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With a small wave, an extra word of thanks, and a turning in of the key to the room he'd been holed up in for the past several weeks, Tsumugi was on his way home.
Truth be told, he hadn't really been looking for new apartments... or, at least, not super seriously. Once they'd had their discussion, he'd just been waiting on Natsume to give him the okay. It was true. They needed some time apart, and they'd had it. Now, it was time to return to whatever their new normal was going to be. And taking into consideration how many new things he'd decided to try out within their time apart, the familiarity of the apartment he'd been living in for the past year and a half was more than welcomed. The familiarity of the other person it housed was also more than welcomed.
The hot summer air blew uncomfortably on Tsumugi's newly-exposed neck, causing his face to twist up. He hadn't had his hair this short in so long. He'd forgotten what things like the breeze had felt like underneath the long waves he'd been growing out for so long now.
Uncomfortable. It felt uncomfortable, and different, and he wasn't so sure he liked it.
But there was no changing it now, was there?
Finally, as he made his way up the steps, Tsumugi fished his long-unused apartment key out of his pocket. Seconds within getting the door open, he dropped the backpack he'd been carrying in the entryway with a loud thud . Carrying around half of your possession on your back wasn't comfortable on a good day. It was far less comfortable when the temperatures outside were comparable to an boiling pot of water. He sighed softly, bending down to slip his shoes off.
"Welcome home," Natsume called out instinctively upon hearing the door open. He wasn't busy for a change, opting to drape over the couch half-naked with his switch rather than do anything else in the world. He stretched out his arms, not unlike a sleepy cat, and padded quietly to the entryway of the apartment to greet the owner.
He had to rub at his eyes for a moment, wondering if he'd spent too much time staring at a screen as he got closer to him.
"Tsumugi... where's the rest of you?" He didn't so much as let the boy get settled back in, momentarily forgetting that he was pissed off at him to the point of almost cutting him out entirely only weeks ago.
Before he could stop himself, Natsume's hands were in Tsumugi's hair as he bent down to take his shoes off. He let it slip through his fingers, long enough to grab onto but not enough to twist like it used to. Enough for the curls to still be evident, but not enough for it to matter. Not long enough for there to be those normal bits where the color just started to fade for no fucking reason.
"What do you me- ah."
He'd forgotten to tell Natsume about his haircut.
In all fairness, he'd been spending most of his time trying to ignore it. Not that it looked bad. Or, at least, he didn't think it looked bad. It was just... different. An adjustment that he hadn't really been ready to make, but decided to anyway. He was trying really, really hard to commit to this 'becoming a different person' thing that he'd put in his own head. He'd meant to tell Natsume about it earlier, of course, but he hadn't wanted to bother him without being spoken to first. It just so happened that he had forgotten to mention it during the several timesthey'd spoken since he'd gotten it done. Not unusual for him, really.
He'd already removed his shoes, but he stayed bent in that awkward position, allowing Natsume to card his fingers through what was left of his hair.
"It's weird, isn't it?" There was a nervous tinge of laughter to Tsumugi's voice, almost as if he was afraid that Natsume would hate it. Like someone who'd been calling him any variation of 'mop head' he could think of for several years would hate that he'd have to come up with new material so suddenly. "I got it done a few days ago. ... It was just... time for a change?"
He was going to focus on how nice it felt to have hands in his hair like this, and not on how cute Natsume looked wearing a shirt that was certainly one of Tsumugi's own and seemingly almost nothing else. They'd... get back to that part later. Probably.
"It's pretty w eird." He finally pulled his hand back, his face not letting poor Tsumugi know what he felt about it beyond the normal, pointed expression.
He loved it. He really did. He could probably cry, thinking about it too hard. Natsume knew that Tsumugi's hair was some stupid spell he cast for himself, a promise that he'd always be at Natsume's side. He wasn't sure to be upset or to be relieved now that he saw the tie had been severed; he'd always told the idiot that he didn't need something like his stupid hair as a charm to keep him around and that he'd do that on his own.
Had he done this because he trusted that? Or was it because he was finally cutting their ties? Either way, it was weird.
"...I forgot you had a face." He smiled finally, tiptoeing back into the living area from the entryway.
The little smile and the Natsume code for 'I like it' was all that Tsumugi needed to hear.
Maybe he had gotten rid of the physical reminder he'd grown out to promise that the two of them would always be together, but maybe they didn't need it anymore. Maybe the words that they shared and the tests that they'd been through were enough. Maybe they didn't need his hair to tie them back together if they ever strayed too far from each other. They'd find their way back to each other somehow anyway. Through anything and through everything.
