Archive of Our Own

Somewhere after Yoimiya unkindly blows his door off of its hinges with her foot, it occurs to Tomo that friendship–the entire concept of it, really–is a mistake.

“Tomo!” she calls cheerfully, with little regard for the splitting, self-made migraine inching its way through his forehead, her footsteps treading with careless abandon through his darkened apartment. “Are you dead in here?”

In eloquent response, Tomo lets out a strangled sort of groan, the muscles in his body shifting in tandem to roll his prone form over, depositing his face directly into one of the couch’s torn pillows. The sound contains substantially more echo than he’d intended, carrying neatly over into the distance, where he hears–

“If he’s gone, you gotta let me know, man. The great Arataki Itto does not fuck with ghosts–if we’re tripping over his corpse here, I’m out.”

And, even further back–

“He’s not dead. It’s just a midlife crisis. Also, I thought we agreed on knocking?”

“That was knocking!”

Wisely, Thoma seems to abandon this particular issue as a lost cause, instead picking his way through the war-torn battlefield of Tomo’s apartment, stepping carefully around landmine-laundry piles and empty water bottles.

In the time it takes for Thoma to inch his way forwards, Tomo musters the willpower to sit up at last, squinting through the lenses of his ill-advised hangover at the shadowy outlines of his friends.

“It’s not a crisis,” he insists defensively, inspecting a stain on his pants that might be a chemical burn–just a minor one. He’d inspect his shirt, too, if it was anywhere to be seen, but at least its absence frees up his chest for a confident pat of self-assurance. “I’m doing great, best shape of my life–can I have my phone back now?”

For some inexplicable reason, his entirely rational request produces a variety of expressions on his friends’ faces, ranging from something like concern and a distinct I-told-you-so from Yoimiya. A moment goes by, their unspoken hesitation hanging in the air before Thoma runs a careful hand through his hair, producing Tomo’s phone from his pockets with something of a sigh.

Politely, the three of them at least pretend to be looking away as Tomo pounces upon the offering with badly concealed desperation, flicking open the display to reveal exactly zero messages. 

Not entirely unexpected, but Tomo winces anyways, deflating back into the couch as something stings at his chest.

“...sorry,” Itto offers, quiet for once, and Tomo waves the obvious sympathy on the other’s face away, in the motion a bit too practiced to be casual.

“It’s fine–” he swallows hard here, flips his phone over until the blankness of the screen is hidden well from view. “We’re fine. It’s just a, uh–we’re taking a break. It’s a temporary thing.”

Or so he’s been telling himself for the past five days, eight hours–and, give or take, twenty minutes–since he’d officially re-discovered single life, his six month relationship ending with a phone call in a supply closet at work. 

“I just need some space,” Miyu had insisted, cutting his protestations short and leaving him to flounder silently amongst the cleaning supplies, his phone squashed against his ear and his frame struggling to stuff itself neatly between the closet’s shelves. “Some…time off, you know?”

He, in fact, had not known, having instead been in the process of daydreaming up their next date when she’d sent him the dreaded, We need to talk.

“Um,” he still attempts to produce, honestly astonished when the words manage to find him. “How… much time are we talking here?”

Her answering exhale is noticeably lacking in patience, and it distantly occurs to Tomo that there’d probably been a good reason behind choosing his work hours to have this conversation.

“I can’t answer that right now, I don’t think. Look, I–I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

Logically, Tomo knows that these parting words hadn’t meant to be encouraging or inspirational, but something like an infuriatingly persistent hope has taken root within him, aching like a bruise against his ribs. 

Hope, because one day is later, two days is later, five days, eight hours, and twenty minutes is later– any time is later enough to talk, and now that Tomo’s had the time to collect himself, maybe there’s room to fix things, too.

Hope, because as casual as things were supposed to have been–just a you’re fun and hot and want to spend the night? --Tomo had gotten attached, because of course he did, of course he always does, and now he’s here, hungover and shirtless in the dark.

If there’s one thing Tomo’s excellent at, however, it’s certainly the art of denial–hope springs eternal, after all, especially when one gleefully abandons every realistic perspective of the situation.

“She just needs some space,” he repeats aloud now, leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling with great interest, throwing his forearm over his eyes seconds before Thoma flicks on the light.

No one has much of a response to this, having exhausted all attempts to argue otherwise somewhere around Day Two. 

Instead, Thoma deposits a plastic bag onto the coffee table, the panda-print box of takeout peeking out from within, and Yoimiya digs around somewhere behind them, unearthing Tomo’s mysteriously missing shirt. Itto’s contribution is to collapse heartily at Tomo’s side, nearly upending the couch beneath the substantial power of their combined weight. With one-half of the provided chopsticks in the takeout bag, he neatly spears several dumplings in a row, throwing his other arm around Tomo’s shoulders as he makes himself comfortable. 

“I’m thinking of dyeing my hair. What do you think of pink?” Yoimiya starts up conversationally, swerving the topic into a far-off direction as she settles on the floor, taking up a distinctly pretzel-like sitting position. 

“I keep telling you, white’s the only way to go. Just gotta look right here to see that!”

“I’m not taking fashion opinions from someone with a beetle tattoo on his–”

“Here,” Thoma murmurs from beside him, nudging his arm with a paper carton of noodles, saving Tomo from the resolution of Itto’s conversation. Food has always been his oldest friend’s favorite way of fixing things, and now is no different, the green of his eyes bright with clear concern. “Because I know you definitely haven’t been eating.”

Privately, Tomo doesn’t have much of an appetite, his stomach preoccupied with twisting itself into uncomfortable knots with every careful glance at his phone. He’s entirely aware of his limited options, though, beneath the persuasive weight of Thoma’s gaze–so with a mechanical sort of effort, he props open his first dinner in about two days.

“Thanks,” he mumbles out, syllables softened by seaweed, feeling marginally more alive as he forces it down.

Thoma watches him eat with considerably less subtlety than Itto and Yoimiya are employing, folding his arms over his chest.

“I didn’t realize it was that serious,” he says at last, and the next bite sticks uncomfortably in Tomo’s throat. “Don’t do anything stupid to yourself, Tomo. Not for this.”

This is the second mistake of friendship, really–they’re familiar enough that Tomo can’t get away with anything.

Still, he shrugs, pretends not to feel Thoma’s eyes narrowing against the back of his neck.

“Nah, I won’t. You know me,” he agrees, and uses the rest of the sushi to conceal his silence.

