Chapter Text
It’s hot in the forest as Shoyou treks back down to that hidden lake in the forest for what feels like the hundredth time. The air sticks to his skin and he has soaked through his shirt by the time he finally arrives at the lake beneath the waterfall. Carrying all his art supplies on his shoulders in this weather is no simple feat, but all his discomfort vanishes in an instant at the sight that greets him.
He’s not playing the violin this time–he doesn’t have to. Shoyou will come, willingly, every time. He knows that now. He, with the cold eyes and warm hands.
Tobio is standing beneath the waterfall, long body a tanned smudge against clear, blue water. His palms are turned up and his head tipped back in bliss. Shoyou admires him for a moment until Tobio breaks his trance by turning to him. “Are you just going to stand there, dumbass?” he asks.
Shoyou swallows hard and steps out of the blissful shade of the trees. The sun is out today and its rays reflect off the water in every direction, scattering its golden colors all across the surrounding foliage and rock formations.
He takes off his shoes and socks and wades into the water with his sketchbook and pen above his head. Tobio has adjusted the depth to more manageable levels ever since the day Shoyou fell in. He can wade through it now, but not quite all the way to Tobio. He’s beginning to suspect that Tobio is doing it on purpose. Teasing him.
“I was just… thinking of the, uhm, composition and… how to go about it.”
Tobio rolls his eyes. “Sure. That’s what you were doing.”
Shoyou, now properly drenched and no longer sweating to death, exhales as he leans his elbows on the rock in front of him and flips open his sketchbook.
“Whatever. Are you ready?”
He steps out of the waterfall and runs his fingers through his hair, presumably to get the wet strands out of his eyes. Shoyou’s not really paying attention. Not when the movement makes his biceps jump underneath his skin, and certainly not when he’s standing so close to Shoyou he can almost touch him. Naked.
Right. He can never seem to get used to it, no matter how many times they’ve done this by now. He’s immensely grateful for the fact that his lower half is hidden beneath the water.
Tobio lies down on the smooth, sloping side of the rock so that he’s facing Shoyou–head on. He’s so incredibly close all of a sudden and Shoyou can see the way the sunlight dances in the blue of his eyes in much the same way it dances on the surface of the water all around them. It’s as mesmerising as it is paralysing. His hand doesn’t move, the paper remains spotless, and he doesn’t even know where to begin. He’s not sure he could replicate what he’s seeing before him even if he practiced for a thousand years.
“You’re not being subtle, you know?” Tobio says.
Shoyou jumps away from him immediately. He hadn’t noticed how close he’d gotten.
His cheeks burn when he looks down at his sketchbook. “Shut up…” he says, weakly.
“Are all humans so easily swayed?” Tobio suddenly asks, and something in the way he says it sounds so… genuine. Like he can’t quite believe it.
“Who wouldn’t be? Aren’t you, like, supposed to be irresistible?”
Tobio rests his chin in his hand. “Yes, but… not like this,” he says. Shoyou’s not sure he understands what he means by ‘like this’ but something tells him the answer would mortify him, so he doesn’t ask. He starts sketching instead. He really wants to draw him in a full-body pose, but he’s too embarrassed to ask him, so he settles for his face. Which, for the record, isn’t much of a loss. But Tobio is not done talking.
“Are you not scared of me?” he asks.
Shoyou’s hands are trembling as he works, but not because he’s scared.
“No… not really. Should I be?” he wonders, even though he knows the answer. Tobio says nothing.
He isn’t human. That much Shoyou knows, and he knows it more than ever now that he’s been drawing him for a while. His classmates have been hounding him for information about the ‘beautiful model’ he found and are teasing him for being stingy with his contact information that Shoyou doesn’t and couldn’t have even if he wanted to. They, like Shoyou, have noticed that otherworldliness that seems to surround Tobio like a halo. Which is ironic considering the circumstances. Shoyou is certain that whatever Tobio is, it's as far removed from angels as possible.