"It's not the best face, but... it's the one I've got."
"...Anyway, it's hot and the air conditioning in this place isn’t working very well. Maybe you should've found a better place after all."
Now that he'd been released, Tsumugi stood up straight again, feeling his back pop uncomfortably. As he made his way into the living room after Natsume, he really did take notice of how warm the apartment was. He'd spent half of his time in the hotel buried under the bedsheets, both due to sadness and due to how low they'd kept their air condition. Walking in here was nearly comparable to being outside, and the blush on his cheeks wasn't making him any cooler.
"Is that why you're not wearing anything?" He questioned, stupidly, as if the answer wasn't as clear as day. "Maybe I will have to find us a better place..." He reached to undo the collar button of his shirt, frowning when it did approximately zero things to alleviate how sweaty he was.
"What do you mean not wearing anything? It's not my fault the shirts you left practically turn into dresses on me. I'm wearing underwear under neath." Natsume flopped onto the couch, covering his face with his hands. He wasn't going to admit he liked that the damn thing felt like a dress, that was for fucking certain. Not in this company.
Before he could fully settle back into what he was doing and pretend that everything was alright, a loud popping sound startled Natsume back to his feet. He blinked over at Tsumugi, as if asking if he heard that too - though it was so loud, of course he did.
That was the tell-tale sign that something or someone arrived, and his bare feet took him to Tsumugi's room. "Hey, I'm going to see what showed -" He stopped, his expression completely dropping as he listened a little harder. "...are you kidding me?"
After a full day of sweating, taking a cold shower and sitting in front of a useless fan, the apartment was given a gift of an air conditioner. Somehow installed perfectly to Tsumugi's window. Natsume opened the door, immediately enticed by the cool air. "Um... do. You want to hang out in here until this thing disappears again?"
Tsumugi was going to comment on how cute Natsume looked. Really, he was. Without thinking better of it like he typically would and everything!
But the loud pop that sounded had startled them both, clearly. The look of confusion that they both shared had him wandering over, and he instead quietly followed behind Natsume to also check out what had happened. The sound was one that he'd grown all too familiar with; working in the Welcome Center meant that all too often there were people materializing right before his very eyes with that same exact sound, or even doing the exact opposite. The world had decided to give the two of them a gift, it seemed. The gift of an air conditioner installed right into his bedroom window, blowing in the cold air that they'd just been complaining about missing.
Well. He'd be damned.
Apparently all it took for a little magic to happen was a little bit of complaining.
The cool air was more than enticing, though, and who was he to say no? It was his bedroom, anyway.
"Sure. Um..." He thought for a moment. "You can go on ahead and get comfortable? I think I'm going to take a shower, first. I'm sort of gross from walking here."
"Oh. Good idea, I don't want to be that close to you if you smell." Natsume feigned putting his nose up. He went into the room, crawling into Tsumugi's bed for the first time in what felt like forever.
Honestly, he couldn't think of a time that Tsumugi actually smelled bad . An odd thought to have, maybe, but he snuggled into Tsumugi's comforter comfortably and breathed him in. Why hadn't he come into his room while he was gone? He could've done this the whole time and it might've made him feel a little better.
...oh, right. Because they were working on boundaries.
And those boundaries were tested as Tsumugi got into the shower. Natsume peeked into the bathroom for just a moment, a little disappointed he couldn't see more than Tsumugi's shadow.
If it had been weeks ago, he would've joined. He probably would've bent him over and had his way with him to the point Tsumugi's back would hurt and he'd be stuck in his room for the night. But now, there was an odd, unfamiliar feeling of excitement in Natsume's stomach. Were those butterflies?
Since when did he have those for Tsumugi?
The shower itself didn't take more than a few minutes. In fact, it took even less time than it usually would have now that he had half of the amount of hair to wash. He even found himself humming, certain that, given their proximity, Natsume could likely hear him. He would probably get made fun of for it later, but it was difficult for Tsumugi to find it within himself to care.
Now freshly bathed and dried, he dressed himself in the comfiest clothes he'd been able to find in his nearly barren dresser before stepping out of the bathroom. (There was a mental note made somewhere in there to do laundry soon. He hadn't had the chance to even try while staying in the hotel. Not that he would have wanted to.) He hadn't bothered to put his glasses back on, either, seeing as how he was likely going to take them off again soon anyway. Unfortunately that misstep had rendered him completely unable to comment on Natsume's cuteness as he had intended to -- now that he couldn't see him properly, his comment would easily be brushed off under some sputtering that you're practically blind anyway, what do you think is cute? My outline?