For the most part, Tomo stays true to his word, staying out of trouble–to the best of his ability–and containing his pining to what he hopes is an appropriate minimum. 

There are, still, occasional moments of downtime, instants of inactivity where things are quiet and his mind buzzes to life and he has to then try his absolute hardest to quash nagging urge to check his phone. These spectacular displays of resistance, of course, generally only end one way, with his phone slithering its way out of his pocket or out from beneath his pillow, the display miraculously flicking itself on to reveal its expected nothing.

It’s been nearly a week of this now, but it aches all the same, still stings at that solid soreness that’s made itself quite at home in his chest. It still hurts, and Tomo finds this enormously unfair, because he’s really trying here. 

He’s trying to distract himself, trying to tell himself that it’s only a temporary thing, trying anything and everything to move on, with this last pursuit in particular inviting new and slightly disastrous endeavors into his life.

“Sit still,” Yoimiya tells him when he comes to her for solace, tugging his hair free from its usual confines. “We’re giving you a new look!”

Tomo makes the foolish mistake of taking a second too long to blink, and before he can flee, Yoimiya’s surprisingly strong hands have practically bolted him into the chair. He closes his eyes, but it’s not enough to protect him from what comes next.

“Um,” Thoma says, somewhere in the aftermath, his brows raising up so high they’re in danger of disappearing into his hair. Try as he might, he can’t seem to stop sneaking glances at Tomo’s head, the blonde mess of his hair streaked violet by Yoimiya’s handiwork. “So Ayato’s going shopping. You and I could tag along, and, you know…get you a hat?”

“No, see, this is great!” Itto looms over him–being one of the few people capable of doing so–peering closely at the dyed locks. “You and me, we got that rugged bad boy look going on, yeah? I’m thinking you’re finally ready to learn the secrets of beetle-raising.”

Itto is, and forever will be, Tomo’s brother-in-arms, a truly kindred spirit–but Tomo can think of an exactly infinite amount of things he’d rather do than spend quality time with Itto’s beloved, multi-legged, ground-dwelling horrors.

Looking into the mirror at his purple-tipped hair, Tomo goes through the list in his head, finds all sorts of undone chores and friendly excursions to distract himself—and, just as equally, finds that he doesn’t really want to do any of them at all. 

Because the reality is, taking a break–or whatever he refuses to believe this is– sucks, and nothing he does makes the situation feel any less awful, other than simply waiting things out. 

Tomo’s never been very patient, though. 

If his coworkers are surprised by the sudden uptick in his work ethic, his renewed readiness to root himself in the lab long after closing, they don’t show it. Tomo still catches their concern though, sometimes gets a glimpse of Sucrose’s wide eyes upon him, her teeth worrying at her lip as she stares hard at the glassware in his hands. 

It’s better than her staring at his hair, he supposes, which has only just begun to return to its natural color, a full ten days after Tomo’s fall from Miyu’s favor. Exactly zero text messages have come between them in this time, and now that Tomo’s remembered this fact, he’s struck, once again, by the haunting thought that there could be one, if only he would just check—

Fortunately, his hands are full of hazardous laboratory chemicals, leaving absolutely no room for leisurely movement. Instead, he settles for shaking his head, the motion setting off a dizzying round of sparks against the backs of his eyelids.

“What’s up?” he asks lightly, distantly attempting to recall when his last meal had been. Probably somewhere around the last time he’d gone home, some couple days ago. “You need me for something?”

“...no, I just…” Sucrose trails off, fingers fiddling nervously with the cuffs of her lab coat, trying and failing to suppress a squeak of alarm as Tomo commences with the pouring of Hazardous Chemical A into Hazardous Chemical B. “Are you sure you’re okay being here?”

“Listen, if this is about earlier–” Earlier, of course, being when Tomo had abruptly abandoned his refluxing experiment in favor of answering his phone in the closet. “Won’t happen again, promise. I’m completely focused this time.”

The reaction mixture bubbles ominously beneath them, rapidly shifting into a color that Tomo can’t quite identify, and he pauses here, giving his experiment an equally experimental squint. From behind him, Sucrose inches a few paces back, using his larger frame to shield herself from a potentially unfortunate outcome, and it occurs to Tomo that he may have lost his promised concentration, somewhere along the way. 

“…so, uh, you should probably get Albedo,” he suggests, in a tone of voice that strains itself trying not to betray the enormity of his fuck-up.

The devil works hard, but the assistant manager of their research department works harder—the man himself comes swooping in just as the flask begins lightly smoking. Barely looking up from his sketchpad, Albedo reaches over, squeezes three drops of clear liquid into the vial, and resolves the crisis at once. 

“If you’re going to maim yourself for sport, I’d recommend a more suitable location than my mentor’s lab,” he says, adding some shadows to the bottom of his sketch. 

Even through two days of sleep deprivation and dietary neglect, the meaning is clear—it’s Tomo’s cue to make himself scarce for the day. 

He goes through the motions of leaving obediently, pulls his stuff out of his locker and switches into more comfortable clothes as he debates on his next move. 

Thoma’s currently locked away, trapped in the Kamisato estate under Ayato’s watchful tutelage, the two of them attempting to cram eight weeks of college-level calculus into the eight hours before the exam. Yoimiya’s with the more social of the Kamisato siblings, alone on what is mostly definitely not-a-date between excellent friends. 

Itto’s with the beetles—it is, apparently, “mating season”—and whatever that might mean, Tomo has absolutely no wish to find out. 

So that leaves him with the increasingly attractive prospect of returning home, where Tomo can safely squeeze in a couple more hours of wallowing before bed. 

Absently, he fishes his keys out of his jacket pocket, his fingers finding the smooth touch of his phone in the same motion. From here, his time is spent mounting that same Herculean resistance against checking his messages—he resists the temptation in the car, resists it at one extended stop at a red light, resists it until he takes one mindless step too many and rams his shoulder into a surprisingly soft wall. 

Said wall, unlike Tomo, has no resistance—it’s both this and the answering yelp of surprise that leads Tomo to realize that what he’s just sent sprawling onto the floor is a person. 

“Oh,” he says, taking a moment too long to blink back into reality. “Oh, shit, sorry—“

He leans down on instinct, extends his hand in offering, and looks up to meet a pair of startlingly red eyes, surprisingly sharp for the soft face they’re set against. The boy on the floor pauses, perhaps hesitant to interact after the display of Tomo’s more troglodytic tendencies, delicate fingers pushing stray locks of white behind his ear before they reach out for Tomo’s hand at last. 