He’s too nervous to make any sort of eye contact, so he starts from the bottom up; with his chest and neck and those beautiful, veiny arms. Shoyou eyes the beauty mark on the junction of his neck as he works and wants nothing more than to put his mouth on it. Maybe, just maybe, Tobio would sing for him again if he did.
Shoyou is certain that this attraction he’s experiencing isn’t normal. Especially now that Tobio has made it clear that his reactions are… odd. He’s supposed to be scared, he supposes, but he can’t bring himself to care. He knows he’s on thin ice here, that he’s dealing with something outside the realm of reason, something that bends the laws of nature to its will. He’d tried to drown him that first day, but it somehow felt a lot more like a wolf following its instincts than something done with malicious intent. He should be concerned, he should run away, he should put an end to this strange… relationship they’re building and never return, but he simply just… can’t. Nothing he tells himself, no amount of sound reasoning, works.
He’s too enraptured, and the more he learns about him–the better he gets to know him–the less he wants to leave. Perhaps that’s part of the scheme. Perhaps that’s the new tactic Tobio is using to lure him to his demise. Perhaps it’s one of his many supernatural abilities.
Shoyou’s not sure, and he doesn’t care.
Because this… entity before him, with the inquisitive eyes and sweet little pout, is simply too endearing to just leave behind. For the first time in years Shoyou has found his muse. Something to keep only for himself. Something sacred and breathtaking that only he can know and only he can put to paper. He’s always been in love with nature and its beauty, and so what could be more perfect for Shoyou and his art than this? After all, isn’t this just another part of nature and her secrets?
They’re about an hour into the session when Tobio starts getting restless. “Are you done yet?”
“It hasn’t even been that long!”
Tobio groans and flips over on his back.
Where his elbows had been resting on the hard, jagged rock beneath him the skin is smooth and unharmed; not even a little red.
“This is boring,” he says with his hands behind his head.
Shoyou expertly avoids looking anywhere but at the unblemished skin of his elbows and the top of his head.
“You’re like a child,” he says.
Tobio doesn’t take the bait. “Don’t you want to draw something other than my face?” he asks.
Shoyou’s hand does an involuntary jerk that leaves a particularly harsh, dark line on the page. “W-what?”
Tobio sits up and turns to look at Shoyou over one broad shoulder. “Like, what about the rest of me?” he says, as if it needed further clarification. Shoyou had wanted to draw all of him, full body, but he’d been too flustered to ask and now, seemingly, is too flustered to say anything. Quite frankly, he’s not even sure he could last a full 15 minutes while drawing what is essentially the most beautiful man he’s ever laid eyes on. Tobio may be an immortal being but Shoyou is a mere human. He knows his limits, and yet he’s tempted all the same.
Tobio quirks a brow at him.
“Uhm, y-yeah. Yeah! Sure!” he manages to squeak out.
Tobio leans down and peeks at Shoyou’s sketchbook. “You’re not making me look weird, are you?” he asks.
Shoyou tugs the sketchbook to his chest and holds on tight. He’s shy, suddenly, and doesn’t want Tobio to see what he drew. It’s somehow… exposing. Like he might see things in the drawing that shouldn’t be for anyone else to witness.
“H-how do you want to do this?” he asks instead.
Tobio levels him with a look he can’t quite read.
And then: the air around them stills. Everything, all the chipper tweeting of birds and the hiss of insects around them stops. Shoyou shivers, suddenly hyperaware of their closeness.
“You should come closer,” he says, “See things from a different perspective.” It sounds almost like it’s not art Tobio’s talking about. Shoyou swallows hard. “What do you mean?”
Tobio takes his arm then, and tugs. Shoyou expects it to be harsh, but the touch is gentle as he guides him to walk around the rock to stand in front of him instead. He expects the ground to open beneath his feet and to be dunked, feet first, into the abyss, but nothing happens. Shoyou remains standing, torso safely out of the water.