Like he needed to actually see Natsume to know that the sight of him snuggled up and comfortable was the cutest thing he'd ever seen.
With a small yawn, Tsumugi climbed into bed beside Natsume, giving him a soft smile as he scooted himself in closer.
"... Hi." He didn't really need to keep his voice down, but he found himself doing so anyway. "You look comfy."
It'd been a while since they'd been in a bed together like this. So many of the nights they'd spent in this bed could now only be described as distant, disgusting memories. He hoped to push all thoughts of those nights (the dirty nights, the nights that had ruined them, the nights in which he'd used him) back into a box in his mind he'd leave for his therapist to open one day. For now, he'd overwrite those memories with new ones. Like the sight of the golden eyes beside him.
"Surprised you can tell with those shitty eyes of yours," he purred, not meaning a single syllable. Something about Tsumugi being in the bed made him feel a little guilty, and it kept him from closing any sort of gap.
Maybe before he would seek out Tsumugi's body heat. Maybe he'd snap at him when Tsumugi tried to play with his hair, Natsume's head on his chest, but he wouldn't slap his hand away. It felt wrong to want that, though. It felt wrong to get any closer. He wanted to, more than anything, now shivering from both the cold air and the confusion that was making everything harder than it had to be.
He was starting to get angry with himself.
"Hey... Tsumugi?" He started, looking away from him. "Do you want to start over? Is that why you cut your hair?"
Tsumugi blinked.
Did he want to start over? Maybe, but... in a different way that Natsume had been implying. He wasn't entirely sure. What he wanted, in all actuality, was a fresh start. Not just for himself, but for both of them. His hair hadn't necessarily been tied to a large source of toxicity (save for Natsume using it as a failsafe whenever his actions didn't provide enough insult material on their own,) he had just... figured that it was time to get rid of it, maybe? A physical change to indicate the changes he was planning to make mentally?
He hummed, trying to follow Natsume's gaze as it dropped from his own.
"I don't know how to answer that, exactly..." In a way that won't upset you, He wanted to add, but didn't. "But... sort of? I don't want to start over as much as I want to sort of... start a new chapter. I don't know if that makes sense." As if he ever knew if his words made sense. "I cut my hair because I know now that we'll always find our way back to each other, even without that promise. I still made sure to keep it a little longer, though. Just in case we still need it. ... But that does sort of mean we can't go as far from each other as we used to be able to..."
His tendency to speak about nothing but bullshit after he'd already made his point was both one of Natsume's favorite and least favorite things about Tsumugi. He could've just said 'kind of, yeah' or something along those lines, but no, he went off going about his purple prose as though Natsume was listening to everything.
He was, usually, but one learns when to pay attention and when to tune one out when they've been around each other for long enough. Natsume understood Tsumugi more than he probably realized, and he knew he was probably just prattling on because he wasn't sure if he could get to the point in a way Natsume would understand.
After he trailed off, Natsume looked back up at him, his expression looking far bitchier than he actually was. "You can go as far as you want. Your hair isn't what makes me like you, you know. In fact I was right, you look better like this."
Next to go was the glasses, of course, as he was almost difficult to look at with his still-drying hair barely framing his bare face. He looked like a dork with them on, especially amidst the forest of curls - but he looked... handsome like this. His eyes were beautiful, even if he still had that ditsy blink. "Magic doesn't work on you, anyway. So there's no point."
"You have been telling me that for ages, haven't you? Aha."
Tsumugi was almost regretting keeping the bedside lamp on, as he was absolutely certain now that Natsume could see the (hopefully faint, but in actuality, likely very apparent) blush that newly dusted his cheeks. It was far from just him who had told him that, and he hadn't even been the only person to say it more than once. Despite being an idol, Tsumugi had always found himself to be... awkward looking. Especially with how gangly and unkempt he usually was. He didn't really think that there was ever going to be a 'better' for him to look. He couldn't fix the gangliness, but he supposed that the unkemptness had been remedied now. At least in part. Maybe.
"Maybe I'll have to find a way to actually tie us to each other instead..." He was talking just to talk, as he often found himself doing. "... That sounds a lot like... I'm going to stop there."
Because he was stupid, but not stupid enough to carry on talking to essentially-himself about things that could very easily sound like marriage with someone who he could hardly believe even wanted to still be in the same bed as him.