His slender hand is nearly enveloped by Tomo’s own, and between this and the nearly zero amount of effort to help the boy back on his feet, Tomo feels his guilt at their collision compounding by the moment.

“I, uh, didn’t hurt you, did I? I mean, it can’t be easy, getting run over by a guy like me.”

The boy doesn’t answer immediately, blinking back at Tomo with a careful slowness, one that indicates either a steady, thoughtful examination or a dire concussion. Tomo’s concerns are tipping rapidly towards the latter, especially when it seems like the other is having difficulty getting a lock on Tomo’s face, his gaze trained straight ahead on the space between Tomo’s shoulders. 

The red of his eyes move gradually down, then finally make their way to meet Tomo’s eyes at last, the expression on the other’s face betraying nothing of his reaction. If Tomo’s managed to piss the other off, it’s impossible to tell, but he braces himself for the response nonetheless. 

 “...I’m unharmed,” the other says at last, smoothing out the fabric of his hoodie as he drops his gaze to the floor once more, this time clearly casting about for something. 

Tomo spies the likely target some few paces away, an overturned box that the boy had probably been holding, right before Tomo had separated it from his hands. 

“Hey, I’ll get that for you. My fault you dropped it, anyways.” 

It isn’t a particularly large package, easily fitting into the crook of Tomo’s arm, but from the somewhat startled look he receives, Tomo suspects that his newfound companion encountered significantly more of a struggle. He says nothing, but his eyes shift thoughtfully between the door to the stairwell and the package, and Tomo takes it upon himself to resolve the other’s internal conflict.

“What floor are you on? I don’t have anywhere else to be, so I might as well help you out.”

“It’s a long way up. I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” Now that Tomo’s managed to pry a full sentence from the boy, he’s finding that there’s a pleasant sort of lilt to his voice, syllables wrapped in softess. “The tenth floor, actually.”

This is enough to give Tomo pause–he casts a quick glance at the elevators, which are conveniently nonfunctional, before deciding that his pride as a man is at stake here. He can’t go back on his word, especially not when the boy still bears mild traces of Tomo’s unintentional assault.

“Don’t worry about it–I got this,” he pats his chest assuredly, already swinging open the door to the stairs with flourish, before his better judgment can argue otherwise. 

Normally, the journey to the tenth floor’s summit wouldn’t pose much of a challenge to Tomo–he’s been involved in athletics for just about most of his life, and his legs are easily long enough to cross two or three steps at a time. Even bearing the weight of the package does little to hinder him, resting comfortably and securely against his chest. 

Rather, it’s the damage from his recent self-neglect that stands in his way now, the dizzying sensation from the lab returning in full force somewhere around floor five. 

“What did you say your name was?” he grits out, hoping to use conversation to distract himself, only to belatedly recognize that expending more oxygen probably wasn’t the optimal solution here.

“...Kazuha.” He feels the other eyeing him for a long moment, undoubtedly with concern. “Perhaps we should rest here?”

“Doing great. Pretty name. Tomo,” Tomo answers, fully abandoning any unnecessary words in his effort to conserve energy.

Somehow, his assurances don’t seem to put Kazuha at ease, even as Tomo summons the last of his strength to kick the stairwell door open, fairly tumbling his way into the carpeted hall of the tenth floor. He recovers swiftly, depositing the package by the door that Kazuha points to, then straightens up, pretending not to hear every notch of his spine protest at the motion.

“Thank you. That would have been unpleasant on my own,” Kazuha dips his head towards him in unmistakable gratitude, then tilts his head, narrowing his gaze at Tomo. “...are you sure you don’t want to come in? You look like you should maybe sit down.”

A part of Tomo–the part that finds it difficult to stop the room from spinning–agrees heartily with this suggestion, but the rest of him bats it away. He has a schedule to keep, after all, an obligation to treat himself with a good sulk in the dark.

“Nah, no worries. But, hey, I live on the sixth floor, so feel free to come down if you ever need help.”

With that, he lifts his hand in a casual half-wave, takes a single step forwards, and feels his world buckle unpleasantly before him, color and shape and sound folding over into a blur. He thinks he manages to stumble himself to a wall–a real wall this time–sliding gradually downwards until he meets the blessed rest of the floor.

In between the weight of his blinks, the scene plays out in flashes–Kazuha’s worried eyes blinking down at him, Kazuha’s surprisingly strong fingers tangling in his shirt, a gentle touch to his forehead, and then a temporary nothing.

Fainting on his neighbor’s doorstep–good first impressions all around.

He wakes slowly, wresting himself from the kind of nap that feels a little like a cheese pizza at midnight–sticky, dehydrating, and the Archons’ greatest mistake.

It’s weirdly comfortable, wherever he is, his body heat trapped around him by what feels like blankets, a foreign weight on his chest making every heartbeat echo against his ribs. For a moment, his curiosity wars with his comfort–but he manages to pull himself away from the temptation of returning to sleep, instead struggling to pry open his eyes.

It’s something of a genuine fight, but when he finally manages to blink awake, he’s greeted by a pair of beady blue orbs, wide and luminous and startlingly close to his own. 

“Uh–” he says, and jerks backwards on instinct, the motion unsettling the weight on his chest.

In response, it makes some sort of displeased hiss, bolting upright and leaping off of him, something very fluffy and white smacking him across the face. A few strands of fur go flying on impact, some of it arriving unpleasantly in Tomo’s throat, and as he sits up, struggling to cough them out, he sees that his fleeing companion is none other than a cat.

Before he can make amends, the cat has already disappeared, bolting out of the entryway and around the corner, leaving Tomo alone in a room he doesn’t recognize. 

Aside from the bedroll that he’s been tucked away in, his surroundings are relatively empty, the wooden floor populated only by a few unpacked boxes, still wrapped neatly in packing tape. He recognizes the flowing script written on the sides in permanent marker, the neat handwriting mirrored on the same package Tomo had become so familiar with, not too long ago.

Or, actually–

He squints through the dim lighting, attempting to ascertain exactly how long he’d been out of it for–but with no windows to speak of, his only recourse is the time on his phone. 

No new messages–obviously–and the shocking revelation that he’s been asleep for some two, three hours, laying prone in a stranger’s apartment. 