“Woah…”
Tobio is in front of him now, body fully exposed and pose casual as he leans back on his hands and regards him.
“This good?” he asks, and there’s a lilt in his voice that almost sounds teasing. If it weren’t for the perpetual poker-face, Shoyou might think he’s flirting with him. But surely that can’t be.
He swallows, hard, and does his absolute best to stave off the all-encompassing arousal that’s brewing, quickly, in his gut. It’s not made easier by having to observe every little detail of the body laid out before him like a fine meal.
Tobio is every bit the Adonis Shoyou’s classmates insist he is. Long limbs drag the eye inward, towards that defined torso and tantilizing stretch of black hair below his bellybutton–it is composition at its finest, art turned living–and Shoyou is just a man.
“Can I…?” he says, not even sure what he wants or what he means himself, but his hand is hovering over one smooth, sunkissed thigh regardless of his inner turmoil.
Tobio tilts his head at him and regards him for a moment. He says nothing, only bends his knee so that skin meets skin and Shoyou can experience first-hand the smoothness and warmth of his body, the firmness of well-defined muscles. It’s like touching a marble statue only instead of cold, dead marble the body underneath his palm is pulsing and hot and so inviting.
He drags his hand up slowly, so torturously slowly, and doesn’t dare look away from his own knuckles. His pulse is so fast he can’t see clearly no matter how many times he tries to blink away the fog, and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t inhaled or exhaled in a while.
When the tips of his fingers meet the junction of Tobio’s hip he stills.
“Why’d you stop?” the demon asks him.
Shoyou squeezes once as if by instinct. “I’m not sure. It feels… wrong, somehow,” he admits. “Are you sure you’re okay with… this?”
Tobio’s hand finds his, but he doesn’t remove his hand the way Shoyou expected him to. Instead, he drags his own palm up Shoyou’s arm, over a delicate wrist and the inside of his forearm, pale and sensitive, all the way to his elbow and then bicep. His touch is firmer than Shoyou’s but gentle. More determined and intent on where it wants to go as it slides over his arm to his chest and over the exposed skin where his tank-top doesn’t quite cover him completely.
“You're kinda like honey,” he says, suddenly.
It’s Shoyou’s turn to be confused. “Huh…?”
“Warm, sweet, amber….” he trails off as he traces the protruding bones of Shoyou’s collarbone until he reaches the center. From there he drags his hand down the middle of his torso. Down, down… “...and hard to get a taste of without getting stung,” he finishes.
Shoyou blinks at him, then bursts out laughing. Tobio’s careful, stoic expression breaks as he stares at Shoyou with wide, curious eyes. He must seem like a complete lunatic, but he simply can’t control himself.
“S-sorry,” he says between gasps, “It’s just, you couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
Shoyou grabs the hand still resting comfortably over his stomach and places it over his throat where his pulse is racing beneath his skin like a hummingbird’s wings.
“You have no idea how much I want you to want me,” he admits, quietly.
It comes out sounding bigger than he intended; swallows the air around them and suffocates them with its intensity. Shoyou had only meant to say that he was horny and more than willing to explore his sexuality, but it had come out sounding like he wanted more than that. Like he was expecting some kind of romance out of a relationship that no doubt goes against all known and unknown laws of nature and which, he’s sure, is most certainly sacrilegious.
Tobio, to his credit, doesn’t so much as flinch at his proclamation. He sits up instead and tugs Shoyou closer by the grip he has on his throat. It’s hot, unbearably so, and Shoyou’s sure another tug would be all it takes to make him come right then and there. To his dismay, Tobio does none of that.
To his utter dismay, he kisses him instead.
It starts slow, controlled. An exploration of the unknown from both sides. It doesn’t change until hands get involved, until fingertips are brushing over sensitive skin once again and exploring bumps and crevices few have the privilege to so much as see, much less touch.