Tsumugi blinked at him once, then twice.
"... Are you cold, Natsume-kun?"
Natsume rolled his eyes without so much as a 'yeah, whatever' and Tsumugi tripped on his words. Why do you think you have to tie me down so bad, I'm literally already here, he could've said, but it was far too soon to be thinking something so permanent when he knew how that stupid sentence was going to end. Tsumugi and Natsume both had a habit of accidentally proposing to each other when they were emotional (or as close as Tsumugi got sometimes, he supposed), so it wasn't like it would've scared him.
"Yeah. But it's nice, don't turn that thing off. If you turn it off and it disappears again I'm going to put - " He hesitated, curling a little more into himself and letting out a long breath. "I'll be mad, so don't do it."
A pause.
"Wait, you just got out of the shower, aren't you freezing?"
An odd moment of hesitation.
Until it clicked in Tsumugi's head that Natsume had caught himself.
Ordinarily, there would have been way more than "I'll be mad". It would have been some grandiose threat that he could never be sure if Natsume would actually follow through with, although there was a good chance that he wouldn't. Some kind of threat of a spell of bad luck, or a threat to make him sleep outside, or a threat to kill him, or... you know, all of the above wrapped together in one package. But he'd caught himself. This time, he would only be mad.
He was trying to change, too.
And Tsumugi wasn't going to point it out, lest he fluster Natsume back into his old-normal ways.
"I won't turn it off, I promise." Not that he really wanted to move, anyway. He'd probably freeze to death before bothering to get up.
Natsume's pause was followed by one of Tsumugi's own, mimicking the lull in conversation.
"Mhm." As if to prove his point, he shuffled to hide more of himself under the covers. He tried to make the fact that he'd shifted just a bit closer to Natsume not so obvious, but he knew damn well that the other wasn't dumb. He also knew that neither of them were likely to outright ask if getting closer was alright. "I can just do this, though."
"Yeah, that's true." He did nothing to clue the poor thing in whether or not he was being annoying - because both of them probably understood how badly they needed to be close at that point. After a long, drawn-out moment, Natsume buried himself in the same blanket and wriggled himself up close to Tsumugi beneath it.
Slowly, he nuzzled closer, until he pressed his forehead against his (former?) partner's. "Hey, Tsumugi..." He whispered, barely audible. "If you want to start over, that's okay. We did sort of start this as punishment anyway, right?"
A little pause. "But we're in a different world entirely now." We can be different, too.
Ah. Tsumugi wasn't going to say anything about the distance, really... or, at least, he didn't intend to verbally. For fear of accidentally pushing Natsume away. Though he knew that both of them really needed the comfort of closeness, it was almost as if it didn't fully register up until Natsume's forehead was up against his own. Over a week's worth of anxieties that he'd only been half-registering almost seemed to melt completely off of his shoulders, leaving him feeling weirdly vulnerable.
"... Which means that there doesn't have to be any punishment here." He'd realized that somewhere along the way. The comfort in the familiarity of their back and forths had left him unwilling to want to change. But Natsume was right. He was always right. ... Why did he still want to be punished for things that didn't matter in this world to begin with?
"Starting over... would be nice." He decided on, closing his eyes for just a second. "If it's really okay."
"Yeah, but would you... you have to promise not to force anything, okay? If you're really going to change, you have to tell me when something's going on in that stupid empty head of yours." But the therapy and the diagnoses and everything that came with that would likely help him sort out things of that sort. Natsume didn't mean any harm this time, his voice far from cold, not pulling away from where he lied.
"You have to push me away if you don't want me to do something." Not that he would ever, ever hit him for pleasure again. Maybe again down the road. But as much as Tsumugi pissed him off, he knew he could never raise his hand to the boy again. Not even when he was asking, or they'd end up in the same place they were just at. "So, push me away and I won't be mad. Okay?"
Not thinking far ahead enough to realize it was wrong to act without warning, Natsume closed the tiny bit of a gap between them and left a soft, long kiss on Tsumugi's lips, barely pulling away before going in for another and closing his eyes. As though he'd never kissed him before, as though it was the first time and he was surprised at how his heart leapt forward and his body craved being as close as he could physically get.
It was almost as if all of the I wills and I won't s that Tsumugi had prepared (and would have said with his whole chest, because he meant them, he really did; he would tell Natsume what was going on from now on even if it was hard for him himself to understand, and he wouldn't force anything, and he wouldn't just take things because he thought he deserved them) had fizzled away in a fraction of a second. There was never much in his head to begin with, but whatever had been left in there all seemed to turn into some sort of carbonated-feeling goop.