Recalling the events that brought him to his moment is an exercise in self-torture, embarassment bleeding into a flurry of self-reprimands, his mind already rehearsing a feeble apology for the travesty of his behavior. He runs nervous fingers through his hair, makes an attempt to push the blankets aside and get to his feet–which is when the cat chooses to make her timely return, springing directly into Tomo’s lap, and effectively trapping him in place.

“Uh, hey,” Tomo greets the cat, when it becomes clear that she has no intentions of moving aside. As carefully as he can, he lowers his hand, offers her head a gentle pat, which she returns with a rumbling purr, rubbing up against his palm. “Look, you’re really cute–I mean it. But I sort of have somewhere to be. I don’t suppose you’d happen to know where Kazuha is?”

“Yes,” Kazuha says, having miraculously appeared in the entryway, the flatness of his expression flickering with barely visible amusement. 

Tomo jumps in place, very nearly upends the cat once more before resettling his nerves–he hadn’t even heard the other coming, with how perfectly soundless Kazuha’s footsteps had been.

The boy makes his soundless way closer to Tomo now, kneeling down at Tomo’s side to reveal the bowl he’s cradling in his hands, chunks of soft tofu in a slightly steaming soup. The hunger catches up to Tomo all at once, his stomach twisting with something painfully empty as he attempts to make himself look marginally less longing.

“It’s for you,” Kazuha sees fit to clarify, upon catching sight of the unconcealed, pitiful want on Tomo’s face.

To his credit, Tomo attempts to remain composed as he takes the warmth of the bowl in his hands, unearthing the first spoonful of seaweed and soup and tofu. And he thinks he succeeds too, doing a remarkable job of retaining his self control, all the way until the first bite.

After that comes the point of no return, is something of a golden miso fever, in which Tomo thinks there might be tears. It’s an emotional moment all around, the joyful reunion of his stomach and food, warmth going down his throat and seeping into his chest, internal promises made to never ignore the needs of his body again.

By the time he emerges from his haze, the soup is gone, and so is the cat–she’s transferred herself to Kazuha’s lap instead, nuzzling up against him with an obvious fondness, tail wrapped around one of his delicate wrists. He’s carding his fingers carefully through her fur, but looks up when he realizes that Tomo is finished, blinking back at him steadily.

“It seems to have served you well,” he observes. “At least you no longer look to be in danger of collapse.”

Tomo chuckles awkwardly, instinctively raises a hand to rub at the back of his neck. Kazuha doesn’t look exactly unhappy about Tomo’s many social blunders, but there isn’t much emotion to be read on the other’s face, anyways, aside from a perpetual calm.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I just, uh…thought you could do with a housewarming gift, you know? So I brought you a welcome mat.”

He pats himself indicatively, puffing up with mock pride, and Kazuha tilts head somewhat incredulously, ducking his head to cover his mouth for a long moment.

“It was very thoughtful of you. Even Tama enjoyed it, I think. It’s rare for her to be so friendly with strangers.”

“Huh. Thought she’d be this sweet with everyone.”

Kazuha glances down, pausing in his petting for a quiet moment.

“She’s rather…protective of me,” he admits, something more subdued layering his tone for the smallest of instants. “But you seem to have already earned her trust.”

Tom grins at Tama at this, her watchful eyes tracking his movements.

“I’m honored. Really,” he shifts in place, the motion rattling his spoon against his empty bowl, the ghost of etiquette reminding Tomo of basic manners. “So, uh…any idea where I should take this?”

Perhaps having misunderstood his intention, Kazuha leans over, plucking the bowl entirely from Tomo’s hands. When he opens his mouth in protest, the other automatically shakes his head, guessing at the nature of Tomo’s words before they leave him.

“You’re my guest, Tomo. It would be rude to make you wash the dishes after I dragged you here.”

Tomo frowns–it doesn’t quite sit right with him, receiving so much with nothing to show for it, but Kazuha is already whisking himself away, evidently unwilling to hear otherwise. Still, Tomo finds himself padding after the other, his socked feet making substantially more noise against the flooring, his stride shortening intentionally to keep himself behind Kazuha. 

“If it truly bothers you,” Kazuha continues, words straining to be audible over the start of running water. “Perhaps you can have a turn next time.”

It takes a few skips forwards for Tomo’s brain to catch up to the present, words stumbling over each other in their urge to escape.

“Next time?” he asks, and then recognizes the possible implications of his bafflement. “I mean, don’t get me wrong–your cooking is great. Best thing I ever tasted. I just, uh…didn’t think I made a very good first impression on you, you know?”

Kazuha tilts his head back at him here, his lips quirking upwards in what might almost be a real smile, this time.

“Tama likes you,” he points out quietly, because apparently this is enough. A brief pause, enough time for him to look back at the sink, and then– “As do I.”

Tomo blinks, surprised at how warm this makes him feel, heat sparking to life in his chest, and his next grin feels a little more natural, a little less strained than it’s been in a while. 

“Then I’ll see you around, I guess?” he offers in farewell, one last wave preceding a quick check of his possessions. “The offer from earlier still stands, I mean–I don’t know, I could help you unpack, or something, to pay you back.”

Kazuha tilts his head in a noncommittal sort of response, his still turned back making it impossible to discern his opinion. At the boy’s feet, Tama peeks out unblinkingly at Tomo, her ear twitching in acknowledgement as he backs his way out of Kazuha’s apartment, retracing his steps to his own place at last.

Out of habit, he checks his phone one last time before going to bed, rolling onto his side and squinting against the glare of the screen in the dark. The result is the same as it ever has been, now ten days and some few hours past.

But, somehow, amongst badges of cat validation and warm miso soup–it stings a little less.

He sees Kazuha mostly in passing, after that. There are meet-ups in the mailroom, or rare instances where the elevator actually deigns to function, always accompanied by a quick wave and a casual greeting. 

Outside of the comfort of his own home, however, Kazuha seems to hold himself differently, is quietly and smaller in a way that stirs strangely at Tomo’s chest. More often than not, he catches sight of the other wandering just outside their complex, blinking into the distance like he’s not quite sure what to do with himself.

When Tomo calls out to him on one such occasion, it takes a strangely long moment for Kazuha to turn towards him, blinking in a slow, confused way, as if he hadn’t even heard. He always recovers quickly, though, his features sliding back into their usual, composed set, conversation seeming to come naturally after that.

Tomo prides himself on keeping his stalkerish behavior to a minimum, but even still, there are things he can’t help but notice about Kazuha–the silence that cloaks every one of his movements, the way he always turns his eyes downwards after conversations, expressions unused to forming smiles.