It’s not until Tobio’s tongue finds its way past his lips and begins its exploration of his mouth that Shoyou moans. He will pat himself on the back for holding on for so long later, but in that moment the embarrassment almost has him jerking away from him. If it weren’t for the firm grip on his throat, he might have, but the hand holding him close doesn’t falter. The grip is unrelenting, but not unkind, and when Tobio uses his other hand to pull Shoyou to him by his waist he doesn’t resist anymore. He goes, willingly. No enchanting song or violin spell needed.
Shoyou straddles him hesitantly at first then all at once when those same hands drag all over his body and find their way underneath his soaked shirt to brush over the cooled, wet skin. It’s completely intoxicating, and for every moment that passes Shoyou finds himself less and less able to form coherent thoughts.
He’s rock hard in his shorts, almost painfully so, and throws all inhibitions out the window when he grinds down to find Tobio equally as hard underneath him.
If this is hell he doesn’t care to know what heaven is like.
“You and I should switch places,” Tobio tells him in that low, melodious tone. His voice has a distinct rasp to it that Shoyou recognises only because he himself is just as affected.
“Y-yeah? How so?” he says, before diving back in.
He kisses over his jaw and down to that spot in the junction of his neck, the one he’d been eyeing for hours, and finds out that it's as delicious as he thought it would be. Tobio, like expected, moans beautifully for him when he sucks on it and strong fingers tighten their grip on his hips. God, how he wishes Tobio could bruise.
“You should be the one doing the tempting. You’re good at it,” he says.
It sounds odd to Shoyou. He’s never been considered particularly sexy or alluring, and he’s never been very good at forming romantic or, god knows, sexual relations. With women? Occasionally. He’s been told he can be quite charming when he wants to be. But with men? He can’t say he hasn’t tried–he’s been curious about it for a long, long time–but guys are not exactly throwing themselves at his feet.
So to hear a deity like Tobio–someone or something completely otherworldly, as far removed from measly human beauty as possible–call him tempting is heady and addictive unlike any drug.
“You must be saying that to all your humans,” he jokes, because he doesn’t know what else to say to that, and because he doesn’t quite believe him still.
Tobio grabs him below the thighs, then lifts him up. Shoyou staggers momentarily before wrapping his arms around his neck as Tobio stands and wades through the water.
Shoyou watches over his shoulder as his things, still sitting on the rock, move further and further away from him until, finally, they’re obscured by the waterfall. If he wasn’t already soaked he sure is now, but the cascading water is a welcome surprise. It’s not icy like it was that first day. It’s warm and gentle as it kisses his skin. This despite the fact that the weather outside hasn’t changed much in such a short amount of time, and yet every time he comes here he finds the air to be warmer and warmer, the water more and more inviting. It’s like stepping into a bubble where summer never ends.
Maybe that was on purpose, too.
Tobio presses him against the wall of the waterfall and kisses him again. Hard. Shoyou can do nothing but hold on tight even as his legs tremble around a strong waist.
“So, uhm,” he starts as Tobio’s lips descend to his jaw, his neck, his collarbones, and as warm hands trace the curve of his ass and squeeze.
A gasp, a moan. “N-now might not be a good time to admit this, but I’ve, uhm, n-never–hah–been with a man before,” he says.
Tobio stills, but his expression is soft as he leans back to look at Shoyou. Black hair falls into eyes as blue as the sky in all of Shoyou’s paintings. Cerulean. His favorite color.
“Do you want to stop?” he asks, earnestly, and Shoyou is so taken aback that his jaw falls open on instinct.
“You… would stop? For me?” he asks.
Tobio frowns at him. The shadows his brows cast over his eyes make them look multiple shades darker. Or maybe that’s another magic trick. He doesn’t know what’s real anymore.
“Of course I would,” he says. “I’m not an animal.”
And it sounds so ridiculous coming from someone, something, that had tried to kill him not too many meetings ago.
“But you would lure me to my death?” he challenges.
Tobio’s eyes track his lips as he speaks, then cut back to look him straight in the eye. “You came to my territory and disrupted me in my home and you dare judge me for it?” he asks.
