooh, should I set one up out here for you? Make the balcony a little terrarium?”
“What I neeeed,” Satoru says, withdrawing in favor of flopping down onto his plush blanket and rolling over, “is a soft, warm Suguru by my side.”
He smiles up at Suguru like a cat showing his belly. Harmless.
Dryly, Suguru asks, “Is that all?”
“That’s all. Give me twelve hours in bed with you and I guarantee I'll be all thawed out and toasty warm.”
“Yeah, at my expense.” Suguru wraps his arms around his knees and holds them, heat spiking under his skin at the thought of being tangled with Satoru under the covers. “What I’m hearing is that I’d have your cold feet—your cold everything—on me all night long.”
“Well, yes,” Satoru laughs. “Listen! It’ll be a trade-off. In winter, you keep me warm. In summer, I’ll cool you down.”
Suguru cocks his head. Now there’s a thought, and it's one far more pleasant than the prospect of having a human-shaped popsicle glued to his shivering side. Suguru rubs his bottom lip while considering it. On a sweltering summer night, it would be heavenly to have Satoru’s heatless body there at his back, steadily wicking the excess from his sweaty skin.
“You’re actually thinking about it,” Satoru realizes, excitement lifting the murmur of his voice. Right on the heels of that revelation, his expression scrunches in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s what tempts you?”
“What? I get heatsick,” he answers with a defensive little shrug. “It makes it hard to sleep. Hard to stomach anything. Hard not to be miserable, really.”
Satoru’s eyes alight, readily latching onto that little shred of possibility. “How about a pact, then? When it hits thirty-five degrees, if I haven’t already won you over by then, we’ll sleep together. How’s that?”
“If it breaks forty degrees, maybe,” Suguru counters. Though he’s not putting much stock into this pact-talk, a humid, forty-plus degree day would certainly have him willing to embrace death. “Maybe.”
With far more certainty, Satoru grins and settles it with, “Forty degrees it is.”