  It seems sad, somehow, and it doesn’t quite sit right with Tomo, especially not after the kindness he was shown.

On one hand, Tomo’s never been very good at minding his own business–he’s more than a little curious, and he’s almost certain that his concern would be worth it.

On the other, Tomo’s also a bit busy.

 Sometime after breaching the one-month threshold of his post-dumping existence, denial learns to abandon him, the reality that their temporary break is more of a permanent break up cementing itself at last. 

There’s a surprising amount of anger that accompanies this revelation, but mostly there’s the feeling of distinct deflation, like he’s a stepped-on sea sponge. It’s just a biting sort of emptiness, the knowledge that he’d cared, that he’d gotten attached–because of course he did, of course he always does–only to not even be worthy of a proper conversation, in the end.

But Tomo’s coping with it. Mostly.

He’s trying not to think about it, which mostly leads to a lot of thinking about it, save for hours he spends sleeping on and off on Day Thirty-One. The next day has Itto’s power going out after some kind of incident with a toaster, so that’s Tomo’s weekend fully occupied, Itto crashing at his place until the two of them figure out how to fix the blown fuse the next morning.

It’s on Day Thirty-Five when he makes an attempt at cleaning his apartment, stumbling across a stuffed hilichurl that She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had left behind in the process. Tomo spends some few moments blinking uncomprehendingly at it–remembering that he’d won it for her at a street fair, once–before giving up on the cleaning altogether, stuffing the plushie into the dark recesses of his closet and deciding that he’d really rather be anywhere than his own apartment at present.

 This, at least, is quite easy to do, because he already devotes most of his waking hours to running between work and class and sports practice–just now with a little more filler thrown in. Sometimes his friends drag him out too, often enough that he finds himself sleeping over at Thoma’s place more than his own, returning only for changes of clothes or sundry supplies or moments when everyone else in his life is otherwise preoccupied. 

He’s living in one of these instants now, laying face-up on the couch  as he waits for his instant-noodle water to come to a boil, his hair still messy and damp from his shower. It’s another slow night, and while Itto had insisted that Tomo was welcome to come to the movies with him, Tomo suspects that Itto’s date would not  be of the same opinion. 

His stove is taking forever to do its job, too, so he rolls over on his side, flicking his way through a cat collecting game on his phone when he hears the knock at his door. It’s barely more than a soft tap, so close to inaudible that Tomo isn’t even sure he’d heard correctly, at first.

He pauses, lifting his head in the direction of the door, then more or less scrambling to his feet when he hears it again, making an effort to look somewhat presentable. In the few lengths between himself and the door, he thinks he does a pretty impressive job of cleaning up, locating not only a shirt but also a comb, giving his damp fluff a few cursory swipes before tossing the comb away.

Kazuha looks a little startled by Tomo’s swift response, hastily adjusting a small bundle in his arms as he blinks uncertainly up at Tomo. A second look reveals that Kazuha’s parcel appears to be Tomo’s jacket, which Tomo could have sworn had been in his own possession, up until five seconds ago.

“...hello,” Kazuha greets softly, shifts his weight between his feet as he carefully flattens out the wrinkles in Tomo’s jacket, folding it over in his arms before holding it out. “You left this behind, earlier. I should have returned it to you earlier, but it took some time to convince Tama to part with it.”

That, and Tomo hadn’t even noticed it was missing–he can’t exactly fault Kazuha for doing the same.

The returned jacket has clearly been washed, because it smells a bit like vanilla, strawberry-tinted scent that matches his memory of Kazuha’s blankets. It’s a strange sort of detail to catch his interest on, and Tomo hastily stuffs the thought away, tucking the folded jacket under his arm with a grin.

“Hey, thanks. So…was that it, or…did you want to come inside?”

 Kazuha bites at his lip, tilts his head so that he’s able to peer past Tomo’s shoulder. For a while, there’s a long stretch of silence, in which Kazuha’s red gaze flits around the unseemly mess of Tomo’s apartment, going from the pot of water–which is now dangerously close to boiling over–to the ratty couch, passing over the unopened ramen packet on the counter in between.

It’s this last item he stares particularly hard at, expression twisting in a strange, unreadable mix before he shifts his attention back to Tomo once more.

“...do you want to come over for dinner, actually?”

Kazuha clearly wasn’t planning on having a guest over, but he accommodates Tomo's presence easily, lays out an extra piece of mirin-glazed salmon that somehow reminds Tomo of home. Tama seems delighted by his presence, nuzzling up to his side, a tiny paw reaching out for pieces of tamagoyaki, before he wisely plucks them out of her reach.

He takes a moment to remember his manners–offering up a prayer of thanks for his welcome change in dinner plans–and in between rapid mouthfuls of rice, it strikes him how empty Kazuha’s apartment is, even after a month of having lived in it. Aside from the basic necessities, there’s almost no furniture, no decorations on the walls, nothing to fill up the space aside from the small stack of still unpacked boxes in the corner.

“You need help with those?” he asks, swallows uncomfortably past a piece of fish that’s gone down wrong, and Kazuha looks momentarily caught off guard, his expression clouding over before he quickly shakes his head.

Dinner goes unexpectedly late, after that, because Tomo gets wrapped up in telling some sort of story from work, occasionally reaching down to scratch Tama behind the ears. When he gets to a particularly high point of events, Kazuha smiles–actually, really, smiles–and Tomo promptly forgets what he was going to say or what time he was planning to leave.

All he knows is that he wants to see that again, he thinks, so somewhere in between giving Tama a proper farewell and straightening up, he hands his phone to Kazuha, an open space in his contacts for the other’s number.

“You know, in case I forget something again. Should be easier to just text me to haul ass up here than coming down yourself.”

“I don’t mind the walk,” Kazuha counters, but he’s already obligingly punching his information in.

“Yeah,” Tomo agrees, with an easy shrug, except for some reason, his heart is quick and tight in his chest, a nervous flutter snaking through his veins. “But stairs are the devil–remember what happened to me?”

“I do. Does this mean I can expect to see you slumbering at my doorstep once more?”

“Well, I like to spice it up–I’m going for a more conscious approach, now.”

Kazuha doesn’t quite respond immediately, soft fingers reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear in silence. His face is almost half-hidden by the door as he closes it, but he pauses anyways, the red of his eyes unusually light as he blinks back at Tomo.

“I’ll look forward to it, then,” he answers at last, and disappears fully from view.