Shoyou squirms in his hold, pulse quickening as he realises arguing with a dangerous entity he doesn’t fully understand while quite literally being stuck between a rock and a hard place might not have been his wisest decision.
“I didn’t do anything,” he says, too thick-headed to take such accusations lying down. He’s innocent and he knows it.
Tobio scoffs. “That’s for me to decide,” he says. “It’s in my nature. It’s what I’m here to do.”
Shoyou searches in that gaze for the same dangerous intent he saw that day but finds, to his surprise, none of it. All he finds is anger, maybe sadness. He’s not sure what those storm clouds mean but he somehow doubts they’ll leave him shipwrecked.
“And yet you’ve kept me alive. Entertained my stupid whims, even. Why?”
A hand comes up to brush steady fingers through his hair. Shoyou’s shoulders drop on reflex.
“I told you. You fascinate me,” he says, cryptically. Quietly.
Those dangerous lips are on him again, and Shoyou laments never having had the forethought to look into the mythologies of the area before returning to him. He wonders, as he’s being kissed out of his mind, what Tobio really is. Where does he come from? What’s in his nature? To kill? To maim? To lure? He shares all the similarities with sirens, minus the aquatic anatomy, and yet he’s nothing like the sirens Shoyou knows of. He doesn’t look like an angel but he’s not scary enough to read as demonic, either.
And now, this. An ability to pick favourites, apparently. To choose his victims and when to kill. By which criteria Shoyou can only begin to guess.
He breaks the kiss, much to both of their dismay, if Tobio’s scrunched brows and sour expression are anything to go by.
“What’s gonna happen to me?” he asks. “Will you ever let me go?”
Tobio ponders this for a moment. “I haven’t decided yet, but I can be persuaded.” he says, and it’s only then Shoyou realises he’s joking.
“You’re messing with me,” he says.
Tobio grins, then. Teeth and all. “Perhaps.”
“You’re not actually gonna imprison me, are you?”
Tobio brushes his nose along the junction of his jaw. “If you want to smell the flowers in the meadow do you trample them first?”
The ridiculous analogy pulls a chuckle out of Shoyou. It’s in moments like this he’s reminded that he’s not dealing with a human. Still, he feels more at home here, in this creature’s arms, than he ever has in the world beyond the trees. All his worries, all his real-life problems, seemingly vanish into thin air whenever he’s here. Nothing matters except the beautiful boy before him.
Tobio leans back to look at him as he laughs, and the expression is so tender it makes the breath catch in Shoyou’s throat. His giggles stop abruptly.
But Tobio is not done. “Would you be as shocked if I told you I never actually planned to kill you?” he says.
The realisation washes over him in an instant. Of course. Falling into water, carrying heavy stuff or otherwise, wouldn’t be enough to kill Shoyou. Not without struggle. He’s sure there are quicker, better ways to kill him if he wanted to. And, besides, Tobio pulled him up and out of danger. Before he knew so much as his name, much less who and what he was.
“Why?” is all he manages to say.
A warm thumb brushes over Shoyou’s lower lip softly. “Because I’ve been following you for a while now,” he begins as he adjusts his hold on Shoyou, “And I suppose I fell in love with your creations. Few people have the guts to wander this far into the forest, alone, and those that do seldom take the time to appreciate it. You do,” he finishes.
Shoyou is left speechless. What does one even say to that?
“You’ve… been stalking me?” he says, unsure if he should be flattered or concerned.
“In some ways, I guess,” he concedes.
Shoyou’s not entirely sure he knows what ‘stalking’ means to Tobio, but before he can say anything in reply Tobio lifts his chin so that Shoyou is looking at him and nothing else.
“I’m everywhere. Always,” he says. “I’ve been here the whole time, Shoyou.”