A kiss.
A soft kiss. A sweet kiss.
One that the two of them had never shared before.
Kissing Natsume had always been one of two things: quick and hidden, in places where no one would see, or passionate and desperate, in the throes of acts that were rougher than they ever should have been. Never before had they been so soft, so wholly loving that it made his heart ache from a spot deep within his chest. Never before had a kiss made his heartbeat pound in his ears like this one.
Tsumugi kissed Natsume back so gently that one could almost assume that he was afraid. Afraid of screwing this up like he so often did, or afraid that he was imagining all of this, or afraid of this moment that he wanted to live inside of forever slipping through his fingertips.
When they parted, the breath that he took in was shaky.
Now that he'd opened his eyes, he noted that the boy beside him was blurry.
He noted how his chin shook just slightly, and how there was a lump in his throat that he could barely swallow past.
Confused by the unfamiliarity and gentleness, Tsumugi blinked, the tears that welled in his eyes finally falling.
"... Huh?" His voice was so soft, his confusion was so evident.
It hurt, more than Natsume expected it to hurt.
Not that the kiss itself wasn't the most magical thing he'd shared with Tsumugi. He'd cringe at the thought later, but there was truly an odd spark that he'd never even noticed before. One that made it difficult for Natsume to pull away from, but he had to as he felt the quiver of the lips he was kissing.
Upon opening his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed sadly, and he reached over to put a hand on Tsumugi's cheek. Gentle, oddly gentle. "Do... you need me to stop. Please tell me. Please."
He didn't want to stop the kiss if this was somehow healing a part of both of them he didn't know was wounded, but if this was a sign that it was time to move on. Well, he wasn't about to sacrifice himself or his partner to force anything that just couldn't naturally happen.
"No. Please... please don't. I don't need you to."
The hand on his face, soft and delicate, only made the pain in chest heavier and the tears sting his eyes even worse. One of his own, slightly shaking, reached up to lay over Natsume's as if to hold it in place. Tsumugi's mind, a catastrophic, fizzling pile of goo, searched frantically to put words to the emotions that he couldn't quite identify in his head.
He had to communicate, but it was difficult when he couldn't quite put into words what he was experiencing.
It was something deeply internal that ached, far past the sob stuck solidly in his chest. Something that felt better when they were this close, something that hurt when Natsume was this gentle. But it was something he didn't want to stop. But if he was to try to say these things out loud, he'd just be babbling, and his babbling would catch in his sobs to produce an unintelligible mess that would only make the two of them frustrated.
"I'm confused." Tsumugi said softly, after what felt like three thousand years of staring into blurry eyes the same color as stars. "You're being so... soft."
Something within Natsume started to snap. He wasn't sure where it was either, deep within him in a place he'd never let himself see, but it twisted and burst and he felt his own lip quiver.
"...I'm sorry," he whispered, not sure what he was apologizing for. Not sure if there was a reason to apologize, even. He was being soft. So what? They were boyfriends for how long? Of course he could be soft. That's something that people that liked each other did once in a while, even if they were in an arrangement like Natsume and Tsumugi were in.
...but had they?
"Just tell me when it's too much this time. Or I won't stop." He could afford to be a little bit more soft from now on. He could be more open, less violent, physically expressing himself and his desires now that he was growing up. Natsume kissed him again, deeper, but still soft enough to make the both of them wonder why they were ever doing anything else.
Sorry?
No, no, Tsumugi didn't want Natsume to be sorry! He didn't have anything to apologize for! It was nice that he was being soft. He was enjoying it, after all. It was nice that the two of them were coming together in a way that wasn't a crashing of lips laced with jabs that he was absolutely sure that Natsume didn't mean.
But... maybe that was the problem. The two of them had never before been this soft with one another, so maybe Natsume was apologizing for that? It was okay, though. It was more than okay. This was all a part of the changing they were trying to do. They hadn't been soft with each other in the past, but that didn't mean that they couldn't be soft with each other going forward. ... He really would like if if they were more like this going forward.
Tsumugi rubbed his thumb gently against the back of Natsume's hand, doing his best to comfort him upon feeling the gentle quiver of his lip.
"You're okay," He whispered, almost inaudible, against the lips pressed to his own. He wasn't sure if it was for Natsume, or for himself, or an indication that he was alright with continuing. He'd settle on it being all three.