There’s quite a lot to look forward to, as it turns out.

Their second dinner seems to melt down some of the barriers that Kazuha cautiously carries around, makes him more willing to send Tomo idle photos of Tama or respond to Tomo’s various ramblings while bored at work. He looks a little more relaxed, too, every time Tomo runs into him–or up to him, past three flights of stairs, as it were–this pleases Tomo more than he wants to admit, becomes a larger part of Tomo’s focus than it maybe should.

Rapidly, Tomo’s coming to find that the only time he doesn’t spend with Kazuha is on the weekends, where the other is routinely missing for at least half of the day. He never mentions where it is that he goes, and Tomo decides not to ask.

There isn’t much time for prying, anyways–instead, there are movies late at night, when Tomo finds it particularly difficult to sleep, visits where Tama curls happily up on his chest and Kazuha makes him a warm cup of tea and takes a seat by the boxes he still refuses to unpack. 

There are a lot of dinners, too, mostly because Kazuha seems vaguely horrified by Tomo’s dietary conditions, and after a single of Tomo’s attempts to help with preparations for the night, Kazuha all but banishes him from the kitchen entirely. While this is probably to all of mankind’s benefit, Tomo can’t help but feel a certain lack of contribution on his part–he’s getting a lot of free food, a cat to pet, and a place to spend his otherwise unoccupied nights. 

He’s not sure what Kazuha’s out of the deal, in return—not that he’s in any particular mood to change things.

There’s another day where they make cookies together–or rather, Kazuha makes him cookies and Tomo hovers about behind him, snatching bites of cookie dough where he can, until Kazuha lightly smacks at his palm with a batter-covered spoon.

“You’re ruining yourself for the real thing,” he says, making his best attempt at a frown in Tomo’s direction, but it doesn’t really read as anger–mostly it looks like the scrunched-up face of a very small baby rabbit, and Tomo has to employ considerable restraint to bite back his grin. 

Instead, he uses this repressed energy to transform his features into what he hopes is an appropriately pitiful plea, throwing a longing sort of glance at the chunks of chocolate buried in the dough. This proves to be surprisingly effective–Kazuha blinks back at him for all of five seconds before his expression twists into a fond sort of resignation, and his next whack of the cookie spoon plants it directly into Tomo’s waiting mouth.

“Didn’t think you’d be so easy, Princess,” Tomo mumbles around a mouthful of dough, the nickname he’s been nursing in his mind slipping out against his will, and he goes very still, the cookie turning into a glue-like paste in his mouth. 

He wants to swallow and make a hasty attempt at correcting himself, especially with how still Kazuha has gone, but his mouth refuses to work.

Fortunately–or perhaps the opposite–Kazuha’s doesn’t seem to, either. Tomo watches as he seems to make one or two attempts at speaking, the color flooding his cheeks seeming to bar his every attempt.

It’s an terribly, despairingly cute look on him, and Tomo swallows hard, suddenly finds himself wiping his nervous palms against his pants.

“...I’m willing to make exceptions. For important causes,” Kazuha says at last, not quite able to look Tomo in the eye, and then hurries to twist himself away, starting to spoon out little scoops of dough onto the cookie sheet.

He offers some to Tomo, too, and they spend a quiet moment like that, rearranging the cookies into various shapes. Tomo, as he comes to find, is no more talented in this area than he’d been in the making of the dough to begin with, and when Kazuha leans over to study his creation, Tomo considers shielding it entirely from view.

“That’s, ah…that’s a nice…person?”

“It’s supposed to be Tama.” 

“...hm. I see.”

But clearly, Kazuha does not see, and the more Tomo looks at the cookie, he doesn’t think he sees the resemblance either. He folds part of the cat’s tail in, tempted to roll the incongruous blob back into a ball, but Kazuha’s delicate fingers touch at his wrist, halting the motion in its tracks.

“It’s cute,” Kazuha insists, and when Tomo looks up, the corners of the other’s mouth are twitching with a helpless amusement. As gently as he can, Kazuha scoops up the cookie-cat into his hands, blinking down at it fondly. “I’m keeping it.”

Kazuha ducks his head, tilting it in a way that makes loose wisps of his hair tug themselves free of their ties, falling gently against the pale curve of his neck. Tomo stands very still, fingers coated with flour, and unthinkingly reaches forwards–he tucks some of the hair back behind Kazuha’s ear, providing him with a cookie-dough streak in the process.

The cool touch of the dough produces a yelp from them both, Kazuha’s of sudden surprise and Tomo’s of blatant alarm.

“Damn–I wasn’t, I mean I forgot–” he waves his hands in a frantic sort of supplication, and really only succeeds in flinging a stray chocolate chip across the room, where it lodges itself into a screeching Tama’s fur–the real Tama, this time.

This has, somehow, compounded into an incident of untold proportions, but before Tomo can scramble to fix it, Kazuha’s already covered his mouth, thin frame trembling in what undeniably proves itself to be a giggle. The sound of it freezes Tomo in place, makes him stare slightly wide-eyed in Kazuha’s direction, just from how foreign it is, to hear Kazuha laugh.

Under his attention, Kazuha seems to shrink slightly away, but when he lowers his hand, his smile hasn’t faded. 

“Maybe you should rinse off your hands,” he says, not unkindly, and pads across the kitchen to coax Tama over, meaning to pry the chocolate chips off of the white of her fur.

It’s with a numb sort of obedience that Tomo moves to follow the suggestion, largely because his mind is preoccupied with moving a mile a minute, his heart suddenly setting a nervous pace in his throat. 

He’s thinking of Kazuha sitting in his empty apartment, then Kazuha’s face filling with that hopeful gratitude every time Tomo steps through his doorway, then the sound of Kazuha’s laugh–all of it is catching up to him at once, curling into a vague sort of realization, a thought that feels like warmth.

So, Tomo’s gotten attached–because he always does, because he always probably will.

The problem, really, is determining what comes next. 

He has options, of course. 

One is to stay the course—he has a perfectly functional arrangement with Kazuha as it is, a friendship that he’s coming to hold as close to his heart as all his others, and in the middle of all of this, Tomo’s not so certain that his newfound feelings have a place to fit. 

And he could certainly try, could make at least an attempt at making them known, but as She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would say, as her predecessor would say, as the one even before her would say, Tomo is simply too much, all of the time. 

In a choice between having a friendship with Kazuha and having nothing at all, Tomo’s not really sure it’s much of a decision.