So that’s how it is. Tobio is some kind of manifestation of nature, he supposes. Able to disguise himself among the trees and foliage. Or maybe even become it. It should concern him. Scare him, even, to know that all this time, he was being watched. But it doesn’t. He’s warm to the very core, and he’s not even going soft between them.
He hums and smiles as he tugs Tobio impossibly closer. “If it were coming from anyone else it would be kinda creepy,” he says. “But I suppose I’ll forgive you if you kiss me again.”
It’s not a suggestion, and Tobio knows it. When their lips meet again it’s with renewed vigour, their passion bleeding out of their very pores and coming together, mingling in the air, in the huffs of breath and the warm, cascading water gently caressing their bodies as they blend and mesh. Whichever god is out there, Shoyou hopes they’re not watching.
Tobio smells like pine trees and fresh moss and Shoyou can’t get enough of it. He drags his hands down his torso to the fat cock trapped between their bodies and gives it one long, purposeful tug. Just to hear the way Tobio’s breath hitches and feel the way powerful hips thrust up and against him him.
“Want you inside me,” he says, uncaring of the logistics.
He’s sure the magical deity will find a way, and boy does he.
It begins with impatient fingers circling his hole, slowly at first then firmly, desperation bleeding into every movement until one long finger enters him to the knuckle. He gasps, not used to the intrusion, but where he expected there to be pain or at the very least discomfort he feels only pleasure.
“Fuck, right there, Tobio…”
He says nothing, only continues the slow in-and-out movement of his finger. Deliberately pressing on that spot deep inside him that’s most sensitive. Shoyou jolts whenever Tobio presses into it, cock so hard he thinks the water dripping on it might just be enough to make him come.
Tobio keeps devouring him, lips pressed over his pulse, right where jaw meets neck. He sucks on it, bites it, kisses it tenderly–all the while slowly, carefully, working him open. One excruciatingly long finger at a time. And when, finally, the fat head of his cock pushes against him Shoyou inhales, expecting pain that never comes. His body yields to the intrusion as if he’s done this a million times before. He’s pretty sure there’s not a drop of lube in sight, and yet the glide is smooth and frictionless.
“Fuck!”
Shoyou’s hips meet Tobio's as he bottoms out. Turns out Tobio’s powers are good for more things than simple water manipulation.
“That’s it,” he husks, hot tongue dragging across Shoyou’s bottom lip slowly as he thrusts, “Sing for me, Shoyou.”
And oh, does he sing.
Shoyou’s fingers dig into the flesh and muscle so alive under his touch. He can feel those same muscles as they move, as Tobio’s hips slam into him over and over again. Shoyou, who’s used to slow and sensual, candlelit hookups underneath blankets in the bedroom has never done something this filthy before–and it’s exhilarating. He’s a live wire in Tobio’s hands. Wherever he touches him, Shoyou responds faithfully, and however he moves him, Shoyou bends dutifully. Strong hands lift his legs by the knees until Shoyou’s thighs are flush against his torso and legs thrown over Tobio’s shoulder. The same brutal, searing hot hands find purchase against the rock at his back, caging him in, and Shoyou’s eyes roll to the back of his head as the next thrust hits him right where he needs it most.
Colors flash behind his eyelids like a firework show. The only way he can hold himself up is by holding onto Tobio’s neck for dear life. He trusts him not to let him fall, and Tobio doesn’t. His grip on him is strong and the thrusts against his body even more so, serving only to push them closer together and Shoyou further and further up the wall.
Despite the fact that he’s being grated against the rugged surface with every thrust, Shoyou’s back doesn’t hurt. There’s no metallic scent of blood in the air and no burning sensation of being cut open. Much like Tobio’s elbows, Shoyou’s skin remains harmless. The cold, hard rock at his back is no more dangerous than a bed of feathers.
“Shit, Tobio, I’m–” he starts, not sure how to warn him.
Tobio presses their foreheads together, movements slowing to a steady, even tempo. Every sharp jerk has Shoyou’s insides clenching on that thick, pulsing head splitting him open.
“You’re okay,” he whispers to him in the space between their lips, “You can let go.”
Well, you don’t have to tell him twice.
He tugs Tobio impossibly close, so close the thrusting devolves into mindless rutting, and kisses him until he can’t breathe. Tobio follows his lead and buries himself to the hilt. Warmth surges through him and pools low in his stomach. Shoyou doesn’t think he’s ever come harder in his life. How on earth he’s supposed to just walk away from this, he doesn’t know.
Tobio brushes his damp bangs out of his face as their breathing settles and their pulse slows to an even, gentle rhythm so in synch Shoyou’s not sure where either of them begins and ends. They’re breathing, moving, doing everything in tandem like two beings merging into one, sharing one soul. It’s the most profound, paralysing, wonderful feeling he’s ever experienced and he knows nothing else will ever compare.
Maybe it’s magic, or supernatural abilities. Maybe this is the final nail in his coffin. The trick to end all tricks. But if it is a facade, a trick of the light, it doesn’t fade no matter how hard he tries to blink it away. He supposes a magician never reveals his tricks. That, or the loneliness he’d glimpsed in those icy pools had been real.
“I’m not dead,” he says, apropos nothing in particular.
Tobio huffs out a clipped little chuckle and smiles at him.
“I told you I’m harmless,” he says.
Shoyou drags his fingers through black hair all the way to the very ends of it where his hands meet at his nape and interlock. “I don’t believe you,” he says. “What you do to me is not normal.”
Tobio turns his head and kisses the inside of Shoyou’s wrist. Hinata’s face flushes at the simple, loving gesture. Done in such a way you would think they’ve known each other for ages and this is a daily occurrence.
“Don’t go,” he says, then.
Sad, blue eyes look into Shoyou's. There’s a profound emptiness within them, an anticipatory grief. It's like staring into the bottom of a well before the plunge. He’ll never resurface if he jumps. He knows it.
“I have a life to return to, you know?” he says, as if he has a choice.
He half expects Tobio to contort and twist, to turn into a monster right before his eyes and trap him there, underneath the waterfall, for eternity. But no such thing happens. The sad, blue creature holding onto him like he’s precious doesn’t morph, doesn’t twist or break. He nods and puts Shoyou down.
“You might wanna clean up before going back,” he says, as if there’s nothing more to be said.
Shoyou was ready for an argument, for Tobio to try to persuade him to stay with him, but he doesn’t. He accepts it as easily as breathing, and something about that stings. It wraps itself around Shoyou’s heart and squeezes tight.
Tobio gives him one last, sombre, look before turning and walking out of the waterfall. Back to the lake where Shoyou’s things still sit on the sloping rock.
“Wait!”
He’s reaching for him, hand breaking the surface of the falling water to grasp at nothing on the other side. Nothing but empty, cold air. The lake is different. Shallow as before but colder, the water dark and murky, and the sky above grey and sunless.
Maybe it really was just an illusion.
Shoyou is not one to give up so easily.
If Tobio won’t fight for them, he will.
He’s not sure he could just straight up walk out of his own life for good–he has family, friends, responsibilities, a job he loves and a major to finish–but as days turn into weeks and weeks into months his resolve weakens.
That twisting snare around his soul won’t give up. For every day that passes it twists itself tighter and tighter around him until he is left breathless and hollow, longing for something he’ll never have again. Because there is nothing there, in the real world, that’s big enough–grand enough–to be Shoyou’s muse. To stoke the fire within him the way Tobio had.
So when the skies turn blue and the air grows warm, when the temperature rises and bees buzz through the forest, he returns to him.
He’s not hard to find–not now that Shoyou knows exactly what he’s looking for. He finds him at the lake again, as dazzling as ever. He’s sitting on his rock, playing on his violin. A slow, longing melody that harmonises with the wind in the treetops and the rush of the waterfall.