It’s an unexpectedly haunting dilemma—the what if of it all creeps into his mind when he’s least expecting it, in the quiet moments before bed, the slower moments between his classes, while he’s cleaning out his closet at last. 

In fact, he’s so preoccupied with it that he’s going through mostly mindless motions as he pulls loose clothes and buried junk free from the dark, unthinkingly unearthing what he’d stowed away months ago. His hand recognizes the touch of the plushie before his eyes do, his brain finally screeching to a halt in the present as he glances down, staring at the stuffed hilichurl in his hand, the old sweater beside it that doesn’t and never has belonged to him, and he feels—

He feels nothing, which is something of a surprise, every muscle in his body slowly relaxing from where he’d been braced against the incoming ache. But turning over the items in his hands does little to provoke a response, and neither does the retrieval of their associated memories—they’re flashes of old photos now, tied to a place and time and a name and not much else. 

He’s held onto these for long enough, he thinks.

Miyu takes an especially extended time to answer the door, glances warily out at him, her greeting cut short by hesitation. She doesn’t seem particularly thrilled to see him, here at her doorstep, and the feeling is somewhat mutual—so Tomo simply holds out her forgotten possessions, offers up a smile carefully calibrated to defuse the tension. 

“Just returning these. In case you wanted them back.”

She accepts them in a stiff sort of silence, awkwardness growing by the instant, but, unexpectedly, as Tomo makes to leave—

“Hey, so…you’re okay, right?”

Tomo shrugs, a little startled by how easily the motion comes, how light it all feels. “Yeah,” he says, and it isn’t a lie—it hasn’t been for a long time, now. “No hard feelings. It was fun for a while.”

She blinks back at him, looks a little unsure, but Tomo’s already moving, offering a quick wave before tucking his hands into his pockets. He retraces his steps from there, backs his way out and around the corner, and in what proves to be a moment of extreme deja vu, very nearly runs straight into a wall. 

The wall, of course, being the unfortunate soul he’s nearly tripped over. But Tomo is at least marginally more aware this time, his reflexes shooting his hands outwards, fingers tangling into the back of a soft hoodie, pulling the person close. 

“Huh,” he says, grinning down at a very familiarly fluffy head. “I actually caught you this time, Princess. Maybe I’m getting better at this.”

He peers more closely at Kazuha, and then his smile abruptly fades as he takes in the other’s state, his red-rimmed eyes, the paleness of his cheeks, the well-disguised, almost imperceptible tremble of his fingers as he tucks them into his sleeves. There’s a bundle of flowers nestled into the crook of his arm, freshly cut.

He’s never seen Kazuha like this—but then again, he’s never seen Kazuha on one of these weekends, either. 

“Hey, what…is something wrong?”

Kazuha almost shakes his head, an aborted motion that he seems to decide against at the last minute, hesitating as he pulls the flowers closer to his chest. “No,” he answers, blinks at the ground for another stretch of silence. “I’m going to see my father.” 

“Oh,” says Tomo, eloquently, and then his brain finally deigns to connect the dots, from the flowers to the look on Kazuha’s face. 

His words abandon him here, leave him uncertain of what to do or say, but Kazuha doesn’t seem to mind his sudden silence. Instead, he’s staring steadily up at Tomo, some of the grief in his expression giving way to a familiar sort of twist, the faintest flicker of what Tomo has learned to recognize as a very subtle sort of hope. 

“I think…” Kazuha starts, fingers slipping out to worry shyly at his sleeve. “…never mind.” 

He really does shake his head this time, features slipping back into their passive arrangement, but Tomo finds himself reaching out, fingers brushing up against Kazuha’s wrist.

“Wait,” he says, and although he’s at risk of very badly misinterpreting the situation, he forges ahead anyways. “Did you want me to come with you?”

The look on Kazuha’s face is enough to answer for him, gratitude shining through his tightly controlled response. 

“I’ve mentioned you quite a bit,” is all he admits, somewhere along the path. “I thought it only natural that you should meet him.” 

“You talk about me? Only good things, I hope.”

Kazuha’s fingers undo the latch of the iron gate, pushing the both of them forwards into quieter territory. “I’ll let you believe what you wish.”

For the most part, Tomo keeps his presence to a minimum, hanging behind some few paces away to offer the other a measure of privacy. It’s only when Kazuha lays the flowers on the plaque of his father’s name, and then goes very still, that Tomo decides to approach. There’s that same lost look on Kazuha’s face, the one Tomo remembers seeing so often in those first couple of weeks. 

The sight of it makes Tomo’s next swallow difficult, an outside force compelling him to shift even closer. He moves slowly, enough that Kazuha can shy away if he wishes, but the other keeps himself motionless, allows himself to be drawn completely into Tomo’s side, one of Tomo’s arms at his waist. 

“I still have his things,” Kazuha admits, still staring straight ahead at his father’s grave. “I just couldn’t…”

Tomo nods like he understands, because he does—if there’s one thing he’s always been excellent at, it’s certainly the art of denial. Of shoving the things he refuses to confront into the back of his mind, well out of sight and mind. 

“Well,” he still says, and gives Kazuha a gentle sort of squeeze. “Never too late to start.”

Somehow, without talking about it, their lives become much more intertwined. 

In between the busy moments, Tomo peels the packing tape off of the first of the long forbidden, slides it over and watches Kazuha remove its contents, piece by piece, tucking his father’s life away into uncertain corners. 

But there are happier parts, too.

Tomo brings Kazuha over to the Kamisato’s next hotpot night, and Thoma gives him a knowing sort of look over the table, green eyes turning a mixture of suspicious and fond as he studies Tomo’s face. Although his oldest friend never outright breaches the subject, he does clap Tomo on the back afterwards, nudging at his shoulder with the softest hint of “Good luck.”

The empty space of Kazuha’s apartment is slowly starting to fill up, too, mostly with Tomo’s own possessions, clothes he leaves behind when he’s feeling a bit too lazy to return to his place after a long night or toys he brings home for Tama. There’s ample space for his scattered collection of research papers, too, although he sometimes drops by to find them organized into terrifyingly neat piles, and then he has to spend an extra hour or two struggling to locate his items with how orderly they’ve suddenly become.

Out of all of the parts of Tomo’s life, Yoimiya seems to be the one that Kazuha adapts to the quickest, the two of them hitting it off with surprising haste. Tomo leaves them alone for a few hours once, abandoning their hangout in favor of a work emergency, and returns to find Yoimiya in the process of thoroughly humiliating him, telling Kazuha a horrifying childhood story while she paints his nails. 