Shoyou only watches him for a moment. He says nothing, certain Tobio is already aware of his presence, and just watches. His eyes, the same as they’ve always been, stare into nothing–stuck on an invisible point far ahead of him.
Shoyou takes a step closer and, as he does, steps on a dry twig. Tobio startles. His violin disappears, his eyes grow wide and frightened for a second until they register who it is that’s infringing on his space. Shoyou stops, too. Just as surprised as he is to have been able to surprise him at all. Tobio had told him he was everywhere, so Shoyou had assumed he could see and hear him the moment Shoyou had stepped into the forest.
“Sorry,” he says, caught completely off guard. He’d meant to say something else entirely. “Didn’t mean to... scare you…” he says, uncertain of his own words.
Tobio cools his expression and clears his throat. “You didn’t,” he says as convincingly as a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Shoyou huffs at him. All of him goes warm in an instant. The emptiness inside him disappears and its stead a warmth grows and grows until it shines out of his skin like the first embers of a bonfire.
He takes off his shoes and socks and sits down at the edge of the water.
“I thought you said you’re everywhere. In everything. Was that a lie?” he asks.
Tobio hops off his rock and wades over to Shoyou. He folds his arms over Shoyou’s lap and leans his head on them when he reaches him. Shoyou instinctively lifts his hand to run his fingers through his hair. Tobio closes his eyes.
“I thought you’d never come back, so I had no reason to look for you,” he says.
Shoyou scratches down the back of his nape and back up to the top of his head. The silky, black strands part for his fingers like water and Tobio practically purrs.
“I… needed time to think. And, besides, you’re the one who just left before I could explain anything.”
Tobio’s brows scrunch together, eyes still closed. “What is there to say?” he says. “We belong to different realms, you and me. We’re not meant to be together.”
The verbal confirmation sends a pang of sorrow through him.
“I know… but at least like this, for now, we can still see each other,” he says.
Tobio doesn’t look too satisfied with that answer.
“Until you grow bored of me, and leave me here in my eternal loneliness.”
There are so many questions he wants to ask, so much he wants–no, needs to know. But he supposes there will be time for that. There are more urgent matters at hand.
“And if I ask you to come with me, could you?” he asks.
This catches Tobio’s attention. He lifts his head to look up at Shoyou with those cool unreadable eyes. The air stills again, all sound dies, and all Shoyou can see and hear is Tobio.
“...I can’t stray too far from the forest,” he says, which is not a no.
A caveat, then.
Shoyou nods, mulling it over for a second. “So as long as you’re in close proximity to the forest, you’re fine?” he asks.
Tobio takes Shoyou’s hand and kisses the inside of his palm. Shoyou’s skin tingles wherever his lips touch.
“Doesn’t have to be this forest,” he says.
The giddiness, the utter joy of that statement alone, has Shoyou’s entire expression morphing against his will. He can feel himself smiling more like an afterthought. All his focus is on the beautiful boy in his hands, staring up at him like he plucked the stars from the sky.
“You’ll come with me, then?” he asks, breathlessly.
Tobio lifts himself out of the water so that they are at eye-level. He’s so close their noses brush as he speaks.
“I’d go wherever you ask me to. As long as you don’t forget about me,” he says.
Shoyou whoops out loud as he kisses him. On the lips, on the nose, the cheek, over his eyelid, forehead. Anywhere he can reach, as many times as Tobio will allow him. Which isn’t many, because he’s already writhing to get out of Shoyou’s grip by the sixth wet smooch to his chin.
“Stop–quit it, dumbass!”
Shoyou’s laughter bounces and echoes through the forest, amplified tenfold. Nothing in the world could break his spirit. Not even the dread of what awaits them, far in the future, when Shoyou’s humanity catches up with him and Tobio remains the same.
But that’s an issue for future Shoyou to worry about. Right now all he wants to do is to hold the warm body in his arms close.
He’ll never let him go.
And he doesn’t. No matter how much Tobio protests.
"Näcken" by Owe Zerge (1925)