Kazuha’s also much better at handling the beetle side of Itto than Tomo ever was—thank the Archons—effectively rescuing Tomo from any future involvement with them, sacrificing himself to protect Tomo from the violet creatures. 

Alarmingly, Kazuha doesn’t quite seem to see things the same way, perhaps even enjoying the time he spends caring for Itto’s bugs. Despite his growing feelings, this is one of the aspects of the other that Tomo will never understand—along with Kazuha’s incomprehensible habit of waking with the sun. 

It is, of course, merely for convenience’s sake that Tomo spends most of his nights now on Kazuha’s couch. For a fixture of living room furniture, the couch is surprisingly comfortable, enough that Tama even seems perfectly content to curl up with him instead, for the occasional change of pace. 

More often than not, he’s dragged into consciousness by Kazuha’s morning routine, which makes it all the more noticeable on the day that he isn’t. 

Tomo cracks open his eyes at around noon, finds Tama pawing insistently at his chest, and takes stock of his surroundings to find a startling lack of activity. The apartment is quieter at this hour than it’s been in a long time, and when Tomo sits up, Tama perks up with impatience, tail swishing restlessly as she blinks up at him. 

Huh.

He gently picks her up, nestles her in a safe place within his shirt, and moves to investigate. 

“You awake, Princess?” he calls, stopping just outside of Kazuha’s bedroom, and the sound of his voice stirs something at last, a soft shuffling on the other side of the door. 

The Kazuha who opens it is a very ruffled looking one, fluffy hair sticking up in every direction, a nest of blankets swaddled around his tiny form. He takes a full few seconds to sniffle his way into awareness, nose slightly red and twitching, then gives way to a very squeaky sounding sneeze, his words as congested as his throat. 

“…is it already morning?” Kazuha asks, squinting past Tomo at the sunlight filtering in through the windows, and this is how Tomo knows that something is really up. 

“Uh, yeah—but you know what, maybe you should go back to bed.”

His suggestion is met with a stubborn shake of the head, but Kazuha only makes it one step before his body betrays him. He leans heavily against the wall for a moment, eyes squeezed shut, and Tomo takes advantage of the opportunity to simply scoop him up altogether. 

With how light Kazuha is, it’s not particularly hard to gather him up into his arms—the difficult part is concealing the suddenly rapid pace of his heart from the other’s keen hearing. 

Fortunately, Kazuha is perhaps too dazed to notice, even when he snuggles automatically into Tomo’s warmth, head pressed against Tomo’s chest, face turned inwards until his expression is hidden. 

Tomo decides to move Kazuha out onto the couch—experience has taught him that sunlight is healthier than a vampiric existence in the dark—depositing him onto the cushions, untangling Kazuha’s tired fingers from his clothes. Then, as gently as he can, he flattens his palm against the boy’s forehead, trying not to smile when Kazuha all but nuzzles at his palm. 

“You really are out of it,” Tomo mutters, and Kazuha cracks open confused eyes, studying him for perhaps half a second before giving into exhaustion once more. “Looks like the Princess is losing his edge.” 

“You’re out of it,” comes the petulant answer, and Tomo feels suddenly possessed, is forced to restrain himself from taking the actions of a lunatic and kissing Kazuha’s pout away. 

Instead, he busies himself with assembling a proper care package, of sorts. One trip to the store later—leaving Tama to stand guard over their resident invalid—and he’s measuring out pink medicine into a cup, heating up a bowl of miso soup to wash away the taste. 

“It’s store-bought,” Tomo reassures him, when Kazuha spends a moment too long staring at the bowl. 

Carefully, Kazuha reaches out to take the soup from him, nestling it safely in his lap. With his free hand, he pulls some of the blankets around him to the side, freeing up a space on the couch. 

The easy part is sliding himself in—there’s more than enough space for his frame, no matter how much larger he is. The hard part is when Kazuha immediately sees fit to cuddle up to him, resting his feverish head against the beat of Tomo’s heart. 

They’re so close like this, enough that Tomo can almost count every one of Kazuha’s snowy lashes, long and delicate and brushing against his flushed cheeks with every blink. His hair is still undone around his shoulders, white strands falling unevenly around his neck, and when Tomo follows the curve of it, it takes him a moment to identify Kazuha’s jacket as his, swiftly stolen in the span of Tomo’s absence. 

He just looks so small like this, bundled up in blankets, fingers peeking out from beneath the sleeve of Tomo’s hoodie. They’re wrapped so carefully around his bowl of soup, and suddenly, Tomo is thinking of unseemly first impressions, of passing out a stranger’s doorstep and being kindly hauled inside, well-fed and warm.

“Kazuha,” he starts suddenly, then stops, because Kazuha tilts his head upwards at the sound of his name, blinking back at him with patient, gentle eyes. He looks the same as he always has, delicate features arranged into expectancy, head poised at a curious tilt, and at the familiarity of it all, Tomo’s courage deserts him.

People like him don’t go out with cute, heaven-sent neighbors. People like him get dumped over the phone in dark supply closets.

Actually, he’s starting to think maybe that one’s just him.

A moment goes by, then two, a stretch of silence where Tomo can hear each of his own heartbeats, the sound of it tapping an unsteady rhythm against his ear. Part of him reminds himself that there’s still time for strategic retreat--Kazuha is still sick enough that he probably wouldn’t be able to react in a timely fashion, were Tomo to leap over his head and lunge for the door.

But the rest of him--and only a marginally larger rest of him, at that--is suddenly certain enough to stay. 

Well, he thinks. It’s now or never.

“I sort of want to kiss you,” he admits, hears the spaces between his words stretching out and out, each one slower to come. 

Kazuha blinks up at him, sleepy and soft and enormously unsurprised, and somehow, Tomo’s finding that he’s not very surprised, either. All of it feels natural , somehow. 

It feels right.

“I’m sick,” Kazuha points out, very reasonably, but there it is on his face again, that familiar mix of longing want. “Don’t do anything stupid to yourself, Tomo.”

Tomo feels himself laugh, twists himself around until they’re facing each other, barely a breath apart. His hand rises up on its own, palm curving around the nape of Kazuha’s neck, fingers resting barely over the flutter of the other’s pulse.

“I won’t,” he says, grins as he closes the distance between them at last. “You know me.”